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madminniefics · 7 years

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when time froze

kaia hamilton is in the big apple for a summer internship at a fortune 500 finance company. the ceo isn’t what she expects. by the time she realizes her mistake, she’s already flirted with him once. what harm is there in going on a date with the guy?

a ceo niall / intern kaia nsfw one shot

It was her first day of work.

Well, technically. She was four years into her college career with one year left. This was her last summer internship. Her last effort to do the whole networking thing. Trying to find a job now so she wouldn’t have to worry about it this time next year, you know.

She was nervous. When she got there, at 8:30, she had a venti cinnamon dolce latte. Ten minutes later, it was gone and she was left staring up at the massive skyscraper. The early summer New York sun glinted off the façade of windows. She took a deep breath and threw her cup away before walking in the building.

She stopped at the front desk. The receptionist, Amelia, finished her conversation on the phone before looking up and raising an eyebrow.

“Kaia Hamilton,” She swallowed hard. “It’s my first day.”

Amelia nodded and started shifting through papers on her desk. She handed Kaia a folder and nodded towards the elevator bank.

“You’re on the thirtieth floor. Take one of the elevators on the left.”

“Thank you,” Kaia said with a smile, but by that time Amelia was already facing away from her, typing away at her computer. Kaia pursed her lips, grabbed the folder, and walked towards the elevator. The sound of her plain black pumps on the slate tile made her cringe but there was no way to avoid it. She wasn’t about to walk on her tip toes just so she wouldn’t make noise.

Her creamy colored blouse was just a half size too big. She’d bought it the year before at Loft, for approximately too much money, and hadn’t anticipated losing weight. So, she was stuck with a slightly too big blouse that tended to droop down and show too much cleavage. Which is why, every five seconds, Kaia would reach down and lift both her blouse and her white tank top underneath.

In the elevator, she garnered at least three dirty looks simply for trying to not flash people. Cool. Next time she’ll just let her tiddies go free.

Could you imagine? She would get fired so fast.

There was carpet on the thirtieth floor, thank god. She glanced in the folder to see her supervisor’s office number. Walking down the hallway, she quickly found Sarah Malone’s corner office. It was less an office and more a room made of glass walls and windows.

No thanks. She was glad she’d probably have one of the grey cubicles in the middle of the floor. Just being on the thirtieth floor made Kaia’s stomach do cartwheels. She’d never been a fan of heights.

She knocked on the door gingerly—it was glass, after all, and she didn’t want to accidentally crack it or something with her new, pilates muscles—and waited to hear a faint ‘Come in’ before walking inside. Sarah motioned to a chair and Kaia sat.

“Nice to see you again, Kaia,” Sarah said with a smile as she crossed her legs. Her blouse looked like it fit perfectly. Sarah seemed like the type of woman who would never worry if she had too much cleavage showing. Like, if her shirt was too low and someone pointed it out she would just look at them funny and insist that she meant for it to be that low. And they would believe her. Because that was her vibe.

At least, that’s what Kaia thought. But she was sure it was true. How else would a dark skinned black woman make it to such a high role at a fortune 500 company without being strong and not giving a damn? Sarah was a role model, honestly. Kaia couldn’t be happier working under Sarah.

“You, too,” Kaia smiled and hoped her blouse looked okay. She sure as hell wasn’t going to reach to fix it now.

“We’re gonna get you set up with your computer and email and everything,” Sarah reached over, grabbed another folder, and handed it to Kaia. “This is a little training exercise we give each intern on their first day. It should take you the rest of the day and it’ll give you a little glimpse inside the company and a real feel for what we do and how we do things here.”

Kaia couldn’t do anything other than nod. The folder was thick as hell. There were at least fifty pages in the folder. Sarah caught Kaia looking at it warily.

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Sarah leaned towards Kaia. “They say it’s supposed to take one day but all of my interns have needed two days to finish it.”

Kaia took a deep breath and nodded. That made her feel better.

She would finish it in one day.

***

Spoiler: She didn’t finish it in one day.

She did finish it before lunch on her second day so she called it a win. A big enough win to make a Starbucks run for lunch instead of eating at the hot dog cart on the corner. She sat on the concrete wall outside Starbucks sunglasses on her face as she enjoyed the sunlight and her venti pink drink.

She spent the duration of her hour lunch outside alternating between slowly sipping her drink, eating her croissant, and people watching. There was a man on the phone across the street aggressively yelling at whoever was on the other end. A dog walker with like twelve big ass dogs struggled to keep them under control. Another man, a happier, yet tired, looking man walked by in his black suit. Nice butt. But mostly there were a lot of tourists.

Kaia threw away her trash and went back to work.

***

On day three, Kaia made a mistake.

Not a big one in the grand scheme of things, but a mistake nonetheless. But she didn’t know it at the time.

Picture this: lunch time. Kaia brought her lunch—a simple salad, except there was no lettuce and the salad was a cheesesteak because she missed home—and was eating it at her desk while she finished up a last-minute spreadsheet her supervisor needed for a meeting that afternoon.

She squinted at the screen, trying to find an error, when her hoagie betrayed her. A watery oil and ketchup mixture dripped onto her grey skirt. Her only work skirt. And it was going to be in the high 90s the rest of the week.

(Yes, she had been planning on wearing the skirt every day that week. And?)

“Ugh,” She groaned loudly, since she was the only person in the office. Everyone else was at a going away or retirement or some other sort of work-related party five floors above her.

Tossing the hoagie onto the wrapper, she stood up and walked towards the bathroom. She tried to get the stain out with water and some vigorous rubbing with a paper towel but all she managed to do was make a big, slightly orange wet spot on her skirt. Fuck cheesesteaks.

She threw the paper towels in the trash and stomped out of the bathroom.

Right into another body.

“Oh!” She said, grabbing their biceps to keep herself from falling backwards and busting her ass. Her eyes closed expecting an impact like they weren’t communicating well with the rest of her body. When she opened them, the man in front of her was smirking.

And he was a man.

Nothing like the boys that she’d messed with at her college back in Philadelphia. This man had a jaw speckled with stubble, bright blue eyes, and brown hair dotted with the slightest hint of grey. He was wearing a navy-blue suit with a skinny black tie. His shoes were polished and his watch looked expensive. Like, one semester of tuition expensive.

Kaia swallowed hard. It was one of the people she’d seen during lunch the day before, while she was people watching. She never forgot a face and, especially, not one as nice as his.

It was in that moment that she realized his hands were on her waist, holding her up.

“You okay?” He murmured. She couldn’t stop looking at his lips.

Kaia nodded and he let her go. She had half a mind to start pouting but then remembered that she was at work. She let his biceps go—and they were nice, firm, you could tell he works out type biceps—and took a step back.

“I’m fine, just had a little mishap,” Kaia said, hoping that he wouldn’t look down at her skirt.

But, because this is real life, he did. He nodded in understanding and fixed those blue eyes on her once again.

“I’ll give you the name of my dry cleaner. They’ll give you a good deal,”

“Thank you, sir,” She could have smacked herself. Sure, the guy was older but sir? What the fuck, Kaia. He couldn’t have been past thirty-five. She resisted the urge to cringe at herself.

He chuckled and shook his head. “My name’s Niall, and you are…?”

“Kaia Hamilton.” She said, perky as hell, with a hand extended for him to shake. She could shake herself. Again, what the fuck, Kaia.

She let it slide though because during internships things were always about networking. And she was really trying to get out of Philly. She loved her hometown but there was something about New York that called to her. That was her goal for graduation.

Niall shook her hand because he’s a good guy. He probably just didn’t want to embarrass her. Kaia appreciated that.

“I’ll send you that information in an email,” He said as the handshake ended. “It was good to meet you.”

“You, too.”

He shuffled towards the elevator and she kind of just stood there. Looking silly smiling to herself with a wet spot where her vagina goes. Niall looked at her and smiled before getting on the elevator and Kaia could swear she died in that moment.

She didn’t believe in love at first sight but that encounter was making her reconsider.

***

An hour later, Kaia died again. This time it was because of an email.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: dry cleaning

bring your skirt to my office tomorrow.

Kaia spent a whole five minutes looking at her computer screen sideways. Like. This man just sent this email with little to no context. Sure, he’d told her about his dry cleaner earlier but she didn’t think that his dry cleaner was in the building.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: dry cleaning

I can take it myself if you tell me where it is

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: dry cleaning

it’s just that mine gets picked up on wednesdays and i figured it would be easier if they just came once

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: dry cleaning

Can’t argue with that logic. Send me your office number and I’ll bring it tomorrow morning.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: dry cleaning

5602. i usually get in around 10

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: dry cleaning

See you then :)

Kaia could not believe she was flirting via work email. She’d flirted via twitter, DM’s, instagram, tinder, bumble, and, of course, old fashioned face to face, but email was a first. It made her nervous every time the Outlook pop up in the bottom right corner of her screen came up. Eventually, after an hour of no new emails, she relaxed.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: dry cleaning

can’t wait 😉

She should not have relaxed.

***

Kaia was a sweaty mess the next day.

Since her only skirt was dirty she was forced to wear her slightly-too-tight black dress pants. The subway malfunctioned so she ended up running—okay, speed walking—the last five blocks to work so she wouldn’t be late. It was 80 degrees when she left that morning and by 10 it was almost 90. All she wanted was to go home and lay naked in front of her box fan.

Speaking of naked.

Kaia got off the elevator on the fifty-sixth floor and was faced with the most beautiful view of New York that she’d ever seen. She skirted around the window, staying closer to the wall. Just because she thought the view was pretty didn’t mean she wanted to see it up close. No thanks.

There were only two offices on this floor. The first one she passed was the CFO’s office. She gave the plaque next to the door a sideways glance but kept walking until she was in front of office number 5602, which read:

NIALL HORAN

CEO, GREENBRIAR FINANCIAL

It was all Kaia could do not to fall out right then and there. She had been flirting with the CEO of the company. Say it with me this time: what the fuck, Kaia. She was gonna have to start googling people before even opening her mouth.

She kept it together, though, which was good since at that moment Niall stepped off the elevator.

“Kaia!” He said with a smile.

“Uh, hi,” She forced a smile on her face. “I was just going to leave my skirt here.”

“No, no, come in,”

He unlocked the door and they walked in. Instead of sitting behind his massive oak desk, he walked towards a bar cart on the other side of the room. She hovered near the door wondering what the hell she was getting herself into.

“Do you like scotch?” He said, grabbing a bottle and cup from the bar.

It was 10am besides…scotch? Issa no from Kaia.

“Um, not really, no.”

He nodded. “What do you like? I’ve got a couple other choices…”

Niall turned around and leaned back against the bar cart. She wondered if it was stable enough to handle him backing that ass up onto it.

She cleared her throat. “I’m more of a Malibu or vodka girl.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” He said with a wink.

Lawd. This man would be the death of her.

***

That Monday, Kaia arrived to work to an email from Niall.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: just a question

are you free next friday? i’m out of town this week but i’d love to take you out

if you’d rather not, just ignore this email. i thought i felt something between us and figured i would ask.

have a great day, ms. Kaia

She took a deep breath, stood up to get a cup of water, walked around the office and when she got back the email was still there mocking her. She bit her lip. What to do, what to do….

Fuck it.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: just a question

I am free next Friday. Feel free to text me. 2158271039

***

The week flew by amidst text after text. With each message sent the messages got dirtier and dirtier. They stopped short of sending pictures.

To Kaia’s dismay.

But it was Friday, finally, and Kaia had just taken the quickest shower ever. Niall was taking her out to eat. Nothing fancy. Just a little pizza place near Central Park. He wanted to show her around, since she was new to the city.

When she asked, he’d told her to dress casual and to wear flat shoes or sneakers. So, Kaia was dressed in her favorite dark wash denim shorts from American Eagle—they were the only high waisted shorts that fit her ass and her waist—and a white cropped tank top with a pair of matching Nikes. She grabbed her bright pink Sailor Moon hat on the way out her shared apartment.

Niall was there when she walked outside. He was leaning against his car—Kaia didn’t know what it was, but it was black and shiny and it looked expensive—scrolling through his phone. He wore a simple chambray button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his tortoiseshell glasses, and a pair of dressy khaki shorts with sneakers. Kaia fought the urge to lick her lips.

“Hey,” She said, stopping in front of him, putting her hands in her back pockets. Texting someone was one thing but to come face to face and have to keep up all the cute, flirty, and sexy things you were doing over text is something completely different.

He grinned. “Hey!”

Niall opened the door for Kaia and she plopped in the passenger seat. She’d had no idea how low the car was until she went to sit down and nearly broken her ass bone. If Niall saw, he didn’t say anything.

He had the radio on. Kaia reached over to turn it up so she could comfortably sing along with Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj. Kaia’s ears barely registered the sound of Niall singing along, as well. She looked over at him and smiled and he smiled back and it just felt so…easy.

Like. None of her other relationships had ever felt this effortless. There was nothing about it that made her nervous. Sure, she had been nervous earlier but all of that left as soon as she saw him. It’s like they were different people outside the office.

Here, racing into Manhattan, Kaia could pretend that he wasn’t her boss. That he didn’t run the company she temporarily worked for. She could pretend they met somewhere else. A diner, maybe. That they’d met over a shared love for hot chocolate. She smiled and turned her head to look at Niall.

At that moment, he turned his head and winked at her before looking back at the traffic. She blushed and looked back out the window until he pulled into a parking lot.

“The pizza place is just around the corner,” He said.

“Cool, I’m so hungry,” She said with a cute giggle.

They started walking towards the pizza shop. It was Niall’s favorite. He hoped she would like it. But Kaia was so hungry she would like any food put in front of her in that moment. As they walked, she felt his hand brush hers and goosebumps erupt on the skin of her arms. She full out shivered when he laced his fingers in with hers.

It was all she could do to keep her shit eating grin under control.

***

That night, Kaia ended up at Niall’s house for the first time. But, you know, certainly not the last.

Now, usually Kaia didn’t go home with a guy on the first date. Shit. Usually she didn’t even kiss a dude on the first date. But she was far from home—ok, only two hours but still—without her usual fuck buddy five minutes from her apartment and she was lonely. It had been a while and mama needed an orgasm.

Or two. But Kaia didn’t want to get greedy.

Niall’s house was on the top two levels of a building across from Central Park. To be exact, his penthouse. They looked at each other under the haze of lust in the elevator as it slowly ticked up to his floor. The only reason she didn’t jump him right then and there was because of the elderly couple between them. By the time the couple got off, there was only one floor left until Niall’s house.

They could wait. Barely.

Because when those doors opened? They were all over each other. It was all hands and lips and gasps and groans. He pressed her up against the front door and had his hand down her pants in record time. Looks like she would be getting her first orgasm without even going inside. She gasped and gripped Niall’s shoulder as his fingers rubbed at her clit sloppily. She banged her head back against the door in an effort to give his lips more skin to kiss.

“Ow, fuck,” She moaned, gasping as her body tensed and then spasmed. One orgasm: down.

Niall licked his fingers before letting Kaia down so he could open the door. The heated look he gave her made her swallow hard. She just knew she was about to get dicked down halfway to heaven. And she was beyond ready.

She walked backwards into the apartment barely noticing the marble floors or white walls or stainless steel everything. She would come to appreciate the gorgeous views from every corner of the penthouse later when she was sated and satisfied. She stopped to take her shoes off before continuing.

Kaia threw her hat behind her. It landed on the coffee table. Her tank top landed on the sofa. She shimmied out of her shorts and left them there on the floor. Standing there in his living room, in her lacy purple underwear, she placed her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at Niall.

It took him no time at all to strip down to his underwear.

As she looked at him from head to toe, really appreciating his body from the stubble on his chin to the hair on his chest to his strong thighs, Niall was advancing quietly. She didn’t even notice him walking towards her until he swept her up in his arms.

“I got a little caught up earlier but, uh, I just wanted to make sure this was okay.” He whispered, his lips inches from hers. It struck her that he asked permission even though she was clearly willing. She smiled up at him and nodded before placing a hand behind his head to bring his lips down to hers.

From there it was like a race. She bit his bottom lip, he palmed her ass, she licked into his mouth, he held on for dear life, she struggled to remember to breathe.

Niall lifted Kaia and carried her over to the chaise lounge by the window. It overlooked Central Park but neither of them was bothering with looking outside at that moment. Kaia was more preoccupied with the feel of his dick hard against her thigh. Her mouth watered just thinking about it.

She reached down to palm it and he twitched in her hand. He almost fell trying to get his boxer briefs off.

“You okay?” She said with a giggle. He smirked at her and tugged one of her legs to bring her closer to him. She gasped and the smug look on his face intensified. She didn’t even get a good look at his dick before he kneeled next to the chaise. All she knew was that it was big. Of that she was sure.

Kaia thought she was ready but she truly was not. She thought she was messing around with the twenty somethings on campus but she forgot this was a man. He knew a thing or two about slanging dick. And she was ready to learn.

Niall pressed kisses on the inside of her thighs. So, he was going straight for the goods. Not that Kaia was complaining. He bit the corner of her underwear and teasingly started removing them. She lifted her ass so he could get them past it and soon they were somewhere near the front door.

He looked at her and licked his lips. She could feel his breath on her skin and it made her wetter. If that was possible. She was sure there was a puddle on his couch.

Kaia was not ready when Niall licked her. She nearly levitated above the couch. He chuckled and lightly pressed a hand to her stomach to keep her in place. He concentrated on her clit and before long she was gasping and panting and moaning. Niall looked up at Kaia as he paused his very important work.

She was touching her breasts, biting her lip, and glistening from sweat already. He smirked and went back to licking her pussy. Kaia reached a hand down to guide him back up to lick her clit. Right there. It felt so good. She couldn’t even put into words how good it felt. Like. Never had someone eaten her out like this.

Nobody had ever made her scream when she came.

As she laid there, panting, trying to catch her breath on his chaise, she was sure she was ruined for all other men. Kaia was just sure that nobody else would be able to make her feel the way Niall just did. Like. If he tried to touch her right now she would probably scream. Her clit felt so sensitive but she wasn’t ready for the night to end.

Neither, apparently, was Niall as he walked over with a condom in hand. He reached out a hand to help Kaia up before deciding to just pick her up and carry her to his room. He licked his lips and leaned down to kiss hers. She could taste herself on his tongue. She wanted to taste him.

When he placed her on the bed she got on all fours and took his dick in her mouth. She heard his strangled gasp and could barely suppress her grin. She loved that noise. She loved causing that noise. He held her hair back with his hands and stared down at her. For two seconds until he leaned his head back and moaned.

So. That was probably the sexiest thing Kaia had ever seen. She’d heard dudes grunt, gasp, groan, all the g’s but she had never heard a man just moan. Like. Niall was not playing.

His moan made her moan around his dick which made him moan which made her moan. And it was just a cycle. Until he trained his glazed eyes on Kaia. The look he was giving her made her stop sucking his dick. It popped out of her mouth with a suction noise that echoed in the mostly empty room.

Kaia scooted backwards on the bed as Niall crawled towards her. The look in his eye made her tingle from her head to her clit. She bit her lip and watched as he pressed kisses from her feet to her calves and thighs up her stomach, breasts, and neck. He pressed a long kiss to her lips before breaking apart to roll the condom on.

Finally. Kaia was sure she would burst if she had to wait another minute.

(Yeah, she knew she had two orgasms already. She was ready for a third. And?)

He hovered over her for a moment before leaning down to kiss her. Her hands were on his ass pulling him towards her. Just in case he forgot she was ready in the thirty seconds it took him to take the condom out and put it on. She was very, very ready. He lifted one of her legs and placed it on his shoulder.

She opened her mouth to rush him right when he grabbed his dick to rub against her pussy to tease her. She moaned and tilted her head back instead. Her hips tilted towards his dick as a result.

Niall didn’t want to wait any longer. He caressed her leg and gripped her hip as he pushed inside her. It had been a long time since he fucked anyone let alone someone in their early twenties. He was. not. ready. for the way she squeezed him once he was all the way inside.

She looked up at him and ran a hand over her breasts, trying to egg him on so he would move inside her. She felt his dick twitch just before he pulled out. He went slow for the first few pumps but the feel of Kaia’s hand on his ass, pulling him back into her, made him lose all control. Within seconds he had both her legs in his hands as he pounded into her.

He growled and she just about lost it. When he let her legs go she got on all fours and turned her ass towards him. He gripped one of her cheeks and brought her towards his dick. He stayed there motionless as she worked back onto his dick. She moaned as she tried to go faster. He noticed her hand sneaking under her body to touch her clit and beat her there with his own hand.

He rubbed her for as long as he could stand her slow tempo before grabbing her hips and fucking her with all that he had. Which was more than he thought he had. It was more than Kaia thought he had.

Niall motioned for Kaia to lay on her side. She bent one of her legs in front of her and he straddled the other one. If those other positions were good, this one was next level. She had already been close before but in this position, with those deep strokes, Niall was hitting a spot inside Kaia that she all but thought was a myth.

That scream that she let out moments later made her believe.

***

Before she knew it, Kaia was skipping weekends home to hang out with Niall.

Granted, most times it was super low-key stuff. Dinner, watching movies, cuddling while they talk, making out, fucking each other’s brains out. The usual.

That night he made them dinner and then they watched Moana together. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it but he loved it, in the end.

They laid on the couch and made out while the credits played. In between kisses, they asked each other questions. It had been a while since the last question, though, and Kaia assumed they were done with that game. She was ready to get thoroughly fucked. Right there on the couch.

She could almost feel it now.

“You have one year left, right?” He said, playing with Kaia’s starfish ring, cutting through her daydream of Niall’s stubble tickling her thighs as he kissed them.

She nodded and leaned her head against his chest. She only had a week left in New York. Her internship flew by. She’d come to this job hoping for new relationships and experiences but this was…not…what she was expecting.

An internship and a summer fling what kind of #goals.

“You should move in with me when you graduate,” He whispered into her hair.

She froze. He cleared his throat and sat up, which made Kaia sit up, too.

“I mean. I’m gonna miss you, babe,” He said, looking at her with those sad eyes that she had fallen in love with.

She smiled sadly and placed her hand on his cheek. Because, the truth was, she was going to miss him too. Wasn’t that some shit? She never expected this to happen. The last thing she wanted was to fall in love before she was ready.

Sometimes that didn’t matter. Love hit you when it wanted to and you just had to take it. Kaia bit the inside of her bottom lip to keep from laughing at that thought. It was a serious moment. She couldn’t just laugh.

But, of course, she did. She laughed and once she started she couldn’t stop.

Niall sat there just blinking at her for the longest. Until she stopped laughing. She placed a hand over her mouth and shook her head.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing about you, just something I thought about sounded so wrong,”

Niall smiled. Because by now he knew that’s how Kaia was.

“What was it?”

“‘Love hit you when it wants to and you just have to take it.’”

They laughed together with a hidden glint in each of their eyes. A shared emotion. Love, probably. Niall reached up and placed his large hand on Kaia’s cheek. She barely registered that she’d basically admitted to being in love with him when his lips landed on hers.

Love.

Definitely love.

#surprise #let me know what you all think of these two :)#ceo niall #1dff #niall horan fanfiction

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solivar · 7 years

Text

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka the one time I tried writing get-Hipsto-a-leather-clad-boyfriend PWP fic and it starts growing a plot and before I can restrain it it’s a full blown art-student-meets-charming-leather-clad-NPS-ranger AU and, yes, this is all the fault of @gunnslaughter

The cheapass rental car’s motivator sputtered and died for the last time on some officially unnamed, only dubiously mapped road in the hills southwest of Santa Fe. Fortunately, the antigrav batteries had just enough charge left in them that the whole thing didn’t just drop onto the cracked and weathered remains of the pavement, which probably would have done enough damage to render his life a miserable morass of insurance forms and impecunious college student special pleading for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, when it did drop, once he got out and half-pushed, half-steered it to the side of the road, it promptly buried itself up to the axles in the drifted sand making up most of the verge, listing rather definitely to one side.

“Fuck,” Hanzo Shimada informed the universe at large and went to pop open the hood.

He was greeted by a malodorous cloud of steam that stank rather noticeably of vaporized coolants, accompanied by a deep and rather alarming bubblebubbleticktickpTANG from deep inside the motivator’s mechanical workings. To his admittedly untrained ear, it sounded like the thing was about to a) explode, b) rupture all its previously air/liquid-tight fittings, c) fall completely out of the compartment, or d) all of the above. He let the hood fall shut, gently, because he emphatically did not want to do anything to encourage any of those outcomes and got out his phone to call for help.

He had no bars of connection. In the distance, he heard the universe laughing in a rather distinctly malicious, mocking fashion.

“It’s all right,” Hanzo told himself, out loud, because the sound of his own voice on this dusty, not-particularly-traveled-at-all stretch of almost-road gave him an inordinate degree of comfort as the shadow of a circling vulture fell across him. “It is all right. It’s 3:42. If I’m not home by six, six-thirty at the absolute latest, Genji will call the state highway patrol and tell them that his idiot brother drove off into the desert that morning to draw pictures of the death of human civilization and it’s Friday and and and Genji is going to spend the next seventy-two hours deeply chemically altered, slathered in psychotropic massage oil, and twisted into some kind of semi-Tantric love pretzel in his Yoga instructor’s lap and you are going to die of exposure and dehydration if you don’t start walking right now. I am such an idiot.”

The trunk contained his jacket, his backpack, a first aid kit, an emergency crank flashlight, a spare antigrav pod, a set of jumper cables, and four triangular road reflectors with onboard distress transponders that, when he tested them for charge, turned out to be as dead as the engine. He set them up, nonetheless, on the off chance that something might come along the road that would need to see his disabled vehicle well enough to avoid hitting it. The first aid kit contained a handful of loose biotic-impregnated bandages of various sizes, some sterile saline wound wipes, a pair of nitrile gloves, and, thankfully, an emergency shock blanket. That and the flashlight went into the backpack along with the remainder of his own supplies: three sketchbooks, a set of watercolor pencils, the highish quality camera he always carried to help with shot composition references back in the studio, a spare flannel shirt, one and a half bottles of water from the eight pack he’d carried into the desert that morning, and the apple and protein bar that he’d decided to save for later when he sat down to eat lunch in the shadow of a rusted out hulk of formerly intelligent and self-directed machinery. He put the flannel on over his tee-shirt and the jacket on over both, because the sun would be down in forty-five minutes, an hour at most, and once that happened it was going to be cold. And he, of course, did not have a single pair of gloves stashed in any of his pockets.

Still. Before the GPS had punked out, along with the engine, it had indicated following this road north would, eventually, lead back to the non-dead sort of civilization. The sort that contained reasonably accessible hot showers with which to wash away sandy grit still stained ashen and venti nonfat chai lattes with which to chase away various sorts of cold and also, in theory, people way, way more responsible than his brother, whom he passive-aggressively hoped was enjoying his tetrahydrocannabinol enhanced love-nest, the rotten little bastard.

After the first hour of walking, he stopped checking his phone every ten minutes to see if he had connection. Not only did he not have connection, glancing down at his screen killed his night vision, which made walking down even the middle of an untravelled stretch of highway an exercise in trying not to trip, break an ankle, or otherwise render himself incapable of moving effectively in the direction of his own rescue. The road surface hadn’t been maintained in years, possibly decades, maybe even before the Crisis, and it was zig-zagged with inches-deep cracks driven even deeper and further apart by endless cycles of freeze and thaw, parts of the roadbed lifted high enough to be a transit hazard for antigrav vehicles much less pedestrians walking in the near-total dark, others depressed in a way that suggested impact craters more than the natural erosion of time and indifference. As the last of the color bled off the western horizon, he paused long enough to give the emergency flashlight a good long cranking and found, even so, that its light was wan and dim, at best, but infinitely better than nothing, waiting for moonrise, or running his phone battery to death. After the second hour of walking, the darkness was no longer near-total, it was absolute in the way it could only be in the complete absence of all but the smallest traces of man-made light. On the one hand, it was stunning: the sky overhead was clear and cloudless, unmarred by light pollution, and the stars shone brilliantly in that velvety arch, a hundred million silvery eyes gazing benevolently down in their serene and distant celestial majesty. On the other hand, being the sole source of man-made light in the middle of the otherwise unrelieved blackness made him rather feel like he was being observed by things far less celestial and benevolent, considerably closer to the ground, and far more intent on running him to ground and gnawing the flesh off his bones. Occasionally, the flashlight imparted to him glimpses of sulfurous yellow-green eyes glittering just out of easy visibility, alarming enough in their predatory silence that only the chancy footing kept him from speeding up his stride. Not running. That would be bad. But walking with a bit more enthusiasm.

Sometime during the third hour, the wind picked up, scouring across the high desert floor and carrying with it hissing currents of sand and icy pellets that were neither snow nor sleet but a little bit of both. The sky clouded over, taking even the distant comfort of starlight, and he pulled out the emergency blanket and wrapped it around him to help retain some body heat. Somewhere in the middle of hour four, he pulled out his phone and, discovering himself still without connection, opened up his recording app and began dictating the please-don’t-blame-yourself message he’d been writing in his head for at least the last forty minutes so that, when his coyote-gnawed carcass was eventually found by the authorities, the hormones-and-namaste addled little dumbass he called his only family worth having would at least not feel bad about it.

By the time the lights wavered into view in the distance, he had officially stopped counting the hours. He had also officially stopped having any appreciable sensation in his hands, and his feet, and his legs were only making themselves known because his thighs hated him and wanted him to fall over and be eaten by coyotes so they could at least peacefully rest in the process of digestion. In fact, it took him quite some time to realize that he wasn’t hallucinating the vista before him which was, in fact, two strings of full-sized light bulbs strung between the side of the road, where they were attached to a pair of old fashioned utility poles, and from there to each side of an overhanging porch roof.

A house, Hanzo’s almost inexpressibly cold and weary brain realized after a long moment of staring dully, trying to make sense of what it was seeing. A house with lights. Actual working lights. There are lights on both inside and outside that house. It is a house. Lights. People. A PHONE.

He trudged slowly off the road and up the path -- the path which was lined in white-washed rocks and little beds of succulents which may or may not have been cared for, he couldn’t quite tell -- and from the path up the porch stairs, which extracted a price from his knees that he was sure he’d be hearing about for days, at least. Tucking the blanket under his arm in an effort to look slightly less pathetic, he raised a hand and knocked in what he hoped was a firm but non threatening manner on the heavy old unwindowed door.

In his mind, the response seemed to take forever: movement, footsteps, the curtains in the window next to the door moving slightly while he locked his knees and wavered slightly on his feet, tired and cold and trying not to shiver too visibly. Then: the door creaked, the light next to it came on, and he found himself gazing directly at someone’s collarbones, around the crack of a barely opened door. “Can I help you?”

Someone was tall -- taller than himself by a good head, eyes dark and narrowed slightly, expression not particularly welcoming. Well, he supposed he could hardly blame someone living in the middle of the desert miles from any other humans for not being particularly happy to have one turn up uninvited on his doorstep in the middle of the night. “Hello -- my apologies, I saw your lights and -- “ The ability to think in coherent sentences momentarily skittered away, laughing mockingly. “Listen, my car broke down back that way and -- “ He gestured vaguely over his shoulder in the direction he had just come, “I’ve got no connection on my cell and I was really just wondering if you could just...borrow your phone for a minute to call a tow? I’ll just be on my way then and -- “

“That way.” The door opened more fully with a labored creak and Someone stepped out, glanced both ways, and then looked at him, expression going from moderately suspicious to moderately appalled between one breath in the next. “You’re from the city. Holy Hell.”

“How can you tell?” Hanzo asked, genuinely curious and borderline hypothermic all at once.

“Your student ID’s hanging out of your jacket pocket,” Someone observed perspicaciously and threw open the door. “Get in here before you freeze to death. How long have you been walking?”

“I...don’t know? A while.” The warmth inside enfolded him like an embrace and it was all he could do to control the urge to moan. A fire burned in an actual honest-to-gods fieldstone fireplace in one corner of the trim little sitting room and a gentle hand in the small of his back steered him toward it, and the couch sitting a safe distance back from the spark guard.

Those same hands divested him of his backpack and the emergency blanket, both of which went on a chair nearby, pushed him down into the couch’s soft cushions and spread a far thicker and warmer blanket over him. “You’re almost blue. Stay under the blanket and warm up while I get you something to drink. And don’t close your eyes, okay? Just until I’m sure you’re -- “

And that was, in fact, the last thing Hanzo heard before he totally closed his eyes and drifted off into a pleasingly warm darkness.

Hanzo woke up suddenly and all at once. His mouth tasted like something small and innocent had crawled inside it in the night, died a slow and terrible death, and then rotted into putrescence, the results of which were coating his tongue, his cheeks, and every single one of his teeth. His head was throbbing with the sort of headache that could only be described as skullfucking, centered as it was directly behind his left eye. These things were, however, not what jarred him from an otherwise satisfyingly deep and mostly painless slumber. Rather it was the smell, coming from somewhere quite nearby, cooking smells, outrageously wonderful cooking smells, smells that caused his stomach to roll over, remind the rest of him that the apple and protein bar had been a long time ago, and it was time to get in gear and remedy that fact more or less immediately.

He cautiously opened the eye that didn’t feel like it was being stabbed by a red-hot spiked dildo of agony and found himself looking up at a gently arched ceiling, dark open wood ribs and whitewashed plaster, a darkened chandelier light fixture hanging almost directly overhead. The light leaking in through the still mostly-drawn curtains didn’t punish his head more than it had to, and so he opened the other eye, as well, rubbing the involuntary tearing away with the back of his hand. A fire still burned low in the fieldstone fireplace -- a kiva, his brain supplied the information, organically rounded all the way up the wall and through, sculpted with a pair of little niches higher on the flue, a mantle over top and a spark guard high enough off the floor to function as a seat on its own, covered in a gorgeously colorful geometric mosaic. One niche had a tiny pot in it containing an equally tiny flowering cactus; the other a polished wooden sculpture of a horse rearing on its hind legs. Most of the furniture was honest-to-gods old, dark wood not the new-synthetic-realistically-aged stuff, he could smell it, spicy and rich as the lingering tang of the woodsmoke, covered in cushions upholstered in the sort of patterns he’d become intimately familiar with during his Native Textile Arts of the Desert Southwest elective two semesters ago. The area rug right under the little coffee table, too, upon which sat a clear glass pitcher containing a substance too vividly red-orange to be natural, an empty glass, two small white tablets and three large tan ones, and a note that read drink two glasses when you wake up and take the meds, you’re going to need them.

Moving slowly, oh so slowly, slow as a slow-ass thing to avoid aggravating his body more than he had to, Hanzo sat up and slid his legs over the side of the couch. His legs, which were no longer clad in his own jeans but rather a pair of dark olive greenish sweatpants. A small part of his brain thought he should be loudly and extravagantly upset by this development; a substantially larger part was loudly and extravagantly grateful that he hadn’t slept in a pair of pants that he’d spent all day hiking across the desert, and then walking for an unknown length of time up a deserted road, in. The socks also felt comfortably soft and clean and new rather than caked in sweat and sand. So did the tee-shirt, which he noted was a pale tan with a somewhat darker patch in the shape of a roughly shaped arrowhead, point down, washed almost completely away on the left. Hanzo decided that he owed his rescuer something loud and extravagant, though he wasn’t quite sure what just yet.

The unnaturally vivid beverage tasted like what would happen if a citrus fruit fucked a salt lick and the resulting offspring were subsequently captured and juiced for their vital fluids. It was simultaneously repellent and delicious and he gulped down three glasses of it before he remembered he had medicine yet to take. The pills turned out to be a pair of regular aspirin and probably some kind of vitamins and by the time he got them all down someone somewhere quite close by had begun whistling and the delicious-food-cooking smells had reached the scent equivalent of a crescendo and Hanzo’s stomach made a long, embarrassingly loud noise of dismay over the fact that he wasn’t yet eating. One that apparently carried because the whistling suddenly stopped and an unseen voice, vaguely familiar, asked, “Mr. Shimada? Are you awake?”

Firmly throttling his shame, Hanzo cleared his throat. “Yes -- I just woke up a few minutes ago.” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how his rescuer new his name but then he saw his wallet, his Santa Fe University of Art and Design student ID on its brick red lanyard, and the keys to the goddamned POS rental car that was the author of all his most recent woes sitting on the coffee table and solved the mystery for himself. “Give me a second and I’ll -- “

He heaved himself to his feet -- or, rather, he attempted to heave himself to his feet and, in that instant, every muscle in his legs and lower back registered their displeasure with his continued existence immediately and simultaneously and it was all he could do not to crash directly into the table as he fell. “....ow.”

“Oh no.” Footsteps rapidly approached from somewhere beyond the back of the couch. “Easy there, sugar. Let me help you up.”

A pair of warm, strong hands came to rest on him and, in relatively short order, they got him warmly and strongly relocated back off the floor and into a reasonably comfortable sitting position on the couch in a nest of colorfully patterned wool blankets. Hanzo found himself looking upon his rescuer for the first time in decent lighting and for a moment any and all coherent thoughts fled his head because he looked like what would happen if the Marlboro Man had sex with a male romance novel cover model who subsequently gave birth to the Platonic ideal of ruggedly handsome, all shaggy brown hair and sunkissed dark skin and eyes only a shade or two off true black and a slow spreading smile surrounded by a beard that clearly had some attention paid to it in the name of manscaping because otherwise Romance Novel Cover Dad would have disowned him. Hanzo knew people who’d commit a number of serious criminal acts just to look at those cheekbones and that jawline, much less possess them so effortlessly and he was staring. He was completely staring. Hopefully he wasn’t drooling and staring, because that would be the actual and entire end of his existence, and all of his rescuer’s efforts would be for naught as he ran off into the desert to bury his shame. A voice that sounded suspiciously like his mother’s was screaming in the back of his mind about manners, manners, what was wrong with him and another, that sounded even more suspiciously like Genji, was offering tips and tricks on how to recover this situation and turn it into the world’s smoothest not-damsel-in-only-mild-to-moderate-distress pass but he’d have to open his mouth right now.

“Hello,” Hanzo croaked. “Er. I’m sorry. Thank you?”

“No apologies necessary,” The offspring of gorgeous manly perfection replied, flashing an easy, and apparently quite sincere, smile. “And it’s no trouble at all. How’re you feeling?” He flicked a glance at the mostly-empty pitcher. “I’ll get you more to drink, and somethin’ to eat, in just a second. But first I need to ask you a few questions, all right?”

Hanzo nodded wordlessly.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” Warm and gentle and kind, with the sort of charmingly encouraging smile that got people suffering from shock to come around much more slowly just so he’d keep providing it.

For an instant, Hanzo could not actually remember his own name. “Ah -- Hanzo. Hanzo Shimada.”

“Hanzo. That’s a pretty name. Unusual.” More of that gentle, encouraging smile. “Where do you come from, Hanzo?”

“Hanamura. Japan.” It took him far, far longer than it should have to remember that and he chose to blame some combination of lingering fatigue and skullcracking headache pain for that. “I’m attending college in Santa Fe right now and I’m planning to permanently immigrate at some point in the future.”

“Why Santa Fe?” He sounded genuinely curious.

“Because it’s as far as I could get from Hanamura while still residing on the same planet.” Hanzo replied, honestly. “And my school also gave me a pretty sweet scholarship.”

“Understandable.” The gently encouraging smile slid into a more sternly serious expression and Hanzo’s heart began fluttering around inside his chest in a way that suggested some sort of tragic cardiac event was about to unfold. “So am I safe in assuming that pretty tattoo of yours is not actually an indicator of the sort of gang involvement that’d require me to call the Santa Fe police and the Department of Homeland Security border enforcement office?”

Hanzo’s heart stopped fluttering around. In fact, his heart pretty much stopped, and it was all he could do to open and close his mouth wordlessly for what felt like forever but was probably only a small slice of forever. “No,” he finally managed to get out, as his rescuer’s eyebrows began inclining slightly. “It’s not.”

His rescuer regarded him steadily for a moment, as he fought with the urge to try and sink through the cushions of the couch and possibly through the floor and hopefully to the center of the Earth, where his lack of long sleeved concealment options would be hidden forever. Then he smiled again, quick and bright, and stood up, and for the first time Hanzo noticed he was also wearing a tannish tee-shirt with an arrow over his heart, only his wasn’t washed mostly away and contained a pine tree, a snow-covered mountain, a white buffalo, and the words National Park Service, also in white.

“You’re a ranger?” Hanzo asked -- which, of course, explained a lot, explained pretty much everything, up to and including living in the middle of nowhere and looking like the anthropomorphic personification of rugged masculinity and being willing to rescue randomly occurring strangers in the night. It was his job.

“Jesse McCree, ranger-in-residence of Cerrillos National Monument, technically legal population one, three if you count the old hippie couple that lives on the other side of town, seven if you count their dogs.” He offered his hand and his grip was as impossibly strong and perfect as the rest of him. “Let me get you a plate and then we can talk about how you came to be here and see what we can do about it.”

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66 #Y'all totally know who the old hippie couple is

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solivar · 7 years

Text

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka, the one in which Hanzo is an expatriate art student, Jesse is a park ranger, and there’s weird stuff going on in the desert, because I am fundamentally incapable of writing a plotless porny AU no matter how hard I try.

For @gunnslaughter

“Fuck,” Hanzo Shimada informed the universe at large and went to pop open the hood.

He had no bars of connection. In the distance, he heard the universe laughing in a rather distinctly malicious, mocking fashion.

“How can you tell?” Hanzo asked, genuinely curious and borderline hypothermic all at once.

“Your student ID’s hanging out of your jacket pocket,” Someone observed perspicaciously and threw open the door. “Get in here before you freeze to death. How long have you been walking?”

And that was, in fact, the last thing Hanzo heard before he totally closed his eyes and drifted off into a pleasingly warm darkness.

“Oh no.” Footsteps rapidly approached from somewhere beyond the back of the couch. “Easy there, sugar. Let me help you up.”

“Hello,” Hanzo croaked. “Er. I’m sorry. Thank you?”

Hanzo nodded wordlessly.

For an instant, Hanzo could not actually remember his own name. “Ah -- Hanzo. Hanzo Shimada.”

“Hanzo. That’s a pretty name. Unusual.” More of that gentle, encouraging smile. “Where do you come from, Hanzo?”

“Why Santa Fe?” He sounded genuinely curious.

“Because it’s as far as I could get from Hanamura while still residing on the same planet.” Hanzo replied, honestly. “And my school also gave me a pretty sweet scholarship.”

The plate turned out to be more of a platter, heavy glazed earthenware loaded down with scrambled eggs mixed with bits of loose sausage, queso blanco, and salsa that had never seen the inside of a jar, a side of hashbrowns, and freshly baked biscuits, honey and butter on the side. Hanzo inhaled it all almost without bothering to chew, to his host/rescuer’s completely evident amusement, and he was provided with seconds and a giant mug of coffee without comment but with a crinkles-at-the-corners-of-the-eyes inducing smile that made his heart start fluttering around in his chest again. This time, he took the obviously gods-sent opportunity to savor the perfect fluffy-yet-creamy texture of the eggs, the tang of the cheese mixed with the salsa, the expertly seasoned potatoes, and the beverage strong enough to chase the last, lingering traces of exhaustion out of his body.

“Thank you. That was delicious.” Hanzo said, scrubbing the last traces of cheese-salsa-eggs off his plate with the remaining half a biscuit still in the bread basket and consuming it in two bites.

“You’re entirely welcome. Nana McCree’s recipe cards haven’t let me down yet.” Ranger McCree started gathering the plates and, seeing an opportunity to begin repaying his hospitality, Hanzo assisted, despite the complaints of his legs and back, neither of which seemed particularly inclined to straighten out or work properly without an argument.

The kitchen continued the arched open beam ceiling/hardwood floor with geometric patterned area rugs theme as the sitting/living/dining room, the walls painted a cheerful dark yellow and the bit above the sink lined in windows, sills covered in planters growing what looked like fresh herbs. Looking out as he deposited his armload of dishes on the counter, he could see that there was, indeed, a well-maintained garden of succulents, cacti, and tiny, wind-tortured junipers ringing the house in raised beds of whitewashed stone. Leaning there, he was also poignantly aware of how good the sunlight slanting through those windows felt on the abused and pathetically whining muscles of his back.

“Could I make a suggestion?” Ranger McCree set his armful down, as well, and sunlight brought the red highlights out in his otherwise brown hair and there was the staring and the hopefully not drooling again.

“Sure.” Hanzo straightened up and all the bones in his lumbar spine audibly cracked.

“Bathroom’s thataway,” The ranger hiked his thumb in the direction of a doorless arch on the far end of the kitchen. “First door on the left. Towels are in the closet right inside. A hot shower’ll sort you out better than anything short of a full body massage. I’m also going to suggest you keep those sweats for now because the NWS forecast called for today to be brisk which is a polite saying colder than a witch’s tit plus windy out here. And your clothes are still in the dryer.” He flashed the world’s most winning grin. “I’ll go get the truck ready and then we’ll go see what we can do about your car. Deal?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Hanzo objected, more reflexively than anything else, iron cradle training in Manners exerting itself despite the screeching objections of his aesthetic brain, which wanted to spend as much time as possible testing his ability to consciously halt the function of his salivary glands. “I’ve already imposed on you -- “

“Not really an imposition, t’be honest.” The ranger’s grin took on a hint of rue around the edges and that was somehow even more winning and this whole situation was absolutely unfair. “We don’t get very many visitors out this way -- hence the lone resident ranger -- and those that do are generally just passing through. Company’s been nice. Also: it’s a genuine pain in the ass to get a tow truck out here, so if it’s something we can finesse a bit until you get out to the main highway, I’ll be happy to do it. Otherwise, you might be stranded here again overnight.”

He did not, in fact, sound as though he considered that the worst possible outcome even as he offered to help avoid it. Hanzo’s heart did that little flip-flutter maneuver that he should really have checked out by a cardiologist when he got back to civilization. “Thank you. That would be wonderful -- I’ve never really been this far out of the Santa Fe Metro Axis before and, uhm, is there any way I can recover that statement without sounding like a complete idiot?”

“No need.” The grin relaxed into another eye-crinkling smile. “No shame in trying something new or asking for help when you need it, Mr. Shimada.”

Doomed. I am so doomed. This is the knell of doom, and it is sounding for me. “Okay, then, I’ll just,” Hanzo gestured vaguely in the direction of the bathroom, “get cleaned up.”

“Take your time. If I’m not back by the time you’re finished, I’ll be right across the street -- that’s the actual park office over there -- and I’ll leave the door unlocked.” The ranger made an abortive gesture that looked to all the world like he was going to tip a hat that wasn’t actually there and turned it halfway through into a kindly little shooing motion.

“Okay!” Hanzo did not squeak primarily because Shimadas did not, as an iron-clad rule of reality, squeak and he absolutely did not retreat down the hallway to the bathroom for exactly the same reason.

He was, however, completely in danger of hyperventilating as he planted his back against the bathroom door and sent a silent prayer to a thousand generations of his ancestors for their intercession in the cause of not making more of an idiot of himself than he already had. Genji would have known what to say -- Genji would have more than one smoothly charming thing to say -- and how the Hell had Genji managed to inherit all the tall and handsome and desirable and charismatic genes, anyway? It was deeply unfair. Hanzo breathed in peace and breathed out stress as he stripped out of his borrowed clothing, folding it neatly and piling it on the counter next to the sink, and just barely managed to restrain a howl of despair at the sight that greeted him in the mirror. His hair had, at some point during his interminable trek across the desert, been molested by noneuclidian entities from beyond reality and was now plastered to his skull in spikes and whorls held in place by hardened inhuman bodily secretions. Or possibly drool. Definitely drool. Every bit of skin that had been exposed to the wind was chapped red by the contact, so in addition to looking like the victim of an alien hair abduction, he could probably also pass for the local drunk after a three-day mescaline and tequila bender.

Shimadas also did not whimper, and so that sound did not emerge from his throat as he turned away from his reflection to fetch a towel from the closet. As he waited for the shower to warm, he comforted himself with the knowledge that at least he was in good hands -- the ranger didn’t strike him as the sort of freak who’d drive the Bride of the Spit Monster out into the desert for anything but reasons of pure humanitarian aid-rendering and thus his virtue was at least safe even if his dignity had already been summarily beaten to death before he was even awake enough to defend it. If he indulged in a moment of pure death-of-all-hope-related despair under the comforting warmth of the spray, there was at least no one there to witness it. And the water did do a perfectly excellent job of loosening up his muscles enough to tolerate a few gentle stretches in the generously-sized shower stall, which helped loosen things up even more. The toiletries weren’t brand name -- or, at least, not any brand he recognized, the sticker on the shampoo bottle was worn to illegibility -- but they smelled and felt wonderful on his hair and skin. The shampoo had a cedary, spicy note to it that made him want to breathe deeply just to get more of it into his head and the soap, a variegated block of color, made the chapped skin of his face tingle in a way that suggested healing immediately underway instead of the multitude of horrible alternatives, a definite mood-improver as far as he was concerned. All told, he felt a solid sixty percent more human after the shower which was, he supposed, probably at least as much the point of that suggestion as limbering up.

The skin on his face did look a good deal less red and horrific than it had before the wash and his hair was at least willing to obey the commands of a comb. The ranger had not, in fact, returned yet as he padded back down the hall in stocking feet and found his hiking boots and his bag next to the door and a spare hair tie in one of the side pockets along with a half-empty package of spearmint gum, a piece of which he used in lieu of borrowing his host’s toothbrush, which was a bridge way, way too far. His jacket hung on the peg rack next to the ranger’s heavy winter parka and a vividly red-and-gold garment that looked for all the world like a cloak. Hanzo ran his hands over it and found it a soft, warm wool, the scent that rose from it the same cedary-sagey-spicy as the shampoo, the geometric pattern around the edge similar to but subtly different from the border of the blanket folded over the back of the couch. He thought of the ranger’s golden-brown skin and dark eyes and wondered as he pulled on his boots and his jacket and stepped outside into the cool of the bright morning.

Cold with the wind, as promised, but the park office was directly across the street -- unpaved, rutted dirt and gravel, a startling contrast to both the lovely well-maintained house at his back and the modernish building at his front, a low one-story confection of glass and adobe with a fully solar roof and a wraparound verandah that resembled the sort of thing you’d see on a saloon in a western. The door chimed gently as he entered and found himself standing in something part souvenir shop/part mini-museum, the walls lined in locked glass cases of artifacts (“Cerrillos and Its Place On the Turquoise Trail,” “El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro -- Historical Trade Routes of the Old Southwest,” “Native American Tribes of the Four Corners Region”) and the middle filled with racks of touristy tchotchkes in bins, t-shirts in dozens of sizes and colors, and, to his surprise, an extremely respectable collection of academic-grade books on local history, culture, and art, some of which he didn’t yet own, along with the usual ghost-towns-and-Native-American-folklore suspects. He was paging through one when the door chimed again and the ranger ducked inside, holding down his hat, his honest-to-gods cowboy hat, it was a fucking Stetson if it was anything, and Hanzo had to physically resist the urge to swoon.

“Wind is definitely picking up,” Ranger McDreamy greeted him, sounding a little breathless himself. “I’ve got the truck gassed and good to go, so whenever you’re ready Mr. Shimada…”

“Hanzo,” Hanzo heard himself saying in something approximating a natural, non-squeaky tone of voice -- not a suave tone, per se, but at least not a traumatically prepubescent peep, which was a definite improvement on recent events. “Please. Call me Hanzo, Ranger McCree.”

“Hanzo,” Ranger McDoMeRightHereandNow replied, and the way his tongue caressed the syllables turned Hanzo’s knees to a particularly bendy variety of gelatin and he leaned mock-casually against the bookcase in an effort to avoid melting to the floor in a babbling puddle of squee. “Then you’ve got to call me Jesse. I insist.”

“Jesse.” That was a little squeakier, but not much, so Hanzo was inclined to call it a win. “Shall we?”

“We shall.” The ranger opened the door and held it for him with a flourish.

The garage was tucked away well out of sight behind the park office and the row of older buildings alongside -- original town buildings he recognized from the artifact photos, older and more weathered and showing clear signs of preservation effort -- a squat cinderblock structure, one of its front doors already rolled open. The truck was equally squat and blocky with a fully enclosed cargo compartment in back and sat on real rubber wheels rather than antigrav pods, painted white with a vivid green stripe down the side bearing the words PARK RANGER with the NPS shield on both doors.

“Does this thing actually run on gas?” Hanzo asked as he climbed inside and got a look at the gauges on the dashboard. “How old is it?”

“Older’n both of us.” Ranger McImplishSmile replied and turned the key in the ignition, the engine coming to life with a behemoth roar of internal combustion. “I think it technically reached classic car status something like three years ago but keepin’ it runnin’ is sort of a necessity out here, so…” He popped it into gear and pulled out, following an unseen access road out to a junction with the not-really-a-highway Hanzo had followed into town. “How long were you walking, Hanzo?”

Telling him to use his given name was mistake -- a terrible, mortal error that he was going to be paying for, oh, yes, he could see that now. “Uh.” It took a moment to cudgel the information out of his brain. “At least a couple hours. Probably not as many as it felt like, because it felt like forever -- there was a little...not really snow, but it was pretty miserable there for a while.”

“Yeah, the desert this late in the autumn can be deceptive temperature-wise, particularly after dark. You weren’t badly prepared, though you probably could have done with more water. And some gloves. Spare pair in the dash box, by the way.” Ranger McWarmlyHelpful pointed out to him as they hit cracked and pitted asphalt for the first time. “This is old Highway 14. How’d you come to be down this way?”

Hanzo pulled the gloves on and frowned, considering. ��I’m not entirely sure myself. I was following my GPS -- I spent most of the day in the desert between Shiprock the ghost town and Shiprock the geological feature, taking reference photos and video, doing some color studies -- “

“In the Omnic boneyard? That part of the desert?” Hanzo risked a glance and found the ranger’s face in an expression he was tempted to call Study of the Marlboro Man’s Gorgeous Son Attempting Studied Neutrality and Not Quite Making It.

“Yes.” Hanzo admitted. “I know it’s supposed to be off-limits but -- “

“But that hasn’t ever stopped anybody in the history of time.” Ranger McReassuringSmile gave him one, but there was more than a ghost of concern in his eyes. “You were sayin’?”

“I was following my GPS on the most direct route back to Santa Fe when the car started fritzing out -- or, rather, I asked it to give me the most direct route back, but it wasn’t following the roads I took in and it kept directing me off the main highways. I had to reboot it twice to get a good connection and by the time it started showing me the route that took me into Cerrillos, the car was sputtering like it hadn’t been sucking down sunlight all day.” They left the main road onto a well-detailed siding and, yes, that was a fucking impact crater. “And it’s a rental because of course it is.”

“You lost cellular connection at some point, right?” Ranger McCalmlySoothing asked, in precisely that tone. “And never got it back.”

“Yeah. I’m not exactly sure where -- it was spotty out near Shiprock but I still had some bars, at least.” Hanzo checked his phone and found it still connectionless. “I really hope Genji’s too blissed out to be worried about me right now.”

“Genji?” Ranger McCurious asked and Hanzo silently cursed himself because hearing that voice saying his brother’s name was the worst thing he’d done to himself for at least, oh, an hour.

“My brother.” Hanzo replied. “He’s studying here, too. Video game design -- the tech end. Spends most of his time hunched over a computer.” My handsome, charming, sociable, insanely flexible little brother, he thought, but did not say, in the desperate hope that none of those details would ooze out at any point. He is in no way sex incarnate with a side order of willing to try anything once, more than once if he enjoys it and nobody gets arrested. Why am I even thinking this why?

“Must be nice to have a familiar face around, this far from home.” The ranger upshifted and guided them back off the siding -- they were past the length of rucked-up-by-way-more-than-natural-forces road that had given him such fits in the dark.

“Yes -- yes, it is.” Hanzo admitted, after a moment, and it managed to not sound grudging. “Better than being alone the first couple years. I don’t think it’s much further -- it felt like so much longer last night.”

“I’ll bet. It’s so dark out here once the sun goes down, it feels like you’re walking alone in the middle of nothing, even if you’ve got a good flashlight. Not to cast any disparagement on your flashlight.” Ranger McGoodAtChangingtheSubject grinned at him. “And I’m saying this as somebody born and raised around here.”

“It was nice until the clouds rolled in. So many stars. Unfortunately, I think there was also at least one coyote and thaaaaaaaat kinda freaked me out a little. Or a lot. It was a lot,” Hanzo admitted, and that got a laugh -- a gentle, husky sound completely devoid of mockery. For a moment he forgot what he was about to say because that was the most perfect sound in the world and some part of his brain immediately began working out how to make him do it again. “They’re pretty harmless, aren’t they?”

“For the most part, yeah, they are. Probably at least as scared of you as you were of it.” His natural default expression seemed to be a smile -- the kindly, eyes-crinkling smile he’d worn at the breakfast table. “There it is.”

Hanzo’s POS rental rose out of the desert in front of them and he found himself hoping that, whatever the fuck was wrong with it, it was beyond the skills of a handy park ranger capable of keeping legit antique gas-drinking vehicles functional and that they’d have to call for a tow, at least, and this pleasant time wouldn’t have to end just yet. They pulled up alongside, Hanzo fishing out his keys and the ranger retrieving a tool case from the back of the truck. The toxic chemical cloud that greeted him the evening prior had dissipated in the intervening hours, leaving only the faintest piquant ghost of itself when they opened the hood, the ranger -- Jesse, his name is Jesse, you can totally think his name, really you can -- extracting a nameless tool of automotive diagnostics from his case and getting to work inside the engine compartment.

“Why do you drive a gas-drinker, anyway?” Hanzo asked, as he checked over the vehicle to make sure there wasn’t any outstanding damage he’d missed the day before, and that he hadn’t left anything of his own in it.

“Honestly?” The ranger looked up from the screen of the diagnostic pad he was tapping queries into. “Because relatively advanced modern vehicles like this one tend to have...issues...around here. Computer brains get all fried crispy. Electrical systems punk out. Antigrav up and quits without warning. GPS gets utterly lost. Such as is the case here.” He shut down the diagnostic tablet. “It’s been that way since just before the Crisis and quite a bit worse since, I’m afraid to say -- there’s not a formal exclusion zone, because that’d require the Federal government to actually admit out loud to something and I am sayin’ as a Federal employee that’s about as likely to happen as an honest politician, so we gave up on gettin’ official recognition of the situation some time ago.” He dropped the hood, the bang of it echoing away across the low, rolling, scrub-covered hummocks, the bits of desert flat to either side of the road. “Given how misdirected you got, it was a pretty good thing you broke down as close as you did to Cerrillos -- “

A low, ululating howl rose over the hills from somewhere unseen and, in the instant, it seemed even colder, despite the flat wind and the high, bright sun, a chill crawling up Hanzo’s spine and directly into the places of his hind-brain where the ancestral memory of predators that actually did eat human meat preferentially lived and wanted him to start running, right now.

“Hanzo, darlin’, get in the truck.” Ranger McCalmandCool suggested, politely, and Hanzo didn’t have to be told twice -- he was inside with the passenger door locked before his host had the tool case replaced in the back and the cargo compartment shut and locked.

A second voice answered the first, and a moment after that, a third. Ranger McTakingHisDamnSweetTime placed what looked like a portable telemetry beacon on the roof of the car, on the hood, and on the trunk, activating them as he went. Watching him do it, for the first time Hanzo realized he was armed -- really armed, with a gun holstered on each thigh, and he went about his business in a calm and thorough fashion that betrayed nothing but cool comfort and absolute confidence with that state. He laid a string of something -- beads? They were tiny whatever they were -- around the car and climbed back into the truck as the howling chorus rose to a genuine cacophony, started it, pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road, upshifted and dropped the accelerator in a fashion so completely unhurried that Hanzo was almost inclined to think that he was having a personal auditory hallucination. A flicker of movement in the rearview mirror caught his eye and he glanced up only to have his chin caught in a gentle, but firm, grip.

“Trust me, you don’t want to do that.” Jesse informed him, catching his eyes and holding them, as well, for a precious few seconds, and the deadly seriousness he saw written there chilled him almost more than the howls. “Mostly they ain’t very active during the day but something’s got ‘em worked up. Best to keep your eyes forward for now, okay?”

It took a moment to convince his throat to work and, once it did, it came out husky rather than a squeak. “‘They’?”

“Nana McCree would’a called ‘em naayéé -- works as well as anything, since we don’t really know what they are.” His mouth settled into something nowhere near a smile. “It’s how I knew you were walking with a coyote last night. Otherwise, you might not have made Cerrillos at all.”

A howl, louder and closer than all the others, rose so close behind them that even Jesse started, jerking the wheel involuntarily, and Hanzo’s gaze flicked reflexively back to the mirror. What he saw reflected there hit him in the hindbrain like a brick made of the pure and merciful inability of the human mind to consciously correlate all its contents: he experienced, briefly, the horrible, vertiginous awareness that he was looking at something that should not exist in a sane and benevolent universe, the realization that that understanding was significantly less shocking than it should have been, and then his mind, completely out of patience with him, pulled the curtains and the world spiralled away into soothing darkness. The last thing he heard, before everything faded away, was Jesse’s voice, and the last thing he felt was Jesse’s arm, wrapped around him and pulling him close.

#WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

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solivar · 7 years

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Fic Snippet:

aka Operation Get Hipsto A Leather Boyfriend

aka It’s Growing A Plot

aka this is all @gunnslaughter ‘s fault

And speaking of things you might like, Gunns, there’s also this:

http://archiveofourown.org/works/9705158

and this: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9342227

“Fuck,” Hanzo Shimada informed the universe at large and went to pop open the hood.

He had no bars of connection. In the distance, he heard the universe laughing in a rather distinctly malicious, mocking fashion.

“It’s all right,” Hanzo told himself, out loud, because the sound of his own voice on this dusty, not-particularly-traveled-at-all stretch of almost-road gave him an inordinate degree of comfort as the shadow of a circling vulture fell across him. “It is all right. It’s 3:42. If I’m not home by six, six-thirty at the absolute latest, Genji will call the state highway patrol and tell them that his idiot brother drove off into the desert that morning to draw pictures of the death of civilization and it’s Friday and and and Genji is going to spend the next seventy-two hours deeply chemically altered, slathered in psychotropic massage oil, and twisted into some kind of semi-Tantric love pretzel in his Yoga instructor’s lap and you are going to die of exposure and dehydration if you don’t start walking right now. I am such an idiot.”

After the first hour of walking, he stopped checking his phone every ten minutes to see if he had connection. Not only did he not have connection, glancing down at his screen killed his night vision, which made walking down even the middle of an untravelled stretch of highway an exercise in trying not to trip, break an ankle, or otherwise render himself incapable of moving effectively in the direction of his own rescue. The road surface hadn’t been maintained in years, possibly decades, maybe even before the Crisis, and it was zig-zagged with inches-deep cracks driven even deeper and further apart by endless cycles of freeze and thaw, parts of the roadbed lifted high enough to be a transit hazard for antigrav vehicles much less pedestrians walking in the near-total dark, others depressed in a way that suggested impact craters more than the natural erosion of time and indifference. As the last of the color bled off the western horizon, he paused long enough to give the emergency flashlight a good long cranking and found, even so, that its light was wan and dim, at best, but infinitely better than nothing, waiting for moonrise, or running his phone battery. After the second hour of walking, the darkness was no longer near-total, it was absolute in the way it could only be in the complete absence of all but the smallest traces of man-made light. On the one hand, it was stunning: the sky overhead was clear and cloudless, unmarred by light pollution, and the stars shone down on him from that velvety arch, a hundred million silvery eyes gazing benevolently down on him in their serene and distant celestial majesty. On the other hand, being the sole source of man-made light in the middle of the otherwise unrelieved blackness made him rather feel like he was being observed by things far less celestial and benevolent, considerably closer to the ground, and far more intent on running him to ground and gnawing the flesh off his bones. Occasionally, the flashlight imparted to him glimpses of sulfurous yellow-green eyes glittering just out of easy visibility, alarming enough in their predatory silence that only the chancy footing kept him from speeding up his stride. Not running. That would be bad. But walking with a bit more enthusiasm.

In his mind, the response seemed to take forever: movement, footsteps, the curtains in the window next to the door moving slightly while he locked his knees and wavered slightly on his feet, tired and cold and trying not to shiver too visibly. Then: the door cracked open, the light next to it came on, and he found himself gazing directly at someone’s collarbones, around the crack of a barely opened door. “Can I help you?”

“Hello -- my apologies, I saw your lights and -- “ The ability to think in coherent sentences momentarily skittered away, laughing mockingly. “Listen, my car broke down back that way and -- “ He gestured vaguely over his shoulder in the direction he had just come, “I’ve got no connection on my cell and I was really just wondering if you could just...borrow your phone for a minute to call a tow? I’ll just be on my way then and -- “

“How can you tell?” Hanzo asked, genuinely curious and borderline hypothermic all at once.

“Your student ID’s hanging out of your jacket pocket,” Someone observed perspicaciously and threw open the door. “Get in here before you freeze to death. How long have you been walking?”

“I...don’t know? A while.” The warmth inside enfolded him like an embrace and it was all he could do to control the urge to moan. A fire burned in an actual honest-to-gods fireplace and a gentle hand in the small of his back steered him toward it, and the couch sitting a safe distance back from the spark guard.

Those same hands divested him of his backpack and the emergency blanket, both of which went on a chair nearby, pushed him down into the couch’s soft cushions and spread a significantly heavier and warmer blanket over him. “You’re almost blue. Stay under the blanket and warm up while I get you something to drink. And don’t close your eyes, okay? Just until I’m sure you’re -- “

And that was, in fact, the last thing Hanzo heard before he totally closed his eyes and drifted off into a pleasingly warm darkness.

#Examples of things that are all Gunnslaughter's fault #Hipsto and BikerCree #Why an art student AU cousin?

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