#then maybe if i'm lucky i can finally have the mental fortitude to catch up on tags

[strangefable]

i've made a terrible mistake. it's 4am and i just pulled myself away from cult of the lamb. that game is dangerously addictive

[thepriceisrizzoli]

here's another fic I have the audacity to be working on

this one's called honeybee

young rizzles ft. shy maura

romance / fantasy but fantasy like wishes coming true, not fantasy like dragons

a little sweet, a little sad, a little twilight zone

happy ending tho

chapter 1

“Have you ever considered therapy?”

“Pff,” she flicks a hand dismissively, the one whose elbow is propped on the back of her chair. “If I’m gonna be a cop, I can’t go cryin’ to a shrink every time something stressful happens.”

Ms Patterson’s overplucked brows rise a little, and Jane knows immediately that she’s chosen the wrong tactic to use on her guidance counselor.

Oldschool veteran fortitude is a dumb look on a kid who’s been 20 for a whole month. She’s come off instead as a judgmental little shit, too big for her britches.

“Actually, Jane, people in law enforcement aren’t above needing to take care of their mental health. In fact, they’re some that need to the most. And if that’s the attitude you intend to impress potential employers with, I can promise you, it’ll get you passed over faster than you can blink.”

Jane straightens up in her chair, getting humble. It’s a speech that lasts several minutes, and she’s earned it. She knew better. Or should've.

Really, she does have to get her attitude under control. The hard-shelled sarcastic smartass thing worked fine socially as a teenager, but in the real world, it’s going to hold her back.

She’ll need Ms Patterson as a reference before long, so it’s in her best interest to demonstrate some growth.

.

So, here she is. Wasting her only night off at some stupid support group.

Ok, it’s not stupid. Not for the people who need it. She doesn’t. Not in an above-it way; her life just isn’t that bad.

Everyone else here has shared truly awful stories so far, and any one of them would probably trade lives with her in an instant. She fidgets with the hem of her lucky jersey, ashamed to be here over nothing.

As soon as she absorbs enough to be able to fake an epiphany that’ll satisfy Ms Patterson, she’s outta here.

The talkative people have talked, and now the guy in charge is looking to see if one of the quiet ones want to share. He picks a blonde about Jane’s age, pretty and very well-dressed.

Jane is a little relieved at the sight of her, because maybe her problems aren't the most trivial in the room after all. She braces herself for a tragic tale like ‘Daddy bought the wrong color Bentley for my birthday’.

The girl looks positively terrified to have been chosen. Her name is Laura - maybe? The few quiet words she’ll say are addressed to her own lap, and the only ones Jane catches are "nothing really" and “benign neglect”.

She looks like she might have a nervous breakdown if spoken to any more, and the guy gives up.

Next, everybody is told to pair off, and that's the final straw for Jane.

She glances over in time to see that girl tighten around her purse and eye the door like she's going to bolt. And the second everybody starts murmuring and milling around, she does.

Both curious and eager for the opportunity to bail, Jane follows her into the hall.

"Hey?"

Laura whirls around, looking scared like maybe Jane has chased her out to scold her.

"I-I'm sorry, I should've excused myself, I didn't want to be disrup-"

"Relax, I'm ducking out too," Jane smiles, flashing her palms.

"Oh," the blonde flashes a mechanically polite smile, and they continue down the hall toward the double exit doors, almost side by side.

Jane's been practicing making quick connections with people. Connections get people on her side, make them open up, say what they know. A good detective would have to be good at that, and she likes the idea of honing those skills early.

She challenges herself to win over this nervous stranger before they go their separate ways into the night.

"I think there's enough of 'em that they won't miss us," she adds, smiling conspiratorially. It doesn't work, maybe because the other girl is looking at the floor.

She outpaces her at the end of the hallway, wanting to be the one to open the door. The clack of the push bar echoes loudly, and she puts her weight against the heavy door, holding it open.

Something hard to read flickers across the girl’s face. Jane watches the top of her head pass at eye level, preparing one last try.

“If anybody ask-”

Barely through the threshold, the blonde turns around suddenly, blurting “Why?”, causing Jane to stop short, both verbally and physically, and get clipped by the closing door.

“Why what?” she asks, amused.

“Sorry.” Laura backs up and shuts her eyes hard for a second, clearly scolding herself internally. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, why what?”

“Why are you.. ducking.”

"Eh. What I came here about is a trip to Disney World compared to some of that stuff,” she says, nodding over her shoulder. “Feels wrong to put my problems alongside theirs."

"I felt the same,” the girl glances up a bit more brightly. “Like I was intruding."

Jane lets her feel sure she’s about to ask about her past, and then asks something else.

She likes to pinpoint the change in peoples’ faces when she does that. Don’t ask turning into why didn’t you ask is immediate and almost always an eyebrow thing. I could tell you if you asked is a separate stage that takes a little more work, and you have to watch the broader body language for it.

In this girl’s case, it’s in the way she rotates to face Jane more directly as they stand outside, keys in hand, chatting somewhat one-sidedly.

It's Maura, with an M. Actually, she seems like a nice girl who’s painfully shy, but trying hard to put herself out there. It makes Jane want her to succeed.

Their chat finds a lull, and Jane is disappointed at the prospect of them parting ways just yet.

So she points across the street and says how about they go get a quick cup of coffee instead of standing around a dark parking lot? And she swears Maura thinks about bolting again before nodding yes.

They slide into a well-worn booth and Maura asks and Jane hits the highlights of her tale: Pop's drinking, the fighting, the divorce. Becoming a de facto mother and head of household at 13 because Ma had to work every waking moment just to keep a roof over their heads. How she's arrived at 20 feeling robbed of the teen years that are apparently supposed to be so golden.

Finding out Maura's deal is not as easy. Although she follows Jane's story with genuine compassion, when the time comes that she should naturally volunteer something about herself in return, she just stares at her cup.

“You readin’ those tea leaves, or?”

“No,” Maura answers with no inkling that this was a joke. “There aren’t any.”

She slides the cup forward, meaning to show Jane, and the momentum makes a little tea slosh out, soaking into Jane’s white shirt sleeve.

“Ohno,” she whispers, scrambling for a napkin and dabbing at the stain with shaking hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry-”

“It’s fine,” Jane laughs, but Maura looks like she’s on the verge of panic. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

“I ruined your shirt...”

“This? It’s an improvement. Here,” she picks up her own cup, dribbling some coffee along her other sleeve. “Maybe I can get kind of a tie-dye thing going on. Whaddya think?”

Maura gapes like she has no precedent in the entire world for how to react to this. At a loss, she slowly comes around to following Jane’s cue, and arrives at an uncertain laugh. Jane considers it a win.

“What brought you out here tonight?” she asks while the mood is still fresh.

Maura smiles nervously at her fingernails. “My problems don’t belong alongside yours, either.”

Jane feels a pang of guilt that her first reaction to Maura was the exact one she was afraid of.

“I bet they do.”

Practicing her interrogation skill is no longer why Jane wants to talk to this girl, but sitting across a table and working hard for clipped answers, that's kind of how it feels.

Maura talks in tight little summaries, like she’s getting scored on brevity.

Eventually, she gets enough to piece together a profile: 19 year old BCU student; an adopted only child; her parents are very self-involved career people; the independence they meant to instill in her is really just crippling perfectionism and social anxiety.

“They would’ve cared. The group,” she says. “I care, and I was probably the biggest jerk in there. Your problems don't have to be the most horrible for you to deserve to talk about ‘em."

Maura smiles, glancing up only momentarily.

"Thank y- I mean. You too- What? You don’t seem like a jerk."

Jane smirks, sipping the last of her coffee. “Only ‘cause you don’t know me.”

A silence passes. She tries to identify the song barely audible on the radio.

One perfectly-arched caramel eyebrow has a thin scar beneath it, and Jane wonders if there's trauma behind that, and if she's self conscious about it. She shouldn't be. She's pretty.

"You gonna go back next week?"

Maura hesitates, looking out the window. "Are you?"

That’s another win. Jane's grin goes unseen.

"Only if it was just this part. We could be our own really exclusive support group… for people with medium-size problems."

It's designed to get a smile, but it doesn't really. Maura’s hesitation lasts longer this time, and Jane is about to end her misery when she spits out a "Yes" that sounds awfully forced.

“Same bat time, same bat channel?”

Maura goes blank.

Jane tries again. "Here, next week? Sevenish?" and this time gets a nod. She taps her knuckles softly on the table. "Cool."

She doesn't suggest exchanging numbers. There's a ninety percent chance this girl was just avoiding the confrontation of saying no. She'll let her flake in peace.