For my last day of WIP Week it's anything I want to post, so here's a little snippet from the SidNate fic of my dreams, which I absolutely plan to write someday.
Not today. But someday.
When Sid yawns, it immediately catches Nate’s attention.
Nothing new there; it’s been years since Sid could do or say much of anything without it catching Nate’s attention.
To say nothing of the years before Sid even knew who Nate was, when – as he, and the wider world are now all well aware, and Nate never seems to tire of telling – he already had Nate’s undivided attention, albeit unbeknownst to him.
So it’s not a surprise that Nate immediately hits mute on the Stars/Ducks game they’ve been half-watching and half-talking over, pulls himself up out of his relaxed slouch to sit up straight on the edge of his big sectional.
“Want me to drive you back?” Nate asks, his voice doing that thing where he’s trying to act like he doesn’t have skin in the game, like the answer doesn’t matter to him at all. “Or. I mean, you could just stay, if you want. Finish the game and go in with me tomorrow. Whichever.”
He shrugs, almost convincing in his nonchalance, and Sid sees the growing evidence of what he already knows:
Nate’s getting better and better at hiding himself, at containing his emotions. At keeping a poker face, not letting his feelings show all over him the way he used to; not letting his joy shine quite so brightly and obviously, not letting his fiery temper get the better of him or wielding his anger like a cudgel.
At keeping his heart in his pocket instead of right out on his sleeve for everyone to see.
For Sid to see.
And Sid knows Nate will never be like him in that way, will never be able to keep himself completely aloof and apart from the public, the media, the prying eyes and the hangers-on. Nate’s way too extroverted, too open and trusting and a whole bunch of other things Sid has never been and probably never would have been, even if he’d lived a different life, one where those kinds of concerns barely even matter.
But it is interesting, Sid thinks, to see Nate getting more like Sid as he gets older, more cautious with himself, his time and his emotions – but also to recognize the ways he himself is becoming more like Nate, opening up just a little, letting a slightly wider circle of people get closer to him, even letting the public see a little personality, once in a while. He knows they’re rubbing off on each other, and he wishes he didn’t like the idea of it so much.
Also, he possibly shouldn’t think of it as rubbing off on each other, considering that does nothing to discourage the lines of thinking Sid tries, less and less successfully all the time, to avoid.
More than anything, what’s becoming clearer and clearer is that Nate’s not a kid anymore. He hasn’t been for a while, really, but Sid’s been resisting – for reasons he’s well aware of but would rather not be – allowing himself to acknowledge just how much not a kid anymore Nate is, these days.
Like, distractingly, disturbingly, temptingly not a kid anymore.
Which is, just.
All the more reason for Sid to play up how tired he is and take Nate up on his offer, let him drive Sid back to the hotel.
Nate digs his teeth into his bottom lip, waiting, and Sid just.
He doesn’t want to leave, is the thing.
He misses Nate during the season now, in a way he never could have anticipated when they started spending their summers together all those years ago. Somehow that – Nate in his house and his gym and his life every day, working together toward the same objectives, with a shared focus – has started to feel like Sid’s normal life, his main life, like the season and the way it separates them with time and miles and divergent goals is the part that’s secondary.
For a guy who is publicly known to eat sleep and breathe hockey, it’s a little disconcerting to feel like there’s something that could possibly displace that in his life, something that could be even more important.
But he looks at Nate sometimes, and he thinks.
Yeah.
“I’ll just stay, if that’s cool with you,” Sid says, and Nate’s efforts to seem cool and indifferent fail him, momentarily. His big, crooked grin spreads across his face, and he melts back into his corner of the sofa, kicks his legs back up onto the cushion halfway between his spot and Sid’s, where his socked feet have been poking and prodding at Sid’s thigh all night.
“Cool,” he says, biting his lip until his smile is effectively obscured.
“Cool,” Sid confirms, and fires off a single text.
Won’t be back tonight. Will get a ride in with MacKinnon in the morning.
Sid’s way past asking permission, at this point in his career. Nobody’s doing bed check on his room, that’s for sure, but he still sends the text as a courtesy, because he’s a responsible professional.
He’s maybe not as responsible a friend and mentor, considering he’s going to stay here when he should really go, going to have to borrow clothes to sleep in and let Nate chirp him about how his ass looks in Nate’s too-tight sweats, have to go to sleep in the guest room in a shirt that smells like Nate and pretend he wouldn’t like to be sleeping somewhere else, somewhere even closer than the room next door.
Pretend he doesn’t know that’s what Nate would prefer, too.
But it’s done, now – decision made. At least for tonight, he’s doing the thing he wants instead of the thing he should. And if he’s having a harder time, the older Nate gets, convincing himself that those are even two different things anymore, well. He’ll grapple with that another day.
He turns his attention to the game, which remains a two-nothing snooze-fest well into the third.
Midway through the period, Nate groans and stretches his arms up over his head, rolls his neck, then spins himself around and kicks his feet up on the end of the sofa, and pillows his head on Sid’s thigh. He keeps his eyes on the screen and doesn’t say a word about his new position, the same way Sid doesn’t say a word when he drops his hand into Nate’s hair, threads his fingers in deep.
Nate lets out a low, breathy sigh, and Jesus.
Sid leans back into his corner of the couch, makes sure his face is out of Nate’s line of sight before he lets himself close his eyes and take a deep, steadying breath.
I skipped Wip Wednesday just to save this for today. Sorry to the people who've been waiting!
Latest progress on Living Things, below. Happy wip friday!
The denser trees they’ve been walking through for the last bit have started to become more sparse, sky opening up overhead so the sun’s beating down bright and hot, so Travis is starting to break a sweat. But the views off either side of the trail are sweeping, majestic, definitely worth it. When they pass a little overlook with an informational plaque in front of a metal guard rail, he makes Pat stop, lean back shoulder to shoulder against the railing, and press their faces close enough together to snap a selfie in front of a valley full of flowering cacti and giant boulders.
A group of hikers passes while they’re stopped, a little cluster of four or five women talking quietly amongst themselves, not even looking their way. The air goes silent again as they pass, trail still and empty of people, and Pat’s still standing, thumbs hooked through the shoulder straps of his backpack while he looks out over the wide expanse of the desert below them, cheeks pink and hair curling damp and sweat-dark out from under the back of his cap, sticking to his neck.
Travis doesn’t even think, just steps a half-step closer, reaches up and tugs on the brim of Pat’s hat to get his attention.
“Hey,” is all he says, with the tiniest jerk of his chin, and that’s all it takes. Pat doesn’t resist, doesn’t roll his eyes or make any snide comments, doesn’t even blink, actually. He just lets Travis maneuver him where he wants him then leans down easy as anything, automatic, lets Travis pull him even closer by the chest strap of his backpack, close enough to seal their mouths together for just long enough that he can hold his other arm out and get a picture of that, too, in front of the same pretty backdrop.
Pat’s face is even pinker, by the time Travis lets him go; he gives Travis that bashful little tilt of his chin and that reluctant, barely-there smile, does the thing where he makes it seem like he’s looking up at Travis through his eyelashes even though there’s no way that could actually be physically possible, given their relative heights. And even though it’s been a year and a half straight, now, that they’ve been at this, sometimes it still hits Travis out of the blue—a hot rush way down in his belly, wild and sudden and breath-taking.
He still can’t believe he’s here, sometimes, can’t believe this is where he’s ended up, after everything.
And just like that there’s a lump in his throat, eyes stinging with the sudden pressure in his sinuses; he swallows thickly, and he’s glad at least for the cover provided by his shades, but Pat knows him too well.
His head cocks to the side, gives Travis a long, assessing look; he reaches up, palms Travis’s head with his giant fucking paw and gives him a shake.
“Soft,” he accuses, long-suffering as always, but his own voice is too fond to pull off exasperated. His hand slides down, wraps around the back of Travis’s neck. “Come on, tough guy,” he grumbles, all low and quiet, “move your ass.”
Okay well, posting every single day is hard (for me)! And today got away from me, a bit. So even though I posted a snippet from this earlier in the week and even though I was never even really IN Marvel/Captain America fandom, it IS, technically, the largest fandom for which I have a WIP, so.
Here's some more Trans Steve Rogers, to get us through until tomorrow.
Steve Rogers leaves Brooklyn on a Tuesday. He has two suitcases and a bus ticket to Kansas City.
Wednesday night, he gets himself a room at the motel across from the station in Kansas City. The clerk hands him the key to room 17, and he signs the register, Mr. and Mrs. Bucky Barnes.
In the morning, a blond in a smart blue dress waits in line at the front desk. She notices the man behind the counter noticing her; he smiles at her, and she twirls the gold ring on her left hand self-consciously. When she gets to the front of the line she puts down her suitcases, pulls a key out of her little handbag.
“My husband asked me to return this, room 17?” She smiles. “He already went across to the station to pick up a paper, and well, I’m running late as usual, never can decide what to wear, you know. Anyway,” she points to the register, taps her red-painted fingernail, “that’s us there, Barnes.”
The clerk says Yes ma’am, thank you Mrs. Barnes. You have a safe trip, now, and notes the check-out time next to their name as she beams at him. She feels his eyes on her all the way across the street, until she disappears through the doors of the station.
Stevie Barnes arrives in Los Angeles on a Friday. She has two suitcases and a handbag, in which she carries a New York Birth Record for Stephanie Grant Rogers, F, that looks so unimpeachably authentic that if it’s not the real deal, it must have been done by an awfully talented artist.
She’s wearing her Ma’s wedding band on her left hand, a blue dress with a sailor collar, and a string of paste pearls.
She inquires at the YWCA about a room, and they direct her to the Clark Residences. She thinks she must be at the wrong place when she arrives at the address and sees the giant, beautiful gray mansion. She speaks to the desk clerk there, and is told there’s a waiting list, but they kindly offer her tea and cake when they see she’s pale and exhausted, feeling weak from her journey. The clerk, who brings her tea and sits with her at a little table painted with a chess board in a big room off the Entrance Hall, chats with her a little then asks her to wait right there, and goes to speak to the Director of the Residences. Once her plight is understood, that it’s poor health that’s brought her West from New York, and that her husband has only recently shipped out to the European Front, exceptions are made and she’s shown to a single room on the second floor, at the back of the house, small and kept just for emergencies, but off the street and quiet. Stevie has never felt more grateful in her life, never experienced such kindness and caring from perfect strangers.
On Monday she inquires at several theaters about a job, but even when the managers learn she’s done the job before, already knows how to work the register and re-fill the ticker and change the marquee and the one-sheet posters for the new shows, none of them have ever had a girl working in the ticket office before. She assures them it’s commonplace in Brooklyn, even though it isn’t, but they won’t budge. She realizes quickly, the doors that have opened to her in her new life, her new world, mean other doors have closed in turn.
She turns instead into the shop fronts along 6th Street and Wilshire Boulevard, and finally finds a job in a jewelry shop at Wilshire and Burlington, when its owners hear that her husband is off fighting the Nazis. It’s lower pay than she was making back in Brooklyn, but her rent at The Clark Residences is less even than that terrible rooming house on Gold street, so she figures everything in life is a tradeoff.
She makes friends with some of the girls who lodge with her at The Clark, most of them with little or no family to speak of, like Stevie, who are making their own way of it as secretaries, stenographers, nurses, sales girls. A few girls are like Bucky promised, trying to make it in Hollywood as dancers, models, actresses. There’s a camaraderie among them, a sense of family. They come from all over, so none of them even blink at Stevie’s Brooklyn accent, much less at her name, or her story. She explains that she’s had to leave Booklyn due to her delicate health, came here for the weather, doctor’s orders, and that her husband is off in Europe, headed for the front lines.
She writes Bucky every day, no matter what, tells him every single thing that happens in her life, every minute she can think to write down, so he won’t feel like he’s missed a thing.
She draws him pictures of herself, to show him how she looks now with her hair down almost to her shoulders. She draws pictures of what it looks like out her window, of the front of the Clark house, of the Westlake Theater sign in front of the Downtown skyline from MacArthur Park, of the paddle boats on the Park lake, of the Gates of the Santa Monica Pier when she and the girls take the bus to the beach, sometimes. She fills the margins with doodles, palm trees and hearts and flowers.
When she drops each letter in the mail slot in the front hall of The Clark, she always kisses it first so it leaves a bright red print in the shape of her lips, then says a little prayer that it finds him safe and sound, wherever he is.
Some of the other girls have sweethearts overseas as well, and they share Stevie’s breathless wait for the mail to arrive every afternoon down in the Main Hall. She’s been at The Clark for 8 weeks when her first letter from Bucky arrives, and she cries right there in the hallway before she ever even opens it, just from the relief of it. Alice, a sweet redhead from Oregon who says she’s an actress at heart but a shop girl by trade, hugs her and cries too, and the other girls gather around and coo and fuss over her.
Stevie writes to Bucky about it later, how nice all the girls are, and how much they treat her just like one of their own.
She’s really one of them, is what she tells him, and hopes he understands. She’s doing just fine, she promises - all except for how bad she's missing him.
My favorite wip is, of course, a TKNP AU...surprising precisely no one.
It's the one affectionately know as Prince Patty, and it's my favorite for many reasons, including the elaborate alternative history of Canada I have established in order to create the Royal Family of which Patty is a member, and the fact that he and TK (the Honourable Mister Konecny, naturally) are already together from the beginning, which is something I don't think I've ever written anywhere else.
Have I talked about this on tumblr before? I must have, but I can't remember. Will it ever be finished? Unclear, but I still love it, either way.
Hope you do too!
When he wakes up in the morning he slides carefully out from under Travis’s arm, tries hard not to disturb his sleep. He jams his feet into his slippers and pulls his ratty old robe over his PJ’s in the dark, and is careful not to let the door to the suite swing closed behind him with its usual ka-thunk, when he heads down the hall to the showers.
Travis is still sleeping when he gets back, so he dresses with just the wardrobe light on, goes out into the main room so he can turn on the overheads to lace up his boots. Since he’s got a field assessment this morning, at least he doesn’t have to wear a tie.
He knows Travis will choose sleep over food–will probably have gummy worms and Pepsi for breakfast if left to his own devices–but Nolan’s testing slot on the helo actually isn’t until 10:30, so he’s got some time. He heads downstairs and over to the mess, puts away a pile of scrambled eggs and sausages, along with a tower of toast, in record time, then loads up a to-go container with the same, adding a couple of cherry pastries to the pile to feed TK’s sweet tooth. He refills his own coffee and pours another one for Travis, dumps a mountain of sugar in it, and trudges back through the crunchy, icy morning snow to The Boat.
It’s a simple enough thing, whatever you want to call it; bringing your roommate breakfast, doing your buddy a favor, trying to make your boyfriend’s day a little better. All of it amounts to the same thing, which is: thinking of someone other than just yourself all the time. Thinking about how you could maybe make their life better or easier with, usually, very little actual effort.
It’s simple, but it’s still not second nature to Nolan. The way he was raised, other people brought him things, did things for and catered to him, and not the other way around. And starting to dissect that, starting to think about how fucked up that is and how it’s not actually, like, normal, to say nothing of healthy, didn’t actually start until he first got to boarding school. Or maybe, more accurately, until he met Travis.
Maybe it was because he wasn’t old enough before that, didn’t have the capacity for that kind of self-awareness yet. Or maybe Nolan’s just a self-centered asshole–another trait plenty of people would agree has been bred into his DNA for centuries.
Either way, it wasn’t something Nolan ever really thought about until suddenly, there was Travis, bringing Nolan a sandwich from the Refectory when he knew Nolan had back-to-back classes across the lunch hour, handing it over without a second thought, just a simple matter of course that had nothing to do with Nolan being Royalty and everything to do with him being Travis’s friend.
Or maybe, more shockingly, it was Travis nonchalantly calling after Nolan as he headed out the door for breakfast, hey man can you bring me some pop tarts? And a Pepsi!
No one Nolan had ever known, outside of his parents or his Grandparents, had or would have dared speak to him like that, give him what amounted to a directive, without so much as a please or thank you.
It was completely inappropriate, completely out of line, completely at odds with anything even beginning to approach proper protocol, and the best part was, Travis didn’t even seem to realize it, much less care.
Nolan kind of loved it.
Even now, it gives him a dumb little thrill to bring Travis things, to undertake these little acts of care-taking, of service. It’s like he’s doing something secretly subversive, which is insultingly elitist he knows, but also, still fun.
He takes the stairs up two at a time and deposits the breakfast on the desk in the main room. Travis is still sleeping soundly in the bedroom, face half hidden by the blankets, so Nolan crawls up over him, noses the blanket aside to get to his ear.
“Time to get up, Teeks,” he kisses Travis’s jaw, his temple, whispers low in his ear. “It’s already 10.”
Travis doesn’t move, just lets out a low, rumbling, questioning sound.
“You got your flight assessment,” he says, eyes still closed even as he pulls his arm out of the nest of blankets, wraps his warm fingers around the back of Nolan’s neck. “Better get outta here, can’t be late.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nolan kisses his face one more time, then crawls off the bed. “I’m going, I’m going. Breakfast and coffee for you on the desk. Get your ass up before they get cold.”
He swats at the general vicinity of Travis’s ass under the blankets, and gets an indignant hey! for his troubles. Travis’s eyes open, though, and he’s grinning, so Nolan’s work here is done.
“Just making sure you’re really awake,” he holds his hands up, the picture of innocence. “I’m outta here.”
“Love you, Patty!” Travis is calling after him, as Nolan’s on his way back out the door. “Gonna kill it today, I know it!”
Nolan grins with his hand on the door of the suite.
“You too, buddy!” he calls back, then slings his rucksack up onto his back and shoulders the door open.
zegras reunited with jamie in philly on the EXACT same day mike and and jeff were cruelly ripped apart and traded away from philly fourteen years earlier. down to the DAY. danny briere i know what you are
Circa 2017, when I was newly returned to fandom and still trying to get the lay of the land, before I was fully sucked into hockey I dabbled briefly in the world of Marvel. Not the movies, just the fic.
In typical me fashion, I was mostly only interested in the stories where they weren't superheroes but just normal guys, which means I got super into 1940's period AU's for awhile.
And then I wrote one of my own - 50K of it - before I fully realized how big and crazy Marvel fandom was, got cold feet, and gave it all up.
But! Just for Wip Week, I'm pulling it out of the ice, so to speak (I'm so sorry). I give you: a sneak peek at the (extremely) limited debut of the Trans Steve Rogers 1940's AU that never was.
Steve stops dead in his tracks, presses himself back up against the wall. His breath comes out harsh and labored, all of a sudden.
He tries to make himself breathe steady as he watches Bucky lead the girl on his arm–it’s Gloria Monaghan, Steve knows well enough, Bucky’s favorite dance partner these last few months–across Flushing Avenue and into the park. She’s got one arm linked with Bucky and a picnic basket in the crook of her opposite elbow, and Bucky’s dinner pail is nowhere to be seen.
Steve tries to remember if it's three or four times now that Bucky’s come home with his dinner pail still full, said he didn’t have time to eat. They’ve been so busy down at The Yard, what with the war in Europe gaining speed, Steve never even thought to question it.
Back at the apartment, he throws his little brown wrapped packet of shoelaces onto the table, the whole reason he was up on Flushing Avenue this morning anyway. And yes, maybe he’d timed his trip just before the dinner bell, thinking he could catch Bucky on his break. Maybe he’d thought the two of them might go over to the park, where they could sit in the new Spring sunshine, where Bucky could eat the cheese sandwiches Steve had made him earlier this morning and packed in his pail before he left, and where Steve could.
Watch Bucky chew, he guesses. He rolls his eyes at his own foolishness, even though his heart still feels like it’s in a vise.
He obviously knows Bucky makes time with girls, goes out on dates. First of all, if ever there was a man who loved dancing more than Bucky Barnes, Steve never heard of him, and it’s not as though he could take Steve out dancing even if he’d like to, is it?
But also, there’s the other bit. Keeping up appearances, and all that. Same reason they’ve got that second bed in the front room–for appearances.
Steve understands that, he does, and he’s never minded, not really. Not when Bucky comes home all sweaty and buzzy and wound up, looking to manhandle Steve into bed and out of his clothes first chance he gets.
He’s certainly never minded that, not since he was 15 years old, since the first time Bucky laid a hand on him in a more-than-just-friendly way and Steve thought he’d die of it, it was so good, so perfect. He still shivers, remembering the first time Bucky turned him over and took him that way, remembers thinking it was a revelation, made him feel like he fit right in his skin all of a sudden, feel just like Bucky was looking down deep into who Steve really is, to the truth of him–no matter if everyone else on God’s earth would say it was wrong, and no matter that it hurt like the dickens.
Bucky Barnes is all Steve has, and all he wants. Steve is all Bucky has, too, not counting his sister and her new husband, living out on Long Island with a baby on the way.
But it’s been Steve and Bucky, just the two of them, together against the world, for years now. And Steve has known, he’s known it can’t go on this way forever, that eventually Bucky’s going to want something else.
That there’ll be a girl, eventually, then a family of his own.
Things Steve can never give him, and he knows that, he knows. Knows that even if Bucky wants him, wants Steve even more than he wants those other things, that’s not how the world works, but. But.
He just thought they’d have a little more time. Bucky’s only 23, not too old yet. Maybe a few more years, Steve’d thought, before it started to seem odd, queer to live like they do. He thought Bucky’d at least be honest with him, let him know when he met a special girl, let him know a change was coming so Steve could prepare for it.
He didn’t think Bucky would be sneaking off to picnic in the park with Gloria Monaghan and then lying about why he didn’t eat the dinner Steve made for him. He didn’t think that, for Pete’s sake.
He feels suddenly ill, like he might puke. He leans over the sink, makes dry, retching noises and heaves ‘til it turns into something more akin to sobbing. He collapses onto a chair.
Gloria Monaghan is the beginning of the end; Steve can feel it in his bones. It’s like a rope around his throat, pulling ever tighter, strangling the life right out of him.
If only I were a girl, Steve thinks, and it’s not the first time. It’s a familiar refrain, the song that’s been on a loop in his brain for a long time. Steve remembers, clear as a bell, the day Bucky stepped in between Steve and the bruiser of a kid twice Steve’s size who was kicking the snot out of him. Steve probably started it, he’s not certain but it sure sounds like the kinda thing he’d do, and either way he was on the ground, bloodied and wheezing when he looked up and there was Bucky, helping him up, cleaning him up. And Steve remembers thinking he sure is handsome, thinking, if only I were a girl he’s the sort of boy I’d be sweet on.
I can't believe my beloved Generation Kill is my smallest fandom, even smaller than American Idol RPF - I checked!
So here it is, my last remaining Generation Kill wip, which I still fully intend to finish one day.
Featuring Brad who was injured in combat and forced into early retirement, and his boss at the FBI's counter-terrorism division, Nate. You'll never believe it, but there's deep mutual respect and simmering sexual tension afoot!
By 0930, Nate’s usually in Brad’s office, and usually on his third cup of coffee. Brad doesn’t drink coffee– his central nervous system is fucked up enough without adding stimulants to the surprise party, thanks– and anyway, he keeps a close watch on his liquids intake. He sips from one sixteen ounce bottle of water throughout the day, and visits the men’s room every three hours, just in case. He doesn’t need any surprises.
Brad’s pretty sure no one has noticed it’s the same water bottle he carries with him all day, except possibly Nate. Nate tends to notice details in general, and about Brad specifically. Not because he’s nosy, just because he’s observant–that’s one thing Brad learned about him right off the bat. It’s the main reason Brad took this job after turning down two others.
The bitch from Homeland Security had asked some pointed questions about Brad’s psych evaluations from the NNMC, and the weaselly little dick from the DoD had the fucking audacity to ask if he preferred the term handicapped or disabled. Nate had just talked about the job, about Brad’s reputation within the reconnaissance community, his intelligence experience and his stellar service record, and smirked a little when he said and we hear you’re not bad with computers, either. He didn’t ask any stupid ass questions, and he didn’t act all fucking weird around the chair, so Brad took the job. Three years later and no regrets, except maybe that today is Nate’s last day in charge of his unit.
It means a promotion for Brad, straight into Nate’s old job, but it also means Nate will be officing on another floor and will for all intents and purposes be outside the sphere of Brad’s daily life, at least at work. Sure, they’ll still have Poker Wednesdays and Sunday Football in the fall, the occasional happy hour or lunch together, but it’s not the same as working shoulder to shoulder every day. It’s not a trade Brad would have made willingly.
Now Nate’s perched on the corner of his desk, eating a protein bar and drinking his coffee and talking about his new post.
“Guess I’m gonna have to ride up four extra floors to come bug you in the mornings.”
“Looks that way.”
“And we’re still taking the kayaks out. Don’t think I’m forgetting about it that easily.”
“You’ve been saying that going on a year now, Boss. I’m starting to think you’re pussy.”
Nate just grins into his coffee cup.
“Forgive me if I’m a little intimidated by your proficiency at everything, Colbert. I’m still not over the humbling experience of the gun range.”
Brad just raises an eyebrow, keeps his eyes on his screen.
“Intimidated by a man with no legs? Now that really is pussy, Boss.”
“Can’t claim no legs, Brad. Not when they go on for miles like that.”
Nate’s voice is teasing, soft, and it’s not the first comment he’s ever made that’s caused something weird and foreign to flutter in Brad’s stomach. It makes the back of his neck itch, makes the air feel too hot. It’s been happening more often lately, since the orders came through for Nate’s transfer, and he wishes to God Nate would cut it the fuck out.
He’s known all along that Nate is gay, knew his ex-boyfriend, even. Robert was Chief-of-Staff for some lady Representative from Delaware or New Hampshire or some other bullshit state; Brad thought he was a pretty nice guy, for a Communist. They broke up over a year ago, now, and Brad’s not stupid. He knows what Nate’s thinking, what he wants; can read it in Nate’s looks and actions as sure as if it came across his desk in memo form, and Brad knows if he had any balls at all he’d have made it clear months ago that he wasn’t interested instead of just pretending not to get it. Now, with the transfer and Brad no longer in Nate’s direct chain of command, the rules of the FBI’s fraternization policy just got a little fuzzier, and Brad’s afraid he’s running out of time. Nate is many things–careful, logical, ethical, too damn idealistic for his own good–but a coward he’s not. Sooner or later he’s gonna make his move, Brad knows this; he’s just hoping for later.
In a show of true commitment to the bit, I went way, WAY back into the archives for this.
Picture it, Spring 2009. A trusted friend (hi @misshoneywheeler !) comes to you, telling tales of a show you have never watched a single episode of. And of two men on said show, polar opposites at first glance, who have formed an unlikely friendship - one with deep homoerotic undertones, for those with eyes to see. And for a brief few weeks (maybe months? two at most), they capture your attention to such a degree that you start two different fics about them, neither of which will ever be finished. And so they remain, some 17 years later, Your Oldest WIP(s).
Can you guess the fandom and pairing? No you cant!
Because it's American Idol Season Eight, Kris Allen/Adam Lambert. I've been rpf'ing from the very beginning, kids!
I don't know at this point which of the two wips is technically older, so I'm posting a snippet from the one that takes place earliest, in real chronological time.
And if you actually care about reading this, god bless, and here you go.
They’re sitting on Kris’s bed with no lights on, just the glow of the under-mirror lights through the open bathroom door. They do this almost every night, now: sit up together, singing stupid made up songs in improv’d two-part harmony at two a.m., telling stories and shooting the shit, doing their best to diffuse the pressure that’s building day by day, week by week, while they’re working their asses off and singing for their lives and making it through, and making it through, and making it through again.
Adam is giggling over something Kris said, and it’s that stupid, exhausted, sleep-deprived giggle that comes over him sometimes when Kris least expects it. The sound is innocent and childlike, unguarded, and for all that Adam is always unapologetically himself, he’s got plenty of reason to keep his guard up these days, and Kris loves it when he can make Adam giggle like that, make him lower his shields for just a little while.
He feels grateful, that he gets a front row seat to both sides: Adam in full armor, hair and makeup and attitude all screaming for attention, commanding the spotlight, glittering under the lights. Then Adam at home, freckle-faced and wet-haired, soft-spoken and funny and surprisingly sweet, vulnerable even.
Adam collapses back onto the bed, still giggling, still shaking and wiping the tears out of his eyes, and his hand is warm on Kris’ back, and Kris is smiling down at his guitar.
“Oh my god,” he says over a gasp. “That’s seriously so fucking funny.”
“Yeah. Maybe not as funny as you think, but funny.”
Kris braces, grins when he gets slugged in the shoulder like he knew he would.
“Trust me, Kristopher, it was that funny.”
Kris shifts a little on the bed, turns so he can see Adam’s face, shakes his head and rolls his eyes.
“If you say so, dude.”
“I say so. Dude.”
They’re quiet, Adam’s breath still coming out in uneven gusts, letting out little peals of laughter every few seconds until the fit finally passes and he sighs.
“God, I could sleep right here. I’m so fucking tired, my bed might as well be a fucking mile away.”
He’s staring vacantly at the ceiling when he says it; Kris can just make out his profile in the dark. And Kris knows he should probably slug Adam, should shove him and tell him to move, offer to sleep in Adam’s bed instead, just–something.
Probably, that’s what Adam is expecting, but then again, maybe not. So instead Kris just props his guitar against the nightstand and lays down, too.
“A mile is a long way.” Is all he says. Adam makes a low noise under his breath, something indistinguishable that says he agrees.
“A really long way.”
In the morning when Kris wakes up Adam is warm next to him, not even touching him, just radiating, and Kris feels calmer than he has in weeks. He knows by the way Adam’s mouth is turned up at the corner, pale face soft and relaxed in sleep, this won’t be the last time.
WIP Week is a week dedicated to updating fanfic or other types of fanworks. All fandoms are welcome to participate. Original works are also accepted. Please tag your entries with the #wipweek or #wip week tag. Since multiple fandoms and ships are participating, please clearly list the fandoms, ships, and content warnings in the post so that they can be properly tagged for any potential readers.
The second WIP Week of 2026 will be held June 21-27.
Each day will have a theme, but you do not have to post every day. You are also not obligated to follow these themes. You can work on one fic or fanwork for the entire week if you choose. If you’re not comfortable posting full updates but still want to participate in the week, you can post your daily word count and/or a small snippet from your work. The use of AI is prohibited.
Here are the prompts for WIP Week:
June 21: Your Oldest WIP
June 22: A WIP From Your Smallest Fandom
June 23: Your WIP Closest To Completion
June 24: Your Favorite WIP
June 25: A WIP From Your Largest Fandom
June 26: Your Newest WIP
June 27: Any WIP
You can post completed/updated fanworks to the official WIP Week AO3 Collection!
This seems fun, for those of us who love to start more things than we will ever be able to finish.
I'm going to try to remember to do it every day this week! Maybe you should, too @astronomical-light @alethialia @demotu @linskywords @ln-shame @love-leah @patrebka @sofrancescasocleanclean
And everyone, really. But only if you want, of course.
hi, i know you must get messages like this a lot so please no pressure to reply. i wanted to say that you are absolutely a fantastic writer, you are so talented, where do i even begin? for sure you're one of the best writers i've read on ao3, the precision of your characterization and the plot development and the emotional depth of your stories, all just reflect a type of literary maturity that is so inherently rare. thank you so much, really, for writing so many amazing fics and sharing them with the world!
i am curious about how you became the (awesome) writer you are today. it amazes me how you have the tenacity to write such long novel length stories with persistent care. like, it feels as if by the time you started posting fics -- like Way Past Time in 2017, for real? -- you were already so sophisticated and mature as a writer. do you write full time? is there a place to read your original work, if you have any? do you have a particular process of writing, or maybe the answer is simply just that you're exceptionally talented (no process needed)? oh man, i'm sorry for bombarding you with questions. if you have anything at all you'd like to share/recommend (books, fic, movies, tv, except generation kill i guess because i am on it already), please do, i will be fascinated!
thank you again!
My darling anon, I most certainly do NOT get messages like this all the time, and honestly it's so nice I don't really know what to say except thank you, I guess? I always struggle a little with how to respond to asks like this but also I don't ever want people to think I don't appreciate them because I DO, so much. And I want to reply and say that, but also I kind of want to hide behind my hands. And a lot of times that's exactly what I do, but then I end up feeling bad for not thanking people who say such lovely things to me, and so on. You get it.
But today I am being so strong, and so resolute in my will to reply and answer you very kind questions! Even though the truth is, I don't think I have any special insights or anything. I think whatever maturity I may possess just comes from being older than dirt and writing fan fiction for more than two decades. It's true my first hockey fic was in 2017 but I've been writing for way way longer than that. I don't do it full time ( I wish!) and I don't have anything published anywhere other than ao3 (which includes older work I moved over from LiveJournal). But if you really want to chat about process and get into the weeds and stuff, I'm always happy to chat! Feel free to DM me and I would love a chance to yap about that, or your journey with Generation Kill (exciting!), or anything else you may be curious about.
And thank you again for saying such nice things to me! Cherish you!
They get the gate code, the garage door opener, the combination to the front door lock, and the number to call or text if they need anything else—anything at all.
“We should be all set,” Travis insists, “this is all great, thanks so much.”
When he finally closes the door behind them, leans back against it with a long, relieved sigh, Pat just shakes his head and laughs.
“Gonna make it, bud?”
“Think maybe I shouldn’t have had that last drink,” is all Travis will allow, no matter how high Pat raises that no shit eyebrow of his.
A bell dings through the house, when the main gate out at the road opens and closes.
“That’s it,” Travis grins, peels his shirt off and flings it at Pat as he heads for the back doors. “They’re finally gone.”
His socks and shoes are next to go, kicked off next to the sofa, then his pants and underwear, which get left in a heap on top of them.
“Just you and me now, bud,” he says, backing out onto the patio while Pat leans against the kitchen island, still fully dressed and shaking his head at Travis like he’s crazy. “Catch you out there—don’t keep me waiting.”
Then he turns around and walks, naked as the day he was born, across the patio and down the gentle incline into the perfectly-warm pool.
“You remember, right,” Pat calls after him, voice amused, “about the external security cameras on the property? They put it in all caps in the info email? And the dude mentioned them on the tour—twice!”
Travis doesn’t pay him any mind, just calls back over his shoulder, “hope they like the view!”
Then he dives under the water and glides there, weightless and breathless, until his lungs burn.
He turns onto his back once he surfaces, floats there in the slanted rays of the late afternoon sun, feeling just a little dizzy, a little spinny, but not in a bad way. He drifts into the shadow of one of the umbrellas at the side of the pool, opens his eyes to stare up clouds drifting slowly across the wide expanse of sun-bleached blue, watches a wide-winged bird dipping and swooping overhead.
He stays there until he hears the slapping of Pat’s slides shuffling along the concrete pool deck, opens his eyes to see Pat standing just above him, wrapped in a fluffy white robe, dark glasses and a cap, and sunscreen in hand.
“If we’re going bare-assed all week, get ready to spend a lot of time helping me with this.” He shakes the bottle of sunscreen at Travis, like that’s some kind of warning.
“Patty, baby,” he grins up at Pat, who still pretends to hate it when Travis calls him that, even though Travis knows he really doesn’t, “don’t threaten me with a good time.”
First peek at Living Things for 2026. And we're back in TK's head, at last.
Happy wip wednesday!
For years, Travis was always one of the last to finish up after games, always one of the final stragglers left in the room. He’d be hanging out, shooting the shit and cutting up with the boys, fucking around instead of getting a move on, never worried about the time. When he was really young, it was just because it was fun, the novelty of just being in an NHL locker room still a shiny new thrill, and he definitely had nowhere better to be, so why rush to leave?
As he got older, he’d thought—if he thought about it at all—that it was all about team building, leadership, about the importance of making sure the boys saw that the guys who wore the letters were always around, always available, putting in the work. Always willing to be first in and last out.
It used to piss Karly off, more and more as the years went on. It led to endless fights and accusations, ranging from his oblivious lack of awareness of anyone else’s time but his own, to blatant selfishness and shirking of his responsibility as a husband and a father. And as much as Travis hates to admit it, he can see now, there was probably some truth to that.
But what he can also see now, looking back with benefit of time and age and the perspective that comes with it, is how he was really just riding the wave, holding on to that lingering adrenaline buzz as long as he could before he had to try and switch it all off. The truth is, he just never managed to learn how to make the transition as seamlessly as some others seemed to, never figured out how to magically turn down the feral aggression and single-minded focus of hockey mode, to close that door and dial up his docile, family-man side all in the space of the drive home.
But that was then.
At this point in his career—in his life—his only priority once the work is done is just wrapping things up and getting gone. Part of it is being older, he knows; the fact is he’s just more worn out at the end of a long game than he used to be. And part of it is being 20 years in, of understanding by now that leadership comes in lots of different forms, that even though he’s wearing an A again this season, it’s okay to let the younger guys do the heavy lifting, okay to just lean into his role as the wise old veteran that every locker room needs.
But of course, the biggest part of it is what—and more specifically who—he goes home to, these days.
Because these days, he goes home to a house that is, for better or worse, usually devoid of children and all the energy, attention and accommodation they require.
And these days, he goes home to a partner who doesn’t need him to make that switch, who’s happy to take him however he comes, and knows exactly how to deal with him accordingly.
It’s been sort of shocking to Travis over the last year and a half, to realize just how much of a relief that last one is, and how much more eager it makes him to just get home at night.
obviously jason collins’ life was far more than just this singular article but for me personally, it was one of the first articles that i read about coming out and it’s still incredibly inspiring to me.
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