A/N: "Games are the most elevated form of investigation" is a quote commonly misattributed to albert einstein. nobody seems to know its actual origin. i usually have to work for weeks or months or even years trying to eke out a fic, but this bit of nonsense just popped into my head out of the ether yesterday. quite frankly, it's insulting. et tu, brain?

AO3 tags: Fluff, Age Difference, as a plot point, thank you craig johnson for bringing the word fucksicle into my life, the fancy title is supposed to help disguise how irredeemable this fic is, how's that working?, spoiler: it's not, i'm blaming yuletide, writing my assignment has made me a little insane(r than usual), I Don't Even Know


As far as Vic was concerned, the great thing about playing pool was that it was fun even if you weren't treating it as foreplay. Adding the foreplay aspect just gave it a sexy extra layer on top of that fun.

She'd been playing—and winning—with a combination of skill and shamelessness since she was fourteen. Most of the time it wasn't even a challenge. Puberty had gifted her with certain tactical advantages and she had no problem making use of them. Men were usually too busy checking out her tits or her ass to notice they were being hustled until it was too late.

Walt, though, he was a challenge. She liked that about him.

He was good, for one thing. Pool was a game that required as much thought and patience as ability. Walt was gifted at both. He also knew how to play a game within the game without losing sight of either. They played the balls on the table and they played each other. When she flirted, he flirted right back. There were the usual 'accidental' touches, the leaning in closer than necessary to say something, the suggestive glances. Vic was better at the trash talk and verbal innuendo but he had a way of looking at her that made her completely forget the words.

So they were evenly matched.

Her one advantage was being adept at hiding how turned on she was. Walt's tells were more obvious than hers and it wasn't just his dick. He wore his jeans loose enough that it often wasn't easy to see what state he was in. But there usually came a point in every game when he had a glazed, distant look about him, and his mouth hung open just enough to show the slick, pink inside of his bottom lip.

That was the point when she knew he was distracted enough for her to beat. From then until the last ball rolled into its pocket, the whole thing was just one, long, hot eye-fuck that made her want to throw him down right there in the middle of the Red Pony.

Walt did win at the pool table on occasion. There was the time she'd worn a dress, thinking it would give her an added advantage, and he'd spent most of the night discreetly running his hands up her bare thighs underneath the skirt. By the end of the game she literally hadn't been able to see straight. In the parking lot he'd pushed her up against the passenger door of the Bronco, slipped his hand between her shaking legs, and kissed her until she came. It took all of thirty seconds.

She'd ignored the shit-eating grin he wore on the drive home because she figured he'd earned it. That hadn't stopped her from wiping it off his face once they got inside.

Tonight she was wearing jeans and a skimpy top she'd gotten in Caspar at the end-of-season sales. In early fall, with temperatures dropping, it wasn't the most practical piece of clothing she could have chosen, but she liked the way she looked in it. Walt seemed to like it, too.

As Vic sank the eight ball with a clean shot, she sent him a wide grin and a wink across the table. He tipped his beer at her, acknowledging the victory with a private little smile. Behind him she could see the three cowboy bros who'd been watching them for most of the game, ostensibly waiting for the table. When Walt took himself off to the bathroom she had a pretty good idea what was about to play out. It wasn't the first time some random assholes felt the need to have an opinion about their relationship. She didn't give a shit but she knew it would bother Walt. And since he'd be an extra minute or two (because she knew that trying to piss with a hard-on was a bitch) she decided to get it over with.

"How does such a hot piece of ass end up with an old dude like that?" said one of them, loud enough for her to hear as she was racking the balls. "Probably can't even get it up anymore."

His buddies laughed the laughs of drunken sycophants. Vic turned and immediately identified the leader of the dumbass pack as a twenty-something blond guy wearing too-tight Wranglers and a giant belt buckle. Buckles were what passed for bling in these parts and she'd developed a hypothesis that there was an inverse relationship between their size and the size of the wearer's penis. Most likely his brain, too.

This one was ugly as hell. She had a full view of its glory thanks to the way the shithead was sitting back in his chair with his legs splayed out like his precious testicles needed one all on their own. Given how tight his jeans looked, they probably would've liked that.

The guy had to be a bronc rider.

She stepped up to him with her hands on her hips. The stance was a habit born of years of wearing belts weighed down by gear. It also pushed her tits farther into his face, which was never a bad thing when dealing with Wyoming's version of frat boys.

"Okay, let's get this over with," she told the table at large. "I've got better things to do tonight."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," blondie said with an exaggerated politeness ruined by a smirk. "I don't know what you mean. I was just having a conversation with my friends here."

"Bullshit. You were talking about me and you wanted me to hear. So now you get to hear me." She smiled and it wasn't polite in the slightest. "First, the fact that you'd refer to a woman as 'a hot piece of ass' in her hearing is one of the many, many reasons why none of you could get dates and had to settle for this little circle jerk tonight."

Three identical expressions of outraged masculinity looked back at her and almost spoiled her intended effect by making her laugh.

"Second," she went on before any of them could rub two brain cells together hard enough to spark actual words, "not that it's any of your business, but he can absolutely get it up. And he can keep it up. But the thing you fucksicles fail to understand is that it wouldn't matter even if he couldn't. Contrary to what your fragile male egos need to believe to get you through the day, women don't need a dick to be satisfied."

Leaning over, hands on the table, and close enough to smell the cheap beer on blondie's breath, she lowered her voice. "Most of us would take a guy with a limp dick who knows how to use his hands and mouth over somebody like you any day. And, yeah, that 'old dude' knows how. His mouth is a national fucking treasure. He once went down on me for over an hour and made me come nine times."

She paused to let that sink in.

"I actually passed out for a few seconds at number nine. Think about that the next time some poor girl is faking it on your dick. If you can even find a girl who'll let you fuck her without charging you for it, that is," she said, then straightened, turned around, and sashayed her way to the bar without looking back.

Walt was leaning against it, arms folded, watching her with one of his tiny smiles.

"That was fun," she said, grinning.

He glanced behind her and raised an eyebrow. "Trouble?"

"Just some little boys in need of schooling."

"Which you gave them, I take it."

"I'm civic-minded that way. Giving back to the community and all."

"Uh huh."

He was so cute standing there and looking at her, all sexy and amused, that she had to grab his face and kiss him. Just a quick, PG-13 rated kiss. The NC-17 stuff would have to wait for a more private setting.

"You ready to go?" she asked as her heels settled back on the floor.

"Yep."

"Then let's get the hell out of here."

She took his hand and lead him through the thinning crowd. "Bye, boys," she called in a saccharine voice as they walked past the bro table.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" Walt asked from behind her and she laughed.

"Maybe later." They made it outside into the star-scattered night and Vic turned to face him, walking backwards with their hands still linked. "First I have some more giving back to the community to do."

[END]