#i used to be able to write t rated fics where did it go

[bizarrelittlemew]

ida write something without porn challenge

[superprofesh]

The Five Times Colt Seavers Almost Kisses You (and the One Time He Does) — Part 6 (Final)

Pairing: Colt Seavers x reader

Description: The one time Colt Seavers kisses you — or, rather, the first time.

Rating: T

Word Count: 4.6k

Tag List: @strangedeerconnoisseur, @icantwaittoliveandlearn, @moonlightandstarshimmer, @chemococktailonthehouse, @1word (sending directly to the rest because Tumblr isn't cooperating)

Author’s Note: Well, folks, we've come to the end of this fic, and I hope it's everything you've all been waiting for. I can't express how much your kind words and amazing feedback has meant to me, and it has truly shaped this fic in more ways than you know. I'm really going to miss writing this fic, soooo........ if y'all are interested in a little epilogue, I'm up for that ;) Thank you all, and I hope you enjoy!!

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Colt can’t get out of the camera crew’s station fast enough. He’s been searching for you all morning, but Holly finally pressed a note in his hand, telling him that you asked her to pass it on to him. He instantly searches for a quiet place where he can read your note, dreading what it might say.

Yesterday shook him up, in more ways than one. Staring down the headlights of a train while Elijah Gordon pushed him to stay a few more seconds was terrifying even for him. Seeing you engage in a showdown with Gordon himself in front of the entire crew was so completely unexpected and selfless that he hasn’t been able to get it out of his mind. No one has ever stood up for him like that.

The more he’s thought it over, the more he’s realized that he’s been blind. Blind to your feelings, blind to your sincerity, blind to the fact that he’s been on the verge of his sweetest dream come true. He’s been pushing you away because he thought he wasn’t good enough for you, but after what happened yesterday, he’s starting to realize that doesn’t matter.

He keeps remembering the look in your eyes when you were in the tent together. The gentle way your fingertips stroked his hair, the soft skin of your neck against his lips, the way you held him as if he were designed to fit in your arms. If your fierceness in defending him didn’t convince him that he needed to wake up and confess his love for you, the heated look in your eyes did. His plan upon finding you has been to simply pour out his heart and see if you’re still willing to accept him after everything that’s happened.

Colt finally finds an empty bench a few stations down from the camera crew, and he unfolds your note carefully. A gentle smile crosses his lips when he sees you’ve scribbled it by hand, your artistic handwriting scrawled in green ink across a piece of office paper. The smile slowly fades, though, as he scans the contents of your letter.

Dear Colt,

I’m sorry to leave without saying goodbye, but I figured we’ve already said a lot of things that are more important than goodbyes. I want you to know that I’m not leaving because you hurt me or because I’m angry with you. I just think it’s best this way, for both of us.

I quit my job last night as Gordon’s set director. After everything that’s happened, I just can’t work for him. I’ve already had a few offers back in L.A., so I’ll be fine. I wish you the best as you finish the movie. You really are the best stuntman in the business, and I hope you stay safe.

I’ve already told you most of what I feel, so I won’t beat a dead horse any more. Still, in case I haven’t told you enough, I want you to know that the time I’ve spent with you has been the happiest I’ve had in a long time. I don’t know why you’re so dead-set on believing you’re not good enough for me. That thought has never entered my mind and never will. You’re the best person I know. When I look back on my memories of love, I will always think of you. Whatever you think you’d be holding me back from, it doesn’t matter to me half as much as you do. Please believe that.

I wish you all the best, and I hope one day our paths might cross again. Until then, thumbs up and happy landings.

Colt squeezes his eyes shut once he’s finished reading the letter, fighting the urge to crumple the piece of paper into a ball. How could you have been so stupid? his inner monologue chides him. How could you not have recognized unconditional love when it was staring you in the face?

The memory of your touch hits him like a knockout punch. Suddenly, every moment the two of you have shared comes back to him in excruciating detail. Smudging paint on each other’s faces. Walking you back to your hotel room. Flirting with you at the club. The look in your eyes when you ran to him after the train stunt. Your hands on his face, in his hair.

Setting his jaw, Colt glances at his watch. 7:42 AM. If he can figure out where you’re leaving from, he can catch you in time. There are a lot of things he needs to say before it’s too late, and now, for the first time, he’s ready to say them.

He folds the paper, tucks it into his pocket, and starts running.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

You grip your steering wheel with white-knuckled hands. The sun has already risen over the mountains in the distance, but the beauty of the landscape is the furthest thing from your mind.

You can’t believe you actually left. You’ve never quit a job before, especially one as high-profile as this one. But you just couldn’t take it. You couldn’t work for someone who would so carelessly risk the life of one of their employees. Especially when you happen to be in love with that employee.

You haven’t told anyone but Holly (and Gordon, of course), and she understood. She also promised to pass along your note to Colt.

Writing that note is the most difficult thing you’ve ever done. You wrote eight versions of it before settling on the one you passed to Holly. The most painful part was knowing that that note may be the last time you ever communicate with Colt. Saying exactly the right thing was vital, and you finally felt satisfied with the ninth version, which included a lot less poetic verse and a lot more explanations of why you were really leaving.

The airport is looming on the horizon, and a wave of emotion sweeps over you, biting at the backs of your eyes. What was the point of knowing him if this is how it has to end?

You can’t stop replaying your memories with him as you pull closer to the airport parking lot. Things started out so simple and easy between the two of you — making each other laugh, sitting together at lunch, cheering on each other’s projects — but once the tension between you started heating up, maintaining a friendship has seemed almost impossible. You thought you could handle it, but it turns out you’re not strong enough to face Colt every day if you can’t express your love for him openly.

You pull into a parking space, facing the vast grassy field that leads to the plane runway. A passenger jet soars into the air, leaving a trail of jet stream behind. You’ll be aboard one of those planes within the hour, and maybe when you get to L.A., you can leave all your sorrows behind you.

You’re still trying to muster the strength to climb out of the car and drag your suitcase to the airport, when something… odd catches your eye. On the busy street leading up to the airport entrance, a vehicle is moving too fast to be driven by a normal person. The truck rounds the corner to fly up the airport drive at top speed, and your heart constricts.

That’s Colt’s truck.

All your attention is suddenly laser-focused on that familiar GMC pickup, and before you know what you’re doing, you’ve leaped out of your car and started running as fast as you can towards the driveway. A few seconds later, Colt’s truck pulls to a stop on the side of the drive, and he jumps out without even bothering to turn the truck off.

The fifteen seconds it takes you to get halfway across the grassy field feels like an eternity, and by the time you’re halfway, Colt has already cleared the distance. He sweeps you into his arms, holding you off the ground as you try to catch your breath, completely overwhelmed by this grand gesture.

He came for me. He couldn’t let me leave without saying goodbye. It’s not over yet.

You’re content to stay like that, suspended off the ground and feeling his heartbeat pound against your chest, but Colt carefully sets you back on your feet and holds you at arm’s length. His face is a jumble of a thousand emotions, more than you’ve ever seen from him in all the time you’ve known him. He’s breathing hard from his enthusiastic sprint across the greenway, but his eyes are illuminated by his excitement at catching you in time.

“Colt—” you start, gripping his forearms as if he’s going to disappear.

He shakes his head, cutting off whatever you were about to ask. “I’ve been wrong. I’ve been so wrong.”

You raise your eyebrows in disbelief, trying to make sense of his words. “Colt, how did you find me here?” you ask.

“I got your note,” he tells you. “Holly told me how to find you.”

“Don’t you have to be on set?”

“Actually, I’m not filming anymore.”

You can’t hide your confusion. Colt isn’t working on the movie anymore? What kind of insane coincidence could this be? “What?” you squeak, gripping his arms even harder. “Please tell me you didn’t quit because I did!”

Colt shakes his head, which relieves you. “Tom quit the movie last night,” Colt explains, his eyes never leaving yours. “Called Gordon and told him he was sick of taking orders and wasn’t working for him anymore. I’d say it had something to do with you taking Gordon to task yesterday,” he adds with something that sounds a little like humor. “Tom doesn’t want something like that reflecting badly on him.”

You laugh in pure disbelief, amazed at the turn of events you could never have expected. “Well, I never thought I’d be grateful to Tom Ryder for anything,” you say honestly, and Colt laughs with you, genuine joy behind his eyes. You search his face for answers about why he has rushed to the airport to see you. You begin, “Listen, you didn’t have to come all this way just to tell me—”

“I did,” Colt says definitively. “Believe me, I did. Because what I have to say isn’t something that can be done long-distance.”

Your heart drops. This is it. After all this time, you’re about to hear the words that you know are true, the ones you’ve been waiting for, from his own lips.

“Colt…”

Colt takes a step backwards, his hands falling from your arms to hold your hands between the two of you. The look in his eyes can only be described as utter sincerity.

“I have been so wrong about selling you short,” he says softly, emotion threatening to break through his voice. “I keep putting you on this impossibly high pedestal and believing that you’re way too good for me. I thought you could never feel what I feel because I don’t see myself the way I see you. To me, you’re every wonderful thing that ever existed.”

Tears spring into your eyes at his words, so totally without guile. “Are you serious?” you whisper.

“Absolutely serious.” His eyes blaze with an intensity you haven’t seen before, and his grip on your hands grows tighter as he says, “Listen, I’ve never said this to anyone in my life, but… I love you.” Colt stops, his voice catching in his throat when he sees the tears streaming down your cheeks. “I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you on set painting that triple-sized stop sign.” You both laugh at the memory, relieving some of the overwhelming emotion.

He keeps going. “I’m so in love with you it actually scares me,” he finishes, “because nothing has ever meant so much to me as getting this right. I can’t keep holding it back, and you deserve to know. It’s killing me.”

“Colt…” It’s as if you’ve forgotten every word but his name.

Still, Colt presses on, trying to get three months’ worth of communication out in three minutes. “I’m not asking anything in return,” he tells you insistently. “If you still want to go, I won’t stop you. You don’t need to say or do anything, but I just had to get this out. After yesterday, with the train stunt almost going wrong, and you telling Gordon off, and then when you told me you love me and want to be with me no matter what, I don’t know… it just sort of woke me up.”

Your eyes brim with tears again, and you squeeze his hands, giving him an encouraging smile to keep going. You can feel his pulse in his hands, flying as fast as the jet planes soaring over the nearby mountains.

“I’ve been holding back because I didn’t want you to be stuck with a guy like me.” Colt can’t seem to stop the avalanche of words spilling out of his mouth, every one as sweet as honey to your ears. “I keep imagining this amazing future for you and thinking that I’m only going to hold you back and get in the way. I’m still not sure it wouldn’t be that way, but… I’m not the only one who gets to make that decision.” His voice thickens with emotion again. “No one has ever cheered me on the way you do. No one has ever supported me with everything I do, and made me feel like I actually have a chance at real love. But you’re different. You make me feel like I can do anything, and if you still want me after all we’ve been through, I’m yours.”

The look in Colt’s eyes is enough to make your knees feel weak, and you throw yourself forward to steady yourself, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your face in his shoulder. Colt’s instant embrace is more welcome than you could have imagined.

“Of course I want you,” you whisper in his ear. “Just you, no strings attached.”

Colt holds you against him for a few moments, long enough that a plane takes off from the landing strip and zooms far enough away that it doesn’t drown out his words. Finally, carefully, he pries himself out of your arms and holds you at arm’s length, his hands on your waist. “Look, I can’t promise that it’ll be easy,” he continues in a rush. “I’m a stuntman. Life is scary and dangerous and all that.”

“I don’t care about that,” you answer honestly, beaming through your tears. “If it’s what you love doing, there’s nothing I want more than for you to do it. I can handle it.”

“It’s not just that. I’ve never… I’ve never had a serious relationship before. Everything will be new for me, and I’m going to make a ton of mistakes.”

Colt’s eyes are misty, too, and your heart is so full of joy that it feels like it will burst. You know it must be radiating from your face, because Colt starts grinning back at you, seeming to sense how much you’ve been aching to hear these words from him.

“So am I,” you insist, your hands fluttering back and forth from his face to his shoulders over and over. “Mistakes are just part of a relationship. As long as we communicate and stay committed, we’re not going to fall apart just because of a few mistakes.”

Colt nods, flexing his fingers against your waist as his smile overtakes his entire face. Still, he doesn’t lose control: he seems to be holding back until he’s finished saying everything that’s been building up over the months. You’re more than happy to let your gaze wander over his wonderful face, to bask in the fact that Colt Seavers loves you back and isn’t going to let you go.

“There’s one more thing,” he says gingerly. “I… I don’t really have a lot of grand aspirations for the future. I’m a stuntman because that’s what I love doing, but there aren’t a lot of ways to move up the ladder. I’ll be doing stunts until I’m dead or until I can’t anymore, so basically, my future is just to be a working-class guy. I’ll just be an unknown stuntman.” He hesitates at the end of his speech, as if he honestly believes this could be a problem for you.

You want to laugh in sheer glee, but you hold back so Colt won’t think you’re taking his seriousness lightly. “If that bothered me,” you inform him, moving your thumbs lightly against the sides of his neck, “I would never have fallen in love with you in the first place. Colt, I’m not exactly shooting for the stars myself as a set decorator. Sure, I may have a chance to work on even bigger films, and it can always open up some new opportunities, but I’m not doing this to climb the ladder either. If we’re both working-class professionals for the rest of our lives, that’s fine with me. As long as I have you in my life, I don’t care what kind of life it is.”

Colt’s eyes finally brim over with the tears he has valiantly been holding back. His hands are trembling against your waist, and he ducks his head so you won’t see how much this confession has affected him. You pull him close to you again, resting your head just below his chin while he squeezes you tightly enough to take your breath away. This is what heaven must be like.

He’s whispering something against the top of your hair, so low you can barely hear it. “I’m so sorry.”

You shake your head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I do,” Colt replies, the regret in his voice obvious. “I haven’t been able to make up my mind about what to do because all this has been in the back of my head. I should have just come clean with you the first time you ever let me know how you feel.” He lifts your head with his fingers under your chin, meeting your tear-stained gaze with one of his own. “It would have saved you all this heartbreak,” he whispers.

You smile up at him, resting your hand on his cheek. “What’s love without a little heartbreak?” you tease him. “That’s how you know it’s real.”

Colt finally returns your smile, his shoulders relaxing as if he suddenly believes that this is real. “I promise I won’t break your heart again,” he says solemnly.

“I believe that.” And you do.

Colt is looking into your eyes with all the passion of the ocean in a storm, and you can feel the blush in your cheeks building just from the way he’s looking at you. You’re suddenly hyper-conscious of his hand that’s still resting under your chin, tilting your head back to look deep in your eyes. The hand that is slowly, ever so slowly, bringing your face closer to his.

Colt hesitates for a moment when your lips are just inches apart. You’ve been here so many times, so close to a kiss, and have parted every time. This time, however, you know his heart is beating for you alone, and you feel like you have all the time in the world to savor this moment.

His gaze flickers down to your lips, and his breath seems to double its pace as he considers what he’s about to do. He lifts an eyebrow at you, as if asking, Are you ready? Your smile tells him all he needs to know, and finally, finally, Colt closes the endless distance between you.

The moment your lips meet his, your heart whispers, This is what you were made to do. Colt’s kiss is everything gentle and passionate, his lips moving slowly against yours in a rhythm that is so incredibly natural. His hands find landing spots on your back when you tighten your arms around his neck, pressing yourself against him as he deepens the kiss.

Every last circuit in your brain is exploding in the sweetest way possible. Is this how it’s supposed to feel? you wonder, and Colt pulls away from your mouth at that exact moment, fixing his eyes on yours with an expression that tells you he’s wondering the same thing.

The separation only lasts a moment, though, because now that Colt has had a taste of your lips, he can’t get enough. He kisses you again, and again, and again, and again, until you’re both so out of breath you wonder if you’ll ever recover. His hands move up and down your back, clutching your body so tightly against his that you’ve started breathing in rhythm with each other. You can taste salt on his lips, and you have no idea if it’s from your tears or his.

Just when you think you’re about to drown in the sweetest possible way, Colt presses one more soft kiss against your lips, then pulls back so you can breathe. You find yourself gasping for air and aren’t surprised to see him doing the same. Your hands stay on his shoulders as they heave up and down, and he doesn’t loosen his hold on you for a second.

“Colt…” you sigh, your lips feeling like they’ve actually changed shape, “I’ve dreamed about this so many times. You have no idea.”

He inclines his head toward you, resting his cheek against yours. His beard scratches your skin in a way that sends a delightful shiver down your spine. “Me, too,” he whispers against your cheek.

“Promise me this is real.”

“It’s real,” Colt assures you, dipping his head so he can press a kiss against the skin right below your ear. “Realer than anything I’ve done in my life.”

You feel like your body is about to sail into orbit at the contact, and you grip Colt’s broad shoulders even harder as his lips move down your neck, across your throat, down to your collarbone. You know you’re making breathless sounds that betray how much he’s exciting you, but you are far past the point of caring.

With every kiss, it’s as if Colt is repeating the words he said just a few moments ago: I love you. I love you. I love you. One of his hands moves from your lower back to cradle your chin, tilting your head to the side to give him better access to your neck.

“I’ve been aching for you,” he murmurs close to your ear. “Burning for you.”

His words inspire an entirely new shiver down your spine, one that makes you stand on your toes and arch even further into his arms. All you can manage to choke out is, “I love you so much… so much…”

You slide one hand into his hair, remembering how he reacted the last time you did that. Right on cue, Colt lets out a soft sound that makes every inch of your skin erupt into goosebumps. He goes still in your arms, his mouth still on the curve where your shoulder meets your neck. You run your fingers through his hair with firm but gentle strokes, reveling in the way he seems to melt in your arms.

After a few moments of it, Colt finally straightens again, his intense gaze locked on your face. You leave one hand in his thick hair and let your other wander to his face. Using just your fingertips, you trace his forehead, his cheekbone, his nose, his lips, his jaw, everything you’ve been dying to touch. Colt’s eyes flutter closed at your touch, as if he’s about to come undone right before your eyes. Your heart leaps when he leans his head to the side, leaning in to your touch.

You choose to copy his actions, rising up to press your lips to his pulse point, right below his neck. The way Colt’s hands on your waist flex in response tells you you’ve found something he likes. You trail your way up until you’re peppering kisses behind his ear, then on his cheek, on his nose, on both his closed eyelids.

At the sensation of your kisses on his face, Colt opens his eyes and smiles at you. It’s a new smile this time, one that speaks of a new emotion he’s feeling for the first time. Peacefulness. Assurance.

Colt raises his hands to frame your face, tucking the strands of hair that he’s pulled loose back behind your ears. His voice breaks when he says softly, “I may never find the right words to tell you how I really feel about you, but I promise I’m going to take every opportunity to try.”

You rest your hands on his chest, grinning as you reply, “We’ve got the rest of our lives for you to think of the right words. I’ve heard all the ones I need to know what you mean.”

Colt’s eyes are brimming over with the love he’s been demonstrating, the adoration, the gratitude, the sheer bliss of sharing this moment with the one person he’s been waiting all his life for. “You’re everything to me…” he murmurs, lowering his lips to touch yours again. “I’ve never…” he restarts, only to interrupt himself with another kiss. “No one has ever…”

He doesn’t even try to finish the last sentence, and your lips are meeting in a gentler kiss, one that calms the fire you’ve been building for the last little eternity. His lips are so soft against yours, coaxing things from you but never demanding. Colt’s hands stroke through your hair and down your spine, holding you close against his chest protectively. You can feel every breath he takes, every movement that reveals how wrapped up he is in feeling you with him.

Another deafening jet plane roars over your heads, but neither of you take the slightest bit of notice.

Colt finally slows your kiss down, pressing his lips to the corner of your mouth and leaving one of his hands to tangle in your hair. He doesn’t pull away, just lets his lips linger on your jaw, as he asks casually, “So, Sofonisba, are you still flying out?”

“Sofonisba?” you repeat, words slowly drifting back into your brain.

“I was running out of artist nicknames,” Colt explains, a husky edge still noticeable in his voice. “Had to look that one up.”

You grin at him, though he feels it rather than sees it. “I don’t have to fly out. I don’t exactly have somewhere to be.” You snuggle closer to him, not quite ready to leave his comforting embrace. “Haven’t even gotten my ticket yet.”

Colt hums in approval at that, the sound lingering on your skin. “In that case,” he suggests softly, “what do you say to some coffee?”

“Can’t think of anything I’d like better,” you say honestly.

Colt returns your smile, pulling you forward for one last, reverent kiss to your lips. Then he wraps his arm around your shoulder, and the two of you gaze off into the distance, where another plane soars into the sky over the mountains.

You don’t know what lies ahead for you, and you know Colt doesn’t either. But you are assured of one thing now, and that is that you’ve found the man you were made to be with. All it takes is one glance up into his eyes to know that he’s confident of the same thing.

That’s more than enough for you.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Epilogue

[ssuperficialspacecadett]

Escrito en las Estrellas (Written in the Stars)

Chapter Six of the Through the Scope series | Chapter Seven

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 4.6K

Chapter Overview: You celebrate your first month working at Brass Knuckles

TW: t*m in the gif (i hate this mf and i dont care who knows)

Notes: okay so this chapter is what started me on my 'through the scope' journey ! i was driving back home to visit family and the phrase "it's written in the stars" just came to me so naturally i had to write an entire Frankie fan fic just so i could birth this one scene (i had no other choice obviously). this chapter was originally twice its length, but i cut it in half so i could make two chapters out of it hehe. i updated the tag list so please let me know if i missed you !! as usual ... my asks are always open & happy reading <3

*no use of y/n & female presenting reader*

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“So you two really haven’t hooked up yet? Not even a small kiss? You’re killing me right now. It’s been a month!” 

You’re on the phone with Robbie this evening to keep you company while you fold laundry. When she says that you have already been in Florida for a month, you feel shocked. Has it really been that long already? You count up the weeks in your head and today, Monday, marks the start of your fourth week here. Four weeks of watching your dad get stronger, four weeks of working at Brass Knuckles, and four weeks of crushing on Frankie. 

“I told you we haven’t done anything, Robbie! But fuck if I don’t want to. The only thing is that I think he’s in a weird place with his girlfriend right now. Or maybe she’s his ex-girlfriend that he’s sort of talking to again? Ugh! I don’t even know!”

You give up on folding, you are doing a terrible job at it anyway, and flop yourself down, stomach first, on your bed. 

“Why don’t you ask Benny about it then? Maybe he can give you some clarity?”

“For someone that’s so smart, you are so dumb.”

“Excuse me?” Her tone is playful, but still laced with warning.

“Look, I can’t just ask Benny about Frankie’s love life. It would be a dead give away that I like him and it just seems like…it just seems like an invasion of privacy.”

“You’re just stalling, you fucking baby. They are your friends right? Benny and Frankie?”

“Well, yeah? I would say so.” You’re not following where she's going.

“Then you should be able to ask them about what’s going on in their lives. That includes their love lives. We ask each other all the time!”

God you hate it when her logic makes sense.

“Okay! Okay. I’ll ask Benny about it at work this week then. Would that make you happy?” 

“No, that would make me content. What would make me happy is if yall finally fuc-”

“Woah!” You cut her off with a laugh. “Don’t you have some studying to do, miss. lawyer?” 

“I resent you for changing the subject right when we were getting somewhere, but yes I do. Call me when you grow a pair and ask?” 

“Trust me, Robbie. You’ll be the first to know.”

You laugh to yourself as you toss your phone on your bed and roll over onto your back. You would be lying to yourself if you said that you wouldn’t be happy if you and Frankie finally hooked up either. Since you have been here, you have gotten a small feeling that he might like you back. First there was him observing you when you two first met while his friends talked around him. Then there was him inviting you out with the guys for fight night. After that was him not shying away when you gave him the note with your number and a heart. Y’all shared a beer together, he dropped everything to help you with your car, and proceeded to spend the majority of the day with you eating and shopping. Did he almost kiss you in your apartment that morning or had you just romanticized his gentlemanliness? There had to be something there right? Right? 

But there was Rochelle. The woman who came before you. The woman who was first in line. While she was bad news according to Benny, you still felt hesitant about stepping on anyone's toes. You wouldn’t want that done to you. And yet you found your mind exploring the possibilities of what y’all could be to each other. Acquaintances? Friends? Something more?

***

It’s Benny’s turn to buy lunch today and he pulls through with Chick-fil-a. The conversation is natural while the two of you eat. Each of you take turns spitballing ideas on how to make the gym stand out more, if they should start selling food during fight night, if you will be a ring girl.

“When pig’s fly, Benjamin Miller. That’s when I’ll be your ring girl.”

The conversation slowly shifts into a more personal one. He talks about how he and the other guys love going to the beach together, but their schedules haven’t allowed it in a while. How all the ladies there can’t get enough of ‘old Brass Knuckles’. You share about how you and Robbie love walking around in downtown Austin, Texas and hunting for the best coffee, or food, or book stores. 

“The beaches back home weren’t really the best.” You confess.

“You should come with us then! Maybe we can all plan somethin’!”

“Yeah.” You say wistfully. “Robbie is coming down in March when her school lets out for spring break. What about then?” 

“Sounds fuckin’ awesome to me!”

Your tongue burns with the question you have about Frankie. It’s Thursday, which unfortunately means, it has taken you most of the week to gain the courage to bring it up. In your defense you had tried earlier, but it just never seemed like the right time. It would be weird to casually bring that topic up at random, but now that friends are being discussed…

“I’ve got a question.”

“I’ve got an answer.” He takes a sip of his drink. “Shoot.”

“I was just wondering how Frankie and Rochelle were doing. I noticed that he has seemed happier lately. Maybe they worked things out?”

He sets his cup down and looks at you quizzically. You get a nervous feeling that he’s onto you.

“Now that you mention it, he does seem happier, doesn’t he? Which isn’t anythin’ to take lightly. Especially for a guy like Fish. But to be completely honest with you, he doesn’t talk about her much around us.”

“Wait really? Y’all don’t talk about who y’all are dating?” Now your nervousness has started to make you sweat. 

“It’s not that at all. It’s just,” He rubs his forehead with his hand. “It’s just different when it’s Rochelle. I told you that she doesn’t belong in his life and I still stand by that. Do you remember when I mentioned that we were a fucked up bunch?”

You nod your head at him.

“Well, it’s not my place to get into all of Fish’s business, but she played a pretty big part in that for him. It took me, the guys, and the strength of whatever higher bein’ is out there to pry him from her grip. He knows we don’t like her much. I think that's why he keeps most of it to himself.”

“Oh.” Now you feel stupid for asking. There is clearly more going in that relationship than you previously thought.

“But, he would have told us if they were officially back together. That I know for a fact.”

You’re content with his answer. At least now you know that you aren’t being a homewrecker. Surely a little more innocent flirting wouldn't hurt. Well it might hurt if he doesn’t see you that way.

“So that’s the only reason you asked?”

You stop, a french fry in hand, and cock your head at your coworker. “What?”

“Don’t play around.” He snatches the fry from you. “What’s the real reason you want to know what’s going on with Fish?”

In this very moment you make an elaborate mental scheme of how to murder Robbie and get away with it when she comes down to visit you. 

“I was just curious.” You shrug.

“God, you’re such a fuckin’ liar!”

“I am not!”

“You got a thing for him, don’t you?!”

“I-I…well I-”

“I knew it! You like Fish!” He looks as happy as a kid on Christmas morning.

“Fine.” You can’t help but laugh at your friend's glee. “I like Frankie. I think he’s great.” 

“Hey, I’m just glad it didn’t turn out to be Pope. That man needs to be humbled every now and then.” 

The two of you burst into a fit of laughter together at the front desk. The people currently working out probably think y’all need to be admitted into the loony bin. It felt nice to finally tell someone here. Granted, Benny is Frankie’s friend, but now he’s yours too.

“Please,” You pant. “Please promise me that you won't say anything to him, Benny.”

“I promise I won’t say anything to him.” A cheeky grin splays across his face.

“I don’t think I like the way you said that.”

“Then don’t think about it. I said that I wouldn’t say anything about it, so I won’t.” He holds up one of his hands. “Scouts honor.” 

You breathe a sigh of relief as he cleans up the remains of lunch and walks over to the trash bin.

“I didn’t say that I wouldn’t do anything about it though!”

He takes off running as his words register in your brain. You stand and yell after him as he vanishes into his office. 

“Benny I’m going to kick your ass!”

The door’s bell must have gone off in the commotion because when you turn around to face the front of the lobby a very bewildered woman is looking directly at you. 

“Oh! Sorry about that! Welcome to Brass Knuckles! How can I help you today?”

***

Operation Catch-A-Fish Chat

Benny: It’s on boys! It’s fuckin’ on!

Will: Damn that was quicker than I thought.

Pope: Did she say something?!

Benny: She told me that she liked him while we were having lunch. Let's get this operation cookin’!

Will: I’ll be damned.

Pope: Told you we wouldn’t be pimping her out, Will.

***

Frankie lays on his back and watches the fan blades spin above him. The room is still stuffy as the hot air inside is only being pushed around. It makes him ache to be in a helicopter again. To feel the bone chilling air right as he climbs into the cockpit before a mission. He never felt cramped when he was in the air. Not like he does now on the ground.

He tries to pick a singular blade and count how many times it can circle the base of the fan in a minute, but he keeps getting distracted. You keep distracting him. He never manages to make it past 15 before you pop into his mind. Your melodic laugh, the way you furrow your eyebrows when you think, how it took you 30 minutes to pick one item off the menu at breakfast. He wonders how you’re spending your Thursday night. Guilt creeps in when he realizes how deeply you consume his thoughts. Although he doesn’t know if that guilt stems from the fact that he’s thinking of you while he lies next to Rochelle in her bed or because he didn’t feel guilty at all until he remembered she was there in the first place. What he does know is that he wouldn’t feel as cramped and lonely as he does right now if you were with him. You could have your limbs wrapped around him as tight as could be and he would still beg you to squeeze harder. 

He turns his attention to the woman laying next to him when she breathes out deeply. She looks so much different in sleep. Her harsh features have softened. Her brows are relaxed and her lips aren’t contorted into a perpetual scowl. She looks, he thinks, kind. As if she is completely incapable of being the person that has wreaked so much havoc and heartache onto his life. She looks like someone who would want to be held as she slept. Someone who would want their lover to pull them in close and whisper sweet nothings in their ear that would be kept secret by the darkness of the night. Unfortunately, that wasn’t who she was. Rochelle never wanted Frankie to be affectionate with her unless she initiated it or when they were going to have sex. Even then she would groan in annoyance when he took too long kissing or going down on her. 

“Just fuck me already.” 

Although he would never admit it, he craved that intimacy. That closeness with his partner. He loved having his hands constantly on the woman he was with. It kept him calm knowing that she was close to him. He noticed that he also had less nightmares on the rare occasions Rochelle would allow him to hold her while they slept. She stirs slightly and rolls over so her back is facing him. 

“God, what the fuck am I even doing here?” He whispers up to the fan blades. 

He hated himself for winding up back in her bed. They haven’t officially gotten back together, but this is how it always started. She would slither back into his life and he would trip over her and fall right into her trap. It made him even angrier than he knew how she worked and he still wound up here. Yet, it’s so easy to slip into a routine you already know no matter how toxic it may be. The ball is still technically in his court. He still hasn’t given her an answer about the status of their relationship. He hasn’t completely sunk beneath the waves yet. He needs to remind himself that history doesn’t equate to longevity. He wants quality over quantity now. 

The dinging of his phone pulls him from his thoughts. It’s a message from Benny in their group chat.

Benny: Sorry for the late message, but I’ve been doing some thinkin’. Since our girl has been here for a month I think we should celebrate. I know she wouldn’t want anything over the top, so maybe The Barrel this Saturday? Y’all down for that?

Pope: It’s about damn time she came out with us. I think I’m free then too.

Will: Benny, I’m literally awake in the next room. You could have just come and told me about your plan. 

Benny: Text is easier. I don’t have to get out of bed this way. 

Will: She definitely deserves more than a few rounds since she has had to deal with you for a month straight. I’m surprised you haven’t scared her off. 

Pope: Same here. I would have run for the hills by now if I were her.

Frankie: Yeah I’m down too. Will and Pope can carpool with me and we can meet y’all after closing time.

Benny: Sounds good! See y’all then!

“Who was that, baby?” A sleep riddled voice asks behind his shoulder.

He feels his body recoil at the pet name. A pet name he once had to beg her to call him. Something to make him believe that what they had was good and sweet. How could something he longed for sound like nails on a chalkboard now?

“Just the guys. Go back to bed, Rochelle.”

Frankie falls asleep wondering if he will get the privilege of sitting next to you at the bar.

***

“I already said that I would come tonight, Benny! You didn’t have to keep asking every hour of the day.”

If you were being honest it was getting on your nerves. He told you last night that you absolutely, without a doubt, had to come to The Barrel on Saturday after work. You knew that you had been pushing it off so you conceded. You just wished Benny would get that through his thick skull. Although, having someone that invested in you is foreign so you put your annoyance out of your mind and focus on the good.

“I know. I know. I just want to make sure everything goes perfect. You told your dad that you wouldn’t be comin’ tonight?”

“Yes! I did everything you asked! I don’t know why you’re so worked up. We are just going across the street to get a drink after work.”

“I just want to make sure.”

“Aww!” You pinch his cheek as he waits with you in the laundry room. “Does Benny have a crush on me?”

“You wish you could get in on all this!” He flexes his left arm and blows a kiss at you with his right.

“Fuck off!” You shove him out of the room. “If you want to go get a drink you better leave me alone so I can put this load in the dryer. Long gone are the days of leaving wet towels to sit overnight at Brass Knuckles.” 

“That’s why I love ya’!” He pokes his head back and kisses your cheek. A lovely juxtaposition to what you just did to him. “I’ll head over there and get us a table. Meet me there after you lock up?”

“If you’re lucky, Miller.”

Shortly after Benny bounds gleefully out of the gym, the washer announces that it’s finished. You hum to yourself as you toss the damp towels into the dryer and press start. It’s all a breeze from there. You collect your things from the desk, turn off the building's lights, and lock the front door. That’s funny you think my bag feels lighter than usual.

The night air is hot, but not uncomfortably so, as you walk across the street to The Barrel. The soft glow from the sign acts as your north star. You can hear how packed it is even before you swing the door open. How are you going to find Benny through all these people? Your eyes survey the room as you make your way through the crowd. A hand shoots up in the back and starts waving frantically at you. As you slip through more people you finally reach the clearing. It was all of them. All of the guys were waiting for you at a quaint table in the back. 

“Happy one month!” They say in unison and raise their glasses.

“Oh my-” 

You’re so starstruck that you can’t speak. They all beam as you make your way to the table and to the only empty chair. The one that sandwiches you right in between Pope and Frankie. 

“Is this seat taken?” 

“It is now.” The man with soft curls responds warmly. 

“Are you surprised?! Did we get you?!” Benny can hardly sit still in his chair.

“Yes,” Your cheeks are going to be sore from smiling in the morning. “Y’all got me good. I can’t believe y’all remembered.” 

“Of course we did, hon.” Will’s voice acts as a beacon of calmness in the bar’s chaos. “The gym was close to burnin' down before you showed up and saved it. Brightened our lives in the process whether you know it or not too.” 

“Will…” Tears threaten to trickle down your face. 

“It was not!” Benny bites back at his brother. “But, I am happy you called about my ad.” 

“Cheers to you, hermosa!” Pope slides a bottle over to you. “Welcome to the group.”

As you raise your glass to clink with all of theirs, you look at each and every one of them. The genuine care they all have for you sprinkles your skin like a light summer shower. The kind of rain where it’s so soft that you don’t even realize you’re soaked to the bone until you reach your destination. It just kinda sneaks up on you. That’s exactly what they did and you couldn’t have been more grateful. 

“Okay I need y’all to indulge me for a few minutes.” It’s somehow already 1:00 in the morning and you’ve lost count of how much you have had to drink. “I’ve been trying to figure out what each of y’all’s individual signs are and I think I finally cracked it.” 

“Like our call signs?” Frankie’s shoulder presses up against yours when he leans into talk. You hope he doesn’t catch the way your breath hitches. 

“You mean y’alls call signs. I still haven’t gotten mine.” 

“You’re always going to be Brass Knuckles to me, Benny.” You offer to the man across from you. “But no, not y’alls call signs, I already know those. I mean your star signs.” 

“Oh, shit! I was hooking up with a girl once that was really into all that mumbo jumbo!” Pope sounds even more excited than you do. “I already know these carbrons don’t know what they are. Google y’all’s birthdays and find out what it is.”

Once each of them confirms that they know, you crack your knuckles and pray that you have guessed correctly. 

“I’ll start with you, Santi.” Maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it's because you truly feel like his friend that you use his first name. “I think you’re a libra because you’re charismatic, you’re tactful-”

“You better stop before I fall in love with you.” He taunts.

“And you’re a whore.” The entire table erupts into boisterous laughter. “I didn’t need the stars to tell me that though.” 

Next you move your blurry vision to Will. 

“I think you’re a cancer. You’re someone who cares deeply about the people that are close to you. You always want to know how others are feeling, but ironically, you tend to keep your own emotions locked away. You think you will be a burden if you share them, but you won’t, I promise.” 

“You hired a witch to work for you, Benny.” He brings his drink to his lips, but his eyes stay playfully trained on you. 

“Do me next! Do me!” 

“Alright, Benny. I think you’re a sagittarius. You have an enthusiastic love for life and adventure alike. You always lift the mood of the room when you walk into it. The life of the party if you will.”

“Freaky.” He whispers to himself. 

You turn your attention to the man you have been most excited to talk about. “And last, but certainly not least: Frankie.” You are too drunk to notice the hush that has fallen over the group as you rest your hand on his shoulder. “I think you’re a taurus. You’re very hard working, a loyal and faithful friend, and you love physical affection.” 

 It takes Benny choking on his beer at your last comment to shake you from your trance. You slide your hand off Frankie's shoulder and turn back to the group.

“So…was I right?” Everyone is looking at you with wide eyes and open jaws. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

Benny spends the next few minutes drunkenly pleading with you to tell him more about himself and his future.

“I’m not an oracle, you know. I just observe people and their actions and try to figure them out.” 

“Well,” Pope arrives back at the table with the last round of the night. “Tell us what you have observed about Fish.” 

“No, you don’t have to do that.” Frankie says shyly.

The alcohol in your bloodstream has made you more confident. “I want to.”

“Let the woman work, man.” Pope slides him a beer. 

“You tend to be the glue of the friend group. A man with a hard exterior, yet a soft interior. While you'd never say it outloud, you enjoy taking care of people. You find it gratifying and it gives you a sense of purpose.” You have to stop to get your bearings for a second and acknowledge that maybe you shouldn’t have had that last drink. “Maybe that’s because you served or maybe that's just in your nature. I haven’t figured that out yet, but I’m working on it.”

Frankie hides his face with the bill of his hat, but everyone knows he's smiling under there. 

Pope reaches behind you and claps his friend on the back. “Está escrito en las estrellas, hermano.”

As the bartender announces the last call, your group takes that as the cue to head home. Benny is more trashed than anyone realizes so Will says he will take him back home. He wrangles Benny’s keys away from him so he can use his car to drive them both. You were in no state to drive either and were too far gone to feel any embarrassment as the two men left point that out. With Pope grabbing your tote bag and Frankie grabbing your hand, the three of you walk to his truck.

“Come on,” Frankie helps you into the passenger seat while a very annoyed Pope gets into the backseat. “I’ll take you home.” 

You can only mumble out a small ‘mmm’ to him because your body has become heavy with sleep. He takes it upon himself to gently buckle you into your seat. As he leans over to click it into place he gets a whiff of your perfume. It’s more muted now since the day is over, but it’s still just as potent to him as the second you put it on this morning. After he finishes, he hops down and closes the passenger door. 

“He’s so nice to me.” You whisper to Pope in the backseat before you drift off.

“You have no idea. I just hope you remember when you wake up.” 

Frankie climbs into his seat and cranks up the car. Both men opt to listen to the quiet sounds of the tires on the road instead of the radio for fear that it will wake you up. He pulls into your apartment complex and parks as gently as he can. 

“Grab her keys from her bag, would you?” Frankie asks. He keeps his eyes on you while Pope looks. You look just as sweet in sleep as you do awake, he thinks. You really were as lovely as he thought you were. 

“Uhhh, Catfish?” 

“What?” 

“She only has keys for the gym in here. I can’t find her apartment keys.” He hears Pope laugh dryly in the back seat. “I couldn’t have planned something more perfect if I tried.” 

“What are you going on about?”

“The way I see it you have two choices. Choice one is to wake her up and ask her where her keys are.”

“I’m not going to wake her up, Pope. Mirar, solo mírala.”

“Choice two is to let her crash at your place tonight.”

They both look at you, sound asleep and ignorant about the current situation. 

“I don’t know, man.” Frankie looks over his shoulder at his friend. “I don’t want her to wake up and think I kidnapped her or something. Won’t that be scary for her to wake up in a place that she has never been before?”

“It beats the hell out of waking up in the morning outside of her own front door.” 

He knows his friend is right, but he’s still hesitant as to how you will react when you wake up. Reluctantly, he puts his truck in reverse and heads for Pope’s house. 

***

Unlocking his front door while he has you in his arms bridal style proves a lot more difficult than he originally anticipated. Yet, he would do it a million times over if it meant that he got to hold you this close. When he finally gets inside he closes the door with his foot and heads straight for his bedroom. There was no question about it, he was going to sleep on the couch and you were going to get his bed. He walks into his room and leaves the door open so the hallway light can spill inside. Thankfully he didn’t make his bed this morning so the covers were already pulled back enough. He sets you down on the mattress like you were made of glass; one wrong move by him and you would shatter into a million pieces. A small cry escapes you when his body is no longer touching yours. He wants to capture that sound and keep it locked away in his heart. Before he tucks you in, he carefully unties your shoes and sets them down beside the nightstand so you will see them in the morning. He brings the covers up so that they rest just below your chin. Despite his initial hesitation to bring you back home with him, he can’t help but feel that you look perfectly in place in his bed. He kneels down next to you and tucks a rogue strand of hair back behind your ear. You unconsciously lean into his touch, seeking the warmth he provides. His lips find a home on your forehead and he whispers to you before he gets up to leave. 

“Sweet dreams…mi estrella.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

{tag list: @cutesyscreenname @rsquared31 @smol-beb @bitchwitch1981 @avastrasposts @hoeslingz @saltybutteredtoast @javicstories @c-justhere @pimosworld @modernperplexity @beboldbebravethings @mxtokko  @moonliqhtszn @tanzthompson @megcads @myloveistoolittle @casa-boiardi @jitterbugs927 @partyofone3413 @pedrit0-pascalit0 @golden-library @pati-et-vivere @pedro-pedrito-pascalito }

[lokischocolatefountain]

1. For Old Time’s Sake || Red Tape, Red Line

Series Masterlist

Fandom: Narcos

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

Rating: G (check ratings for each chapter)

Word count: 3.4k words

Summary: Javier runs into an old friend in DC.

A/N: Javier for Day 3! Thanks for the love for the last two fics. Here’s more and here’s my favorite- Javi. I do have a series of him in my Married!Javi fics. Buuuut, it doesn’t follow a chronological order. Unlike that, I’m trying to have a coherent storyline here. Writing a linear story happens to be my downfall so I’m gonna wait and see how this pans out. Hope you like the first instalment of this story!

Wallet, keys, ID, gun, badge.

He froze with his hand on the hotel side table holding only a generic lamp after he’d taken his possessions- wallet, keys, ID. There was no gun to slip into the back of his pants and no badge to strap on to his belt. After eight years of the routine, he’d grown used to the metal digging into his lower back, used to the danger it possessed and the illusion of safety it gave him.

When he’d woken up that night from an imagined bullet to his chest, he reached for it on the same table, his heart seizing up when he found it empty. The quiet streets of DC and the streetlights pouring in through the window helped ground him, told him where he was. He’d taken to repeating the mantra that had been helping him come to after his nightmares. You’re home. It’s over. You’re home. It’s over.

As he slipped into his suit jacket, he wondered if the mantra was even true anymore. When he told himself that it was over and he was home, did he mean the states? Because DC wasn’t home. But was the US home anymore? Laredo? Bogotá? Shit, if it wasn’t the first three, it definitely wasn’t that last one.

He bent down and pulled his suitcase out from under the bed, hand slipping inside to retrieve the red pack of Marlboros he stored inside. Everything was perfectly packed- shirts and pants ironed perfectly, socks rolled up and underwear folded neatly. With everything else in chaos in his life, this bit of orderliness brought him comfort. He once took some pride in how well he could pack his life up within minutes. Not since that hijo de puta rubbed in his face that despite his shit lifestyle, he had a wife and children to go home to. A family man, he’d called himself.

While he couldn’t even look his dad in the eye or bring himself to visit mom’s grave, men like Berna took themselves home to wives and children every night. It must need some level of delusion to be able to do so.

It wasn’t over. Nothing was over. He’d been fired- well, he resigned. Columbia was supposed to be behind him, but there was still work to be done, paperwork to write up, politicians to schmooze. As the day passed, he was passed around from desk to desk, bureaucrat to bureaucrat, all praising him or letting him know just how hard he’d made their lives. State, Defense, DOJ, CIA, the fucking White House— Javi of the past with the hot blood, wide eyes and the need to prove himself would be ecstatic to know where he’d land up in the future. He wouldn’t be too pleased with the journey, though.

He’d won.

At least that was what the ambassador had said. But it didn’t feel like it. While he’d grown up and let the cynicism of life get to him, there was still that younger Javi taking up too much space in his head, telling him that he had failed in what he’d set off to do and sold his soul in the process. That the last eight years had all been for naught. I went after Medellin and Cali and all I have to show for it is the fucking nightmares. Now that would make for a wonderful print on a t-shirt.

“Good afternoon, how may I help?”

“I have an appointment with The Assistant to the Chief of Staff. I’m Javier Peña,” he said, sliding his ID across the rich mahogany desk to the woman. She took his ID, checked her computer, his face, the ID, repeated the process and then slid the ID back to him.

“Mr. Peña, Mr. Reed is in another meeting right now, but he’ll be happy to see you once it’s over. I can direct you to our waiting room.”

Great.

He smiled, nodded and followed the woman through the state department his eyes roving over the workers as he wondered how many of them had to stay late nights to fuck up the progress he and his fellow agents made on the field. How many of them typed up letters from the Secretary of State with directives to back the fuck off right when he was about to nab a valuable target. How many of them were assigned to Colombia, how many to other countries where they played around in their own interests.

He’d always held these people with contempt and not much had changed. They got to sit in their cushy office with the nicest computers and air conditioning while he and his colleagues chased goons in the streets of a foreign country. These couch potatoes who wrote condemnations and pulled visas and told them how to do their fucking job as though they knew what it was like to have a kid threatening to kill you with a hand that was too small to be wrapped around a gun if you didn’t drop your own.

Did any of these people think about men like him? Think about what it was like when you lost yet another partner and had to live with the image of him bleeding out on the road as you woke up from yet another nightmare with yet another realization of what you should’ve done to save his life in that moment.

They did not, he decided when the clock ticked and ticked but there was no word for him. The receptionist came by once or twice to apologize on her boss’s behalf and offer him coffee. Coffee to add to his sleep deprivation? No thank you.

He politely declined both times, willing himself to not take his anger out on the poor woman. She was just doing her job.

When the clock hit six, he got off his chair and stepped out of the waiting room. He’d known frustration. More often than not, he was left clutching his head in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other as his lungs burned from the cigarette between his lips as another step in his mission failed spectacularly. He knew frustration, but nothing like this brand of idle frustration where you had nothing to do but sit on an uncomfortable chair in the office of some prick who got paid more money a year than he would make in his entire life for doing fucking nothing.

So much for being a hero.

“Javier?”

He stopped outside the elevator door, turning around to see the face that called out his name.

Goddamn.

Her name slipped out through his lips, his tongue rolling around with as much practiced ease as it had done all those years ago. She looked exactly the same, yet completely different. Slightly taller as she walked up to him with the same smile, lips painted a deep red. Her hair was down instead of up in a bun. Her eyes gleamed with the same light he’d found in them over a decade ago. Although there was a new addition— crinkles at the corners of her eyes when she smiled. She’d exchanged the more practical field uniform for a nice blouse and skirt. A matching jacket hung off her arm and her hand was wrapped around the handles of a handbag.

“What are you doing here?” They asked at the same time. They exchanged smiles and he followed as she lead him into the elevator.

“I was supposed to meet someone. A Mr. Reed.”

“Ah. He wasn’t here for most of the day. Some fire to put out.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. Did they have you waiting the whole day?” She asked, removing the lanyard with her ID. She hissed when it caught in her hair and he stepped in, untangling the thing from her hair and taking it off for her. He took the card between her fingers and read her name out loud.

“Policy Analyst. Damn, Glasses,” he trailed, using her nickname from their time in Quantico. “You really did get yourself the nerdiest job. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

He handed her ID back to her and she shoved it into her bag, smiling at her nickname rather than shoving him like she used to. Or threatening to tell on him to their training officer. “Alright, Pissy Pants Peña. You got me.”

He let out a laugh at her rebuttal. The name surprised him just as it had the first time she used it against him in a moment of weakness even though she’d claimed that nicknames were “so unprofessional and rude. I will not call my fellow trainees rude names just to look cool around other trainees.” The first time was when he’d aggravated her more than usual and she spat out the name he’d earned when he had so much to drink that he pissed his pants.

“Are you free to grab a drink? It’ll be nice to catch up,” he asked, hopeful that a drink with an old friend would make his terrible day a little less terrible.

“As long as you don’t piss your pants,” she joked, lips curving up in an easy smile before she gave him a clear yes.

She took him to a nearby bar, a favorite of the State Department staff, she said. Many recognized her there, including the bartender who asked her if she’d like her usual.

“You don’t do tequila shots anymore, I’m guessing.”

“Ah, no,” he chuckled, thinking back to his training days when they went out and got drunk on the rare days off from their intensive routine. “These days, I—”

“Whiskey?”

“Yeah. How did you guess?”

“You look like a whiskey man. I can just picture you sitting in a dark corner of a bar, all alone and serious, avoiding paperwork or thinking about how to bend the rules.”

“Oh? That so?”

“Mhmm,” she said, sipping on her glass of red wine. She was always a wine drinker. A wine snob, one might say. She did that little swirl that wine drinkers did, took a whiff of the drink and then a small sip.

“Is that part of your job as policy analyst? Analyzing lonely men in bars and guessing what’s in their heads…”

“No, but I’ve had to creep on lonely men drinking their whiskeys in my last job.”

“Oh? What was that?”

“CIA Operative.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. She didn’t seem the CIA type. But then again, it could be his generally positive regard for her and negative regard for the CIA that made it hard for him to imagine her being part of those bastards.

“And you left because?”

“I found out that I had to do things I didn’t want to do in order to survive in the CIA. Didn’t have the stomach for it. I thought that if I just followed all the rules and did my job, I could succeed, but…” she sighed before taking a sip of her drink. “I learned that doing the right thing and doing my job contradicted each other a bit too much.”

Under the dim light that hung above her head, she didn’t look as naïve as she used to. Following every little rule will get you nowhere, Glasses. He’d made fun of her for it several times, told her she didn’t know what the real world was like, that she was in for a big shock. Little did he know that he would be in for just as much shock if not more. While she was intent on doing everything by the book, she at least knew that certain things could never change. Her ambitions weren’t too big. While he and their other classmates talked big about changing the fucking world, she said she just wanted to do her part, just help things along. She saw the nuts and bolts of the machine, know how the gears turned and pointed to every mechanism that would stop him from realizing his lofty dream of “winning the war on drugs, baby!”

“There is no war. It’s just money and politics and even more money. And a fuckload of racism.”

Javi of the past chided her for her cynicism, but if she told him that now, he would buy her a drink.

“Oh and there was the time I got shot, so I can’t really be on the field anymore. My insides are too messed up,” she said, moving the fabric of her shirt aside to reveal a healed bullet wound peeking out from under her bra strap. “Guadalajara. And this is just one of seven. The guy was a terrible shot, though. And my surgeon was fucking amazing, so I live to tell the tale.”

“A lot has happened, huh?” He remarked, considering her wound carefully as he wondered where the other six bullets had hit her body. The knowledge that she’d look completely different underneath her clothes compared to what he remembered covering in kisses infuriated him. He needed to relearn the body he should’ve taken more time to learn. To strip the proper clothing off her and acquaint himself with what was new and reacquaint himself with the familiar. Would he even remember what was new? Was the one time enough for him to register her in his mind?

“Hmm yeah. A lot. Like your work with the cartels. You and your guys always found a way to get on our nerves in State.”

“Oh?” He feigned innocence. “I didn’t know I was pissing you off, Glasses. I’m sorry.”

“Aww, he’s sorry. Don’t even try me, Peña. It was almost like you and what’s the other guy’s name…? Murphy? Like you two were fucking shit up just to get on my nerves. And then Duffy and Lopez. Duffy always pissed me off, but then he and Lopez had to go have their faces plastered on the papers. I thought it was just some other Javier Peña but then that happened and I was sure it was you.”

“I didn’t ask Duffy and Lopez to do that, I swear. They did that all on their own.”

“Really? I knew you and Duffy were close back in the day. And it looked like something you would do, breaking the rules like that.”

“Now give me some credit, hermosa. Maybe I’ve learned to follow the rules a little in the past few years.”

“As one of the people who had to put out the fires you started, I’ll have to disagree respectfully.”

“I’m surprised I have your respect now. I didn’t have a modicum of that back then.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad. I had some respect for you.”

“That so?”

“Yeah. You always…you wanted to do the right thing. We have differences of opinion on what the right thing was, but you always wanted to choose the option that would do the most good. I always admired that.”

“I’m not that person anymore.” He was the man who lied to his agents that the Ambassador did not prioritize the safety of their Cali insider. He was the man who got into bed with Los Pepes and did it again to rescue Christina Jurado. Whatever good she’d seen in him fizzled away the moment things got hard for him. He wondered how she would’ve done it. Had he been the type to follow rules like her, would he have kept his soul intact?

“I’m not surprised. I’m not the same person either. No glasses for one,” she joked, getting a light chuckle out of him. Her light demeanor dulled just a little and he could see through her eyes some kind of darkness that wasn’t there before.

“Things are rarely as we expect when we’re at the heart of the problem. Making the right choice is more…complex because— we have to choose between option that will all hurt people terribly in one way or the other.”

He nodded and took a sip of his drink, his mind reeling with all the times he needed to make decisions like that. They tended to be a lot more complex that he imagined when he was young and idealistic.

“Job like that, if it doesn’t change you, are you even human?”

“Right,” he said, not fully agreeing with the sentiment. The standards were completely different for the two of them. Sure, she would’ve faced those choices in the CIA. But she left. Long ago, he assumed, from her senior position at the State Department.

Whatever she had to do as CIA operative, it made her leave. Unlike him, she had the moral clarity to do it as early as she did. She looked more at ease now.

Maybe it was the fact that she had a cushy office job now, but the perpetual tension in her shoulders was missing. He’d prefer her version of change to his. Perhaps he should take up an office job, be relaxed, sit back at a desk and attend meetings about when to have meetings. His body sure couldn’t handle the field anymore. His knees and ankles still felt his jump from a balcony when he chased Jurado in Curaçao.

As much as he liked condemning himself to hell for his sins, as much as he liked withering away in shame when people heaped him with praises, it felt good to be on the receiving end of her empathy. The job did change everyone. If Glasses, the goody two shoes, stickler for the rules, ultimate teacher’s pet could understand that… Maybe he should too. If the field had changed someone like her, of course it changed him.

“So, umm… it’s getting late,” she said, looking up from her watch. “I have a rule about not having more than two drinks and,” she held up her second glass, half a sip of red wine resting in the bottom. “I had an early day today and will have an earlier day tomorrow. I got a meeting.”

Shoulders slumped, he nodded at her slowly. He didn’t want her to leave, didn’t want to lose the piece of a much calmer past. “It was great seeing you again, Glasses.”

“Likewise, Triple P.”

He tilted his head to one side, smiling at the new nickname. “Pissy Pants Peña is quite the mouthful, so… And it would be weird if my bosses heard it. We aren’t in our early twenties anymore and stupid shit like this could ruin a career.”

“Well, I no longer have a career to be ruined, so… But thanks anyway,” he said, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

“Nah ah ah,” she said in a sing-song voice, reaching into her bag. “You’re in my city, I’m not letting you pay. It’s bad manners.”

“Is it now?” he said, sliding a wad of cash across the bar to the bartender. “Is that one of your rules?”

“It is. You’re a guest in D.C. and it’s poor hospitality to not buy you a drink,” she said before turning to the bartender. “Josh, don’t take his money,” she said, handing the man some dollar bills from her purse. Josh ignored Javier’s money and took hers instead, alluding to whatever loyalty he had for her. She did say that the place was a State Department favorite. It made sense that she was on a first name basis with the guy.

He thumbed his mustache, the bristles scratching his finger gently. “What if I have a rule about that? That it’s poor manners to make a beautiful woman pay for her drinks and mine…”

“Then I’d expect you to say thank you for aiding you in your rule-breaking. I know how you love to do that.”

He grinned and licked his lips slowly, taking her in as she walked ahead of him. She never wore clothes like that before, pencil skirts that hugged her ass and high heeled shoes that made her hips sway in the most mesmerizing rhythm. As though feeling his stare, she turned around suddenly, making his head whip up so fast he could’ve broken his neck. Or it was just his old age.

“So, umm…Lunch sometime? We could continue this conversation,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Or not!” She added quickly. Painted fingernails scratched at each other, chipping away at the already lightly chipped red paint. “I know you’re really busy.”

“Never too busy for you, Glasses. Drinks again tomorrow night?”

“Yup. I’ll see you here at 6:30? If my schedule doesn’t change too much, that is.”

“6:30 is good.”

.

.

.

Advent Calendar Masterlist

Main Masterlist

[mostlymaudlin]

just read every single one of your fics and prompts. ur so good i literally love everything you’ve ever written ever. would you be able to write (or recommend if you don’t fancy writing it) some wymack just being so good to neil and or andrew? being there for them, understanding them, i love parental wymack

hi anon 🧡 ty for being so nice!!! it has been a while since you asked this question, sorry. ive read a lot of excellent portrayals of wymack, but i don’t know that i could name any fics that really focus on this? as you probably know, i wrote one wymack pov fic, but it’s still mostly about andreil hahaha.

ANYWAY. i know you said parental, but i was kinda thinking abt the very unique role he serves. And I did write a little scene abt Andrew’s midnight break-ins to Wymack’s apartment 🤪 cw for vague mentions of past abuse/self-harm.

rated t, <1k

“And here’s the real kicker, Coach.”

Wymack is fairly certain that the information Andrew is about to deliver will not be the kicker. He’s fairly certain that it will only lead Andrew to another line of outrage about the thing he is always rattling on about these days when he breaks into Wymack’s liquor cabinet: Neil Josten.

“He doesn’t even listen to music!” Andrew says. “I know you see him running on that treadmill too, eyes glazed over like a goddamn zombie. I heard Boyd offer to let him borrow his iPod, and he went, ‘oh, no thanks, I don’t listen to music.’ And Boyd kept pushing him, trying to find out if he liked an obscure genre or something. But he is ambivalent to it. Be honest, Coach — did he grow up in some kind of satanic cult? Is he brainwashed? Is he going to hear some code word and go ape shit on us?”

Andrew is lying on his back on the sofa, dirty boots on the arm rest and a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand. He’d made significant progress on it before Wymack even got home, and Wymack can see it flushing his cheeks and ringing around his eyes.

Wymack has dealt with a lot of fucked up kids, but in some ways, Andrew is one of the most difficult. It’s not the violence or the bad manners or the obstinance — Wymack can deal with that shit all day long.

It’s nights like this that make Andrew such a challenge in Wymack’s head: Why does Andrew come here? What is he looking for? What has Wymack done to earn this frankly irritating privilege — and how can he make sure he doesn’t squash it?

Andrew doesn’t talk to anyone. Betsy doesn’t tell Wymack much about the kids, but even she has expressed worry at the layers of repression Andrew seems to hold.

But sometimes here, between casting Neil in various villainous roles or complaining about Kevin or stating his grievances with Palmetto State’s meal options, Andrew drops in something real. A comment about getting slapped by a foster mother. A crude joke about the scars Wymack already knows are on his arms. Hints toward some kind of big secret that Andrew seems to dangle in the air between.

It’s always casual. It always feels like a test. Wymack doesn’t know if he passes or fails — Andrew always just finds his next tangent and moves on.

Wymack rubs his temples. He must take too long to offer a grunt to indicate he’s listening, because Andrew looks over to where Wymack sits in his armchair.

“I don’t think Neil is religious,” Wymack finally offers.

“But would we really know?” Andrew asks. He sighs, dramatic, turning his head away again. “He doesn’t add up.”

“He’s hiding things,” Wymack agrees. “So is everyone else on the team.”

“Yes, but everyone else on the team isn’t as interesting.” Andrew brings the bottle to his lips again. “He’s a threat. But it would be less of a problem if he wasn’t so nice to look at. It’s very distracting.”

Well. Wymack didn’t see that coming.

Maybe he should have.

Andrew keeps his eyes on the ceiling, but the air is charged as he waits for Wymack’s reaction. Wymack holds in a heavy breath.

“Maybe you’re looking so much that you’re seeing stuff that isn’t there,” Wymack says.

“Ha,” Andrew says, but there’s little amusement in his voice. He tips his face toward Wymack, pointing with the bottle in his hands. “That’s a good one, Coach. But no. He’s definitely up to something, and I’m going to figure it out. How far is Millport from Area 51?”

“Far enough,” Wymack says.

Andrew hums. “He’s pretty fast. Maybe he escaped containment there and ran.”

Wymack snorts. “Report back when you’ve exhausted that theory. Preferably not in the middle of the fucking night.”

Andrew laughs. It’s not a joyful sound, but it’s familiar.

The are boundaries he’s supposed to maintain, and he knows Andrew wouldn’t want to have rules bent for him. The minute Wymack gives Andrew an open-door policy, he’ll never see him again. He’ll never get to see if he’s passing Andrew’s tests — he’ll never figure out if there’s something he can do.

So he’ll play the role. It’s not hard — he’s old and grumpy and tired. He’ll listen to Andrew bitch, even when it’s about these other kids whose names weigh heavy in his chest.

Maybe it will pay off, maybe it won’t. But this is the job. He has to be okay with these odds — they’re the best he’s going to get.

[thana-topsy]

Corimir

Full Name: Corimir ‘len Canaale Silvanir Lanaawe ‘ata Anduil Maldur Tirwen ‘cal Lloderion Race: Altmer Age: 36 Gender: Male Birthsign: The Serpent Place of Birth: Shimmerene Current Residence: Ivarstead

Corimir was a Thalmor soldier (rank: Corporal) sent to Skyrim to act as on-the-ground enforcement for the Talos ban. His main duties as an active soldier were to assist his assigned Justiciar in martial confrontations as well as in the capture and detainment of heretics. He was stationed outside of Markarth and saw very little "action" up until he was sent with a small team to take down a nearby gathering of alleged Talos worshipers.

Unfortunately, the gathering was not Talos worshipers, and instead a camp of Stormcloaks, with the now-infamous Dragonborn among them. All except Corimir were slain, and he was taken as a prisoner of war. Though, to the Dragonborn, he was more of a trophy, and a toy to be used.

Corimir was held captive for three months in Windhelm where he was tortured (for information he did not have access to) and used by the Dragonborn whenever he saw fit. His only solace was that these were, by definition, war crimes, and Corimir held out hope that his higher-ups would negotiate for his freedom, or send a rescuer eventually. But none came.

Finally, one day, a guard approached his cell. Though her face was hidden behind the metal helm, she spoke with an Altmeri accent and worked to spring him from the prison. With her help, Corimir finally escaped Windhelm and was able to leave the horrors of his time as a captive behind him... Physically, at least.

[There is a slight.... explanation that needs to happen in regards to Corimir's origin. He's fully my original character, but he's based on a character from another fanfic. The original character was an unnamed Thalmor soldier that was captured and sexually abused by Stormcloak soldiers. I felt compelled to "rescue" the character from the situation, and ended up writing an entire fic about it. The fic picks up at Corimir's rescue and doesn't go into the morbid details about his time as a prisoner, aside from the aftermath that comes with surviving that kind of assault and trauma. You can read the fic on my AO3, though please mind the tags. If you're sensitive to trauma-recovery, descriptions of panic attacks, ptsd, dissociation, or suicidal ideation, you might want to skip this one. It does have a happy ending though!]

"Hollow Men"

Rating: M (graphic depictions of violence, implied/referenced non-con) Categories: Gen, M/M Summary: In which a prisoner of war is rescued, though hardly saved, learning that the path of recovery is not well-trodden but a mess of brambles.

Vague story spoilers below the cut!

Once Corimir is given his freedom, the road to healing is long and frustrating. Even after his body begins to heal from the physical abuse, he realizes that his mind is often still trapped in the past. That, and returning to the safety of Thalmor is not nearly as comforting as he might have thought.

His only solace comes in the form of the upbeat, often irreverent, and incredibly mysterious companion who saved him, Elanwe, as well as the cheery Bosmer who took him in while they passed through Ivarstead, Gwilin. The two of them showed him kindness when he'd long lost the hope that any kindness still existed in the world.

After returning to the Thalmor Embassy, Corimir comes to realize that he's exchanged being a prisoner of war for being a prisoner within his own organization. His higher-ups see him as damaged beyond repair, a liability, but most importantly: they see him as possible propaganda.

Corimir finds himself longing to return to the only place he's felt safe since leaving home: Ivarstead. And, frustratingly, he finds himself unable to stop thinking about the kind Bosmer who shared his home with him.

With the help of Elanwe, Corimir manages to once more escape from his captors and begin a new life for himself, returning to Ivarstead and leaving the Thalmor behind him.

Though he will forever be haunted by the shadows of his past, Corimir slowly learns to trust in others once more, as well as find joy in the simple treasures life has to offer.

[ageless-aislynn]

Title: “15 Minutes” (11/15) Author:  @ageless-aislynn​ Characters/fandom: Master Chief John-117/Reader, Halo the series Summary: John has learned something new that he'd like to show you… Series: How to date a Spartan (without even trying) Rating:  T (PG13) Length: 2,630 (this chapter, 27,487 total so far) Spoilers: Set in the Silver Timeline of Halo the series, not the games or novels. Though we began with the events of Halo 1x06, there will be no more show spoilers. We are still firmly seated in the AU Warthog, merrily driving out to places where there’s only a passing nod to canon. 😉 Disclaimer: Definitely not mine but I do enjoy borrowing them just for a bit! 😉 A/N:  Text is both here in this post or available at AO3, however you like to read. It's, yet again, been awhile since the last update, sad to say. I've been slogging through writer's block, health issues and some kinda awful real life stress but I'm not giving up on this fic (or its sibling, "Recreation"). I'd like to say that the final chapters will be here very soon but, well… I've learned to not call my shots, lol. I will, however, do my best to get them here as soon as I can. If you read, I hope you enjoy! ⭐💖⭐

Taglist: @pinheadbanger​ @mysardencut​ @laurenstacy610​ @sporadicbelievernightmare​ @ultrablackwidower​ @bxmxtx​ @jellotherelol @mirandastuckinthe80s

If you would like to be tagged in my John/Reader fics, just let me know! I also write John/Kai, John/Cortana and Kai/male Reader, so I’m glad to tag you for whatever you’d like. If you would like to be removed from the taglist, also feel free to let me know, no harm, no foul. 😉 💖

Halo fic masterlist ⭐

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10

PT arrived bright and early and, while you continued to bring out every expletive in every language you knew, ultimately it seemed your left side was improving: more range of motion in your shoulder and more strength in your leg, though the healing fractures still ached. All together, though, it was a win, no matter that it left you sweating and shaking like you'd wrestled an Elite and lost spectacularly.

You'd just come out of the shower and put on a fresh set of clothes when the door chimed. To your surprise, you found Riz and Vannak in their civvies standing there. You knew Silver Team had been on stand-by for the past few days – John hadn't been able to join you for every meal, understandably, but he had been there every night. Sleeping curled up in his arms was a luxury you weren't sure how you were going to give up when the time came. Kai and her friend had visited but this was the first time the other two Spartans had.

"Please, come in," you said and they did.

"You need new curse words," Riz said seriously.

"We got here while you were doing your therapy," Vannak explained. "Didn't want to interrupt."

"You could hear me cussing out in the hall?" you asked.

"Superior Spartan hearing," she said, matter-of-fact. "I doubt anyone else could."

"Teach her the one," he urged in as animated a tone as you'd ever heard from him before. "You know, the good one."

Which is how you ended up getting a tongue-twisting word in Sangheili added to your arsenal.

"You say that to any Covenant species and it's guaranteed to send them into a rage," Riz said with a confident nod.

"Except the Unggoy," Vannak added with a sneer. "Little bastards couldn't give a shit. They'll try to kill you on principle."

"I'll make sure I'm on a bullhorn from far away, then," you said, biting the inside of your lip to keep from grinning. "Don't want to be in striking distance if I'm going to send them into a rage."

They thought that over.

"Chief won't appreciate us telling her to pick a fight with a Sangheili," she pointed out.

"Just use it on somebody you're pretty sure you can take in a fight," he told you.

"I'll keep that in mind," you said.

They made slightly stilted small talk for about 15 more minutes, then took their leave.

A rest seemed in order, so you propped up on the bed and checked the news. They were in the middle of reporting that they had yet to apprehend the man who had tried to smuggle the bomb back to FLEETCOM in the Warthog. It showed some stock images of the Pit before being damaged by the explosion and that got you to thinking…

There should be some sort of footage of the explosion, right?

But, after poking around on your padd for a little while, you hadn't found much beyond what apparently had been approved for public viewing.

"Would you like some help with that?"

Cortana's voice startled you.

"Oh, hey there," you said, thinking, Poor thing, she's got the most boring job in the world keeping an eye on me. I hope I get the chance to buy her a coffee or something after all is said and done. Then your brain tardily caught up with her words. "You mean you have footage from the explosion?"

"Yes, I do."

"And it's something I have clearance to see?"

"I have footage from the explosion," she repeated, her tone supremely innocent.

Before you could decide whether to ask to see it or not, the holo on the wall lit up. The security cams had caught the explosion from multiple angles. You winced as you saw a body – your body – fly out of the crane operator seat to disappear into a sea of smoke and debris.

A moment later, the view changed, the quality severely degrading. You squinted through the pixilation and haze and realized you were seeing from the point of view of the holo-emiter Cortana had contacted you from.

"Oh, shit," you muttered. The massive beam that had pinned you down should've killed you outright but you'd gotten supremely lucky in the way the rest of the building had fallen, providing just enough support to give you a tiny open space. But even without the sudden, helpful overlay that detailed out the edges of the debris through the smoke, you could see how quickly that respite was vanishing as the beam's weight bore it inexorably lower and lower.

You found yourself gasping for breath, cast back into that moment. The image changed abruptly. Trying to figure out where you were now viewing from helped to break you free of the encroaching panic attack.

Then it all made sense: you were looking at several officers, so covered in dirt and dust that you couldn't recognize their rank, much less determine their names. They also looked extremely short.

Before you even skimmed over the information feeding out in rapid-fire bursts, you knew that this was John's HUD after Silver Team had arrived back on site.

"John, get here now. The support beam is failing!"

Cortana's voice came through his helmet's comm. "There's no time," he said, interrupting the man as he was saying that they would have to wait for an excavation crew to arrive to safely dig you out.

He was running before the man could object. The feed cut back and forth from his HUD to the holo-emiter. This gave you an unexpected perspective on how efficiently Silver Team worked. They needed almost no words as they homed in on your location, grabbing, lifting, moving and supporting each part of the perilous structure as needed.

It was Vannak who caught the beam before it crushed you but it was John who lifted it off of you.

The holo-emiter's feed abruptly ended and you were back in John's HUD. Vannak and Kai caught another part of the crumbling wreckage, creating an opening for Riz to dig you out by hand.

You noted almost absently how steady John's vitals were. He was holding a building off of you as if it were nothing at all.

"Out," Riz announced and John carefully lowered the weight he'd been supporting.

When he turned, you saw Riz clearing the way for Kai, who was now the one carrying you. Vannak and John followed.

They emerged out of the wreckage and Kai went into the Spartan run, taking you directly into a Pelican where she turned you over to a team of medics. The Spartans were waved back and the ship launched.

"We'll catch the next one," Riz said.

"She'll be all right, Chief," Kai told him. "She's strong."

He nodded curtly, tracking the Pelican that was carrying you away.

And once it went out of sight, that was when his vitals spiked and his heart began to pound.

You were still thinking about what all you'd seen when the door chimed again. A glance at the chrono proved it was lunchtime. You opened the door and, indeed, the first thing you saw was a massive, covered tray that no doubt contained your meal. But it was John who was carrying it.

"Silver's on stand-by," he warned, "but I thought we might get a chance to eat together."

Since you weren't yet cleared to make the long walk down to the Mess, a table and pair of chairs had been set up across from the couch a few days ago. As soon as he'd placed the tray down, you practically tackled him.

"Permission to hug the Master Chief?" you asked well after the fact, your voice muffled into his chest.

He gently returned the embrace. "Always granted."

You found yourself holding onto him a little bit longer than usual.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I saw the footage from the Pit," you said, resting your cheek against him. "I already knew I was lucky to get out of there but really seeing it? I… It makes me appreciate being here."

He paused for long enough that you looked up at him, finding him gazing over your head as if hearing something over a comm. Then he turned his attention back down to you, brow furrowing. "She shouldn't have shown you that footage and upset you."

"Cortana? No, I'm glad she did. It happened to me, after all." You put your face against him again and squeezed him once more around his waist. "You held a building off of me, John."

He made a move as if about to pick you up, then thought better of it and knelt instead to bring you more on a level together. "I'd hold a million buildings off of you, don't you know that?" he said, cupping your face. "Just… try not to be under any more falling buildings, hm?"

"I'll certainly do my best," you swore and kissed his palm.

The look in his eyes altered, grew both darker and softer at the same time. When you leaned towards him, he met you halfway.

He started carefully, like he did everything with you, but soon the kiss intensified, deepened, and his hands skimmed from the crown of your head down your back as if he wanted to map every line, curve and angle you possessed.

And then your stomach growled, loudly and unmistakably, and you muttered your newly-learned curse word.

He leaned back to look at you, amusement tugging insistently at his mouth. "That one's Vannak's favorite. He and Riz talked about coming to see you today. I'm assuming they did?"

"They did," you said, then winced as your stomach grumbled something awfully close to a repeat of the Sangheili curse word.

"Why don't we eat," he said, completely surrendering to the smile, "and you can tell me all about it."

Happily, he didn't get called away and you were able to finish your meal together in peace.

"Could I show you something I recently learned?" he asked as you stood from the table.

"As long as it doesn't involve throwing me around the room," you teased.

"Oh, I'll save that until you're all healed up," he murmured, then winked.

You'd like to think you laughed but no, that was a full-fledged giggle. "So, what did you learn?"

"Therapeutic massage," he said, flexing his fingers. "It's supposed to promote healing and relaxation. Want to give it a try?"

"Absolutely," you said. "Where do you want me at?"

"On the footstool, if that's okay?"

"Sure."

The wide, plush, rainbow-colored bit of furniture was another recent addition to the room, added because John wanted you to have the option to put your feet up. Kai had told you that, as soon as you were healthy again, she was going to high-five you for the color choice.

While his back was turned as he adjusted the stool the way he wanted it in front of the couch, you took your shirt off and tossed it haphazardly towards the bed.

He sat, a leg on either side of the stool, and looked up at you, clearly about to say something. But then his expression went thunderstruck and the words never emerged.

You had the same UNSC sports bra that he had to have seen other marines wearing in the gym a thousand times. You'd spotted Kai and Riz in them before, so it shouldn't have been that shocking.

"This all right?" you asked.

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Yes." Every affirmative had its own completely separate inflection, from stunned to wonderment to Wait, don't put the shirt back on.

You turned away, hiding your grin as you sat down where directed. Considering that you were hardly in top fighting form at the moment, his reaction was a very nice little ego boost.

His hands settled gently against your back, fingers curling over your shoulders. "If I use too much pressure or there's pain, tell me right away. Is there anything I should definitely avoid?"

"Can't raise the arm like I should" –you gave a roll of your left shoulder– "but it's already much better than it was."

"Copy that, no raising the arm. Anything else?"

No matter how battered and bruised you felt, there was no way you were going to miss this. "I'll let you know," you promised.

"Okay," he said and his hands glided up to your neck, then out, following the lines of the trapezius on both sides. The heels of his palms followed your spine down in a feathery touch, then spread out along your lats like he was smoothing wrinkles out of them before skimming down your obliques to your hips.

He returned to your shoulders again and very, very carefully kneaded into the tightness there. You did your best not to flinch when he hit a particularly sore spot but he jerked back as if you'd screamed.

"It's fine," you said quickly, afraid he was about to end up perched on the back of the couch like a very large, traumatized cat. "This is the only way to get rid of it. Just got to work it out."

His hands settled cautiously on your shoulders once more.

"You're doing great," you assured him, patting his knees on either side of you encouragingly, and his thumbs drew circles over the painful places as if he were trying not to fracture a thin sheet of glass.

The knots relaxed and you exhaled in the closest thing to sheer bliss you'd experienced in a long while. The warmth and gentle pressure had you melting back into him, your head lolling a bit, your eyelids fluttering shut and—

The next thing you knew, you were waking up. "Oh come on, I didn't want to sleep through all the good parts," you mumbled.

John's chuckle rumbled beneath your ear. He had pulled you back onto his lap on your right side, cradled comfortably against his chest. One hand was gently rubbing your back while the other covered the hand you had fisted into his shirt.

"I'm going to take this as a compliment to my therapeutic massage skills," he said.

"And you absolutely should." You raised your head to look at him. "Maybe next time I can even stay conscious long enough to really appreciate said skills. If there is, you know, a next time."

"There will most definitely be a next time," he swore and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

"I still owe you a proper back scratching."

"And I am absolutely going to collect on that," he returned, his tone unexpectedly husky.

You smiled, straightening up to kiss him. He pulled you closer, then paused and sighed against your mouth.

"I've got to go," he said resolutely right before his wristband chirped.

You looked for a way to roll off of him that wouldn't aggravate your shoulder – or potentially crush any of his, ahem, important Spartan equipment – but he scooped you up bridal style and stood as if you weighed nothing at all.

"I'll meet you for dinner if we're back soon enough," he promised and gave you one more tender kiss then placed you onto the couch. Before he went through the door, he paused, looking back like he was memorizing this moment, then he took a breath and was gone.

It was nearly dinner time when the door chime rang and you went to answer it with as much of a hopeful spring in your step as you could manage. However, this time, it wasn't John holding a tray with your evening meal on it.

"Dr. Keyes," you said in surprise, snapping a salute.

She said your rank and last name. "May I come in? We need to talk."

[piarelei]

hi, would you be able to write a Cymav fic for me? Rated T or G. Maybe Cyclone is really stressed and ends up going to The Hard Deck, Maverick finds him there and they end up going home together. The main thing I want is Mav comforting Cyclone and helping him find a way to relax. Thank you

Hello, I did a lil something, not sure how satisfying it is to you. I'm not really used to this dynamic and this was incredibly interesting. I had a lot of fun, thank you! Not beta-ed, sorry, we die like Goose.

Cyclone would not use reckless as an adjective to define himself, but he feels positively so when he lets Maverick take the seat across from him. A self-satisfied Maverick is a dangerous one and Maverick looks like the cat who got the cream.

“Go away, Mitchell,” Cyclone says, reflexively.

Maverick flashes a smile and puts his sweating beer on the table, ignoring the perfectly serviceable coster a few inches from it. Cyclone sighs and flicks it towards him. It has the unfortunate effect of reading as an invitation.

“What’s up?” Maverick asks, sprawling on the back of his chair. He looks good, relaxed and happy. Life after death and all that crap.

“Is that how you speak to your superior?”

Maverick snorts. “As of…” He looks down at his wristwatch. “Two days and three hours ago, I officially retired. I don’t really answer to you.”

Cyclone huffs a bitter laugh. “Have you ever answered to me?”

Maverick shrugs. “Well, orders are orders.”

Cyclone sips at his whiskey sour instead of answering.

“Well, seriously,” Maverick pushed on. “What’s up?”

“Have you never had a bad day?”

Maverick hums. “Sure did. Plenty. But I usually didn’t make it better by having a drink by my lonesome in the bar where the people who have turned my day to shit also go drink away their sorrows.”

Cyclone presses his lips together. He concedes the point. “What do you prescribe then, doctor?” he answers, bitterness flooding between his teeth.

“Pack it up and find someone to show you a good time,” Maverick says with a smug grin, leaning forward conspiratorially.

Cyclone wrinkles his nose. “Is that you offering?” It’s only half a joke and he almost regrets it as he says it.

In response, he feels the press of Maverick’s boot against his ankle. “Is that you taking me up on it?”

Cyclone’s body goes taunt, a little with apprehension, a little with want. Breathing is a conscious effort.

He looks toward the bar, where Penny Benjamin is cracking jokes with her regulars. Cyclone swallows back on his own desire and turns judgmental eyes to Maverick.

“In your girlfriend’s bar, really?”

Maverick cracks a smile like Cyclone is a very prolific comedian. “Penny is a very good friend, but she’s no girlfriend of mine, no sir.”

When Cyclone doesn't find an answer fast enough, Maverick mellows and reaches out, touching two fingers to the white-knuckle grip that Cyclone has around his glass. “We don’t have to, but I would really like to take you home.”

He had heard the stories of Maverick’s very long string of girlfriends and had never understood how good looks could pull so many women into one’s bed. He gets it now. It’s not just good looks. The depth of his eyes where dances something caring and wild is a powerful seduction tool.

Cyclone pulls away, pretending to take another swallow. Then a second. Then a third. Until he sits there, with ice burning his lips. He has very little time to make a decision and he is afraid that it’s already all made.

He lets his glass thunk on the table and looks straight at Maverick. He pulls all of the authority he has amassed in his body, which has already given him the reputation of a hardass, and does his best to appear collected.

“You’ve taken you bike here, correct?” He waits for Maverick to nod, a playful purse to his lips. “You’ll follow me, then. These are your orders.”

Maverick rises from his seat. “After you, sir.”

Hope you liked it! My inbox is still open for suggestions, I'm not a regular to Cymav but this was a really nice time. If you have any Icemav, Hangster, (dare I say Cymav if this was not a complete disaster) literally anything you wanna read, send me a prompt.

[aziraphales-library]

Hey! Hope you’re having an amazing week!

I was wondering if you could recommend some kissing fics? That’s literally it haha, just a few fics featuring our favorite boys being in love and having a make out session.

Any ratings are fine with me!

Thank you!

Hi! You can check our #kissing tag for fics like this. Here are some more to add to the collection...

The Right Words by Justanothernerdsstuff (G)

Eventually, Aziraphale was able to find words. “You’re standing in the rain,” Not the right words, but something.

Crowley laughed in disbelief. “Yeah, angel. I am,” He ran his hand through his soaked hair.

Crowley shows up at the bookshop, and can't keep his feelings quiet any longer.

and as we kissed and said goodnight by decafrose (T)

“I just…well, I never quite got around to it,” Aziraphale said. “Is it nice?”

“I mean, sure. Yeah. S’fine.” Crowley shrugged. “Kind of exactly what you’d expect from putting your mouth on someone else’s. Depends on who it’s with, though, sometimes that makes all the difference.”

“Ah. Yes, I see how that would change things.”

Should I Write Us A Love Song, My Dear by animeangelriku (M)

Aziraphale loves kissing Crowley, and he will never tire of kissing Crowley, and he will keep saying so and kissing Crowley for as long as Crowley allows him to, and that’s that.

Crowley makes the sweetest sound when Aziraphale catches his tongue with the tiniest of nips, a devious, pleased smirk twisting the corner of his lips on their next kiss, a gesture that Aziraphale feels down to his bones, to his essence, to the very core of him, where Crowley has made his home.

The Kiss That Was No Oyster’s Fault by SeedsOfWinter (T)

What if Aziraphale and Crowley throughout the ages, but a first kiss of some kind always happens?

In Rome, Aziraphale and Crowley have time on their hands and oysters on their plates...

———

All the taverns in all the cities in all of Creation, and the demon slithered into Aziraphale’s.

There was no mistaking Crowley. All mourning black wrapped and hellfire haired, slouching towards inebriation, there could be no other. There never would be.

blow him a kiss (and you're mad) by orphan_account (T)

Crawly was gazing at Aziraphale with an untranslatable look on his face. His tongue darted out for a second, and his eyes flicked down to Aziraphale's lips.

So there was the translation.

OR

5 times Crowley and Aziraphale almost kissed and 1 time it finally happened.

did you ever fall in love (did you ever dream of falling?) by Imagined (T)

Crowley slides into the comfortable leather seat of the Bentley, the door falling shut behind him. The metallic thud is not enough to get him out of his stupor. He grasps the steering wheel and looks back to the bookshop, inhabiting one angel who - who just kissed a demon. Kissed him. Aziraphale kissed him.

“What the fuck?” he says to himself, and it takes him a full minute to remember that he has to start the car if he wants it to go. Even then, he just stares straight ahead, mouthing ‘what the fuck’ to himself a few more times.

The Bentley takes pity on him, and just drives itself home.

Or:

Five times Aziraphale kisses Crowley after the Armaggedidn't, and one time Crowley finally takes the hint and kisses Aziraphale back.

- Mod D

[anisecandy]

Why won't you listen

Chapter 1

(continuation of the "Why won't you just take your time" and "Why won’t you just go one step at a time?")

Summary: After Peter’s efforts to learn more about his partners lead to a big quarrel, Eddie and the Symbiote learn some new things about themselves as well.

Rating: T

Words count: 5,242

Genre: Developing Relationship

Parings: Peter Parker/Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote, Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote

Author's note:

So, two things.

1. You know, I initially wrote this just for myself, with no intention of posting it. I simply wanted to explore a kink I found interesting. But then a mutual of mine mentioned posting a fic with foot fetish annnd I kind of felt less embarrassed of what I wanted to write about here. But that meant I had to scrape... 90% of what I already wrote? Since it was good enough for myself, but way too ooc for anybody else. While changing the concept and polishing it... I ended up with a piece that was way more serious than I planned. So I decided to split it into two chapters! The first is like PG-13, and explores character dynamics. The second is still being written, but is gonna be just kink lol. So the tags and the rating WILL change! But I'm really happy with how that first part turned out and as such I wanted more people to be able to read it ^^

2. The previous works in this series are sort of, therapeutic guilty pleasure for me. "I wish people talked to each other more!!" kind of fics. And I like that about them! But with this one, I tried to do my best to keep the canon level of the characters emotional intelligence, ability to communicate, etc. Which means they act differently than in previous parts! I wrote those like- A year ago...? So I think I understand Eddie and Peter, and, of course Symby, more now!

Link to the work on ao3

“We’re not doing this,” Eddie said for what seemed like the hundredth time and Peter could feel himself losing patience.

"Look, if you're uncomfortable-"

"With the fact that you need exposure therapy to get accustomed to our visage?" The corner of Eddie's mouth twitched. "Maybe a little."

Peter couldn't help but scowl at those words. He crossed his arms.

"Well that's not exactly my fault, is it."

The way Eddie cringed made him feel a bit guilty, but he was in the right here. Which was why it was so frustrating how reluctant his partner(s) was acting right now. Especially since the previous instance of, how he put it, "exposure therapy" was his own idea.

"Why are you being so difficult about this?" He huffed.

Eddie made a face.

"Let us ask you a better question; why did you bring your whole lab to our bedroom?" He pointed accusingly to hills of messy bed sheets, between which shined glass and metal of the instruments Peter set up. There were only six of them, hardly varanting such theatrical descriptions.

"Oh, would you stop that, you melodramatic baby," Peter rolled his eyes. "You can't tell me you're scared of a pair of gloves and a magnifying glass."

"What about those little doohickeys?"

A set of tweezers, syringes and a laboratory scalpel was shoved into his face. Eddie held them like damning evidence, with a look of utter dismay.

"That's for a better examination," he replied smoothly.

"Exami-" Eddie eyed the sharp surgical steel with disbelief. “So you have gotten bored of dissecting frogs with kids and decided to cut us up instead?"

"Of course not," Peter scoffed. "Neither of those is any more dangerous than a spatula at a dentist's office."

As much as Peter would like this to close the discussion, Eddie didn't seem a shard less defensive than he was seconds ago. The way he glared at the tools, you'd think one of them spit on his mother's grave. He threw them back on the bed, sending one of the scalpels flying. Peter's arm shot to catch it on instinct, before it fell to the floor, but his eyes stayed still. Eddie returned his annoyed gaze with an unyielding stare of his own.

"You will put those things back where you got them from and we won't be talking about it anymore," he said eventually, before getting up with the intention of walking away from any further arguments.

A groan left Peter's mouth, as he dragged a hand over his face.

"Come on, it's not like I'm intending to-" he mimicked pulling on gloves and poking around in a pile of gore, dr. Frankenstein's style. "I just want to learn more about you guys!"

"Then invite us for coffee," Eddie snarled over his shoulder. "We're free on friday."

At this point, Peter started to believe he was doing it on purpose, just to spite him. Wouldn't be the first time.

"You know that's not what I mean!"

The only response he got was the click of the lock closing in the frame. His teeth gritted as he chewed on a few choices of adjectives. In the end though, he only let out a huff. Then he stood up and followed through the door.

He found Eddie in the living room, picking up his bag, all but ready to head home. He grabbed one of the handles, before he could turn toward the exit.

"Why are you so against it?"

"Why are you so up for it?" Eddie's eyebrows raised on his forehead in an unimpressed manner.

"I swear to- I want to just do more of what we did last week!" Exasperation couldn't be more apparent in his voice if he tried, as he spread his arms. "Okay? That's it. That's literally it, just minus the sex part. Look-" He paused, to get back his composure. Maybe they were just having a miscommunication happening. Maybe Eddie was just getting something wrong and not being a contrarian for the heck of it. "When we... Sort of broke the transformation in steps and I could like... Understand some things better. Take a closer look at them. That helped, okay? I just want things to work for us. Between us"

Contrary to what he expected, or rather, hoped for, this only seemed to anger Eddie even more. He bent down to properly face him, but his gaze was cold and teeth bared threateningly.

"Those aren't the same," he stated firmly.

"But they are."

"No, Peter," he stressed so much that the words seemed to scratch his throat. "It's nothing alike. That and agreeing to be a specimen for you couldn't be further apart."

"You're not-"

Peter almost choked, as his breath froze in a hard lump just over his lungs. He gaped at them, seeking to see if Eddie, if they actually meant to say this. The ice in his eyes left little room for guessing.

"You're not a specimen," he finished softly. "You're my partners."

"Oh, so you ask all your dates for blood samples?"

The tone of Eddie's voice contrasted sharply against his. It was like a knife to the conversation and Peter found himself glancing away, in spite of himself.

"Thought so," Eddie remarked bitterly, driving the point all the way.

One pull was enough to free his bag from Peter's hand. The grip he held on it before turned incidental at best, making the action closer to untangling it from a branch than fighting a person. Once his fingers were no longer hooked over the fabric, his arms fell listlessly.

And when Eddie turned around and left, he let him.

They avoided Peter for the next few days. If Eddie could have his way, it would be even longer. No matter the excuses his Other provided for Peter's behavior, he found himself rejecting each one. Still, the wednesday after their quarrel (Although, Eddie thought bitterly, it wasn't really "quarreling" as much as one of the sides blatantly disregarding personhood of the other side) they almost ran into him during a night stroll over the rooftops. It wasn't much of a coincidence - the paths of their routines were planned with the intention of staying out of each others' ways most of the time. Their styles of helping people and dealing with the criminals didn't mesh well, to say the least. Even so, there were a few crossing points between them. Just enough to occasionally check on the other, maybe once or twice a week, to ask about the night, exchange iloveyous and a couple of kisses. They took this route so many times that Eddie didn't even register that they were heading to one of the crossings out of habit, until he saw the burning red of Peter's costume less than hundred feet away.

The moment he realized his mistake, he flattened themselves against the wall, hoping the other man didn't see them approach. As the Symbiote began to change colors to blend in with the shadows spreaded among the tenement houses, he let out a quiet hiss.

"I can't believe I was this distracted..." He mumbled and clicked his tongue. "Why didn't you stop us from coming here?"

Hoped to see Peter.

"Well, I did not. I don't want to see him, until he'll apologize to us."

How? Would have to talk for that, first.

"He has a phone," Eddie grumbled.

They both knew Peter wrote over twenty messages asking them to meet up.

Not that it had any bearing on Eddie’s thoughts on the matter.

Unaware of the dispute happening right under his nose, Peter stayed mostly motionless on the roof. He didn’t appear too focused tonight, sitting with his legs casually dangling over the edge instead of his usual crouched down position, allowing him to quickly sprout into the action. A more attentive glance discovered that he even had a thermos standing right beside him. When he reached to drink from it, a cloud of steam escaped from under the cap. Nothing unusual, considering that November was approaching fast. Nonetheless, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he probably planned to stay in this spot for a longer while.

Seems to be waiting.

"For what? The reckoning?" Eddie hissed grumpily.

Place of meetings, the Symbiote stirred, reminding him. When he didn't react (not counting an eye roll), it gently nudged at his heart. Let's go to him.

"Why?"

Let's talk. Peter's here to talk.

"As if!" He scoffed, ostentatiously looking away.

His first thought was to immediately leave, to which the Symbiote intensely protested. He didn't reply to its insistence. It already knew his stance on the matter well enough. With little hesitation, he got ready to leave, just when a high pitched scream cut through the muffled sounds of the nightlife.

Peter's head jerked up as if tugged by an invisible wire. In a heartbeat he launched himself into the river of lights, circulating under his feet. Their eyes followed him to a point, but he disappeared out of their line of sight the moment they blinked. They stared at the corner store by which it happened for a few seconds, before Eddie turned away.

"Looks like we won't be talking to him either way," he said, seemingly lightly.

The Symbiote was like a small, barely felt tide over his skin. Despite its mellow nature, to his slight surprise he recognized determination in its movements.

Will be back, it said without a trace of doubt.

He wrinkled his nose at it, before glancing back in the corner store's direction.

"Unlikely," he assessed. "Now  that a crime has happened, he'll surely relocate, or even go home."

Will be back.

"For the thermos, maybe."

Will resume waiting. Wants to meet.

"He's probably here by chance," he insisted. "I guarantee you, if he'll return here, he'll get moving right away."

But he didn't.

Just like the Symbiote foresighted, Peter soon perched back down by his abandoned drink. He shook his right hand a few times, cracked his fingers and stretched, but that was all the "moving"  he appeared to have planned for the closest future, slumping slightly in his seat. After a minute or so, he even started humming.

The two of them observed him from the shadows. Eventually, the Symbiote chimed in.

Will go talk now, right?

That pulled on the strings of Eddie's contrarian nature, making him carefully slide down the wall, with the intention to quietly disappear into the night. But the moment he shot a line of webbing at the nearest building and jumped, following its pull, the web started to melt. With eyes wide and a feeling of betrayal ringing in his chest, he crashed on the balcony below.

The loud thud of body hitting the concrete obviously reached Peter's ears, and he jumped up to a low crouch, scanning his surroundings and ready to pounce into the action. His eyes reached them the moment the Symbiote decided to abandon their camouflage. No honor among super villains. How typical. As soon as he saw their bulky silhouette ungracefully spreaded over the floor, the tension left his shoulders. If it wasn't for the mask he pulled down as soon as he suspected danger, he would be probably sending them now one of his most obnoxious grins.

"Gee, I wanted to ask if it hurt when you fell from heaven, but damn, this looks like one mighty crash," he said cheerfully.

"Oh can it, will you," Eddie grouched, scrambling to his feet.

For a few seconds he stood undecided. He still wasn't in the mood to deal with Peter's overall callousness, not to mention that his Other's treachery left him quite bitter.  It was on its behalf that he was angry, and yet... To think that it was so eager to let Peter treat it (both of them) like a curious experiment (to put under a microscope, to test, to prod with needles, to cut up and-).

Peter wouldn't do that...

Despite its words, he could sense hesitation revibrating through its tentacles wrapped around his brain. It was hope rather than certainty and he was baffled that it offered him even that much. Because Peter... Peter was many things. A hero — sure, by a certain definition. Their lover, as of late. Most importantly though, for the time being, a scientist. And they didn't trust scientists one bit.

Peter was still watching them, seemingly nonchalant  but vigilant; his arms hanging propped by elbows on his knees. But they knew him well enough to notice the strain in his back and legs. He didn't know what to do either. It was a little funny to think of. He probably waited here for a few hours already. And through all this time, he didn't figure out what to start with.

Maybe that was why eventually Eddie just let out an angry sigh and climbed the wall, to reluctantly sit beside him. Many things, right, but in the end, this was Peter, first and foremost.

Well, that and the fact that he would have felt as if he was running away if they left now. And that just wouldn't do.

"Want some soup?" Peter asked after a minute or so of over-stretched silence , ready to snap.

"So now you're not only providing the adventurous thiefs with clothing, but with food as well?" Eddie tilted their head to the right, letting their tongue fully roll out. "Truly, Spider, your generosity must know no bounds."

The other man shrugged, pouring a portion into the cup anyway, despite receiving no answer.

"I don't always take a thermos with me. I mean, usually I'm on the move, so the cold doesn't get to me, but yesterday my butt nearly froze to the roof, so... Yeah."

They could tell Peter wanted them to ask if he was waiting here yesterday as well. For how long, preferably. If they threw in a few "oh"s and "aw"s regarding the replies, of course accompanied by a look saying "poor you! you've endured for us so much! you're so poor, and sweet and everything else doesn't matter and is in the past!", then he'd probably feel as if everything was right in the world again.

He and Peter couldn't be more different, but the similarities they did share were some of the most annoying traits a human being could possibly have. Not that Eddie ever allowed himself to consciously acknowledge that.

The cap hung in the air, filling it with a steady stream of deliciously smelling steam. Venom eyed it with an unreadable expression. Taking it would mean, while maybe not straight up accepting an olive branch, at the very least willingness to do so, additionally on Peter's terms. The Symbiote wished to reach for it. Eddie would rather eat his own journalist notepad.

"One of Aunt May's best works," Peter almost sang the "o", shifting the weight of the cap in his hand and making the soup shimmer appetizingly.

Well, damn it.

Without a word(or eye-contact), they took the offered food. Again, they could sense Peter was smiling. They took a sip.

"...And here we were, beginning to think your words could actually be trusted," they said under their breath.

Peter raised up his arms defensively.

"Hold on there, I've never specify if I meant she cooked it... Or provided the recipe." The murderous look they sent him only made him laugh. "Come on, it's still pretty good, no?"

"It's...," A grimace formed on their face, but in the end Eddie couldn't find it in himself to lie. "Serviceable."

Another moment passed between them in silence. The Symbiote creeped down Eddie's face, allowing them to blow at the hot soup. While their (Eddie's) eyes stayed fixed on the cap, the whirling biomass "glanced" at Peter. He pulled the mask up for drinking, but the upper half of his face was still obscured, making it impossible to know if he was glancing their way too.

After a few more minutes filled with nothing but the sounds of the city flowing under their feet, Peter cleared his throat. His fingers drummed over the metal of thermos. The hollow sound vibrating through it made the Symbiote tense. Even after all this time, it still stayed a bit wary about the noises reminding it of the chiming bells.

“A pretty calm night we’re having, eh?” Peter prompted carefreely, as if he managed to drain the nervousness off his voice and magazine all of it in his restless hands.

They just stared at him, until he shifted uncomfortably in his place and sat the thermos down, to further wiggle his fingers.

“Right,” he mumbled, before letting out a sigh. “Right.” He put his hands into a small pyramid, tapping its top against his chin, as he rocked slightly back and forth. “Look… I… Well. I didn’t think you would treat my suggestion this seriously. And… get this upset.”

Eddie’s lips stretched down, exposing teeth. The strands of symbiote surrounding his neck like a collar began to draw up, billowing anxiously.

“Is this an exordium to an apology?” Eddie asked sharply.

“A wh-? Well, I guess-”

“Because if so,” he cut him off with a glare. “Then we’d advise you to start over, as this is the worst one we’ve had the displeasure of ever hearing.”

At the very last, they got his full attention. Peter's head snapped to face them. The  yellow street lights reached the bottom of the eyes of his mask. Despite all reason, the color didn't seem warm at all, after resting on their mirror-like surface.

“What do you want me to do?” The irritation, previously pushed to the back, now started to bleed through, saturating his voice with a much more familiar hue.

“Well, what do you think?”

“I don’t know! That's why I'm asking!”

“Oh, you don’t?" Eddie's eyes narrowed, and he leaned into Peter's personal space, ultimately breaking the balance keeping the moment from falling into another fighting ring. "Then why won’t you cut a piece of us and put it under a microscope, hm? After all, that’d be the best way to understand us, no?”

Since the bottom of Peter's maska was resting on  his nose bridge, they could see how his lips pressed into an almost white line, to the sound of teeth grinding against each other. 

“For the- I’ve already said I’m sorry!”

“No, no you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did!”

“All you said was that we’re over-sensitive.”

“I don’t- that’s not what I meant.”

“No?”

“No! I-" Peter paused, to take a deep breath. He rested his palms down, and gripped the edge of the roof, bending down, as if in hope that swallowing the coldness of the night would cool him down. "Just. I’m sorry if you think what I said was… I don’t know, hurtful, alright?”

Hearing those words, the Symbiote let go of Eddie's lungs, to which it was clinging up until now and landed in a pile below his stomach. It bubbled up a little in relief.

Apologized. Okay now, no?

But apparently it was alone in its feelings.

"Hurtful, he says," Eddie let out a curt laugh, startling it. "If isn't that an amusing way to put it." His eyes, when he turned toward Peter were anything but amused. "Just tell it to us straight. You think we're over-reacting."

Eddie! Apologized! No need for this!

Its protests had as much influence on the ongoing scene as the wind blowing over the empty roofs. 

"I," Peter forced through clenched teeth, "really don't feel like doing this tonight."

"Do you think we're over-reacting, Peter?" Eddie repeated, placing every word as if he was slamming steel font into paper.

"Maybe I do!" Peter finally snapped. "Maybe I do, in fact, think you're blowing things out of proportion, maybe I do think it's absurd that you're acting as if I want to vivisect you, maybe I am a bit upset that you've been ignoring me and acting as if I did something absolutely unforgivable, when I just asked to take some samples! Yeah, maybe I do!"

When he finished around his fingertips, digging into the cement like curled talons, spread a web of cracks. But Eddie didn't even notice that. He was glaring at Peter with eyes like icicles, and an expression just as cold.

"Unbelievable," he hissed through clenched teeth.

Not giving Peter the time to react, he got up, towering over him like a gigantic gargoyle.

"That's your takeaway? We don't agree to your every whim so suddenly we're the bad guy here?"

"It's not some whim!" Peter almost growled as he jumped to his feet as well. "Sometimes- Sometimes you're insufferable! Did it ever," he stabbed his finger into their chest, "ever, crossed your mind to, I don't know, look at things from other person's point of view?! To maybe consider you're just being selfish?!"

"Oh, so we're the selfish ones?!"

"Well, I wasn't ghosting you for three days, for the immense crime of trying to find any way to make this goddamn mishegas work!" he yelled, throwing his arms to the sides.

"Listen here, you self-entitled brat-!"

But before he could finish, the mass of tendrils up until now nervously flailing around his neck exploded like a geyser, enveloping his head in a tight hood. Peter's mouth opened in a gasp, but he didn't manage to utter even a word, before a tentacle glued it shut as well.

 While Eddie pulled at the plasma stuck to his face, it split open, forming a maw going from one of his shoulders to the other. Peter stumbled back, almost falling. Only when the tentacle left his mouth, and the Symbiote streamed down, exposing the offended eyes of Eddie, did he calmed down.

"No more shouting," the alien quietly hissed. "Don't like shouting. Please?"

Eddie scowled, crossing his arms. Peter swallowed hard.

"Uh- Yeah, right, sorry about that," he mumbled, sounding a little taken aback.

"Don't like being hurt."

Peter's lips formed into an "o".

"Ah damn, did we really get this loud? Then, I'm really sorry. Didn't mean to- lose my temper this much." He cleared his throat, rubbing his hands stiffly.

With an unhappy grunt, Eddie's head swung side to side, strung along by his Other.

Its tentacles rested in a comforting manner over Eddie's head, simultaneously wrapping around his hands as well. It wasn't often that it took over the body they shared - but it could feel anger coursing through Eddie's veins and making his heart beat like a war drum. Talking in a state like this, which it could sense Peter sharing too, was bound to only make things worse. And it didn't want to meet with Peter only to further the rift the quarrel was forming between them. It curled inward a bit. It much preferred going along with the current formed by its host's will. When it pushed Eddie into facing Peter, it hoped he would make up with him without any further input of its own. One of its tentacles dripped down his face, caressing his rough features with tenderness and the slightest bit of exasperation.

It loved both of them. But it started to occur to it, that sometimes they acted rather... Stubbornly. Absolutely refusing to engage with each other in an actually productive manner. Which meant, that it probably should eventually start getting involved more. Even if it would prefer not to.

Speaking and acting for itself... Was hard.

Still, it had to at least try.

Peter can't read our mind, it shimmered inward. Humans can't read thoughts.

Eddie tensed and puffed up, taking on a pose of absolute offense and indignation. It petted his head once more.

"Don't like needles. Don't like being cut," the Symbiote said softly.

Letting out a sigh, Peter ran a hand down his face. When he spoke, his voice almost cracked, trying to close the gates on the flooding frustration. He seemed to intend to sound reassuring. What he came off as, brought to the mind a doctor at the end of his shift, explaining to a little kid that the bitter syrup he's prescribing them is absolutely not going to turn their tummy into a swamp.

"Jelly... You know that I would never hurt you. Come on, don't you trust me?"

The Symbiote hesitated, while choosing its next words. Eventually, it pulled its wide maw into just a small opening, before nearly whispering;

"Said don't want to be a specimen. But Peter wants to make us into it anyway"

And with those words, the tiny mouth sank back into its mass. Soon after it followed the collar of tentacles, previously stopping Eddie from interrupting it. He made an exaggerated grimace, and wiped his lips theatrically.

"I would much appreciate it if you didn't do that again," he huffed, receiving no answer.

His Other spread in curls along his organs, too nervous after speaking up to reply verbally. Instead it pushed forward an impression of a clarinet making tiny doots beside a massive, booming tuba. After that it went completely silent.

"That's not true," Eddie scoffed. 

He didn't really listen for an answer though. Instead, his eyes wandered to the side, stealing a peak at Peter, who was now sitting slouched. His hands hung like tied in a knot, occasionally jerking up in the beginning of a gesture, before collapsing back down. He seemed to be in quite the conundrum. Which, in a way, was a promising sight and Eddie found himself curious as to what his response to his Other would ultimately be.

"...But I really wouldn't hurt you."

"Oh, you can't be serious!"

All the dimming agitation that was smoldering in his chest arose with twice the strength. And then, they fell, turning into a hissing bundle of tired frustration.

"All I'm saying is just that-" Peter attempted once more, but he silenced him with a gesture.

"That's enough." He crossed his arms, feeling the claws dig a little deeper than they usually would. "I- We just can't do this right now."

The breath they took did little to soothe their nerves. But maybe something like a hot shower would. And a bucket of chocolate ice cream. They turned away, about to jump off the roof. It looked like it was going to be a relatively peaceful night. They might as well spend the rest of it inside.

"Eddie! We're not done talking!" Peter shouted after them.

"We are."

From behind they could hear an annoyed groan that they didn't bother to respond to. While they walked away, their face shifted to sharp fangs and blank eyes. They didn't even look back - and maybe they should have, because before they could put a foot over the edge, they got tugged right back by a strand of web. With a muffled curse between their teeth, Eddie sent a sharp glare over their shoulder. His patience was running thin. If this was to keep on going, he would- He would have to stop themselves from doing something they would regret later. And he would stop themselves. But the longer he could feel the hollow mirrors over themselves, the harder it was going to be.

"Peter," he drawled out. "We're going to say this one more time. We're done. Please. While we're still civil."

They snapped the webline off. Peter didn't send another, but he made a step toward them. Eddie grit their teeth.

"Pe-"

"But this is important!"

The sincerity they didn't expect to resonate through his voice threw them off balance. For a moment, they froze. Peter dragged a hand down his face and then up it, pulling the mask with it. The eyes it exposed looked... Lost. He opened his mouth, taking in a breath, but the words he hoped to say didn't make it past his lips, tripping somewhere along the way and crushing down with a choked sigh. Eventually, he pressed his palms into his eyes, rubbing hard with another groan that grew into a full-on rant of muffled gibberish.

"I want this to work," he forced out finally, looking between his fingers. "This... THIS," he accentuated, pointing to the ground, "Is me trying to make it work. Okay? That's- there's no other motives attached to it. I'm trying to make this work. That's all."

Their heart clenched. Eddie wasn't sure if it was because the Symbiote grabbed onto it or... For some other reason. Maybe both. 

For a while, Peter rocked on his heels. As always, his hands were restless, like two separate beings, perhaps, fittingly, a pair of spiders scattering around in twitching spurts. Eventually, one of said spurts sent them to their hands, landing onto them with all the anxiety and all the hope of a crashfall.

"You scare me,” he said, running his thumb over the inches of their claws. “I wish we could be over it, but we're not. Like this... Sometimes I'm still scared of you. But- But if you'd let me- If I could understand you, I know that would help. I know it."

"That's not what we're against," they quietly responded.

"Then what?"

"The -” Eddie squeezed their eyelids shut, overtaken by pure frustration. “Jesus. Peter, it's not that hard to understand!"

"Then explain it to me!” Peter let go of their hand, spreading his arms. “If it's so obvious, explain it to me!"

In this moment, Eddie just really wanted to grab his head between their claws and yell directly into his face, letter by letter enucleating how much of a block headed moron he was being. He didn’t do that. But what he shouted was dripping with the need and intention of it.

 "The scalpels, Peter! The syringes, the microscopes-! Turning into a- another science project of yours, treating us like a freak to research and experiment on!"

"How else am I supposed to learn about you then?!" Peter screamed back, matching their exasperation to the t.

"Just be with us!" They grabbed Peter's hand, despite the fact he flinched away the moment they approached, and pressed it against their chest, against their heart.  "Look at us! Touch us! That's what we are. " Their voice grew soft and almost begging. Like a plea for Peter to not take his hand away. To meet their eyes and at least try to seek for the humanity in them, even if he was failing to see it. "This." They squeezed his hand. "Not some cells under a microscope. This."

For a while, Peter stood with his head hanging low. He stared at his palm, right beside the head of the white spider symbol. At the tendrils gently reaching up from it, growing past his wrist, past the elbow, to rest on his cheek. His breath hitched. He didn't look up.

But he didn't back away either.

"...okay."

It was uncertain, and rough, and quiet. They almost didn't hear it, as he leaned forward, resting his forehead at the center of their chest. His arms trembled a bit, when he reached up and then even more, when he dug them deep into the Symbiote.

"Okay."

The kiss that came afterward was both the most natural thing and the most possibility awkward. It was their worst yet, probably. Their mouths didn't fit together like that; not when it came to the kisses that were sweet and tender, anyway. It was nice, though. In its own way. And maybe that could be enough of a start.

[noxsoulmate]

💞⚾ Noxy’s Tarlos Baseball Fic ⚾💞

Ship: Tarlos | Fandom: 911 Lone Star | Author: noxsoulmate | Read on ao3

Chapter: 1/2 | Word Count: 5390 | Rating: Explicit | Warnings/Tags: baseball, valentine's day, different first meeting, meet-cute, running into each other, coffee shops, farmers market, night clubs, hook-up, baseball player TK, baseball player Carlos, rivals, Red vs Blue (but not the episode), banter, sexual innuendos, flirting, teasing, basically Tarlos uses the baseball game as foreplay, and they don't hide it, implied sexual content, but TK has a dirty mind so the rating is explicit, making out, strangers to lovers, love at first sight | Art made by me

Summary:

The moment he spots him, he freezes. For just a tiny second, he wonders if all his thoughts of Carlos have summoned him. And then he takes in the man as a whole, attire and all – and his mind goes blank. Because Carlos is wearing a jersey as well. And it’s blue. Carlos is wearing the blue jersey… of APD.

~*~

Meet cutes are only meant for rom coms, right? So why is it that TK has a total of four of them with the same stranger in just one day? Besides, Valentine’s weekend is certainly not the right time for him to have his head in cloud nine – not when the annual Baseball game between Fire and Police is on the line. Apparently, Police hasn't lost in years thanks to their pitcher. But now Fire has TK on their team – a paramedic who had a chance to play in the major leagues...

This fic is finished, chapter two will be posted tomorrow.

The biggest, biggest thanks goes out to the amazing @lightningboltreader and @bonheur-cafe. These two spent the past few weeks explaining an American game that seems to have no rules to a European who had zero knowledge about it - and they did it in a way that said European was able to write a fic about it. I bow to you two! They also helped plot out every step of the game - Char, Dalawa, this fic truly wouldn't exist without your help, and for once, that's not just a phrase 😂

💞⚾ Read Chapter 1 on ao3 ⚾💞

Sneak peek under the cut:

TK knows better than to check his phone while walking. He actually has been dispatched to scenarios in which walking while looking at the phone had ended in tragedy in one way or another. So clearly, he should know better.

But that doesn’t stop him from answering Nancy’s text while he’s in the middle of the supermarket, walking along the cereal aisle. The moment he hits send, he’s reminded just why it is so bad to not look where you’re going.

The only thing he really registers is that he smacks into something solid, losing the grip on the few groceries wedged into his arm – because who needs a shopping cart or basket, right? Apparently, he does because right away, everything tumbles to the floor; the oranges roll away and for a split second, his heart stops when he fears the jar of honey will break, but it lands on the jug of milk first so the fall is softened, thankfully. The only thing he can catch is his phone – thank God – and with his heart pounding, an apology on his lips, he looks up.

Only to lose his breath again.

He’s staring into the warmest, softest brown eyes he has ever seen and while that should be a completely boring color for eyes, it certainly isn’t on this man. Those eyes are eyes he could stare into for days and still not get tired. And that isn’t even acknowledging the rest of this perfect face.

“I’m really sorry, are you alright?”

It takes TK a second to realize that the man just spoke – holy hell, what a voice – and he has to shake himself to get his head back online.

“No no, that was all my fault, I’m the one who’s sorry,” TK hastens to apologize before quickly kneeling down to pick up his stuff. The handsome stranger follows, crouching down to help with the oranges while TK starts rambling. “I was checking my phone. I know that’s something you shouldn’t do but my partner just messaged me and she sometimes gets impatient when it takes me too long to reply and I don’t want her to worry. She’s worried about me enough already and–” He looks up to see the man holding out another orange to him, a soft grin on his face. “Aaand I should stop talking. I’m sorry,” he adds one last time as he takes the last orange and stands back up.

Once again, the handsome man follows and for a second they stand and look at each other, frozen in the moment. Until TK remembers his manners.

“Are you okay? I ran right into you.”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me. Also, all of my groceries are safely in a cart,” he adds with a little grin, definitely teasing TK, who huffs out a laugh.

“I only have a few things, no need to bother with a cart.”

“If you say so.”

TK wants to reply – wants to stay and spend hours talking and teasing with this man – but right then, his phone pings with a new message. His eyes fall to the screen.

“Well, uhm, sorry again for crashing into you,” he says with a little smile. “I need to get going.”

“Careful though. No need to run into someone else.”

For a wild second, TK wonders if the man means this in a flirty way. For an even wilder second, he wonders if he should just take a leap of faith and ask for the man’s number – but then he remembers that he’s living in Texas now – has been for over a year, in fact – and that in this place, he can’t just hit on random strangers even when his gaydar tries to convince him it would be okay. The risk of hitting on someone who will take it the wrong way is just too high. So, accepting defeat and the fact that he can’t just ask a random stranger for his number because it would sound weird and crazy and be potentially risky, TK simply smiles and nods.

“I’ll try my best.”

The whole long way down the cereal aisle, TK forces himself not to look back, not even once, not even when his senses try to convince him that someone’s staring at his back the entire time.

💞⚾ Continue on ao3 ⚾💞

Written for the @tarlosweeklyprompts Valentine's Fic Exchange and my giftee @sugdenlovesdingle. The prompt was: TK and Carlos meeting via the police vs fire baseball game when they’re on opposing teams (bonus points for a grey’s anatomy-like thing where they hook up the night before without knowing who the other is and then seeing them at the game).

Dear SugdenLovesDingle, I'm really sorry you get your gift this late, Corona stole a whole month from me... I really hope the story will make up for the wait 💖 I loved your prompt so, so much! I've always wanted to write a coda for Red vs Blue - but this is even better. I'm a sucker for alternative first meetings, so this was just brilliant! I hope you like the little twist I put on your bonus points prompt - I just couldn't decide on the meet cute I wanted for them, so... I gave them all 😂

Bingo square used:

@mfbingo O3: Meet Cute

Noxy’s Tagging List: @chaotictarlos, @detective-giggles, @sgirl18,  @sapphire11, @bubblesandroses8, @firstprince-history-huh, @beautifulhigh, @rangergurlgleek1211, @shadesofdeviant, @otter-love-asl, @ramblingdisaster73, @first-kanaphan, @xtltokio, @lightningboltreader, @buckybarnesalways, @meditating-honey-badger, @mangacat201, @tarlossource

[whatstruthgottodowithit]

Title

Fandom: RPF, British RPF, Queen

Pairing: Roger Taylor x Reader

Characters: Roger Taylor, Brian May, John Deacon, Freddie Mercury, Reader, You

Word Count: 3139 // Rating: Teen & Up

Summary: I know you think I'm cool but I ain't one of the boys, No, don't be scared that I'm gon' tie you down, I need a little more

Tags/ Warnings: My Writing, Halloween Challenge, Writing Challenge, Songfics, Queen, Queen Band, Love, Friends To Lovers, Admitting Feelings, Hangover, Mild Swearing, Defining the Relationship, Hugging, Performing, Queen On Tour, Touring, Title // Meghan Trainor

Notes:  This is part of my writing Challenge for Halloween 2022. All fics are based off of songs I love. The aim is to write one fic a day for 15 days straight. I’m doing a similar thing for Christmas but they will all be headcanons [requests welcome for that] Enjoy x  

15 DAYS OF SONGFICS FOR HALLOWEEN (OCT 15TH - OCT 31ST)

The air was electric as the guys came off stage. The crowd was still screaming and clapping as they appeared around me each of them doused in sweat, congratulating one another on yet another successful show. As Freddie took the bottle of water I handed out to him and put it to his lips, chugging it down quickly, I offered Brian a towel so he could wipe his sweaty brow whilst the roadies took his and John’s guitars away from them.Then I held my hand out for Roger’s drumsticks and he handed them to me as he always did. 

‘What did you think?’ he asked as I took them out of his hand.  ‘Brilliant,’ I said with a smile. Since I was their personal assistant I had to be on the sidelines every night in case they needed anything. The bonus was that I was able to see them perform over and over again.  ‘I don’t know,’ Freddie said as we started to walk towards the dressing room.  ‘What Fred?’ Brian asked, his towel was wrapped around his neck now, though shrouded by the mass of black curls from above.  ‘I think I went a little pitchy in that last couple of songs,’ he said, ‘might be coming down with something.’ ‘Want me to pick you something up?’ I asked as we walked through the long narrow corridor that led us to a large dressing room. It wasn’t cosy. It was merely a room made of breezeblocks and a hard stone floor but the boys had made it their own despite only being there for a few hours. A large rack of eccentric outfits hung in the corner that was partitioned from the room by a thin curtain. A table stocked with all kinds of booze and glasses was in another corner and a couple of beat-up couches surrounded a coffee table full of snacks. 

‘No, it’s alright,’ Freddie said, ‘think I probably just need to rest a little.’ ‘So we’re not going out?’ Roger asked. He was standing by the mirror, now shirtless, running his fingers through his hair as he attempted to style it. Freddie flopped down onto one of the couches and sighed, ‘of course, we’re still going out.’ ‘What happened to resting?’ Brian said as he sat down opposite him. As Freddie and Brian started to discuss vocal rest Roger disappeared behind the curtain that separated the room from the ‘changing area’. Though as he disappeared I realised he had left his t-shirt on the dressing table. I had been hovering, perched on the arm of the couch so I stood up and wandered to the vanity, picking it up and slipping behind the curtain to where Roger was. He looked up as I entered, pulling the curtain back quietly, but then his focus went back to the pants he had been shimmying on. After a second or so he was just shirtless and I extended the t-shirt out to him which he took gratefully. Anyone else would blush or run out after seeing their boss half naked but my working life wasn’t exactly a normal one and over the past couple of months, Roger and I had fallen into something more than just friendship.

‘Hey,’ I said as I leaned against the wall, watching him.  ‘Hey,’ he said with a small smile.  ‘You played a good show today,’ I said. ‘Yeah it felt like a good one,’ he said as he slipped his t-shirt on. The chatter outside the curtains had gotten louder as more friends and family had come into the room and someone had put some music on and I could hear the sound of drinks being poured. So, feeling a little brave I pushed up off the wall and slid my arms around Roger’s waist. He smiled a little as I did but when I tried to lean up to kiss him he turned away. ‘People,’ he mumbled, pulling away from me. My arms dropped to my sides as embarrassment flooded through me. He looked away from me sheepishly though I doubted he was as embarrassed as I was at the rejection. Before I could beg for the ground to swallow me whole the curtain pulled back and John stood there, watching us. 

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t realise you were both in here.’ ‘Rog forgot his shirt,’ I said quickly. John nodded at the information though his gaze was laced with an air of suspicion, but before he could say anything else I slipped past him trying to ignore the heat in my cheeks. I took a seat next to Freddie and Roger came out a couple of seconds after me and slipped down onto the couch next to Brian, not meeting my gaze. Instead, he took a beer bottle off the table and cracked it open, chugging it down after a couple of seconds. 

My embarrassment quickly turned to irritation like it had been doing a lot recently. Roger and I weren’t a couple but we weren’t just friends either. Truth was I wasn’t really sure what we were. Our ‘relationship’ had occurred entirely by accident towards the start of this tour.

‘Jesus Fred you weigh a ton,’ Roger said as we shuffled a very pie-eyed Freddie through the hotel room door.  ‘Can barely hold him up,’ I panted as we stumbled into the room. As we neared the bed Roger pulled him off me and dumped him onto it ungracefully.  ‘Well at least we got him home for the night,’ he chuckled as we watched Freddie spread eagle on the mattress still fully clothed.  ‘I think we did more than enough don’t you?’ I giggled making im smile as he headed to the door. I leant down and slipped Freddie’s shoes off, dumping them by the foot of the bed and then I placed his key card on the nightstand and headed to where Roger was waiting for me. We slipped out of the room quietly as we walked down the hall to our rooms. Our rooms were directly opposite one another so we lingered in the hall to say goodbye.

‘Thanks for helping me,’ I said.  ‘You��re welcome,’ he said with a dismissive wave.  ‘Honestly, there’s no way I would’ve got him back here,’ I said but he cut me off. ‘Y/N honestly it’s not a problem,’ he said with a smile. He watched me closely, looking down at me with such intensity I felt my heart rate quicken. He looked good. His blonde shaggy locks were sticking out in all directions from where he’d been dancing or running his fingers through it and his eyes sparkled in the fluorescent hotel lighting. Then he murmured, ‘I had a good night tonight.’ ‘Me too,’ I said.  ‘You looked nice tonight,’ he said casually. I could feel my cheeks burning up at the compliment.  ‘Thanks,’ I mumbled before turning on my heel and mumbling a, ‘well night then.’

But as I reached for my door I felt his hand on my arm, spinning me around into his arms. He grabbed my face and pulled me to him kissing me with a ferocity I didn’t know he had. I could taste ale and cigarettes but I didn’t care. I melted into him, allowing him to kiss me as he wanted his hands all over as he pulled me to him and walked us into my room. 

Our relationship from then on had been pretty much that. Whenever we were alone it was like we couldn’t stop ourselves from tearing the other’s clothes off. Every night without fail one of us would succumb to getting up and going across the hall to slip into the other’s room. But then in front of people, it was entirely different. He was entirely different. He’d talk to me and laugh with me like we were nothing more than friends. 

As if he didn’t spend his nights fucking me senseless.

As if his mornings weren’t taken up by us lying in bed together, cuddling and talking about anything and everything. 

I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard my name mentioned and looked up to find everyone looking at me.

‘Sorry?’ I asked looking for some clue as to what I was missing.

‘We were just wondering if you were coming out tonight?’ he asked. I looked between them, my gaze flicking to Roger for a split second. He was watching me carefully as if trying to figure out how his night was going to be impacted. I felt anger flood through me forcing my answer out my mouth, ‘yeah, count me in.’ 

✵✵✵

Ring….Ring….Ring

My hand fumbled around on the nightstand looking for the source of the noise. I knocked the receiver off of its holder clumsily though I managed to grab it and put it to my ear as I mumbled, ‘Hello?’  ‘Hi is this Miss Y/L/N?’ a sweet voice said on the other end of the line.  ‘Yeah,’ I yawned rolling onto my back as she continued.   ‘This is your wake-up call as requested,’ she said. ‘What time is it?’ I grumbled.  ‘8 am as you asked,’ she replied.  ‘Right, thanks,’ I said cursing my sober self for being so organised that now hungover me was suffering. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said and then the line disconnected. 

As I lay on my back and opened my eyes I tried to ignore just how beaten my body was feeling at this moment in time. Being so annoyed at Roger meant that I had gone a little overboard. Now I was feeling the brunt of my stupidity. My stomach churned as I climbed out of bed feeling sticky from the stale sweat I had been lying in. My head thumped as I rifled around my bag to find some painkillers. I threw them down, thankful that drunk me had been so kind as to leave out a glass of water, and then I headed to the bathroom to get ready. 

I spent a little longer than normal in the shower, allowing the warm water to try and make me feel human again. Then I climbed out, threw on some jeans and a T-shirt, and left my room. I woke the boys one by one, knocking on their doors to make sure they were up. Brian was already up and told me he’d be downstairs for breakfast in a minute. John took a knock or two but he opened his door and told me he too would be joining me soon. Freddie was awake but still in bed which meant I had to force my way inside to make sure. He was laying against the headboard watching TV.

‘Why didn’t you open the door?’ I grumbled throwing myself onto his bed.  ‘Because I knew you’d save me the trouble and come in,’ he chuckled taking a drag of his cigarette.  ‘At least I get to take a cat nap on your bed,’ I said with a sigh as I rested my head on my folded arms.  ‘Feeling a little delicate this morning huh?’ he said.  ‘You’re a bad influence,’ I grumbled.  ‘Oh last night was all you princess,’ he replied. I looked up at him with a scowl.  ‘Well I’m feeling it now,’ I said.  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing a spot of breakfast can’t fix,’ he said. My stomach churned again, ‘I think it’s just going to be toast for me.’  ‘Well I’m coming now,’ he said climbing out of bed, ‘am I your last wake-up call?’  ‘No,’ I said quietly as he started gathering some belongings so he could head to the bathroom. He didn’t seem to notice my hesitation I said, ‘just Rog left. Bri and John should be down there by now.’ 

‘Okay, well I’m just going to shower and I’ll meet you down there,’ he said as he lingered by the bathroom door. ‘Alright,’ I said peeling myself off of the bed.  ‘Probably a good job you left him till last,’ he said.  ‘Why?’ I asked my curiosity piquing.  ‘He only got back late,’ he said.  ‘Oh?’ I asked trying to remember if I knew the details of last night. Unfortunately, they weren’t there for me to remember.  ‘Yeah,’ he said with a smirk, ‘we came back together but he put you to bed. I left him trying to herd you up the stairs.’ ‘Oh,’ I grimaced, the embarrassment of last night returning.  ‘Looked about as easy as plaiting fog,’ he chuckled and then he ducked into the bathroom and shut the door. I walked out of the room and headed a door down. Roger’s room. 

I knocked gently and listened as I heard movement behind the door which opened a minute later revealing a tired-looking Roger. He was wearing pants but no shirt and I had to admit he looked good. 

‘Hey,’ I mumbled. He nodded but didn’t speak as he ducked back into the room. I followed him, shutting the door quietly as I tried to keep the noise to a minimum so as to not aggravate my headache. I sat down on the bed as he put on his clothes, ignoring me.  ‘Freddie said you helped me get to bed last night,’ I said after a moment, ‘thank you.’ ‘Yeah well better that than you embarrassing yourself again,’ he said as he angrily pulled his T-shirt over his head.  ‘What?’ I asked.  ‘Last night,’ he said folding his arms across his chest, ‘you couldn’t have been more obvious.’ ‘And what exactly was I doing?’ I said folding my own arms across my chest as I stood up.  ‘You don’t remember?’ he scoffed.  ‘Please enlighten me,’ I said.  ‘Throwing yourself at that guy right in front of everyone,’ he said loudly. His words hit me like a ton of bricks as I tried to remember my own actions but found myself coming up short, but my lack of recall didn’t mean his words hadn’t sparked anger in me. 

‘And?’ I said huffily.  ‘And?’ he repeated, ‘it’s embarrassing. Trying to get me to bite because I wouldn’t kiss you.’  ‘Maybe I’m just sick of being your sort of girlfriend. Of being someone who’s good enough for a quick shag but you daren’t be seen out in public with,’ I sneered, ‘did you ever think about that?’  ‘Y/N,’ he sighed, ‘we’ve talked about it-’ ‘Have we?’ I spat, ‘because all I ever remember is you acting like we’re the only two people in the world until there’s actually other people around then it’s like you can’t stand to be with me-’ ‘That’s not how it is?’  ‘Tell me then,’ I said.  ‘Tell you what?’ he asked angrily.  ‘Tell me how it is. Do you even like me? Or am I just someone who’s there when you want to get your leg over?’ I shouted standing up. I panicked for a second. The irony that we were arguing about us not going exclusive when everyone important to us was within earshot wasn’t lost on me.  ‘Of course, I do,’ he sighed, ‘I’m just not ready.’ ‘For what?’ I said, ‘I’m not asking you to marry me, Roger. I’m just asking that we at least acknowledge there’s something between us.’ ‘But we work together you’re part of the team what if I fuck it up?’ he asked quietly sinking down onto his bed. I sighed and took a seat next to him though I didn’t look at him. My gaze fixed on the wall, ‘people split up and still work together Rog. It’s not the end of the world.’ ‘It might be,’ he said quietly. That got my attention, I looked to my right and found him watching me with a worried look. 

‘Why?’ I asked quietly.  ‘Because…’ he mumbled dropping his gaze to his lap, ‘because I think I might sorta really like you.’ ‘Really?’ I asked cursing myself at the amount of hope my voice dripped with.  ‘Yeah,’ he said glancing up at me, ‘so why do we have to label it?’  ‘What just be friends who fuck on occasion?’ I smirked. He looked up at me with a bashful expression, ‘is that what you want?’ ‘Maybe,’ he said.  ‘And what happens if I wanna see someone else huh? Or if you meet some pretty fan on this tour? Do we just pretend that it’s not bothering us?’ I said, ‘because I don’t think I could be okay about that. And I don’t think you are either…if you were I’d have woken up in that guy’s bed this morning.’ ‘Yeah I guess you’re right,’ he said, ‘I just worry that if we…you know become a couple and it doesn’t work out I’ll lose you completely…at least this way we get all those moments together…no pressure. Why can’t we just enjoy it?’ ‘Because it’s not enough for me Rog,’ I whispered, ‘I can’t hang on hoping one day you’ll want to be with me completely. Because if I do I’ll always be stuck. I either need you to take the chance on us or let me go.’

He nodded and I stood up not looking at him. I wandered to the door and opened it, closing it gently behind me. I could feel tears in my eyes but I blinked them away as I headed downstairs to breakfast. The boys were sitting around a dining table, members of the crew dotted at various other tables. I sat down beside Freddie. 

‘How are you feeling darling?’ he asked as he poured me a cup of tea.  ‘Alright,’ I lied.  ‘Well you look less grey now,’ Brian chuckled, ‘so I guess that’s a good sign.’ ‘Well I’m never drinking again,’ I smiled though it felt stiff and forced on my face.  ‘Oh I bet,’ John chuckled.  ‘Yeah a tenner she breaks the bet by the end of the week,’ Freddie said.  ‘There’s what? Three shows this week?’ Brian said calculating the odds in his head, ‘I bet by Wednesday.’  ‘Deal,’ Freddie said offering his hand out to Brian who shook it gracefully.  ‘My life is not a thing to be gambled on,’ I pouted as the waitress put toast on my table.  ‘I beg to differ,’ Freddie said.  ‘You know you’re really underestimating the spite factor in this,’ I said sipping my tea, ‘I’ll hold out all damn year if I have to.’ 

There were some chuckles around the table but as they started planning my downfall Roger appeared at the table sitting down beside me. As they greeted him he threw his arm around my shoulder and pressed a kiss to my temple. I was stunned. The boys shared a glance but they carried on talking as if nothing had happened. I looked at him and he shrugged as he took a piece of toast off my plate. 

I smiled. 

I guess that was my answer. 

[cellsshapedlikestars]

*gobin voice*

Chaaanggfeeeee it (if you are comfy)

I just feel like these hot mess express disaster duo deserves some smut lmao

(in response to this post)

LOOK.

I have been practicing smut, but not in a modern setting using modern language (which is weirdly one of the things that makes me cringe the most while writing?? Not while reading smut, and I have zero problems cursing up a storm in my fics). The closest I came in a modern fic was in take me out and that was ROUGH for me to write. Its like the only time the guilt & shame from my religious upbringing ever rears its ugly head lol

but they do deserve something more than a T rating I feel like... I did not intend for them to be this messily horny for each other, but that's where we've ended up

I might put a note at the end of the next chapter just to gauge how people would feel, since they originally clicked on a T story. At most it would go up to an M I think because I don't know if I'll ever be able to write full smut. At least not now. Maybe if I practice more lol

[grymmnox]

weekly fic recs #4

here we go. think these are all bsd fics, except for one, which is a bsd crossover,, so. still a bsd fic. have fun

& = platonic, / = romantic

Oneshots

sweetness and a dash of msg; Oxalisalis - bsd

teen | 4.2k words | dazai & ranpo

summary:

Dazai has always found sympathy from others a little too saccharine, but Ranpo’s brand of astringent care might just be palatable enough for him to accept.

OR

Dazai has a habit of forgetting to eat. Ranpo’s solution is to drag him along on sweets excursions.

A Study in Mafia Black; eluvion - bsd

teen | 13.7k words | dazai & ranpo, ADA & dazai, background chuuya/dazai + poe/ranpo | READ TAGS

summary:

If he’s being honest, good and bad don’t matter so much to Ranpo as truth does. Good and bad are subjective, clouded with human error, and honestly, they’re quite boring. Mystery has always been more interesting than morality with the way each string weaves together, creating a tapestry of crime, blood and ash writing their own story. Dazai is still as much of a mystery as he was at first glance, and Ranpo is just as ready to pick apart the truth from whatever plays behind those eyes. Or; a friendship, of sorts, between the two smartest members of the Armed Detective Agency.

no one ever made us feel that much higher; mxlysar - bsd

mature | 13.7k words | poe/ranpoe | READ TAGS

summary:

Ranpo had run out of luck. He was known for his impeccable mission record, for being able to get by on wits alone. There was no such chance this time.

Hanging his head, Ranpo sank to the ground, accepting his rotten situation. He’d catch his breath before making his next move, to scour the city for the supplies necessary to make it back home. His current location allowed him the necessary time to formulate a plan (he wasn’t quite as fast as Dazai on this skill, but he easily held his own). Anyone with functioning sensibilities would take one look at him and turn away, danger written in every line of his being—humans were self-preserving, he expected no less.

At least, he did. Until someone decided to take any shred of that presumption and dump it into the dumpster reeking up his nostrils beside him.

(Or, Port Mafia executive Edogawa Ranpo encounters a mysterious American)

How To Obtain A Child And Husband Entirely By Accident; Insomnia_Productions - bsd

general audiences | 2.2k words | chuuya/dazai

summary:

“Um… who are you?”

“I'm your dad, kid.”

“No you're not, shut the hell up, now leave forever and stay the fuck away from my son.”

· ~ ·

Or: Chuuya accidentally adopts a kid.

Pride and shame; athenaistired - bsd

mature | 7.7k words | chuuya/dazai, chuuya & dazai | READ TAGS

summary:

He was a canvas.

The first time he tried to draw with a kitchen blade across his skin he was only eight years old.

home (where my thoughts escape me); advanced_fanatic - bsd

not rated | 1.6k words | not typing all of these relationship tags; it’s basically fukuzawa & the ADA

summary:

Fukuzawa Yukichi never wanted children. Somehow, he ended up with nine anyway.

grim’s notes: part of a series! alas, i have yet to finish the series, but even just this fic is incredibly enjoyable

Touch; athenaistired - bsd

mature | 5.4k | chuuya/dazai | READ TAGS

summary:

"Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened." Dazai whispered under his breath. The voices inside his head kept laughing at him, insulting him and mocking his being. There was nothing that he could do except cover his ears and sink further into the ground in hopes that something would swallow him whole.

Dazai fucking hated when people touched him.

stay soft; sugarfruitbat - bsd

teen | 11.3k words | chuuya/dazai

summary:

“What the fuck.” Chuuya’s voice is flat and extremely loud in the silent room. It makes him feel a little – not bad, because he doesn’t care how the stupid fish feels, but... mean, when Dazai jumps about a foot in the air at the volume of his voice.

Two dark, slanted eyes meet Chuuya’s over the fold of Dazai’s arms across his knees. It’s only thanks to years of working in the dark that Chuuya’s eyes can adjust well enough to even see him.

“Chuuya’s loud.” Dazai mumbles.

“There’s an intruder in my house at three in the morning, I think I’m allowed to be loud about it.”

--

or, dazai comes to chuuya during a bad mental state, with a bit of "i didn't know where else to go" trope mixed in <3

those marks we never spoke of; starfolds - bsd

teen | 3.8k words | chuuya/dazai

summary:

Everything that could possibly go wrong during their first official mission together as partners goes wrong. Stuck in a cabin in the middle of the forest, they're both wet and muddy and Chuuya is so pissed he's going to have to strip a barely conscious Dazai to make sure he doesn't freeze.

He's not prepared for the amount of bandages Dazai is hiding under his clothes.

This is a boundary Chuuya is not prepared to cross. He doesn't know Dazai, no matter how much they yell and gripe at each other.

This is beyond private and something he's not allowed to see.

Who Needs Money Anyway? (Spoiler Alert: It’s Us); fandomsandshit - bsd

teen | 7.9k | not typing these out; the entire ada bonding w/ each other

summary:

Their funding has been cut.

Akiko stares blankly at the sheet Haruno is holding out to her, hands sweaty and shaky, and resists the urge to scream.

It’s been a long time coming. As much as she hates to admit it, Akiko is honestly surprised it took this long for them to lose some of it; what with the monthly shootings, consistent suicide attempts and general shenanigans of the Agency members.

But how on earth are they going to make enough money now?

---------- (modern-ish au where the ada causes too much property damage for proper funding, and so yosano leads them into the wonderful world of twitch streaming to make money)

Complete Fics

I Was Screaming Your Name Through The Radio; ElectricSplatter - bsd

mature | 10 chapters | 256.7k words | chuuya/dazai | READ TAGS

summary:

“Four months from now will be the seven year anniversary of when you and Osamu Dazai released your hugely successful first and only album Double Black and its diamond single Corruption. After performing with Dazai earlier this year, are you planning anything special to celebrate?”

“Corruption is insanely overrated, and I would prefer to never hear Dazai’s voice for the rest of my fucking life.”

light a match, leave the past, burn the ships (and don’t you look back); Seito - bsd

teen | 15 chapters | 33k words | unrequited chuuya/dazai

summary:

“Do you think you would ever leave the Port Mafia?”

“Haa? What the fuck is that kind of question?”

A question was asked, an answer was given, and choices were made. Sometimes love wasn’t enough.

Sometimes it was about learning to let go.

You Have Cat to be Kitten Me; quinnlocke - bsd

teen | 5 chapters | 11.1k words | chuuya/dazai

summary:

A wayward curse results in the ADA turning into animals, the only cure is to reveal a deep secret.

Dazai thinks he's got it all under control, until an orange cat with a talent for gravity manipulation decides to make an appearance.

Secret-Revealers Club!; Allegory_for_Hatred - bsd

not rated | 9 chapters | 25.5k words | ranpo & yosano | READ TAGS

summary:

5 times Ranpo tries to make Dazai reveal his secret, and the 1 time it works

or,

What's under Dazai's bandages? Ranpo intends to find out!

grim’s notes: really not sure what to describe this fic as. crack and angst. crangst?

corpse of a would-be suicide; seneca_milestone17 - bsd

teen | 17 chapters | 32.1k words | dazai & oda, ADA & dazai | READ TAGS

summary:

“He could only consider me as the living corpse of a would-be suicide, a person dead to shame, an idiot ghost.” ― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human The Book is unforgiving in its grip and it is neither merciful nor cruel in its methods.

For something to change, it must follow the laws of karma – for something to happen, a sacrifice must be made.

Oda Sakunosuke is that something.

Dazai Osamu is that sacrifice.

But what happens when the Book refuses to let go?

Incomplete Fics

deer in the headlights; doingthewritethings - bsd

mature | 2/3 chapters | 6.7k words | dazai & everyone, chuuya & dazai, dazai & kunikida | READ TAGS

summary:

Before he can respond, everyone grows silent. Kunikida follows their gazes over to a small form in the corner that rubs its eyes and groans melodramatically.

or, the one where an Ability reveals something Dazai would rather hide, and his friends try to pick up the pieces.

grim’s notes: hasn’t been updated in 2 years; the author has responded to recent comments though, and hasn’t stated it’s discontinued or abandoned. no guarantee it’ll update, obviously.

where the tides take us; kempine - bsd/mha crossover

mature | 10/? chapters | 79.2k words | chuuya/dazai, chuuya & shinsou, aizawa & shinsou | READ TAGS

summary:

Dazai seems to be back to his usual I-love-giving-Chuuya-a-headache self, and thus, loudly and proudly declares: “I have two guesses as to where we have been transported!” he pauses purely for the dramatics and just stares at Chuuya smugly, “wouldn’t you like to hear them, chibi?”

Chuuya rubs the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes tightly, “Just spit it out, bastard.”

“So rude,” the mackerel whines at him, at which he can just groan desperately. However, the gods smile at him from the skies above, through the tiny break of sunshine in the sea of clouds, and Dazai finally gets to the point. “We have either travelled to the future, or we were transported to an alternate universe. I am more inclined to believe the first one.”

Or: Chuuya and Dazai work out their relationship while being chased by a hero or two.

grim’s notes: hasn’t been updated in a year or so. dunno if it ever will be, as i’m not the author. still enjoyable nonetheless

hhhhhhhhhhhhhgabsdanf l i am tired. spent far too long onthis, as per usual. maybe i should just start typing them out as the week goes along,, that’d probably be smarter, really.

anyways, if any links are broken or whatever, feel free to tell me. i’ll do my best to fix them.

[kitkatt0430]

Random Numbers! 4, 6, 7, 12, 17, 21, 29, 35

4.) Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them?

I've answered that one over here :D

6.) What's your ratio for rating your works?

So I mostly write gen/teen rated fics - it's not quite a 50/50 split between those since I do occasionally write M or E, but maybe a 48/47 percent split between G and T? Something like that anyway, I'm too lazy to do the exact calculations.

If it's T there's probably swearing and some violence to them, harder themes, maybe some kissing fades to black implied sex. My G rated fics might still wind up with swearing in them, but otherwise they're more likely to be of the lighter and fluffier variety. Not always, since I do enjoy leaning into angstier stuff sometimes.

I've been overly cautious with a few of my M rated fics that could probably actually be T rated, but I tend to be of a better safe than sorry mindset with those. Though the few E rated fics I've done have absolutely earned their rating.

7.) Your favourite ao3 tag.

Fix Fic/Fix-it/variations thereof. I absolutely love a good fix fic for canon ailments. :D That said, I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers too, so when I can get a combination of both? I will probably stay up reading waaaay to late as a result. Hello three AM, where did you come from?

12.) If you write in more than one language, what's the difference?

If it's not complicated and in, say, Spanish then I'll usually put the actual Spanish into the fic with a translation below in the end notes. Spanish in particular I did learn some of in high school though I admit a lot of that's faded. If what I'm trying to say is complicated enough that I don't want to risk online translators screwing it up for me (or my memory being too hazy), then I'll write it in English with something to denote it's intended to be another language. Usually italics, though too much italics can become difficult for me to read through when I go back for edits.

I'll also look up common phrases and idioms to try and throw those in where they'd work most naturally - especially when I remember to play with Hartley and Eobard's tendency to use Latin as their personal secret language.

17.) Past or present tense? Why?

Past tense tends to flow most naturally for me, though sometimes I'll slip up into present tense. I tend to mostly read books that are past tense, so that's probably why it feels more natural/flows better when I write.

21.) Can you accurately predict how long your fics are going to be? If you can, what's your secret?

If they're a one shot fic then, most of the time, they stay that way. But if the fic is longer than a one chapter fic? I'm probably not going to be able to predict very well. The shorter a fic is, the better I can guess. The longer the fic is, the more I risk having it wind up on hiatus with x/? chapters sitting there mocking me.

29.) What's the hardest thing about writing?

Keeping my focus on one idea long enough to complete it. I've got so many ideas knocking around in my brain and I want to write them all.

35.) Thoughts on writing challenges/contests.

I like participating in events like prompt weekends/week long/month long events. Or bingos. I like the self imposed challenges there of completing on time. But I'm not really into contests or gifting events. I'm not really a competitive person, I tend to find it amusing in others but exhausting when I try to be too competitive myself. It kind of sucks the fun out for me. So writing contests aren't really interesting for me to participate in for that reason.

[jellypractices]

BB2022 reflections

So I realized I said I would write up a post about my 2022 qzgs bigbang fic in like July, but I never got around to it, oops. But I just wanted to post something with my thoughts on wjx and why I portrayed him the way I did because this fic is special to me.

Take your time (Oh, how we've grown) - WJX/YX amnesia/time travel fic, 16k oneshot. romance, rated T.

Summary:

“Wang Jiexi, what season do you think it is now?”

Wang Jiexi frowned. “It’s midway through season 8, why?”

Ye Qiu closed his eyes, taking a moment to process this. “I think we need to get you to a doctor,” he said with careful measure. He drew in a deep breath before answering Wang Jiexi’s question. “It’s not season 8. It’s the summer before season 11.”

Spoilers below!

What I wanted from this fic was a Ye Xiu goes to Tiny Herb fix-it AU, except rather than detailing how Ye Xiu fixes everything, I wanted to explore what a more inclusive Tiny Herb would mean for Wang Jiexi and the rest of the team.

In my opinion, a lot of Tiny Herb's problems arise from how Wang Jiexi is set apart, or sets himself apart from the team.

The first and obvious way this occurs is because Wang Jiexi is the captain and ace player. Because of his skill and status, the younger players set him on a pedestal. Wang Jiexi is also not so great at communication or knowing what people are feeling in the moment, which feeds into the image of aloof captain. There has already been some discussion of this point on the TKAA discord, so I won't go too much into it.

But aside from the captaincy, I think age might also play into this dynamic of how Wang Jiexi holds himself apart. Wang Jiexi is often cast as a father-like figure because a big part of Tiny Herb skews young. According to what I found on the TKA wiki, like 6/11 members debuted in seasons 7 or 8. For the Wang Jiexi of season 8, those kids are all first- or second-year rookies who still need his support. In my fic, I also took the ~artistic liberty~ to make the older players on the team retire or transfer, further emphasizing the perceived age difference. So Wang Jiexi has this mentality that he needs to be the responsible adult that supports his kids while they grow. The problem with that is that he doesn't trust in them. He doesn't allow them any agency.

I like to think that the reason why Wang Jiexi takes this so seriously is because he had a hard time as a rookie. We know Wang Jiexi felt he had to suppress his own natural playstyle in order to coordinate with his teammates who couldn't keep up, but what does this say about the team environment or what that taught him? I imagined that maybe there was some frustration or even resentment from the other players, which taught him that the magician style (and thus Wang Jiexi) is not worth the time and effort it would take to learn how to coordinate with. So when he gets new teammates, instead of giving them the chance to get used to the magician playstyle, he continues to cut himself off, to suppress suppress suppress because that's what's best for the team. And because of this standard he holds for himself, he consciously or subconsciously believes that it's up to the players to mold themselves to the team. This is seen in canon, where he thinks maybe Qiao Yifan is better suited to a no-pressure mid-tier team. I'm not saying that team compatibility shouldn't matter, but rather that Wang Jiexi literally cannot envision a different team environment that puts less pressure on its players.

So that's why I think having Ye Xiu on the team would help Wang Jiexi work through those problems. Ye Xiu is older than Wang Jiexi and knows the responsibility of being captain, so he is able to break through Wang Jiexi's walls and allow him to not have to be the adult all the time. Ye Xiu also has the technical skill needed to show that coordination with the magician playstyle is possible and he's able to provide Wang Jiexi with a different perspective instead of letting him get caught up in his own head.

So having the WangYe dream team in Tiny Herb accomplishes what I really wanted for this fic, which was to see a Tiny Herb where everyone feels like a part of team. I thought a lot about character parallels in this fic and how everyone's experiences could show Wang Jiexi that he doesn't need to hold himself apart. And by the end, Wang Jiexi is able to let go of some of his tension and trust in himself and the team they've created.

Overall, I'm really proud of this fic even though I think it could be better and I was panicking about deadlines during the whole creation period. It was a self-indulgent idea with self-indulgent details, but it was a story I really wanted to tell. I hope that anyone who reads it will enjoy it too <3