send me a (horribly cliched) au + a pairing for a drabble/ficlet/fic!
“Isn’t gold like, really reactive?”
Martín stared at the offending student blankly. He thought he might burst a blood vessel.
He decided to give this count to ten thing a try, before finally sighing.
Asking was unavoidable, even though he was almost certain he already knew the answer.
“Where did you hear that?”
The girl blinked at him with wide eyes, like she simply couldn’t believe he was reacting like this to her perfectly accurate scientific facts. “Señor Fonollosa told us, earlier today.”
Martín didn’t normally sneer at his students, but now he came close. Whenever any of them carried completely mistaken and equally unfounded opinions about something only tangentially related to whatever Martín was currently trying to teach them, the culprit was never far.
It had always been a little unclear to Martín if Andrés de Fonollosa hated him.
At first Martín had been certain he did, because Andrés had been so snobbish and pretentious, and because nothing was worse than being informed by snooty teenagers that the inner core of the Earth was liquid, actually.
But then Andrés started inviting him for coffee, or dinner, and they would have insightful conversations about their respective subjects. Of course, Andrés seemed to be taking notes on Martín’s just to use them to ruin his life—but still. Andrés willingly sought him out, and he didn’t seem hateful about it, anymore.
Martín had never particularly wanted to play friends with any of his colleagues, but Andrés had made this decision for him.
“Well, he was mistaken. Gold is actually quite unreactive. Even though it has only one electron on its outermost shell, which would normally—”
“But señor Fonollosa said—”
“And he was mistaken,” Martín repeated, very calmly, not at all irritated. “Now can we continue with the class?”
Why was she so perfectly willing to take an art teacher’s perfectly unsubstantiated opinion over his anyway? Was it because she had a crush on Andrés? That seemed to be the case for many – optional art courses had never before been so popular. If Martín knew enough about colour theory to butcher it, he would have done so as a form of revenge. As it was, he wasn’t even quite certain what the term encompassed, but Andrés certainly seemed very fond of it.
After the class, Martín was extremely grateful to have a free period. He had been planning on spending it grading exams, but now he decided, on a whim, that what he needed was a coffee from the cafeteria, and a tea for Andrés. Andrés had bothered him during so many free periods, it was clear that the breaks in their days lined up perfectly.
Andrés's office was in an annexe – probably just because he enjoyed telling students to come to the annexe and proceed to get lost on their way. Martín was certain that most people didn't even know what an annexe was. He didn't, anyway.
Upon his entrance, the man in question smiled at him from the corner of the room, where he had been painting. “Good afternoon, Martín. What brings me the utmost pleasure of your radiating presence?”
"Gold is very reactive?" he asked as a conversation starter.
Andrés smiled. "I’m afraid I don't know what you're talking about, señor Berrote." He accepted the tea with a nod and a content sigh, moving to his desk, motioning for Martín to assume the chair opposite.
"She literally said it was you."
Martín leaned over Andrés's desk, for he enjoyed the way Andrés never shied away from him. Andrés didn't let him down now, either. He smirked and leaned forward a fraction, so that their breaths mixed. He was staring at Martín with that eternal smirk of his, and Martín was certain that the sexual tension wasn’t his own invention. It would have been so easy.
Andrés had a fiancée, though. It was better to leave it at that, regrettable as it was. Martín pulled himself back and sat down in the chair he had been offered.
“So it was.”
“Why do you keep feeding them all these fake facts?”
Andrés shrugged, dramatically stretching his limbs. "I only do it for my most promising students, you know. They shouldn't be wasting their time on chemistry classes—"
"It's a compulsory course," Martín interrupted. Unlike art, by the way.
"Regardless. The sooner they realise they have no future in STEM – doubtlessly their parents want them all to become doctors – the better. I'm doing the world a service.”
Such incredibly backwards logic – Martín wasn’t at all surprised, although he wasn’t sure how he felt about the implication that Andrés actually did care about his students succeeding – even if his methods were rather unorthodox. Martín couldn’t claim to have such a passion for the teenagers he was teaching – he cared about chemistry, nothing else.
"You got the sugar right," Andrés praised him, changing the subject.
Martín rolled his eyes. They had been having these little black coffee / sweet tea outings for months; of course he got the sugar right.
For a man with a betrothed, Andrés sure spent an awful lot of time making plans with Martín.
But that’s none of my business, Martín thought as he sipped his coffee.
"Oh, a film just came out that I would like to go see," Andrés said, like he had just happened to think of it. Martín knew him better than that, though – he was always making plans for everything he said and did. This, too, was calculated.
"Yeah?"
"It's Argentinian. I feel like I could use a translator."
“Charming. Isn’t your fiancée Argentinian?” Martín had never met her, but he remembered distinctly how Andrés had grinned to him, his first week at this job, saying you’re Argentinian. Like my fiancée.
“She’s out of town, and I’ve already bought the tickets. Tomorrow night?”
“I’m busy.”
“Wednesday, then.”
“I thought you had already bought the tickets.”
Andrés simply smiled at that. “Is that a yes?”
Martín shrugged. “Will I be hearing any more botched science from your students today?”
Andrés hummed, clearly proud of himself. He was doing the world a service, after all. “I told one that the Moon is slowly moving towards the Earth. That it will eventually kill us—"
“Please stop talking, actually.”
“If you’ll come see the film with me.”
Martín sighed, in an entirely staged manner. “Emotional blackmail.”
“That’s a yes.”
Andrés had a fiancée. But if said fiancée was out of town, and this was how he chose to spend his free time, who was Martín to judge him? He enjoyed Andrés’s company. They were co-workers. They seemed to be on their way to becoming friends.
Martín had never cared for friends, before, but he didn’t completely mind this one.
Prompt: berlermo + fluff/general 7 or 15, if you feel like it
(Fluff/General) 15. “yeah, well, if you weren’t so drunk maybe i would.”
It’s not the easiest of tasks - dragging your drunk-out-of-his-mind boyfriend up the stairs of the house while he purposefully makes it harder by simply not cooperating with your attempts to move him.
Though it’s not without its perks, too.
What Martín never failed to do was amuse Andrés. With his quips, his quick wit, his passion, his anger, his fervour, his desperation - but, most of all, his love. Martín had so much love for Andrés, it could rival an erupting volcano, drowning down its thunderous roar and burning hotter than its lava. Andrés considered himself very lucky to be enveloped in such devotion. That’s why it was no surprise that this love would break even through Martín’s intoxicated state, causing him to try and wriggle out of Andrés’ hold, to grasp onto him the way Martín’s feelings dictated. Slide his hands up and down Andrés’ ribcage. Throw his arms around Andrés’ shoulders. Try and catch Andrés’ lips with his.
They’ve been together - properly together, in a sense that made the most sense, - for two years now, and Andrés was still amused. It was the most wonderful feeling.
He finally got Martín into their bedroom, carefully sitting him on the edge of the bed, onto which Martín immediately tumbled, and removed his shoes.
“I think I’ll need help with the pants too,” Martín whined, not lifting his head off the bed.
“I think someone could’ve thought about it before downing those last five shots of tequila,” Andrés chuckled, his hands still moving to Martín’s buckle.
“What’m supposed to do, it was a bridal shower!”
“It was some random woman at the bar, you don’t even know her.”
“I’m celebrating love, ‘ndrés, can’t I join a celebration of love?”
Andrés folded Martín’s pants onto the nearby chair and started wriggling him out of the shirt.
“You certainly can, but when you went off to celebrate the love, you left me - the love of your life, as you claim - alone at our table. Now, how am I supposed to feel when you’re off toasting someone else’s marriage?”
“Did it for you a few times,” Martín yawned, refusing to assist Andrés in the removal of his shirt by turning onto his stomach and pressing down on the shirt’s sleeve. “Have ‘nough of experience.”
Andrés decided against yanking the shirt from under Martín and, instead, pulled gently. A nasty feeling tugged at his insides. Something like guilt.
He finally retrieved the shirt and helped Martín move up the bed and onto the pillow.
“Maybe I should put you on a leash next time, so you don’t wander off,” Andrés smirked, pulling the sheet over Martín.
“Maybe you should put a ring on my finger so I have no other weddings to celebrate but my own,” Martín replied, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“Yes, well,” Andrés discarded his own clothes and meticulously hung them in the closet. “If you weren’t so drunk, maybe I would.”
He heard Martín snort at that, mumble something unintelligible into the pillow before starting to snore softly.
Andrés shook his head in amusement and transferred the small box from his suit pocket into the bedstand drawer.
He couldn’t wait to be amused by Martín’s reaction in the morning.
They cook together. Or well, Andrés starts cooking a fancy, crazy complicated recipe and then doesn’t know how to turn on the stove, so Martín shoves him to the side and does it all for him. Martín has been cooking since he was a child, it’s all second nature to him and Andrés finds it immensely attractive how he knows exactly what he’s doing; he constantly distracts him by hugging him from behind and kissing his neck. And Martín absolutely loves it because it’s so different now from when he used to cook in the small apartment in Buenos Aires with his mother glaring at him from the kitchen table; with Andrés, he feels appreciated and loved.
Who buys the groceries?
Andrés buys the groceries because he’s the one who takes ten minutes to decide which type of spinach to get. He also has a very expensive taste. Martín sometimes rolls his eyes and goes “2 Euros for a strawberry Andrés, was that really necessary?” and Andrés is like “We have enough money, cariño, you’ll never have to worry about that again. Try one.” and tenderly feeds him a strawberry and Martín still thinks Andrés is being careless but damn that strawberry is good.
I think you should totally do that ask meme for: college au + lizzington or doctor/companion + lizzington just sayin
absolutely would not do a doctor who one justice, so have some teachers/college au! sorry for the fade to black i’m the worst
“We really…we really shouldn’t be doing this,” Red whispers, hushed and muffled against Liz’s mouth. All he gets in return is a short hum and a tightening of her fingers on the back of his head. His entire body shivers and for a moment he forgets what he was trying to say. When their kiss breaks apart for a moment, he takes a second to take a deep breath in and pulls away. He doesn’t get very far before she’s trying to tug him back, but he stands his ground. “Miss Keen, really,” he starts again, moving his hands from where they’d been resting on her hips to rest on the desk next to her. “Miss Keen, please,” he tries again, moving his mouth out of the line of fire. It doesn’t stop Liz though, she just moves on to pressing kisses to his jawline and then his neck. He shivers again and feels his body melt before he regains his senses and steps back.
“Lizzy!” he finally says, clearer now that he’s put some distance between them. His chest is heaving and his head is bowed, staring at her knees that had been pressed tight to his hips, but are now hanging limply from his desk. He can see a half graded report underneath her and it reminds him of the beginning of this scenario.
When he’d been sitting at his desk, grading reports for his upper level language course, and counting down the hours until he could successfully sneak out, and she had barged in. To be fair, she had knocked, but he hadn’t even had time to answer before she had opened the door, slipped in, and closed it behind her. He hadn’t been shocked to see her, has seen her at this same time almost every day for the last six months, so he’d just leaned back and smirked at her, throwing his pen on to the desk. “Miss Keen,” he’d said in greeting, letting his chair bounce a bit on it’s way back. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Liz hadn’t said anything, just reached back and flipped the lock on the door behind her before stalking towards him, a predatory gleam in her eye. It hadn’t taken long after that for Red to find himself in the position they are now, him between her widespread legs and trying to catch his breath even as she’s trying to pull him back to her.
“Lizzy,” he says, softer this time and she answers him by loosening the grip she has on the back of his head, stroking instead of scraping. When he looks up, she’s grinning at him, eyes still gleaming, this time with affection. “I have a class in,” he pauses for a moment to check his watch, “thirty minutes.” He could have sworn they had less time.
“Plenty of time,” Liz says before hooking her ankles around his waist and applying gentle pressure to pull him in. Red wants to pull away again, wants to argue, but at some point in time the first four buttons of her blouse had been undone and the peek of blue lace is all too alluring.
He let’s himself be drawn into her embrace once more and moves his hands from the desk to her waist, sliding under her shirt to her warm skin beneath. Her ankles lock at his back and he presses himself against her, smirking when she stutters out a breath when he rocks into her. “Plenty of time,” he echoes before slanting his mouth over hers once more.
—–
A half hour later, Red walks into class a limp in his gait and a flush stained high on his cheeks. If any of the students notice, he doesn’t particularly care all that much. He’s scheduled to give a pop quiz today, so he takes a moment for his class to settle before opening his briefcase. This is the part in his routine where he usually pulls out his glasses, but when he pulls out the quiz papers, he can’t find them anywhere. He spends several minutes looking through his briefcase and patting his pockets while his teacher’s assistant passes out the quiz.
He’s getting frustrated at his lack of progress when there’s a quick knock on the classroom door. He looks up quickly and darts to the door when he sees who it is. “Miss Keen,” he says softly when he opens the door.
“Professor Reddington,” Liz replies, peeking into the classroom. Red looks over his shoulder to see the class watching the two of them and quickly moves to block their view of her.
“Miss Keen, how can I help you?” he whispers just shy of harshly.
“You forgot these,” she says, holding out the glasses he had been searching for. “You left them on your desk.” She’s not doing anything to lower her voice and he can feel the heat burning the tips of his ears. He grabs the glasses from her hurriedly and starts to turn away before just as quickly turning back.
“Thank you, Miss Keen,” he says in a low voice. “I appreciate you returning these to me.” Red can’t take his eyes off of her and he can feel a slow smile creep across his face, matching the one already on hers.
“You’re welcome,” she replies and now her voice is low and the feeling he’d had earlier, with her wrapped around him in his office, is back.
“I’ll see you later.” He says it so confidently that now Liz is blushing. She nods and turns on her toes, knowing that his gaze has travelled lower. A hurried “Miss Keen!” from behind her makes her turn back quickly. He stares at her again, a steady look that stokes the fire inside of her as his gaze travels up and down her body.
Red smirks again, predatory this time, and brings a hand up to motion to his shirt. “You might want to rethink your wardrobe,” he says, glibly. She looks down quickly to find the buttons on her blouse are off by one. The blush on her cheeks gets deeper, spreads down her neck as she quickly tries to cover the offending shirt.
Red’s laugh makes up for the embarrassment she feels and she just shakes her head in fond amusement. “I’ll see you later, Professor Reddington.”
2, 8, and let's see... oh, how about 10 for that writing meme?
Darling friend, thank you so much for indulging me after threateningly texting me-- about the writing meme. I really do appreciate it. Greatly. Even if I know you just wanted to publicly shame me for my chaotic writer brain. I deserve that, anyway. Never let anyone tell you I don’t know it.
2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project
I really look forward to writing rival magicians, you know. I’ve not worked on anything that I’ve even remotely wanted to stretch beyond a one-shot for nearly a decade, but I really want to do this one, at length too. I don’t know what I want to write in it the most, but I’m in love with the atmosphere. I’m always all about the atmosphere. Thank you for trusting it in my “do you think you might be a bit too... wholesome to write this?” hands. (For those of you who’ve not pitched this with me, it’s a bit circus AU and a bit The Prestige and a bit enemies to lovers and it was like the first conversation the two of us had so it’s Precious™ and it will be fun.) Maybe I’ll make it my main project this summer. Just you wait--
(And the chicken fic, of course. That’s the definition of no-stress life for me, writing about chickens instead of trying to do anything remotely serious.)
8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?
Yeah. But also no. I think that objectively I’d enjoy reading my works if they were written by someone else, and I try my best to write something I’d enjoy as a reader, even if it’s hard to enjoy reading my own work without seeing flaws everywhere. But I also love to read things that aren’t really my thing to write, violence and suffering and all that. Unwholesome things, if you will.
10. How would you describe your writing process?
Well, here’s a funny story. The other day my dear friend (you) asked me this question and I explained it to the best of my abilities, I really tried okay, and the response I got was, and I quote:
“You just gave me the worst headache.”
And from here on out that’s all I will ever say when asked about my writing process. “My dear friend Corinna, who’s an incredible writer herself, once told me--”
I think you should totally do Lizzington + 12 or 14 for that cudding prompt 😏
(cuddling prompts)
12. Just waking up
red consistently wakes up before lizzy, long before any alarms go off. his routine is the same every morning. wake up, check his phone for any new business, check the news, and then finally get up. by the time he’s done in the shower and on his way to making coffee, lizzy is up and staring at him bleary eyed as he dresses. this is the best part of his day, next to when he finally falls asleep next to her, face to face and feet tangled up together. but this early morning moment, he loves this.
the sun shines through the window, through sheer curtains that she made him put up on a sunday afternoon, across her bare back. the sheets, a pale blue that matches the slightly nautical theme of their bedroom, are pushed low to her hips and red can’t help but admire the length of her spine, the curve that starts below the sheet, the smattering of freckles across her shoulders. red has never been more in love with her than he is on mornings like this.
liz wakes slowly, making sleepy little noises that red hears from the bathroom. he wipes his face with a towel and pads out on bare feet, towel wrapped low around his waist. he smiles as he watches her stretch, her arms reaching up under the pillows and he huffs a laugh when she rubs her face into the pillow and moans. he works his tongue around his mouth at the noises she makes, but his smile is bright when she finally turns and catches him with bleary eyes.
neither of them say anything, just stare at each other for a moment before lizzy let’s a small smile crawl across her face. this is part of their routine as well, this slow, lazy morning moment before the hustle and bustle of taking down bad guys.
this is how they communicate, no words, just a bright smile and him crawling back in to bed, towel dropping as he wraps his arms around her waist.
it’s the pads of his fingers pressing softly into her sides, the huff of a laugh against the side of his head, his nose against her collarbone, the clench of her hands against his shoulders. it’s the whispered admirations against the skin of her belly and the quiet responses shared in the sunlight.
this is the best part of their days, when red is pressed up against her and she’s happy and content, the way he always promised she would be. she wraps her arms more tightly around him, fingers scratching at the short hair on the back of his neck and smiles.
