handsomewrites

[handsomewrites]

i just wanted thank you for the god work you did with that one silcoxtransmasc. I know its been years but,, i crave transmasc content and it was so good, 10/10. So I hope your days are going good, author🙏

omg thank you.... I can't believe it's been so long already. I had a second one, like, half-written that I really should go back and finish. And a third one planned where the reader tops......

also I can't deny that I've been rotating manbun silco in my brain since the show dropped so maybe.............. maybe there's something there........................

[handsomewrites]

not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…

‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.

even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.

I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.

fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.

idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.

[handsomewrites]

I think I got some new dndads followers recently so heres a post to say im always down for requests or ideas or just shooting the shit about anything

and by "open to" i mean "constantly craving"

[handsomewrites]

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[handsomewrites]

Coparents with Benefits; ch.4

The last day of the field trip is always the sleepiest, especially when you didn't really sleep much the night before.

read on ao3 here

At breakfast the next morning, Glenn and Jodie sat at opposite ends of the long cafeteria table. No one sat between them.

Glenn knew, logically, he would have to talk to Jodie again eventually. But waking up in bed with his arch-enemy really made their usual back-and-forth a little awkward. Plus, Jodie kept looking at him with a weird look on his face -- like he wanted to say or do something, and he was holding himself back. Luckily it was an extremely punchable look on his already-punchable face, so Glenn figured it wouldn’t be too long before he was ready to go back to insulting him like normal. 

After everyone ate, the teachers spoke to the kids again, explaining something about the assignments they were expected to complete in the upcoming week and the plans for disembarking the island. They were given the chance to make groups and start their projects in the time before the ferry came, with an open offer to ask questions to the staff.

That sounded like A+ 'sit around and do nothing' time to Glenn, so he kicked his feet up on the table and leaned his chair onto its back two legs. He'd left a pair of sunglasses in one of the inner pockets of his jacket, which he flicked open and put on to hide his eyes in case he dozed off.

He probably would. He hadn't exactly slept too well last night...

Stupid sexy Jodie.

No, wait. Stupid not-sexy jerk cop loser Jodie.

The glasses gave him the freedom to glance down the table without being noticed -- Jodie was still down there, of course. He was looking at his phone in his right hand, the left idly spinning his wedding ring. Glenn still had his own wedding ring hanging on a chain around his neck under the thin fabric of his t-shirt. 

For some reason, the metal of it always stayed a little cool against his skin. Jodie’s ring warms with his hands, which kind of makes sense. They’re hotter than the hands of a regular human; hot like the sun, or the fires of the hell that burns in his veins, or the hot passion he has for being a huge bag of dicks. Glenn may be a demon too, but he actually runs a little colder now than he had in life. Maybe because he died into it, where Jodie was born into it.

Ugh, why was he still thinking about Jodie? A frown crossed his face as he tried to clear his mind and think of something else.

Music. He'd heard some of the emo music Grant and Terry listen to a few weeks back when he was hanging around Darryl's place -- invited as a taste-tester to his and Ron's newest beer recipe, but eventually hanging out for a while because he had nothing better to do. It wasn't bad, really. The chord progressions were simple. Maybe if he mixed it over with one of the classics, it could be something fresh.

His fingers twitched as he mapped out chords in his mind, flipping through songs in his head to imagine what might mesh well with what he'd heard. He wished he had his guitar on him. It was quiet enough without an amp that he could test a few things out without being a distraction. It was a Fender Professional Telecaster, with a solid black alder body and a gorgeous rosewood fretboard. It was probably the second most satisfying guitar he'd ever had. The first was the Battleaxe of Hatred, but of course, that had broken when it released the demon trapped inside...

Wait. That demon was Jodie. Was Jodie aware of what was going on outside the guitar while he was trapped there? Glenn felt the blood drain from his face as he remembered some of the things he said and did in the presence of that gorgeous, gorgeous instrument.

Fuck.

He tried to backtrack through his time with it to remember if anything had been absolutely damning. Jodie hadn’t mentioned anything, so either he wasn’t aware of what was going on outside of it, or he was too awkward to mention anything weird. He couldn’t remember saying anything that he wouldn’t say in front of Jodie now, or about any other guitar, but... 

The idea that all that time, he'd been holding Jodie Foster against his body, gently running his fingers up and down the frets. He could imagine Jodie would be uncomfortable with that. Or-- his brain supplied an image before he could stop it. Hands trailing down Jodie's bare chest the same way they had moved down his strings, his face looking a lot like it had last night----

Glenn startled violently awake, scrabbling for a moment to stay upright before gravity pulled his chair backwards and onto the ground. His glasses hit the floor next to him, but he snatched them up before they finished their second bounce to try and hide his reddened face.

When he sat up, some of the kids and teachers were looking over, seemingly concerned. Jodie was also looking over at him. Glenn cleared his throat as he stood, brushing off his jeans. "Sorry. Fell asleep. All good." His eyes flicked to Jodie, then away. "I'm gonna, uh. Go piss."

He felt eyes on his back as he walked outside towards the bathrooms, fists shoved in his pockets.

Stupid sexy jerk loser motherfucking Jodie.

---

Glenn spent enough time in the bathroom splashing water on his face and reconsidering everything in his life that led him to the very stupid crisis he was currently experiencing that when he returned, the teachers had started loading kids back onto the ferry to go home. That was fine by him. Either Jodie or Nick had chucked his overnight bag in the cargo hold/luggage pile already, so he was good to go. (Or maybe Henry had. Glenn hadn't actually seen Henry yet today, but he was probably around here somewhere.)

He ended up bringing up the rear of the group, getting pulled aside to help a teacher count heads. Once the stragglers were rounded up and the boat shoved off, Glenn was left choosing a seat from the few left over.

His boots clomped up the stairs to the upper deck. Henry must have taken some kind of anti-nausea this time around, because he was on a bench near the back, leaned forward to talk to Jodie and Nick in the bench ahead of him. Jodie looked a little flustered, or irritated, avoiding eye contact with Nick (who was wearing a shit-eating smirk) and Henry (who patted him on the shoulder with a chuckle).  Henry was the first to spot Glenn coming up, so he stood, leaning forward to say one more thing to them before moving over to Lark and Sparrow's bench across the deck.

Glenn was fully prepared to find a seat somewhere else, but Nick caught his eye and smiled his big cute Nick smile, waving him over. "We saved you a seat!" he yelled, loud enough to make the kids in front of him flinch, and Glenn couldn't hold back a chuckle as he walked over. Nick scooted a little closer to Jodie, patting the bench on his other side.

Well, that ruined Glenn’s plan to avoid Jodie for as long as possible, but it’s not like he could turn down Nick even when he wasn’t looking up at him with those big, sweet eyes staring expectantly at him. He flopped down onto the seat, arm automatically moving to rest on the back of the chair behind his son. Instead of hitting the bench, though, it hit another arm -- Jodie’s, which was already back there, upper arm resting on the plastic with his hand on Nick’s shoulder. He flinched away. Nick didn’t seem to notice, but Jodie caught his eye. 

They looked at each other for what felt like minutes, but it was probably just a few moments. Jodie’s eyes were passably human again, but they stayed a weird shade of violetish-indigo-blue and deeper than the depths of the ocean below them. His expression was saying... something, something that Glenn couldn’t put into words but he somehow sort of got the jist of.

He put his arm back up on the back of the bench, crossing his forearm over Jodie’s to rest on Nick’s other shoulder. Nick looked up at him with an expression like sunshine, then over to Jodie with the same, as he rode back to the mainland between his two demon dads.

[handsomewrites]

Coparents with Benefits; ch.3

Jodie survived his close encounter with nature, but will he survive a close encounter with Glenn close?

Will Glenn?

read on ao3 here

They didn’t see Jodie again until they had gathered up all the kids after dinner, about to start their hike up the big hill. He looked tired, and his hair was mussed, like he’d been running his hands through it. He seemed otherwise normal, though. Just as stiff-upper-lip as always.

He lagged behind a bit during the hike itself, which Glenn hardly noticed, because Nick was talking to a girl and he was trying to eavesdrop without being too obvious about it. It would’ve worked better if they were in a building, or at least not walking at the same time, but he couldn’t keep up while also being quiet enough to hear what they were saying.

Before he knew it, they had reached the peak of their ascent -- a clearing with what even Glenn had to admit was an impressive view of the sky. The sun was still setting, casting a haze of pink and purple across the horizon. If the guys were here, he would’ve made some snide remark about Henry jizzing his pants about it, but they wouldn’t have laughed anyway.

Blankets were already laid out on the grass, probably by the staff or the more responsible chaperones. Nick was already sitting on one with the girl, so Glenn gave him some space, choosing one of the blankets along the back of the group. Henry got a blanket with his boys, which was sweet. It’s not often those two settle down enough to have quality time, he’d imagine.

As the hill filled with teenagers, he caught sight of Jodie hovering around the edge of the clearing. He waved him over, free hand pulling the cling-wrapped sandwich out of his pocket as Jodie approached.

"Have you eaten?" Glenn patted the blanket next to him, and Jodie flopped onto it.

"No. I took a shower while waiting for the bison to leave, to cool off and relax a bit. And by the time I was done, you were all heading out..."

Glenn handed the sandwich over as Jodie trailed off. He didn't take it right away, so Glenn looked over to see what the issue was, and was met with a quizzical expression.

"What? I didn't want your stomach growling to interrupt the learning, or whatever." He scowled, shaking it a bit. "Just take it, before I throw it into the trees for Yogi Bear."

"I don't think they have bears here," Jodie said, taking the sandwich. Then, quieter: "Thanks."

"Yeah. No prob."

Glenn watched the sun set and the stars twinkle into view as Jodie ate, resting his chin on crossed arms supported on his knees. The kids kept their volume at a low murmur, talking in hushed tones which felt appropriate for the cool evening breeze. 

He snuck a peek at Nick, to see how he was doing. He must have kept that old Close charm, because the girl was laughing at something he said, hand resting lightly on his forearm. Glenn felt a bit proud, and tried not to think of Morgan.

A new teacher sat in the center of the kids, pointing out constellations in a quiet, almost soothing murmur. For as much as Glenn didn't care about the biology lessons earlier, he cared even less about patterns made up to link the stars together. He laid back and pillowed his head on his arms to stare out into space, letting his eyes wander between the twinkling stars of their own accord. There was less light pollution out here, so there was a good view of the sky, more than he usually saw.

Honestly, he almost forgot Jodie was next to him. He almost reached into his inner pocket for the blunt that he saved for the end of every day, filled with the strain of weed that dropped him low enough to fall asleep without issue.

When he looked over, Jodie was just... sitting there. Legs crossed, head tilted back to look at the sky. Not paying him any mind at all. He expected Jodie to be watching the kids, or him, or something. Maybe pacing the edge of the woods, patrolling for predators. It was odd. Glenn took his apparent indifference as permission to light up.

He took a long, slow inhale of herbaceous smoke, paired with an equally long, slow exhale. On his second inhale, he saw Jodie's nose crunch. Jodie looked over, then down at Glenn, then rolled his eyes.

“It is legal, you know,” Glenn pointed out, more smoke escaping with his words.

“Yeah, but it's—We're on a school field trip.” Jodie flopped backwards to lay parallel to Glenn, a sigh huffing from his chest. “Could you at least be more subtle about it? You're like a goddamn chimney.”

“Sure,” Glenn said, a bit of a laugh in his voice. He did make an effort to exhale smaller puffs of smoke, angled away from Jodie. He could feel the other man radiating agitation next to him, and did something he honestly never thought he would survive doing.

“Do you want a hit?”

The agitation turned to indignation, and Glenn turned his head to look at him.

“It won't fuck you up, man, it's a mellow strain. Chills you out, relaxes the nerves. It helps me sleep at night.” He turned his gaze towards the sky as he spoke, blunt-hand held halfway between his body and Jodie's. “Otherwise I have a hell of a time falling asleep, and if I do sleep, it's...”

He trailed off. He didn't really want to admit that he was still having nightmares to Jodie, of all people. Especially now that a third of the nightmares were about the death of his wife who was still alive and not technically his wife, and another third of them were about...

Another third of them were about someone taking away a son that wasn't technically his son. He took another hit.

“It just calms my mind,” he finished instead.

The joint smoldered quietly between them as Glenn studied a star in the sky. The north star, his idiot brain supplied, because it's the brightest one in the sky. Or is that one the brightest? It's kind of hard to judge them against each other while they twinkle and shit.

His mind had wandered sufficiently far from upsetting topics when he felt Jodie gently remove the blunt from his hand. “I just... inhale it like a cigarette?”

“Yeah. Hold the smoke in your lungs for a few seconds, though. And don't take too deep of a pull, or you'll choke on it.”

Glenn turned his head to watch Jodie raise it to his mouth and take a moderate-sized inhale of smoke. He passed the joint back as he held it in, and to his credit, only coughed once on the exhale.

“See? That wasn't so bad.”

“Not a word of this, Glenn.”

“Scout’s honor.”

He passed the joint back to Jodie twice more before it was spent, which is more than he thought the narc would be able to handle. Must be the demon side of him rather than the cop side.

Glenn was counting the stars in a pleasant haze when the kids started getting up, folding the blankets and piling them where the soft-spoken astronomy teacher directed them. He hoisted himself up to a seated position, stretching for long enough to pop his back, then looked over at Jodie.

Jodie was still laying there, one arm folded behind his head, eyes closed and face lax. His chest rose and fell slowly, in a way that could only be sleep. He didn't snore, though.

Glenn watched him for a few moments. He wasn't usually this relaxed or vulnerable around others, especially around Glenn. Even asleep in their cabin last night, there had been a scowl on his face. But here, now, he looked... peaceful.

The annoying part of Glenn’s brain had to admit that Jodie Foster was an attractive man -- when he wasn't in a cop uniform and wasn't standing like he had a stick up his ass, anyway. His chest was broad and strong, a combination of cop training and demonic genetics, with a narrow waist which gave him that reversed-dorito silhouette. There was a little dimple in his chin, barely noticeable. Jaw square enough to cut with, clean-shaven every morning but already growing a bit of evening stubble which made him look a little rough around the edges...

God. Fuck. What was he thinking? Maybe he mixed something weird into his bedtime blend. There must be something wrong. He stood up, brushing off his jeans with a huff. Stupid Jodie and his stupid pretty face. He stepped off the blanket and grabbed its edge, pulling it up hard enough to roll Jodie's sleeping body off of it. Jodie woke with a snort, arms flailing a bit in a half-asleep half-stoned attempt to defend himself.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” Glenn groused, starting a shitty attempt to fold the blanket. “Time to hike back.”

---

The trek back down the hill was very quiet. The kids had a long day, and were finally tired out — the chaperones had the same long day, but they'd been tired out for a few hours now. One of Henry's twins was passed out and slung across his fathers' back to be carried. Glenn wasn't sure he could piggyback carry Nick any more, but he was also fairly sure Nick wouldn't want him to.

Jodie went straight back to the cabin, looking a bit more awake than most of the other parents after his little nap. Glenn went to the bathrooms to take a hot shower first, letting the steam relax his muscles the same way the weed had relaxed his mind.

When he got back to the cabin, Jodie was still awake, which was a little surprising. Maybe he would've put a shirt on if he'd known, but Glenn wasn't ashamed of much of anything, especially not his body. Jodie looked up from his book when Glenn walked in, but he looked back down almost immediately upon seeing him.

“Hey Jodie,” he hummed as he passed by, idly drying his hair in a hand towel.

“Glenn.” Not much of a greeting. Glenn had thought they were starting to become friends, but apparently not.

“Ooookay,” Glenn answered with a laugh, flopping down onto his own bed.

“What?”

“Nothin', man, nothin'. Hey, why didn't you go demon on that buffalo earlier? You didn't have to kill him, you could've just...” He tossed his arms out to the sides to mimic Jodie's usually impressive wings. “Spooked him, you know?”

Jodie closed his book around a finger, frowning. “With my luck, it would have stampeded through camp or something...”

Glenn rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. From where he was sitting, Jodie seemed to have just fine luck — he was the one with the wife, and the son, and the fucking ten-foot wingspan.

“Plus, Nicholas has been saying for a while now he's excited to have a normal human field trip. I don't want to bring demon bullshit into that.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Glenn conceded.

“You didn't exactly help,” Jodie groused, putting a marker in his book and tucking it away.

“The fuck was I supposed to do, man? The girl said all we could do was wait.“

”You at least didn't have to enjoy it so much.“

Glenn rolled his eyes. ”You're a real piece of work, Joe, you know that? You ever think there's a reason you don't have friends?“

”Fuck you, I've got plenty of friends. At least I've got more of a personality than 420 blaze it.“

”Yeah, because cop is such a good personality.“

”It’s better!“ Jodie was the first to raise his voice, which Glenn counted as a point towards victory in his column. ”At least being a cop is respectable!“

Glenn snorted. ”Respectable, my ass.“

”Cops protect people,“ Jodie snarled, pointing an accusatory finger towards Glenn. ”And it's a job that provides for my family — I don't think you could ever say the same.“

”You're a traffic cop,“ Joe.” Glenn sat up and rotated to look at Jodie, humor gone from his face. “You're not protecting jack shit. You're a glorified meter maid.”

“Fuck you, Glenn,” Jodie barked, standing up. Glenn stood up to match.

“What'cha gonna do, Joe? Give me a ticket?”

Jodie's fists clenched at his sides, and he stepped forward. Glenn crossed his arms over his chest, a smug smirk on his face, one hip popped casually to the side.

“Oh? You gonna hit me? No demon shit, but I'm sure Nick will love you giving me a normal human black eye, huh?”

“His name's Nicholas,” Jodie growled through his teeth, taking another step to close the distance between them.

Later, when thinking back, Glenn would swear there was something not right in the bedtime blunt, or maybe just that he'd never fought with Jodie after smoking it. There was definitely something... different, about this fight, that he couldn't put a finger on.

He took the last half-step he could, looking up at Jodie's face with his shit-eating grin. The cop was a half-head taller than him, which on a usual day would frustrate him, but not tonight. He still looked human, but there was a furious fire burning in his eyes, and the teeth showing from his snarl almost looked like fangs.

Glenn put his hands on Jodie's chest, smirk widening as he looked up at that stupid handsome face.

“Jodie Foster. You want to fuck me so bad, it makes you look stupid.”

Jodie’s eyes widened, rage crossing his features in a way Glenn had never seen before. The temperature of the room rose a few degrees, but he kept his glamor mostly under control, and nothing caught on fire, which was a win. 

Part of Glenn’s brain derailed to try and come up with a way his impending homicide could not ruin Nick’s school trip. Hopefully Jodie’s demonization stripped away enough of his Catholic guilt to let him lie about Glenn heading home early, or something.

A clawed hand wrapped into the front of Glenn’s shirt, and Jodie used it to lift him the few inches he needed to be eye-level. Glenn’s self-assured smirk didn’t falter, though it was hard to look cool when your feet aren’t touching the ground.

Then Jodie’s mouth was on his. His eyes fell closed, and his hands came up of their own will to dig his nails into the back of Jodie’s neck. He felt them slowly shift back into claws, and dug them a little harder into Jodie’s skin, drawing a snarl out of the taller demon. 

Jodie broke the kiss off with a disgusted sneer. “I can’t fuckin’ stand you,” he growled, dropping Glenn back onto his feet. His pupils had turned to slits, like they did in his demon form, but besides that and the claws he still looked human.

“What, still human? It’s just you and me here, Joe.” Glenn waved a hand towards the door, causing it to make a knock sound followed by the click of a lock. “Let yourself go.” Jodie rolled his eyes.

“Oh, I’m so impressed, you know the knock spell. Some shit I learned in grade school.” His free hand came up to grab Glenn’s face, claws digging uncomfortably into the meat of his cheeks as he ducked to kiss him again. 

Despite his quip, when Glenn reached up to tangle his hands in Jodie’s hair, he felt Jodie’s horns were free -- tall, thin horns, which added a solid foot and a half to the asshole’s already too-tall height. His own horns curved around his head rather than shooting straight up, and his skin was reddish rather than Jodie’s indigo. He let his own glamor fall as Jodie bit down on his lower lip, drawing a gasp from somewhere deep in his chest. Jodie’s tongue invaded as soon as he was given the opportunity, his mouth full of more demon tongue than one would expect Jodie to have in there just by looking at him. His hands twisted hard in Jodie’s hair, warmth rolling over in his stomach as a too-hot tongue traced across his soft palate and nearly licked his goddamn tonsils.

Jodie broke away from the kiss, a little out of breath. A frankly embarrassing amount of saliva connected them as they separated, but Jodie didn’t seem to notice, his tail whipping back and forth behind him like a cat about to pounce. “You taste like weed, you useless fucking stoner.” 

Out of breath, Glenn snorted, taking a few seconds to pant out a response. “You taste like bacon.”

“--What?”

A toothy smirk. “Oink oink, little pig.”

Jodie roughly shoved him down onto his bed. “Every day it’s a test not to fucking kill you. The only reason I don’t is because you would just come back again.” 

Rolling his eyes, Glenn hooked a foot behind Jodie’s knee, yanking him off-balance. He sat up at the same time, catching Jodie by the shoulders. “You talk too much,” he pointed out, before occupying Jodie's mouth with his own.

[handsomewrites]

i probably will write Jodie and Glenn fucking at some point but i cannot promise you will like the headcanons i bring to the table

[handsomewrites]

Coparents with Benefits; ch.2

A hike, then a science class, then a touch-tank, then a dissection, then another hike. A full day of nature-themed activities await the students and their less enthusiastic chaperones!

read on ao3 here

Whoever had the idea to get teenagers up for a sunrise hike was not a friend of Glenn’s. It was hard enough getting his own ass out of bed, but twenty-some odd high-school students? By the time everyone was up and moving, it was barely a sunrise hike as much as it was an early morning hike.

Henry was annoyingly chipper, but that was no surprise as someone who claimed his favorite show was the sunrise. Jodie, once he got a cup of black coffee in his system and another in a travel mug, was also annoyingly chipper, which was no surprise as someone whose entire purpose in life was to grate on Glenn’s nerves in every way possible.

The kids picked up a bit once they got going, invigorated by the fresh air and the prospect of minimal supervision in the wild with their friends. They walked and talked, laughing with each other, the groups of teens shifting and morphing as they went. Henry started out walking with Jodie, chatting amicably. Glenn couldn't deny that he was curious what they were talking about. He was bringing up the rear, trudging behind the group with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. 

Stupid charismatic Jodie.

At some point along the hike, the Oak boys did what the Oak boys do, drawing their father away to try to limit the damage they did to the Catalina Island ecosystem. Jodie shook his head, chuckling, and hurried his gait to catch up with Nick, since the loss of Lark and Sparrow sent the remaining three boys into different teen-bubbles. Glenn's instinct was to interrupt the two, to try and separate Jodie from his son, but... Nick laughed, giving Jodie's arm a shove. Jodie was laughing too, which wasn't something Glenn saw often. 

As much as he wanted to hate everything about Jodie, Glenn loved his son, and Glenn loved his w—Morgan. And his son and his Morgan loved Jodie, for some godforsaken reason, so... he let them be, putting his fingers into the innermost pocket of his jacket to pull out one of his special cigarettes to get him through the end of this hike. While Jodie was too distracted to be an ass about it.

---

The chill of the morning abated through their hike as the sun rose in the sky. They gave the kids a bit of free time before lunch, to hang out by the water or walk the trails with their friends. Glenn went back to the cabin to grab a nap. He woke up ravenous, but it was lunchtime with teenage boys, so he wasn't the only one.

After lunch, they helped corral the kids into the Science Center for a series of academic-type activities. The schedule, as Glenn was told, started with a lecture in the classroom, followed by a walk through the center's exhibits, then back to the classroom to dissect something.

Since it had warmed up so much, he left his jacket back at the cabin, swapping it out for a torn up denim vest. It had some patches on it, and it showed off his biceps, so losing the jacket wasn't too much of a downgrade. It worked great for lunch at the picnic tables outside, but the center itself gave him a bit of a chill as he watched the kids file into their seats.

"Shouldn't've ditched the jacket," Jodie pointed out as he rubbed his hands against his upper arms.

"Guess not," Glenn grumbled. "I didn't know they were gonna have the A/C up high enough to recreate the fuckin' arctic."

"Well, I guess they say it's melting. Gotta make a new one."

Was that a joke? Glenn genuinely couldn't tell. He just hummed, crossing his arms. As he did, he heard a little ugh from Jodie, and glanced over to see him wrinkling his nose in disgust.

"What?"

"I keep forgetting."

"Forgetting what?"

Jodie rolled his eyes, lightly thumping Glenn's bicep with the back of his hand. "Your stupid tattoo. Are you ever going to get that ugly thing covered?"

Glenn had forgotten too, to be honest. A shit-eating grin grew across his face. "Oh, does it bother you?"

"It doesn't bother me, it's just juvenile and idiotic."

He still remembered the look on Jodie's face when he had first seen the art that adorned Glenn's upper arm. It was a stylish, rock-n-roll block of four stylized letters— ACAB. At first glance, it could be mistaken for an AC/DC logo, which he figured was why it took a few months for Jodie to recognize it for what it was.

"You're setting a bad example for Nicholas," he had said, and Glenn had scoffed.

"Nick always thought it was cool."

"Well Nicholas would agree it's idiotic."

The current Nicky wouldn't tell either of them what he thought of it. Glenn figured he probably thought it was cool, but didn't want to make things weird at home.

"Sure, man," Glenn answered, back in the present, with a wave of his hand, "whatever you say. Hey, do we have to stay for the lecture or is it just for the kids?"

"I don't know. I doubt it matters—"

"Cool. Peace." Glenn pushed off the wall he'd been leaning on and wandered deeper into the Science Center as the teacher started quieting everyone down for the lesson.

He only made it about twenty minutes on his own. He was looking at a tank of garibaldi, California's state fish, when he heard Jodie grumble "there you are." He rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

"What, man? Do you have something else to lecture me about?"

"Well, I didn't, uh. Trust you wandering around on your own..." Glenn's complete and total exasperation seemed to take him off guard, and his words lacked their usual bite. After a moment he surprised Glenn with an amendment: "And, well. Henry was more interested in the lecture than I was. And there's not much else to do while we wait for them..."

Ah. The other parents didn't seem to take too much of a liking to Jodie, either. Glenn honestly wasn't sure why — he wasn't a terrible looking guy, annoyingly involved in the community, and it's not like they could claim he was a bad influence like they had said of Glenn. Maybe it was his naturally irritating personality. Maybe their dislike for Morgan was also universal enough to exist in both of their realities, and it rubbed off on her husband. Maybe they also hated cops on principle. No matter what it was, though, it left Jodie with just him, Nicky and Henry to talk to on this trip, and apparently even Glenn's company was better than being alone.

"Right." Glenn didn't look back at him, watching the garibaldi circle. Jodie came to stand next to him, hooking his thumbs into his belt as he looked up to the brightly colored fish. 

They stood in silence for a bit as the water in the tanks around them sloshed and bubbled. Glenn scratched behind his ear, grappling with his discomfort. 

"These bitches bite, you know," he mumbled, gesturing towards the fish. 

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Was on one of those signs back there."

"Huh. Who knew."

Glenn looked over at Jodie, studying his face as he watched the fish. The aquarium light glowed down on them, casting his profile in a strange light. Looking at him for too long felt weird, though, so after a few seconds he had to shift his gaze—

"Ooh, they have a jellyfish tank!"

---

The hour Jodie and Glenn spent among the exhibits of the Science Center was quiet, but not overly awkward. They spent a long time watching the jellyfish bob, something about their weightless floating hypnotic. A sea cucumber trundled along the bottom of the tank. Apparently all these things were native to the area, which was news to Glenn.

It was kind of cool you could just have these things living in your house, though. Glenn probably didn't have the patience to keep up on something like that, but Jodie seemed like he might be the type to have a fishtank. Or a model train. Something kind of weird and boring like that.

The kids' class let out as they pondered a shallow, hip-level tank of water and sand. The rim of the tank was about a foot wide, and Glenn had been considering if he could sit there, but the kids drew his attention back. The teachers corralled the kids past the orange fish and the floating jellies to gather by the shallow tank, so Glenn acted like they'd gone over there on purpose to direct them, gently leading the shorter kids to the front.

"Come on, kids, there's room enough for everyone," Henry was saying, spreading the kids out along the rim of the pool. "Lark, Sparrow, get in there together, make space..."

The teacher from the Science Center disappeared around the side of the tank, fiddling something metallic by the back end of it. Whatever she did shifted a panel connecting the shallow tank to a larger one, letting the waters mix between them.

"Just give them a minute," she said, running her fingers through the water. "Feel free to put your hands in. They love people, so once they know you're here they'll all come on up. Don't splash, though, or you'll scare them!"

Nick was across the tank from Glenn and Jodie, between one of Henry's twins and Terry Jr. He said something to Terry, making them both chuckle, and Terry gave him a little shove to the arm. Whichever Oak boy was on his side was also laughing, and also gave him a shove, which Henry fussed at him for almost immediately.

The kids had pushed him and Jodie together, which was... fine. He wasn't going to let Jodie’s presence keep him from touching some stingrays and shit.

The rays were the first to come out, circling the edges of the tank to brush against the proffered fingers. They had a surprising amount of muscle for tiny little pancake fish. Jodie remained leaning away, his arms folded protectively over his broad chest.

"You wanna get in here, man? They're not slimy or nothin'."

"No, I'm... good back here."

Glenn furrowed his brows, but he didn't care enough to push. He was a little surprised to see jellyfish float in behind the rays.

The Oak boy on Henry's other side from Nick sent up a small splash of water as his hand shot into the air. "Miss Hernandez! Don't jellyfish sting?"

"They do, usually," the center employee answered pleasantly. "But these are moon jellyfish! Their sting isn't usually strong enough to get through our skin to hurt us. Still, try not to touch its tentacles directly — they can still irritate your hand. Its squishy dome is perfectly safe to touch!"

The jellies floated in with the current of the water, unaware of the chaos around them. Glenn took the teacher's suggestion to poke one on its dome, and he felt Jodie peek over his shoulder.

"What," Glenn asked him, "are you scared?"

Jodie seemed surprised to be noticed, and his arms tightened across his chest. "No." Glenn was visibly not convinced, so Jodie continued, pointing into the water without unfolding his arms. "One of those things killed Steve Irwin, you know."

"A jellyfish?"

"No, a stingray. They have barbs."

"Our stingrays' barbs are actually trimmed," the employee explained, more enthusiastic than Glenn expected a girl her age would be about stingray barbs, "so they can’t sting. They're also very docile. The barbs are really just for self defense."

"Does trimming the barbs hurt them?" Henry asked, drawing her attention back off Jodie.

"It's similar to how we clip our fingernails! They take a few months to grow back, but since there aren't any predators here, they do just fine without them!" Her unbridled enthusiasm about the objectively kinda boring subject was almost reminiscent of Henry’s. He’d wonder if they were related, if he didn’t already know all about Henry’s fucked-up family. Too much, really.

"See?" Glenn said, reaching to brush a knuckle against another stingray's wing. "Harmless."

"Sure." Jodie still seemed wary.

Glenn gave it a whole second's consideration before acting. He pulled his wet hand from the touch tank, turning to grab Jodie's wrist. Jodie squawked, but he was caught off-guard enough for Glenn to yank him forward and plunge his hand into the tank, gently knocking the cop's knuckles against a jellyfish that had floated into the way.

"Glenn!" His muscles were tensed under Glenn's grip, but he only made a nominal effort to pull away. As much as he hated to admit it, Jodie was stronger than he was, so if he really wanted to get away...

"Relax. Stay still, you're scaring them all away." He could hear Jodie huff air out of his nose, but he continued to stay put, which was surprising to say the least. Maybe he was just trying to keep from drawing attention.

If that was the case, it already wasn't working terribly well — Glenn caught sight of Nick watching them across the tank, laughing and shaking his head at their foolishness. He was distracted by that when he heard Jodie suck in a breath.

"Oh. Oh my god."

"I didn't think that was a thing you could say."

Jodie didn't dignify that with a response. A stingray had taken an interest in his hand, and gently swam its wings over Jodie's fingers. Glenn could feel Jodie's pulse on his own fingertips where he held his wrist — it was faster than expected. Jodie was legitimately nervous, or at least surprised. His hand had turned demon-y from the stress, nails becoming sharp claws under the water. He buried the claws into the sand, which protected the fish exploring his hand from their sharp tips, though he probably did it to hide their transformation from anyone who looked over. The stingray was undeterred, brushing against his knuckles and up to his wrist where Glenn held it.

"It's... weird." His pulse was slowing, but he still looked uncomfortable.

"Not so scary, eh?"

"I wasn't scared," Jodie insisted. "They just... freak me out, is all. Give me the heebie jeebies."

"Sure, whatever." Glenn released his wrist, and Jodie pulled his hand out immediately, taking a few paces away from the tank. He held his hand in a fist near his chest. Glenn waved him off. "Go take a lap, man. We can hold down the fort for a bit."

Jodie looked at him with a weird expression for a moment before nodding, turning to leave the Science Center's automated front doors.

---

When everyone had their fill of the touch tank, the teacher took the kids around the rest of the Science Center's displays, and Glenn wandered outside for a smoke break. He expected Jodie to come back and nag at him for it at any moment, but he smoked half a blunt without interruption. He licked his fingers and extinguished the tip between them, tucking the remaining half into his pocket for later.

The next activity on the kids' agenda was to return to the classroom for a hands-on lab session. The lab was dissecting squids, which was rad, actually, so Glenn stuck around for this one.

He approached Henry as the teacher paired the kids off in groups of five. He looked a little green around the gills again.

"You good, man?"

"Glenn!" Henry smiled, weakly. "I, uh. I'm fine! No problem here!" He was talking in the high-pitched voice he used when he was not fine, and there absolutely was a problem. A bit more color drained from his face when the teacher started showing the kids their victims. He would've thought their time in the Forgotten Realms would have toughened Henry's stomach, but once a vegan, always a vegan, he supposed.

"Do you wanna sit this one out?"

"Uh. Yeah, I think that would be for the best." He swallowed, glancing over to the group of their kids. "Can you keep an eye on my beautiful boys? This is the sort of thing they tend to... get in trouble during."

Everything seemed like the sort of thing they would get in trouble during. "Sure thing, man. Go get some air." Glenn clapped him on the shoulder, making him stumble forward a few steps. He gave Glenn a weak smile before scurrying off, the second man Glenn had sent out for fresh air in the past few hours.

A weird trend that's started, really. Either way, he was running out of guys in the room.

He trotted over to the kids he gave a shit about, gently plucking a scalpel from Lark-or-Sparrow's hand. "Alright, kids, let's cut some motherfuckers open!"

---

Turns out squids are squishy enough to just... pull apart. Glenn had no idea where Lark-or-Sparrow had gotten a weapon. He decided it was better not to ask.

Once all the squid's parts were out on the tray, the kids set out to start labeling them, which Glenn found boring very quickly. He tried to whisper answers in Nick's ear, but they ended up being wrong.

He checked his watch. It had been almost an hour since Jodie left... It seemed like the Oak twins were probably fine on their own, now that the possible weapons had been returned to the teacher and the organs had been pinned down. The boys had looked a little feral, tearing the squids apart with their bare hands. That wasn't terribly abnormal, though.

"I'm gonna go look for Jodie," Glenn told Nick. "He's been gone a suspiciously long time."

"Sure. You guys seem to be getting along," he pointed out, leaning back to look at him.

"Uh. Well. Trying not to... you know. Argue too much, during your trip."

"Right." Nick smiled at him, in a way Glenn wasn't sure if he liked. "Good luck finding him."

He just nodded, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. He ran into Henry again on the way out, sitting on the front steps with his head between his knees.

"Oh, hey Glenn! Are the kids done already?"

"Nah, but they're done with the dissecting parts. Just doing the science bit now."

"That's usually when they cause the most trouble..."

"No sharp objects."

"Oh thank God. Where are you headed off to?"

"Looking for Jodie."

"Oh yeah, he's been gone a while, huh? Hey, you two have been getting along real well this weekend!"

"Oh my God, why do people keep saying that!" Glenn ran his hands through his hair with a groan. "We just aren't being dicks to each other for a weekend! You know, for Nick! Jesus..."

He walked off in a huff, lighting the remaining half of his blunt to calm his nerves.

The winding path between the Science Center was plenty long enough for Glenn to storm off, slow down, and finish the blunt before he saw any signs of anyone else. The weed cooled his head a bit, but not as much as he would've liked. He always packed the weakest shit for this sort of thing, smoking more out of habit and to take the edge off than a desire to get actually high. Sometimes there was just no better way to distract himself or busy his hands.

There were a few trails that branched off the main path deeper into the island... Hopefully Jodie hadn't wandered down one and gotten lost. It would be a huge pain to send out a search for him. It would probably be really embarrassing to Nick, and Glenn certainly didn't want to be the one to tell Morgan her stupid cop husband died of exposure on Catalina island.

If it was Glenn who had wandered off, he would have headed back to the cabins, so that's where Glenn went. He made it to the end of the path, to the little dirt cul-de-sac surrounded by cabins, and then he saw why Jodie hadn't come back.

In the middle of the circle stood a mountain covered in curly brown fur, placidly grazing on a tuft of weeds. The bison stood between Glenn and the building that housed the communal bathrooms and showers, his horns nearly touching the railing of its little decorative front porch. The door was cracked, and with a squint Glenn could see a familiar head peeking out.

"Jodie?" he called across the clearing.

Jodie pulled the door open a bit to gesture wildly, shushing and pointing at the bison, as if Glenn couldn't see it.

He felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest. Stupid bastard looked so goofy, trying to communicate with hand signs over the head of a wild animal.

"Dude, you're—" He glanced over both shoulders, to ensure he was alone. "You're a demon, dude, just—get rid of this thing!" With both of their heightened senses, they didn’t have to shout to each other, which was good both for keeping his words between the two of them, and for keeping the wild animal calm.

"I—" Jodie visibly huffed, sending Glenn into another fit of giggles. "I'm not gonna do that!" he insisted, hiding his body behind the door in case the bison got mad.

"I'll keep watch, if you want?"

"I can't hurt it! Aren't these things endangered or something?" Glenn shrugged. "Plus, how are we gonna explain a dead bison in the middle of camp?"

Well, that was true, at least. Glenn couldn't suggest anything else, though, because the whole situation had hit his funny bone hard. He doubled over laughing, one hand resting on his thigh to hold him up.

"Glenn! Shut up and help me, you bastard!"

"Seems like a ‘you’ problem to me, Joe!"

He got to laugh for a few moments longer before he heard the distant sounds of people approaching, his pointed demon-ear twitching behind the glamored disguise. He would've been a good lookout. But he had no reason to try and save Jodie's dignity, so he just kept it to himself.

"Holy horchata!" Henry yelped, pronouncing his stupid phrase with a Spanish accent, even though he was perhaps one of the whitest fathers at San Dimas high school. Even though he was so white he could get lost in a snowstorm. Even though he was so white he already looked a bit sunburnt. Even though—

"Oh! Oh dear." Henry had approached chatting with the employee from the Science Center, who, to her credit, didn't even look like she was irritated by him. "It's fine! It's fine, everybody stay calm."

The kids had started to gather behind them, so Glenn decided to be the adult and pass responsibility off to the twenty-something year old girl instead. 

"Jodie's, uh, stuck in the can over there. Is he gonna be alright?"

"Stuck in the—oh. Hm!"

Across the clearing, Jodie had stuck his head out again to wave. Anybody else probably wouldn't be able to hear them talking from so far away, no one seemed to notice the oddity.

"Well," she said, clearly debating the best way to word what she wanted to say. "Usually we just... let them wander off on their own. Trying to scare them off has a chance of just upsetting them, and you do not want an upset bison coming at you..."

"What's next on the schedule?" Glenn asked Henry. "Is it something we need a full cadre of adults for?"

"Uh." Henry looked at his watch. "Dinner. Then a hike up the hill to map constellations."

"Oh, he'll definitely probably move within the hour," the girl piped up. “He should be gone by the time dinner is over!”

"Cool. See you after dinner, Jodie!" Glenn made a circling motion with two fingers in the air, spinning on his heel. "C'mon, kids, time to move out."

Henry followed behind, but he seemed worried about it. "We're just-- leaving him?"

"He'll be fine," Glenn insisted with a wave of his hand. "We'll save him a sandwich or something for later. Besides," he added quietly, in a tone only his demon-ears and Henry’s elf-ears could hear, "you and I both know Jodie could get out of there if he really wanted to."

Henry made a worried humming noise, but didn't argue, which Glenn took as agreement.

[handsomewrites]

Coparents with Benefits; ch.1

The kids are finally going on one of those weekend-long nature field trips! And I heard Nicky's dads are chaperoning! Wait, dads? Or: Jodie and Glenn play nice for a weekend, and end up bonding. By some definition of bonding, anyway.

new fandom new me... I debated not cross-posting this one but i can't resist another chance to get notes. I'll queue the other chapters for the next few days.

Taglist: T rated; Jodie Foster x Glenn Close; enemies to enemies-with-benefits; season 1 spoilers

read on ao3 here

"Glenn!! Come on in!" Morgan pulled Glenn into the house with a kiss on the cheek, turning to lead him into the living room without missing a beat. His hand came up to touch the spot before following her into the foyer in a bit of a daze. 

He’d tried not to tell her about what had happened in the forgotten realms, or the version of history he remembered, but she’d always been able to read him like a book. Apparently, she was a bit like Nick -- she had some fuzzy recollections from both timelines, though not as clear as the memories their son had regained when shit broke loose. So she’d already had an inkling that there was something weird between them, and when she saw Glenn, Nick and Jodie all dancing around something, she easily rooted her way to the truth like a hog digging up truffles.

And, it turns out, she didn’t find it as off-putting as anyone had expected. She still lived with Jodie and Nick, but she treated Glenn like-- like... he didn’t know what. More affectionate than he was prepared to handle. He was slowly getting used to it, but reuniting with the woman you mourned who is now married to someone else isn’t easy, no matter how she acts about it. He sort of got the feeling she would be fine with just having two husbands, if Glenn wasn’t so cagey.

Well, if Glenn wasn’t so cagey, and if the two husbands in question could get along for more than five minutes.

Morgan’s head popped around the corner. "You coming?"

"Uh. Yeah." He closed the door behind him before shuffling down the hall. "Where’s Nick?"

"He should be down in a second," she said with a glance at her watch. "He’s pretty punctual getting ready for school."

That must be one of the things he picked up from his newer dad. Glenn tried very hard to keep the distaste from showing on his face. He wasn’t sure if it was working or not, because true to Morgan's word, Nick came trotting down the steps moments later.

"Hi Glenn!" The bright smile on Nick’s face made all the gross feelings in Glenn’s gut evaporate, and he grinned back, wrapping his son in a hair-ruffling hug.

"Hey kiddo!" It had been a while since he could run his hands through Nick’s hair without demon horns getting in the way. At home, Nick usually defaulted to a sort of half-demonic appearance, which was cool. When he was alone, Glenn tended to let it all hang out, but to each their own. 

"Daaaaaaaaaad," Nick whined, without any real irritation behind it. "I just finished doing my hair..."

Glenn snickered a bit, releasing his hold. "Eh, still looks good. Tousled." Nick rolled his eyes. "You ready for field trippin', man? My bike’s parked outside, got a helmet just for you--"

"Aaaaaactually," Morgan interrupted, one finger raised in the way she used to do when she was about to drop some news that would absolutely harsh the vibe of the day. Glenn frowned, but he couldn’t actually be upset by anything she said, these days. "You’ll probably need to take the car for this one..."

"Huh? Nick’s been on my bike before. It’s totally safe, and the way to the school is like, thirty miles an hour, tops--"

"No, no, it’s not the bike. Well it is the bike, but just-- it doesn’t have enough seats." She was so cute when she was beating around the bush... wait, no, Glenn, focus.

"Dad--er, Jodie also signed up to chaperone this trip," Nick jumped in, saving his mother from the bad-news obligation. "He said it was going to be a surprise, but I hadn’t mentioned you were already chaperoning, because whenever I mention hanging out with you, he makes this face... Kind of like that one you’re making right now, actually."

"...Right." Glenn tried not to grind his teeth together.

"So I said you guys would carpool," Morgan added cheerfully, scooping up a duffel bag from the floor and handing it to Nick. 

"It would probably be better if I just call and cancel," Glenn said with a sigh, pulling his phone from the pocket of his leather jacket. "I wouldn't want to distract Jodie from his important chaperoning duties." 

Plus, it was hard enough to convince people he's Nick’s uncle without Jodie there trying to create as much distance between them as possible. Nick had enough to deal with, without rumors of his weird extended family conflicts circling the PTA. 

...Also, the idea of spending a long weekend with Jodie Foster made his stomach turn.

He heard Nick's genuine "nooooooo" the same time he felt Morgan's hand on his, and he looked between the two, insides feeling wibbly again. "Danielle and her mom already canceled because they got the stomach flu, plus Jake's dad had something come up for work, so if one more chaperone cancels the trip is off!"

Morgan caught his eye, and she gave him a look which managed to convey something along the lines of you have to do this for him, he's been looking forward to it so much. Glenn was just glad he'd skipped breakfast today, lest his turning guts decide to dump their contents on her shoes. "Henry will be there with his boys," she said with her mouth instead of her eyes, and Nick nodded.

Glenn put his phone away with a sigh. "He'll probably be occupied wrangling Lark and Sparrow all day. Let me get my bag off the bike, then..." 

Morgan gave him a quick hug in thanks. He didn't put his arms around her, not wanting to be awkward with how reluctant he would be to let her go.

"Where's the Narc at, anyway? He'd better not make us late." The nickname earned him a small look of reproach, a bit of distance which he was thankful for.

"He's already waiting in the car." Glenn rolled his eyes hard, but Morgan had turned away to hug Nick goodbye.

So much for a fun nature trip with the boys...

---

"We’re going to be late."  Jodie’s shoulders were hunched up by his ears, his face screwed up in a mix of irritation at the red light in front of him and irritation at his unwelcome passenger.

"We are not," Glenn disagreed from the backseat, his feet kicked up on the center console. "They said we were supposed to be there at nine."

"They said they’re leaving at nine!"

"Uh, yeah? That’s what I said?"

"That’s not--" Jodie cut himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. From the passenger seat, Nick put a calming hand on his elbow as he took a deep breath. After a moment he continued, his voice schooled into an infuriating faux-calmness. "We should have gotten there an hour ago, so we could have parked and helped load everyone onto the bus."

Glenn debated pointing out that he would have been there a lot faster with Nick on his bike. On one hand, it was true, but on the other, it was a bit early in the morning to hear the traffic cop lecture. ‘Motorcycles have to follow the same traffic laws as cars, Glenn.’ ‘Just because you can fit between cars doesn’t mean you can weave through traffic, Glenn.’  ‘Red lights mean stop, not punch it, Glenn.’  Eugh. Just the thought of it threatened to give him a headache.

He studied the back of Jodie’s head, instead. He wasn’t really sure what Morgan saw in him... Close-cropped, almost military style haircut, boring gray polo shirt tucked into khakis over steel-toed cop boots. Almost the inverse of Glenn in every way -- Glenn’s shoulder-length hair held back with a torn bandanna, face overdue for a shave, worn leather jacket and ripped-up jeans almost made them look like they were made to oppose each other. He supposed there was still some level of bad boy underneath all the beige of his cop uniform, but Glenn only got to see the demon side of him when shit went seriously wrong, or he managed to piss him off really badly.

Which was fun, but it tended to upset Morgan and Nick when they went at it in full demon form outside the Infernal Plane, so Glenn did try to keep that to a minimum. Usually.

How did he express that naughty side before he could turn into a demon? Probably by yelling at people he pulled over, waving his taser around. Or his gun? Do traffic cops get guns?

"We're here," Jodie pointed out in the most deadpan monotone imaginable. "Get out of my car."

Glenn took his time doing so, only a little on purpose. He closed the door in time to see Nick catch up with his friends -- Grant and Terry Jr. were there, along with a few other kids in their class whose names Glenn hadn't bothered to memorize.

Lark and Sparrow were also nearby, listening to their father speak with one-half boredom and one-half misguided respect. Henry put a hand on each of their heads to say something-- judging by Sparrow's smile and Lark's eye-roll, something affectionate-- before sending the boys off to join their friends. When he caught Glenn's eye he grinned, waving an arm in greeting with enough enthusiasm to involve his whole body in the gesture. Henry always seemed surprised to see him as a living human; he supposed it was a combination of him usually meeting the guys in demon-form and Henry literally seeing him die once before. Luckily, a long weekend was a short enough time for the demon glamor to hold up, so he’d be in human form with two unscarred eyes for the duration of the trip. As for the other half -- well, death is only permanent if you're a loser. Glenn gave him a nod in return. 

The slam of Jodie's hatchback trunk made him jump. "Well? Care to join us, Mr. Close?"

"Ladies first." Glenn waved his hand for Jodie to go first, earning himself an eyeroll. As they approached the bus, the teachers started loading the kids on, paired up in twos or threes. Nick, Grant and Terry ran up the steps about halfway through the line -- the other boys must have saved a spot for Nick. That was nice of them, but it left Glenn and Jodie bringing up the rear together.

So much for hanging with his boy all weekend. With Jodie around, Glenn couldn’t even sit with one of the single moms on the bus ride...

"Mr. Close, Mr. Foster," the teacher gave them a nod as she checked their names off the list. "Cutting it a bit close on time, aren’t we?"

Jodie glared daggers through the side of Glenn’s head, but he didn’t dignify it. "Fashionably late," Glenn responded, shooting her a pair of finger guns. She didn’t seem amused. "We made it in time, no worries! Would’ve been here faster if we didn’t have such a slow driver," he added, throwing an arm around Jodie’s shoulders.

Jodie stiffened. His teeth were grinding together audibly. "We would’ve been here faster if we could have left when I planned--"

Glenn slapped him on the back a little rougher than necessary, passing in front of him to get onto the bus.

---

The destination: Catalina Island. It seemed like a fancy-schmancy kind of place for a school field trip, but apparently they were trying to teach the kids about nature and the ecosystem and stuff like that. 

Since it was an island, though, after the two-hour bus ride, they had to load all the kids off the bus and onto a ferry for a two-hour boat ride. They were all beyond antsy, and it took them about a half an hour to get all the kids through the requisite bathroom breaks and on their way. Lark and Sparrow just about launched themselves out of the bus as soon as it stopped. Glenn felt similar, after two hours of tense silence next to Officer Narc.

"Don’t forget to wash your hands!" Henry called after them, watching his boys race into the bathroom. He sighed, shoulders rising and falling with familiar fatigue. 

"Man, those two never stop going, huh?"

Henry startled a little, but brightened when he saw it was Glenn. "Hey Glenn! Yeah, they, uh, they’re very... passionate."

"Passionate, yeah." Glenn scratched inside his ear with his pinky finger, which was easier when he had claws. He scanned the group for Nick, but none of the kids he bothered to remember were around. Must be in the bathroom. Jodie was there, though, interrogating one of the other adults with his stupid chest puffed out.

"So. You and Jodie, huh?"

"Me and Jodie? What, me and Jodie." Did he sound defensive?

"Nothing, nothing." Henry’s hands were up, placating. "I just didn’t expect to see you both here, is all. Usually when they say Nick’s guardian is a chaperone, it’s one or the other."

Chaperone. Glenn hated that word. "Believe me, man, I didn’t either."

"What did you tell the teachers about your, uh. Unique situation?"

"Not a damn thing." He shoved his hands in his pockets, wishing he was better at changing the subject. "As far as they know, Jodie and I are brothers. Anything else is none of their damn business."

"Right. Sorry." At least Henry had the decency to feel awkward about it. "Nick looks like he’s doing good with everything, though."

Glenn relaxed a bit, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he had taken. "Yeah, he’s a strong kid. He’s not so different from how he was before..."

"Yeah, yeah." Henry nodded. "I see a lot of you in him, you know."

"Really?" These days, he wasn’t too sure about that. He tried to size up if Henry was lying or not, but insight wasn’t always his strongest skill.

"Yeah, dude, totally!" Henry’s voice cracked a little, which made it sound a little less true, but Glenn opted to believe him anyway.

"Thanks, man. That means a lot."

---

Glenn didn’t get to talk to Henry any more once the ferry started its journey; the weedy little man turned green almost immediately upon setting foot on the rocking deck of the boat. He threw up once over the side before the staff ushered him into a little bathroom near the center of the boat, where the rocking was minimal and he could sit by the head in peace.

Since it was a Friday during school hours, there weren’t too many other people on the boat. A few of the kids stayed inside on the lower level, sitting by the little tables chatting about whatever teenagers chat about, but most of them sat up top to watch the waves. 

Glenn was planning on finding a spot near the back to kick his feet up and enjoy the salty air, but in the spot he would have picked, Nick was already sitting. The other kids didn’t seem to be around.

"Hey, Kiddo." Nick looked up as he approached, smiling. "Where’s the crew?"

Nick shrugged. "Lark and Sparrow had some kind of plan they wanted help with, while their dad’s not around. I figured I would leave them to it."

"Probably smart. Mind if I...?"

"Go for it." Nick made a little gesture for Glenn to sit, so he flopped into the seat next to his son.

"Sorry if I made you late for your trip." He still didn’t think he made them late, but if he’d known Nick had wanted to be there early, he would’ve tried to get there with a bit more haste.

Nick waved a hand. "No worries. I didn’t think we were that late. He’s just a little..."

"Yeah. A little." Glenn kicked his feet forward, crossing his ankles over one another. "Are things good at home, with him and your mom?"

"Huh? Yeah, it’s-- it’s fine, it’s good." Nick looked away, though Glenn couldn’t tell if it was to hide his face or to look out over the water. He directed his gaze over the water too. "It’s not too different to how it was before. Or, you know, in... one version of before."

"Right." He wondered if this was a smoking or non-smoking area. It was open air... "You been practicing your guitar lately?"

"Yeah!" Nick perked up a bit, glad to not be talking about home life any more. "I’ve been trying to convince Grant to learn the drums. I think he’d like it, and we could start a band!"

"Oh shit, dude, that would be rad as fuck!"

Nick nodded. "Right?"

"If you ever need a place to practice, there’s no curfew or decibel limit at Casa de Close."

"Da--Jodie doesn’t actually mind if I get kinda loud. He joins in with his bass sometimes. I dunno how much louder we’ll be with drums and a lead guitar, though..."

Right. Glenn’s Nick played lead guitar, but Jodie’s Nick took after the bassist in him with rhythm guitar instead. At least it was still a guitar.

"You have someone in mind for lead?"

"Well, uh..." Nick broke eye contact, scratching at his hairline where his horns usually interrupted it. His cheeks were turning a little red, but not demon-red. "There’s... this girl at school."

Glenn grinned. "A girl? Nick!!" He tossed an arm over Nick’s shoulders, hand coming around to muss his hair again. 

"Shhhh, don’t--"

"You’re growing up so fast!" 

"Daaaaaad!" He made a whining noise from the back of his throat, and Glenn laughed. "She’s just a friend! Like, a really cool friend who plays lead guitar and sings..."

Releasing his son, he leaned back again, keeping an arm around the back of Nick’s chair. "Right, of course, of course. Just for the band."

"Yeah, for the band." He was still blushing, but he was smiling too. He turned back towards the water, fiddling his hair between his fingers. It was getting long, which a part of Glenn was very happy to see.

He found his mind wandering, as a comfortable silence settled over them. He wondered what Jodie’s version of before was. Should he ask about Morgan, or would that be weird? He definitely had questions he could ask. He stared out over the water, hand behind Nick fidgeting and digging his nails against each other. He was still debating when he saw the water splash funny out in the distance. 

After a second of squinting and a few more splashes, he reached across Nick’s front to point. "Dude, is that a dolphin?"

---

The majority of the ferry ride was really, surprisingly nice. Nick and Glenn sat together, pointing out dolphins and jellyfish, talking about school and music and the newest show on TV. They didn’t talk about Jodie, or Morgan, or the Forgotten Realms, or Hell.

Everything was perfect, until the last fifteen minutes, when the teacher called everyone’s attention to pass out cabin assignments. The kids were in groups of six of the same gender, three bunk-beds to a cabin. They had been allowed to submit who they wanted to room with to the teacher, and she incorporated those requests into the assignments, so most of the kids had at least one friend in their room.

The adults’ cabins were smaller, three beds to a cabin. Glenn had almost pumped a fist in joy when he heard he was sharing a cabin with Marley Winters, but then the teacher added that their third was Jodie Foster. Then, to make it worse, when he asked Nick about Marley, what did he say?

That’s Danielle’s mom. The one who couldn’t make it.

So he had a cabin to himself, with Jodie Foster.

"Would you quit moping and move?" 

Glenn suddenly realized he had been staring at the empty third bed for... a while. Jodie stood behind him, holding his duffel bag half-open. He’d taken his stupid polo shirt off so he just had on a stupid wifebeater undershirt, tucked into his stupid pants with his stupid belt. His phone was clipped to his belt. What a loser. God. 

"Glenn. Can you please have your crisis once I’ve left to go to the showers? I’d like to get ready for bed." 

Instead of answering, Glenn flopped onto the bed that was designated as his, groaning into the pillow. He could practically hear the eyeroll in Jodie’s voice when he muttered "yeah, me too, buddy," on his way out the door.

[handsomewrites]

I'll prob cross-post or link the glennjodie fic on ao3 here once it's done, but I'm on a trip rn that will be one of those "insane ao3 authors comments about the chapter being late" rn

but said trip does include the person who gives me a ton of fic ideas so theres. more dndads slash glennjodie fic in the pipes

[handsomewrites]

[handsomewrites]

The good news is, I'm posting a new fic!

The bad news is, it's an unpopular ship from a fairly small fandom!

Still on the fence if I should cross-post it fully or just drop an ao3 link.

[handsomewrites]

"I wonder why I never get a consistent following like those cool fandom writers do," I ask, as I start writing fic for yet another entirely new fandom

[handsomewrites]

Hi! Just a small reminder that I HIGHLY recommend to readers that are uncomfortable or scared to publicly comment and reblog a fic that it is TOTALLY fine to send an anonymous ask and tell the writer what you thought about the fic!

I totally understand the fear of commenting on a fic publicly, so I truly believe that the anon button is the next best thing to show your support ❤️

Hope everyone has a good day/night 😘

[handsomewrites]

Here are your prompts for Trans Jayce Week 2023! A big 'thank you' to everyone who submitted prompt suggestions - we hope these prompts inspire you to create something amazing! 💖

27th March - T4T / Lingerie / First Time 28th March - Transition / Surgery / Scars 29th March - Coming out / Acceptance / Community 30th March - Pride / Body Positivity / Confidence 31st March - Trans Joy / Self Care / Euphoria 1st April - Forge / Reflection / Comfort 2nd April - Outside the Binary / Healing / Clothes

All rules for the event can be found on our carrd which is now live!

To participate, all you need to do is share your work using the tag 'Trans Jayce Week 2023' on tumblr (you may also tag us if you're worried we won't see your post). Fics for the event can be added to our AO3 collection.

Although this is stated in the rules on our carrd, we want to reiterate that this will be an 18+ only event as NSFW art can be shared on twitter and explicit fic is permitted.

Our event is being run to coincide with International Transgender Day of Visibility on Friday 31st March. We hope this will also inspire you!

Thank you mod Jay Orpheus for making the graphics for our event, and mod @sandskillart for the lovely art of Jayce working hard in the forge 👀💕

[handsomewrites]

I've been thinking about the doctors-au holiday fic I did a few months back for a few days now.

I don't think I made Jayce enough of a dick in that one. In my head it was clear that nobody really liked either of them overly much because they're both dicks but I was so excited to get to Jayce showing his weakness and Viktor letting him in that I missed the "they both think they're the smartest one in the room" part.

[handsomewrites]

Think Less

Dr. Talis can't hold his liquor, but sometimes a looser tongue works in ones favor.

I almost didn't cross-post this one but just throwing up a link to ao3 isn't as satisfying.

Written for the JayVik gift exchange on twitter! Should I post a link on twitter? I never post on twitter The prompt was a holiday party in a doctors au, with some fashion inspiration taken from the giftee's very cute art, though I can't resist a get-together fic so not a lot of that dynamic showed through...

TAGLIST: T rated; JayVik; Doctor AU; alcohol ment.;

ao3 link

Office parties aren’t really Viktor’s scene.

Well, office party doesn’t exactly describe what this is, he concedes to himself, eyes skimming over the milling crowd. The hospital has rented a venue, and everyone is dressed slightly nicer than usual; though, with usual being scrubs for a lot of them, that’s not a hard bar to surpass. It means he had to dress up as well, though, with his messy hair brushed for once and pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his skull. He’s gotten out of the habit of wearing a tie since he became the head of his department, and it’s already feeling tight across his trachea. 

His cane taps across the annoyingly fancy tile floor as he crosses to the bar, his annoyingly fancy shoes tapping alongside it. He dreams of being back in his office in tennis shoes and a white coat. He almost feels a little naked without it. At least there isn’t a cash bar this year -- the least Piltover General can do for its staff is swing for a few drinks to take the tension off. 

“A Tom Collins, please”, he says to the man tending the bar, leaning against it to take some pressure off his leg. It’ll be a long night of standing around until he’s been here long enough to politely leave. He wouldn’t have come at all if not for Sky, the newest doctor in his department. She’s a sweet girl fresh off her residency, and when she asked if he was attending with those big puppy-dog eyes, he couldn’t help but agree to accompany her. She’s grown on him a surprising amount for the brief time she’s worked under him, no doubt in part due to the fact that she seems to think he’s a genius who built the hospital’s orthopedic department from the ground up.

Well, more accurately, she knows he’s a genius. He also pulled the orthopedic department up from the dregs it was in when he was hired, which is basically building it from the ground up, so she’s right on both points. She’s a smart girl.

When the bartender returns with his drink, Viktor takes it with a nod of thanks, pushing off the bar to make room for Sky to order. He recognizes most of the doctors here, but most of them don’t like him much, and he rather prefers it that way. They’re mostly dull, and exceptionally shallow. They don’t look at the bigger picture -- anything outside of their specialty is not just a mystery to them, but they seem to think it entirely unimportant altogether. They’ve all got medical degrees, but he questions if some of them could pass high school with the critical thinking they exhibit. Yet somehow, they all think they’re the smartest one in the room.

Well, Viktor also thinks he’s the smartest one in the room, but he’s at least right.

Sky joins him with a martini glass between her fingers, which Viktor idly notices are painted a night-sky blue to match the color of her shimmery knee-length dress. It looks nice, but he’s not really sure how to compliment girls on their nail polish coordination, so he doesn’t.

“So,” she says, voice low and conspiratorial, “give me the who’s who.”

Viktor hums. “Well, I suppose we should start at the top.” He gestures with his glass towards one of the taller women in the room, with an icy glare and salt-and-pepper hair that falls to her waist. She looks as dapper as ever in a white pants suit and a cane of her own, though Viktor has doubted for years that it serves the purpose of a cane, since she never seems to be putting any weight on it. Maybe it’s got some other purpose. He doesn’t have enough proof to share this particular theory with anyone, but he’s always watching.

She’s nodding stoically in a conversation with a woman a few inches shorter, who’s draped in gold and white from the jewels in her curly black hair to the tips of her high heels. “Doctor Glasc and Mel Madarda, the two main investors of the hospital. The former a pharmacist, the latter bringing all the business sense to the equation.”

“They’re both beautiful,” Sky comments. Viktor hums.

“They hold basically all the power in the hospital. If they say jump, the only correct answer is to apologize that you didn’t think to jump beforehand. Now, do you see the almost comically short man approaching them?” 

Sky makes a face at the description. “I think I see who you mean, yeah.”

“That’s Professor Heimerdinger.”

“The director of the hospital?” 

Viktor nods. He’s not sure if her surprise is that he’s here at all, or that he looks like that -- everyone knows his name, from emails and paperwork and administrative nonsense, but if you’ve only ever read his writing one wouldn’t assume that he’s barely 5 feet tall, with hair and a beard so wild it’s questionable if there’s a man in there at all. “I think some of his cousins or something work in different parts of the building as well. They all have a similarly... eccentric style. And stature.”

“Should you be talking about the director of the hospital like that?”

Viktor shrugs. It’s not like anyone can hear them. He gives a little wave for Sky to follow as he picks his way across the room towards the hor d’oeuvres.

“As far as I know, everyone else here should just be a doctor from some department or another. I’m not sure who you know and who you don’t, so just... tell me who you want to know more about?” 

He picks up something skewered on a toothpick and scrutinizes it while Sky scans the room of people herself. It looks like a scallop, wrapped in bacon. A hospital event should probably not be serving shellfish, with how common an allergen it is, but these parties are mostly for show anyway, as far as Viktor figures. It’s not one of his own sensitivities, so he pops it in his mouth and picks up another.

“Are the other department heads here?” Sky asks, startling him a bit. He’d almost forgotten she was there already. In his defense, all he’s eaten today has been... Maybe some oatmeal in the morning? It’s been a while since then.

Turning towards the crowd again, he uses his now-empty toothpick to point. “Most of them are not, but there are a few.” It takes him a few moments to pick each face from the crowd, but Viktor successfully goes down the list of departments, giving Sky the names and pointing at them if they attended the party. He counts them out on his fingers, to avoid forgetting any.

As he gets to the end of the list falling one short, he pokes at his pinky with the toothpick, thinking. “Oh, Emergency is the last one. Sometimes I forget they’re a department, because I try not to go down there. The head of ER retired earlier this year, but the acting head and, if hospital gossip is to be trusted, likely replacement is...”

Almost as if on cue, a laugh carries across the room, above the quiet and inoffensive non-denominational holiday music that’s been playing all evening. Viktor feels his eyebrow twitch as he points to its source. “Dr. Talis.”

He is, as always, surrounded by people who are utterly charmed by whatever he’s saying. He’s in a white suit jacket with a dark vest underneath, paired with a bow tie and a red flower tucked into the breast pocket. One of the female doctors has a hand on the crook of his elbow as she laughs along with him, leaning forward in a way that’s probably meant to give him a flirtatious eyeful of her low-cut dress, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, wow,” Viktor hears Sky gasp, and he rolls his eyes.

“You might have seen him before, he’s a bit hard to recognize when he doesn’t have on scrubs covered in little rainbow rubber duckies.”

Sky seems too distracted to hear his scathing commentary, so Viktor goes back to surveying the overpriced finger-foods, wondering if they plan to serve a meal at this party or if it’s more of a cocktails-and-snacks affair.

----

Sky, it turns out, is a much more gifted conversationalist than Viktor is.

Not that that’s saying much. Some people would say a rabid raccoon is a more gifted conversationalist than Viktor is.

Either way, Viktor finds himself riding Sky’s coattails very quickly once they integrate themselves with the crowd. She’s polite, and respectful, and good at getting people talking. Viktor stands beside her and nods like he’s listening, but the conversations are mostly about who’s getting married or going on an international vacation or summering on someone’s yacht. 

After a few hours of this, Viktor feels justified in peeling away from the group, which seems to be moving and shifting around Sky at its center. She’d said she came to network, after all. He had no idea she’d be so good at it.

Back on the outskirts of the party, Viktor can see the attendance has thinned out a bit. Those who came to schmooze are still doing so, but anyone who came just to make an appearance or to get some of the free booze has already taken their leave. The party has been going on long enough that the hor d’oeuvres are mostly depleted, and most everyone still there has at least two or three drinks in their system.

He’ll have one more drink, Viktor decides. He’ll give Sky some time to make sure she’s comfortable flying on her own, enjoy one last cocktail, and then call a cab home. There’s a scientific journal he hasn’t had time to read for about a week, and it and his fuzzy slippers are calling his name.

The bartender is at work combining ingredients for him when Viktor realizes he’s not alone by the bar. There’s a man leaning against it, staring sullenly into the bottom of a tall, empty glass like it’s offended him personally -- one of the ones he pointed out to Sky earlier, from the ER department.

“Dr. Talis,” he greets, to be polite. 

The man looks up at him, seeming surprised. Viktor isn’t terribly quiet when he walks, but maybe hadn’t been paying attention. There’s a moment where there’s no response, and Viktor is about to be a bit offended when one finally comes.

“Jayce,” he says. Viktor blinks. “Just Jayce is fine.”

“Right.” No one can pronounce Viktor’s last name, so he doesn’t really have the opportunity to decide if he wants to extend the same courtesy. Everyone just calls him Dr. Viktor, so he doesn’t have to hear them struggle through.

The bartender returns with his drink, and Viktor is glad to escape the awkward conversation. He only makes it a step or two away before he stops again, though, hearing the conversation behind him--

“Can I get another--”

“No, sir, I think you’ve had enough.”

A noise one might almost call a whine, in another setting.

“Just one more?” 

The clink of a glass on the counter. “Here’s a water, sir.”

Viktor sighs, turns on his heel.

“Dr. Tal-- Uh. Jayce?”

Jayce looks up from his glass of water with big, dewy amber eyes, and Viktor has to avert his own from the discomfort of the eye contact.

“Who did you come here tonight with? Where are they?”

“Well, I came with Cait, but she left early.” Viktor is familiar enough with the hospital’s staff roster to know that Cait is likely Caitlyn, one of the paramedics. “I was hanging out with some doctors and the one kept bringing me drinks, which tasted like soda, so I figured it was fine? But I guess they weren’t just soda. They were good, though.”

“Right. And where did they go?”

“...I drank ‘em.”

“No, the people you were with.”

Jayce shrugs. It’s a bodily kind of shrug that knocks his bow tie askew. “I’unno. They all usually get bored of me after an hour or two. I guess I didn’t say the right stuff?”

He’s looking down into his glass again, and Viktor feels a pang of pity. It’s an unfamiliar feeling. That seems like a good opportunity to leave Jayce to his wallowing.

Viktor is leaning a bit more heavily on his cane as he walks, after standing for most of the night, so he finds a table a bit away from the crowd and flops into a chair. He has a good enough vantage point to watch Sky mingle through it, without being dragged back in or having someone trip over his cane. He takes a slow sip of his drink, and hears someone sit in a chair near him.

Apparently inebriation turns Jayce Talis into a lost puppy dog, and he chose Viktor as the one he would follow. Viktor looks around, wondering why it’s on him to take care of the idiot who got drunk at the holiday party this year.

He can feel Jayce staring at him for a few minutes, so he keeps his gaze forward, watching the woman Sky is in conversation with wave the investors over. Hopefully she makes a good impression on them -- at this rate, she’ll be Viktor’s boss, soon. He’s not sure how he feels about that.

“Who are you watching?” 

Viktor jumps a bit, hand tightening around his glass. Finally turning to look, he sees Jayce sitting in a chair backwards, arms folded over the backrest to pillow his chin. He’s left an empty one between them, so he has some personal space, at least.

“The girl in the dark blue dress, over there. Talking to Miss Medarda and Doctor Glasc. She’s in my department, so I accompanied her here tonight, but she seems to be doing well enough on her own.”

Jayce looks a little sad at the answer, and Viktor isn’t sure why. He doesn’t have to wonder for long.

“She can’t screw up with them worse than I did,” he grumbles. Apparently he takes Viktor’s raised eyebrow as encouragement to continue.

“The professor introduced me to them, like, talkin’ me up about how I’m in line for the head of my department, or whatever. Which is a good intro I guess, but it’s a lot to live up to! And so I’m talking to ‘em about their hospital management stuff, and Mel’s like, how do you think we could improve the ER department. Which is, like, an interview question I was totally not prepared for.” He gestures with his water glass, spilling a little over the side. 

“So I’m like, well, I guess we spend a lotta time waiting around for drugs, y’know, so maybe the pharmacy limits are too tight. Lotta... red tape. I get limits, but we gotta keep things movin’!” More water lost. At least Viktor is out of the splash zone. “Then Doctor Glasc gives me that scary look, and she says, oh, the limits I put in place. ‘Cuz she’s pharmacy. Which I totally forgot, like an idiot. 

“So I’m trying to backtrack, like no, no, they make sense, of course, totally, right, it’s not the main source of backed-up admin paperwork! And--” he hiccups. “And that’s when Mel is like, oh, what would that be? And you know there isn’t a good answer to that question, and... ugh.” He drops his head so his forehead rests on his forearms, sighing dramatically.

Viktor winces. No wonder Jayce had started drinking. Medarda and Glasc are intimidating women, even to someone who isn’t in Jayce’s precarious position.

“...Drink your water. It’ll help you feel better.”

Jayce grumbles, which sounds a bit like he’s saying I feel fine, but takes a sip as he’s told. He’s obedient like this, at least.

Viktor finds himself studying Jayce, while Jayce passes the water glass from one hand to another, idly watching the crowd. There’s no denying he’s an attractive man -- broad-shouldered, tan-skinned, with biceps likely too big to fit a hand around. Viktor had always assumed he was using it to his advantage, schmoozing the people who tried to flirt with him, but tonight has him doubting the notion. 

His face is open, guard entirely down. His teeth rest on his bottom lip, showing off the little gap between them. There’s also a little scar in his eyebrow that Viktor’s never looked at him long enough to notice. It’s interesting how he rides the line of handsome and cute. If only he wasn’t so damn irritating...

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Jayce slurs, looking up suddenly. His gaze is intense, piercing, which is surprising for someone whose eyes won’t quite focus.

“Um, sure?”

“Did I do somethin’ to make you mad?”

Viktor blinks. Some part of his brain scans through the memories of all the interactions he’s had with Dr. Talis. 

Most of them before tonight were incidental, in the cafeteria line or receiving a patient who had been stabilized in the ER. When you work in a mid-sized hospital for as long as Viktor has, that tends to happen with everyone. Jayce is always polite at those times, nothing out of the ordinary. 

But there were also times where Jayce would seem to almost seek him out, just to brag about some new accomplishment or ask if Viktor had seen the newest research or something of the sort. At first Viktor had thought he was showing off to try and put himself on the same level of doctors a few years his senior, but as the years went on, it didn’t seem to stop. The only logical conclusion Viktor could make was that Jayce is like that with everyone, inherently braggadocious and looking for chances to prove everyone wrong.

“Eh, no,” Viktor answers eventually, because he hadn’t done anything in particular. He’s just an offensive, annoying person in general. But he’s still not sure why Jayce is asking. “Did I, you?”

“No, no, I just. We’ve been workin’ together for years, right?”

Viktor wouldn’t say together, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“And, like, you’re cool, and pretty, and smart, and confident. And I always try to impress you, y’know? With papers, or stories about cool stuff that’s happened, or whatever, but you always seem... irritated.”

He’s blinking at Jayce in a downright owlish manner now, he knows, but Jayce is too engaged with his rant to notice.

“Like with most people they just, like, smile and nod and pretend like they like you. And they do that, because they think they can get something from you, and as soon as you can’t do everything for everybody, they leave. And I’ve, I’ve come to expect that, you know? But you’re not like that.” He points at Viktor, and he feels pinned like a bug on a mat. 

“You don’t pretend, you’re not fake. Everyone knows where they stand with you. But I dunno how to... change where I stand with you. I figured, hey, he doesn’t like anybody, doesn’t want friends, I guess. But then you’re here tonight, bein’ social, and... so maybe it’s me? Like I did something?”

His eyes are getting big and watery again, and Viktor really doesn’t know what to say, so he does what he does best and shoves all the emotional thoughts in his brain aside. Instead, he pulls out his phone. “Let’s... call you a cab.”

“It’s okay. I walked here. I’ll just... walk home.” Jayce dejectedly puts his glass of water (almost full, save what was spilled) back on the table, clumsily pushing his chair away as he stands. He wobbles noticeably, catches his balance, and takes three more steps before his path veers again. 

With a sigh, Viktor gets up to intercept him, putting one of Jayce’s meaty arms over his shoulders so the man could rest on his free side. “I don’t think you’re in a shape to be walking through the city alone at...” a glance at his watch. “Nearly two a.m.. Where do you live?”

“I’m good, really,” Jayce hums, gestures. “It’s just, like, a fifteen or twenty minute walk that-a-way.” He tries to pull away a bit, but Viktor keeps a firm grip on his hand.

“What’s the address, Jayce,” Viktor presses, walking them towards the door. 

Jayce winces a bit, wiggling his fingers. Viktor’s grip doesn’t relent. “Apartment 4A. Across from the bakery.”

Viktor closes his eyes and takes a deep, calming breath through his nose. “What bakery?”

“The one with the little pastries my mom likes.”

“The address, Jayce!”

“I don’t know the bakery’s address,” Jayce answers, as if it’s a stupid question.

Well, so much for loading him into a cab and sending him off. But Viktor doesn’t feel right leaving a weepy drunk to his fate on a cold winter night in the city, either. And he sure doesn’t trust anyone else to notice what’s going on over here.

“Alright,” he sighs, loading Jayce into the cab. “My place it is...”

----

Jayce is awoken by a dull, throbbing pain in his head. He squeezes his eyes tighter in a vain attempt to ignore it, but as minutes tick by it only gets worse, and he slowly becomes aware of more ways he’s uncomfortable. His mouth is dry, his eyes are crusty, his back aches from the lumpy mattress he slept on and he’s still wearing a dress shirt and slacks--

Wait. Dress shirt and slacks... lumpy mattress? He slowly opens his eyes to confirm his fears: this is not his bedroom.

He springs forward, but once he’s sitting up his head starts to spin and he has to stop to quell the queasiness. The room he’s in is messy, but it seems like a controlled chaos... most of the piles of things seem to be books and papers. There’s a bucket lined with a plastic bag on the floor next to the bed, which he is very much hoping not to need. There’s also a glass of water on the bedside table, and three little pills sitting on a piece of paper. It just says ‘aspirin,’ in crooked, doctorly handwriting, with an arrow pointing to the pills.

Downing the pills and water, he racks his brain to dredge up memories of the party. Cait had ditched him, then he’d put his foot in his mouth talking to the investors. After the professor praised his progress at the hospital, too. Hopefully he hadn’t fully tanked his chances at the promotion. Then... one of the female doctors had been talking to him, buying him drinks. That’s where his memories go fuzzy.

She’d definitely been flirting with him, but he wouldn’t have gone home with her, would he? At least he’s still fully dressed, albeit missing his tie and shoes. His shirt had a few buttons open as well, but not enough to be indecent, especially with an undershirt on. He scans the room for his shoes, trying to remember her name... if this is her house, not remembering who she is would only make things worse.

About fifteen minutes is enough time for the aspirin to take the edge off his headache, and to determine his shoes are not in this room, but not enough time to retrieve the woman’s name from his memory. Oh, well. He stands with a sigh, opening the door as quietly as he can to pad down the hall.

He’s in a decent sized apartment, which is homey, but just as chaotic as the bedroom. The floor is clear, though, with surprisingly few tripping hazards for how much stuff is piled on the available flat surfaces. He passes a bathroom, and a dining room, before turning the corner into the kitchen, and freezing in his tracks.

The kitchen is small, with a little bar separating it from the living room. There are a few chairs lining the bar, and sitting in one of them is the head of the orthopedics department, Viktor, with a mug in one hand and a messily-bound pack of papers in the other. Over his shoulder, through the window to the living room, Jayce can see a pillow and blanket draped over the sofa, and a pile of things in a nearby armchair that looks like it includes his shoes.

Viktor looks up at him with an inscrutable expression, but if Jayce had to put a word to it, he’d choose bored. “Help yourself to coffee,” he says, gesturing with his mug towards a half-empty coffee pot. Then he goes back to reading like nothing is out of the ordinary.

“Um. Right.” Maybe he does need that bucket after all, with how his stomach is fluttering. Everything in him wants to just grab his things and run, but one thing everyone can agree on about Jayce is that he’s polite. So instead, he shuffles across the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. Viktor even left the sugar and creamer out, so he doesn’t have to drink it black.

Once it’s made, he slides into one of the chairs, leaving an empty one between himself and Viktor. He blows the steam off the top, trying not to look up at Viktor, who isn’t looking up at him at all. “Thanks for, uh. Taking care of me last night. I don’t know what got into me...”

“A lot of cocktails, if I was to hazard a guess,” Viktor says, deadpan. His eyes track across three more lines of text on his papers before he sets them on the counter, taking a sip of his own coffee. Then he finally looks up at Jayce, eyes scanning his face. “You don’t remember much, do you?”

“No,” he admits, feeling his cheeks flush a bit. “I don’t usually drink that much...”

“I can tell.” It almost seems like there’s a bit of humor in his voice, the hint of  a smile on his face. Maybe Jayce is imagining it.

“I hope I wasn’t too much trouble for you...”

Viktor waves a hand. “You were very agreeable, though you did fight me in getting your shoes off. Very talkative, too.”

“Oh, God.” His stomach flips again. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t say anything too embarrassing.”

Viktor says nothing at that, just giving a little shrug. Jayce would swear the little smile on his face is bigger, though. He focuses on his coffee to distract himself. It’s a surprisingly good roast. 

They sit in minimally-awkward silence, sipping coffee, for a few minutes; long enough for Jayce to believe the topic of last night to be dropped. Viktor finishes his coffee, dog-ears the page he’s on and flips his papers closed. From the front page, it seems to be a medical journal, printed out and stapled together. Jayce can see the words robotics and prosthesis, but he’s trying not to be obvious about looking over Viktor’s shoulder.

“You did say one thing,” Viktor says suddenly, and if Jayce’s coffee wasn’t already half empty it would have spilled. 

Viktor drums his nails on the ceramic of his mug, a staccato pattern of clicks signifying the gears in his mind turning. There’s something graceful about the movement of his long, thin fingers moving in a rhythmic wave. Almost hypnotic.

“You said,” a pause. “You said I’m cool?” 

Okay, that’s not that bad.

“And smart. And that you wanted to impress me?”

Jayce feels his face burn with embarrassment as he opens his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out.

There’s silence for a few moments, and Viktor’s next words are almost too quiet to hear. “And... pretty?” 

Maybe he died of alcohol poisoning last night, and this is hell, actually. 

Viktor’s tapping slows to a stop, and Jayce can hear his heartbeat in his ears. He says “I can--” at the same moment Viktor says “Is that--” and they both stop speaking, staring at each other with a similar mix of anxiety and scrutiny. 

Silence is an awful sound, Jayce decides. He just wants to go home, shower, and go back to the hectic insanity that is his everyday life in the ER.

Viktor picks up his sentence first. “Is that true? Or was it just, eh...” He gestures with his mug, free hand spinning a curl of his hair between two fingers. “Drunk ramblings.”

“...Both?” Jayce puts down his coffee so Viktor doesn’t see his hands shaking. “I mean, it’s true,  yeah, but I also wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t drunk. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I’m so sorry.” He stands, straightening his shirt -- to little effect, since he slept in it. “I’ll--I’ll get out of your hair. I’m sorry, again, I really--”

“Would you want to, uh. Have lunch, sometime?” Jayce is startled out of his panicked rambling, and looks up to see Viktor looking away, chewing on his bottom lip. “I could tell you about this journal I’ve been reading. If you’d like.”

“--Uh. Yeah. Sure, yeah, that... sounds cool.”

----

Thankfully, Jayce has the day after the party off work, so he can sleep off his hangover and pour over everything that’s happened in the last 32 hours. But working in the ER, two consecutive days off in a row is a rare occurrence, so the next morning he puts on his festive reindeer scrubs and heads into the hospital.

The hectic nature of the Emergency department distracts the part of Jayce’s brain that wants to fret, which is a bit of a relief. It’s a busy day, but things will only get busier as the holiday season drags on.

He receives a patient from the ambulance bay, scribbling notes on their condition on a clipboard as the paramedic lists them off. Drunk, got in a fight, probably needs a few stitches but nothing life-threatening. Once it’s all written and clipped to the bed, he leaves the nurses to get things set up and steps out for a breath of air.

The paramedic is there, and on second glance, it’s Caitlyn, looking a little sheepish. He gives her a smile, which she returns with a little wave as he approaches. “Sorry for ditching you at the party. Vi hurt her arm...”

She’d just said girlfriend emergency when she left, but Jayce had assumed that was probably the nature of the emergency, knowing Vi. He waves a hand. “No big.”

“I take it you got home safe?” She’s got an odd look on her face.

“Yeah, I got a cab.”

“I’ve heard some weird rumors. They’re probably nothing, but... I figured you should know.”

He cocks his head. “What kind of rumors?”

“Well, people are saying you left with Viktor, the head of ortho.” Jayce doesn’t get a chance to respond, the blood rushing to his face giving him away. “...You didn’t.”

“It was nothing!” His arms cross over his chest. “I got a little, uh... I drank a little more than I meant to, and he got me a cab.”

“A cab home?”

Jayce looks away. He never wishes for more people to get hurt, but an emergency that would pull him away from this conversation would be really helpful right now.

“Jayce!”

“Apparently I wouldn’t tell him my address,” he admits, arms falling to his sides as his shoulders slump. “So he took me to his apartment to sleep it off. He slept on the couch! No funny business, nothing rumor-worthy.”

She looks smug, like she does when she thinks she’s connected the dots. “So that’s why he’s in such a weird mood,” she hums, tapping her chin with a finger.

“...Weird mood? What do you mean, weird mood?” He’s speaking too fast to sound normal. He clears his throat. “I mean, uh. Not that it matters. To me. But is he upset?”

“I was in the ortho department yesterday with Vi-- she had a pin put in, so we came for a consult on if it would affect her boxing.”

“Oh, shit. Is she alright?”

“Yeah, she’ll be fine. She broke her elbow on a dare. He told her to just lay off it for a few weeks. Somehow she never hurts herself badly enough to have any lasting consequences, thankfully...” Caitlyn rolls her eyes. “Anyway. Viktor was smiling at people. I asked one of the nurses and she said he’s been acting funny since the party. He even laughed at one of Vi’s terrible jokes.”

Jayce isn’t sure what that means, but it’s giving him that weird fluttering in his stomach again.

“I don’t think anyone has ever been to his apartment before -- at least, no one who works here now, anyway. He’s not exactly known for going out of his way for people like that.”

“Yeah, I guess not...”

“Dr. Talis?” The nurse pulls him back to earth. “We’re ready for you.”

“Right-- right. See you around, Cait.”

Caitlyn waves him off with that smug little smile, and he tries not to overthink.