#fexi xoxo party

[reecethegeek]

Fake Dating | Fezco x Lexi

Day 1 of Fexi Week

Prompt: fake dating (aka the best trope ever)

just a lil fexi blurb to hold down the fort. it would've been longer but writer's block is a bitch

props to @liz-saltzmans for putting this whole thing together. follow @fexination for more info

Lexi put her hand on the doorknob and swung Fez’s dorm door open, she burst into the room and rushed up to him with panic in her eyes. Fez jumped a little and frantically took out his earbuds out. “Shit, Howard. Fucking scared me.”

“Fez, I need a favor,” she said as she began pacing within the small bedroom, absolutely ignoring her best friend’s terror that she just caused moments ago.

“Lex, I done told you. I can’t give you a fix every time you get a B on an assignment.”

The girl stopped in the middle of the room and shook her head. “God, no! Not that,” she said agitated. She walked over to his bunk beds and sat on the bottom one, letting out a sigh. “I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend,” she muttered. Fez’s eyes squinted and his nose scrunched up, “Huh?” he asked.

“I may have sorta lied and told Cassie that I have a boyfriend,” she explains nervously. “But I don’t,” she adds, biting her lip.

Fez looks at her and blinks, “Still tryna figure out what that has to do with me, help me out here Howard.”

“So, I have may have kinda told her it was you,” she blurted out. “What?”

Lexi fell back onto the bed, feeling her frustration grow by the second. She dragged her hands down her heated face as her chest collapsed with a deep sigh. “Gosh, I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Me neither, I wasn’t asked for permission an’ was given a last-minute notice. Shit crazy.”

Lexi sat up, using her elbows for support. “I know, I’m sorry Fez. It just all happened so fast. Cassie called me earlier and she was going on and on about her perfect life and I just wanted to impress her. Prove that I could be like her.”

Fez noticed the frown etched on the girl’s face and it saddened him. The fact that she thought she needed to go out of her way like that was just ridiculous.

“You don’t gotta lie to impress nobody Lex, and you don’t have to be like nobody else. You good the way you are.” Lexi gave him a tight smile and shrugged her shoulders. “Thanks Co, I guess I’ll call her back and-”

“Nah ma, I ain’t letting you go down like that. I meant what I said but we bout to win a whole fucking Oscar after we done with this!” he corrected.

Lexi’s tight smile instantly formed in a huge one. She got up and tackled him into a hug, almost knocking him out of his desk chair. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!” She lifted her head up from the of his neck and kissed his cheek. Fez felt the blood rush to his face and didn’t know how to react, he was frozen. Lexi stands up and does a small jump, “You’re the best!” she exclaims and exits his room.

“What the fuck?” Fez whispers to himself trying to figure out what just happened.

[beth-march]

and i can’t help it with you (stubborn hearted blue)

Summary:

“If we were penguins, would you bring me a pebble?” Lexi asks.

It takes Fez a moment to realise that she’s flirting. In the weirdest, sweetest, most effective way possible.

Or, Fez takes Lexi to the beach for their first date.

For Fexi XOXO Party Day 5: First Date

@fexination

Read on Ao3 or under the cut:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/37035208

The socks she wears must be new. They’re fuzzy, butter yellow, and adorned in illustrations of lilacs. Fez wonders about what happened to her usual pair, the faded blue ones with the wobbly clouds. When Lexi inches down the couch to prod his knee with her pointed toes, he takes hold of her foot, and he arches an eyebrow at her.

There’s a playful glint in her eyes, so Fez is anticipating something strange.

“If we were penguins,” Lexi says, which is a promising starting point. Fez huffs out a chuckle, which derails Lexi, and she bursts into laughter, muffles it in her palm.

“Mmm?” he asks, shaking her foot to prompt her. “If we was penguins… ?”

“If we were penguins, would you bring me a pebble?”

Fez is nonplussed by this. The connotation here is one that transcends their tentative romance - they have been talking for weeks, and they are good friends, best friends, but they only kissed for the first time the week before, and they won’t have their first date until the following weekend. It is not the time for proposals, he thinks.

He shakes the train of thought away, because of course that’s not what she means.

She’s just flirting. In the weirdest, sweetest, most effective way possible.

They’re sitting on his couch, sitting on opposite ends. The living room shines blue in the light of the television, of the picture it depicts. A world of ice, a landscape that rolls with endless white hills, that is enveloped by greyness of snow and sky.

Fez has been watching the nature channel a lot lately. He tends to give Lexi reign over everything, and this includes what they watch - not that he minds. As it turns out, what fascinates her fascinates him.

Today, the documentary is about the wildlife of Antarctica. They’ve been watching penguins nudging stones to each other in hopes of securing mates. Fez realises that it’s very lovely, that Lexi has been watching these shows of devotion and thinking of him.

“You know it,” he tells her, squeezing her foot. “I’d fuckin’ scour them beaches. I’d look ‘til I found the smoothest stone in the whole Antarctic.”

It elicits a blush. This absurd hypothetical, that revolves around penguins, paints a rosy flush all over her cheeks, lighting her up with a pleased little smile.

“That would probably take a really long time,” she manages, looking at him shyly.

“What? You sayin’ you wouldn’t wait?”

Surprise flits in her eyes. Lexi shakes her head, telling him yes, she would wait, without words, because she can’t seem to find them. In place of speaking, she swivels in her spot, sidling down the cushions until she’s close to him.

Fez is reluctant to release her foot, but he contents himself with transferring his fiddling to her hair. Lexi brushes a kiss on his shoulder, through the cotton of his shirt, and then turns her cheek, keeping herself tucked tightly into his side.

He is reminded of other instances on Animal Planet . How he has seen so many animals huddling together for warmth, how so many animals seek comfort in each other. The idea of it is rudimentary, fundamental. It hangs heavy in his chest.

These inclinations exist in everything and he has never acknowledged them. Not until now. He can feel her kiss bleeding through his shirt and he wants the imprint of her mouth to stay there forever, wants to remember what it is to be touched, and not only touched, but touched in this careful way.

Fez tilts until their heads brush, until they’re nuzzling like lions, lazing in sunshine, something improvised by lamplight. He stays there until the show ends.

-

All afternoon, he has been stealing glances of her. He’s waiting for her to evaporate, he thinks, waiting for the world to right itself, to realise the mistake it has made in delivering her to his doorstep - or, rather, letting him intrude upon hers.

Lexi had opened her door, and Fez had been floored. She wears a pale red dress, clustered in pink roses and green leaves, and she wears her makeup like a soft glow, and she wears her hair straightened, in silky strands that frame her sweet face.

She is ethereal, and yet she is solid, stable by his side. She is smiling at him from the passenger seat, telling him, “It’s been so long since I went to the beach!”

Romance remains outlandish for Fez, but he is determined to do right by Lexi. He wants distinction for their first date, wants something different from what they’ve been doing as friends, all those dinners at diners, all those movies on his couch. He wants this occasion to stand out, and so he is driving her to one of the nicer local beaches.

He isn’t sure what made him think of the beach - he’s hardly spent any time at beaches at all, and she’s never spoken of such a scene to him - but soon after they arrive, he resolves that he will have to bring her here as often as possible.

The breeze drifts over them and makes Lexi’s dress ripple around her knees. She tips her face to the heavens as she breathes in the sea air. A content smile overcomes her, and the sun threads a golden hue along her eyelashes.

It expands to a grin when she whirls around and realises that he’s staring at her.

“Did you know that sick people used to be sent to the beach?” she asks. “Doctors would tell them to go to the sea, to build their strength. The salt air is supposed to be really healing.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Fez says, considering the gush of wind over his face, how it is jarring, how it feels like something nourishing. “Guess it went outta fashion ‘cause of antibiotics and shit, huh?”

“I guess so,” Lexi says, sighing. “I still think it’s a good idea, though!”

He finds himself agreeing. They haven’t brought swimsuits, but they still get into the water, and the swirl of the ocean around his bare legs feels blissful. They wade in the lapping waves, and the water fizzles as though it is electric, as though it is ablaze.

The salt of the sea clings to his shins, along the bare skin Lexi has unveiled, where she has rolled the cuffs of his pants up. Fez sees the sticky sheen on her legs, too, and he finds he likes the idea, that they are enveloped by the same thing.

“Oh, look!” she exclaims, when they find themselves skirting a rocky cove. “A crab!”

Fez follows where she is pointing, until he finds the hard orange shell of the creature she has discovered. It scuttles further beneath the rock, startled by Lexi’s voice.

“What a fuckin’ bitch,” he says, disappointed. “What kind is it?”

Lexi throws him a look of confusion. “An orange one? I don’t know, I can’t list crab species off the top of my head.”

“Well, shit, I dunno,” Fez says. “You know about most stuff.”

“Just how obscure do you think my reading has been?” she asks him, laughing.

Fez laughs, too. He leans in and kisses her, and he relishes the flavour, that taste of salt and sunshine that he will come to associate forever more with the beach.

-

They have dinner at sunset, when the sky glows with coral light, with orange clouds.

There are food stalls on the shore, and they take their fish and chips to go, bringing their food back to the beach. They sprawl out Lexi’s turquoise gingham picnic blanket and eat their food out of the crinkling greasy paper. Seagulls flock to them, and as they become too full to continue with eating, they toss the leftovers to the persistent birds.

In the waning daylight, they go for a final walk.

Stones and seashells glitter on the shoreline, in a myriad of colours. The trail they make stretches all the way to the rocks, bracketing the beach’s edge, and it seems as though they are following the accidental path, weaving between the stones.

“I have an idea,” Lexi says, suddenly, staring at the pebbles.

Fez makes good on what he had told her, days earlier. He doesn’t spend hours scouring the beach, but he does put a lot of thought into it. He fingers ivory cones and decides they’re too flashy, passes inky shards because they’re too severe; he ignores the pebbles with fierce speckles, the pebbles with lurid colours, the pebbles with rough coats.

Sighing, Fez casts a look at Lexi, several feet away from him. She is crouched in the stones, the bottom of her dress stained dark by sea water. A furrow appears between her brows as she bends to gather more stones in her palms, considering them carefully.

He needs to find a pebble - a tiny rock - that is somehow worthy of her? Fez realises that he does not envy penguins. The gesture is not nearly enough to encapsulate Lexi.

Eventually, he manages to stop overthinking, and decide upon a pebble.

It is a glossy stone, only small, the colour of a chestnut. It does not look entirely unlike a chestnut, though it is shinier, though the colour is richer. When he plucks the pebble from the sand, inspecting it up close, he is reminded of her eyes. Her hair. The colour of the earth. The dirt which nurtures flowers, which basks in the light of the sun and encourages growth. The softness that uplifts, that pushes blossoms to life.

Fez presents the pebble to her, and Lexi takes it with careful fingers. She places it in her palm, tilting it so that the colours of the sunset shine on the smooth surface.

“It’s so smooth,” she marvels, looking up at him with glee. “You remember that being the quality in pebbles that male penguins prioritise, then?”

“More the colour I was worried ‘bout,” Fez admits, and reaches out to graze her lower lashes. “Never thought I’d say this, but shit, I think brown is my favourite fucking colour now.”

“Blue is mine,” Lexi admits.

She places a pebble in his hand, and it seems that she’s had a similar thought for inspiration. The stone is a soft blue, peppered in jagged grey edges, spattered in faint sparkles. The way that it glistens in the twilight reminds him less of himself and more of her, but he takes a moment to humour it, to humour the idea that she could see something in him worthy of such simple beauty.

It is a nice moment. So nice that the sentiment gets to linger, for the rest of the night.

[dollywaldorf]

Girlies of euphoria

[fexination]

Hi all! I wanted to create a space for fellow Fexi Shippers to help inspire more Fexi content. I will be running events, challenges, and exchanges periodically. Keep an eye out for future announcements!

Without further ado, the first event being hosted is the Fexi XOXO Party 2022. It is being hosted 02-07-22 to 02-14-22. We encourage you to write fic, create edits, make fan art whatever your heart desires based on the below prompts

02/07 - Fake Dating / They were roommates AU

02/08 - Teaching to skateboard / Library Date

02/09 - Protective AU (ex: if you touch one hair on his/her head)

2/10 - Blind Date / Stepping in when the other has been clearly stood up

2/11 - First Date / First Kiss

2/12 - My future is you (Any Future AU)

2/13 - Celebrating an anniversary

2/14 - Open / Theme is Love

Please tag any creations you make on Tumblr as Fexi XOXO Party so that I can track and make a master list once the event has closed. If posting on AO3 please add to the Fexi XOXO Party 2022 collection - if you need any assistance please message me.

I’m really excited to see what everyone comes up with!

[goldengalaxy99]

All the protective fexi fics starting to roll out on ao3 for fexi xoxo party got me feeling like this

[earnmysong]

something inside me's changed (so much younger yesterday)

pairing | lexi/fezco

rating | g

chapters | 1/1

word count | 541

features | future fic, engagement, tattoos, established relationship 

for | fexi xoxo party [day 6: ‘my future is you’]

“Baby, with those three degrees hangin’ on our walls? Your brain’s too incredible not to know damn well there’s a needle involved in gettin’ inked,” Fez reminds his brilliant better half, the nicest code he can come up with for the way she goes wobbly as a fuckin’ dandelion just seein’ a damn sharp.

Or: A momentous milestone inspires Lexi to take another leap. Fez has never been happier to be along for the ride.

read | H E R E

[mercurywaters]

my contribution to the fexi xoxo party 🥳 future fic, but make it the amnesia trope 🤪 @fexination

[the-shiny-soul]

Fexi🥺♥️

[deememm]

21 Questions

XOXO Fexi Party DAY 3: Protective AU Notes: Helloooo, it's a day late but better late than never! Decided to write a fic on here because I love incorporating visuals and gifs with stories. :) Tell me if you life this and enjoy!!

*PING*

*PING*

Fez was driving back from a pick-up when he felt his cell phone buzz in his pocket. Lexi had gone to some drama kid's party with Rue and some of her friends. He was planning to chill back at home with Ash, waiting for her to text him and complain about how bored she was.

They had been seeing each other after the party on New Year's Eve. They'd been texting each other frequently and she'd come by his store and house more than often. No one really knew about their relationship and they both never really cared what anyone would think if they did find out. Just as long as the people he dealt with kept far away from her, he was good. With Lexi, he never had to keep his guard up. He truthfully speak his mind and she'd listen, vice versa. The way she'd smile shyly at him when he'd compliment her, the taste of her lips, the curves of her body when she'd press up against him. He never related to what addicts felt like but it was like he couldn't get enough of her. One taste of Lexi and he'd been hooked.

Sliding his phone out of his pocket to check who texted him. He felt his blood rushing as he swiftly pulled over to read the rest of the messages.

Ash had quickly sensed something was off by the change in Fez' calm demeanor and almost frantic look in his eyes and he watched him call someone on his phone.

"Yo what's wrong?"

"It's Lexi."

Fez rarely got angry.

It was an emotion he hated feeling. It made him do things he didn't want to do and say things he had no control over.

The thought of someone pulling shit on Lexi and potentially doing something to her made him see red. She was his family. He'd die to protect anyone who was family. She was his girl.

His mind was running at a mile a minute, thinking of all the scenarios he could potentially walk into.

Pulling up to the large house, Fez slammed open his car door and tossed his keys to Ash.

"Be ready."

Ash quickly stepped out of the passenger seat and into the driver's side, keys in the ignition, waiting. He'd never admit it but a small part of him was nervous and hoping that Lexi was ok.

Walking through the house, Fez scanned his eyes through the crowd of drunk and high teenagers. All he wanted to see was Lexi and know she was ok.

"Just tell me what you slipped her, get the fuck away from us and stop harassing her!"

The sound of Rue's voice caught his attention. He looked towards the dining room to see Rue fighting off a lanky tall teenage boy leaning far too close to Lexi who was sitting at the table, barely coherent and noticing the commotion above her.

Fez walked with long strides towards his girl. The primal need to protect what was his coming over him. He watched as Rue stared at him with wide eyes, scared of the look on his face. Something she had never seen and was used to. The closer he got the closer he realized that he was walking on a thin line between keeping his cool and blind rage.

"Yo Rue, who's this?"

"This is the fucker that gave Lexi her drink!" Rue exclaimed as she pushed the guy further back.

Fez took a step closer, stepping up to the guy face to face, putting space between the motherfucker and Lexi.

"Word? What the fuck did you slip in there?" Fez asked calmly teetering back and forth between his thin line.

"Fuck off, dude. I'm just trying to get some pussy."

Line crossed.

Blind rage came over Fez as he smirked at the guy one last time, grabbed his drunken body, and slammed his fist into his face multiple times.

He was going to murder this guy and he didn't give two fucks.

"....Feezzzz? Issthatyouu?"

Hearing her voice through the screams coming from the crowd. It was like he snapped back into his body as he stopped and looked back at his girl, more awake, locking her brown eyes with his blue.

Standing up and walking away from the bloodied body on the ground, he stalked back to Lexi and gently lifted her chin up with his bloodied and bruised knuckles.

"Baby, you good?"

Giving him a small smile, the smile that he loved, she nodded slowly and giggled at him assuringly.

Slowly lifting her up, he helped her walk slowly out of the house, kissing her forehead every so often, with a speechless Rue shockingly following in tow, to his car with Ash.

This was his family and he'd do anything to protect his family.

[beth-march]

fuel the pyre of your enemies

Summary:

“Custer spaces me out,” Fez says. “Sayin’ Faye is the love of his life and shit, and then bringing her along to fucking drug deals. Don’t make no type of sense.”

For Fexi XOXO Party Day 3: Protective

Read on Ao3 or under the cut:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/36992740

She wakes with fingers in her hair.

The touch is so gentle it’s barely there. He doesn’t mean to wake her, she doesn’t think. He’s only lightly grazing the curls adorning her temple.

When Lexi opens her eyes, she sees Fez. He is silhouetted by dim lamplight, looming over her where she is curled in blankets on the sofa, and his expression is guarded.

But his regard for her is tender, always tender.

“Why ain’t you in bed, baby?” he asks her.

It takes a moment for comprehension of his question to dawn. Lexi does her best to blink away her delirium, fingers swiping at her tired eyes.

“Um. I meant to wait up for you,” she explains, her voice hoarse.

“You trippin’. You know we get home late, nights like these.”

Nights like these - nights where they’re out doing business. Lexi sits upright on the couch, suddenly frantic. She looks him up and down, then follows the trail of her gaze with her hands. He looks no worse for wear, and she can’t feel anything on his frame to suggest injury of any kind. Tepid relief clenches within her.

“Are you okay?” she demands, twisting her hands in his shirt.

“Yeah. Fuckin’ exhausted, though.”

He doesn’t seem fine. He scrubs a hand over his face and sighs. It’s clear that he isn’t exaggerating about his exhaustion, and Lexi wants to encourage him to go to bed, but she’s worried about what stirs in his gaze. There’s a troubled look, there.

“You seem tense,” Lexi says hesitantly, and then wilts when she realises what a stupid thing this is to say. “I mean, of course you’re tense, I don’t know why I said that - ”

“You good,” Fez interrupts. “And you right. I’m pissed the fuck off.”

“It didn’t go well, tonight?”

“It was aight.” This is a relative statement, she knows. She should be able to understand the nuance, that the best type of night to come from his business is still likely to waver his spirits. She should leave him be.

But she wants to know more.

“Then why are you so pissed?”

Fez takes a moment to answer. Lexi recognises something pensive in his expression, and knows he is giving what he wants to say a great deal of thought.

It takes her by surprise when he doesn’t speak at all. Instead, he kicks off his shoes, pulls off his sweater, and slips beneath the blankets with her. The way that he envelopes her is intense. He is not gentle, as is his usual; he does not cradle her, he does not entwine them. He covers her, he presses his body weight onto her, as though he is trying to hide her between the cushions.

“Custer spaces me out,” he says in a low voice. “Sayin’ Faye is the love of his life and shit, and then bringing her along to fucking drug deals. Don’t make no type of sense. And it’s bad for business. He should know better than to have his girl shooting up heroin in the back of the fuckin’ car. Ain’t no one gonna see that shit and think it’s chill. Last time it happened shit was a mess.”

“Last time?” Lexi whispers.

She is doubtful that he’ll tell her details, but he divulges more than she expects.

“Yeah. These type of people ain’t playin’, they don’t want nothin’ unexpected. They realised Faye and Rue was there - ”

“Rue was there?” she mumbles.

“Couldn’t get rid of her. She was so out of it she didn’t even seem to notice how fucked it all was.”

“What happened?” Lexi murmurs.

She keeps her voice quiet, as if he might not notice that it’s her he’s speaking to, and he might be more inclined to share. Absurd, when they’re slathered together like this, when he is so close he is made blurry for it, he is reduced to a haze of freckled skin and white cotton, and she can taste his sweat through his undershirt.

She knows she has been caught when he slips a hand beneath her pyjama shirt.

His fingers are as good as orators, she thinks. In their tracings over her skin, they write romance that does not compare to anything she has read before.

She shivers, melting into love, a language only she has been taught.

“It really don’t concern you,” he says, and kisses her forehead, like an apology.

“But it does,” she whispers. Something hurt laces itself in her tone. She understands why he keeps these things from her, knows she should be grateful and not hurt.

And yet.

“Come on, now. We agreed on this,” Fez mumbles. They are in dangerous waters, the one awkward territory they have, the one subject they can’t talk about.

“Rue knows,” Lexi says, before she can think it through. “Faye knows.”

She knows she’s being petulant. It is not an emotion that Lexi indulges often - whining is more Cassie’s territory - but when it rises, it is usually met by Fez. And he is always patient with it, he handles it with sympathy, and withholds his amusement.

Not this time.

This time, he draws away from her, and the way he looks at her is not quite like any expression he has turned on her before.

There is a shine in his eyes, and she recognises that it is love, but it comes from a different place than usual. It is driven by a different force. The hue is violent.

“If you ever, ever think I would let you anywhere near a situation like that…” Fez says, and he is so angry that she realises his knuckles are trembling. Lexi has never seen him so angry. She recalls New Year’s, how controlled he was, how apathetic he had been in his handling of Nate Jacobs, and she realises that this is what sincere anger is for him, this is what it looks like. She is fascinated.

“They strip searched us,” Fez says, the truth torn out of him from nowhere. That hardness remains in his eyes, and Lexi realises that he is trying to make a point. He is trying to scare her into understanding. “That’s what the fuck happened. Rue got cornered in a bathroom by some middle aged thug who forced her to take her clothes off. Faye had to stand in a kitchen with all her business out. And Custer just fuckin’ let that shit go down. He let that happen to Faye. I let that happen to Rue. If you had been - ”

Fez can’t even finish the sentence. She can imagine what it might end with, based on what she can feel swarming beneath his skin. It seems to pulse against her hands, as though his impulse to protect her is something that breathes, a creature trying to find a weak spot in his skin, a place from which to emerge.

Lexi feels very humbled.

“I’d fucking lose it,” he says, and there is finality in the statement. “You don’t even know. I’d kill anyone that tried to touch you, that even fuckin’ looked at you.”

Something calm has overcome him, and it makes Lexi understand. He would do anything; burn any bridge, incite the anger of any demon, bear the torture of any shackles. All in the name of protecting her from the grit his life revolves around.

“Fez,” she says, and the syllable aches, stretches with meaning, with questions.

“I’m dead fuckin’ serious, Lexi,” Fez says. He is still eerily calm, he is still burning blue.

“I know,” she assures him, and she brushes her fingers along his eyebrows, sighs when he closes his eyes, sinks into her touch like a cat might. “I’m sorry.”

She is sorry, for pushing, for being greedy. This is not the place for her to be possessive, this is not the avenue for her to whine over. This is something unthinkable for him, this is nightmarish, of the worst possible variety.

But Fez doesn’t like to hear Lexi sound so sad. His eyes open, and the vehemence is gone, and the shape of his hands on her have become soft.

“I don’t want you to be sorry or nothin’,” he murmurs. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I am safe,” Lexi says, just as quietly. “You’re keeping me safe.”

“I am, and I will,” Fez says. “On God, Lex, this mess don’t concern you. I ain’t ever gonna let you be anywhere near that shit. I swear that on my life.”

“I know. You would never let anything happen to me, I know.”

Lexi means it to be comforting - she is desperate for it to be comforting - but Fez only groans. “I never should’a let you get close, I really shouldn’t have. Not ‘til I was long gone from this game. I gotta get the fuck out of this fuckin’ game.”

She stiffens. He speaks of regret and makes her want to die, he speaks of the future and revives her will to live. She is filled with hope, so dire she cannot trust it.

“What?” she breathes.

“Don’t play, I know you heard me. I mean it, too. Like, shit. This ain’t somethin’ you can do forever. I don’t want this for Ash, I don’t want this for me. And…”

“And?” Lexi prompts. She feels as though she is teetering on the edge of a cliff - she cannot know yet if she welcomes the sensation of freefall.

Fez sighs. He looks at her with such poignance, a degree she sometimes worries she can’t fathom. He always talks about how smart she is, but the nature of her intelligence, the sort nurtured by reading and rigid dedication to academia, feels minimal when she compares it to how he has been grizzled and hardened and beaten down by his life, and yet still leads it with an untainted heart.

“Whatever it might mean to Custer, when he goes on about lovin’ Faye, it means something different to me,” he tells her. “You’re it for me. And if I’m it for you, I sure as fuck ain’t letting this be your life.”

It feels like the crux of everything. The decay of doubt. All along, they have been upholstered by something shaky, because this impossible thread has woven itself between them, the simple fact they have both learned to live with: they exist in pockets of borrowed time, they are soaking up what they can of this love before reality steals it away. Things outside of their control, because they would never ruin it of their own volition. They never talk about drugs because they never talk about this; neither of them can sit with the knowledge of what they will lose.

Now, it feels like the terror is done for. Lexi can feel the thread withering away.

There are so many things that she wants to tell him. She wants to talk about atoms of stars, about overlapping heart strings. She wants to recite quotes by Emily Bronte and E. E. Cummings, she wants to tell him that she shares his soul, that she holds his heart. She wants to tell him that he is the love of her life, her soulmate, and that she would stick by him through anything, and that she is grateful beyond words, beyond time, beyond measure, that he would never ask that of her.

“You are,” she says, instead. “You’re it for me.”

And she melts into him, when he pushes her back into the cushions.

[mercurywaters]

literally all these fexi xoxo party fics are sooo good, I’m like… how tf are y’all cranking them out so fast??? my WIPs are screaming, crying, throwing up 😩😭

[beth-march]

change me at all costs (starlight, star crossed)

Summary:

“Like, no pressure, you guys, but if you ever break up, I’m giving up on love,” Rue declares. “Like, I will just accept that love doesn’t exist, and I’ll try to make peace with it.”

(they get married and dance to ‘stand by me’ at their wedding that’s all)

For Fexi XOXO Party Day 7: Celebrating an anniversary

Read on Ao3 here or under the cut:

Sunshine catches on her ring, and spins sparkles around her hands.

Opalescent fragments of light flicker everywhere. Lexi thinks it’s beautiful, thinks it’s appropriate, that what it represents could capture so much brightness, reflect it.

“Are you awake?” she asks him, in a whisper.

“Tryin’ not to be,” Fez grumbles. She bursts into giggles, stifles them into his shoulder. The world upended itself, the day before, and yet nothing has changed at all. 

This is how she greets every dawn. This is the happiness she has dwelled in since she found her love, since they made the effort to entwine their lives. This is the bliss Fez has promised her for the rest of her life, sealed with the presentation of an elegant diamond ring.

“Fezco,” Lexi says, reaching up to tug on his beard, trying to rouse him. “Look at my ring.”

“I know what your ring looks like, I fuckin’ picked it…” he slurs, half asleep.

“No, look,” she insists, cupping his jaw.

Though he’s groaning, he’s nothing if not indulgent, and so Fez squints open an eye, obeying what Lexi wants. He looks at her ring, the way it sparkles with the light of dawn, and follows its lead. His smile is aglow, particularly when he takes in her face.

“Oh, shit,” he murmurs, reaching to stroke the diamond.

Lexi makes her hand slack, places it in the space between them, where their pillows meet. His finger trails down from her finger, along her knuckles, brushing her wrist.

“It’s so perfect,” Lexi gushes. “It’s so me. You know me so well.”

“I fucking hope so, after all this time. Some boyfriend I’d be, not to know, right?”

There’s so much tenderness in the way he touches her, the way he looks at her. In a lot of ways, Lexi still feels like a seventeen year old girl, smitten and breathless and finding any reason to spend time with him, because in all the ways they have grown, they never seem to have stopped laughing, to have stopped caring in that aching, ardent way.

She is lax with love. Overwhelmed by it. 

“Do you know why westerners wear wedding rings on this finger?” she asks.

Fez shakes his head. A glimmer of curiosity rises in his gaze, because he loves her mind, he loves to learn from her, and he never abstains from telling her as much.

“It goes all the way back to Ancient Rome,” Lexi says, squinting, trying to remember the details. “So, the Romans believed that there was a vein in the fourth finger on the left hand that ran directly to the heart.”

She places her forefinger on his ring finger, trails it up his arm, until she is touching his chest, the skin shrouding his heart. Tracing the hypothetical vein.

“They called it Vena Amoris, or the vein of love,” she finishes.

Something defeated flows in Fez. He stares at her, eyes blown with reverence.

“You gotta go easy on a man,” he says quietly. “I’m barely fuckin’ awake. I don’t got what it takes to deal with that big brain of yours at the best of times.”

“Of course you do,” she chastises him, nudging her hand up his face.

“They only believed it, you said? The vein don’t really go to the heart?”

Lexi shakes her head, crinkles her nose with disappointment.

“Fuckin’ sucks.”

“Yeah. Nothing like reality to ruin sentiment.”

“I mean, I dunno if the sentiment is ruined. That’s still the finger we use for the ring, right?”

Laughter spills helplessly from Lexi. Fez hasn’t said anything funny, but he has inspired his usual joy, and today the fervour of happiness she feels is something that bubbles, and it stretches from her stomach until it meets her lips, finding release in giddy chuckles. 

“You’re right,” she says, nuzzling close enough to kiss him, something sleepy and stale when they haven’t brushed their teeth, something neither cares about over affection.

She thinks about how the heart pumps blood all over, gives movement to hands, gives her the space to hold her love. He is right, that the sentiment is intact.

These are the hands that obey her heart, this is the finger that will bear his love.

She winds it around his ring finger, and yearns for the day that he will wear hers, too.

-

Cassie and Lexi find something truly breathtaking in a vintage store. A dress of thin ivory tulle, embroidered in lace flowers, with sheer, puffed sleeves. It is Parisienne, it is elegant, it is dimly reminiscent of the regency era. It is more than she could’ve hoped for.

She wears her hair up, weaves flowers in the braids, fluffy baby’s breath and little creamy rosebuds. They’re plucked right from her bouquet, so the look comes together neatly.

Everything seems to fall into place.

Lexi stands across from Fez, and she cannot stop beaming. She is so happy she shakes with it, feels the tremble of her shoulders, the shakiness of the flowers in her hands. He looks just as overwhelmed; there’s a glaze in the corner of his eyes, and though he doesn’t smile with teeth, like she does, the stretch of his smile is wider than she thinks she’s ever seen it.

The officiant they’ve hired prattles on, and Lexi doesn’t hear a word of it until they reach the part that matters, the exchange of the rings, the declarations of, “I do.”

On the sidelines, Suze and Cassie are crying; Ash and Rue are snickering at the Howards for being so emotional. Their family is in attendance, which makes for a somewhat unconventional elopement, and as does their insistence on a first dance.

Very early on, they had decided against having a big wedding. It isn’t their style to be so flashy. They are deeply private, and their love is something they have kept sealed away, just for them. Lexi knows the statistics, knows that people often get married for the sake of a wedding and not for a marriage, and she feels just the opposite.

Though, twirling in her dress makes for good fun. Twining herself in Fez’s arms and having their first dance to Stand By Me amidst the foliage and flowers of the gardens where they have just wed feels like the pinnacle of her life. As though this is the moment that every other moment has been leading up to, and it has been more than worth the wait.

“Darlin’, darlin’,” Fez sings in her ear, a murmur, hands curving around her waist.

In his arms, she sobs softly. She is crying just as much, with just as much vivacity, just as much affection, as she had that rainy day on his couch, when they were teenagers.

The weather is mild today. The sunlight is faint and the sky is pale. Still, Lexi can hear the rain, she can hear the ribbons it falls in, the way it paints the windows of Fez’s old house.

She clenches his jacket closer, standing on tiptoes to kiss him, as a favour to the girl who had taken such delight in him merely reaching for her hand.

Afterwards, the family convenes in a favoured restaurant. 

While they wait for their food to arrive, Ash decides to be annoying.

“So, when are y’all getting divorced?”

Lexi furrows her brow, and Fez opens his mouth, ready to protest, but Rue beats him to the punch.

“Never,” she says, firmly, glancing up at her friends with a playful smile. “Like, no pressure, you guys, but if you ever break up, I’m giving up on love. Like, I will just accept that love doesn’t exist, and I’ll try to make peace with it.”

“That’s fine,” Lexi assures her. “We’re never breaking up.”

“Straight up,” Fez agrees. “We’re gonna share a fuckin’ gravestone.”

“Shit, what’ll it say? “Fezco, beloved husband”,” Rue mocks, twirling her fingers by her face.

““And father”,” Suze coughs into her fist.

“Mom,” Lexi sighs.

But Fez only grins.

“We’ll see, we’ll see,” he says, and the table breaks out in cheers.

-

One year feels like ten. Feels like one hundred. Feels like one thousand. 

They have three anniversaries to celebrate, now. Their first meeting, their first kiss, and their wedding. Of the three, New Year’s is the least formal. Their first kiss is what led to their relationship, so that one is more important, and as is their wedding day.

The space between the first two is a matter of months, and the number of times they have celebrated these occasions piles up, because they’ve almost been together a decade, by now.

But this will only be their first time, celebrating their wedding anniversary.

“It kinda feels like we back to square fuckin’ one,” Fez says. “Like, we’ve been together eight years, but we’ve only been married one. Don’t sound as good, does it?”

“I don’t know, having a husband still seems very grown up to me,” Lexi admits, grinning.

“Sure, ’cept that your dumbass husband’s idea of an anniversary dinner is just takeout,” he says, nodding to the containers of Chinese food littering the coffee table. “You care this all we doin’?”

“No,” she says, and means it. “You’re here. I couldn’t imagine anything better.”

These days, it’s just that simple. Fez looks at her over his chopsticks, and the adoration about him is something that could swallow her whole. 

It already has, she thinks. She glosses her touch over the gold threading his ring finger, and vows to find ways to thank him for this, to devote her life to the cause.

“You got me locked down,” Fez says, turning his hand over, so their fingers entangle.

She refuses to let go of him for the rest of their anniversary.

[fexination]

To everyone: I will be dropping the masterlist for the Fexi XOXO Party tomorrow at 20:00 CST. I did want to take a moment to thank everyone who participated and contributed content to this event. I also want to give a big shoutout to the Fexi fandom as a whole — even if you didn’t create content you supported the content that was created. Just look at the stats below!!

Truly blessed to be apart of the Fexi Hive! I mean it when I say we have the best bees. Let’s keep this energy up!! and keep an eye out because I have a new event dropping soon!!!