Written for one of the prompts from tumblr, hotdadsinajaeger: (No K-War AU) Stacker moves to Australia after the death of his wingman, Tamsin, and strikes up a relationship with Herc & Angela Hansen. I just need more polylovin' in this fandom, like a whole lot more.
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Nothing like Tottenham
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Everything in Tottenham reminds him of his sister and her girlfriend (his best friend). So Stacker Pentecost thinks of a place in the world that is nothing like everything he knows and loves. Nothing at all.
He packs a bag and goes.
(Because that's what Tamsin would do, buy three tickets on a whim and drag the Pentecost siblings halfway around the world. With one hand laced with Luna's and the other pushing at his back to get him to kiss a cute native boy for her. Stacker would have done anything she wants him to. Stacker would still do anything she wants him to.)
So he goes to Sydney, Australia instead.
.
Downstairs from his hotel room, Stacker is sitting on a bar stool with a drink in hand, fine scotch that hits the back of his throat like fire and goes down smooth.
"You're not from here."
Stacker turns his head to the voice, and the man leaning against the bar is signalling for another one. He is a scruffy ginger with an easy smile when he gestures to the crisp white dress shirt, and the cufflinks still in place. Stacker may have left the suit jacket up in his hotel room, but he is wearing the vest, tie still knotted right against his throat.
Stacker shakes his head, slow, returning the smile with one of his own. Making a deliberate show of looking the man up and down. Worn jeans tucked carelessly into scuffed up boots, threadbare Henley pushed up to his elbows, and freckles that are scattered like stars on those arms.
For all of Stacker's formality, at least he fits in with the hotel bar's crowd more than the man standing in front of him. "And you don't come here often."
The sharp laugh the other man lets out is a thrill, reminds Stacker nothing of Tottenham, and he loves it just as much as he craves for more.
"Date night." The man explains, holding up the hand that isn't reaching for the beers the bartender has just placed down between them, holds up the same hand where a RAAF class ring sits next to a silver wedding band.
Stacker shakes his head again, smile waning into something more friendly (something that isn't looking like he wants a kiss). "Better get back to her before the missus starts missing you then."
"Trust me, the missus misses these more than she misses me." He lifts the two beers and tilts his head to the side. Stacker follows the gesture and his eyes find their way to a blonde woman who is waving them over with an empty bottle in her outstretched hand. He slants his eyes back to the man, and the man is still facing him with the same easy grin. "Join us, there's room at the table."
She's gorgeous and Stacker must be mad, because he is following her husband back to her with his glass of scotch.
.
She has her golden hair tucked behind one ear, blue eyes trailing over the both of them as they near. Stacker can't quite decipher the way her lips curl, he thinks it could be the fresh beers or the sight of her husband, or hell, even the stranger her husband's brought along.
At the very least, Stacker thinks he can make a friend, or two.
"Who may this be?" She takes one of the bottles from her husband's hand, matching wedding band glinting beneath the dim light in the bar. He smiles at her and sits down in the remaining empty chair. "Call me Stacker, Stacker Pentecost."
"Angela," she replies before she is looking over to her husband, and there, right there, is fond exasperation. "You didn't ask for his name."
There is a short pause where he hides himself behind a sip of his beer and she is rolling her eyes because she should have been able to guess as much.
"You didn't offer yours either."
"No, he didn't." Stacker hides his own smile behind his glass, looking over to the man with a raised brow. And it's just unfair how the Australian is turning that sheepish glance from his wife to Stacker himself, looking up at him from beneath those ginger lashes that are longer than they have any right to be.
"It's Herc, Hercules Hansen."
.
It's date night for the Hansens.
(A year later, Stacker will finally remember to ask them whether it is a habit, for them to go to fancy hotel bars and pick a lonely soul drinking all by themselves. A year later, Herc will still look at him, scandalized in that quiet way of his, and tell him that it's been him, and only ever him, just not in so many words. Angie will throw the both of them a smirk and say that she could see the way Herc glanced over her shoulder at the tall, dark, and handsome man sitting by himself.
And she was almost done her beer anyway.)
"Chuck's got a sitter for the entire night."
Angela states, and it's a sentence that sits, bold, at the centre of their little table where Stacker has his knees pressed against Herc's, her ankles tangled with his own. His cufflinks are gone, and his shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbow. The Hansens have their bottles emptied, and his glass has been ice, then water, for a good while now.
Herc isn't looking at his wife when he asks.
He is looking straight at Stacker with his lips curling like he is looking for a kiss.
"Home?"
Stacker doesn't have a single ring on his fingers to stake his claim. But it's an invitation for one, or two, when Stacker turns his palms up from where they are splayed across the tabletop. He looks at them, and he can't imagine what they see.
"I've got a nice hotel room right upstairs."
Angela's smile takes over her entire face as she takes his hand in hers when she stands from their little table. Her husband does the same, laces their fingers together like date night has always been for three.
"That'll do too, mate."
.
Hercules Hansen is not a cute Aussie boy, but Stacker imagines he kisses like one when he has him crowded back against the headboard of his hotel bed. Angela Hansen is lying on her side, blonde hair splayed against the sheets, hands trailing over the sharp cut of his hips as she pulls the tail ends of his dress shirt from his pants.
Here in Sydney, it is nothing like Tottenham.
He kisses him, and then he kisses her too.
Tamsin would be proud.
XXX Kuro