#So I'm gonna pretend it was free and there aren't any other naming conventions I'm missing.

[miss-kittys-magical-library]

After six long months, I present to you:

Tupelo Honey

Word Count- 3k

Warnings- language, angst, discussion of abortion

A/N- With help from familiar strangers, Honey makes a choice that will change Leon's life and hers forever.

Chapter 4: Angel of The Morning

Late fall of 1968, Morning:

Honey clutched at the pillow as her hips flew towards the ceiling. Her back arched before she bent forward and twisted her free hand in Leon's thick hair. His name echoed off the bedroom walls as she came without caring if they woke Johnny this early.

Honey’s chest heaved as her body attempted to regulate her breath. Leon threw the sheets back and looked up at her. His hand absently ran up and down her stomach to her breasts and back.

“What?” Honey’s voice was sleepy as she met a green-eyed gaze. She propped up on her elbows when his brows knit together. “What's wrong?”

“Not much, love. It's just, your..” Leon's cheeks turned kinda pink, “stuff tastes different. You been eating anything new?”

“No? You mean it tastes different when I cum?”

“Just this time. You gonna start your thing?” He pointed towards Honey’s sex. “Period.”

“I don't think so. Should be around any day now though.”

Leon crawled up towards the pillows and laid down beside his girlfriend. His arm draped across her collarbone as he snuggled up to her shoulder. He nipped at the skin before kissing it. Then pressed his forehead into her neck.

Honey caught a scent of herself on him. “It even kinda smells different. I better get to the clinic just in case. I've not felt that weird other than that stomach bug.” Her nails lightly scratched Leon's forearm as she spoke. “I can't have an STI, since you went all mad and demanded my undying monogamy.”

Leon ignored her. “Maybe,” he yawned and stretched his impossibly long arms and legs straight out, “you caught a case of the pregnancy.” He sat up and leaned down to kiss her stomach.

“Don't say that!” Leon's familiar whine filled Honey’s own voice. “I won't keep it. That's legal here now.”

Leon stared back at her, “Just like that.”

“It's my body, Leonidas. Look at how short I am. Imagine this knocked up,” Honey waved a hand down the length of her naked self.

“I do.” It came out a whisper. Honey glowered. “Don't pull that face on me, Gracie. I know it's your body. We just ain't exactly safe with our shaggin’ are we? Leavin’ it up to chance. Then you get angry if there's one on the way. Keep it. End it. Give it up for adoption. I know it's YOUR choice. You tell me all the bloody time about it being your body. I respect that because I love you. Before you give me cheek, I think about having a baby with you loads.”

“Leon that's not what we want.” Honey sat up on her haunches beside him. “Look at us. We share a one bedroom flat with a ginger con man that we don't even sleep in half the time based on whether he wants to fuck someone or not. Our loo is literally a closet, and we have to shower at your parents’. There's one dresser and half a wardrobe for both of us. Where the hell would we even PUT a baby let alone afford to have one.”

“We've saved money! My parents would help us get a proper house or flat. Or stay with them until we could.”

“Oh sure. Us, your parents, your Yia Yia, one uncle and a baby. Sounds cozy.”

“I grew up in a place with more living there than that. We could get a loan.”

“What will we put down for occupations, Leon?!” Honey was losing her cool. A wave of nausea hit her, but she choked it back. “Occasional actor, waiter, and FBI fugitive?! I can't out myself like that.”

“We lie. I'm an actor. I'm sure you know loads of people who could fake it. Look respectable. I'll cut my hair and clean up my face.” Leon was equally annoyed, hands fidgeting in his lap. His legs started to bounce up and down as he reached, but fumbled with the nightstand drawer.

“Don't you fucking dare cut that hair. Who will we even pretend to be? Patti Boyd and fucking George Harrison? I'm an awful blonde and your hair would take hours to straighten. Leon we would have to fake marriage certificates. That's fraud. Real and proper, honest prison time fraud.”

Leon ignored her and finally yanked the drawer practically in half. The handle came off in his hands causing him to mumble under his breath and drop it to the ground. In a fury he tossed the contents aside in a search for something Honey wasn't sure of.

“If you're about to get high, I'll fucking leave you right now.” Honey got up and snapped her fingers in Leon's face. “We're not done talking about this.”

He looked up at her, his green eyes ablaze for the first time in their relationship. “I'm not GETTING high! Will you quit talking to me like I'm a bloody fucking child? You and Johnny always like I'm mad or deficient. I have a university degree from Cambridge, and I speak three languages. I'm observant not stupid.”

“That's.. That's not what I meant,” Honey bit her lip. “You are one of the smartest guys I've ever met. I just.. Worry about the amount of opium you started sneaking into your pot. You're working less and letting Johnny call the shots.”

Leon was lost in his search, “You’re just jealous of someone else pushing me around?” He waved his hand dismissively before Honey could answer. “I’m fine, love. I'm just a bit stressed is all. It helps me relax.”

“Leon, it's heroin. You know what happened to my uncle.”

He ignored her, “I’ll be swell. Promise. Plus I think this idea Johnny has finally.. DAMMIT WHERE'S THAT TOSSER OF A RING?!”

Something fell off the bed onto the wooden floor with a PING! Leon got down on all fours, stark naked and put his eye to the wood. His arm outstretched and came back to him with an object between his long fingers. He held it aloft towards Honey and took her tiny hand inside of his large one. Honey stopped breathing.

“It's not exactly proper, but you aren't exactly a girl into convention, are ya?” Leon smiled up at his girlfriend. He kissed the back of Honey’s hand. “You think better of me than I think of myself. I want to make you happy, and I want to be a good husband and daddy. If this meeting tonight doesn't go well, I'll stop acting. No more pot or opium or acid or coke right bloody now. I'll get a proper job and we can get a proper house and when the time comes, you choose whatever you want. Stay home. Go to work, I'll stay home. So you aren't loaded down by the patriarchy or whatever.”

“Leon,” Honey’s face was pale and she started to swoon. She saw the way his hand swallowed hers, and panicked. Her fucked up brain saw herself lost in Leon the same way.

“Even if we go to the court, just us. Even if we have to leave London because you're worried. I'll go with you. To India like you sorted out before we met. I don't want you to give up on any dream because of this baby. Or me.”

Before she could get any answer out, Leon slid the ring on Honey’s finger. It was stunning, carved marble and amethyst. She knew it was old, Grecian.

“It's purple because Dionysus cried and spilled his wine onto a maiden he offended by his drunkenness. Artemis protected her, turned her to crystal and she absorbed his wine. It sobered him. Your love, when I'm not foolish, will sober me.”

“Leon,” Honey said again, unable to say anything else.

“Will you please marry me, Gracie?”

The question was so pure. His eyes were so green and hopeful. Honey couldn't think or speak around the lump in her throat. But then..

“I can't,” she whispered. “I have to go to the clinic. You've got an early shift at the restaurant.”

Honey was numb as she pulled on some clothes and her coat. She left the flat and Leon naked on his knees in the bedroom.

----

Later that afternoon:

Honey stared straight passed the nurse as she explained exactly what would happen if she decided to not keep the baby. How they suggest she not be alone and to have someone willing to care for her. To make sure there's no infection.

“Ultimately, dove, it's your decision. Unless you're cold-hearted, it might do your head in. It's not as easy as you modern girls think. You might not regret it, but you might. You prepared? Is your husband keen on this idea too?” The nurse nodded at the ring.

“Oh.. we aren't.. I didn't really give him a choice?”

“Well let's see if you're even pregnant first. Then I want you to go back to your partner and have a good talk. Promise me you'll do that?”

The young woman smiled. It was tentative and nervous. “Yeah. Ok. But it won't change my mind.” She held out her arm for the blood draw and took a cup and left for the loo.

Honey sat on the stairs of the clinic and bent down in a wave of nausea. It was amazing that now she knew she was knocked up the symptoms seemed to worsen. Like how noticing a paper cut makes it suddenly sting.

Her breasts were swollen and a fire built in her chest and stomach every time she laid down. What was the absolute worst, she came to realize, how mean she had been to Leon. A total uncool bitch. Honey looked down at the amethyst on her ring finger and began to cry.

“Hey man, you ok?” a voice asked. American.

“Jesus, don't call her man! What is wrong with you?” a female American voice.

“Leave me alone! Last time I was here, I was in Vietnam. I'm freaking the fuck out, Sel.”

“weren't you a cu-”

“Uh!! This is about them, not me.”

One of them sat down next to Honey. “My brother is right, are you ok? Honey, right?”

Honey looked up to meet eyes that almost took her breath away. A young woman around her age smiled and it reminded her of Leon. Her shoulder length hair had soft waves and curls, but her eyes. Her eyes somehow looked like Honey’s.

“Do I know you?” she squinted her eyes and tilted her head.

“Not yet,” the woman’s cheeks pinked a little. “We're.. Leon's..”

“Cousins!” a male voice interjected.

“I didn't know Leon had cousins from- Fuck me on the tube.”

“Tempting, but I don't think Leon would be down for that.” The inflection of his voice, despite being yank, was so much like his.. cousin’s. “My sister and I have been looking all over this stupid city for you the last few days. To meet you before we left. Leon told my sister you were here. He seemed pretty pissed. This is an uh,” he gestured at the building.

“Abortion clinic?”

“You sure that's how you want to handle it?” the young woman questioned softly.

“Well I don't think Leon has the balls to push me down the stairs,” Honey shrugged.

Leon’s cousin, if that's who she was heaved a sigh. “I like to think I have a sharp tongue and a bit of a shrewd mind. I get it from MY mom. Can I be straight with you?”

“I mean I guess it's easier from a stranger?”

“I know for a FACT you won't be giving up on anything. You are already more involved in changing the world than most people your age. And that doesn't have to stop because you're pregnant. Activists can have children or partners. Take her with you! Take Leon! You come from a long line of shit kickers, right?”

Honey narrowed her eyes. She studied this woman’s face again. Her eyes. HER eyes somehow. But Leon’s features. If she had a daughter, this is who she would want her to be. Sharp, like herself, but optimistic like her daddy.

Daddy.. “Did you say her? How do you know any of this? I swear Leon’s family is here or in Greece. You've got to be close, this one is like fucking Patty Duke. Identical cousins. Man you sure you're cool?”

He scratched his body and Honey heard a tinkling. Then she saw the dog tags. “Yeah I'm gravy.” He looked the way Leon had when she rejected him earlier. It broke Honey’s heart all over.

“Drafted?”

He held out his tags and had this longing in his eyes, “Love.”

“You went to Vietnam for love?”

“I stayed for it. Hardest thing I've ever done besides sobriety. Having a kid and an old man is a fucking piece of cake. If you were gonna go through with.. Termination, I think you would've done it right?”

“I just don't know if I have good enough of a reason besides maybe it'll be fine. I don't know what is freaking me the hell out! We both have happily married parents!! And grandparents. But I've put so much on hold for men. I've let them.”

“Yeah but Leon’s not like that.”

“No. He's not. But the drugs and the hare brained schemes terrify me. My uncle, Lenny Bruce? He ran cons with his wife that he knocked up and they were just. Tumultuous. He loved heroin almost more than Honey and Kitty. It killed him in the end. I don't want Leon and I to be the fluke too.”

“If I tell you to say the FIRST thing that comes to your mind about Leon. No thinking, open your mouth and speak. What is the first part of him you think of.”

“His kind eyes. Your eyes,” she gestured towards the man. “Yours are a bit lost, but they're still just as gentle.”

He bit his lip. Honey noticed it trembled just a tad. “Same thing,” his voice hoarse. “What's the first thing that you would DO for him?”

“Be with him in every life we've ever lived and ever will.”

The woman beside her took Honey’s hand in both of hers. Her annoying familiarity forced Honey to listen to everything she was about to say.

“My parents came from a similar taboo situation. They were immigrants (my dad twice), during the worst war. Activists who got in a bit of a mess. They were separated for a while when my mom was pregnant with me. She had me alone. Yet they have been together for OVER 25 years.”

“I cannot imagine two people better suited for each other than my parents. They trust one another IMPLICITLY and are both still very attracted to one another. Trust me. It's gross.!

“Now they have a successful business. My younger brother and I have our own jobs to pay for ourselves, but our parents are paying for us to go to school. Marriage or partnerships are work, but I have seen that it's worth it. I hope I can be as fearless as they are one day.”

Honey took her hand back and rubbed her face. “Why are you two so hell bent on me staying knocked up? Like there’s something real heavy you're not telling me.”

“We're just like, REALLY invested in Leon’s happiness!” the woman exclaimed.

“Or we could just tell her? I saved Dave that way.”

Honey narrowed her eyes, “Convincing.”

“You and Leon and this baby are going to literally save the world?”

“Alright,” Leon's doppelganger decided to take a turn. “Someone took me away from our mom when I was just a baby. I was raised pretty abusively. But I found my parents, OUR parents,” he gestured at his sister. “They just.. welcomed me in, AND my other adopted siblings.”

“You are so, so much like her. You and Leon are like BOTH of our parents. Really we Kostases.. Kosti? We leap without looking. If we fly, we fly. So I know what Leon's decision is. You said it yourself, he's worth being with in every life you live. Isn't that your answer?”

Honey sighed again and stood up. She looked back and forth between the man and woman claiming to have her best interest at heart. The siblings with her eyes and Leon’s. “I can't just rush into this.”

“Says the woman who fell in love on the set of a porno film.”

Honey ignored him. Ignored how he knew that. She put her hand on her stomach tenderly. “I have to say, if we have this kid, I'm not sure why, but I hope it.. she's like you. What's your name?”

“Selina. After the moon.”

Honey smiled in a knowing way. “Stick around, I'm sure Leon would love to see you.”

“We can't, but you'll understand all of this one day.”

“I'll see you again?”

“I promise.”

Then Honey and the cousins parted ways. She and Leon had a lot to discuss.

Tag: @neuroticpuppy @elliethesuperfruitlover @messengeronthemoon @super-unpredictable98 @bisexualnathanyoung @forenschik @nightmonsters @firstpersonnarrator @rob-private @frogs--are--bitches @ghouls-buddy @a-ghoulish-tale @bwritesstuff @icecoffeegirl @070188

#robert sheehan #robert sheehan fic #robert sheehan character fic #moonwalkers fic #leon x honey #klaus hargreeves #lovely little pixie