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nico-di-genova · 2 months

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strollonso + marriage proposal.

Genuinely, thank you so much for sending this, it is such a simple request, and yet the idea of them married has now fully consumed me.

Warnings: NSFW, they are fucking nasty style.

The thing about them is that they’ve never been normal. Not when Fernando kissed Lance for the first time post Bahrain, all sweaty and roaming hands, crowding Lance against the door of his hotel room and then standing before his father the next day saying Lance was already like family. Not when Lance went down on him for the first time, choking himself on Fernando’s cock while the man sat on the phone with his engineer discussing set-up of his car. Normal was not something that came to them easily, Lance supposed their proposal wouldn’t be any different.

He just hadn’t expected Fernando to ask him right as he was bottoming out.

Right as Lance was muffling a moan into his pillow and gripping the plush material in his hands with white knuckles.

“Marry me,” Fernando grunts, and Lance hardly hears him over the blood rushing through his ears.

He moans as Fernando thrusts with practiced ease.

“Yes or no?”

Lance cannot even follow the question. He’s too busy thinking of how Fernando’s cock feels inside him, too busy arching and pushing back for more. Fernando gives it to him, leans forward so he can rest a hand on the mattress next to Lance’s face pushed into the pillow, his other hand gripping Lance’s hip tight enough to bruise.

When Fernando begins thrusting at a brutal pace Lance lets him. He lets punched out noises fall from his lips and tangle in the sweat soaked sheets beneath them.

When he comes, it’s with the shape of Fernando’s name in his mouth.

"You did not answer,” Fernando muses afterward. Lance’s head is resting on his bare chest, his fingers threading through sweat soaked strands of jet black hair.

“Answer what?” Lance mumbles, fucked out and limp against Fernando – like a sack of potatoes Fernando had once teased, boneless and immovable. He was falling asleep, his voice groggy with the promise of it.

“Marry me,” Fernando says again, a statement instead of a question.

“Later,” Lance grumbles, curling closer to Fernando.

He is rarely the little spoon, what with the size difference between them, but his thigh slots perfectly across Fernando’s hips and his head can rest nicely beneath his chin if he maneuvers enough. He can feel Fernando’s come dripping out of him, his own drying against his stomach, but the need to give into the oblivion of sleep is stronger than the need to shower.

“But yes?” Fernando asks, to which Lance makes a noise that might have been agreement, at least he aims for that.

It’s not romantic, certainly not how Lance thought his proposal would go. For one, he did not think he would be the one proposed to. In his mind there had been an expensive trip to Bali, rose petals in the sand, a girl who he’d get down on one knee for with a prenup and a ring. But the girl never had a face, nothing distinguishable about her other than the dress she wore that would flutter in the breeze and her giggle when Lance slid the expensive rock onto her finger.

This is better, half asleep against his childhood hero with his limbs still aching from how hard the man had drilled him into the mattress. Feeling warm, content, wanted – not just for his trust fund but because he was also really good at sucking dick.

Maybe it was a self-deprecating thought. He didn’t care. He falls asleep like that, with Fernando’s fingers in his hair and wrapped in the scent of him. When he wakes, it’s to the man easing him out of the bed and into the warm bath that waits with steam rising in tendrils from the water. It’s easy to let himself be taken care of, to let Fernando massage the knots from his shoulders and clean the come from his body. Easy in the same way it is to let a nameless driver cart him around Montreal or let the rotating staff dust his frequently empty loft, different in that Fernando presses kisses to his neck, his shoulders, his spine, the crown of his head and tells him how good he was.

Lance rests his cheek against the curve of Fernando’s neck while water is poured down his back, soap lathered into his hair, whispers of praise warm against his ear. Fernando uses his own shampoo, his soap, so that Lance no longer smells of sex but of citrus and sandalwood.

Fernando doesn’t mention marriage again, but he does dress Lance in a pair of his own boxers and eases him into bed with a gentleness that Lance has learned to associate with post-coital bliss.

It’s the sun that wakes him up next, and Fernando’s hand thwacking against his face when the man shifts in his sleep. He smells of Fernando and is wearing clothes are too small for his frame, and it’s familiar. At some point, it became almost normal.

A month later he gives Fernando a ring, a silver band rimmed with a strip of carbon fiber from his own car and his name engraved in Hebrew on the inside. It matches the font that’s inked across his ribs. Hurt a hell of a lot less though and cost him significantly more. His dad’s accountant questions the amount, asks Lance if he bought a new place, and Lance just shrugs it off – says he bought a snowboard or a car or a race track just to see the way the man’s lips press into a thin line as he jots something into the books.

“I’ll marry you,” he says, when he slides the ring in its velvet box to Fernando across the table of the taco place they’re at. It comes to a rest beside the chips and salsa.

Fernando stares. There’s a stray piece of cilantro sticking to the corner of his downturned mouth.

“If, uh, if you still want me to. I’ll marry you.”

“A ring?” Fernando asks, motioning at the box with the overfilled end of the taco in his grip. A stray piece of carne asada falls, plops onto the paper lined basket beneath him.

“Yeah, it’s stupid, but you know-“

“It’s not stupid,” Fernando cuts him off, annoyance lacing his tone as he sets the taco down next to the escaped piece of meat, “Don’t say that. It’s not stupid.”

Lance blushes, ducks his head, stares down at his own untouched taco and the box that Fernando still has not reached for. There’s chip crumbs sticking to the velvet. His dad would have a conniption if he saw, the same way he did when Lance would show up to events in a suit that was too big on him with an untucked button-up peeking out from beneath the oversized fabric. His dad would hate that they were even eating here, which is maybe precisely why Lance had chosen it. Something bold, something his, something that wasn’t stamped with the Stroll name and wrapped in a pretty package.

“It’s not stupid,” Fernando repeats, “But it’s for me?”

Lance feels his palms go clammy, feels suddenly like he is getting hit by a bus. His appetite leaves him with the whoosh of breath from his lungs. They hadn’t talked about it since Fernando proposed the idea when he was balls deep inside him. When Lance was moaning his name into the pillow and choking on his own tears from the pleasure. He feels suddenly stupid, hollow, the same way he feels when reporters ask him why he bottled it into the wall on the easiest part of the circuit with condescension lacing their tone. Like they could do any fucking better.

“You- fuck.”

“Lance?”

“You didn’t mean it did you? Oh, man, uh. I’m- fuck.”

Lance doesn’t cry, at least not in public. He’s become well trained in blinking back tears and biting off the quiver in his voice that gives him away. But he comes close, feels the stinging heat of them building in the corners of his eyes and has to blink violently until his vision clears. Fernando watches him, watches as he fights against the rising tide of not good enough, stupid, never enough that rises inside him suddenly and rapidly and threatens to drown him while he swallows down the bile and sour cream taste that’s building at the back of his throat.

It takes him longer than it should to stop the shaking of his hands.

“Sorry,” he says when the world settles a little beneath his feet, when he doesn’t feel like he’s going to say something spiteful just so he can see Fernando’s expression twist with the same hurt he feels. It wouldn’t work anyway, Lance has thrown nearly every well aimed bullet Fernando’s way and they land, but they never seem to hurt.

“Let’s just- let’s just forget about it, yeah? It was a dumb thing, I don’t even-,” he reaches to grab the ring box but is halted by Fernando’s hand over his own. Fernando’s fingers wrap around his wrist, strong, sturdy, unyielding.

“Stop calling it that. Let me answer, yes?”

Lance nods, braces himself for the inevitable rejection, for the floor falling out feeling and the rush of wind in his ears and the impact of his body against the pavement. It’s not a strange feeling, to be dumped by his hero and hung out to dry, doesn’t hurt any less the second time around though. He just wishes Fernando would be mean about it, the niceties hurt more, he’d rather it just be quick – it’s what he would have expected from the man anyway – a sharp dagger to the side or the bite of a blade against his throat, not the gentle press of the knife sliding between his ribs in some false semblance of mercy.

Fernando brushes his thumb along the inside of his wrist, over his pulse point, parallel to the surgical scars left from his accident. He sometimes gets phantom twinges, the memory of a snapped bone, but nothing now. Now he just feels empty.

“I did not ask you properly,” Fernando explains, sounding, strangely, sad.

“I didn’t answer properly,” Lance counters, nodding to the box that still sits between them, unopened, next to the chips and a bottle of hot sauce like it is another spare condiment. It cost him a quarter of a million, and Lance threw it down like it was the spare jalapeno sauce the waiter had left them.

“I should have,” Fernando presses, exasperated, like he’s frustrated that Lance is not understanding him, “it’s important to me. This. Us.”

Us.

Lance feels like that twelve year-old boy standing in the Ferrari garage when he says, “I don’t understand.”

Like he’s watching the race unfold with noise muffled by the earmuffs over his head and his father’s hand heavy on his shoulder. Like he can see it all, close enough to smell the rubber and the gasoline, but far enough away that it still seems unobtainable. Fernando may as well still be in that car, separated by a screen and Lance’s idolization for all the difference it makes now.

“You want to marry me, yes? Honest. This is- this is you? Your choice?”

“Who’s else would it be?” If Lance has a gun held to his head it’s one that he hasn’t spotted yet, metal pressing against his temple, and he’s somehow mistaken it for a kiss.

Fernando’s lips press into a thin line, the curl of his lips curving further downward.

“I’m sorry, Nando.”

“Stop being sorry. You do not need to be sorry. I am sorry. How I asked, when I did, it was…wrong. I should have waited. I should have asked correctly.”

Fernando’s grip on his wrist tightens, instinctively, enough that Lance winces when it shifts something beneath the skin, and he feels the hint of pain. More of a familiar ghost than anything real. Fernando pulls away anyway, sudden, leans back in his seat and tucks his hands beneath the table like his touch has somehow burned Lance.

Slowly, Lance understands.

“Wait- you- baby did you think I wanted a proposal? Like down on one knee ‘will you marry me’, proposal?”

Fernando arches an eyebrow, “You do not?”

The floor stabilizes slightly, stops feeling like it’s going to fall out beneath him. Lance breathes and when he exhales a laugh accompanies it.

“No, Fer. Fuck no. Please no, actually.”

“But you got me a ring,” Fernando points out, points at the jewelry itself, like rings and proposals must always go hand in hand. Like they’re supposed to be the blushing bride and groom. Like there’s not a seventeen year age difference between them and their first kiss wasn’t accompanied by Fernando spitting the name ‘princess’ into his mouth like it was a slur.

Lance can’t stop laughing.

Fernando still can’t seem to find the joke.

“This is not funny.”

“It’s kind of funny.”

Funny that his boyfriend became his fiancé when he was fucking him so hard Lance probably wouldn’t have even remembered his own name. Funny that he bought a ring before they’d even discussed it when their dicks weren’t out. Funny that Lance mistook Fernando’s chivalry for abandonment. It’s funny in a way that isn’t, and so he can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of him in heaving breaths and spills across the table, the floor, the whole of the crowded restaurant. He knows what he must look like, wide grin and crinkling eyes, and the familiarity of his face nagging at the brains of those who turn to stare at him.

He doesn’t care if they recognize him, or, more realistically, Fernando. He doesn’t care and it’s one of the first times that he thinks it and realizes it’s probably true.

“Stop laughing.”

“I can’t,” Lance wheezes, “We’re both so fucking stupid.”

Fernando rolls his eyes, shifts in his seat, waits until Lance’s laughs fade into breathy little huffs and passes the time by picking at his now cold taco. Lance watches him, watches the twitch of his lips and knows Fernando is biting back laughter too.

Finally, he leans forward on his elbows and says, “I want to marry you. Of course I want to marry you.”

He pushes the ring box further along the table with an index finger, until it’s touching Fernando’s plate. The man looks from the velvet box to Lance’s finger and travels along his arm until there’s nothing between them, but the table and the chips and Lance’s name engraved in Hebrew on a solid gold band.

“Do you want to marry me?”

He doesn’t have to wait for Fernando’s answer, it comes in the darkening of the man’s expression, his pupils blowing wide with want and the way he hooks his foot around Lance’s ankle beneath the table.

“Come with me. I will show you how much I want to marry you, Lance Stroll.”

Three months later, Lance wears a matching gold band, Fernando’s name engraved across the inside and resting warm against his skin. When people ask if he’s married, always as a joke, always assuming the impossibility, he laughs and tells them yes. Fernando wears his on a gold chain tucked beneath his nomex. It is the last thing they take off before getting in their cars, the first thing they put back on when getting out.

“Mine,” Fernando will whisper to him at night, Lance’s fingers pressed to his lips and warm breath ghosting along the ring.

“Yours,” Lance will say when he loops Fernando’s chain around his index finger and pulls until the man comes to him, and there is no separation between them at all.

#file this under #another prompt that got away from me #this shit is 5 pages #I don't know short apparently #strollonso #formula 1 #fernando alonso #lance stroll #my fic #anyway them!!!#THEM!!!!#they're toxic and messy and in love!!!!#smut

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jsteneil · 6 years

Text

call it new

Kevin and Thea patch things up, even when the fabric is threadbare.

3.1k

read on ao3

Thea is still at the hotel when the bus pulls in the parking lot.

Kevin knows because she’s waiting for them on the porch, fiddling with her pendant, arms crossed on her chest. Thea is built like the ferocious backliner that she is: standing there in the dim light, with a solid stance and her legs open shoulder-width, she looks as immovable as she is. Kevin’s heart does a little complicated thing. He gets it, Neil’s trust in Andrew; he’s always understood it, known it, maybe because he’s lived with the promise of the same thing for years, before it was ripped off him with his hand.

The Foxes cheer sleepily when Wymack cuts off the engine. It’s almost three am and they’ve been functionned off remnants of adrenaline until Neil got back from his questioning. They’re all more or less fused with their seats from exhaustion; if Kevin were to turn over, he’s pretty sure he’d see Neil slouching on Andrew.

Nicky is the first one out of the bus, possibly because Erik just crossed the glass door of the hotel, looking even more tired than they are. Allison’s heels are heard next on the noisy steps, half-carried by Renee who looks more rested than any of them, possibly because she’s not entirely human.

Kevin watches them all file out of the bus, barely registering it, before something pokes him hard in the head.

“Are you going to get up sometimes this century?” Neil asks.

His eyes are bright and he’s standing close, close to Andrew. His good mood instantly worsens Kevin’s. They won, and Kevin is glad of it, wanted nothing else. But he’s been feeling on edge ever since the buzzer rang the last second of the match, waiting for the other shoe to drop and drag him down with him.

“You won,” Andrew says when Kevin doesn’t move. “Isn’t that everything you wanted in your pathetically obsessed life?”

“We won,” Neil says, and then they wait.

Kevin glances on his right. Thea is still standing there, talking with Matt and Dan as the others crowd the brightly lit hall.

“Ah,” Neil says. “Well, you can’t sleep here.”

“As if you’ve ever confronted your problems head on,” Kevin mutters, which is ridiculous. Neil’s ruined skin and bruised psyche are proof that he does.

Neil kicks him in the shin but waits for him nonetheless, and Kevin doesn’t have a choice. He shoulders his bag and slowly makes his way out of the bus.

Andrew follows them; he’s the last one on the bus but the first one in the hotel, considering he shoulders past Kevin without looking back and doesn’t stop until he reaches Abby, who gives him one of the keys she’s just gathered from the front desk.

“You have a visitor,” Wymack says as Kevin stops in front of him. He’s smoking at the bottom of the stairs, watching everyone pair off and disappear inside the hotel through the large glass doors.

It’s been hours: the celebratory mood lasted a few minutes but was beaten down by the hours of questioning which followed the game, but still he looks proud as he gazes at Kevin. They’re the same height, which Kevin never realized before, though he should have. Exhaustion falls onto him like a heavy coat: he’s tired of pushing back his moment of rest, of the awkwardness he always waddles through.

Wymack is still looking at him steadily, waiting for something Kevin isn’t sure he can give him.

“You should stop smoking,” he blurts out.

“You should stop drinking,” Wymack retorts.

Kevin doesn’t have anything to say to that. He should, he knows he should: it’s unhealthy and addictive, two things his game doesn’t need. He didn’t drink in the Nest—hat’s a Foxes novelty.

“I can see you stalling,” Wymack says a heartbeat later, “go.”

“You don’t—”

“Kevin, I’m the one who’s gonna have to drag your ass out of bed in the morning. We’re leaving at ten.”

A glance at his watch tells him it’s past three thirty. Kevin groans. At least they’re taking the bus: he’ll only have to be awake long enough to cross the parking lot.

He drags his feet to the entrance of the hotel and rocks to a stop in front of Thea., who doesn’t say anything for a long time but lifts her hand in the air, halfway to his face. Her pendant falls back against her shirt, shiny and possibly skin warm.

“Good game,” she says after a while.

“We were desperate.”

“Yes. And you won.”

They did. Kevin is still reeling. His entire world is realigning like stars in the sky: he can’t help the pride he feels at being the better team. Worry and doubt are always waiting behind the door; they freeze his limbs the time of a breath, leaving panic strong enough to paralyze in their way.

He wants to go to bed and sleep his worries out. He wants a drink, he wants to go back onto the court at Palmetto and lose himself in the repetitive movement of throwing balls at a plexiglass wall, being his own judge and jury.

“You did well,” Thea says again. Then: “We need to talk.”

Kevin guesses they do, but he also has to rock on his feet a little to stay upright. Thea grips him by the shoulder and he sags so entirely in her grip that it surprises them both.

“Can we… later?”

“I have to go back tomorrow.”

Kevin glances around. He makes eye contact with Abby through the glass, holding a spare key card. Thea follows him when he steps inside and takes his bag when he slouches against the elevator wall.

His room is on the fourth floor. Through the cracked open doors he can hear his teammates talking and getting ready for bed, still high with victory and team spirit. A door opens as they cross the hallways, and Kevin tenses instinctively, but it’s only Renee, crossing from one room to another, a charger in hand. She smiles and waves but doesn’t say anything. Kevin can almost understand how she can be Andrew’s friend.

It’s not until the door opens to a single double bed in the middle of the dark room that he realizes that he expected to room with Andrew and Neil.

He flops down on the bed, Thea closes the door, and they’re suddenly alone. Kevin’s mind brings out memories, unprompted, of what it meant to be alone with Thea: the sex, the conversations, the notes they passed in secret, holding out whatever they could of a relationship, until both of them were free to do it for real. There had always been the weight of this waiting on the horizon, but Kevin didn’t realize how fake it was until he left the Ravens behind.

Now begins the real freedom, the real experiment.

Thea sits down next to him, but she doesn’t lie down like him, choosing instead to shove him almost off the bed.

“What the fuck,” he splutters as he catches himself in-extremis.

“If you lie down now you’ll fall asleep.”

Would that really be that bad? Kevin’s mind supplies, but he doesn’t voice the question. There is no avoiding this conversation if they want the fragile thread stretched thin between them to grow back into something real.

“We need to talk about what it means,” she says.

“What what means?”

“What it means to be us.” A pause, then: “If you’re not going to take this seriously, I’m leaving.”

She means it: she gets up before Kevin can count to three. His hand shots up instinctively, catching her wrist.

“Wait,” he says, tugging lightly until she’s facing him back. “I’m taking this seriously. I—I want to talk.” She’s still waiting, so he grits the words out: “You told me we’d have a shot at something after I graduate. It’s still two years away and—I don’t want to wait.”

The silence is frightening. Kevin can feel his palms get damp and his heartbeat kicking, his mind reeling: it’s the same kind of anxious urgency he’s always felt whenever he thought of Wymack as more than a coach, that dries up his throat until he can’t force words out. Alcohol, he’s discovered, is the only thing fluid enough to pass through, but he knows that’s not an option.

“What do you want?” Thea asks, stepping closer. She turns her hand in his until she’s loosely circling his wrist back. Her fingers are hot against his skin, as she always is.

“I want—” It’s not an easy thing to formulate.

“Do you want a relationship?”

Now she sounds as hesitant as he is. Neither of them is good at this; they were Ravens, after all.

“I want to able to talk to you,” Kevin says.

It’s not the right thing to say.

“You have my number. You could have talked to me at any time during the past year and a half.”

Thea has his number too, now: he disconnected his old line when he left Evermore but she stole his phone and called herself with it the last time she came to Palmetto. It was a few weeks ago. They haven’t talked since, except for last night, when Thea told him she’d come to the game.

“I don’t know what being in a relationship means,” Kevin says after a while. “And I don’t think you know either, but I’m tired of being scared all the time.”

“Yes,” she says, “I thought so.”

Thea presses her thumb against his tattoo at that. The little jolt of pain the pressure sends is a welcome reminder of the step he took and the things he’s finally left behind. He has to ask:

“Is that what made you want to try again?”

“Yes.”

Her callused palm is fully cupping his jaw, now, and Kevin rests his head against it, closing his burning eyes. He wants to go to sleep, he wants to stay up talking to her all night, hearing her break down the game in her smooth accent, he wants—

He wants.

“You need to sleep,” Thea says. “Are you still a morning person?”

Kevin grunts, listening to her puff of laughter. He never was: everyone knows that.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.” She disentangles herself from him, leaving cold air on his skin where she was touching him. Kevin’s eyes shot open.

“We leave at ten.”

“I’ll call you.”

“In the evening,” he says, and she smiles.

“You’ll be on the Court by the evening.”

He will. Then again, if she doesn’t call too late, maybe he’ll wait. He thinks he can do that.

Neil tells them on the bus, just before stepping off. He looks at Kevin when he says the words, without malice but with the lack of pity that characterizes him.

It’s fine. Or, it’s not, but Kevin has never wanted pity in the first place.

He leaves with Abby and has a panic attack in her car, then almost drinks himself in a stupor at her house before Wymack comes in and takes the bottle away.

“He’s dead,” Kevin tells him; he feels like it’s the only thing he’s said all day. “He’s dead.”

There’s a clatter in the bedroom where Abby disappeared ten minutes earlier with her medical pack. Jean, Kevin thinks, but even in his alcohol-addled state he can’t imagine a way they can comfort each other.

“Alright,” Wymack says, “come with me. I need a drink.”

“You took the vodka,” Kevin mumbles as he lets Wymack frog-march him to the car.

“I meant coffee.”

No one ever means coffee when they say they need a drink, but Kevin stays silent for the rest of the trip. It’s not on the news yet: according to Neil, Riko was stone cold by the time Kevin went to sleep that morning, so what do a few hours matter anyway?

Wymack brings him to a diner a few miles away from campus, possibly so Kevin doesn’t have access to his alcohol stash. They have bitter coffee and greasy burgers that Kevin vomits right up ten minutes later during a panic attack that leaves him hunched over the toilet seat on the diner’s dirty bathroom floor.

“You okay in there?” someone asks, but the steps move away when they get no answer.

Kevin doesn’t do much more of the rest of his Saturday, pestering Wymack until he drives him to the court. He always meant to go there anyway; the smell of the floor polish and the leather of his gear usually helps him focus his stray thoughts, but this time the effort to gear up and fetch balls and a racquet is too much. He crouches down on the giant paw in the middle of the floor in his jeans and sneakers and tries to remember how to breathe.

The buzz of his phone against his hip startles him so much he falls on his ass, one hand flying behind him to steady himself.

It’s Thea, calling him like she said she would.

Kevin almost doesn’t pick up.

“Kevin,” she says when he finally does.

“He’s dead,” is the only thing he can articulate. He thinks Thea might get it. She’s not like Neil, incensed and intent on vengeance. She’s like him, angry and wounded and still a little bit scarred.

“I hate him for what he did to you,” she says.

“You think he got what he deserved.”

It’s not even a question. The answer is simple: yes or no. Kevin is incapable of answering it himself.

“I think he’s dead, and now it doesn’t matter anymore.”

He realizes that her lack of surprise means that the news has spread. It’s unfathomable, the world being privy to the ugly reality of Riko’s death. They’ll all say it was a suicide, and that front covering the truth is familiar, but they’ll be waiting for a reaction Kevin can’t hide.

“Kevin. Breathe.”

“Count them for me,” he gasps, so she does, in her unshakable voice: “One,” and she inhales, “two,” and they let go.

“Will you come to the funeral?”

“Will you?”

He will; how can he not? For a moment he surprises himself daydreaming about not going, staying in bed with the covers drawn over his head. But no, that can’t happen: not after they beat the Ravens, not now that the cameras are focused, more than ever, on their little ragtag team. Not after he made such accusations live on TV weeks ago. They will whispers and point fingers, his reputation will be in shatters.

Kevin says this to Thea in between big gulps of air. She stays silent, thinking, judging. Thea is good at compartmentalizing and seeing the bigger picture; she makes sacrifices and sees them through. She understands.

“Alright,” she says after they’ve rehashed it three times. “Sit up straight, you’ll hurt your back.”

The floor is cool under Kevin’s forehead but he’s still covered in cold sweat and it sticks when he unfolds from his curled position.

“How did you know?”

“You always curl up as tight as possible.”

He didn’t know that she’d noticed. He didn’t know that she’d cared to before: his attacks in the Nest were always either supervised by Riko or private. Much of his privacy was fake: he shared it with Riko, with Jean. With Thea.

It’s normal that they know these things about each other. That’s what couples do, after all.

“Talk to me,” he says as he gets up on shaky legs. He almost falls down when the blood rushes back into his feet, but he manages to stay upright and starts down the court, following the path they take when they run warm-ups around the court.

“About what?”

“Anything. About you, anything.”

It’s them, so Thea talks about Exy. She hashes down her team’s season, the internal struggles and petty in-fighting that cost them a game.

“I know the feeling,” Kevin says, almost joking.

There is a moment of silence where laughter should be, then Thea is off again, explaining her latest game. Kevin saw it live, on his laptop. The livestream broke once and he almost cried out loud, but he only missed Thea’s team scoring. He doesn’t tell her but listens carefully as she talks to him about game strategy he could only guess at as a spectator. She’s ruthless on the court, never backing down. Listening to her determination is almost as good as seeing it or experiencing first hand. He craves it, sometimes: the memory of their year of playing together, Kevin choosing her as his mark in scrimmage because he was obsessed with measuring his strategic play with her strength. It worked well. He thinks it might work even better on the same side of the court, but that’s a thought for the future.

When Thea’s done with the game, she goes on another one, less interesting, that she played against the Boston Rebels.

“We stayed in town the next day,” she says. “Saw all the historical landmarks.”

It’s more than an olive branch, it’s a rope thrown to a drowning man. Kevin takes it and relearns how to swim.

“Tell me.”

She tells him; about the churches, the houses, the Liberty tour and the narrow streets of the northern part of town. Kevin has travelled a lot, but never to Boston. Maybe they should go one day, when they have time and a more solid start to their relationship.

The beeping sound of his phone battery startles him out of the conversation.

“I should go,” he tells her, hand on the court’s doors. “My phone is going to die.”

“Alright.” She’s not one for goodbyes. “Don’t stay alone,” she warns.

She knows as well as he does how well Ravens do alone. Kevin thinks for Jean, still in bed in Abby’s guest room. He wishes he could visit him, bring him some of the comfort they used to share in whispered French. But his relationship with Jean is a closed door he doesn’t have the key to unlock.

Noise alerts him when he steps out of the foyer. The scrapping of a chair against the floor, the click of a light being turned off. Wymack steps out of his office a second later, leaning on the doorjamb.

“I’m not,” he assures Thea.

Riko is dead, and Kevin’s shadow with him, the spiral inside him threatening to swallow him whole. But he has the Foxes, and Thea, and Wymack—his father. This is enough, for now, for Kevin to be able to see a sliver of blue sky past the storm.

#all for the game #aftg #tfc #the foxhole court #kevin day #thea muldani #muldayni #is that their ship name?#it should be #my writing

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sweetsandsin · 4 years

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What happens when the cards see a Joker in your future?

After losing the only man that made sense in a world of confusion, Forensic Psychologist, Ember's cards align to tell her one thing and one thing only.

Joker is coming and he'll make sure she is too.

"It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone"

- John Steinback.

♤♡The Oxymoron Of Gotham◇♧

In the crippled city of Gotham lay an oxymoron at every corner; Batman, the Dark Knight who lived in the shadows but brought criminals to light, Riddler, the man who claimed to be an enigma but who had already been worked out and last, but never least, was Penguin, the man who provided twentysomething Ember with perhaps the biggest paradox of her life- loss, the word that had stolen the one and only person she had left only to present her with a soul shattering emptiness to fill the holes her Uncle and his brass cane had left behind.

Found amongst the trash in a dirtied t-shirt for warmth, he'd lifted her from the seedy underbelly of her unwanted origins and given her a home. His shaky hand would brush through the tangles in her honey tresses to wipe away the remnants of grime that even years after her escape never seemed to fully leave, each morning would begin with a story of his adventures and the wars he'd always win, the night ended with a brush of his lips on the tip of her nose and the lullaby he'd sing out of tune to will her into sleep:

"Burning Ember,

Named after the flame,

Burning Ember,

That's my pretty girl's name".

It had already been a few months, yet still, she spent every night sat on baby pink bedding with his top hat to her chest and his rhyme in her head. Tears would fall and her heart would break a little more.

It took her a while, but in the end, it was all okay, because she welcomed the pain, he deserved someone to mourn for him, he deserved the ache she felt, afterall how lucky was she to have something that made saying goodbye so hard?

Well, she was very lucky indeed.

A blaring car horn pulled her away from her thoughts, stopping in a hurry to follow the sound, her right ankle rolled to the side causing a jolt of pain to spiral its way up to her knee in a gentle throb. Keeling forward, Ember squeezed her slim fingers around her foot, bent it inwards and pushed it back into her knee-length boot.

Turning her head, her nails traced the brown bags so prudent beneath her lashes in the reflection of the smashed glass window, inhaling sharply at the sight, her soft pink lips released a breath of fog that quickly succumbed to the sombre tone that had long ago wrapped itself around her hometown, she only wished she too could evaporate into the air like the carbon dioxide that filled her lungs. Continuing her walk, a breathy laugh warmed her chest when she limped in a manner that could only be called ironical- Uncle Penguin was still with her even if only in hobble rather than spirit.

Tapping the butt of her cigarette, white-haired Aurora looked over her green-tinted glasses at the bell on the door "That you, Flamey?"

"It's me" she shouted back. Sliding past the many googly-eyed ornaments and baby doll figurines, she waved a hand around the curve of the wall.

"Did you get me what I asked for?" Her fingers clenched and unclenched in impatience till the square box touched her palm.

"I really wish you'd buy condoms yourself" she whisper hissed, mahogany brown eyes lightening as she looked around uncomfortably and rocked on the balls of her feet. It was one thing to know that someone old enough to be her gran had frequent sex, it was another thing to be the person indirectly supporting her aim to bed each and every male in Gotham that took her fancy.

"And I really wish those punks in the pharmacy wouldn't call me a hot mama and spank my ass" taking a puff, she blew out loudly, "I hate having to break their wrists, makes my arthritis play up, but what ya gonna do?" Shuffling the card deck in her other hand, she intricately flicked them so they twirled between her disjointed fingers.

"Aw, no" her shoulders slumped, "Not again, I told you I don't believe in any of this" everytime was the same, she'd drop something off only to get pulled into unproven spirituality that was far off reality even for a place like Gotham.

"And I told you, I don't give a shit" standing, she pushed the opposing woman down by her shoulder."Now shut up and pay attention, you never know when it could come in handy".

Rolling her eyes, her bottom lip jutted out "Yeah" she scoffed, "When pigs fly".

"What was that?" Aurora tugged her glasses off, an icy glare yanking the usual temperature down a few notches.

"Uh" she blushed, pulling a face. It seemed feigning innocence was her only real option here, "I said, I can't wait" biting her tongue to hide her laugh, she looked to the side.

"Better have been what you said" she warned under her breath, finger waggling at her. "You ain't too old for me to put you over my knee, yanno?" Not that she ever would, of course, the girl was the apple of her eye, but she didn't half wind her up some days.

Drumming her hands on the table, Ember looked on in awe at the speed the cards moved from one hand to another, the flick of the shuffle ending pierced her ears in warning that Aurora's favourite three-card set up would soon be upon them.

"King'a diamonds, ya know what that means?"

"No" she smiled kindly, "But I know you're going to tell me".

Ignoring her jibe, she rolled her sleeves up so the tattooed snake on her right arm led beside it. "Means you're going to meet a man who does a dangerous job, maybe a nice officer?" She hoped. "But uh" she scratched behind her ear, "Could also mean you meet a man who'll run circles round ya, someone worth being scared of". Swiping her hand as if wiping away her words, she chuckled a hoarse laugh "But isn't that just about every man here?"

She wasn't wrong there. Humming quietly, she gazed over at the cards, only then noticing the pale hue to her powdered skin. Frowning, she placed a hand over hers "Is, is everything alright?"

"It's the nine'a spades" downing her tumbler of whiskey, she shook her head, "But that can't be correct, can it?" She looked up sorrowfully.

Even though Ember wasn't exactly one to indulge in the fantasy, she'd never seen Aurora look so shaken and that particular in a blue moon occurrence made her tremble too. "What does it mean?" Her eyes widened in curiosity.

"It means death, next to this card it could be taken to just mean really bad news, but it's the worst card you can get" her fingers itched for a smoke, her throat was dry and she knew if nicotine didn't reach her lips in the next few seconds she'd get all shaky again. Lighting one up, she leant back and sighed, "That's the stuff".

"Well, what is the next card?"

"Ace'a clubs, uh means you shall have protection from a powerful man?" Her words were spoken slow, confused, almost careful. "That's uh great, I suppose, also means that the death card is the death of an enemy, so all is tickety boo". Poor girl had already been through so much, she didn't want to see her go through more.

"So what you're saying is" she paused, hands spread on the table, "That you're not going to spend the next few weeks losing sleep worrying about me?" It happened before, a bad card spread and all she ever got was a million and one phone calls and a grouchy woman to deal with every Saturday, she didn't think she'd survive going through it again.

"That's what I'm saying, sweet cheeks" kicking her legs up, she pulled a hand over her facial features. "Now, did I ever tell you about floppy Jim?"

"Do I want to know?"

"Course ya do, but I'm feeling nice soo I'll spare you the details, just remember, always have a cucumber spare in the fridge, when the age goes up, the dick don't" she cackled loudly, hand smacking her thigh.

Wretching, Ember hit her forehead "I think I'm going to vomit".

♤♡◇♧

Snow White was the fairest of them all and what a prize it was to have skin the colour of snow and lips as red as a rose. White was purity and anything darker was nothing but corrupted skin.

In laymen terms, Ember being brown had always been a sin when she didn't look it and it would forever be a crime if she did.

Work was hard to come by for a Forensic Psychologist who fit into the crowd until she opened her mouth and out came a hint of back home. With each tell-tale sign of her culture came the stereotypes ground from the ashes of her ancestors; awful looks of sympathy for being a South Asian woman who must've been oppressed by masculinity simply because she was born in a place where the sun spent the majority of its time. Afterall, everyone loved a good tan unless it was permanent. Her personal favourite had to be that there was just something 'exotic' about her begging to be released, the typical 'polite in the streets, freak in the sheets' assumption that glued to her form holding her up to socially-expected standards depicting quiet women as individuals with a crazy side that had yet to be seen.

Race wasn't an issue if you were running in it, race was an issue when you got lost in the crowd of the media's definition of majority.

For years she'd calmed herself with lies that placed her in a position of blame; she hadn't worked hard enough, she wasn't ready, she was too young, but what it all really came down to was that she wasn't white enough to be noticed, couldn't pass for ebony, couldn't pass for ivory either and that meant she would forever remain where she was, an immovable object with no chance of ever moving forward.

But then like young Charlie and his golden ticket, she got her chance, a way forward if she picked the dark path, a way out if she went within the depths of no return.

Into cell 666.

Would really appreciate your thoughts!

#heath ledger #joker x oc #the dark knight #joker fanfiction #joker fandom

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theocorrupts · 7 years

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TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT / A LESSON IN WHO THE BOSS IS !

his hand shoots out like a cobra. fingers seizing her jaw like venomous fangs embedding into flesh. he likes being in charge–––loves power and control. but he also loves a challenge and he finds that in her. mirth dances in her eyes like a rekindled flame and he knows she knows. they never talk about it, but she knows he loves this. loves when she tests him. and he knows she loves seeing how far he’ll let her go. but maybe tonight she goes too far. maybe their relationship is too comfortable. she leans over him hands resting on either side of the chair he resides in daring him to do something, anything. he’d been on the phone––a call from his boss––and she’d had enough.

“i don’t have all night. and i’m not waiting another second.” are the words she’d presented upon snatching the device and promptly ending the call.

his eyes make him an open book. bright baby blues flashing with emotion like a thunder storm and the first was unmistakable irritation, next came disbelief, and then he settled on a practiced calm. though he was anything but. he says nothing just yet. wants to see where she plans to go with all of this. doesn’t have to wait long to get his answer when she opens that mouth of hers again.

“oh, i see. you must think i’m joking.” she leans in closer wants him to feel her breath cascade over his lips, so close their noses almost brush and she’s good. manages to hide every trace of enjoyment she feels. “i don’t need your money, teddy, and i really don’t need for my time to be wasted. are you the client? sure. but i’m not here to sit and look pretty while your boss makes house calls to his favorite little bitch. come find me when you’re ready to actually give me what we both want.”

and that’s how she winds up with her jaw in his immovable grasp, the excitement in her eyes no longer able to be kept at bay. “if you ever touch my phone again you won’t have to worry about leaving i’ll throw you out my self.” he doesn’t raise his voice, in fact, he speaks low and even and she knows he isn’t joking. “do you understand?” when she tries for a nod his grip tightens and she wraps her own hand around his wrist for leverage as if that might make him release her. but she knows there’s only one thing that’ll make him let go. “i asked you a question.”

she inhales deeply and answers without missing a beat, “yes, sir.”

“yes, sir what?”

“yes, sir, i understand.” just like that his fingers relinquish their hold on her jaw and the minute he does she positions herself onto his lap. she gets the feeling that he’s honestly upset with her and she almost regrets hanging up the phone. her lips find his throat but before she can press a kiss to the warm flesh of it he’s sifting his fingers through her hair and tugging her away. a whine is birthed low in her own throat and she notes the agitation that seems to still be present in his gaze.

“when did i say you could sit on my lap? let alone kiss my neck.” he’s hell bent on being an asshole and now she really regretted her hasty decision.

“you didn’t but–“

“i didn’t.” he cuts her off. “that’s it. that’s all you need to say. that answers the question.” his hand unfurls from her hair and he slaps her ass sharply, sharp enough for it sting and catch her off guard. despite the bite and surprise of the slap it sets a fire inside of her and she rolls her hips into his in response to it. but he doesn’t even bat an eye. there are very few things she hates more than being ignored so she rolls her hips down into his more firmly and she thinks she sees a twinge of a reaction but she doesn’t get too good of a look. she can’t when she has to stop herself from hitting the floor. he stands and forces her out of his lap and she catches herself in the nick of time.

“you motherfucking––“

“you motherfucking what?” the words roll of his tongue in a slow drawl as he advances on her, crowds her, and forces her to back down. knowing him he’d probably walk right over her and keep going.

“i nearly fell, dickhead.” she’s walking backwards blindly but she’s been here so many times she knows his place better than her own. she’ll just miss the glass coffee table and be well on her way to the couch but she could side step it. “i’m sorry your feelings are hurt because i ended your call before you were done but stop being such a little–“

“i wouldn’t.” she nears the couch and she’s going to side step it but he pushes her down and she lands resolutely on one of the cushions. he’s playing with her now and some of her anger subsides but only some.

“you wouldn’t what, huh?” as he closes the distance between them he pushes her down onto her back and straddles one of her legs. she’s surprised to feel an erection press against her thigh and that alone thaws a bit more of the anger. she’s finally getting what she wants.

“i wouldn’t finish that sentence. you might regret it if you do.” he lowers his upper body and she thinks for a second he’ll kiss her. she’s ready for it. leans forward to meet him halfway but he bypasses her lips and goes for her neck instead. a soft moan escapes her at the feel of his open mouthed kisses on the sensitive skin of her throat and she begins moving her leg up and down to grind against his dick. the decision is deemed the right move when he groans against her neck and the vibrations travel down the length of her body straight to her pussy.

“take your clothes off. now.” in moments like these she tends to forget who calls the shots and so he reminds her. pulls away from her neck and snorts at her command. “theo! take. off. your. clothes.” the second time she comes across as a petulant child nearing the brink of a tantrum.

“no i don’t think so.” she frowns and her nimble fingers move to unbutton the first couple of buttons of his shirt which he allows. “you’re forgetting who the boss is, kitten.” her hands are shoved away at the end of his statement and he shifts so that he’s resting between her legs, the noticeably large bulge in his pants pressed against her clothed pussy. so close yet so far.

“okay, okay i-i’m sorry, pleeaaase…” she whines now. knows he really loves this. and her arms wrap around his neck to pull him close. it’s all so endearing it almost feels like they’re genuinely lovers. “please, please, please. i wanna feel you inside of me. it’s been awhile.”

to solidify the misplaced sweetness of the moment he presses a slew of soft kisses to her cheek, ear, and jawline. and she shivers. “you weren’t very good for me tonight so why should i reward you for bad behavior?” the undulating of his hips into hers punctuates the question and he relishes the sound of her breath hitching with the movement. he fully expects an answer something he believes she’s too caught up to realize and he only means to make it worse. his hips pull away from hers and she whines at the loss of pressure but it doesn’t last for even a second because he’s sliding his hands around to grip her ass and lift her hips up to meet his. “well?”

“well wha’?” is all she manages to get out in response and he thrusts against her roughly to make it that much worse.

“why should i reward you for bad behavior?” her hands find his back and she tears at his shirt like something feral. he slows the motion of his hips at that. rocks into her slowly but powerfully and she whimpers at the unhurried circling of his hips into her. feels like she’s on the brink of losing her mind at having the outline of his hard cock brushing against her sensitive clit, at how close he is to being inside of her yet isn’t.

“because you like me and––and deep you know i deserve…” he slams his hips into hers and her mouth falls open. doesn’t want her to finish the sentence so he presses a quick kiss to her lips before untangling himself from her altogether. it takes some effort but he pushes off of the couch and creates much needed distance between the two of them.

her eyes are frenzied as she tries to understand the change of events and he smiles smugly down at her. “the correct answer is i shouldn’t. but don’t worry i won’t send you home like this. i’ll tell you what i will do, i’ll let you suck me off and then i’ll call you a cab.”

“wait. you’re serious?”

“dead.” the smile dissipates and that air of unfeigned dominance comes back. “do something as stupid as end my phone call again and i won’t be nearly as nice as i was this time.”

#also wrote this last night when i was trying to get a feel for theo as a character so #!!!!!!!!!!!

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ecotone99 · 5 years

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[FN] The Ox, The Crow and The Bag of Bones

BURDEN.

Quite some time ago… when the world was still fresh and new, there lived a massive black ox whose name was Burden. Horns of iron and ash, skin tougher than railroad tracks, his coarse wooly fur a shade of black so dark that he looked like a hole in the Earth. Burden was born fully grown with a massive saddle bag strapped across his hulking back. His sole purpose was to carry the weight of our worries and troubles and fears, carry them right to the edge of the world and do away with them. The load was always incredibly heavy but Burden was the strongest Ox in this galaxy and the next, and Burden did his duty without so much as a word or a grumbling. And so, the weight of our worries would drift away and the world was a much happier place because of it.

Burden would travel from village to village with his pack and the villagers would come throw every bad bone they could pick inside. Once his bag was full he would start his journey to the ends of the world. Through fire, through brimstone, through the deepest darkest, over towering mountains, and into the abyss. Burden would carry his bag of bones to the very last patch of dirt and ashen rock, right to the edge of the globe. He would empty them out and every bone and bad dream the people had bestowed upon him would fall into the great wide nothing and fade into patches of the night sky.

He never asked why, he never complained. Burden knew it was his purpose and he kept his head low as if he was perpetually bowing to Mother Earth.

In the beginning, the people of Earth were grateful. They would bring him baskets of lush greens to eat and fresh water to drink and thank him for his cumbersome sacrifice. However, as time went on the people became so accustomed to Burden’s service that it was no longer celebrated and lauded, it was expected and greatly unappreciated. They did not bring him food or water, they no longer gave thanks, they did not await his arrival with bated breath. Now they were impatient and listless. They unloaded their bones into his bag with disdain, as if it were a chore. Some even yelled at him to “Hurry up!”

Still, Burden never batted an eye. He kept his head low and carried out his commitment without a second thought as he really didn’t have many thoughts at all. He did what he was made to do and nothing more. Nothing less. The way he always had, the way he always would. Or rather, he would have, if it were not for one particularly mettlesome crow.

CHAOS.

Chaos the crow lived high in the trees and ruled over the sky. Chaos was rather large for a bird, sleek and black… so much so that it almost looked as if he was always moving, even when sitting completely still. Chaos has existed since Burden began to walk the Earth, though they are both quite the opposite. Chaos is loud and obnoxious, unpredictable and seemingly everywhere at once (which allowed him to stick his beak in all the places that it did not belong.)

Chaos always watched Burden carefully, he was jealous of his uniformity and consistency. He didn’t understand his mission or why he was obligated to help the humans that he served, the humans Chaos so detested. So every year, he would try and thwart Burden’s journey. He would come up with new and inventive ways to try and stop the ox but Burden never gave way, he carried right along moving the weight of the world on his shoulders. Year after year he tried, and every year Chaos failed. Not to be undone, Chaos had a spirit just as indomitable as the beast and after a while he began to admire and gain a great deal of respect for his immovable adversary.

But when Chaos saw how those he served had begun to treat Burden, he became enraged. He could not begin to fathom how or why these mortals could take such a magnificent deity for granted. Chaos landed in the town square and started squawking madly at the villagers, “This magnificent ox is a creature of the Gods as am I and we shall be exalted as such! You fools should be groveling at his feet! Yet you dare to slight him? You dare gaze upon this gift from the heavens begrudgingly? For shame!” Chaos flapped his wings and thunderous black clouds unfurled out from under them and into the sky. Thunder rumbled as he took in heaving breaths, eyes darting from face to face of the crowd that had started to gather. And then, the people simply dispersed. They shrugged their shoulders, they rolled their eyes, they couldn’t be bothered to care.

Chaos spent days and nights trying to think of a plan to make the humans see the error in their ways and pay Burden the respect he was due. The villagers knew Chaos was a thief and a trickster, he couldn’t talk to them himself. He knew there was no talking to the ox, let alone stopping him, it would be like preaching caution to a speeding boulder rolling down a mountain. Fruitless. Hopeless.

“What to do, what to do!” He cawed frantically as he hopped back and forth on his perch and plucked at his own feathers, “I haven’t a clue, what one could possibly do… I’m shedding, I’m molting, I’m out of my head… I haven’t a clue, I’m losing the… thread!”

Chaos stood absolutely still for possibly the first time in his entire existence. His black eyes gleamed with cunning and pride.

“That’s it. One little thread. It’s all that I need.”

BONES.

And so, with his ever watchful and incredibly accurate eye, Chaos waited and watched until he finally spotted what he wanted. One tiny strand of thread dangling from the bottom of Burden’s bag. Chaos smirked to himself and waited some more. He waited until every last bone had been thrown apathetically into Burdens bag, he waited until Burden was well out of town and deep into the forest. There, Chaos plopped down only about a foot behind the meandering missionary and hopped along keeping perfect pace. Every couple of feet, he would pull at the strand with his beak. Little by little… a small tear began to unravel at the bottom of the bag. More and more until the tear became a hole. Chaos poked at the hole with his beak, carefully so as not to disturb the beast but with just the right amount of force to make the hole just big enough for the little nit picky bones of the villagers to tumble out, one by one. And as each bone fell Chaos picked up each and every one and flew them back to the village, carefully making little nests of bones and dread, right outside the homes of each of their respective owners.

As each nest appeared, all the fear and worry and terror came rushing back to the world. It was a very new and very strange, terrible feeling for the people. Chaos was brimming with glee when he saw the woe on their faces, a look he thought to himself that was beyond well deserved. He saw the expression on every single one and drank it in like a fine wine. What Chaos did not see however, was what happened to his ill-fated adversary.

As each bone had dropped from Burden’s bounty, his load became lighter and lighter. Burden was not used to having such little weight to carry at this part in his journey and so he thought surely he still had a ways to go, and yet he was three steps from the end of the Earth…

in four steps,

Burden was gone.

Burden fell to the stars, returned to the sky, and was dispersed in tiny morsels back to the humans who in turn digested their pain and now carried the weight of their own personal burden… and Chaos reigned forever more.

submitted by /u/Bookwormwood [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2orgYx3

#Blogger #Story

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