Murphy's Law - Shooting Fish - Dylan/Jez - R
Title: Murphy’s Law
Author: Chash
Fandom: Shooting Fish
Pairings: Dylan/Jez, Jez/Georgie
Rating: R (language)
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary: There are no happy endings because nothing ends.
Notes: I should stop starting these challenges at midnight. I hope this makes some kind of sense. One day, I’ll stop being mean to Dylan.
Dylan doesn’t have Relationships. The night he first met Jez, they went to a pub, got drunk, and fucked just so Dylan could avoid a Relationship.
“What are we doing?” asked Jez, hazily, as Dylan clawed off his shirt.
“See,” replied Dylan between gasps, “if I fuck you now, I’m not ever going to complicate things wondering what it’s like. We get it out of the way, and then it’s business.”
“What, you have to exchange fluids with everyone you meet?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
So Dylan and Jez fucked, and Dylan figured he’d be all right. He’s never trusted relationships, because he’s a firm believer in Murphy’s Law. It’s why he makes such good schemes. He figures everything that can go wrong will go wrong, so it’s best to not allow anything to go wrong. So, when he met Jez, he was smart enough to realize he’s a horny bastard, and if he didn’t sleep with Jez then, he’d just get curious and fuck it all up by jumping him when they’d worked together too long for it to seem casual. Of course, it would be casual, but Jez might not realize it, and that would lead to a Relationship, and Relationships were Bad with a capital B.
Dylan likes to blame his hatred of Relationships (with a capital R, because he knows that he can’t avoid relationships, and has those with his bartender, the banker, and the girl at the Budgie’s down the street who always winks at him when she gives him the booze he buys once a week, as cheap as he can get it) on his parents, whoever the fuck they are, because they were the ones who left him on the doorstep of an orphanage in the middle of nowhere. If he has a Relationship, it will not only involve horrible things like remembering birthdays and anniversaries and spending money on presents, but it might also end in children which he might not be able to handle and then he’d give them horrible abandonment complexes for which they’d compensate by buying a stately home to show how, if nothing else, they loved themselves, damn it. The stately home is another problem. Dylan can’t have a Relationship because he might have to put something before his dream, and get a real life, like an adult, and he doesn’t want that.
He of course has a relationship with Jez, and it’s even a good relationship, because Jez doesn’t do things like object to the stately home plan, or want to spend money, and he’s everything Dylan needs in a business partner. Dylan himself is the charm. He can sell ideas, and even have ideas, but technically, he’s crap. When he met Jez, he found someone who could do numbers and, for that matter, letters. And they were a brilliant team. It was perfect.
Then, predictably, Murphy’s Law kicked in, and the absolute worst thing that could have happened did. Jez got drunk and kissed him, and Dylan was quite sure it meant nothing to Jez. The real problem was that Dylan discovered, as he kissed Jez back quite enthusiastically, was that he was in love with Jez. Dylan didn’t fall in love. He had sex-quite a lot of sex, as much as he could get, because he liked sex and an American accent was apparently quite sexy to girls and guys in the area-but he didn’t have Relationships or dates, just sex. Jez didn’t have either, and apparently he was feeling the lack. So Dylan figured, well, why not. Jez didn’t have to know that he was in love with him, they could just have sex and keep on as they always did.
But Dylan starts to notice something. For three years, they slept together, and he finally notices. He and Jez seem to be in a Relationship. Dylan knows Jez’s birthday, and buys him a present each year, usually some crap electronics which Jez takes apart lovingly and makes into something new. And every year, after Jez unwraps the toaster (toasters are his favorite), he’ll smile at Dylan and kiss him on the cheek as if it is the most natural thing in the world, and Dylan realizes he’s in a Relationship and he’s happy. Maybe, he thinks, it’s because Jez understands that Dylan has been abandoned, and so has Jez, so they aren’t going to give each other up.
The night Dylan decides he is in a Relationship is the night before they pull the Veritech heist. Jez tells him over ramen (“more squid for your quid”) that he’s hired some guy named Georgie to help out, “So I don’t have to rely on *you*,” he says with a smirk.
Dylan flicks a noodle at his head. They sleep in the same bed that night, for the whole night, which is rare, because Jez always seems to wander off in the night.
He meets Georgie the next day, and she’s gorgeous, which is worrying. If he’d been smart the last night, instead of so happy he couldn’t see straight, he would have seen it coming. Murphy’s Law, or something. Of course, Jez wasn’t in a relationship, and now here they are, two men and a woman, and Dylan knows this story, and Jez is giggling and giving her these looks and offering her sandwiches and Dylan doesn’t want to be upstairs anymore, he wants to be down there so that he can make sure he isn’t losing Jez, who he never had.
He flirts with Georgie because if he can get her, Jez won’t want her, and he can keep Jez to himself. Selfish, yes, but Dylan’s a pragmatist. He knows how to get what he wants and he will. But he knows at the same time that this will change everything, because if he doesn’t claim Jez, Jez won’t know he wants to.
This is why Dylan wanted to get the sleeping together out of the way early. If Jez had just left well enough alone, it would have been fine.
He takes Georgie out for drinks and dancing like he does to many girls (and has throughout his Relationship), and like always, Jez begs him to be home by eleven, and like always, Dylan really does intend to be, but if it goes well, he’s not willing to admit he loves Jez. He’d like to, he just can’t.
When he sees Jez walk away with Georgie, he can feel his heart breaking. Typical. It had never occurred to him that this was something that could go wrong, so of course, it did.
He tries to ignore it, but he knows Jez is falling in love. While Dylan’s always been bi, for Jez, their Relationship seems to be the exception, not the rule, which he thought was a good sign. He’s beginning to wonder if it isn’t just a sign Jez wanted some easy sex. Jez couldn’t just pop out for a shag because he had bad teeth (like everyone else in the damn country) and funny hair and no one except Dylan (and now this Georgie girl) seemed to have realized Jez was really attractive. But now there’s Georgie, and Dylan is confused because it never occurred to him Jez could be using him, but now he seems to be, and Dylan wants to keep on being used.
He wants to tell Jez he loves him, but he realizes he has no idea what Jez would say.
Dylan can’t help but be exceedingly bitter that he spent three months in jail and didn’t have any gay sex, even with his roommate, with whom he was having sex for years, until Georgie. Worst of all, the time in prison didn’t seem to cure Jez of his crush, which implied, as Dylan feared, that it isn’t a crush and is something more permanent.
The newspaper with Georgie’s wedding announcement is the best news he’s had in months, but coupled with the fifties being revoked, he’s just confused and lies down to try to sort his emotions. He’s pissed at the queen, but, more surprisingly, he’s pissed at Georgie for stringing Jez along.
They have to get out of here.
Of course, the worst thing that could possibly happen would be Jez telling Georgie and Georgie stealing all their stately home money and running, so it happens. Alone with Jez in their wrecked house, Dylan wants to laugh, because, fuck, Georgie’s gone and everything’s gone to shit, but they’re fucking together and alive and Georgie isn’t there and he wants to kiss Jez more than anything, but he doesn’t because she walks in and gives the money back and why the hell did she have to be so perfect for him?
Dylan never expected to want a Relationship, but then, he never expected to want anything more than the stately home, but, of course, it’s just another matter of everything fucking going wrong.
The way Dylan sees it is that in the end, he doesn’t have a choice. He’s in a Relationship, even though they aren’t sleeping together anymore, because he knows Jez’s birthday and the day they met and the day they fucked for the second time, and the day he realized he was in a Relationship, so that’s got it about covered. So he can’t leave Jez, and if he wants to stay with Jez, he has to marry Floss, because without her to tie him there, it would only become awkward, and Jez and Georgie would be all married and separate, and Dylan would eventually be edged out because he’d be intruding on their Relationship. So as long as he’s there with Floss, Georgie will hopefully never notice the longing looks Dylan keeps sending Jez’s way, or the way that once, way back, Dylan tried to tell Jez he loved him, with the no family, and the stuttering, and he thought Jez understood, but there’s Jez getting married, so he supposes not.
As he watches Jez and Georgie laughing together, knowing he has no idea where Floss is, Dylan remembers the feel of Jez’s lips on his cheek only a year ago, and remembers earlier that day, when he gave Jez the traditional toaster and Jez smiled and laughed and leaned slightly toward him, but saw Georgie and skipped the traditional kiss.
Dylan realizes it’s too late. Murphy’s Law. Everything that can go wrong has.
He watches Jez, and for the first time, acknowledges it’s over.
Jez smiles with his crooked teeth, and Dylan has to smile too.
For the first time in years, he has nowhere to go but up.
Author: Chash
Fandom: Shooting Fish
Pairings: Dylan/Jez, Jez/Georgie
Rating: R (language)
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary: There are no happy endings because nothing ends.
Notes: I should stop starting these challenges at midnight. I hope this makes some kind of sense. One day, I’ll stop being mean to Dylan.
Dylan doesn’t have Relationships. The night he first met Jez, they went to a pub, got drunk, and fucked just so Dylan could avoid a Relationship.
“What are we doing?” asked Jez, hazily, as Dylan clawed off his shirt.
“See,” replied Dylan between gasps, “if I fuck you now, I’m not ever going to complicate things wondering what it’s like. We get it out of the way, and then it’s business.”
“What, you have to exchange fluids with everyone you meet?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
So Dylan and Jez fucked, and Dylan figured he’d be all right. He’s never trusted relationships, because he’s a firm believer in Murphy’s Law. It’s why he makes such good schemes. He figures everything that can go wrong will go wrong, so it’s best to not allow anything to go wrong. So, when he met Jez, he was smart enough to realize he’s a horny bastard, and if he didn’t sleep with Jez then, he’d just get curious and fuck it all up by jumping him when they’d worked together too long for it to seem casual. Of course, it would be casual, but Jez might not realize it, and that would lead to a Relationship, and Relationships were Bad with a capital B.
Dylan likes to blame his hatred of Relationships (with a capital R, because he knows that he can’t avoid relationships, and has those with his bartender, the banker, and the girl at the Budgie’s down the street who always winks at him when she gives him the booze he buys once a week, as cheap as he can get it) on his parents, whoever the fuck they are, because they were the ones who left him on the doorstep of an orphanage in the middle of nowhere. If he has a Relationship, it will not only involve horrible things like remembering birthdays and anniversaries and spending money on presents, but it might also end in children which he might not be able to handle and then he’d give them horrible abandonment complexes for which they’d compensate by buying a stately home to show how, if nothing else, they loved themselves, damn it. The stately home is another problem. Dylan can’t have a Relationship because he might have to put something before his dream, and get a real life, like an adult, and he doesn’t want that.
He of course has a relationship with Jez, and it’s even a good relationship, because Jez doesn’t do things like object to the stately home plan, or want to spend money, and he’s everything Dylan needs in a business partner. Dylan himself is the charm. He can sell ideas, and even have ideas, but technically, he’s crap. When he met Jez, he found someone who could do numbers and, for that matter, letters. And they were a brilliant team. It was perfect.
Then, predictably, Murphy’s Law kicked in, and the absolute worst thing that could have happened did. Jez got drunk and kissed him, and Dylan was quite sure it meant nothing to Jez. The real problem was that Dylan discovered, as he kissed Jez back quite enthusiastically, was that he was in love with Jez. Dylan didn’t fall in love. He had sex-quite a lot of sex, as much as he could get, because he liked sex and an American accent was apparently quite sexy to girls and guys in the area-but he didn’t have Relationships or dates, just sex. Jez didn’t have either, and apparently he was feeling the lack. So Dylan figured, well, why not. Jez didn’t have to know that he was in love with him, they could just have sex and keep on as they always did.
But Dylan starts to notice something. For three years, they slept together, and he finally notices. He and Jez seem to be in a Relationship. Dylan knows Jez’s birthday, and buys him a present each year, usually some crap electronics which Jez takes apart lovingly and makes into something new. And every year, after Jez unwraps the toaster (toasters are his favorite), he’ll smile at Dylan and kiss him on the cheek as if it is the most natural thing in the world, and Dylan realizes he’s in a Relationship and he’s happy. Maybe, he thinks, it’s because Jez understands that Dylan has been abandoned, and so has Jez, so they aren’t going to give each other up.
The night Dylan decides he is in a Relationship is the night before they pull the Veritech heist. Jez tells him over ramen (“more squid for your quid”) that he’s hired some guy named Georgie to help out, “So I don’t have to rely on *you*,” he says with a smirk.
Dylan flicks a noodle at his head. They sleep in the same bed that night, for the whole night, which is rare, because Jez always seems to wander off in the night.
He meets Georgie the next day, and she’s gorgeous, which is worrying. If he’d been smart the last night, instead of so happy he couldn’t see straight, he would have seen it coming. Murphy’s Law, or something. Of course, Jez wasn’t in a relationship, and now here they are, two men and a woman, and Dylan knows this story, and Jez is giggling and giving her these looks and offering her sandwiches and Dylan doesn’t want to be upstairs anymore, he wants to be down there so that he can make sure he isn’t losing Jez, who he never had.
He flirts with Georgie because if he can get her, Jez won’t want her, and he can keep Jez to himself. Selfish, yes, but Dylan’s a pragmatist. He knows how to get what he wants and he will. But he knows at the same time that this will change everything, because if he doesn’t claim Jez, Jez won’t know he wants to.
This is why Dylan wanted to get the sleeping together out of the way early. If Jez had just left well enough alone, it would have been fine.
He takes Georgie out for drinks and dancing like he does to many girls (and has throughout his Relationship), and like always, Jez begs him to be home by eleven, and like always, Dylan really does intend to be, but if it goes well, he’s not willing to admit he loves Jez. He’d like to, he just can’t.
When he sees Jez walk away with Georgie, he can feel his heart breaking. Typical. It had never occurred to him that this was something that could go wrong, so of course, it did.
He tries to ignore it, but he knows Jez is falling in love. While Dylan’s always been bi, for Jez, their Relationship seems to be the exception, not the rule, which he thought was a good sign. He’s beginning to wonder if it isn’t just a sign Jez wanted some easy sex. Jez couldn’t just pop out for a shag because he had bad teeth (like everyone else in the damn country) and funny hair and no one except Dylan (and now this Georgie girl) seemed to have realized Jez was really attractive. But now there’s Georgie, and Dylan is confused because it never occurred to him Jez could be using him, but now he seems to be, and Dylan wants to keep on being used.
He wants to tell Jez he loves him, but he realizes he has no idea what Jez would say.
Dylan can’t help but be exceedingly bitter that he spent three months in jail and didn’t have any gay sex, even with his roommate, with whom he was having sex for years, until Georgie. Worst of all, the time in prison didn’t seem to cure Jez of his crush, which implied, as Dylan feared, that it isn’t a crush and is something more permanent.
The newspaper with Georgie’s wedding announcement is the best news he’s had in months, but coupled with the fifties being revoked, he’s just confused and lies down to try to sort his emotions. He’s pissed at the queen, but, more surprisingly, he’s pissed at Georgie for stringing Jez along.
They have to get out of here.
Of course, the worst thing that could possibly happen would be Jez telling Georgie and Georgie stealing all their stately home money and running, so it happens. Alone with Jez in their wrecked house, Dylan wants to laugh, because, fuck, Georgie’s gone and everything’s gone to shit, but they’re fucking together and alive and Georgie isn’t there and he wants to kiss Jez more than anything, but he doesn’t because she walks in and gives the money back and why the hell did she have to be so perfect for him?
Dylan never expected to want a Relationship, but then, he never expected to want anything more than the stately home, but, of course, it’s just another matter of everything fucking going wrong.
The way Dylan sees it is that in the end, he doesn’t have a choice. He’s in a Relationship, even though they aren’t sleeping together anymore, because he knows Jez’s birthday and the day they met and the day they fucked for the second time, and the day he realized he was in a Relationship, so that’s got it about covered. So he can’t leave Jez, and if he wants to stay with Jez, he has to marry Floss, because without her to tie him there, it would only become awkward, and Jez and Georgie would be all married and separate, and Dylan would eventually be edged out because he’d be intruding on their Relationship. So as long as he’s there with Floss, Georgie will hopefully never notice the longing looks Dylan keeps sending Jez’s way, or the way that once, way back, Dylan tried to tell Jez he loved him, with the no family, and the stuttering, and he thought Jez understood, but there’s Jez getting married, so he supposes not.
As he watches Jez and Georgie laughing together, knowing he has no idea where Floss is, Dylan remembers the feel of Jez’s lips on his cheek only a year ago, and remembers earlier that day, when he gave Jez the traditional toaster and Jez smiled and laughed and leaned slightly toward him, but saw Georgie and skipped the traditional kiss.
Dylan realizes it’s too late. Murphy’s Law. Everything that can go wrong has.
He watches Jez, and for the first time, acknowledges it’s over.
Jez smiles with his crooked teeth, and Dylan has to smile too.
For the first time in years, he has nowhere to go but up.