I Hate Small Talk. I Want To Talk About Atoms, Death, Aliens, Sex, Intellect, The Meaning Of Life, Far

          — vincent van gogh

hemingway's laugh reverberates with how empty the office is, and fitz grins in response. he clutches his chest in response to hemingway's comments about his 'stiff' performance & rolls his eyes, his lips stretched up in a grin of his own.

yeah, it's true. the bureau could use more people like hemingway.

when the other agent walks back over to his own desk, fitz's eyebrows lift and how easily he agrees to leave right now. skipping out on the rest of work to go fuck around in the city? as much as fitz knew the bureau expected him to learn something from hemingway, maybe the opposite was proving to be true. he scoffs & grabs his keys, "i may be a lot of things, but a bad driver isn't one of them. that's just silly & embarrassing for no reason." he pulls his coat over his shoulder as they step out into the night.

after a pretty uneventful car ride — from fitz's pov at least — they make it to the spot hemingway suggests. although they've only just put in their orders, fitz is already completely satisfied to be someplace else that's not the bureau grounds. they could've been anywhere, honestly. burger joints are burger joints — he knows it's really all about the company he keeps. and hemingway's definitely one of the easiest to be around.

that's important, fitz thinks.

with a drink already in his hand, he looks at the agent his partner from across the table & shakes his head, "— okay, but @faulknxr said tonight should be dynamic & high-yielding for the operation. he's expecting us to bring him something big tomorrow. which, you know that means, right? we're going to have to ..."

he gives hemingway his best serious face, although he knows his eyes give it away every time. he waits for the agent to finish his sentence before overlapping him.

" — get matching tattoos! y'know, to solidify this partnership of ours."

"dude, just because you're not doing any work ..." arms crossed and eyebrows slightly raised, he gives fitz a look; there's an ending to this sentence, something about how other people—hemingway—are actually trying to get shit done but that's only ... half-true, at best. yes, hemingway did go into the records room, yes, he spent about two hours in there, yes, he did bring some files back but all of that has just been mostly half-assed, i just wanna feel like i'm actually doing something work, which is ... barely work, really. truth is, he spent that much time checking out files only because he ended up catching up with the clerk for most of it. he did find out that they adopted a dog and now hemingway's jealous.

he doesn't finish the thought, just rolls his eyes at the other agent and laughs. "hey, no funny business," hemingway puts on a fake-serious voice, an expression to match and lifts up a warning finger; it doesn't hold up for long, his face splits into another grin barely two seconds later and his laughter booms across the floor. it's louder than he expected it to be so when he looks around to check if he's being a nuisance for the others (and surprisingly there are others, even this late, though maybe he shouldn't be so shocked, considering the circumstances), it's with an apologetic smile, an unspoken oops, my bad.

but then again, this is hardly a first. hemingway being loud, never heard that one before.

"nice theatrics, though a bit stiff," hemingway attempts another serious comment but the underlying mirth is impossible to miss. all of a sudden, he doesn't feel all that goddamn tired and ... well, there's plenty words to call it, disappointed? dejected? really fucking lost, that's a good one. he's allowed himself to feel that way for a short while, taken a break from the everything will turn out fine mantra he's always repeating in his head but it's starting to be too overwhelming. hemingway will not say it out loud, but spending what's left of the day with fitz should work some magic. well, now he can't wait.

he takes a look at his desk across the room, the files waiting. yeah, right. "okay, well, fuck the couple hours then," hemingway says as he pushes himself off fitz's desk, stands tall and stretches his shoulders. "burgers sound good. i know a place," he says and then heads back for his desk. the short distance doesn't interrupt the conversation. "but you're driving. and i trust you not to kill us," he says, his voice once again carrying across the entire room. he picks up his stuff, shoves the unread reports into his drawer—a problem for tomorrow—and waits for fitz to join him by the door.

when normal people clock out for work at their jobs, they go home. but home is such a funny ( odd ) concept these days.

he thinks of the girl from kansas / schoolteacher from harlem, with her little dog, desperate to get back to her own time & place after being dropped in a foreign place & time. and looking around, he imagines he could be dorothy right about now, thinking of home.

but what is home? as he hears footsteps approaching — cutting through the rare silence of this office — he supposes home could be a physical location, but without the people there, places lose their meaning & their power.

and then baldwin's extending a cup to him & that definitely puts things into perspective. fitz accepts, because he doesn't have the heart to tell baldwin he despises coffee, but he carefully finds the nearest surface to let the hot cup rest, keeping his hand loosely around the rim. this needs a disturbing amount of sugar & cream.

when he looks at baldwin, reminded of their circumstance, fitz recalls two things: maybe a home can be found in other people, across time & space, but most importantly —

in this scenario, he's definitely toto.

"progress? well, i ...", fitz pivots at the last moment, given the company, "haven't made much, to be honest. surprise, surprise. i think i'm just hoping my brain will finally shut off long enough so i can get up and go ...," home isn't the right word, so he finds a replacement, "back to my ... living quarters?" he shrugs at how it sounds, but whatever — words can be hard.

after a beat, he nods to the cup in his fellow agent's hand. "how often are you making full cups of coffee after midnight, anyway?"

who  :  anyone where  :  bullpen when  :  september 4, 1996 @ 01:17 am

          two mugs filled to the brim with freshly made coffee sit on the lounge countertop.  he stares at the coffee like he's taking personal offence.

          muscle memory is a funny little thing.  a mission objective slips his mind , but he can absently make a length of surgical knots with his laces until the fog in his head lifts.  he would have missed the meeting on the second if it weren't for every agent headed that way , but his hands went through the motion of making two cups of coffee without any input from his brain.  the one on the left has an absrud amount of sugar and a generous pour of cream , while the right is undefiled.  the person he made this for is no longer here.  he wants to pour the coffee down the sink and smash the mug to smithereens.

          he takes a breath and manages to hold on to a thread of calm that threatens to leave him at any given moment.  agent london always took his coffee bitter , and agent baldwin doesn't think the extra caffeine in his system will do him any good right now.  there was a set of footsteps in the bullpen minutes earlier that he follows, carrying both coffees in his hands.

          "     i made too much.     "     he holds the extra one out to them , a mockery of a peace offering in this tense environment.  it's late.  he's pretty sure neither of them are supposed to be here.  he doesn't comment on that topic ; there's no reason to pry into the business of other insomniacs.     "     are you making progress  ?     "

              ❝ no one ever tells you how dangerous loyalty can be. ❞

timestamp  — october 14th, 3 pm sharp. location  — bureau grounds. description  — most agents have improvement plans, don't they? ...don't they? ( closed starter for agt. faulkner. )

" — i mean, looking back on it, i didn't think anything i said was that scandalous. i haven't heard much since we all got questioned, but that doesn't mean i still don't think about the look on dr benton's face when i was excused from the room."

as much as the bureau had emphasized the importance of staying mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy while doing this work, fitzgerald had never been one to take them up on their amenities. the workout plans, the meals, the licensed mental health professionals — it was all so clinical.

and fitz was a bit allergic to structure, if it wasn't used to solve quadratic equations. structure in just about every other facet of his life? completely unnecessary.

instead, he had leaned on his working relationship with one of the people he worked with admired for the longest time, probably the one who would be their official leader any day now — agent faulkner.

fitz couldn't place where his chats with faulkner started, somewhere within those first three or four years for sure, but they had started to become a regular thing for him. sometimes every week, but mostly every two or three, depending on their schedules. his therapy sessions mandatory by the bureau paled in comparison to kinds of things he and faulkner discussed.

mostly because, well, faulker got it. besides being the bureau's gold star that shined almost too brightly for anyone that stood close enough for too long, at least faulkner knew what their work felt like. he could recognize when fitz was ( mentally, at least ) on a downward spiral.

"but i'm sure you've assured them i'm not a threat, right? i'm just ... y'know ... in need of more stimulating work." fitz thinks aloud, as they walk along the bureau's grounds around the lake. he'd been needing fresh air a lot more lately.

& there it is again — what a funny, deceivingly simple word for a place that's supposed to invite feelings of comfort & rest. perhaps nostalgic memories. maybe even love, or something that resembles it and fills in its place.

but an assigned room on bureau grounds? that's just ... well, that's just sad, to say the least. lonely, too, but there isn't enough time in the work day to unpack that right now. maybe later, once he's able to stop thinking so much.

fitz watches baldwin while the agent turns back to the lounge & decides that they should probably talk more, although recent events haven't given them nearly enough time to sit down for a casual chat. and what would that conversation even sound like?

'yo, dr. baldwin, i know you're probably losing sleep over london's disappearance and have had no time to really take care of yourself since the person you were close with is out there altering time & space as we understand it, but i just have to know — listened to any good tunes, lately?' — and even worse, fitz would genuinely be invested in the agent's answer.

"pretty often, actually — i usually spend too much time doing things like disappointing faulkner or stein that by the time i actually get around to working, it's already late in the afternoon." he thinks, before quickly adding, "not that i'm not actively trying to focus on the operation at hand ... it's just," he glances at the cup he was given and carefully picks it up with the handle, "i've been distracted, lately."

fitz blows gently over his cup, peering down into the dark liquid that reflects a rippled version back to him. maybe there's a fitz out there that enjoys coffee & does his job as he's told & much more emotionally stable & not completely insufferable to be around & & & — he steps forward & takes a look around at the empty office around them. he's been cooped up in here for too long.

"clearly i need some fresh air," fitz begins to walk away, but he turns on his heel, "and i'd love the company, if you're interested." he shrugs, with a grin, "and even if you're not, i could use it anyway."

          baldwin catches fitz's stumble in phrasing.  there's something missing between the meaning of home and living quarters that goes right over their head , and it's a distinction they've come to realize others here hold as well. 

          home has always been where they rest for the night , where their cluttered belongings scatter.  it's a place.  that's all.  before the fire , home was their house in lakefield , and after , it was numerous foster homes.  since 1990 , home has been their assigned quarters on bureau grounds , and rarely do they ever leave the facilities.  although , for a long time between then and now , they found themself resting in london's room , or london in theirs.

          their hands clench around the warmth of the ceramic mug.  whatever.  home is where someone lives and any further linguistic dissection will drive them mad.     "     it isn't easier to shut off when you're at home ?     "

          they look over their shoulder at the lounge , then back to fitz.     "     the midnight part is a new habit.  eleven nights over the past two weeks.  no  —  um  —  twelve.     "     shit.  fuck.  pivot.  don't mention the second cup.  turn the question back over.     "     how often are you staying so far past five , anyway ?     "     logically , they know they should have this information already.  they clock everyone the second they walk in , if not by the distinctive sound of their footsteps , then by actually looking in their direction.  baldwin convinces themself that they're preoccupied with much bigger issues , that there is a finite amount of connections that can be made in the human brain , that they are still just human.  the same mantra they've been telling themself for a year now.  denial is a powerful thing.

“It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being.” — f̶i̶t̶z̶g̶e̶r̶a̶l̶d̶; an introduction.

skeleton ( briefing. ) / dossier ( basic info. ) / the full report & connections ( history. ) / inspirations ( pinterest. ) / performance reviews ( headcanons, still writing. ) / vinyl collection. ( playlist, still curating. )

did the bureau know what was ahead of them by pairing hemingway with fitzgerald? had this been a miscalculation on someone's part, thinking that this would be the solution to setting fitz on a different path? this kind of decision seemed like it had faulkner's influence written all over it, especially with how the agent saw them out tonight.

in theory, sure, hemingway was an exceptional agent; it made sense he took the mentor role to new and wayward agents alike — agreeable, capable, smooth. a good example. and he's all those things in real life too, but as fitz watches him soak up cher in the car ride over and order enough food to turn this diner run into a feast, he remembers that hemingway still holds onto something that most agents lose over their time with the bureau.

vibrancy — the word fills in the blank, and that feels right. fitz grins.

it's his turn to laugh out loud — bark, rather — at the thought of hemingway robbing a bank and fitz realizes it wouldn't take much for him to be convinced. take the stolen cash, hop to another timeline, join that jazz band he's always talking about. they could easily go rogue.

all the cool agents were doing it.

"it is ridiculous, which is exactly why we're gonna have to go with my matching tattoos idea. and while i'm normally on the 'it has to be pretty' train, i'm also a bigger believer in just ... figuring it out when we get there. embrace the fun in the risk, that's all i'm saying. it's never too late to make dumb decisions."

fitz nods and raises his own glass to hemingway's words, "you and i both know i'm the last person who's going to disagree on any of those points for the rest of tonight. i'd argue that i don't talk about any of that enough, which is probably what got you stuck with me in the first place," fitz shrugs.

he had apologized to hemingway before, when he was first told that they'd be partners — again, clearly a miscalculation made on the bureau's end. fitz thought of himself as too far gone to be a truly productive field agent. if things ever got bad in the field, well, he'd only be slowing hemingway down, and — it's just best to move past the point.

"but anyway, i'm still waiting on you tell me the secret on how you're able to be so nice to everyone, all the time. people suck, hemingway."

hemingway spends most of the car ride flipping through radio stations, trying to find them some good background music that he can loudly talk over. he eventually settles on the top fifty ... for two songs and then he gets bored with it and starts playing with the radio again. a cher song is on when they arrive and he makes fitz sit in the car with him until it's finished.

once he orders three meals worth of food and gets his drink, hemingway's almost ready to admit that he's done thinking about work and how he's questioning himself and how tired he is of everything even thought it's just the beginning. almost.

thank god for fitz's energy because hemingway really needs it right now.

" — rob a bank as a team-bonding exercise," hemingway says, trying to match whatever outrageous idea the other is gonna serve him with. and yeah, there it is, matching tattoos. worst part is, hemingway's is willing to actually, seriously consider it. unlike the bank robbery because that's never happening.

"you know we could do something less permanent, right?" hemingway says, a comfortable smile on his face as he teases. "i don't know. buy matching ties or something." not that hemingway wears ties very often—twice a month, tops. way too uncomfortable and just very not his style. unless it's a novelty one, like the ones he always gets for christmas. "oh, that would be so ridiculous. we should do it."

"besides, what would we even get? it's a big commitment, i need ideas, something pretty. i'm not about to put just anything on my body. better give me something good," he says and—yeah, he really does sound like he could be convinced.

"i still don't think that's what faulkner had in mind, you know. he probably assumed we were—i don't know. going for a change of scenery to brainstorm." and he wouldn't really blame faulkner, especially with the amount of overtime's hemingway's been doing; it's not completely unusual but there's been a rather noticeable increase. this is not oh, i'll stay behind tonight so i don't have as much to do on friday, this is oh, this case is about to eat me whole. so it's really not that wild of a guess that hemingway would leave work ... to do more working. man, he really needs a break from that.

"but i'm banning the use of words like case, work, files—" he starts listing anything that comes to mind, his fingers keeping the count. "—london, that one's definitely off the table. well, you get it. all of it, banned. until tomorrow morning."

rubykinn:

me: *points to space* !!!!!!

friend: ????

me: *points to space more violently* !!!!!!!!!

holding conversation with faulkner was always a bit of a doozy.

not to say that the agent didn't offer an incredibly valuable point-of-view for which fitz would never truly be able to understand, but more of the idea that faulkner was socially & emotionally impenetrable in just about every way. throughout their years together at the bureau, fitz couldn't ever actually think of time when the other agent lost his cool or shown any other emotion besides the ones it seemed like he practiced in the mirror — and there it was, the smile that didn't always quite reach the eyes.

it would be impressive it wasn't just a little terrifying to think about. maybe that's why fitz had talked his ear off those first few months all those years ago and then stuck to it — part-habit, part-trying to understand what made someone like the agent tick.

fitz stops in his tracks at faulkner's jest, not because he had long identified him as a sock puppet the bureau used to spout their rhetoric, or not because it almost felt out-of-character coming from the impassive paladin the bureau loved to parade around as an example of their accomplishments, but rather —

faulkner attempting jokes is a rare occurrence, and that's something significant to acknowledge. even if the delivery was ominous in ways fitz couldn't quite put his finger on yet, maybe there was a human behind the bureau's talking points after all. but, of course fitz doesn't find the words to say any of that in response to faulkner's jest about confessions & his likely very true statement about threat levels. instead, he offers —

"that's just fucked up." his mind detours for a moment and considers london. did he know he was becoming a threat before someone could ring the alarm? he decides to file that away for a day when he's actually in the mood to engage with the operation.

he joins faulkner in step again, bowing his head to hear something that should sound like good news, but fitz isn't sure how to feel about it yet. he's appreciative, replying with a quick "thank you," but something else feels missing. maybe acknowledgement of previous fuck-ups, perhaps?

"you think they'd actually go for that? i haven't been getting gold stars on my performance, lately. i've been sidelined, given a babysitter — poor hemingway — and no real direction from my superiors. then there's the operation, but ... i don't know, my heart hasn't been in it. it's almost like," fitz shrugs, and realizes he's been doing that a lot, recently.

"what's even the point?"

By the edge of the lakeside, Agent Faulkner considers his conversational partner’s take while he scatters a bit of duck feed onto the lawns. “Due to privacy measures, I cannot inquire about the subject matter and the method of how you presented those subjects during last month’s interviews, Agent Fitzgerald. However, since you did not receive a formal reprimand, I believe your assessment is factual,” he says and then pauses, closing up the snack bag and placing it in his pocket as a band of waterfowl moseys toward the food.

“But it shouldn’t be against our office’s private policy to ask what facial features Dr. Benson expressed in response to your interview?” Faulkner’s lips, usually a barely-there curve, slope gently up that one could characterize as an authorized smile.

To the casual observer working at the Temporal Bureau, they would’ve had a double take at seeing Agent Faulkner not at his office during his oft-stated “Official Office Hours” (9 am - 9 pm) but also walking and engaging with Agent Fitzgerald (of all agents!) on Bureau grounds. They make quite the odd couple; Agent Fitzgerald has charm in spades, and Agent Faulkner could make a birthday party feel like a funeral. They’re the flashy and the fatal. Oil and water.

However, Agent Faulkner would say they’ve had a cordial and honest tête-à-tête throughout the years. Though Faulkner does not entertain the more outlandish theories springing from Agent Fitzgerald’s brilliant and indecipherable mind, he has done his part to support his fellow agent, his fellow trainee, since their graduation in ‘81. Agent Fitzgerald has Faulkner’s trust that he will choose to do what’s right.

“I’m afraid I cannot reveal my confidential proceedings, Agent Fitzgerald. Unless, is this a roundabout confession that it is no longer the case?” Faulkner threads his hands behind his back and slowly steps through the cool, barren earth. He looks back with a tilted head and adds, “I am merely jesting, Agent. If anyone were to be escalated to a higher threat level, they would never know until the time comes.”

Faulkner waits for the other Agent to catch up. When Fitzgerald is close, Faulkner says in his muted undertone, “In unofficial avenues, I have said your services would shine brighter among the specialists of R&D, as we should have more minds on the case of how a disconnected and older model of the USFF can stably time travel. I hope the Science Team will request your assistance and provide stimulation, Agent.”