Yesterday when I talked about ER fanfic, I referenced the fabulous story by Mosca, “Still Around the Morning After”. It’s literally decades old — it takes place starting in November of 2001, which gives you an idea of just how long I’ve been reading fanfic. In the post, I talked about “strange little pockets of time”, which is one of several things about this story that I’ll never forget. Here’s the part I’m referring to:

“Kerry, is 8:30 all right?” Susan called from the living room.

“They don’t have anything earlier?”

“Nope.”

“That’s fine, then,” Kerry said. It meant they had about half an hour before they had to leave. Late reservations made strange little pockets of time: even if there were things she needed to be doing, if there was half an hour until she needed to leave, there was suddenly half an hour with nothing to do. She had bills to pay, journals to read. They could figure out where to put that rug that Susan had transplanted from her house. Or they could have sex. It was funny to have sex on the list of options, just another thing on the list of things to do with her time, even if usually it was by far the most attractive thing on that list. To have someone around, most of the time, who could make love to her and wanted to, with whom it was comfortable and fun and usually somewhere between pretty good and mind-blowing– Kerry hadn’t realized she’d wanted that until she had it.

The sun was setting, and Susan had closed the living-room curtains to keep out the glare. Susan was sitting on the couch, doing something on her mobile phone. Checking her e-mail. Kerry came up from behind and kissed her on the back of the neck.

“Everything okay?” Susan said.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Hang on a second.” Susan pressed some buttons on the phone. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, come here and let me fuck you,” Susan said.

The characters are Kerry Weaver and Susan Lewis, for those of you who didn’t watch ER.

There are a lot of great scenes in this story that don’t revolve around sex — including the death of Mark Greene (spoilers for something that happened more than 20 years ago), the scene where Kerry has magic collapsible hands, and of course the scene with the plums in the icebox:

The plums in the back of the lounge refrigerator would be just about right today. Kerry had bought them at Dominick’s, rather than at the farmer’s market, because they were such a beautiful rosy purple. But they’d been underripe, so she’d hid them in the lounge, where people would see “WEAVER” in black marker on the paper bag and know to stay away.

Carter was at his locker, getting ready to leave. “What are you looking for?” he said.

“Oh, I– left some plums in here.”

“And you expect to see these plums again?”

“I put them in a bag with my name on them, and–“

“And nobody’s that stupid,” Carter finished.

“I was worried that Susan might get at them,” Kerry admitted. “I wanted to let them get ripe.”

“You let her near your fridge?”

“It’s… her fridge now, too. More or less.” She found the bag wedged in a corner of the bottom shelf. “Here they are.”

“When did that happen?”

“What? Oh– um– I– asked her to move in a couple of weeks ago. It’s been… sort of a gradual thing.”

“Well… congratulations,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. “Want one?”

“Want one what?”

“A plum.”

“I thought you weren’t even sharing them with Susan.”

“I didn’t want to share them,” she said, “because they weren’t ripe yet.” She handed him a plum, and he hesitated, but he took it.

“Thanks,” he said.

She wasn’t really supposed to be on break, and Carter seemed to forgive her for wolfing down her plum wordlessly. The truth was, she’d almost forgotten about the plums altogether. They were sweet and drippy now; it would have been a shame to lose them.

“I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox,” Carter said.

“Hmm?”

“I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox,” he repeated, “and which you were probably saving for breakfast.”

She didn’t know the first two stanzas by heart, but she recognized them now. “Forgive me,” she said with him, “they were delicious   so sweet   and so cold.”

“I memorized it in high school,” he said. “And… I don’t know. Plums. Icebox.”

“I love that poem,” she said.

I have since memorized the poem. For reasons.

Anyway, if you like ER, femslash, or fanfic, “Still Around the Morning After” is a good use of your reading time.