FIC: Shine with All the Untold

[zaubra]

Fandom: UK Politics
Title: Shine with All the Untold
Ship(s): Luciana Berger/Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger/Stella Creasy
Word Count: 4,087
Rating: R
Summary: With rumours flying about her relationship with Chuka Umunna, Luciana just wishes everyone would mind their own business. (But this is Parliament.) Can also be found at the meme.
Note: Title is from the lovely Vienna Teng song Shine.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you've found this by googling yourself or someone you know, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.



Shine with All the Untold

~//~

Sometimes, Luciana thinks, the number of people interested in her love life is faintly ridiculous.

Stella says she should get them all in a room and see just how interested they are in her love life WITHOUT PANTS. But then, that’s Stella.

Luciana just wishes people would mind their own business.

But this is Parliament.

~//~

“You should,” Chloe tells her conspiratorially over tea. (Which Luciana might not have brought her if she’d realised there were going to be conspiratorial whispers, because she has a reputation to keep up, and whispering with Tories is not conducive to it. But Chloe’s foot is broken, and they are in one of the ladies’ lounges, where fraternisation with the enemy is common, so she supposes a one-time exception is acceptable. For now.)

“Mmm,” she says, noncommittally.

Chloe leans in closer. “He’s fit.”

“I know,” Luciana says. She has eyes.

“And he likes you.”

“I know,” Luciana says. She has eyes. Why everyone thinks they’re enlightening her from on high is beyond her.

Chloe raises an eyebrow. “So why not shag him silly?”

Kerry, ensconced in an armchair in the corner, is pretending to be reading, but doing a poor job of it. Luciana will be lucky if this conversation doesn’t go up on Twitter within the hour. Ladies’ lounges interesting places. Will romance at last be prodded into action?

“Because,” Luciana says, barely repressing a long-suffering sigh, “I don’t want to.”

Chloe levels a piercing stare at her, then reaches across and delivers a vicious pinch.

“Ow!”

There is an audible snort of laughter from the armchair.

“Just checking that you’re human. How can you not want to shag Umunna?”

Luciana does sigh this time. “I suppose you would in a second?”

“Yes!” Chloe says, energetically, before furrowing her brow. “Well. Maybe.”

“Have to check with your giant?”

Chloe looks prim. “No comment.”

“Anyway,” Luciana says, returning the conversation to where it belongs, “It’s not that I don’t think shagging Chuka would be fun. It’s just...I have so many things to do right now. Romance isn’t high on the list. Ten Minute Rule Bills are, and Prime Minister’s Questions, and constituency work.”

“All work and no play make Luciana a frustrated girl,” Chloe says, and holds out her mug to be refilled. “I’m Economic Secretary to the Treasury and I still manage to find time for romance.”

“Fuck off, showoff,” Luciana says, without rancour.

Kerry’s strangled laughter is beginning to sound quite frankly alarming. Good. Eavesdroppers should get their just deserts.

~//~

“Yes, I really think you should follow Chloe’s advice,” Stella says, shoving her biro distractedly behind her ear. “She knows so much about balancing work and sex. So much, in fact, that she tripped over a red box while deep in the throes of passion and broke her foot.”

“How do you know that?” Luciana says, suspicious.

Stella shrugs. “She was telling Louise in the loo. I overheard. Although, you know, you two wouldn’t have a red box to trip over, so maybe you’d be safe.”

“Whose side are you on?” Luciana asks.

Stella’s eyes glitter. “Mine.”

~//~

“It’s not impossible,” Rachel says, as they ride the escalator down to the underground passage between Portcullis House and Parliament. “You just have to have good boundaries and be ruthlessly practical about keeping communication lines open.”

Luciana resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Can we talk about something other than my non-existent love life? I am not defined by my vagina.”

The Tory in front of them nearly trips and falls down the escalator. A missed opportunity. But then his majority is over ten thousand, if she remembers correctly, so it wouldn’t have made much difference, she supposes. Although it would have been hilarious. West Yorkshire MP Killed By Vagina - that would be the Daily Mail. Or Luciana’s Vagina of Death. Or...

Oops. Rachel is talking. Luciana tunes back in.

“...not saying that, but you can’t deny the way he looks at you.”

Luciana hops off the escalator and speeds up to pass the Tory, making sure to smile widely at him as she goes by, just to unnerve him further. “If I shagged everyone who looked at me like Chuka does, I’d be spending most of the day on my back instead of in the Chamber.”

Too late, she realises they’ve just passed the Shadow Cabinet room. Not quite the impression she wants to be making...

“If we have to discuss this, would you mind waiting until we’re not in public? This is the way rumours get started.”

Rachel looks at her with a mixture of pity and amusement, and holds the door to Westminster Hall open. “You think the rumours haven’t already started?”

“Forget it,” Luciana says, with a sigh.

~//~

“It would obviously be Wanton Trollop Slays Good Family Man,” Stella says. “Or Beware the Killer Vaginas. Or...”

Luciana throws a chip at her. “That’s enough.”

“Oh wait,” Stella says, already chortling at herself, which is a very unattractive quality. “I have it! Chuka Umunna’s Girlfriend Kills Tory MP.”

“I despise you,” Luciana says.

~//~

“It’s not my business,” Yvette says, just as Luciana’s about to leave her office.

Luciana bites her lip and settles back into her chair. She knows exactly what’s coming. Only one thing does when people use that tone.

“Just,” Yvette says, tidying a stack of paper and smiling tiredly, “I do know something of what it’s like to have a two-body problem in politics.”

“We’re not together,” Luciana says, as politely as she can.

It’s as if Yvette hasn’t heard her. “It’s just that you’re both so ambitious, and that can be a good thing, but it’s also just so hard to balance two enormous ambitions. If you’re aren’t in love yet...” She breaks off, with a wry smile. “I’m a wonderful person to be dictating these things. The heart wants what it wants, I know, and damn the consequences.”

“My heart doesn’t want him,” Luciana says, opting for diplomacy.

Yvette nods, and pulls out her Blackberry, which is demanding attention. “If things don’t work out, I hear civil servants are a good choice,” she says, already half distracted. “They understand the pressures of the job better than civilians but don’t have the same ambitions as those in the business.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Luciana says, and makes her escape.

~//~

“I thought I should talk to you, Luciana, about some rumours I’ve been hearing. I have to ask the question – will your relationship with Chuka disrupt the working dynamics...”

Luciana has managed to climb half over the table and slap a hand over Stella’s mouth. “Shut up! He wouldn’t say that!”

Stella’s eyes glitter merrily at her over her restraining hand.

“And your impression sucks,” Luciana adds, for good measure.

Stella says something incomprehensible which Luciana interprets as a slurred “I’ll bite!” She quickly removes her hand.

Stella’s teeth gleam under the erratic lights in the bar. “Do that again and I’ll take your fingers off.”

Luciana makes a face at her. “Do that impression again and I’ll throw my beer at you.”

“As if you could do better,” Stella says, comfortably, retrieving her own pint. “Go on.”

“I’m already fighting off rumours about who I’m shagging. I’m not going to add rumours about the time I got pissed and started doing Ed Miliband impressions.”

Stella shrugs. “Suit yourself.” She leverages herself up. “Get you another?”

Luciana looks down, and sees the bottom of her glass winking up at her. “Why not.”

“Just think about this,” Stella says, over her shoulder, already halfway out into the fray. “If you’re getting all the rumours and gossip about shagging Chuka, why not just fucking do it and have the fun?”

~//~

She runs into Sally on a back staircase. “Coming back from a rendezvous, are we?” Sally asks, with a wicked grin.

“No,” Luciana says, vexed. “I’m not sleeping with Chuka.”

Sally’s grin grows wider. “Well, if you’re not, I have a proposition.”

And that is how Luciana ends up naked over John’s lap, his hand coming down hard and ruthless, as she bites back a moan and tries not to squirm...and then she is sprawled bonelessly on the Speakerly bed, John’s head between her legs, Sally’s hand holding it there, her own hands clutching desperately at the sheets...and then Sally is strapping on a harness and pushing into John, rocking him further into Luciana, and Luciana is looking at the taut ecstatic lines of John’s faces and finding herself convulsing helplessly around his cock, falling falling falling, as Sally fucks them both into the bed...

...and then Chuka is sticking his head into the room and saying “Why hello there”...

...and Luciana wakes up, her breath sobbing into the emptiness of her room, and pushes a hand down her pyjamas without a second thought, tumbling into release in moments.

Only after does she catch her breath, collect her thoughts, curse her subconscious, and begin to admit that she just may have a problem.

(About Chuka. The Bercovian fantasies are not new, and while embarrassing, manageable, since they are firmly out of reach. Damn impartial Speaker.

Chuka, on the other hand, is very much not out of reach...)

~//~

“So,” Stella says, looking up at her dubiously, her finger still marking her place, “let me get this straight.”

Luciana flops into a chair and waits.

“You want to shag Chuka so that he’ll stop showing up in your sex dreams.”

“And so people will stop thinking we’re together.”

Stella blinks. “Has a Tory given you something to drink today? How will shagging Chuka mean that people will stop thinking you’re shagging him?”

“I’ll do it once and then let word get out that it wasn’t satisfactory and we’re over.”

“Very ruthless of you,” Stella says, approvingly. “Isn’t that a bit hard on Chuka, though?”

Luciana makes a face. “Have you seen him recently? He won’t have any trouble finding anyone else. In fact, it’ll probably do him good – all politicians like a challenge.”

“Mmhmm,” Stella says, noncommittally.

“I just want my life to stop being about penises!” Luciana wails.

Stella winces. “Maybe not quite so loudly. My researcher gossips.”

“Like you don’t,” Luciana says, but her heart’s not in it.

“Well,” Stella says, decisively, “if you’re going to shag Chuka only the once you should make the most of it. Pick a night when the House isn’t sitting, remember to eat dinner so that you have the energy to go more than one round, turn off your phone so that no one can ring you during, including and particularly Ed Miliband, and take notes.”

“Take notes?”

Stella grins. “I want to hear all about it.”

“As if,” Luciana says.

~//~

It’s not that the sex is bad. It’s just not incredibly good, either.

Partly it’s because she’s tired, to be fair. She’s practically living on the Parliamentary estate. Her own flat feels almost alien, stuffy air and spare walls and a forgotten aubergine mouldering in the bowels of the fridge.

Partly it’s because she can’t turn off her mind, can’t help her thoughts straying to written answers and oral questions and upcoming meetings, even as Chuka mouths at her collarbone and slips a finger under her bra.

Partly it’s because she feels pushed into it – not actually pushed into it, of course, but she doesn’t think they’d have ever made it here, flirtation beside, without the constant chatter. Is it passion or exhaustion that has brought her into Chuka’s gorgeous arms?

But partly – and mostly – it’s because Chuka is so smooth, so practised, so perfectly polished. He’s a quick learner, and he soon knows how to make her shudder, how to make her moan, how to make her come. He’s almost painfully courteous and considerate – she’s had three orgasms before he’s even close to his first. He’s gorgeous and beautiful and skilled.

He deserves a woman who will adore him.

Not a woman who longs for a bit less perfection, for scratching and wrestling and laughing, for messy imperfect passionate sex that isn’t about polish and technique but about the tearing of clothes and the franticness of tongues and the utter impossibility about thinking of anything else except here now more yes you me us.

He pushes inside her, and stills, his eyes shut, giving himself a moment to catch his breath, and she watches the tiny furrow on his brow, and wants to break that calm. She wants to flip them over, hold his hands down and ride him until that control shatters and he sobs under her, begging to be allowed to touch her again, begging for release. She wants to bring her hands up and drag her fingernails down his back, drawing blood. She wants to drink in his moans and lose control of her own.

She knows she could try to take what she wants – she is no shrinking violet, no little woman, and if she started to set a different tone, perhaps Chuka would follow. Perhaps he is holding back out of the same shyness that stays her own hand. Perhaps if she dared to be wild, she’d see an entirely new side of Chuka.

But she doesn’t dare, somehow...doesn’t dare, or doesn’t want, to face the vulnerability of her wildness.

And so she settles for perfection and polish.

~//~

Stella doesn’t ask how it went. She fetches tea.

“He’s perfect,” Luciana says finally, determined to be fair.

“Too perfect?” Stella asks, when Luciana doesn’t continue.

“Too perfect,” Luciana agrees, with a sigh.

They sit in silence for a minute, sipping their tea.

“Well,” Stella says, finally, “that’s that, then. You weren’t going to stay with him anyway. Aren’t you glad he didn’t turn out to be amazing?”

Luciana has to laugh. “I suppose. I guess I must have had some secret hope that it would work out. Which is annoying.”

“Would have been an incredible embarrassment, after you spent so much time telling everyone that you weren’t together,” Stella agrees.

Luciana glares at her.

“I’ll just go deploy the gossip machine,” Stella says, hurriedly. “You’ll be officially broken up with Chuka by lunchtime.”

“Be nice,” Luciana says.

“I’m always nice,” Stella says. “He has the cutest two-inch penis you’ve ever seen, and he kisses so nicely, despite his bad breath, that it totally makes up for the fact that he doesn’t know where the clitoris is.”

“I hate you,” Luciana says.

~//~

“I was sorry to hear about you and Chuka,” Harriet says.

Luciana forces a smile on. “Oh, it’s all right, we’re still friends. We just decided we’d be better friends than partners.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Harriet says, approvingly, pausing to wrinkle her nose at the Szechuan Quorn that’s being passed off as edible.

Luciana takes a breath of relief.

“Next time,” Harriet continues, over her shoulder, “I’d stay away from MPs if you’re after a relationship. Romance is hard to sustain on one MP’s schedule, let alone two. Now granted, we are good at flings in cupboards.”

The Commons food worker restocking the sandwiches freezes.

“Thanks,” Luciana says, covering her wince with a smile.

~//~

“Maybe you should date the sandwich worker,” Stella says. “Was it the cute one with the spiky hair?”

“You’re very helpful,” Luciana tells her.

Stella shrugs. “He’d be able to keep you from getting food poisoning. This place is a menace.”

“I am not interested in dating the sandwich worker,” Luciana says, very slowly and clearly. “I am not interested in dating at all. I am married to my work.”

“Uh-huh,” Stella says, and dodges the rolled Order Paper aimed in her direction.

~//~

Caroline pulls her aside before the next Shadow DECC meeting. “Are you broken-hearted? Do I need to be making allowances?”

“No, and not at all,” Luciana says.

“Good,” Caroline says. “Can you carry these? I’m about to drop some of them.”

~//~

“Always knew I liked her,” Stella says. “Although Yvette is still my favourite.”

Luciana rolls her eyes. “You’re just saying that because Ed’s lasagne makes you think there really is a God.”

“Oh please,” Stella says, “what kind of God would have the name of Balls? Now a Goddess named...”

“We are in the middle of Westminster Tube Station,” Luciana says, with desperate calm. “Do not dare to finish that thought.”

“Shall I mime it instead? I can touch that part of my anatomy.”

“Please don’t,” Luciana says.

“All right,” Stella allows. “Since you ask so nicely, dearest.”

~//~

“Mind if I sit down for a minute?”

Luciana looks up. “Not at all.”

Jo sinks down across from her. “I hope I’m not bothering you, but I had a question.”

Something inside Luciana abruptly snaps. “No, I’m not dating Chuka anymore, no, I never really was, not really, no, I’m not broken-hearted, no, I don’t want to hear about how to negotiate the two-body problem from someone who’s been there, thank you very much, and no, I’m not interested in civil servants or sandwich workers or anyone else on the bloody planet.”

Jo looks at her.

Luciana drops her head in her hands. “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry. I just...”

“Had too much input,” Jo says. “Happens.”

“I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, I’m sorry. You and Duncan seem to have a lovely relationship, I’d love your advice.”

Jo snorts. “No, you wouldn’t. Don’t be polite, it doesn’t suit you. Pick your head up.”

Luciana obeys.

“It’ll blow over,” Jo says. “It always does. You’re gorgeous, so everyone’s always going to be interested to some extent, but Chuka will start shagging Stella Creasy or someone, or who knows, Zac Goldsmith, and everyone will move on. MPs have ludicrously short attention spans, and they tend to jump at the word ‘shiny’. Give it a week, two tops. Tissue?”

Luciana accepts the proffered tissue and blows her nose. “It’s not like I haven’t experienced this before, with Siôn and Euan. It’s just different this time, somehow.”

“You’re an MP this time,” Jo says. “You want to focus on work and it’s frustrating for people to focus on you as a sex object. It’s less infuriating when it’s the other person who’s famous.”

Luciana sighs. “I guess that’s it.”

“My only advice,” Jo says, “is to not let yourself get pushed into anything. Do what you want to do, not what anyone else wants you to do. You only get one life.” She sits back in her chair. “Lots of people told me that Duncan was never going to go anywhere, and that I should be looking for someone more established – marrying up, as it were, instead of what they saw as down – but fuck that. Being in politics is brutal on relationships, and really the only way to make them work is to build them on an incredibly deep foundation of understanding and affection. And you’re the only good judge of that, not anybody outside. So forget everyone else.”

Luciana blows her nose again.

“Anyway,” Jo says, “My question was actually nothing to do with your sex life and everything to do with climate change. You up for that?”

“Always,” Luciana says, gratefully.

~//~

“Are you interested in Chuka?” Luciana asks, before she’s even shut Stella’s door fully.

Stella looks up from her papers. “What?”

Luciana sinks into her favourite chair and folds her feet up underneath her. “Jo mentioned offhand that Chuka might start dating you. Is there something I’ve been missing here?”

Stella laughs. “I promise you, I’m not interested in Chuka’s two-inch penis.”

“If that becomes a real rumour, I am going to murder you,” Luciana says, with deep foreboding.

“With your killer vagina?” Stella asks lightly, flagging her place and setting her work aside.

Luciana narrows her eyebrows. “Hey. How come my love life is the talk of Parliament and you’re getting off completely free? That’s really not fair.”

“Well, the two of you are gorgeous, aren’t you, and the combination would be quite a powerhouse...”

“Nuh-uh,” Luciana says, shaking her head. “You’re gorgeous too. Why isn’t there talk of you dating, oh, Chris Evans or someone?”

Stella shrugs. “Who knows why rumours get started? I suppose you’ve deflected all the attention at the moment.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Luciana says, darkly.

~//~

She knows she’s dreaming, because it’s summer. She’s standing in Parliament Square, and the grass is green underneath her feet.

She’s happy in her dream, bone-deep fireside-warm happy, and she spins in place, lifting her face up to the sunshine.

Even in the midst of her happiness, she finds herself waiting for the moment when Chuka will stride onto the square and upset her idyll. Through no fault of his own, he seems to have become her bête noire...

“Luciana?”

Her name is being called, by a familiar, laughing voice.

She opens her eyes against the sunshine, to see a figure coming toward her, hair catching the sun, smile brighter than the light.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Chuka appear on the far side of the square, but the figure coming toward her steps in front of him, and he vanishes from her sight.

“Luciana,” the voice says again, fond and cheerful, and she finds herself reaching out her hand, swinging their hands together in the warm summer air.

She wakes in her bed, alone, and stares at the ceiling for a long time.

~//~

“Dreams are funny things,” Luciana tells Stella over breakfast.

“Are they,” Stella says, obviously only half-listening, her eyes glued to a thick report, which she is valiantly trying to protect from baked bean drips.

“Do you have to do that right now?” Luciana asks.

“Sorry,” Stella says, without looking up. “Chris is supposed to, but he won’t, unless Yvette has a Word again. Better to be prepared in case she doesn’t have time.”

“I’m trying to talk to you,” Luciana says, feeling peevish.

“About your dreams?” Stella says, only faintly sarcastic. Either her morning coffee hasn’t fully taken effect yet, or she’s too distracted to put a full effort in. “Did Chuka show up again?”

“That’s not important.”

That does get Stella’s attention. She looks up. “What? You’ve only been going on about Chuka this, Chuka that for forever now.”

“It hasn’t been forever,” Luciana says, but that’s not the battle she wants to be fighting at the moment. “Anyway, Chuka’s not important anymore.”

“And whyever not?” Stella says.

Luciana swallows. “Because I realised who is.”

She didn’t have the courage to make herself vulnerable for Chuka, who should matter someday to some very lucky woman but who never mattered to her. But for this, in this moment, she finds the courage she needs.

She reaches her hand across the table and rests it on Stella’s, resisting the urge to bite her lip, or to look away from Stella’s penetrating eyes.

“I think,” she says, over a faint roaring in her ears, and already she is feeling more than she ever did with Chuka in her bed, “that I’ve been falling in love with you for oh, ages.”

Stella’s hand is still under hers, Stella’s eyes thoughtful, Stella’s report and baked beans lying forgotten. Luciana concentrates on breathing.

And then Stella smiles – not her ordinary smile, sharp with teeth and mischief, but something softer – and Luciana forgets how to breathe.

“I know,” Stella says.

Luciana would throw toast at her, but Stella’s hand has turned over, and their fingers lace together, chaste but promising. So perhaps toast-throwing can be deferred for another time.

A much later time.

“I’d kiss you right here and now,” Stella says, “but I think you’ve had enough of being a spectacle for other people.”

Part of Luciana wants to say “Do it,” but another part thinks that kissing will rapidly turn into something else, something that she does not particularly want to happen in the middle of the Members’ Dining Room.

“Are you done with breakfast?” she says instead.

Stella laughs softly. “Are you interested in investigating whether I am less perfectly perfect at sex than Chuka?”

“Yes,” Luciana says, bluntly, and watches Stella’s eyes darken.

“Well then,” Stella says, swallowing. “Give me a moment.”

She gathers up her report, stands up, and strides across the room. “Here, Christopher,” Luciana can faintly hear over the hubbub that is morning in Parliament. “Read your own reports, or I’ll tell Yvette on you.”

A few moments later, she is back. “Coming?”

Luciana looks up at her. Winter sunshine peeps through the windows and catches the gold in her hair, making it glow. She is smiling, her eyes dancing.

“Yes,” Luciana says, and reaches up to take her hand.

~//~