#Eddie doesn't just want a slice of that cake he wants the whole damn thing

[mercurygray]

Would it be possible to write Andy/Eddie/Marie (in some combination), Autumn, Begging?

Sorry I've been sitting for so long on this one - I couldn't quite find it in myself to write anything NSFW, so this is...just generally complicated, and probably owes a debt to Muccamukk's Learning to Live in Clover.

Autumn: emotional

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He wasn't supposed to hear any of it.

It was nice, sometimes, coming from a big family - something about being in a crowd of people who knew you. And even if Andy wasn't officially part of the family, there was a certain comfort, when the entire Jones clan descended on the house for the fourth of July, and he was surrounded by nieces and nephews and cousins and who only knew what else and everyone forgot for a few hours who belonged to who.

He was only inside to change his shirt - he'd been on the wrong end of a spilled glass of soda, tipped from an excited five year old hand, and had gone upstairs to his apartment to get a little less sticky, and when he'd come downstairs, there were voices in the kitchen.

"You don't have to help, Ma, I've got it."

"Nonsense," Mrs. Jones said. "Nice to be in out of the heat for a moment." She set the dishes down and looked outside again. "Doesn't Marie look nice with a baby?" A pause. "High time she had one of her own, don't you think?"

Andy almost held his breath, knowing he should have gone back outside, but he was too curious. Eddie's mother was...something of an unknown quantity to him. There was a face she put on for guests, of which he was often one, and a face for her family, and he never quite knew what she was thinking, sometimes. He knew she had strong opinions on things - but just what they were wasn't often shared with him, unless it was by Marie slamming something down in the sink and muttering something that wasn't fit to print.

Eddie's voice sounded a little strained. "You'd have to ask her that, Ma."

Mrs. Jones sniffed. "Nothing to ask about it - you take what the Lord gives you and go from there. You know, your father would have -"

"Ma."

"-would have liked to see you settled, Ed, and happy, and starting a family! Your sisters are married, Harry's married, Janet's expecting, I just don't see why you and Marie -"

"Ma, it's not the right-"

"Well, when will it be the right time, Edward?" He could tell she was getting angry now, the way she was using his whole name. If Edward Allison Jones made an appearance Eddie would need to run for his helmet. "Your mother's not getting any younger. Children are a blessing! I could understand with the war on, or you looking for work, but you're not looking now, you have the house." She paused, suddenly suspicious. "She's not being cold to you, is she?"

"Ma!"

"And I'm sure it's not a question of how, since she was out in California with all those Marines."

Andy could feel his skin crawl, remembering the face Marie had made the last time this had come up, knowing she couldn't say a damn thing to change her mother in law's mind. He could well imagine Eddie's face, too. "Ma, I wish you wouldn't say things like that. It makes her sound low."

"Your father may not have had much, Edward, but he worked hard and he owned his own house and made sure his children had decent clothes and shoes and no daughter of his was going to join the Army. And it's not like her people come to visit, even now that you've got the house."

Oh, this chesnut again - it seemed to get trotted out at every birthday and holiday. Her family doesn't make time for her. "It's a long ways to come, Ma. And they do write her, regular. We're just not ready, yet. For children."

"I still think she ought to stop working, all the same. You're making enough for the both of you. Give her time for more important things. You're her husband. She ought to listen to you."

Eddie's voice was patient, but strained. "I'll take it up with her."

Mrs. Jones sniffed, and went back outside - he could hear her calling to the grandchildren to ask who wanted another slice of cake. Andy cleared his throat a little and Eddied turned, his shoulders relaxing when he saw who it was. "Suppose you heard all that." He sounded tired - more than usual, in this instance.

"She's really fixed on it, isn't she," Andy said, coming over to join Eddie by the sink, taking his hand where they could both hide a little behind the kitchen counter, watching the scene outside in the backyard. Anyone looking in would see two men standing next to each other - nothing out of the ordinary.

Eddie sighed. "Be a hell of a thing, if we did decide...I don't feel like I've got a right to ask her, though. And it'd be...complicated. You know - with us. She's never - she's not the mothering kind."

"Not everyone is," Andy allowed. "But you'd make a good dad, Ed." He meant it, sincerely - it was on days like this that he remembered it more than ever, watching Ed with his nieces and nephews and letting them run all over him like a jungle gym, the villain for every game of cops and robbers, ready to die on cue when a popgun came out for the final shootout.

Eddie smiled a little at the prospect, covertly running his thumb over the back of Andy's hand, looking out at the backyard, at Marie, trying to play tag with the older children, out of place in her culottes while the rest of the mothers were in pristine party dresses. The kitchen was cool and shady and the house was quiet, and they were alone in it, their own secrets unheard. "You, too."

#i have written a thing #marie atcheson #andyeddiemarie #1940s girl gang #postwar #mercurygraypresents