#fics requests

He's tried to talk to him, like actually have a conversation, but he can't help but to get tongue tied time and time again when he stands near him.

“Who even is he, anyway?” Jamie asks Colin later, when they're sitting on the sofas and judging people.

“One of the exchange guys that came for this semester with Jan Maas, I think he's called Daniel or something like that,” Colin answers, slurring every other word.

Oh, so he's a foreign student, that explains why Jamie has never seen him around before tonight.

“Thanks, Col. You're a great helper.” He pats Colin on his thigh and gets up, determined to go find Dani and flirt with him.

He wanders around the house—whose house was it again? O'Brien's or Bumbercatch?—until he sees Dani going out to the backyard. Jamie smiles a wicked smile and follows him, thinking of what he can say to start up a conversation.

“HEY! TARTT! WANNA PLAY TABOO? WE NEED ONE PERSON MORE!” Reynold yells at the top of his lungs when he sees Jamie at the door's threshold. Suddenly all eyes are on Jamie, including Daniel's. Jamie shrugs, feigning nonchalance, and accepts. “Great! Dani, Tartt will be your partner. Jamie, Dani, Dani, Jamie. Take this card, let's goooo!”

And just like that, Jamie is formally introduced to Dani. That was too easy, he thinks.

He greets Dani with a nod and a half-smile, hiding his sweaty hands inside his jacket pockets. “What's this taboo game about?”

“I have to make you guess the words in these cards without using certain words,” Dani explains, showing Jamie only the back of the cards with the game logo on them. “I warn you, Tartt, I'm very competitive.” He gives him a cheeky smile and Jamie laughs.

“You'd be surprised at how competitive I am,” he says, “Also, just call me Jamie, yeah?” He gives him a wink and Dani cocks a brow, amused.

The game starts and they have a good laugh at all the things people say and do to get their partners to guess the words. When it's finally Dani and Jamie's turn, Dani dramatically cracks his knuckles and winks back at Jamie.

Maybe they got easy cards, maybe Dani is great at this, but Jamie manages to guess correctly all of the words just before their time runs out. When they're declared the winners of this round, Dani pulls Jamie in for a hug, laughing and patting his back in celebration.

“We make a great team, hermano.”

“Yeah, we're the best partners ever,” Jamie agrees, slightly upset when Dani lets go.

They keep playing together until late, and when it's time to say their goodbyes before returning home, Jamie finally musters up the confidence to ask for Dani's number.

“Yep, she’s been doing that for a year now.” Jamie sinks further on his chair, the stranger chuckles quietly. He looks at him out of the corner of his eyes and thinks he has great hair.

“Are you from the bride’s side or the groom’s?” 

Oh, shit. He dreads that question. How do you say that the bride is your ex, the groom is your boss and they started dating like a month after you broke up without sounding like a bitter bitch? You don’t, so he settles for a white lie.

“Groom’s my boss, half the office is here,” he says simply, “and whose side are you on?” Jamie cocks a brow, intrigued; he’d never seen him before today.

“Bride’s, we met at a hair salon when the salon committed a mistake and double booked us at the same time. Been pretty solid ever since.” That’s so on brand for Keeley it takes Jamie all of his restraint to not laugh. “I’m Dani, by the way.” The stranger—Dani, he knows now, sticks his hand out to shake.

“Jamie, nice to meet you.” He smiles, stretching his hand for a second before they hiss at the same time. “You felt that—?”

“The electricity? Yeah, I did.” And it’s not a metaphor for anything; they did feel a spark of electricity when they touched, which isn’t all that uncommon during Fall. 

“Well, anyway, it is nice to meet you,” Jamie says after a beat of silence, “Wanna hang out during the reception?” He asks, more so because he doesn’t need nor want the conversations full of remarks about how sorry they are that it didn't work out with Keeley.

Dani’s a blank canvas, a new start. 

“Sure, I’d love to.” Dani smiles brightly, and something tingles inside Jamie.

When he finally clears up enough space, he sits cross legged and starts browsing Google Maps for any pizza shops nearby. He dials the first one that comes up, places an order, and once he hangs up he immediately looks for some clean clothes in his suitcase and heads to the shower.

He's singing an Ana Barbara song at the top of his lungs by the time he comes out, fully doing the choreography steps.

When he stops singing, he hears someone clap. Dani whips his head around, looking at the window, and notices a man in the next building clapping and smiling at him.

“Nice choreo mate! Are you a dancer?” He says, and Dani blushes a little; he wasn't expecting an audience, especially not one this good-looking.

“Nah, I just like to dance.” He shrugs, coming closer to the window.

“You just moved in, right? You don't look like my old window buddy.” He tilts his head, scrunching up his nose. Dani finds it stupidly cute.

“Yeah, yeah I did. My name's Dani.” He extends his hand to shake, then realizes how dumb it was. The stranger chuckles and sticks out his hand to shake too.

“Nice to meet you, I'm Jamie,” he says, and then they do an air handshake.

They talk through their windows for a moment, until the doorbell rings and Dani remembers the pizza he ordered. He excuses himself with Jamie to greet the delivery guy, and an idea pops inside his head.

“Would you like to eat with me? It's kinda boring to have dinner alone.”

Jamie smiles and it's so bright you'd think he's the morning sun.

“Yeah, sure man. I'll bring some dishes, I know how the first week after moving is.” He chuckles quietly and Dani gives him his flat number, Jamie soon disappears from his view, promising to be there shortly.