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fishhateme · 2 months ago

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so... LinkedIn au part four, anyone?

Listen. LISTEN. I know it's been like a month. But last week was the ao3 fic, so I'm making good on my promise and finally, finally continuing this au - rest assured, there will be no more longer breaks, we'll do biweekly updates now. Technically, this was supposed to come out on Thursday, but I was genuinely creatively blocked. Anyways, hope you like it! if you need to catch up, go read part 3!

Max wasn’t an expert on coffee, not really, but he’d wager the espresso he was drinking right now had been burned, watered down with tap water, covered up with sugary syrups he couldn’t name if he wanted to, and then topped off with the cheapest milk known to man.

Ah, the beauty of a college campus Starbucks.

Besides him, Daniel was drinking a chai latte (“I’m actually not supposed to be drinking this, I’m lactose intolerant, but YOLO, am I right? George, do people still say YOLO?”) and George, the TA, was typing furiously on his cellphone, his caramel macchiato long forgotten beside him (“Are you flirting with your boyfriend again, Georgie? Your boyf?” “Erm- Alex is just a friend, Professor Ricciardo. And nobody says boyf”).

In any case, Daniel’s eyes were now focused on Max as the Dutchman tried not to grimace anytime he took a gulp out of his drink, thinking that it was surely unfair that this man had such naturally long eyelashes and puppy-dog eyes.

“What about you, Max? Got any boyf?” Daniel asked, voice mocking as he said that just to annoy George, obviously.

Obviously.

That was the only reason he was asking about Max’s relationship status.

Even though the espresso he was drinking was hell on Earth, Max forced himself to take another gulp and swallow it, if only to buy himself some time. He thought about that Spanish car designer with the stupid mansion in Madrid he’d invited Lando to for the weekend, because if a God existed he surely wanted to show Max that good things happened to good people, just not him.

Unlike his friend, Max was meant to squirm under hot, middle aged men’s questioning gazes.

Actually not the worst fate in the world, now that he thought about it.

“Eeeeh” he said, noncommittal. “No, no, uh, boyfriend”

If he hadn’t known any better, he would’ve said that Daniel smiled at that, but his plush lips were quickly covered by the plastic lid of his drink. “Ah, a pity, such a handsome man all alone. I’m single, too, if it helps you feel better. I’m All By Myself, like my friend Celine.” he stared at Max, the corner of his mouth quivering, clearly searching for some recognition that never came, “You uh, you know Celine, actually?”

Max frowned, not sure if he should focus on the fact that he’d just been called handsome or on the Aussie’s question, suddenly feeling socially inept. He knew a lot of people in the physics world - Jos had made sure of it, had taken him to see particle accelerators instead of playing football when he was a kid - but not so many in academia, not really. “Uh… Celine?”

George gave him a weird look, almost pitying, but Daniel was nodding along, a thrilled gleam in his eyes. “Yeah yeah yeah, Celine! She, uh, awesome lady, gosh, she did a lot of work in the, uh, green sector…” he turned to George, a gleam in his eyes, “George, Tell Him”

George rolled his eyes, sighing, but he set his phone on the table as he reluctantly smiled at his professor, seeming mildly amused. “Oh yeah, I remember Celine, It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”

Daniel almost jumped from delight at that, squirming in his seat like a child on a sugar rush, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as he looked back at Max, trying not to laugh. “Yeah, uh, I don’t know if you remember, Max, she was really big in the green energy space, uh, she invented this whole new type of power plant… it was very, uh, revolutionary. She discovered, um, a new type of power” he said, his voice jumping an octave at his last words, his entire body language jumpy as if he couldn’t wait for something.

Max blinked, feeling like he’d missed half of the conversation, lost, suddenly back to being in the backseat of his dad’s car after another failed Physics Olympiad.

Was this Celine woman important? Was he forgetting, like, another one of Marie Curie’s daughters and they were laughing at his lack of physics knowledge? Had Daniel read his old fluid dynamics papers and expected a scholarly genius, only to be disappointed? Was he going to tell everyone he knew that the old prodigy of aerodynamic engineering was actually a fraud who hadn’t even designed a successful new aircraft in almost a year now? Was this all a big joke, and he was the punchline?

“She discovered The Power Of Love!” Daniel cut in, laughing so hard he almost fell out of his chair, tears in his eyes as he cackled.

Unbeknownst to him, he'd said something so odd and utterly unfunny he'd completely snapped Max out of his spiral.

Huh, that's certainly a new way of getting back to the present.

Other patrons at the Starbucks stared, but at least one or two recognized Daniel by his honking laugh, waving hi at their professor, evidently somewhat fond of his antics.

Max felt half confused and half embarrassed, and he let out a little chuckle out of politeness, although he was mostly starting to get irritated by… whatever this was. He looked at George, feeling lost, and the TA laughed as well, clearly a little in love with Daniel too because he seemed far too charmed by the older man’s shenanigans. At Max’s lost look, though, he clearly took pity on him, because he stirred the caramel macchiato pensively before finally giving in.

“Celine Dion, Max” George explained, whilst Daniel was too busy laughing his ass off.

Max blinked once, then twice, feeling stupid. This wasn’t a… physics thing, was it? It wasn’t the type of get together where three academics tried to surpass each other’s encyclopedic knowledge of increasingly obscure subjects, it was just… three guys in a Starbucks.

Okay. Cool. Chill. Max could do that. Totally.

“Oh” he said, lamely.

Daniel was so delighted he was kicking his feet by now, wiping off his tears with a cheap napkin. “Ah, mate, you should’ve seen your face…” he sniffled, looking like a kid on Christmas as he beamed at Max, not even remotely ashamed. “Sorry, uh, I promise I don’t do that often. Must be the caffeine in my system”

“Yes, you do. And you’re drinking tea” George piped in, his British accent barely disguising his rudeness, but Max and Daniel were too busy making lovey dovey eyes at each other to really pay attention to his words.

What a weird fucking dude, Max thought, breathing slowly as he allowed himself a real smile.

If possible, Daniel smiled even wider, as if in reflex.

Okay, yeah, I wanna fuck him.

They ended up spending over an hour at the Starbucks, mainly because Daniel had gotten it into his head that his first-year students should computationally model the hypersonic aerodynamics of a cow for 20% of their grade, and now he was in a bit of a pickle since he was expecting at least one of his eighty or so students to adequately assume the cow would fucking die, and none of them had gotten it right.

George, exasperated, was already emailing one of Daniel’s faculty members, the Seb guy, asking how they could delete a graded assignment from the applied physics department’s digital database before the faculty head noticed.

Meanwhile, Daniel was bent over the table, sipping his third venti chai latte, clearly on a little bit of a sugar rush as he covered his face with his hands, “I just don’t get why they didn’t tell me to fuck off! They should’ve told me to fuck off, right? I mean- how many days did they even spend on this?! They put the- they put the fucking cow in Mach 5 velocity, did nobody think about the poor animal?!”

Max was just thankful he’d never had to study under Daniel, really. Not only would it have been a massive obstacle to his accelerated course of studies, which his father had personally designed, it would’ve also made him want to stay and have class with his peers, which would’ve been hugely detrimental to his carefully timed life plan.

They wrapped up the coffee date (was it a date when you brought along your TA and only talked about work? Max should really just swallow his pride, reinstall Grindr and be done with it) after Daniel texted a friend of his about animal cruelty and sticking bulldogs in wind tunnels or something. Max just hoped it wasn’t the bulldog guy from the convention.

It probably was, wasn’t it?

George had long since headed to the dorms, arguing weakly about homework, which his Aussie boss clearly didn’t buy for a second, but had still allowed.

As he took him to his car, Daniel smiled at Max, sweet like honey. His tan skin was glowy in the golden light of the sunset, and he almost looked regal, like a statue of a long forgotten Greek god.

The college parking lot was silent and deserted, at this time of day. Above them, the clouds shone a mesmerizing mix of pink and orange hues.

“I had a lot of fun today,” Daniel said, his voice quiet like he was afraid to ruin the moment. “Thanks for coming by. I know it’s not the most, uh… exciting, compared to your big-boy labs and, like- fancy computing systems and everything, but… y’know”

Max nodded along, eyes wide. He didn’t want to miss a single second of this, whatever this was. He wondered if Daniel’s lips tasted sweet with a hint of chai tea, tried to imagine how the spiciness of the black pepper would feel on his tongue.

“I had a lot of fun, too. It was nice to get shown around. I never got the, er, proper college experience. So it was of course lovely to join you, Daniel” Max responded, surprising himself when he realized he had actually had fun, even though it had been, objectively, a waste of his time.

He could waste time, and be cool and laid back, and have people know his name and order in a coffee shop, and memorize Celine Dion songs to make shitty jokes.

He could, truly.

Let me show you I could, he wanted to say, but the words died on his lips.

Daniel stared, still, uncharacteristically quiet.

He was awfully close, Max realized.

The Aussie cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but he didn’t take a step back. Max could feel his breath ghosting his lips. He must’ve looked pathetic, now, pupils blown wide and cheeks burning crimson for a man he hadn’t even touched.

Daniel seemed to finally get the memo, letting his eyes drift shut as he leaned in for a kiss, a soft peck of the lips with barely any tongue, tentative and unsure. Chaste, almost - silly for men their age.

Max sighed deeply through his nose, taking a step forward, wanting to be impossibly closer to Daniel, to press their bodies closer together, closer, closer, closer.

But Daniel pulled back, his warm hands caressing his shoulders, keeping him in place as he smiled softly. “Drive safe, Max”

And Max, maddened with the burning need for more, couldn’t do much more than nod, watching as he walked away.

#daniel ricciardo #max verstappen #maxiel #my fic #my writing #linkedin influencer!au #featuring tired ta george #oh wait i forgor 💀#george russell #this au is BACK #but also next week is gonna be a looooong yummy chapter on my daniel killing himself ao3 fic i'd go check that out #damn i really have to find a better name for that au don't i #i have an actual name for that other au but i cant say it without spoiling literally the last chapter aaaaah #anyways enjoy this piece of 'just get something on the page' quality writing #yours truly #fish #Also how many of you can tell im not a stem girlie just by the semi believable physics talk 😭

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thetomorrowshow · 9 months ago

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just when i was getting to know you

TRUST AU

yeah yeah i'm posting a lot of trust au. i have a backlog ok

Joel wouldn’t say he was the closest person to Scott. Sure, they know each other. They’re friends. They've been in House Blossom councils together for the past ten years, and Scott's been joining in on family night, and the elf's engaged to his brother-in-law and best friend, so they have to at least be acquaintances. They happen to be friends.

Friends or no, they certainly aren’t best pals.

To suddenly be possibly the closest person to Scott at the time of his death is more than a little pressure.

Well, Katherine's there, too, but she seems even more shellshocked than Joel.

It's—well, the whole thing is . . . incredibly violent. Xornoth throws Scott around with tentacles, kicks him into the ground, breaks his wing. . . .

Katherine covers her eyes. Joel watches, flinching at every knock of Scott's head against the stony ground.

When Xornoth drags Scott up for the final time, Joel gets one last look at him—dusty, hair tangled, scraped and bleeding and eyes barely open, limbs dangling helplessly—and then he's thrown off the edge of the cliff.

Joel doesn't run with everyone else to peer over the side.

Joel flicks open his elytra and takes off into the sky, heading the opposite direction.

Xornoth watches him.

Joel doesn't know why, but Xornoth lets him go.

And that's terrifying, just a little bit.

Xornoth doesn't think the massive armies of Mezelea are enough of a threat to kill him here and now, like he did Scott.

Scott's dead.

Goodness, Scott's dead.

Rivendell has always been a force to be reckoned with. Ancient and up in those frozen mountains, Joel hadn't even considered that such a country could fall so early in a war that hadn't yet reached its borders.

The Codlands had fallen in one bloody day.

Now, in a reflection of its deceased lover, Rivendell has too.

Joel soars across the ocean, wondering just how long it will be until Rivendell is forced into servitude. Mere days, like the Codlands? Or maybe more gradually, a months-long process designed to make the elves feel in-control of their descent.

How many are left to fight the evil? Him, Lizzie. Shubble's certainly been conquered as well, seeing as Grimlands army would have marched through the Undergrowth to reach Rivendell. Katherine has thus far declared neutrality, as has Pearl. Pix hasn't been heard from since the war began. And Gem—

Gem's down, too. Possibly dead. And her students aren't really built for war, try as they might.

So it's just him and Lizzie.

Goodness. And they're supposed to win this fight, let alone survive?

It isn't exactly black and white, of course. There are likely fugitives leaving Rivendell and the Overgrown as he flies, and he has a small army of Rivendell soldiers in his forces that Scott sent over several weeks ago, and he and Lizzie have already been strengthened the slightest bit by dissenters from the enemy armies. They aren't as alone in this as he feels.

Still. The loss of Rivendell is a terrifying, war-changing blow. Rivendell gone, Scott dead—

Joel feels like nobody ought to be able to blame him for feeling a bit hopeless.

He needs to get back to Mezelea, reorganize his armies, inform his support from Rivendell that they cannot return home, contact Shubble and see what they can do to help. He needs to do all sorts of kingly matters that really shouldn’t wait.

But he stops at the palace rising out of the depths of the ocean, landing on one of the towers and hitting the ground running, elytra flapping in the wind behind him.

He sprints through the doors, down the hall, takes a left, Lizzie's probably in some sort of important meeting so he takes another left toward her war room—

There's a soldier standing guard outside of the room, and when Joel approaches, he shuffles to block his entrance.

"Her majesty is not to be disturbed," the guard says, blocking Joel from entering. "She is in a meeting with—"

"I'm her husband and I do what I want," Joel tells him, before shoving him aside and going in.

Lizzie is standing at the opposite end of a somewhat large, square table, pointing at a map, a gnome amongst three other advisors (one the Rivendell ambassador, another clearly fae) gathered with her. When Joel enters, they all look up.

Lizzie isn't wearing grey.

Her dress is purple, the sleeves billowy and light. Her hair is down, neatly brushed and falling into her face, her crown set upon it.

Her mourning period has ended.

"Joel?" she says, brow furrowed. "I asked to not be interrupted."

Joel strides across the room, stopping at the other end of the table. "Right, right, but—"

"These plans are only to be known between those of us present, it's frankly a war crime for you—"

"Scott is dead," he says loudly, and Lizzie freezes.

"I—what?"

"Scott is dead, and Rivendell surrendered," he says, and the elf in the room (Elif, if he remembers correctly) actually staggers back.

"The king?" Elif demands, his hands shaking. "King Scott? You—you jest!"

Joel shakes his head. "I saw it," he manages, the shock of it all really hitting him. "He's dead."

"What happened?" Lizzie asks, rushing around the table.

Joel shrugs helplessly. "He just—the demon killed him. Scott—he tried to do something, something with magic or whatever, but it didn't work, and the demon just. . . ."

He doesn't want to tell them everything he saw. He doesn't want to tell them of how Scott's body lay crumpled on the ground, his mourning clothes torn and bloody, while Xornoth towered over him, declaring victory.

He doesn't want to tell them that at no point in the battle did Scott have the upper hand.

That it was hopeless from the start.

That he didn't even try to help.

"He's dead," he whispers.

Lizzie's eyes are wide, horrified. She almost seems to search his face for any sign of a lie.

"No," she breathes.

Joel only nods once.

Tonight, he'll tell her what happened.

Tonight, as they get ready for bed, he'll recount in a whisper the demon appearing, the way ice had seemed to burst out of Scott in jerky and uncontrollable ways, the way Xornoth had broken free nonetheless and beaten Scott to the ground and cast him to his death.

He'll hold Lizzie close to his chest as she cries, and a year ago she wouldn't have cared if Scott lived or died but now it's almost like he was the last living piece of Jimmy other than Lizzie herself and with him gone, everything is lost.

He'll lay awake in bed, wondering what on earth will happen now that Rivendell has fallen—will the elves be hounded out of their lands, forced to find homes elsewhere? Will they be forced into servitude? Will Katherine declare loyalty to a side?

Will there be a funeral for Scott?

But right now, as Lizzie turns away, as Elif collapses into a chair, as the gnome mournfully asks Joel what has become of the Overgrown, Joel can't say anything.

He can only stare at the table (with maps and figurines and inkpots) and think of all he must do.

"I'm going to mourn," Joel tells Lizzie the next morning.

It's a senseless decision. He should be in gazillions of meetings, preparing his country for refugees and attacks, deciding how to divide his forces, proportioning what to give to those in need. He doesn't have time, in the wake of everything, to spend three days secluded in his quarters.

"You shouldn't do that," Lizzie advises, pinning her hair behind her ear. "You have too much to do."

Joel shrugs. "I'm gonna do it anyway."

"Why?"

"Just feel like I should."

Lizzie sighs. "Joel, you really can't. I need your help with this, your country needs you, you can't just—"

"It's only—"

"—other mourning periods, it would be fine, but Mezelean—"

"—without me for three days—"

"—total isolation, you have—"

"Who else is gonna do it, huh?"

Lizzie falls silent, arms folded. She raises an eyebrow, and Joel struggles to come up with the words.

"Who else is gonna mourn him?"

"His people," Lizzie is quick to answer.

Joel scoffs. "They've just been conquered by the archenemy of their dead ruler—you think the demon will let them?"

"Katherine."

"Katherine doesn't mourn, it isn't a part of her culture."

"Gem."

Joel remembers Gem, lying on the ground, hair entirely white, and shudders. "I don't think she can. She was . . . injured, yesterday."

"We're all mourning him," Lizzie waves him off. "We may not be wearing black, but we all miss him. We're all thinking about him. It's basically the same thing, just without any outward sign."

Yes, but that's part of mourning, isn't it? Scott, at some point last week (it's just like Jimmy, Scott was fine last week and now he's gone forever), had mentioned that his clothing is designed to be as similar as possible to his betrothal clothing, to remind him at every moment of his loss.

The outward signs aren't for others, aren't proof of how sad you are. They're a tool in grieving, in memory.

"You weren't even that close," adds Lizzie. "Would it even be proper to take the mourning period?"

Propriety doesn't matter. Not anymore.

"I know that we've got different beliefs on what happens with death and all that," Joel says awkwardly, trying to figure out how to word this. "But for us, we believe that . . . that there's this, like, waiting period to get into the afterlife. So the three days—it’s like you're waiting with them."

Lizzie nods. They've talked about this before.

Joel looks down at his boots, suddenly unwilling to meet his wife's eyes. "Nobody else will be mourning," he says quietly. "I don't want him to wait alone."

He and Scott weren't that close, it's true. But Scott had intended to marry Joel's best friend and brother-in-law, and that basically makes him family.

Lizzie doesn't argue any more. She only nods, then takes the pin out of her hair and ties it up into a tight bun.

And Joel goes back to Mezelea, and shuts himself in his quarters for three days, despite the contrary advice from his chamberlain.

When he comes out of the mourning period, he's resolved to save everyone he can.

And then Scott isn't even dead so it doesn't matter anyway.

But when Joel sees him—because the demon had blasted him to the side, and he'd heard a lot of shouting and chaos while blacked out and trying to regain his bearings on the floor, so it isn't until he stumbles out of the building that he sees him—, his heart actually leaps with joy.

He's alive.

Scott is alive, and he's right there, his back turned away and Joel has never seen him in homespun, brown peasant-like clothes before but it's definitely him, from the shock of blue hair on his head to the familiar satchel hanging from his shoulder.

When Scott turns around, Joel can't help the smile that breaks across his face.

He rallies the troops, claps Scott on the back (he wants to hug him, he wants to pull him in tight and never let go which is weird but whatever), and does his best to act normal.

"I don't know how you're alive," he says, breathless with—with wonder, or something. And maybe Scott isn't really alive, maybe this is some ghost version of him sent back to help them win this (but he feels awfully solid beneath Joel's hand). "But it's good to have you, for however long it'll be."

Scott only stares at him for a moment before asking (that's definitely his voice, his thick elvish accent, his funny-sounding Es and As, so inimitably Scott), "Why does everyone have weapons?"

And Joel just wants to laugh and laugh.

And later, when Scott's asleep in Rivendell's infirmary and Lizzie's some giant axolotl monster thing and Jimmy's also, somehow, alive (Jimmy’s alive Jimmy’s alive Jimmy’s alive), Joel laughs.

He sits on the front steps of the palace, exhausted and bloodstained and with aching arms from carrying bodies, and he laughs.

As his laughter dwindles into chuckles, he looks around at the reclaimed capital of Rivendell, the moon and stars illuminating torn palace grounds and those collecting the dead, and he sighs.

"I'm gonna claim this as my own country," he jokes to himself. "Who's gonna stop me? Rivendell's mine now."

"Good lord, your majesty, please do not," comes a tired voice behind him. Joel glances back to see Ilphas stepping out of the palace, easing the door shut behind themself. "I don't believe I would be able to restrain myself from attempting regicide a second time."

Joel snorts. "Right, wouldn't want to inconvenience you. A different day, maybe." Then, after Ilphas doesn't respond, he adds, "How is he?"

Ilphas offers a small, strained smile. "The king has not yet woken," they say, "though his majesty Pix believes it will not be much longer."

Joel had carried Scott to the infirmary after he had collapsed, the no-longer glowing sword under him. He'd hurried forward, while armies on both sides had remained frozen, and he'd dragged Scott out of the center of everything, laying him beside Jimmy's (Jimmy?) body, because Joel hadn't even known Jimmy was also here and now he was dead again?

None of it made any sort of sense, but as the soldiers of various armies tried to sort out whether or not they should continue fighting, Pix had pushed through the crowd and hefted Jimmy's limp body over his shoulder, before leaving without explanation.

Joel had stared after him for a long moment, wondering if maybe he had hallucinated the whole thing.

Then, gathering strength beyond his normal, he had heaved Scott up and carried him to the palace, where he had been met by several elves who quickly took over.

He'd really just hoped that Scott wasn't dead. Then he'd pushed it out of his mind and set to resolving this war.

Now, here he is. Jimmy is, somehow, alive, sleeping off a life-ending wound.

And Scott is also alive, asleep in the Rivendell infirmary.

Joel kind of feels like he missed a chapter somewhere, because nobody has explained to him how they're both here in the first place (and some part of him still believes that they are spirits, brought back by some ritual to help them defeat the demon), but they're here and they're alive and that's what matters.

And Ilphas, judging by the way they finally seem to be relaxed enough to let their shoulders drop, feels the same.

"It's good to have him back," Joel comments idly, and after a moment, Ilphas nods their agreement.

"It is," they say softly.

Joel's still exhausted. He's still confused. He's got no idea what's going to happen next.

But Scott is back, and Jimmy is back, and the war is over.

So he gets up, and claps Ilphas on the shoulder (the elf starts in surprise), then returns to the fields.

He has to help Rivendell rebuild if he's going to conquer it, after all.

#trust au #empires smp #empires smp fanfic #smallishbeans #mas writes #heyyy hiii have another trust au background fic #the joel bug has bitten me i believe as i just wrote a separate joel oneshot like last week #more importantly ILPHAS MENTION!!!!!!!#my favorite elf right there!!!#i cant wait to post the ilphas oneshot....#i could literally post that whenever i wanted. i just realized that #uhhhh i'll get to that #oleander next week #probably esh au after that #idk #oh goodness next month. next month will see a lot of content from me #i have uh seven whumptobers written? i'm planning to write for each day #anyways lmk what you think #love you guys

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