(fic) Two
Two | radishface
Watchmen → Adrian/Dan
aka A Single Dan. :P AU, ~1100 words.
A/N, written for the Watchmen kinkmeme for an anon asking for some fluffy Adrian/Dan.
Instead of heading to Egypt, Adrian joins up with the Navy as he's passing through Malaysia. He serves a year before the war ends, floating through Southeast Asia and all along the Pacific. The days are hot and Adrian learns how a gun feels in his hands, and how it fires, and how it kills. Adrian turns inward at night and during sleep. He doesn't shed a single tear.
Eventually, they alight in California, finally finished. The other men in uniform dismount, whooping and cheering and eyes peeled for the women on the shore who have their eyes right peeled back at them. Adrian feels the smile come back to his face at the feeling of dry sand under his boots, a cool coastal breeze licking at his skin. It's a bubble of happy, joyous, rancorous sounds all around him as the port welcomes their boys home.
"We're headed to the nearest bar," the company boys say to him as soon as their feet touch the ground. "You in, A.V.?"
Adrian declines for now and says he'll meet up with them later. He takes his time, soaking in the sun with closed eyes and walking slowly, very slowly. There are embraces all around and as the sun is setting, forms lying and writhing prone in the sand. The air smells like alcohol and salt and sea.
There's a bar a stone's throw away from where the sand meets asphalt, the endless black pavement distilling warmth from the bottom up, still pulsing with the sun's remains. The sounds of people grow louder, singing in chorus and out of chorus, glass clinking and footsteps churning. Adrian nudges his way through the crowds and pushes his way into the bar, temporarily stunned by the sudden explosion of noise and heat and people, the mustiness of cigarette smoke and a million voices speaking at once. He scans the area quickly and finds that his friends are on the other side of the bar, unreachable. Adrian waves quickly and they wave back, beckon him to go over, but the crowd is too thick.
Adrian turns on his heel back outside. Already it's cooler. He looks around, feeling the breeze, and finds a pair of brown eyes looking back at him, three people away. It's a thoughtful, assessing, and vaguely ashamed glance, and it immediately looks away. Adrian smiles to himself and keeps looking. The brown eyes look up as well, lashes a stark flicker, and they keep looking at each other as Adrian's feet pace him over.
"It's too hot in there," he starts, and the other man agrees, "yes it is." A pause, not too long. "Want a cigarette?"
"No, I don't smoke." Adrian finds himself laughing, much like he found himself pacing. Here in the dusk of the half-light outside the bar, he's drunk on the air, salty with ocean and sweat and sweet with alcohol and possibility. "It's really crowded," he says instead, disbelieving.
"Well, it is Saturday night." He's wearing a white linen shirt loosely tucked into some khakis, his hair windswept into a thoughtful disarray. A pair of thick glasses are tucked into his shirt pocket, neatly arranged in there with the arm tucked over onto the outside.
"Was just going to stop by, pick something up, and head down to the beach." The other man is holding a cigarette like he's used to them and he talks quickly like he knows what he's saying. From that Adrian knows that this man isn't normally a smoker and that he's stalling.
"It's pretty wild out there," Adrian agrees, looking out toward the black, black ocean, blacker than the asphalt now. "I'm surprised the police don't break it up. Is it always like that?"
"Not since the war ended. It's pretty great, actually. Sort of pagan." And he smiles up at Adrian like he's pleased with himself, and still sheepish, and Adrian can't help it, his smile, outside and inside and through all of him.
"I'm Adrian." He extends his hand.
"I'm Daniel. It's nice to meet you, Adrian."
Daniel's hands are warm and solid. Adrian's not surprised.
"I'm supposed to meet some friends," Adrian explains, "but I can't find them."
Dan exhales and with it, a plume of smoke. "I just needed to get out of the house, get some fresh air and a cold beer, maybe."
"You live nearby?"
"About five minutes away, walking."
Five minutes away from the sand and the ocean and Adrian's been trudging through nothing but that, but this is different. "Been there long?"
"Moved out here a few years ago. I teach at the local college."
"That's neat. What subject?"
"Ornithology," Dan looks down, like he's embarrassed, and clears his throat very quietly. "Ah, where're you from?"
Adrian laughs, "all over. It's a long story."
"Oh?" Daniel is interested.
"But I really like it here. The beach." Daniel's look is cautious but interested, puffing away behind the smokescreen. Then Adrian says, "Think I might stick around," and Dan's eyes light up like the end of his cigarette. "I don't know. Maybe I'm a bit of a pagan too."
Daniel's own smile is hesitant, straining to break free, a bit of pagan in there as well.
A light touch against his eyebrow, and then another on his cheek, drops of rain sliding down his face, the accompanying wind sweeping up and shifting the smells away into something fresh, and Adrian gestures at the door to the bar. "After you."
"No, no, after you," Dan insists, and so Adrian goes in first, leading the way.
They stumble in through the crowds, now multiplied tenfold that it's raining outside. They're both making their way to the bar by some unspoken agreement, the undulating press of bodies all around them, when a striking woman with red, red lips stumbles in front of Adrian and catches him by the shoulders.
She's flushed, already tipsy, and smiles slowly as she takes him in. "Why, hello."
"Hi," Adrian chuckles.
"Do you," she intones in an alert tone and sleepy diction, "want to buy me a drink?"
And Adrian looks back and there's Daniel, fingers clamped down on that cigarette and nervously itching toward his glasses, brown eyes so lovely that Adrian can only pause (he can't help it) before he says,
"sorry," with a gentle push on her shoulders, guiding her away. "I think I'm taken." And to his left, Daniel's lips fall open just a little, cheeks flushing, a joy flickering small deep in his eyes and of course, of course Adrian would be right about this, he's never been wrong about anything important.
She doesn't break eye contact, "too bad," slinking away quite good-naturedly. "Too bad," she says again, her fingers a glissando over his lips and then she's gone. The crowd pushes them into each other with a bump and they're chest against chest now, invisible in the masses and nobody else watching, no one the wiser except for the two of them, a little more knowing now. The thing was, Adrian had planned to go to New York after the war.
Instead, he asks, "want another beer?"
Daniel beams back at him.
-|-
Watchmen → Adrian/Dan
aka A Single Dan. :P AU, ~1100 words.
A/N, written for the Watchmen kinkmeme for an anon asking for some fluffy Adrian/Dan.
Instead of heading to Egypt, Adrian joins up with the Navy as he's passing through Malaysia. He serves a year before the war ends, floating through Southeast Asia and all along the Pacific. The days are hot and Adrian learns how a gun feels in his hands, and how it fires, and how it kills. Adrian turns inward at night and during sleep. He doesn't shed a single tear.
Eventually, they alight in California, finally finished. The other men in uniform dismount, whooping and cheering and eyes peeled for the women on the shore who have their eyes right peeled back at them. Adrian feels the smile come back to his face at the feeling of dry sand under his boots, a cool coastal breeze licking at his skin. It's a bubble of happy, joyous, rancorous sounds all around him as the port welcomes their boys home.
"We're headed to the nearest bar," the company boys say to him as soon as their feet touch the ground. "You in, A.V.?"
Adrian declines for now and says he'll meet up with them later. He takes his time, soaking in the sun with closed eyes and walking slowly, very slowly. There are embraces all around and as the sun is setting, forms lying and writhing prone in the sand. The air smells like alcohol and salt and sea.
There's a bar a stone's throw away from where the sand meets asphalt, the endless black pavement distilling warmth from the bottom up, still pulsing with the sun's remains. The sounds of people grow louder, singing in chorus and out of chorus, glass clinking and footsteps churning. Adrian nudges his way through the crowds and pushes his way into the bar, temporarily stunned by the sudden explosion of noise and heat and people, the mustiness of cigarette smoke and a million voices speaking at once. He scans the area quickly and finds that his friends are on the other side of the bar, unreachable. Adrian waves quickly and they wave back, beckon him to go over, but the crowd is too thick.
Adrian turns on his heel back outside. Already it's cooler. He looks around, feeling the breeze, and finds a pair of brown eyes looking back at him, three people away. It's a thoughtful, assessing, and vaguely ashamed glance, and it immediately looks away. Adrian smiles to himself and keeps looking. The brown eyes look up as well, lashes a stark flicker, and they keep looking at each other as Adrian's feet pace him over.
"It's too hot in there," he starts, and the other man agrees, "yes it is." A pause, not too long. "Want a cigarette?"
"No, I don't smoke." Adrian finds himself laughing, much like he found himself pacing. Here in the dusk of the half-light outside the bar, he's drunk on the air, salty with ocean and sweat and sweet with alcohol and possibility. "It's really crowded," he says instead, disbelieving.
"Well, it is Saturday night." He's wearing a white linen shirt loosely tucked into some khakis, his hair windswept into a thoughtful disarray. A pair of thick glasses are tucked into his shirt pocket, neatly arranged in there with the arm tucked over onto the outside.
"Was just going to stop by, pick something up, and head down to the beach." The other man is holding a cigarette like he's used to them and he talks quickly like he knows what he's saying. From that Adrian knows that this man isn't normally a smoker and that he's stalling.
"It's pretty wild out there," Adrian agrees, looking out toward the black, black ocean, blacker than the asphalt now. "I'm surprised the police don't break it up. Is it always like that?"
"Not since the war ended. It's pretty great, actually. Sort of pagan." And he smiles up at Adrian like he's pleased with himself, and still sheepish, and Adrian can't help it, his smile, outside and inside and through all of him.
"I'm Adrian." He extends his hand.
"I'm Daniel. It's nice to meet you, Adrian."
Daniel's hands are warm and solid. Adrian's not surprised.
"I'm supposed to meet some friends," Adrian explains, "but I can't find them."
Dan exhales and with it, a plume of smoke. "I just needed to get out of the house, get some fresh air and a cold beer, maybe."
"You live nearby?"
"About five minutes away, walking."
Five minutes away from the sand and the ocean and Adrian's been trudging through nothing but that, but this is different. "Been there long?"
"Moved out here a few years ago. I teach at the local college."
"That's neat. What subject?"
"Ornithology," Dan looks down, like he's embarrassed, and clears his throat very quietly. "Ah, where're you from?"
Adrian laughs, "all over. It's a long story."
"Oh?" Daniel is interested.
"But I really like it here. The beach." Daniel's look is cautious but interested, puffing away behind the smokescreen. Then Adrian says, "Think I might stick around," and Dan's eyes light up like the end of his cigarette. "I don't know. Maybe I'm a bit of a pagan too."
Daniel's own smile is hesitant, straining to break free, a bit of pagan in there as well.
A light touch against his eyebrow, and then another on his cheek, drops of rain sliding down his face, the accompanying wind sweeping up and shifting the smells away into something fresh, and Adrian gestures at the door to the bar. "After you."
"No, no, after you," Dan insists, and so Adrian goes in first, leading the way.
They stumble in through the crowds, now multiplied tenfold that it's raining outside. They're both making their way to the bar by some unspoken agreement, the undulating press of bodies all around them, when a striking woman with red, red lips stumbles in front of Adrian and catches him by the shoulders.
She's flushed, already tipsy, and smiles slowly as she takes him in. "Why, hello."
"Hi," Adrian chuckles.
"Do you," she intones in an alert tone and sleepy diction, "want to buy me a drink?"
And Adrian looks back and there's Daniel, fingers clamped down on that cigarette and nervously itching toward his glasses, brown eyes so lovely that Adrian can only pause (he can't help it) before he says,
"sorry," with a gentle push on her shoulders, guiding her away. "I think I'm taken." And to his left, Daniel's lips fall open just a little, cheeks flushing, a joy flickering small deep in his eyes and of course, of course Adrian would be right about this, he's never been wrong about anything important.
She doesn't break eye contact, "too bad," slinking away quite good-naturedly. "Too bad," she says again, her fingers a glissando over his lips and then she's gone. The crowd pushes them into each other with a bump and they're chest against chest now, invisible in the masses and nobody else watching, no one the wiser except for the two of them, a little more knowing now. The thing was, Adrian had planned to go to New York after the war.
Instead, he asks, "want another beer?"
Daniel beams back at him.
-|-