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apocalypsosTitle: They Do Grow Up Quick, Don’t They?
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Ugly Betty
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Justin/Marc (and references to Daniel/Betty)
Summary: Futurefic, in which Marc will stop feeling like a great big perv eventually.
Author’s note: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keepaofthecheez, since it’s all her fault I’m writing this. ;)
*
They Do Grow Up Quick, Don’t They?
*
The Suarez family moved into the lobby of Mode magazine twelve years ago, or at least that’s how Marc’s come to see it.
First it was Betty, so terrifyingly a fish out of water Marc half-expected to find her flopping on the floor of Daniel’s office and gasping for breath. And then he’d turned around one day to find her sister trailing through the halls after Scotland’s finest, dragging along a rack of originals by Oshi’s newest protégé and beaming as if she’d just won a lifetime supply of Aquanet.
Then Daniel and Betty got hitched, and … well, he’d already paid his therapist enough for those mental images, thank you very much.
The rugrats were cute, though. And Betty hadn’t dressed them like she was casting a miniature version of the “Love Is A Battlefield” video or preparing them to be children‘s librarians in Utah, which made far too many Mode staffers breathe a sigh of relief.
Marc had almost forgotten there were other Suarezes out there.
Almost.
*
Francine in the art department has been known to break interns.
No, really. They go in at nine in the morning with an iced chai and a hopeful smile on their face and come out at four past nine with this dead shadow in their eyes and their hair looking as if it’s been attacked by a browning rhododendron. Sometimes if you ask them how they like working at Mode afterwards they point at you and wail.
This one, though … funny, he doesn’t look broken. He doesn’t even look mildly sprained.
The kid darts around with a purple Sharpie in one hand and a bolt of olive green silk in the other. Dark hair flops over his eyes as he goes on and on about something while Francine sits back in her desk chair staring at him like she would if he were a dancing slice of raspberry cheesecake.
Marc’s stomach growls as he looks through the glass, and he glances around furtively before anybody catches him.
“Where’d you find that one?” Marc says as Betty passes behind him.
She looks past him and sighs. “In my living room.”
Marc frowns. “Really? I hate to break it to you, but I think the Guy Fairy is delivering to the entirely wrong address.”
“That’s Justin.”
“It is?” Marc leans closer to the glass to get a better look. Strange -- he seemed to remember Betty’s nephew being shorter. Much shorter. Definitely not a adult with bulging muscles and a mischievous smile and oh, his mind is definitely not going there. “What have you and that delightful sister of yours been feeding him? Miracle Gro-A-Hunk?”
“Marc, please don’t lick the glass.”
Marc steps back, feigning shock and a condescending grin. “I wasn’t going to.”
No, really, he wasn’t.
Betty rolls her eyes and smacks him in the chest with the file for the layout of their next feature on a legwarmers comeback. “Marc,” she said, “no.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about it,” he says.
*
And he hadn’t been thinking about it then.
Of course, nobody had said anything about thinking about it for the rest of the day. Pretty much all day long, with the occasional coffee break.
… what?
*
Hilda pops into his line of vision right before lunchtime, still carrying an outfit for the next issue and dangling a pair of scissors from one hand.
“Are you staring at my son?”
Marc flinches in the seat at his desk, trying desperately not to look like he was doing just that. He shuffles around the paperwork for the November cover and says, “Of course not. I was staring at the wall. Can I help it if the wall is transparent and your son is on the other side of it?”
Hilda’s eyes narrow as she stops hovering over him. It isn’t that Marc is afraid of Hilda. The fake nails that could take someone’s eye out are probably a safety hazard, and he wasn’t sure those Payless heels shouldn’t be filed down to prevent impaling during Closet Cleaning Day catfights. But he is absolutely not afraid of Hilda.
“I don’t trust you around him,” she says, waving the scissors in his face.
Marc sniffs and focuses on his computer screen. “I don’t trust you around a bolt of polyester. What’s your point?”
Hilda scowls at him and snaps her gum as she leaves.
He wonders briefly if that gum thing is some sort of threat in Queens.
*
Marc orders in for lunch precisely to avoid gawking at Justin from across the room. It’s as if Justin’s turned into a gigantic bowl of ice cream and has resorted to dancing just outside of Marc’s line of sight just to taunt him. And repeated attempts to remind himself that Justin’s uncle, you know, owns the damn magazine seem to be doing nothing to stop himself from thinking that somewhere along the line Betty’s nephew has grown up to be an underwear model.
Unfortunately, ordering out for lunch only ends in flames and misery as Justin comes through the front door of Marc’s office thirty minutes later loaded down with takeout Chinese food.
“I hope you don’t plan on eating all of this by yourself,” Justin says, setting the bag down on Marc’s desk and setting out the food before he can protest.
“I wasn’t,” Marc mutters.
Marc has a mental image of Amanda off in her office staring at a photo of her third soon-to-be-ex-husband while dumping the contents of a bag of Cheeos down her gullet. So much for getting something not produced by the FritoLay corporation down her throat.
“That’s good,” Justin says, putting down a pair of forks. “My mom always says that you should never eat for two unless you’re attached to someone else with an umbilical cord.”
“She’s classy like that.”
Justin just flashes a wicked grin in a way that makes Marc take back every bitchy thing he‘d ever said about Betty‘s braces.
Okay, most of them.
“So,” Marc blurts out, before he either turns into a doormat or notes that Justin is setting two places on the desk as if it‘s an intimate dinner somewhere, “Justin, right?”
Justin‘s grin doesn‘t falter as he dumps out a container of moo goo gai pan onto the plate in front of Marc. Marc eases back away from the desk at the absurd thought that he just might be falling in love with Justin‘s wrists. “Nice try. And when I say that, I mean it was an awful try and you should really quit your acting career.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Marc says. “So, when did you get so …“ He twirls his fork in Justin’s direction as Justin plops down into the seat across from him and digs into the chicken and broccoli Amanda would probably mourn by changing into black after lunch. “… big?”
Justin cocks an eyebrow. “Puberty will do that to a person,” he says dryly. “Plus, I joined the track team in high school.”
Marc has this vague recollection of giving the kid some advice way back when, and all thoughts of what the numerous Suarezes and maybe even a few of the Meades will do to him for flirting with Justin flee his mind.
“Really?”
“Well,” Justin says, “I had to learn how to run really fast, didn’t I?”
They share a smile at that. Justin reaches over with his fork and steals some of Marc’s lunch, and maybe he should be complaining but instead all Marc can do is beam like an idiot.
“I’ll bet,” Marc says, and only finishes half of his lunch just in case Hilda decides to punch him in the stomach later.
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Ugly Betty
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Justin/Marc (and references to Daniel/Betty)
Summary: Futurefic, in which Marc will stop feeling like a great big perv eventually.
Author’s note: For
keepaofthecheez, since it’s all her fault I’m writing this. ;)They Do Grow Up Quick, Don’t They?
*
The Suarez family moved into the lobby of Mode magazine twelve years ago, or at least that’s how Marc’s come to see it.
First it was Betty, so terrifyingly a fish out of water Marc half-expected to find her flopping on the floor of Daniel’s office and gasping for breath. And then he’d turned around one day to find her sister trailing through the halls after Scotland’s finest, dragging along a rack of originals by Oshi’s newest protégé and beaming as if she’d just won a lifetime supply of Aquanet.
Then Daniel and Betty got hitched, and … well, he’d already paid his therapist enough for those mental images, thank you very much.
The rugrats were cute, though. And Betty hadn’t dressed them like she was casting a miniature version of the “Love Is A Battlefield” video or preparing them to be children‘s librarians in Utah, which made far too many Mode staffers breathe a sigh of relief.
Marc had almost forgotten there were other Suarezes out there.
Almost.
Francine in the art department has been known to break interns.
No, really. They go in at nine in the morning with an iced chai and a hopeful smile on their face and come out at four past nine with this dead shadow in their eyes and their hair looking as if it’s been attacked by a browning rhododendron. Sometimes if you ask them how they like working at Mode afterwards they point at you and wail.
This one, though … funny, he doesn’t look broken. He doesn’t even look mildly sprained.
The kid darts around with a purple Sharpie in one hand and a bolt of olive green silk in the other. Dark hair flops over his eyes as he goes on and on about something while Francine sits back in her desk chair staring at him like she would if he were a dancing slice of raspberry cheesecake.
Marc’s stomach growls as he looks through the glass, and he glances around furtively before anybody catches him.
“Where’d you find that one?” Marc says as Betty passes behind him.
She looks past him and sighs. “In my living room.”
Marc frowns. “Really? I hate to break it to you, but I think the Guy Fairy is delivering to the entirely wrong address.”
“That’s Justin.”
“It is?” Marc leans closer to the glass to get a better look. Strange -- he seemed to remember Betty’s nephew being shorter. Much shorter. Definitely not a adult with bulging muscles and a mischievous smile and oh, his mind is definitely not going there. “What have you and that delightful sister of yours been feeding him? Miracle Gro-A-Hunk?”
“Marc, please don’t lick the glass.”
Marc steps back, feigning shock and a condescending grin. “I wasn’t going to.”
No, really, he wasn’t.
Betty rolls her eyes and smacks him in the chest with the file for the layout of their next feature on a legwarmers comeback. “Marc,” she said, “no.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about it,” he says.
And he hadn’t been thinking about it then.
Of course, nobody had said anything about thinking about it for the rest of the day. Pretty much all day long, with the occasional coffee break.
… what?
Hilda pops into his line of vision right before lunchtime, still carrying an outfit for the next issue and dangling a pair of scissors from one hand.
“Are you staring at my son?”
Marc flinches in the seat at his desk, trying desperately not to look like he was doing just that. He shuffles around the paperwork for the November cover and says, “Of course not. I was staring at the wall. Can I help it if the wall is transparent and your son is on the other side of it?”
Hilda’s eyes narrow as she stops hovering over him. It isn’t that Marc is afraid of Hilda. The fake nails that could take someone’s eye out are probably a safety hazard, and he wasn’t sure those Payless heels shouldn’t be filed down to prevent impaling during Closet Cleaning Day catfights. But he is absolutely not afraid of Hilda.
“I don’t trust you around him,” she says, waving the scissors in his face.
Marc sniffs and focuses on his computer screen. “I don’t trust you around a bolt of polyester. What’s your point?”
Hilda scowls at him and snaps her gum as she leaves.
He wonders briefly if that gum thing is some sort of threat in Queens.
Marc orders in for lunch precisely to avoid gawking at Justin from across the room. It’s as if Justin’s turned into a gigantic bowl of ice cream and has resorted to dancing just outside of Marc’s line of sight just to taunt him. And repeated attempts to remind himself that Justin’s uncle, you know, owns the damn magazine seem to be doing nothing to stop himself from thinking that somewhere along the line Betty’s nephew has grown up to be an underwear model.
Unfortunately, ordering out for lunch only ends in flames and misery as Justin comes through the front door of Marc’s office thirty minutes later loaded down with takeout Chinese food.
“I hope you don’t plan on eating all of this by yourself,” Justin says, setting the bag down on Marc’s desk and setting out the food before he can protest.
“I wasn’t,” Marc mutters.
Marc has a mental image of Amanda off in her office staring at a photo of her third soon-to-be-ex-husband while dumping the contents of a bag of Cheeos down her gullet. So much for getting something not produced by the FritoLay corporation down her throat.
“That’s good,” Justin says, putting down a pair of forks. “My mom always says that you should never eat for two unless you’re attached to someone else with an umbilical cord.”
“She’s classy like that.”
Justin just flashes a wicked grin in a way that makes Marc take back every bitchy thing he‘d ever said about Betty‘s braces.
Okay, most of them.
“So,” Marc blurts out, before he either turns into a doormat or notes that Justin is setting two places on the desk as if it‘s an intimate dinner somewhere, “Justin, right?”
Justin‘s grin doesn‘t falter as he dumps out a container of moo goo gai pan onto the plate in front of Marc. Marc eases back away from the desk at the absurd thought that he just might be falling in love with Justin‘s wrists. “Nice try. And when I say that, I mean it was an awful try and you should really quit your acting career.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Marc says. “So, when did you get so …“ He twirls his fork in Justin’s direction as Justin plops down into the seat across from him and digs into the chicken and broccoli Amanda would probably mourn by changing into black after lunch. “… big?”
Justin cocks an eyebrow. “Puberty will do that to a person,” he says dryly. “Plus, I joined the track team in high school.”
Marc has this vague recollection of giving the kid some advice way back when, and all thoughts of what the numerous Suarezes and maybe even a few of the Meades will do to him for flirting with Justin flee his mind.
“Really?”
“Well,” Justin says, “I had to learn how to run really fast, didn’t I?”
They share a smile at that. Justin reaches over with his fork and steals some of Marc’s lunch, and maybe he should be complaining but instead all Marc can do is beam like an idiot.
“I’ll bet,” Marc says, and only finishes half of his lunch just in case Hilda decides to punch him in the stomach later.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 07:09 pm (UTC)Love is a Battlefield! The Guy Fairy! Miracle Gro-a-Hunk! \o/ OH MY GOD. So, SO much gleeeeeee!
And Marc, you ARE a shitty actor and plz to be bending him over your desk after hours during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade soon, mmkay? Or...would Justin top? God, I can't decide! I have a THING for the younger one topping, honestly.
Oh, and HILDA! “I don’t trust you around a bolt of polyester. What’s your point?”
♥
Thank you so much, baby! YAY!!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 10:53 pm (UTC)And now I feel a little dirty.
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Date: 2007-09-22 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 12:05 am (UTC)He wonders briefly if that gum thing is some sort of threat in Queens.
Oh, Marc<3
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Date: 2008-06-07 04:04 am (UTC)This was so awesome it made me smile despite being sick and cranky. Your Marc is so... *flails* All the things I love about him on the show: catty and bitchy, but not really *mean*, observanta nd smarter than you'd think, sucktastic at acting but brilliant with the come-backs. Oh, I loved it!
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Date: 2008-06-08 02:36 pm (UTC)"I don’t trust you around a bolt of polyester. What’s your point?"
*loves* (Here via
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Date: 2008-06-16 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-27 04:46 pm (UTC)