okay, but picture Farmer lying on her back while Chowder does push ups over her, pressing kisses all over her face every time he dips down, until he gets the giggles and collapses. Farmer flips them so she's doing push ups and Chowder very much enjoys counting her reps when he gets a kiss after each push up (Farmer’s arm are ripped; she does so many)
Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works you’ve created this year (fics, art, edits, etc!) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2017. Tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original!) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works.
1. And I Fell In Love Instantly (Chowder/Farmer, Check, Please!/Welcome to Night Vale fusion) I really enjoyed putting a Night Vale spin on Samwell and I thought Chowder was perfect in Cecil’s role.
2. In the Cold Dark Night (Clint/Coulson, MCU) I didn’t start it in 2017, but I did finish it :) - and it’s actually the start of a bigger story, so there’s that. Werewolf Clint and vampire Phil, what’s not to love?
3. Harry Potter and the Zombie Apocalypse (Harry Potter). Neither started nor finished in 2017, but even during my numerous writing droughts last year, this is the one thing I kept working on. Drabbles are fun, especially when you’re trying to fit random prompts into an ongoing story.
4. A ‘Steamy’ Affair (Nursey/Dex, Check, Please!) I had a lot of fun playing with the format of this one, and it’s outsider POV, which I like to read but don’t often write. I’m thinking of doing more with this one.
5. Slapshot (Check, Please!) More zombies! I decided to continue a short fic I wrote in 2016 (something along the lines of my Harry Potter zombie fic), but it immediately became a lot more than a drabble per chapter, which is why I stalled out. I am definitely continuing this one.
I’ve seen this meme on my dash a lot, so I’m not sure who to tag. If you’re looking for an excuse to do it, consider yourself tagged.
13: This wasn’t meant to be a date, but we’ve had such a good time and now it’s 2 a.m. and I should really go home…
The lights from the city keep the sky from being black. It’s blue, starless, almost the color of dawn anywhere else, though the time is half past midnight. Beneath the sky, the ocean is paler blue, a rippling mirror. At least, a mirror in the distance. Here, near the shore, it shatters into a thousand foamy pieces with a noise like the turning of the world.
Farmer is warm by his side. She was shivering earlier, so Chowder passed her his coat; now, she nestles against him wrapped in folds of fabric, and he’s thankful for the fact that he pulled his hoodie over his button-down when they escaped the party for a beach walk. Thankful, but in truth, he couldn’t be cold if he tried. Her presence next to him is a warm light, and his own heart glows in answer.
“You’re quiet,” she prompts him, teasing.
“Two minutes ago you said I was being too loud!” Chowder teases back.
She laughs. “Two minutes ago you were too loud.”
“You were laughing louder.” Chowder shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, I was just listening to the waves.”
Farmer hums agreement. “You almost forget what they sound like when you’re at Samwell.”
“Yeah.” Chowder muses for a minute. “Hey, do you ever think about, like, cavemen?”
“What?” She’s halfway laughing already.
“I mean, cavemen, right, they have the sun to tell days and nights, but they don’t have any way to measure, like, seconds or minutes. So if they live by the ocean, do you think they measured time by the waves?” Chowder’s grinning now at the very thought. “Like, ‘Oh, I can walk from here back to my cave in only 20 waves?’”
Farmer erupts in a full-throated laugh. “Chris, oh, my God.”
“What?”
“Your brain,” she says. “It’s so weird.”
He pouts. “Weird? Like, good weird or bad weird?”
“Good weird, I guess … just … how do you think of things like that? Where do they even come from?”
Chowder laughs, too. “I don’t know. It made sense in my head! I guess it is a little weird. I just like to think about things like that!”
“You should have majored in anthro,” she tells him. “Or at least social studies. Your brain is wasted on computer science.”
“Don’t say that! Computer science is awesome. It’s like doing puzzles! I mean, sometimes they’re really annoying puzzles, but … still! Puzzles! And someday I’ll get paid to do them! It’ll be ‘swawesome.”
“You’re smart,” Farmer says, a touch wistfully. “Everyone at Samwell is so smart. It’s really great. LA is so …” She waves a hand dismissively. “I mean, it’s great, but nobody there is thinking about cavemen, you know what I mean?”
Chowder blinks. “Not really?”
“Anyway. The point is. I’m …” She gives a little sigh. “I’m glad we get to hang out, even over break.”
He looks over at her. A flush rises high in her cheeks, and her eyes glitter, little pieces of starlight in the starless night. Chowder swallows, but the sudden tightness in his throat doesn’t ease.
“We should probably get back,” he says.
She takes another step, then stops, looks back at the beach they’ve traversed, toward the city lights. “Yeah, I guess.”
But they don’t. They don’t even start walking back. They just stand there, on the beach, under the blue canopy of sky. The waves keep crashing, the world keeps turning, and all at once Chowder’s acutely aware of it all.
“Farms,” he says, unsure if his voice can be heard over the surf.
She tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear and cocks her head. “Hm?”
The words are there, in his throat, for a minute, but by the time he’s taken breath to speak them, they’re gone again. He flails. “I’m just thinking.”
“About cavemen again?” Her grin is wide, unabashed.
He shakes his head. “About you – I mean, us. The beach. Um.” He wants to hide, wants to shout. Wants, more than anything, to just reach out and hold her. “It’d be cool if we could keep walking all night, huh?”
Her smile eases, her dimples disappearing even as the corners of her lips still turn up. “Chris?”
“I don’t – I don’t wanna have to go to sleep,” he says, impulsively. “I don’t want it to be tomorrow yet. ‘Cause – ‘cause tomorrow you to have to go back.”
She bites her lower lip. Takes in a breath. Her shoulders rise and fall under his coat.
Chowder takes her hand.
“Chris,” she starts.
“Look, we had a good time at Winter Screw, right?” He steels himself to plead his case. “And we’ve been hanging out a lot, and you’re here for New Year’s, and I just – I think we could have a lot of fun! Don’t you think? And – and you know, life is short, and if I didn’t say anything tonight I think I’d probably be kicking myself tomorrow, you know, letting you go home without even trying — please don’t look at me like that.”
Because she’s biting her lip again, but this time, it’s to keep from laughing. “Chris,” she says again.
He feels like the world’s biggest fool. “What?”
The laughter doesn’t come; in its place, a sweet, small smile touches her lips. “Kiss me.”
A flood of heat washes from Chowder’s heart to his toes. “Really??”
“Really.” She steps closer. “Come on. It’s already tomorrow, you know.”
Her face is soft, cool from the winter air beneath his palm. But her breath is warm. He brushes back that loose strand of hair again.
They kiss for at least ten waves’ worth of time. After that, Chowder loses count.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
hi there,
just wanted to say that if you’re in the omgcp fandom and you haven’t read this masterpiece of a Chowder-centric and more broadly frog-centric fic by @whatwouldlilydo, ummmm??? get on that??? and then read all the other fics she’s written using the same backstory/timeline/universe because every character is beautifully well-researched, characterized, and written. Also, there is a serious lack of Chowder and/or Charmer content in this fandom and this fic is probably the most excellent Chowder representation I could have ever wished for. Plus there’s background nurseydex just as a pain-inducing but also gorgeously-written bonus.
(Side note: I definitely 100% without reservation recommend this fic, but please read trigger/content warnings before making the decision as to whether reading this fic is a good idea for your mental health because it deals with a lot of really serious topics and I know that can be difficult. But it also deals with all of those topics really well, so if you’re mainly just worried about poor representation, don’t be.)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chris "Chowder" Chow/Caitlin Farmer
Additional Tags: Nonverbal Communication, February Ficlet Challenge
Series: Part 6 of February Ficlet Challenge
Summary:
Here’s some super quick night beach Charmer for @abominableobriens
Boston isn’t like California, Chris tells her.
The others always tease him for it, West Coast Best Coast, etc…. From a lot of people, Caitlin can see how it would come off that way. It helps that Caitlin is innately familiar with the complicated mix of emotions, the homesickness and the longing and the vague unease with the grey, snowy skies that last until mid-May.
It means something different even now, in late summer, when Boston is sticky air that clogs her lungs when she steps outside, that traps the heat until it becomes almost unbearable. When ‘going to the ocean’ seems to mean sitting around by the docks and watching sailboats with her lungs slowly drowning.
“It’s the ocean,” April tells her, as if this is normal, as if Caitlin is just supposed to accept the way the sky in Boston always looms a little too close to comfort.
“Boston isn’t like California,” Chris reminds her softly, because he may be from Northern California, but he still understands what she is missing.
“I want to go somewhere,” Chris says one night after dinner, when Caitlin thinks they’ve settled in for the day. She almost protests that the heat has sapped the energy out of her, that Boston has sapped the energy out of her. That it’s been a long day, and she’s Tired. She knows that Chris, of all people, would understand.
“Somewhere specific?” she asks.
“Yeah. Somewhere specific,” Chris says. Caitlin knows the look on his face enough to trust him, enough to only ask him how dressed up she needs to get. His eyes are bright, his body tense, like he’s physically suppressing a secret bubbling up inside him.
“Don’t get dressed up,” Chris tells her. “But bring a towel.”
It’s enough to set Caitlin’s heart aching, enough for her to wrap her arms tight around Chris, so grateful she could burst.
There’s only one place she’d need a towel this time of year.
The sun sinks down on the horizon, the edges of pink and orange light catching the tops of the waves. The water has already risen along the sand, the waves crashing heavier against the shore as the tide comes in. Caitlin can feel the breeze picking up already, blowing the frizzy tendrils of hair that escaped her ponytail away from her face.
Back home, she would consider this too cool to get in the water. Here in Boston, she knows that this is as warm as it is ever going to get, for the beach at night.
Chris lays out beach towels that Caitlin knows will only collect sand. He kicks off his flip flops, and she follows suit. Caitlin closes her eyes and basks in the familiar discomfort of sand between her toes, images in her head of beach volleyball games at dusk lasting until the light faded so much that she couldn’t see the ball anymore.
Chris’ hand finds hers, and she squeezes it tightly.
It isn’t the same as back home. The sand cools too quickly. The ocean waves are a shock to her system, the brisk water making her teeth chatter when she wades in shin-deep. Chris’ laughter echoes in the open air as she goes back and forth, back and forth, running from the cold water only to find that the breeze outside it only makes things worse. Chris holds her hands as she braces herself, until the water feels warm enough for her to brave going in up to her knees.
Chris holds her close, though, when she gets there, his shoulders broad and his arms strong and his chest warm. She leans down and kisses him with the sand beneath her toes and the first peek of the moonlight reflecting on their skin, casting shadows on the waves and making Chris glow.
“Thank you,” she says quietly, her voice barely audible over the water splashing around them.
When they leave the water, they wander back to their beach towels and sit together for a while while their legs dry. Chris tells her about going to the beach with his friends, about borrowing his sister’s longboard in exchange for bringing home In-N-Out. Caitlin tells him about senior year driftwood fires and the summer her best friend briefly worked at the food stand on the boardwalk.
“Boston isn’t like California,” Chris says as he stares out into the waves. It’s as close to wistful as Caitlin has heard him get all night; he was unfailingly positive even in the frigid waters, the hockey player in him comfortable at temperatures much lower than Caitlin.
“No, it isn’t,” Caitlin agrees softly.
But with Chris’ arm around her shoulder, his body pressed warm against hers, she can’t help but add.
They’re studying -- or, at least, Chris is studying, with that single-minded devotion he only gives three things in this life. Caitlin considers herself lucky to be one of them; she can share Chris with hockey and school, at least most of the time.
But Caitlin herself stopped studying about ten minutes ago; she’s been staring since then -- staring at the lean lines of Chris’s body, the way his legs extend out a mile on the floor beside her, the comfortable drape of his arms and the sweet purse of his lips.
When she worms in close to him, pulls his arm over her shoulders, he starts with a little noise; he’s distracted now, focus pulled away from studying, but Caitlin selfishly doesn’t care. She wants his attention, and bless him, Chris gives it to her the only way he knows how: one hundred percent.