WIP Amnesty 2019: Miscellaneous Fandoms

[thrillingdetectivetales]

I got talking with muccamukk today about fic I have in the works that I don't think are going to progress and she mentioned this whole WIP amnesty business. It sounded pretty nice to have the opportunity to cut myself some slack on the WIPs clogging my GDocs and share what of them I have so far with folks who might also appreciate them, so here we go. Everything is behind cuts because sharing them as a big wall of text would be an actual crime against nature.

The Parrot Blues
Just your average "deeply closeted queer boy from a conservative family falls in love and finds himself" fic that will never see an ending.

There's money lenders inside the temple
That circus tiger's gonna break your heart
Something so wild turned into paper
If I loved you, well that's my fault

* * *

The first thing Dex notices about the girl is her height. With those heels on she’s easily as tall as him, which probably puts her comfortably in the vicinity of 5"11 without them. She has the wiry musculature and lithe grace of a swimmer and her short, dark hair is styled into a swooping faux-hawk. She’s smiling when she walks over, eyes glittering in twin fields of smokey shadow. He thinks she might be one of the girls from Farmer’s volleyball sorority but he’s not totally sure.

"Hi," she greets with a grin, sidling up to lean next to him where he’s propped against the wall in one of the Haus's crowded hallways, working his way through his third glass of Tub Juice.

"Hey," he replies, offering a hand. "I'm Dex."

"Kelly," she returns. Her grip is warm and strong.

"Pleasure to meet you, Kelly.”

She holds his hand for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary, fingers curled firmly around his while she studies his face.

"Where are you from?" she asks curiously, canting her head.

"Boston," Dex supplies with a smirk.

Technically he’s from Scituate, but it’s not worth the hassle to specify a tiny coastal suburb that nobody has ever heard of when Boston proper is right there.

"Ah, of course," Kelly says. She wrinkles her nose and offers sheepishly, "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Dex shrugs. "I get that a lot."

His accent always comes out in force when he starts drinking. It’s a source of endless delight to the majority of the campus - and most of his teammates - which Dex doesn’t quite understand considering Samwell is chock full of townies with the same sloppy New England drawl, but he’s long used to people asking and Kelly is measurably better looking than most of the people who hassle him about it.

"Still," Kelly says, nudging Dex’s shoulder with her own. “I’m usually more suave than that.”

Dex snorts.

"Seriously, don't sweat it. You're not even the first person to ask tonight," he assures, leaning back against the wall a little. He waffles for a second, cheeks flushing as he adds awkwardly, "You are the prettiest one, though."

He feels a little foolish saying it for a variety of reasons but Kelly laughs, so he supposes he must have done something right.

"So, Dex," Kelly says, once her giggles have faded away. She gives him a slow up-and-down glance and arches an eyebrow. "You a hockey player?"

Dex peers down at his Samwell Men's Hockey shirt, visible under an unbuttoned blue flannel, and grins.

"What gave me away?" he asks with a laugh. Kelly rolls her eyes.

"Even if this hadn't sealed it," she teases, reaching out to pluck gently at Dex's shirt, "I could have guessed from the flirting. That was a terrible line, puck boy."

Flirting. Right. That first fumbling attempt hadn’t crashed and burned too spectacularly, but Dex is strung taut for a moment between the sudden, sharp desire to make his excuses and retreat and the bitter knowledge that he’ll never hear the end of it if he does.

The guys are usually pretty cool about boundaries after years of Shitty’s many inebriated soliloquies on matters of identity, sexuality, and consent, but they also like to fuck with each other and Dex’s near-legendary lack of game is an easy and frequently abused target. He can imagine the chirping tomorrow if he doesn’t at least make a token effort - "She swam right into your net, Poindexter! I thought you were a fisherman, what happened?"

Even though it would be totally without malice, the guys will be brutal.

Worse still will be if news makes it back to any of Dex’s siblings. He may be the only Poindexter currently on scholarship at Samwell but Massachusetts isn’t a huge state and local roots run deep, particularly when there’s gossip to be shared. His brother would have no mercy if he even suspected that Dex had blown off a girl so extraordinarily out of his league and his sisters probably won’t even believe a pretty girl stopped to give him the time of day in the first place.

Kelly is watching him, lips quirked, dark eyes expectant and bright.

He feels a little guilty because she seems nice and funny. She’s pretty, even just from an aesthetic standpoint. More than pretty, really, with her sharp cheekbones and her almond shaped eyes, silver stud glittering in her nose. She definitely deserves better than to spend her evening lobbing Dex's ham-fisted attempts at flirtation back at him, though she seems amenable enough and he could certainly use the practice.

He shifts nervously and leans in, flashing the most charming smile he can muster through the queasy twist in his stomach and hoping that he can manage by some miracle to make the evening worth Kelly’s while.

"How about," he offers, "I give it another shot, and you tell me if I do any better?"

Kelly beams, bright and delighted.

"That could work," she agrees, pushing off from the wall and tilting her head in the direction of the kitchen. "Getting me another drink seems like a good place to start."

Dex can’t help but grin at her confidence. She reminds him of Nursey, a little, in the easy way she holds herself. Strange as it is, the thought soothes something in him that Dex doesn’t bother to examine too closely - he wants to flirt with Kelly, after all, not fight her. He offers his arm and Kelly tucks her hand delicately into the curve of his elbow.

"It would be my pleasure," he agrees, and she ducks her head sweetly, biting her lip.

It’s something of a chore to carve a path through the living room, which is packed enough that Kelly is basically pressed right up against his side the whole time to avoid stepping on anyone. She smells sweet and faintly floral - a little cloying, but nice.

She smiles at Dex when he catches her eye, squeezing his arm reassuringly and letting him nudge her gently around a couple trying their damnedest to become one through what looks like facial osmosis, with considerably more tongue than is polite in mixed company. Dex makes a face at them over his shoulder as they pass and Kelly laughs.

There’s a string of gems he hadn't noticed earlier, too big to be real, glittering brightly against her throat and accentuating its elegant line. She really is tremendously pretty, Dex thinks. His chest lurches a little and Dex rubs absently at his sternum with his free hand, doing his best to smile back.

Thankfully the kitchen is mostly empty. There are a few coeds carefully apportioning vodka and cranberry juice between a collection of red Solo cups on the kitchen table and Bitty is sitting on the counter, drumming his heels against the lower cabinets, but that’s it. His face is flushed pink over his pale salmon button-down and a pair of comically tiny bright yellow shorts. He has a monstrous glass of water clutched in his hands, a sparkling blue curly straw rising up out of it like a scepter.

"Dex!" he greets happily, flashing them a wide, sincere smile as the coeds shuffle out in a cloud of glitter and sequins. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Kelly," Dex says. He lets her hand drop and immediately winces - some girls get weird about stuff like that and despite what certain D-line partners of his may think, Dex is trying to be more conscientious of other people’s experiences and his role therein.

Kelly doesn’t even seem to notice, just strides forward and offers a hand.

"Kelly, this is Bitty,” Dex continues. “He's on the hockey team, too."

"It's nice to meet you, Bitty," Kelly says sweetly.

"My goodness, you look like a model," Bitty gasps with wide eyes, giving Kelly's hand a vigorous shake. He blinks and seems to come back to himself a little, adding, "It's nice to meet you, too. Dex doesn't bring many lady friends to the Haus."

"Bits," Dex hisses, face going hot with embarrassment. Kelly glances at him slyly.

"Really?" she asks. "That's a shame. He's so handsome."

"I know!" Bitty agrees enthusiastically, either not hearing Dex or, more likely, ignoring him. "He's a regular ginger prince. And he does that precious little thing where he drops his r's when he's drunk!"

"Oh my God," Dex mutters, burying his face in his hands. He can feel the heat coming off his skin and he knows he must look like a lobster. Damned Irish complexion.

"Are we talking about Dexy's secret life as Will Hunting?" comes a familiar, low voice from behind him. There’s a sudden rush of scent - heady, warm spice - and then somebody slips an arm around his waist and hooks their chin over his shoulder.

Dex sighs, exasperated. He would know this particular brand of irritation anywhere.

"Fuck off, Nurse," he mutters under his breath, giving a half-hearted shrug that just makes Nursey cling tighter.

"Listen to him," Nursey grins, obnoxious and delighted. His cheek brushes against Dex's and the rough drag of his stubble makes Dex’s skin pull tight from his scalp to his shoulders. "Can't even get my name right when he’s blasted.”

“I’m not blasted,” Dex grumbles. Nursey, as per usual, ignores him.

“Hey Dex,” he continues gleefully, “say 'Lahdo.' Or 'watah.'" He pauses for a second. "'Pahk the cah at Hahvahd Yahd.'"

"Fuck off," Dex hisses, temper breaking. He rolls his shoulders hard and Nursey releases him with a laugh, stumbling away.

"I think it's cute," Kelly says as Dex finally looks up. She’s gazing curiously between him and Nursey, who manages even under the skin-blanching fluorescent lights and against the backdrop of the kitchen’s hideous beige tile to look like he's just strolled out of the pages of a hipster fashion catalogue.

His has the sleeves of his grey Henley rolled up to his elbows, dark curls poking out from underneath that ridiculous beanie, and a pair of dark-wash jeans so tight that Dex is honestly a little worried about his circulation. Dex realizes he's staring and his stomach twists, face going impossibly hotter. He takes a tiny half-step further away from Nursey, crossing his arms over his chest, and tries not to scowl too hard.

"Sorry to interrupt," Nursey says apologetically, cutting Dex a sideways glance and moving to stand in front of Kelly. Dex fights the urge to roll his eyes. He would bet good money that Nursey has never used that phrase sincerely in his entire goddamn life, particularly where Dex is concerned. "Derek Nurse, I'm Dex's partner."

"Why do you always say it like that?" Dex groans, while Nursey smirks. There’s something a little off about it, something flinty and hard-edged.

Kelly just arches an eyebrow at him, offering coolly, "Kelly Khan."

They don’t shake hands or anything, just stand with a few feet of distance between them, considering. They look like bizarre inversions of one another - Nursey with his low-key fashion, soft and casual, while Kelly is all glitz and sharp edges. If Dex didn't know any better he'd say that they were sizing each other up.

"Good to meet you, Kelly Khan," Nursey says after a long moment. He’s still looking at her, slouching in that affected, suave way he has, but there’s tension pulled taut across his shoulders, running rigid down the line of his back. Dex probably wouldn't have noticed it a year ago but he and Nursey spend too much time together nowadays for him to miss it.

He wonders what bug crawled up his line partner’s ass this time and how blitzed Nursey plans to get to deal with it. He’s not technically on Nursey Patrol tonight but sharing bunk beds with a human disaster of Nursey’s caliber is something of a full-time job and somebody will need to make sure he doesn’t break his damn neck falling off the ladder later tonight just because he’s spent the better part of a Haus party drowning some mysterious and indefinable sorrows.

Dex glances curiously at Bitty, whose eyebrows are up near his hairline, and frowns. Bitty shrugs, apparently equally mystified by the bizarre scene playing out before them. He leans forward and offers over Kelly's shoulder, "I think she looks like a model. Don't you think she looks like a model, Nursey?"

Kelly smiles at Bitty, small and sincere, and the fraught tension snaps and dissipates, leaving an agitated, humming energy in its wake.

"Sure," Nursey says easily, shuffling toward the refrigerator and throwing the door open. "She's very pretty."

"Not to diminish you only to your physical attributes, of course," Bitty adds hastily. Kelly laughs, soft and delighted.

"Of course," she agrees.

Nursey huffs and leans forward, the upper half of his body disappearing behind the refrigerator door. Dex absolutely does not let himself notice the curve of Nursey's ass in his obscenely tight skinny jeans.

Kelly is standing right there, and she’s beautiful, and friendly, and interested, and Dex doesn’t understand what’s wrong with a good pair of boot-cut dungarees, anyway. Or even chinos if it comes down to it. Why is it always skinny jeans or, God forbid, those corduroy monstrosities that Nursey wears rolled up past his ankles and fastened with suspenders of all godforsaken accessories?

"About that drink," Kelly says softly, voice considerably closer than it had been a moment ago. Her fingers trail down his forearm and Dex jumps, looking over at her sheepishly, the tips of his ears burning.

"Right," he says, clearing his throat and gesturing to the kitchen at large. "Pick your poison. We have wine, and beer, and there's enough liquor lying around you could probably run a car off the fumes."

Nursey chooses that moment to straighten up, popping the cap off one of his pretentious craft brews by angling the bottleneck against the top edge of the door and bringing his palm down onto it, hard.

The cap tinkles merrily off onto the ground while Bitty scolds, “Derek Nurse! You know better than to disrespect the appliances in this kitchen! That’s a fine.”

“Sorry, Bits.” Nursey’s apology is immediate and sincere. He almost looks sheepish, rolling the beer bottle between his palms and tilting a little nod in Bitty’s direction. “Remind me in the morning, yeah?”

Bitty gives a little, imperious nod and goes back to guzzling his water, apparently satisfied. Nursey nudges the fridge door shut with his hip and takes a long, showy swig of his beer. Dex's eyes skim down the line of his throat before he can stop himself.

When he jerks his gaze back up to Nursey's face, Nursey is watching him, something low and dark at the corner of his mouth. Dex's heart thumps wildly against his ribs.

Nursey saunters casually toward the doorway, stopping to ruffle Dex's hair as he passes. It takes everything in Dex's body not to flinch away from the contact, but he knows that if he does it’ll only kick the weird energy in the room up a little higher and he isn’t sure he can handle that without throwing a punch. He and Nursey are riding a record high for interactions that don’t immediately devolve into fisticuffs and damned if Dex is going to be the one to break that streak.

"It was nice meeting you, Kelly," Nursey says, with a sharp smirk. "Treat my boy right."

Kelly cants her head and smiles, all white teeth and poise.

"Oh, I will," she assures, while Dex glares mutinously and smoothes his hair back down. Nursey holds his gaze for a long, loaded second, and then wags his eyebrows.

"Hahvahd," he says, in that shitty fake Boston twang, laughing as he dances out of reach of Dex's flailing palm and disappears into the teeming throng in the living room.

There’s a moment of bewildered silence in the wake of his departure and then Dex sighs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Sorry about him," he says apologetically. "Nursey can be a little weird."

"Even by Nursey standards, that was strange," Bitty supplies, shaking his head. He hops down off the counter and digs his phone out of the front pocket of his shorts, which has to be some kind of witchcraft. "Kelly would you take a selfie with me while Dex gets your drink? I don't think any of my followers are going to believe I met a model without photographic proof."

"I would be honored," Kelly laughs, throaty and brilliant. She turns to look at Dex and asks, "Gin and tonic?"

"You got it," Dex assures with a sloppy salute. He digs around in a cabinet for a bottle of gin that isn’t quite bottom shelf and finds a half-empty Perrier crammed into the door of the fridge.

"Okay, get in close," Bitty instructs. Dex watches them as he jury-rigs a mixer by slipping one of the smaller plastic cups in the Haus cabinets upside down into a standard Solo cup, shaking the gin and the tonic water together with some ice.

Kelly obediently leans down so that she and Bitty are pressed together cheek to cheek. They make a striking picture, Bitty's golden hair next to Kelly's inky tufts, both of them pouting with their huge, dark eyes wide.

"And, got it!" Bitty says, peering intently down at his screen. "What do you think?" He tilts his phone toward Kelly, who considers it for a moment and then breaks into a broad, sparkling grin.

"It's perfect," she confirms, straightening up. Dex hands her drink over and she nudges her hip gently against his.

"Tag me in it, will you?" she asks Bitty, taking a sip from the red cup and licking her lips. "It's Kelly with a Y, then Khan, but with three A's. K - H - A - A - A - N."

"Tagged and posted," Bitty confirms brightly. "I'll leave you two alone now. Have fun," he winks very obviously at Dex, "and be safe."

He pauses in the doorway and turns around, face serious, adding somberly to Kelly, "And for the love of all that is holy do not make out on the couch," before he slips away into the crowd.

Kelly turns to Dex, grinning with her eyebrows high.

"Wow.”

"My friends are kind of a shitshow," Dex admits, opening the fridge again and perusing the beer selection. There’s a freshly-opened case of Coors Light on the lowest shelf, and while Dex generally prefers his booze cheap and plentiful, he grabs one of Nursey's artisan brews on a whim, just to be spiteful.

Of course Derek Nurse would never be caught dead drinking out of something that has a twist-off, so Dex is forced to neglect Kelly further in favor of digging through the junk drawer for one of the million bottle openers of varying efficacy that have accumulated over the years - a small, poorly organized monument to decades of hockey players who have lumbered their way through Samwell making awkward conversation with pretty girls in this very kitchen the same way that Dex is now.

"They're," Kelly considers from behind him, drawing out the vowel sound, "interesting." She bites her lip, smirking as she adds, "And a little presumptuous."

Dex laughs.

"I’m pretty sure they’re just trying to be supportive," he offers, turning as he pops the cap off his bottle and takes a swig.

It’s an IPA, which are usually far from Dex’s favorite, but because Nursey has irritatingly exceptional taste in everything from expensively understated jeans to prissy craft beers he enjoys it more than he’s proud of. It tastes like citrus and summertime and some faint spice Dex can’t quite identify that tingles pleasantly against his tongue. Cloves, maybe. That seems like something Nursey would probably like.

He flushes a little and refocuses on the beautiful woman standing in front of him.

“Usually they’re better at being subtle about it, but between the Tub Juice and the sheer novelty of seeing me talk to a girl so far out of my league they’re probably off their game.”

Kelly grins into her cup, leaning back against the doorjamb and shooting Dex a look from under her dark lashes, sultry and intimate.

"Maybe," she allows, with an amused little smirk. She gestures toward the living room, where the crowd is gyrating hypnotically to a deep, thrumming beat that Dex doesn’t recognize. "So if making out on the couch is off-limits, what are we allowed to do?"

Dex considers this for a moment.

"How's your aim?" he asks. Kelly shrugs.

"Decent," she says, obviously a little confused. "I played basketball for awhile before I got really focused on swim and dive."

Dex grins.

"Follow me."

* * *

Kelly, as it turns out, is a wizard at beer pong. Her aim is nearly flawless, despite the fact that she throws back the entirety of her gin and tonic the moment she and Dex step up to the table and has likely been steadily drinking for most of the night so far.

"Gotta have my hands free," she explains with a shrug and a breezy grin.

They dominate two teams of LAX bros and a duo of track and field girls Kelly knows before losing in a neck-and-neck showdown against Ransom and Holster, which, honestly, Dex sort of expected. Ransom and Holster are as near to soulmates as Dex has ever encountered in real life, and it’s difficult to top them at any game played in pairs with the damn-near psychic link they seem to have cultivated between themselves.

"Damn!" Kelly shouts with feeling when Holster sinks the final shot and Ransom starts whooping. "I thought we had them for sure!"

"Don't feel bad," Dex says, nudging her shoulder with his own. He scoops the ping pong ball out of the beer, foam hissing around his fingers, and tosses it into the big beach bucket full of water next to the table to float alongside its brethren. "I've only ever beaten Rans and Holster when it was me and Nursey playing, D-men against D-men." He holds the beer aloft like he’s giving a toast and grins, "We gave 'em a run for their money, and that's worth celebrating. Trust me."

Kelly considers him for a moment, thoughtful, and then reaches up to bump her knuckles against his cup.

"Cheers," she says, smirking.

"Almost had us there, Poindexter," Ransom laughs, circling the table to clap a heavy hand on Dex's shoulder as soon as he finishes chugging. "I'm officially impressed."

He offers Kelly a fist-bump, which she returns graciously, and adds, "You've got a hell of an arm, there, mystery girl."

They drift into a quiet conversation while Dex helps Holster clear the table for the next players. After Dex has drained all the cups of any remaining booze and tossed them into one of the massive plastic garbage bins lined up in a row in the grass, Holster reels him in with an arm around his shoulders.

"Come here you beautiful little bastard," Holster says, smacking a kiss to Dex's temple. "I'm so damn proud of you, coming for the throne like that. Someday you're gonna usurp us and it'll be well-earned." Dex stumbles at the sudden directional shift, leaning into the hard line of Holster's body. His face, already flushed from all the beers he's slammed during the last twenty minutes, goes a little hotter.

"Nurse, you better watch your back," Holster announces over the top of Dex's head. "Looks like Dexy here might've found a new pong partner."

Dex turns his head, edges of his vision blurring a little, and is somehow unsurprised to discover Nursey lounging in a nearby folding lawn chair, beer bottle dangling from his hand. He’s smirking in that particularly infuriating way he has, eyes shadowed in the low light of the yard.

Dex wonders how long he's been sitting there; if he's been watching Dex and Kelly play. Something about the thought of him watching from the shadows with that strange intensity to his gaze unsettles Dex, makes his stomach twist unpleasantly.

"Nah," Nursey says, smirk curling up into a confident little grin, too practiced to be genuine. "Dex knows which side his bread is buttered on."

Dex blinks blearily at him. He probably shouldn’t have killed those remaining pong beers, but his heart twinges for a variety of reasons anytime he has to watch someone pour leftover booze out onto the Haus’s scrubby, half-dead lawn.

"That doesn't make any sense, man," he says with a frown.

"It's chill bro," Nursey shrugs.

Dex rolls his eyes and immediately regrets it - the world tilts dangerously and he stumbles, grabbing at Holster's shirt.

"Whoa buddy," Holster says, shifting his weight and steadying Dex with the arm he has slung across Dex's back. "You all right?"

"M'fine," Dex assures, absently patting Holster's chest. "Just drunk."

Holster laughs.

"All right man," he agrees jovially. "I'm gonna let you go now. You cool to stand?"

Dex scoffs and steps pointedly away. He sways for a second but once he gets his feet under him the world settles back down to a gentle, weaving tilt.

"I'm good," he says. "See?"

Holster laughs again, and a crisp, sharp sound cuts the air behind Dex. He turns to find Nursey clapping slowly as he strides forward, one eyebrow arched.

"Way to go, Poindexter," he says. "Standing like a pro.” He draws up to Dex’s side and adds, “Thought for a second there we were gonna have to organize Dexy Patrol.”

Dex rolls his eyes again - thankfully without fucking his balance this time - and reaches over to shove at Nursey's shoulder, the vague, inscrutable mask over his features slipping as he snorts and swats Dex's hand away.

"You're an ass," Dex informs him, but he can feel himself grinning. Nursey smiles back, wide and a little lopsided, which means it’s the real deal. Not the perfectly even, carefully measured bullshit Nursey defaults to whenever he feels the need to put on a show.

"I prefer to think of myself as an acquired taste," he replies breezily. He’s standing very close, Dex realizes, a few scant inches of space between them. Dex would barely have to move to close the distance.

He doesn’t know where the thought comes from, sudden and clear. It sends a wave of heat rushing through him and he swallows, thick.

"Nurse - " he starts, unsure of precisely what he wants to say. The gentle brush of cool fingers against his arm pulls him out of the haze. Nursey's eyes flicker, dark, as Dex turns to find Kelly hovering at his elbow.

"Sorry to interrupt," she says quietly, and it sounds sincere, which Dex doesn’t really understand.

He and Nursey aren’t doing anything. They aren't even talking really. They’re just standing around, maybe a little closer than they need to be, and looking at each other. He shakes his head.

"You're not - " he starts, pausing to clear his throat. "You're not interrupting."

Nursey mumbles something too low for Dex to hear, and Kelly's gaze flickers over to him, amused.

"I'm heading out," she says to Dex. "It's getting pretty late and I have a study group in the morning. I just wanted to say goodbye before I dipped."

Guilt rushes, cold, through Dex's chest. He'd totally forgotten about Kelly, distracted and drawn in by all of Nursey's weirdness, and she doesn’t deserve that.

"Let me walk you home," he offers, motivated by some vague certainty that this is a crucial step on the path to successful flirtation, though he’s drunk enough that the ‘walk’ piece of the plan might be a little touch-and-go. Kelly looks hesitantly between him and Nursey. He feels his cheeks heat as he realizes how strange this little scene might have looked like from the outside.

It's only weird if we make it weird, Dex tells himself, glancing toward his feet and fighting the urge to shrink away, out of Nursey's reach. The sentiment doesn’t quite ring true but he holds his ground. Nursey is frowning at something, eyes hooded when he looks up.

"You don't mind, right?" Dex asks, a little breathless, and licks his lips. He could swear Nursey's gaze jumps down to his mouth for a second, but before he can unpack the emotion that thought sends spiraling through him in a hot, sharp coil Nursey is shrugging and stepping away.

"Nah," he says coolly, tucking his hands into his pockets and shifting back on his heels. "See you around, Kelly Khan."

“Stay frosty, Derek Nurse,” Kelly replies, and Nursey huffs a laugh as he wanders into a distant throng of giggling coeds.

Dex takes a deep breath and rubs at the sudden tightness in his chest.

“You really don’t have to walk me,” Kelly reassures, hooking her hand carefully over Dex’s elbow. She points to a cluster of unfamiliar students huddled near the back gate. “My friends are waiting for me. We’re all heading back to the dorms together.”

“Oh,” Dex says, blinking stupidly and feeling a little foolish. “Right, of course.”

“I had a really great time tonight, though,” Kelly promises. She bites her lip around a grin and reaches up to tug tenderly at the lapel of Dex’s flannel. “So great I wouldn’t mind hanging out again, if that’s something you might be into?”

Dex’s throat goes tight and dry while Ransom shoots him an enthusiastic thumbs-up from behind Kelly’s shoulder. He’s amazed that she sounds so serene and poised right now - they’d been swapping beer for beer while they played pong and Dex has never been stingy when it comes to making mixed drinks.

“Sure,” he croaks, fumbling in his pocket for his slightly outdated iPhone. “Sure, yeah, that’d be great.”

He glances at the screen and sees that he has a message from Nursey. Dex swipes the message away without bothering to check its contents and pulls up his contact list before dropping his phone into Kelly’s waiting grasp.

She fiddles with it for a second, thumbs gliding over the screen, and then leans in to press a brief kiss to Dex’s cheek as she slips the phone back into his hand.

“Thanks again,” she says, and strides off with a little wave of her fingers.

“Yeah,” Dex says, staring dazedly after her and manfully resisting the urge to reach up and skim his fingers over the warm spot where she kissed him. “Of course, anytime.”

He watches while she sashays her way across the yard, somehow managing not to let the narrow posts of her heels sink down into the grass as she goes. She jogs the last few feet to her friends and they all wander off, chatting and laughing and leaning on each other as they go.

Dex peers blearily into the middle distance, helplessly baffled by the evening’s events, until Holster claps a hand down on his shoulder so hard that he staggers forward under the force of it.

“What the hell?” he demands, wheeling around to meet Holster’s broad, lascivious grin.

“Baby bird’s growing up!” he exclaims, affecting an overblown expression of almost paternal pride.

“It happens so fast,” Ransom agrees, appearing out of nowhere on Dex’s other side and slinging an arm around his shoulders. Goddamn D-man mind meld magic. Dex pushes at him but Ransom just shuffles him gently back and forth with the elbow he has hooked around Dex’s neck, knocking him off-balance enough that he can’t struggle free. “Seriously, bro, that was some impressive wheeling.”

“You’re playing in the pro leagues now,” Holster says, slapping Dex amiably on the chest.

“I hate both of you,” Dex slurs darkly.

“Liar!” Ransom hollers in a squawk not unlike a dying rooster. Holster echoes him half a beat later, louder and shriller.

“Fuck off!” Dex shouts, but it gets lost in the cacophony of raucous crowing.

He shoves at Ransom’s arm again and missteps, catching his foot against Ransom’s ankle or a gopher hole or something that tips him immediately from standing to falling. He clutches instinctively at Ransom’s arm as he starts to go down and they topple over in a groaning, whooping heap.

Holster follows them gleefully into the grass.

“Dogpile!”

Trousers & A Pair of Socks
A genderswap AU based on Terry Pratchett's 'Monstrous Regiment.'

The sock trick had been one of Jocelyn Faraday’s cleverer ideas.

It was amazing what a couple of scraps of balled-up wool could do when appropriately applied to one's person, and not for the first time she thanked whatever lucky stroke of madness or genius had led to that first pair of foot-warmers jammed down the front of her slacks at fifteen. Here, stumbling off the back of her poor-tempered horse, whiskey making the world tilt dangerously as she took in the brooding presence at Sam Chisolm’s shoulder, it worked just as well as it ever did.

It wasn’t the socks themselves that were the trick - as much as the fellows Faraday had met in her years enjoyed measuring their manhood against one another, it was very rarely a literal contest. There was something about the weight of them, the presence of them that made her stand a little broader, grin a little sharper, lent some wild edge to her that other men read as like, as kin.

The outlaw was no different, gaze narrowing for a split-second from beyond Chisolm’s shoulder before his suspicion caught on the rough timbre of her voice, the smug cock of her hip as she mimicked his accent back at him - very, very poorly, she would admit later, when there was a lesser measure of whiskey coloring her perception. All of the pieces came together into the whole to weave their spell, transforming her from what she actually was into precisely what she wanted him to see. The stiff line of his shoulders unspooled a little as she slotted neatly into place - just another uncultured, sun-drunk cowboy with a bad attitude. The same kind of ignoble bastard the vaquero had undoubtedly danced with any number of times, and nothing more.

The dismissal shot a little thrill through her, same as it always did, and Faraday let her smile sharpen as she took a few swaying, stalking steps toward him.

He was taller even than Faraday, who stood a head at least above most of the men she knew, though narrower of shoulder, lean in the rangy way of a coyote during seasons scarce of game, with dark eyes and darker hair tufting out from underneath his flat-brimmed hat. His irritation was almost palpable, rising up off of him so thick that Faraday thought she might be able to taste it if she opened her mouth. She grinned a little wider and grumbled, “Yippee yippee andále, muchacho!”

The outlaw glowered, jaw clenched and eyes positively scorching, and spat on the ground at her feet. It was far from the first time Faraday had been spat at, and certainly wouldn't be the last. She winked, broad and exaggerated, and the outlaw’s entire body pulled taut like a caught lasso, knuckles gone sharp where he clenched his fists at his sides.

Chisolm—who had a head for keeping peace but clearly lacked any sense of fun—strode up and towed the outlaw away before he could move, with a murmur that Faraday couldn’t quite make out. He released the man at a distance, extracting an affirmative little nod before ducking over with his head bent low to trade news and gossip with Goodnight Robicheaux, who Faraday couldn't quite make up her mind about.

Though their initial acquaintance had gone about as well as could be expected, there was a too-bright, too-loud flare to Robicheaux’s manner that set Faraday’s teeth on edge, which was to say nothing of the mysterious stalwartness of Robicheaux’s companion, whose silence was honed to a razor-fine point nearly as sharp as the pretty silver he carried at his belt.

They were a mystery, both of them, doubly confounding when taken together. As Faraday didn't care to play games when she didn't know what the stakes were, she had elected to remove herself from this hand through the careful misdirection of living down to expectation.

Robicheaux was smart, which necessitated a somewhat more nuanced approach than Faraday usually preferred to take in matters of performance. Luckily, the weakness of intelligent men was often their natural expectation that those around them were less so, and it was a particular talent of Faraday’s to seem less intelligent than most.

There was also the matter of Robicheaux’s genteel sensibilities, which were easier than his mind to manipulate, at the end of the day. Between the two, Robicheaux promised to be a simpler play than a hand of twenty-one.

Billy Rocks was smart, too - had to be to skewer a man with a hairpin in barely a blink at quite such a span - and probably familiar enough with the old gambit of making oneself appear lesser to recognize Faraday’s play for what it was when she started to slur and holler. Thankfully, Rocks’s weakness appeared to be Robicheaux, and where the latter went, the former followed, even in matters of opinion, and Robicheaux’s esteem proved remarkably easy to lose.

It was a small matter of carefully applying minor irritants—drinking a little too much, speaking a little too crassly, conducting herself a little too violently—and making too many purposefully clumsy references to a past that hollowed Robicehaux’s expression and made him flinch. The budding camaraderie that had grown up through the sand in Volcano Springs was stomped out beneath Faraday’s heel a spare few hours into their departure with barely an effort.

It was startlingly easy to convince her companions that she was nothing more than a simple-minded backwoods cuss of a fellow - which was a particularly effective lie because it was at least partway true. Teddy Q’s blatantly pisspoor estimation of her leant an exceptional measure of credence to her performance, and she made a special point to bark extra loud, wink especially lecherously whenever she caught his eye.

It was a lesson somebody probably ought to teach the poor kid before he was six feet under with a bellyful of lead - distance, be it physical or social, meant room to maneuver, and room to observe. In as little breath as it took to wail some of the less savory trail songs that she knew and swallow down a few more mouthfuls of whiskey than was probably acceptable in polite company, Faraday had handily swindled their traveling party into writing her off as an ill-mannered drunk. An ace up the sleeve, in that it set the bar of any expectations as to her everyday skills low enough to be easily manageable, and assured underestimation to her favor in the event of rising tensions.

It wasn't all in the socks, she supposed, but as she launched into an exceptionally filthy verse about Kitty Mane from Down the Lane and caught the unimpressed glances her companions exchanged, she sang a little louder for them, even so.

* * *

It was a minor blessing that Faraday had always been tall, for a girl, athletic and broad-shouldered like she assumed her father must have been, for her mother favored the slim countenance of any number of waifish maidens throughout the popular dramatic literature of the day. It might have been the consumption keeping her thin, of course, though from the memory of her slender wrists and elegant fingers Faraday was fairly certain even now that her figure had been more a symptom of breeding than illness.

She’d passed away shortly after Faraday’s fifteenth birthday, and there wasn't a whole lot for a young girl of no means and no prospects to fall back on in the backwater hamlet where Faraday had come up through the grass. Best-case scenario, she weaseled her way into a marriage proposal out of the baker’s son—a sweet-faced, dim-witted boy who probably would have made a fine father for all that he was forever condemned to middling status, without the ambition to hope for more and lacking the brains to lend his existence any true consideration. Worst-case, she fell on the mercy of the cathouse, opened up her legs to any passing patron who carried enough coin to appease the proprietor without much thought put to her comfort or preference in the matter.

Neither option was particularly appealing to Faraday, whose mother had always liked to tease that she’d been sewn together out of a corn sack and filled with vinegar and spite. She’d grown up reading the adventures of Battlin’ Pete Muldoon and Captain Wickpick, of the legendary Jack Horne, who was a real man, carving his name into the fabric of the world. It seemed mightily unfair that there was a sprawling map of excitement laid at the feet of every puppy-faced lad with the wherewithal to want for it while the best Faraday would ever do for herself was passably pleasant companionship with a man made of more bread than sense.

For all that her mother hadn’t been much in the way of womanly guidance, she’d taught Faraday how to play the odds. If there was no winning with the hand she’d been dealt, it was time to fold and deal again, and if Faraday was smart enough, sly enough to stack the deck in her favor when the next hand came around she didn't see how that was anybody’s business but her own.

She had a dingy, tarnished mirror, a pair of dull-edged sewing scissors, and a keen enough eye to mostly match the picture she’d torn out of a magazine ‘round back of the barber - short on the sides and very slightly longer on top. A few quick swipes of her fingers through a pilfered jar of pomade helped solidify the illusion, as did a pair of slacks she assumed had once belonged to her father, tucked away underneath all of Mama’s fancier gowns in the old mahogany trunk by the bedside. She belted them tight and kept her linen shirt loose, wore a vest over top of it as an added layer of confusion for any wandering eye that got too curious, peered too close. Though she wasn't especially well-endowed, it paid to be cautious. Faraday knew enough about the ways of the world to appreciate that all it often took was the tiniest seed of doubt to stay a suspicious tongue.

There was a dusty old Stetson of unidentifiable provenance underneath a pair of fine kidskin gloves that Mama had always said belonged to her grandmother, and Faraday plucked it up on a whim. It was just this side of too-big, falling down over her ears and making a few uneven curls stick out, but she liked the way it cut a shadow over her face, lending a mysterious cast to her sweetly freckled cheeks.

She pulled on the pair of boots she’d bought for a penny from Johnny Carroway down the creek. They were old and worn and too small for Johnny, who was the only fellow of an age with Faraday for twenty miles in any direction that had an inch of height on her, but they fit Faraday with a little room to grow. She tromped over to the mirror and set her hands on her hips, standing with her legs sprawled wide the way most of the men around town did. She stared her reflection down for a long moment, gnawing at her lip, mind spinning around the vague thought that something still just wasn't quite right.

She turned this way and that, studying the line of her body and sparing a moment to thank whatever deities might be within earshot for her slim hips and thick waist.

“What is it?” she muttered exasperatedly, drumming her fingers against her arm and chewing hard enough on her lip she almost drew blood. She turned and clomped back over to the mahogany chest, which had been so fruitful already, and dug around some more.

Five minutes later, with a rolled-up pair of socks tucked carefully behind the center seam of her pants at the front, Jocelyn Faraday grinned, broad and smug, into the mirror.

Joshua Faraday grinned back out.

Joshua Faraday—she discovered as the weeks stretched into months, as a farce originally shouldered out of necessity became a habit, and, eventually, a pleasure—enjoyed a multitude of activities to which Jocelyn Faraday had never been rightly welcomed.

He gambled and he drank and he made rude comments. He sang bawdy songs and he got into fights and he flirted with barmaids—and the occasional passing cowboy—though he rarely took any of them up on their offers of companionship. He left men dead for besmirching his honor—what little of it there was to be found in a man who took quite such hedonistic pleasure in cheating, lying, and boozing—and he somehow always managed to stumble back into his luck, even when it seemed by all measures to have dropped out of his pockets and been carried off down the river.

If nobody but the occasional delightedly surprised nymph du pavé noticed Jocelyn Faraday smirking a little sharper, a little meaner, out from underneath Joshua Faraday’s flint-edged grin, that was their own fault.

* * *

Miles and miles out in the untamed brush, huddled around a bonfire with the most mismatched crew of hired guns she’d ever set eyes on, Faraday brought her lucky six-shooter up to Teddy Q close enough to kiss. He wasn’t especially appreciative of the wisdom she’d tried to impart, and as he limped away under the cold light of the moon, pockets dry and pride smarting, Faraday helped herself to a generous swallow of the terrible rotgut the poor kid had dragged all the way from his podunk little farm plot.

Emma Cullen shot her a dark, knowing glare in the flickering light of the fire as Teddy settled himself at her side, and Faraday grinned, wolfish. Women were usually better at spotting her than men, and Emma had a sharp mind under those lush, pale features. Faraday winked at her, smug and daring, and victory flared in her belly like a tongue of flame when Emma’s gaze shuttered and dropped away, cheeks flushing pink in the golden glow of the blaze.

Socks, she thought gleefully, and helped herself to another slow-burning slug from the little bottle while she spared a moment to assess her traveling company.

They were a fresh-faced bunch for the most part, none of them wearing beards excepting Teddy with his month’s worth of thin scruff, attempting gamely to make himself older than he truly was with very little success. Of them all, Robicheaux was probably the most foppish, with his finely cut clothes, while Vasquez was easily the flashiest, even his irons gleaming silver in their holsters.

The whole lot of them were streaked with trail dirt and fine grit, which made Chisolm’s pristinely black ensemble all the more impressive considering that Faraday hadn't seen him so much as fuss at it once since they’d met up way back in Amador City.

Likelihood was that any road dust knew better than to run the risk of ruining the man’s dark livery and courting his wrath. Chisolm spoke with the straightforward ease of an amiable man, but there was a banked, controlled promise of violence in the rigid line of his shoulders and the calculating cut of his eyes. It had sparked Faraday’s attention immediately back in that shithole saloon and kept her curious enough to see this ridiculous errand through until they made it to Rose Creek, at least.

Chisolm and Robicheaux were sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the far side of the fire, engaged in an easy, casual conversation that Faraday was just too far away to make out - not that she thought either man fool enough to discuss anything worthwhile without the illusory security of walls around them. A spare few feet away, Rocks was methodically cleaning a set of impressively fine knives, gaze occasionally drifting over to Robicheaux when he laughed too loud or shifted on the flat stones they’d conscripted into service as seating. His face was watchful and warm, with a tender edge that Faraday was willing to call fondness from her vantage point several leagues into a bottle of swill.

Across the clearing, Vasquez was playing at sleep, his hat down over his face while his chest rose and fell in a steady, lazy rhythm. He had his arms crossed over his abdomen and those long, lean legs stretched out in front of him. Faraday might have believed the illusion if he hadn’t tapped his thumb against the buckle of his belt every so often, or the motion of his breath hadn’t stilled tellingly at the occasional skittering snap of wildlife scampering through the distant brush. In ordinary company, he might have gotten away with it - most folk weren’t wary enough of a bullet in their back to pay a man quite the attention that she was willing to part with, surrounded by strangers, with stranger still lurking out in the dark nowhere, past the flickering light of the campfire.

As it was, she considered tossing a rock at him, just to see what he would do, but she suspected she’d engaged in enough pigtail-pulling this evening. Chisolm was a patient man, but Faraday would put dollars down on his being so only in the sense that he was willing to wait if the payoff seemed worthwhile. She couldn’t begin to guess at what the payoff might be if she interrupted Vasquez’s supposed slumber, but she doubted that she and Chisolm would weigh its worth equivalently, and she didn’t trust her speed against his in a draw. Certainly not now, with more than her fair share of whiskey warming her belly and sleep starting to pull at the corners of her eyes.

Besides, if she upset the balance she already knew that Rocks and Robicheaux would fall in line like tin soldiers at Chisolm’s back. While she might take her chances against Robicheaux in close quarters, courting the kind of violence she’d seen Rocks dispense was a fool’s errand and Faraday only played at stupid.

She knocked another, final mouthful of liquor back, savoring the burn as it flared down her throat, and tilted her own hat forward, settling in against the rocks at her back. She mightn’t sleep tonight, belly-up to a passel of men she’d only just met—to say nothing of Emma Cullen, who was her own volatile breed of dangerous—but damned if she wouldn’t put Vasquez’s pisspoor chicanery to shame.

* * *

Rose Creek was everything that Faraday expected it to be, which was to say: not much, and infested with Blackstones like so many vermin of undoubtedly miserable aim, besides.

It was a matter of a little creative shooting to put them permanently in the dirt, or send them scuttling past city lines, which was hardly a chore. Faraday rode the adrenaline like a cresting wave, buzzing under her skin and coaxing her into the middle of the street, back to back with Vasquez of all people.

It was over in barely a beat, Robicheaux’s knuckles white around his rifle and Rocks assuring in a quiet, hoarse murmur that it was jammed, which was the more alarming measure of the day in Faraday’s estimation.

She watched them carefully as they walked away, Rocks cutting long, sure strides while Robicheaux bobbed gently in his slipstream, and made a note to keep her eye on whatever that sordid business might be. She stalked after them and buried her suspicion under the juvenile joy of poking a stick into Vasquez’s bear, as it were.

He moved like a big cat when he leaned in, long fingers curling over the butt of one of his pistols as he invited Faraday to name the time and place for what would surely amount to little more than a pissing contest if either of them bothered to get a shot off at all. Despite all the bark between them, Faraday didn’t think she was imagining the magnetic undercurrent pulling their orbits nearer and nearer in a way that promised either a beautiful brawl or a spectacular fuck. Possibly both, if Faraday had her way about it.

Unfortunately, Chisolm put a quick end to their moment—no sense of fun, as Faraday suspected—and after that it was a blur of sheriffs and townsfolk and Emma Cullen of all people delivering an admittedly brusque but startlingly inspirational speech to a crowd of what Faraday imagined would amount to little more than well-intentioned cannon fodder and rabbiting cowards once the gunfire started in earnest. Still, it was a nice moment, and she couldn’t begrudge the little town the buttery glow of hope that settled over the streets as the sunlight began to fade.

High-Sticking, Concussions, and Other Methods of Showing Affection
An AU where everyone is professional hockey players, and a title I'll probably repurpose because I love it.

Joshua Faraday was halfway through shrugging off his practice gear when Quicky made a noise like a strangled cat and dropped something to the floor with a loud thud. It was probably his cell phone—the kid was glued to the damned thing the second they stepped off the ice, and for a guy who handled the puck with such soft hands Quicky was also possessed of notoriously slippery fingers.

“Shit!” Quicky hissed, over a chorus of booing and various comments from their teammates posted up around the room.

The interruption was nothing new. Quicky always had a bug up his ass about something, and he tended to overreact when he got excited. As there were few better places to find a captive audience than in the locker room after morning skate, Faraday had come to see suffering through detailed discussions about Quicky’s newest obsession as a necessary penance, like ice baths or bag skates. Just another painful obstacle to endure in the distant hope of making the playoffs.

Faraday had learned to bear it all with as much grace as he could reasonably muster, which was to say almost none.

He was planning to unleash the full brunt of his derision the moment he wrestled free of his sweat-soaked practice sweater, but before he could manage to get his arms loose Quicky repeated excitedly, “Holy shit! We got Vasquez!”

There was a moment of stunned frozen silence, the entire room falling still under a brittle hush that shattered after a few taut seconds when Faraday’s synapses finally sparked with understanding and he bellowed instinctually, “Fuck off!”

He thought he could be forgiven for his immediate and all-consuming rage, considering that the last time he met the Hurricanes’ illustrious number 79 on the ice he walked away with eight stitches, a black eye, another missing tooth, and a two-game suspension for roughing, which was to say nothing of the $2,500 fine.

He wrenched his arm loose and shook his wrist out a couple of times, shrugging his sweater onto his lap with a wet slap.

“Says who?” he barked, glaring across the room at Quicky.

“NHL official news,” Quicky offered, tone aiming at meekly apologetic but overshooting to land somewhere in condescendingly smug. He wagged his cell phone back and forth. “Just popped up in the app.”

From further down the row, Goody let out a low whistle.

“I’ll wager that’s the announcement management wants us circled up for,” he observed in that thick Cajun accent he hadn’t managed to shake even after twelve years in California.

He probably already knew about Vasquez, the bastard. He and coach Chisolm played together for more than a decade, and Goody had worn the C for the Prospectors for at least half again that time. If someone from management, let alone Sam himself, hadn’t let wind of this acquisition slip within his earshot, Faraday would eat a puck.

He didn’t have time to work up a real rage about his captain keeping secrets—specifically, secrets that pertain to a man who Faraday considered one of his bitterest professional rivals—before more than half the assembled team devolved into a burble of excited murmuring.

“Vasquez,” Quicky breathed, awed and delighted. “Goddamn.”

“Who for?” Otter asked over the low murmur.

Quicky scanned through the article for a couple of seconds, shaking his head absently. “Prospects, looks like. Couple of wingers and a decent D-man out of juniors. Fifth round draft pick.”

“Playoff calibre defenseman for a couple of raw talents and a respectable draftee,” Goody appraises, slow and pleased. “Not a bad trade for us, gentlemen.”

There came a staggered chorus of agreeable noises. Goody ran his hands through his shaggy hair, slicking it into some semblance of respectability, and glanced over at Rocko with a sly, fond grin.

“He ain’t too bad at putting points up, either. You might finally have a little competition for top scorer there, Billy.”

Rocko didn’t roll his eyes, but he cut Goody a flat, unimpressed look that amounted to about the same thing. Goody just grinned even wider, hopelessly besotted. Honestly, they were disgusting.

They needed to fuck already and get it out of their systems and, consequently, out of the locker room. Not that Faraday had a problem with a little good old-fashioned sexual tension, but Goody had been poking at Rocko for months now, and their yet unconsummated love affair was moving past the place where it was novel and vaguely hot to imagine and rapidly heading for full scale tragedy. Too bad watching Goody fumble his way through romantic banter wasn’t quite enough of a spectacle to distract Faraday from the imminent addition of his least favorite player in the NHL to their team roster.

“Let me see that,” he snarled, reaching an arm into the aisle and making grabbing motions in Quicky’s direction.

Quicky snorted and rolled his eyes, tossing his phone onto the bench in his stall and digging around in his duffel for a suitably clean shirt, which he elected to determine by burying his face against whatever rancid v-neck he pulled out until he came across one that apparently didn’t make his eyes sting too badly when he sniffed it. Faraday had been there, they all had, but Quicky was the up-and-coming face of the franchise. Somebody really ought to get the kid into the habit of using a laundry service.

“You got Google,” Quicky said, tugging the questionable graphic tee on over his head. “Look it up yourself.”

“Just gimme the goddamn phone, Theodore.”

A satisfactory wave of ‘oooh’s’ erupted throughout the peanut gallery, punctuated by Cheddar crowing, “You’re in trouble!”

The vowels were long and vaguely warped around his thick Slavic accent, lending a surprising air of menace to a phrase that he probably picked up from hours spent at the mercy of Porky’s kids. Quicky rolled his eyes again, harder, and took his sweet time getting his outfit appropriately situated before scooping the phone up with a sigh.

“Don’t you break it again,” he warned, crossing the room in a lazy slouch, thumbing the screen on and slapping it ignominiously into Faraday’s palm. His hair flopped artfully into his face. “I don’t want to have to buy another one.”

“You’re a professional athlete, you can afford it,” Faraday responded absently, staring down at the headline plastered across the screen.

‘Canes’ Vasquez Going West for the Gold Rush!’ it read in inch-high sans serif. Faraday rolled his eyes. Everyone thought they were so damn clever, making cutesy plays off the Prospectors’ team name. It was bad enough on its own. Faraday didn’t understand why every sports journalist, media team, and ad copywriter on the planet seemed so singularly determined to strip the title of what little dignity it possessed.

“Bullshit,” he grumbled, scrolling through the article at speed.

It was mostly a recap of Vasquez’s recent performance and an overview of his statistics, which even Faraday could grudgingly admit were impressive, if you liked a guy who prescribed to the Gordie Howe method of living. That was something of a pot-kettle discrimination, admittedly, since Faraday dropped gloves routinely with immense glee and very little provocation, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Total bullshit.”

The Prospectors already had a bruiser, and it was him. They didn’t need another, and if they did, Vasquez certainly wouldn’t top Faraday’s list. What on earth had management been thinking, swapping perfectly viable prospects for this schmuck?

“Now, Daisy, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sounded a little jealous,” Goody observed, sweet as molasses, while he turned to lean against the wall of his cubicle with his arms crossed over his chest. “Worried Vasquez is gonna make you look bad?”

Faraday flipped him off without looking up. The rest of the article wasn’t particularly illuminating, most of the real estate on the bottom half of the page eaten up by a picture of Vasquez.

Faraday knew what he looked like already, of course—dark eyes, dark hair that occasionally poked out from under his helmet in sweaty curls, jawful of dark scruff—but he let himself stare anyway. Vasquez was a big guy, lean and startlingly light on his feet given that he had an inch or two on Faraday, with weight that he didn’t mind throwing around. In the photo, he was gliding along the ice with that long stride of his, both arms raised in triumph with his stick held aloft like a banner. There was blood streaming from his nose, past his megawatt grin, to soak the collar of his Carolina Hurricanes sweater.

Faraday thought the shot might be from last Tuesday, when the Canes played the Kings. He’d heard that Perrault ‘accidentally’ headbutted the bastard thirty seconds before he scored the goal that took them into overtime, which was an affront he was sure Vasquez would return in kind at a subsequent match-up. He made a mental note to buy Perry a drink next time they were in L.A. and glared down at Vasquez’s beaming face.

“That asshole knocked my tooth out,” he announced hotly, tonguing absently at the gap in his bottom row of teeth.

It’d been months since Vasquez most recently popped him, but he hadn’t bothered having his tooth replaced yet. There was no telling how many times a guy might lose a chiclet in the course of a season, and he preferred to take care of everything at once after the playoffs, assuming they made it that far.

“Didn’t you break his finger?” Quicky asked, brow furrowed in judgment.

“I barely cracked it,” Faraday said with a huff. “Bastard didn’t even have to sit out a game, and that was after he knocked my goddamn tooth out. That’s karma, or some shit.”

“Pretty sure you’re s’posed to let karma happen on its own, there, Daisy,” Quicky drawled, unimpressed. “Can I have my phone back now? Or did you wanna beat your meat over Vasquez a little while longer?”

Quicky was spared the responsibility of punctuating his pathetic chirp with schoolyard kissy noises only because Brody gleefully started smacking his lips and fluttering his eyelashes from his own cubicle, the traitor.

“The only boner I have for this bastard is a hate boner,” Faraday muttered, flipping Brody off.

“Bro,” Brody gasped, low and betrayed. He pulled an exaggerated pouty face and staggered back into the wall of his stall, collapsing against it like he had taken a physical blow and clutching dramatically at his chest over his heart.

Lasher, in a showing of irritating and vaguely ominous French-Canadian solidarity, leaned over and started to fan furiously at Brody’s face with his hands, crooning in thickly accented English about how awful Faraday was and promising that he didn’t deserve Brody. They were both outrageous drama queens with a vastly over-inflated sense of their own comedic capabilities, and their antics lost a lot of impact when they couldn’t hold it together enough to quit smirking across the locker room in Faraday’s direction.

“Still a boner,” Quicky announced gleefully, palm up and beckoning with his fingers. “Phone?”

Faraday considered Quicky for a moment, grinned, and then catapulted the cell phone at nearly slapshot speed directly into the tender meat of the kid’s ribs. The resulting yelp was positively symphonic.

Goody shot Faraday a reproving half-glare, to which Faraday smiled broadly in response.

They all knew how important it was to keep the new kids on their toes. Especially sly little shits like Quicky, who had swaggered up from juniors already buying into his own good press. Faraday was practically doing a public service by regularly sticking a pin into that freshly inflating ego and besides, it wasn’t like a surface bruise was going to keep Quicky off the ice.

“You’re a fuckin’ asshole, Daisy,” Quicky wheezed, hunching over and bracing his palm against his cubicle bench.

“Respect your elders,” Faraday responded jovially, clapping an amiable palm to Quicky’s shoulder as he strode past him into the showers.

Goody called out a reminder that management wants to see them in fifteen minutes but Faraday waved him off. They’d already deduced that it was likely going to be an announcement about Vasquez and, frankly, Faraday would rather spend that time scrubbing off the rink stink than watching the coaching staff gush about the guy who clocked him so hard he spit out an incisor.

* * *

“The potshot was a little much,” Goody drawled roughly twenty minutes later, after Faraday had emerged from the showers pleasantly damp and smelling of Old Spice. The captain was the last one lingering now the announcement had officially been made, the rest of the team absconding immediately into the early afternoon sunshine, eager to perform their game-day routines and indulge their superstitions.

“Oh please,” Faraday snorted, stepping past Goody to get at his post-practice wardrobe—a pair of black joggers and a Prospectors tee sporting his own number, lucky 33, on the back. “It was practically a love tap.”

“Uh-huh.” Goody sounded distinctly unimpressed. “Is this going to be a problem?”

Faraday frowned over at him from where he was dumping his practice uniform into the laundry bin.

“What, Quicky?”

“Vasquez,” Goody corrected. “I know you two have history.”

“We played together in juniors,” Faraday scoffed, dredging up some faintly irritated amusement as he wiped down his pads and hung them up. “Played with Brody back then, too. It ain’t some big secret.”

“I seem to remember that you boys were close,” Goody offered placidly.

“Yeah?” Faraday gritted his teeth, tonguing irritably at the gap in the lower row. He cut Goody a pointed glare. “You see, that’s a funny thing to remember, seein’ as you were all the way out here in sunny San Jose at the time, and I sure as shit never noticed you cuttin’ out from any big league games to come watch a bunch of wannabes fuck around in the minors.”

“I pay attention to up-and-coming prospects,” Goody asserted easily. “Always have.”

Faraday snorted. “Then you definitely had better things to gossip about than a couple of middling quality D-men from Utica.”

“You know you’re good.” Goody lifted one shoulder in a thoughtful shrug. “You two were especially good on the line together. Lotta folks were talking about you boys back then, speculating that you’d go as a two-fer to whatever team snapped you up.”

For a sudden, awful moment, Faraday was catapulted back to a different locker room, years ago. It had been smaller than this one, cramped, at times, for someone of Faraday’s stature—he’d been a bit of a beast already, even at twenty-two. In his memory the room was empty, Faraday standing alone with nothing but his own furious, fevered breath ricocheting off the walls in a series of echoing waves.

He remembered distantly that he’d been clutching at a brand new, freshly-taped stick, clinging so hard his knuckles glowed white. He remembered how his whole body had shaken, chest heaving, the stick quivering with the force of his rage. He remembered breaking the damn thing over his knee, his face flooding hot and humiliated, cheeks wet and eyes sore.

“Well, we didn’t,” he spat, here and now, shoving the miserable memory of his pisspoor anger management skills firmly away and trying not to think too hard about how they hadn’t gotten much better in the intervening half-decade or so. He turned to face Goody, arms crossed over his chest, and stared the captain down for a long, livid second. “Now, tell me what you want or fuck off.”

“Joshua.”

“What?” Faraday snarled. “If you’re gonna bench me, bench me. If you’re gonna fight me, fight me. But figure it out because I got better shit to do than sit here’n listen to you pussyfoot your way around a lecture all afternoon.”

Goody pinched the bridge of his nose and then held his hands out, palms up and placating.

“Look,” he sighed, “I don’t know what happened with you boys, and frankly, I don’t want to know. All I need is a promise that you can handle having him around.”

“I know which side my bread is buttered on,” Faraday assured him, reaching to ball up his undershirt and jam it into his practice bag along with the rest of his gear. His stomach twisted nervously. “I can let it slide if he can.”

He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but he demonstrated his ability to let shit go by pointedly not calling attention to how little Goody looked like he believed that particular claim.

“What if he can’t?”

Goody was wearing his stern, uncomfortable captain face and he’d squared up to Faraday like he was getting ready for a brawl. Faraday dropped gloves about almost everything and was working up to a pretty good lather despite his best efforts to retain his composure so it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption even if it stung.

“What do you mean?” He scooped his bag up onto his shoulder and fiddled with the strap so he had something to do with his hands beyond curling them into fists.

“What if Vasquez can’t let it go?” Goody shook his head and sighed through his nose. “If he comes in here trying to get a rise out of you, responsibility’s on your shoulders not to engage, Faraday, and we both know that turning the other cheek isn’t a particular talent of yours.”

“Don’t seem to matter when I’m plastering other guys to the boards to clear the way for you and Rocko.”

“You know that’s different.”

Faraday gripped the nylon band in his hands so hard it creaked.

“Sam gets any whiff of in-fighting and you’re both benched for at least a game.”

“Maybe he should’ve fuckin’ thought about that before he signed Vasquez, huh?” Faraday snarled, and only just managed not to reach out and shove at Goody the way he would if they were on the ice.

From the way he tensed up, bracing for a hit that never came, Goody could tell. He was right to assume Faraday would come up swinging, though he seemed faintly impressed that he’d managed to hold himself in check so far.

“Sam was only part of that decision,” Goody said, which was a true and entirely reasonable rebuttal that did less than nothing to soothe Faraday’s temper. “Emma wanted Vasquez, and what the GM wants, the GM gets.”

“Well whoop-de-fuckin-doo,” Faraday sneered. “Don’t rightly matter who’s to blame, does it? They made their bed. Guess it’s time to see who ends up lyin’ in it.”

“We need you out there,” Goody insisted, stepping further into Faraday’s space. “We can’t afford to lose our top line D-man just because Vasquez knows how to push your buttons.” He sighed irritably. “Daisy, I swear I’m not trying to climb up your ass about this.”

“And yet you’re elbow-deep in there.”

Goody cut him a flat look.

“I’m the captain. It’s my responsibility to make sure that you’re as prepared as you can be to adjust to a potentially uncomfortable situation in our locker room.” His voice was easy and measured, like he was reading off a cue card.

Faraday wondered how much he and Sam talked about this, how badly Goody had dragged his heels over being the one tasked with engaging Faraday in this conversation and whether Sam had recommended the method of approach. They both knew that Faraday loathed being coddled. Accosting him about his issues like this was a fifty-fifty gamble at best, and chances of success were considerably reduced in this particular instance because Vasquez, of all the people from his past that Faraday would prefer to forget, happened to be involved.

“I think it’s important for you to consider the outcome if Vasquez comes in here and gets under your skin the same way he does on the ice,” the captain continued, easy and low, while Faraday bristled before him. “We all try to leave our conflicts at the door, but we’re not always successful. What do you think is going to happen if he brings any of that in with him and you can’t be the bigger man?”

Faraday bit back his first reaction, which was to put his knuckles through Goody’s teeth, pushing past the furious red haze in his mind to dig a well-loved ball cap embroidered with the Prospectors logo out of his stall’s overhead compartment. He tugged it on furiously, situating it backwards, and jammed his sunglasses onto his face before wheeling back around.

“Best bet?” he sneered. “Somebody’s losing a tooth, and this time it ain’t gonna be me.”

It was the wrong answer, and he knew it, but he didn’t stick around to listen to Goody shut him down or, worse, try to commiserate.

He stalked toward the door, digging his car keys out of his pocket, duffel bag bumping rhythmically against his thighs. There was a nutritionist-approved lunch waiting for him at home, not to mention a pre-game nap with the world’s most lovable mastiff, and they would be facing off against the Avalanche in a few short hours. He didn’t have time to indulge this bullshit, and he didn’t need to be getting stuck in his own head right now.

Maybe he would appreciate Goody’s efforts after he’d had some time to cool down, worked a little of his aggression out on the ice. It was doubtful, but stranger things had happened.

At the moment, he was pissed enough that he couldn’t quite resist hollering over his shoulder as he went, “It’s lucky I’ve been practicing my right hook!”

* * *

The Prospectors took the game in overtime, which was better than nothing.

They could always use the extra point they would’ve gotten if they’d managed a win in regulation but it wasn’t late enough in the season to really start worrying. There was plenty of time yet to land a comfortably padded position on the playoff roster instead of getting stuck in a mad scramble for a wildcard spot like they had for the past six years.

Faraday played decently, but even he knew that he’d been more volatile than usual, racking penalty minutes like he was going after a career high. He was thoroughly unsurprised when Sam caught him coming down the tunnel after the final buzzer and instructed him to stick around after he got cleaned up so they could have a word.

Two goddamn lectures in ten hours, Faraday thought bitterly, tie loose around the collar of his freshly re-donned gameday suit as he waited for Sam to finish chatting with the press.

Vasquez wasn’t even here yet and already the bastard was ruining his life.

The locker room was abuzz with the usual post-game energy, the frenetic joy of netting a win tempered to something slightly more subdued in recognition of how slim their margin of victory really was.

Goody and Rocko were trading sly, intimate glances as they dressed, like some kind of bizarre inverted striptease. Brody and Lasher were babbling together in a slurry of unintelligible Québécois. For the couple of years Faraday spent dicking around in Utica and dreaming of getting called up to the Canucks, he never had managed to master more than a few especially vulgar pick-up lines.

Quicky, already finished with his interview, had one arm around Red’s shoulders and appeared to be attempting to wheedle him into going out for a drink to celebrate their scraped-together victory. Faraday supposed that if anybody had the right to want to celebrate tonight, it was Quicky, who sniped a beautiful top-shelf wrister into the Avalanche’s goal with less than a minute on the clock to win them the game, but his enthusiasm grated against Faraday’s sore temper even so.

Red, for his part, was continuing about his post-game routine as though he didn’t have Quicky hanging off him like a particularly unfashionable cloak and pretending he didn’t speak English, was his wont when he found his teammates—or the members of the press—especially annoying. It was a popular tactic among the non-native English speakers, and more than once during a press junket Faraday had wished he had that trick in his own arsenal. It would certainly have come in handy during the next twenty minutes.

As if summoned by Faraday’s reticence, Sam reappeared while most of the team was still milling about, drawing up to Faraday’s stall with his hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks. He paused there for a moment without saying anything, studying Faraday with a sober intensity that made him want to snarl something foolish about photographs and the longevity thereof.

Thankfully, he managed to bite his tongue until Sam shifted his weight back onto his heels, tilting his head thoughtfully as he said, “You missed a team huddle this morning.”

Faraday fought the urge to fidget, and confirmed his absence with a short, sharp nod. Sam didn’t answer right away, but his face had gone guarded and flat like it always did when he was particularly disappointed.

“Already knew what it was about,” Faraday hedged. “Didn’t figure you needed me there bringing down the room.”

He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. Sam’s dark eyes went sharp like flint, jaw tightening and posture drawing up as he took a looming step forward.

“You’re right,” he agreed, and Faraday’s gut churned in queasy anticipation of the semi-public dressing down he was clearly about to receive. The rest of the guys weren’t even pretending not to watch, the miserable vultures. “I didn’t need you there bringing down the room. I needed you there supporting your team.”

Faraday’s spine tightened, shoulders hunching up toward his ears as he flinched against the sting of the reprimand.

Untitled Baseball Player!Harvey AU
Harvey is a pro baseball player. Mike is still a lawyer. They fall in love anyway. Never getting finished because baseball is boring to research, I'm sorry that's just science.

Mike is knee deep in the Herringford briefs - almost literally, as they encompass the tightly packed contents of sixteen miserable file boxes - when Louis blusters into the associates’ bullpen with his usual bad grace, disrupting the comforting aura of over-caffeinated stress focus that Mike and his fellow lower-year associates have spent all morning carefully cultivating.

He stalks purposefully down the aisle, sticks a hand over the low partition of Mike’s desk, and barks, “Mike, with me!”

He doesn’t so much as slow his stride, let alone wait for Mike to collect himself or respond in any meaningful way. Mike drops his current armful of paperwork in a haphazard pile and scrambles to his feet, not even bothering to cap his highlighter. He gets tangled awkwardly on his headphones for a second but manages to catch up with Louis in the hallway just past the breakroom.

Louis has his upper lip curled over his teeth in the way that signifies he’s either disproportionately irritated by someone else’s perceived shortcomings - in this case, probably Mike’s - or he’s trying to psych himself up for a meeting with a client. Mike elects not to ask and follows wordlessly to the elevator bay, where he stands politely at Louis’s shoulder and waits for the other man to announce whatever business is dragging Mike away from his proofing.

It must be something big, to override the Herringford briefs, which Mike has been personally tasked with completing as a form of punishment by menial labor. It’s boring, and irritating, and a slight to Mike’s admittedly somewhat overblown sense of professional pride, but he can’t say he disagrees with the assignment. For better or worse, Mike is always well aware of it when he fucks up.

The work he does for Pearson Hardman frequently traverses into the realm of the morally grey, and while the particular transgression that landed Mike in the managing partner’s crosshairs was off-white at best - a reasonable, nay generous, settlement clashing against the whims of a selfishly pigheaded client - he was cocky, and he got caught. The paperwork was already filed and payments tendered, thank God, but the client had been none too pleased to be hoodwinked into signing the settlement by vaguely nefarious means, despite her barely-salvaged professional reputation and the literal millions in payout dollars freshly lining her pockets.

Mike knows he’s due another few weeks of slogging through briefs and filing finicky motions before he even starts to circle around to earning his forgiveness, so it’s highly suspect that Louis would be recruiting him to another project without some extenuating factor at play. Jessica Pearson doesn’t take kindly to being sidestepped.

Maybe - he considers with a sort of resigned, exhausted optimism, thinking of the seven boxes of the Herringford briefs he still needs to get through - she’s decided that it would be less trouble to just fire him.

“What do you know about baseball?” Louis demands out of nowhere, spinning on his heel to stare Mike down.

Mike blinks. He can’t say he’d been expecting that.

“It’s America’s national pastime?” he offers, unsure of where Louis is going with this. “Probably pays out big dividends to the Frito-Lay corporation?”

Louis does not look impressed.

“You know the song, right?” Mike asks, and hums a couple of bars just to be an asshole. He makes it through ‘buy me some peanuts’ before Louis’s flat expression drops into a legitimate scowl.

“Of course I know the song,” he snaps, waving a hand at Mike. “I don’t give a shit about the song. I want empirical knowledge. Go.”

Mike rolls his eyes and only just manages not to offer to turn in a circle and play dead, too.

He and Louis have come a long way in their cheerfully antagonistic mentor-mentee relationship, but they’re nowhere near the level of camaraderie where Louis would accept casual ribbing from Mike without cutting an immediate and needlessly vicious reprimand in response. Mike, pride still smarting from the brutal dressing-down Jessica had delivered when she assigned him the Herringford briefs in the first place, wisely curbs his tongue.

“It’s a bat-and-ball game, largely considered to be an evolution of the European game rounders,” he explains cautiously, continuing on when Louis nods his approval. “League rules were originally codified in 1845 by New York City’s Knickerbocker Club, with the first official game recorded in Hoboken the following year, making baseball one of the few worthwhile things to ever come out of New Jersey.”

Louis snorts and Mike congratulates himself on appropriately gauging his audience’s comic sensibilities.

“It was popularized as the quintessential American sporting experience during the 1850s and has evolved since then into a multibillion dollar industry, with recent gross revenues surpassing the ten-billion mark. It draws somewhere around 40 million television viewers annually, with additional subscription platforms - ”

“Alright, enough,” Louis says, waving a hand. He’s smirking now, and bobbing his head like a particularly self-satisfied dashboard ornament. “Can I assume that you’re at least peripherally familiar with the New York Yankees?”

Mike looks at him.

“Right, of course,” Louis concedes. He gives himself a rueful little shake and continues with aplomb, “We’re meeting with a prospective client and, as my go-to sports guy, I want you to be there.”

“I’m your go-to sports guy?” Mike huffs a slightly incredulous laugh. “Louis, I don’t even really like sports.”

Louis frowns at him. “You play that fantasy mumbo-jumbo all the time.”

He pointedly doesn’t mention Tom Keller, because Mike knows that even after more than a year Louis is still stung by Tom’s stipulation that Mike be his sole intermediary with Pearson Hardman though Louis is credited as the attorney of note on the account.

“Yeah,” Mike agrees, “because I’m good with numbers and I like winning.”

An elevator car dings into place at Louis’s back and he ushers Mike into it with a snap.

“You’ll get along perfectly with our client, then,” he assures. Not that Mike was really worried about that - he’s good enough at his job that he can comfortably fake being Louis’s sports guy at the drop of a hat, even if he’s not especially well-suited by measure of personal enthusiasm.

“Is Jessica on-board with this?” Mike asks, following Louis into the car and settling with his hips against the railing along the far wall, arms crossed over his chest.

Not that he believes for a moment that Louis would have the balls to go behind Jessica’s back, but as Mike is already firmly in the doghouse where Jessica is concerned he thinks the question is worth asking.

“She requested you personally,” Louis assures with a tight smile that suggests there’s more to the story. “Consider it an opportunity to redeem yourself.”

“I didn’t figure she was big into second chances.”

“She’s not, so it would be in your best interest to accept it and shower profuse gratitude unto whichever deity you prefer for the rare hope to work your way back into her good graces.”

“Who is this client, anyway?”

Louis jabs the button for the fiftieth floor and turns toward him, sliding his hands into his pockets. He considers Mike for a long moment, smug and silent.

Mike, intimately familiar with Louis’s supremely obnoxious tendency to bask in his secrets before sharing them, waits him out with as deeply unimpressed a face as he can summon. Considering it’s barely past nine on a Tuesday and Mike is already nearing his preferred weekly volume of Louis-based interaction, it’s an expression of commendable caliber.

“You ever hear of Harvey Specter?” Louis finally asks. He reaches up to tug proudly at his own lapel while Mike’s eyebrows make a rapid ascent toward his hairline.

“Like, the Harvey Specter?” he parrots stupidly.

Louis nods.

Mike can’t quite wrap his head around the information. Convinced that Louis - who enjoys most sports even less than Mike, and respects them only inasmuch as he respects the prestige that comes with taking on various relevant entities as clientele - must be confused, Mike expounds:

“Harvey Specter. As in number 47, highest batting average of any pitcher in the majors, Harvey Specter? Throws the most devastating cutter of all time, Harvey Specter?”

“That’s the guy,” Louis agrees, holding his hands out with fingers spread while he keeps his elbows tucked in, like a very reserved magician showcasing a particularly jaw-dropping trick. As showstoppers go Mike has to admit that this one is pretty damn good.

“Holy shit,” he laughs as the elevator bobs to a stop. “Harvey Specter wants to sign with us?”

“His contract is up for arbitration after this season,” Louis explains, low and conspiratorial as he and Mike make their way down the hall, “and he’s interested in seeing if we can win him a sweeter deal than his current counsel. If we can drum up a suitably promising game-plan in time for the consultation this morning he’s willing to put us on retainer until the hearing, with the option to negotiate full representation after the fact assuming our gambit works.”

“Holy shit,” Mike repeats, stunned.

Pearson Hardman represents an entire library of individuals whose net-worth ranks somewhere in the billions, but most of their clients are entrepreneurs and venture capitalists - famous in certain circles but without the celebrity that accompanies being a household name. While Mike has never considered himself especially susceptible to such things, the opportunity to sit across the table from a legitimate legend is a sudden, heady rush he didn’t expect.

“Keep it together,” Louis orders, snapping his fingers roughly two centimeters from Mike’s face. “We brought you in on this because you’re not a complete failure with financial negotiations - ”

“Thanks,” Mike snorts.

“ - and because Jessica feels that your style of, let’s call it creative problem-solving will appeal to Mr. Specter’s devil-may-care sensibilities, but I will demote you straight back down to proofing if I see even a hint of adoration or fawning.” He stares Mike down intently. “I need a lawyer with me in there, not a preteen girl meeting her superstar crush.”

It’s meant as a blanket insult but Louis is closer to the source of Mike’s sudden giddy discomfort than he probably thinks. It’s closely guarded knowledge that Harvey Specter’s rookie season poster played an integral role in the evolution of Mike’s sexuality, which Mike is self-aware enough to recognize may be exacerbating the surreality of the situation somewhat. Not that he intends to share this information with Louis, of all people, especially considering the current circumstances.

“I’m cool,” he assures, miraculously managing to wrestle his composure into submission. “I was just surprised, seriously. I didn’t even know you were, uh. Courting any professional athletes.”

Louis looks uncomfortable for a second, hunted and caught out. He bares his teeth in an awkward, vaguely embarrassed sneer, and admits, “I wasn’t. He was recommended to us.”

“By who?”

Louis rolls his eyes and huffs,“Tom Keller. Apparently he and Specter are friends, and Keller mentioned how impressed he’s been with the work we’ve done for his platform.”

He’s careful not to even subtly imply that Mike deserves any individual credit in these matters, but Mike preens a little anyway. Things are finally starting to make sense.

“Did he ask for me by name?” he asks smugly, though he thinks he already knows the answer.

Louis rolls his eyes and turns to stalk down the hallway, beckoning Mike to follow over his shoulder, which means that Mike was right. Specter did request him, specifically, which is probably the only reason Jessica let Mike anywhere near this consultation, but Louis will let someone take a pair of pliers to his $60,000 teeth before he admits it.

He leads Mike into his office, sliding a folder across the desk to him as he checks his watch and orders, “Familiarize yourself with the contract. We have exactly forty-four minutes and sixteen seconds to dismantle it and find a way to push the Yankees into shelling out more cash for a pitcher who’s past his prime.”

“Is that what Specter wants?” Mike asks absently, the majority of his attention already turned to photocopying the contents of the folder into his mind and pulling them apart for a better view of the angles.

“Sweeter deals generally mean higher salaries,” Louis responds, equally engrossed in thumbing through his own copy. And then, because he might be an asshole but he’s not a bad lawyer, he adds, “He’ll have specifics for us when he comes in. I’ll cover the finance angles - I’ve gone toe to toe with these club types before and they’re all corypheés to my primeur danseur. I can handle them. You just do that thing you do.”

“Oh yeah?” Mike smirks down at the page in his lap. “What thing is that, Louis?”

“The thing where you imprint everything into your freaky brain and then rip off the questionable plot of some stupid old movie to win our client millions of dollars,” Louis responds shortly. “Forty-two thirty.”

Mike shuts up and gets to work.

* * *

Mr. Specter arrives a polite eight minutes early for his appointment, and it’s the tragedy of Mike’s life that he’s even hotter in person than he was in the staged and heavily edited publicity photo Mike remembers from his best friend’s locker in high school: uniform pants sinfully tight, smug grin screwed firmly in place, and a bat slung casually over his shoulder.

Mike watches from around the corner as Louis’s secretary, Norma, guides Specter into Conference Room B and tries to keep from salivating too obviously over the picture he makes.

Specter is wearing a summer suit - some lightweight fabric in a soft golden-khaki color that glows like warm butter against his olive skin - and a white shirt that seems almost translucent when the light hits it just right. His slacks have lifted hems, and he’s paired the shortened trouser with sleek, tasseled loafers in brown leather - no socks. He even has a white pocket square tucked demurely into his jacket.

Mike feels underdressed in a way he hasn’t since he was a first-year associate. They may cost thousands of dollars altogether but all of his suits are minimally tailored off-the-rack while Specter’s looks like it was specially crafted to accentuate the broad line of his shoulders and the narrow taper of his waist. His hair is short and sunbleached, artfully tousled in an absent way that undoubtedly requires considerable time and effort, and there’s a pair of sleek black Ray-Bans hung casually over his collar.

Between Specter’s dark, mischievous eyes and the dangerous curve of his grin as he chats his way into the conference room at Norma’s heel, Mike’s long-buried schoolboy crush is gearing up to be a legitimate cause for concern.

“What do you think?” Louis asks very suddenly from the vicinity of Mike’s shoulder.

Mike jumps and nearly drops his armful of folders all over the floor.

“Jesus Christ, Louis,” he sighs. Louis is peering up at him, gaze narrow and suspicious.

“You look flushed.”

“I’m not flushed,” Mike insists, though he can feel a damning prickle of embarrassed heat in his cheeks.

“Are you ready for this, Mike?” Louis presses, brow furrowed. “Because I can tackle Specter alone, if you’d rather slink back down to the corps de ballet to fester among the rest of the backup dancers.”

“I’d rather you not tackle anyone on company property, Louis,” Mike shoots back, pointedly ignoring the increasingly involved ballet metaphor. “You send another person to the hospital during this fiscal year and we’re going to have to make a permanent addendum to the annual budget.”

Louis, who loathes being reminded of the man he nearly deposed to death and doesn’t appreciate jokes about the firm’s finances even when they’re not at his expense, glares at Mike and pushes past him, catching Mike’s shoulder with his own on the way.

Poking a proverbial stick into Louis’s bear seconds before a potentially career-making client consultation isn’t the smartest move but Mike is still feeling a little off-kilter from the sheer aesthetic pleasure of watching Specter stroll across the hall.

With any luck Specter will be an asshole, or an idiot, or miserably boring, or some deeply unattractive combination thereof. Anything to afford Mike a moment of embarrassed humor on behalf of his younger self and then, hopefully, the immediate opportunity to move on with his life, preferably as the freshly hired legal counsel of a Major League Baseball player.

Mike tidies his paperwork, straightens his tie, and squares up to follow Louis in, praying that the flush under his skin will magically dissipate sometime in the next eight seconds.

* * *

It ends up not much mattering. The moment Mike enters the room Specter peers over from where he’s settled into a lazy sprawl in one of the plush rolling chairs to give him an appraising up-and-down and Mike’s face heats afresh.

“Mr. Specter,” Louis greets, offering his hand for a shake. “Louis Litt, in-house specialist in finance law, and this is my associate, Mike Ross.”

Specter glances over at him and rises elegantly to his feet, reaching across the corner of the conference table to absently meet his handshake before tilting his head curiously at Mike.

“You’re Tom’s guy?”

“That depends,” Mike says, risking a grin as he takes Specter’s hand in his own, brisk and friendly. “How exactly did he tell you I earned that distinction?”

Specter snorts. Mike doesn’t preen, exactly, but the soft, amused sound makes it much easier to ignore the completely unsubtle daggers Louis is glaring at him out of the corner of his eye.

“He says you’re the best.”

“We’re better,” Louis assures immediately, in the confident, eager-to-please clip of a man already calculating the addition of thousands of dollars in billable hours to his quarterly total.

Specter flicks a glance over at him, wreathed in the vapidly attentive air of a man who’s used to having strangers bend over backward to keep him happy and has grown immeasurably bored with it.

Mike fights the urge to roll his eyes at all the egotistical posturing and drops into a seat caddy-corner to Specter’s.

“We’re good enough to offer you this,” he says, slipping a sleek blue Pearson Hardman folder across the table.

Beside him, Louis follows suit and sits down, though he looks decidedly unhappy that Mike robbed him of the lead-in to their proposal. Specter spends a few minutes peering somberly down at the papers before him, shuffling slowly from sheet to sheet and making the occasional soft, thoughtful noise.