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waveridden · 7 years

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FIC: till our bones break

“The point is,” Steven grits out, “I have designed this heist to be as idiot-proof as possible. We’re going to do this, okay?” A GTA AU. 2.9k, Cib/Parker. content warning for non-graphic violence.

AUcember || title lyric

Steven slams his hands down on the table. “It is,” he says, “impossible for us to fuck this up. Do you understand?”

“Jinxed it,” Autumn mutters. Steven glares at her, but she just shrugs.

“Walk me through it one more time,” James says.

Steven kind of wants to scream at him, but instead he takes a deep breath. “Autumn’s going to shoot people. Parker is going to get in their security system. Cib and I are going to go inside, and you’re going to drive us away after we steal the money. Do you understand?”

“Do you understand?” Cib repeats mockingly. “Yes, dude, we understand, we’ve all robbed banks before.”

“And how did that go for us last time?”

Cib grins. “You got better afterwards.”

“Better after getting shot,” Parker mumbles, before Steven has the chance to. It’s a pretty valid point, Steven thinks. If anyone has the right to complain about this, it’s definitely him.

“The point is,” Steven grits out, “I have designed this heist to be as idiot-proof as possible. We’re going to do this, okay?”

“Relax, dude,” Cib says, which definitely puts Steven further on edge. Cib doesn’t seem to notice, just slings his arms around Parker and James. James leans into it; Parker just blinks and stares at him. “Listen, Autumn’s good at shooting, James is okay at driving-”

“Hey!”

“You don’t have a license, dude.”

“I have my permit!”

“Makes him the perfect getaway driver,” Parker says. “Nobody expects it.”

“That’s not how driving works,” Steven says, and for some reason, Cib actually fucking hisses at him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“It’s how driving works!”

“No, it’s certainly not!”

“No, I like this,” James says. “If it means Cib’s on my side, I like it, let me have this.”

“This is ridiculous,” Steven says, and looks at Autumn for solidarity. She doesn’t look back at him, fucking traitor. “This is ridiculous!”

“What’s ridiculous is how much money we’re gonna have afterwards,” Cib says, and lifts his hand for a high-five. Steven sighs, but he reaches across the table with all the blueprints and his last three weeks of work and high-fives Cib. “Foolproof, dude. You idiot-proofed it. We’re going to be fine.”

“Jinxed it,” Autumn says again, a little more forcefully. But Steven ignores her, because they can’t think like that. They can’t.

It’s really nobody’s fault that Steven got shot the last time they robbed a bank. It’s been months, and really, he’s pretty sure he’s the only one who’s still pissed about it. Rightfully so, he’d say, because he did in fact get shot.

Sami Jo calls him twenty minutes before they leave to rob the new bank. “Cased it for you.”

“And?”

“You’re good. No sign of anyone for two blocks in any direction.”

“Nobody?”

“I checked everywhere,” Sami Jo says patiently. She’s the only one who’s taking his fucking trauma seriously, even a little bit, and he appreciates it. “No sign that anyone else is going to hit the bank, or that there are rivals set up, or whatever else you were worried about. So it’s going to be fine.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Steven repeats. “Thank you.”

“But you should have someone who can stitch up bullet wounds on speed dial,” she adds. “Just in case.”

Steven snorts. “What kind of amateur do you think I am?”

“I don’t count.”

“I don’t mean you, I’ve got Jeremy. And Reina.”

“Going in extra prepared, huh?”

“Getting shot changes your outlook,” Steven says, philisophically. “Getting shot while driving and your car barrel-rolling and nearly crushing you, that changes your outlook so much that I think I went full circle and became the same person again.”

“I’m happy for you,” Sami Jo says flatly. “Good luck, stay safe, send me my check soon.”

“Of course.” He hangs up and takes a few deep breaths.

You can’t plan on anything, and he knows that. Nothing’s safe or sure, not now or ever. But he’s going to take every extra step to keep himself and his crew safe.

About half of the money is in the bags when Autumn says suddenly, “Cops.”

Steven doesn’t react, and neither does Cib, but James starts swearing a blue streak. “Where?”

“Heading south, two blocks.”

“Can you get them?”

“Can I get them,” Autumn snorts. A few seconds later, Steve hears the screeching metal that means either a driver or tires have been shot. “I can get some of them.”

“Knew you could,” James says proudly. “Parker, I’m gonna go shoot some cops.”

“What?” Parker says distractedly. “Yeah, you, uh- I’m trying to reroute their- gimme a minute, I can-”

“Okay,” James says, and Steve can hear him getting out of the car. “Parker’s good, I’m gonna shoot some cops.”

“Hurry up, idiots,” Cib says. There weren’t a ton of hostages in the bank, but that’s okay, because it’s less for them to deal with. The tellers are shaking and crying, just like fucking always, and they’re dumping money into the bags that Cib and Steven are holding. “God, what happened to bank tellers these days? I have a customer service complaint, is there a manager I can fuck with?”

“Not now,” Steven sighs. “Come on.”

Cib glares at him. “No time like the present! They need to be prepared for this!”

“We’re in Los Santos, I think everyone’s prepared to get robbed.”

“More cops coming from the west,” Autumn announces. “I’ll try and get them, but James-”

“On it,” James says, and there’s immediately a staccato burst of gunfire. Steven makes a mental note to check what kind of gun James brings to heists, because this one sounds… a little heavy-duty for a foolproof heist.

“Wait,” Autumn says. “Cops coming from the west are… turning around?”

“Yeah,” Parker says. “I, uh, I’m trying something new.”

“Is it working?” James demands.

“I think so?”

Cib beams at Steven, because that’s how he handles the fact that he likes fucking Parker, of all people. He makes Steven deal with it. While they’re robbing a bank.

“How far along are you guys?” James asks.

Steven cranes his neck and looks into what he can see of the vault. “Two more minutes?”

“Make it one.”

“One minute,” Cib shouts, “and we’ll be outta your goddamn hair if you get the cash in the bags.”

“More cops,” Autumn says, sounding strained. “James, they’re coming from behind-”

“Awesome,” James grunts, and the gunfire seems to increase.

Steven meets Cib’s eyes and mouths “two guns?” Cib shrugs.

“Keep going,” Autumn says. Steven can see cops outside the window of the bank now, and he watches one fall over, then two. “Come on, come- fuck-”

It takes Steven a second to figure out what happens. He can see James, at the edge of the window, whip around and start shooting. He can hear Autumn say something that he can’t quite make out, and Cib yells “Time’s up,” and then Parker makes this… noise. This punched-out noise, like all the air is leaving his lungs.

“We have to go,” Steven says, and ties off the bag, slings it over his shoulder. Parker is gasping, these deep, wheezing breaths that Steven recognizes. They have to get out of the bank before Cib figures it out and starts shooting innocents to cope.

“Wait,” Cib says, even as he runs after Steven. “What- who is that?”

“Get in the van, Cib.”

“Steve-”

“Get in the fucking van,” he shouts, and this time James runs after him and leaps into the driver’s seat. Steven opens the back door and forces Cib in. “I’ll call Jeremy. Autumn-”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Keep your line open.”

James peels away, slamming onto the horn as he does. “Which way is Jeremy’s?”

“South. Cib-”

Cib doesn’t say anything, because he’s made his way up to the passenger seat. Steven can’t see his face, but he can see Cib’s hands hovering, like he’s not sure if he can touch Parker. “What can I do?”

Parker moans, and it’s awful and pathetic and Steven suddenly wants to go and shoot some cops, just for the hell of it. “Put pressure on it.”

“Where- where is-”

“Cib,” Steven yells, “fucking do something.”

And just like that Cib snaps into himself. “Gonna fucking kill them,” he growls, and rips his shirt off to press against Parker’s bleeding body. “Every single one of them, you just find their names and I’ll burn their houses down.”

Parker makes a noise that could be a laugh. “Might take a while.”

“I’ll wait,” Cib promises.

“Sweet,” Parker mumbles.

Steven knows what happens next. He’s going to pass out. People are going to panic, because that’s what Autumn told him happened when he got shot. And then he’s going to be fine. There’s no version of this story that doesn’t end with Parker being fine.

Jeremy picks up on the first ring. “Steve-”

“We’re coming your way,” Steven says, as James runs his fourth red light in a row. “Gunshots.”

“How many?”

Steven hits speaker. “Cib, how many?”

“Two, I think. It looks like-” Cib pauses and swallows. “Like they hit him in the back of the right shoulder and then came out through the front.”

“Okay,” Jeremy says. “We can do something about that. What’s your ETA?”

“James?”

“I don’t know where we’re going,” James announces, running a yellow light. “Hey, that was less illegal than most of my driving.”

“We’re all proud of you,” Jeremy says calmly. “Steve, you could’ve mentioned it was Parker.”

Cib makes a noise, horrible and distressed, and Steven winces. “I think we’re all sort of… coming to terms, at the moment.”

“I thought you were just robbing a bank.”

“More police showed up than expected.”

“Banks are bad luck for you.”

“James, left,” Steven says, and James takes the van careening around a corner. “We’ll be there in three.”

“Make it less than that. If he- take me off speaker.”

Steven does. “Good call.”

“If he got shot twice, he’s losing a lot of blood,” Jeremy says. He can hear moving around, like Jeremy’s getting ready. God, he hopes Jeremy’s getting ready. “We’re going to have to act fast.”

“What can we do?”

“You’ve got pressure on the wound?”

“Yeah, Cib’s doing that.”

“Can you get blood?”

“Can we-” Steven shakes his head. “You don’t have any?”

“Do you know his blood type?”

Steven pulls the phone away from his mouth. “Cib, what’s Parker’s blood type?”

Cib glances back, just for a second. “B-positive.”

“I don’t like that Cib knows that,” Jeremy announces, “but I have some B-neg on hand.”

“I’m scared of you.”

“That’s the way I like it. Now, here’s the other thing.”

“Yeah? James, right. Jeremy, we’re two blocks out.”

“I’m going to set up in the garage,” Jeremy says. “I need to be alone.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“So I can perform surgery. I need you to keep Cib away from the table.”

“Why?”

“Because when it was you, he wouldn’t leave you alone,” Jeremy says, and Steven closes his eyes. He’d heard about that, of course, but he forgets sometimes that it… happened. That everyone else had to deal with him almost dying. “Parker was the only one who could get him away from you, so I’m counting on you to keep him away.”

“I can do that,” Steven says, with more confidence than he feels. The van screeches into the driveway. “Take care of him.”

“If he dies from this, I’m never speaking to you again,” Jeremy says, and hangs up as he opens the car door. “Cib, help me get him out.”

James gets out of the car and goes to stand by Steve. “Did we steal the money?”

“Who fucking cares?”

“I’m trying to find a bright side.”

“Yeah,” Steven sighs. “We got a lot of cash out of this.”

“Good,” James says, but he scrubs at his eyes. “Fuck. I don’t think his laptop got hit.”

“He’d lose his shit if it did,” Steven says, because it’s easier to think about Parker being able to see that and react than… not.

“Steve,” Jeremy says. When Steven looks up Parker is lying bloody on a table in the garage. “Like we said.”

“Right.” Steven looks at Cib. “Come with me.”

Cib stares like he doesn’t understand. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Steve-”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Steven says. Cib is squeezing Parker’s hand, like that’s going to make a difference. “So you and I are going to go light a police station or two on fire, because that’s how we deal with our feelings, and James is going to stay here with Autumn when she shows up. And they’re going to call us the second anything changes.”

“I told him I’d wait,” Cib says plaintively.

Steven shakes his head. “You’ll wait from a distance.”

James goes over to the table and takes Cib’s other hand. “The second anything changes,” he repeats, and Cib sighs and lets go of Parker. “We can even keep our lines open so you can hear when things don’t change.”

“Okay,” Cib says, barely a whisper, and turns to Jeremy. “Save him.”

“That’s the plan,” Jeremy says. “Now get out.”

They pull over at a safehouse, one that James thinks they don’t know about. It’s their ammo house. It’s where he keeps the flamethrowers.

“Oh,” Cib says when he sees them. “You actually meant we’re lighting them on fire.”

“Uh, yeah.” Steven looks at Cib. “Unless you’d rather do something else.”

“I think this’ll be satisfying.” Cib swallows. “I hate this.”

“The waiting?”

“That we did everything right and it still happened.”

“We can’t control the cops.”

“But we can burn them to the fucking ground,” Cib says. He goes to pick up a flamethrower, but then whirls around and throws his arms around Steve.

Steve hugs him back and sucks in a deep breath. “Cib.”

“No feelings,” Cib mumbles, and Steven decides not to mention that Cib’s tears are on his neck, and it’s a little gross. “Just some barbecued police.”

“Some braised precincts.”

“Charbroiled cops.”

“Smoke-cooked sergeants.”

“They’re going to all die,” Cib promises, with the conviction of someone who’s been hurt.

Steven’s not afraid of Cib. It’d be hard to be, because it’s Cib who says things like “charbroiled cops” and threw grenades with the pins still in at ducks because they stole his sandwich. And, maybe more important than that, Cib is on his side.

“And we’ll be back in time for dinner,” Steven promises, and Cib grins into his shoulder.

“Three police stations?” Parker asks, four days after being shot, the first time he’s awake for more than ten minutes. He’s exhausted, and he keeps saying he’s hungry, and he can’t take his eyes off Cib.

“Would’ve been four,” Cib says breezily. “But Jeremy said we could come see you, so that one was left lightly smoking.”

“Heavily smoking,” Steven says, because he’s not going to let Cib editorialize like that. “Mostly him. I was just there to make sure he didn’t burn down apartments or anything.”

“Would’ve been worth it if I had,” Cib says, stroking his thumb across the back of Parker’s hand. Parker smiles at him, because apparently this is a match made in hell and burning down apartments is an acceptable way to show affection. “Also, I’m getting you Kevlar.”

“That’s fair,” Parker says, and Steven can’t stomach watching them anymore, so he gets up. Parker finally glances at him. “You okay?”

“Gotta take care of some business things,” Steven says. “But welcome to the bullet club.”

Parker’s smile widens. “Thanks. I hate it.”

“Me too.” Steven brushes his fingers against Parker’s shoulder. “Feel better, man, I’ll visit again soon.”

“Thank you,” Parker says, voice small, and Cib nods at him as he leaves the room.

James looks up as Steve closes the door. “Hey.”

“You get what I asked you for?”

James spins the laptop around. “Every cop who was at the robbery, and the one where you got hit. The cops who didn’t get shot, at least.”

“Okay,” Steven says. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to subscribe them to every spam email subscription list we can find. We’re also going to sign them up for porn magazine subscriptions, but only the bad ones.”

“How do we find those?”

“I have a list,” Autumn says without looking up from her own laptop. “What else?”

“We’re going to tamper with their credit cards. Just enough that they’ll think something might be up, but enough that they won’t be able to be sure. And we’re going to send them glitter bombs at their work and their homes.”

“That seems tame,” James says doubtfully.

Steve grins. “And then Cib’s going to burn their houses down.”

“Oh,” James says. “Yeah, sounds good, man. Gotta send a message.”

Every glitter bomb that they send has an actual letter attached. That was Autumn’s idea. They all say different things: the names of the banks, the dates of the heists, the type of bullets that they found in the van and pulled out of Steven’s guts. And then, one by one, Cib burns their fucking houses down. They all help, of course, but Cib is the one who stands in front of the fires. Cib is the one who says, every time, “They shouldn’t have done that.”

That, Steven thinks, is the message. The cops don’t get to touch Parker, or him, or any of them. Not again.

#ship pine 7 #fake pine 7 #slasher pine 7 #slaughter pine 7 #parcib #shipping pine 7 #cib x parker #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #if every gta au you've ever written has been about people burning their enemies to their ground for hurting their families you are valid #also i wrote this on a plane which is why it's long

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waveridden · 7 years

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FIC: back and forth

On James’s fourth date, he meets his boyfriend’s ex-husband. It’s not as weird as it sounds. Cib/James, mentioned Steve/Cib, 1.4k. [AUcember]

It’s not until the fourth date that things get… weird.

James has been on dates with: a dude who got really into describing the personality of every single goldfish he’s ever had, a woman who passionately insisted that James should go with her to Coachella, a guy who made six jokes about proposing, and someone who intentionally ordered food they were allergic to in order to test his reaction. So it’s not like Cib is weird by comparison, even if he’s weird, but James likes him. Likes him enough to go on a fourth date, and Cib invites him over for dessert afterwards, and James agrees.

(James agrees, because whether or not dessert is code for banging, he’s pretty sure he’s going to be happy with the outcome. And that’s rare, with dates.)

The problems don’t start until they get to Cib’s house and there’s a dude sitting on the couch, staring intently at his laptop.

“Welcome to my house,” Cib says, one arm around James’s waist. “Here we have the living room, the TV, the couch, my ex-husband Steve, the door to the kitchen-”

“Hold on,” James says. “Go back one.”

“Couch,” Cib says, helpfully. “For hanging out on.”

“Please don’t introduce me as your ex-husband,” Steve the ex-husband says without looking up. “It’s uncomfortable for everybody involved except you.”

James forces himself to laugh. “Okay, so you’re not really his ex-husband? Because that would be totally-”

“No, I am.” Steve clicks something furiously on his laptop. “I just think it’s less important than the part that we live together.”

James can feel his smile threatening to fail, and he doubles down, even though it definitely looks plastic. “You… live with your ex-husband.”

“We’ve been divorced longer than we were married,” Cib says, like it’s a completely normal thing to say. “Neither of us can afford the rent on our own, so we’re making it work right now. Oh, Steve, this is James, he’s-”

“Boyfriend, yeah.” Steve finally looks up at James. “Hey, nice to meet you, sorry I didn’t clean at all before you showed up.”

“It’s cool,” James says, because there’s not a ton else to say right now. Cib squeezes him a little tighter around the waist, and James leans into it automatically. “Sorry, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole- I knew there was a roommate, I just didn’t know the marriage part.”

Steve shrugs. “It’s not as important as it sounds.”

“I thought transparency was important,” Cib says, leaning into James so he’s more or less talking into James’s hair. “Gotta be up-front about the weird things. By the way, I have a cactus garden in my bedroom.”

James snorts quietly. “Do you really?”

“Absolutely.” Cib straightens up and looks at James, eyes sparkling. “You, uh, wanna see my prickly pear?”

“Gross,” Steve mumbles.

James ignores him, because this is another one of those things that could be a double entendre or could be an actual cactus. He’s pretty sure either way Cib is going to be excited about it, and he also wants to get the hell out of this room, so he looks at Cib. “I’d love to.”

Cib grins and moves his hand from James’s waist to his hand, tugging him along. “C’mon, let me show you around.”

James lets Cib pull him out of the room. If he focuses on Cib’s hand in his, he doesn’t have to think about Steve calling out behind them, “have fun.”

Autumn shows up on James’s doorstep the next morning with McDonald’s breakfast and arched eyebrows. “You know, we don’t have a code infrared.”

“I use code red too much,” James admits. “I needed something that showed how dire the situation is.”

“How dire is it?”

“First, did you get hash browns?”

Autumn pushes her way into James’s apartment, plops the bag down on his coffee table, and looks up at him. She doesn’t have to say anything for him to get the gist: of course she got hash browns.

“Okay,” James says, and sits next to her as she starts pulling out pancakes and hash browns. “So I had my fourth date last night.”

“Four, huh?”

“Yeah, I really like him.”

“What’s the problem?”

“He took me home afterwards.”

“Just tell him you don’t wanna fuck, it won’t be a problem.”

James shakes his head. “He took me home, and I met his roommate, who’s also his ex-husband.”

Autumn pauses. “That’s weird.”

“Right?”

“Did he explain why?”

“Said it helps with rent.”

“And he didn’t make a thing out of it?”

“He didn’t say anything else about it.” James picks up a hash brown and takes a sullen bite out of it. “It’s like, I don’t have a problem with him being married already, but it would’ve been nice if I knew about it beforehand.”

“Before meeting the guy?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Is the ex-husband nice?”

“I think I hate him on principle.”

Autumn nods and dips a pancake in syrup. “Are you going to go on a fifth date?”

James freezes. He’s been trying to avoid thinking about that, but… “Do you think I should?”

“Do you want to?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Do you think he wants to?”

“Cib’s ex-husband called me his boyfriend,” James says, because that’s the other thing that’s bothering him, a little. “I- is four dates that point? Do we need to talk about this?”

“Oh my god,” Autumn says. “Do you want him to be your boyfriend?”

“Yes,” James says without hesitation. He likes Cib. It’s that simple.

“Then go on another date,” Autumn says patiently. “And if it keeps bothering you, talk to him about it or something. Or just shove it down till it doesn’t bother you anymore, whichever one you think will work better.”

“What if I think one will work better but I don’t want to deal with it?”

“That’s depression,” Autumn says. “Or just being a person, I can’t tell the difference anymore.”

“Me neither,” James admits. Autumn leans her head on his shoulder. “Thanks for coming.”

“Don’t ever say code infrared unless you’re dying.”

“I feel like dying.”

“Tough,” Autumn says. “And you owe me, like, six breakfasts now.”

“Fuck,” James says, although he knows he doesn’t mind.

Ten minutes into their fifth date, Cib loudly announces that he forgot something and they have to go to his house. And, being Cib, he drags James into the living room and says “I’ll be right back, don’t move,” and leaves James there. With Steve, on the couch, playing on his phone.

“Hey,” James says, because he’s not an asshole. “How, uh, how’s it going?”

“We were only married for, like, nine months,” Steve says. “Just so you know.”

James decides to bite the bullet and sits down next to him. “You guys are genuinely just… roommates?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and puts his phone down. “The marriage was two parts because we were dating, one part because it felt like it’d be convenient. And that was three years ago.”

“But you still live together?”

“I like him as a person, that didn’t change when we got divorced.”

“Why did you get divorced?”

“Because we weren’t in love.” Steve shrugs. “I know it’s, like, a weird situation, but he’s honestly just my best friend. And he likes you a lot, and I want to make sure you’re not freaked out by it.”

“I’m a little freaked out by it,” James admits. “But you seem okay.”

Steve half-smiles. “You seem okay too. But if you hurt my ex-husband, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Can I threaten you too, or are we not at that point?”

“Definitely not at that point.”

James nods. “Fair enough. Any advice?”

“Be nice to him,” Steve says. “Goes a long way.”

“You think I wouldn’t?”

“I think it’s worth saying.”

“Hey!” Cib skids out from another room, coming to a stop behind them, one hand resting on James’s shoulder. “Sorry about that, you ready?”

“Ready,” James says, and goes to get up, but Cib presses down on his shoulder. James looks up, and Cib leans down and kisses him, gently.

It would be really sweet, James thinks, except for Cib’s ex-husband sitting three feet away from them. Or maybe it’s still sweet. He’s not sure how that works.

“Ready,” Cib says, satisfied, and James can’t help but grin up at him. “Steve, hold down the fort.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve waves him off. “Have fun.”

“Oh, we will,” James says, and he’s almost as happy that Steve grins at him as he is that Cib does.

#ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #cib x james #ragehappy #aucember17 #waveridden.fic #rpf for ts #i'm writing this early bc i have work tonight lmao #also i'm not reading over this one so if anything's spelled wrong. my bad

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waveridden · 7 years

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FIC: this sort of thing is old-fashioned

“Cib doesn’t do anything on purpose,” Jeremy says, which might actually be true. Cib is one of the most confusing people any of them have ever met, which is extra strange when compared to Steve’s hyper-rational self. And somehow the two of them pilot the most famous Jaeger in Los Angeles. (A Pacific Rim AU. Cib/Parker, 2.8k.)

AUcember || title lyric || Ao3

“The boys are coming back,” Jeremy remarks, on what should be a totally uneventful Tuesday morning.

Parker glances over, trying to hide the fact that his heart is definitely beating faster. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy says, casual as can be, which is a sign that something is definitely up. “They got deployed way early this morning. Big mission before breakfast.”

“You’ve been talking to Reina again?”

“She let me know that they’re incoming. Sounds like they have something for you.”

“For us,” Parker corrects him. “Both of us. We have the same job.”

Jeremy snorts. “Yeah, because Cib bringing you things is related to our job, and not at all how he expresses affection the same way dogs do.”

“Cib’s not a dog,” Parker says, even though he’s pretty sure that would explain… a lot about Cib. “What’re they bringing?”

“She wouldn’t say, just said it was for you.”

Parker makes a face. He likes Reina - likes everyone in the Shatterdome, of course - but he doesn’t like the running joke where everyone seems to think he and Cib are dating. Or whatever the joke is. He tries to avoid it, because it’s the kind of misinformation that’s a little chest-stabbingly painful whenever he remembers it’s not real.

And besides. Dating a Jaeger pilot is probably a bad idea.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jeremy says mildly. “This is good. This is gonna be a breakthrough, or something.”

“The last time Cib came back from a mission with something for us-”

“For you.”

“For us,” Parker repeats, “it was the left hand of their Jaeger, because he forgot that we’re K-Science and not J-Tech.”

“It was covered in Kaiju blue. We made breakthroughs with that.”

“That doesn’t mean he did it on purpose.”

“Still,” Parker mutters. “We don’t know what he’s going to bring.”

Jeremy shrugs. “We’re gonna find out in a few minutes, right?”

“Yeah,” Parker sighs. He’s a little embarrassed by how much he’s looking forward to that. Steve doesn’t seem to like him at all, but he figures that’s the kind of thing that happens when your friends become Jaeger pilots. You become friends with their copilots. That has to be perfectly normal.

Reina pushes the door to the lab open and props her hands on her hips. It’s the kind of hands-on-hips that makes Parker stand up a little straighter for no real reason, the kind that seems to mean something is about to Happen.

“Okay,” she says at last. “We’re going to need-” she gestures towards half their lab. “Everything over there? Gotta get it out of there.”

Jeremy, lounging in a chair, jumps to his feet. “What?”

“You’re going to need space for this,” Reina says, in her mission control voice. “Like, guys, you’re really going to want as much room as possible.”

“Why?”

“You’ll know why in about twenty minutes.”

“Why don’t we know now?”

“We’re busy clearing it,” she says, and for some godforsaken reason, looks at Parker. “You… have indirectly made my life very difficult today.”

Parker blinks. “What? How did- sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, of course not,” Reina mutters. “It’s not your fault, someone else made it very directly difficult.”

“Someone whose name rhymes with bib, I’d guess,” Jeremy says, in that weird semi-cheerful way he gets whenever something incredibly weird is about to happen. It’d make Parker’s skin crawl if it weren’t Jeremy. “Twenty minutes?”

“Twenty minutes!” Reina snaps her fingers and points at Jeremy, then Parker. “Get it done. Boys’ll be here soon.”

Jeremy nods at her, and Reina leaves as quickly as she entered. “What do you think they’re bringing us?”

“I don’t know,” Parker says thoughtfully. “Sounds like an actual kaiju-related thing this time. Do you think we’ll need to sterilize?”

“I think if we’re going to try and prep lab space for kaiju parts in twenty minutes, we need to get a move on.”

“Good point.”

Jeremy grins at him, a little shark-like. “Still think it’s not for you?”

“Shut up,” Parker mutters, because if it’s for him then he doesn’t know how to handle that, and Jeremy has to know that by now. “Let’s just… prep the lab, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Jeremy says, a little overly generous. Parker decides to ignore him.

Andrew is the first one in the lab, followed by Sami Jo and Jamie from J-Tech and a ton of people that Parker doesn’t recognize. And in the center of them all is something huge and covered in a tarp.

“Sami Jo!” Parker says, more surprised than he means to be. “You’re- hey, what’s going on?”

“Too much, Coppins,” she mutters, but she still flashes him a bright smile. “You guys are going to be spending a lot of time here soon. Better get comfy.”

“Yeah,” Parker says, because he’s getting that impression, “but what’s… you know, happening?”

“Get comfy,” Sami Jo repeats, and goes off towards Jeremy.

Parker blinks after her for a few seconds, trying to understand, but Sami Jo isn’t easily understood, so he turns away and finds Cib only a couple feet from him. He tries not to jump, he really does, but he’s kind of an obvious jumper. “Oh, uh, Cib! What’s-”

“Got you a present,” Cib says. He’s practically beaming.

“Ugh,” Steve says, walking past them both. “You- come on, Cib.”

“I did!” Cib protests. “It’s a good one, too.”

“Thank you, first of all,” Parker says. “And I can’t wait to actually… find out what it is.”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Reina said something about security clearance?”

Cib snorts. “You guys have, like, big fucking clearance, you should know what it is.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Jeremy says, materializing by Parker’s shoulder. He’s still watching everyone fussing around the thing under the tarp, in the newly-cleaned and barely-sterilized half of their lab. “What’d you get us?”

“Steve, what’d we get them?”

Steven sighs. “So we cut a Kaiju in half in the middle of the ocean, and Cib had the great idea of bringing you guys the upper half.”

“What?” Parker whips around, staring at the thing. It looks like the engineers are pulling the tarp off, and it looks like a giant glass tank. “You got-”

“Lower half was too damaged to be studied extensively,” Andrew explains. “Hey, guys.”

Parker waves at Andrew. “Thanks, J-Tech.”

“We’ve been building you guys a tank all morning,” Andrew says. “Sami Jo saved our collective asses on that, she figured out how to get it done quick.”

“And it’s the kind of thing we can study?” Jeremy demands. “We can actually run experiments on it?”

“I named him Alfredo,” Cib says. When Parker glances over, he looks completely pleased with himself. And he’s looking right at Parker. “You like him?”

“This is the greatest thing anyone’s ever given me,” Parker says, mostly without thinking. Although it’s sort of true. He’s probably never going to leave the lab again, because he has to figure out every single secret that Alfredo has to offer. And that kind of puzzle, that kind of opportunity is the kind of thing that means a lot.

When he looks back, Steven is mid-eyeroll, and Andrew is making a face that means… something. But Cib has gone completely soft around the edges, like he melted. Like the only thing he wants to look at is Parker. It’s a little overwhelming, all told.

“Awesome,” Cib says warmly, and it’s all Parker can do to tear his eyes away and look back at Alfredo.

The thing is, then Parker actually doesn’t leave the lab for four days.

He and Jeremy have things to do - so many things to do. Experiments, ideas, the works. The only people allowed entry are Reina, because they couldn’t stop her if they wanted to, and whoever brings them pizza, which tends to be Reina because she gets automatic entry.

They spend the first day coming up with ideas for what to do with Alfredo. (Jeremy starts out insisting that they can’t name it, but by halfway through the second day he’s calling it Fred for time’s sake.) The second day is gathering equipment, with help from Andrew and Sami Jo. The third day begins with Jeremy sleeping, because apparently he’s still physically capable of that. Parker’s not sure that he is, which is why he’s awake and scribbling notes on a whiteboard when the door opens.

“Hey,” he says without turning around. “Reina, J-Tech, pizza?”

“Have you ever met an actual person before?” Steve says. “Just wondering. And why’s Jeremy on a lab table?”

“We don’t have sleeping bags.” Parker turns around, blinking hard when dark spots appear in front of his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Just wanted to make sure that you’re still alive. Just you, I’m okay if Jeremy’s actually dead.”

“I would’ve filed a report.”

“You would’ve,” Steve mutters. It feels weirdly like an insult, even though it’s a factual statement.

And Parker, who hasn’t slept in a little over two days, can’t stop himself from saying, “Did I do something wrong?”

Steve frowns. “What?”

“Like, it’s okay if you want to be, you know, hotshot Jaeger pilot, because you are,” Parker says, and god, he’s babbling, but if he doesn’t say this now, he won’t do it. “Be friends with James and Autumn and all the other pilots, that’s cool, but we knew each other before, and I just want to know… why.”

“Why I’m not hanging out with you even though are jobs are in completely different divisions?”

“Why you don’t look at me anymore.”

Steve sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Parker waits, swaying on the spot, until Steve says, “Listen. You’ve heard of ghost-drifting?”

“Sure,” Parker says. “You’re linked even when you’re not drifting.”

“Exactly. Cib and I get a little bit of that. Every pair of pilots does.”

“What about it?”

“Cib has… feelings.” Steven wrinkles his nose. “And I know they’re his, but I don’t want them to get mixed up with mine. So I’m trying to dial up my opposite feelings. And that means being mean to you.”

Parker blinks. “So Cib wants to be nice to me?”

“Oh, honey,” Steve says, “you’re smarter than that. And you didn’t do anything wrong, other than assuming that I was Reina, what the fuck?”

“Reina’s allowed here. You’re not.”

“Says who?”

Parker points at the whiteboard where he and Jeremy wrote all their lab rules. The biggest one, at the top, is the list of people allowed in the lab. “You’re not allowed.”

“Are you throwing me out?”

“If you’ll leave.”

“Get some sleep, dude,” Steve says. “This science is dangerous to do when you’re not functioning at a hundred percent.”

“It’s dangerous to do when you are.”

“Sleep,” Steve repeats, and leaves, calling over his shoulder, “and text Cib, for Christ’s sake.”

Parker should text Cib. He has a handful of unread texts from Cib, the ones that he knows would distract him if he read them, but he can’t read them. So instead he wanders over to the table where Jeremy is sleeping and crawls underneath. He knows it’s not great sleeping conditions, but he barely has time to think that he should ball up his coat under his head before he closes his eyes.

Jeremy wakes him up a few hours later - definitely not long enough for either of them to be rested, but enough that they can make better choices. “You ready to collect samples?”

“Mm.” Parker stretches and gets out from underneath the table. “Why’d I- there’s another table right over there.”

“I thought you just wanted my company,” Jeremy says. “But, you know.”

Parker half-smiles. “Maybe. You ready to do this?”

“I just asked you that.”

“Maybe we should get more sleep before we do this.”

“We don’t know how long Fred’s gonna last,” Jeremy reminds him. It’s a conversation they’ve had a dozen times over already. “Better to do it now.”

“I’ll tell Reina,” Parker sighs, and they get to work.

It takes them twenty-three hours, edging them into day four of lab work, for them to sample everything. They have tissues from the brain, mouth, eyes, throat, intestines, and a couple of things that Parker’s not sure what they functionally are but seemed important. But at the end of it Alfredo is still mostly whole, and they have… a lot of Kaiju fluids in their lab.

“Okay,” Jeremy sighs, scrubbing at his eyes. “Okay, clean-up, we should-”

“You can go,” Parker says immediately.

Jeremy frowns. “What?”

“Go see Andrew or something,” he says gently. “You’ve got- you know, there are people outside waiting for you. It’ll only take me a couple hours.”

“You sure?”

“Sure.”

“Alright.” Jeremy leans forward and hugs Parker. It’s a little awkward and more than a little clumsy, with the exhaustion and the fact that they don’t normally do that, but it’s heartfelt. Parker can tell. “Great job, dude.”

“You too.” Parker squeezes him and lets go. “Go have fun. I’ll be out soon.”

“Let me know when you’re done so I know you didn’t pass out,” Jeremy says, and then he’s out of the lab, on his way to see Andrew, probably.

Parker doesn’t mind being in the lab alone. He probably prefers it, all told. It’s quiet enough to hear himself think, or to talk to himself as he has ideas. Or talk to Alfredo, because Alfredo is a better listener than Jeremy during cleanup.

He’s just finishing up when the door swings open. “Almost done,” Parker says, and turns, and it’s not Jeremy. It’s Cib. “Oh.”

“Dude,” Cib says, looking around at all the carefully-labeled samples and equipment. “What is that?”

“It’s Alfredo.”

“Seriously?”

“We’re going to have so many tests to run.” Parker rubs his eyes. “After both of us eat something that came from a vegetable, or a food group other than takeout.”

“You did all this in four days?”

“We don’t know a lot about preserving Kaiju. We’re doing what we can.”

Cib whistles lowly. “Well, color me impressed.”

“Thanks.” Parker finally, finally remembers to smile at him. “And thanks.”

“You double-thanked me there.”

“Thanks for being impressed,” he clarifies. “And for Alfredo. This- you guys are going to probably literally save lives, you know?”

“Aw, gee,” Cib says, and he smiles back at Parker, the kind of sly, secretive smile that he only gets when nobody else is there. “And here I was just trying to impress you.”

Parker laughs, a little helplessly. “Well, now I’m the impressed one, I guess.”

Cib grins. “Dude, you’re so fucking tired.”

“I’m so tired,” he admits, and shucks off his lab coat. “I haven’t seen a bed in four days, just the underside of a table.”

“Not nearly as comfy, I bet.”

“Not even close.”

“You probably shouldn’t drive,” Cib says, like it’s just occurring to him, or like it hasn’t occurred to Parker a dozen times. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

“You don’t-”

“Let me take you home,” Cib says, and it’s not an offer but a plea. “Parker, come on.”

“Okay,” Parker says. It’s barely a whisper, but Cib’s face still lights up. “Thank you.”

“Course,” Cib says. As soon as Parker’s close enough he slings one of his arms around Parker’s waist and pulls tight, so tight that Parker’s half leaning on them as they leave the lab. “You look exhausted, I was legit worried you’d pass out driving.”

“You might be right,” Parker mumbles, and he doesn’t say much else as they make their way through the dome. Cib’s talking, about things that might be important but sound like mush to him, and he’s going to have to ask for him to repeat it all when he can listen. “I’m probably going to sleep in your car.”

“I’d be more surprised if you didn’t,” Cib says cheerfully. “And I’ll have, you know, food when you wake up.”

Parker frowns. “What?”

“I’m taking you to my place,” Cib clarifies. “It’s closer, and I know where it is.”

“You don’t-”

“I have a spare room.”

“But-”

“Hey,” Cib says, gentle, careful. It’s so unlike him that Parker wants to smile. “I’ve got you, alright? Mister bigshot scientist, let me take the wheel on this one, okay?”

Parker takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

Cib’s fingers flutter against Parker’s waist, and maybe that’s something they’re going to have to talk about when Parker can have a conversation. But for the moment, Cib just says, “Good.” And Parker can’t help but agree.

#ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #parcib #cib x parker #ragehappy #aucember17 #waveridden.fic #rpf for ts #HEY THIS ONE IS GOOD #i'm very happy with how this turned out and it also features. i think four people who haven't been in aucember yet? exciting shit dudes #also this officially marks being past the one-third mark which is WILD #AND!! i have officially written over 20k this mark which puts me like. ahead of where i would be if i were shooting for nano wordcounts #every day which i sort of am bc this is my own nano and it's super wild #i know not a ton of people are reading these but that's fine bc this one has reminded me why i started this dumbass idea in the first place #because it's fun! it's fun and i'm loving it

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waveridden · 7 years

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FIC: a better side of you to admire

It is a mystery to Cib, most days, how he ended up dating the literal nicest person in the world. Or, more exactly, how the literal nicest person in the world ended up dating him. (A domestic AU. Cib/Parker, 1.6k)

AUcember || title lyric

“You look constipated,” Steve announces. “Tell me what’s wrong before I change my mind.”

“You wanna hear about me being constipated?” Cib says, even though they both definitely know that’s not the real problem. “Wanna talk about my bowels?”

As always, Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Cib, tell me all about those bowels of yours.”

“Well, it all started when Parker started talking about how we have different diets.”

“So this is about you and Parker moving in together?”

“Maybe,” Cib hedges, which they both know is as good as a yes. Steve is good at speaking Cib’s language: Cib says shit he doesn’t mean, and Steve hears the shit he does mean. It’s a gift. Cib has been telling him for years that he should put it on his resume.

“Okay,” Steve says. “What is it about, then, really?”

“Nothing,” Cib says as forcefully as he can.

Steve taps his chin and looks at him consideringly. “You asked him to move in with you.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And the big day is two days away.”

“Yes, sir, yes it is.”

“And you’re not worried about that.”

“I’m actually mostly not.”

“But it is about Parker.”

“It actually mostly is.”

“Okay,” Steve says, and leans in to look closely at Cib’s right iris, which he swears holds all of Cib’s secrets.

Cib asked Parker once to see what secrets were in that iris. Parker had lasted about three seconds before he leaned back in bed, giggle-snorting, and announced that looking at eyes freaked him out. And Cib was pretty much required by law to kiss him, because that was damn cute, and that was the end of that.

“Holy shit,” Steve says, “you think Parker’s cheating on you.”

“No,” Cib says immediately, and Steven gives him a look. Cib knows that look, because he’s just as fluent in Steve’s language as Steve is in his. It’s a look that means he knows Cib is lying. “I don’t!”

“You think that your fourth-grade teacher boyfriend-”

“I don’t think that!”

“You’re afraid,” Steve amends, and Cib nods. “That your fourth-grade teacher boyfriend is having an affair?”

“I think teaching kids for a living could drive anyone to want more out of life,” Cib says, which is at least partially true. Kids are great, he loves kids, but Parker is… well, he’s great with them, in a way that most people just aren’t. Parker is patient, and steady, and makes self-deprecating jokes like he’s not the only genuinely kind person in Cib’s life.

It is a mystery to Cib, most days, how he ended up dating the literal nicest person in the world. Or, more exactly, how the literal nicest person in the world ended up dating him.

“Okay, no, stop.” Steve shakes his head. “Where is this coming from?”

Cib chews his lip for a second. “Okay, so there’s a third-grade teacher down the hall, right?”

“Jesus Christ, you think he’s having an affair with a coworker? In front of the eight-year-olds?”

“You should hear how he talks about her,” Cib protests. “He keeps talking about how she’s pretty, and nice, and good with the kids, and…”

He trails off, but he’s pretty sure Steve can hear what he’s not saying. That Parker talks about Miss Siedband from down the hall the same way that Cib talks about Parker.

“Dude,” Steve sighs, and he at least looks a little more sympathetic now. “If he wanted to date someone like that, he would.”

“I know,” Cib says, because that’s the worst part. He knows that this is all bullshit nonsense paranoia, and he trusts Parker completely. Or at least mostly. “But what if he does want to?”

“Then he’ll break up with you,” Steve says, and when Cib flinches, he adds, “you fucking wimp, oh my god. But he’s not going to, because you’re moving in together.”

“I know.”

“And also, this is Parker, who I’m pretty sure could not hurt someone if his life literally depended on it. How do you think he’s going to hurt you?”

“He’s not,” Cib admits. “It’s just… he’s… and I’m…”

“A fucking idiot,” Steve finishes. “C’mon, man, waste my time with real problems next time.”

It’s a little more blunt than the usual dialect of Steve-speak, but Cib understands it anyways: he has nothing to worry about. Which he knew, or at least suspected, but it’s nice to hear it from Steve.

“Maybe I’ll talk about my constipation instead,” he says, because he knows that Steve will hear the unspoken thank you. And Steve groans, but Cib’s pretty sure that just means “you’re welcome.”

Cib shows up before Parker’s school open house with fresh store-bought cookies, still in the container.

“Aw, babe,” Parker says, beaming down. “From that grocery store we go to every week?”

“You know me, I’m always down to go that extra mile.” Cib sits down on one of the kids’ desks, because he’s not about to fit his entire adult self into one of those chairs, and Parker sits next to him with the cookies on his lap. “You ready to meet parents?”

“Sure.” Parker holds out the cookies, and Cib grabs a couple. “I mean, there are always a couple of problem parents, but I think most of my kids this year are great, you know?”

“You said that last year.”

“I know.”

“And the year before.”

Parker smiles, looking a little wistful. “I know.”

“I’m beginning to think you just, like, love your students or something,” Cib says, and reaches one foot out to bump against Parker’s. Parker kicks him back, unbearably gentle, and Cib can’t help but smile at him. Parker smiles back, all sparkly eyes and happiness and whatever and for an instant Cib feels horribly, horribly guilty.

He’s trying to figure out something to say when the door opens. “Hey, Parker, you- oh my god, he’s real.”

Parker nearly drops the cookies, eyes going wide as he turns to face the door. “You can’t say that in front of him!”

“In front of what?” Cib says, staring at the woman in the door. She’s a little short, with curly hair and a natural tilt to her head that he likes immediately. “You mean me?”

“I mean you.”

Parker holds out the cookies. “Take a couple so I don’t eat them all?”

“Ugh, fine.” The woman comes over, grabs a cookie, and waves. “Hey, I’m Sami Jo.”

“Miss Siedband from down the hall,” Parker adds, like he hasn’t called her both interchangeably. It’s cute. Cib’s boyfriend is cute.

“And you’re-” Sami Jo’s eyes narrow. “Clllllark?”

“Clay. Or Cib.”

She snaps her fingers. “Cib! I knew that. Cib who works at the community theater, right?”

“Uh, you know a lot about me for assuming I was fake.”

“Please,” Sami Jo says. “‘My pretty boyfriend who wears headbands and does community theater and never visits me at work because he thinks children will hate him,’ that doesn’t sound fake to you?”

“Well, how do I know you’re real?” Cib shoots back. “‘My pretty coworker who’s good with kids and ate staples because I dared her to,’ doesn’t that sound fake?”

Sami Jo gasps and swats Parker on the arm. “You told him about the staples?”

“I had to tell someone!” Parker glances at his feet. “I felt guilty.”

“Aw,” Cib says, and nudges one of Parker’s feet again. “You felt guilty.”

“I did,” Parker says, but he looks up at Cib through his eyelashes and smiles that stupid, brilliant smile of his. “But, you know.”

“I know,” Cib says, and Parker’s smile widens.

“Yuck,” Sami Jo says, and grabs another cookie. “I gotta go get set up for parents, I’ll leave you guys to it.”

Parker looks at her in surprise. “Did you need something?”

“Nothing I can’t get from Sean.” She winks at him and then, weirdly enough, again at Cib. “It’s not every day your kid-phobic boyfriend drops by.”

“That’s true,” Parker says, looking pleased. “See you.”

Sami Jo waves at them both and leaves, closing the door behind her.

“She’s nice,” Cib says, and Parker turns and gives him a Look, and Parker looks are definitely harder to understand than Steve looks. “She is!”

“You like her?”

“Well, yeah, did you see her?”

“Her girlfriend likes her too,” Parker says, and eats a bite of cookie like he’s daring Cib to say something.

“Dude,” Cib says in awe, “are you… jealous that I like your coworker?”

Parker shakes his head, but Cib is definitely fluent enough in Parker to know that that’s a yes.

“Aw, honey,” he says, and hooks one of his feet around Parker’s ankle. “If you’re gonna be jealous of anyone, be jealous of that hot grad student with the dark hair who helps design sets at the theater, and I get to be jealous of Sami Jo. Deal?”

“Deal,” Parker says.

“Scooch over.”

Parker scooches, and Cib forces himself to squeeze next to him on top of the desk. They’re both halfway falling off, but he ignores that to hook a hand around the back of Parker’s head and bring their foreheads together. “We’re a couple of idiots, you know that?”

Parker smiles. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not jealous of your grad student.”

“And I’m not jealous of your coworker,” Cib says, because he’s pretty sure it’s true now. “Because you’re my fucking boyfriend.”

“Yes, I am.”

“And I’m yours.”

“Yes,” Parker says, and brings a hand up to Cib’s cheek. “You are.” And Cib sees just a quarter-second of a smile before Parker leans in and kisses him.

#parcib #cib x parker #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #it's almost 1am i'm So Sorry if this is.............. weird #me: i'm going to write shenanigans about a misunderstanding!#also me: isn't it canonical that cib thinks he doesn't deserve love #also also me: how self referential can i get #(dear folks who have read my fic consistently for the last two years: this one's for you. it's in the same universe as something else.)#(unofficially.)

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waveridden · 7 years

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FIC: you’ll always be my happy ending

A love story, told through articles, transcripts, tweets, and a very popular song. Parker/Cib, celebrity AU, 1.8k.

AUcember || title lyric || Ao3

1. Article from Teen Vogue, Dec. 2017 issue

Fast Five: Things You Need to Know about Cib by R. Scully

Clayton James, better known as Cib, put out one of the biggest alt-pop records of the year with Songs From Every Coast. His meandering lyrics, smooth vocals, and surprising production have earned him fans around the world. He’s also notoriously private, but we here at Teen Vogue sat down with him to get five must-know facts.

Yes, he’s like that in real life. (Sort of.) It’s been a big debate between fans whether his stage persona - kind of a goof, an idiot but in a fun way - is an act or actually who he is. But he says the truth is somewhere in the middle. “I can do basic things,” Cib says, “but I think anyone who says they’re totally competent is either lying on purpose or just wrong. Like, haven’t we all microwaved silverware before? We all make mistakes, I just play them up on stage.”

His first guitar was named Sheila. “Not for any reason, I think I was going through an Australia phase. You know, the Australia phase that every kid goes through. I thought it’d be cool.” His current guitars? Annie, Melanie, Sally, and one that he says is a secret.

He hated riding bikes as a kid. “I do it all the time now,” he laughs, “but when I was a kid? Nah, dude, I fell off constantly. Crashed it more than once My balance was s***. I’m way more coordinated now. I think it’s all the choreography.”

The headband started as a joke. If you’ve seen more people wearing headbands lately, that’s no accident: that’s Cib’s brand. But he says the brand was a total accident. “My friend Steve bet me I wouldn’t,” he says, “and all it takes is one or two photoshoots, a couple of paparazzos, and bam, you have a brand.” Lucky for him, he didn’t mind leaning into it: “I think it’s a good look, don’t you?”

Mr. Mcghghy is real, and he’s not who you think he is. Easily the most popular song off Songs From Every Coast, “Dear Mr. Mcghghy” sparked waves of speculation in fans. The song is obviously a love song, written to someone who’s only ever called Mr. Mcghghy. And who is he? “Someone I was friends with as a kid,” Cib says. “We had nonsense nicknames for each other, and his was Mr. Mcghghy. He was definitely my first crush, looking back, but I don’t really know where he is these days.” And what was his childhood nonsense name? “Aw, dude, it was Cib. Of course.”

2. Excerpt from Song Exploder, episode: Cib - Dear Mr. Mcghghy

“Okay, first of all, because I know everyone’s asking about it: yes, Mr. Mcghghy is real, but I don’t remember his real name. When I was younger, I used to spend my summers visiting family in North Carolina - it was actually a big inspiration for this album as a whole. When I say it’s from every coast, you know, I mean it’s from every coast. East, west, Canadian, American, it’s all in here.

“But I used to go down to North Carolina for a month every year, and there was this kid who lived down the street from my family. He was a couple years older than me, and I don’t remember a lot about him, because we were kids, and kids don’t know how to pay attention to shit that’s going to be important. But he was a little older, had curly hair, and was totally okay with bratty little me dragging him on adventures all over his city. He said he’d seen it all before, but I was seeing new things, and that was part of the song.

“The nicknames just came out of nowhere. We picked our own, although I think one of my cousins had already been calling me Cib. I don’t remember why he picked Mcghghy, but he was always really, really specific about how it was spelled. I made up a song to help me remember, and you can actually hear that melody in the background of the chorus…”

3. Interview with The Sami Jo Show on iHeartRadio (Dec. 8, 2017)

SJ: Okay, okay, so here’s the question on everyone’s mind.

C: You sure about that?

SJ: It’s on my mind, and I think it’s a thing a lot of people are curious about. What’s your favorite song off your album?

C: Oh, f***- wait, s***, I can’t say that on air, can I?

SJ: I mean, you can say it. The people won’t hear it.

C: Good to know. I mean, I can’t pick, right? They’re all my favorite. I put a lot of time into every one of them.

SJ: Top three?

C: God, that’s still so hard! Uh, Gold Rush, because it’s f***ing catchy as all hell. Does hell get bleeped out?

SJ: Nope. Don’t kids listen to your music?

C: I mean, I say f*** on their album. I think I’m single-handedly responsible for a lot of parents teaching their kids about swear words.

SJ: Like many great artists before you.

C: And some not-so-great ones too.

SJ: Of course. So, come on, top three.

C: S***! Um… I Don’t Mind? And then Dear Mr. Mcghghy.

SJ: Oh, I was hoping you’d bring that one up. Because, as a lot of people know, Mr. Mcghghy is a real person.

C: Yeah, he is.

SJ: And you don’t know who he is?

C: I don’t know! And a lot of people think that I’m lying when I say that, that I’m just trying to protect his privacy. A few people think we’re actually secretly married - we’re not, by the way. I legit don’t know where this guy is, or what he’s up to anymore.

SJ: Do you think he’s heard the song?

C: I think it’d be hard not to, it’s kind of popular. Ugh, humble brag, gross.

SJ: And do you think he knows it’s about him?

C: Maybe! Never say never. Mr. Mcghghy, if you’re out there, hit me up. We can get coffee.

SJ: [laughing] And you can tell Cib your real last name.

C: Please! Please, god, so many people spell it wrong, your last name has to be easier to spell than Mcghghy.

SJ: What if it’s not?

C: Don’t- don’t jinx it! [laughing] Don’t cast your last name magic, Siedband!

SJ: Whoa, hold on, let’s not bring my last name into this, I haven’t done anything wrong?

C: Haven’t you? [Sami Jo laughs] Haven’t you?

4. A tweet from Cib (@maybeCIB) on Twitter, with replies

Clayton James @maybeCIB kinda miss North Carolina but now I’m old enough to know better

Andrea Whatt @piecesofwhatt Replying to @maybeCIB :( but what if Mr. Mcghghy is waiting for you there?!

evan @evannumbers Replying to @maybeCIB never come back to this state

Tiara, throwing sparkles @theycallmera Replying to @maybeCIB Nooooo most of NC is fine, we swear!

Parker Coppins @pcoppins Replying to @maybeCIB Did you write a song about me?

5. Direct Messages between @maybeCIB and @pcoppins

@maybeCIB: Dude

@maybeCIB: I think I might’ve?

@pcoppins: I think you might’ve too

@maybeCIB: how can we confirm

@pcoppins: Uh

@pcoppins: Every year you insisted on eating a ton of saltwater taffy even though you thought it was gross because you thought it’d make it easier for you to open your eyes in saltwater

@maybeCIB: Oh my god

@maybeCIB: it’s you?

@pcoppins: It’s me

@maybeCIB: no way

@maybeCIB: how’ve you been dude

@pcoppins: You keep saying my hair is curly

@maybeCIB: is it not curly anymore??

@pcoppins: No it’s definitely curly I just want to know why that matters so much

@maybeCIB: I don’t think it does

@maybeCIB: it’s just sort of whimsical

@maybeCIB: kind of my brand

@pcoppins: It always was when we were kids too

@maybeCIB: okay so

@maybeCIB: Coppins?

@pcoppins: I can’t believe you actually forgot my last name

@maybeCIB: well what did you remember about me??

@pcoppins: Apparently more than you remembered about me

@maybeCIB: well yeah that’s not hard

@maybeCIB: also sorry for, like, writing a love song about you when I haven’t seen you since I was eleven

@pcoppins: no it’s okay

@pcoppins: it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize it was about me

@maybeCIB: don’t tell me you forgot about mcghghy?

@pcoppins: Oh I remembered it I just thought it was a coincidence

@maybeCIB: really

@pcoppins: Yeah

@pcoppins: And then I heard your Song Exploder

@maybeCIB: oh my god

@pcoppins: Also for the record

@pcoppins: I live in LA now

@maybeCIB: Iiiiinteresting

@pcoppins: so you don’t have to come to NC to see me

@maybeCIB: hey so can I get your number

@maybeCIB: we should do coffee sometime

@maybeCIB: but like, nowhere obvious, because I do have fans who will drag you into a spotlight if they think you’re Mr. Mcghghy

@pcoppins: but I am

@maybeCIB: dude trust me it’d be better to save that for later

6. Excerpt from Star Magazine’s gossip section

MEETING MR. MCGHGHY?: Self-proclaimed “weird pop” singer CIB was spotted in L.A. this past weekend in a coffee shop with a mystery man. He’s tall, curly-haired, and as the song to Cib’s hit “Dear Mr. Mcghghy” goes, he has a starlight smile. Could this be the man who stole America’s collective hearts?

7. Cib’s acceptance speech for Favorite Breakout Artist, at the People’s Choice Awards

[Cib, standing in front of the podium, clears his throat and looks at a camera operator.]

“Whoa, oh my god, how much time do I have? ...ohhh, that’s not enough. Not enough. I want to say thanks to my family, to my parents, because when I said “Mom, Dad, I think I want to do music,” they both sort of went “yeah, sounds okay.” Thank you to Steve, who learned all sorts of weird music stuff and figured out how to explain it to me. Thank you to my label, thank you to my producers and co-writers and graphic designers. I don’t think most people realize what a team effort it is to make an album, but it involves so many people, and if I could name you all I would, but-”

[The orchestra begins to play, signifying time running out.]

“Ah! Ah, okay, last things, I want to thank the people, for voting for this, you did that on purpose and that’s so crazy. Thank you to all my fans, to every radio station who ever played one of my songs. And thank you to Parker, the best accidental muse I could ever have. Love you, man. Let’s go Broilers!”

[The orchestra music swells. Cib goes back to his seat, and a camera follows him. On the television broadcast, a voiceover announces what will be coming after the commercial break. Just before the feed fades out, Cib reaches his seat. A tall man with curly hair jumps out of his seat, smiling widely, and Cib reaches up, pulls his head in, and kisses him.]

#parcib #cib x parker #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #chaboi is back at it again with the alternative storytelling or whatever the fuck this is called

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waveridden · 7 years

Text

FIC: steady (keep on hoping)

Parker likes Cib. Cib has a girlfriend. After a while, Parker has a boyfriend. That should be the end to this story. But it’s not. (A story about timing. Parker/Cib, miscellaneous background ships, 2.2k)

AUcember || title lyric & inspo

“Why are we here again?” Parker asks, although he can barely hear himself over the thudding bass in the house. He hates parties. He hates parties, and there’s no reason that he should be here.

“Because James used to be friends with the guy hosting this,” Steve shouts back. “And it’s, like, a revenge plot or something, I don’t know.”

“Is that really a good reason to be here?”

“Since when do you need a reason to go to a party?”

Parker tries to give Steve a look, one of those sardonic looks that Steve is always giving him, but he’s pretty sure he just looks desperate instead. Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m going to find James.”

“What?”

“James,” Steve shouts again. Someone bumps into him, but he ignores it. “I’ll be right back, dude.”

“Wait, Steve, you can’t-”

“Oh my god, you can-” Steve cranes his neck and then reaches into the crowd of people dancing in this stranger’s living room. He grabs someone by the elbow, seemingly at random, and pulls him over. “Cib!”

“Steve!” the new guy shouts cheerfully. “You here for the party or for the vengeance plot?”

“Vengeance!”

“Rock on, dude!” He turns and looks Parker up and down. “What about you?”

“I’m here for Steve,” Parker says, although he would be amazed if the dude can hear him. The guy, Cib, is the kind of person that looks completely at home in a party, loose-limbed and heavy-lidded and grinning like he belongs. It’s breathtaking. Parker’s definitely having trouble speaking.

“That’s cool,” Cib says.

“No, he’s not,” Steve says, because he’s a great friend but not a kind one. “Cib, I need you to watch Parker and make sure he doesn’t get wasted or something, I’m gonna go track down James.”

Cib salutes Steve. “Sounds good, dude!” He loops one of his arms through Parker’s. “I do this with my girlfriend, when she and I go to parties.”

“That’s nice,” Parker says, but he can feel his heart sinking. Girlfriend. Of course he has a girlfriend. Why wouldn’t he have a girlfriend? “That’s… generous of you.”

“Just call me Ellen, I’m so generous.” Cib grins at him, and Parker can’t help but grin back. His heart is still fluttering and sinking all at once, like a drowning butterfly or something.

All he has to do, he thinks, is never speak to Cib outside this party again. That’s all he needs to do and everything will be fine.

They meet outside the party. Because it turns out that Cib is actually pretty good friends with Steve, and from then on out Parker can’t get rid of the guy. Or the way his stomach turns over every time he sees him.

Cib’s girlfriend is one of the nicest people that Parker has ever met. He hates that, just enough to be ashamed about it. It’d be easier if she were awful and he could say, with confidence, that Cib deserved better.

But Sami Jo is sweet, and when Cib smiles at her she smiles back like he’s the sun. Which Parker understands completely.

“You like her?” Cib asks. He and Sami Jo were out for coffee and Parker ran into them. Stroke of luck, Cib had said. Parker’s not sure if that luck is good or bad.

“Yeah,” Parker says. “She’s… she’s great. You guys, great pair, real good.”

“Yeah?” Cib smiles, eyes going distant. “She’s pretty great, huh?”

“Pretty great,” Parker repeats, and wishes more than anything that he were lying.

Four months into Parker’s crush - Parker’s big, useless, headed-nowhere-fast crush - he goes on a date.

The guy’s name is Andrew, and they have the same coffee order. And he’s nice. Has a good smile and a good sense of humor, and he’s smart. And he’s nothing like Cib. Maybe that’s why Parker says yes when Andrew asks him out.

He doesn’t mention it to anyone except Steve, which is both a good call and a mistake in its own right. Because Steve doesn’t say anything about it until he, Cib, Parker, and James are trying to plan a boys’ night sleepover.

“No plus-ones,” James argues. “Sami Jo’s not even a boy, dude!”

“No, she’s not,” Cib says, and James and Steve groan. “She’s not!”

“Boys only,” James insists.

And Steve, one of the only people who knows about Andrew, has to go and say, “Does that mean Parker can invite his boyfriend?”

“I don’t think he’s my boyfriend yet,” Parker says automatically, and then realizes that James and Cib are both staring open-mouthed at him. “I mean… it’s… what’s the rule, is there a rule? We’ve gone out twice-”

“Twice,” Cib says, something strange in his voice. “Twice?”

“Two times,” Parker says. “Going on three.”

“You didn’t mention.”

Because I’m in love with you, a little bit, Parker almost says. What he actually says is, weakly, “No, I didn’t.”

“But he’s a guy,” Steve says impatiently. “Does the boys only rule extend to him?”

James grimaces. “We can’t- come on, dude, you know that’s not what it means.”

“What do you think boys only means?”

Parker’s phone buzzes, and when he checks it, there’s a text from Andrew. And James and Steve are arguing, and he has the text to answer, and it’s almost enough to make him forget that he can feel Cib’s eyes on him.

At boys night, a week later - which turns out just to be the four of them, because Andrew has to meet and be approved by all the boys in order to be at boys night - James and Steve sneak off halfway through the movie they pick. They make their excuses a couple minutes apart, like that’s going to keep Parker and Cib from figuring out that they’re making out in James’s bedroom or something.

“So,” Parker says, because Cib hasn’t looked at him all night and he’s kind of sick of it, “how’s Sami Jo?”

“Good,” Cib says, still without looking at Parker. “I mean, we broke up, but she’s good.”

It feels like there’s a boulder on Parker’s chest, pressing into him. “Broke up?” he repeats. “I’m sorry, man, what happened?”

“Wasn’t working,” Cib says, like he and Sami Jo haven’t been the perfect, idyllic couple as long as Parker’s known them both. “She met someone else.”

“I’m sor-”

“Don’t be.” Cib looks up at last, but not quite at Parker, more like he’s looking somewhere over Parker’s shoulder. “I’m happy for her. It was a mutual thing anyways. There was someone else I was interested in, too.”

Parker swallows. “Was?”

“Yeah,” Cib says, and looks back at his phone. “But, uh, I guess he met someone else too.”

“Oh,” Parker says, softer than he wants to be. “Cib-”

“Dude,” James shouts from somewhere behind him, and Cib turns away from Parker to look at him. Parker swallows and decides to try not to think about it.

The boys all approve of Andrew. Cib is nice to him. Parker doesn’t know what to think of that. But then again, he was pretty nice to Sami Jo when he met her.

Andrew breaks up with Parker after about seven months and Parker would be lying if he said he was anything other than relieved.

(“I like you,” Andrew says. “But I’m pretty sure that you’re not going to love me. Which is cool. We can still be friends.”)

The first thing Parker does, for reasons he can’t understand, is call Steve.

“I’m sorry you’re single or whatever,” Steve says impatiently, “but I’m really not the person you should be calling right now.”

“Because I should be calling someone else?”

“Yes, and also because I’m on a date right now, you jackass.”

“Oh. Tell James hi?”

“Parker says hi,” Steve says, and then James says something that Parker can’t quite make out. “He says call Cib, you fucking idiot. The fucking idiot part is editorial from me.”

“Thanks, James.” Parker hangs up, takes a deep breath, and dials Cib’s number.

It doesn’t even ring before he hits voicemail. “Heyyy, dude, Cib’s the name, picking up the phone is not my game, call me, I’ll call you back and hope it’s not the same. ...was that good, Steve?”

The phone beeps. Parker takes a deep breath. “Hey, man, it’s… uh, it’s Parker. You probably knew that. Phones are cool these days. God. Uh, I was wondering if you wanted to… hang out, or something. Andrew and I just broke up, and I’m - not that this is about that, it’s just - I just want to hang out. I feel like we haven’t. In a while. Okay. Bye.”

He hangs up and wants to bang his head against a wall. “Phones are cool these days,” he mumbles. “What are you doing, Parker, what are you doing?”

He lasts about forty more minutes before he calls Cib one more time. He won’t leave a voicemail this time, he just has to call and see.

The phone rings twice this time before someone picks up. “Cib’s phone,” the voice on the other end says.

It’s not Cib’s voice.

Parker feels something hot crashing over him in waves, like… like shame, or anger, or something else awful. “Sorry, bad number,” he manages to say before hanging up.

Great. So he’s single. And Cib’s not. Because Cib doesn’t let just anyone answer his phone. He’s weird about passcodes, and privacy, and things like that.

“Bad number,” Parker mumbles, and flops over in his bed, trying to ignore the stinging at his eyes. “Good going.”

He doesn’t exactly remember falling asleep, but he wakes up to the sound of banging on his door. Not just knocking: full-on aggressive door-banging.

“In a minute,” Parker shouts in the general direction of the door, and goes about the business of getting up. His hair’s a mess, and his clothes are a mess, and he kind of generally looks like he passed out on top of his bed, lying sideways, thinking about a boy he’s been hopelessly half in love with for nearly a year.

Whoever it is, they’re just going to have to live with that, he decides. Because that’s exactly what he did, and if they call him on it, he’s earned the right to look a little messy.

The banging on the door starts again, and Parker groans. He runs a hand through his hair, just on principle, and opens the door.

“Dude,” Cib says, eyes wide, “are you okay?”

Parker blinks and, for good measure, rubs his eyes. “Cib?”

“That’s the name I’ve chosen.” Cib looks him up and down, and when his eyes settle on Parker’s face, something about him softens. “I got your voicemail. Sorry about Andrew, dude.”

“That’s-” Parker shakes his head. “That’s okay. Weren’t you with someone?”

“With someone?”

“I called you again,” Parker says, feeling a little lame. “Someone else picked up.”

Cib frowns. “Yeah, didn’t you get my voicemail?”

Parker blinks. He hadn’t even thought to check his phone. “No?”

“I went out to a movie with a friend I haven’t seen in a while, he had my phone for a minute.” Cib rolls his eyes. “I didn’t notice you called, because you can’t trust a guy with hair that dark. You doing okay?”

Parker swallows. There’s a chance that what he’s about to do goes horribly wrong, but that’s not substantially different from most choices he makes. “Do you wanna… get coffee?”

“It’s ten at night, dude,” Cib says, and now he looks actually concerned. “Are we doing an all-nighter? Because we can do better than coffee. Or Irish coffee.”

Parker shakes his head. “I mean… not right now.”

“What?”

“Do you want to get coffee sometime,” Parker says, a little desperately. He’s not sure how else to say it. “With me.”

“Of course with you.”

“No, I mean… with me, with me.”

He can tell the exact moment Cib gets it, because his eyes widen. “You mean-”

“You don’t have to,” Parker says quickly, because he needs to give himself a way out here. “Just, you know, if you’re- if you want to- if you drink coffee-”

“You’re asking me out,” Cib says delightedly. “You’re asking me out?”

Parker shrugs. He wants to retreat back into the safety of his house, away from this conversation. “If you want. Or we can be just friends. Or never speak again, it’s up to you, it’s really not a big-”

“Parker,” Cib says, with so much raw affection in his voice that Parker comes up short. “Course I’ll get coffee with you, dude. I don’t even care if I’m the rebound.”

“You’re not,” Parker says. “Andrew kind of was.”

“That,” Cib says, “is the best thing I’ve ever heard. You wanna get coffee now?”

“It’s ten at night.”

“I can think of things we can do instead of sleep,” Cib says, and before Parker can even blush Cib grabs his hand. “Let’s go. I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Me too,” Parker breathes, and Cib’s eyes sparkle as he pulls Parker out towards his car.

#parcib #cib x parker #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #listen idk what proportion of y'all read the tags but if you do: listen to the title lyric song for this one #at work for about three months they played this song and so this sort of shapeless au has been in my head for. a while now #also this song makes me VERY sad so imagine me like. ringing up a customer trying not to cry because of. this song. it's great #also: lots of background ships in this one. including a weird one. it's great

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waveridden · 7 years

Text

FIC: today and every day

“My parents think I’ve been engaged for six months,” Parker says mournfully. “They think I’ve been engaged for half a year and they just haven’t met who I’m engaged to.” A fake engagement AU. Parker/Cib, 1.5k.

AUcember || title lyric

“You’re worried about something,” Sami Jo says.

Parker hates it when she does that. She has this way of… of looking at him and reading him, even when he tries his hardest not to be read. It was impressive when they first met. It’s the reason she’s his best friend, even after one month of stilted, uncomfortable dating. And it’s nice to have someone who understands him, right up until he’s trying to avoid being understood.

“Maybe,” Parker says, because he’s not giving this one up without a fight.

Sami Jo’s eyes narrow. “Are you trying to hide from me?”

“I’m not-”

“At our weekly lunch-and-bitch?”

“There are no lies at lunch-and-bitch,” Parker says automatically. It’s one of their ground rules, and one that he gleefully leverages when she tries to lie to him. It’s only happened twice, but boy, does he love catching her at it.

“Exactly,” Sami Jo says, and points her fork at him. “You’re worried.”

“I’m worried,” Parker agrees.

“And you don’t want me to know what you’re worried about.”

“No, I do not.”

Sami Jo eats a few of her sweet potato fries, still giving Parker that considering, calculating look. He would relax, except the fact that she’s still looking at him definitely means she’s still coming for him.

“You’re going to visit your parents next week,” Sami Jo says at last, and Parker sighs. “Oh my god, seriously?”

“It’s not just that,” he admits, pushing some of the salad around on his plate. “It’s… complicated.”

“They still think you’re engaged,” Sami Jo guesses.

Parker pushes his plate aside and thuds his head down on the table. “I don’t know why I told them that.”

“I don’t know why you told them that either,” Sami Jo says, but she reaches out and ruffles his hair. It feels weirdly nice. Parker kind of doesn’t want her to stop. “You’ve never been engaged.”

“They think I’ve been engaged for six months,” Parker says mournfully, even though she was there when he told that lie, and for the immediate fallout when he realized what a bad lie it was. “They think I’ve been engaged for half a year and they just haven’t met who I’m engaged to.”

Sami Jo keeps her hand on his head. “Do you even have a ring?”

Parker groans. “I need to get a ring.”

“You need to get a fiance or tell them the truth,” Sami Jo says, kindly but firmly. “Those are your options at this point.”

“No getting a ring?”

“Get a ring if there’s a man who comes with it.”

“What if I hired someone to be my fake fiance?”

“Wow,” Sami Jo says. Parker looks up at her; she doesn’t look impressed. “This is a whole new level of avoiding your problems.”

“Is that good?”

“What do you mean, is that good? No, it’s not good that you’re trying to keep this going!”

“What if I told them I broke the engagement off?”

“With the fiance you don’t have?”

“What if,” Parker says, “I just didn’t visit?”

“You’ve gotta get it together, P,” Sami Jo says, and finally takes her hand back. Parker sits upright at last, and she shakes her head. “Look at me, I’ve never lied to my parents about being engaged.”

“That’s just because you haven’t proposed yet.”

“Correct,” she says cheerfully. “And I won’t until Autumn and I talk about it, but that’s not the point.”

“What’s the point of any of this?”

“The point is-” Sami Jo leans in. “Quit lying. Get engaged, or tell them the truth. Or hell, tell them you broke it off if you have to. But don’t keep this going any longer, got it?”

Parker’s weird neighbor Cib is hanging out outside when Parker gets home from lunch-and-bitch. He waves. “Hey, dude.”

“Hey, Cib,” Parker sighs. Weird, hot Cib is one of Parker’s favorite people when he’s in the mood to talk. He’s not in the mood to talk right now.

Cib folds his arms on top of the fence between their houses and props his chin on top. “You seem like you’re having technical difficulties.”

“Technical how?”

“With life,” Cib says solemnly. “Wanna talk about it?”

“My parents think I’m engaged,” Parker says, before he can stop himself.

“Why?”

“Because I told them that.”

“Are you?”

“Nope.”

“Were you ever?”

“Also nope.”

“Whoa,” Cib says. “Fake-gagement. That’s intense.”

“Yeah,” Parker sighs. “Only I’m going home next week, and I really don’t have a fiance to bring with me. They don’t know anything about the imaginary fiance, so I can say it’s for work, but-”

“But you’d have to make up a person,” Cib finishes knowingly. “Yeah, I’ve been there.”

“Really.”

“I mean, I’ve been next-door.”

“To… my parents?”

“No, to your situation.” Cib perks up. “Turned out okay, though! She lived.”

Parker would ask what that means, he really would, but he’s not entirely sure that he wants to know. “Anyways, Sami Jo says I should just tell the truth, and I think she might be onto something.”

“More like on something,” Cib snorts. “Samuel Josephine doesn’t know the first thing about relationships.”

Sami Jo has been dating the same woman since basically the week after she broke up with Parker. Cib knows this, because he’s met Sami Jo more than once. And Autumn, for that matter.

“Yeah?” Parker says, a little wary. “What do you think I should do?”

“I’ll go with you,” Cib says cheerfully. “I’ll be your fiance.”

Parker blinks. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

“I can’t ask you-”

“I volunteered. All I require is free food, and your signature on every petition I send to the HOA.”

Cib’s petitions to the HOA have been about, within Parker’s experience: snowglobes, magnolia trees, whether or not the grass in his front yard can be replaced with sand, the fact that he should be allowed to paint his own driveway, and breaking his own windows. Parker signed every one of those petitions.

“Sure,” he says. “But you… you really don’t have to.”

“You’re worried,” Cib says, simply, like that’s that. “And also, I could use food that I don’t pay for myself.”

It’s a bad idea. Sami Jo is right, and Parker knows that even if he’ll never admit it. It’d really just be better to end this whole thing and deal with their disappointment, or even just to say he’s single now and build a real relationship from the ground up.

“Fine,” Parker says. “But we should… you know, come up with a cover story.”

“We’re neighbors,” Cib suggests. “And then we fell in love.”

Parker nods. “Sounds good. I’m leaving Thursday morning next week.”

“Cool,” Cib says. “I’ll get you a ring.”

At 8:45 on Thursday, Cib knocks on his door. Parker opens it, and Cib immediately drops down to one name. “Parker Mcghghy, will you-”

“What did you just say my last name is?”

“Can’t remember the real one, I made one up.”

“It’s- you should know that if you’re marrying me.”

“Well, what is it?” Cib says impatiently.

“Coppins!”

“Ugh, won’t work. Cib Coppins sounds like a cartoon character. Clayton Coppins, Kid Carpenter, or something.”

“You already are a cartoon character,” Parker tells him. He means it mostly as a compliment, but it sounds a little mean out loud, and he winces. “I mean-”

“Aw,” Cib says, looking touched. “You think so?”

“Uh… sure?”

“Cool. Wanna get hitched?”

“A thousand times yes,” Parker says, and holds out his left hand. Cib slides the ring on, and Parker lifts his hand to inspect it. It’s surprisingly fancy: silver, with something geometric etched onto it. He was expecting something that was plainer, or maybe costume jewelry. “This-”

“You like it? I stole it myself,” Cib says, so happily that Parker is actually afraid to ask if he’s serious.

“That’s really nice,” Parker says hesitantly. “I didn’t get you-”

“We match, dude.” Cib gets to his feet and wiggles his left hand in front of Parker’s face; there’s an identical ring on his fourth finger. “I picked the rings out, because I have a good aesthetic eye. That’s what we can tell your parents.”

“It’s also the truth,” Parker points out.

“Exactly. Oh, almost forgot.” Cib bends down and picks up a bag of McDonald’s. “Egg sausage McMuffin stuffin’?”

“That’s exactly what I get at McDonald’s,” Parker says, racking his brain for any time that Cib would’ve found that out. “How-”

“I have my ways,” Cib says. He winks, taps Parker’s nose, and side-steps him to go inside.

Parker turns and watches as Cib drops the McDonald’s on the coffee table and drops himself on the couch, legs sticking up over the back. Weird, hot neighbor Cib is in Parker’s house, and knows his McDonald’s order even though there’s no reason he should. And he got them matching engagement rings.

“I’m in trouble,” Parker whispers. His heart is pounding. Sami Jo was right. This was a mistake.

Cib peers over the back of the couch. “What’d you say, dude?”

“Nothing,” Parker says, and twists the ring on his finger. If he’s going to make this mistake, he might as well commit.

#parcib #cib x parker #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #fun fact: if you randomly selected a fic i wrote this month there's basically a one in two chance that you're gonna pick a parcib #like. if you count the one that had two throwaway lines and the one that if expanded would have parcib in the future? it's a 1/2 chance.#i'm consistent and i'm happy about that

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waveridden · 7 years

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FIC: and other things that glow

The apocalypse started in June, when it was supposed to be sunny and… not the end of the world, or whatever. It’s December now, but Arizona December isn’t anything worth being scared of. It’s almost Christmas, James thinks. Maybe this is their Christmas vacation. He’ll have to run that by Steve later, see if it makes him laugh. (A zombie AU, part two. James/Steve, background Parker/Cib and Autumn/Sami Jo. 4.6k.)

AUcember || Ao3 || part one

There are cars broken down all over the highway the highway. Not as many as there used to be, probably, but enough that they have to drive slowly.

“I think we were the last ones to leave California,” Steve says, around the fifth time that they have to stop and push a car out of the way so they can keep driving. “Everyone else had this idea first.”

“Yeah,” Cib says, wringing the sweat out of his headband, “but that just means that there’s no traffic.”

Steve flings an arm at the rusty shell of a Nissan that they just pushed away. “This is our traffic!”

“At least the traffic doesn’t want to eat us,” James says, because he’s pretty sure he’d rather deal with old cars than with zombies. Old cars are a pain in the ass, sure, but they’re not going to actually kill them. Probably.

“There are ways to die that don’t involve being eaten,” Steve points out, and Cib… winces, a little, the way he does sometimes. They’ve all shot zombies at this point, but Cib’s the only one who’s had to do it point-blank, and that’s different.

Also, a zombie tried to eat Cib’s boyfriend. James has to assume that makes it different too.

“Let’s get back in the car,” James says, and they all do. The SUV isn’t the nicest car they’ve ever had, and they’ve been siphoning gasoline out of every empty car they find along the way because there’s an actual, real chance that they run out. But there’s enough room for all six of them, and for most of their things. Food, and guns. Cib’s guitar. Vodka. Walkie-talkies. James has grenades, not that anybody else knows about those. A dude’s gotta have his secrets.

Parker doesn’t quite wake up as Cib climbs into the backseat, just mumbles something unintelligible. Cib coos loudly at him. “Look at him, he’s asleep.”

“Thank god,” Steve mutters. James is inclined to agree, considering how Parker is about sleeping sometimes.

Sami Jo is also fast asleep, leaning against the window. Autumn is holding her hand, running her thumb across the backs of her fingers. She half-smiles at James when she notices him looking. “This road trip is really gonna fuck our sleep schedules, huh?”

“Nah,” James says. “We don’t really have… time, in the traditional sense anymore, right? We’re just guessing at everything.”

The clock in the SUV says that it’s just past four in the afternoon. It might be. But James doesn’t know how time zones work, or clocks for that matter, and he’s pretty sure that the only standards they have now are “morning,” “afternoon,” and “too dark to be safe.”

“Hey, navigator,” Steve says impatiently. “You got the map? Let’s go.”

“Right!” James picks up the map from where it’s spread across the dashboard. They crossed the Arizona border earlier that day, kind of by accident, and he’d picked the map up from a rest stop so they could find their way. It was meant for tourists in a world that doesn’t completely exist anymore, and he figures that it can help tourists through the world that does.

“Are we still going north?”

“Yeah, keep going north.”

“Fucking great,” Steve mumbles, and starts the car.

“One of us could drive,” James says, even though it’s more cursory than an actual offer.

And just like he expected, Steve shakes his head. “This is my happy place and you don’t get to take that away from me.”

“All yours, dude,” James answers, and Steve doesn’t quite smile, but his lips twitch as the SUV lurches forward.

It takes them two days to drive from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon. It’s supposed to take six hours, or something like that, but between car troubles and the fake traffic and Steve insisting that he’s the only one who drives, it takes way longer.

“This is nice,” James says, around the time they pass a sign that tells them the exit is five miles away. It’s late, and he’s the only passenger awake. Autumn and Sami Jo’s fingers are still tangled together, and Parker’s asleep with his head in Cib’s lap.

Steve glances at him. “Being in a car again?”

“Driving somewhere together.”

“So you mean the road trip?”

“Big apocalypse road trip,” James murmurs. It’s what Sami Jo calls it, every time, and it makes it seem… grander than it is, somehow. Like they’re going out on this adventure intentionally and not on a whim.

“Apocalypse road trip,” Steve echoes. “You think this was the right choice?”

“Of course.” He pauses. “Unless there are, like, zombies in the canyon.”

Steve makes a noise like an aborted laugh. “You think there are zombies in the canyon?”

“You think they’re smart enough to avoid falling off the edge?”

“That’s what we’ll do with them,” he says, and when James looks over he’s brimming with glee. “Just take all the zombies and dump them into the Grand Canyon so they eat each other. Quarantine it.”

“Put a giant dome over the top.”

“Plexiglass.”

“No, just glass. That way when it shatters they’ll get cut up.”

Steve laughs sharply, a little manic. He’s gripping the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles going white. “We solved the apocalypse.”

“Steve?”

“We solved it,” he repeats, and his thumbs are twitching against the wheel. “We can- it’ll all go back to normal now, right?”

“Steve-”

“We’re just having a normal road trip,” he continues, and James can’t do anything but stare. “Just a normal road trip, just six friends talking about trapping zombies in the- oh, god.”

“Are you okay?”

It takes Steve a minute, but he shakes his head, beaming fiercely. “No, I think I’m having a breakdown.”

“Okay, do you want me to drive?”

“No, man, this actually feels pretty good.”

“The nervous breakdown feels good?”

“No, I mean the part where I’m not pretending it’s normal anymore. Aren’t you tired of acting like this is all normal?”

James looks out the window, because he can’t look at Steve anymore. He can’t admit that it all feels normal now. “That was our exit.”

“I know.”

“Steve-”

“I’ll turn around in a minute,” he says. “I just don’t want to stop right now.”

“Okay,” James says. “If anyone wakes up I’ll just… I’ll say that I missed it. That I distracted you or something.”

“You don’t think I should tell them about the breakdown?”

“I think you’d freak them out.”

“Am I freaking you out?”

James wants to say yes, but honestly, he’s not all that freaked out. “I’m just glad you’re not… doing this alone, you know?”

“I know,” Steve says. James finally looks back, and one of Steve’s hands is resting on the gearshift. His eyes are fixed on the road. “Can you keep talking to me?”

“About what?”

“The weather. Where we’re going next. Anything.”

He keeps looking at Steven’s hand. He kind of wants to reach out and link his fingers, rest his hand on top. It’s stupid. He can already tell he’s going to be thinking about it for a long time.

“Of course, man,” he says, and Steve’s fingers twitch on the gearshift, and James knows then and there that he’s probably fucked.

Nobody gives James more shit about the missed exit than Sami Jo, who berates him for about three minutes.

“Go easy on him,” Autumn says when she wakes up. But she’s smiling softly, and Sami Jo beams at her. “Or don’t, you know.”

“Don’t let her yell at me,” James complains. “I’m doing my best.”

“Oh, doing your best,” Sami Jo repeats mockingly, but she’s still smiling at Autumn, and her heart’s definitely not in the mocking anymore. “It’s the end of the world, James, when were you going to say we drove thirty miles past it?”

“When we hit thirty miles!”

“At least he figured it out before we hit sixty,” Steve says, which is completely, totally unfair. James tries to glare at him, but Steven just arches an eyebrow at him, unrepentant. And James knows that he could pull out his trump card of “it was actually Steve’s fault,” but it’d taken all thirty of those miles to talk Steve back into being steady. “And it’s not like we had to stop at all along the way.”

“Yeah, actually,” James says, because he’d been wondering about that. “You’d think there would be more abandoned cars near the Grand Canyon, right?”

Autumn frowns. “Why would you think that?”

“Because there’s no way we’re the only ones who decided to go to the Grand Canyon at the end of the world.”

“Everyone whose first instinct at the end of the world is to go to the Grand Canyon is a fucking idiot,” Steven announces. “It’s a zombie pit. It’s also in the middle of the desert, so it’s hot, and it probably smells terrible.”

Sami Jo makes a face. “Why are we going there again?”

“It was literally your idea.”

“Yeah, but you guys were the ones who said yes.”

“Grand Canyon’s a good idea,” Parker says from the back. He’s still lying with his head in Cib’s lap, which is fucking gross. “We need to see it. It’ll be good for us.”

Sami Jo turns to look at him. “Have you been before?”

“Not for a few years.”

“Who here has been to the Grand Canyon?”

Steve lifts a hand. Parker doesn’t raise a hand, but he does raise the stump of his right arm.

Sami Jo nods decisively. “This was a good idea.”

“You were just saying -”

“Three miles,” James says loudly. “Exit for the south rim in three miles! Isn’t that going to be great?”

“Is the south rim the tourist rim?” Sami Jo makes a face. “I mean, do we really want to be tourists?”

“I really, genuinely don’t think it matters at this point,” James says. “Unless anyone cares.”

“I care,” Cib says loudly. James twists around to look at him, and he’s glaring in no specific direction. But it’s definitely a glare. “I want to be a tourist.”

“You’re the worst kind of person,” Steve says. “Actually, all of you are the worst types of people, especially Parker.”

Cib brushes Parker’s hair back. “Don’t listen to him, I’m worse than you ever were.”

“Aw,” Parker says. “That’s sweet.”

“Jesus,” Steve mumbles. “Do we really want to reward this with the Grand Canyon?”

“Yes,” Autumn and Cib say in unison.

Steve shakes his head. “Okay,” he says dubiously, and takes the exit.

Sami Jo, for her part, insists on keeping her eyes closed so that the first thing she sees is the canyon. It would be endearing, or something, except it means she has trouble getting out of the car. And walking. It’s actually more of a pain than it is endearing. Autumn, thankfully, volunteers to herd her around.

Steve, for his part, insists on going through the big hotel resort that’s closest to the rim itself, so they have somewhere to stay. He also parks the car in the most inconvenient place possible so nobody can steal it.

Cib and Parker, for their part, announce that instead of helping with literally anything, they’re going to go find a quiet corner to make out.

So that leaves James, because Steve said that he could case the hotel alone. It’s just him, a walkie talkie, and the entire Grand Canyon. All the food has been raided, which isn’t a surprise, but there are things he can pick up along the way. Guns, ammo, clean clothes that people left behind. Bottled water. (He uses a bottle to rinse out his hair, because… okay, sure, bottled water is a hot commodity these days, but there’s something to be said about personal hygeine. He feels like more of a person when his hair is clean, who’s going to give him shit for that?)

“Hey, James,” Steve says, crackling over the walkie talkie. “You think we could stay the night here?”

“Uh, of course, why wouldn’t we?”

“Because of the whole apocalypse? I don’t know, what are we doing after this?”

“I don’t know, I can’t believe we made it this far. Did you find a hotel room?”

“Yeah, there’s a suite up here that got looted to hell, but we can steal pillows and whatever from other rooms. Definitely room for all of us for the night.”

“And no sign of anyone else?”

“No recent sign.”

“Should we check the canyon for zombies?”

Steve pauses. “Shit, do you think there are actually zombies in the canyon?”

“I can scope it out,” James offers. “I’ve got a stockpile in the lobby, so as long as someone picks that up I can go.”

“Got a gun with you?”

“Two.”

“Check in if it’s all clear.”

“Of course.”

“Over and out,” Steve says, and James stuffs the walkie talkie back in his pocket.

He’s never been to the Grand Canyon before, but it takes his breath away when he looks out at it, like he always knew it would. There’s something strange about the expanse, about how broad and unstoppable it feels. And there are zombies milling around in the bottom of the canyon, sure, but not close enough that it’s going to be a problem.

James pulls his walkie talkie back out. “So there are definitely some undead hanging out in the bottom of the canyon.”

“Seriously?”

“Not enough that it’s going to be, like, a thing. But we should probably be aware of that.”

“Still safe?”

“Still safe. And I have my guns.” And grenades, not that he’s going to announce that. “You all set up in the suite?”

“Yeah, Autumn and Sami Jo brought your stuff up to the room.”

“You guys want to come down?”

Steve sighs, crackling full of static over the walkie. “Whose turn is it to get Parker and Cib?”

“I mean, I’m already out here, so…”

“I don’t understand them,” Steven complains. “Like, when Autumn and Sami Jo sneak off to bang or whatever, they’re tasteful about it. They do it when they have plenty of time. None of this rushed shit, when we’re in between things.”

“Parker and Cib are new at this whole dating thing,” James says mildly, and kicks a rock over the edge, follows it down with his eyes. “They don’t know how to do it right.”

“I’m going to an early grave because of them,” Steve says, and James can feel the exact moment he winces. Gallows humor is only funny, he thinks, when you’re not in line for the gallows.

“I’ll see you in a few,” James says, and pockets the walkie again. It’ll take a minute for them to get out there, so he takes a minute to stretch his arms and shoulders. You don’t realize how cramped it gets in an SUV till you’re not in that SUV anymore, and frankly, James is sick of being stuck in one place.

It’s while he’s stretching, one arm drawn across his chest, that he notices the tent.

It’s down a path, set up on a landing a few hundred feet down from the edge. It looks like a regular camping tent, except it looks like there’s something stuffed in the empty space between the tent and the rock. Like there’s a carpet, or sleeping bag, or something. Like someone’s living there.

James knows it’s a bad idea to investigate, but he can’t help himself. As soon as he notices it he’s halfway down the path, climbing down a cliff and jogging through the dust. It’ll only take a minute. He’s sure of it.

He stops a couple yards away. You can’t exactly knock on a tent, and even if he did there’s no guarantee that anyone would answer.

Slowly, James reaches out and pulls the corner of the tent aside.

“Freeze,” someone shouts from the inside.

James, for his part, does not freeze, and pulls one of the guns out of his hoodie pocket. Maybe the movement is enough to get him shot, but if it is, he’s glad that he’s at least going to die on his feet. And not because of a zombie.

“Wait,” the person in the tent says, and pushes the canvas back further. “James?”

It takes a second for James to blink through the haze of adrenaline, but when he does, he manages to focus on the person in the tent. She has a gun pointed at him, but she’s lowering it, staring at him wide-eyed. She’s short and blonde, but her dark roots are growing out. And he hasn’t seen her since well before the apocalypse.

James slides his gun back into his hoodie. “Reina?”

“Oh my god,” Reina sobs, and flings her arms around his neck. James squeezes her as tightly as he can. He and Reina were never close, but they knew each other - couldn’t help but know each other, as two of Steve’s best friends - and he knows Steve had been worried about her. And here she is, in the Grand Canyon. Alive.

“Hey,” James says, and he can feel his throat closing up. “Hey, oh my god, Reina, Reina-”

Reina says something into his chest, teary and incomprehensible. James smooths down her hair. “You’re gonna have to run that by me again.”

She sniffles and pulls back enough that he can hear her say, “I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone I knew again.”

“God,” James whispers. “We’re here, Reina. Holy shit, what are you doing here?”

“I was on vacation when- you know.” Reina sniffs. “There used to be a bunch of us, just tourists who were trying to make it work, but all the other ones left. I didn’t want to, though, because people - you know, they knew I was going to be here.”

It’s not sound logic. But it’s apocalypse logic, and James understands.

Reina sniffs one more time and pulls back to beam up at James. “It’s really good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“What about you, how did you end up here?”

“Uh.” James scratches the back of his head. It kind of sounds stupid, now that he has to say it to someone else. “Apocalypse road trip?”

“Sweet,” Reina says. “Solo?”

“Group.” He blinks. “Wait, holy shit, we need to-”

“James,” Steve says over the walkie talkie, and Reina claps both hands over her mouth. “Where the fuck are you?”

“Oh my god,” Reina whispers, muffled and more than a little teary. “Oh my god, that- is-”

James grins. “You wanna visit?”

Reina nods, and he lifts the walkie. “I found another survivor, dude.”

“Great,” Steve says, sounding not at all like he means it. “Super. Tell them they can’t join our club.”

“She can hear you.”

“Oh, okay. You can’t join our club.”

Reina reaches out and pulls the walkie talkie, and James’s hand, closer to her mouth. “I’m already in your club, you bitch.”

Steve goes silent for a long minute. Reina takes the opportunity to sling a backpack over her shoulder. “We gonna go up?”

“If you’re ready.”

Reina nods and follows James out of the tent. They’re already beginning the climb up out of the canyon when Steve says, tremulously, “Reina?”

“We gotta climb up out of the canyon, dude, we’ll be there in a minute.”

“Out of the zombie canyon?” Steve demands, but James slips the walkie into his pocket.

“Is it just you guys?” Reina asks.

“Nah, there’s six of us.”

“Six, really?”

“Me and Steve, Cib and Parker, and Autumn and Sami Jo, who I don’t think you’ve met.”

“I haven’t. You said Cib and Parker? How’re they?”

“Good.” James thinks about it. “I mean, Parker lost an arm, but good.”

“Lost an arm?” Reina repeats. “What the fuck happened?”

“There was a zombie, it was a whole thing.”

“Oh, great. That’s… I’m glad he’s okay.”

“We all are,” James admits. It was harder than any of them want to admit, watching Parker screaming and bleeding out. But he’s okay, and that’s worth being grateful for.

They make the rest of the trek in silence, and James offers Reina a hand to help pull her up the last bit of the way. When he turns around, the rest of the group is standing clustered together, watching them. And Steve is at the front of them all, staring, eyes wider than James has ever seen.

Reina grips James’s arm. “Whoa.”

“Told you they’re here,” James says, but Reina probably doesn’t hear him, because she breaks into a sprint. Steve runs right back at her, and they don’t embrace as much as collide with each other, arms flying everywhere, kicking up dust. The next thing James knows they’re both on the ground, kneeling, arms around each other. Reina’s shoulders are heaving, like she’s crying again, and James can see the tears in Steve’s eyes.

“You’re here,” Reina sobs, and Steven grabs her head and clutches her closer. “Oh my god, Suppy-”

“You’re here too,” Steven says, choked and awful and the best thing that James has ever heard. “Reina, Reina, Reina, Reina-”

James goes over to stand by the rest of the group and looks away. It feels too personal to watch.

His eyes land on Sami Jo, who’s also looking away, out at the canyon. “What do you think?”

“Grand Canyon was a good call,” she says quietly, and smiles at James. Not a flashy smile, or a jokey smile. A real smile.

“Yeah,” James agrees, looking out, over the edge. There are zombies at the bottom, and bloodstains on the rock. And a tent, left unzipped, down a trail.

They end up staying at the canyon for three nights. The first night, Steve and Reina go off in another hotel room by themselves, probably to catch up, or just to be with each other. The next day James and Cib spend exploring the canyon, while Parker, Autumn, and Sami Jo get into a weirdly intense argument about foraging. Steve and Reina don’t emerge from their room until the morning after that, and they both look fucking radiant.

“Reina’s coming with us,” Steve announces. “We’re going to make room in the SUV. We’ll make the supplies work.”

It’s not a question. It’s not a democratic decision. It’s a statement. James nods anyways. “Course. Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks,” Reina says, beaming.

Cib props his chin on James’s shoulder. “Hey, good to see you, Reina.”

“You too.”

“Steve, where’re we going next?”

Steven frowns. “I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”

“I vote we keep road tripping,” Reina says. “There’s not a lot else to do.”

“True,” James says. “We can take turns picking.”

“Parker’s next,” Cib says instantly.

Steve raises his eyebrows. “Is that how this works?”

“I nominate him,” Cib says. “And none of you contested me in the official format, so I win, bitch. Which just means Parker wins.”

Reina elbows Steve, ignoring the way he yelps. “Why didn’t you contest him so I could pick?”

“Because we don’t have rules about contesting!” Steven glares at Cib. “You can’t just make up rules and act like they’re a thing!”

“That’s what you do!”

“Yeah, because I’m apocalypse leader, or whatever, remember?”

“No, dude, Parker’s in charge!”

“ What? ”

Reina looks at James and whispers, “You wanna stage a coup?”

“No coups,” Steve says loudly. “James, quit nodding, don’t- no coups! This is a democracy!”

“Bullshit,” Sami Jo calls from further in the suite.

“This is socialism,” Autumn adds. “We all make the choices together.”

“I like them,” Reina murmurs. “James, you still wanna stage a coup?”

“Maybe,” James says. “We’ll talk about it.”

“Great,” Steve mutters. But he meets James’s eyes, and he looks the happiest that James has seen since they decided to leave Los Angeles.

They spend the last night in their suite together, with vodka and some wine that Reina apparently stole from the hotel bar a long time ago. James doesn’t remember the night clearly, but he remembers Steven and Reina sitting side by side. He remembers Cib playing his guitar, even with Parker leaning against him. He remembers drinking a lot and feeling warm and happy, and trying to convince Parker to go to Nashville, not fucking Disney World.

(He loses that fight. But he has to admit, he’s kind of curious about what the zombie apocalypse did to the happiest place on earth.)

When James wakes up the next morning, it’s in the grey almost-light that means it’s too early for him to be awake. He considers going back to sleep, but when he opens his eyes the whole way, he can see Reina. And he can see the empty space where Steve was sleeping.

Carefully, quietly, he makes his way out of the suite, out of the hotel. He already knows where Steve is going to be before he even makes it to the canyon.

And there he is, standing at the edge. His hands are in his pockets. The sun is threatening to rise, off to one side, but it’s not quite peeking above the horizon yet.

James stops next to him. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’re you thinking?”

“We can do anything.”

James slants a look at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean-” Steve gestures at the canyon. “This couldn’t stop zombies. Like, they’re all down there, just waiting for something. Nature didn’t do jack shit except contain them. But we can get rid of them. We can do… anything.”

“We can,” James says, and fishes a grenade out of his pocket. “You wanna do something dumb?”

Steve looks down at the grenade and up at James. “Where did you-”

“I raided Jeremy and Andrew’s place after they left,” he admits. “They had a lot of grenades.”

“Nice,” Steve says appreciatively, and takes it. “So how do you-”

“You just pull the pin and then throw.”

Steve looks down at the zombies, still in the bottom of the canyon, almost definitely too far for the grenade to reach. “Are you suggesting I blow up the Grand Canyon?”

“We can do anything,” James says, and Steve half-smiles at him. “Weren’t you just saying that?”

“I was just saying that.” Steve takes a deep breath, pulls the pin, and throws. It’s not a great throw, or even a good one, but it makes it down to the zombies before it explodes. James can’t see well, but he has to assume that it takes out at least a couple zombies.

“Nice,” James says, and Steve starts laughing. Not like the weird, manic laughter from the car, but like he’s happy. “Steve?”

“We did it,” he says, and turns to face James fully. The sun is coming up over the horizon, and it hurts to look at, and he can’t look away. “We- six months, James, we’re not dead, Reina’s not dead, we did it.”

“We did it,” James agrees, and he grins. Steven laughs all the harder and then leans forward, and then they’re kissing, messy and exuberant and alive. Steve is still laughing into James’s mouth.

James slings an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and they stumble away from the edge together. “We’re alive,” Steve says breathlessly, and kisses James again, and again. “We’re alive.”

“And we’re gonna stay alive,” James says, and kisses Steve all the harder.

#stevejames #parcib #autumn jo #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #y'all i'm so happy i finally had enough time to hammer this one out it's been in the barrel for a hot minute #yes it is a sequel to crash bang boom!#which reminds me:#zombie au tag

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waveridden · 7 years

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hey dudes! did you read my aucember fics? did you have thoughts and/or feelings about those fics and aucember as a whole? if so i have good news!

i made a survey about aucember! it’s three questions, and one of them is a joke. basically i’m using this to gauge what people thought of the fics, and to help me figure out where to go from here. if you read any aucember fics, i would really, really appreciate if you took this! (and it’s anonymous!) thanks, guys! <3

#waveridden.txt #aucember17 #because like... /i/ know what i'd write more of #but i'm hugely hugely curious about what y'all would read more of #also for the record i'm gonna reblog this.... too much over the next couple days lmao #also shoutout to aneurin @stamets for test-taking the survey!! love u

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waveridden · 7 years

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FIC: if i didn’t, darlin’

Parker has a crush. Steven suggests speed dating. It doesn’t work out the way it’s supposed to. Parker/Cib, vague Steven/James, 1.6k

AUcember || title lyric

Steve slides into the chair across from Parker and steeples his fingers. “Okay, so you might’ve been right.”

“About this being a terrible idea?”

“It’s not-”

Parker doesn’t even have to say anything, because Steve’s entire face scrunches up, like it’s reacting even though he’s trying not to react. “Steve?”

“What?”

“I don’t want to date you.”

“This is still good for you, though,” Steve insists. “This is going to be great!”

“Why?”

“Because you’re getting back out there!” Steve gestures to the rest of the room they’re in, where all the other speed-daters are going on their speed dates. “Look at all these fish in the sea. You gotta get out of your fishbowl.”

“I don’t think fish can just jump out of bowls.”

“Then let me be your fisherman.”

Parker makes a face. “I don’t like this metaphor.”

He actually doesn’t like the entire situation, which Steve knows full well. It’s a combination of a few dumb accidents, namely Parker getting a crush on Cib and then making the mistake of telling Steve about it. Steve had reacted very… Steve-ishly, which is to say, he immediately signed Parker up for speed dating. And then he told Cib that Parker was going speed dating, and Cib had reacted very Cib-ishly, which is to say, he signed up and made Steve sign up too.

So here Parker is, on a speed-date with one of his best friends, with one of his other best friends on a date two tables down from him. It constantly feels like Cib is looking over at him, which is definitely in Parker’s head, because Cib wouldn’t look at him. Or would he? It’s impossible to say.

And the point of all this is, Steve is a bad fisherman. Steve is a bad fisherman who doesn’t know how to handle anything, so he shakes his head at Parker and says “It’s not about the metaphor,” like the metaphor is the most important part of all this.

Parker decides to let it slide. “Am I also a fish in this metaphor?”

“Of course you are, what else could you be?”

“Squid,” Parker says immediately.

Steve wrinkles his nose. “Why?”

“Because of the-” Parker makes a motion with his hand that hopefully indicates tentacles. “You know?”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It’s-”

Steve lifts a hand. “No, I don’t want to know.”

Parker takes the opportunity to look over at Cib, because he might as well, only he’s pretty sure it’s a mistake. Cib seems like he’s getting along with the girl he’s talking with, and he’s not looking at Parker, why would he look at Parker?

“My point,” Steve says forcefully, “is you keep sitting here looking like a sad sack, I’m not meeting anyone, and the only one having a good time is Cib. And that’s just because he has a good time wherever he goes, it’s not even because of where we are.”

“We could leave,” Parker offers. “That has to happen, right? A couple of people hit it off and leave early.”

Steve shudders, full-bodied. “No, okay, you’re staying and meeting people and not pretending that we’re going to sneak off and bang.”

“I didn’t-”

“This is going to be good for you,” Steven says, with the weird earnestness that he always gets with bad ideas. But Parker shuts up and listens anyways. “This next girl looks cool, okay? Get along with her. Show her your big eyes, or whatever.”

The buzzer goes off, and Steve gets to his feet. Parker stares up at him. “But- what if-”

“Just try,” Steve says forcefully, and moves on.

Parker goes down to where he wrote Steve’s name on his date and carefully circles NO. When he looks back up, there’s a girl with long hair and sharp eyes settling in across from him. Parker swallows. She’s really, really pretty.

“Hey,” the girl says. “I’m Autumn.”

Parker writes Autumn’s name down on his sheet and clears his throat. “I, uh, I’m Parker.”

“Cool,” Autumn says. “Listen, I’m gonna be honest, I’m only here because one of my friends dragged me over because he didn’t want to go alone, and I already met someone who I’m super interested in. So I’m just here because I have to be at this point.”

“That’s okay,” Parker says, even though his chest kind of feels like a popped balloon. “Who, uh, who’s your friend?”

Autumn points at the guy sitting next to Parker, across from Steve. “That one.”

Parker looks the guy up and down. Steve looks like he’s really getting into the conversation, and the guy with dark hair and glasses looks like he’s just as into it. “He, uh. He’s not my type.”

“You’re probably not his,” Autumn says, not unkindly. “Anyways, I don’t really… like small talk.”

“Me neither,” Parker admits.

“Then why are you at speed-dating?”

“Aw, my friend dragged me here.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s trying to get me past being mildly in love with one of his best friends,” Parker says, because honesty is the best policy. Even with strangers.

Autumn nods. “Well, hopefully this next dude helps.”

Parker winces. “That’s the best friend.”

“Oh.” Autumn looks over at Cib. Parker does too, because he has no self control, but he looks away as soon as Cib starts turning. “I mean, good luck, I guess?”

“Thanks,” Parker says. “Hey, is it okay if I mark yes for you just so I don’t look like I’m pathetic and only want to go out with one person?”

“Sure,” Autumn says. “Can I do the same? Not because I like you or anything.”

“Of course,” Parker says quickly. And he actually means it, but Autumn flashes this tiny smile like she’s sort of laughing at him, and he’s pretty sure that she was joking.

The buzzer sounds, and Autumn stands up. “I’ll see you around, I guess. I’ve gotta go speed-date my best friend.”

“Have fun,” Parker calls after her, and circles the YES on his sheet, and writes down Cib’s name on the next line. He looks up just as Cib crashes into the seat across from him, and every single muscle in his body turns to lead at once. He tries to take a deep breath, to say hi or hey or maybe sorry in advance about whatever dumb thing I’m going to say.

But instead Cib slaps both his hands on the table, staring at Parker intently, and says, “Fuck, marry, kill, Obama, Colbert, Trudeau, go.”

“Kill Trudeau,” Parker says automatically, and then, “have you been- is this how you start all the conversations?”

“Parker,” Cib says impatiently. “Would you or would you not fuck Barack Obama?”

“I’d marry him, but only if he got divorced first,” Parker says, and Cib relaxes immediately. “Was that a test?”

“Yeah, but I knew you’d pass.” Cib grins, and Parker’s heart does that dumb fluttery thing it always does when he’s faced with the full force of Cib’s smile. “This whole speed dating thing is fun.”

“It’s okay,” Parker says cautiously. “I kind of prefer normal dating.”

“Dude, me too!”

“Then why did you sign up?”

“Uh, why did you sign up?”

“Steve signed me up,” Parker says, which, okay, Steven said he shouldn’t mention that part, but it’s Cib. He couldn’t not mention it. “It’s- it’s stupid, you know, what are the odds that you’re going to meet someone who wants to ask you on a date?”

Cib blinks a couple of times. “What if I wanted to ask you on a date?”

“Ha,” Parker says weakly, to hide the fact that his heart has started doing some kind of scary acrobatic tricks inside his chest. “That’s- you would do it not here, wouldn’t- why did you say that?”

“You said you’d kill Trudeau,” Cib says, but he’s staring at Parker with this weird, intense look. He smiles, not that it changes the way he’s piercing through Parker with his eyes. “You passed the test, you get one free date.”

“But that’s-” Parker forces himself to swallow and start over. “Only if you want to.”

“Well, yeah,” Cib says, like it should be obvious. “I already picked yes on the sheet, didn’t you?”

“I was going to,” Parker says, all spilling out in a rush of words, because it’s Cib, and he can’t not tell him. “But- you- I didn’t-”

“You like me, I like you.” Cib shrugs. “Wanna grab dinner sometime?”

The buzzer sounds.

“Yes,” Parker says quickly, because even if this is some kind of mean joke, he can’t lie to Cib. “Yeah, that’d… that’d be nice.”

Cib doesn’t get up. “You didn’t pick yes yet.”

“What?”

“You gotta pick yes,” Cib says. “On the paper.”

Parker looks down and carefully, deliberately, draws a circle around the YES. “Good?”

Cib leans over, squinting at Parker’s paper. “Who the fuck is this other yes? Do I need to fight her?”

“No, she said she-”

“I’ll fight for your honor,” Cib says seriously. “Or mine, whichever one she’s slighting. Bet she can’t do vape tricks.”

“You can barely do vape tricks,” Parker points out. He’s seen Cib practice vape tricks countless times, and he’s not that good at it.

Cib just grins and gets to his feet. “Yeah, but you watch me anyways.”

“Yeah,” Parker says, and Cib flashes him one last bright smile before going to Autumn’s friend. Parker watches him go and meets eyes with Autumn, now at the next table, who tilts her head curiously.

Parker nods, carefully, and Autumn nods back before turning away. And yeah, Parker’s going to have to shut down the next four or five nice people who want dates, but he might be okay with that, if it means a date with Cib.

Maybe, he thinks, Steve was right about this whole speed-dating thing.

#parcib #parker x cib #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #james x steven #aucember17 #waveridden.fic #rpf for ts #it is barely barely barely steven/james but guess what fuckers! i'm here for that ship so you all have to deal with it too #also this isn't suuuper coherent but w/e i did this instead of homework

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waveridden · 7 years

Text

FIC: i want your midnights

“Okay,” Reina says, and snaps her fingers. “Resolutions, go, one each, around the circle.”

A story about a coat closet, and a new year. Parker/Cib, 2.4k.

AUcember || title lyric

When Parker gets to Steve and James’s house, both Steve and James are already drunk. Which isn’t terribly surprising, even though he gets there at seven o’clock. He’s been to the joint Suptic-DeAngelis New Year’s Spectacular for a few years running now, and it’s always like this.

“Parker!” James shouts, and flings an arm so wildly around Parker’s neck that his hand swings around and hits him in the face. Parker goes with it, because that’s just how these parties are, and lets James drag him in and kiss him sloppily on the mouth, then one cheek. “Man, you keep showing up to these!”

“I do,” Parker agrees, and pats James on the back. “Let’s get you some water.”

“Steve got me water earlier!” James pulls backs and smiles at Parker, looking very, very fond. Parker is pretty familiar with the stages of drunk James at this point, and this is pretty close to the beginning. “Man, dude, I love you, do I say that enough?”

“I don’t think you have to say it a certain amount, but-”

James makes a distressed noise and lunges forward to kiss Parker. Or, more accurately, to lick Parker’s lips until Parker carefully pushes him back. James pouts. “Dude!”

“I love you too, James,” Parker says politely. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Out,” James says cheerfully. “Cib was running late so he went to look for him.”

“Look for him? Don’t tell me he’s driving.”

“No, walking.”

“To Cib’s?”

“Towards Cib.” James beams at him. “You’re great, dude, you know that? You’re a good friend.”

“Yeah, alright,” Parker says. Maybe he should be grateful that James isn’t at the “let’s have deep conversations” point yet, because that doesn’t normally go great for him. “Let’s get you some water, though, seriously.”

Twenty minutes later, after James has had one glass of wine and two glasses of water, the front door opens. “James,” Cib yells, “why did you let him leave?”

“Because you were late,” James answers, like that makes sense. Parker’s a little afraid to ask about that logic. “Did he find you?”

“He found me, eventually.”

“I always knew where you were,” Steve snaps. The two of them come around the corner, Cib holding both of Steve’s elbows and walking half a step behind him. He glares at Parker when he sees him. “Oh, good, he’s here.”

“Hi,” Parker says, and then looks back at Cib, who’s not quite smiling. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Cib says, and carefully wrestles Steve onto the couch so he’s sitting next to James. “Happy new year.”

“We have four hours left in this year.”

“It’s the thought that counts, right?”

“Also, time is fake,” Steven says, nestling into James’s side. James drags his fingers down the side of Steven’s face, and Steve wrinkles his nose and wrests his cheek on James’s collarbone. “Time is fake and we only get drunk because-”

“Because you don’t want to have another existentialist breakdown about the passage of time,” Cib says patiently. “But time’s not fake! I have a clock in my phone, and my phone is real.”

“You also have Candy Crush in your phone,” James argues. “And the candy’s not real. Can’t eat it.”

“But the game is real! So that means time is real too.”

“All that means is the clock is real.”

“I can’t eat the clock either!”

“Parker,” Steve whispers - or, well, drunk-whispers, which is about the same volume as his regular speaking voice. “We need to get out of here.”

“You mean you need me to get you out of here,” Parker whispers back.

Steve frowns. “I can’t hear you,” he says, more loudly. Cib has stopped arguing with James and is staring between them now, looking kind of amused. “Open a window.”

“What?”

“Open a window so I can hear you.”

“You heard him,” Cib says, completely serious. “Open a window.”

The doorbell rings, and Parker silently thanks god that Autumn and Sami Jo have good timing. “I’m gonna get that instead.”

James boos him loudly. Steven kisses James’s neck, looking sort of absent-minded about it. Parker rolls his eyes and gets up.

The actual, real New Year’s party starts at ten o’clock with a flood of people. Parker and Cib have already thrown out all the half-empty drinks and finished the setup that James and Steve started, because that’s the deal they struck, like it is every year.

By 11:45, Parker has only ducked outside for air four times, which is a record low. Reina kissed him once, James kissed him twice and then asked him whether or not the Bible was a reliable moral authority even without the religious aspect to it, and Sami Jo hugged him for three straight minutes while Autumn smiled at them both.

“So a normal New Year’s,” Cib says, when Parker explains all this to him.

Parker shrugs. He’s already started putting away the alcohol and putting out water, and people don’t even notice at this point. “I guess. It just feels new and overwhelming ever year.”

Cib snorts. “Why do you come to these things, anyways?”

Parker opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, Cib’s whole body goes stiff. “You okay?”

“Shit,” Cib whispers. Parker follows his gaze out through the party and sees… well, an awful lot of people he doesn’t recognize. “I have to hide.”

“What?”

“There’s someone here who I really, really don’t want to see me.”

“Okay,” Parker says. “You wanna go hide?”

He kind of expects Cib to say “not with you,” or maybe something like “no, I’m leaving,” but instead Cib grabs his wrist. “Do you think the bedroom’s safe?”

“Definitely not,” Parker says, because he saw Steve and James go in there twenty-odd minutes ago, and Autumn and Sami Jo in the guest room.

“Shit. Bathroom?”

“Bad idea.”

Cib glances at the party, swears again, and then drags Parker away. “There’s a solution.”

“What’s the solution?”

Cib doesn’t answer, zig-zagging through the kitchen, and the living room, and then to the coat closet by the front door.

“We could just leave the house,” Parker points out, but Cib’s already opening the door to the closet, and he’s never been able to say no to Cib. So Cib goes in the closet, and Parker shuts the door behind them. “Was it… you know… an ex, or something?”

There’s no light in the closet, other than what’s filtering through from outside, but he can still feel Cib staring at him blankly. “What?”

“Who you saw.”

“Who I saw?”

“Who we’re hiding from?”

“Oh,” Cib says, insincerely enough that it sets off a couple of alarms in Parker’s head. “Uh, yeah.”

“How long do you think we have to be in here?”

“Long enough.”

“Oooookay,” Parker says, and tries to open the closet door just in case. “Huh.”

“Huh, what?”

He jiggles the handle a little harder. “I’m pretty sure we’re locked in.”

“You’re kidding.” Cib reaches out, clasping his hand over Parker’s, and tries to turn the knob. Nothing happens. “Fuck, dude, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Parker says, and checks his phone. “It’s 11:48. We can just scream at people when they leave the party, someone’ll let us out.”

“But we’re gonna miss the ball drop.”

Parker shrugs. “I can live with that.”

He can see a little more clearly now, eyes adjusting to the dark, and so he can see Cib tilt his head at him. “Why do you come to these things, anyways?”

“What, coat closets?”

“The New Year parties. You don’t really drink, you just clean up, you always complain about the crowd and the people trying to kiss you. Do you even, like, have fun?”

“Yes,” Parker says, without hesitation. “It’s like… my family used to throw these New Year’s parties, right? Family-only, but it was the one time where we all tried to… you know, get together and get along.”

“This isn’t family-only.”

“No,” Parker agrees. “I don’t know half the people here, and it’s too crowded and noisy, but… everyone else is here. Like, you’re here, and Jamie and Mimi fly in, and Autumn shows up, and she never shows up.” Cib laughs softly, and Parker can’t help but smile. “And everyone else leaves early so it’s just… us, you know? That’s why I’m here.”

“Aw,” Cib says teasingly. “You like us.”

“You like me too.”

“Well, yeah.” He can see Cib grin. “That’s why I dragged you off to hang out into a coat closet. There wasn’t an ex or anything, I just wanted to hang out.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I like you.”

Parker blinks. “Oh.”

“Although I should’ve probably saved that tidbit for when we were leaving the closet.” Cib hisses through his teeth. “This is awkward now.”

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“Only a lot.”

Parker’s not. He thinks maybe he should be uncomfortable, or even upset about being lied to, but… “You wanna, uh.”

“I wanna what?”

“You know.”

“I most certainly do not know.”

“It’s New Year’s.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“So do you wanna…” Parker forces himself to drag his eyes up to Cib’s face, although he nearly, nearly gets stuck staring at his lips, quirked up in a half-smile. “Do what… people do… on New Year’s?”

“It’s not midnight yet,” Cib says, but one of his hands is already settling on Parker’s waist, and the other is on the side of his head, brushing his hair back.

“We’re getting an early start,” Parker says, and Cib’s eyes crinkle at the edges, and Parker suddenly can’t breathe. “Besides, isn’t… isn’t time fake?”

“I hope so,” Cib breathes, and kisses Parker.

Now, here’s the thing about being in a coat closet.

First of all, it’s a prime makeout spot. Like, Parker’s going to keep this in mind, just in case he needs another prime makeout spot sometime, because there’s nothing else to focus on. It’s just him, and Cib, and it’s nice. It’s nice in ways that Parker never expected or thought about before.

Second of all, it’s easy to lose track of time. Which, to be fair, might be because he’s making out with one of his best friends, but it’s not like there’s a clock. Because, again, coat closet.

And, third of all, people put their coats in it.

What this all means is that Steve opens the coat closet at 12:13, sees Cib and Parker (who’s starting to consider whether or not he wants to be the kind of person who bangs one of his best friends in a coat closet on New Year’s), and shrieks, “What the fuck?”

Parker would wriggle away, he really would, except Cib sort of has him pinned against a wall, and also he’s not sure how much he minds this, so he keeps kissing Cib.

“Cib,” Steven snaps. “Get out of my fucking coat closet.”

Cib drags himself away, and Parker halfway whines, which would be embarrassing if it weren’t for the way that he can see Cib sort of blush at it. “What coat are you looking for?”

“Get out!” Steve says again, this time verging on desperate. “Both of you, go find a bed or a porch or something!”

“Bed,” Cib says immediately. “Can we use yours?”

Steve makes a noise halfway between a whine and a yell, which Parker is pretty sure means no, but Cib just says, “Awesome.”

“Guest room,” Steve says at last. “And we will be dragging you out for the new year hangout, so remain mostly clothed.” His eyes flit over to Parker, and his whole face scrunches up. “Especially you.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Cib says, and then fucking licks Parker’s neck. He’s not sure if it’s supposed to be a sexy thing or just to freak Steve out, but either way it ends with him burying his face in Cib’s neck, trying not to laugh.

Steve goes quiet for a couple seconds and at last says, “You know what? You guys can stay in here. Everyone else can freeze.”

“Freeze?” James repeats. Parker can hear footsteps. “Steve, why are- holy shit.”

“Hi,” Parker says weakly. “Uh, sorry we missed the ball dropping, but we-”

“Had other balls to attend to,” James finishes. Cib stretches out and high-fives him.

Steve looks at Parker. “You just spent, like, twenty minutes with his tongue in your mouth.”

“Yeah,” Parker says, and then because Steve’s drunk and it’ll freak him out, “it was pretty nice.”

Cib winds an arm around Parker’s waist, pulling him even closer. “Guest room’s open?”

“Yes,” James says. “Get out of our fucking closet, we just cleaned that last year.”

Cib laughs and stumbles out, still clinging to Parker. Parker stumbles after him, both arms around Cib’s neck. “Do you actually want-”

“Yes,” Cib says, and suddenly one of his arms is behind Parker’s knees, sweeping him off his feet. Parker gasps, but Cib doesn’t even stumble. “I’ve got you.”

“I know,” Parker says, and Cib beams at him.

“Okay,” Reina says, and snaps her fingers. “Resolutions, go, one each, around the circle.”

“You first, bitch,” Steve says. “Go, come on.”

“Fucking okay!” She rolls her eyes. “I’m gonna read more books. Next?”

“Eat more salads,” Mimi says.

“Learn to make better salads,” Jamie adds, and Mimi smiles at him.

“I’m gonna shoot more guns,” James says.

Steve shakes his head. “Fucking, I don’t know, can I read more books too?”

“Write a book,” James suggests.

Steve half-smiles. “Yeah. Maybe.” James kisses the top of Steve’s head, and Steve elbows Cib. “Go.”

Cib, from where he’s tucked into Parker’s side, hums loudly. “I’m gonna write more music. Parker?”

“Don’t know,” Parker says thoughtfully. Everyone boos, like happens every year. “Come back to me.”

“Fine, I’m ready.” Sami Jo wriggles around on the couch and tucks her feet underneath her. “I’m going to drink less coffee.”

“I’ll drink more coffee,” Autumn offers. “Just to balance it out.”

“Okay, Parker,” James says. “We let you skip, come on, resolute!”

“I don’t think that’s the verb,” Reina says, but then she hiccups and kind of undercuts her point.

Parker glances around the room. His friends are all curled up, piled on each other, looking at him. And Cib, who shyly asked between kisses if he could call Parker his boyfriend, is tucked up against him, fingers wrapped around Parker’s knee.

“I think,” Parker says, “I’m going to try and drink more water.”

Everyone murmurs in agreement, and Cib smiles at him, and Parker decides that he’d be okay if the rest of his new year was like this, too.

#parcib #cib x parker #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #this is more tropey than an au but like............. fuck it #aucember masterpost coming by the end of the day

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waveridden · 7 years

Text

FIC: the genius next door

“Okay.” Cib folds his arms, elbows resting on his thighs. “Welcome to the first meeting of the currently unnamed Los Angeles supernatural phenomena expert group, or LASPEG until we figure out something better.” (A Haruhi Suzumiya AU. 1.7k, Steven/Cib if you squint.)

AUcember || title lyric

Steven swats at Cib’s hand. “Fucking quit tapping your fingers, you’re giving me anxiety.”

“Holding still gives me anxiety,” Cib complains, but he switches to jiggling his leg. “Do you think anyone’s gonna show up?”

Steven opens his mouth to say that even if nobody shows up he’ll hang out with Cib, when a new voice says, “Is this the meeting?”

Both of them look up. There’s a tall guy standing there with his hands in his pockets and his thumbs hanging out, blinking down at them. Steven kind of hates him immediately.

“Hell yeah, dude!” Cib grins up at the guy. “Sit on down, we’re gonna wait for whoever else shows up. Grab a seat, put your feet up.”

The guy sits down, looking tentative, and then actually puts his feet up on the table, like they’re in someone’s house and not a coffee shop in public.

“My type of guy,” Cib says appreciatively, and kicks his feet up too. “Steve?”

Steven, who has never been good at resisting peer pressure, puts his feet on the table. “What are we doing?”

“The meeting,” says new guy, who looks uncomfortable. “Do we- is putting our feet up a required part of the meeting?”

“No,” Steven says, at the same time Cib says, sharply, “yes.”

“Whoa, table feet!” says someone new. Steven glances up just as a guy with glasses crashes into the seat next to the other new guy and swings his legs up on the table. “What’s up, guys, I’m James, and I wanna catch a time traveler.”

“Catch?” Steven repeats, bemused. “And do what?”

James shrugs. “You know. Have them.”

“For what?”

“Hey,” says a third new person, Jesus Christ. Steven would ignore her, but she sits next to him, and at least doesn’t put her feet up on the table. “I’m Autumn.”

“Autumn, James!” Cib points at the first guy. “Foot man?”

“Please don’t call me that,” foot man says. “My name is Parker. Can I take my feet down?”

Steven reaches out and swats one of Parker’s feet off the table. “The table’s small. We can’t all have our feet up.”

“Oh, I’m keeping mine up,” says James. “Gotta kick back these crazy days, am I right, guys?”

“Wow,” Autumn says, and then goes quiet again. Steven decides that she’s definitely his favorite one here.

“Sick name!” James says.

“No it’s not,” Steven says quickly. “I’m not going to be part of a group called LASPEG.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Cib says cheerfully. “We in this group are going to be tracking down, meeting, interrogating, and learning to love supernatural phenomena, but only the ones that people don’t care about in the media right now. Vampires, fuck those guys, we don’t need werewolves or ghosts.”

Nobody seems to react to any of that. Steven frowns. “How did you guys hear about this group, anyways?”

“Flyers,” they say, in the most terrifying unison. Steven decides to stop asking questions.

“I put up flyers,” Cib murmurs to Steven as an aside. “The graphic design on them was bad.”

“How bad?”

“I’ll show you later.”

“Great.”

“We are not looking for vampires,” Cib says again, because when he pitched this to Steven he was pretty adamant about the no-vampires thing. “I have three priorities, but we can replan if you guys really want to catch a zebra or whatever.”

“Zebras are real,” Steven says exasperatedly.

Cib elbows Steven. “All of these are real, idiot!”

“All of what?”

“Aliens! Time travelers! Espers!”

“What the fuck is an esper?”

“Someone with ESP! You know-” Cib wiggles his fingers. “They can sense extra things. I wanna find those. Anyone know any of those?”

Steven looks at every member of the group. All of them are looking away. “I think that’s a no,” he says. In retrospect, that should’ve been the first sign that something was up.

“Okay, the thing is,” Parker says, “in the most technical sense, I am an alien.”

Steven stares at him. “You brought me out to lunch to tell me you’re an alien.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Do you mean, like, alien from another country? Because Cib is Canadian, so you’re not-”

“From another solar system.” Parker picks up his spoon and swirls his shitty-looking cafe soup. “I’m here for Cib.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say you’re here for Cib? Because if you’re abducting him-”

“Not abducting,” Parker says. “Observing.”

Steven shakes his head. “No, no, I can’t- this is too much. What kind of an alien are you?”

“Technically, I’m a data interface, not an actual species. All I’m here to do is watch Cib.”

“Why Cib?”

“Because he can manipulate reality,” Parker says, and keeps stirring his soup like he hasn’t just said the most batshit crazy thing Steven has ever heard.

“You’re not great at explaining this,” Steven says.

Parker shrugs. “I’m meant to watch, not to talk. I didn’t get a ton of the social skills. Or any of them.”

“Do you actually think Cib can manipulate reality?”

Parker shrugs again. “He doesn’t know he can. He can just bend things a little bit. Just enough that it makes a difference.”

There’s a lot Steven could say to that. But he actually wants to eat his lunch instead of dealing with this practical stranger having a breakdown, so he does that instead.

“Do you think espers are a thing?” Steven asks Autumn, foolishly. They’re out exploring downtown, because Cib is convinced that there are going to be fairies or aliens there or something. He hadn’t had the heart to tell Cib that Parker’s apparently a goddamn alien, so he just called dibs on Autumn and went out.

“I mean, yeah,” Autumn says. “Technically, I am one, so.”

“Jesus,” Steven says. He doesn’t even have it in him to be surprised. “You too?”

Autumn blinks. “Is someone else an esper?”

“No, but there’s an alien.”

“What, Parker? Is he calling himself an alien?”

“What would you call him?”

“A data gatherer. Technically from outside of the galaxy.”

“And what would you call yourself?”

“A psychic,” Autumn says. “Esper is a dumb word. Don’t tell Cib I said that.”

“Why not?”

“Because he might make everyone forget the word psychic ever existed.”

“So you’re on that too.” Steven sighs. “Listen, I don’t think Cib can actually manipulate reality. You have to know that.”

“Maybe,” Autumn says. “But it’s kind of weird that he wants to meet an alien and an esper, and we just show up in your lives, right?”

Steven stares at her. “That’s a little menacing. Are you menacing me?”

“Never,” Autumn says. Steven gets the weird feeling that she means it.

“Hey, James,” Steven says, “are you, by chance, a time traveler?”

James brightens. “Oh, you figured it out! Cool, I was worried I was going to have to explain the whole thing to you. You talk to Autumn?”

“Her and Parker.”

“Yeah, it seems like they’d take care of that.” James tilts his head, examining Steven. “You have questions.”

“No shit I have questions,” Steven says, because really, no shit he has questions. “When are you from? Why are you here? Why are all of you here?”

James starts ticking off fingers. “From the future, can’t say exactly when. Here because of Cib, can’t say exactly why. And all of us are here because he can sort of change reality - shit, I wasn’t supposed to say that, don’t tell my bosses.”

“You have bosses?”

“Well, yeah, I’m not just some freelance bitch!”

“Can Cib actually change reality?” Steven demands. “Why are you guys all so convinced that my best friend can just… change the world?”

“Because we think he did,” James says. “A little over five years ago, something happened, and that’s the farthest back any of us can time travel now. Something weird happened, and everyone knows about it.”

Steven frowns. “I met Cib five years ago.”

“Huh,” James says, thoughtfully.

“Huh, what?”

“Just huh.”

“Don’t you just huh me, explain why you’re making confused noises!”

“There’s a piece of this puzzle that we can’t make sense of,” James says slowly. “Because - I’m here because Cib wants to find a time traveler, and same goes for Autumn and Parker. But you… are just a guy, as far as we know.”

“As far as I know,” Steven agrees.

“But you’re here,” James says. “No other normal people have any kind of lasting relationship with him, as far as we can tell, but you… Steve, dude, there’s something different about you.”

“What do you mean, different?”

“Dunno,” James says, and Steven feels weirdly like he’s being taken apart. Like James is dissecting him with his eyes. “But it’s neat.”

“I think the group is going great,” Cib declares. “Week three, no fairies yet, but I swear to god, that dude we saw was an esper.”

“He said he was an essayist,” Steven says, trying to act like he’s not staring at Cib. Reality-manipulating Cib. World-altering Cib. Unexplainable phenomenon, Cib.

“That’s what he wanted us to think,” Cib argues, and Steven thinks: nothing has changed. Even if Cib can literally bend reality to his will, it’s still just Cib. It’s not that different than what Steven always thought.

“Whatever,” Steven sighs. “This group is still weird.”

And Cib, the unexplainable phenomenon, just grins brightly at Steven. “I’m glad you’re here, dude,” he says warmly. “Warts and all.”

“Fuck you,” Steven says automatically, and Cib smiles like he knows Steven doesn’t mean it. And, well, Steven doesn’t get genuine often, so he just shakes his head. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, man. You know that.”

Cib slings an arm around Steven’s shoulders and tugs him in closer. “I do,” he says. “But it’s nice to hear you say it on your own.”

#ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #cib x steven #ragehappy #aucember17 #waveridden.fic #rpf for ts #hey jaz? your anime is showing

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waveridden · 7 years

Text

FIC: and my arms are open wide

It’s going to be an easy wedding. Textbook, even. Parker’s nearly done with the flowers in the reception hall. There weren’t even bouquets. This is going to be easy. A wedding AU. Parker/Cib, background Steven/James, 1.5k

AUcember || title lyric

“Weddings stress me out,” Parker announces, two hours before the ceremony.

“Not me,” Mimi says cheerfully.

“Not even a little?”

Mimi is Parker’s favorite wedding planner to work with, because she makes sure that every detail is perfect. She’s not a micromanager as much as she’s a fan of competent work. And luckily for him, Parker is a pretty competent florist, most days.

“Oh, I don’t get to be stressed.” Mimi flashes a smile at him. “I have to have it together.”

“What if things are falling apart?”

“Are you planning on letting things fall apart?”

“Absolutely not,” Parker says. Mimi’s a fan of competent work, but he’s seen how she reacts to incompetence. And he’s not about to be one of those people.

Mimi beams at him. “Do me a favor, I need you to track down the best man, I have to talk to him about something.”

“Which best man?”

“Steve’s.”

Parker pauses. “Which… is that?”

“Haven’t you met the party?”

“I haven’t even met Steve,” Parker admits. James had been the one who worked with him picking out arrangements and stuff. (He’d said the whole time that his fiance was making him do it and he wasn’t interested in flowers, but he’d definitely been more invested in the flower choices than Parker had.)

Mimi makes a disapproving noise. “Okay, well, his best man’s name is Cib. Just bring him to me, and if he’s wearing a headband, tell him to take it off.”

“A headband?” Parker says. “At a wedding?”

“He’s an… odd duck,” she says delicately. “He’s something else. You’ll understand. Just send him my way?”

“Send him your way,” Parker repeats, and heads off towards the rooms where Steve is getting ready.

The thing is, weddings actually do stress Parker out, because he’s had some spouses-to-be who really, really don’t know how to handle things going wrong. Especially things that they think are easy to control and get right. And flowers tend to top that list.

James and Steven’s wedding has been easy, at least, because they know what they want. James had been completely invested in the flowers, and the venue, and when Parker snuck a look at Mimi’s notes they were detailed enough to be doable but not unmanageable. It’s going to be an easy wedding. Textbook, even. Parker’s nearly done with the flowers in the reception hall. There weren’t even bouquets. This is going to be easy.

He knocks on the door, and it swings open, and he’s about to say something, but suddenly, he… can’t.

“What, dude?” says the guy who opened the door. He’s tall and for some godforsaken reason, the first thing Parker notices is that he has really nice shoulders. Maybe it’s the lines of the tux jacket he’s wearing, or the way he’s leaning against the doorframe. His fingers are tapping on the side, and he’s gazing up at Parker through his eyelashes.

And, Parker realizes, he’s wearing a headband.

“You should take the headband off,” he says automatically.

The guy stands up straight and adjusts his headband, looking affronted. “Why don’t I go keep it on instead?”

“Uh,” Parker says, except he can’t think in a straight line long enough to follow that up, shit. “Be...cause…”

“Cib, who is it?” someone says out of sight.

The guy, definitely Cib, looks over his shoulder. “Some drink of water who is against my headband.”

“Florist,” Parker says. He has to be able to save this. Just so his client doesn’t think he’s the kind of person who knocks on doors unexpectedly and insults people’s fashion taste.

“Florist?” the other voice repeats. “Open the door.”

Cib swings the door open. The second Parker sets eyes on him, the wedding-florist part of his brain screams that this has to be the groom. He’s got that same nervous, effusive energy that all grooms have. “You’re Steve, right?”

“Yeah, man. Parker, right?” Steve leans forward - or, really, he lunges forward from across the room - and shakes Parker’s hand. “Hey, I really appreciate you working with James and not calling him out on the fact that he actually loves flowers.”

“Of course,” Parker says. “It’s- lots of dudes like flowers, you know?”

“I know,” Steve says, and gets this misty look for a second. It’s cute. “So, uh, is there a flower problem?”

Parker stares blankly. “What?”

“That you need to clear up with me?”

“No, I’m-” Parker pivots to look back at Cib. “Mimi wanted to talk to you, actually. And she said to take off the headband.”

“Mimi?” Cib repeats. Both of his hands are still on the headband. “Why?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Steve said I could wear the headband.”

Parker looks to Steve, who shakes his head, eyes wide and pleading. “Get it off him, please, god.”

“Steve!”

“You’re wearing a navy headband! It doesn’t match the wedding colors or your tux!”

“You sound like you’re getting married or something,” Cib huffs, but he tugs the headband off and stuffs it in his breast pocket. “Headkerchief.”

“Gesundheit,” Parker says kindly.

“No, excuse you.” Cib looks at Steve. “You good if I check on Mimi?”

“Of course,” Steve scoffs. “Fine. Totally fine. Hurry back.”

“Course, dude,” Cib says, and leaves the room. The second the door is shut, he leans in close to Parker and whispers, “He needs me.”

“Ha,” Parker says weakly, because he’s distracted by the attractive dude with his lips very close to Parker’s general… self. “Yeah, he… he sure does.”

“Like we’re friends or something,” Cib says, not without glee. “You saw that, right? He’s my best friend.”

“Yep,” Parker agrees. “Let’s- Mimi- you know her.”

“I know her.” Cib starts down the hall towards the banquet hall. “So you said you do the flowers, right? How do you pick them?”

“What?”

“How do you pick the flowers?”

“I mean, it’s mostly up to the couple getting married, normally they have an idea, but-”

“No, dude,” Cib says. “Like, do you pick them yourself from the dirt? Steal them from people’s lawns? 3D print them?”

Parker nearly trips over his own feet. “You mean… how do I get the flowers?”

“What else could I possibly mean?”

He decides not to answer. “I mean, I order them, same as anyone, but I also take care of them. I grow some myself.”

“Grow them yourself,” Cib repeats, sounding pleased. He whistles lowly as he walks into the banquet hall. “This is so good I wanna get married in it.”

“It’s pretty nice,” Parker agrees. “Mimi’s good.”

“Mimi’s great.” Cib plants his hands on a table, looking at the centerpiece. “You did this?”

“Uh, I did, yeah.”

“Does it need all the flowers?”

“Does it- what?”

Cib reaches in and plucks a carnation out of the vase, twirling it in his fingers. “Can I have this?”

Parker has to shake himself out of staring at Cib’s fingers, because that would be… unprofessional. “Uh, if you want it. There are a bunch in that vase, I don’t mind, why would I mind? I’m not sitting at that table anyways.”

“You say a lot of words,” Cib says, and in one smooth motion reaches up and tucks the carnation behind Parker’s ear. His hand lingers by the side of Parker’s head. His face is very, very close. “I like it.”

“Thank you,” Parker squeaks out, because it’s all that he can manage around the electrical storm inside his brain. His face is burning, he’s sure of it.

Cib opens his mouth, and Parker’s about to try and prepare himself for whatever embarrassing thing he’s going to do next, when suddenly Mimi calls out, “Cib!”

Cib’s face immediately slips into a smile - if Parker didn’t know any better, he’d say it looked a little regretful, but what does he know? - and he slides away from Parker just as fast as he’d gotten close. He turns to Mimi, and Parker follows suit. “Mimi! What’d you need?”

Mimi glances between them, looking suspicious, but then her eyes settle on Cib and she visibly relaxes. “Oh, good, you took the headband off.”

“Excuse you!” Cib folds his arms. “How do you know I didn’t listen to you and not wear one?”

“I can see it in your suit pocket.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Anyways,” Mimi says. “I need to talk about the toasts, can I steal you away for a second?”

“Of course,” Cib says, and leaves the room.

Mimi arches an eyebrow after him and looks at Parker. “I told you he was something.”

“Mmmmhm,” Parker says, and he’s sure that he’s more or less as red as the carnation behind his ear. Is the carnation red? Oh, god, he can’t even remember what the flowers are. All he knows is there’s a flower tucked behind his ear and he kind of feels like he’s about to die, but in the best way. “He sure is.”

Mimi gives him a knowing smile and follows Cib out of the room.

Parker takes the deepest breath he can manage, brushes his fingers against the carnation, and goes back to setting up centerpieces. And if one table ends up one carnation short, well. That’s hardly his fault, right?

#parcib #stevejames #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #cib x parker #james x steve #rpf for ts #1) parker you useless gay 2) carnations mean fascination and passion 3) does anyone actually listen to the title lyric songs #3b) please let me know if you do i'm always down to talk about music lmao

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waveridden · 7 years

Text

FIC: this one has a dog in it

A meet-cute. Parker/Cib, 1.2k. [AUcember]

Parker really should’ve seen this coming.

And not in the sense of he should’ve known, somehow, or psychically guessed, or had some sixth sense about it. No, he literally should have looked up and seen this coming. Because if he hadn’t been looking at his phone, trying to tell Jeremy something or other about groceries, then he would have seen the giant dog running towards him.

As it is, he hears the dog panting, and he has just enough time to look up and think oh, no before said giant dog bulldozes him to the ground.

“Hey, bud!” Parker throws an arm around the dog, trying to keep it from running away, because where there’s a dog on the loose there’s probably going to be a frantic dog owner running after it. “What’s the hurry, big guy?”

The dog barks directly into Parker’s face. It’s kind of a bad sensory experience.

“I know that feeling,” Parker says, and reaches up to scratch the dog behind the ears. “You going on the run? Wanna escape? Trying to get away from it all?”

Unfortunately, the dog must want to hear more of what Parker has to say, because it sits down. On top of him. In the middle of the sidewalk.

“That’s cool,” Parker says. “I get that feeling myself sometimes.”

The dog whines, and Parker tries to sit up. The dog concedes enough that Parker can prop himself up on his elbows and look it in the eye. “Listen, I’ll stay with you for a little while, but it looks like you’re on the lam, and we’ve gotta find your owner, okay? Can you work with that?”

The dog leans forward and shoves its nose straight into Parker’s solar plexus. If that’s a yes, it’s the shittiest yes Parker’s ever received.

“Yikes,” he says, winded, and takes the opportunity to look for a collar, or a leash. The dog doesn’t have either. And it’s Los Angeles, and this is a big dog, so it could be from… anywhere. “Okay, hey, listen, I’m glad we had this talk, but I have some places to be. So if you-”

“Rosie!” someone shouts from down the street, and the dog leaps to its feet and barks. “Oh, no you don’t-”

Parker lunges forward and throws his arms around Rosie’s neck. Rosie barks a couple more times. “Hey, hey,” Parker says, trying to sound as soothing as possible. “We don’t need any of that, do we? Just gonna sit on down and wait for your dog dad to show up, we don’t need-”

Rosie barks again. Parker sighs. “You don’t want to make this easy, do you?”

“Dude, I am so sorry,” says the same voice from before. “He just ran out the fucking door, I didn’t have time-”

“It’s alright,” Parker says quickly. He’s not sure what the etiquette here is, particularly when it comes to if it’s weird to keep holding onto a stranger’s dog after the stranger shows up, but he manages to look up. “He didn’t do much damage. Physically, I mean.”

“He hurt your feelings?” The guy crouches down, and Parker lets go of the dog and tries not to stare. The stranger has really, really nice eyes. “Roosevelt Edward Sheeran James, what did I tell you about being mean to strangers?”

Parker blinks. “Your dog’s middle name is Ed Sheeran?”

“Well, yeah, Roosevelt Andrew Bird James didn’t sound as good.”

“Good point,” Parker says.

Roosevelt Edward Sheeran James whines loudly, and the stranger reaches out and scratches the back of his head. “Aw, it’s okay, Rosie, I would’ve knocked this guy over in the street too.”

“What,” Parker says, because that was either a threat or a compliment, and either way it’s a little incomprehensible.

“I call him Rosie because it’s quicker to say,” he clarifies, like that’s the important part of the sentence. “Although my buddy Steve says it’s disrespectful to name a Russian dog after Roosevelt, like the dog understands politics. Steve doesn’t even understand politics.”

“Your dog is from Russia?”

“Yeah, he’s a big ol’ borzoi.” Rosie barks, like knows he’s being talked about, and the guy taps his nose gently. “I mostly went with Roosevelt because, you know, Vladimir Edward Sheeran James just doesn’t sound the same.”

“Why didn’t you just name your dog Edward Sheeran?”

The guy snorts. “That would be too transparent, obviously.”

Parker reaches out and scratches the back of Rosie’s neck. “You’ve got a lot of interesting namesakes, bud.”

“The last name is mine.” The stranger sticks out a hand. “Clayton, folks call me Cib. Sorry about my dog trying to kill you.”

“Parker.” He shakes his hand. “It’s alright, by the way, he made my morning more exciting.”

“Yeah, mine too.” Cib stands up, and Parker is… weirdly disappointed by it. “And thanks for keeping him from running away, that was almost a disaster.”

“Yeah, it was-” Parker turns his head and barely keeps from thumping it against the sidewalk in disappointment. “Okay, maybe a mini disaster.”

“What?” Cib must follow his gaze and see Parker’s phone shattered on the sidewalk. “Oh, shit, dude-”

“It’s fine,” Parker says, even though it’s going to be inconvenient at best and a minor nightmare at worst. He’s not sure how he’s going to text Jeremy about groceries now. He reaches over and picks it up and, yep, it’s pretty much entirely broken. “I mean-”

“No, you know what?” Cib reaches a hand down to Parker. “I know a guy who works at one of those shitty mall kiosks that say they’ll replace your phone screen, but I’m pretty sure he knows how to actually do it right. I’ll get it fixed and take you out to lunch for your troubles?”

“What?” Parker says, because frankly, that’s a lot to take in at once. He lets Cib pull him to his feet and dusts himself off, and he can feel his face turning red. “No, it’s really-”

“Okay, let me rephrase.” Rosie barks, and Cib shushes him. “Hey, dude, you gotta wingman me here!”

“Are you asking your dog to wingman you?”

“I mean, he did all the hard work, he found you.” Cib shrugs. “Lemme try again, you ready? Cause it’s coming at you.”

“What exactly is-”

“Let me get your phone fixed,” Cib says. “Because it’s my dog’s fault, and because I can’t give you my number until your phone is fixed.”

“Oh,” Parker says. “So you’re-”

“Hitting on you, yes, dude.” Cib raises his eyebrows. “You interested?”

“I’m, uh, I-” Parker blinks a couple times. “Yes? Very yes.”

“Awesome.” Cib claps his hands together. “I’ve gotta drop Rosie off back home, but you can… come with, or something? And then we’ll get your phone fixed. Promise.”

Rosie barks at Parker, and he can’t help but smile down at him. “Aw, I can’t say no to that face.”

“What about my face?” Cib demands.

“I mean, the dog helps,” Parker says, but he makes sure to smile at Cib. And Cib, without hesitation, grins back at him.

photo reference of Roosevelt “Rosie” Edward Sheeran James

#parcib #cib x parker #ship pine 7 #shipping pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #how the FUCK do people name fics #i'm on day nine of this shit and i feel like i'm dying

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waveridden · 7 years

Text

FIC: something dumb to do

“Okay,” Parker says, and closes his eyes. So he’s married to Cib. That’s something he can deal with later. (A married in Vegas AU. Parker/Cib, 1.9k.)

AUcember || title lyric

“Hey,” Cib says, the way he says hey when he has an idea. Ideas range from going to a petting zoo to playing chicken in traffic, and drunk Cib’s ideas lean towards the latter, and this is definitely, definitely not something to indulge.

“Hey,” Parker says back, because he can’t help but indulge Cib.

Cib leans in so close that his nose mashes up against Parker’s. “Let’s get married.”

Parker laughs. “For real?”

“For serious!”

“You want to marry me?”

“Yes, dude, I want to marry you right now.” Cib bumps his nose against Parker’s again, although it kind of feels like he does it on purpose this time. “We can- you know, do that, right? We’re in Vegas, dude, we can- we can!”

“We can!” Parker agrees. They’re only there for the weekend, and it’s a city of mistakes. Maybe he wants to be one of those mistakes. “You wanna get married?”

“Parker,” Cib says, and one of his hands cups the back of Parker’s head. “I wanna get married to you today, right now, do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Parker says, laughing a little. Cib’s breath is warm on his face, and Parker wants to kiss him, but that doesn’t make any sense. They’re not talking about dating. Only this. “Let’s get married!”

The first thing Parker thinks when he wakes up is: that was a weird dream.

He knows it’s not a dream. His head is pounding, and there’s someone in the hotel bed with him, and his left ring finger feels heavy. All signs that something happened. But it couldn’t have been that. It couldn’t have been.

Slowly, Parker stretches his arms out, and his fingers brush against a paper on the nightstand. He picks it up and squints at it.

It’s a marriage license.

“Okay,” Parker says, and closes his eyes. So he’s married to Cib. That’s something he can deal with later.

Steven laughs for - and Parker times it, so this is exact - six minutes and forty-three seconds.

“It’s not funny, dude,” Cib snaps, around minute five. “We’re married. To each other.”

Steve laughs harder and, after he’s done with his seven-minute laugh, says, “Green card! Use it for a green card.”

“I’m not going to use Parker for a green card!”

“You can use me for a green card,” Parker says. “I mean, if you want to.”

“That’d be shitty,” Cib says, so seriously that Parker abruptly realizes he means it. “I mean, come on, I’m not going to use my friend to get a green card.”

Parker almost asks why not, but luckily he’s saved from that when Steve says, “Well, why not? You’re already married.”

“We are already married,” Parker says. Cib gives him a weird look, and he kind of wants to shrink away, but he forces himself to shrug like it doesn’t matter. “I mean, it’s- if you don’t want to marry me-”

“Little late on that, dude,” James calls from the bathroom, where he went after he laughed so hard he started crying. Parker’s beginning to think he’ll have to get used to that happening. “You guys are hitched.”

“Vegas-hitched,” Steven adds.

“Loophole!” Cib points at him. “Happened here, stays here.”

“That’s not how laws work!”

“Vegas is a sinkhole without laws, idiot,” Cib says. “That’s why CSI is here.”

“CSI is here because they have laws,” Parker says. “And it’s- listen, it’s not like we have to do anything about it. We can just be married. Or legally separated but not married, or-”

“You’re putting way too much thought into this, dude.” Steve gestures at Cib. “You need a green card, you can… I don’t even know how that’s different than normal weddings, but you can use this to get that.”

“We have to be married for three years,” Cib says exasperatedly, and Parker’s heart jumps into his throat. “I’m not gonna just lock him into this.”

“He said you could!”

“I did say you could,” Parker mumbles.

Cib ignores him. “We can get it annulled,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be a problem.”

“Cib-”

“Steve.”

They glare at each other for a minute, and Parker has the sudden, real understanding that whatever is happening here, he’s on the outside of it.

“Fine,” Steve says shortly. “It’s your marriage, your lives, whatever, do what you want with it.”

“I’m still getting a wedding gift,” James says, emerging from the bathroom. There are still clear tears in his eyes, but he looks at Cib. “Come on.”

“You’re making my life bad,” Cib says.

“I’ll book you guys the honeymoon suite.”

“You wouldn’t.”

James raises his eyebrows. Parker realizes, then and there, that they’re in trouble.

“It’s… red,” Cib says.

“It’s red,” Parker agrees, because there’s not much else to say about the room. It’s huge. The walls are red. There are flowers and champagne and chocolates. And a single bed. Big enough for two people, small enough that they’re not going to be able to avoid each other. Which is bad, because Parker’s beginning to think that Cib wants to avoid him.

Cib drops his suitcase by the door and scrubs his hands over his face. “You wanna go get drunk?”

“That seems like a bad idea.”

“Why, what are we gonna do, get married again?”

Parker can’t really answer that, and he wants to look away, but Cib is already not looking at him.

“We could get it annulled,” he says, because they’re going to have to bite this bullet sooner or later. “I know it’s expensive, or whatever, but if you don’t want to be married-”

“If I don’t want to be married?” Cib stares at him, so suddenly that Parker has to physically move out of the way. It feels like a tangible thing, Cib’s eyes on him. “What?”

“You keep talking about how you don’t want to be married to me.”

“Yeah, not for a green card.”

Parker doesn’t wince, but it’s close. He knows there’s a lot that Cib would do for a green card. It kind of sucks that marrying him isn’t on the list. He forces himself to drop his suitcase by the bed and take a deep breath. “So, you know. Annulment. We can work it out later, I’m gonna go… away, first.”

“Parker-”

“Don’t,” Parker says, a little sharper than he means to. He knows he’s not good at subtle feelings, that Cib probably figured out that he’s in love a long time ago. “Not right now. Okay?”

Cib doesn’t look at him as Parker pushes past him and leaves the room. He’s a little too grateful for that.

“Just tell him,” Sami Jo says patiently. “What’s he gonna do, punish you for having feelings?”

“I don’t know!” Parker halfway moans. “I don’t- what am I supposed to do?”

“Okay, first of all, take a deep breath.”

Parker does. It’s a noisy, wheezy process, but he does.

“Good,” Sami Jo says. Parker wishes that she were there, and not just on the phone, but at least he has her to calm him down. “Now another one.”

“This isn’t helping,” Parker mumbles.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m in the smoking section outside our hotel.”

“Is that where you normally go when you’re panicking?”

“Smoking sections?”

“Hotels.”

“I’m a motel man, normally.”

Sami Jo laughs softly. “You can just tell him. He’s not going to be mad.”

Parker closes his eyes. “He might.”

“It’s Cib, what does he get mad at?”

“Bumblebees,” Parker says without hesitation. “Not wasps, just bees. And politics.”

“Christ,” Sami Jo says, but he thinks she’s smiling. “You’ve got it bad.”

“I’ve got it… so bad.”

“And you’re married to him.”

Parker leans back, letting his head rest on the wall of the building. “And I married him. And he keeps talking about how he doesn’t want to be married to me, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Did he ever actually say that?”

“Say what?”

“That he doesn’t want to be married to you.”

Parker frowns and tries to scroll back through the conversation in his head. “He said he wanted to get it annulled.”

“Yeah, but for who?”

“For… both of us?”

“No,” Sami Jo says patiently. “Did he want to get it annulled so he wasn’t married to you, or so you weren’t married to him?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You feel like you tricked him into getting married, or whatever, right?”

“Sort of,” Parker admits. He knows it’s not his fault, that it was Cib’s idea, but maybe he put out weird signals last night. Maybe he did something wrong in all this.

“So what if he feels the same way?”

“Why would he-”

“He asked you to marry him,” Sami Jo says forcefully. “While you were drunk. You think Cib’s the kind of person who’s going to be okay with waking up the next day after that?”

“No,” Parker says immediately. Because it’s Cib, and he knows that. “He- you think he thinks I want out?”

“Talk to him about it, not me.”

“But you-”

“Parker-”

“He asked me to marry him,” Parker says, and suddenly, everything slots into place. “He asked- I have to go.”

“Take care,” Sami Jo says. “I mean it.”

“Thank you,” Parker says with feeling, and nearly trips over his own feet trying to run through the hotel.

Cib is still in the hotel room when Parker gets back, heart pounding. He looks up when Parker opens the door. “You want to get it annulled or divorced?”

“Neither,” Parker says breathlessly.

Cib frowns. “Beg pardon?”

“You asked me to marry you.”

“I remember.”

“So,” Parker says, “does that mean you want to marry me?”

Cib goes rigid. “Cut it out.”

“Answer the question.”

“Dude-”

“Please say yes,” Parker says, without quite meaning to. His voice breaks in the middle, and he can see Cib’s face open up into surprise, and he forces himself to keep going. “Please- if you- if the answer’s yes then say yes.”

Cib blinks at him and clenches his jaw. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Because you were drunk?”

“Because you were drunk.” Cib looks away, and Parker feels himself start moving, not quite by his own choice. “And it’s - I feel like I took advantage of you, because I wanted you to say yes so badly, and-”

“Hey,” Parker says, sitting on the bed next to Cib. And Cib turns to him, mouth open, and Parker really does mean to actually say something or use his words.

Instead, he reaches up and drags Cib in for a kiss.

Cib kisses him back without hesitation, one hand sliding to Parker’s knee, and Parker squeezes the base of his skull and holds on for dear life. Because he’s never letting go.

“Wait,” Cib says, more or less into Parker’s mouth, and Parker pulls his hand back immediately. “This is- Steve didn’t put you up to this, right?”

“Steve?” Parker repeats. “No, this- I’m not going to kiss anybody because Steve tells me to.”

Cib lifts his eyebrows. “What if he tells you to kiss me?”

“Then I’ll do it because I want to.”

“Wow,” Cib says, and it’s something approaching reverent, and Parker feels warm all over. “Okay, so we… we should talk about this, right? Because marriage, you know, kind of a thing! Most people care about it.”

“I care about it,” Parker says. “But we can- starting place, right? As a starting place, I want to be married to you. I think.”

Cib takes his hand and squeezes. “I think I want to be married to you, too.”

“Cool,” Parker whispers, and he’d feel lame for it except for the way Cib beams at him.

#parcib #cib x parker #shipping pine 7 #ship pine 7 #ragehappy #waveridden.fic #aucember17 #rpf for ts #somewhere either here or on twitter #at some point in the beginning of the month i think i said #the only reason i'm not doing parker/cib every day is because i'm doing other things while i have the energy and motivation to do things #that aren't my favorite/default ship #well! finals are next week and i'm busy #so welcome to my brain this is what it's always like by default

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