#am i selling out to the jeremwood ship for notes? you betcha

[mindfulwrath]

401(k)

I wrote a real sad nearly-Jeremwood fic for NO REASON so here’s my apology for that. Pure fluff with some existential angst.

Words: 1,046 Warnings: None AO3

“Do you think—” Jeremy begins, and stops.

“Nope,” says Ryan. Jeremy whacks him in the side with an elbow and he winces.

“I wasn’t done.”

“So don’t stop in the middle of your sentences. I’m a busy guy.”

He kicks his feet, out off the edge of the building. The ground is about a thousand feet away. He takes a sip of his diet coke with the side of his mouth, watching the sun as it sets over Chiliad.

“You got nothing to do and neither do I,” says Jeremy. “At least until Gavin gets here.”

Ryan shrugs. “Eh,” he says, and that’s it.

“Like I was saying,” Jeremy says. “Do you think someday we’ll get outta this business? Y’know, like, retire from a life of crime and all.”

“Sure.”

“Wait—really? Do you have, like, plans? An exit strategy?”

“Yeah, a body bag,” Ryan says, and chuckles.

Scowling, Jeremy says, “That’s not funny.”

“Nah, I think it is. Gallows humor? C’mooon, positive nilih...nile—nih. Eh.”

“Nihilism?”

“That! Nili—God dammit, my mouth!” He laughs, frustrated.

“I guess, but ... gah, I dunno,” says Jeremy. He leans back on his hands and kicks his heels against the concrete. “I don’t like that, man. It’s depressing.”

“Only if you think of it like ugh nothing matters, why do anything,” says Ryan. “It’s more like, eyyy, nothing matters, I can do whatever I want!” 

He drains the last of his coke, tipping his head way back. The sunset paints him rose-gold. It’s a good look for him, even with the blood and gunpowder.

“Well ... yeah, I mean, that’s a thing,” says Jeremy. “But, like, there’s nothing else you’d rather be doing? Or like, you don’t wanna ... get old, or anything? Retire?”

Ryan scrunches up his face, thinking about it.

“Ehhhh, seems like kind of a hassle,” he says. He crushes the coke can and drops it off the side of the building.

“That’s gonna—”

“Sure is!”

The wind blowing up the side of the building flings the can back up, all the way up onto the helipad. Ryan chuckles, watching it fly over.

“Hey, you think if you dropped a full one, it could kill somebody when it landed?” he asks.

“Please, please don’t try that right now,” Jeremy says. “Please. Seriously, dude, the last thing we need is more cops coming after us.”

“Hey, what, we already barricaded the door!” He cocks a thumb back at the roof access. It’s very thoroughly blocked.

“Yeah, and if you bust somebody’s head open with a soda, they’re gonna start shooting from the ground!”

“Whatever, I only had one anyways. Maybe next time.”

Jeremy rolls his eyes and leans back on his hands. Sirens wail far off. The sun sinks behind Chiliad. The sky is cloudless, grading from orange to purple. The first stars are winking out overhead.

“If you did retire,” Jeremy says at last. “What would you do?”

Ryan shrugs. “Never really thought about it. Uhhhhh. I don’t know. What would you do?”

He scratches his beard, wrinkling his nose. “I was thinking, like, I’d write a book or something.”

“Yeah? You got a book in you?”

“After all the shit we’ve been through, I could be the next Tom Clancy, dude.”

“Who the fuck is Tom Clancy?”

“The Splinter Cell guy.”

“Ohhhhhh, I gotcha. Real prolif...prolific guy.”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “I dunno, it’s just a thing I think about sometimes. I’m probably not gonna get to do it, anyways. Body bags, y’know.”

“If you wait,” says Ryan. “If you start writing now, maybe you can squeeze on out before you get bipped.”

“No, no,” he sighs. “Then it’d just be all tragic when I died halfway through writing one.”

“It’s gonna be tragic when you die no matter what. So fuck it, write.”

Jeremy fakes a smile and nudges him again. Ryan nudges him back. It’s getting dark around them, the city lighting up below. Gavin’s so late with the extraction chopper, Jeremy’s starting to wonder if he just forgot about them.

“You got any uhhhh ... samples?” says Ryan.

“Any what?”

“Samples. Of your writing,” says Ryan. “I kinda wanna read ‘em, y’know.”

“Oh,” says Jeremy, blushing. “I mean, like, not on me.”

“Ah, excuses,” said Ryan.

“What, you want me to narrate you some shit?”

“Yeah!”

“And then Jeremy pushed Ryan off the building, just to see if he’d kill anybody when he hit the ground,” Jeremy drawls. Ryan laughs.

“See, I’d throw you off, but you’d just fly back up like the coke can,” he says. “Because you’re short.”

“Hey, fuck you.”

“Fuck you! You’re the one who started it!”

“I didn’t start anything!”

“I’m about to start somethin’.”

“Oh, yeah? You wanna piece of this?”

“You bet I do. I’ll take you out any day, short-stack.”

Jeremy grabs him by the lapel and kisses him. Ryan squeaks and goes rigid. His lips are cold and thin and taste like diet coke, his stubble tugging on Jeremy’s beard like velcro. Jeremy shoves him back again, terrified he’s crossed a line, terrified he’s just thrown everything away.

“Uh?” says Ryan, about an octave higher than usual.

“Well, we’re both gonna die, so why the fuck not, right?” says Jeremy, defensive.

“O...okay?” Ryan guesses. “That’s ... fair? Sure?”

The silence that falls is agonizing.

“Uh,” says Jeremy. “S...sorry.”

“Mmmmmno,” says Ryan.

“What?”

“No,” he repeats, and that’s it.

While Jeremy’s floundering for what the hell he’s supposed to say to that, Ryan takes his face in both hands and kisses him again. This time it’s soft, and sweet, and warm. Jeremy braces himself with one hand, just so he won’t tumble over the edge of the building from the way his head is spinning. Ryan pulls back, and kisses his nose, and his forehead.

“Okay,” Jeremy says, glowing. “Yeah, I’m okay with this.”

“Might as well,” says Ryan.

“It’s that uh ... optimistic nihilism, right?”

“Yeah! Optimistic nili—god fucking dammit!”

Jeremy laughs, and in the distance there’s the sound of helicopter blades.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I like your dumb mouth.”

“How dare you call my mouth dumb,” says Ryan, pouting.

Jeremy sneaks in one last kiss just before Gavin comes up around back of the building with a cargobob.