[FIC] Then They Snowball - Ryan/Esposito Pt. I
Based on the (newest) episode, Anatomy of a Murder... because there was just so much left to the imagination, someone had to write a fanfic to fill in the gaps...
"These things start small, then they snowball."
--Kevin Ryan, Wrapped Up In Death
Kevin Ryan was never really a morning person.
He was most definitely a night person. Staying awake until the wee hours of not-even-morn is an occupational hazard of being a detective, so it’s expected that he was more than used to going for more than twenty-four hours without sleep.
After sleep, however, is a different story.
It’s quite literally like being dragged out from a state of eternal happiness. That’s essentially what dreams are -- what the subconscious knows you want. Sure, he’s had a few nightmares here and there, but he’s never been so traumatized to the point of dreaming about it. That, coupled with the rare hours of sleep he gets, made dreamland equal heaven in Kevin’s book. When he was in heaven, nobody, except a dead body could drag him out.
Javier Esposito was a different story.
Call him a helpless romantic, but Kevin believes in true love. Maybe not love at first sight (lust at first sight, sure, from his experience), but true love definitely exists. It just took time to build, and while four years may not be all that much in proportion to the massive size of the rest of Life, it was enough for Kevin to say, with absolute certainty, that he had fallen head over heels in love with his best friend and partner.
It was just lucky for him that Esposito reciprocated his feelings.
So true love branched out to true lust. Apparently, both had built quite a lot over the four years they spent acquainting with each other, befriending each other, making fun of each other, avoiding each other because of the impressive amount of sexual tension breeding something obscene and heinous between them, and has truly snowballed into one giant mess. This mess was hot and sticky, and, fortunately, not at all unpleasant, for either detective. Pretty soon, the two had taken to a repetition of this giant mess, until it became a routine, nonetheless passionate, part of their very intricate dance through life.
With these two dancing together, someone was bound to trip.
It wasn’t a giant fumble, that would start with the massive fallout on both sides, then be slowly torn apart and picked at until nothing was left. Nor was it a Prince-saves-princess, fairy tale happy ending sort of fall. Nope, it was a tiny slip. A slip that shattered glass slippers and plunged shards into both their bare feet. It was a tiny slip, from a bad combination of time, place, and event, that would end with them both at the bottom of the hill.
Whether they’re laughing down there or spitting in each other's faces is completely up to them.
--
Morning coffee was an extremely important aspect of Javier’s life, so he made sure to get up every morning with enough time to brew a decently hot cup of the drink to spare, and out of the sheer kindness of his heart, he always had a cup prepared for Ryan after his partner finds the willpower to tumble out of the lingering warmth of the bed they shared.
Morning Ryan was a rather amazing sight. It was the transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde, practically, with Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky turning into the Abominable Dirty-Snowman from New York City. It was the only time in the day(s) that Javier would get a glimpse of Ryan’s surprisingly very existent glare, and it didn’t matter how pretty a blue those eyes were at that moment. It was just plain scary.
So Javier made it a point to never piss Ryan off in the morning.
This morning, though, Javier wanted to make an exception of. The night before had gone down the drain, with both of them tumbling into bed well after two days without sleep, both too tired to do anything after cracking a case wide open after desperately tedious fumbles with the intricately-knit web of the suspects’ relations with each other. In the end, the case was solved, but at the expense of every ounce of energy the detectives had left. They both fell asleep next to each other without a word, too tired and irritated to talk, through mutual respect.
When Javier woke up in the morning, he still felt like shit.
But the coffee had to be made, so he forced himself up and out of bed (leaving Kevin) with all the strength he could muster, stumbling into the kitchen to measure the ground coffee beans, water, and turn on the machine. The task was more than necessarily physically exhausting, Javier found, and collapsed into a chair with a groan. He buried his face in his hands, wishing the coffee would never be done, so he wouldn’t have to get up and pour himself a cup, but desperately needing the caffeine, on the other hand, and the machine wouldn’t work fast enough. Soon, though, the coffee maker boiled down to a stop, and Javier quickly downed half a mug (when or how he had gotten it into his mug, he had no idea) before reaching for Kevin’s mug to fill it to near the top with the black liquid, then pulling open the fridge for the coffee creamer. He set the finished concoction onto the kitchen table, and leaned back against a chair to sip gratefully at his own drink.
He must’ve nodded off after a while, because when Javier heard the door crack, he gave a somewhat unnecessary jump, bumping into the chair behind him, subsequently the table behind him, and managed to knock Ryan’s precariously-placed mug sideways, so the coffee flooded out and down, just as Kevin walked through the door.
“Sorry,” Javier quickly said, yanking at the somewhat-hot coffee stain on his pant leg (luckily, he was still in sweats). “I’ll clean it up.”
“...S’fine,” Kevin muttered from the doorway. Javier easily dismissed the irritation in his voice for a part of the Morning Ryan Syndrome, and stood up as his partner reached down instead. “I got this.”
“I’ll, uh, get you another cup, then.”
Javier took Kevin’s silence as a yes, and grabbed the mug lying on its side on the table. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Somehow, when Javier turned to the coffee maker, he found a frown marring his brows. No, it wasn’t so much as Kevin’s bad mood that got to him, or even the fact that he hadn’t even asked if Javier was okay. It was the last response, muttered so lowly that Javier just barely heard it, that set his mood for the rest of the day.
“S’alright,” Kevin had murmured, sticking a coffee-stained finger into his mouth. “It was too sweet anyways.”
"These things start small, then they snowball."
--Kevin Ryan, Wrapped Up In Death
Kevin Ryan was never really a morning person.
He was most definitely a night person. Staying awake until the wee hours of not-even-morn is an occupational hazard of being a detective, so it’s expected that he was more than used to going for more than twenty-four hours without sleep.
After sleep, however, is a different story.
It’s quite literally like being dragged out from a state of eternal happiness. That’s essentially what dreams are -- what the subconscious knows you want. Sure, he’s had a few nightmares here and there, but he’s never been so traumatized to the point of dreaming about it. That, coupled with the rare hours of sleep he gets, made dreamland equal heaven in Kevin’s book. When he was in heaven, nobody, except a dead body could drag him out.
Javier Esposito was a different story.
Call him a helpless romantic, but Kevin believes in true love. Maybe not love at first sight (lust at first sight, sure, from his experience), but true love definitely exists. It just took time to build, and while four years may not be all that much in proportion to the massive size of the rest of Life, it was enough for Kevin to say, with absolute certainty, that he had fallen head over heels in love with his best friend and partner.
It was just lucky for him that Esposito reciprocated his feelings.
So true love branched out to true lust. Apparently, both had built quite a lot over the four years they spent acquainting with each other, befriending each other, making fun of each other, avoiding each other because of the impressive amount of sexual tension breeding something obscene and heinous between them, and has truly snowballed into one giant mess. This mess was hot and sticky, and, fortunately, not at all unpleasant, for either detective. Pretty soon, the two had taken to a repetition of this giant mess, until it became a routine, nonetheless passionate, part of their very intricate dance through life.
With these two dancing together, someone was bound to trip.
It wasn’t a giant fumble, that would start with the massive fallout on both sides, then be slowly torn apart and picked at until nothing was left. Nor was it a Prince-saves-princess, fairy tale happy ending sort of fall. Nope, it was a tiny slip. A slip that shattered glass slippers and plunged shards into both their bare feet. It was a tiny slip, from a bad combination of time, place, and event, that would end with them both at the bottom of the hill.
Whether they’re laughing down there or spitting in each other's faces is completely up to them.
--
Morning coffee was an extremely important aspect of Javier’s life, so he made sure to get up every morning with enough time to brew a decently hot cup of the drink to spare, and out of the sheer kindness of his heart, he always had a cup prepared for Ryan after his partner finds the willpower to tumble out of the lingering warmth of the bed they shared.
Morning Ryan was a rather amazing sight. It was the transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde, practically, with Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky turning into the Abominable Dirty-Snowman from New York City. It was the only time in the day(s) that Javier would get a glimpse of Ryan’s surprisingly very existent glare, and it didn’t matter how pretty a blue those eyes were at that moment. It was just plain scary.
So Javier made it a point to never piss Ryan off in the morning.
This morning, though, Javier wanted to make an exception of. The night before had gone down the drain, with both of them tumbling into bed well after two days without sleep, both too tired to do anything after cracking a case wide open after desperately tedious fumbles with the intricately-knit web of the suspects’ relations with each other. In the end, the case was solved, but at the expense of every ounce of energy the detectives had left. They both fell asleep next to each other without a word, too tired and irritated to talk, through mutual respect.
When Javier woke up in the morning, he still felt like shit.
But the coffee had to be made, so he forced himself up and out of bed (leaving Kevin) with all the strength he could muster, stumbling into the kitchen to measure the ground coffee beans, water, and turn on the machine. The task was more than necessarily physically exhausting, Javier found, and collapsed into a chair with a groan. He buried his face in his hands, wishing the coffee would never be done, so he wouldn’t have to get up and pour himself a cup, but desperately needing the caffeine, on the other hand, and the machine wouldn’t work fast enough. Soon, though, the coffee maker boiled down to a stop, and Javier quickly downed half a mug (when or how he had gotten it into his mug, he had no idea) before reaching for Kevin’s mug to fill it to near the top with the black liquid, then pulling open the fridge for the coffee creamer. He set the finished concoction onto the kitchen table, and leaned back against a chair to sip gratefully at his own drink.
He must’ve nodded off after a while, because when Javier heard the door crack, he gave a somewhat unnecessary jump, bumping into the chair behind him, subsequently the table behind him, and managed to knock Ryan’s precariously-placed mug sideways, so the coffee flooded out and down, just as Kevin walked through the door.
“Sorry,” Javier quickly said, yanking at the somewhat-hot coffee stain on his pant leg (luckily, he was still in sweats). “I’ll clean it up.”
“...S’fine,” Kevin muttered from the doorway. Javier easily dismissed the irritation in his voice for a part of the Morning Ryan Syndrome, and stood up as his partner reached down instead. “I got this.”
“I’ll, uh, get you another cup, then.”
Javier took Kevin’s silence as a yes, and grabbed the mug lying on its side on the table. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Somehow, when Javier turned to the coffee maker, he found a frown marring his brows. No, it wasn’t so much as Kevin’s bad mood that got to him, or even the fact that he hadn’t even asked if Javier was okay. It was the last response, muttered so lowly that Javier just barely heard it, that set his mood for the rest of the day.
“S’alright,” Kevin had murmured, sticking a coffee-stained finger into his mouth. “It was too sweet anyways.”