Chapter Text
Flambae was decompressing himself, just in an entirely different way. Probably a much less destructive way compared to Robert’s way of cooling down. He’d gotten his cart out of his car, and then pulled Prism aside to convince her to get out of the bar with him to go grab a bite to eat.
Now he was sitting in the passenger’s seat of his own car as Prism took them through a TacoBell drivethrough. When Z-Team did Friday night hangouts, the two always broke off together before the night ended.
They were pretty close friends even if they looked like an odd combination. Flambae had claimed once they didn’t talk much outside of work, but he was quickly reminded that his life didn’t exist much outside of work–and that wasn’t a bad thing.
Once he’d gotten out of jail after turning himself in, and SDN had picked up his charity case and shoved him into Z-Team, he felt like he was actually doing something productive. He’d been properly rehabilitated, even if he avoided admitting it like the plague.
As much as he wanted to hate the hero game, he had to admit there was something fulfilling about it.
He’d been tuning out Prism’s voice as she ordered for them, leaned out of the car window slightly.
Flambae tasted his mouth for a second, smacking his lips; his mind back on food.
“Uhh–and a medium Baja Blast,” He interjected, adjusting his seat absentmindedly as they sat in the drivethrough line.
“And a medium Baja Blast.” Prism repeated to the worker at the end of her order.
“We’re out of Baja Blast.” The lady replied through the speaker, and Flambae loudly groaned. It was midnight on a Friday night. How were they out? He needed this.
“Do they have the purple flavor?” He muttered to Prism, and she relayed the message.
Flambae was already distracting himself again, his inebriated brain slowing down his processing and making him jump between a million different things.
The last person who’d sat in the passenger’s seat of his car was Robert, who was significantly shorter than him, so he busied himself with fixing the settings, leaning it back and giving himself more leg room.
He was letting Prism drive because he was getting crossfaded. He was still drunk, even if it was less than before, and was now taking his third hit of the night.
“This is going to be so good.” He muttered, stretching out in his seat like a lazy cat, “I cannot wait to get this in my mouth.”
Prism shot him a glance from across the car enterior, raising both of her eyebrows, “Uhuh.” She replied, “Your mouth dry?”
Flambae tilted his head back, narrowing his gaze and eyeing her, his arms extended on the dash, stretched widely before him.
He dug into food as soon as it came out, letting Prism pay with his card; she’d paid last time, and plus, tacos was his idea in the first place.
Flambae dug around in the already wrinkled brown takeout bag, pausing to stick a straw in his cold, fresh Baja Midnight.
It was a royal purple, with a weird light blue foam. It looked radioactive, and he still nearly groaned audibly as he took a sip.
The back of his tongue was so dry, and his spit had seemingly gotten ten times thicker in the past couple of minutes, ignoring how Prism watched him with obvious amusement as she pulled the car around into the parking lot in front of the TacoBell.
“I’m acting nearly as hungry as Robert,” He chuckled as he unwrapped Prism’s burrito, and then half-assedly re-wrapped it, passing it to her as she parked.
“That’s a big ass contradiction. The guy honestly doesn’t eat all that much.” She commented as she took her burrito, and Flambae just laughed to himself, taking a large bite of his own taco, his crumbs sprinkling onto the wrapper sitting open on his lap.
Prism narrowed her eyes at him, biting back an actual confused remark.
“He’s a greedy fucker.” Flambae continued, sprinkling the fallen cheese back into his taco, taking another bite, chewing and wiping his face with a napkin, “Bobert eats dick like he’s starving.”
“Boy, what?” Prism replied, pausing in the middle of drizzling Diablo sauce on her burrito.
“He blew me in the Sardine’s bathroom.” Flambae continued, stating it like a fact. Just a statement. Not like it meant anything real.
Maybe if he’d just been talking about any other guy, or some random guy, that wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Prism had accompanied him to plenty of gay bars on their nights off.
But Robert? Their fucking boss of all people? She gave a real reaction to that, nearly dripping sauce onto the nice leather wheel, distracted momentarily.
“Robert Robertson?” She repeated in disbelief, setting her sauce down and pointing a neon nail at him, “In a bathroom, no less? In, like, a stall? He’s gay?”
Prism had a hard time trying to decide to be shocked by the fact that Flambae got blown by someone who was basically their boss, or the fact that Robert was nowhere near Flambae’s usual type.
Flambae’s type usually leaned towards guys a little more like himself. Aggressive and stubborn, usually some sort of acerbic. Guys who added a little spice to his life.
Physically? Maybe a little closer to Robert in that sense.
But personality? Robert was completely out of Flambae’s dating ballpark.
He was a complete curveball, that he’d somehow struck across the field. That was the kind of shit that got clipped on game highlights.
Flambae nodded wordlessly, glancing up at her, still working through a mouthful of his taco.
“First of all, he’s got majoooor narc vibes.” Prism started, taking a bite of her burrito, chewing and swallowing before continuing, “And second, he’s so fucking boring for you. And in a bathroom? He really doesn’t look like he would… Do that. Is our dispatcher a freak?”
Flambae nearly choked on his taco, eyebrows furrowed.
“Boring? Robbie is not boring?” He repeated incredulously, focusing on the two main points of her statement, not bothering with the small tangent that had trailed after it.
He paused to take a sip of his Baja Blast, still looking like Prism had personally insulted him.
“He’s hot. He’s interesting.” He continued to defend, “Come fucking on. It’s hot that he’s normal and morally sound and lame. Bobby is hot.”
“That’s a list of unattractive things.” Prism made a face, scrunching up her nose and glancing at her burrito, now fully turned in her seat.
The streetlights had illuminated the parking lot enough that they hadn’t even needed to turn on the light overhead in the cabin of his car.
“The most attractive thing about him is his mouth.” Flambae slurred, pausing to take a sip of his cold soda, mouth nearly watering. The carbonation felt like fucking heaven on his tongue, and just the anticipation of drinking it before he took even put his mouth on it somehow made it taste even better, “Or his skinny little waist.”
He was properly gone now, if he hadn’t been before.
“I forgot you like your men thin. You’ve got no taste.That’s a grown ass man.” Prism made a disgusted noise, side-eyeing him, “Not like those college-age twinks you pick up usually.”
Flambae shook his head, trying to convey the feeling to Prism. Their tastes were obviously very different.
How did he feel about Robert? Like the man felt safe, in an incredibly new way. Stable, for the most part. Normal. Not too much.
He didn’t react to Flambae’s… explosiveness, and something about that drew him in. He couldn’t tell if he was just searching for a reaction, or if he wanted to be hung out to dry like that forever.
He couldn’t tell which idea made him harder.
“There’s something about his tired eyes that makes me want to fuck it out of him.” He insisted.
“That’s so disgusting.” Again, it wasn’t the thought of Flambae doing that that bothered Prism; she’d once accidentally called him in the middle of a hookup, and he’d picked up the phone. It was the thought of him doing that with Robert. Really?
He was an okay enough guy - as much as she’d been wary about him in the beginning, her, and the whole team, but they had warmed up quickly to him. There was something about Robert that just earned the trust of people. He wasn’t bad, just…
“Your life is gonna be so boring.”
Flambae had been staring off into the road ahead of them, past the parking lot, watching the cars flick past.
“What?” He repeated dumbly, his mouth left around the straw of his drink, having forgotten to take it off, “How?”
“Robert’s going to make you uninteresting. He’ll rub off on you.” She gestured to Flambae as a whole with her hand, picking up a Cinnamon twist from the box sitting between them on the center console.
Prism rolled her eyes, “What, are you not intending to get with him?”
She should have known better–Flambae was the king of one night stands.
He blinked. He hadn’t even thought about it, instead so much more focused on getting off rather than what came after sex.
“Oh, fuck.” Flambae rubbed his face, chuckling softly to himself, sweeping a couple strands of his black hair out of his face.
He hadn’t exactly followed up with Robert after the dick sucking incident, which wasn’t proper protocol at all. Fuck, with the way he’d acted subsequent to the bathroom stall, Robert had definitely gotten the wrong impression.
Maybe he was laying in bed right now, already forgetting about it? Or if this had just been a spur-of-the-moment-thing when he’d been drunk? Maybe he wasn’t even fucking into men, maybe he’d never done anything like that before.
The paranoid thoughts crept up on him as he continued drinking his Mountain Dew Baja Midnight.
No, that blowjob felt pretty advanced. Definitely not the first time Robert had something the size and shape of a dick in his mouth. Flambae was still slightly reeling from how fast he came.
He’d obviously gone silent for an extended period of time, because Prism waved a hand at him, looking him over with worry.
“Hello?” She asked, checking to make sure Flambae was still with her right now, “So what, did you get his number?”
Prism crinkled up her wrapper as she talked, dropping it into the empty bag, and nudging the cinnamon twists towards Flambae; they’d come as part of the combo meal, and they weren’t really for her taste.
“No, I didn’t.” Flambae snapped back to attention, blinking, glazing over his unsure tone, “It felt too early.” He lied.
“Robust sounded pretty upset afterwards.” He added, and that part wasn’t a lie.
“Early? Baby, that’s too late. He’s home by now.” She picked up Flambae’s drink, taking a sip, leaving a small teal lipstick stain behind on the straw.
“You think so?” He replied stupidly, rubbing his jaw.
“Yeah, Chad, just hook up with our dispatcher just for the fun of it. Not anything real,” She scorned Flambae, “Just for the love of the game, so things can be permanently messy between you two. Do you not think?”
He bit his cheek, compressing his wrapper between his palms in a similar manner to her, rolling that around in his head. Prism was painfully right, as always. Despite having a decade less of life experience than him, she somehow had a more concise opinion than him in every scenario.
“Now I have to listen to your gross innuendos at work even more than usual.” She sighed, wiping her fingers off on a napkin.
Flambae raised his brows, shrugging and making a face at her, “Not my problem. Sounds great to me. I could talk dirty to Rogurt all day.”
He reached for his cart, intending to take another hit, but Prism plucked it out of his hands, turning it off with a few button clicks and dropping it in the cupholder in the side of the door, far out of his reach.
He made a sound of protest - he was a grown man, he didn’t need an intervention on a Friday night. Friday nights were like a cheat day for all vices.
“You need to sober the fuck up so you can clock how psycho you sound right now.” Prism shook her head, tossing the bag of fast food trash in his lap, turning back forwards in her seat.
Flambae rolled his eyes, slumping back and pushing the discarded makeshift trash bag off of him, cradling his Baja Midnight in his lap.
“Whatever.” He grumbled, instead relaxing into his high for the rest of the short drive home, “It isn’t anyone else’s business.”
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Prism drove him home, leaving his car at his apartment parking lot, shooing Flambae off.
“Get in bed, you’re a mess.” She chastised him, stepping out of the driver’s seat, stretching out.
Prism followed him up the stairs to his apartment, making sure he got inside and his car keys were hung up before leaving him alone.
“I’m capable of getting into bed myself,” Flambae complained as he shooed her off one-handedly. He was well aware he’d need to sleep this off - he was pretty faded right now.
“Do you see yourself right now?” She shook her head.
But before Prism could leave, he made sure to show his gratitude to her for putting up with all his bullshit tonight.
Flambae steadied himself against a wall, leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek as a thank you, trying not to visibly sway as he wrapped two heavy arms around her waist.
She just snorted, patting his cheek, “Sort yourself out.”
Prism made her own way home after leaving Flambae alone to deal with his inevitable hangover–they’d carpooled to the bar, and she’d left her own vehicle at his place.
Thank god for thinking in advance; she’d been sure that one of them would end up being too inebriated to drive by the end of the night. And she'd been right.
Robert haunted Flambae that night - pretty much everything about that situation did. As he stripped out of his suit and got ready for bed, it kept rebounding into his mind.
There was something about his dry, uninterested half-flirting that really got him going. Maybe he was just too invested in the chase, and he’d get bored when he caught him, or maybe this high would just last forever.
Flambae didn’t care which it was, all he knew was that he wanted it. Fuck, he wanted everything to do with it.
He wanted Robert, naked, in his bed, rolling over into the morning sunlight. He wanted him bent over the counter. He wanted him in his every day routine, from the first cup of coffee pre-breakfast to his nightly tea on the couch. Robert felt like crack.
And it had been a while since he’d felt that way about anyone. Usually, booty calls sufficed for his high libido, but that quickie? It hadn’t been enough. Maybe he’d just hated the personality of everyone he’d fucked in the past 5 years of his life.
Flambae let his thoughts wander aimlessly as he padded through his flat, barefoot now, his head hazy as he flopped into bed.
Now that he had a taste, he wanted more. It felt like his eyes were being opened to a whole new world outside of his usual. Like ordering a new dish at a restaurant you like, rather than your usual safe option.
Either this was just one of those nights for Flambae, or he was genuinely onto something. Would this even stick in the morning?
He hoped it would.