#continuing my theory that he gets sunburnt very easily

[per-se-idit]

Serving Shade -Felix

(more summer alt ideas)

[poptod]

Hi I hope ur having a great day! I love ur writing so freaking much! This request is a little different than what I’m sure ur used to but hopefully ur comfortable enough with writing it. Could u write a one shot (or headcanons if it’s easier) where Snafu from the Pacific is crushing big time on the reader (like almost in love) and he’s always hitting on her but she never shown any interest toward him. Then a few days in when the nurses come Snafu walks in on the reader making out with one of the nurses. They see each other and he walks out all like CONFUSED and shook and the reader runs after him to swear him to secrecy. He’s still shook and admits his feelings and she comes out as a lesbian to him. He’s even more SHOOK but he’s rly understanding and accepting even tho he’s incredibly heartbroken. Sorry if it’s not what u usually write, as a bi I’m just always a sucker for “I’m dumb she’s a lesbian”

notes: anon i love you you're literally perfect WC: 1.9k

+

He was used to this sort of behavior when he first met girls – curt and rude, meant to pry his eyes off their figure. Eventually though, after time, he would win their affection through his shining personality (or, at least, that's what he thought happened). Usually it only took about a week or less; he was good at what he did. This was ridiculous, though – he was ranging on the sixth week of knowing you. That's one and a half months, far above his usual score.

But you're beautiful. Even if you won't share a genuine conversation with him, you 'let' him watch you, allowing yourself to become his only source of entertainment on the island. The shine in your hair – always neatly pulled back – is a fantastic distraction from the blisters on his palms and the heat of his sunburnt skin.

You're the last piece of humanity here. It makes sense he would never be able to win you.

Today you're tending to his wounds, an activity he thought he would never love as much as he does. Your fingers are still soft somehow, brushing against the exposed skin of his arms, sliding over the bandages to ensure they won't slip. The concentration evident in your sharp eyes is revealed in the way you bite your lip, gaze never leaving the bloody blisters on his hands.

"Not for nothin' babe, but," he began to speak, voice raspy and dry, "last time someone looked at me like that, I got laid."

You very slowly raise your head, reluctantly meeting his eye with a dead stare.

"Not today, Snafu," you say.

"Tomorrow then?"

You scoff, shake your head, almost laugh, but in the end you say nothing. Instead you return to your work, diligently cleaning the scabs and covering them up. He can't say he minds––whether or not you truly engaged with him, he heard your voice, and felt your touch. That would be enough. For now.

Surprisingly enough, they still get to have movie night sometimes. That doesn't mean the movies are good, but they're generally more entertaining than watching the shore birds. Every now and then, Snafu will even go and join his tent mates, ogling more at the nurses than paying attention to the actual movie. Those are always good nights, and the forest is close enough that it's not a problem if he gets too excited.

Tonight's movie is titled 'Godzilla Goes to College,' and upon hearing the name Snafu knew he would not be able to attend a full hour of it. Instead he wanders around the encampment, watching shadow silhouettes and the movement of the breeze on tent flaps. The sound of shuffling catches his ear, and when he turns, he's pleasantly surprised to find you beside him, drowning in an oversized jacket. He laughs, loud and probably impolite, but the juxtaposition of him being shirtless beside you truly tickles him.

"Evenin', doll," he says through his laughter, stopping you in the middle of the pathway. A soft groan leaves you as you turn to face him.

"And good night," you say in a too-cheery tone, your saccharine smile instantly falling into a dead stare as you go back to walking, a renewed vigor in your step.

"Hey, where y' goin' in such a hurry?" He asks, and begins to trail slowly after you. He allows a decent amount of space to grow between you before he continues with, "stay n' chat a minute, cher!"

You don't even bother to respond once you turn the corner, where Snafu loses his trail on you. He curses to himself, turns back around, and finds several of his mates coming back from the movie rather tipsy. How long have they been there?

"Reeaaaall lucky with the girls, aren't'ya, Snaf?" Burgie asks, and the four of them fall into teasing laughter.

"I'll get her, you'll see," he promises, turning back to see if he can glimpse you between all the tents. "One a' these days, she's mine."

Later that evening he sees you again, through the sheer fabric of your tent, where you've been burning a candle. It casts your shadow clearly against the wall, allowing him to see you perfectly.

Snafu likes to claim he isn't a pervert, but most who know him in any way know that's not really true. Sure, he can be a gentleman, but if no one's looking he doesn't especially care. No one but him will know, not even you. Even if he wasn't a pervert, he still wouldn't be able to tear himself away––you're undressing, peeling the clothes off your skin and he can see the whole of your body. In outline, of course, but there nonetheless.

Fucking creep, he tells himself, calls himself, but he doesn't cease his staring till you've put out your candle. At that point he can no longer see you, and he returns to his own tent with fantasies circling his head like vultures.

It's not that you're particularly rude to him. You just don't engage or indulge any of his bullshit, which is fair enough he thinks. He has a lot of bullshit coming out of his mouth 24/7. Everyone knows that. There's a theory he has, though––a theory he came up with just a little while ago, that you would treat him perfectly normal as long as he didn't come on to you in conversation. If he treated you just like he treated most others, then you might actually be nice to him. You're a good person. You're not going to be needlessly mean.

"Afternoon," he says to you, and he has to physically bite his tongue to stop himself from calling you cher. You quirk one of your brows.

"Afternoon," you repeat back. "Something ailing you?"

"Why'd ya think that?" He asks, slinking into one of the chairs in the aid tent.

"This is a medical tent," you say, and he wants to facepalm himself.

I'm just achin' with love for you, boo, he wants to say, and again, he has to bite his tongue to stop it from coming out. Damn it, he thinks, that's actually a good line.

"So why are you here then?" You ask.

"Better than tryin' ta find somethin' edible in my lunch," he grumbles out, leaning back against the chair and closing his eyes. He lets out a satisfied sigh.

You giggle, you actually laugh from something he did, and say, "understandable. You should still eat, though. Here."

You move from your spot at a nearly-fully stocked tray, instead digging through one of the numerous unlabelled boxes piled like towers in the aid tent. From there you pull out a granola bar, brand name, and throw it at Snafu's face. He nearly falls off balance, but catches it before he loses his cool.

"Thank ya kindly, ma'am," he says with a grin, tipping an imaginary hat your direction. Again you smile; there is nothing better than this, sitting across from you, and being the reason for your happiness.

Eventually he has to leave in order to make room for those who actually do require medical aid, but he leaves singing on a high note. You say good-bye to him this time, for the first time, and a smile tugs at his lips all day. Therein lies the secret to your affection––a blazingly obvious secret that all men should know––that he must treat you as an equal, not size you up to something he can win over, something he can buy with cheap words and undressing eyes.

He thinks it over all day, lets it mull over in his head how he should next approach you. Things get twisted in his mind if he doesn't speak them out loud, and by eveningtime he's convinced that he should meet you tonight, even if it's just him barging into your tent. Politely, of course. A polite barging in.

For a moment he stops, his hand poised above the handle of your tent flap. You're definitely in there––or someone is––as there's shuffling behind the material, a sound he can barely process over the rushing of his heart.

Fuck it, he finally says, and without giving himself a chance to doubt, he pulls open the flap.

You don't even notice him. To be fair, your eyes are closed. And you're a bit preoccupied. Your tongue is pretty far down that nurse's throat.

His mouth falls open as every muscle in his body freezes. It's the other nurse that actually sees him, and she taps you harshly with her wide eyes set on Snafu. You tear yourself away from her touch, turn to the marine, and all the air in the tent goes stagnant.

He leaves. Throws the flap back into place and all but sprints away, wide eyes burning in the cool night air. It's only a second or two of running before he hears the flap open and close again, followed by you yelling something, and ultimately your chasing footsteps.

You end up being surprisingly fast, and you easily catch up to him. Once you do you grab his wrist, tugging him back, and forcing him to face you. Both of your hearts are racing a hundred miles a minute, both of your eyes wide with shock.

"Merriel I am begging you, you cannot tell anyone about this, please, please, you can't, I’ll do anything," you beg him, and it's then he notices there's tears on the edge of your eyes. "Please do this for me, you can't tell anyone. Don't even think about it––just, pretend it never happened?"

He's panting, unable to formulate any response, only able to stare into your panic and sink in the fear pouring out of your desperate eyes.

"(Y/N), I'm––no, I won't," he says at last, and you practically collapse with relief, falling into him with your forehead on his shoulder. He continues in a murmur, awkwardly holding you, "I just... I'm.. I'm in love with you. I––I couldn't do that to you."

"Fuck, I know," you say in a breath, removing yourself to look him in the eye. "But I can't be with you."

You pause, and he waits a moment for you to continue, his brow quirked in curiosity.

"I'm a lesbian, Snafu."

"Oh," he says, but it doesn't process. Not for a minute, anyway. "Oh. Ohh. OHHHH."

"Yeah," you say with a vigorous nod.

"Okay, I thought – I thought I jus’ lost my touch, you're just.. a lesbian, okay," he says, sparking a laugh from you.

"You're not angry?"

"Shit cher, you can't control who you wanna get freaky with jus' as much as I can't," he says, smiling, and the tears in your eyes finally fall. They aren't sad, though––birthed from fear, yes, but falling from happiness.

"You're a lifesaver, Snaf."

As heartbroken as he truly is, none of it really shows in his face. At least now he knows it wasn't really his fault that you didn't show interest in him. Still, disappointment fills up his chest, until you tell him that he makes a good friend. It's then he realizes he can still keep you in his life, a version of modesty and stature and innocence that he can't achieve alone.

He won't ever be able to kiss you, which he does mourn––your lips are painfully soft, and every time he catches sight of them he yearns to press his own against them. Your statement on him works in reverse, though; you're a good friend, and that would be enough for Snafu. But Merriel hides within the bravado, within the suaveness of his voice and actions, and Merriel weeps childish tears that Snafu doesn't know how to wipe away and comfort. Snafu understands the reality of the world, but Merriel will always lament the unfairness of life.

You're the last piece of humanity here. It makes sense Merriel would never be able to win you.

[azure7539arts]

The International (Part 3)

Rating: General

Premise: Q, a private detective, has received a new case to look into.

► Other parts: (1) – (2)

“Is it a code?” Alec leans in, body looming just over Q’s shoulder with one hand bracing on the table only a few inches away from the laptop. For someone who likes to act like he’s a ruthless brute, he’s actually rather quick-witted, catching on without requiring much prompting or assistance. (Although Q is still rather unsure about how much of that ruthless appearance is real, and how much of it is just for intimidation.)

James is the same, even if it seems like he tends to hide behind his charm and charisma more.

They really make quite an interesting duo, these two.

Q sighs, deliberately pushing his chair back as he stands up to get the two men behind him out of the way. “Stop hovering would you.”

“What are you doing?” James asks as he curiously watches Q moves about to reach for a drawer, in which holds a lot of cables (all neatly wound up and separated, mind), and take one out.

“Connecting this to the big screen so you two would stop breathing down my neck, what do you think?” Q deadpans. There’s a reason why he spent a bit of his saving on buying that telly after all… (other than to occasionally play game on it of course, not that he’ll ever admit this even if Eve tickles him to death.)

To their credit, James and Alec actually stay put and wait, no matter how impatiently, and Q bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smirking, lest he end up in a ditch somewhere sooner rather than later.

“I’ve decrypted the files included in there and found these diary entries that Nellie dated all the way back to the start of 2011. But—” With the screen now connected to his laptop, Q quickly has the files laid out on the much bigger monitor for all of them to see, “—the timestamps, as you can see, indicate that this is much more recent. Just January of this year, 2012.”

It must resonate with them somehow, the timeline, because James and Alec suddenly appear to be on guard now, despite the lack of surprise in either their eyes or postures.

“The entries mostly seem to be about mundane things,” Q carries on. “But I did notice anomalies here and there, very minute changes in the font and formatting throughout the text.” And honestly, if he weren’t as stubborn and meticulous as he is, he probably would’ve overlooked it. But as it is, he wrote a basic algorithm to track these anomalies, and… “Yes. It is a code.”

“Did you manage to find any meaning in those?” James frowns at the screen, hands in his pockets, and straightens even more.

Q nods his confirmation, returns to his laptop, and pulls up his algorithm along with the results it has garnered. “At first glance, they look like meaningless strings of number, but then again nothing meaningless is ever so specific, so I started to think back on whatever kind of clues that Nellie might have left behind. And I realized that… she went through all her belongings in that flat to get everything she needed but didn’t touch her kitchenwares and—”

“Books,” James finishes.

“ISBN numbers?” Alec quizzically adds after a pause.

“Correct.” A small smile tugs at Q’s lips.

James draws in a deep breath and starts for the door. “We’d better head back to her flat then.”

“My thought exactly.”

-

“Q.” Danielle caught him at the elbow and pulled him closer to her. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Q hadn’t told her who these two new clients were, but Danielle had always possessed a sharp eye for reading people even if she kept refusing to become the official third partner to this tiny, tiny business.

“It’s okay, Danielle,” Q soothed, but really, he had always had a hunch that his penchant for seeking out the truth and solving intriguing riddles would someday land him here… Well, not here as in this exact circumstance, but something close to it more or less.

It wasn’t as if any of the crimes attributed to Amber had ever actually stuck anyway (there were no substantial proof), so what he was doing, strictly speaking, wasn’t illegal.

Yeah.

“I’ll be fine,” Q continued.

Danielle didn’t look like she believed him, but before she could say anything else, James’s voice from the door—“Coming?”—had interrupted her, and Q, without wasting a good chance, slipped his arm from her surprise-loosened grip.

“Just a second!” he called back then returned his attention to her. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be back before you know it.”

-

Turns out, there are such things called bad luck and jinxing, and while Q normally doesn’t indulge in these superstition, he has to admit that there are certain situations in which their theories do hold some sort of substance.

One such instances, he supposes, involves being shot at.

Which is precisely what is happening right then.

“Keep your head down!” Alec hisses, the fast release of bullets from a semi-automatic gun raining hell down upon them.

“Just give me a gun, too, so I can protect myself, then we can gripe about safety later,” Q grinds out from between his teeth, keeping his rucksack—and, subsequently, his laptop—close. They are all hiding behind the small island in Nellie’s kitchen.

From the looks of things, it seems they aren’t the only ones looking for clues. By the time they arrived at Nellie’s abandoned flat, someone else was already there ransacking through whatever remaining contents of the place, and the whole situation just escalated from that point onward.  

“Fine,” James snaps, ducking down with a hiss when a couple of bullets whizz by too close for comfort. He reaches into his jacket to draw out another handgun and slides it over to Q. “Just don’t shoot yourself in the foot with it.”

Q scoffs and picks up the Beretta, feeling its weight settling naturally into his palm with James’s body heat still radiating from it.

“Like I would ever give you the satisfaction,” he mumbles, flicks the safety off, takes aim, and shoot.

-

-

Naples of Italy did, at first, seem like a good idea, but under the heat of the too bright sun scorching down from a sparsely clouded sky, its appeal is fast dwindling.

Q has not been built to withstand high heat, and he’s recognized this from a very young age… Turning into into a boiled lobster with his skin flaking off from being sunburnt was not a fun experience.

“Explain to me again why you insisted on bringing me here?” Q asks for what must be the tenth time already, and whereas Alec looks about to chuck him down the nearest large body of water, James just appears amused in his short-sleeved shirt and trousers, looking every bit the tourist that he’s not.

“Think of it this way: As long as you still value your life and don’t feel like ending up in some back alley with a bullet to your head, you’ll will follow us,” Alec replies, not really sharing James’s easy humor.

“You’re the ones who got me into this in the first place,” Q points out. “Both of you let the perpetrator see my face and get away.”

“Well, you nice little contract did demand us to guarantee your safety, so...” James chimes in with a shrug. “Besides, are you saying you don’t personally want to pursue this to the end then?” He’s smirking again, all sharp and lethal swaddled in a visage of charms and possibly cheesy pickup lines. 

Q rolls his eyes, refusing to even acknowledge he’s been caught so easily. “Whatever.” He waves a dismissive hand. “Just get me out of this heat.”

“Yes, yes. Stop hounding us.” James shakes his head in exasperation. But really, it’s not like he’s even trying to hide his smile anyway.

(tbc.)

-

[Prompts: Italy + Code]