Work Text:
Words of Affirmation
“Y’know, a worker’s boss treating them like shit could be a violation of the NAP.”
Commie advances toward Ancap with her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, just like environmental degradation and child molestation --”
“Exactly,” Ancap says brightly.
Commie is a head taller than her. She stares straight into her furious eyes and smiles.
“Doesn’t stop you lot from doing it,” Commie snaps. “Imagine actually believing in the NAP like a child clinging onto --”
“Yeah.” Ancap infuses her voice with a sing-song, long-suffering sigh. She doesn’t lose her temper in political debates. She isn’t some authoritarian who unironically hinges their personality on the design of the boots they prefer to lick.
Though, she really doesn’t mind seeing said authoritarians do just that. She also doesn’t mind knowing exactly how to get them all hot and bothered.
“I’m just saying,” she says, patiently, “but if someone voluntarily agreed to sign a contract to work for an entrepreneur in exchange for a certain amount of money, and they get paid below the contract, they can get the McNuke. LIbertarianism stands for workers’ rights, you know?”
For one wordless moment, Commie simply opens her mouth. The cogs in her head latch onto Ancap’s words, and a delicious pink flush creeps up her neck.
“Voluntary?” she then splutters. She is right up in Ancap’s face now, perhaps just realising that Ancap hasn’t backed down. Ancap can almost feel the frustrated heat of her breath, taste that addictive oaky scent of her hair and clothes. “You think any starving worker can truly sign any contract voluntarily under your neo-feudalist --”
“Commie, you’re the one worshipping dictators,” Ancap lowers her voice into a lazy drawl and laughs. “I mean, not kinkshaming, of course.”
And there it is. That split second where they are almost nose to nose, and Commie’s breath catches, and uncertainty flickers across her eyes as they linger hotly on Ancap’s face. Ancap’s eyes. Ancap’s jaw, and mouth.
That hairbreadth of a moment before it snaps and Commie pulls away.
“Ugh. Why do I always forget that there’s a reason I found you liberals the most fucking insufferable?”
Liberal. It’s hilarious, really.
Commie doesn’t need to get herself so worked up. Ancap would let her corner her in their dining room, push her face right up close with that righteous indignation and lecture the liberalism right out of her head any time she wants.
Well, actually, let her get herself worked up. Ancap doesn’t like tenants who try to be leeches but she sure as hell enjoys living in Commie’s head rent free. She likes to put on her shiniest dress and upend those dusty tomes that Commie has got piled up in her brain. Sprawl out across the sexy orderliness, and bask in that delicious heat that roars up whenever Commie tries to eject her.
“It’s only natural,” she says sweetly, as Commie storms away.
Gifts
“I don’t fucking accept gifts from you, Ancap.”
Ancap has expected this and she tries not to roll her eyes too obviously.
“Isn’t ‘sharing is caring’ basically what you’re all about?”
“Mutual aid isn’t about accepting scraps from capitalists,” Commie says stiffly.
Typical Commie. Typical Commie and that adorable way she speaks, like a repressed Red Scarf girl reporting her hot roommate to the Red Guards for trying to seduce her because sex is inherently counter-revolutionary.
Ancap pouts. Mocking enough to make Commie’s eyes flash, playful enough to make sure they don’t look away.
“You’ll share things with Ancom’s homeless friends, but not with me?”
She opens the box and unfurls the new velvet shirt she has gotten Commie. God, Commie would look good in it. Almost a shame that she will probably never wear it.
Commie tries to physically push it away without even looking at it.
“You keep buying useless shit that costs a fortune, Ancap. I really --”
“I’m not doing it for you. I just want you to not dress like a fourteen-year-old Soviet cosplayer all the damn time.”
“And where did you get it from?”
“Voluntary workers who agreed on how much they wanted to be paid for.”
Shoving the box at Commie, Ancap unfolds the shirt and holds it up to Commie’s shoulders. The maroon suits her perfectly, bringing out the streaks of auburn in her hair. Just as Ancap had imagined.
“Look at you, Commie.” She winks. “You look hot .”
“Fine.” The word sounds like it’s been squeezed out of Commie like toothpaste. “Thank you, Ancap.”
As Commie straightens, though, a pink flush softens the strong angles of her jaw. “I mean, you didn’t have to, And I’m still not wearing it.”
Ancap just shrugs and hands the shirt over. She watches Commie’s fingers stroke, slow and tentative, across the fabric. Watches the way her hand still lingers idly on it, moments after she has set it down.
Ancap doesn’t blame her. Ancap chooses only the best, and the texture of velvet is absolutely orgasmic .
Commie isn’t going to wear it, of course. No way is she going to wear shiny things made by Ancap’s voluntarily contracted workers where Maoism and Leftcom are already accusing her of being a capitalist roader according to whatever weird logic they go on about all day.
Ancap doesn’t care. Not when she knows that it still hangs in Commie’s wardrobe every day, and Commie gets a good look at it every morning when she gets dressed, maybe slips a shy hand across the fabric sometimes when the velvet catches the light in the right way.
Commie has a penchant for shiny things too, sometimes. Even if she wouldn’t admit it. Ancap would know.
Physical Touch
“Up at noon. As usual.”
Ancap blows Commie a kiss from across the kitchen. “Morning to you too.”
“It’s isn’t morning anymore.”
Commie isn’t wrong. She is already making lunch. Meanwhile, Ancap has just woken up about ten minutes ago.
“Stayed up till five looking at the stock market,” she says airily. “Some of us actually make good use of our savings.”
Ancap pours herself some coffee and looks curiously at the eggs that Commie is cracking into her wok. Commie and her balanced diet. Commie was probably up at five, too, but freshly out of bed, on those morning runs that have her returning glistening with sweat in that tank top that shows off her arms.
Damn. Ancap should have stayed up for that, too. Now, Commie’s arms are covered by those old fashioned long-sleeved shirts she exclusively wears all day.
As Ancap makes her way by, she nudges her shoulder into Commie’s and leans into her arm. Hard enough for her to feel it, light enough to make an impression.
God, she just cannot fucking resist. Maybe someday she won’t have to try keeping her hands off Commie all the fucking time anymore. Maybe someday --
Commie yelps.
Ancap’s nudge, it seems, had caused her to almost drop her spatula. Ancap raises her eyebrows as Commie catches it just in time, awkwardly adjusts her grip, knocks over an empty jar, and curses.
Commie, who runs ten miles at five in the morning and once broke a doorframe with her bare hands.
A tingling smile tugs, traitorously, at the corner of Ancap’s lips.
And then Commie turns and grabs her by the arms and turns her around to face her, and the breath catches in Ancap’s throat. Commie’s thick hair brushes invitingly against the strong lines of her jaw. Her hands are big and warm against Ancap’s body. God .
“Can’t you watch where you’re going?”
Commie is using her adorable Commissar voice, all the while that same adorable flush creeps into her cheeks again.
The smile breaks across Ancap’s lips and burns giddily through her chest. She reaches up, cups Commie’s jaw in one hand and tilts her head toward her.
Commie’s skin is soft and warm against her hands. Ancap imagines that if she just pressed her finger down just a little harder, thumbed that softness on the inside of Commie’s throat, she will be able to feel her heartbeat, thrumming beneath her skin.
Holding Commie’s gaze, she bites her lip.
“What?” she asks, innocent as she can. “Are communists going to legislate on people moving across their own kitchens?”
As she walks away, she counts six whole seconds before Commie’s cooking noises resume again.
Quality Time
It was Ancom’s idea, and qi had probably been high. It was the only reason to justify suggesting the four of them go to the new club that had opened down the street together. Not like Ancap minded, as usual. Nazi had left the conversation -- and the dining table -- muttering under her breath. Commie had looked like she was about to follow suit, before insisting that she had to tag along to keep the two of them safe .
Caring, benevolent statist.
Cute.
Cute.
So here they are, the lights blurring luridly together and the raucous crowd pushing them into each other. Ancom is grinding drunkenly against Ancap’s body while the intensity of Commie’s stare makes heat crawl all over Ancap’s skin.
“Ancom, it’s late. We should go home.”
The jealous friction in Commie’s voice fizzles up Ancap’s spine. Yeah, let her take it out on Ancom. Let her act like her only concern is the time.
Nazi is always bitching about the leftists being up to degenerate shit. Ancap knows otherwise. Ancap knows that Ancom can’t appreciate a good challenge enough to be bothered with repressed authoritarians who get a little too excited in debates about the excludability and rivalrousness about “public goods” and stare a little too flushed when they are, well, owned . Of course they wouldn’t. They don’t appreciate actually earning their shiny things, otherwise they wouldn’t keep trying to make Ancap’s tenants unionize, for fuck’s sake.
And Commie —
Well.
The burn of her gaze in the back of Ancap’s neck is delicious.
Ancap angles her body toward where Commie is standing, arches her back and throws her head back. Lets her hair spill free from her shoulders and catch the colour-wheel of the spinning strobe lights.
Just a treat. Ancap doesn’t believe in welfare. If Commie is going to nothing but eye-fuck her from across the room and rag on Ancom, that’s the most she is going to get.
Ancom rolls qir body against her, and Ancap pulls qim closer, letting qim put qir hands on her ass.
“Ancom.”
There is a bite in Commie’s voice now. As though it’s Ancom she really has issues with.
In any case, Ancom is too drunk to hear. Qi presses her face close, slides qir hips against Ancap’s, and giggles into Ancap’s neck.
“Ancom.”
And there is a hand on her shoulder and Commie is physically tugging Ancap away from qim. Her grip is pretty gentle, considering the murderous look in her eyes, but as she pulls Ancap away, it is enough to send the familiar heat unfurling in Ancap’s chest, twisting at the base of her stomach..
“S-stop pushing people around, T-Tankie!” she hears Ancom whine.
Ancap spins around so she is facing Commie. Twisting Commie’s arm around her waist, she leans in as close as she can and tilts her head up to Commie’s.
“Yeah. Good,” she whispers. “Don’t keep taking it out on Ancom. Manhandle me instead.”
Commie’s arms are around her now and the heat of Commie’s skin is a breath away. Her hair tickles Ancap’s cheek and her gaze pierces straight through her. Ancap isn’t drunk, but god, she is getting light-headed. The lurid lights swirl around them, the music thudding through her like recklessness.
“Dance with me,” she whispers, before she can stop herself.
Her voice comes out breathier than she would have liked it, and she hopes Commie does not catch it over the pounding of the music. She hopes Commie does not feel her heartbeat, fluttering between them like light and lava.
Acts of Service
“Ancap.”
Commie is standing at her door, with that confused half-scowl she gets when she is trying to be nice but cannot bear to not speak like a Red Army commander.
“You’re the only one here whose brain has any semblance of a capacity for numbers. Help me figure something out, will you?”
Ancap glances over, catching the title of the book Commie is holding out. She raises her eyebrows and grins at Commie.
“You think you’ll get to sneak some leftist propaganda into me by praising my math skills? Clever, Commie. Very clever.”
Commie shoves a bunch of equations under her nose, and Ancap pauses. Oh, what the fuck. This is a guy who thinks he’s managed to solve the economic calculation problem. He probably hasn’t. Ancap leans forward and grabs the book from Commie, forcing her to lean in close.
“So,” Commie points. The warm weight of her body presses deliciously into Ancap. “It’s about constructing a model of the economy to predict how much intermediate inputs will be required to produce the outputs.”
“Yeah, that’s why they have these input-output tables.”
“And what the fuck is a technical coefficient?”
“From what it looks like here…”
The smell of Commie’s hair makes it hard to focus on the damn equations. Her breath tickles the shell of Ancap’s ear and the numbers blur on the page. God, Ancap is losing her fucking touch. She doesn’t want to do the fucking math. She wants to spin herself round to face Commie, straddle her lap and rock into her until she forgets her own fucking name. She wants to --
She stares at the page.
“Well, I think it’s to tell how much of one product is needed to produce something else from another industry.”
“Oh.”
Ancap can see the slow comprehension as it dawns on her. The creases unfurl from her brows and her widening eyes ignite her gaze.
Something soft and raw and rough curls in her stomach. It burns through her chest and gathers in a knot at the base of her throat.
“Well,” she manages, twirling a lock of hair between her fingers and staring up at Commie. “Well, I don’t do things for free, you know.”
She watches the slow undulation in Commie’s throat as she swallows.
“How about a kiss?” she whispers.
And then her back is against the wall and Commie’s mouth is against hers, urgent, biting, hot with desire. She twists her fingers in Commie’s luxuriant hair and tugs her closer, closer, closer. Commie’s gorgeous warm hands slide up Ancap’s sides and her arms circle her waist, and Ancap moans, unbidden, into the kiss, wrapping a leg around Commie’s waist to press up into her.
Commie gives her a kiss all right. And then another. And then quite some more. And Ancap thinks, breathlessly, that she cannot quite remember what she had even asked for in the first place.