#fic in a box 2023

[drabbles-mc]

No Good Time For This

Sydney Adamu x Richie Jerimovich

For the loveliest @hausofmamadas for the Fic in a Box Exchange

Warnings: 18+, language, smoking, all the chaos and ridiculousness you expect with The Bear

Word Count: 7.5k

A/N: the way i want to write 500000000 fics for SydRichie. But this is a start. Thank you Kay for giving me the chance to do this. Big loves to you 💕

The Bear Taglist: @withmyteeth @darqchilddaydreamz @garbinge @ashlingnarcos @narcolini @justreblogginfics (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

She considered it a small miracle, maybe even a blessing, that when she came back inside they were still sawing their way through the door of the walk-in. If it had been a normal Friends and Family night, she would’ve stuck around and waited for them to free Carmy from his self-imposed confines so that they could talk, rehash the things that had gone well, things that needed to go better next time. But it hadn’t been a normal one. Or maybe it had—she hadn’t had the pleasure of launching her own restaurant like this before. Everything about Sheridan Road had been different. So for all she knew the absolute bedlam they’d been dealing with was par for the course.

But she was still pretty sure that it wasn’t.

Either way, she knew that she wasn’t in the right headspace to stick around and try to talk it out with Carmy. There was no getting to the bottom of whatever everything was, not tonight. So she slipped through, grabbing her things as she went, not even bothering to hang up her brand new chef’s jacket in her locker. She’d just make a point to remember it in the morning when she was getting ready to leave. The immediate relief of one less thing standing between her and the door was worth the extra step tomorrow.

She saw the way that Ebra was looking on over the shoulder of the man who had shown up to free Carmy. That was enough to reassure her that she was free to leave. Even if she wasn’t, there was nothing that Carmy could scream at her for in that moment that he couldn’t just as easily scream at her for tomorrow. It could wait. He could wait. All the waiting that he’d made her do in the months leading up to this, she couldn’t deny that it felt a little right to leave him there and make him wait until tomorrow to see her or talk to her. She wouldn’t have gone out of her way to dodge him, but the universe was lining her up for the perfect shot at the moment, so she was going to take it.

When she walked out the front door, she wasn’t expecting to see Richie standing there smoking a cigarette, looking just about as lost as she felt. He turned around at the sound of the door shutting behind him. His eyes locked onto Sydney and he wanted to muster up some sort of reaction to it being her, but he just couldn’t quite manage it. There was the tiniest lift of his eyebrows, an almost imperceptible upward tilt of his head, but that was it. Sydney’s reaction was about the same.

“Thought you went home,” she said as she stepped so that she was beside him.

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

It was different, weird even, to hear Richie’s tone sounding so neutral. He always had some kind of an inflection in his voice, even if it was an annoying one. He was always yelling, or laughing, or arguing to prove a point that no one else in the world cared enough to try and make. Even his most pointless stories were always told with a sense of urgency. So to hear him sound like that, so flat and almost empty, after one of the biggest nights for them in the last few months, didn’t sit quite right.

There was a comment on the tip of Syd’s tongue, something to the effect of telling him that he should go home. Then it hit her that she didn’t really know if she wanted to go home either. She didn’t want to be inside, didn’t want to look Carmy in the eyes, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready to pack it in and head back to her apartment. She stopped herself from telling Richie to do something that she had no real interest in doing herself.

“That was…insane,” she said to him instead.

That got a hint of a laugh, more of a scoff than anything, out of him. But it was something. A feeling. “Yeah, yeah it fuckin’ was.”

“You did—”

“You know—”

They both started and stopped at the same time. They both chuckled awkwardly, shaking their heads. It always felt like they were either perfectly in-sync or constantly stepping on each other’s toes. At least this time the toe-stepping wasn’t accompanied by yelling.

Richie gestured for her to continue, the cigarette still in his hand tossing smoke everywhere in the process. “Go ahead.”

“You did…really great tonight, Richie,” she said with a nod.

He scoffed but cut himself short in the process. Take the win. He had to get better at letting himself take the win. After all, it wasn’t often that Syd was the one giving him any. “You too,” he let a pause linger for longer than necessary, a small smirk starting to creep its way across his face as he added on, “Captain.”

“Fuck off.” She said it with a laugh, no real heat behind the words the way that there had been in the past.

They both laughed, awkward tension starting to slowly evaporate, but the exhaustion still hung heavy in the air. Thick condensation that neither of them could shake off. It wasn’t until they both stopped laughing that Syd cleared her throat and prompted Richie to say whatever it was that he was going to say to her before.

He shook his head. He almost didn’t want to say it now. The moment was good. For all the bad moments over the course of the night, most of his moments with Syd had been good ones. He didn’t want to ruin that. They were laughing, and tired, and for a moment not stressed the fuck out about it all. He didn’t want to dredge it all up again. Looking over at Syd and her big, curious eyes, he knew that there was no saying, “Nevermind,” now.

He tapped the ash of his cigarette onto the sidewalk, a last-ditch effort of procrastination. “What I was gonna say, before you interrupted me,” he joked for a moment before letting his tone get serious again, “was that, fuck, I just—” He stopped and shook his head, already wanting to take it all back. He was long past the point of no return now. “You know you don’t have to just, fuckin’, put up with him being like that, right?”

Her brows drew together. “What?”

He nodded back towards the restaurant. “Carmy. You don’t have to put up with his whole, you know,” he gestured vaguely with his hand, less smoke in his wake this time, “toddler, bitch-boy routine.”

Syd couldn’t help but to laugh as she shook her head. “Richie, I mean, I get it, but I kinda d—”

“You don’t,” he cut her off, shaking his head. “Get back in his fuckin’ face when he gets at you like that.”

“Like you?” The words were meant to land as an insult, but she should’ve known better than to think that Richie was going to let them be one.

“Yeah! Like me!” He was hovering just beneath a yell now, but not really at her, still at Carmy. Syd just happened to be the person who was standing in front of him at the time. “Don’t let him think that that shit’s okay, you know?”

She shook her head. “He knows it’s not.”

“Then he should fuckin’ act accordingly!”

She knew that Richie wasn’t wrong. But she also knew enough, about Carmy and about the kitchen and about life, to know that it was lofty to think that her snapping back at Carmy all the time would be the magical cure for it all.

“I know,” she tried to be purposeful with her words, handling Richie with more care in that moment than she had in any other moment since she’d met him. “But can you at least agree that maybe, maybe it wasn’t the right time? You know? When we were all in the middle of the shit?”

The four seconds it took Richie to concede to what she was saying felt like they were actually much longer than that. He did give in, though. Shoulders dropping as he tucked his chin in a nod. “Doesn’t stop him though,” he muttered. “Fuckin’ baby.”

Syd didn’t even feel the smile creeping back onto her face, had no idea it’d made a reappearance. “Doesn’t stop you either, to be fair.”

“Pfft,” Richie scoffed as he flicked away the butt of his cigarette, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—I am the pinnacle of professionalism.”

“Richie.”

He rolled his eyes but there was a smirk on his face as he did. “Yeah, yeah. Not…not the right time.”

There was a pause, one that lasted long enough for either of them, or both of them, to go their separate ways. It’d been the longest night in the history of everything and there was no real reason for either of them to keep sticking around. Syd was vaguely aware of the fact that she probably still smelled like the back alleyway and her own vomit, and Richie was probably still forcing the last of the adrenaline out of his system. Even knowing that, though, neither of them moved. If anything, Syd was more tempted to just plop down on the curb than turn to start heading towards the station that would get her home. If she went home she would see her father. Her father who was currently so excited for her and proud of her, and actually showing it in a way that she could understand. She didn’t want to go home with the weight that was currently lingering on her shoulders and ruin that. It wouldn’t just be ruining it for her, it would be ruining it for him, too. If she could manage to wait a little while longer, she would. If Richie was going to give her a way to stick around, she was going to take it.

He wouldn’t be so bold as to say it, but Richie was glad that she didn’t seem to be in much of a rush to leave either. For as much as part of Richie wanted to be laying in bed staring up at his ceiling, he didn’t want to go back to the emptiness of his apartment yet. Carmy’s words were still bouncing around his head. They weren’t going to sink their teeth into him. He wasn’t going to let them do that. It wasn’t anything worse than what either of them had ever said to each other before. He was almost certain that they would say the same types of things to each other again at some point. All the personal growth in the world could never completely snub out those old habits. They would always come out of hibernation eventually. His fight with Carmy would hit him in waves over the next few days, but what was really pulling him under in the moment was something that he hadn’t seen coming. He knew that it was probably much more than just the fact that Tiff wasn’t at Friends and Family that was getting to him, that the issues and the need for closure there went much deeper than that. It was so much easier to attribute it to just one night, though, so that’s exactly what he was going to do for the time being. And if standing on the curbside with Sydney kept him from going home and staring at his ceiling and spinning out about things that were out of his control, then he’d keep doing it.

“Speaking of bad timing,” Syd started with a shake of her head, helping both of them procrastinate in the best way that they knew how.

“Oh shit,” Richie chuckled, “this is gonna be good.”

For a moment Richie was straddling between the possibilities of thinking that Syd was about to be complicit in her own bad timing, and thinking that her story was about someone else’s bad timing. They were both equally likely, given how things tended to go for all of them.

Syd didn’t know if she really even wanted to tell Richie what had happened. Or maybe want wasn’t the right word. She knew that she wanted to tell him, but she didn’t know why. She was, for the moment at least, probably better off not knowing the why. She also didn’t know how much telling him might end up backfiring on her. Want wasn’t the right word—should was.

Luckily for Richie, if there was one thing Syd had it was the ability to go for something even if it might blow up directly in her face after the fact.

“I think Marcus asked me out earlier.”

Richie’s eyes went wide. “Shut the fuck up.”

“I’m serious.”

“You think?” he asked, mostly mocking but also genuinely wondering how she could be uncertain about something like that.

“There was a lot going on!” She tried to come to her own defense. “There was a lot going on and I wasn’t exactly expecting it and he also didn’t really—”

“What’d you say?” He cut her ramble short, wanting to get right to the heart of it all.

“What?”

“He asked you out. So, what did you say?”

“You think I’d be standing here talking to you about it if I said yes?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Poor Marcus. That’s,” he glanced over at Syd, a shit-eating grin on his face, “that’s gonna be a tough one to come back from.”

She rolled her eyes, immediately regretting her decision to tell him. She knew it was coming, in a way, but she wasn’t going to let that take away her right to be annoyed. “Alright—”

“Sydney Heartbreaker Adamu,” he joked.

She wanted to be mad but she ended up laughing instead. “Shut up. Making me sound like some boxer.”

“Read all that Coach K shit and didn’t even end up in the right sport.”

She clasped her hands in front of her face for a moment, caught between praying and laughing a little harder at it all. “I think we’re all going to be busy enough so that it’s not going to be, like, a real—”

Sydney stopped herself mid-sentence when the restaurant door opened behind them. They each turned and looked to see Carmy walking through. However tired the two of them looked by that point, Carmy was about ten times worse and had twenty times more reason to be. There was a pause as they all stood and looked at each other—Syd and Richie looking at Carmy, Carmy going back and forth between the two of them. In the back of his mind he knew that he must’ve been interrupting something. He also knew that there should be something that he was saying but nothing was coming out. All the thoughts racing around his head and he couldn’t manage to externalize a single fucking one of them. Suddenly he found himself sitting there, spinning out and feeling embarrassed in front of two people he had worked so hard to fall into sync with.

Syd was willing to bite the bullet on behalf of everyone one more time. “We can talk tomorrow, Chef,” she said with a tight nod as she continued to look at Carmy.

He looked a little taken aback by the statement when he should have probably been nothing besides grateful. The last thing that he needed as to be getting into it with both of them in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk, especially not when they would both be teaming up against him. He knew that. But he also hated the feeling of being dismissed like he was a child who was getting suspended from school for the rest of the day. If he said that he was sure it would’ve been met by a comment from one or both of them that would have been to the effect of, “If you weren’t acting like such a child we wouldn’t have to fucking treat you like one.” And he knew that he’d deserve that too.

Carmy forced himself to nod, speaking somewhat to both of them even though he was still only looking at Sydney. It felt a little easier to do that, although he might feel differently after whatever conversation they would end up having tomorrow. For now, though, she was still safe.

“Tomorrow. Right. Yeah.” He nodded one more time. “Tomorrow.”

Carmy tried to get his feet to move but they wouldn’t. Richie could see it in Sydney’s eyes that she was about to take off. Home suddenly feeling like less of an uncomfortable notion when the other option was standing there with the two of them. He didn’t want to be left alone with Carmy, not so soon after everything else, so he beat her to the punch and rolled out before either of them could counter it.

“Night, Chefs,” he said in one sweep to both of them before turning and walking towards the lot where he’d parked his car.

Syd was the only one who said anything in return, Carmy only able to give him a nod in that moment. When Richie was far enough away to make the two of them look at each other again, Carmy wondered if Syd would change her mind and want to have a conversation with him about any of it, about anything really.

She ignored the hopeful look that was starting to creep into his eyes. “See you tomorrow.”

He got half a nod out before he gave up on it, already seeing the way Syd was stepping back to go on her own way as well. “Y-yeah. See you…see you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow came much faster than anyone at The Bear had really been bargaining for. It felt like it was forever away with how long the day before had seemed. Syd thought that she was ridiculously early in getting there but the first thing she noticed was that the lights were already on. It was a toss-up on who had gotten there before her, a fifty-fifty shot between the two Berzatto’s. It wasn’t a sure enough thing for her to want to walk in just yet. She knew that she and Carmy needed to talk, but that didn’t mean that she wanted to. Especially not first thing in the goddamn morning. Maybe it was Natalie. Maybe it was Natalie and they would lament together in the office and it would all be okay. But something in Syd’s gut told her it was Carmy.

She was so busy staring at the door that she hadn’t heard the footsteps getting closer. It wasn’t until Richie spoke that she realized she was no longer alone out on the sidewalk.

“Keep meeting like this,” he mumbled past the cigarette between his lips.

Her head whipped in his direction, and it wasn’t until she saw the amused look on his face that she processed what he said. Once she really heard it, though, it got her to laugh. “Funny how that works.”

He nodded towards the restaurant before lighting his cigarette. “Ready to do it all over again?”

“No,” she answered immediately. “That’s why I’m standing out here on the,” she shook her head, “on the fucking sidewalk.”

He stepped in a little closer so that he was standing right beside her, as close to shoulder-to-shoulder as they could manage given their height difference. “How bad could it be, right?” he asked with a shrug, sleeve sliding against the material of her winter jacket.

The laugh that she let out was loud, almost involuntarily so. One of the only people who really knew just how bad it could get besides her was Richie, and that’s what nearly had her in stitches. “Fuck off.”

He flicked his cigarette away, not anywhere near done with it. More of a habit than a need, now. He placed his hand on her shoulder closest to him. “C’mon, Chef. Let’s get this over with.”

It took Richie less than ten minutes to come to regret those words. He and Syd had gone inside, Syd had put all of her things away in her locker, and that was when both of them heard shuffling around coming from inside the office. Carmy and Richie had said plenty to each other the night before—it was Sydney and Carmy who needed to actually have that first initial conversation. All Syd could make herself do was look at Richie as he looked at her, and finally she pushed the door to her locker shut. Neither of them said anything to the other. Richie just gave her a slight nod of reassurance before she went on her way.

The last thing he heard before Syd shut the door to the office was her saying to Carmy, “Hey, so, I think we really need to talk about last night.” The first thing he heard after that was Syd shouting, “Okay, well, it is a fucking problem!” Richie had no idea what was said between them between those two sentences, but he had no doubt that Syd was right, that whatever was being brought up and discussed was, in fact, a problem. Part of him wanted to linger, knowing that the two of them would undoubtedly get loud enough and stay loud enough for him to hear pretty much everything that was said, but he didn’t. He’d get the liner notes from one of them, or both of them, before the day was out. He was willing to settle for that. He went back out to the front of the house and made himself busy there instead. Purpose.

By the time that everyone else started to trickle in, the yelling had stopped. The tension wasn’t gone but at least they were no longer about to throttle each other. The office was Natalie’s head of operations once more the way that it should be.

“Where the fuck is Marcus?” Carmy asked as he was taking stock of everyone that was in the kitchen.

Syd shrugged, eyes glued to the counter in front of her. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything from him.”

“Did you call him?”

She didn’t turn her head to look at him, but her eyes flicked over to Carmy. “Did you?”

He raised his eyebrows, and Sydney could see it on his face that he was fighting the urge to say something that would kick everything off again. If it had just been the two of them he wouldn’t have held his tongue. As it was, he just shook his head and took off towards the back door so he could make the phone call.

Richie appeared right by Sydney’s side, seemingly out of nowhere the way it always seemed to be now. He leaned in close and kept his voice quiet, which seemed to be another new skill he honed in recent weeks, so that only Syd could hear him, and hear the humor in his voice. “Think he’s blowing us all off because you—”

“I do not think he’s blowing us off because of that,” Syd cut him off, shaking her head and trying not to let it show that she found it almost as funny as it was annoying coming from Richie.

The smug grin on his face grew a little wider. “Told you it was gonna be a hard one to come back fr—”

“Richie, do you remember how unpleasant it was last time I stabbed you?” She paused long enough to look at him, not long enough to let him answer the question before continuing on to say, “Our knives are so much nicer and sharper now, you know?”

He chuckled, holding his hands up. “No need to get stabby—just paying you a compliment.”

It wasn’t until that moment that Syd realized just how close Richie was actually standing to her. She didn’t want to think about it. There were so many other things that she needed to be thinking about. Things that mattered in that moment, like the restaurant, like Carmy being one mishap away from falling completely fucking apart again, like Marcus being MIA. She didn’t need to be thinking about Richie standing close to her and the way warmth rolled up and down her spine like someone was dragging their fingertips there.

Richie was either too busy being amused with himself to notice the shift, or just oblivious because nothing prior to that moment would’ve given him any inkling that he would elicit that from her just by invading her personal space the way that he always did with her and everyone else. Or maybe, Syd thought for a moment, he noticed and was just being kind enough not to say anything at work in front of everyone. That was a short-lived moment.

Regardless of the why, Richie switched tracks. “Speaking of people being butthurt—how’d it go with Carmine this morning?”

Syd rolled her eyes, split-second infatuation completely gone. “It went great, yeah. Super…super productive. Did you not hear it?” If her sarcastic tone was a tangible object it would’ve been a lead brick dropping directly onto Richie’s toe.

He shook his head, trying not to smile and failing miserably. “Only a little bit of it.”

“How did that little bit sound?”

He gave a fake impressed frown and nod. “Productive, I’d say.”

She knew he would be able to tell that she didn’t really mean it when she told him, “Fuck off,” but it still felt good to say it.

“Told you, sweetheart,” he rested his hands on her shoulders for a brief moment, “Peak of Professionalism.”

“Yeah,” she rolled her eyes, smiling as he walked away to start taking care of more pressing matters, “add it to your resumé.”

The next dinner shift was about as much of a scramble as the previous one had been. Different, but similar. Marcus being MIA made things difficult, but there was something to be said for Carmy not being locked in the freezer this time around. Chaotic, but manageable—that was something they were all used to.

 “All good, Chef?” Richie asked when he walked back into the kitchen to grab some of the plates that were up.

Syd was nodding, eyes still locked on the sea of slips in front of her. “Yes, Chef.”

Richie had a plate in each hand but he still paused beside her. “Hey,” he paused and waited for her to finally look over at him, “you’re doing good.”

Syd expected to want to come back with something snarky, but instead the smile on her face was genuine. “Thanks—”

“Doing as good as I did last time? Well,” Richie said with a shrug, trying not to laugh, “we’ll see.”

She immediately dropped her eyes back to the real task at hand, partially to focus but mostly so he wouldn’t be able to see her trying not to laugh. “Need to see those plates walking, Chef.”

He laughed, already stepping away as he said, “Yes, Chef.”

Sydney was sure that there was a universe out there somewhere, where she got along easily with both Richie and Carmy. As it stood, however, she seemed to be stuck in a world where she could only ever manage to be on good terms with one of them. For the longest time it was her and Carmy—a united front in a way against the rest of the restaurant. Part of her thought that shifting to The Bear was only going to strengthen and solidify that. They were supposed to be partners, after all. Much to her surprise it seemed to be doing the exact opposite. It was more complicated than just the two of them ‘not getting along’. The problems ran deeper than that, had a reach farther outside the kitchen than that. Regardless of the reasoning behind it all, it left the two of them feeling about as far apart as they’d ever been since she’d shown up to stage when they were still The Beef. She couldn’t simply storm out and walk away like she had before, not with how deeply she was entrenched in it now. She had to adapt, had to figure it out even if Carmy seemed to be incapable of doing the same.

Apparently an integral part of the adaptation process was her and Richie mending things between them. There was never really a conversation about them filling in the cracks of the foundation between them. They never sat down across the table from each other and spelled out everything that they were sorry for—that wasn’t how they were wired with each other. They understood, though, one good turn deserving another. They both knew that there was more to be said about them being on the same wavelength in the kitchen, that that change alone said more than a plain apology ever would. To being combatants on opposites sides of the fight to being each other’s touchstone in the middle of the chaos was a one-eighty that neither of them ever would have been able to call. They never really said anything about that either, but they made sure the other knew that they were grateful for it.

“You heading out soon, Chef?” Richie asked after a long minute of watching Syd fuss over produce placement and organization on the cart.

Her eyes flicked over to the clock on the wall before they finally landed on Richie. She hadn’t even noticed the time going by. “Yeah. Soon.”

He didn’t mean to smile but he couldn’t stop himself either as he walked closer. “What’re you doing?”

“I feel like this could be better.”

“Better?” He laughed. “It’s fuckin’ vegetables, Syd. How—”

“Not everyone in this kitchen is six feet tall, Richie.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m six-one,” he paused for emphasis, “But I see your point.” He looked at her as she went to look away. “You really think you’re gonna crack the code tonight?”

“I might! I could. Probably.”

He was shaking his head but he knew that she was probably right. Usually if she thought on something hard enough she’d get to the bottom of it one way or another. “Alright,” he conceded as he took a small step back. He leaned against the counter behind him, crossing his arms over his chest as he waited.

It took longer than it should have for her to notice that he was still standing there. She tried to ignore the way her heartbeat quickened just slightly. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”

“What if there’s a vegetable-placement-related emergency tomorrow and you’re not here?”

“Where else would I be?”

“Stuck in the freezer,” Richie said with a laugh despite the fact that the door to the walk-in was in perfect working order now. He gave them each a moment to laugh at that, knowing that joking about it was the only way to cope with it at this point. “Anyway, what if there’s an emergency and I’m the only other one who would’ve had the answer if I had just stuck around?”

“Your head is a very dramatic place to be,” she said, smiling and knowing enough to not argue with him further or try to insist on sending him home.

She didn’t stick around for as long as she would have if she had been alone. Throughout the process of opening The Bear she had spent plenty of late nights at the restaurant on her own and she didn’t think twice about it. Things had to get done and she was fine being the one to stay late and do them. It felt different knowing that Richie was there and waiting on her, though, even if he wasn’t saying anything or trying to rush her.

“I don’t think I’m getting this tonight,” she finally conceded.

Richie chuckled, stepping forward again. She didn’t shy away from him encroaching on her space. He looked over her shoulder, hands stuffed into his pockets. “Maybe there’s nothing to get.”

She let out a short sigh. “Yeah.” She pressed the heel of her palm to the edge of her forehead for a moment. “Maybe.”

Sydney wasn’t looking at him but that didn’t stop Richie from looking at her. His eyes raked over her profile, unable to make himself look at anything else. He took in a slow, deep breath, knowing that there were words on the tip of his tongue that he just couldn’t let himself say. Part of him wanted to, just so it was out there in the open and he wouldn’t have it hanging over his head anymore. That same part of him also couldn’t help but to sometimes think that he wasn’t the only one who felt the way that he did. It took two, right? To make things work the way that they had been?

But he didn’t want to be the next person that she talked about to someone after hours, another story of some poor sucker who couldn’t read the room and had the worst timing in the world. He didn’t want that. It was a little selfish, sure, but the outcome was still the same—their dynamic would keep.

Syd turned around, thinking that she was just going to go and grab her things from her locker. She stopped on a dime, though, when she saw how close Richie had been standing to her. She looked up at him, eyes wide as an awkward laugh slipped past her lips.

“What’s up?” she asked, not moving away from him if he wasn’t going to be moving away from her.

He gave a small shake of his head. “Nothing.” He took a tiny step back, just enough so that if he needed to, he could say that he made an effort to put some distance there. “You, uh,” he motioned back over his shoulder, “you good to go?”

Syd didn’t want to admit that she was disappointed by the sliver of space that Richie had put between them, by the fact that he was ushering the moment to a close before it had even really gotten started. She didn’t want to admit it but she knew that she was. All she could do at that point was hope that it wasn’t written all over her face.

“Yeah. Yeah I just gotta grab my stuff.”

Richie nodded. “Right.”

There was a moment, the two of them standing close even though they weren’t as close as they had been but still feeling just as close. Maybe it was all in his head, or maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t stop studying Sydney’s face and in the process maybe he noticed that she was staring at his lips but he didn’t want to think too much about any of that.

And apparently Sydney didn’t want to think too much about it either because she forced herself to take a small step to the side as she said, “I’m just gonna…grab that…”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding more defeated than he meant to. It wasn’t until she was a few more strides away and out of earshot that he dropped his head and whispered, “Fuck me,” to no one other than himself.

Neither of them said anything about it the following day. Or the day after that. It didn’t matter how often it crossed each of their minds, the possibilities of it all. There were too many other things to handle, too many other moving parts that required their attention. At least that’s what they each told themselves anyway, that and they each tried to assure themselves that there was no way the other could really feel the same way. They were Syd and Richie after all. In what world would things play out like that for them?

For all the havoc it was wreaking on them internally, their saving grace was that they were still able to manage work just fine. Or, as well as they ever had. Bumps and mishaps and screaming matches with Carmy still peppered in for good measure. But they still had each other’s backs, and Syd wished that she knew how to thank him for that without making it weird or blowing up her own spot about it all. It should’ve been easy, but then again nothing with them really ever was.

Sydney didn’t say much when Richie snapped back at Carmy in her defense, saving her the trouble of getting into another argument with him herself. She didn’t comment on the way that his voice had an extra layer of firmness to it when he came to her defense. She just gave Richie a nod and a silently mouthed, “Thank you,” after Carmy walked away. And when Sydney cut Carmy short when he was getting after Richie for things that weren’t actually his fault, Richie didn’t say anything then either. Syd would give him the look, the slight tilt of her head and raise of her brows to ask if he was alright, and rather than say anything in response Richie would just rest his palm against the center of her back for a moment before diving right back into it all.

The Bear had been silent and seemingly empty for a while, dinner service long since done and over with. Sydney was making the final rounds through, reassuring that everything was in the right place for the next day. She still hadn’t gotten around to rearranging the produce but she found herself smiling regardless anytime she thought about it.

She shut off all the lights in the kitchen as she made her way out towards the dining area. She swung the door open with more force than she meant to as she stuffed things haphazardly into her bag.

“Oh, shit,” Richie said with a surprised laugh. “Just crashing through here like that?”

Her eyes widened. “Shit. Fuck, sorry. I didn’t know…I thought it was just me here.” She paused. “What are you still doing here?”

He shook his head slightly, like he was going to dismiss the question. Then he remembered who it was that he was talking to. “Thought I had something but,” he fiddled with the fork on the tabletop, “I think I’m just going fuckin’ insane at this point.”

Sydney laughed as she walked over so that she was standing beside him, staring down at the same table he was. “This place will do that to you.” There was a breath of a pause between them before Syd blurted out, “Are you okay?”

He contorted his face in confusion. “Am I okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, I know that Carmy has been—”

“Carmy has been the same little bitch he’s always been,” Richie cut her off, simultaneously rude and assuaging her worries. “Nothing changed there. New fancy restaurant and he's still the same fuckin’ toddler. Now he’s just a toddler in debt to fuckin’ Cicero.”

Syd smiled and shook her head. She should’ve known better than to expect a real answer. “Right. Well, if there’s anything I can do…”

“You’re already doing it,” Richie replied before thinking better of it.

“What?”

He froze for a moment before clearing his throat and making himself speak. “You tell anyone I said this and I’ll deny it. I’ll deny it and I’ll get you fucking fired…somehow,” he said and they both laughed quietly before he continued. “But you said it, you know? You called it.”

“Called what?”

“You said that this place could be good. You said it didn’t have to be shitty and you were right. And you made it, you know, not fuckin’ shitty.”

It was one of the realest, most direct compliments he’d ever given her. Or anyone, really. “Thanks.” She paused for a moment as she gnawed the inside of her lip. “It wasn’t just me, though.”

“Talkin’ about Fak?” he joked, trying to erase the tension he felt starting to bubble up all over again.

Sydney laughed. “Yeah, obviously.” She let it hang in the air for a moment before she reached and rested her hand against the outside of Richie’s bicep, pads of her fingers making the fabric of his suit jacket give into her. “It was you too, Richie. You know that, right?”

He didn’t know why his face felt like it was on fire all of a sudden. “Nah, I mean—”

She wasn’t having it. “You make this place good. It’s not, you know, it’s not The Bear without you here.” She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He forced himself to stop looking at the table and look at her. He was looking for any sign of her backpedaling, waiting for the first hint of sarcasm, but it never came. It was just her there with all of her honesty and her hand on his arm. And suddenly he became very aware of how much closer to him she’d drifted.

He should just say it. That was all he could think as he stood there with her. It’s all he could ever manage to think about in their small moments together like that. He should just fucking say it. He should tell her how he feels. There had to be something to it, right? There was no way that it could all be in his head. And yeah, maybe the last guy thought the same thing but now Richie was standing there with Sydney practically melting into his side while he was about to start melting into the floor. He didn’t want to just be another story that she passed along to the next guy, a cheap laugh at his expense when he wasn’t around, but if that was the price he had to pay to find out if he was living in some form of delusion, maybe it was a price he was willing to pay.

“Syd?” He almost didn’t recognize his own voice, the hesitation in it.

“Yeah?”

She sounded hopeful, which made him hopeful in return. “There’s never a right time, you know? For a lotta shit? I…I know that.” He cleared his throat. “And maybe this is really fuckin’ stupid of me, because we’re finally figuring our shit out and you shot down the last guy but I just gotta say it. I know it’s bad timing but let’s be real it’s not like any of us here ever really have good timing for shit like this.” He studied Syd’s face, looking for any traces of negativity and somehow still missing that she was holding her breath in anticipation. “I think that you, fuck, you’re the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time. To me. And yeah, there’s the restaurant and the rest of it but, but it’s…it’s you.” He punctuated his statement by putting his hand on her shoulder.

Syd thought her heart was going to beat hard enough to crack its way right through her ribcage. “Richie—”

“And if you gotta go all Heartbreaker on me I get it but—”

“Richie,” she repeated herself, just enough to get his attention. “You’re right.” She paused, soaking in the shocked look on Richie’s face as he tried to figure out which part she thought he was right about. “There’s never a good time.” The shock faded to disappointment but she paid it no mind because she knew where she was going next. “But this might be, you know, the best time. The only time. And,” and moved her hand from his arm so that it was resting on top of his hand on her shoulder, “I’m sick of trying to wait for some sort of sign that says it’s the right time. Honestly? I think,” she laughed, “I think this is it. This is the sign.”

The apprehension drained out of him instantly as he listened to each word she said, soaked up the warmth flooding from her hand into his. “Yeah?” he still had to ask, hopefully to a painful degree.

She nodded as she squeezed his hand. “Yeah.”

For once he couldn’t think of anything to say. So he did the next best thing. He turned just enough so that he was facing her, hardly giving either of them time to overthink their way through it as he leaned in and kissed her, his lips catching hers.

His hands cupped both sides of her face, channeling all the instances of almost and maybe into that one action like he was afraid it would be the first and last time. He wanted to make it worth it, wanted to make sure she knew.

Syd felt the way that he leaned down into her, eager, hopeful. She was instantly lost in the way his lips moved against hers, allowing herself to get swept up in it all as her hands fell to rest on his arms—steadying him, keeping him there although he had no intention of trying to be anywhere else.

It was just the two of them in the darkness and quiet of the restaurant, and for once neither of them had the urge to say anything at all.

[waveridden]

fic in a box 2023

it's fic in a box creator reveals day! i had a whole lot of fun with assignments and pinch hits and treats. all of these are going to get individual posts eventually, but just for the sake of getting them out there, here is everything i made for fic in a box, alphabetical by fandom!

(for anyone who doesn't know: fic in a box is a big multifandom fic exchange with the twist that instead of fic you can create other mediums, like art, fanmixes, logic puzzles, and crochet patterns -all of which are things i made <3)

ace attorney

daughter of midas - a sebastian character study through franziska's eyes

dimension 20

queen of swords - a saccharina art piece/playlist

anniversary adventure! - a spyre logic puzzle

emelan

hypoxia - on tris, briar, and mind-sharing nightmares

hololive

iomoona nineties - an art piece

the hunger games

reflect / refract / diffract - in which katniss becomes a mentor

i can see you (music video)

one single blow - a backstory for the music video

only murders in the building

the arconia wrap - a crochet wrap pattern

original work

dynamite in progress - an original m/m superhero story

pokemon

scyther appreciation hours - some scyther fanart

star wars

eat well - a jyn/cassian calm moment

equal footing - luke, lando, and a mission that goes wrong

succession

nurture and the fear of nature - a sophie roy study

unwind dystology

watching the watchman - lev/miracolina, on caretaking

[theflirtmeister]

Fic In A Box 2023

A roundup post of all my fic posted in Fic In A Box!

look forward to back for legendofthefireemblem

Stranger Things - Interactive Fiction - Nancy/Jonathan/Steve

Your name is JONATHAN BYERS. You live with your MOM and your brother WILL. You have a girlfriend named NANCY WHEELER. You are trying to be normal.

cowboy kids for fishspeakers

Watchmen - Pre + Post Karnak - Laurie/Dan/Rorschach

Laurie can remember the first time she met Nite Owl and Rorschach, dragged out by her mother in an ill-fitting yellow costume that was so much latex that she squeaked. Rorschach had been cruel to her, and Nite Owl had been kind, taught her how to throw a punch with her thumb on the outside of her knuckles. Laurie’s glad he stayed. For both their sakes.

my hand, my heart for fishspeakers

Watchmen - Post Karnak - Laurie/Dan/Rorschach

“Can leave,” Rorschach says. “Will not hesitate.” “Of course,” Dan says, unbuttoning Rorschach and tugging his trousers down to his thighs. “You’re very pious.” “Practically a monk.” Laurie agrees.

the hero shifts for peasina

Star Wars Original Trilogy - Canon Divergence - Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker

“I will never submit to the Empire,” Luke spits. “I would rather die than call you Lord Vader-“ Vader backhands Luke so hard that he hears the crack of his nose as it breaks.

submissive like a guard dog for juliana677

Original Work - Collars - Traumatised but Loyal Male Human Weapon/His Friendly New Male Master

“What was the collar fitting like?” Alec repeated. He had taken off both boots and was leaning back on his hands on the bed. "How does it feel?" “It feels good.” Colm said. The leather was warm against his skin, and it had a clean scent. Colm had feared worse.

[miss-ingno]

Fic In A Box 2023 just revealed who the creators are, so I can finally share which works are mine! I wrote 3 fics, two of them epistolary, and created a Logic Grid Puzzle for the first time :D!

Title: Gossip Mango for BookKeep Fandom: Guardian (TV) Ship: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan & Shen Wei's students Words: 1.9k (though about half of that is coding) Tags: Social Media, Episode Related, Canon Compliant, Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 8, mentions of canon suicidal ideation, mentions of canon murders Summary: Not only does Dragon City university have a great and sophisticated study program for many different majors, it also has a flourishing social media site for students to discuss their studies social activities recent events.

Title: Return To Sender for BookKeep Fandom: Assassin's Creed Ship: Desmond Miles/Claudia Auditore, Claudia Auditore & Ezio Auditore Words: 3.5k Tags: Epistolary, Time Travel, Marriage, POV Outsider, as in Outsider on the Time Traveller PoV, In-Universe Documents Summary: Over the years, Ezio and Claudia exchanged many letters. These are the ones concerning Claudia's husband, then-stranger, Desmond.

Title: Adventitious for Bee_4 Fandom: Naruto Ship: Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto & Uchiha Sasuke & Haruno Sakura Words: 5k Tags: Team 7 Dynamics, Developing Friendships, set after the Wave mission but before the Chuunin Exams, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, in which Team 7 grows closer and Sasuke doesn't defect, Team 7 Have Issues, (don't worry they're working on it), Mission Fic (sort of), no literal geese were involved in the making of this fic, in which Team 7 accidentally topples several villains' plans Summary: To keep Team 7 busy, Kakashi-sensei sends his students on a wild goose chase. Much to his dismay, they actually find a golden goose.

And my first attempt at a logic puzzle! Big shout-out to my little brother for helping me tighten up my clues and creating a whole-ass logic map of paths it could be solved. It was an amazing sibling bonding exercise

Title: Where In Mentopolis Are The Prefrontal P.I.s? for Brachylagus_fandom Fandom: Dimension 20 - Mentopolis Ship: Worldbuilding, gen Summary: It’s the Grand Opening of Daniel Fucks’ new Emporium of Exquisite Pleasures, but none of the other Prefrontal P.I.s have shown up! However, through his criminal network, Daniel hears some rumours about what they’re each up to. Can you help him find them and drag them away from whatever they’re doing for this most important of all events?

[kbirbpods]

[Podfic Link] | Length: 21 minutes, 35 seconds | Original Work

Batfam: Tim Drake centric | Not Rated 

Summary: the sequel to that one trix yogurt fic

Notes: technically recorded for voiceteam mystery box 2023's "music first" challenge because... killer cros, crocodile rock, yeah... it's pure chaos, no excuses

Part 2 of [podfics of] vox nihili et in gotham ego

[itsaash]

Pumpkin Spice

@noots-fic-fests thank you for including this prompt so I can take something that happened in my life and turn it into something decidedly better, ha. Enjoy some fluffy, domestic Jily! And I believe sweater weather Harry was born in March? So he'd be 8 months old the next October

Lily had just wanted to make something nice. Sure, sure, the days are long but the years are short. But when you’re in the thick of having a 8 month old people could just fuck right off with that advice. Because the never ending loop of naptime, nursing, introducing solid food, play time, diaper change, and repeat made some days interminably long. And James was an amazing partner and an even better dad, but the season had started up again, and Lily was not in the groove of solo parenting. She was skidding on one wheel on the edge of the groove threatening to fall over at any moment. 

When she was nursing Harry, cuddling his warm body close, she’d sometimes scroll on her phone and cooking videos were some of her favourites. She’d be lulled by the perfectly aesthetic backdrops and clean kitchens. The process of turning a group of ingredients into something new and amazing. Her feed knew her well and alternated between plans and ideas for baby food, and delicious looking snacks and drinks. Being October, pumpkin everything saturated the videos. Bread, muffins, cookies, stew, coffees, all featuring pumpkin. She didn’t have much time or energy for more time in the kitchen after the essentials of baby food and basic meals. But maybe a pumpkin spice syrup was achievable? 

So after forgetting to get canned pumpkin at the next two grocery store runs, Lily finally remembered and was excited to make something for herself. Harry went down for his afternoon nap, and after stepping carefully to sneak out of his room she went into the kitchen to make the syrup.  The can opener, pumpkin, vanilla, and spices were lined up on the counter, and she measured  the sugar into the water for a double batch. She stirred the sugar in with her little purple whisk and watched it dissolve. She checked the recipe again, ok, it needed to reduce for a while. She turned down the heat and went to the bathroom. 

Then went to move the laundry into the dryer. Shit, that was a pile of clean laundry. The clothes got put away, and she tracked down the new box of trash bags for the garbage in the laundry room that she had emptied the lint trap into. May as well take out the other bathroom garbages while she was at it. Weird, this bathroom smelled bad. She looked around, had a diaper fallen behind the trash can or something? There wasn’t an obvious culprit so Lily finished emptying the bins and brought them all downstairs to the main garbage in the kitchen. 

The kitchen was a haze of smoke. 

“What in the ever loving pumpkin fuck of goddamn stupid pumpkin fucking shit…”

A string of incomprehensible curses continued as Lily dropped the trash bags and raced to the stove to turn off the burner. The water had long since evaporated and the sugar was beyond burned with her cute little whisk melted sadly to the side of the smoking pot. The smell hit her senses like a freight train as she put on an oven mitt and carried the pot outside and left it on the porch, slamming the door just a bit on the way back in. She turned the hood fan all the way up and went around opening every window she could get her hands on. Thank god it wasn’t too cold outside yet. 

Lily hardly knew if she should laugh or cry. It smelled truly awful. How had she not realized that smell was a burning smell? How could she have forgotten this one thing she had wanted to do for herself so quickly? And how had the stupid fucking smoke detector not gone off?? Although now in hindsight, with no major harm done, and the smoke already dissipating, she supposed she was glad to not have a baby awoken from a nap by screeching added to this situation. She walked away from the blaring sound of the hood fan and sunk to the floor under an open window on the other side of the house. Which is where she was when James got home. 

“Hey Lils love! I’m home — oh shit wow you’re right there! You scared me,” James said. He came in the door and was startled when he turned to take his shoes off and saw Lily sitting there. He set down his bag and walked over to her and slid his back down the wall. “Why are we sitting on the floor?” he asked softly, nudging her with his shoulder. 

Lily waved her hand vaguely at the house, cheek resting on her bent up knees. “I ruined our house with this awful fucking smell. Can’t you smell it?”

“Well, yeah, but you don’t seem to be panicking, so I figured it’s not an emergency.” He scooched even closer and wrapped his arm around her shoulders and Lily turned to tuck her face into the warmth of his shoulder. “Want to tell me what happened? You ok?”

Lily wasn’t crying, but her voice was thick and she was just so tired. 

“I just wanted to make pumpkin spice syrup. But then I got distracted and immediately forgot about it and it’s such a stupid thing to have done and now it smells so bad.” Her breath hitched at the end and she heaved a breath in. “And my little whisk and the pot are totally ruined.”

James just tightened his grip on her shoulders and hugged her close, let her breathe and be still and cry. 

“It doesn’t smell that bad,” he said, finally. 

“Fuck off, yes it does.”

“Ok, yeah it does.” He took in a theatrical sniff and winced. “That’s what burned sugar smells like? It’s nuclear level.”

“It was even worse 20 minutes ago,” Lily muttered. 

“Want to go cuddle on the furthest couch from the kitchen until Harry wakes up?” 

Lily laughed but nodded, and then moved to the couch in the theater room, which was quite separate from the rest of the house and had a baby monitor in it. James laid on the couch and Lily cuddled into his side, making herself small. James ran his fingers through her hair over and over. 

“You know it’s ok, right Lils? You’re fine, Harry’s fine, the house is fine. It’s ok.”

Lily hummed noncommittally. 

“Ok, but can you tell Loops about it? So that I can tell Sirius how bad sugar can smell? Because, honestly, who would’ve thought.”

James smiled to himself when Lily let out a real laugh and reached for her phone. She texted him, a smile quirking on her face. 

my house smells like sugar. And not the good kind like in cookies. Like the awful burned kind and it’s truly terrible. 

I also need to test my smoke alarms. 

These two things may be related.

Not one minute later her phone was ringing. James laughed and kept running his fingers through her hair as she talked to Remus. She told him the story, after reassuring him they were all fine, and her voice lost some of its tightness as they joked over the lengths they’d go to for a PSL and Remus threatening to come smell it for himself while the smell was “fresh”. She, laughing, said fuck off and good bye, hung up and turned to cuddle into James chest even closer. He smelled like the soap from the rink and like himself and when she breathed in deeply she didn’t smell the sugar at all. 

“I’m sorry I made our house smell terrible.”

“I literally don’t care, Lils. I’m just sorry it didn’t work out how you wanted it to.”

She let his breathing soothe her as his chest rose up and down under her cheek. 

“You can close your eyes if you want, flower. I’ll get Harry when he wakes up and I’ll go out with him and get a grocery store special for dinner.” Lily knew that meant a rotisserie chicken, a truly bizarre combination of the pre-made side dishes, and probably something sweet from the freezer aisle. But it was always perfect. She hugged him tighter and nodded. And she drifted off.

Lily woke later to the sounds of James and Harry coming into the house. James was keeping up a running conversation with Harry, talking to his son like he was much older than his 8 months. Lily stretched under the blanket that James must have laid over her, and the smell hit her nose. She cringed, but tried not to dwell and went to see her boys. 

“Mommy’s awake, Harry, look!” Harry babbled happily and Lily took him from James, kissing all over his face. 

“Did you two go on an adventure?” she said to Harry in an animated voice.

“We sure did,” James replied, picking up bags and heading to the kitchen. “To the wilds of Target. And we totally scored.”

Lily watched as he pulled groceries from the reusable bags like a magician pulling a never ending scarf from a sleeve. First came the expected rotisserie chicken, a container of spinach and artichoke dip, two options of chips, a pre-made spinach salad, and a few other grocery essentials.

“Wow, good choices, Harry!” Lily cooed. “I’ll be breaking into that dip immediately. Hopefully the terrible smell doesn’t ruin all this good food Daddy got us.”

“The power of spinach and artichoke dip can overcome anything,” James reassured her, and moved to take Harry from her. “Can you open up that bag, Lils?” he asked, pointing to one. Lily raised an eyebrow, but went to the bag and looked in. She paused for a long moment before reaching in and pulling out a wicker basket filled with all sorts of treasures. 

“James! What is this?!” she exclaimed as she freed the basket from the bag. 

“It’s a boo box!” James said happily. “You’ve been doing such a good job taking care of Harry when I’ve been on roadies, babe. And I love you so much, you do so much for us, so Harry and I wanted to do a little something for you.” He came over and leaned in to press a soft kiss below her ear and Harry pulled her hair happily.

“Thank you so much,” Lily said thickly. 

“You're welcome,” James said easily. He turned and settled Harry in his high chair, and got some blueberries and a mini cucumber from one of the bags and washed them to pass to Harry for him to gum. 

Lily looked through the basket. There was pumpkin spice syrup, of course there was. She huffed a laugh but was thankful for the easy version of the fall treat. Next she touched the new whisk, red this time, and sent James a small smile still tinged with sadness. There were also smaller bottles of brown sugar cinnamon, apple, and chai syrups. She set those aside and found three of the tubes that have all the ingredients you need for different soups, a foot mask, a lip mask, and finally underneath all of that she pulled out a crew neck sweater. It felt creamy and soft in her hands, with cute fall themed charms all over it. She hugged it to her chest and looked up at James. “James, baby. This is so nice.” James stepped close and took her into his arms, wrapping her in a hug from behind, his chin hooked on top of her head. He reached around her to point at some of the treasures. 

“Lots of syrups to try is fun, right? I’m so going to try that apple one in something. And look how funny that lip mask is. Harry laughed so cutely when I held it over my mouth and pretended to talk with it. Let’s see the sweater on, isn’t it so soft?” he rambled. 

Lily smiled with her eyes prickling as she pulled the sweater over her head. It was a bit oversized, the sleeves hung perfectly so she could scoop the cuff into her hands and feel the softness. James hugged her again, trailing his hands under the sweater to rub her back and feel the softness of the inside of the sweater. 

“I love it James, thank you.” 

“Love you, Lilyflower,” James said and leaned down to press a kiss to her lips. Lily turned and pressed a kiss to Harry’s head, thanking him too. He burbled happily back at her with purple fingers and mouth. James pulled out his phone to take a picture when the doorbell rang. He set his phone down on the counter.

“I’ll get it! But I’m so getting a picture of you in that sweater with Harry when I’m back.” He pointed finger guns at her as he walked a few steps backwards towards the front door.

Lily laughed and watched James’ back as he turned around and walked down the hall to open the front door. Her thoughtful, giving husband. The smell of burnt sugar still undeniably hung in the air, but it was fading. Her guilt was fading too, replaced with love for her family. 

“Hey! Oh wow no way,” she heard James say from the door. 

“Who is it?” she called as she started to put away the soups and syrups into the pantry. 

James didn’t answer and she walked back to the side of the kitchen from where she could see the door. 

“James? Oh!” 

He surprised her, he was right there when she turned the corner, a big box in his hands.  

“No one was at the door when I opened it. They must’ve just delivered the box and left.”

“What is it?” Lily asked.

James placed the soft cardboard box on the counter and opened the lid, revealing 6 of the most beautiful cookies Lily had ever seen. They were huge, fluffy and delicious looking. A chocolate chunk on, one that must be red velvet, one that looked like it might be peanut butter, and more that she could only guess at the flavours, but couldn’t wait to taste them and find out. 

“Oh my god. They’re beautiful. Who are they from? Did you order these too?”

“Nope, not me, oh here’s the card,” James replied. “Awww, they’re from Loops, see.” He passed the card to Lily.

To Lily

I hope these drown out the burned smell!! Congrats getting through the day without a kitchen fire!

Re

Lily laughed. “That little shit.”

“I’m surprised he went with cookies and not some sort of fire extinguishing blanket,” James laughed. 

“Don’t suggest it, or at least 2 will be at our door as fast as he can get them shipped here.”

“Actually, I think that’s kind of genius? I’m going to order one. I’ll send them one too.” He broke off a piece of the chocolate chip cookie and popped it into his mouth as he opened up his phone. “No harm in being prepared.”

Lily could only nod along with that logic, and she reached out and broke an orange cookie apart, and yes, as the taste of pumpkin spice cookie filled her senses, the burned smell finally faded away.

[the-writing-mobster]

Heyyy Trick or treat!

(Yup, you're right. halloween is a state of mind and it's forever)

I'm Goth, so for me Halloween is eternal, hahaha

I think the best way to cap off my night however, is by TREATING you to an unpublished fic excerpt in my docs...

Just some good old CLASSIC Frans fluff 😉 (yes! I can write fluff! I can!)

[foxgloveinspace]

I kept myself and my sister up until like 3 am with my coughing. I am very tired. and somehow (I mean when you think about it its not surprising) I am in a stucky mood.

[drarrymicrofic]

Hello lovely microfic community!

It’s that time of the month again when we will OPEN the prompt box!!

For september, we have room for: 4 word prompts 4 song prompts 1 image prompt (or another word prompt if we don’t find an image)

You can find the prompt box here

Let the prompting begin!! The Microfic Mods ✨📜

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - Not In A Chipper Mood

For: @strawberrycamel @higgidigs @thegayonthemoon @sprout

Danny’s not new to injuries but this is certainly a new one and it’s kind of ridiculous. Oh, and it’s also Vlad’s fault even if it’s really not.

Okay. So uh. Danny’s having a bit of a day. Well okay, most of the day was pretty standard, pretty normal. He got judgmental looks from Lancer for un-completed homework, got a swirly from Dash where he had to pretend he actually needed to breath, Jazz called from uni to complain about her roommate and cuss him out a little for recommending she put ectoplasm in the other girls hair dye, and Vlad jabbed him with that stupid Plasmius Maximus thingy ‘cause Danny dyed his cat with beet juice. All pretty standard Danny experiences. What wasn't, however, was him taking a quick nap in a tree only to wind up inside a fucking wood chipper.

How did whoever not notice him??? He has some serious questions about that.

He had more questions about how the heck he was still half alive! Since the wood chipper -that he’s guessing is missing safety features or something- didn't turn off when it encountered something substantially more squishy than a tree, and whoever was supposed to be running this thing had seemingly fucked off. Anyway, he got woken up by his shoulder getting turbofucked by giant blade things, reasonably he assumed it was Skulker being an asshole… it wasn’t of course, and it not being Skulker threw him off enough that he just kinda… didn't do anything until the blade stuff went crush happy on half of his face.

He thought he was going to die die! People don't exactly survive this kinda thing do they? Heh. Talk about dumb ways to die.

He reacted to the face crushing though, obviously. High pain tolerance or no he can, in fact, still feel pain. Unfortunately his still slightly groggy from sleep and confusion dumb ass, decided the best choice was to push himself away from the blade things with his hand… by putting said hand on the blades. That didn't work out so great for him, in that said hand kinda lost the ability to remain attached to the rest of him. His second attempt to get out involved trying to use his feet to wiggle backwards, unfortunately by that point one pant leg hand already been snagged -bye bye knee- and the other foot couldn’t hook on anything around so he just wound up flailing around some and achieving a whole lot of nothing.

Now see, this wouldn't even be a problem if he had access to all his powers. Like, he could have just phased away or floated off or just used his ghost strength to destroy the machine. But no, stupid Vlad and his stupid Maximus thingy or whatever. Sure this even more one hundred percent wouldn't be happening if Danny hadn’t decided to sleep in a tree… and if he had heard the loud ass wood chipper.

… Yeah this was really his own damn fault. Still, fuck Vlad and Danny’s stupid luck too.

Anyway where was he? Oh yeah, so like, the machine was still going chop happy on him when he kinda noticed that his shoulder was just… regrowing an arm, slowly but still; which once again shocked him into just not doing anything, because since when could he regrow limbs! Like it wasn’t going very fast, fuck you Vlad, but it was still going. Which, weird huh? Also weird that his head ain't really a head no more, and he’s not dead. He really should be dead. Lack of a head -and chest, and arms, and one leg- might be contributing to him not being super freaked out though. Like, he’s thinking and feeling but probably not the way he should be, all things considered. On one hand he’s thinking about how holy fuck he is so injured Ancients fuck he should be dying, but on another hand he’s just kinda legit amazed he’s not dead/dying, and on another hand he’s trying to figure out if this bullshit would be classified as a shredding injury or full body disembowelment or dismemberment or disintegration or just being turned into Campbells Chunky Soup™.

Annnnnd he just got a blade to the eye which exploded like a grape, fuckin’ lovely.

At least his powers were slowly, slowly, returning so he was repeatedly reforming -it’s not regrowing at this point, just entirely reforming the scraps back together- faster and faster, not enough to get out but, you know, it was something. He’d like his intangibility back though, that would be way better. Sure maybe someone could show up and actually look after their machine but that wouldn't actually help him, he was a bunch of mangled bits! What was whoever gonna do? besides turning the machine off anyways. Which, okay fine that would actually help a lot, but it would probably also severely traumatise whoever… Danny’d like to not do that, but to not do that he needs his powers back… or to think up another way to deal with this shit.

Even if he manages to fully reform himself he’s just gonna get chopped up again; he’s lost count of how many times his poor right hand has been re-obliterated. But hey, at least his healing is solid enough now that he’s mostly staying in bigger chunks pretty consistently, less stringy shreds/globs and more pizza box sizes of flesh/muscle just kinda flopping and bouncing around. Some of him is in the machine’s inside, and some’s still whacking around in the blades; some is also in the wood chip pile but that was unfortunately only half of his left hand, bits of intestines, and a foot. A fully formed foot and other bits just kinda sitting and wiggling on some wood chips must look really weird. He was trying to make his half hand drag itself over to shut off the machine but it was kinda hard to focus on that, and he couldn’t just form an eye on the hand so he could actually see where his hand’s going.

It wound up falling down a sidewalk drain…

Danny was having a really bad day. A really weird really bad day.

“FEǝɯ ɹ∀ ANW pY BOX- Op HEɹƎ ANNƎIƆTS!”.

And his day just got worse, even with his ears all fucked up and surrounded by loud machinery he knows that’s The Box Ghost’s sorry ass. Well, he might as well try to get Boxy to help Danny unfuck his fuck up, he’s sorta got a mouth… a mouthish thing; and maybe some of a vocal cord. “F y, MACHIN I kn’th k I THE! Oh cank hinonow, canow, y, Bow, OF OF IN OF thin, t INE! TURN THI MACHE t thin, canou t Oheyou OFFFF”. That was intelligible right? Maybe.

“Uhhhhhh. Phoʇu∀m?”… “okaʎ”.

Oh thank fuck, that sounded like an okay. Good. Oop, there goes his eye again; fucking lovely.

Boxy makes some kind of squeaking noise. “Aǝɥʇ llse BUTNO┴S AR Ǝ CIRCUɹ∀˥!”.

“Oh fucks shoe Oh a sake, Boxy! OR SOMETHING!”. He manages to flick the top half of his right hand out of the front of the machine with one of his toes purely to flip Boxy off.

But the Box Ghost grabs the half hand, “yes! YOU TOU┴I HƆ NO MƎ!”. He uses Danny’s fingers to push a circular button and the machine finally turns off. He wants to kick Boxy’s ass, but… the guy does kind of push around the semi reformed globs and chunks of Danny into a sorta square pile. He even goes and gets Danny’s one foot and the partial section of intestines, putting that on the pile that’s just laying in the flat area of the wood chipper; Danny’s eyes reforming enough to see that the Box Ghost is just floating there staring at him awkwardly and fiddling with his fingers.

Danny waits to actually have enough of a mouth and vocal cord to speak properly, “thanks I guess”.

“You have a LOT OF BLOOD and… FLESHY STUFF!”.

“Oh for fucks sake”, Danny rolls an eye, which literally rolls around a little, “yeah. That’s kinda how not being dead dead works seemingly. Fuckin’ jazzed I didn't just make myself deader”.

The Box Ghost points away awkwardly, clearly asking to leave; Danny waves him off with a fully reformed right hand. Sure maybe the guy will go terrorise some folks but that’s pretty unlikely since Danny probably just disturbed the ever loving Hell outta him.

Eventually Danny drags his semi reformed upper right half and some of his attached head -most of said head is inside the machine- over the side lip of the machine and hurls a tooth at the on button to re-mash up whatever’s inside the machine. Letting that go for a bit before using another hurled tooth to turn it back off, and gets to work pulling out all the bits of himself he can.

Honestly? He only grabs the important stuff, major organ bits/core bits and that shit; the rest he can just reform inside himself eventually apparently.

But guess what? Yeah the guy who owns this shit comes back during Danny’s dig time, doesn't bother looking inside the machine to see why it’s off, and just goes to turn it back on.

Danny blinks, watching his right hand get re-obliterated by the blades. Snarling, “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!”. Before mustering up enough energy -which he thankfully somewhat had again- to create some ecto-ice and just lets loose on the blades/insides of the machine while screaming angrily at it.

The man screams, the machine explodes, and Danny walks off in a huff to snag his left hand out of the damn drain.

“WHAT THE HELL! KID?!? THE HELL!”.

“FUCK YOU!”.

“YOU BLEW UP MY MACHINE!”.

“WATCH YOUR DAMN EQUIPMENT! YOU FUCK FACE DIPSHIT!”.

“WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET ALL THIS ICE! HOW’D YOU EVEN GET IT IN THERE!”.

“‘CAUSE YOU PUT ME IN THE MACHINE, HORSE SHIT! AND FROM YOUR MOTHER!”.

“HEY!”.

“FUCK YOU!”.

“FUCK YOU TOO!”.

“FUCK YOU MORE!”. Danny storms off to the guy continuing to shout obscenities at him. Fuck that asshat.

---

Danny barely makes it around the corner when he senses the Box Ghost again, lovely. The ghost’s huddled in a cardboard box with a bunch of cats, Danny walking over and looking over in at him, “you, uh, doing okay there?”.

The Box Ghost goddamn whimpers, petting one of the cats, “I did not know human pulp was possible, and all that wood pulp to make precious boxes is contaminated now”.

Danny tilts his head back and sighs at the sky, oh no, he traumatised the poor bastard. Whoops. “Okay yeah, sorry ‘bout that one”, looking back down at the ghost, “maybe give wood chipper operators shit for not caring to pay enough attention to avoid contaminating their product with an idiots body slash corpse? I though I was gonna die all thanks to my sleeping habits”, tilting his head sideways, eying all the very content looking cats, “though, why is you trauma response go-to a cat cuddle pile?”.

“They appreciate my BOXES OF DOOM houses”, the cats jumped a little and glares at the ghost for the noise, Boxy pats them pacifiyingly.

And sure enough when Danny glances around a little more, yeah tons on boxes, some set up like steps to sleep(?) on top of tall fridge-sized boxes. Some have little cubed roofs made out of very tiny boxes. It was actually kinda fucking adorable actually, Sam would approve. Danny should encourage positive ghost behaviour? Right? Right. So Danny gives the Box Ghost a head pat, “good on you, Boxy. Good on you. I’m suddenly far less inclined to stop your box stealing ways”.

Now that gets the box obsessed ghosts spirits up again, him whisper shouting, “I shall rule as my minions praise my boxed creations!”.

Danny shakes his head and decides to leave the guy alone to cope with Danny absolutely horrifying him only to then encourage his box obsession; besides, now that Danny’s calmed down slightly he’s fucking tired again.

---

Danny only just managed to find a new tree to sleep in -regardless of the apparent consequences he’s still tree sleeping partly out of spite right now, bad decision or not- when his phone goes off, making him glare down at the caller id, "the fuck you want, Vlad".

"Daniel... did you, and I quote, 'horrifically obliterate my stuff with a cold shoulder the size of Texas's ego'?".

Danny gestures exaggeratedly at his phone, "Oh fuck off, that jackass put me in a wood chipper! I was sleeping!".

"In... in a fudging wood chipper?!? Why would you sleep there? What would possess you to choose to do that?!?”.

"No, you idiot! I was in the tree!". Danny’s slept in many questionable place but nowhere nearly that questionable. Holy fuck.

"Are-", Vlad sighs heavily, "are you telling me one of my mayoral employees just stuck a tree with a teenager in it into a wood chipper without looking first? And that said teen idiotically didn’t notice".

Danny snorts, "yup", and pops the 'p'.

Vlad sighs again, "okay. That's great. Nice to know my employees do their jobs. That man is fired five times over. Your foolishness is nothing new though". What fully happened seems to finally hit the rich fucker, "wait, you went into a wood chipper and you're not completely dead? Daniel?"; oh he sounds so concerned.

Danny stretches out some, "yeah, turns out being turned in flesh pulp and chunky soup, thanks to someone zapping away my intangibility, isn't enough to make me kick the bucket the rest of the way".

"Now, Daniel-".

"Oh don't you 'now, Daniel' me, you fruitloop. I could have just phased away after the rude awakening that was getting my shoulder absolutely obliterated by heavy machinery, but someone made that kinda impossible. I'm surprised my ecto worked enough to even bother with the half-assed reforming attempts", huffing, "Boxy wound up rescuing my sorry ass. Boxy. Using some of my detached fingers to push the off button; it was circular. Am I making you want to throw up your shitty wine yet?".

"Slightly, yes. Your life is a ridiculous nightmare; though finding out that at the very least you won't die from such injuries is appreciated".

"Oh fuck off", Danny smirks, "you should see if you'd survive".

"Not happening, Daniel".

Danny tries to sound as earnest and sickly sweet as possible, "I can help?".

Vlad hangs up on him. Jerk. Danny chuckles down at the phone; today didn't end so badly. He is never telling Jazz about this though, not a chance in hell.

End.

Prompts: Danny learns he can't die from dismemberment. and Danny suddenly finds out that halfa biology is more different from human than he thought and Danny wants to blame this on his generally shitty luck. Maybe on his parents (for all they love him, but still manage to hurt him), on Vlad, on Skulker, on the GIW, or on Clockwork (because Danny knows he can see this and still won't help). But really, he might be dying fully this time, and the only one he can really blame is himself. and The box ghost finds purpose among the stray cats of Amity- they appreciate the cardboard kingdoms he builds them!

[drabbles-mc]

Second Time Around

Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Jake "Hangman" Seresin Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x OC Roman

Summary: With the way that everything ended, Jake knew that he had no right to start getting jealous now. The whole mess was on him in a way, anyway. That logic, however, didn't stop the jealousy from creeping into the back of his mind when he heard about Bradley moving onwards and upwards.And, just like everything else with the two of them, trying to figure out where to go from here wasn't nearly as easy as either of them wanted to be. They just had to hope that it was all going to work out in the end.

Warnings: 18+, language, alcohol, jealousy, angst (with a happy ending), breakups & makeups

Word Count: 9.9k

A/N: I wrote this for Fic in a Box 2023 and I absolutely became obsessed with the ride this fic took me on while writing it. I also fell in love with my OC so idk maybe I'll keep him around and put him in other fics lmao. Hope y'all enjoy!

Top Gun Taglist: @garbinge @proceduralpassion

Everyone was finally at a point where they could hang out together on a regular basis again. There was a hot minute there when everyone was being sent off in different directions. And if that wasn’t the problem, there was also the issue of the fallout between Bradley and Jake. It was the risk anyone ran when they decided to get involved with someone they worked with. Only thing was, it wasn’t as though they were all just stuck in some corporate office together. They were on-base, in the barracks, flying out on missions together. There was no time or space for hard feelings, but somehow the two of them still managed.

So it was hard fought and well earned time together at the end of the week, everyone at The Hard Deck together without it being an issue. It was easier now than it had been a few weeks prior, things getting incrementally less tense as the days ticked by. Some of that was because everyone was too busy training for the next mission, but also the farther the two of them got away from the less than amicable ending of their relationship, the easier it got to at least be civil with each other.

They hardly ever talked directly to each other if they weren’t on base and under explicit instruction to be working together in some capacity. When they were all together and out the way that they were, they always kept a little bit of distance. Everyone else was also merciful enough to run interference, even if they didn’t realize that they were doing it.

“Alright, alright,” Bradley threw his hands up in surrender as he stepped back from their crew who were all sitting gathered around the pool table, “I know, next round on me.”

“Don’t forget to get yourself one, too,” Natasha joked as Bradley pulled his wallet out of his pocket.

Before Bradley could get too far, Jake stepped in. “I got it.”

Bradley hated the way that he instantly felt his jaw clench, but he couldn’t stop himself. “It’s fine. I can—”

“You get the next one.” There was the same smug look on his face that he always had, like he wasn’t thinking about or worried about everything that had happened—like it didn’t faze him at all anymore. “Back up on your perch, Rooster,” he said as he clapped Bradley on the shoulder and passed by him.

Natasha saw the look on Bradley’s face, the tightness in his jaw and shoulders. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t do whatever it is you’re thinking about doing. Don’t take the bait.” She paused. “You know how he is.”

Bradley scoffed. “Yeah, I do.”

When Jake got up to the bar, Penny was already there waiting. “How many this time, Hangman?” Penny asked, leaning against her side of the bar.

He flashed her the same charming grin that he always did. The same one that she never bought into but still accepted without comment. “Another seven, if you don’t mind.”

She nodded as she grabbed the bottle opener and started plucking bottles to open for everyone, “You playing nice over there?”

He chuckled, holding his hands out like he couldn’t believe that she would suspect otherwise of him. “I’m always playing nice.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, smiling but letting him know that she wasn’t buying what he was trying to sell. “If you say so.” She set the bottles down on the bar-top. “Let’s keep it that way, alright?”

He nodded, flashing her a wink as he gathered the bottles in his hands. “Yes ma’am.”

Hangman made his way back to where the billiard table was. Bob was just starting to rack up for the next game when Jake started to pass out everyone’s beers. Bradley was second to last in the unofficial line. Jake held the bottle out to him.

“Little liquid courage before you lose another game to Bobby over here,” he said, nodding back over his shoulder at the man in question.

Bradley shook his head as he tucked his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “I’m good. I gotta go, actually.”

Confusion went over Jake’s face, but before he could say anything Natasha beat him to the punch. “Really? That much of a sore loser?” she joked.

“No, no,” he shook his head with a laugh, “not this time.”

When Natasha saw the small grin starting to pull at the ends of Bradley’s mouth, she knew exactly why he was ditching the rest of them. “Oh,” she said with fake exaggeration, “I see. Ditching the rest of us for date night. Got it.”

Bradley was laughing and for a split second he forgot about the fact that Hangman was still standing right beside him. “Don’t—”

“Tell Rome we all said hello,” she remarked with a slick grin.

“Yeah,” Bradley carefully maneuvered himself so that there was a little more space between him and Jake while also putting himself slightly closer to the door, “because I know he’s dying to hear from you.” He turned and looked at Jake. “Keep the beer—guess I’ll just owe you one.”

Jake fought to keep his expression from faltering but he managed it. “Guess you will.” He paused, and everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Much to everyone’s, including Jake’s, surprise, he wrapped it up with a sarcastic but simple, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Bradley scoffed quietly. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

The tension in the air was thick enough to suffocate all of them as Rooster finally started to make his departure for real. It was going to be a make or break moment for the rest of them that were staying. If no one said anything, there was going to be a long stretch of silence until someone tried to awkwardly break through it. So Fanboy took it upon himself to stop it before it go that bad.

“Better be home before midnight, Rooster!” He motioned to Natasha, more for everyone else’s benefit than Rooster’s, “Or we’ll sic Mom on you!”

Everyone was laughing, and Bradley was shaking his head as he continued his way out. They couldn’t see the look on his face, but they all knew each other well enough by that point to know what he looked like anyway.

Once Rooster was out the door and they were all settling back down into what they had been doing before, Hangman found himself standing beside Natasha. She had an idea of where all of this was about to go, and she was desperately wishing that she had tagged in to play the game with Bob before Fanboy stole the opportunity.

“Rome?” he finally asked as the two of them watched Bob break for the start of the game.

Natasha shook her head, not even bothering to look Hangman in the eyes. “I’m not talking to you about this.”

“You announced it to the class,” he said as he shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant as he took a sip from the beer bottle in his hand. “I’m just following up.”

She wanted to make a comment about the fact that the rest of the class didn’t have any extra vested interest in Bradley’s love life, but she stopped herself from being that intentionally mean. “Follow up with Rooster. I’m sure he has more to say about it than I do.”

“How long—”

“Hangman. Stop.” They were both expecting her to sound angrier than she did. More than anything it almost sounded like she felt bad for him. Which was shocking for Natasha, and annoying for Jake. “You knew this was going to have to happen eventually. If you wanna talk about it,” she started to shift away from him, putting space to end the conversation as politely as she could manage, “you have his number.”

Rooster found himself practically bouncing on the balls of his feet outside the door of Roman’s apartment. He had the bag with their takeout in one hand as he reached forward and knocked with the other. It felt different, not bad, not strange, just different, to be starting the night off in the position instead of ending it there.

The first couple times it was just Rooster dropping him off. A kiss in the doorway, lingering and stretching out the goodbye to be longer than it necessary so that he wouldn’t turn and go back to his car, back to his own apartment. After a few more dates Bradley would go inside. They’d both use the guise of “Just one more drink before you go” but they both knew that Bradley wasn’t going to be going anywhere once he stepped in and toed off his shoes. He’d wake up early in the morning, jostle Roman’s shoulder just enough to be able to say goodbye so it didn’t seem like he was just taking off.

But now he was here at the start of it all. He didn’t know why he had the jitters—it wasn’t like it was their first date, it wasn’t even his first time inside the apartment. But it felt good. Exciting in a way that was refreshing after everything else that had happened. He shook his head to dispel the thoughts before they could carry him too far away. This was a good thing. He was going to let it be a good thing.

He heard the chain, the flip of the deadbolt, and then the door was being pulled open from the inside. Roman stood there, leaning against the door he’d just opened with the same beaming smile he always greeted Bradley with.

“Hey,” Roman greeted him sounding like he was already out of breath, like he was still a little surprised by it all.

Bradley gave him an easy smile. “Hey.” He held up the bag of takeout, laughing as he said, “Your Doordash order has been delivered.”

“Wow,” Roman laughed as he opened the door a little wider and motioned for Bradley to come inside, “Don’t remember when the drivers got so hot.”

Bradley rolled his eyes, trying and failing not to laugh as he pushed the bag of takeout lightly into Roman’s chest. “Alright. Easy.” He was shaking his head as he toed off his shoes. “Also, definitely hoping that you’re not just letting anyone delivering food here come inside your apartment.”

“Not anyone,” he said as he passed by Bradley, bringing the food to the kitchen. “Just the cute ones.”

The evening was easy in a way that Bradley needed, a way that things had been consistently with the two of them. They sat at the small counter in Roman’s kitchen and ate their takeout while they each caught each other up on the day they’d been having. Bradley left a few key details out about what had transpired right before he showed up—there was no need to drag those skeletons out of the closet in that moment.

“You’d like Natasha, though,” he said with a nod as he reached over and stole a forkful of noodles from the takeout box in front of Roman.

All he could do was laugh and let him. “That’s Phoenix, right?”

He couldn’t hide the impressed look on his face. “Yeah.”

Roman gestured with his chopsticks as he spoke. “And she flies with Bob.” He chuckled. “Who is just Bob.”

“You got a corkboard with red string here that I should know about?” he asked jokingly.

Roman laughed and shook his head. “No. But, you know, you talk about them a lot—I try to remember.”

There was something so innocent about the admission that gave Bradley pause. He lightly tapped his fork against the flimsy cardboard that held his rice. Roman was already moving along to the next thing, unaware of the fact that the man sitting at the counter with him was trying his best to store that statement into his memory bank, the look on his face, the way he said it. It’d been a long time since someone had been so genuine, almost soft in a way—Bradley had sort of forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of that after so many months of highs and lows.

“Bradley?” Roman’s voice snapped him out of his trance.

“Hm?”

He chuckled. “I said next time we go out, you should invite them.”

Bradley laughed. “Natasha would lose her mind. She’s been about this close to tracking my phone and kicking down your door.”

The laugh that Roman let out made it seem like he was completely unfazed. “Should I get another lock, then?”

He shook his head. “Won’t matter.” He paused, finally getting himself to respond to what Roman’s initial suggestion had been. “But yeah, that’d be good—you meeting them, I mean.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have been letting himself get swept up in all of it. This was just supposed to be casual, fun. And while meeting Rooster’s friends didn’t inherently change that, it certainly could shift the trajectory just enough. It was too soon for something serious. Bradley knew that about himself at least. But Roman seemed so earnest, it seemed like more of a crime to not let it play out. Besides, in the back of Bradley’s mind he knew that the only way to really start moving on, was to let himself start moving on.

“My brother called today,” Roman said, forever just plugging right along to the next thing.

“Oh, yeah?” Bradley tucked back into his dinner now that it was his turn to listen instead of talk. “How’d that go?”

Bradley was more than content to sit there and listen to Roman ramble on about his brother. It was a nice change of pace, listening to someone talk about people and things that had nothing to do with the Navy, nothing to do with Top Gun. Roman talked about his work, about his brother and the girl that his brother was dating, who apparently neither of them liked very much. Bradley couldn’t help but to laugh at some of the things that he was saying, the way that he’d point and click his chopsticks together when he got really into a story. Roman was funny, his humor less harsh than the people Bradley spent most of his time around. Another nice change of pace.

Dinner was long since done and over with. Their silverware was discarded into Roman’s sink, the takeout containers all tossed into the garbage. Roman had made a joking comment about he was a fan of the whole, “No dishes,” thing even when they were staying in.

They were halfway through a movie, comfortably tangled up together on Roman’s couch. Bradley had one arm around his shoulders, Roman’s head resting against his chest, their legs layered up in a way that would probably take actual effort to unravel. Bradley’s other hand was tucked behind his head as he leaned comfortably back into the couch cushions. It was an easy night, a mid-budget movie, both he and Roman spending just as much time trying to figure out where they knew all the actors from as they spent actually paying attention to the plot of the film.

Another ten minutes went by and they gave up on focusing completely, Roman’s lips pressing against Bradley’s jaw putting the final nail in the coffin. Neither of them would have even known the movie wrapped up if it hadn’t been for the drastic change in volume as Netflix started playing the trailers of other movies that they could watch next. All they could manage to do was laugh quietly about it.

“I gotta head out,” Bradley mumbled, not sounding overly committed to it even though it was the truth.

Roman heard the lack of commitment in his voice and didn’t waste a second capitalizing on it. “Doesn’t really sound like you do.”

Bradley chuckled. “I know, I know. But I do. I told you,” he let Roman steal a kiss in an attempt to distract him since it had worked so well before, but he continued on anyway, “We got that training exercise tomorrow.”

“It’s not that far from here,” he tried to rationalize.

With the way that his fingers were creeping up underneath the fabric of Bradley’s shirt, he almost found himself giving into it. Shaking his head, Bradley forced himself to take a hold of Roman’s wrist before he got too carried away. “Soon,” he tried to compromise, albeit vaguely. He could see it on Roman’s face that he wasn’t convinced. “Next time,” he haggled.

It was enough, getting Roman to drop his feigned questioning expression as he smiled and nodded. “Yeah, alright. That’s fair.”

“Just, you know,” Bradley gave him a brief kiss before starting the work of untangling himself, “place another Doordash order.”

Roman laughed as he finally let him up from the couch. “That won’t take long then.”

It wasn’t until Bradley finally got home and flopped into bed at the end of the night that he checked his phone. Most of the notifications he just swiped away. Some he knew he would ignore for now and get to in the morning, others he knew he would still be ignoring in the morning as well. He was hardly paying attention to what any of them said until he saw the text from Hangman come in. Why Jake was texting him at nearly one in the morning, Bradley didn’t know. But he knew that it probably wasn’t anything good. Still, he opened it.

“Hope the date went well”

Bradley didn’t even realize he was letting out a sigh until he was out of breath to exhale. He stared at the phone as he propped it up against his chest. It was the first text either of them had sent in a long time. It’d been an even longer time since one of them had said something to the other that didn’t have to do with work. If Bradley knew that he wasn’t going to have to see Jake in a few hours, he would block his number like he did with every other ex and be done with him. But it wasn’t that simple with the two of them. It never had been, and apparently never would be.

He was tempted to reply. He could reply and be honest, rub salt in the wound and say how great the date had gone. He wondered if Jake would have anything to say to that. Maybe he’d come back with something cutting and sarcastic. Maybe something sincere enough to try and get Bradley to feel bad. The thought also crossed his mind to reply with something cruel. They were past that for the most part but if someone had asked Bradley on any given day, he���d say that he still deserved a few more good jabs as emotional compensation about it all.

He could have said any number of things and he would’ve been well within his rights on all of them. Instead, though, he said nothing. He reread the message a few more times, scrolled back and reread some of their older texts because apparently he was still a glutton for emotional punishment, and then he locked his phone screen for the night. As he forced his eyes to shut, he couldn’t help but to wonder why Hangman texted him, or why he waited so long to text him. Was he thinking about it ever since Bradley left The Hard Deck? If he was trying to ruin the date he could’ve called in the middle of it, thrown a wrench into the plan. But he didn’t. Instead he just sent a short text in the middle of the night, leaving Bradley to spin out about it until he fell asleep. Which, he thought to himself as he was finally about to pass out, might’ve been Jake’s goal all along.

When he woke to the sound of his absurdly early alarm that morning, all he could do was groan and blindly reach around for his phone to try and turn it off. He held it in his hand, draping his arm over his face to cover his eyes, like that would block out the light coming in from the cracks in his blinds, block out all of his responsibilities for the day that he was already thinking about. He was still laying in the exact same position when his second alarm went off and earned yet another groan from him. But this time he at least got out of bed.

Bradley was in the middle of putting his things into his locker when he heard someone else walk into the room. He kept a look out in his peripheral. From the lack of a greeting alone he had a fairly good idea of who it was. He was fully planning on not saying anything to him about any of it—it wasn’t anyone else’s business anyway. But when he swung the door of his locker shut, Hangman was posted up right on the other side.

The smirk that Jake had on his face had Bradley wondering if he even remembered sending the text. Then again, shame hadn’t ever really been in Hangman’s repertoire. “Bradshaw,” he said and nodded in greeting.

He didn’t even want to entertain the conversation. “Later, Hangman.”

Bradley was halfway out the door when Jake spoke up again. “Didn’t hear back from you last night—was starting to think you didn’t wanna cop to bad news.”

He stopped in his tracks, resting one hand on the doorframe. His head dropped, chin tucking towards his chest as he let out a sigh of defeat. He knew that he wasn’t going to get out of this without having to say something.

Forcing himself to turn back around and face Jake, he said, “Not bad news. Just not news I want to talk to you about.” He shook his head. “Don’t know why you’d want to hear it anyway. Why you’d even care.”

“Just wondering who was dragging you out of the little slump you found yourself in for a few weeks there.”

“Slump?” he repeated the word back, anger already shining through his tone.

“Something else you want me to call it?”

Bradley shook his head, trying to figure out where he even wanted to try and start with everything that had happened within the last twelve hours with the two of them. He was originally just upset about the text. But within the span of twenty seconds Jake had given him a whole slew of new things to also be angry about. He didn’t have it in him to get into what the immediate fallout of their relationship had been like for him.

“You,” he shook his head, “you don’t get to text me about my dates. You don’t get to tell me that you hope it went well, you don’t get to ask me how it went. All of that stuff? Officially none of your fucking business.”

Jake’s eyebrows shot up, surprised that Bradley was so quick to anger even though it shouldn’t have been surprising at all. “Whoa, whoa,” he held his hands up in fake surrender, “I was just—”

“I don’t get why you care at all about how I’m doing. Or why you care about who I’m going on dates with or not. That’s not your business, not your problem anymore. You,” he scoffed, “made real sure of that.”

For a split second Jake’s façade faltered. He recovered quickly, and he couldn’t tell if Bradley didn’t pounce on the opportunity because he simply didn’t notice, or if it was because he really was just that desperate to be done with and out of the conversation. Either way, it took Jake longer than he wanted to admit to come up with something to say in response to that.

That hesitation was something that Bradley didn’t have any issue preying on. He continued on. “If I remember right, Jake, half the reason you ended things was because you didn’t want to care that much about dating me. You wanted to care so little, actually, that you didn’t even want to bother doing it at all anymore. So you left.”

“That’s not—”

“You walked out. Don’t get mad at me because the door got locked behind you.” There was a pause, both waiting for the other to speak. Finally Bradley did. “Don’t text me.”

It was the first time that Jake had looked anything close to defeated. He wanted to have a pithy remark, something to grant him the upper hand at the end of it all, but he came up dry. Instead he just nodded and let Bradley finally walk out of the room to go and join everyone else.

It was impossible to miss the anger that was written all over Rooster’s face. No one wanted to ask him about it, though—no one was feeling quite brave enough for that. All of the things they had to do were typically stressful enough without anything else adding to it, and yet someone was always finding a way to make it even more stressful. That someone was usually Hangman, and everyone could tell by the look on Rooster’s face that that was probably the case this time around too.

By the time that Hangman walked back into the mock classroom area where everyone else was sitting, he looked as unbothered as he ever had. The cocky smirk was right back on his face, which served multiple purposes but most importantly it made Bradley seem like he was being the dramatic one. It always seemed to end up going that way.

“Was it something I said?” he asked the room with a chuckle as he took his seat on the opposite half of the classroom from Rooster.

Once the day got underway, everyone’s personal feelings about each other fell to the wayside for the most part. They were all being pressed too hard about things that had much higher stakes than exes and dates gone wrong. It served its purpose for getting everyone to tolerate each other for the day. But then, when the lessons were done and the exercises all wrapped up, all the same old tensions came back. To make matters worse, the same tensions came back and now on top of that everyone was exhausted and frustrated about training on top of being frustrated about everything else that was going on.

And, all things being equal, it wasn’t really everyone this time around. It was just Rooster and Hangman. It almost always was.

“What happened?” Natasha asked when it was just the two of them walking inside from the tarmac, bringing up the back of the pack.

Bradley shrugged and shook his head, the expression on his face showing that he was trying to be unbothered about it all but the tension in his jaw was working against him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t do that,” she said, fighting the urge to cuff him on the back of the head. “What the hell happened last night? You were practically skipping out of The Hard Deck.”

He scoffed. The image she painted was an amusing one but it wasn’t enough to undo his frustration. “Hangman say anything to you after I left?”

“Hangman is always saying things to me. Haven’t figured out how to get him to stop.”

“Trace.”

“He asked about Roman.”

Rooster shook his head. “Of course he did.” He paused, looking over at her as they walked. “What’d you say?”

She stopped a few steps from the doorway, not wanting to bring this conversation inside the echo chamber that all the buildings on base seemed to be. “I didn’t say anything. Told him that if he had questions, he should be asking you instead of me.” She waited for him to tell her what happened, and when he didn’t, she pressed him one more time. “Bradshaw, what did he say to you?”

He nodded towards the building. “Texted me at like one in the morning saying that he hoped the date went well.”

Natasha shook her head, knowing that even though it sounded perfectly harmless, it was the exact kind of thing Hangman would do to get inside Rooster’s head. “Bagman.”

“And then this morning—" Bradley started, but the more he thought about it, the more he didn’t want to replay the entire thing. Sighing, he asked, “What the fuck am I supposed to be doing about that?”

“Same thing the rest of us do when he’s being a dick—ignore him.”

“Yeah, but—”

“He does it because he knows that it gets to you. Don’t…don’t let it get to you.” She started walking towards the building again. “Did the date go well, though?” she shifted gears, a small smile starting to appear on her face as she attempted to lighten the mood.

It worked. Bradley fell back into stride with her again as they reached the door. He pulled it open for her as he responded, “It did, yeah.”

“When do I get to—”

“He asked the same thing,” he cut her off, chuckling because he already knew where the question was going.

“He did, huh? Wants to meet your friends?”

Bradley rolled his eyes despite the warmth rising in his face. “Don’t say it like that. Besides, I think he just wants to put faces to all the weird texts he’s seen pop up in the group chat.”

Natasha laughed. “Guess that means he’s gotta meet Fanboy too.” They shared a laugh about it as they got closer to the hall where their glorified locker rooms were. “When this starts to settle,” she said as they both paused in between the doors, “it’d be nice. We can go, you know, somewhere that’s not The Hard Deck.”

Bradley couldn’t help but to laugh as he shook his head at her. The suggestion was as genuine as it was sarcastic. “Probably smart, yeah.”

He was walking out to his car, toying with the keys in his hands. The last twenty-four hours playing on repeat in his head. He’d had a few precious weeks of status quo, and then suddenly all of this. He hoped that there wasn’t going to be anything that he had to do to get it all to quiet down again. Maybe Natasha was right, the way that she usually was, and all he had to do was ignore Hangman and he’d give up. Hangman wasn’t known for being a quitter, but Bradley also remembered the look on Jake’s face when they spoke in the morning. He hadn’t looked that hurt since the night they ended things and Bradley kicked him out of his apartment, and even then, Hangman had been the one causing most of the pain.

The shower Bradley had taken when he got back to his place was much longer than what was really necessary, but he felt a little better afterwards. It didn’t fix anything, but it didn’t hurt, either. He had his shorts on, was dragging the towel over his head to wick some of the water off his hair when he grabbed his phone off the charger on his nightstand.

He saw that he had one missed call from Jake. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that calling him back would be a bad idea, but his impulsiveness won out before he could try to rationalize himself out of it.

It rang twice before he picked up. “Was starting to think you blocked my number.”

“I might if you don’t stop—”

“Don’t lie to me like that, Bradshaw,” he replied, smug as ever. “You’re not good at it.”

He sighed, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. “What do you want?”

“About earlier—”

“Don’t lie and say you’re sorry,” Bradley tried to save them both the breath of that argument. “We both know you’re not.”

“Wasn’t gonna apologize,” he replied honestly.

“Then, what?”

There was a beat of a pause. “You like him?”

Bradley let out a sigh that turned into an exasperated laugh. “You called to ask me if—”

“Yeah, I did.” It was the most earnest he’d sounded in a long time.

He carefully considered his answer. “I do, yeah.”

It was a small-scale blessing for both of them that they couldn’t see each other’s faces. Jake couldn’t hide the way Bradley’s admission gave him pause, and he didn’t think that he would’ve been able to play it off even if they’d actually been face to face.

“Okay,” he finally said.

Bradley dropped his face into the hand that wasn’t holding onto his phone. “Were you thinking I was going to say no? That this was all just some big show I’m putting on for you?”

Jake chuckled but even he couldn’t hide the sadness in the sound. “Wouldn’t put it past you.”

“This wasn’t what I wanted, you know,” Bradley said. His voice grew heavier the more he spoke. “I didn’t want it to be like this. You did. You left. I don’t,” he huffed, “I don’t even think you really miss me.”

“Hey—”

“I think you’re just upset I’m not sitting around for you while you get your shit together. You expected me to just wait.”

“You always do.”

“Not always.” There was a long pause before Bradley spoke up again. “You lost this one. You always leave everyone behind.”

“I know,” he admitted, as much to his own surprise as it was to Bradley’s.

Bradley wanted to end the call. He wanted to hang up, block Jake’s number, and then put his phone through the garbage disposal regardless of how ridiculous of a notion it was. He shouldn’t have called back. He shouldn’t be listening to anything that Hangman had to say. He definitely shouldn’t have been letting the apparent sincerity in Jake’s voice put a knot in his stomach and a lump in his throat. But there he was anyway, doing all of those things.

He cleared his throat hoping that it would make him sound more in-control of his emotions than he really was. “Why’d you even bother, then?” Bradley finally asked.

“With what?”

He scoffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. This felt like it was a conversation that they should’ve had months ago. Neither of them were all that great with time management. “Any of it. If you didn’t want to—” he cut himself off, trying to find the right way to say what he wanted to say, “If that wasn’t what you wanted I don’t get why you even bothered with me.” He heard Jake take a breath as he got ready to answer so he said one more thing before he lost the chance, “And I don’t get why you’re bothering with calling me now if nothing’s changed.”

“I didn’t want it to be like this either.” He could picture the indignant and hurt look on Bradley’s face even though there were miles and countless walls separating them in the moment. “I know this is on me but it doesn’t mean that I wanted it to go like that.”

Bradley had the gnawing feeling that he was just setting himself up for more heartache, but he still asked, “How did you want it to go?”

“I wanted to give you what you wanted!” Jake said, the most desperate and honest he’d ever sounded. He took a breath, getting control back over himself again. “But…I couldn’t.”

Bradley felt the tears stinging in his eyes and he tried to ignore them. He didn’t know what he wanted to say to that, what he should say to that. “Why are you digging all of this up, Jake?”

“This guy—”

“Roman,” Bradley cut him off.

“Roman.” Jake corrected himself. Clearing his throat, he continued, “Does he…does he give you what you want?”

Bradley didn’t even have to think about the answer. “He could.”

Jake paused, not expecting the answer to be so quick and easy. Maybe he waited too long. Maybe the second he let Bradley oust him from his apartment all that time ago he’d lost him for good. It crossed his mind that he should probably quit before he landed himself even farther behind than he already was. But then again, he also reasoned with himself, Bradley called him back. Bradley hadn’t hung up the phone, even as the silence between them stretched on far longer than what was comfortable for either of them.

“Do you want it from him?” Jake finally asked.

Bradley scoffed, trying to cover up the fact that he felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. “Jake.”

“I’m serious.”

The problem was that Bradley knew Jake was serious. This conversation would’ve been so much easier to get through, or to end abruptly, if he thought that Jake was still just trying to get a rise out of him like he had been before. They were both past that now. Honesty was so much harder—this was why they hadn’t had any real conversations in weeks.

“You made it clear,” Bradley chose each word carefully and it showed, “that I wasn’t going to get it from you. And just, just because you’re jealous now, just because you don’t want me to want someone else, doesn’t mean that you’d…” he trailed off, brain suddenly swinging on the pendulum between what had happened between them before, what might happen if they tried it all again.

“Didn’t answer my question.”

“He’s good,” Bradley said as he shut his eyes tight. “He’s, fuck, he’s nice. And it’s easy and we don’t always end up fucking arguing every time something—”

“But?” Jake cut him off, knowing that the discussion was hurtling towards that point anyway.

“But he’s not you!” he snapped before he could stop himself. He sucked in a short, unsteady breath. “And that’s,” he let out a sad laugh, “that’s why he’s so nice and why we don’t argue. It’s why…it’s why he isn’t trying to make me give him less.”

“I didn’t want less from you.”

“You didn’t want more.”

“That’s not the same,” Jake argued. “I’m not used to being the one who’s trying to keep up.”

“And I’m not used to you being the one who quits.”

It hung heavily on the phoneline between them. Neither of them said anything, but they didn’t make any move to hang up either. All the things that they’d said and yet they still felt like they were stuck in the same spot they had been. It felt like all of that should’ve changed something. Bradley wiped at the corners of his eyes, glad that he was the only one who knew about the tears.

“I’m sorry that—”

Bradley cut him off. “You don’t get to keep doing this to me. You don’t get to walk out on me and then try to claw your way back in because you’re jealous that I’m trying to move on. Putting me through this again. Especially if…”

“I know.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Because...I wish it was different.”

“Well,” Bradley said, “it’s not. I don’t know if it ever could be.”

“Ever?”

He laughed but there wasn’t any humor in it. “Ball’s in your court on that one.”

It was Jake’s turn to laugh. The sound was a little less sad than Bradley’s. There was no good rebuttal. He could keep dragging the two of them around and around but it was still going to come back to the same conclusion. It was always going to be Hangman’s doing that they were in the scenario that they were, and it was always going to be on him to deal with however the cards fell because of that. He wished that he could tell Bradley that he was wrong, that he wasn’t jealous, that that wasn’t what sparked all of this. And maybe it wasn’t the only reason he was doing all of this, but it was definitely the final reason, the one that pushed him over the edge.

“Can I ask you something?” Jake asked.

Bradley chuckled, sounding a little more like his old self. “Would it matter if I said no?”

Jake gave a short hum of amusement before moving right into asking, “You think we could ever go a second round?”

He found himself letting slip a small smile at the casual way Jake phrased the question, like they hadn’t just dragged each other through the emotional wringer for the last stint of it all. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m seeing—”

“If you weren’t.” He could spot the deflection coming from a mile away.

Bradley sighed. “Maybe. If things could be different, then yeah, maybe a second round wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” A beat passed. “But things would have to be different.”

“Right.”

He waited to see if Jake had more to say than that. When he didn’t, Bradley finally said, “I’m going to bed.”

“And tomorrow?”

He fought the urge to sigh again—his lungs could only take so much. “Next training exercise.”

“Bradley—”

“Night, Hangman.”

He didn’t give Jake the chance to return the courtesy before hanging up the phone. Once he hung up, he stared down at the now-blank screen staring back at him. Pulling the towel off from around his shoulders, he tossed it aside and finally finished getting ready for bed.

When Bradley woke up the next morning, he expected to be exhausted, angry even, but he wasn’t. He felt a little rattled after his conversation with Jake the night before, but he wasn’t as spun-out as he thought he was going to be. As he got ready in the morning, he started to think to himself that perhaps he was dealing with everything better than he thought he was—not just their conversation, but everything else about the two of them as well. There wasn’t a knot in his gut the way there had been before. For a second, he thought that maybe even after all the heartbreak and the second-guessing there was the possibility that things were playing out how they were supposed to. There was the possibility that he was moving through things, or past them, in a way that he hadn’t been able to before.

Then, as he was walking out to his car, his phone buzzed with a text from Roman. That was all it took for the pit in his stomach to start growing again. Guilt started clawing at the back of his mind as he tried to think about what to say in response. It was a simple text—that wasn’t the issue. Up until now, Bradley had played coy about everything that had happened with Hangman. There hadn’t been much of a need to get into the details of the breakup, or who his ex was, not when it was just a casual thing. Now, though, they were slowly wandering out of casual territory. Not only that, but up until now it wasn’t as though he’d had any heart-to-hearts with Jake since he and Roman had started to see each other. It was easy to avoid talking about things when they were things that happened in the past. This was brutally, disgustingly present. He avoided it for now while he could, opting to slide his phone into his pocket and get into his car.

Despite the intensity of their conversation the night before, both Bradley and Jake were able to keep it civil, almost friendly throughout the day. It was the most normal that things had been in a long time. Everyone around noticed, caught between wanting to be thankful for a break from the antagonism and bickering, but also wanting to know what happened and how long this ceasefire was going to last.

“You did something stupid, didn’t you?” Natasha called after Bradley at the end of the day when he was walking to his car.

He stopped, head tilting back so he was looking up at the sky. He could dodge and avoid a lot of people, but never Natasha. She wouldn’t allow it. “What?” he asked, even though he’d heard her perfectly fine the first time.

“No, I know you did something stupid. I just don’t know the specifics.” She strode so that she was standing in front of him. “What stupid thing did you do?”

“I didn’t—”

“Tell me.”

He huffed, like a teenager on the brink of throwing a tantrum. “Hangman called.”

“And you definitely didn’t pick up, right?”

“I missed the call.” He saw the way that Natasha refused to let herself be relieved by that piece of information. “So I called him back.”

“Bradley.”

“Natasha,” he mocked. She didn’t say anything, just giving a wordless nod to prompt him to explain himself, so he tried. “Something told me to call him back.”

“Yeah, the under-developed part of your brain.”

He rolled his eyes and forged onward. “It wasn’t…bad.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Was it good?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Last time we talked, we decided that you needed to not speak to him anymore. How did it go from that to having late-night—”

“I miss him,” he said plainly.

She sighed, not completely unsympathetic to his plight. “I get it.” She pulled a face, remembering who it was that they were talking about. “Kind of, I guess.”

It got them both to laugh as Bradley said, “Shut up.”

“But it ended. Then it was hell for you and just about everyone else. And now you,” she gestured broadly at nothing, “you have Roman. And he wants to meet your friends. And twenty-four hours ago you wanted him to meet everyone. That’s good, Bradshaw. Why…just, why?”

“You think he could be different?” he asked.

She scoffed. “It clearly doesn’t matter to you what I think.”

He smiled. “Humor me.”

“People can change,” she finally said. “But it’s not usually that easy. Plus this is Hangman that we’re talking about. He is…exactly who he is.”

“You think he’s just dicking me around?”

“Not necessarily. He probably does miss you. Probably wants a second chance and wants to be better. Doesn’t mean he can pull it off.”

She wasn’t saying anything that he didn’t already know, hadn’t already thought about even long before his phone call the night before. It was different hearing it from someone other than himself—it sunk in a little more.

“Was hoping for something a little more positive,” he said, half-joking.

She shrugged. “Wanna hear something positive about Hangman? I’ll give you Machado’s number.” There was a beat before she asked, “What are you gonna do, Bradley?”

“I don’t know.”

She fought the urge to groan. As much as she didn’t want to say what she was about to, she couldn’t stand there and lie. “The fact that you’re even weighing the pros and cons of this…” She shook her head. “You gotta talk to Roman.”

“And tell him what?”

“That’s on you. But he likes you. And I know you like him. But if you’re really thinking about going back into all of that with Hangman…there is definitely a conversation that needs to be had there.”

“You think it’s a dumb idea?”

She offered a smile. “I think that something being a dumb idea hasn’t ever stopped you before.”

“Real nice way of saying yes.”

She laughed. “Look, you know who you’re dealing with here. If you think that it’s gonna be different, that it could actually work out and not drive you completely insane in the process, then okay. If it’ll make you happy, then okay. I would just think about it first. Don’t do this just because one conversation threw you off—even you aren’t that stupid.”

Bradley was smiling as he shook his head. “Right. Thanks.”

“Either way, though, you gotta talk to—”

“I know,” he said with a nod. “I will.”

Bradley said that he would, and he did. He sat with himself for another day, weighing over his options and the likeliness of different outcomes. He tried to be logical enough to weigh what he wanted to happen against what was most likely going to happen. He thought about Roman, and how fun and easy it all was. Then he thought about how new it all still was, too, comparatively. It was always fun and easy at the beginning, or at least it should be. And if he was at the point where things were still that new and enjoyable with Roman, but he was still finding himself contemplating if he could make things work with Jake, it felt like that was all the answer that he needed. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them, really, for Bradley to try and drag it all out for the sake of hoping the feelings would go away. It would’ve been a much easier conclusion to come to if Roman hadn’t been so kind, and funny, and accepting. It would have been so much easier to follow through on what Bradley had to do next if he hadn’t enjoyed the company so much.

When Bradley turned up to his apartment a couple days later to have the conversation and deliver the verdict, he didn’t know what he expected to happen. He wasn’t expecting a fight, a screaming match—that didn’t seem like Roman’s style. He was hoping that things were still new enough, and that they were both mature enough, that it would be a disappointing but not a spiteful conversation. And it wasn’t—Bradley was fairly certain that Roman didn’t have a single ounce of spite in his body.

“I’m really sorry,” Bradley said as he sat back at Roman’s counter once more, forcing himself to look him in the eye even though he just wanted to stare at the floor instead.

The smile on Roman’s face was weak, but there was a genuine air about it too. “It’s okay—I get it.”

Bradley wasn’t used to things going so well with situations like that. Roman being so understanding about it all ironically made him feel worse about the entire fallout of it. He knew it was too soon to say that he wanted to stay in touch, to even try to be friends if it could all play out like that, but he also didn’t want to get up and leave without at least trying to get that point across. It wasn’t something that was going to happen immediately, but it’d been nice if it could happen eventually.

“I’m sorry. And I know you probably don’t—I just—I really do like you and if at some point—”

“Thank you,” Roman put him out of his misery as gently as he could.

Bradley sucked in a breath and nodded. “Yeah. Right. O-okay.”

It took a little bit for the weight to drop off his shoulders after that conversation. But he knew it was the right thing, which was why he was able to keep moving on from it without beating himself up too much over it. As the days went by it crossed his mind once or twice to reach out, but he knew that it wasn’t his place to do that, and that was okay. Maybe it would happen and maybe it wouldn’t. As it stood, he had plenty of other things to keep himself busy and occupied with.

He told Hangman what had happened a few days after the fact, once he’d had some time to sit with everything on his own. There was a moment when he wondered if he was going to say something about it directly, or if he was just going to let it come about naturally in conversation at some point. He knew that whenever, however, it came up, Jake was going to have some follow-up questions about it—that was what made him hesitate on breaking the news. Bradley didn’t know if he wanted to get into the reasons behind it all, if he was ready to open that door again.

But he ended up telling him. Of course he ended up telling him. In the back of Bradley’s mind, whatever Jake’s knee-jerk reaction to the news was, was going to give him an idea of where he was really at. It was easy to say and promise all sorts of things over the phone late at night when he was under no obligation to actually follow through on any of it. But now Jake was going to have to put his money where his mouth is, and Bradley was hoping that it would all work out, that Jake wouldn’t instantly fire back with something crass or sarcastic.

“Why’d that happen?” was all Jake said, face pensive, when Bradley told him that he decided to break things off with Roman.

The surprise on Bradley’s face was momentary before his expression grew serious again. He leaned against the closed door of his locker, also wondering for a split second why so many of their conversations had to happen there. “Because I think that, maybe, things could be different.”

Now it was Jake’s turn to look surprised. He even looked hopeful, which was a new look for someone who was so known for just looking cocky. “Yeah?”

Bradley nodded. “Yeah.”

It wasn’t just as simple as that, and neither of them thought that it would be. They took things slow, much slower than they had the first time around. Bradley thought that Hangman was just going to try and dive right back into things and hope for the best, but he didn’t. They were both still a little gun-shy about the entire thing, and rightfully so.

It was a lot of talking, having conversations that probably would have saved them the first time through if Jake had been ready to have them then. But he hadn’t. Then again, he was ready to have them now, or he was at least trying to be ready. It wasn’t all perfect, because it was still the two of them after all, but there was more effort being put in than there had been, and realistically that was all Bradley had been wanting the entire time.

Even with all of the late-night phone calls, the drop-in visits as they tried to navigate and rebuild a foundation that had been so shaken before, they still kept a small shred of distance. For once neither one of them had been brave enough, cocky enough, to try and cross that final threshold. There were opportunities, too, like when they were standing in the doorway of Bradley’s apartment and Jake was saying goodbye, or when they were the last two of their group still lingering at The Hard Deck even though they’d stopped drinking a while before.

They both knew they’d let it be a substitute, a band-aid, before, and they didn’t want to let it happen again. Once or twice Jake had been so tempted to make a snarky remark when he would see Bradley’s eyes drift to his lips, but he always stopped himself. It wasn’t like he had to say anything anyway for Bradley to know—he could tell by the cocky little smirk on Hangman’s face after the fact that he’d been caught. He didn’t say anything about that either.

Everyone was getting ready to leave The Hard Deck. It wasn’t exceptionally late, but they all knew that they were in for an early morning so they decided to quit while they were ahead. They all started saying their various goodbye’s and see you tomorrow’s as they split off in the parking lot. Natasha went to say goodbye to Rooster, noticing immediately that if she was going to do that, she was going to have to say goodbye to Hangman too considering how close they were standing to each other while they were talking by Rooster’s car. Part of her wanted to shake her head and roll her eyes at the sheer ridiculousness of the two of them, but even she couldn’t deny how different things had seemed between them, how much better. They seemed happier, even in the moments when they bickered during training. There was no real malice the way that there used to be.

“Bradshaw,” she said with a smile and a nod before turning to Jake and letting her expression get a little more serious, “Bagman.” They all chuckled for a moment before she stepped in and gave Bradley a brief hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See ya,” Bradley replied with a nod.

Jake let her get a few steps away before calling after her, “Sweet dreams, Phoenix!” He and Bradley both fell back into laughter when she responded to that with a middle finger as she continued walking away.

When the two of them quieted back down again, Jake turned and looked at Bradley, who was so casually leaning back against his car and toying with his keys. “You still gotta be home before midnight, Bradshaw?”

He laughed as he shrugged. “Only if you don’t want Phoenix hunting you down.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Right.”

There was a pause, both of them trying and failing to ignore the tension that had been thickening between them. It was a wonder either of them could breathe at this point. Clearing his throat, Bradley tried to sound as normal as possible as he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there.”

Bradley nodded. “Goodnight.”

“Night.” Jake watched as Bradley went to unlock the front door of his car. After a quick second of contemplation, he decided, fuck it, now was as good of a time as any. Reaching forward, he rested his hand on Bradley’s shoulder. “Hey.”

Bradley turned around, eyebrows raised like he was waiting for Hangman to ask him a question. What he was met with instead, however, was the feeling of Jake’s lips crashing into his. The shock of it all only lasted a moment before Bradley was giving right into him, keys clattering to the ground as he opted to grab onto Jake instead. He had one hand still on Bradley’s shoulder, the other cupping the side of his face.

It felt new and familiar all at once. Bradley was fairly certain that if Jake’s body wasn’t pinning him so effectively to the car, that he would’ve melted into a puddle in the middle of the parking lot. He wouldn’t have been upset about that either.

When they finally pulled apart, each of them catching their breath, Jake let his forehead drop to rest against Bradley’s. They each had a grin on their face, chests rising and falling from not just the kiss but the excitement, the relief of it all that there were some things that were still the same as they ever were and that it was a good thing.

“Now I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jake said with a smile, quieter than he usually was.

Bradley chuckled, wanting to part ways for the night even less now than he had before. “You could come over still.”

Jake chuckled and stepped away, stealing another quick kiss as he went. “I gotta be home before midnight too.”

“Liar,” Bradley said with a laugh.

“Yeah,” Jake agreed, grin growing wider by the second. “It’s just good to leave you wanting more.”

[kiraziwrites]

Relationship: Dulcie Collins/Eddie Redcliffe/Cath York Rating: E Words: 5010 Summary:

“This is not a good idea, love,” Dulcie says, keeping her tone level. “I know I said I’d try to be more open to change, and I hear and respect your opinion, I truly do, but this is—it’s like the hobby farm. It’s really not going to work.” “I just think,” Cath says, bright-eyed and earnest, “that it would be a healing experience for me. For us both! To share that kind of intimacy. I am committed to working through my anxiety about you fucking your partner and I’m sure that would be so much more manageable for me if we fucked her first. Together.” (Eddie needs a gruck. Dulcie and Cath offer to help her out.)

After writing several G or T-rated Yuletide fics featuring no lesbians whatsoever, this time around I got to dip my toe in the lady pool (as Keeley Jones would say) with some Deadloch F/F/F smut, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Cheers to sephstone for the delightful prompt and to the randomizer for assigning it to me! I almost didn't offer this fandom because comedy is not my comfort zone and I was daunted by the prospect of trying to nail these very distinctive character voices, but the show was absolutely the best thing I saw in 2023 and rewatching it twice for research purposes really brightened up a difficult end to a garbage year. 

[jamietarttsnorthernattitude]

👀

Hello, anon! Thank you for stopping by! Going to continue posting from another WIP that won’t be posted in 2023. It’s another one I started for whumptober but it didn’t end up in the final work for the month. It’s Georgie’s POV with her relationship with Jamie over the years.

The first match both his parents were at, Jamie watched, embarrassed, as they argued in the car park. Georgie had been embarrassed too. Years of questions from others of if her husband was coming or was Jamie’s Dad stuck at work, and then he finally shows and he’s drunk and overly boastful. It’s too much, but it’s especially too much for an under 10 match. They watched the match from opposite ends of the pitch after that.

Deep down Georgie knew Jamie would be lying if he said he wasn’t happy when James first began attending his matches. He maybe hadn’t missed having a Dad before, but now that he has one, she thought maybe he had without realising.

“Great goal, Jamie!”

“You really showed them, lad.”

“Way to fight off that defender!”

As James Tartt heaped praise on his son, he craved it more and more.

But the goals were never Georgie’s favourite part. Georgie’s favourite part was her son’s smile. The smile never left his face, whether he scored or not. He ran all over the field, always trying, always with a “Mummy, did you see my goal?” Or “Mummy, did you see the steal I had?” And Georgie always happily answered yes because she didn’t take her eyes off her sweet boy the entire match.

[doki-doki-lesbians-club]

I may or may not have part of a Halloween one shot idea forming...

Random, unrelated question: what are some outfit/costume ideas for the dokis? Mostly talking about Yuri, Monika, and Sayori here.

[abubblingcandle]

Okay my favourites at the moment are Dutch Courage, Roll Call & Have You Noticed You Are Breathing, so if you want to post a next chapter for any of those as a gift, I would love it :)

Your wish is my command you fantastic cheerleader 🧡🧡🧡

In my shame I had kinda forgotten about Dutch Courage with Roll Call finally making it's appearance and so this pushed me to get chapter 2 finished!!

[kbirbpods]

Recorded for Voiceteam Mystery Box 2023's The One That Got Away, in which I tackled VT 2022's "Flanfiction" challenge!

Original Work: For the Love of Flan by @flowerparrish

Rating: General Audiences

Relationship: Eddie Brock/Dan Lewis/Venom Symbiote/Anne Weying

Tags: Domestic Fluff, implied polyamory, Baking, Human Disaster Eddie Brock, POV Eddie Brock, flan - Freeform, Flanfiction

Audio Length: 10 minutes, 5 seconds

Summary: Dan wants flan for his birthday, because he's Like That. Eddie accidentally volunteers to bake it from scratch. Chaos ensues.