Recruitment Officer
*sigh* Damn flist and your damn fandom recruitments. This is for c_quinn, because, well, it came a lot easier (ha ha) than the RPS was coming along, as well as for lotus0kid for recommending The Middleman to me.
Title:Recruitment Officer
Fandoms:: Reaper/The Middleman
Characters/Pairings: Sam/the Middleman. Briefly. Sorta kinda.
Rating: PG13y
“I need a break.”
The Middleman glanced over at her before returning his eyes to the file in front of him.
“You just went to the bathroom seven minutes and thirty eight seconds ago, Dubby, you can’t possibly-“
“You’ve been monitoring my bowel movements?” she was a little horrified to find that she wasn’t really horrified at all.
“It’s important for a man to know as many details as he can about his partner, Dubs.”
“You mean sidekick.”
“I really like to think of us as equal partners, Wendy; each bringing equally important but vastly different skills to the plate. I, naturally, take care of the raw talent and experience and superior weaponry, while you-“
“Take whatever gun you can spare me and watch as you destroy beings that threaten mortal peril for the whole world?”
“Provide the wide-eyed charm,” he said, smoothly, and looked back at her.
She rolled her eyes.
“The eye-rolling charm,” he added, without missing a beat. “Smart as a whip and twice as snappy. You’re a vital part of my team, Wendy Watson.”
“Yeah, that’s sweet, but look: I do need a break.”
“From fighting evil?” he looked as though she’d suggested she needed time off from tasting new ice cream flavors to get poked by hot sticks.
“From fighting evil.”
“Why would you ever…do you think evil takes breaks, Dubby? Just skips down to some quaint little banana republic and pulls up a wicker chair, drinking mojitos while watching waves crash along the beach?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah, I do,” she said, remembering the time they had to break up the Bi-Yearly Sun and Surf Weekly Summit For Individuals of Morally Questionable Character (First order of business: find a name that wouldn’t drain half their budget just to get the banners and stationary) in Bermuda.
Oddly enough, he’d told her the only reason they’d intervened at all was because of the potential for bloodshed if the results from the limbo contest were, well, contested.
“Fine,” the Middleman nodded, “Maybe evil does take breaks. But that’s when we catch up on…” he grinned, and pulled a large, momentous, destructive looking pile of paper off of the floor and onto his desk. “Paperwork.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, as if he ever was.
“As if I ever am.” (See?)
“Can’t you make Rosie do it?”
“Oh, I’ve got something I want to do,” she heard her call out, from the other room.
“You already said that one,” Wendy called back. “Last week.”
“Computers, even super-computers, only have a finite number of response to the same stimuli, Dubby,” he said, almost disappointed.
“Are you disappointed?”
“Well, I have to say, you were able to get some real gems out of the old girl, but now that she’s apparently started repeating herself…”
“You mean I’ve annoyed her so much that she’s exhausted all of her potential quips?”
He gave a, “Well, yeah,” head-shake-and-shrug combo, and she sighed.
“Good to know.”
“Knowledge is power, Wendy.”
“Awesome,” she said, a bit glumly. “Don’t I feel powerful.”
He looked at her again, eyes sympathetic, and then shook his head.
“Well, I suppose an art student really wouldn’t know anything about balancing expense reports,” he said, “And the world won’t end just because my partner decides to go gallivanting off to Florida for a wet t-shirt contest-“
“Philadelphia. Art exhibit. Franz Marc, if you-”
“With the roommate?”
“With the boyfriend.”
“The doorknob? That will be fun.”
“It wasn’t that funny the first time, and now it’s just kind of pathetic,” she rolled her eyes, before smiling. “But thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he smiled back.
“Separate rooms?” she heard him call out, as she walked out.
“Thank you, MM.”
“Familiarity breeds contempt, Dub-dub.”
“I’ll see you next week!” she gave him one last wave, before running for it.
***
“It’s quiet without her here, isn’t it?”
Ida gave him a withering look.
“I’m not suggesting that it’s a bad thing, but…did you need something?”
“They need you in Seattle,” she threw another file on his desk. “Some kind of wind creature.”
“ ‘Some kind of…’ Ida, you know that specificity is-“
“Yeah, yeah, just get up there, already.”
“No need to be rude.”
***
“Sock! Ben!” he tried to call out, before being slammed into the wall by another gust of air.
Ducked as a heavy looking lunch table came hurtling towards him.
Closed his eyes as it was followed by a much more focused looking fire extinguisher, knew it was going to hit him, knew he was going to die, and what a way to go, stupid red fire extinguisher to the head and…nothing was happening.
“Excuse me, young man?” he heard, yelled about as politely as it was possible for anyone to yell anything, and that turned out to be more politely than he expected.
He opened his eyes as another blast of wind threw something large, heavy, and apparently human against him.
Apparently human, because the guy looked like something out of a forties movie, something that should have been in black and white, with a vaguely military looking jacket, what looked like a huge, black gun, and perfect hair.
In the midst of an indoor tornado. Perfect hair. Did not compute as really human.
“Young man?!” he was yelling again, face a couple of inches from his, but still, basically pleasant and in control. “Now would be a good time to run, don’t you think?!”
“Wait I…What?!” Sam shouted back.
“Darn it all to heck, soldier!” and it was a little less polite, and it took him a second to actually realize what the actual words had been. “Get a move on! Now! ”
And he felt himself get pushed, hard, down the hallway.
Saw the man do his best to level the gun, and he didn’t know well enough to say anything beside it except that it was large, and aim at the eye of the storm.
“Don’t! Bullets aren’t going to…!” he screamed, as the gun gave a bit of a roar and a blast of something, white and almost misty looking shot out the barrel.
“Gee, you think?” the man called out to him, as he turned around and grabbed hold of his arm. “Just trying to slow it down,” he said, loudly, but didn’t need to shout quite as much, as he pulled him forward. “Come on!”
“Who…who are you?” he said, feeling the wind behind him start to pick up again.
“Is that…really…your first…priority…right now?”
He thought about it for a second
No vessel, crazy soul with some sort of wind power, Sock and Ben MIA, random mercenary dude with a huge fucking gun that came out of nowhere and wasn’t at all panicked about any of this…
“Yes!”
“Fine!” the man said, pushing him into a small alcove that seemed to lead to a protected part of the factory. “Not that it’ll mean anything to you, but I’m…the Middleman!”
“The Minute-“
“Middle! Man!” he just about roared, as the wind whistling by the doorway threatened to drown out everything except for the blood he could hear rushing past his ears. “Okay…We need to…get to…the next door! Stay close to the wall!”
“Okay!” he shouted back, as he was dragged out of the alcove and further down the hall, toward where the exit was once marked by the exit sign now hurtling toward their heads.
He stopped for a second, as the Middleman turned around and shot another blast of whatever it was, looking around, desperate.
“What are you…looking….for?!” he called out, running toward him and pulling at his shoulder again.
“My friends! Ben! And Sock!”
“Sock?” the man stopped for a second and gave him an incredulous look. “What sort of a name is Sock?”
“Is that…really…your first…priority…right NOW?” he bellowed.
"Fair! Point!” and the man almost seemed to be laughing, as he pushed him through yet another doorway, right before another picnic table came crashing against it, practically trapping them in.
And then it was perfectly, eerily, silent.
Sam looked at the man, leaning rigidly (and who did that, lean rigidly?), against the opposite wall, taking deep breaths, hair still perfectly in place and jacket still perfectly buttoned.
And then considered himself, panting, collapsed against gloomy yellow cinderblocks.
Yeah, he was making a good impression here, for sure.
“Are you all right there, young man?” the Middleman, whatever that was, smiled at him.
“Yeah, I’m…I’m fine,” he swallowed. “Who are you, again?”
“Well, I’m the Middleman,” he said, and looked about ready to begin a real explanation that made sense about what the hell that was, before he frowned. “Do you…do you smell something?”
“What?”
He blinked, eyes going vaguely hazy. “Like…like strawberries and…champagne and…paint…”
And he did smell something, but it wasn’t…it was cotton candy and that light, sweet smell that Andi’s hair sometimes had and it was…odd. He felt…warm. Tingly. Good.
Except…no, he felt too warm, his shirt was almost suffocating, scratchy against his skin, and he looked up, and he wondered, if the man, his uniform, his tight, perfectly fitting, uniform…if he was…if he was hot in that…and well, yeah he was really hot in that, movie-star handsome, smoldering eyes and…
“Oh, fuck,” the man was saying, blinking quickly, and it was the wrong thing to say, because he was moving closer or maybe Sam was and that was in his head and the man’s tongue was in his mouth before he’d even realized they were kissing and oh god when did…when did that hand slip up his shirt and why was he wrapping his legs around man’s waist and how was he…he was holding him up against the wall and crap kissing down his neck and…very, very thorough lips and teeth sliding and biting and nuzzling against his skin.
Hair almost crisp as he ran his hand through it and what was he doing what stop but soft somehow, too, and too perfect, wanted to mess it up a bit, wanted to feel those hands on him again, perfect, knew how to touch, where to, a little too well, but he wasn’t, he was bracing against the wall, to rock up against him, and that….that was good to, too good, and his head fell back, and he heard, dimly, what sounded like glass breaking as everything went dark.
***
“Sam?” he felt a hand slap lightly against his face, and then again, a bit harder. “Nap time’s over, Sammy.”
Sock. Okay. That was…that was good. Maybe he was back home. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe…maybe when he opened his eyes he’d realize his lips felt…tingly and…and swollen…because…because Andi had stayed over. Or something. Maybe.
The fact that he was apparently soaked to the skin, well, that would take more explaining, but hey, there was always hope that it was because of something…normal.
He opened his eyes.
Sock was there. Cool. Ben was on his left. Also good. The Middleman gave him a small wave, from where he was squatting on his other side, jacket buttoned for the most part but tie…missing, and hair…mussed, probably beyond repair. And he got one last tingle of satisfaction from that, before panic set in.
“Hello there, Sam Oliver,” the man smiled at him, as he fought the urge to cover up what felt suspiciously like a hickey on his neck. “I was just telling your…friends…here, how your quick thinking in hitting the fire alarm and setting off the sprinklers kept us all from falling victim to a potent Lust Bomb.”
“A…a what?”
“A powerful aphrodisiac invented in the 1970’s and…shall we say, augmented by a certain department of hell. Certain denizens of the Pit of Ultimate Evil have taken to using them as distractions from capture, these days, almost like…like particularly salacious smoke bombs. Although how an escaped soul got a hold of one…well, I’d suggest you speak to your supervisor about that one.”
“I, uh,” Sam tried to imagine that conversation, and immediately regretted it. Glanced at Sock and Ben instead. “I’ll look into it. Did you guys…”
“He did,” Ben grinned, tossing him the tiny personal fan that suddenly felt a whole lot heavier and warm to the touch. “I’m telling you man, it was awesome. Carried you out of there like you were nothing and just yelled at us to give him the vessel, and then Sock didn’t want to, so he punched him and Sock totally-“
“Put up quite an honorable fight,” the man smiled pleasantly again, and patted Sam on the shoulder. “As you three…clearly have a handle on all of this, I’m just going to head back on my way.”
“Oh..okay,” he swallowed, and struggled to try and stand up, before the Middleman grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him to his feet.
“Pleasure to meet you, Sam,” he grinned, keeping his hand against his. “And if you ever…need anything,” he produced a small white card from his chest pocket. “Don’t hesitate to call.”
“I…well…thank you?” he managed, as the man gave quick nods to both Sock and Ben, and then strode back purposefully toward a small black car.
“Who the hell was…”
“I don’t know, guys,” he glanced down at the card in his hand. The Jolly Fats Wehawkin Temp Agency. Well, that was helpful. “I have no idea.”
"What happened to your neck, dude?"
"Fire extinguisher," he squeaked out.
***
Title:Recruitment Officer
Fandoms:: Reaper/The Middleman
Characters/Pairings: Sam/the Middleman. Briefly. Sorta kinda.
Rating: PG13y
“I need a break.”
The Middleman glanced over at her before returning his eyes to the file in front of him.
“You just went to the bathroom seven minutes and thirty eight seconds ago, Dubby, you can’t possibly-“
“You’ve been monitoring my bowel movements?” she was a little horrified to find that she wasn’t really horrified at all.
“It’s important for a man to know as many details as he can about his partner, Dubs.”
“You mean sidekick.”
“I really like to think of us as equal partners, Wendy; each bringing equally important but vastly different skills to the plate. I, naturally, take care of the raw talent and experience and superior weaponry, while you-“
“Take whatever gun you can spare me and watch as you destroy beings that threaten mortal peril for the whole world?”
“Provide the wide-eyed charm,” he said, smoothly, and looked back at her.
She rolled her eyes.
“The eye-rolling charm,” he added, without missing a beat. “Smart as a whip and twice as snappy. You’re a vital part of my team, Wendy Watson.”
“Yeah, that’s sweet, but look: I do need a break.”
“From fighting evil?” he looked as though she’d suggested she needed time off from tasting new ice cream flavors to get poked by hot sticks.
“From fighting evil.”
“Why would you ever…do you think evil takes breaks, Dubby? Just skips down to some quaint little banana republic and pulls up a wicker chair, drinking mojitos while watching waves crash along the beach?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah, I do,” she said, remembering the time they had to break up the Bi-Yearly Sun and Surf Weekly Summit For Individuals of Morally Questionable Character (First order of business: find a name that wouldn’t drain half their budget just to get the banners and stationary) in Bermuda.
Oddly enough, he’d told her the only reason they’d intervened at all was because of the potential for bloodshed if the results from the limbo contest were, well, contested.
“Fine,” the Middleman nodded, “Maybe evil does take breaks. But that’s when we catch up on…” he grinned, and pulled a large, momentous, destructive looking pile of paper off of the floor and onto his desk. “Paperwork.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, as if he ever was.
“As if I ever am.” (See?)
“Can’t you make Rosie do it?”
“Oh, I’ve got something I want to do,” she heard her call out, from the other room.
“You already said that one,” Wendy called back. “Last week.”
“Computers, even super-computers, only have a finite number of response to the same stimuli, Dubby,” he said, almost disappointed.
“Are you disappointed?”
“Well, I have to say, you were able to get some real gems out of the old girl, but now that she’s apparently started repeating herself…”
“You mean I’ve annoyed her so much that she’s exhausted all of her potential quips?”
He gave a, “Well, yeah,” head-shake-and-shrug combo, and she sighed.
“Good to know.”
“Knowledge is power, Wendy.”
“Awesome,” she said, a bit glumly. “Don’t I feel powerful.”
He looked at her again, eyes sympathetic, and then shook his head.
“Well, I suppose an art student really wouldn’t know anything about balancing expense reports,” he said, “And the world won’t end just because my partner decides to go gallivanting off to Florida for a wet t-shirt contest-“
“Philadelphia. Art exhibit. Franz Marc, if you-”
“With the roommate?”
“With the boyfriend.”
“The doorknob? That will be fun.”
“It wasn’t that funny the first time, and now it’s just kind of pathetic,” she rolled her eyes, before smiling. “But thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he smiled back.
“Separate rooms?” she heard him call out, as she walked out.
“Thank you, MM.”
“Familiarity breeds contempt, Dub-dub.”
“I’ll see you next week!” she gave him one last wave, before running for it.
***
“It’s quiet without her here, isn’t it?”
Ida gave him a withering look.
“I’m not suggesting that it’s a bad thing, but…did you need something?”
“They need you in Seattle,” she threw another file on his desk. “Some kind of wind creature.”
“ ‘Some kind of…’ Ida, you know that specificity is-“
“Yeah, yeah, just get up there, already.”
“No need to be rude.”
***
“Sock! Ben!” he tried to call out, before being slammed into the wall by another gust of air.
Ducked as a heavy looking lunch table came hurtling towards him.
Closed his eyes as it was followed by a much more focused looking fire extinguisher, knew it was going to hit him, knew he was going to die, and what a way to go, stupid red fire extinguisher to the head and…nothing was happening.
“Excuse me, young man?” he heard, yelled about as politely as it was possible for anyone to yell anything, and that turned out to be more politely than he expected.
He opened his eyes as another blast of wind threw something large, heavy, and apparently human against him.
Apparently human, because the guy looked like something out of a forties movie, something that should have been in black and white, with a vaguely military looking jacket, what looked like a huge, black gun, and perfect hair.
In the midst of an indoor tornado. Perfect hair. Did not compute as really human.
“Young man?!” he was yelling again, face a couple of inches from his, but still, basically pleasant and in control. “Now would be a good time to run, don’t you think?!”
“Wait I…What?!” Sam shouted back.
“Darn it all to heck, soldier!” and it was a little less polite, and it took him a second to actually realize what the actual words had been. “Get a move on! Now! ”
And he felt himself get pushed, hard, down the hallway.
Saw the man do his best to level the gun, and he didn’t know well enough to say anything beside it except that it was large, and aim at the eye of the storm.
“Don’t! Bullets aren’t going to…!” he screamed, as the gun gave a bit of a roar and a blast of something, white and almost misty looking shot out the barrel.
“Gee, you think?” the man called out to him, as he turned around and grabbed hold of his arm. “Just trying to slow it down,” he said, loudly, but didn’t need to shout quite as much, as he pulled him forward. “Come on!”
“Who…who are you?” he said, feeling the wind behind him start to pick up again.
“Is that…really…your first…priority…right now?”
He thought about it for a second
No vessel, crazy soul with some sort of wind power, Sock and Ben MIA, random mercenary dude with a huge fucking gun that came out of nowhere and wasn’t at all panicked about any of this…
“Yes!”
“Fine!” the man said, pushing him into a small alcove that seemed to lead to a protected part of the factory. “Not that it’ll mean anything to you, but I’m…the Middleman!”
“The Minute-“
“Middle! Man!” he just about roared, as the wind whistling by the doorway threatened to drown out everything except for the blood he could hear rushing past his ears. “Okay…We need to…get to…the next door! Stay close to the wall!”
“Okay!” he shouted back, as he was dragged out of the alcove and further down the hall, toward where the exit was once marked by the exit sign now hurtling toward their heads.
He stopped for a second, as the Middleman turned around and shot another blast of whatever it was, looking around, desperate.
“What are you…looking….for?!” he called out, running toward him and pulling at his shoulder again.
“My friends! Ben! And Sock!”
“Sock?” the man stopped for a second and gave him an incredulous look. “What sort of a name is Sock?”
“Is that…really…your first…priority…right NOW?” he bellowed.
"Fair! Point!” and the man almost seemed to be laughing, as he pushed him through yet another doorway, right before another picnic table came crashing against it, practically trapping them in.
And then it was perfectly, eerily, silent.
Sam looked at the man, leaning rigidly (and who did that, lean rigidly?), against the opposite wall, taking deep breaths, hair still perfectly in place and jacket still perfectly buttoned.
And then considered himself, panting, collapsed against gloomy yellow cinderblocks.
Yeah, he was making a good impression here, for sure.
“Are you all right there, young man?” the Middleman, whatever that was, smiled at him.
“Yeah, I’m…I’m fine,” he swallowed. “Who are you, again?”
“Well, I’m the Middleman,” he said, and looked about ready to begin a real explanation that made sense about what the hell that was, before he frowned. “Do you…do you smell something?”
“What?”
He blinked, eyes going vaguely hazy. “Like…like strawberries and…champagne and…paint…”
And he did smell something, but it wasn’t…it was cotton candy and that light, sweet smell that Andi’s hair sometimes had and it was…odd. He felt…warm. Tingly. Good.
Except…no, he felt too warm, his shirt was almost suffocating, scratchy against his skin, and he looked up, and he wondered, if the man, his uniform, his tight, perfectly fitting, uniform…if he was…if he was hot in that…and well, yeah he was really hot in that, movie-star handsome, smoldering eyes and…
“Oh, fuck,” the man was saying, blinking quickly, and it was the wrong thing to say, because he was moving closer or maybe Sam was and that was in his head and the man’s tongue was in his mouth before he’d even realized they were kissing and oh god when did…when did that hand slip up his shirt and why was he wrapping his legs around man’s waist and how was he…he was holding him up against the wall and crap kissing down his neck and…very, very thorough lips and teeth sliding and biting and nuzzling against his skin.
Hair almost crisp as he ran his hand through it and what was he doing what stop but soft somehow, too, and too perfect, wanted to mess it up a bit, wanted to feel those hands on him again, perfect, knew how to touch, where to, a little too well, but he wasn’t, he was bracing against the wall, to rock up against him, and that….that was good to, too good, and his head fell back, and he heard, dimly, what sounded like glass breaking as everything went dark.
***
“Sam?” he felt a hand slap lightly against his face, and then again, a bit harder. “Nap time’s over, Sammy.”
Sock. Okay. That was…that was good. Maybe he was back home. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe…maybe when he opened his eyes he’d realize his lips felt…tingly and…and swollen…because…because Andi had stayed over. Or something. Maybe.
The fact that he was apparently soaked to the skin, well, that would take more explaining, but hey, there was always hope that it was because of something…normal.
He opened his eyes.
Sock was there. Cool. Ben was on his left. Also good. The Middleman gave him a small wave, from where he was squatting on his other side, jacket buttoned for the most part but tie…missing, and hair…mussed, probably beyond repair. And he got one last tingle of satisfaction from that, before panic set in.
“Hello there, Sam Oliver,” the man smiled at him, as he fought the urge to cover up what felt suspiciously like a hickey on his neck. “I was just telling your…friends…here, how your quick thinking in hitting the fire alarm and setting off the sprinklers kept us all from falling victim to a potent Lust Bomb.”
“A…a what?”
“A powerful aphrodisiac invented in the 1970’s and…shall we say, augmented by a certain department of hell. Certain denizens of the Pit of Ultimate Evil have taken to using them as distractions from capture, these days, almost like…like particularly salacious smoke bombs. Although how an escaped soul got a hold of one…well, I’d suggest you speak to your supervisor about that one.”
“I, uh,” Sam tried to imagine that conversation, and immediately regretted it. Glanced at Sock and Ben instead. “I’ll look into it. Did you guys…”
“He did,” Ben grinned, tossing him the tiny personal fan that suddenly felt a whole lot heavier and warm to the touch. “I’m telling you man, it was awesome. Carried you out of there like you were nothing and just yelled at us to give him the vessel, and then Sock didn’t want to, so he punched him and Sock totally-“
“Put up quite an honorable fight,” the man smiled pleasantly again, and patted Sam on the shoulder. “As you three…clearly have a handle on all of this, I’m just going to head back on my way.”
“Oh..okay,” he swallowed, and struggled to try and stand up, before the Middleman grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him to his feet.
“Pleasure to meet you, Sam,” he grinned, keeping his hand against his. “And if you ever…need anything,” he produced a small white card from his chest pocket. “Don’t hesitate to call.”
“I…well…thank you?” he managed, as the man gave quick nods to both Sock and Ben, and then strode back purposefully toward a small black car.
“Who the hell was…”
“I don’t know, guys,” he glanced down at the card in his hand. The Jolly Fats Wehawkin Temp Agency. Well, that was helpful. “I have no idea.”
"What happened to your neck, dude?"
"Fire extinguisher," he squeaked out.
***