#the center and circumference

[pynkhues]

Hi! Are you still planning on posting the pregnancy scare fic before the new year?🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

Hey! I don't think I'll have it quite done by New Year now, but I'm aiming for before I go back to work on the 16th January, so hopefully it won't be too long of a wait!

[pynkhues]

Hi! I know you’re taking a break from GG at the time, but I was re-reading See You in the Light and was wondering if Rio eventually finds out that Beth’s only family is all of Annie and Ruby? If so—could you share a tidbit from when he does? I’m really curious as to how it all goes down in his head! Thank you!

Hi! Thank you both for your very kind words! C&C is absolutely a fic that has a very special place in my heart, and I definitely put a lot of thought into Beth concealing her limited family and Rio's discovery of it in that 'verse. I think for me one of the things I love most about them as a ship is how reluctant they were to give over any information to each other (you just know that they'd hide their coffee orders from each other), and I love exploring the root of that in 'verse as a trauma response which I definitely think the show was implying.

But yes! Have the scene! Since I'm not sure when (if ever) I'll finish this fic. I wrote this a long time ago and have given it a little tidy, but it's mostly a pretty messy wip-y excerpt, so please keep that in mind, and I hope you like it. <3

-

“You talked to Annie about it?” Elizabeth asks, voice thick with disbelief, and nah, she doesn’t get to play it like that. Doesn’t get to pretend he’s the one who’s stepped outta line when she’s spent the last two weeks spinning the truth around her finger like she used to her old wedding ring. He gets to be mad here. Gets to feel it – that he’s the one laying his cards on the table while she keeps hers flush to her fuckin’ chest.

It frustrates a laugh out of him, and the sound is coarse even to his own ears, and the thing is, he doesn’t even blame her for rolling her eyes, even though it prods at the embers of his temper. He rocks his jaw, lets his gaze drift sideways to the pile of boxes lining the side of their bedroom because they ain’t even unpacked upstairs yet, at least not outside of the kids’ rooms, and he doesn’t like it. Any of it, but least of all the fact that he’s dressed for her, in some soft cotton button down his sister got him, while Elizabeth’s dressed as she always is, fuck, might even be in the same purple dress she was in three years ago, and he’s only just starting to realise that maybe everything about her is a type of armor.

Downstairs, he can hear his sister hoot and the call of steaks up from Elizabeth’s dipshit ex-husband, can hear the start-stop-start of a playlist no one can agree on, and Marcus’ giggle, loud, always, and perfect, and he looks back at Elizabeth, two feet away, and he just thinks - - who the fuck is she.

He sniffs.

“Yeah, see, I figure this whole thing was about family, right? You gettin’ to meet mine, me gettin’ to meet yours, and since your sister’s the only one fuckin’ here - - ”

“She’s not the only one here, Ruby and Stan are here, and all the kids, and Judith, and - - and - - ”

Rio sucks in a breath through his teeth.

“Oh, I’m supposed to feel good about your ex and his mama bein’ here?”

It’s instant then – the way Elizabeth’s look hardens. Her shoulders back and her jaw set, and it ain’t right, how much that look on her face sparks deep in him.

“Your ex is here too, and I haven’t said a thing about that. She’s Marcus’ mother, just like Dean is my children’s father, this whole thing is about - - about blending and - - “

“She didn’t bring her mom, darlin’’.”

“Well, she could’ve,” Elizabeth bites, and she takes a step back, rounding the bed, grabbing at the first box she sees and yanking off the tape. The sound’s loud, ugly, and he knows it, feels it, the need to have somethin’ to do with your useless fuckin’ hands. “I wouldn’t care if she did. And for the record, I’ve known Judith for 30 years, and you know how much she’s helped the last few weeks.”

Thing is, she has. Judith’s been on call more than his own ma’s been, more than Dean has, and it eats at him, that Marcus likes her, that she’s made the fuckin’ effort there, but still doesn’t quite know how to string two words together when it comes to Rio, and it sits in him that Elizabeth calls her, she doesn’t call his mom, and she doesn’t call - -

Rio sucks in a wet breath, watching as Elizabeth unpacks a box of ugly bubblewrapped ornaments onto their bed, and fuck it he thinks.

He just says it.  

“Yeah, coz your parents ain’t here, and you ain’t in it.”

He’s not sure what reaction he’s expecting, but it’s not for Elizabeth to reel back, her face bare naked with shock, and she blinks. Once, twice, three times, before she abandons the box in front of her and throws her arms out broad.

“What? We just bought a house together. We’re moving our children to the same school.”

“Yeah, and everyone here’s mine. My family, my friends, shit, the men in my fuckin’ employ - - ”

“Oh, what? You wanted me to invite Molly from PTA? You want her talking to Mick about getting wine drunk watching episodes of Vanderpump while Mick’s got a glock in the back of his pants? And these guys are in our employ now, just for the record, okay?”

And fuck, if this whole thing hasn’t completely derailed. Rio clenches his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose, paces, briefly, in their whole ass brand new fuckin’ bedroom, and this wasn’t supposed to be what happened here. This shit was supposed to just be them, real, but Elizabeth’s never known when to drop the knife.

“Elizabeth,” he says slowly, too patiently, if the way she looks at him is anything to go by, and he asks the question he’s wanted to all night: “Where’s your family?”

She just exhales, exhausted, gestures, vaguely, towards downstairs.

“They’re here.”

He huffs, shaking his head, feels his face clench, and something in his chest tighten, and this ain’t right, it ain’t workin’, because they talked about this, and she doesn’t just get to give him the parts of her he already knows like they’re a step forward. Doesn’t get to play that this honesty, this vulnerability is his to give and hers to take, doesn’t get to - -

“My mom’s dead, if that’s what’s got your panties in a twist.”

Rio blinks, lifting his head, staring at her sullen look back at him. She swallows, shrugs, and shit, he just stares at her.

“And my dad left, like, a million years before that. This is it. I’m not,” she gestures limply. “I’m not. Hiding anything…Like there’s nothing to hide because there’s nothing else. This is it. For me. Annie, Ruby, the kids…you met my whole family a long time ago.”

He stares at her, searches for the lie, but there’s not one. It’s just Elizabeth, her eyes glassy but her chin jut forwards, defiant, and somewhere outside a car pulls up and he hears Annie yell Greggles! Nance! And it’s just all so fuckin’ stupid. He swallows, thick.

“You didn’t say it, when we were talkin’ about all of this.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a kid until you brought him to the park one day.”

“Circumstances,” Rio hums, and Elizabeth gives him a look.

“Circumstances,” she says, gesturing to the house, and Rio thinks the context ain’t it, but shit, with the two of them, maybe it is.  

[pynkhues]

I was rereading I c&c for the nth time and I just wanna ask if you ever come back to writing that fic, will we see like a chapter abt the one where beth, rio, rhea and dean tries to find a school for the kids? Lol, im thinking about how chaotic that would look. Anyway no pressure tho, it was just a thought and I really do still enjoy brio fics bcs i just miss them so much still 🥲

Hey! Ah, you're so sweet, anon. I love to hear about people re-reading my fics, it really is such a compliment to think people can enjoy them enough to revisit them.

There's actually some school visits in the unfinished second part, See You in the Light, so it would definitely come into play there if I ever actually finish it. Those are, of course, for elementary schools though, and I'd potentially write one for highschools too? I tend to envision Dean as pretty distant by the time most of the kids would be in highschool, but I do feel like he'd be pretty involved with Kenny at the very least. So yes! Potentially! And thank you again <3

[pynkhues]

Hi! I don’t know if you’re still taking C+C asks!! Feel free to ignore this if you’re not!! I was wondering if we could get a fluffy sneak peak of the wedding fic if that’s okay :)

Just a little one, anons, but here you go!

-

“Y’know, we could,” Rio drawls, his voice low and easy as Beth undoes the clip on her necklace, pulling the chain off and dropping it into the open drawer of her jewelry box.  

“Could what?”

In her head, she’s thinking about tomorrow. About dropping the kids at Judith’s and picking Annie up from her Cog Test for her EMT course (god, she can’t believe her sister’s almost finished it), about the books she has to check before Mick comes round to the office to pick up the drop and the cookies she promised to make for Emma’s ballet class post-recital party on Friday. The usual chaos, she thinks, stepping with one foot on the sock of the other to pull it off as her fingers start on the buttons of her blouse.

“Get married.”

Her ankle rolls. Twists suddenly sideways in her sock as she loses her balance, and her hand flies up to grip the edge of the dresser. She takes a breath, tries to still her suddenly fast beating heart.

“Ha ha,” she says, glancing back at him, catching a glimpse of him sprawled in their bed. She keeps her tone light, airy, over the thrum of the central heating. “Very funny.”

“You think I’m kiddin’?” he asks her, and Beth looks back properly now, her feet flat on the ground again, her eyes a little wide, surprised when Rio suddenly sits up properly in bed, rolls his shoulders back. He wets his lips. “You think I ain’t thought about it?”

“I - - ” she flails out a hand. “I don’t know.”

She sees it – the very second his expression closes, and her heart slows, but not in a pleasant way. Like it’s been pulled back somehow, like she has. She’s gotten better at reading his looks, and he knows it, so this shut off is a shut out, he doesn’t want her to know what he’s feeling, thinking, so she glances at the floor instead. Sees her sock half off, and steps on it again, pulling it off properly, her bare toes curling instantly in the carpet, and no, okay. She knew he thought about it. Knew he was comfortable enough with the prospect to joke about it, for his sisters to coo, even for Ruby to raise an eyebrow when he’d asked, out of the blue at Harry’s birthday party, about Stan and Ruby’s wedding.

Her gaze flicks back at him, and he’s not looking at her now, rather he’s staring at the floor too, hand rubbing at the back of his neck, up over the base of his skull, like he��s chewing over his next words, and then he says:

“Yeah so, I kinda thought you figured that’s where we were headin’ too, darlin’.”

Had she?

Her thumb finds the wood grain of the dresser, presses in, her stomach feels full, her chest, like something’s stretching inside of her, pushing out, and she hadn’t thought about it, only because she hadn’t let herself, just like she hadn’t thought about moving in with him, sharing a room with him, sharing their families, sharing their lives. She hadn’t thought about any of it really, she’d just plowed forwards, taking everything she’d been given and feeling something close to holy in it, because Beth had been raised on have not’s not on have’s, and she’s still getting used to feeling full instead of starving, feeling this sated, this whole. Is still counting down the days until the fire in her chest she feels when she’s with him is snuffed out, until it’s doused, is so fixed on holding onto the now, on keeping him here, with her in the present, how can she think about keeping him forever?

Beth’s still learning how to let herself want things.

So how could she possibly have let herself want that?

[pynkhues]

Please tell me we will still see the CC pregnancy scare fic some day? I feel like it was so hyped up!

I'm hopeful, anon! I still tinker with it occasionally, but I've been focusing more on other writing lately when I get the chance (which has been complicated the last six months given I've had extra freelance contracts + hours upped at my day job for a whole range of reasons + being across a whole bunch of legal things between my sister's divorce + custody case, and being a reference + letter writer for my best friend's husband's citizenship application).

It's been a big few months, but I'm hoping things are going to settle down in the new year which'll give me time to revisit a few WIPs, and that's definitely one I'm keen to finish. :-)

[pynkhues]

unrelated to the asks game, but still Brio shipping question because my life is a joke and I'm never going to get over them. do you think C&C Brio are big on milestones in their relationship (e.g., 5 years together)? similar but different note, how do you think Mick/Demon/idk his main crew reacted to Rio moving with Beth?

Hey! Sorry about the late reply, anon, I've had a crazy few weeks, plus I was taking a little break from GG. But yes! Half-back now, haha.

Do you think C&C Brio are big on milestones in their relationship?

I think they love a non-traditional milestone. Like I really headcanon that Rio thinks of their anniversary as the day she robbed him, which is something that mortifies Beth at first, but something she really warms to, especially as, with hindsight, it feels like the anniversary of her finally taking control of her life.

I like the idea that they'd think of their milestones together in that sort of non-traditional way, so they'd be less inclined to celebrate five years together than they would say, two years since Beth closed her first deal. I also love the thought that they'd celebrate petty things to annoy each other, haha, like Rio always marking the day Beth broke into his apartment, or Beth marking the day Rio tried to cook something and almost burnt down the kitchen.

They're the worst, and I love that about them.

How do you think Mick/Demon and his main crew reacted to Rio moving in with Beth?

I think they were verrrry unsure at first. It's a huge step for anyone! Let alone someone who lives the lives Rio and Beth both do.

I think Mick was probably relieved in some ways, because he knew Rio was staying at Beth's a lot, and they were starting to conduct business there before the move, and with the new house having better security and more privacy, that's definitely got its perks for all of them.

A lot of his guys too I tend to think didn't really get it at first. Like they got it in the sense that Beth's obviously insanely hot, but she's got four kids! And she's not the sort of woman they usually have around their circles! And Rio wife'd her like, immediately after she robbed him! Something he usually kills people for! But I think as Beth became more of a fixture in their lives and careers, and clearly a real partner to Rio, that they liked her a lot more.

I do headcanon that Rio's guys find Annie a lot of fun too, which goes a long way to thawing Beth to them as well.

[pynkhues]

Hi!! Are you still planning on doing the Center And Circumference update soon? 🙈😭

Hi! I am, anon! I'm aiming for this week, but it might be next depending on my schedule. <3

[pynkhues]

idk if this has been asked before but is or will nick be a part of your C&C universe??? if so what is his character be about?

Anyway love that fic and im not rushing you or anything but im so excited and so ready for the next ud!!! ily💖

Thank you for your kind words, anon! It's a fic that has a very special place in my heart, so I'm always really thrilled other people like it too.

And no, Nick won't ever be a part of it. I'm pretty attached to the family that I created for Rio as I started writing it before Rhea, Rosa and Nick were introduced in the show, and in that sense, I consider the whole C&C 'verse to basically be an AU these days. It diverges from canon after about 2.12, and so basically I haven't written in, and don't intend to write in characters introduced after that episode.

[pynkhues]

Snippet from the pregnancy scare C+C fic pretty please?

That night, she dreams of it - - her - - of a little girl with Rio's dark hair and Beth's blue eyes, with a constellation of freckles across her nose and a crescent moon smile that's just her own – a galaxy in dungarees and galoshes, something exploded into existence out of the gravitational pull between her and Rio. Something - - someone - - made real in the chaos of everything they are and everything they’ve done, and oh, god, she aches with it.

Feels the weight of it between her veins and wriggled into her joints, and she wakes up too hot in her empty bed and she reaches for her cell. Finds his number, hovers her thumb over the call button, but she bites the inside of her cheek, ends up texting instead:

Update?

Like she’s not the person with one to give.

Or maybe not, because he doesn’t reply (how many nights has this been? When did he say he’d be back? Why wouldn't he tell her where he was going?), and Beth thinks - -

Beth thinks - -

Okay.

Time for work.

[pynkhues]

Hi! idk if you have answered this question before but I just wanna ask about your BRIO fics, im a big fan of C&C, i keep rereading it whenever i miss the show lol, anyway I noticed that they never said the words “i love you” with each other before? But there was a chapter where Beth acknowledged that she does love Rio, I just wanna know if there’s gonna be a chapter about it? And also what do you think it would look like if they did say it to each other?? and who will be the first one to admit it between the two of them?? and Im not just talking about Beth and Rio from C&C, but also Beth and Rio from canon, since i think they’re circumstances are different. idk if you understood the question bcs my english is bad lol.

LOVE YOUR WORKS!!! HOPING FOR ANOTHER UPDATE 💖💖💖

Hi! Thank you for your kind words, and I definitely understood the question - your English is great!

I don't really ever see them fully saying it out loud, just because I think they both will always struggle a bit to be that openly vulnerable with each other, but I do think they say it through their actions all the time. I think that love-through-acts is a language they both speak too, so that they hear it every time the other does something for them, and that that really is as meaningful to both of them as actually saying the words are.

That said, I am working on the instalment of C&C where they get married at the moment, and they definitely use their words to say something along those lines in that ;-).

[pynkhues]

Would you ever consider exploring Annie and Beth's childhood in the C&C universe? (IE. whether their mother is still alive, etc).

Definitely, anon! I've done it in a few instalments already, particularly in Darkness on the Edge of Town, Give You All I've Got To Give and To Face Unafraid, which deal with Beth's relationship to her childhood, money and faith.

See You in the Light is the fic though which has a particular focus on it. I posted the first part of that waaay back in 2019, which is a little crazy, but I do still intend to finish it. It's set around the housewarming not long after I Could Be Your Welcome, and is really what makes both Beth and Rio face the fact that Beth's family is - - well, the people Rio's already met. Fingers crossed I can really commit some time to it soon!

[pynkhues]

in c&c verse do you think beth would ever have a depressive episode? how would rio handle that? i know in canon she only had post partum but it really feels like that would be something she would struggle with

Yeah, I do, anon. I've actually written small episodes into a couple of installments, in particular Darkness on the Edge of Town where a power outage at their new house throws Beth back into her past. I don't think many people realised it either, haha, but I was writing Beth as fairly low in To Face Unafraid. I think the holiday season brings it out of a lot of people, but for Beth in particular who at that point is very much still struggling between families and seeing a sort of - - mmm, alternate future for herself in Judith had she stayed with Dean - - emotionally she was just holding herself together.

That second fic was from Rio's POV which was deliberate too. I liked the idea of writing his confusion and insecurity around how he was perceiving Beth's behaviour, and not actually seeing it for what it was. I think most people reading it just got annoyed with her though, haha, which means I probably didn't do my job as well as I should've as a writer.

I do think Rio would be frustrated by it though, because he wouldn't really know how to handle it. He talks a big game about wanting her to come to him in canon, but turns around and forces her hand when she doesn't do it fast enough, and it's one of the flaws I find most interesting about him as a character. Rio's patient with Beth, but he's also really impatient with her, and that was all something I wanted to capture in that fic.

Any depressive episodes she had I think he would try to snap her out of it with jobs or sex or things for them to do as a family, and I think he'd probably look for a reason as he'd see it as something to be 'fixed', especially the first times it happened. I think he'd initially conceal it from Ruby and Annie too, and it would take a while before they actually talked about it and Ruby and Annie told him it was just something to ride out with her. After all, isn't that part of what being a ride or die is?

And he'd get better at being present, at understanding that this was a part of her, and that she needed support, but I don't think he'd ever be great at handling it.

[pynkhues]

That pregnancy scare excerpt 😭 idk which I’m like excited for, the pregnancy scare fic or the wedding fic

(x)

I'm delighted that you (and so many other people) are, anon! Neither are things I actually thought I'd ever write, but as it turns out, if I get prompted enough I tend to think about it and slowly (slowly) put a story together, haha. Fingers crossed I can finish them soon :-)

[pynkhues]

Do you have any excerpts you can share from the CC pregnancy scare fic? ☺️

“It’s - - it feels different,” Beth says. “I’m not nauseous. I’m always nauseous.”

For a minute, all Beth can hear is the faint sound of Real Housewives reruns in the other room, Lisa Vanderpump’s voice rolling words like a string of pearls between fingers, the stock music underneath drawing emphasis to something that can only be a quippy mic drop, and it’s weirdly comforting. This sort of familiar white noise to distract from Ruby and Annie’s cautious looks.

“I mean, it’s been a while,” Ruby offers gently, and Beth sucks in a breath through her teeth as Annie wrinkles her nose.

“Plus like, you’re the same, but the…” Annie makes a circle with two fingers and thrusts one from her other hand into it. “…is different. Same soil, different seed, y’know?”

Which - -

Beth snorts, while Ruby pulls a face.

“Really?”

“Hey,” Annie replies, holding her hands up in defence. “It could come out with a neck tatt for all we know.”

“You ask people stuff like this at work? In an ambulance?”

“Sometimes,” Annie says, a grin tugging at her lips when Ruby gives her another look, and maybe this would be comforting too if it wasn’t for the fact that Annie’s kind of right. This is different. Beth’s body is older (feels older right now especially) which would make this riskier, and they already have five kids between them, and work, and - -

And it would be hers and Rio’s.

The thought makes her briefly light-headed, and she sits quickly on the edge of the bathtub, feels the rim dig into her ass as she tries to catch her breath. Her mind is suddenly racing, a merry-go-round of images of dark hair and a broad smile and big, brown eyes (or maybe blue like hers) with lashes for days, and what it would feel like, to do this with him from the very start. What it would feel like to make this thing that’d be both of them instead of half, and it’s impossible to describe the feeling in her, of something that rises and rises and rises as it sinks so deep it touches the earth of her. Like something is climbing free in her highest branches while leaning all it’s weight on an exposed and tender root.

“You should call him,” Ruby tells her, and that - -

That Beth can’t do.

Not yet, not when he’s in Canada, not when - -

Not when she’s got no idea what this means.

She exhales sharply, and Ruby and Annie both go quiet.

[pynkhues]

Please do. One of my wishlist items for season five was Dean being a shared irritant by Brio. Do you think he still has the audacity to try and swan in for the Polaroid moments like graduation or not even those?

(x)

Yeah, I do. I think for Dean though it's not necessarily him having the audacity, but more him thinking that being there for the 'big moments' makes up for all the small moments he was physically or emotionally absent from. In his mind, I think he can justify away not seeing the kids as much in, say, their final years of highschool, because he's there for senior prom and graduation, and not understanding that to his kids, that feels different to how Dean perceives it.

I do think he'd be really pissed about Rio teaching the kids anything Dean deems as 'his role' though. I kind of wrote that into To Face Unafraid with Judith getting upset at Rio offering to teach Kenny and Ben how to carve a turkey, because I think it was really established in the show that Dean's family has a very conventional set of expectations around gender roles.

Interestingly, I think he'd be less bothered by Beth doing it than he would Rio, because I think it comes more into the sense of being that sort of 'man' in his kids' life. Like, say, Beth teaching Kenny to drive would be her picking up the slack (and you know Dean would make sexist jokes about that anyway), but Rio teaching Kenny to drive would be something Dean found threatening and emasculating.

There'd be a lot of push-pull around it, I think, but I do tend to think Dean would be more present for his sons than his daughters too. Like he'd value Kenny's ice hockey games over Emma's ballet, and would struggle with Danny being afraid of the soccer ball like he is in canon, so I think that would probably give all four of the kids different sorts of relationships with Dean as they got older.

[pynkhues]

Thank you so much for your answer. You never disappoint. I could very, very much see that becoming the case with Dean.

(x)

You're very welcome, anon! I find it so interesting to think about where these characters might be in the future, and Dean in particular is one I think will always fall back into old habits. Gosh, we saw him do that with Gayle, even if he did tell Beth about it instead of keeping it a secret.

Getting to explore that in C&C with the kids has been pretty fun!