Disclaimer: NBC, MCA/Universal and Wolf Films own them.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: McCoy/Green. Genre Flashfic #4: Humor. Set in the Choices Made universe, a few years after Doors, Unlocked.
Author's Note: What can I say? I had to respond to the canonical Lesbian!Serena brouhaha. And before I go any further, I mean absolutely no offense to those femslash Serena writers in the L&O slash fandom. I don't. Nor will I bore anyone with my own perspective, as a lesbian, on how incredibly offensive, absurd, and disgusting this whole thing was. Oops ;-), that just slipped out. Anyway, here are Choices!Jack and Choices!Ed on the evening of Serena's firing. There is no Serena-bashing herein, at least how I define bashing.
Author's Note II: Thank you to jessebee for a crunch beta (you're a genius); and to CultureVulture73 for the heads up ;-) and a great line.
Copyright February 2005 Cassatt
"Ed, babe!" Jack dropped his briefcase and helmet on the couch, calling out to the interior of the apartment. There was no reply, and as he entered the hallway that led to the bedrooms, he discovered why. The shower was running. He walked into the steamy bathroom, as the water stopped and Ed pulled back the curtain. "Hey," Jack said, "you're not going to believe what happened today--"
"Nice to see you, too," Ed said with a grin, reaching for a towel.
"Yeah. So, listen--"
"Jesus--" Ed interrupted with a lift of a hand, and a shake of his head, "--has the bloom come off the rose? I'm buck naked, it's been twelve hours, and what do I get, hm-mfph--"
Jack cut him off with a grab, a tug, and a deep kiss. Drinking him in, not minding the complaint because Ed was right, and truth be told, the sight of him naked, and wet, with rivulets running down his stomach to his thighs was enough to drive Jack acutely nuts. He broke the kiss before his clothes got contact-damp. Ed smirked. Jack gave him a pat on the ass. The smirk stayed.
"As I was saying," Jack continued, "you're not going to believe what happened today--Serena was fired--but that's not the half of it--"
"Fired?!" Ed's grin returned, wider than before. He wiped himself down quickly.
"Yes, fired--but it's what she tried, when Arthur fired her--"
"Why was she fired?"
"Because he thought she was getting a little out of control--that she was too passionate about--"
"Passionate?!" Ed hung up the towel with a loud snort that echoed off the shower walls.
Jack put his hands on his hips and stared at him. "Ed." The other man looked chagrined. Almost. "You gonna let me finish?"
"Yeah, yeah, sorry. It's just the thought of equating Serena with passion...." Ed rolled his eyes and twisted his mouth. "In what uni--"
"That's not important," Jack said, interrupting this time. "It's what she said. To Arthur. After he told her she was fired." He paused, for perverse pleasure. Different than what he found in bed with this man, as pleasurable and occasionally perverse as that was.
"Well, come on," Ed said, waving at him with both hands, "what did she say? 'I can't believe you'd do this to poor little old me?'"
"No." Jack paused again, for effect. He still couldn't get over her chutzpah. "She asked Arthur if she was being fired because she's a lesbian." He waited. And wasn't disappointed. Ed's eyebrows shot up so fast Jack worried his face would break.
"Lesbian?! I-- What-- Huh?" Ed shook his head and chuffed. "What the fuck is she talking about?! Lesbian?! Since when?!"
"Oh, yeah--it's good. Arthur had no idea she was a lesbian--well, a pseudo-lesbian, whatever--but he stayed cool and said, 'no, of course not, you're not being fired because of that.' Serena said something like, 'oh, okay,' and things went on from there." Jack took a breath.
Ed's eyebrows were still hovering at the top of his forehead.
Jack continued, "Then Arthur came to me, and told me what happened, and I must have looked like you, because he said, 'I take it you had no idea about her lifestyle?'" Jack waved his hand. "I know, but I didn't want get into the 'lifestyle' discussion with him. I told him that I didn't think it was true--"
"Jack, you didn't," Ed said. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Well, we both know it's not true. I'm not going to lie--"
"Come on! We lie every day! Besides, this was the perfect opportunity to have Serena be the token gay person and keep suspicion off of the rest of us--even if it makes no sense, considering, well, her. You know." Ed chortled for a long minute. "Sorry--jesus, this is downright--creepy. So go on, you told him it wasn't true--"
Jack nodded, feeling the blush start up his neck. "Yes, which of course got him asking me why, exactly, I knew it wasn't true--"
"See?! I told you, you should've kept your mouth shut--"
"No, it was okay. I just told him that she made a number of overtures in my direction--"
"Number two reason I despised her...," Ed muttered.
Jack mock-glared at him. "And that I had ignored them, but there wasn't any doubt in my mind what her intention was." Jack stopped, to give himself a second to think about how to get beyond the next part.
"Oh, shit," Ed said, "let me guess. Which led Branch to ask you why, exactly, you didn't respond to them?" He shoved hands onto naked hips.
Jack sighed. "Yes. But don't worry--I simply told him that she wasn't my type, and that I was seeing someone, and it was pretty serious. We were keeping a low profile, just to have some privacy." He smiled, hoping it looked sincere. "See? Crisis averted."
"But--"
"But what?" Jack asked.
"But how come I know there's something else? Like the fact that I can't imagine Branch just letting that slide and not playing down-home-buddy-buddy and asking you to flesh out this mystery someone for him?" Ed was looking at him, hard, with that look--the one that either turned Jack's insides to jelly or his brain to mush, depending upon the circumstance.
"No, really, Ed--the subject was dropped after that. We were too busy discussing why, exactly, Serena had made the lesbian claim." The subject had been dropped after Jack took two swallows of Arthur's scotch, in response to his boss's prodding him with a blustery invitation to bring 'the little woman' over for dinner some night soon. After Jack had sort of nodded, and sort of smiled, and prayed for Arthur's phone to ring.
"So," Ed said, leaning against the vanity, "why did she?"
"Why what?" Jack understood a second too late. "Oh, we think it was to try for a discrimination claim. You gotta admit, Serena can think fast, if she chooses to. After all, how does one prove a woman is not a lesbian, if she says she is?"
"But someone would have to know, at work, and be hassling her. How could she lie about that?" Ed's eyebrows shot up again. "Don't tell me--you think she would have said you, don't you? Cause you wouldn't have been able to deny it without getting into the mess you almost did with Branch. Huh. That little--"
"Maybe she thought that, and maybe she just didn't think it all the way through." Jack shrugged, and unbuttoned the top of his shirt. "She hadn't expected to be fired, after all." He continued to unbutton.
Whatever Ed was going to say never materialized, because there was loud knocking on their front door. Jack said he'd get it, considering Ed's unclothed condition. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he walked away, enjoying some silent chortles of his own, because he couldn't seem to stop himself from reacting to it all as the ridiculous thing it was, so he didn't look through the security eye like he should have. A mistake he realized the moment he flung open the door.
"Hey--what--" Joe Fontana's greeting died, as he stared at Jack.
~*~
The End
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