#and be like ‘he’s scamming you. don’t let him play the pathetic baby card’

[burricane]

Odie thinks that he can sit at the table to eat his food now

[dweetwise]

yes hello i am back on my bullshit again, presenting you yet another felix x ace! (also i’m taking the creative liberty to call the ship riconti because it sounds like a cheese or something and i found it funny) anyways, this one is just me thirsting over the oktoberfest skin through ace, ft. some suggestive language but no nsfw!

word count: 2781

Felix X Ace: Clothes make the man

The whole thing starts as an offhand comment.

"—I mean, it's clearly tailored. He pulls it off,” Ace is telling Meg, who has been complaining about Felix's stuffy suit and even stuffier attitude for five minutes straight. “But it's so impractical!” the girl argues. “Wasn't he on some kind of field trip when he was taken? What kind of guy wears a suit to that?” “I don't know, but I'm not going to complain about free eye candy,” Ace smirks, and Meg rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, I forgot rich snobs are your thing. Sucks you can't scam him for his money in here,” Meg snarks. “Excuse me for having taste,” Ace shoots back. “I wish I had a suit like that. Do you think it's Gucci?” “Burberry,” an increasingly familiar voice answers from behind him and Meg whips her head around to look at its owner, eyes wide in shock at having been caught gossiping. Meanwhile Ace, liking to think he has more self-control, schools his face into a pleasant smile and slowly turns around to face Felix. “Would have been my next guess,” Ace says, trying not to let it show that he's mentally slapping himself for essentially thirsting over Felix when the other was within earshot. “I like the cut. You've got good taste.”

He’s feebly trying to save some of his wounded ego, but probably ends up laying it on too thick. Felix fidgets a little, maybe not used to getting compliments, before he seems to catch himself. He meets Ace's eyes and the hint of a smirk tugs on his lip.

“Wish I could say the same,” Felix says, pointedly looking at Ace's flamingo sweater, before turning around and walking away and leaving Ace to gape at the unexpected sass from the normally serious man. “I take it back, I like him!” Meg snickers beside him.

The Entity seems to share Ace's enthusiasm for Felix's fashion sense, and only a few trials in Felix is already in a different suit, this one a grey plaid.

“Hmm…” Ace pretends to mull over when they're working on a generator together. “Did you see something?” Felix asks, hurriedly glancing over the top of the machine to try, in vain, to spot the killer. “I think the navy blue suits you better,” Ace smirks at his own pun. “Though the plaid certainly makes a statement. Shame that statement is ‘I'm a grandpa at thirty years old’.” “You know, in my job, gold is really only used for trims. Any more than that is just tacky," Felix deadpans, not even sparing a glance at Ace's obnoxiously golden silk outfit. “And it's thirty-eight.”

Ace doesn't bother suppressing his grin over the fact that Felix seems happy to go along with his silly banter.

It becomes sort of an inside joke between them, and when Felix shows up to the campfire in a porn stache and driving gloves, Ace chokes on a laugh.

“I’m sorry, is this an 80's theme party?” Ace jokes. “Careful you don't end up on a propaganda poster with a stache like that.” “Why are you wearing an eye patch?” Felix immediately shoots back. “Is this the 16th century? Should we break out the rum and set sail?”

Ace hears Quentin snort beside him.

“It's a pilot outfit,” Ace argues, pulling his jacket with the pin-up print tighter against himself defensively. “No, mine is a pilot outfit,” Felix deadpans, and Ace can't really argue, not when the other is wearing a bomber jacket and pilot glasses and leather gloves. “Yours is a blind truck driver.”

Bill coughs out something akin to a laugh on the other side of camp and Ace bites his lip to stop himself from doing the same.

“Can I borrow the shades some time?” Ace forfeits the argument, and Felix smiles just the tiniest bit. “Sure.”

And Felix actually follows through with the promise, switching sunglasses with him when Ace later complains his own don’t go with his outfit. It’s a pretty cute gesture, like they were close friends or even a couple, and when Felix snorts and tells him he looks ridiculous it just serves to make Ace smile brighter.

It’s not like the exchange or the ones before it mean anything, it’s just harmless joking with the occasional flirt. Ace still thinks Felix is attractive, but he doesn’t have any illusions that the man would be into him like that, with what having a girlfriend and unborn baby back home, not to mention Ace having a good ten years on him in age. Still, he appreciates that Felix goes along with his cheeky comments, at least not grossed out by or taking offense to Ace’s flirting.

He only gets to keep the shades for one trial, because the Entity has blessed Felix with another outfit for Ace to offer his unsolicited opinion on.

“Oh my god,” Ace comments when he spots the horrendous, grease-streaked mop in place of Felix’s normally expertly styled hair. “Are you a closet hipster? Is an avocado smoothie going to fall out of the hat?” he quips, eyeing the fedora that is, in Ace’s humble opinion, vastly inferior to all of his own hats. “I needed a disguise to lay low for a while, and what better way to hide in plain sight in a big city?” Felix defends his unkempt hair and dirty t-shirt. “What’s your excuse?” he shoots back.

Ace glances down at his generously open shirt—gold again, just to annoy Felix—and tacky sequin pants.

“Vegas, baby,” Ace grins. “If you’d ever been, you’d know.” “I’ve never been happier to say I haven’t,” Felix chuckles. “I don’t think I could handle more of… whatever this is,” he says, gesturing to Ace’s outfit. “When we get out of here, I’m definitely taking you,” Ace quips. “I just want to see you cry over all the flashy satin and fake gold.”

Felix doesn’t roll his eyes or make a sarcastic comment like Ace expects. Instead, he stares blankly in confusion for a few seconds, before his expression settles into a smile Ace can’t quite place.

“Alright,” Felix simply says, and combined with the soft smile it’s enough to make Ace nervously look around camp for a distraction. “Hey, Kate!” he hollers, spotting the songstress braiding Meg’s hair. “You got a hairband for our friend and his questionable hair style over there?”

He ends up regretting the question as soon as Kate insists on braiding Felix’s hair and the normally standoffish man, somehow, goes along with it. He can’t believe he’s jealous for someone getting to touch the grimy, unkempt strands, and it sure as hell doesn’t help that Felix seems to like it. Kate looks thrilled to get to spend some quality time with the man, chatting about this and that and taking way longer than necessary to make the hairstyle, and Ace ends up walking away and pestering Dwight to play some cards with him so he can at least win at something.

His win streak over the poor boy is interrupted when Felix later sits down with them, gesturing for Ace to deal him in, and Ace can’t quite hide his pleased grin that Felix would rather spend time with him than the beautiful girl who just played with his hair for half an hour.

“Better?” Felix asks him, turning his head to display the most pathetic French braid Ace has ever seen, ending in a ponytail that’s barely an inch in length. “Much better,” Ace says, definitely referring to the company and not the state of his hair, and even the normally diplomatic Dwight gives him a weird glance over his cards after taking in Kate’s handiwork.

Only a few trials after the incident, Ace has the pleasure of spawning together with Felix in one of the Yamaoka maps. When he sees a horrendous checkered pattern from the corner of his eye, he knows he’s in for a treat.

He quickly turns to face the man, nearly tripping over some shrubbery as the Entity decided to place him in some inconvenient bamboo. He meets Felix's eye, opening his mouth to start a snarky comment, when his thoughts come to a complete halt upon seeing the entirety of the outfit.

“Well? Get it over with,” Felix demands, crossing his arms self-consciously and—lord have mercy—blushing a little.

Ace's brain is reduced to white noise in the equivalent of ‘hhhHhhHHhh’ while he just stands there, feet still in the stupid bamboo, and stares.

Felix's hair is now an impeccable undercut, a few loose strands framing his features beautifully, and the perfectly trimmed stubble adds a rugged charm to his handsome face. The vest is stylish, a navy blue similar to the suit Ace likes, and the checkered shirt shouldn't work with it but it does, and there's even a matching handkerchief in his breast pocket. Ace's horny brain immediately goes to hanky code and shut up brain it's in the wrong pocket—

Ace mentally shakes his head and looks at Felix's pants instead. And that was a bad idea, because he’s wearing fucking. Leather. Pants.

Again, it should look ridiculous, but Ace feels himself start salivating at the idea of them hugging Felix's ass—ugh, focus!

The pants have small ribbons on the sides and the entire ensemble is so goddamn adorable and sexy that he can't even deal. And Ace has seen a lot of handsome men during his life, mostly in the mirror, but right now, Felix takes the cake.

Felix's attitude shifts from embarrassed to curious when Ace isn't immediately opening his big mouth like usual.

“If this is how all Germans dress, it’s a tragedy I’ve never been,” Ace flirts, his dick having taken over his brain and his mouth running on autopilot.

Instead of insulting Ace's panama hat and favorite pink shirt, Felix clears his throat and averts his eyes.

“You don't look too bad yourself,” Felix mutters, cheeks heating up again as he twiddles with the cuff of his shirt.

Ace idly wonders if the bamboo bush is big enough for them to make out in without being spotted—brain, focus! The guy is just being polite, no need to jump his bones!

They've got the usual back-and-forth out of the way, but Felix still isn't moving to start the trial, regarding Ace warily and fidgeting, and he's just so fucking hot—ugh, he needs to say something, doesn't he?

“God, the things I'd let you do to me," Ace thinks while he says ‘We should find a generator’ because he's not going to creep Felix out any further—

Felix chokes on nothing and his face flushes bright red, and Ace belatedly realizes his brain got its wires crossed and he definitely said the first bit out loud. Shit, that was definitely out of line, and if Felix hasn’t been offended before he sure as hell should be now.

There’s a screech from his left and Ace has never been so glad to take a bonesaw to the shoulder as when the Nurse teleports next to him and interrupts their awkward conversation, Ace finally running out of the goddamn shrubbery while clutching his injured shoulder. Strangely enough, the Nurse doesn’t follow him as he runs up to the temple, and soon after he hears Felix yelp instead, the killer chasing him around the shack.

Damn, now he somehow needs to make it up to Felix both to apologize for his foot-in-mouth syndrome and for him taking the Nurse off Ace’s back.

Unfortunately for them, the Nurse isn't playing around this match, and when she returns to tunnel Felix right off the hook, Ace barely even gets the chance to yell out a “Move!” and throw himself in the way of the attack, much less talk to him about what happened earlier.

Soon Ace is walking back into camp, the second to last to have been sacrificed, only Claudette remaining in the trial and trying to find the hatch. He's already prepared an apology, and hopefully he'll be able to joke it off and Felix won't be weirded out by him. Well, at least not more than usual.

But then he spots Felix talking to Dwight by the edge of the camp, and Dwight freezes mid-conversation upon seeing Ace, before his face twists into a—smirk? Since when has Dwight smirked?—and he says something to Felix before taking off, walking over to where Steve and Ash look to be engaged in a game of tic-tac-toe.

Ace doesn't even have time to ponder why Dwight suddenly seems like he knows way too much, because Felix is approaching him and he knows this is a make or break it situation.

“Dwight seemed awfully smug, huh?” Ace jokes to buy himself some time after his carefully crafted apology flies out the window when he sees Felix’s serious expression. “We need to talk,” Felix says, looking and sounding every bit the stern businessman Meg thinks he is. “Yeah, alright,” Ace agrees and tries not to deflate too much upon essentially being shut down before he can even try to make things right.

As he follows Felix out into the woods away from prying eyes, he considers whether it's even worth apologizing if their friendship is done with anyway. He just hopes this won't cause unnecessary drama within the group, the others sure as hell don’t need to get involved.

His train of thought is interrupted when he's suddenly pushed against a tree, letting out a startled yelp that he’ll later vehemently deny. Shit, is Felix going to beat him up?

An arm wrapping around his hip is finally enough to pull Ace out of his racing thoughts, and when he looks up at the man he finally realizes that Felix is definitely not upset with him, and his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline upon seeing the clear bedroom eyes thrown his way.

“Is this not okay?” Felix asks, his dark gaze faltering from insecurity. “Naw, baby, just took me by surprise,” Ace practically purrs, a lazy grin spreading over his face as the familiar confidence returns, his hands running over Felix's shoulders appreciatively. “I thought you were upset with me from before, not that you'd take me up on the offer.” “Well, I—” Felix starts, clearing his throat self-consciously. “I've wanted this for quite some time, and Dwight said you probably wouldn't be opposed, so…”

That's what they were talking about? And Dwight convinced Felix that Ace is down to fuck? Shit, he needs to get the kid a fruit basket or something to thank him.

“He's definitely not wrong,” Ace says, trying for a seductive look but probably ends up leering stupidly from the anticipation instead. But apparently it gets the job done, because Felix pulls him tighter against him and leans in for a kiss.

And okay, wow, apparently he wasn't lying about really wanting this, because there's an urgency in the way he practically devours Ace's mouth, letting out an appreciative groan when Ace parts his lips and encourages him to deepen the kiss.

So maybe he should be worried about Felix's girlfriend or his sudden interest in men or whether he's looking for more than a casual fuck. But Ace has never been good at thinking certain things through and he's not about to start now, not when he has a breathless and flushed Felix pulling away from the kiss and looking at him with lust-blown eyes.

“I've wanted to do that for a long time,” Felix breathes, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a half-smile. “You really should have just asked,” Ace smirks, a little amazed that he managed to miss all the signs, because there’s nothing subtle about the way Felix looks at him now. “I was working up to it,” Felix argues. “But then you started practically eye fucking me—” “I was looking respectfully,” Ace corrects, causing Felix to snort. “You stood in a bush and drooled, and then propositioned me,” Felix points out. “Yeah, and you liked it so much you blushed like a virgin and started flirting and took the killer off of me—which, thanks for that, by the way—” Ace starts. “You're welcome.” “—and… why did I think you were mad at me again?” Ace realizes. “No idea. I thought it was pretty obvious why I dragged you here to ‘talk’,” Felix emphasizes, gaze roaming appreciatively over his body. “Well, what are you waiting for?” Ace encourages, flashing his signature smirk in challenge.

And Ace learns that no matter how much he likes Felix's outfit, getting to help Felix out of it is even better.