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fandomweekly2025-09-07 10:19 am
m_findlow) wrote in fandomweekly2025-09-07 10:19 am
Entry tags:
[#272] TRUTH AND LIES (THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH)
Theme Prompt: #272 - Choose your battles
Title: Truth and lies
Fandom: The Department of Truth
Rating/Warnings: M
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Matt doesn't know what the truth is, but he knows he doesn't have all of it.
The movie has only been playing for twenty minutes before Matt reaches across and grabs the remote, switching it off. There doesn't seem to be any point trying to watch it now.
It was supposed to be their date night movie, but his husband is curled up on the sofa with a cushion under his head, pressed up against Matt's leg. Through the long sandy blond locks of hair that sweep across Cole's face, Matt can see his eyes are shut and his breath coming in long, peaceful waves. He'll only be disappointed if Matt watches the rest of the movie without him. Netflix will always be there for another night.
‘Now you sleep,’ Matt mutters quietly under his breath, remarking at the irony of using their small amount of alone time to catch up. Matt has always been the light sleeper of the two of them. He blames it on always having stuff on his mind. There's always another article that needs proofreading, more facts that need checking. “Some of those Washington Post guys are lazy journalists,” he tells Cole. “They pick and choose the facts to fit the narrative they want, or simply don't check if they're true in the first place.”
Matt gets wound up about the truth. That's their job, he insists, to pull back the veil on those corrupt politicians up on Capitol Hill. It's what drew them together in the first place. Matt had skived off work to attend an intelligence conference – the kind that wasn't hard core, classified intelligence, but more for those on the fringes with still enough clout from all the major agencies to be bothered running TED talks on the latest threats to counter-intelligence and destabilisation of government.
Matt loved that stuff, and he was even more thrilled when the man sitting next to him with his takeaway coffee introduced himself as FBI employee Cole Turner, whose field of expertise was the spread of conspiracies. They'd ended up talking for hours about all things QAnon, election interference and the deep state. In Cole Turner Matt had found his soul mate, and the rest had become history. Friends joked that the Washington Post and FBI shouldn't mix, but they made it look easy.
They talk less about those things these days. Matt has always respected that Cole can't say much about the work he is doing with the FBI. He can talk about some of the research, but nothing case specific. Mostly he doesn't bring his work home with him, leaving Matt free to happily rant about the latest Republican scandals or Democratic gerrymandering.
“You should become a journalist,” Cole would tease.
“I would,” Matt would reply, “but then who would keep the rest of them honest?”
Right now he wishes Cole would be honest with him. Something is up at work and Matt doesn't know what, but he knows it's weighing heavily on his husband. He'd gone from sleeping like a log to lying awake for hours on end, just staring at the ceiling. He's always been slim, but now Matt sees the way his cheeks looked just that little bit more hollow, his shoulders sagging just a little bit more.
At first, Matt wonders if the lack of sleep is because of the nightmares coming back. Cole has openly talked about his childhood trauma; of the room full of his classmates who had also believed that the monster with the red pentagram painted on its face, eating babies, was real. Cole calls him Starface. Cole's description of it is enough to send chills down Matt's spine. Small wonder it keeps coming back to haunt him in his dreams. The government quashed it as never having happened, downplaying it as mass hysteria. It drives Cole to keep pursuing conspiracy theories.
Matt has since discarded that theory for his recent sleep disturbances. There are other changes too. Cole used to dress in light coloured jackets and shirts without ties, or ties that hung loose around his neck like a schoolboy skipping class, but now it's sharp black suits and black ties, crisp and perfect. A promotion to a bigger case, Matt assumes, but more stress. Bigger honchos to impress. Enough to stop his husband from getting a good night's sleep.
Matt knows nothing about the fact that he is no longer even working at the FBI, or that he's been hand-picked to descend into something far darker and more disturbing. He doesn't know that just last week Cole had been given a gun and orders to execute two of Matt's Washington Post co-workers to stop them publishing a story that would rewrite history as the world knew it. Cole executed them. They'd been car-jacked by a gang, or so the story had gone out. Matt had been relieved that the Editor in Chief had written the piece himself, not wanting to burden anyone else, still grappling to come to terms with the loss.
Matt has tried to get Cole to open up about what's bothering him, but Cole always brushes it off. Matt doesn't fight him on it, and sometimes Cole calls him out for backing down, as if he wants Matt to fight. Matt doesn't want to fight. Cole can be hard and distant when he wants. Matt prefers the dishevelled, pacified Cole who will melt into his arms when Matt tells him he loves him. All the FBI secrets don't matter at that point. Cole would share if he could without fear that Matt would ever leak it to his colleagues at the Post.
He pulls Cole's glasses gently from his face and places them on the coffee table, resting back against the sofa and letting his fingers trail through the soft blond hair. He'll let Cole sleep for as long as he wants and he won't make a big deal of it in the morning. All that matters is that Cole had somewhere safe and loving to come home to, where evil creatures like Starface can't find him.
Title: Truth and lies
Fandom: The Department of Truth
Rating/Warnings: M
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1,000 words
Summary: Matt doesn't know what the truth is, but he knows he doesn't have all of it.
The movie has only been playing for twenty minutes before Matt reaches across and grabs the remote, switching it off. There doesn't seem to be any point trying to watch it now.
It was supposed to be their date night movie, but his husband is curled up on the sofa with a cushion under his head, pressed up against Matt's leg. Through the long sandy blond locks of hair that sweep across Cole's face, Matt can see his eyes are shut and his breath coming in long, peaceful waves. He'll only be disappointed if Matt watches the rest of the movie without him. Netflix will always be there for another night.
‘Now you sleep,’ Matt mutters quietly under his breath, remarking at the irony of using their small amount of alone time to catch up. Matt has always been the light sleeper of the two of them. He blames it on always having stuff on his mind. There's always another article that needs proofreading, more facts that need checking. “Some of those Washington Post guys are lazy journalists,” he tells Cole. “They pick and choose the facts to fit the narrative they want, or simply don't check if they're true in the first place.”
Matt gets wound up about the truth. That's their job, he insists, to pull back the veil on those corrupt politicians up on Capitol Hill. It's what drew them together in the first place. Matt had skived off work to attend an intelligence conference – the kind that wasn't hard core, classified intelligence, but more for those on the fringes with still enough clout from all the major agencies to be bothered running TED talks on the latest threats to counter-intelligence and destabilisation of government.
Matt loved that stuff, and he was even more thrilled when the man sitting next to him with his takeaway coffee introduced himself as FBI employee Cole Turner, whose field of expertise was the spread of conspiracies. They'd ended up talking for hours about all things QAnon, election interference and the deep state. In Cole Turner Matt had found his soul mate, and the rest had become history. Friends joked that the Washington Post and FBI shouldn't mix, but they made it look easy.
They talk less about those things these days. Matt has always respected that Cole can't say much about the work he is doing with the FBI. He can talk about some of the research, but nothing case specific. Mostly he doesn't bring his work home with him, leaving Matt free to happily rant about the latest Republican scandals or Democratic gerrymandering.
“You should become a journalist,” Cole would tease.
“I would,” Matt would reply, “but then who would keep the rest of them honest?”
Right now he wishes Cole would be honest with him. Something is up at work and Matt doesn't know what, but he knows it's weighing heavily on his husband. He'd gone from sleeping like a log to lying awake for hours on end, just staring at the ceiling. He's always been slim, but now Matt sees the way his cheeks looked just that little bit more hollow, his shoulders sagging just a little bit more.
At first, Matt wonders if the lack of sleep is because of the nightmares coming back. Cole has openly talked about his childhood trauma; of the room full of his classmates who had also believed that the monster with the red pentagram painted on its face, eating babies, was real. Cole calls him Starface. Cole's description of it is enough to send chills down Matt's spine. Small wonder it keeps coming back to haunt him in his dreams. The government quashed it as never having happened, downplaying it as mass hysteria. It drives Cole to keep pursuing conspiracy theories.
Matt has since discarded that theory for his recent sleep disturbances. There are other changes too. Cole used to dress in light coloured jackets and shirts without ties, or ties that hung loose around his neck like a schoolboy skipping class, but now it's sharp black suits and black ties, crisp and perfect. A promotion to a bigger case, Matt assumes, but more stress. Bigger honchos to impress. Enough to stop his husband from getting a good night's sleep.
Matt knows nothing about the fact that he is no longer even working at the FBI, or that he's been hand-picked to descend into something far darker and more disturbing. He doesn't know that just last week Cole had been given a gun and orders to execute two of Matt's Washington Post co-workers to stop them publishing a story that would rewrite history as the world knew it. Cole executed them. They'd been car-jacked by a gang, or so the story had gone out. Matt had been relieved that the Editor in Chief had written the piece himself, not wanting to burden anyone else, still grappling to come to terms with the loss.
Matt has tried to get Cole to open up about what's bothering him, but Cole always brushes it off. Matt doesn't fight him on it, and sometimes Cole calls him out for backing down, as if he wants Matt to fight. Matt doesn't want to fight. Cole can be hard and distant when he wants. Matt prefers the dishevelled, pacified Cole who will melt into his arms when Matt tells him he loves him. All the FBI secrets don't matter at that point. Cole would share if he could without fear that Matt would ever leak it to his colleagues at the Post.
He pulls Cole's glasses gently from his face and places them on the coffee table, resting back against the sofa and letting his fingers trail through the soft blond hair. He'll let Cole sleep for as long as he wants and he won't make a big deal of it in the morning. All that matters is that Cole had somewhere safe and loving to come home to, where evil creatures like Starface can't find him.
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