tumblr hq for the residents of narcos fandom discord. the server is 18+, friendly to english as a second language learners, and gay as hell. see pinned post for invite.
we are fans of the netflix tv series narcos and narcos: mexico, and we love to enable each other in fandom while becoming increasingly deranged hang out and have a good time 🤠 we are a small server, very gay, and proudly international, with members hailing from four different continents. we've been on one ever since january 2022, and the server is titled narcos fandom forever for a reason!
join us if you like talking about the netflix narcos shows. if you make narcos fanworks of any kind, including art, fic, vids, edits, or gifs, that is just a bonus. everyone is welcome and we're happy to have you. rule #1 is that you gotta have fun. #2, don't be a jerk. #3, be 18+ years old to join. that's pretty much it. we are english as a second language friendly, gay friendly, and exceedingly full of memes. click here to join.
every saturday we have an event on the discord at 4pm eastern, attendance totally optional. usually we do a watchalong of a couple narcos episodes or a writer's circle to provide constructive criticism and encouragement to our narcos fanfic writers. sometimes we play a group writing game or do another thing, it all depends. current schedule below, subject to change.
october 7: watchalong of narcos season 3 episodes 9 & 10
october 14: narcos fanfic writer's circle
past writing events include
the narcos october prompts of 2023, which was a prompt challenge open to all kinds of fanworks including fic, art, vids, gifs, and more! to enjoy our creations, so check out the first masterlist, the second masterlist, and the third masterlist.
the july 2023 narcos fandom smut alphabet, a fanfic prompt event that yielded fifty-eight—fifty-eight!— fics that you can read here.
the fall 2022 narcos fanfiction gift exchange, whose fics you can read here.
Aaaaaaaaa we've got more!! Hyperfixations going fucking crazy mode @narcosfandomdiscord so we have another fic (number 14 <3)
Prompt #14, Book Of Decisions, Decisions, Decisions... Crossover for 2(+) fandoms you have used before but 2(+) characters you’ve never used or vice versa
The two fandoms used before: TLOU & The Day Of The Jackal
The two characters never used before: David & Bianca Pullman
Warnings: Gun violence, character death, vaguely going through the David Incident At Silver Lake
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
Screaming, screaming, screaming!
It’s all Bianca hears.
She doesn’t even know why she’s here. First, off to London, then, switch to Tallinn, then, leave Vincent over there and drag her to fucking America for some anonymous case?! Someone remotely connected to The Jackal? In America?
Are her team just idiots, all along? Do they really distrust her that much? She doesn’t understand how she got here, and why she even complied. Hidden in the snow, as she hears screams of bloody murder.
She doesn’t even know who she’s looking for, and Bianca Pullman cares about sources, reliability. She hears the people screaming in some barnhouse, fighting it out, yelling at the top of her lungs.
“I’ll kill you for what you did, I’ll kill you!” She hears first from a man, and her instincts tell her that she’ll maim the other.
Until she hears exactly who the other is.
A stranger, of course, everyone is a stranger to her in America. Silver Lake, fucking hell, she wants to leave and not just stay here, holding her fucking fire.
But she sounds… Far too vulnerable. Far too young. Like she’s only trying to survive, like she’s the one in danger, and the man is actually insane.
She watches as they bicker, the girl’s holding a knife, ready to attack, and he’s towering over her.
The girl looks no older than fifteen. And the man, so much older… Bianca is not affected by much, but there’s something about it that makes her stomach turn into knots.
One thing leads to another and a fire sets ablaze, taking everything down with it in haste. That’s when Bianca draws closer to the scene, after all, she’s not a sniper.
And the world feels like it’s thrown into disarray, complete chaos as she sticks to the entrance of the barnhouse, and the screaming is getting louder, and the MI6 agent just has to wait.
Waiting, waiting, waiting–
The girl lunges for her knife, dropped in a tussle, and she’s fully prepared to kill, some savage and survivalist instinct rising inside of her.
BANG!
And the man, only known to her as a dead body, falls to the ground.
The girl screams some more and drops the knife, racing for the exit. She runs straight past Bianca, doesn’t even notice her, and instead, runs towards a different man.
This other man, rugged and wounded himself, scoops the little girl up into his arms. “It’s me, it’s me!” He’s soothing as she thrashes, “It’s me, Ellie, it’s Joel–”
Ellie and Joel. She locks the names into her mind and lets out a quiet sigh.
“I didn’t–” Ellie sobs, gesturing to her face, covered with the blood that spurted from Bianca’s shot, “I didn’t even do anything, I was about to, and I wanted to, and it’s–”
He carefully withdraws from their embrace and lowers her to the ground, squeezing her hand. He looks up and sees a figure, lurking by the barnhouse door.
“Get the fuck away.” Joel tells the woman.
Bianca shakes her head.
“I’ll kill you, I swear.” He repeats, voice level. Ellie lets out erratic breaths, shivering behind his leg. “If you take one more step towards her, towards us–”
“Bianca Pullman. MI6.” She says quietly, “I took the shot. Your ‘babygirl’ just had to suffer a little… Why was she even here? Did you even see how dangerous that motherfucker was?”
“Yeah.” Ellie whispers, not daring to touch her face where the blood has stained her, “Yeah. He tried to do unspeakable things to me, lady– Bianca. So don’t even try anything. He took me against my own will.”
Joel outstretches a hand for her to take, and the little girl doesn’t hesitate to reach for it, squeezing tight.
“Why the fuck are you here?” The man rubs a hand over his face. “MI6… Isn’t that a British thing? The hell did they send you here for?”
“Don’t even ask.” Bianca blinks, pocketing her gun. “Just be grateful I saved your fucking lives.”
She treks out through the snow, supposedly following some directions she’s been given. The MI6 will protect her, she has people, contacts, back in London. They make sure that she’s safe from any given operation.
But, Joel reminds himself, as he squeezes Ellie’s hand again, and as they walk in the opposite direction to Bianca. We’re not like that… We’re different, and all we have is each other.
So not only are you responsible for my imminent rewatch of Ted Lasso, but you've officially put Day of the Jackal on my to-watch list i'm just waiting for the full season to come out so I can binge bc Bianca Pullman sounds like a relentless character and i'm so here for it also i will watch Lashana Lynch in anything, my beloved. Like even having not seen the show, I know a lot about her immediately based on -> Are her team just idiots, all along? and -> She doesn’t even know who she’s looking for, and Bianca Pullman cares about sources, reliability, and -> She hears first from a man, and her instincts tell her that she’ll maim the other. Until she hears exactly who the other is.
Like this woman is r e l e n t less and sounds lethal asf just based on the -> BANG! And the man, only known to her as a dead body, falls to the ground. which is my kryptonite without fail bc you know i live for a woman who will step on you (and sometimes over your dead body) for free. Also love the element of constant surveillance Bianca's doing -> Ellie and Joel. She locks the names into her mind and lets out a quiet sigh. Like again, tells me so much about who she is and how she thinks which is so helpful for me, as a reader who isn't familiar with the fandom.
I also love that there's no explanation for why she's there, like that ambiguity is what makes this work. I like that you just executed without thinking too much about the details and it made for such a rich little scene in vibes and visuals and characterization bc I would've spent ages agonizing over how to put these characters together from these two diff fandoms, never finding a satisfactory way to do it and then not writing or publishing a word SKFSKJSKJ bc that is my curse. Thankfully for all of us tuning into this event, you are not afflicted by this curse skfks
I swear I love this show in ALL WAYS and for its OTHER CHARACTERS (I say as I've only just got past Season 1) BUT... When they're the ones, they're the ones, y'know?
So they're back, and will be back for more, as already promised @narcosfandomdiscord (Fic number 13)
Prompt #6, Book Of These Damn Restraints: Fanwork that ends with 2(+) characters trapped in a phone booth with no way out
There’s only one time that Ted uses a phone booth, at least, one time that sticks out in recent memory.
He stupidly leaves his phone in his office, and, of course, Beard texts him multiple times from home, to no response…
Something’s wrong. Ted is probably in an accident, or he’s too overwhelmed. Maybe he’s dead. Yes, that might be the case with the whole thing that they do: Stretching the truth with each other.
But, there are two instincts in the manager’s head: One, to run all the way to the office, or two, to call someone via… One of those red boxes.
He was planning to call Michelle and Henry today, too, but, on second thought, his first message should be to Beard. Because Ted already knows that he’s worried sick for him, and they’re basically synchronised on the friendship front.
He reaches the nearest phone booth to him, right by the Crown and Anchor, and closes the door behind him. If he isn’t carrying his phone, then he’s always carrying money with him, which is perfect.
Phew. Ted can actually breathe a second. And how nice is that…
He slips a bit of loose change into the machine, dialling for Beard’s ‘home’ number. He has to scratch at his head a bit before he figures it out, and he breathes out another long and slow breath.
“Who is this?” Beard asks, and once he hears Ted’s pant of a laugh, he knows, “Coach? You found your phone?”
“I didn’t. I mean, I know where it is, I left it in my office, in such a rush today.” The manager finds himself leaning against the glass of the phone booth, cool in comparison to the surprisingly warmer weather. “But… I’ll head back to work tomorrow, remember to pick it up, it’ll be good as new.”
The other coach nods on his head and sighs quietly, “Good, Coach. I just had to know. Oh, yeah!” He adds, suddenly thinking about the circumstances, “Is the phone booth big? You reckon that you could fit more than one person in there?”
Ted begins clicking his tongue, finding that he can comfortably pace around the box, and that… On the opposite side of him, there’s another phone.
“I mean, these things do seem pretty great,” Ted hums, “I dunno how and why you’d get two people in here, confusing their words… But you definitely can do it.”
“Well,” Beard hums, “The more you know. Take care without a phone, it’s dangerous territory.”
“Oh, alright, ” He has to roll his eyes, only to look down and realise that this sort of thing has a time limit, a time limit! And he hasn’t got very long before he has to feed the phone some more loose change. “I’ll be fine without a phone, seriously. And this call is gonna end any minute now, so have a good afternoon, and night–”
And, there. It rings out before he can hear his friend’s reply, but… He got through the gist of what he wanted to say, and more. That’s the important thing.
He lets out a heavy breath as he watches the world around him. This box is fairly soundproof, so he notices. People walking, people talking, drinking, playing, on their phones… And the world feels so expansive, especially from this angle, this booth. It’s almost peaceful, and almost isolating.
Ted rubs a thumb over his moustache and considers calling Michelle. He’ll have to tell Henry that he can only talk with his voice today, no expressions, because he was a silly-billy and left his phone at work.
He starts fumbling with his loose change, mumbling to himself as he does, before the door swings open and he feels himself stiffen.
Well, that’s the biggest coincidence I’ve ever heard of! He thinks, letting the stranger set up for their call.
Except, the stranger is not even strange at all, worse than that, he’s not unknown to him.
Ted practically wants to collapse. With embarrassment, laughter, fear? He doesn’t know.
But the wisps of grey hair, his suit, his slender fingers…
“Trent Crimm, The Independent! ” He eventually chirps, biting down on his lip, “I can’t believe we’re in the same phone booth! Better yet, did you lose your phone too? Or forget it? How funny would that be, the both of us misplacin’ our phones–”
It’s not uncommon for Ted to ramble when he’s anxious, better yet, when he has nothing else to do… But he hasn’t done it in front of Trent before, and that’s a scary thing to take in, which makes him want to ramble more, and the cycle continues.
But the journalist simply shrugs and reaches out for the phone that’s hanging up, “Didn’t lose it, right in my pocket, Ted… But sometimes, there’s a certain need for anonymity. Otherwise, it’s just nice to be in a phone booth.”
The manager, for some godforsaken reason, decided to take that as, Otherwise, it’s just nice to be with you, in a phone booth, and he doesn’t quite know what to think anymore.
It’d be good to call Beard again, just to try and talk things out – At least, much better without the most stunning journalist, being here, talking casually and smoothly – And he could make sense of it all. The other Coach’s one-liners often do the trick.
If only he had his phone, poor thing, he’d text the Diamond Dogs and round them up for another dilemma.
Instead, he’s here, not exactly intent on leaving, and listening to him without a care in the world.
“Yes,” He’s saying, facing the Crown and Anchor, meaning that Ted only has his side-profile to– Admire. That’s the best word… “Yes, of course. Well, there’s that issue among others. I take it all very seriously. Who do you think I–” He suddenly clears his throat, as though to restrain himself from having a hissy fit, before he speaks again. “I will be keeping at it, as always. Thank you, bye now.”
And he hangs up the phone with a hum, something between relieved and satisfied, before he smiles at the coach. “Well, it’s good to see you again, Ted. That was a work call, I best be off now–” He gestures towards the door, but before he prepares to push it open, he swears he feels something brush near him, or touch his hand, or something–
Ah, yes, that’s right. Trent suddenly thinks, raising a careful eyebrow at Ted, who has now shifted in a way that’s almost blocking the exit, Ted Lasso.
“If you’re wanting a special phone booth interview… Then no can do, Ted. I really have to go now.”
“I just wanted to say that it’s good to see you, Trent. You know, without some sort of journalist mask on.” The manager says quietly, but his gaze is fierce. Perhaps it’s fiercer than he meant it to be, but that’s the way it is.
He’s always enjoyed Trent’s company, every second, for the laughs, the expressions, the insights that he feels he can’t acquire from anyone else… And then there’s a thousand other little vibes and intricacies that he feels. Teasing, and warmth, even in his sternest or most upright moments.
He feels as though he should let him go, but a part of him is still swirling: After the divorce, after leaving Michelle and Henry… Just thinking about calling them, and now?
And now…
Ted averts his gaze to the ground before looking back up at the journalist. All he can manage to say is, “And we haven’t been this close before. I kinda like it.”
Close is right.
Whether that’s physically close or emotionally close, Trent isn’t absolutely certain, but it’s the fact he can feel Ted’s breath every now and then, and stare back into his eyes… Wide, vulnerable, almost, and he’s unsure of why.
Nothing about the team is going wrong, and unless there’s some personal dilemma that Trent Crimm, The fucking Independent , is struggling to figure out, then–
“Screw that previous thought,” Ted murmurs, as though coming to a realisation himself, “It’s not ‘kinda’, Trent, it’s ‘really’. It’s ‘really enjoyed spending this time’ with you ‘really’ and so much more.” He sighs and crosses over his arms, “You’re like a breath of fresh air, you know that? And I just can’t help…”
Trent manages a small smile, followed by a breathless chuckle, “You can’t help it? How we work together? Or something else?”
“All of the above, I guess. It’s not something I can really pinpoint… But it’s strong. And it’s, well, pretty big, goddammit, and it’s always around you.”
There’s something that the journalist didn’t expect to hear. The last thing he wants to do is run or hide. Instead, he shudders for breath and places a hand on Ted’s shoulder.
“I have to admit, Ted… There’s definitely a connection here. We gel a lot more than I thought we would… And I don’t think I can deny it, either.”
The manager exhales and grins up at Trent, gesturing to him with a hand, “Well, isn’t that… Isn’t that something else?” He’s practically telling it to himself, trying to solidify it all in his head.
Trent’s here, and he’s holding him at his shoulder, and he’s kind, gorgeous, intelligent and patient, and he’s here–
And suddenly, the strongest impulse tugs at him, tugging, tugging down hard on his heartstrings, and he leans forward, closer to the journalist until he brushes his lips against Trent’s. Featherlight, gentle, faint.
And he doesn’t just stand there, dumbstruck or angry. He kisses back, just for a moment, the slightest moment!
Oh.
Oh.
But it ends all too soon.
“Ted,” Trent’s eyes are wide, face slightly flushed, and Ted’s expression only mirrors his own, “I don’t think it’s the best idea to–”
“Try this out? I-I get it, I’m sorry. God, I shouldn’t have been so hasty, so impulsive! ”
To be completely honest with himself, the manager doesn’t even know what’s unfolding, why it’s happening. If he just kept to himself, didn’t let his thoughts linger and turn wayward, everything would’ve been fine.
The journalist wouldn’t have flat-out rejected him, like right now, but a loud sigh brings him back to reality.
“Hey… I wasn’t aiming for any push back, Ted.” He presses, yet not unkindly, “Instead, I was going to say that we should head back to your flat, see how we feel. Impulsivity, haste, and all. A phone booth isn’t an ideal place to, well, you know.”
“Kiss a journalist I’ve been mentally pining for, for… However long now.”
“Yeah,” Trent says softly, as though it’s a miracle to be appreciated, let alone, being in Ted’s thoughts for so long. “That.” He steps back and gestures for the other to take his place. “After you.”
The manager lets out a quiet hum, glancing up to see the sky darkening.
Yes, He thinks to himself, God, yes… What a beautiful time to walk back, Trent by my side, moonlight all around us… And then I’ll kiss him again, see how it goes, for real this time–
And he shoves at the phone booth door.
It doesn’t budge.
Ted and Trent exchange a glance, and it’s now the journalist’s turn to have a crack at it. He pushes the door, more refined, trying to work with the handle’s mechanisms, but… Something’s probably clicked shut amidst one of their phone calls, or when they were expressing this… Intention of theirs.
“We’re in a phone booth,” The journalist says calmly, stretching on the spot, “Well, good news. We can call for help. Who should we call, though? I’ll think of someone–”
As Trent moves back over to where the phones are, all Ted does is tug at his suit sleeve. He pivots to face the coach, who’s grinning at him.
“ What? ” He asks, practically pouting now.
“I mean, now that we know that we’re stuck here… Help will always be on hand. How does take two sound?”
“Mm,” The journalist hums thoughtfully, a small smile playing at his lips, “Oh, alright, then, what the hell–”
And Ted cuts him off completely, their lips well and truly intertwining this time.
In fact, the phone booth is almost their saving grace as they’re silhouetted and carefree, about distance, about the tastes of their lips, and all other things.
And it’s their saving grace, too, for this wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t here, trapped in space, in time, and without a better course of action than to kiss each other again, and again, and again.
Ted’s uncertain feeling only grows, and pinpointing it is still a difficult task.
Nevertheless, when the pair decide to give up for the night and relish in the quiet, they slink against the floor.
Ted finds his head snuggled up to Trent’s shoulder, and when he realises it’s there, if only subconsciously, he doesn’t move away, or freak out, or suddenly consider someone finding them here, like this.
None of that matters, not here, not now, and all is well.
YAAASSS MORE TEDCRIMM TEDEPENDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could dine off the vibes of these two for the rest of my days and be perfectly content. Again, it's not a ship i ever would've sought out fic for myself, but you can now consider me part of this cult skskskks I fucking lvoe them and I'm presently rejoicing that you've picked them for this prompt bc it is SO THEMMMSK like as a pair, they just so epitomize trapped-in-the-phone-booth hijinks and it doesn't hurt that in the show, there's a visible phone booth so we don't even have to suspend our disbelief bc we know exactly which one it is
Squealed that we got a little bit of Beard too he's my fav character from TL but the fact that he's the one who draws attention to the size of the phone booth -> “Is the phone booth big? You reckon that you could fit more than one person in there?” is so fuckignskdfjs random but simultaneously is the m o s t Beard thing to do precisely bc of that randomness SKSK
and ughhh i know i sound liek a broken record bc i say this every time but it's just the truth, your Ted is so perfect, every bit of dialogue is like it could be ripped straight from the show like his little bit of nervous rambling when Ted gets in the booth -> “I can’t believe we’re in the same phone booth! Better yet, did you lose your phone too? Or forget it? How funny would that be, the both of us misplacin’ our phones–” PEAK TED. Loved the explanation for Trent using the phone booth too, like trying to maintain journalistic anonymity is something i don't think i ever would've thought of but makes all the sense.
ALSO idk how in tf i forgot about The Diamond Dogs just another reminder that i really need to rewatch TL, oh the agony sksk such a trial I will have to endure sksk rewatching a show i love but this little shoutout -> If only he had his phone, poor thing, he’d text the Diamond Dogs and round them up for another dilemma, was JUST TOO RIGHT AND SOOOOOOO PERFECT. I also loved this -> He’s always enjoyed Trent’s company, every second, for the laughs, the expressions, the insights that he feels he can’t acquire from anyone else… little bit bc it's not an entirely cracked ship, Ted and Trent, but it's one you might have to squint a little
to see, like an impressionist painting. But this grounds the ship in canon in such a real way bc regardless of whether or not you ship them, this still holds true. In Ted's repertoire of friends and confidantes and ppl he's close with, Trent is entirely unique and irreplaceable precisely bc of his occupation and how he and Ted relate to one another.
UGHHGHHFS KSLANND THEN THISSSSS -> And suddenly, the strongest impulse tugs at him, tugging, tugging down hard on his heartstrings, and he leans forward, closer to the journalist until he brushes his lips against Trent’s. Featherlight, gentle, faint. Like again, you have Ted so downnnnnnnn when it comes to his mannerisms and speech patterns, like it's the endearing awkwardness and vulnerability but like lack of self-consciousness that he has, like he could so easily slip into a caricature and you never do that and im truly just liivvvvviiiiingggggg for it!!!! also, the way my heart dropped when it seemed like Trent was gonna reject him at first, and then it turns out he's totally dtf or makeout or snuggle or whatever but just not in the phone booth skdfjsk felt very on brand for Trent not to sweat the romance but to care about the logistics sksk
I'm back on the Narcovember grind! (Mayyybeee...) Fic number 12 @narcosfandomdiscord
As the current hyperfixation is Ted Lasso, buckle up! They're gonna be everywhere >:D
Prompt #23, Book Of Just Chaos™: Fanwork with a cracked crossover/ship with characters from two very different genres
The main crossover in question is: Dani Rojas (Ted Lasso) & Mika Camarena! (+ other Narcos: Mexico and Ted Lasso characters)
Word Count: 1.9K
Relationships: Kiki Camarena/Mika Camarena, Mika Camarena & Dani Rojas
Warnings: None in terms of content, but just ignore the vastly different time periods of the shows... Let's just pretend that they co-exist, ok? Ok.
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
Mika walks through the streets of Guadalajara, mostly when she knows that Kiki’s out, and won’t be back for a while.
She gets it, maybe not as entirely as she thinks, but she gets it. This job is important to him, and her husband’s always wanted to do good. For the family, for the world, or at least a portion of that world: Mexico.
But sometimes, no, actually, most of the time, she believes it’s too much. She tells him, late at night, how dangerous things feel. How he just needs to have some time off, to recalibrate… To focus on the good things in life.
He zones out at the barbecues hosted, sitting back with his drink and watching his companions revel about trivial things, their wives joining in on occasion.
But there’s no victory. Not when they’re falling so far behind. When the drug lords of the world are only rising up the ladders, and they’re… Revelling. Socialising. Over nothing.
She needs to get him out of here. Even if it means they might not come back… For a week, or two, or three– Hell, a holiday! DEA agents work so hard, of course they’re gonna need one!
The afternoon sun bears down on Mika as she finds spaces of green, families in parks, many enjoying picnics or popsicles.
But one particular green space catches her eye, barred off by a green wiry fence. There’s a door to this area, how else would all the boys get inside? But she’ll watch from her distance.
She listens, keenly, to the mix of English and Spanish in the air. Young boys, lined up in jerseys and sport shirts. Black and white balls at their feet…
A practice enclosure. A field. A training ground.
Maybe they’ll go to a football game, Kiki and Mika, and do something else for a day… But a single day off? It’s nothing. It’s about as good as one of those barbecues, and off they all go, into regular life again.
However, she won’t give up hope so easily.
One young man gets pulled aside by the coach, and the coach speaks harshly to him in a flurry of Spanish. The young boy should probably be crumbling at the severity, but instead, he’s steeling himself, waiting patiently, properly–
There’s her ticket. There’s his ticket.
“ You’re no longer good enough for El Tigre. Only because you’re better. Tomorrow, off to Richmond. You play the big game, Dani. ”
The boy’s eyes, Dani’s, widen in an instant. He first salutes his coach, before jumping up and down, shaking his hand. “ Gracias, Coach! ¡Muchas gracias! ”
And it’s like the world has fallen into his hands. Like Guadalajara is now too much for him, perhaps too small for him… And this Dani fellow might not even fit into London very well, and he might come running back to the safety, the familiarity of El Tigre.
Mika knows it’s no good to eavesdrop, to watch from the side, but then she remembers that Kiki does this every day. Around drug lords. And this? It’s a community football team, who is she kidding?!
“Hey, you!” She calls out to the young boy, “Dani, isn’t it?!”
“ Sí! ” He responds, his dark brown hair jumping up and down with him, “That’s me, Dani Rojas. Do you support the team?” He gestures back to his teammates, hell, they’re his friends. And he’ll miss them.
Mika waves a so-so hand and sighs, “Look, I’m sorry if this seems weird, or rude, or something, but… My husband and I needed a getaway from Guadalajara. He’s not very keen on a holiday, but I am, so… Why don’t we join you in Richmond?”
Dani’s foot taps against the ground, likely mulling it all over… Which is fair enough. A random woman, approaching him, basically trying to follow him to where he goes– It’s almost stalker-y, if Mika was the last thing from a stalker, and Kiki actually… Kinda stalked for his occupation.
The smile on his face is like a ray of sun itself, bursting with life on her face. “Coach told me the flight’s for 9 o’clock tomorrow! Ooh, it’s going to be a long day, my friend!”
She nods and brushes back a strand of her hair. This is our ticket.
“You seem like a lot of fun, Dani.” She shrugs, “Call me Mika.”
***
Kiki Camarena arrives home late that night.
Not that Mika Camarena has any objections this time around.
All the lights are on, bags are strewn on the floor, clothes everywhere– It’s like Mika’s pretending to be him when he packs for a long stakeout.
And it’s confusing, because he hasn’t been assigned to any long stakeouts, and hasn’t had the guts to try again after last time… He’s been complacent (somewhat) working with the information that they have, sticking with the group, no crazy travel destinations!
So why does this feel like he’s going to a crazy travel destination? And, if it’s related to anything with the DEA, why does his wife know first?
“Hey, honey?” Kiki begins, knocking gently on their bedroom door, “Do you mind telling me what this is?”
Mika laughs and looks up from her pile of clothes, her expression surprisingly bright. “Yeah, Kiki. We’re goin’ on a holiday tomorrow.”
“A holiday?!” He immediately exclaims, furrowing his brows, “Mika, we’re here in Guadalajara, we don’t have time for a–”
“Holiday.” She finishes, “Yes, we do. I’ve talked to Jaime, he’s given you time off. You’ll be back on the job the minute we get back, ok?”
“Fine.” He resigns, gesturing to all the clothes, “So, where are we going? And when’s our flight?”
“9 o’clock tomorrow morning, and we’re off to Richmond. It’ll be fun!”
London, of all places? Why? What’s going on? What surprises are there?!
“Help me out here, and do yourself a favour, sweetheart. Prepare for jet lag.”
***
“When’s the new player, what’s-his-name–”
“Dani.” Both Nate and Beard say in unison.
“Yeah, him…” Ted sighs, rubbing his hands over his eyes, “When’s he comin’ in?”
“Should be sooner or later. He’s from Mexico, remember?” Beard reminds, “But we should cut him some slack.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” The manager stretches, looking out onto the pitch. It all reminds him of Sam, his homesickness, and his struggle for a few days. It’s not going to be fair to him to force him to play his best.
After all, they need to figure out who Dani Rojas is, as a player and a man. It’s Ted's approach, after all: Find out one’s skills, one’s weaknesses, one’s personality… And slowly let them click into place. And whoever they click with? Well, it’s not his choice.
As long as they fit in somewhere, the team can work with that.
Little do they know what sort of storm is coming.
***
Dani, Kiki and Mika step off the plane, and they each consult each other for directions, until they find taxis.
And now, they’re on their way to Richmond AFC.
It turns out that Dani Rojas, not unlike his new coach, Ted Lasso, talked for the majority of the flight. He didn’t seem entertained by any of the movies, games, and so on in front of him… Instead, he was enthralled by the idea of going to Richmond, of pouring himself and his life out onto Kiki and Mika.
Mika did most of the talking in return, especially with her husband and his job. It’s because of that that he holds suspicions about everybody.
Even this young footballer, fresh off a team in their area, and the sort of guy who’s filled the most loving personality.
He repeats his mantra several times over to his newfound friends: “Football is life, right?! Oh, you’ll see… Football is life. ”
Kiki tries to smile in the taxi, watching the world pass them by. A new place, new temporary accommodation, but his mind simply itches with bigger and better things: The drugs, the routes, the kingpins at the head of the game.
He can’t switch off. At least, not for long.
It helps to watch the young man, at times, seeing how he’s humming things to himself in Spanish… Mika clearly knew what to do, to make a strong connection with this guy, and something that would interest him enough to think about anything but the drugs.
Maybe a part of that plan was working.
They step out at Richmond AFC and Dani races through the front door of the club, surrounded by grey, blue and red. New colours, new themes, new surroundings… And he’s anything but fazed.
And out the back door? That’s his ticket. The sun shining down on the gloriously green pitch, marked up in white.
“Come on, amigos! ” He calls out to Kiki and Mika, “Let’s play!”
The pair follow after Dani, sharing a small chuckle at that. The last thing they’ll be doing is playing, instead, just observing. Being completely honest with themselves, they would have rather headed to their accommodation first– But things are sorted out there, apparently.
Besides, they’re here to support their new friend.
And, in doing so, they end up beside the manager himself, Ted Lasso.
He turns to face the newcomers with a bright smile, “Oh, hey!” He waves, “I’m only assuming you came with Dani?”
“Yeah!” Mika smiles back, encouraged by the man’s initial reaction, “I’m Mika and this is Kiki. We’re friends of Dani’s.”
“Well, ‘friends’ is one way to describe it.” Kiki chips in with a small frown, “It’s a long story.”
“Perfect.” Ted says. Right off the bat, a long story connecting these two and Dani? Of course, he’s ready. “You can tell me everything, more than happy to hear it. I’m Ted, by the way, Ted Lasso.”
From there, the woman dives into the details, with Kiki adding his own sentiments every now and then, a few sparing details about his job, because this man… Mika seems to trust him.
And sometimes, that’s all he can believe: His own wife’s emotion and intuition.
“Now we’re here. All because of Dani.” The DEA agent finishes, turning back to face the pitch, “Hold on… How is he not jetlagged as hell?! And he’s–”
Really good. Is what he was going to say, and the three of them watch the young player circle around the other Richmond players, scoring a smooth and impressive goal in quick time.
“Ooh, boy… He’s like a goshdarn puppy, that one!” Ted laughs, unable to help it. “Look, you two, you enjoy your time here. Rest is one of the best things you can get, Kiki, alright?” He pauses for a moment, but not enough to let anyone interject, “Hey, and if you need anythin’, just give me a holler, you got it? I’ve been here for a few months now, I’m not perfect, but– You’re two fellow Americans in London, so, we’re all in the same boat.”
Kiki considers his words and sighs quietly. Rest is one of the best things you can get…
He realises, only just then, how much his body’s been aching, how much his eyes struggle to stay awake, how the constant frustration and anger is only added to this amalgamation of things.
God, he needs some rest.
The minute that the pair walk away from the football scene, the man finds himself leaning his head against Mika’s shoulder, and she presses a kiss to his head.
“Exhausted, aren’t you?”
“Yeah…” Kiki replies slowly.
“Well,” Mika simply laughs, “I’m glad that Ted Lasso got to you. ‘Cause it’s about damn time.”
FIRSTOFFFFFF UMM???????? INSPIRED PAIRING???? After the fuckery she had to deal with all throughout S1, Mika so deserves some of the lightness and breeziness of the TL universe and more than deserves a sweetbbangel bestest good friend like Dani Rojas. Inspired pairing, truly.
Not only do i adore this pairing bc it's absolutely in-line with the spirit of the prompt, but there is not nearly enough Mika-fic out there, so i am delighted at any opportunity to read anything with Mika. She's one of my favs, i feel like the creators of the show really learned from some of the writing missteps in OG Narcos Connie you deserved better!!! and it makes Mika really shine imho.
Now, for the tasteeeee little snippets. Cue my surprise when I thought this was gonna be full Ted Lasso cheer™️™️ not that TL doesn't have depth but it's decidedly more lighthearted than Narcos/Nmx for obvious reasons ksksks and you hit me with this -> But there’s no victory. Not when they’re falling so far behind. When the drug lords of the world are only rising up the ladders, and they’re… Revelling. Socialising. Over nothing, right btwn the EYESSSSS. But then you had be snort-laughing at this -> Mika knows it’s no good to eavesdrop, to watch from the side, but then she remembers that Kiki does this every day. Around drug lords. And this? It’s a community football team, who is she kidding?! bc i've never considered this but it is SO TRUE, Kiki is kinda lowkey a stalker for a pay skjskskfjsk all tailing ppl in his car or pretending to be a migrant worker to get bussed out to the middle of nowhere and pick weed, y'know, no big.
Also sorry but Mika just deciding they're going on vacation in the middle of his investigation is like so Mika, like it totally reminds me of that one scene where she's like "hurry we're gonna be late for Rita's barbecue" and Kiki's like "what barbecue" and then he like refuses to go and she just gives him this👇 look of like
and next thing you know he's sitting at the swimming pool with Jaime grilling ksdjfsk like Kiki's stubborn but when Mika's had it, she's fucking haaaaaad it.
And though I've come to expect it now, I can't take it for granted, I have no choice to marvel at the accuracy of your Ted Lasso characterization -> And slowly let them click into place. And whoever they click with? Well, it’s not his choice. Like, we have a saying here in the narcos fanfic writers discord community, that this man is, simply put, in👏🏽your👏🏽bones👏🏽. But you not only nail that, you also nail Kiki -> A new place, new temporary accommodation, but his mind simply itches with bigger and better things: The drugs, the routes, the kingpins at the head of the game, and -> “Well, ‘friends’ is one way to describe it.” Kiki chips in with a small frown, “It’s a long story,” what with the constant cynicism and preoccupation with all things work he puts Walt to shame sometimes tbh fsksks
BUT THEN THE END, Ted basically giving Kiki permission to acknowledge how exhausted he is, such an unexpected turn for the fic that i wasn't expecting but makes so much sense, like i really did just love the mix of Nmx angst with the hopefulness of TL. It's exactly one of the reasons why i loved this prompt, like you really just managed to marry all these aspects so unexpectedly yet seamlessly!
For the @narcosfandomdiscord's monthlong event, ft prompt #16 from Book of Locally Sourced:
Fanwork that mimics a bottle episode, so the entirety of it takes place in a relatively mundane setting
Warnings: Language, mild mortal peril, incredibly light angst, set during S3 (specifically ep2)
Word count: 5.7k
A/N: This feels so silly but I absolutely had to write something for these two. Vanfeistl you will never leave my brain. Posting this at almost 3am so if it's bad... no it's not.
AO3 link:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
- fic under the cut -
MINUTE -1
“Hey.”
It was far beyond the point at which Chris found he could still focus on his work. With the announcement earlier that everything was fucked and over before it had even started, it was a miracle he’d not walked out the door right then and there. Instead, he’d sat at his desk, mulling over Peña’s words for hours, trying to find reasoning, some kind of way out, any loophole, until everyone around him had left and taken the last of his hope with them.
“Hey.”
Everyone, that was, apart from Dan. Chris hadn’t told him what had happened. He was sure Dan would be over the moon at the news, which would only leave Chris to suffer alone. That was a worse fate than the one he’d landed himself in already, and so he had decided to say nothing, just silently packing away his things as fast as humanly possible, throwing open files and unlidded pens into his bag like his life depended on it.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing up. Going home.” Maybe in more than one sense. The job was done; what else was there to do? The Cali team was dissolved permanently. The career criminals they claimed to fight had won with nothing more than a handshake. Some deal. He slung his bag over his shoulder and bolted for the elevator, ready to be out of here and away, somewhere he could actually think.
Footsteps followed him across the empty office floor. The space was lit only with the dim glow of computer screensavers and lamps carelessly left on here and there.
“Hey, man, talk to me. You’re acting weird.”
Weird didn’t begin to cover it, but Chris kept his lips sealed shut, pressing the button and watching the numbers go up.
“Seriously.”
Chris whirled around to stare at him. “Seriously, back off.”
The elevator chimed and the doors opened. Chris stepped inside, expecting that to be the end, with Dan watching from the other side hesitantly. The doors started closing, peace almost in reach, only to be interrupted as Dan ducked in, the doors slamming shut behind him.
“What is your problem?” Chris hissed. He was too tired for this bullshit.
Before Dan could explain himself, the elevator juddered, leaving both of them stumbling. Then, it stopped dead. The two of them stood in silence, staring at each other, waiting for it to spring back to life and start moving again. Instead, the red light illuminating the buttons died.
Perfect.
MINUTE 1
Dan reached across and hit the bell button, and a piercingly loud alarm burst to life, filling the tiny metal box with its wailing.
“Why the fuck did you do that?” Chris asked, plugging his fingers into his ears.
“I panicked, okay?” Dan said, hitting it again. The sound didn’t stop. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? To get someone to come and help us?”
“Okay, well, who in the office can save us?” Depending on the answer, they’d either be fine or utterly fucked.
Dan just stared at him, saying nothing. Chris mentally worked through the office, trying to remember who was actually around and only coming up with images of empty desks and logged out computers. Realization dawned on him slowly but surely, and his heart sank. Unless someone was in the toilets, or sitting in a side room with the lights off like some kind of freak, they were alone. Every other fucker had been sensible enough to leave on time, probably lured out by Duffy and Lopez’ promise of goodbye commiseration drinks. Which meant they were trapped in an elevator in an entirely empty office.
“Shit.”
Chris started banging on the doors, to no avail. Dan dug his fingers into the seam of the door, leaning back and straining as he tried to pull them open. They didn’t budge.
“Hey!” Chris yelled as loud as he could, but the sound was lost in the blaring of the alarm.
“I really don’t know if that’s the best solution to get us out of here,” Dan drawled, though the bite wasn’t as powerful as usual. He was hunched over the button pad, wincing as he scanned each one, as if there would be some magic opening code if he just looked closely enough.
“Like you’re doing better.”
Dan whirled around, looking incredulous. “This is your fault.”
“How is this my fault?! You must’ve fucked up the doors jumping in at the last second! Why are you even in here? You’ve never used this elevator in your life. Are you that desperate to piss me off?”
“Hey, fuck you, man.” Dan said, stepping away from the corner. “You’ve been in a bad mood for hours. Did you think I wouldn’t notice you spent three hours staring intensely at a blank document like you were trying to light it on fire with your mind? And tapping your pen like you were trying to bore a hole in the desk?”
“And so you follow me into an elevator?” Chris folded his arms.
Dan ran a hand over his face, sighing deeply. “Can we get the fuck out of here?”
Chris didn’t think so. They’d set off the alarm and nobody had come - not yet anyway. If there was anyone to come. Dan had tried the doors and stared at the instructions. Chris walked over, digging his nails into the gap on either side and pulling as hard as he could.
“I already tried that.”
Chris fell back, surprisingly out of breath. The doors didn’t even have a scratch mark, not a single sign that they’d been pried at, not moved at all from their original position, jammed solidly shut. Okay, so there was no way out of this shitbox metal cage they’d managed to trap themselves in. Fine. Surely there was another way out. Surely these elevators were designed for incidents like this. Maybe that panel on the roof…?
“I’m going to climb on your shoulders,” Chris said, rolling up his shirt sleeves. The hatch would likely have as little give as the doors, but it was better than wasting away in this stupid elevator until someone deigned to return to the office, likely tomorrow morning.
“The fuck you are.” Dan took a step back, looking at Chris like he’d grown an extra head.
“There might be a way out through the roof.”
“What, so we can scale the elevator cables like we’re spies in some action movie? We’ll still have to pry open a different set of jammed doors once we’re on the other side.” Dan looked Chris up and down in a way that suggested he did not believe they were getting up those cables. It would’ve been hurtful if it wasn’t true.
“We’re competent DEA agents. Surely we can work our way out of a trapped elevator.”
“Barely. And clearly not.”
Chris stared at him. His features were contorted into a hard, cold expression, not a single hint of hope mixed in with the despair he was trying so hard to conceal underneath. His hands had definitely started to shake, and despite his even tone, his words were getting harsher and more clipped with every minute that passed.
“You weren’t joking. You’re actually afraid of elevators.”
Dan didn’t meet his eyes this time.
“Oh my fucking god.”
Not only was he trapped in this elevator, he was trapped with someone potentially minutes away from a full-blown breakdown. The day just kept getting better and better.
“Are you fucking stupid? Why the fuck would you follow me in, then?” Chris snapped. He immediately felt guilty for how scathing his words sounded even to him, but everything felt like it was amplified ten times over in here, intensified by the fluorescent lights overhead and echoing off the mirrored walls. “You in love with me or something?”
A heavy silence fell over the two of them, punctuated only by the blaring of the alarm, persistent as ever.
“Actually fuck off,” Dan said, turning back to the keypad.
Chris watched as he pressed all the buttons in order, none of them reacting at all, nothing inside changing, and sunk to the floor. Maybe that was that. Maybe this was just his fate, the perfect cherry on top to an already shitty day. Dan eventually gave up, giving the keypad a final whack before joining him on the floor, curling in on himself in a ball.
“The elevator isn’t going to collapse in,” Chris said, though as soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he hadn’t said them. He had no real confirmation the universe wouldn’t immediately try to prove him wrong.
“And you know this how?”
Chris didn’t have an answer to that.
“You’re convincing yourself as much as you’re convincing me,” Dan said, a hint of smugness crossing his face, briefly extinguishing the fear.
“I am not,” Chris backed up. He wasn’t taking shit from a guy who chose to take stairs instead of the elevator every single day.
Dan just shrugged, shifting back into his corner. So he was perfectly able to cope when it came to jabbing at Chris, it seemed. “If we die in here, at least I’ll be able to say I told you so right before impact.”
Chris buried his head in his hands. This was going to be a long evening.
HOUR 1
The alarm died after an hour of assaulting both their ears, but with the near-deafening tinnitus that followed, it may as well have stayed on. All it meant was they were trapped in silence, and anybody who came into the office from this point forwards would never know they were in here. Chris had tried to think through every option, every possible outcome that could happen depending on what they decided to do from here, and came up with no better answers than to sit and wait. At the very worst, people would be in in the morning. Fucking with the mechanics anymore would only risk sending them to their deaths. So, with no feasible way out and his mind slowly dying off in the now silent, empty elevator, he started walking from end to end of the claustrophobically small box, bored out of his mind and succumbing to stress with every minute that passed. The elevator was exactly three and a half steps by five steps, he’d discovered. The numbers were now seared into his brain, not that they would help him at all.
“Please stop that.” Dan said quietly. He had his head resting against the wall of the elevator and his legs folded underneath him, as far as they’d go into the corner. It didn’t look anywhere approaching comfortable.
“Stop what?”
“Pacing.”
Chris stopped for a minute, and took a deep breath in, wooziness washing over him. He couldn’t be entirely sure he had been breathing properly at any point during the last hour. His reflection watched him from the mirror, already dishevelled and exhausted-looking. It could’ve been the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead, but Chris doubted it. He was wasting away in that office long before he walked in here. If he wanted to file reports and listen back to recordings all day, he may as well have been put on basement duty and locked away with all the evidence.
“Are you going to explain what the hell is up with you?” Dan said, pulling one of his knees up to his chest. “Or are you going to stand there all evening?”
“I’m quite enjoying standing,” Chris said, turning away from the mirror. “Getting my daily exercise in.”
“You could’ve got that easily if you’d taken the stairs,” Dan mumbled, furrowing his brows, but he no longer had the alarm to drown out his words and hide behind.
“Well, I didn’t, and for some reason, neither did you. So you better get used to the idea of sleeping here tonight.”
Dan was looking more and more weary with every second that passed. “You couldn’t pay me to fall asleep in here.”
Chris just sighed and turned back to pacing, unable to stop the nervous energy from rising up in him the second he gave it room to breathe. He didn’t like feeling helpless; his entire job was searching for answers and hunting them down until they came to fruition. In here, he had nowhere to go and nothing to work off. He wasn’t used to hearing his own thoughts. It had been a long time since he’d last let himself sit alone with them, and he was not about to start again now.
“Chris-”
The elevator suddenly let out a long, drawn-out creaking noise, almost a cry of pain. Both of them froze, eyes meeting each others’ in the split second before the elevator dropped suddenly, before jolting to a stop again. Chris let out an admittedly undignified scream, stumbling to grab onto the handrail as his stomach dropped from beneath him. He missed and tripped forwards, barrelling into Dan, both of them crashing into the wall and causing the entire box to shake. Chris looked up at Dan, their faces much closer than was comfortable. He’d gone white as a sheet, one arm grabbing onto the handrail as tightly as possible, the other curled protectively around Chris’ torso. Chris could feel his face heating up with every second that they were in contact, but he couldn’t bring himself to move in case the entire elevator collapsed under him.
“Oh fuck,” He whispered, heart jumping into his throat. Trust them to get themselves into this shit. “Oh shit.”
“I don’t want to die in this shitty evil metal box with you,” Dan said simply, voice quivering. “This is not what I had in mind.”
“Is my company that terrible?” Chris joked, but it fell flat in the silence between them and in the shaking of his own voice. There was only so much bravado could do to salvage a situation like this, after all.
“Can you be serious for one second? Just because you’re being pissy about this stupid Cali decision doesn’t mean we’re free to die in this elevator.” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as if the conversation was physically paining him. “Jesus christ.”
Chris stared at him. So he knew all along and said nothing? Acted like it was all fine and to be expected, and that this wasn’t the blow of a century, the humiliation of the entire department that hot on the heels of such a big success with Escobar, they were giving up on Cali over nothing?
“You might not get it because your biggest ambition in life is paperwork and your own comfort,” he snapped, tearing himself out from Dan’s hold and backing away, “but I don’t know how to stand back and watch as the biggest cartel in the world hands over the keys for nothing more than a slap on the wrist when everything I’ve worked towards for years now, trying to painstakingly take them down, gets burned to cinders in an instant.”
Dan didn’t say anything in response, staring him down with that slightly pained expression of his, which told Chris nothing more than he’d just let his stupid big mouth run away with itself. The elevator creaked in agreement.
“My life isn’t over,” Chris clarified, turning away to look back in the mirror, more so convincing himself than Dan at this point. “I care about more than just this stupid job.”
“Sit down before you bring the entire floor down with you,” Dan said quietly.
Chris had the sinking feeling he’d crossed a line somewhere along the way, but he didn’t know when or how to even begin to fix it, so he just sat down in the far corner in silence, resulting to tapping his hands against his knees instead of pacing, in case he really did bring about their untimely deaths.
“Do you have to do that?” Dan watched Chris’ hands, frowning deeply.
“You get to pick one; the pacing or this.”
Dan sighed, like maybe. “Fine.”
Not sure where he went wrong, and still waiting for the inevitable moment that the elevator came crashing down around them, he kept tapping like their fates depended on it.
HOUR 2
“Can you please stop announcing every hour that passes?” Dan gritted out, burying his head in his knees. “This situation is depressing enough as it is.”
Chris shrugged. “It’s like keeping tally marks in prison. Gotta keep my eyes on the prize.”
“There are no prizes for dragging out every godforsaken minute in this place.”
Chris turned to him. It had been almost a full hour since the elevator last made a noise, and they had yet to fall through the floor and splatter across the reception floor, but they had equally not got any further along in getting out of here. He was really starting to doubt that anyone was ever coming back to the office, and had now got to the stage of truly wondering if the universe was personally conspiring against them specifically.
“You never answered me earlier,” he started. Dan looked up with a quizzical expression. “The piss question.”
The other man’s face went suddenly slack with horror. “Please tell me you’re not about to piss right now.”
Chris tried and failed to stifle a laugh. “I’m not. You just never gave me your answer, and now it’s actually pertinent.”
Dan looked defeated. He shuffled forwards, bringing his knees away from his chest. “There is never a socially acceptable time to piss in a trapped elevator.”
“Even if you got in to go to a bathroom on another level? Even if we’re stuck in here for 6 hours?”
“This is why I don’t take the elevator,” Dan muttered to himself.
“To avoid philosophical conundrums?” Chris pulled a face. Dan tried to reach across the elevator to swat at him, but missed by a few centimeters, instead just throwing his arm across the room. “Look, what else is there to talk about in here?”
“I already tried asking you things,” Dan said simply, withdrawing back into his corner. “Instead, you choose to talk about this.”
Chris sighed. He still hadn’t worked his way up to any kind of apology, but the air between them had cleared a bit in the last hour, probably helped along by the knowledge that they weren’t seconds away from perishing in here.
“You knew why I’d been acting off,” Chris’ tapping got louder and more desperate, echoing off the metal walls. “One minor screw-up, not even close to the shit that went down with Escobar, and it’s over. Why even hang around here? We may as well pack up and go home if we’re going to let them pick their own punishment. I don’t get it. No matter how many times I’ve raked over it, I can’t understand why they’d pick this of all the options.”
Dan was watching him with one of those indecipherable looks of his again, somewhere between concern and pity. Chris wasn’t sure he liked it. It made his skin itch.
“They agreed a surrender deal with the Colombian government. There’s nothing we can do to interfere with that.”
“They’re some of the most powerful figures in Colombia. Don’t act like they don’t have all the connections needed to force their way out of this mess entirely unfairly but entirely unscathed.”
Dan ran a hand through his hair, some of the dark strands coming loose and hanging over his forehead. He looked so different in here, in the dim light, blazer abandoned and tie hanging loosely around his neck. More like the man he’d caught glimpses of in the corners of dark bars and rowdy office parties, more like the man he was always trying to provoke out of that impenetrable shell of his. The atmosphere between them was always shifting; it was hard to pinpoint where it would go next when the ground beneath their feet had never quite been steady. They never talked about it, of course, but “back to normal” felt less like the truth every time it happened. Everything managed to lead to something new with them. The prospect usually excited Chris, but here, trapped in this lift with no way out and no next step in sight, it terrified him.
“I’m not happy either,” Dan said simply. “I do give a shit, you know? This is just as much of a blow to me as it is to you. You know the last thing I want is to be sent home, let alone empty-handed. But what do we do? I’m not going to meddle with an entire government. We don’t have the same power as the CIA.”
Chris snorted. “The DEA always gets their slice of the pie, too, you know.”
“So maybe we will this time, too. But my point stands; that isn’t up to us two. We’re nobodies.”
Chris knew he was right. He wasn’t in any position to make decisions like that; he was barely more than an admin lackey at this point. He might’ve been a respected detective in Arizona, but here, he didn’t even have a partner, let alone enough power to oversee these kinds of decisions.
“They’re not even going to have their businesses confiscated,” Chris said quietly. “I can understand them not wanting a repeat situation of Escobar, but Cali pales in comparison to the shit he got up to. Why give them so much?”
“Quiet doesn’t mean dormant,” Dan warned. “They keep a lot under wraps, I’m sure. Doesn’t mean people don’t suffer, definitely doesn’t mean people wouldn’t suffer if they were provoked.”
Chris shifted around, turning to the wall and trying to picture the pinboard in the office splayed across the room. “Gilberto owns enough legitimate businesses to get into bed with politicians. That’s his entire social circle. One of them has got to be involved.”
“Do we know anyone specific? Anyone connected to higher government?”
Chris shook his head. He couldn’t visualize the whole board. “Not without the files.”
“Well, funnily enough, I don’t have them. So now what?”
Chris opened his bags. He’d just sort of thrown things into it in a huff. There were a few files, a few loose sheets that had slipped out of them, too. Mainly the financial stuff Eddie had faxed over after Cornerstone. But maybe, deep within encoded transactions and offshore accounts, there was something, one name or company or link that’d expose the entire thing. Fuck Peña and his instant dismissal. There was something here, Chris just knew it. He just had to find it. He spread the files across the floor, crawling between them on his hands and knees in case the entire thing came falling down.
“Some office,” Dan joked, watching but not making a move to get involved.
“It genuinely isn’t half bad. Get me some tape and some red string, and we’d be set. It’d be quieter than the main office.”
Dan quirked up a single eyebrow. “Not to mention how tiny it is in here, the lack of computers, the fact that we can’t get out and the ever-looming threat of falling two stories.”
Chris couldn’t say much in response to that. “Okay, fine. Fair point.”
It wasn’t the best setup, that much was true, but it was a distraction from his wandering mind, and a welcome one at that. Another hour in silence would kill him off, and he was already starting to feel the effects. Dan shuffled over to him, turning to try and read the files before sitting himself down next to Chris and reaching across to help him unpack the files. Just like that, the last of the tension in the air was gone, both of them wordlessly sorting through the paperwork he’d abandoned as useless earlier in the afternoon, positioning banks together into stacks, handing each other papers of interest, all with a silent agreement and occasional one-word clarifiers or accidental brushes of their hands, moving in perfect synchronicity. The files slowly emptied, dispersed across the floor, forming a mosaic of evidence, but it still didn’t add up. Without more information, without feet on the ground and eyes in the sky tracking when, where and how they were getting all this through, it was useless. No matter how they pieced this together on the elevator floor, no matter the order or the theories, it wouldn’t change the course of events, and the intel would sink to the bottom of a drawer somewhere to gather dust.
Chris bashed his fist into the side of the elevator. Dan only had time to shoot him a concerned look before the elevator juddered, making an ear-splitting creaking noise.
“Chris…” Dan warned, backing up very slowly.
Chris was immediately back in his own corner, hugging his body against the metal walls as tightly as he could. “…Sorry?”
Dan was clinging to the handrail so hard, his knuckles were turning white. “Please, please just sit back down.”
Chris mushed all the files into one big, messy pile, sheepishly shoving them back in his bag before carefully inching back down into a sitting position again. So much for that. They were no further ahead and only closer to an untimely death. What a waste of time.
“Look, you’re not wrong to be doing this,” Dan said. It was uncanny how much he seemed to be able to read Chris’ mind nowadays. Chris wasn’t sure how to feel about it yet. He wasn’t used to being an open book - most people saw him as a noisy but ultimately empty vessel, and that wasn’t such a bad thing as far as he saw it. “This data is useful. We can keep track of the accounts from the office just fine.”
“But what’s the use of that without people to pin actual crimes on? They’re just a bunch of numbers.” Chris buried his head in his hands. He was tired of this shit now. He just wanted to be home, where he could sleep off the terrible day and try again tomorrow.
“All we need to do is find one case. One example of laundering, drug money going through a legitimate business,” Dan explained. “Catching just one of the four leaders in breach of their deal could send the entire thing up in flames.”
Chris froze. He slowly lifted his head to meet Dan’s unwavering gaze. He didn’t seem at all rocked by this information.
“What?”
“They have to cease all illegal operations, right?” He gestured to the file poking out of Chris’ bag. “Maybe it’ll be harder to catch them doing that on the ground, what with their airtight security and eyes everywhere, but we find one dodgy transaction from the comfort of our computers, and we have all the ammunition we need to start the manhunt again.”
It took all of Chris’ energy not to jump up to his feet right there and then. “Laundering in Panama, undeclared offshores in Gibraltar…”
“Financial crimes are still crimes.”
Chris couldn’t stop himself from grinning. They’d found it. A key out of this clusterfuck. Sure, it relied on a lot of luck and good fortune that never seemed to be on their side, but it was something.
“See?” Dan flashed him a smug kind of half-grin. “Not worth throwing your shit around over, after all.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Chris felt a little breathless at the prospect. “We have to get the hell out of here.”
“Well, yes, hasn’t that been your aim from the start…?” Dan started, but Chris was already rising slowly to his feet and tiptoeing as gently as he could towards the door. “What are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here.”
Dan backed up into his corner again. “Absolutely not. You’ve got us into enough shit in this death box already. Get away from those!”
Chris was trying to pry open the doors again, with just as little success as the first time around. “Get up and help me.”
“And if you send us falling to the ground?”
Chris shrugged. “I’ll buy you a nice headstone.”
Dan looked at him for a second, face crinkled up in distaste, before he eventually pulled himself up using the handrail, looking far beyond disappointed. “You won’t be alive to buy me one, asshole.”
Chris rifled through his bag. Surely there was something in there that could pry these doors open. A particularly thin pen? A stray mouse mat? Anything? His search was cut short, though, as Dan brandished something shiny in front of his face. Chris backed up to take it in. A shoehorn, in all its metal glory.
“Why do you own a shoehorn?” Chris said, excitement causing him to immediately bypass the ‘thank you, I owe you my life’ or the ‘how did you know exactly what I needed?’ . Dan rolled his eyes.
“Do you want it or not?”
Chris took it, slotting it between the doors. “Grab the scissors from my bag. We’ll need some kind of counter action, right? Torsion or some shit?”
“Stop pretending you have any idea about physics.” Dan reached in. “These are going to snap instantly.”
Chris just waved him over. “You get the top of the door.”
Dan sighed, positioning himself on the other side of where Chris was crouched and reaching up to jam the scissor blades into the gap, his arm digging into Chris’. God, this elevator was far too small.
“On three.”
“This won’t work.”
“Two. One. Now.”
Both of them strained against the doors, the elevator rattling as they pulled at them. There was a non-zero chance this sent them both on a quick trip down to the first floor at full speed, but Chris was just about ready to lose it. It was about time they got the fuck out of here. The doors creaked and strained, small dents in the metal appearing but no real gap appearing between them. It looked like it wasn’t going to work. After all that, they might actually be stuck here overnight.
Suddenly, the shoehorn in his hand started bending, and the smallest gap, only a centimeter at maximum width, opened up. Chris reached into his bag with his free hand and jammed it with a fountain pen, then moved around to start prying it open with his fingers.
“It’s going to crush your hand, you fucking idiot,” Dan yelled, grabbing the shoehorn and placing it right under the scissors, pulling the other door away from Chris’ fingers until he was red in the face. The doors kept denting, not moving any further, until they suddenly flew open, throwing both of them into the walls at the side before the entire box shifted down again before jolting to a stop.
Chris stared at Dan, gasping for breath and dizzy. Dan looked no better off, eyes squeezed shut and sweat beading on his forehead. Chris dared to roll over and peer out of the newly opened door, waiting to be met with the dark inside of the elevator shaft, and instead staring out onto the reception. He looked down. They were maybe three inches above the ground at most.
“Dan…”
Dan slowly opened his eyes, then quickly darted forwards to take in the scene. “You’re fucking joking me.”
The day wasn’t done with them yet, though. Before either of them could say another word, none other than Stoddard walked right through the front door, humming to himself, only pausing when he saw them sprawled across the floor of the lift, both staring up at him.
“Hi?” He said, looking them up and down.
“Hello.” Dan said, as if everything was completely normal. Chris could barely bring himself to grunt a greeting.
“Are you guys… okay?”
Chris nodded, letting his head collapse to the floor. “Yeah, yeah man. So fine.”
Stoddard just stood there, still staring at them. Chris just wished he’d fuck off already, but he didn’t have the energy to say that. Instead, he forced himself to his feet, dusted himself off and stepped out onto solid ground. He’d never really valued fresh air quite as much as he did now, inhaling like it was his first breath in 26 years. Dan followed him out, looking about as frazzled as he felt.
“I… gotta go pick up some files.” Stoddard said slowly, still watching the two of them suspiciously.
“Party over?” Chris asked.
He shook his head. “I’m just going home.” He stared at the lift expectantly, then back at Chris and Dan where they stood in front of the doors. Chris could have explained what had happened over the last two or so hours to him, to warn him off the inevitable failure he was about to experience, but in his exhausted, elevator-fevered brain, he just stepped out of the way.
“After you.”
Stoddard shot him a final, poorly-concealed, concerned look before stepping around him and up into the lift, dented doors and all. Chris wasn’t sure whether he was just unobservant or if he truly did not care anymore. He couldn’t bring himself to care, either. He turned to Dan.
“So? Shall we get started?”
Dan was watching some unfixed spot on the horizon, clearly in a world of his own. Chris jabbed him in the ribs, and he jumped, finally making eye contact.
“Yeah, alright. But we are taking the stairs this time.”
Chris took one last look at the lift as the doors inched shut behind Stoddard, wobbling the whole time. “Obviously. I’m never getting in that piece of crap again.”
“I’ve been telling you this all along,” Dan said, lips quirking up at the corner.
“Well, I’m sorry, okay? Stairs stay on top. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Is that what you want to hear?”
Dan’s mouth quivered as he clearly tried to repress a smile. He nudged Chris in the arm, though not with enough force to be convincing. “Ass. Come on, then.”
They headed towards the stairs, climbing up them like their entire futures depended on it - because maybe they did - as the distant sound of a familiar alarm ringing to life followed them up.
GAHHHLKDJF;AKJ;LKJ LONG LIVE CHRANIEL - I was stoked to read this bc they're one of those ships that I wholeheartedly believe in, and support, and share in the brainrot (like another fav ship of mine, Eduardo Sandoval/Cesar Gaviria thanks to @ashlingnarcos) but that I tragically will never lift a finger to make happen😂 like writing these two, I draw a blank, so cannot be the change I want to see in the world. But it works out bc you're filling the vacuum beautifully. So yea, immediately upon reading -> Before Dan could explain himself, the elevator juddered, leaving both of them stumbling. Then, it stopped dead... I was like, YESS this what narcovember is abouttt bc this is another prompt I was curious to see what cool shit ppl would come up with and stuck in an elevator is the ultimate bottle ep, so 10/10 start.
Loving how cranky Fiestl is here bc he's usually the cheerier one so seeing him all sour n pissed off was fun not for him but for me also howled at -> Not only was he trapped in this elevator, he was trapped with someone potentially minutes away from a full-blown breakdown. bc imjustsosorry my dude, it’s like 50/50 btwn which one of you is having that breakdownsdkfj also the idea that Van Ness is afraid of elevators is so correct for reasons I can't articulate except that it's just yes.
And SORRYAKSD may we pls join hands and rejoice in this QWEENEST OF QWEEN MOMENTS -> Chris let out an admittedly undignified scream, stumbling to grab onto the handrail... okay I am not above an undignified scream/yelp/howl/screech/squawk esp in those circumstances but in my mind's eye(ear?), it's the gayest scream ever sdfkjsklfj like it is a firm Kinsey 6 screech, which tracks bc then this -> He’d gone white as a sheet, one arm grabbing onto the handrail as tightly as possible, the other curled protectively around Chris’ torso happens and I'm cheesing into my screen. The fact that they end up trapping Stoddard in the fucking elevator at the end is just the cherry on top of this beautiful gay sundae bc no one will convince me that “I’ll buy you a nice headstone,” “You won’t be alive to buy me one, asshole,” isn’t foreplay
Ofc the cynic in me can't help but berate these naive lil mancitos for -> the humiliation of the entire department…hot on the heels of such a big success with Escobar... bc oh Chris, you beautiful, tropical fish. Dw in a few years, you'll learn about a lil thing called iran-contra and realize the shit with Escobar was just geopolitical kabuki theatre but it'sfine sksk and this -> “The DEA always gets their slice of the pie, too, you know.” mans clearly has not seen Nmx SKSKSK
UMM????alsothis??? -> More like the man he’d caught glimpses of in the corners of dark bars and rowdy office parties, more like the man he was always trying to provoke out of that impenetrable shell of his. stopped me straight fucken dead. like uhh☝️pls excuse me while i..
and finally kids, in case you were wondering, the answer is no -> “There is never a socially acceptable time to piss in a trapped elevator.”
Fic number 11 (and my longest one yet, HOORAY!) @narcosfandomdiscord
Prompt #5, Book Of Negative Spaces: Fanwork using a line from a diff show/movie as a prompt.
The line in question: "Do you still like my hair?" from The Queen's Gambit
Word Count: 4.1K (don't ask how I did that)
Relationships: Trent Crimm & Ted Lasso, Trent Crimm/Ted Lasso (very much leaning into that, thank you <33), Trent Crimm & Trent Crimm's Daughter, Ted Lasso & Trent Crimm's Daughter
Warnings: Canon compliant mention + description of a panic attack
A/N: I absolutely adored writing this fic... My first time exploring Tedependent in that 'something more' vein and I took a lot of liberties to what felt right for me! Just wanted to delve into Season 1, considering that I've just finished it <3
The progression in episodes as the snippets go on is as follows:
Episode 1 - Pilot
Episode 3 - Trent Crimm: The Independent
Episode 5 - Tan Lines
Episode 7 - Make Rebecca Great Again
Episode 8 - The Diamond Dogs
Episode 9 - All Apologies / Canon Divergence
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
When Ted first meets Trent, he notices a few things.
One, he’s a journalist, in a crowd, amongst all the others.
Two, he’s attentive. That much is clear when they lock eyes, and Trent straightens up, armed and ready for whatever is to come.
Three, he’s got very nice glasses, two-toned, easily blending in with his face.
Four, there’s something quite alluring about his hair…
But if Ted Lasso, the new manager of AFC Richmond, has to give a compliment of any kind, giving it to the glasses is much nicer than to his hair. At least, it makes him seem… More approachable? Less creepy?
Yeah, that’ll do it.
He can hardly think of his words since he’s so sleep-deprived, and the cameras flash fast, and the water he drinks is full of fizz (absolutely abhorrent!) and all he wants to do is run.
But, he can’t run. He can’t hide.
He’s an American coach of American football, for goodness’ sake! He calls what these folks have ‘soccer’! He refrains from saying that aloud, though, in fear of angering every single journalist present.
At least Trent Crimm isn’t angry. Rather, he’s just stern, calm, to-the-point, and incredibly good at wounding people with his words.
Of course, I’m an amateur, Ted thinks, bracing the questions with a smile, ‘Specially with this British football– Thing. Yeah, I might as well just fuck right off, shouldn’t I?
The manager doesn’t run, thankfully. He doesn’t take the next flight back to Kansas and settle in for the winter. He has to give this a red-hot crack, which is only reinforced when Rebecca Welton covers for him.
He’ll fit in here, with time. If he keeps telling himself that, then he will.
Trent Crimm from The Independent makes his blunt comments, but they may as well show belief, show promise. If he can talk to a complete stranger, someone so odd, with such confidence? Maybe he believes in Richmond.
Maybe Ted Lasso will believe it, thanks to him.
***
He can’t help but smile.
Two grown adults in an Indian restaurant, trying to fight out the spice they’re eating. Ted handles it better, or at the very least, it comes across that way. Meanwhile, Trent Crimm from The Independent looks as though he might explode from the heat, pressing his fingers against his temples as though to manipulate it away.
“How–” Trent practically gasps, quickly sipping his water, “How do you tolerate this?! You said… You said you’d never–”
“Eaten Indian food?” Ted finishes for him, just to spare him the scattered breaths and unnecessary words. “Yeah, that’s right. But I guess it’s tastier than I thought? Very aromatic, crazy like that… Anyway, it’s more so about my friend’s honour, here.”
“Honour?” The journalist leans in, brow raised, “Explain that for me.”
“Maybe I explained it wrong,” He waves a modest hand, “Ollie invited me here, and he got me from the airport to Richmond, so… I couldn’t pass down his family restaurant! Even if it is the most knock-out sorta food I’ve ever tasted!”
The manager is chuckling, chuckling away as he goes for another spoonful of the dish in front of him. He does it like it’s nothing! Maybe Trent’s spice tolerance is truly awful, and that’s all it is.
Maybe Ted is just a whole lot braver than he is, willing to do anything if it means being respectful, or optimistic, or fun. It’s certainly an interesting concept, one that Trent will have to keep note on as the night progresses, hell, as the season progresses, more like!
But he can’t help himself in the way that he notices, tracks the smile that ebbs and flows like the tide.
“I should go,” He excuses after a while of silence, “Deadlines and all.”
“Yeah,” Ted replies amiably, “You do what you gotta do, y’know, for work and so on… But– I really enjoyed spending this time with you, Trent.”
And it’s clear as day, how it shows in the journalist’s face, that expression of bewilderment, disbelief, as though the manager had just insulted his family.
“You really mean that, don’t you?” He gestures vaguely towards Ted.
And when he doesn’t respond, simply smiles, smiles so bright, Trent comes up with his own conclusion.
“Yeah.” He mutters under his breath as he grabs his coat, smoothly shrugging it on as he leaves.
***
A week or so later, Ted receives a text. He almost wants to shrug it off, thinking it’s Beard with some funny chess joke or strange factoid he’s picked up… But now is not the time.
Not now, not when he’s just sat down at the Crown and Anchor, Michelle opposite him.
Mae’s just gone off to get their pints, encouraging Henry to play some darts… He’s off and away, and Ted hears his phone buzz again.
“Sorry,” He murmurs, “I’ll just see who this is.”
Michelle only nods, folding her arms in her lap.
The manager feels himself freeze. No, it’s not some outstanding statement or new recipe from that subscription he’s linked to, no… It’s such a simple thing, such a simple person!
How could he have expected this?! How could this even happen? Since when?
Trent Crimm: I nicked your number from Rebecca. Must stay vigilant and all.
Trent Crimm: Journalism never rests. Feel free to converse as much or as little as you like.
Ted watches and waits as the grey bubble remains: Goddamn journalist’s typing more! Of course he is!
Trent Crimm: :)
He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, cracking his own smile.
Trent Crimm with an emoticon. He thinks, beginning to type a response back, The guy’s outdone himself.
***
Ted Lasso: Hey, Trent! Good to hear from ya. A little busy now but I’ll get back to you on all the other stuff asap. Looking forward to more chats!
He finally puts his phone back in his pocket and reaches for his pint.
“Sorry,” He says again, “Things have been, a little, you know,” He shrugs, “Here, there and everywhere.”
“No, I get that,” Michelle’s laugh is soft, her finger dragging against the wooden table, “Do they– I don’t know, do they wrap the fish and chips in newspaper?” She asks, “You must be the expert, now. I just read it somewhere, I think they do that here.”
He shakes his head, raising the glass to his lips and taking a big gulp, “Not here, they don’t. I mean at this pub, right? Might be different in other places, but, it’s all on a plate. Home-style, y’know? And I like that.”
“I’m sure you do, Ted,” She admits with a wobble in her voice, grateful for Henry’s reappearance.
“Whatcha talkin’ about?!” The kid asks, rocking back and forth on his heels. He attempts to withhold the gleeful smile on his face from hitting a regular.
“Oh, it’s nothing!” His mum says, gesturing to the door, “Shall we go?”
His dad nods in response, slowly finishing the last of his drink before kneeling down with a smile.
“You wanna know what we were talkin’ about? Yeah. Just a fun little thing… Imagine you had a doughnut wrapped in newspaper. How cool would that be?”
“Could I learn about dinosaurs?” Henry asks as Ted stands up again.
“If they’re in the newspaper, you betcha.”
The trio walk out in silence and stay in silence, even when Ted parts ways to the place he’s renting out. It’s a wave, a mouthed goodbye, and a punch to the gut.
His only reprieve is another notification. And that’s even if it’s not Trent. Truth be told, he’d like it to be.
Well, He rolls his shoulders, eyeing the screen, Isn’t it nice to have expectations line up with reality?
Trent Crimm: I know we’ve hardly prepared for these communications, and they’ve mostly involved me, prattling on as always. But, I believe I could use a favour from you.
Ted Lasso: A favour? From me? Trent Crimm The Independent asking me for a favour?
Ted Lasso: Well I’ll be. Shoot.
The messages pause, and the manager makes sure to have his eyes partially on the pavement. After all, he’s bound to get lost if he loses focus.
Trent Crimm: I know that you’ve been making Rebecca’s biscuits. And I was thinking, well, there’s a certain someone I know who’d like your biscuits. If you could make some for a week’s time? She’d like it if you delivered them yourself, too.
Right.
That’s new.
A ‘she’, unspecified, in the journalist’s life. And he’s revealing this now? Ted’s mind runs with thoughts as he turns a corner, thankful to see familiar buildings at his left and right.
Who’s this? And who am I to judge? I suppose it’s just a little… Don’t know. Someone needing my biscuits, of all things, not a high-five or pep talk…
Ted Lasso: Curious now. I could make ‘em, since you’ve given me enough warning! Gotta know, though, who’re they for?
Trent Crimm: …
Trent Crimm: …
Ted Lasso: Sorry if that’s too personal.
Trent Crimm: No, it’s alright.
Trent Crimm: Well, she’s a three-year-old, so nothing too strong. They’d have to be small as well. Maybe a bit of decoration.
Trent Crimm: If that’s not too tall of an order.
The manager’s staring at the screen so long that he nearly bumps into the door of his temporary flat. He takes a step back and pockets his phone, grabbing his keys and heading inside.
At least he can process this now. At least he can start thinking about recipes for an unspecified girl who’s a three-year-old in Trent’s life. Could be anyone, some kid he’s friends with, it doesn’t really matter.
It just… Sparks so much curiosity in his brain! Someone as sharp as a whip, someone so breathtakingly brutal, hanging out with children? It doesn’t make sense.
He sighs and resumes his communications, realising just how nice it is to talk as much or as little as he likes. To not be… Well, trapped, in conversation. Frozen while the other sits, waiting, staring into your eyes–
His heart grows heavy and yet, his fingers move quickly, vision blurred by sudden tears.
Ted Lasso: You got it, Trent.
Ted Lasso: See you in the press room. I bet you’re already cooking up some questions. If not, talk soon!
Trent leaves him with that stupid emoticon smile.
Ted thinks about it for a while, shakes his head, and decides it’s best to clean up in the form of a shower.
***
The coach manages a deep breath, staring at the ceiling.
Too many thoughts run through his head, and it’s a surprise to him that he’s not physically drowning.
Panic, panic, panic! It’s the only vocabulary he has, and it’s all–
Panic attack. Right. Last night, that sums it up, the stifling heat of the karaoke bar, the crowds, the flashing lights, strangled, nausea.
He made it out just fine, thank goodness for Rebecca Welton. She helped him breathe again, helped him stand up straight, clear out some of the darkness.
She’s likely in her own room now, doing whatever she likes, while he lies here, thinking of panic, his few-hours-ago divorce, and Sassy Smurf.
He keeps his eyes on the ceiling, because if he looks at her, he crumbles.
Oh, and there it is.
Naked body, frayed hair, slow and steady breathing… He can hear her laugh in his head, he pictures last night, you know, the part of the night after the panic attack…
And he had fun. She certainly seemed to have fun, gripping a little too tightly at his moustache in the process.
Guilt gnaws at him, followed by awkwardness, and then, what to do.
Because it’s not something he’s used to, the simplicity and lack of connection that comes with a one-night stand. So, Ted quickly dresses and calls room service for a coffee.
Not for his sake, but hers. She’ll appreciate it.
The hours pass and he’s once again thankful to receive a distraction, also in the form of messages.
A photo from Beard. The coach has to stifle back a laugh, it’s pretty good.
Coach Beard: Found him. He’s in Hangover City.
Of course, how characteristically Nate of Nate to sleep in the bus, awaiting the next day, drunk off his mind, as he would be…
And that’s when she wakes up.
He smiles sheepishly as she stretches, head lopsided on the pillow. To him, this whole thing should lead to other things, more dates, and so on… But there’s none of that. Their ties are supposedly severed here.
“I ordered you a coffee,” He mumbles, “Should be here in a bit.”
“Oh?” She chuckles, blinking back at him, “How good of you. Before I leave, I’ll order an extra large breakfast on your tab.”
And that’s Sassy being Sassy, and how can he deny that?
“Yeah, sounds like a pro move from you… After everything.”
“Last night was fun.”
“Yeah! Yeah, it was.” He rubs his moustache, “Five stars. Certified fresh.”
Right. And that’s the stupidest thing you can say to a girl after you’ve slept with her!
Good news, she doesn’t seem to mind. Even better news, he’s given her a late checkout, because he’s gotta run, and he’ll run.
***
He doesn’t talk to Beard for the entire five hours of the bus trip.
He knows he should, but he’s not in that mood. Mood for not talking? Then something’s wrong.
Ted just shrugs it off, because he knows exactly what it all is, but is that worth discussion? No. No, it’s not.
Instead, something else is better.
Ted Lasso: I don’t just like your glasses, y’know.
Ted Lasso: It’s also your writing.
Ted Lasso: And your hair.
The journalist is probably busy, peak working hours, after all, and the manager doesn’t delete the messages. A part of him thinks it’s from the amalgamation of drunken haze, had a panic attack, slept with a girl he’d just met, followed by the beginnings of divorce.
The truth to the matter is that Ted is being truthful. Trent’s glasses are pretty, what’s better is his writing, his talent, master strokes (if he can even talk like that anymore), and what follows is his hair.
Why? Well… It’s just nice. Someone’s hair can be grey and yet colourful, neat and yet messy. It’s as though it characterises him to a T.
It also looks pretty soft.
Ted Lasso could use some softness right about now.
***
He excuses himself from Rebecca’s office, having given her the allotted biscuits for the day. He almost offered the other box, small and brown, to Higgins.
Not that giving Higgins biscuits is bad. No, he deserves them for all the hard work he’s doing here!
Those biscuits, however, are reserved for a certain three-year-old, and off he goes.
Trent’s given an address, because secrecy can only last for so long, and Ted is not intending to drop these off like a postman.
Especially when he remembers the journalist’s prior wording of things: She’d like it if you delivered them yourself, too.
He sighs as he approaches the door, ringing the doorbell. There’s a ‘welcome’ doormat at his feet, and everything feels… Peaceful. And if not peaceful, then well-looked after.
With no immediate response, he rings the doorbell again. He’s in no rush, but maybe the journalist is out and about, and he’s messed the timing of things up, maybe he’s misremembered the day, or something–
Ted shouldn’t be listening, but being so close to these walls, he listens.
Trent Crimm. Yes, he’s inside the fucking house. No hiding that. He’s laughing.
Not just laughing, but repeatedly laughing, giggling, even, and he’s saying things like, “Alright… Let’s think, shall we? Isn’t that too many?” and, “Oh, you… I look like a Barbie doll now.”
The last thing the coach wants to do is intrude, but he’s leaning against the door… Which is basically him intruding.
Even worse is that when Trent finally answers the door, Ted falls to the floor, face-first.
“I’m terribly sorry.” The journalist sighs, that teasing tone of his ever-so present in his voice. But, there’s also sincerity, because he’s outstretching a hand. Ted takes it with gratitude.
Both of them meet eyes first, before the coach’s eyes very obviously move to…
“Oh, that,” He waves a hand, “Yeah, that reminds me, Ted. Do you still like my hair?”
There’s a smile toying on the edge of his face…
And Ted can practically feel his heart both beating and melting in his chest.
His hair, yes, that, is scattered with one too many things, so Trent’s words told him: Butterfly clips, bow clips, ribbons of all kinds and colours. Hell, it even looks like the three-year-old has tossed some glitter in there.
The coach’s smile doesn’t leave him.
“Yeah, I do, Trent. Work of art. Mind introducing me to the artist?” He says quietly, noticing the girl with an arm wrapped around Trent’s leg.
He nods and picks the girl up, clearly comfortable with her, if anything. “This–” He brushes her dark blonde hair from her face, “Is Seraphina. My daughter.”
Biological, or adopted, or otherwise, Ted’s not to pry. But she’s smiley, cheeky, and clearly has a perfect eye for design, and it shows.
“Oh, hey there, Seraphina,” He waves at her, holding the biscuits up and rattling them, “I wonder what these are…”
The little girl’s eyes widen, and she grins. Trent closes the door behind them all, leading Ted through to the kitchen.
“Mm, I wonder,” He adds as they reach the kitchen island, and he places his daughter on top of it. “Well, you better show her! Can’t keep her waiting.”
He places the box down and watches as she looks between him, the box, and her father. And then… Biscuits.
Round, not his usual rectangular prism, and decorated with icing and sprinkles. Fairly small, but big enough to be broken into pieces.
“Happy birthday, kiddo.” Ted laughs, pushing the box in her direction.
“Thank you!” Seraphina’s practically gasping now, tugging at her father’s hand, “Look! The kind man made me biscuits!”
“That’s right, sweetheart,” Trent replies, “Go on and try one.”
“Can’t say I’ve cracked the recipe with these,” Ted’s hands move to his hips, “So judge all you like! I don’t mind.”
The toddler leans forward and picks up one biscuit in her hand, still grasping the adult’s slightly calloused hand. She’s quite dainty when she eats, Ted notices that much, and it’s oh-so clear where she got that from…
He can practically pinpoint the moment that the sugar enters her system, that her brain is captivated by the layers of biscuit, icing and sprinkles.
It’s the starlight in her eyes… More so the sudden widening of them, but the manager wants to feel poetic, to take this at full value.
“Do you like them?” Trent murmurs, clearly knowing the answer.
“Of course, I do!” She mumbles through her mouthful, pausing to swallow before continuing, “They’re… Amazing! So amazing! Can I write about them, dad?”
That’s when Ted watches the shift, from Seraphina’s starlit eyes to Trent’s, the utter mention of writing leaving him with nothing but pride.
“Oh, you can, darling… Absolutely. You’ll finish those off later, yeah?”
“Mmm, wanna write…” Seraphina replies, moving over to place her in the living room. She sits on the floor with her pens and pencils already scattered about, and gets to it.
That leaves the two adults to talk.
Ted starts by scratching the back of his head, an overwhelming pride filling him, too, “Goshdarnit,” He sighs, “She is the cutest thing… And the biscuits, too. Such high praise.”
“Might sneak a taste in, later.” Trent hums, folding his hands behind his back. His expression then changes, folding itself into something… Neutral. It’s more sincere, so the coach thinks. “Thank you for coming here. For not… Backing out. I don’t know what to tell you, Ted. It’s nice to have company, especially on her birthday.”
He shrugs it off with his usual, “Oh, it’s nothing!” But steps closer to Trent with a laugh, “No, seriously, she is so precious, deserves the bestest birthday, if you ask me.”
The bestest birthday… The words ring in the journalist’s head, and by the time he finishes thinking about them, he’s wrapped up in a hug.
A warm, cosy, meaningful hug.
Trent slowly wraps his arms back around Ted, letting out a hum in acknowledgement. He doesn’t mind how the other is quite a bit taller than him, so he’s sinking into his arms… It’s almost as though he’s being protected.
Nevertheless, when Ted’s fingers linger near his hair, barely just brushing some strands, he doesn’t feel overwhelmed. Instead, it’s a very careful, very gentle sort of thing. After all, it’s clear as day that the manager likes his hair, no matter what form it takes.
They stay like that for a long time, especially because, at one point, Ted tightens the hug ever-so slightly, and Trent reciprocates…
Because nothing is easy in life.
If the journalist knew any more about his circumstances, well… Then he’d know everything, not just the facade he puts up with every passing day.
“I needed to get out,” He mumbles, fingers still grazing Trent’s hair, gently tracing over a particular bow clip, “Out of my head, out of that flat, out of my office. I was lucky enough to make it here without gettin’ lost, and confused, and–”
“Ted.” Trent replies, pulling out of the hug slightly to see his face, to see him opening up, scared, “You’re alright. You’re the most thoughtful, most positive, most persevering person I’ve known. If there’s anything out there, troubling you, which there is… Then I know you’ve got a way to combat it. I’d recommend you take it slow. No point in going fast to reach a poor end.”
“No point in going fast to reach a poor end…” Ted whispers, cracking a smile now, “I like that one.”
Trent smiles too, and it’s a smile that reaches his eyes. “I had a strong feeling you would.”
***
When the football coach leaves, determined to get home and start planning for the final game of the season, Trent reluctantly lets go.
Of course, he, more than anyone, understands the importance of working… But after all this?
He could’ve stayed like that forever, and knows that Ted could’ve, too.
The door closes behind him.
Trent knows, however, on a happier note, that they’ll text, that they’ll see each other in the press room. Maybe they’ll have coffee out somewhere, or he’ll pop over to Ted’s flat for a favour in return.
Because… He might just be wanting, seeking something that he doesn’t quite know how to define.
But, it clearly resides inside Ted Lasso.
***
“Do you mind sharing with me?”
There are two biscuits left.
Seraphina’s pouting, her response of, “Fiiiine, Daddddd…” spewing the same sentiment.
That sentiment being: They’re my biscuits! Ted gave them to me. It’s my birthday, Dad!!!
But Trent just laughs it off, taking a photo of the biscuit packet first, before eating one of the biscuits.
Small, round, crumbly, almost shortbread-like, and sweet!
“Yum…” He ends up saying without realising it, and Seraphina just laughs.
“You love his biscuits too!”
“I do.” Trent says once he’s swallowed the mouthful, “God, I really do…”
He kisses his daughter on the forehead and folds the lid over the biscuit packet, placing the box in the cupboard. Seraphina frowns.
“We’ll have that one tomorrow, alright?”
“... Fine, Dad.”
***
Trent Crimm: Photo Attached
Trent Crimm: These take the cake, Ted, really.
Trent Crimm: Almost glad we didn’t have cake. Thank you again, for everything.
Ted Lasso: Damn, you’re welcome!! I should be thanking you, seriously, though.
Ted Lasso: I know there’s a lot up ahead, but today…
Ted Lasso: …
Ted Lasso: It really flipped a certain switch in my brain. Just a little. So good to see a new perspective.
Trent Crimm: Glad I could help. I mean that, by the way.
Trent Crimm: …
Trent Crimm: <3
***
Ted searches up the emoticon at the speed of light. Because it’s not as simple as decoding a smiley or frowny face.
An analogue heart.
It makes Ted feel warm and fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy in a way that’s like Christmas, with a fireplace on, and cinnamon, and presents.
It makes Ted feel… Appreciated.
Because as much as he tells others he feels the sentiment, it doesn’t always get sent back to him.
This is heart, literally and metaphorically. This is meaningful. This is caring.
He takes a deep, slow breath, and lets it go.
Ted Lasso: Thank you.
Ted Lasso: Truly.
Ted Lasso: But I’m gonna go to sleep now. Goodnight, Trent Crimm from The Independent!
Trent Crimm: Goodnight, Coach Ted Lasso from America.
I am actually livelaughloving this Ted Lasso beat you're on so esp what you've done with these two. I was never a Crimm/Lasso truther but you can consider me one now. Also loved that this was from Ted's POV after the last one was Trent's, nice little switcheroonie there and you've got his voice down so perfectly.
Like this -> But if Ted Lasso, the new manager of AFC Richmond, has to give a compliment of any kind, giving it to the glasses is much nicer than to his hair. Liek I never would've thought to come with this energy of Ted trying to figure out the best way to pay him a compliment so it's not creepy, but it's SSOOOOO Ted, like already got me in stitches immediately sdfksj and then also this little internal dialogue skfjs -> ‘Specially with this British football– Thing. Yeah, I might as well just fuck right off, shouldn’t I? LIKE THIS JUST IS TED.
And honestly Ted is a character I could see getting so lost in the hands of the wrong fanfic writer bc it's so easy to like lean too much into his graciousness and sweetness and make it almost a caricature, but the whole "i might as well just fuck off" is at the end really grounds him as a character for me and is like so representative of the depths and nuance that is Ted. So like just bravo all around.
Just a few more honorable mentions bc I'm contractually obligated when the fic is this charming: These are all just so spot tf on -> Trent Crimm with an emoticon ...The guy’s outdone himself, and -> Because it’s not something he’s used to, the simplicity and lack of connection that comes with a one-night stand, AND -> “No point in going fast to reach a poor end…” Ted whispers, cracking a smile now, “I like that one.” Liek I could scream it from the rooftops but like the subtle mixture of self-awareness and sarcasm but like mixed with Ted's trademark sunny disposition and sincerity, like it's such hard balance to strike and you've really struck it so beautifully here.
It’s a wave, a mouthed goodbye, and a punch to the gut. -> for both me and Ted and anyone else reading this like WOOF talk about gut punch. Also increeeeedible description of Trent's hairrrrr??????????? -> It’s just nice. Someone’s hair can be grey and yet colourful, neat and yet messy. IMEANN
AND THEN THE ENDINGGGGGG WITH THE EMOTICON HEARTTTTTTT
As mentioned in the OG event post, bc tumblr caps a post at 50 hyperlinks and tagging a blog creates an additional hyperlink, we’ll be crediting writers by including their tumblr handle without @-ing them for now. So there’ll only a link to the fic. HOWMever at the end of the event, there will be another masterlist of every writer who participated throughout the month so their blogs and other fanworks can be found :)
Day 1
Flying In (Chapter 3) | Mayans MC/Narcos Crossover ft OC Lara Losa | 1 - Book of Genesis (by drabbles-mc)
One Good Thing | The Last of Us - Tess/Joel | 24 - Book of Revelations (by our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Wise People | Narcos - Horacio Carrillo/OC Kiara Nash | 12 - Book of Balancing In Between (by proceduralpassion)
Day 2
Desperate | Sons of Anarchy - Jax Teller & OC Claire Morrow | 13 - Book of In Urgent Need of Assistance (drabbles-mc)
Whispers of the Nile | FBI - OA Zidan/Tiffany Wallace | 7 - Book of Time Travel (proceduralpassion)
Score! | Ted Lasso - Ted Lasso & Trent Crimm | 15 - Book of How tf Did We Get Here (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Day 3
Missed It | TG Maverick - Bradley "Rooster Bradshaw/Reader | 26 - Book of Abduction (drabbles-mc)
It's Me and You, Forever | Narcos - Steve/Connie Murphy | 2 - Book of Fuck-ups (proceduralpassion)
I'll Think of You | Narcos Mexico - Walt Breslin & Pablo Acosta | 25 - Book of Reciprocity (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Day 4
Untouchable | Sons of Anarchy - Herman Kozik/OC Tawnie Trager | 23 - Book of Just Chaos (drabbles-mc)
Go To Sleep, And Dream of Pain | Little Shop of Horrors - Seymour Krelborn & Audrey II | 21 - Book of Nerves of Steel (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Day 5
Here On Out | Bikeriders - Benny/Kathy Cross | 8 - Book of These Damn Restraints (drabbles-mc)
Strangers To Friends, Friends Into Lovers, And Strangers Again | Good Omens - Aziraphale/Crowley | 30 - Book of There's No Place Like... (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Day 6
Hell-Bent | Ted Lasso - Rebecca Welton & Leslie Higgins | 21 - Book of Nepo-Baby Levels of Incompetence (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Day 7
Float | Narcos: Mexico - Amado Carrillo Fuentes/Marisol | 2 - Book of Fuck-Ups (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Day 8
The Jackal | The Day of the Jackal - Charles "The Jackal"/Nuria | 11 - Book of Pit Stops (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Day 9
Casual (AO3 only) | Narcos - Amado Carrillo Fuentes/Pacho Herrera | 3 - Day of Stuff That Goes in the Junk Drawer (anonymous)
Day 10
...
Day 11
Just Like Old Times | Top Gun Maverick - Jake "Hangman" Seresin/F!Reader | 17 - Book of Inception (drabbles-mc)
Vulnerable | Lempicka - Tamara de Lempicka/Rafaela | 27 - Book of Caretaking (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Day 12
In A Sky Full of Stars | Before Your Eyes - Benjamin Brynn/Chloe | 7 - Book of Time Travel (our-future-is-up-to-us-2)
Perspective | Mayans MC - Bishop Losa/F!Reader | 12 - Book of Balancing In Between (drabbles-mc)
Day 13
Until the Day You Don't Come Back | Narcos: Mexico - Andrea Nuñez & David Barrón | 14 - Book of Decisions, Decisions, Decisions (hausofmamadas)
Pairing: Andrea Nuñez & David Barrón (+ some implied Dinarrón)
Prompt: "All we have are our choices" and Crossroads - for @narcosfandomdiscord Narcovember - #14 Book of Decisions Decisions Decisions
Word count: ≈ 4.2K
Note: shoutout to the homie @rerorero-my-cherry whose discord tonteria, talking about skipping off to Mexico to escape fascism somehow sparked the idea for this fic and I can't even explain how or why😂
TWs: Canon-consistent violence, descriptions of violent acts, smoking
There was no possible universe in which he was brought here by conscience. So naturally, she was dying to know the real reason they were meeting now under this bridge...
Andrea gets a mysterious call from a potential new informant one day with information on notoriously corrupt politician and money launderer, Carlos Hank Gonzalez. She agrees to a late-night meeting on the US side of the border, so she can get all the tea, and boy is that tea scalding. (This ended up entirely too long but here you go world.)
⁂
Andrea checks her watch. Almost midnight. The road is quiet, cars passing by every fifteen minutes. The thinnest nail clipping of the moon is out and her informant is over a half an hour late. The lone street light flickering on the overpass above feels like a doomsday clock urging her to cut her losses and go home.
Really, loitering at this fork in the road under a highway bridge isn’t the most sensible idea, not when people were being gunned down in the streets in broad daylight and the cartels were using the bodies of their victims to send telegrams to each other. At least she had enough sense to insist the meeting take place on the US side of the border where her death would at least be investigated should things end badly. Just a few miles from Tecate, she’d found an unmonitored stretch of border the gringos hadn’t fenced off yet a few months ago and had been using it to touch base with informants.
It’s for this reason Salgado is always telling her she’s a clever girl with no sense. And also that if she’s senseless enough not to listen to him, as La Voz’s editor and her boss, he makes no bones about using it to his advantage. And he had - a series of groundbreaking stories about the hipódromo, Carlos Hank Gonzalez, and the AFO were enough to prove her senselessness enough of an asset, no matter how much of a danger it posed. Until the day you don’t come back, he’d note ominously.
But if not her, then who? The job was easier to do if you knew you were already dead. She did. She also didn’t think about it too much. Plus, this lead was too big to pass up. The call with the tip-off had come directly to her desk, an anonymous insider allegedly high enough in the AFO to know all about Gonzalez’s dealings not just with the Arellano family but with Amado Carrillo Fuentes in Juarez; news she wasn’t yet privy to but that made enough sense to catch her attention. And that’s how she ends up on these back-country, dirt roads in the middle of the night.
Of course, she knows it could be a trap too - she’s senseless, not stupid. She knows full well this little rendezvous could be no more than someone making good on a bounty for the head of any journalist from La Voz. She couldn’t even bring herself to revel in the I told you so, when the street edict came down from the AFO after Salgado enacted the policy of removing writers’ names from the bylines, even if she did tell him it was a short-term solution to a long term problem. It was even shorter than they bargained for because within a week of implementing the policy, the AFO had branded anyone who came in and out of that office fair game. Normally she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to retroactively gloat, but this time it didn’t seem fair. Salgado did his best to protect them and it earned the whole staff a scarlet letter. But who’s fault was that really? So she left well enough alone, like she never had an opinion on the matter to begin with.
So yeah, the prospect of this being a trap had occurred to her. More than once. And the longer she sits here, leaning against the hood of her station wagon, checking her watch, the more the possibility keeps rearing its ugly head. Right on cue, the sound of footsteps crunching on gravel has her going for the handgun in her waistband and spinning around to greet the void of what she hoped would be empty space under the bridge.
“Hello? Who’s there?” She does her best to breathe, keep calm, as she anchors the gun in both hands, aiming for the shadows.“Dejate ver. Muestrate si no quieres tomarte una bala en el culo.”
A pair of raised hands are the first things to emerge followed by a modestly dressed man with a clean-cut crop of dark hair, dark eyes, and a sharply drawn mustache that gives him the look of a French nobleman caught in the wrong timeline. Her stomach drops several floors and liquifies into a puddle on the ground as it sinks in, just who he is. She’d give anything not to but there’s no eradicating the sense of recognition.
So this is it then. The end of the line.
She’d pictured it just like this. In fact the scene is so familiar, she feels the distinct impulse to laugh at just how much of a cliche she’s about to be. Because as much as she can acknowledge the possibility - meeting a grisly, undignified end, painted somewhere on the streets of a city she’s fought for and loved, just another macabre telegram - she’s also struck by the kind of shame that accompanies shattered hubris. That, somewhere along the way, she mistakenly bought into a brand of exceptionalism she always hoped to avoid, one might call it downright American. Rationally, she’s known the odds, even accepted them. And yet somehow it was still something that only happened to other people.
What a fool. She’d kick herself if she wasn’t about to die. Or maybe … How fast could this guy move? How quick could his hands be? Maybe she’d turn her gun on herself, get a shot off before he could get his out. Take things on her own terms. Not that she can even see a gun. But she doesn’t need to, to know it’s there, tucked in his waistband right at the base of his back.
After all, he is the AFO’s top sicario, David Barrón Corona. One of the most lethal men in Tijuana. Maybe all of Mexico. She’s only ever seen him at a distance, through a telephoto lens or in grainy photographs developed thereafter, but she could recite a list of his exploits from memory like a kid in some perverse spelling bee: the shootout at Christine’s, the airport massacre, the assassination of Ocampo, the shootout at the Belmont cafe. The man’s resume is a mile long and filled with nothing but death.
In her experience, meeting monsters like this tended to be unsettling for how boring and anticlimactic they always seemed to be. He appears no different. Just a man walking on two legs, with two eyes to see, and those eyes aren’t even crazed or rage-filled or brimming with hate. Whenever she came face to face with someone like him, it tended to incite within her a twinge of irritation that they couldn’t do everyone the courtesy of coming with some kind of warning label.
One of her hands drops and she walks toward him, gun drawn as she cocks the hammer and fires a warning shot into the ground next to him with an ease that surprises even her. He barely flinches. It’s obviously not his first rodeo. Which, yes, is to be expected but the stillness of him is still downright chilling.
His posture is relaxed, hands up in an effort to suspend hostilities. She’s decidedly unmoved in her hostility.
“Y’know,” he attempts to reassure her, “if I wanted to kill you, ya estarías en el piso, desangrándote en la tierra,” but it looms more like a threat.
It catches her off guard though, how much softer, gentler his voice is than she expected. It’s almost enough to disarm her entirely until she remembers all the coroner’s reports and crime scene photos she’d come across in her research. His handiwork. Well-executed executions, meted out with such quiet indifference he could’ve been telling them a bedtime story. This is who she’s dealing with.
“O sí? Pues soy yo ya quien tiene la pistola. So start talking, cabrón antes que te dé por el culo,” she flicks her wrist, pointing the gun barrel at the gravel disturbed by the first shot, “with another one of those.”
He chuckles, “Usually when people, civvies especially, say that,” making sure to keep his hands up, careful not to make any sudden movements, “no les creo. Pero a ti? A ti te creo.”
“Arre. So, if you’re really not here to kill me, fuiste tu con quien hablé por el telefono?”
He gives a stiff nod.
Andrea cocks her head to one side, examining him in the flickering street lamp light. He’d be handsome were it not for the vacuum in his eyes, no warmth, no life, yet here he was, breathing and blinking and talking all the same. There was no possible universe in which he was brought here by conscience. With what she knew, he was likely immune to that particular plague. So naturally, she was dying to know the real reason they were meeting now under this bridge, at this dirt crossroads, near the dirt town of Tecate.
“Do I, uh, have to keep these,” he looks right, then left, at each of his arms, “up the whole time?”
She considers the risk for a moment, ultimately deciding to let him but refuses to drop her gun. His hands come swinging down by his sides apparently unbothered by the fact that he remains caught in her crosshairs. Yeah, clearly not his first rodeo. Not even his second. Or third.
He meets her eyes but says nothing and the silence starts to feel like a third party in the conversation that just won’t shut up. Andrea taps her foot impatiently but he doesn’t seem to get the memo that this is the part where he’s supposed to do the talking.
“Alright.” She exhales crossly, rolling her eyes. “What did you want to talk about? On the phone you said something about Hank and Juarez?”
“That’s right.” Barrón takes a few steps closer, hands now clasped together at his waist, no more troubled by the gun than when he was further away. “He’s been working with Amado since he took over. Cleaning his money.”
“I don’t understand. Wasn’t he already doing that for the Arellanos?”
He nods.
“Wait, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he align himself with warring plazas?”
Looking down, Barrón shrugs, “That’s above my pay grade,” kicking a rock across the dirt, dust trailing behind it like a tiny, terrestrial shooting star. “I’m not that high on the food chain.”
She regards him skeptically, brows crinkling.
His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth, “I can only guess,” seeming to take the cue this time. “He’s probably too high-profile for either plaza to fuck with, so big homie can afford to do business with both. But I doubt Sr. Kingpin Accountant accounted for the heat it’d bring back on him with all the, uh– y’know, scrutiny.”
Grinding her teeth, Andrea snorts. Scrutiny was both a succinct and delightfully vanilla way of saying, ‘global attention thanks to all the bodies of the streets.’ But the implications of Hank laundering money for Juarez were big. He might be playing the plazas off each other, biding his time until a victor emerges, one he’ll be all too happy to chuck right under the bus the minute the political machine decides it needs to offer up its next sacrificial lamb to the gringos. Standing there, trying to put all these new pieces together, Andrea suddenly remembers the pack of cigarettes in the pocket of her flannel and wishes she’d thought to smoke one before they’d started talking. She can’t afford the distraction of lighting one up now, what with having to keep the gun in place.
“Alright, so he’s doing business with both plazas. How the hell do you know this? You said it yourself, you’re not that high up on the food chain.”
He seems to bristle at this, throwing her a sideways glance through half-lidded eyes, face overtaken by a dangerous, far-away look that spooks her even more than the gun at his back. “Why would you need to know that to write your little story.”
Interesting. Something personal, perhaps. She’d get it out of him one way or another. But later.
“Well,” she grips the gun even tighter, knuckles going white and she hopes that by keeping her voice level, he can’t sense how scared she is, “it’s not going in an article per se. But for reasons that I hope would be obvious? I can’t identify you as a source. You’ll have to remain anonymous.”
“You don’t gotta do that on my account.”
Practically gagging on disbelief, she manages to sputter out, “For you? What are you kidding?” before regaining her composure. “I mean– well frankly, you’re a criminal, a killer at that, putting a rival cartel in the headlines, so it’s more an issue of self-interest. Now, I know doing something like this does nothing but put you at risk but my readers won’t know that. So, telling me how exactly you found out about all this would lend you more credibility as a source. O sea significa que podemos confiar más en lo que me has dicho.”
This seems to wound him privately somehow like he’s taken it worse than the bullet she’d fired. But whatever it stirs in him is gone before she gets a chance to interrogate it further.
No less relentless, it is enough for her to ease up on her delivery. “So do you have proof? Something concrete that I can take back to my editor?”
His hand goes in his pocket and he begins digging around for something. Andrea’s whole body stiffens and she takes a step back, arm straightening to retrain the gun on him more decisively. If he notices, he doesn’t show it as he continues fishing around in his pocket until he finally brings out a few folded documents along with a bag of rolling papers. He takes a pre-rolled cigarette out of the bag, popping it between his lips while reaching out to pass her the documents. A few hesitant steps forward, she lowers the gun slowly snatching the papers from his hands quickly before scurrying back again. Her head bobs up and down between watching him and trying to read what’s on the page in front of her.
“What are these,” she flips through a few pages, “business licenses?”
“Among other things.”
She skims the first document and for the first time she feels like this whole thing might not be a trap. Fixing him with the coldest, most I-will-kill-you stare she can manage, “I’m taking a big risk, doing this. No me hagas arrepentirme o te arrepentiras, lo prometo,” she flicks the safety on and puts the gun in her waistband, in front so he knows she still has easy access.
Bowing his head, Barrón agrees, "Noted," cracking a small smile, something akin to respect or maybe admiration and it’s the first time his face displays any emotion. It puts her a little more at ease.
Both hands now free, Andrea combs through the documents, a few loose, the rest stapled together, some with carbon copy backings, and skims for the highlights - important phrases, dates, places, signatures - until she finds a signature at the bottom of a business license for an aeronautic manufacturing company.
“A shell company,” Barrón confirms her suspicions before they’re even fully formed. “Makes specialty parts for small planes. Like Cessnas.”
She flips to the next page, documents showing ownership stakes in the casino at the hipódromo along with two of the Arellanos’ discotheques. Flipping through the rest, it’s more of the same, SEC and CNBV registrations for shell corporations, licenses for legitimate businesses, and share certificates, none of them bearing Carlos Hank’s name but nonetheless tying him to both Tijuana and Juarez by a signature almost as important: Carolina Vera. His lawyer. She was all over these documents.
Speechless, Andrea’s head rises slowly to look at Barrón. When she said proof, she wasn’t expecting it to be this monumental. The cynic in her kicks up, wondering if it isn’t just a more elaborate trap designed to lull her in a state of submission before the jaws snap shut for good.
“It gets better," he says, examining his zip-o lighter before flicking the top back and forth a few times with his thumb.
Which reminds her, in desperate need of a cigarette, Andrea folds the papers up and sticks them in the back pocket of her jeans and then feverishly digs around the pocket of her shirt for her pack. Once retrieved, she flicks her lighter several times, sparks flying at the end of the cigarette in her mouth, until finally a little bloom of flame appears out of the corner of her eye to light it for her. He's a smooth motherfucker, she'll give him that, although strangely, there was nothing smug about it. He brings it back, cradling the flame with his other hand to light his own. After a first drag, Andrea dips her head back, a cyclone of smoke pouring from her lips while she exhales in relief.
“How,” snapping forward again, she takes another drag before asking, voice thick, each word encased in smoke, “does this get any better?”
“I have another source.”
“What? Who?”
“Cristina Palacios Hodoyan.”
“No me digas." The shock has her nearly wheezing the words and her eyes are wide, almost feral with curiosity. “You know where she is?”
He smirks. “Who do you think hid her?”
“What? So– but wait, so you didn’t—y’know. Her sons?”
Suddenly he can’t meet her eyes and she can’t wipe the image of the bridge from her mind - the row of lifeless bodies strung up, punishment para los soplones, whose biggest crime was usually no more than bearing witness to things she never agreed to see in the first place. That Alex and Alfredo were more involved in the extracurricular activities didn’t change the fact that they were just boys.
Perhaps trying to get a read on Andrea or maybe just hoping to fill the silence, Barrón offers, “Everyone assumed- and for good reason. But that time wasn’t me. I was in San Diego, trying t–”
“Save it.” With one look, she skewers him, eyes narrowed, mouth tight, not here for his bullshit. “Vete alaverga con esa ‘that time.’ How many other times was it you, huh?”
Meeting her eyes again like he recognizes his mistake, he responds matter-of-factly, “Plenty,” head held high, no attempt at contrition, false or otherwise.
Still, she’s expecting him to plead his case, so she waits for the explanation, the mental gymnastics, the cognitive dissonance, the rationalization for every single horrific act of violence wrapped up in that plenty. After standing there, watching each other in silence for who knows how long, she realizes there won’t be any of that. And up sprouts the tiniest kernel of respect that she already hates for being there. But she can’t help it. David Barrón could be called a lot of things but a hypocrite wasn’t one of them. She rolls her eyes because christ, who needs heroes when the bar is this high.
She mumbles to herself, “There’s a fire sale and everything must go,” but before he can voice the look of pure confusion on his face, she’s onto the next question, something tugging at the back of her mind since he first stepped out of the shadows of the overpass. “So, what’s in this for you? Why are you telling me all of this?”
Gaze shifting off to the light polluted horizon, he goes quiet. Eventually he just says, “That’s a big question.”
If this was a television interview, the broadcast would’ve been cut for all the dead air between them but she just waits, hoping he might give her just a little more, something to put this whole bizarre night into perspective.
“It’s just—” he shakes his head, “the way I come up—” putting his smoke to his lips and taking a pull so long, she wonders if maybe the question hasn’t short-circuited him a bit.
“Gettin’ into all this,” he waves his hand around at nothing in particular, a party streamer of smoke left behind its path, “wasn’t really a choice for me. Not like how it is here. Now in this new– whatever. Era. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. We were supposed to legitimize. Climb outta this ditch, not dig it deeper.
“This? What do you mean?”
“The game,” he huffs in a moment of frustration, the only emotion he’s let escape so far. “Used to be no civvies, no bystanders, no regular folk. If you was in the game, you get popped on the street, well okay, you knew what you signed up for. But all this other– truth is, man, I’m just tired. Tired of the game, the life, tired of doing all this shit just to be someone’s second choice.”
It was the most he’d spoken the entire time and she didn’t want to interrupt for fear he’d clam up again and go back to nods and one-word answers, but she’d have to start asking some follow-up questions if he didn’t start putting some names to these pronouns.
“I tried to save him, y’know, for her.” He keeps going, face fixed with a thousand yard stare so vacant and icy, he might’ve had the surface of the moon in his eyes. “But I couldn’t. Maybe I didn’t want to. She knows I tried but maybe she knows that too.”
“Hm.” Crossing her arms, one hip cocked out to the side, Andrea examines the end of her cigarette before holding it off to the side and tapping it with her finger. “So the rumors were true. You and Enedina.”
“I thought it’d be different.” Barrón turns back to her, flashing a nihilistic smirk that reveals how broken he is. “But the things she’s asked me to do,” he shakes his head, “I don’t know. The game ain’t in me no more. And this last one, well—”
“This last one?”
“Your editor. He was greenlit.”
It takes a moment to register. When it finally does, Andrea feels like someone’s pressed pause on reality only to start playing it again in slow motion.
“Y— you mean, my—? uh, Salgado? Ramon?
“Pues, sí.”
“You’re certain?”
“Mhm. My next mark.”
“Hijoueputa,” she mutters. “No es posible.”
Stamping his cigarette out in the dirt with the heel of his wingtip, he nods. “Best believe it.”
“Well— so what? Are you still gonna go after him?” Andrea’s getting more panicked by the second, her fingers finding the grip of her gun.
Chuckling, Barrón puts a hand up in gentle protest, “Nah, chill.”
For some inexplicable reason, she listens to him.“Fine. So, what’re you gonna do then?”
”Something I’ve never done in my whole life.”
“What’s that?”
“Miss.”
Andrea appears to take some comfort in this as her shoulders drop, a breath escaping that she didn’t even know she was holding. Remembering her cigarette, she takes a last drag while noting dryly, “You know, you can never go back.”
A blank look from him is the only response she gets.
“If you do that— y’know, miss. The minute I talk to Cristina, the minute I write this, they’ll probably figure out it’s you. You can never go back.”
Barrón just shakes his head, resigned. “No, ma’am.”
“No? What, no? If they find out you’re my source, they’ll kill you.”
“Of course. I know how they’ll do it too.” He says it with a twinge of pride that reminds Andrea exactly who she’s talking to. “It’ll be someone I know. I’ll see it coming. They’ll want me to see it coming. Cause they know I know.”
Despite this reminder of who he is, what he’s done, she can’t quash that kernel of respect that’s been planted. Even if he wanted to atone, he had enough respect not to insult her by trying to. Nor did he feel sorry for himself that he probably didn’t deserve to. It was a display of accountability she rarely saw from someone as morally bankrupt as he’d had to be. Until now anyway. And this makes her feel, in spite of herself, almost sorry for him. “You’re not scared?”
“Sure. Wouldn’t you be?”
“Well, of course,” she shrugs, twisting the filter of her cigarette until the cherry and remaining tobacco fall out before tossing it behind her. “But I w–“
“But you wouldn’t deserve it. And it’s true, I got it coming. Made my own bed as they say. But I can still be scared. Even if I know, at the end of the day, all we have are our choices.”
Andrea smirks, crossing her arms, looking down at the ground to push some dust around with the toe of her boot, unsure what to say next. When she looks back up, he’s already walking away, hands in his pockets, leisurely like he’s got nowhere to be, back to the shadowy spot under the bridge he came from. She wondered if his car was parked there or somewhere else. Or maybe he’s just some visiting ghost of Christmas past and she’ll wake up from this dream.
”Hey,” she calls out.
Just before he reaches the edge of the void, he spins around on his heels, hands still in his pockets, eyebrows raised, and waits.
“For what it’s worth– well, you do have it coming. But … I hope you find your way to some peace somehow.”
The unexpected happens then. He smiles. But this time it travels up his face all the way to his eyes, lighting them up. It might be as rare as a passing comet. So there are signs of life, after all.
Not a reblog proper, but had to give a shoutout to a narcovember fic by a Friend of the Pod we are not a podcast who posts on AO3
Pairing: Amado Carrillo Fuentes x Helmer "Pacho" Herrera
Prompt: Book of Stuff That Goes In the Junk Drawer - Fanwork inspired by a song - Casual by Chappel Roan
Word count: 500
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
First off, increeeeedible song choice. incidentally this is the first chappel roan song i ever heard and story time: i told my best friend who showed it to me that if this had come out like 8yrs ago when i was in The Most back-and-forth relationship, i prob would've driven into oncoming traffic bc this song was just. well you know. so even tho this timeline is cursed, atleast that didn't happen skdjfsk but more importantly, BANGER OF AN OPENERRRR OKAY -> Amado leaned back and wondered, for the first time in his life, how much of love was just chemical. IMEANNNNHOWDAREYOU??start a fic off this well, what gives you the right
Also, can we round of applause for this beautiful tropical fish moment from Amado that made me snort so loud -> He wondered if he should be more of an expert on drugs and the brain. But maybe that wasn't really part of his job. like tbh if he did decide to bone up on some neuroscience, he'd prob be more well-informed than like 80% of the psychiatrists i've been to so skfjdskj
But just when I thought it couldn't get any funnier, yOU SLAP ME WITH THIS -> He seldom said anything during sex, which worked out because he was often told to shut up anyway, and this -> Listen, if you are in love with me, I don't blame you. But keep it to yourself... LIke sfskjdfka;lskfj;aklj this has left me fuckingskdfjskj inconsolable
For @narcosfandomdiscord Book of Balancing In Between: Fanwork whose setting is in a liminal space (i chose the carniceria after-hours)
Warnings: 18+, language, light angst, emotional hurt/comfort, reader is the oldest Reyes sister
Word Count: 2k
A/N: MAAAAAAAAN it's been a while since i've written for Bishop and i simply just love giving him complicated relationships with Reyes Women.
You knew better than to sit with your back to the door no matter where you were or what time it was. But, after how the last few weeks had gone you were too tired to think about it. You were too tired to think about it, it was two in the morning, and out of all the places in the world to sit with your back to the door you figured that Felipe’s shop was one of the safest. So there you were, camped out at one of the small tables inside the shop with your back to the door.
It'd been a long time since you made a point to notice the sound of motorcycle engines. It was like having the fan on at home or the window down in the car as you drove, noise that you heard but never really listened to. The sound of the bike engine went in one ear and right out the other, but the shifting lights and shadows of the singular headlight coming through the front windows of the shop are what caught your attention. Then you heard the rest of it.
Taking a deep breath, you wiped at the tears in your eyes, the ones smeared across your cheekbones. Raking your fingers back along the sides of your head, you tried to take breaths deep enough to get your heartrate and your breathing back on track.
The sound of the engine went away, the light streaming through the window went away too and sent all of the shadows running with it. You sat perfectly still, and within seconds, right on cue, the bells above the door chimed as someone pushed it open.
The pacing of his strides gave it away before he even opened his mouth to speak. “Shouldn’t turn your back on the bad guys, querida,” he said, resting his hand on your shoulder.
Something about the feeling of the callouses on his palm against the exposed skin of your shoulder was more comforting than usual. Reaching up, you threaded your fingers with his. “Only bad guys who come here tend to be pretty good to me, so I think I’ll be alright.”
His hand fell away from your shoulder as he walked to sit across from you, and you begrudgingly let his hand slip out of yours. Leaning back in the chair, you watched as Bishop sat down across from you. Once he sat, he immediately leaned forward onto the table, hands resting in the center of it close enough for you to hold if you wanted to.
There was something so familiar about the way he looked in the patchy light coming through the windows from the streetlamps outside. It reminded you of when you’d first met, first really gotten to know each other. A lot had changed since then, and it reminded you of all that too.
“What’re you doing here, Obispo?” you asked, mirroring his position but not taking his hands in yours again just yet.
“You weren’t home,” he offered up simply.
You chuckled. “And why were you—”
“Because you didn’t stop by the clubhouse.” He pulled his phone from his kutte and tossed it onto the table. “And you didn’t answer your phone.”
Tears were gathering in your eyes again but you still smiled at him. “Something going on that I should know about, then?” you asked, already knowing the answer.
Bishop looked at you, studied the expression on your face. He could see the puffiness of your eyes, the way that the tears beginning to creep over the edge were not the first ones that you’d shed for the night. He saw the tiredness in your eyes, even though only the smallest traces of light were hitting your face.
“Why here?” he asked, completely avoiding your question.
“What?”
He made a tiny gesture, a flick of his hand motioning to the expanse of the shop. “Why do you end up here at three in the morning when shit goes sideways?”
You chuckled. “It’s only two in the morning, first of all.”
“You know—”
You pointed to his kutte. “Can I?”
There was a pause, and the look on Bishop’s face let you know that he was contemplating holding out on you until he got some answers from you, but he’d never been good at turning you away. Reaching back into his kutte, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and lighter. You watched as he went through the motions that were so second-nature to him now, placing it between his lips and sparking the lighter, waiting to make sure it’d catch. He pulled one drag off of it before holding it out to you. You let your fingers touch for a second longer than necessary before taking it.
The inhale that you took off the cigarette in your hand was the steadiest one that you’d taken for most of the night. You tried to savor it, the steadiness and the burn you felt. Closing your eyes, you let your breath sneak back out one calculated centimeter at a time.
Finally opening your eyes again, you found Bishop still staring at you, that same unique mix of anger and concern in his eyes that never truly seemed to go away. “The worst thing happened here,” you said, quieter than you intended.
Bishop’s frown deepened in a way you didn’t know was physically possible. Nodding, he kept his voice just as quiet as yours as he said, “I know.”
You brought the cigarette back to your lips for a moment to buy you some time. “So now, when other bad things happen, sometimes I’ll come here. Get some perspective…or some shit like that.”
The tacked-on ending got weary but genuine chuckles out of both of you. “Right. Some shit like that.” Bishop took a moment to light up a cigarette of his own. “Still don’t like it.”
You hummed in amusement. “You don’t have to.”
“I do if you’re gonna keep comin’ here.”
“Only if you’re gonna keep comin’ after me.”
It was a sweet moment, one of small smiles and tendrils of smoke making it even harder to get a clear picture. But you each knew how the other looked even in pitch black darkness. There was a warmth about it, separate from the scorch down the back of your throat. You almost wanted to reach out with your free hand to take his.
But then the moment passed. Pressing the knuckle of your thumb across your brow, you asked, “So, did you come hunt me down tonight to tell me something that I already know?”
His expression faltered. “I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think I would’ve known by now that my brother got shot?” Ash fell from your cigarette onto the table, a mess you’d be sure to clean before Felipe found his way back to the shop again. “You didn’t think that between the hospital, and his girlfriend, and my other brother that’s part of your fucking club,” your palm slammed down on the tabletop, causing it to rattle, “You didn’t think that with all of that, I wouldn’t find out?”
“Querida, I—”
“Ah-ah,” you shook your head. “You didn’t come here to break the news to me, Obispo. When you called me a few hours ago? That was to try and break the news. And you were still too late on that, by the way. But the rest of it? Showing up to my house? Here? You only go that far when you know you’re up shit creek with no fucking paddle in sight.”
Neither of you said anything then. The longer you looked at Bishop, the less you felt that you knew what he was thinking. If tradition held, he was probably trying to come up with excuses for a few things: why EZ got shot, why he wasn’t the one to tell you, and why there wasn’t blood running down the streets of Santo Padre yet. You didn’t need the laundry list for it all, but you’d played games like this with him enough now to at least be curious about the answers.
The same thing happened when you found out Ezekiel had killed a cop and was going to prison, and when Angel was joining the club, then again when Angel was looking down the pipe at eighteen months in Chino, then again when you heard that not only was Ezekiel getting out of prison, but he was getting out of prison and funneling himself right into the club alongside his brother. The same song and dance again and again over the years, and to think that neither of you would’ve had to learn the steps if Bishop hadn’t found you here, alone in the shop in the middle of the night, scrubbing at the floor because you were convinced that the last of your mother’s blood still hadn’t been washed away after the police department left.
Clearing his throat, he started again. “I didn’t think that you should be alone.” He paused, waiting for you to start right up again. When you didn’t, he continued, but tentatively. “I’m sorry that you head to hear it from…” he trailed off, realizing that you hadn’t said through which avenue you found out.
“Gaby,” you filled in the blank, shaking your head as you remembered the sheer terror in her voice.
“I’m sorry about that.” He sounded genuine as he was saying it. Before the scoff in the base of your throat could make its way out, he said, “I am. But would hearing it from me have felt any better? Would you have ended up,” he gestured to the carnicería with both hands this time, “anywhere else?”
You chuckled, a bitter sound. “You almost had a decent apology going for a second there.”
He took a deep breath, and you could see it on his face that he was actively fighting the urge to say the first thing that came to his mind. “I am sorry. And I am fucking here. And if you ask me to do something for you right now, I’ll do it.” He waited for you to look him in the eyes again. “What do you want right now?”
Pulling every last bit you could from your cigarette, you snubbed it out. Smoke cascaded from between your lips as you sighed. Leaning forward, you dropped your head into your hands as you tried to wrap your head around Bishop’s question, about what your answer to it was.
“Where’s Ezekiel?” you asked.
“Out of town. Gaby’s with him.”
You nodded, hands dropping back to the tabletop. “Right.”
He covered one of your hands with his. “What do you want right now?”
You focused on the warmth seeping from his palm into the top of your hand. You zeroed in on the way he dragged the pad of his thumb across your knuckles. Looking at his face, you felt yourself getting pulled underneath the waves of desperation in his eyes. He always looked so sad, and so earnest about it. And the undertow of it all always seemed to get you.
Turning your hand, you interlocked it with his. “I don’t know.”
“Thought this place was supposed to give you some perspective?” he asked, a twinge of a smile on his face.
It got you to laugh if nothing else. Giving his hand a gentle squeeze, you said, “Maybe I just gotta sit here a little longer.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
He squeezed your hand before standing up. You tilted your head to the side as you watched him walk deeper into the shop. “What’re you doing?”
He crumbled the last of his cigarette into the small trash can by the bookshelf. Picking it up, he brought it over to the table where the two of you were sitting. “Cleaning this up before you forget,” he said as he swiped the butt of your cigarette and the ashes from it into the trash can. Once he brought it back to its rightful spot, he sat down across from you again. “And I’ll sit with you.” He watched as the tears started welling in your eyes again. “And I’ll bring you home before Felipe comes back.”
You managed a smile, and despite all the mess and the hurt, you felt a little bit of relief at his offer. Nodding, you gave a soft but sincere, “Thank you.”
He took your hand in his. “Whatever you need.”
(divider by @silkholland 💞)
Mayans MC Taglist (if you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!): @darqchilddaydreamz @withmyteeth @garbinge @proceduralpassion @artemiseamoon
BISPO MY BABYYYYY!!!!! man you were on one with this shit, i am struggling not to just copy/paste the whole thing here, line by line. also, unreal choice of liminal space????? i was stoked about this prompt specifically bc i was so curious about what places ppl would pick, so the carniceria after hours, all atmospheric, lit by headlights of passing cars and whatnot, SUBLIME CHOICE. 10/10
I've given shoutouts for banger closers but i think this is the first shoutout for a banger opener. But this is so quality i am contractually obligated -> You knew better than to sit with your back to the door no matter where you were or what time it was. Liek BOOM, got me gripped asffff
I struggled not to go full screamblog bc this isn't actually my blog so i'll just go with the greatest hits, starting with exhibit A -> It'd been a long time since you made a point to notice the sound of motorcycle engines. It was like having the fan on at home or the window down in the car as you drove, noise that you heard but never really listened to, bc i never would've thought about this but yeah, you prob would just get used to all that racket if you were around it all the time. There's also something about, the noise that you never heard but never really listened to that just sounds lovely, yes i loved it so much, i quoted it twice
and this abs gem that's actually a whole ass paragraph but i am weak and could not restrain myself -> There was something so familiar about the way he looked in the patchy light coming through the windows from the streetlamps outside. It reminded you of when you’d first met, first really gotten to know each other. A lot had changed since then, and it reminded you of all that too.
and this incredible physical description -> The inhale that you took off the cigarette in your hand was the steadiest one that you’d taken for most of the night, like how do you describe smoking and make it sound new and different every time
this stupid-unreal character description -> He always looked so sad, and so earnest about it. And the undertow of it all always seemed to get you.
Double digits, finally! It's fic number 10 @narcosfandomdiscord (and the backlog continues to grow...)
Prompt #7, Book Of Time-Travel: Constellation
Word Count: 658
Relationships: Benjamin Brynn & Chloe, Benjamin Brynn/Chloe (up to the reader's interpretation!)
Warnings: Canonical character death, vague mention to terminal illness
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
The night before his audition, Benny leaves the house. He listens to Chloe’s hushed instructions on the phone and nods, pleased with himself.
His parents are none the wiser.
He’s cosy in his sleeping bag, feeling the cool sand underneath him, and watching his neighbour as she speaks.
To Benny’s surprise, she opens up, drifting off in thoughts: “I like how you let me talk, how easy everything is…”
Well, because he doesn’t always have the best things to say, but he smiles, and laughs, and interacts with the world differently. He picks up cameras to take photos, indulging in the musical whimsy of a piano…
Right. The big audition. A knot grows in his stomach, and he turns to face the night sky.
Everything is peaceful here. Quiet. Simple. He doesn’t hear his mother, Elle, chiding him about his timing. He doesn’t need to follow the metronome, he’ll play the pieces based on his gifts alone.
She doesn’t need to raise him like this, but she does! She never had the chance to thrive, so she’ll project it on Benny all she likes.
She’ll project it on Benny to the point that he escapes, and Chloe’s voice becomes background noise.
The stars twinkle, some bright, some dull, and some barely visible. The boy sighs and blinks, trying to make sense out of the light. It should just… Exist, right? But, in Benny’s brain, everything has to connect.
It’s like music, art, or photography. Everything has to tell a story. So what to say of these stars? What do they reveal?
He relaxes as Chloe rambles on, and the growing winds, cold and bitter, do not faze him. One star catches his eye, and he drifts away, imagining something only he can see.
A mystical constellation. A plea with himself.
Stay in the moment. Enjoy the night. Your neighbour is here, and she’s beautiful, warm, and trusting.
STAY HERE
***
Benjamin Brynn enters the music hall, blinking as much as he can to keep awake.
Even if he did practise for the audition, get a good night’s sleep beforehand… Benny feels as though it wouldn’t change a thing. Because, being with Chloe… That was worth it. What if he became a master of piano, but lost his only friend?
He would be devastated.
Paintings cover the walls, all one in the same: Prestigious, bored-looking figures standing or sitting in chairs.
Does he really want to be here?
His mum certainly thinks so.
Sitting down at the piano, he takes a deep breath, hearing a, “Whenever you’re ready, Benjamin Brynn,” from the instructor.
The boy places his hands over the keys, moving quickly, scanning the music for reference. His muscles remember the notes, memory remembers the notes– But then his body gives way, he slows down, speeds up, feels his head spin.
“ You’ll have to come back next year… Y’know, maybe after you’ve practised. ”
***
But I did practise! Benny thinks as he sinks into the car seat, half-asleep as he hears his mum scolding him, I practised forever! How can one night be the end?!
***
At least, when Benjamin Brynn finally meets his end, he’s comforted by the fact that he can rely on people. Not things, not objects, not abstract concepts or hobbies.
But people.
When Chloe winds up by his bedside, venting to him about her own struggles accidentally… All of that is music to his ears. And then the relief floods his veins when she apologises for all the trouble, for not realising the pain that had been haunting him for months at a time.
She leaves a note for him that he can’t quite read, but he sees the signature at the bottom, Love, Chloe , and the whole world feels like a warm safety net.
He can go in peace.
Some distant voice tells him to close his eyes, and from there, Benjamin Brynn floats on a cloud, and through to some place beyond himself.
OHHHHHHH this was just delightful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! once again, the diversity of fandoms coming out of the this, i cannot help but marvel at the range, the versatility bc I've never even heard of this game yes, i did indeed give it the perfunctory Goog, just out of curiosity sksk and I was just thoroughly enjoying myself, along for the ride. There are so many beautiful turns of phrase here, i won't be able to list them all but this bit -> The stars twinkle, some bright, some dull, and some barely visible. The boy sighs and blinks, trying to make sense out of the light. It should just… Exist, right? But, in Benny’s brain, everything has to connect. not only brought me to my knees bc it's so thoughtful and whimsical and just lovely but it also had me side-eyeing benny liek ....
so, my dude …. neurodivergent coded, right?? homie just screams adhd I cannot tell a lie
Also loved this one to bits -> Paintings cover the walls, all one in the same: Prestigious, bored-looking figures standing or sitting in chairs. bc this is alwyas what I think about when i go anywhere that seems remotely ivy-league adjacent
And then also this, like idk even gramatically or literarily what tf this would be called bc I am a #notarealwriter but this play on "muscle memory" -> His muscles remember the notes, memory remembers the notes– But then his body gives way, he slows down, speeds up, feels his head spin. I'm actually kicking and screaming at the lyricism, the brilliance, I'm delighted someone thought to write it, I'm mad I didn't think to write it myself, I'm screaming, kicking, punching walls, that is all.
Fic number 9? Lesbians, you say? Let's fucking goooo @narcosfandomdiscord
Prompt #27, Book Of Caretaking: "Don't make me take care of you."
Word Count: 915
Relationships: Tamara de Lempicka/Rafaela
Warnings: None
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
They’re sitting on the bed together when Tamara sighs and raises her arm. Rafaela eyes her, thoughtful, curious, when the realisation dawns upon her.
Another bracelet.
She’s vulnerable, enigmatic, energetic and beauty entwined. Emphasis on the vulnerable part, because that’s what strikes the painter the most. It’s why she offers this gift out to her, not just a gift, but a token, a treasure… A lifeline.
If she needs the money, if she needs more than the scraps she finds and the meals from the men she courts with, then it’ll supply. More money than she’s dreamed of touching, that’s likely.
“Tamara…” She whispers, sucking in a breath. She eyes the painter like she’s silver and gold, and she’s just copper, fused into plenty of things, able to be thrown away, “Come on, this is just you being flashy again. I don’t need it.”
“Right,” The blonde rolls her eyes, holding the jewels up against her arm, glowing bright.
They’re white, and dainty, a contrast against Rafaela’s skin. Something different from the usual matching colour schemes that she usually goes for. Why blend in when you can stand out?
It’s almost as though she’s giving her muse something else… A strange sense of permission.
Why blend in when you can stand out?
Why don’t they stand out in the world? After all, Rafaela’s been begging for it, every night in their bed, lying in the afterglow. Even worse, during the daylight as they meander through Paris, having to be cautious of their steps, where they put their hands, and how longingly they look at each other.
If someone finds out, someone other than Tadeusz, the husband, always wittering, or Marinetti, the eccentric mentor, they’re doomed.
“Don’t you like them? The jewels?” The painter breaks the silence, adjusting how she’s sitting. “Rafaela…” She whispers, her gaze locking on her muse, “Don’t make me take care of you. Let me take care of you, because I want to.”
Rafaela averts her gaze, folding her arms over her stomach. Right, here it is, the thing she’s always dreaded. Attachment. She loves the painter, the creator, someone who brings their names to life, who brings her feelings unparalleled! There is no doubting that!
But something stirs inside, something unsettling, gnawing at her. If she accepts this bracelet, another one, then soon, she’ll just be bejewelled, adorned in decorations that are not her own.
She’ll be no more than the muse she already is. A muse, and a model. Modelling two things at once, of course: Tamara’s wealth, and Tamara’s talent.
Yes, it’s her body, her poise, and everything fundamentally about her that the painter craves. But it doesn’t always feel like that.
Rafaela’s fingers stretch, brushing gently against the jewels. Tamara’s eyes widen at once, hopeful. Will she accept the invitation?
“You always want to take care of me, that’s the thing.” She sighs, continuing to handle the jewels, “Always reaching out to me, always doting on me, trying to cover me in things, like these jewels. Making me lie still, covering a canvas in paint, just to look like me… I’m tired of hiding.” She admits, and Tamara just smiles saccharinely, “Tired of that, and tired of just–”
The words live and die on her tongue. She bites her lip now, fragile, vulnerable , once again.
“I’m tired of clinging to you. I am my own woman, aren’t I?”
“You are, Rafaela! What makes you think otherwise?!” She laughs, reaching out to encase the bracelet on her wrist. The muse sharply pulls away.
“What just happened there says it all. So eager , hm?” Rafaela bats her eyes, placing her hands in her lap, “Look at you, beautiful, caring, and perfect. You are perfection, Tamara de Lempicka. But there’s no point in moulding something imperfect, just to flaunt all that you hold, isn’t there?”
Tamara scoffs at what, to her, feels like an accusation, shaking her head. She places the bracelet back on her wrist, letting it fall down against her skin.
“I’m just trying to help you!” She counters, “Because we’re struggling together. I just want to give you something that you don’t have.”
“And what’s that? Security?”
“Security, sure. And love.”
Rafaela’s smile is thin now as those feelings grow stronger. She’s trying to give me security because I’ve never had it. Give me love because I’ve never had it, but is this right?!
She stands up, hurriedly, and walks towards the door.
Tamara’s gaze says it all, but she doesn’t bother to chase.
Rafaela is beautiful, enigmatic, vulnerable, and a person of the night. It all makes sense, now. She wants to stand out, but hides, she only takes the things that blend in, only kisses her when there’s a hunger for it, but she’ll neglect all other food sources.
“You’re leaving?” The painter whispers, “After everything?”
“Don’t be so dramatic. ” The muse hisses, “You know exactly where to find me, exactly what to do. I just need to re-evaluate our current situation. Or will you grab another bracelet, another diamond, give me another lusty night to entice me?”
Tamara feels the sting, hitting her heart, making water pool at her eyes. Rafaela’s always had her way with words, something that she’s never been fond of herself.
“Go, Rafaela. Figure this all out. You know where to find me when you’re ready to return.”
She laughs, just for a moment, a sickly wicked smile dancing across her face, “That’s not a ‘when’, darling. That’s an ‘if’.”
OKAAAAYYYYYESSS the note at the beginngin, the “Lesbians, you say?” had me cackling to myself and for some reason it lulled me into a state where i thoughtthis would be a comedy and then to my surprise/shock/dismay(positive) that it was actually deeply heartwrenching and affecting skdfjsk mannnn it never hurt SO GOOD. and once again, gold fucking metal for surprising me with a completely new fandom i’ve never been exposed to and using the prompt in a way I never would’ve thought to1!!!!!!!!!!! Bc I was thinking of it as like someone's tired of taking care of ppl but I love the way you spun it -> “Don’t make me take care of you. Let me take care of you, because I want to.”
Also i will never recover from this prose -> She eyes the painter like she’s silver and gold, and she’s just copper, fused into plenty of things, able to be thrown away BC IM SORRYYYYYYYYY CAN WE GET STANDING OVATION FOR A CAPITAL-M 👏🏽MET👏🏽A👏🏽PHOR👏🏽 PLS. Runner-up even tho it's not a metaphor, it just slaps -> The words live and die on her tongue. I also really love the power dynamics of this whole thing, like even though i’ve never seen it, you really get a sense of how these two relate to one another, in the sense of whos leading in this lil dance theyre doing
sidenote: no one does queerpining quite like lesbians in paris, so this -> Even worse, during the daylight as they meander through Paris, having to be cautious of their steps, where they put their hands, and how longingly they look at each other particularly shook me skdjsk
and lastly, i can't end without bowing down to another absolute banger closing -> She laughs, just for a moment, a sickly wicked smile dancing across her face, “That’s not a ‘when’, darling. That’s an ‘if’.”
Written for @narcosfandomdiscord Book of Inception: fanwork that provides an origin story for a character that doesn't have one & "He made me who I am" & improvement
Warnings: 18+, language
Word Count: 2.4k
A/N: the way that the last week or so has gone really just zapped all the motivation and creativity out of me, so getting this written really fought me every step of the way lmao. but i will say, that thinking about Jake Seresin in high school was fun. giving him a brother was also fun. going three for three on these prompts was challenging and rewarding and fun. and now i want to revisit these two at some point because idk i have issues lmao
You knew from the second that you’d walked into The Hard Deck that night that he didn’t remember you. Part of you didn’t really blame him, high school being such a distant memory for all of you now. Not just in years, but in all the experiences you’d packed into those years as well. From one standpoint you understood it…sort of.
From another standpoint you couldn’t believe that he could look you in the face and not say a word, not have even the tiniest flicker of recognition. He had looked right at you, and moved right on along to the next person. No matter how much things changed, they always stayed the fucking same.
It wasn’t until everyone was sitting out on the beach after the football game that the two of you even had a real conversation. Up until that point everyone had been running circles around each other, and you had much bigger things to worry about than Jake Seresin’s recollections of you, or lack thereof.
You were mid-conversation with Bob and Natasha when you noticed that neither of them were really looking at you anymore. You searched their faces, trying to figure out what it was that they were looking at.
Natasha leaned back, palms sinking into the sand as she said, “Bagman, six o’clock and incoming.”
You rolled your eyes, still not turning around to look at him. “Man knows how to ruin a good day.”
You didn’t have to look back to know how close he was, the tilts of Bob’s and Natasha’s head spelling out that information for you. His footfalls were nearly silent on the sand. Without realizing it, the closer he got, the deeper you pushed your fingertips into the sand like you were searching for something to grip onto.
Suddenly you were cast in Hangman’s shadow as he stood directly behind you. You shut your eyes for a moment, the longest blink ever as you tried hard to bite your tongue.
“Ladies,” he said, and you didn’t have to be looking at him to know exactly what his face looked like. “Bobby.”
Natasha was squinting against the sun but she still pulled a bit of a face. “It’s a good day, Hangman,” she said with just enough warning in her tone. “Let’s keep it that way.”
He chuckled, and you could see from the movement of his shadow that he was holding his hands out. “Every day at Top Gun is a good day, Phoenix. Thought you would’ve known that already.”
You were hoping that it was just going to be a quick thing, an in-passing comment that he made because he simply couldn’t bring himself to walk by your little trio without saying anything. But of course it wasn’t. Somehow the shift went from Natasha making extremely thinly veiled comments to the effect that Jake should hit the goddamn bricks, to him plopping down on the ground right there with you. He wedged himself right there between you and Bob like he had been there the whole time.
It didn’t take very long after that for Natasha to find a reason to leave. And wherever Natasha went, Bob was only ever a few steps behind. That left it with just you and Jake and the ocean that was slowly beginning to calm in front of you. It was a scene that could’ve been a peaceful one if the man sitting next to you had any interest in that.
Legs bent and pulled up towards you, you draped your arms across your knees. You were staring out at the receding waves as you asked, “To what do I owe the pleasure, Seresin?”
You could feel him staring at you and you made a point to not return the gesture. “Where’d you say you were from?”
You shook your head. “I didn’t. Also don’t think you’ve actually asked me a question directly the entire time we’ve been here.” You cast him a glance. “Too busy giving Rooster a hard time.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly at you like he was studying you, but there was still a smirk on his face. The more time you spent around him, the more you wondered if that was just what his face defaulted to these days. He leaned back on his palms, legs stretched out in front of him.
“Wasn’t until I heard Phoenix call you by your last name earlier that I realized—”
“Wow,” you barked out with a laugh, unable to stop yourself. “You’ve been running drills and sitting in class with me for how long and it took until today for you to recognize me? No sense of déjà vu sitting two rows over from me and picking on other kids in class? Nothin’ jogged your memory even a little?”
He leaned back, brows meeting for a moment. “When did you—”
“The first night we all got here!” you said, gesturing emphatically at nothing.
The smirk instantly returned to his face. “I’m that memorable, huh?”
You rolled your eyes and shook your head. “Fuck off.”
“What? C’mon, you can’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“No?” he asked, chuckling like he knew better than to believe you. A lot of confidence in your character for someone who only remembered who you were within the last two hours.
“No. Being mad would suggest that I’m somehow surprised that you’re still the way that you are. And I’m definitely…not.” You sighed. “You’re still Jake Seresin. Only difference now is—”
“My rank? The number of confirmed kills I have?” he tried to fill in the blanks, cocky as he’d ever been.
You looked at him. “Only difference is now you’re old enough to know better.” You saw the way he rolled his eyes at you and couldn’t help but to say, “I don't get you, Jake.”
The look on his face let you know that it had been a long time since someone referred to him by just his first name, not his last or his callsign. There was something intimate about it in a way. You wouldn't have given it any thought if he hadn't flinched at it.
He recovered as quickly as he could, that air of nonchalance reappearing around him. “I'm no Mystery Man.” He held his hands out in a brief gesture, like an invitation to scan him over. “What you see is what you get.”
It wasn't untrue. Jake Seresin had never been the type of person who lived a double life. Who he was around you was exactly who he was around everyone else. Maybe when it was just him, when there was no one else in the room looking to him or expecting anything from him, he was a different person. Not that it mattered—the world was never going to know. Reaching as far back as you could in your brain for memories of him, he'd always been some version of the man sitting in the sand next to you. He was just looking a little more refined these days.
You had just been hoping, when you'd seen him again, that maybe he would've changed by now. Nothing would be different if he wasn't different, but it would've been nice if it could be. The longer you looked at him, the more you tried to un-blur all of the memories that you hadn't bothered to tap into in a long time.
“How's your brother these days?” you asked, diverting course just slightly.
The question was immediately met with an eye-roll. “Fine.”
You had to let out a quiet laugh at that. “Yeah? That good, huh?”
He shrugged. “You want the play-by-play or something?” He shook his head, looking out at the ocean instead of at you. “He's fine.”
“You two not get along anymore or something? I thought you were both—”
“I see him on holidays. We text on birthdays. He is off doing…whatever he does.”
You hadn't expected the tension. From what you remembered, the two of them had gotten along well enough. His brother was a few years ahead of both of you, in his senior year of high school when the two of you were freshman. But he'd always been nice, nicer than Jake had been anyway. But they ran in a lot of the same circles, played a lot of the same sports, and they seemed to have a relatively good time doing it. Judging by the way that Jake was avoiding looking in your direction, you were now wondering if you were misremembering it all.
“We're grown-ups now, you know,” you offered up finally. “If you don't want to talk about him you can just say that.”
He flipped it right back on you. “We're grown-ups now, I can answer questions about Tommy if you have them.”
You laughed quietly and shook your head. “I can see that. The answers you've given so far have been so thorough and paint such a clear picture.” It got him to laugh even though you could tell that he didn’t want to give you the satisfaction. After a moment you cleared your throat. “You guys just seemed to get along back then, is all.”
Now he was looking at you again. “Yeah, Tommy got along with everyone back then—still does.”
You hummed in amusement. “Guess that trait isn't a genetic one, then.”
He cracked a small grin as he swatted sand at you. “Funny.” There was a pause, and you were waiting for him to pick something else to talk about, or for him to just get up and leave. Instead, he gave himself a moment and then said, “Tommy graduated with a full ride, but even when he was gone somehow I was still…” he trailed off. “Navy was the first place I wasn't a legacy kid. No footsteps to follow. Just me.”
“Hmm,” you nodded, not sure what you really wanted to say in response to that.
He caught your uncertainty. “What?”
“Nothing, I just…you wanna say that your brother, your family, your whoever was why you were like that back then. Fine, I get that, kind of. But then why,” you curled your fingers into the sand, “are you still up to all the same shit?”
“I'm not—”
“You are.” The laugh you let out was dry. “I'm one of the only people here that you can't lie to about that. I knew you back then, and I know you now, and from what I've seen? Not much has changed.”
The pinch of his brows let you know that what you were saying was getting to him, whether he admitted to it or not. He tried to hide it, and was semi-successful at it—it probably would've fooled someone else. “If it ain't broke—”
You didn't let him get to the end of the sentence. “There's always room for improvement.”
You were used to laughing at your own little one-liners, but Jake laughing at them too was new, especially when they were at his expense. Whatever the two of you were doing in that moment, it was the closest to being friends that you'd ever been. It was still a stretch but it was something.
“I don't know, you stack my resumé up against anyone else's here and I'd say I'm about as improved as it gets.”
“I think the one thing that could definitely still do with some improving is your humility,” you rebutted with a laugh. You geared up to hear some comment about how there was no need to be humble if he could back up everything that he was saying. When he didn’t, you said, “And, if you feel like taking suggestions—”
“You got another one for me?” he joked.
You laughed. “Yeah, of course.” You cleared your throat. “You said it yourself that this is the one place where none of that other stuff matters, like it never happened. So maybe, when you get a chance, you should get around to dropping all the bitterness that goes along with the brotherhood rivalry.” You shrugged, offering a small smile. “Cocky doesn't pair well with the sad, ‘He made me who I am,’ shtick.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise as he laughed. “You're meaner than I remember.”
“Yeah, that's because you don't remember me,” you said, the lift at the ends of your lips taking the sting out of your words.
The look of surprise didn’t fade from his face, neither did the amusement. “Damn.”
You still had a smile on your face as you stood back up. Brushing the sand off the backs of your legs, you looked at him. It was a strange feeling, caught between remembering how things were back then and knowing how they were now. A lot of things hadn't changed, clearly, but the circumstances certainly had. You wanted more of it to be different, but there was no saying it so plainly.
“You heading back?” you asked, standing completely upright.
He looked up at you from where he was sitting. Shaking his head, he replied, “Not yet.”
You cocked your head to the side, folding your arms over your chest. “Going to sit out here with your thoughts?”
He chuckled and shrugged. “Well, you did give me a lot to think about.”
“Don't think too hard,” you joked as you started to walk away, “otherwise smoke’ll start coming out of your ears.”
“Your concern is touching!” he called after you, laughing as he spoke.
Turning around to face him, you continued walking away. “Guess I'm just too sentimental for my own good!” you replied, throwing your hands up in apparent exasperation with yourself.
You could still see the grin on his face as you turned back around. Even with your back to him, you still found yourself smiling too. You knew better than to get your hopes up for much, but there was still part of you that was thinking that maybe there was still a chance for things to start changing before all was said and done.
There was still the very large possibility that things would continue to be the same as they ever were. You knew that. But, the same way you'd been wanting things to be different the first night you turned up at The Hard Deck, you still wanted things to be different now. It felt a little more attainable now than it had then. And, if nothing else, at least you knew that this time everything was going to be a bit more memorable.
(divider by @inklore 🩶)
TGM Taglist: @garbinge @proceduralpassion @cositapreciosa @justreblogginfics (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)
UHHHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMM???????? EXCYUUUUUUSEEMEE this was such a delightful little slice of life that I’m like just pleased as punch sitting here kicking my feet, marveling at how much I truly enjoyed this. First off, insane move doing all three prompts??? liek i know you said you were having a hard time with this fic but it doesn’t show at all and the casual flex of this being such a treat to read and also hitting on all three prompts is just final boss behavior. and secondly, if you don’t do some kind of follow up or second part to this i will force you to at duolingo gunpoint
like I just need more of them immiedately pls and thank you
Also iknow this wasn’t tailor made for me bc i’ve never seen tgm HOWMEVER you had to know i would be salivating over a female-character-spends-entire-time-READING-male-character-to-all-fuck-for-entire-fic dynamic skskjdfk bc with moments like -> “I’m that memorable, huh?” You rolled your eyes and shook your head, “Fuck off.” and -> “Cocky doesn’t pair well with the sad, ‘He made me who I am,’ schtick.” He raised his eyebrows in surprise as he laughed. “You’re meaner than I remember.” “Yeah, that’s because you don’t remember me.” Like I rarely insert myself as Reader but this time Reader is actually just me SKSKS also side note: can we all motion to make someone’s callsign Mystery Man bc I’m sorry it’s just too good
oh AAAND can’t go out without giving an honorable mention to this banger of a closing line -> And, if nothing else, at least you knew that this time everything was going to be a bit more memorable.
Whooaaaaa we're almost caught up I swearrrr WHOOAAA living on a prayerrr (Fic number 8 and it is currently the 9TH!) @narcosfandomdiscord
Enjoy <3
Prompt #11, Book Of Pit Stops: Rush
Word Count: 1.1K
Relationships: Charles "The Jackal"/Nuria
Warnings: SPOILERS! Spoilers galore!! Episodes 1-5 of this show have been watched by me, and thus, a patchwork of spoilers throughout this rambly fic! Beware if you're a spoilerphobe!
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
The Jackal lives in secret. He hides from everyone and everything.
He dons disguises and becomes people who he’s not meant to be, for example, a certain Herr Thirsk, who, to The Jackal’s knowledge, may or may not be real.
Passports are essential if he’s globetrotting. No one bats an eye at the switches, at the effortlessness of it all. If it says he hails from Germany, that’s where he’s from. Then France? He’ll be a Frenchman for a day, who cares?!
The information is proper, organised, and it looks legitimate. That’s all that counts in The Jackal’s line of work: Efficiency, quality, and legitimacy.
After all, someone is set on hiring him, paying him grand amounts of money to make as many kills as possible. A hitman does what he needs to do, whatever it takes to target the best of the best.
He uses bespoke weaponry and state-of-the-art prosthetics. His materials, his safes, all of it, are top-notch. There’s nowhere in the business that he can fail, except for his own human error.
He trusts his gunmaker to the ends of the earth, he trusts his aim to make the kills, and he trusts others to give him whatever he requires.
Because, as he tells Nuria one sunny day in Cadiz, it’ll hurt the brand if people don’t pay him what he needs. It’s not all about the money, though, and even worse if people don’t follow his orders.
If he sets instructions, they’ll be met. If someone fumbles, then they’re out of the game.
The Jackal avoids taking unnecessary phone calls and explicitly warns his loveable Spanish relatives not to post whatever photos they take of him. As beautiful as celebrations and warmth and memories may be, he simply can’t risk being exposed.
***
After the ordeal with Manfred Fest, a very classy and striking ordeal if he does say so himself, he’s attracted attention. Or, at least, a ‘killer’ has done so. A killer could be anyone, but only someone of his expertise could make the shot from 3815 metres away.
He travels in taxis from one place to the next, keeping his language fluency intact with every country he visits. He passes Nuria after she’s dropped him off at the airport, but is his cover blown?
If he’s not answering his phone, then it won’t be.
Besides, he has a tingling, almost unwelcome feeling that his wife will find out. And, if she does? If the other Charles, Jackal’s in-law, helps her, then he’ll know.
He doesn’t have a safe without passwords, a lock without a key, or a room full of secrets without protection.
A camera inside a prosthetic face. A marvellous touch. As his wife snoops around, horrified by what she’s seeing, he’s seeing her right back.
It’s harmful to the relationship, detrimental, in fact, but he’ll just class it all as ‘industrial espionage’. You know how it goes, Nuria, a bit of spying, a bit of illegal activity, and…
A lot of murder, but The Jackal doesn’t reveal that much.
***
It’s so satisfying to see people at his mercy, to watch their trembling hands as they kneel before him. Whatever string of ‘oh, god, spare me, please, no!’ that escapes people’s mouths never deters him. Unless there’s something more to offer, The Jackal will do away with them.
Man, woman, guilty, innocent… Doesn’t exactly matter. If they’ve misunderstood their obligations to him, then, their time is up.
***
The Jackal bites back a laugh as he gets wind of recent news: A girl, one named Emma, dies in custody. The police are legally responsible. Whoever sent her into custody is feeling guilty for the rest of their lives.
Isn’t it perfect, for the authorities to be in the wrong? In their attempts to catch a criminal, a killer, a hitman, they misstep.
Well, they don’t just misstep. They’ve killed a daughter. They’ve ruined a mother, a father, a family. All of the girl’s friends will be devastated, all the good she hoped to achieve in life has been thrown into the gutter.
He stares at the article for a while, never once losing his focus. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs.
When Nuria catches him in the act, swiftly barging into his study, he hums and settles. The rush almost becomes too much, but he closes his laptop.
Her gaze implores him to talk, so he does.
Still, he demurs and deflects, “No, no, it’s nothing, really,” A certain twinkle in his eye reveals everything to her, “Well, if you must know, my work has just become very interesting. ”
“You’re in that place again!” She hisses, but he remains unfazed, “You’re always there, and never here… Come on , Charles. Come back to me.”
He leans back in his chair and shrugs, “I’m here, darling. I’m here. ”
“You don’t get it,” She shakes her head, “Because, sometimes, I look at you, and I just see–”
“What?” He intervenes with a lazy smile. A gentle tilt of his head. Charm, suaveness, everything in between, “Tell me. What do you see?”
With a sigh, she decides she can’t help herself, walking over to him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She holds onto him, lets her smaller body sink into his lap.
“I’ll tell you what I see,” She whispers, “I see a motherfucker. ”
“Oh, fuck you!” He replies, equally as quiet, and their lips meet not long after.
It’s just one of the many games they play. Teasing, banter, time alone, they cherish it. Nuria can tell when he’s drifting away, off with the fairies of business and stocks and, well, whatever he actually does.
So, it’s her job to bring him back to reality, to remind him of the people he has: It’s her and her love, it’s little Carlito, turning two years old tomorrow.
He goes for long periods of time, doesn’t come back for a few days, then a week, then two. He tells her, over and over, the same sentiments: People are too inconsiderate, they have no empathy, he’ll be back as soon as his shifts are over.
Whatever he does, the majority of it is out of her control.
She can only hold onto him when he’s physically here, when Charles is in her reach.
Otherwise, she is full of doubt, confusion, and emotions that extend beyond herself. Her family can only calm her so much.
She needs Charles, the lover, the husband, the family man… Not Charles, the sketchy, flighty businessman.
Not Charles the hitman, Charles the plotter, Charles the ruthless manipulator and assassin.
‘Industrial espionage’ is all it is. And hopefully, that’s all she’ll ever know.
Sooooo I’ve never heard of this show in my life but the second the word “assassin” is dropped, you know i’m so fucking down for this ride SKDJFSK like not only am I putting this show on my watch list, i’m actually cueing up Peacock rn so I can watch it tonight ssksks that’s how down I am for assassin/spy type shit there’s a reason my fav character from Nmx is an assassin but THEENNN THENNNNN YOU TELL ME THERE’S A WIFE INVOVLED WHOMST DOES NOT KNOW OF THE ASSASSIN-ING AND IM LIKEEE
good gotdamn i’m so beyond on board.
Liek this dynamic -> A camera inside a prosthetic face. A marvellous touch. As his wife snoops around, horrified by what she’s seeing, he’s seeing her right back, plus, the whole, “I’ll tell you what I see,” She whispers. “I see a motherfucker.” “Oh, fuck you!” He replies, equally as quiet, and their lips meet not long after, just seems faaaaaaaar too deliciously fucked up to not see with mine own eyes.
OH and re: Man, woman, guilty, innocent… Doesn’t exactly matter. If they’ve misunderstood their obligations to him, then, their time is up. It’s refreshing to see an assassin really take pride in the discipline y’know, to be this unapologetic, not that i’m against a conflicted assassin, i just feel like it’s been done a lot more than just someone who’s super comfortable killing ppl sdkfjsk like so far it’s giving very if Don Draper was an assassin and I’m super here for it. also RIP for one of the best mic drop of a closing line, ‘Industrial espionage’ is all it is. And hopefully, that’s all she’ll ever know. UNREAL PROSE RIGHT THERE
It's Amado time boiiiii (Fic number 7) @narcosfandomdiscord
Enjoy <3
Prompt #2, Book Of Fuck-Ups: Righteous indignation glo-up aka fanwork that corrects a plot misstep or writing blunder that bugs the shit outta you
Word Count: 740
Relationships: Amado Carrillo Fuentes/Marisol, Amado Carrillo Fuentes & Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo
Warnings: Canonical (yet minor) character death
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
Amado Carrillo Fuentes is a high-up henchman.
Because, under the rule of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, he’s managing the transport, but has to comply with Felix's every move.
Besides, he isn’t made for the drug cartels… So he thinks. In his early days, he had to spend time working out where he belonged, how to start a movement, where the best places exist to stash cocaine, and how to smoothly make transactions.
Now, he knows almost every trick of the trade, but he still can’t get away with making important phone calls.
At least, not without Felix rattling on, “Amado, hey? Who’s calling? Tijuana, or Sinaloa? We’re preparing the shipment with Cali, have they responded in kind?”
Amado can only let go of the phone, letting out a sigh and mumbling some bullshit that Felix doesn’t bother to decode.
***
Finally, they all break away. Not just him.
It’s a formal declaration, it’s an official management decision… The Arellano family holds control over Tijuana, Chapo and Azul over Sinaloa, and Amado over Juarez. They’ll keep their contacts with each other, but with such a split, there’s independence.
They clink their glasses and drink to their newfound freedom, all the while, no one spares their previous leader a glance.
Amado can make as many phone calls as he likes. He can branch out, finally, extending further than their cartel kingpin circle…
Because whether Felix knew that his people had lives or not, it doesn’t matter. But, the truth is, they’re all as human as they come.
***
He dials a number faster than any other.
When the line connects, he sighs, letting out the tension wound up in his body, and he speaks.
“Hey… Hey, I’m so sorry. I’m deep in the business now. Not just deep, but high. I’ve got an entire plaza to manage, at my disposal… Yes, yes, of course, I miss you, my love– That’s why I’m calling now–”
The voice on the other end is fierce and unrelenting, withholding its softness… But it still manages to break through.
Amado listens, learns, chips in where he can, often receiving scolding in response: Deep in the business?! Right, that’s why you haven’t been here. For years, you’ve abandoned us! Little Anna…
He chokes up at hearing that. Little Anna.
He sends them money, as much as he can manage, keeping them afloat.
Well, being afloat can only go so far in this world. People can only last so long before they sink.
They talk for a little while longer before they hang up. He runs a hand through his black hair and stares at the ceiling for a while.
He’ll have to make it up to them. Now, he’s able to. He’s not tied up in the madness of others, instead, he’s at the centre of madness. Juarez belongs to him, after all.
He can make his own decisions… And if that means calling Marisol every day, then so be it. No one can tell him otherwise.
***
Two weeks on, he gets another call, and smiles as he hears her voice.
Yes, they struggle, they’re doing things in unconventional ways, with marriage and contact and all the rest, but he’s tethered to it. He has all the opportunity in the world to stay tethered to his family.
Well, so he hopes, so he thinks, so he dreams.
When kingpin Amado, ruler of Juarez, hears what he hears next, he crumbles.
He takes the first flight back home, and if anyone asks him why, he’ll say it’s confidential. Undisclosed. Maybe it’s better to write it off as ‘unimportant business’, even though Marisol means the world to him.
Even though Little Anna meant the world to him.
He’s missed the burial and he’s grovelling at Marisol’s knees, desperate to see his daughter, to try and make things right.
“She’s grown a lot since the last time you saw her.” She tells him, brows furrowed and arms crossed.
Well, no shit! Amado wants to scream, She’s grown so much, she’s lived a life without me there… And now she’s dead?
He’ll just have to transport more coke, get on more flights, manage his business the way he wants to run it. If he’s greeted by his family with non-stop phone calls and a death, well… He’ll bury himself in his work.
He could take some cocaine, while he’s at it. It might just numb out the pain, and put him back on track.
oh i LOOOOOVEEEEE that you chose this particular plot point to correct for righteous indignation glo-up bc yeah the random appearance of Marisol at the beginning of S3 was such a
moment, like dang you guys couldn’t have even thrown a flashback our way??? Anything to indicate this had been a thing the prior two seasons?? And honestly you can tell S3 suffered from the COVID treatment of having to like move shit around bc of the pandemic so fkdjsk maybe this is one of those things but probably not But then again, i always rejoice at those bc it always meansssssss
opportunities for fix-it fic
So not only do I love the premise but ummmm???????????? There’s some lines here that are downright BARS. Might I point you to Exhibit A -> But, the truth is, they’re all as human as they come. And Exhibit B -> being afloat can only go so far in this world. People can only last so long before they sink.
Also love this description of Marisol bc with what little screentime she gets, she’s still makes an impression and this -> The voice on the other end is fierce and unrelenting, withholding its softness… captures her so perfectly imho.
Her desk is pristine, the latest copy of The Sun pressed neatly in front of her computer.
She flicks through each page, keeping composed.
If the photo is not the front page, or second page, or third page, it’ll be somewhere… It’s the biggest story since–
She bites her tongue, flicking faster now as the anger races through her veins.
“Fuck!” She exclaims, tossing the newspaper to the floor.
There’s nothing in there about Ted and Keeley. Everything should have run without a hitch. She has the contacts, she has the power. She is the owner of AFC Richmond, for goodness’ sake!
Ted may be a loveable idiot, in her eyes, but it doesn’t mean he’s any less of an idiot. And that Keeley Jones… So fiery, so upbeat, determined to do, well, anything to further herself!
Rebecca supposes she’s not unlike Keeley, then. They just have different ways of thinking about the same subject.
She dials for Higgins, screaming into the phone, and a part of her thrills upon hearing his hasty and panicked response.
***
Rebecca repeats her words, like a hammer constantly bashing into a nail: There’s nothing in The Sun about Ted and Keeley! Why didn’t anything happen?! Now, get onto it!
Everything will be solidified as long as Higgins complies. Rupert’s dethroning will be worth it all, and Richmond will go down in flames. Better yet, Ted Lasso will go down with him.
An American holding the reins over a British team? With a sport he’s never known? Oh… The world can ponder her decision, but she knows she’s made the right one, in her own interests.
Rebecca straightens up when the man opposite her says a certain something.
“Look, I know that you want to take Richmond down, but is this the best way to do it?” He gestures to the photo on his phone, “Through a lie?”
The photo itself is a mixture of complimentary and invasive. Keeley leaning into Ted’s touch, and Ted initiating the gesture… God, to them, it’s harmless fun, it’s food and friendship and getting priorities in order.
But anything can be twisted if done right. And Rebecca Welton, owner of AFC Richmond, knows how to do it right.
She clasps her hands together as she tilts her head, her voice both low and honey-sweet, “And, Higgins? What’s the problem? Who hasn’t believed a flattering lie? I mean–” She reaches out, dragging her fingers to zoom in on Keeley’s figure, “That outfit, the makeup… It’s a lovely thing to showcase. As for Ted Lasso…”
Rebecca’s eyes lock with Higgins’, and he freezes.
“Well?” She hums, watching his mouth open, then close, and open again, “Why don’t you tell me?”
He makes one of his signature funny noises and turns his phone away from the club owner. To be honest, he hasn’t had a good enough glance over it himself. He’s been so busy prioritising Rebecca… Sometimes, he hardly knows half of the situation.
“Erm,” The assistant begins, “He’s also wearing nice clothes?” Rebecca shoots him a look, “Wrong answer? Oh, gosh, well– I don’t know, Rebecca, the whole point is that it’s an embarrassing photo!” He fumbles with the phone screen in the hope that something becomes obvious to him. “One thing, I suppose, is that Ted is comfortable.”
“That’s right, Higgins.” She nods confidently, “Ted Lasso is very comfortable. We shoot the photo out into the world no later than midday tomorrow, and everyone will become aware of it. The coach’s already shattered image will be tarnished . The world will assume whatever they like about Ted and Keeley, and they’ll grovel for me to do something.” A wicked smile dances across her face, “And will I help them? Absolutely not. Besides, it’s not my problem. It’s not my photo. It’s all to do with The Sun. ”
“But– But Rebecca! ” Higgins hisses, “It is our photo!”
For the first time in a long time, she lets out a laugh, quickly recovering when the assistant looks at her weirdly, “Oh, Higgins… It’s not our photo. When will you learn, shithead? It’s not our photo. Not if we have anything to say about it.”
She waves a swift hand in the direction of the door, and the man scuttles away, mumbling to himself and frowning.
Rebecca Welton leans back in her chair and sighs.
She’s ready for battle, now, and her opponents are none the wiser.
first off, never apologize for bombarding us with all the notifs, esp if it's with new fic for an event!!!!!!!!!!! secondly, i feel like if there was an award for best combos of fandoms with prompts, you should get that award bc i fucking howwwwwlllled out loud seeing that you did Ted Lasso for "And who hasn't believed a flattering lie?" SKSK idk it just feels so correct.
also, love that i can identify which era of Rebecca we're talking about based on how nice she is to Ted and Keeley sfkjsk so I instantly knew we had S1 Rebecca on our hands the second I got to, Ted may be a loveable idiot, in her eyes, but it doesn’t mean he’s any less of an idiot. And that Keeley Jones… So fiery, so upbeat, determined to do, well, anything to further herself! Another hilarious moment of spot-on Rebecca characterization here -> But anything can be twisted if done right. And Rebecca Welton, owner of AFC Richmond, knows how to do it right. But the use of the prompt -> “And, Higgins? What’s the problem? Who hasn’t believed a flattering lie? I mean–” She reaches out, dragging her fingers to zoom in on Keeley’s figure, “That outfit, the makeup… It’s a lovely thing to showcase.” is really where this shit shines, like i could see it so clearly in my mind's eye as tho i'd filmed it myself, her voice was literally reciting it in my head
Strangers To Friends, Friends Into Lovers, And Strangers Again...
Yuhhhh gather round, gather round, more unexpected angst is abound @narcosfandomdiscord (Fic number 5)
Prompt #30, Book Of There's No Place Like... “Even if you make it, you’ll never really go home.”
Word Count: 410
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley
Warnings: Sadness :(
~ Read the fic under the cut ~
The kiss is desperate, tender, two bodies locking onto one another. Not just bodies, but lips, lives, and memories.
6000 years of togetherness. And frankly, minus the whole Heaven vs. Hell Armageddon conundrum as of late, those years, centuries, have been relatively peaceful.
A.Z Fell & Co. has managed to thrive, and the bookshop is a place of quiet, of warmth, of knowledge: All things angelic.
But now? Crowley knows that that sort of mood has evaporated completely. He shudders and sighs and listens to the angel opposite him. Is there anything that will give way? He’s tried, he’s tempted, summoned all his nerve to give Aziraphale a miracle, to cherish every moment, to spare him a fond glance, to trust him.
His life rests in Aziraphale’s hands, now more than ever.
It’s not like the angel doesn’t reciprocate , oh, his fondness for the demon is… An expansive thing, an unspeakable thing–
Right. Unspeakable.
Even now as Crowley waits for confirmation, he has nothing to say. At least, nothing he’ll want to hear. Nothing of value.
There’s trauma and hidden relations and the desire to ascend the ranks in Heaven… All of it has enticed him, and the demon could just– Follow him there! And everything would be just as it was…
“Anything?” Crowley murmurs, causing Aziraphale to snap back to reality, “Anything, angel?”
“I… I forgive you. ”
“Don’t bother.”
The demon manages to hold his own, waltzing towards the door with an unwavering charm. But, the angel sees how his shoulders sag, how expectant his expression was, only to fall downcast.
However, Aziraphale’s heart skips a beat when the other swivels around.
“Angel?”
“Yes, Crowley?”
“One last thing to say to you.” He pushes his glasses up towards his nose: A mask, a facade, a defence, “Y’know, even if you make it there, to Heaven, you’ll never really be going home. You’ll never be home again. Supreme Archangel Aziraphale.” He spits the words like venom, “Doesn’t that suit you splendidly?”
***
Supreme Archangel Aziraphale enters the elevator, a smile stretched upon his lips.
And yet, his mind repeats Crowley’s words. A part of him wants to twist them into optimism, and the other wants to live with the solemnity, the burden–
You’ll never be home again.
But, he always belonged to Heaven. The angel is proper, dutiful, full of miracles and goodness to grant… Everyone.
He has big shoes to fill, but he’ll fill them, no matter what it takes.
once again, unreal ship/prompt combo like before I even started reading, i knew this was gonna be life-ruining (complimentary).
Admittedly, i've only ever seen the first season of Good Omens and even then it was back when it first aired skdjs so my recall of specific plot events are fuzzy. BUTTTTT I feel like you have each of their voices down so well, little touches like -> He pushes his glasses up towards his nose: A mask, a facade, a defence ... and also, And yet, his mind repeats Crowley’s words. A part of him wants to twist them into optimism, and the other wants to live with the solemnity, the burden... that it it made me want to go back and watch the show again which is like always the hallmark of writing that is capital-A, capital-M 👏🏽Affecting👏🏽Me👏🏽
also it's so easy to fall back on cliches when talking about or describing romantic love, so calling their love expansive and unspeakable????? incredible non-cliche way to that
