Work Text:
Ever since Mare was a kid, she dreamed of moving to New York, becoming a writer, and seeing the world in her free time. Making the city her home, having exciting stories for her high school reunions and family back in Ohio.
She was a bright-eyed high school senior when the recession hit. Her dad laid off from the Chrysler plant and her mom's hours slashed within weeks of each other. Her New York University acceptance letter, proudly hung on the fridge, now just a cruel reminder of the impossible.
Her mom cried the day she enlisted.
"I have no other choice," Mare had replied coldly.
After serving her time, she arrived back home; her entire life packed into two camouflage duffel bags. Her dad proudly flew an Army flag from their porch; his Marines flag rippling in the breeze, now bracketing both sides of their front door.
She cried the day she settled back into her childhood bedroom.
After overhearing her parents' hushed midnight conversations about foreclosure and payday loans, she grew obsessive.
The University of Toledo was where she decided to use her GI Bill benefits, the housing stipend going straight to her savings and occasionally deposited into her parents' bank account without telling them, or swiping their bills from the mailbox before they returned home.
Mare declared a journalism major, thinking it would be more practical, and she'd enjoyed her time writing for Stars and Stripes. Her evenings and weekends were spent doing everything from bartending to roofing to landscaping, even donating plasma, desperate to feel secure again.
As graduation grew near, she felt her spark returning, like things were finally looking up for her. She sent out dozens of applications, maybe hundreds. Dropped off resumes. Cold called businesses. In the end, she got two interviews and one job offer. The Toledo Truth Teller. The local paper her dad used when he changed the oil in their cars or spray painted something. Her mom lined their dog's crate with it sometimes.
Now Mare was the one dragging wire articles into templates, destined for someone else's garage or pets or fireplace.
She moved out when she got a small raise from the paper, a quaint studio on the edge of downtown. Boyfriends came and went, half of them wanting to settle down and start a family in Toledo, the others using her for sex when it was convenient. A rollercoaster that she was trapped on, never stopping at the exit platform to let her off.
And almost seven years later, nothing has changed. Could she have changed it? Probably. But the part of her with that ambition died at the tender young age of 18. So she's still dragging wire articles, day after day.
Until a new day, when a quirky fever dream of a redhead, brimming with excitement and optimism, tramples her salad and asks her to write. To really write.
Ever since their first lunch, an apology, she gets a swoopy feeling in her gut when they lock eyes, when he does silly dances, or rests his hand on her arm. A feeling she hasn't felt in a long time—maybe ever.
His dreams for the paper are powered by the same spark as 18 year old Mare—it changes something in her, and maybe reignites her spark a bit too. She feels alive here in this city—her home—for the first time in years. Suddenly, she's finding beauty in ordinary things, in her life here in Toledo. There's a brightness in each day that doesn't go unnoticed. She catches herself smiling at her desk often.
There is one thing, however, that she's currently struggling to find beauty in. The plumbing in her apartment failing for days, as she tosses and turns on the unforgiving floor of the office. She sets an alarm for 7:00, hoping she can clear up her spot before someone sees.
But of course, Ned fucking Sampson shows up bright and early and rescues her from this misery. That's how she now finds herself in his apartment, a walk up above an art studio in a historic brick building downtown. It’s almost too fitting.
It’s charming on the inside, with hardwood floors and two brick walls. There isn’t a separate bedroom, so his bed is tucked in a corner with a bookshelf separating it from the living area. She maybe wouldn’t mind if he fucked her tenderly in that bed, being the sole focus of his attention and passion.
Everything here is immaculate, because of course it is. Mare would rather jump off a bridge than send off a coworker with the key to her apartment, and not just because of the plumbing. But the bed is neatly made. There’s no laundry, dishes, papers, anything sitting out anywhere. And he didn’t even know she’d be here.
It feels like an invasion of his privacy, being here alone. Like peeling back a protective layer and seeing his true self. His first ever publication of the Truth Teller is framed on the wall, she notices. Some artwork and antique maps hang in an aesthetically pleasing gallery wall.
He’s not one for knickknacks, it seems, other than a collection of houseplants and shelves crammed full of books.
Mare steps into the bathroom, taking in the narrow but tidy space and tiled shower. An entire skincare routine is lined up in order on the vanity top.
Her phone buzzes, and it’s as if he read her mind.
There’s a hairdryer in the second drawer.
She peeks into the drawer of the vanity. Sure enough, there’s a surprisingly bougie hairdryer and a round bristle brush; strands of ginger hair laced around the barrel.
A shower had never sounded nicer than it did in this moment as she turns the handle and hears the rush of the water from the shower head. She undresses, tossing her clothes in a sad pile and stares in the mirror. Naked in her boss’s bathroom—she laughs out loud at the absurdity of it all.
The mirror begins to steam up, so Mare steps under the warm spray. She notes the matching lavender scented body wash, shampoo, and conditioner that she gratefully runs through her hair and over her body. (Of course he conditions his hair.)
She dries herself off with a ridiculously fluffy towel then steals some of his moisturizer and makes use of the hairdryer. What a unicorn of a man.
Ned—her editor in chief—once again turns a bleak situation into something beautiful. She wouldn’t learn until later on that it would blossom into an opportunity for an article, a chance that Ned takes on her, culminating in a nomination for the Ohio Journalism Awards.
And when they hug and rejoice in the parking lot, jumping up and down in each other's arms, she thinks he might kiss her right then and there.
And when he doesn't, they spend awards night stealing moments with each other, exchanging glances, dancing and holding hands, and it feels so right. Maybe there will be a day when that swoopy feeling in her stomach fades, but in this moment, it's on full blast.
And when she teases him for his “without whom”s, in reality, she could've written the same.
And when he kisses her, finally, it's not just beautiful. It's extraordinary.