#dashfyre

[thecholma]

"Where were YOU when you first saw the ballpit?" Someone should get the people behind Dashcon & Fyre Festival together and make DashFyre Con. It's *sure* to be a hit!

if you post about dashcon today you get an extra 10 years in the ballpit

[duckbunny]

FIVE TIMES DASHCON DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY (AND ONE TIME HE DID)

So, due to the Fight Back Fic Auction @fightbackfic​ and a generous donation to the Trussell Trust (feed the hungry), this happened. It’s Dashcon/Fyre Festival slash. You’re welcome.

You can read it on AO3 if you’d rather.

Persons of a nervous disposition may be reassured that there are no ball pits in the following narrative.

It was three pm on an overheated Tuesday, and Dash just wanted a frappucino. He'd barely made it out of bed this morning, had spent an hour dicking about on his phone without reaching the end of Tumblr or sitting up, and he just wanted a coffee milkshake with a lot of ice and syrup in it, but the barista at the fancy coffee shop was looking at him like he'd asked for a bowl of slugs.

“We don't sell those,” she said, the implied sweetie, this should be obvious ringing clear. “If you're looking for something cold, I can recommend the affogato.”

Dash was already kicking himself. He shouldn't have come in here. He should have known from the atmosphere that it wasn't for him – from the artfully worn wooden tables and the way the menu said 4.5 where any normal place would have put $4.50. “What – what is that?”

“It's vanilla ice cream topped with a shot of espresso.” The barista was still smiling at him, like a particularly unimpressed dragon might smile. He didn't like espresso.

“Um, I'll have, uh, could I just get a latte, please? With two shots of caramel syrup?”

Her smile didn't waver. “I'm afraid we don't stock syrup.”

“Oh. Then just the latte?”

“Coming right up.”

Dash fumbled in his back pocket for the right change. The right change made things go faster and then he could sit down and wait for his face to stop burning. He had a five crumpled up from sitting on it and he tried to smooth it out unobtrusively before the barista came back and he had to hand her a creased bill and coins warm from his body heat. The latte cost twice as much as he expected. He really should have just gone to Starbucks.

He sat down with his coffee. He stood up again. No syrup, okay, but he couldn't drink it plain. There had to be sugar in here somewhere, right? They couldn't only cater to people who liked it bitter? No coffee shop was that purist, right?

There was sugar. It was brown and came in rough craggy lumps. Dash had to walk all the way to the end of the counter to fetch it, past the barista who was wiping down the counter with all-recyclable natural brown paper towels. She stared at him.

She wasn't the only one. The guy in the corner was watching him, must have been watching the whole ordeal, with a grin Dash did not want to like, but which brought out dimples and made his eyes crinkle just a little bit. He was perfectly blond and perfectly turned out, his hair tousled in the way that said both I woke up like this and I spent three hours getting the perfect look. Dash never spent three hours getting the perfect look. He rarely spent three minutes. He kept glancing over at the blond guy while he sipped his still-bitter coffee, and the blond guy kept smirking at him, and Dash thought he would quite like to die.

It was one am on a Saturday, and Dash definitely wanted to die. He had a deadline next week, really shouldn't have come out at all, but the club only had one Gay Night a month and he hadn't managed to get out to one yet, so his friends had nagged him into going with them. They'd since vanished, whether with each other or with hookups he wasn't sure, but either way Dash was stuck propping up the wall of this very dark, very loud place and wishing he had someone to split a cab home with.

“Buy you a drink?”

Dash said, “No, thank you,” automatically, before he clocked who was speaking to him.

“Probably for the best, I don't think they do fraps here, either.”

The man from the coffee shop was leaning on the wall beside him, with a tilt in his hips that made it look stylish and his hair slicked back with gel. His shirt was all black mesh and latex panels and Dash shouldn't be trying to see his nipples but he was. The guy grinned at him. “You're cute. You got a name?”

“Dash. Dashel, technically.”

“I'm Fire. With a y.”

“Wow. Your parents were even worse than mine.”

“Hey,” Fyre said reproachfully, “I like my name. Do you dance, Technically Dashel, or should we just get out of here?”

“I – uh – buh - “ Dash said. “Um?”

Fyre patted him on the arm. “Okay. You got your phone on you?”

“Uh-huh?” Dash handed it over in a daze. Fyre typed something in and showed it to him. Phone number.

“This is me,” Fyre said. “I'm going to go dance. Call me, find me, whatever.”

Dash stayed on the wall for a long time watching Fyre's hips shake, and then he drank a glass of ice water and crossed the dance floor.

It was nine am on a Saturday, and Dash had a headache. That was the first thing he noticed, before he opened his eyes, that somehow he'd got the hangover without any of the drinking beforehand. His hair had wrapped around his face in the night and he peeled it away, grimacing. He was lucky it hadn't tried to strangle him.

There was a noise from the other side of the bed.

Dash froze for a moment, his whole mind going blank. It couldn't be the cat. He hadn't had a cat for the last five years.

He flipped over like a well-greased pancake and stared at Fyre, glowing golden in the morning light. He had one arm tucked behind his head, already posing, and Dash could vividly recall what the rest of him looked like, under the artfully draped sheet.

“Morning,” Fyre said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Oh. Oh. You're… not a dream?”

Fyre smiled. It was slow and rather predatory. Dash would fight a tiger to keep that smile turned on him. A really angry tiger. “I'm real. And you're real, and it's far too early to get up on a Saturday.”

“But we're both awake,” Dash said, and immediately felt very stupid.

They fell asleep again afterwards.

It was seven pm on a Thursday and Dash hadn't heard from Fyre all week, except to set up this date – was date the right word? Was he allowed to use that word? He felt like maybe that word was a bit ambitious, given what Fyre looked like, namely a bronzed Greek god with piercing blue eyes and a devastating smile, and what Dash looked like, namely a particularly scruffy Muppet. He could maybe be the awkward librarian that Fyre flirted with on the way to break hearts and save the world, but he clearly couldn't be the boyfriend.

Anyway, Fyre wasn't exactly late, because he'd said they should meet up to get a drink before dinner and their reservation wasn't until half past, and Dash had a feeling that the smooth thing to do would be to go and sit down at the bar like he owned it and order something in a tone of cool confidence, but the only time Dash had been smooth was as a teenager when he'd stolen his sister's razor and his legs had felt very strange for a week. So instead of that, he was sitting on the plinth of a statue, wishing Fyre would turn up and whisk him inside.

He felt even stupider when Fyre did arrive, and swept confidently into the restaurant expecting Dash to be in there already. He had to scurry in after him and tap him on the arm before he noticed Dash and took off his shades. “There you are,” he said, in a voice as warm as his name. “You look like you could use a drink. Long day?”

Dash made his routine work annoyances sound much worse, just to avoid admitting he'd been nervous. He managed to sound like he had an opinion on his cocktail, so that was something, and Fyre didn't seem to realise that he'd spent his whole lunch break frantically Googling cocktails to find one he might actually like. Coffee and vodka had seemed like a safe bet and he'd said “Espresso martini” on the first attempt.

It was a little like being in a cutscene. Fyre would ask him something and Dash would try to sound friendly or interested or interesting, and out of his mouth would pop a random sentence that didn't at all match the option he’d meant to select. Fyre had something very clear and strong-looking, with ice and lemon and some kind of herb all piled into the glass, and he sipped it much slower than Dash drank his and didn't look confused about where to put his hands. Dash hated him suddenly, for his perfect hair and his smile and his manners. He'd probably had lessons in small talk. Dash said “So, what do your parents do?” and that carried them through to the appetisers.

The gentle jazz piano didn't help at all with the unreality. Dash picked at his goat's cheese tart and wondered aloud if it was really supposed to taste that much like goat, and Fyre laughed and told him he was adorable. Dash let him order after that. It seemed easier. Fyre sent his steak back twice, once for being too cooked, once too rare. Dash could hardly fathom spending that much on a meal in the first place, let alone wasting it. He worked dutifully through his unexciting side salad and didn't mention the prices. Fyre had promised he'd pay. Dash hadn't even had to ask. It would be fine.

Fyre leaned over the table while they were waiting for dessert and took Dash's hand. Dash looked up at his smiling face and tried to find his missing vocal chords.

“I've got an idea,” Fyre said conspiratorially, before Dash could cobble something together about how nice the evening had been. “Just follow my lead, okay?”

He flagged down a waitress, still holding Dash's hand on the table top, and looked up at her through his lashes. “Hi. No, no, everything's fine, thank you, everything's been great. It's just – it's our anniversary.”

Dash sat up straight, his mouth falling open, and Fyre squeezed his hand hard. “So I was just wondering – could you ask the pianist to play something for us? Something romantic? Oh, thank you so much, that's very kind of you. Thank you. Oh, we will, and I hope you have a nice evening as well. Thanks.”

He settled back in his chair and winked at Dash, finally letting his hand go. “We won't be paying for that steak, you wait and see.”

“Oh,” Dash said. He looked over at the pianist, who inclined his shaved head very solemnly and started playing something almost parodically sweet. “That's smart, I guess. You could have warned me.”

“You wouldn't have reacted right if I had. That little shy shocked face was perfect, I wouldn't have missed that for the world.”

“Thanks,” Dash said, and tried to see if their desserts were being brought yet.

The bill had twenty percent knocked off, and Fyre didn't tip.

It was midnight on a Wednesday, and Dash was staring at himself in the mirror. The shadows under his eyes weren't softened a bit by Fyre's bathroom, all steel and white tile. His mouth tasted thick and unpleasant. He should have brought a toothbrush with him. He should have gone home for a change of clothes first.

“I'm going to go home,” he said abruptly.

“What? Baby, come on,” Fyre said, lifting his head up in bed. “Don't just cut and run, give a man some romance.”

Dash wasn't an expert, but he thought romance probably had more reciprocation in it, and not taking him places that made him feel stupid, and not laughing at him when he was just trying to explain about amatonormative microaggressions and how Fyre shouldn't assume he was attracted to men just because they were having sex - “No, I'm just going to go,” he said. “I have work tomorrow.”

“I'll get you a cab.”

“You mean you'll order a cab.”

“That's what I said.”

“What am I supposed to wear? You dragged me all the way out here and I don't even have a shirt for work. I'm going home, Fyre.”

Fyre looked him up and down in exactly the way he wished Fyre wouldn't, because it made him shiver and blush. “It's your call, baby.” Fyre said. “You know you're always welcome right here.”

“Yeah,” Dash said, his mouth suddenly dry. “I'm gonna. I think I'm going to head back.”

“Whatever you say, darling.”

It was five pm on a Tuesday and Fyre had finally texted him. He'd been ignoring Dash all weekend, or maybe Dash had been ignoring him, refusing to be the first one to break the silence. He wasn't going to be the needy one. He wasn't going to apologise.

Dash looked at the text – Your place or mine? Bring a clean shirt, and spent twenty minutes gnawing on his thumbnail and trying to make up his mind.

Fuck off, he sent back, and went to get himself a caramel frap with extra syrup.