// Liz // 30 // This is my writing blog, where I post Hetalia fic.
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Hello! I present my piece for @hetalia-20-anniversary-zine, for which I wrote about what I think is my favorite platonic relationship, Netherlands and Belgium! They (and Luxembourg too) truly feel like siblings, and I love that so much. Also they're both just some of my favorite characters overall, so, heh. First time I've ever been part of a zine, and it was fun & came out awesome :) Please check it out!
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The Color of Life
characters: Netherlands (Maarten), Belgium (Manon), Denmark (Søren), Portugal (Simão), Canada (Matthew)
word count: 3257
summary:
There is no guide for what to do when your painting comes alive, let alone for when they start claiming to be your sibling. So, really, all Maarten can do is go along with it.
Also on AO3, plus an extended edition with scenes cut for length :)
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“Hey, Maarten, are you closing up?”
Jolting, Maarten blinked at the voice behind him. He turned on his saddle chair to find Søren leaning against the doorway of his workspace.
“What?” he asked him.
“I’m going home. Can you lock up?”
“Sure,” Maarten replied absently.
Søren shook his head while he looked at the painting behind him. It took up almost the whole wall of the small space and was taller than Maarten.
“Your girlfriend’s almost finished, huh?”
Maarten glared at him. Søren grinned before lifting a hand and ducking out, calling a goodbye.
He was right, the painting was nearing completion. A life-sized portrait of a woman, Maarten had been chipping away at the piece for months between commissioned works. It was an unusual passion project; he gravitated towards landscapes and still-lives, and when he did portraiture for fun, the subjects were mostly men, as Maarten had no real interest in women despite the joking nickname.
But this painting, of this tall woman with her turquoise dress and dimpled cheeks, had demanded to be painted.
Today, Maarten could finish it. He’d spent all afternoon trying to mix the perfect shade of green, creating swatch after swatch with oil paints and never getting what he wanted. Though the differences were minute, he knew the exact shade this woman’s eyes should be.
Now, with the right hue of deep, mossy green on his brush, Maarten bent forward and filled it in.
Still wet, the woman’s eyes glinted in the bright lights. As if she were alive.
“Finally,” Maarten breathed. Taking a step back, he looked at the whole piece.
He’d painted a vague background; rolling hills and a field of red flowers, the same color as her lips. Many shades of brown had gone into her hair, from copper to dark chocolate, and Maarten had studied photographs of stars from the fifties to get her curls just right where they emerged from a green headband.
“What am I going to do with you?” he wondered aloud.
For now, he just tidied his workspace, and left the painting in the shared studio when he locked up to bike home through the summer evening. It’d still be there tomorrow.
.
Although Maarten had strange dreams filled with green eyes and red flowers, he was in a good mood when he arrived at the studio in the morning. On the outskirts of the old city center, it was a small but open space above a bakery, where he picked up a croissant. He held it in his mouth as he unlocked the door.
There were some half-finished projects out; one of Simão’s mosaics, a model Søren had built out of Lego. Trying not to get crumbs anywhere, Maarten checked his phone while he crossed the floor to his workspace.
He looked up, and froze.
“What…”
Behind him, the main door opened. Maarten whirled around to find Søren and Simão entering, chatting amicably.
“Good morning!” Søren greeted.
“Is it?” he asked through clenched teeth. Søren shrugged while Simão narrowed his eyes.
“What’s up?”
“What’s up—look!” Maarten gesticulated at his painting of the mysterious woman—or, rather, the lack of it.
Not the whole painting. The canvas was still there, the hills and flowers, but the woman was gone, as if he hadn’t spent months laboring over details. As if she’d wandered off.
“You painted over your girlfriend?” Simão asked, perplexed. He knew the time Maarten had spent on this. They all did.
“She was here yesterday,” Søren said. And, when Maarten glared, “You don’t think we did anything? I might be an ass, but I’d never touch anyone else’s work!”
Simão nodded vigorously.
“I know.” Maarten’s shoulders sagged. Although a prank would be the easiest explanation—and Søren was prone to those—it didn’t make sense. He knew this was the exact background he’d painted, recognized every brushstroke and shade. The empty spot where the woman had been looked like he’d painted it himself. But it couldn’t be, because the subject couldn’t just have walked off the canvas.
“There’s something here.”
Jumping, all three men looked at the other side of the room, where Matthew stood by the emergency exit. None of them had heard him enter.
Maarten hurried over, and Matthew pointed at several fresh-looking drops of paint on the floor. They led to the door, and were turquoise, the same shade as the woman’s dress. Which hadn’t been wet for weeks.
Frowning, Maarten opened the door.
He emerged onto the roof of a neighboring building, looking out over the city. Immediately, he spotted her. Her hair really was all those shades of brown, glinting gold in the sunlight and moving in the breeze. The turquoise dress rippled around her knees. She turned to Maarten, who had frozen in shock.
“You said you didn’t have a model!” Søren said accusingly behind him, only to be shushed by Matthew.
“Who… Are you?” Maarten asked, slowly stepping forward. His heart beat in his throat.
The woman, the woman he had painted and who was now real, smiled with those red lips. One cheek dimpled just as in the painting. She had freckles. Maarten feared he knew the position of every single one. They were very annoying to render in oil paint.
“It’s good to see you,” she breathed.
“Wh-why are you Belgian?” Maarten blurted. The accent was unmistakable.
The woman pursed her lips and put her hands on her hips, which made Maarten feel like a boy getting scolded.
“I mean—” He hadn’t been thinking she was Belgian when he painted her. It seemed oddly specific.
Of course, that wasn’t the most pertinent question, but it was easier to address than how his painting had come alive.
“I’m Maarten,” he offered, unsure what else to say.
“Maarten? That’s possible.” She shook her head but continued, “I’m Manon, then.”
“You are.” He’d never told anyone, but she’d been Manon from the first brushstroke. “I might’ve… Created you.”
“Perhaps.” Manon stepped forward. Touched his shoulder.
She felt sun-warmed and real, and smelled sweet rather than like paint. Like pastries, or chocolate. Her eyes were just as green as he’d painted them last night. Eyes that green were rare. In fact, the only time he’d come across that exact shade was… On himself.
“Or, maybe,” she continued, red lips curling, “I should already have been here, Netherlands.”
That might be scarier—and was she really calling him Netherlands because he wasn’t Belgian?
Maarten quickly touched the hand clasping his shoulder, meeting her eye.
“I guess we’ll find out,” he said, because whoever, whatever she was, she was his responsibility. Good thing that painting hadn’t been commissioned. It’d be hard to explain how a Belgian woman had escaped from the canvas.
Why was she Belgian, though?
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There was no guide for what to do when your artwork came alive.
Simão was telling Søren and Matthew about some myth when Maarten took the woman inside. Manon blinked at the three men as if trying to remember who they were. Rather than lingering there, they went over to her painting. She ghosted her fingertips over the brushstrokes.
“Do you remember being… There?” Maarten asked. The field of flowers looked endless without her.
“Not exactly. But there’s something.” She wrapped her arms around herself, staring into the middle distance. “I remember you. I remember… It’s hard to say. But somehow, you’ve always been there.”
Did that mean she’d already existed somewhere and Maarten had summoned her here? Was there a hole in reality where she had been? He hadn’t anticipated this, going into art.
“I would’ve liked to see the painting. You’re a professional artist?”
“I am. Spent a long time working in sales, but I make enough from art now.”
“Tiens, who’d have guessed that, after you immediately started selling Spain weapons during the Twelve Years’ Truce!”
“I needed money!” Maarten replied, feeling a well-worn irritation wash over him. Manon’s eyes widened while he blinked in confusion. For a moment, he envisioned her in a Golden Age noblewoman’s getup, hair hidden under an elaborate headpiece, as if he’d painted her that way—he swore he could smell the ingredients he would’ve used to make his oil paints back then. He probably would have used something toxic in search of the right pigment for her eyes.
“You’re still here,” she said now. “And I’m here too. And I think we need to figure out why.”
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Maarten ended up taking her home, through Delft on the back of his bike. She was silent, one arm wrapped around his middle.
“Are you alright?” he asked her when they stopped in front of his houseboat.
“It’s different,” she shrugged, “but I feel like it’s been more different before.” Then, not elaborating on that cryptic statement, she seemed to notice where they were. “Maarten, how fitting! You’ve always been fond of sailing.”
“Have I?” He had been, but she couldn’t know.
She smiled. “Yes.”
“Well, this boat isn’t going anywhere.” He gestured her down the gangway and inside. “You can stay here for now.”
“For free?” she joked.
“You’re my responsibility.”
Maarten watched her walk around his living room, water gently lapping at the walls. She looked at his souvenirs, books and flowers, and he wondered if she recognized any of it.
“Do you want to go to Belgium?” he asked her, as she was inspecting his guidebooks. He didn’t have one about Belgium; it always seemed unnecessary.
Looking up, Manon slowly nodded.
“Okay. We can take the train to Antwerp, I guess?” Part of Maarten balked at the thought of spending money on an unnecessary train ride, but it might help them figure out who Manon was—who she seemed to think he was. He took out his phone to check for tickets.
Manon sat down on the couch next to him and watched curiously.
“56 euros…” he muttered. “Times two.” He should’ve painted her some cash. Sure, he could afford it. That didn’t mean he enjoyed it. Manon elbowed him teasingly.
“Money must roll,” she said, in an exaggerated Dutch accent. Maarten was startled into laughter.
He had to put in their names, and used his own surname for her; after all, they looked like they could be related. Hopefully, no one would ask for Manon’s passport.
“Maarten Koopman,” she read. “Merchant? Oh, I’ve told you, that’s too on the nose a surname!”
“I can’t help my dad’s surname.”
“You have parents!” Manon exclaimed.
“Everyone has those—”
“Any siblings?”
“I—” He looked at her. “No.”
“Well, I think that might have changed.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“Maarten, I came out of a painting. If I say I’m your sister, I’m your sister.”
“Can I be the elder sibling?” he asked her, and she bopped him on the head.
Later, after they ate dinner together, Manon had to borrow Maarten’s clothes to sleep in. He promised to take her into the city for clothes, and he drifted off trying to figure out his budget for that. His dreams were full of green eyes.
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The next day consisted mostly of Manon charming people with her accent and her easy smiles as they shopped. She insisted on buying more red lipstick, although she seemed overwhelmed by the many choices. Maarten tried to leave her to get undergarments alone, but she seemed to delight in teasing him about his awkwardness so he stubbornly stuck by her. It did feel like being pestered by a sibling, at least if Matthew’s tales about his brother were to be believed.
All three men texted to ask for updates, but Maarten didn’t have much to say, other than they were going to Antwerp tomorrow. In fact, he picked up a little guidebook to the city at the tourist shop and looked through it while Manon tried on clothes.
Maarten thought they were done when she found some nice pieces, but then she started recounting what she would need for her hair, which he knew because he’d done all that research. If only he’d given her a pixie cut. She could have used his hair gel instead.
“You’re going to sink my house with all this,” he complained, carrying some of her bags.
“If your big head hasn’t sunk it, nothing will!” she said cheerily. Maarten sent a mental apology to Matthew for every time he dismissed his complaining about his brother’s teasing.
.
The train ride to Antwerp went smoothly; no one asked for Manon’s ID and the trains all ran on time. The only odd thing was her suddenly sitting up straight and declaring, “We’re in Belgium now,” which was, as far as Google Maps was concerned, correct, but there was no way she could have known. Maarten decided to just accept it.
This continued in Antwerp, where she seemed more at home than in Delft. He followed her through back alleys until they suddenly emerged onto a busy square bordered by tall, narrow houses; the whole thing looked extremely, indefinably, Belgian.
“It’s different,” Manon said once more, “but it’s also the same.” She looked up at the huge building on the other side of the square, where many flags were flying. The wind carried the smell of the harbor.
Maarten rifled through his guidebook to find out what they were looking at, but he needn’t have bothered.
“City hall,” Manon told him. “It was quite new when you were first here.”
There was a flash before Maarten’s eyes, reminding him of a memory that couldn’t be his. The flags and the statue on the square weren’t there, and he felt exhausted. Manon was wearing that Golden Age dress and standing next to a man who looked a lot like Simão, who was calling Maarten the wrong thing.
“It’s not Holland anymore,” Maarten muttered, squinting against the sun.
“He never did learn,” Manon said brightly. She linked their arms.
Viciously, Maarten thought that he had absolutely learned, he just couldn’t be bothered, but the memory had faded and it stopped making sense again.
“Do you think we can go inside?” Manon was asking.
They couldn’t, and maybe that was for the best. Maarten felt overwhelmed. He kept getting flashes of memories, contextless and not all of them lining up with the seventeenth-century timeline. He read in his guidebook that the Twelve Years’ Truce was signed in this building. Some version of him had been there, but had also been here centuries before and after. Quite often with Manon. He remembered sailing the Scheldt on many ships, meeting Manon and being envious of her, then pitying her. They wandered slowly, Manon evidently lost in thought as well.
Eventually, they made it to the river, next to part of an old fortress that was crawling with tourists.
On some instinct, Maarten wrapped an arm around Manon’s shoulders. She leaned into him, and he imagined that was part of being her brother too.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
A large ship passed by. Maarten had the distinct impression that it shouldn’t have fit, but the Scheldt was wider than he thought. He’d actually been to Antwerp before, but that was quite some time ago, so he had no idea why he thought that. Well, except…
“Are these… Past lives, or something?”
“No,” Manon said softly. “No, just one, although I’ve had many names.” She glanced up with a mischievous smile. “You’ve only had two, yet everyone still got it wrong, Holland.”
“Flanders,” he shot back. She stuck her tongue out. He watched her for a moment, trying to overlay all of those versions of her in his head onto this tall woman with her sparkling eyes and red lipstick. If he had painted her in a Renaissance dress, would she have stepped out speaking archaic Dutch and calling him Holland? Or would she have been the same person in a cumbersome dress? He didn’t create her, he thought. She’d been somewhere.
In a way, that was reassuring. Maarten had no idea what he’d do given the power to create whole human beings, although he could imagine the guys’ crude suggestions.
The man in those memories really looked a lot like Simão. What did that mean?
“Netherlands!” Manon snapped her fingers at him. “Maarten. Sorry.”
“Netherlands is… Also fine.” It didn’t make sense, but it felt right. “As long as it’s not Holland.”
Suddenly, Manon wrapped both arms around him. He slowly embraced her, and for a long moment, they just stood there in the sun.
“You’ve said that thing before,” Maarten mumbled. “That if you say you’re my sister, you are.”
“It’s still true.”
“Yes.” It was true. “That’ll be hard to explain to my mother.”
She hiccupped a laugh, then suddenly disentangled herself and said, “Well, we should go and eat some fries!”
“What?”
“I’m Belgian, aren’t I?”
“Belgium,” he said.
“Belgium,” she agreed with a smile.
They had fries for lunch, and Manon had many opinions.
When they crossed the border again, Maarten felt something too. A frisson at the back of his mind, chattering and buzzing like a living thing. Like the Netherlands, maybe, its way-too-many people all living their lives.
It felt right.
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“How was your excursion?” Søren asked when Maarten entered the studio. “And where’s your girlfriend?”
“Sister.”
“That’s not how that works, dude.”
“Turns out it does. Very informative excursion. Manon will be by later.”
Delft wasn’t a hugely important city when it came to history with Belgium, but she might have been here in that other life, and something might stir in her memory. Maybe something that could tell her if they should somehow be those people again. If there were others. Maarten looked at Søren, who grinned.
“If she’s your sister, can I ask her on a date?” he joked—and a flash of memory jumped into Maarten’s head.
“I’ve said before, you’re free to ask, but if she laughs in your face, that’s on you.”
“Have you said that before?” Søren asked faintly as Maarten turned to his studio space, where the empty canvas was still up. “Matt, has he said that before?”
“Could be, sounds familiar,” Matthew replied.
Maarten started doing some sketches for a commission he’d received. With his other hand, he idly doodled on a notepad, which was a habit. Some vague scribbles usually emerged. Although he could use both hands equally well, it took a lot of concentration to actually draw with both.
When Manon came in, it startled him. Belgium? It felt weird to call a person that.
“Why did Søren ask if I like chocolate? Just because I’m—oh, that’s eerie!”
Maarten looked down at his notepad, which was now filled with… Eyes. He picked it up. Manon tilted her head. Some of the eyes were partially obscured by the thin lines of sketched hair. It was a little eerie, but…
Swiveling, Maarten grabbed the final swatch he’d done for Manon’s eye color, and held it next to the sketches.
“Oh,” Manon breathed.
Hands shaking slightly, Maarten flipped the page over.
The eyes belonged to a young man, he quickly decided—or already knew—with the same upturned nose as Manon and the same arched eyebrows as Maarten, one hidden behind wavy hair.
“I’m never going to make any money if this continues,” he sighed, because he could feel in his soul that he would have to paint this man and his waistcoat and his green eyes.
“That’s never happened, Maarten.”
They both stared at the sketch as if willing the man to just step out.
“Well,” Manon said, “I do feel more like a middle child.”
anon's redundant now since you can probably figure out who i am, but—! 🍑 i would like to order #50 + nedcan for the 75 date fics! (^_-) hehe–
50. flea market
I reiterate: HELL YEAH NEDCAN! (^o^) Took a while, sorry! Ned seems like he'd be absolutely insufferable at flea markets lmao, so this is mostly Can being both amused and exasperated, but it's ok, they're in love. Also, for some reason it's 2002. I'm collecting NedCan through the decades!
Anyway, being Dutch, one of my main associations with flea markets is King's Day (in 2002 it would've still been Queen's Day, we didn't have a king then) during which there are flea markets all across the country. (Don't really know why, I guess we just like making money.) I thought it'd be fun to introduce Canada to that,,, onslaught of orange.
And as always: Maarten is Ned and Matthew is Can!
Send me a ship & a number and I'll write a fic based on that date idea
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“Well, it’s certainly… Colourful.” Matthew tilted his head while Maarten huffed a laugh at his side.
“Very diplomatic,” the man told him. He gently tugged on Matthew’s arm to get him out of the way of a family passing through. The children were both wearing paper crowns. At least they weren’t orange.
“Isn’t it strange to celebrate the Queen’s birthday by selling your old junk?”
“It’s not just junk,” Maarten said. “It’s also not actually her birthday, but that’s neither here nor there.”
Matthew seriously doubted that first part. They were out in the center of what was now also his hometown, had been for just a few months after he’d finally made the choice to come over from Canada to the Netherlands. It was an overcast April day, and what seemed like every person was out, many dressed in orange, walking in droves along many stalls and blanket set up in the streets, where yet more people were selling—well, junk. A little girl was playing a violin for donations nearby, and across the water that must have once been part of the town’s moat, Matthew could see even more stalls, more people. He felt very much like a foreigner at that moment.
Maarten rubbed his hands together, looking uncharacteristically gleeful.
“I had no idea you were such a monarchist,” Matthew joked, following him when he walked into the fray. In a way, he was from a kingdom as well, but Queen Elizabeth always seemed very distant compared to whatever this was.
Maarten just looked down at him, unimpressed. He grinned. It was still amazing that they could do that now. Just… Look at each other. Touch each other. Neither of them was huge on PDA, but Matthew was still a little gleeful that he could reach out and touch his boyfriend after having the entire Atlantic Ocean between them for years.
Some of Maarten’s friends, many of whom had quickly become Matthew’s friends, too, thought it was very fitting to compare the two of them to the Crown Prince and his new wife, who’d just married a month or two ago, right as Matthew had settled in in Maarten’s small hometown. She had come from South America, though. And Maarten was much handsomer than Prince Willem-Alexander.
Now, though, when Matthew snapped out of his thoughts and his mindless shuffling along with the crowd, the man was not at his side anymore. Blinking, he stopped. Turned around.
Well, good thing Maarten was very tall even by Dutch standards; it was easy to spot him towering over one of the blankets a few meters back. Apologizing, Matthew made his way back to him. He was crouched down when he got there, holding—a video game? Matthew rested his hand on his shoulder, getting a brief glance up and a small smile, before Maarten continued to haggle in Dutch that was just a bit too rapid to fully understand. The blanket was full of random stuff, clothes and board games and books, and the woman sitting behind it in a folding chair seemed in high spirits. She grinned when Maarten took out his wallet and handed over some coins. He pocketed the game and rose.
“Good deal,” he told Matthew.
“Maarten, we don’t have a game console.”
“No, what we got, is resale value.” His green eyes brightened. “People don’t know what they got, Matt. You know they let their kids set the prices sometimes? Incredible!”
“Oh my god, is this how you feel when I talk about hockey? Ice hockey,” Matthew corrected himself immediately. They’d gotten into several (very petty) arguments over whether field hockey or ice hockey was the real hockey, both having played one of those, and had agreed to just call both by their full names in the end.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maarten replied guilelessly. He smiled when Matthew snorted. “Come on, we’ve just gotten started. I’ll buy you a stroopwafel, there’s always a stall near the bridge that does them.”
It took them over forty minutes to get to the bridge in question, rather than the two it would normally take.
Maarten’s eye kept being caught by what seemed like random shit to Matthew. But, after the item was bought, he’d drone off an encyclopedia entry’s worth of trivia about every single purchase, first and foremost its worth in euros. How he’d already memorized all of that was a mystery, but much of his mind was.
“And just think, if I go to Belgium to sell, I won’t even have to account for conversion rates now!” Maarten would say. Or, “I have a contact in Germany that would pay good money for this, for sure.”
Matthew would probably get bored if it wasn’t so entertaining to watch him haggle, trying to understand his rapid speech. He’d seen him trying to sell his art to people (it’s how they met) but this was almost the opposite of that, and it was fascinating. One time, Maarten even got close to raising his voice at a man, arguing that he was taking advantage of people who didn’t quite get the conversion rate from the old Dutch guilders to the new European currency. Matthew, who was still doing mental maths with Canadian dollars and euros, tuned him out, not needing an additional currency in the mix. The man was selling jewelry, surely not interesting to Maarten.
He could smell the stroopwafel stand. When he gently tugged on Maarten’s arm, his boyfriend looked at him, and his gaze softened. He let Matthew pull him away from the man’s stand.
“I’ve never seen you so passionate,” Matthew told him.
“That’s definitely not true.” Maarten adjusted the bag he’d pulled out of the pocket of his windbreaker, already quite filled.
“Not like this,” Matthew amended. “About other things than…” Here, he gestured vaguely, not wanting to say sex with so many people around.
“You?” Maarten finished, and Matthew ducked his head, his face heating. That was another way to put it.
They joined the small line for the stroopwafel stall, Maarten counting his euros. Still brand new in circulation, the coins were all shiny, the bills bright and colourful.
“Well, you know, my two great loves,” the man mumbled. Matthew saw colour on his cheeks too, and smiled, touching his arm again. Silently, he took the bag of random stuff from him. He shouldered it himself, wondering how much profit he was now carrying.
Maarten bought them both stroopwafels and didn’t even grumble at the price.
Across the bridge, there were yet more people. As they entered the old city centre, some of the shops there had put their wares out front for the occasion. Predictably, Maarten avoided those stalls, although he never stopped Matthew from looking at anything. More children were playing various instruments interspersed throughout, and some had set up little games that looked absolutely bizarre to Matthew. He watched people try to eat a slice of cake suspended on a string above their heads with their arms behind their backs while Maarten haggled over a woman’s handbag next to him, again resting his hand on his shoulder when he crouched. Absently, he ran his fingertips over the warm skin of his neck.
A child with a flute was playing quite a nice rendition of Can’t Get You Out of My Head by Kylie Minogue, which didn’t seem like it should be possible, so Matthew dug out his own wallet and gave her… He checked her donation box. One euro seemed appropriate.
“That’s two guilders,” Maarten informed him, standing up.
“And?”
“I was lucky to get a quarter as a kid,” he said dryly.
“Maybe you were just bad—wait, you played an instrument?”
“We were great! I played the clarinet for a while. Manon played the sax, and Noah played the flute, actually.”
Matthew knew that his siblings played instruments, but this was a new revelation about Maarten. He tried to picture the three of them dressed up in orange, Maarten already with his signature spiky hair and serious expression, playing folk songs for a crowd.
“That sounds like… An interesting ensemble,” he mused.
Maarten pointed at him threateningly, though humour danced in his eyes, and it was definitely undercut by the dainty, beaded bag dangling from his forearm. Matthew laughed out loud, grabbing his wrist.
“Do you still have a clarinet?” A shake of his head. “Maybe there’s one for sale!”
That got him a disgusted look, which… Yeah, you probably shouldn’t buy something you put in your mouth second-hand. Matthew blinked and then smirked, which changed the look to bemused.
“Guess it makes sense,” he said. And, before he could overthink it, “You are good with your mouth.”
“Well, actually, it’s more about the fingering,” Maarten replied, quirking his brows, and then he turned while Matthew blushed through his startled laughter.
“You’re good at that too!” he called as he hurried after him, and he saw Maarten’s shoulders jump with amusement.
In the town market square, there were more bizarre games for children, and a little stage holding a band playing Dutch classics. Matthew was happy that he could understand most of the lyrics easily. When he told Maarten this, the man smiled widely enough to tug at his eyes.
“We’ll get you speaking the local dialect next—ooh!” He rushed off when he spotted some more junk of value.
Fondness bloomed under Matthew’s skin. There was no way he could have been prepared for all of Maarten’s odd quirks, like this fascination with flea market junk, before he came to live with him. It had not yet gotten old to get the chance to learn, to let Maarten learn his little idiosyncrasies in return. Those everyday things that didn’t (couldn’t, in a way) come up when they talked online or over the phone, or during the relatively short visits they’d managed since they met in New York, where neither of them knew anything.
Still— “Maarten, are you buying a chair?”
“Uh… No?”
The salesman behind the chair crossed his arms.
“How are you getting a chair home? We don’t have a car and I’m not carrying it,” Matthew said, trying not to laugh at Maarten’s expression. He really hadn’t thought of that, had he? He was usually all about thinking things through, multiple times. It really was a whole new side to him.
“But it’s—”
“No to the chair. I’m serious.”
“…Fine.”
They wandered on.
A bit of sunlight worked its way through the clouds, highlighting once again just how much orange there was. An alley led them to the square in front of the local theatre, where some people were putting on a comedic re-enactment of the Royal Wedding on an outdoor stage. Further down the way, the fire department had set up shop and was doing demonstrations.
Leaving Maarten admiring (the low price of) some ornamental boxes, Matthew went over, picking up a pamphlet about joining the volunteer firefighters. He’d done that back in Canada, and it had been a point of pride for him. He stubbornly kept speaking Dutch when the man running the stand heard his accent and tried to switch to English; he eventually caught on.
Along the side of the square, there were some stalls dedicated to people selling their art, and Matthew, on his way back to where Maarten was, admired paintings and yarn crafts and jewelry.
He stopped at the jewelry stand, hoisting Maarten’s bag of stuff up on his shoulder as something caught his eye. It only did because the small stone caught the sunlight and was somehow the exact colour of Maarten’s eyes when they lit up like they’d been doing all day. A bright, mossy green shot through with gold, set into a gold band. The woman behind the stall smiled genially and gestured to go ahead when Matthew questioningly reached out. He plucked the ring from among some others, turning it in the sunlight.
“Did you make this?” he asked the woman, who nodded. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you!”
Glancing over at where Maarten was picking up his new box, whatever that was, Matthew considered buying the ring. It felt incredibly sappy, really. He could see Maarten’s eyes every day now, from the moment he woke in the same bed. He didn’t need some gemstone to remind him. He wore no other rings, anyway; the only gold on him was the frame of his glasses.
Just as he was about to put the ring back, Maarten walked up next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder this time.
“What’d you find?” he asked curiously, looking at the stall. Wow, the stone really was the exact same colour as his eyes. Dropping the ring in the palm of his hand, Matthew showed him.
The man set his wooden box down on the ground between them to take the small piece of jewelry, holding it carefully between two fingers. He hummed appreciatively; Maarten always respected art, no matter what people thought it was worth. Having seen him argue with a teenager over the price of a discman today, it stood out even more to Matthew, endearing him to Maarten further.
“It’s… The colour of your eyes,” Matthew told him, voice low.
“Is it really?” Maarten wet his lips. “Does it fit?”
“Oh, I—”
Maarten swiftly grasped Matthew’s left hand and parted his lips in concentration as he slid the ring on to his ring finger. Matthew swallowed hard. It fit perfectly.
When he was done, Maarten just held his hand and stared down at it, thumbs stroking the skin.
“Should have known,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“I should’ve known you’d find the exact thing I’d been looking for this whole time.” He met Matthew’s eye, and Matthew’s heart skipped a beat at the intensity of that green gaze. “Right. I’m getting you this. How much?” he asked the woman, who smiled an indulgent smile. He was still holding Matthew’s hand with one of his.
“Fifty euros.”
“Only fifty? You got your conversion rates right? That’s a hundred guilders—”
“I’m sure,” she interrupted. “Well, perhaps you’ll need another one soon?”
“Ah, I see!” Maarten said, amused. Then, he blanched. “Matt?”
“Yes,” Matthew said, in reply to both that question and the one he hadn’t actually asked.
“You can always come by my studio,” the woman said brightly. “I also do engravings!”
Maarten pressed a crisp fifty-euro bill into her hand, picked up his box, and then dragged Matthew away.
“Matt—” he started, halfway behind the stage where the fake Royal Wedding was happening. ‘Princess Máxima’ was crying exaggeratedly.
“Yes,” Matthew repeated, turning his hand so his new ring caught the light. “You didn’t even need to get a ring.”
“I wanted to… Do it right.” Maarten huffed. “And I didn’t even ask you. Go figure.”
“You still can. Or I can ask, if you prefer.”
Though Matthew was half-joking, Maarten opened and closed his mouth, then laughed helplessly, ducking his head as a blush stole over his sharp features.
“Yes,” he breathed softly.
Matthew took the box from him and set it on the ground, using the opportunity to get down on one knee. He swept blond curls out of his face and adjusted his glasses, lamenting that he wasn’t wearing anything nicer than a denim jacket. Still, if he was going to ask, he was going to do it the way he’d always envisioned he would. Almost.
“Maarten van Dijk, all I have is this bag of random junk you bought—”
“It’s got value!”
“I’m trying to propose to you!” Matthew held the canvas bag up, and despite the absurdity of the situation, found that his heart was pounding, his hands shaky. “Maarten, will you marry me?”
“You’re just doing all the things I wanted to do,” Maarten said, grabbing his bag. “Yes, Matthew, I will. I would love to.”
In the exact moment Matthew got back up and threw his arms around him, the crowd started applauding for the wedding sketch, and they both laughed, a little hysterically.
“I had a plan, Matt,” Maarten complained, pressing his lips against his cheek. “And none of it included random junk or an audience.”
“So you admit it’s junk!” Matthew said triumphantly, pulling back just to gloat. Maarten’s eyes narrowed, which made him laugh before quickly kissing him.
Voice dangerously low, Maarten asked, “You know we’re only halfway through the flea market, right?”
“Wh— Are you serious?”
“Matt, I have only just begun.” He smirked. “It won’t be junk when it pays for our wedding.”
That made a little thrill roll through Matthew. Maarten’s eyes were still soft, and he turned his face into Matthew’s hand when he touched his cheek.
“Well, alright, lead the way,” Matthew told him. “Maybe we can hire one of those kids to do the music, huh?”
“I’m not paying them more than a quarter.”
Laughing, Matthew picked up his mysterious box and followed Maarten back into the orange crowd. He was going to ban that colour at the wedding in question, he decided.
“Ooh!” Maarten said, and Matthew grinned warmly as he started to haggle with an old lady over a tiny book of poems he found among some debris on a blanket. Maarten glanced up and smiled back.
if you're up for it maybe #7 from your spotify with whatever iceland ship fits best? (bonus points for denmark x iceland or sweden x iceland)
Thank you, sorry this took so long! There are actually only 2 possible Nordic ships I've never really written on their own, and Sve/Ice is one of them, so let's change that! (You will never guess what the other one is lol) Actually, there's hints of both Den/Ice and Sve/Ice in here, so feel free to interpret the Denmark situation how you wish, ha :)
Anyway, since I did another request with this song, this is a sequel to that other fic! (And I wanted to publish them close together.) It doesn't matter beyond the fact that Ice does magic and that Nor is dead though. (That's not a spoiler, it's literally in the summary /o\) So this one has basically nothing to do with the song and is more imagining what happens afterwards! No one else important dies! Featuring such things as two guys on one horse, romantically tense shaving, and campfire chats ;) There's definitely a vaguely Western-y flavor to it, which I think is pretty neat. Happy new year!
Of course: Egill is Iceland, Torbjörn is Sweden and Søren is Denmark! Norway is mentioned, he's Einar. And Liechtenstein and Switzerland have cameos, as Erika and Baron Zwingli
Send a number 1-100 and a ship/character and I'll write something inspired by the corresponding song from my most listened of 2025 :)
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Sure As The Dawn
Desperate to get away, Egill crosses the country with two men he barely knows, and gets to know them very well. One in particular.
.
“Where’s your brother?”
Egill feared he’d be hearing those words a lot. He shook his head and the man standing in front of the porch, who had asked the question, frowned, his dark eyebrows drawing together beneath his violently red hat. Egill knew he must have met him before when he was much younger and the man would have been just a boy himself, but didn’t recall his name. Einar would have known. They were about the same age, and Einar always kept track of the many people they met.
“What? What happened?” the man asked. “I ain’t never seen you without him. And he said to meet—”
“What?” he repeated, stupidly. Egill did not have the patience for this right now. He’d just lost his brother, the stupid idiot, he told him it was a bad idea to linger in that stupid town—
“Søren, leave the man alone,” another voice interrupted before the stupid man—Søren, then—could say anything else. His companion came around a corner of the cabin Egill had spent the night at, wiping his hands on his large coat. Egill had thought Søren was tall, even from up on the porch looking down, but this man dwarfed him. He was a lot broader, and his jaw was sharp.
He took his hat off, revealing piercing blue eyes over narrow glasses.
“Sorry to hear about Einar,” he rumbled.
Clenching his jaw, Egill nodded.
The two men climbed up on the porch, and Egill sat silently as they went inside. He’d been trying to write in his journal, but couldn’t really find the words to describe what had transpired. Einar had told him to go here if something bad happened to him, to find this cabin hidden near an abandoned mine in the mountains near Kai’s Bend, and to wait for people he could trust, but he had no idea what to do now.
Heavy footsteps on the wood, stopping next to him.
“Didn’t mention my name,” said the tall man, now just in his shirt and vest, a necktie tucked into it. “’M Torbjörn. Søren’s my cousin.”
“I’m Egill,” Egill replied, doodling in the margins of his journal. He may already know that.
“You want some food? Be happy to share.”
Egill looked up at him, sighing. Though he took some of his and Einar’s supply, he had barely eaten anything since he took the stagecoach out of that stupid town, almost three days ago; he had seen smoke rising behind him as he traveled.
“I’d like that.” He closed his journal. Torbjörn held the door open to let him in, which almost got a smile out of him.
The food turned out to be some dried meat, crackers, and some vegetables that the men must have foraged on the way up the mountain, which Søren was warming on the small stove. It smelled good. The man, now sans hat, glanced over at Egill as he sat, but said nothing for the moment. Torbjörn sat down as well, handing him a strip of dried meat. Egill nibbled on it.
“Coffee,” Søren said, and started digging in a bag. “Torbjörn, did—”
“Other one,” he said, without even looking. This time, Egill did smile, tiredly.
Søren unearthed the tin he was looking for triumphantly.
“You want some?” he asked Egill.
“Yes, please.”
Egill was silent as they ate, while the two men talked casually about what they’d seen on the way up here, seemingly with each other although they were obviously both there at the time. He mostly ignored them, but it was nice to have some noise, Egill would admit. It made it easier to drown out his thoughts.
“Egill?” Torbjörn asked, and he blinked at the man over his empty cup.
“Sorry?”
“Was asking where you’re going now.”
“I don’t—Einar usually made the plans.”
“Hm.”
Søren stood to go back to his pack and pulled out a map. Egil had to hastily lift his plate when he went to spread the paper on the table. It was a map of the whole country, and so the old mine wasn’t marked, but the man pointed.
“We’re ‘round here. Torbjörn and I, we do this loop ‘round the whole peninsula, findin’ work along the way. You and your brother have a set itinerary like that?”
“Not really.” The country was large, but Egill felt like it was closing in on him, now. Like it would never be the same, from the mountains all the way down to the beaches in the south.
“I need to leave,” he mumbled, his throat closing up. “I can’t—”
“The country?” Søren asked. “We know some people down in Havenbridge, brothers. They’ll get you on a boat anywhere you’d like.”
Egill found the city way on the southern point of the peninsula. It was a long way, but here in the north, the mountains were nearly impassable even in the spring, so a boat was the only viable way to leave.
“You can come with us,” Søren added. “Much cheaper than gettin’ on a train or a stagecoach.”
A large part of Egill dreaded having to spend so much time with people he didn’t know, but he didn’t have nearly enough money to get down to the city any other way. Walking would take months, and even then, how would he find these brothers with the boat Søren apparently knew?
“Alright,” he sighed, and then yelped in alarm when Søren clapped him on the back.
They spent the night at the cabin, Egill tossing and turning restlessly up in the loft while Torbjörn rumbled snores and Søren mumbled in his sleep downstairs. When he finally fell asleep, his dreams were full of fire.
In the morning, it was the smell of coffee that woke Egill. Søren was alone downstairs, his long coat already on. It had a lining just as red as his hat, which seemed a little ostentatious to Egill and clashed with his coppery hair.
“Mornin’!” the man said, much too brightly. “Torbjörn’s packin’, he’s taken your things out to the horses too.”
Mildly annoyed, Egill pulled his boots on and went outside to find the other man by the side of the house, securing saddlebags to a grey horse’s saddle. Egill’s meager belongings were set on the wooden banister of the porch, leaning against the wall. He went over to take out his journal and, after some consideration, his knife. Torbjörn just hummed silently, seemingly unbothered.
It was a sunny spring day, still cool up in the mountains. Good weather for traveling. When Torbjörn held his hand out, Egill handed him his bag, which he added to the saddle.
“Think you’ll be alright riding with Søren?” he asked, patting his horse.
“Søren?” Egill asked, surprised. He hadn’t considered… The other horse, a chestnut mare, had fewer saddlebags, he noticed. “Can’t I… Walk?”
Torbjörn’s lips twitched as if he were trying not to smile.
“While we’re up here, probably. Don’t think you can keep up with a trot, though.”
“I’ve got—I’ve got stamina,” Egill protested, then felt his cheeks flush when the tall man’s eyebrows rose. “I’ll share with Søren.”
He hurried back inside to drink coffee, and he wrote briefly in his journal, recording the date and place. In the margin, he drew a complex pattern of intersecting lines—a new stave that he could use, although he wasn’t sure yet what for.
“You do that too, huh?” Søren asked. Egill snapped the notebook closed on instinct.
“Einar was better at it,” he mumbled, looking up over his shoulder.
“Ain’t that just the way.” Søren shrugged. “Could come in handy. I ain’t never met anyone else like you two. Real amazin’.”
This time, his hand landed softly on Egill’s shoulder. He squeezed quickly. Egill stood, shrugging him off.
“Are we leaving?”
Søren blinked, then nodded and grinned, saying, “Let me introduce you to my horse!”
The horse, it turned out, was named Harald, and Søren just shrugged and grinned some more when Egill pointed out that it was, in fact, female. Torbjörn, behind Søren’s back, raised his eyebrows again, unimpressed overtop his glasses, and Egill smiled.
It’d been a while since he’d ridden, but once they made their way down to a relatively well-kept dirt road that must lead up to Kai’s Bend eventually, he agreed to get on Harald behind Søren. Torbjörn stood next to the horse, seemingly ready to help, as if he were a child. Harald, to her credit, seemed perfectly content to stand still while Egill awkwardly put his foot in the stirrup and tried not to grab any part of Søren, who scooted forward, as he tried to swing himself up.
“Here,” said Torbjörn. “Lean on me.”
Egill wasn’t sure that was better. Flushing again, he leaned one hand on Torbjörn’s broad shoulder to give himself leverage, and then squeaked embarrassingly when the man grabbed his waist with his massive hands, all but lifting him onto Harald.
Once Egill was on, Søren had to reach back and grab his thigh to prevent him from toppling off the other side.
“Fuck,” he yelped, instinctively grabbing his flashy coat. “Okay, I’m—I’m here.” He wriggled his foot out of the stirrup so Søren could put his in and tried to lean back against the saddlebags, putting distance between them. Søren patted his thigh while Torbjörn mounted his grey horse, and off they went.
The road was pretty quiet. The three of them passed one cart carrying timber, the driver of which greeted them amicably, and only two or three people on horseback going up to Kai’s Bend. Egill kept leaning back, holding the saddlebags, and was actually quite comfortable. Søren tried to talk to him, asking him about his and Einar’s previous travels, but he pretended he hadn’t heard, and the man took the hint after a while, speaking to his cousin instead.
After maybe an hour or two, the road opened up into the valley, where the river was fast and deep and Egill, peering around Søren, could see several buildings dotted along the banks. They stopped for a moment.
“If we just follow the river, we should be able to get to Havenbridge in about three weeks,” Søren said over his shoulder. Egill hummed, shifting. Harald shook her head, and Søren knocked her on the neck gently, saying, “Good girl!”
They rode down into the valley, encountering some more people, and eventually stopped for a break at the riverside, eating some more dried meat. Søren cracked his back and wandered down to the water with the horses so they could drink.
Egill looked up at the mountains, shading his eyes, at least until Torbjörn appeared next to him and silently offered him a hat. Luckily, it was just a plain brown one. Egill put it on, nodding his thanks.
“Got a question,” Torbjörn said.
“Yes?”
“Can you hunt?”
“Hunt?”
“’S a long way down to the city. Normally, we’d stop, earn some money to get supplies.”
“Right.” Egill looked up at him. “I can make snares.” Ones that were effective and quick, thanks to magic staves carved into the materials.
“Good.” Torbjörn nodded. “Søren’s… Loud.”
At that, Egill laughed abruptly. The sound felt rusty to him, but it made Torbjörn definitely smile, his light eyes glittering in the shadow of his hat.
“That makes sense.”
“You comfortable on there?” Torbjörn nodded towards where Harald was eating riverside plants.
“Enough,” Egill shrugged. Another hum, the smile still playing around his full lips.
As they continued their journey, Egill was grateful for the hat, because it felt much warmer down here, and he knew he was prone to burning—and he couldn’t imagine that Torbjörn and Søren weren’t, both having very light skin and freckles, Søren more than Torbjörn. There were even some on the back of his neck, where his coppery hair curled against his collar.
Egill stared unseeingly at the bit of skin, imagining new staves. He stared until his eyelids drooped, and his head lurched forward suddenly, knocking against Søren’s back. He shot up, grabbing his hat as Søren grabbed for him, shouting in alarm.
“Egill?” asked Torbjörn, trotting over on his horse.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Egill said, heart pounding. He’d grabbed Søren’s arm, the man’s hand on his hips again.
“Sleepy?” Torbjörn guessed. “’S getting late anyway, should find a place to rest.”
It was getting dark already, Egill noticed with a jolt. Most of the valley was deep in shadow.
None of them, of course, were strangers to spending the night outside, and so it was quick work to set up a little camp, securing canvas to trees for shelter and starting a little fire, which Torbjörn was in charge of.
Egill, out of habit, sought out a large rock and carried it into the light, taking out some charcoal to etch protective staves on its surface.
“Oh, what’s that for?” Søren asked curiously. Torbjörn frowned as he got out a pan.
“This one’s for protection from wildlife,” Egill explained. And, finishing the other symbol, “This one is to help keep us alert in sleep.”
“Very nice!” Søren clapped him on the back. “Ain’t that right, Torbjörn?”
“’F you believe it,” the man rumbled, pouring something into his pan. “Can’t hurt.”
Egill was a little confused by this difference in belief, but he didn’t mind. He knew what he could do. He concentrated on the stone, pouring power in, and then set it next to the fire.
Nothing happened during the night. He slept better.
In fact, nothing much happened for the next three days of travel. The three of them made steady progress south along the river, with Egill riding behind Torbjörn for one of them, but that made his thighs ache more than they already had, and he couldn’t see anything around his broad back, so he gave up on that to ride Harald with Søren. The landscape was slowly changing into hills, wildly in bloom with spring flowers that made Egill sneeze.
He caught rabbits in his snares that they had for dinner, with Torbjörn pointing out herbs for him to pick. It was strangely peaceful, even with Søren’s need to talk the whole way through.
On the fifth day of their journey, they noticed that the road was getting busier. By the early afternoon, they’d reached a moderately sized town. Egill had definitely been here before, but he and Einar tended to stay in smaller places. Neither of them were great with cities.
“Ah, the wonderful scent of the city!” Søren said, as they rode in. Egill was sure that wasn’t a compliment, but he’d been sneezing so much he couldn’t smell anything right then.
“We oughta stay a day, let the horses get some rest. Do some shoppin’,” he added, while pouting after neither Egill nor Torbjörn laughed.
“Good plan,” Torbjörn said, glancing questioningly at Egill, who nodded. With any luck, he’d be able to have a real bath after washing off in the icy river, and get some new soap to carry along for his clothes. He’d barely had this coat a month, and it deserved to look nice.
Søren seemed to know where he was going, leading Harald through busy streets to a little hotel tucked away behind a theater. He jumped off the horse, swinging one long leg over her head, and told them he’d get a room.
“A room?” Egill asked, but he was already gone. He patted Harald’s warm neck, mumbling, “You’re lucky you can’t understand him.”
Torbjörn got off his own horse, which didn’t seem to have a name, with a thump, and then he held a hand up to Egill, who took it without thinking about it, to get off Harald. He groaned when he landed on the paved ground, his whole body aching. He was used to walking, not riding. Torbjörn gently squeezed his fingers. Egill stared down at their joined hands as if they weren’t attached to his body. Torbjörn really had very large hands, dwarfing his own, and they were warm and callused…
“Mh—thanks!” Egill mumbled, and pulled his hand back.
“Got a place!” Søren announced as he came back outside. “Two nights, horses can go ‘round back, and they got a bath on offer.”
“Very good,” Torbjörn said.
It was indeed very good, though Egill nearly jumped out of his skin when someone knocked on the door during his bath and asked if he wanted assistance. His no was nearly a yell. He was a grown damn man, he could wash himself.
He shaved for the first time since he left Kai’s Bend—his beard didn’t grow quickly, and he felt uncomfortable doing it without a mirror. It was unfortunate that he had to put the same clothes back on. Maybe, he should get an extra shirt tomorrow. If he had enough money—hold on.
Walking back into the room Søren had gotten them, he asked, “Did you pay for me as well?”
Søren wasn’t there, just Torbjörn, looking out of the window in his shirtsleeves.
“’S one room,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Price is the same.”
“I should contribute. I’m the reason you’re going down south in the first place.”
Torbjörn turned to him fully, looking down at him. He’d actually gotten a slight tan from the spring sun, and his eyes seemed even bluer now. Egill was still just as pale, just like Søren.
“Alright,” he said. “’F that’s what you prefer.”
Egill nodded. He did not want to feel like a burden, even if he clearly was.
Søren, when he got back with meals from the pub down the street, tried to argue the point. The food, he claimed to have won off someone in a card game, so Egill would let that go, but Søren insisted that no payment was needed for the room.
At least until Torbjörn, just when Egill was about to start yelling at Søren that he wasn’t a fucking child, interrupted in an unusually sharp tone, saying, “Let the man pay you back, Søren.”
Søren opened his mouth, but shut it after looking at his cousin’s face.
“Fine, then. If it matters so much to you.”
It did.
Luckily, Søren was much less hard-headed about letting Egill draw a stave on his meal tray to make sure it was safe to eat. Egill was not taking any chances after what happened in Goldcrest with his brother. Torbjörn let him do it, too, though he was clearly not bothered.
It was also very good to sleep in an actual bed again.
The next day, though Egill was very sore from riding for almost a week, they ventured into the city to collect some supplies. Some tinned vegetables and dried meat for the road, and Egill got a new whetstone for his knife, pretty sure he’d forgotten his old one in Goldcrest. He considered buying a gun of some kind, but decided it wasn’t worth the money; he’d never been a good shot anyway. Instead, he spent it on a new shirt, plain white, and let himself be talked into purchasing a neckerchief he didn’t really need.
Søren got his hair cut and pomaded in the back of a pub, and Torbjörn bought a new straight razor and a bag for his horse.
While Søren tried to win more card games and maybe earn some money that way, Egill and Torbjörn sat in a quiet corner to eat dinner, and Egill couldn’t help but ask the question that had been plaguing his mind.
“Does your horse not have a name?”
Amusingly, Torbjörn tried to hide his face behind his mug of ale.
“What is it?”
“’M surprised Søren hasn’t told you yet.”
“Maybe he has, he’s very easy to ignore,” Egill confessed. He was pleased that Torbjörn huffed a laugh. “Is it more stupid than Harald?”
“Torbjörn Jr,” Torbjörn mumbled. Egill blinked, but he didn’t seem to be joking.
“Sorry, Torbjörn—”
“Friend of mine named him. ‘S the only name he’ll listen to now.” He sounded very long-suffering, and Egill laughed out loud.
“So that wasn’t Søren’s fault?” he asked.
“One of the men in Havenbridge we’re going t’see. Thought he was very funny.”
“Torbjörn Jr,” Egill repeated under his breath.
“Y’don’t want a horse ‘f your own?” Torbjörn asked, obviously attempting to change the topic.
“I can’t afford that. Besides, it’s… Not so bad, sharing.”
A hum, Egill guessed inquisitive.
“I don’t have to look at Søren’s face,” he added jokingly, and Torbjörn once again laughed softly. The sound was gentle, not matching his intimidating appearance at all, and it made Egill smile in turn, a pleased flush stealing over him.
Søren stayed behind, finishing his game, when Egill and Torbjörn returned to their hotel. In the light of a gas lamp, they looked at a map, seeking out the town they were in and following the river down to the sea. It was still a ways to go, but Egill found that he didn’t mind so much.
Now that he had left the mountains behind, the memory of Einar’s death already stung just a little less. It felt just a little less like he was going to suffocate under it, though he was sure it would always weigh on him.
Before Søren came back in, they decided it was time to sleep. Not wanting to get his new shirt sweaty, and also having access to quite nice covers to sleep under, Egill took it off to go to bed, his back turned to Torbjörn. He was so pale he nearly glowed in the sparse light; amused, Egill held up his bare arm and wondered if he could think of a stave that would actually make him glow. That might be useful. Torbjörn made a sudden noise, as if he was choking, but he was fine when Egill turned, climbing into his own bed with his back turned. Egill did the same.
“G’night,” Torbjörn said.
“Goodnight.” Egill bit his lip. “Torbjörn Sr.”
The exasperated groan from the other side of the room made him laugh. He didn’t even hear Søren return.
The next day, there was good news and there was bad news. The good news was that Søren had done well in his game, had won a good sum, and so insisted on stopping on the way out of town to buy extra coffee for the road. He walked alongside Harald while Egill sat atop the horse and tried not to laugh every time he saw Torbjörn Jr.
The bad news was that the weather had turned, and spring rain was now falling down. It wasn’t heavy, but it was cold, and Egill hadn’t yet thought to stitch staves for imperviousness and warmth into his new shirt. The ones in his other clothes were wearing out; Einar had done those. He was always better at them.
Søren and Torbjörn, of course, had not even that, and Torbjörn was squinting through glasses full of raindrops. Still, they went on, out of the city. For now, they would follow the railroad tracks, because the river meandered far west at this point while the tracks went almost straight south to Wildrose Valley, which was about halfway between Kai’s Bend and Havenbridge, and would take two or three days to reach.
At the end of a miserable day’s ride that even Søren’s coffee couldn’t make better, all three of them were grumpy, but they set up camp in a relatively sheltered dell. Though the foliage wasn’t thick yet, the trees still provided some cover. Torbjörn sat under a canvas and was trying to light a fire when Egill returned from setting up his tent and the magic staves to protect them. Søren was looking after the horses.
Predictably, Torbjörn was having a difficult time getting the wet wood to take a spark, grumbling under his breath as he struck match after match.
“Can I try?” Egill asked. With a disgruntled hum, Torbjörn handed him the matches. Sitting down on the log next to him, Egill set them down, instead pulling a piece of wood from the little pile of kindling and drawing his knife from his belt. He did this often when he traveled with his brother; he was better at fire.
Into the wet piece of wood, Egill carved a familiar stave. Torbjörn watched with obvious skepticism, and Egill couldn’t help but smile at him, excited despite himself to be able to prove him wrong. He held the wood in his left hand, folding his fingers around it, and took a deep, concentrated breath to push his power into the stave.
The wood crackled and burst into flame.
Torbjörn jolted, and his eyes widened behind his glasses, now reflecting the small flame in Egill’s hand. It didn’t hurt. Carefully, he used the flame to light the kindling, and he knew the rest of the wood would catch easily now.
“There you go,” he said to Torbjörn, who was silently looking at him, expression unreadable. His hair looked gold in the firelight. Egill wriggled nervously, clearing his throat. “Torbjörn?”
Suddenly, the man moved. He reached for Egill’s hand, cradling it gently with both of his own, holding his palm up with his warm thumbs swiping over the sensitive skin there.
“I’m—I’m alright,” Egill said through a shiver, meeting his eye.
“Didn’t think… Didn’t believe it was real.”
“You knew Einar, didn’t you?” Egill shivered once more when Torbjörn’s callused thumbs swept over the inside of his wrist. The touch was so soft.
“Søren knew Einar. I knew of him. What he told me seemed…”
“I don’t blame you. I don’t think I’d believe him either.”
Torbjörn quirked a small smile, glancing over at the fire.
“’S really incredible, Egill.” This time, he swept his long fingers over Egill’s palm, but he startled when he made a noise. He dropped his hand. “I’ll—cook.” He nudged his glasses up.
“Okay,” Egill breathed. He rubbed his own hand, which now felt cold. “Oh, uh, do you have any sewing supplies?”
Torbjörn told him they were in his saddlebags, so Egill reluctantly stood and went to see where Søren had left those.
With the fire crackling and all three of them sheltered underneath the tarp, the rain didn’t seem so bad. Søren dozed after dinner. Torbjörn watched, now with curiosity, while Egill stitched staves into his new shirt and channeled some power into the old ones.
“How’d you learn these?” the man asked, leaning close. His hands were now clasped around an empty bowl, and his deep voice rumbled in Einar’s ear.
“My father taught us some, but Einar and I, we both just know when something works.”
“Incredible,” Torbjörn said again.
“Should—shall I make one for you?”
“’F you want.”
Swallowing, Egill nodded, and Torbjörn took his large, dark blue coat off. It was a nice coat, heavy and still warmed when Egill pulled it over his legs. He doubted it needed the stave, as it was obviously well-made, but he set to stitching it into the back of the collar.
It was quick work, and he pushed a good amount of his power into it.
“It’ll wear off over time,” he told Torbjörn, handing the coat back to him. Yawning, he felt his head pound suddenly. That might have been a little too much power. “If it doesn’t work anymore, I can redo it.” He pressed a hand against his temple.
“Maybe—you alright?”
“Overdid it. I just need to sleep.”
Torbjörn had to steady him when he stood. Egill leaned on his shoulder, closing his eyes.
“Come.” Torbjörn stood too, and steered Egill to his tent with his hands on both shoulders, draping his coat over him.
“Torbjörn, I’m—I’m fine,” Egill protested. “There’s no need.”
On the other side of the fire, Søren jolted and made a confused noise.
“Rest,” Torbjörn said. And, when Egill did duck into his tent after being once more relieved of his coat, “Good. Thank you, Egill.”
“Yeah, of course,” he stuttered. “Of course.” He lay down and tried not to think about the unexpected softness of Torbjörn’s voice. He was kind. And despite being at most ten years older than him, he probably thought of Egill as a helpful child, a charge even. Egill wouldn’t be surprised if that was how he saw everyone.
But then again… His hand tingled with the memory of the man’s touch. Egill turned over on his bedroll, curled into a ball and willed himself to sleep.
Fortunately, though dawn was grey, the rain had ceased. They continued their journey. Wildrose Valley was close, already visible in the distance between the hills, but they agreed they had no business in the city and would travel around it.
“It ain’t much anyway,” Søren told Egill, gesturing at the smoke rising on the horizon. The road was fairly busy. “Unless you’re lackin’ in company, if y’know what I mean.”
“I’m not,” Egill said.
“No, I suppose y’ain’t.” Søren grinned over his shoulder, and Egill was startled into smiling back.
“No one could be, with you around,” Torbjörn put in from behind them on Torbjörn Jr, dryly. Egill bit his lip to keep from laughing at Søren’s pout.
They did take advantage of being close to the city to stop at a roadside bakery and pick up fresh bread, which smelled amazing. Torbjörn even helped the baker lift a barrel of grain and got an extra bit of honey cake for his trouble, carefully wrapped in wax paper for the road. His hum was definitely pleased. Egill was starting to learn to differentiate them.
And so, they had a little feast that evening, as Søren caught several fish—aided by a stave etched into his fishing pole—in a stream that fed into the river that ran through the city. Egill made his usual protections, walking around camp.
Torbjörn looked up when he sat down beside him, stretching his sore legs.
“You alright?” he asked.
“Fine,” Egill confirmed.
“Tired?”
“Torbjörn, I’m fine.”
A hum, this one indecipherable to Egill.
“Hey, Egill,” Søren said, coming over, “wanna play a game?”
He taught Egill how to cheat at card games, grinning with delight when he was tricked.
“Einar never let me play,” Egill told him absently.
“Lookin’ after you, I’d imagine.” Søren stilled for a moment. “Gonna be another week and a half down to Havenbridge.”
Egill nodded as he ran his fingers over the edge of his cards.
“You still plannin’ to leave?”
He looked up at Søren. Opened his mouth, then closed it and bit his lip. He played a card and Søren did too, a very bad one.
“Why else would I still be here?” Egill asked, staring at the cards. He put another down.
“I’d like to think we’ve grown on you, Egill.” His tone was joking, but somehow soft. “’Cause I do think you’ve grown on us. Companionship and all that.”
Egill glanced over at Torbjörn, who was running his finger over the collar of his coat, where he’d sewn the stave. Søren raised his dark eyebrows.
“It’s your turn,” Egill told him.
“It sure is.” He didn’t say anything more.
South of Wildrose Valley, the river split the landscape in two. On one side, there was the Lake Valley, which was a generous name for what was mostly swampland, where Einar had liked to tell Egill strange creatures dwelt, and on the other side was another rocky, mountainous area. The main road and the train tracks both veered west there, around the whole wet area, but, after another day of travel and a night spent under the stars, the three travelers stayed on the eastern bank, taking smaller roads up into the hills.
Although some rain fell, it wasn’t too bad, and they were making good headway when Torbjörn, ahead of Harald on the path, suddenly pulled Torbjörn Jr to a halt.
“What’s goin’ on?” Søren asked loudly, but Egill could hear what Torbjörn had evidently heard and shushed him. Someone was yelling for help, cutting off abruptly. Torbjörn squinted.
Another shrill shriek, and he took off, away from the path.
“Hey!” said Søren, and wheeled Harald around to follow him. They were forced to jump off the horse at a steep incline, both hurrying after Torbjörn and towards the harrowing sounds of a fight, which Søren now evidently heard too. He pulled out his pistol, cocking it. Egill drew his knife.
“Hey!” Torbjörn said in a booming voice that Egill had not yet heard from him but what he probably would have imagined him to sound like from his appearance. Like a roll of thunder, it was loud and intimidating. Søren tugged Egill behind a tree.
In a small clearing, there were two men and a young woman, younger than Egill, sat on the ground and looking terrified. Several other men were on the ground, evidently having been taken out in the fight, and random items were scattered about. When they saw Torbjörn, one of the men immediately pointed his pistol at the girl’s head. She cried out, and Søren swore under his breath.
“Stay here,” he told Egill, and began to scamper in her direction, hiding in the brush.
Stay here? Was he serious?
“You turn back now,” said the other man. He raised his own gun towards Torbjörn. “Nothin’ happened here, alright?”
The young woman sobbed silently, shoulders shaking beneath her fancy purple dress. Egill, who had his knife in his hand anyway, started carving a stave into the tree. The one he’d been working on in his journal.
“I won’t. You will,” said Torbjörn, steadily.
“Or what?”
As if on cue, Søren appeared behind the men, and he fired once at the one holding the gun on the girl, hitting his shoulder and knocking him to the mossy ground while he snatched her up with lightning-quick movements. They were both scrambling away when the uninjured man fired at them, disappearing between the trees.
The man who had fired at them whirled back to Torbjörn just as Torbjörn knocked his companion out with one slam of his massive fist. Egill’s hands were sweating, and he almost dropped his knife and leapt out, but Torbjörn was fast, getting close in one big step to grab the man’s arm, twisting it so that he dropped his gun.
“Ow! Ow, let—fuck!”
Torbjörn knocked him out just as unceremoniously, and glanced around the clearing with a deep frown. He whistled. From somewhere in the woods, a whistle sounded back. He kneeled down to pick up the fallen men’s weapons, glancing over at them continuously.
It all happened very quickly, and was perhaps not the first time the cousins had done this, but Egill still felt stupid and useless, could feel his power bubbling with the tension still. Søren emerged from the trees on the other side, his arm around the terrified girl’s shoulders, and Torbjörn started to ask him something, turning away. And so, Egill was the only one who noticed movement, as two separate bandits—the one who had fired at Søren and one who had already been knocked out—both clambered to their feet, both somehow still having weapons to draw.
He had no time to think. With a yell, he slammed his hand into the tree and channeled all the simmering power under his skin into it. He felt a thousand tiny pieces of bark rip off, could feel them fly into the clearing with the speed of a bullet, past Torbjörn without hitting him. They seemed to be sparking with light. Just as both men fired their guns, they were hit, knocked back with an incredible force as wood splintered and dug into their skin. They both fell over, shots going wide. One of them yelled, and Egill grimaced, looking at the lines of his new stave, reading sleep and heat both.
As the man went quiet, Egill sagged, power draining from him.
When he stumbled, he was surprised that Torbjörn caught him. Egill grabbed his coat, hanging on, burying his face in the heavy fabric as he shook. Søren was speaking, and so was the young woman, but Torbjörn just held him, strong hands on his back, now so gentle again. One curved around the back of his neck.
“Egill?” the man said, after what might have been an hour.
Egill blearily blinked at him.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, though Egill could feel his voice vibrate in his chest.
“Is—did I kill them?” he asked, voice catching.
Torbjörn squeezed his neck and said, “Yes.”
“Fuck.”
“He would’ve killed me.” His tone wasn’t matter-of-fact, but he didn’t sound horrified. He repeated, “Thank you.”
Egill made a noise in the back of his throat and hid his face in Torbjörn’s coat again. He was exhausted. Staves weren’t meant for things like this. He’d just been so scared, so… Angry. After Einar, he couldn’t lose these new people in his life too.
“We’re taking the young lady home,” Torbjörn was telling him. “Come. Can you walk?”
Although he could probably easily carry Egill, he let him struggle down the hillside, only supporting him when he stumbled. They made it back down to the horses, and Egill saw that the girl was now on Harald, sitting aside behind Søren, arms wrapped around him. Egill didn’t protest when Torbjörn all but lifted him onto Torbjörn Jr, although he yelped halfheartedly when he realized that the man was swinging into the saddle behind him, his legs pressing into Egill’s and arms reaching around to hold the reins.
If he had been more awake, Egill might have objected—then again, he might not have—but now, he let himself lean back against Torbjörn’s broad chest and go limp.
He was nearly asleep when they reached the young woman’s residence. He only noticed this because they were immediately greeted by an irate blond man in a top-hat running out of the massive building.
“Erika!” he shouted. “What happened? Who are these people?”
Søren helped the girl—Erika, then—off Harald so she could explain. Torbjörn leaned forward, his hat knocking into Egill’s head, to ask if he was awake. He must have lost his own hat when he caused the tree to explode.
“Maybe,” he replied, turning his head a little. Torbjörn let go of his horse’s reins to touch his thigh, leaving his warm hand there for a moment. Fascinated, Egill stared down at the way his whole leg was covered, and touched the back of his hand. He squeezed slightly.
“Hey!” Søren called. He jerked his chin. The man and the girl both looked up at them, his arm wrapped protectively around her narrow shoulders. They looked alike in the same way that people used to say Egill and Einar did.
Torbjörn helped Egill off Torbjörn Jr, holding him steady.
“I can see you’re tired,” said the man. “You saved my sister’s life, and for that, I am more than grateful. You’re welcome to rest here for a few days.”
Erika nodded, eyes wide. Torbjörn squeezed Egill’s shoulder, and Søren looked at them.
“Thank you. We’re happy to take you up on that generous offer, Baron Zwingli.”
It was very odd to hear Søren speak so formally, almost making Egill laugh. Where had he learned that?
“Good. Come, my staff will show you…”
Egill let himself be led by the shoulders, not paying attention until he was finally presented with a wonderfully large bed with fresh sheets. He sat down at the foot of it, and looked at Torbjörn as the man kneeled down in front of him. He tugged at his boots.
“You don’t have to take care of me,” Einar mumbled, or did his best to, even as he shuffled up on the bed and wriggled his toes.
Torbjörn hummed, and tucked him in. He fell asleep.
When Egill woke, he was disoriented, alone in an unfamiliar bedchamber. Sunlight streamed through high windows, and it was quiet. No snoring, no mumbling, no rustling of leaves or rushing of water. Rubbing his eyes, Egill sat up.
Oh, right, they had apparently rescued a Baron’s sister, and he had… He’d saved Torbjörn’s life.
Climbing out of the bed, Egill pulled his boots on, and went out.
The house was pleasantly warm, and richly decorated even in the hallways. A broad staircase led down into the foyer, and Egill could hear a familiar laugh echoing from outside the entrance doors. He hurried towards it.
Søren had evidently already made friends with the Baron’s staff and was helping a man carry a bucket somewhere, talking animatedly. When he saw Egill come outside, he stopped, put his bucket down, and rushed over. He clasped his shoulders, and Egill was startled to see a deep relief on his freckled face, etched among the laugh lines.
“Søren—”
“I am so glad you’re awake, y’scared the hell outta us, passin’ out for a whole day like that. How d’you feel? You hungry?”
Søren,” Egill tried again. “A whole day?”
“Just about. Torbjörn’s been—”
“Søren, I can’t—” the man in question was saying, frantically, bursting outside in an entirely un-Torbjörn-like manner— “find… Egill.” He trailed off when he saw Egill, who waved awkwardly.
“I’m okay,” he said, and then he was being pulled out of Søren’s grip and into Torbjörn’s arms, which wrapped all the way around him. He muffled a noise into the man’s vest, which smelled clean and was warm. Torbjörn’s breath ghosted over his temple, ruffling his messy hair.
Slowly, Egill wrapped his arms around the man in turn, pressing his hands against his back.
“I’m okay,” he repeated, although his voice got caught in his throat when Torbjörn turned his head so that his lips brushed his temple.
“Told you he’d be fine,” said Søren. “He’s a resilient one.”
Torbjörn hummed, rumbling in his chest. Egill categorized this one as relief, and then tried to extricate himself, suddenly very aware of what was happening and that Søren was right there.
As soon as he stepped back, Søren asked, “What about me, do I get a hug?”
“Søren,” said Torbjörn.
Biting his lip, Egill did turn to Søren, and hugged him too, yelping when he was pulled close. Søren was also warm, and he sighed deeply, which Egill also categorized as relief. It didn’t last nearly as long, though, and the man clasped his shoulder briefly when they parted.
“Torbjörn’ll take care of you. I got horses to feed.” He went back to his bucket.
“Hungry?” Torbjörn asked.
Egill was. Baron Zwingli had apparently given them free use of his house as long as they stayed out of his and his sister’s rooms, so Torbjörn took Egill to the kitchen to beg some food off the cook, who was more than happy to help the men who’d saved Erika’s life.
After that, Egill realized he was in desperate need of a bath, and that his clothes needed cleaning. Torbjörn went to tell someone to get warm water ready, and then led Egill to the correct room. The bath was steaming in the sunlight and smelled great.
“Let me take your clothes to get washed,” Torbjörn said, hovering in the doorway. Halfway through unbuttoning his vest, desperate to get in the tub, Egill turned to him, irritated despite himself.
“You don’t have to take care of me,” he said once again. “I’m not a child.”
“I know,” Torbjörn said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.
“Then why do you—I thought you—” Egill angrily threw his vest on the ground and started on his shirt.
“I want to,” Torbjörn said, with some force behind it.
“You want to?”
“Look after you. Want you to be—” He cut himself off when Egill removed his shirt, throwing it down as well and leaving him in his sleeveless undergarments.
“To be what?” Egill asked, stalking over, although he faltered a little when he realized Torbjörn was staring at his bare arms, where staves were inked into his skin, disappearing underneath his last layer. The man’s blue eyes were wide. “To be what?”
Torbjörn cleared his throat, licking his lips. “Happy,” he said. “I’ll… Wait outside. Hand me your clothes ‘round the door.”
Baffled, Egill did just that, and he got in the bath. It was perfect.
He didn’t consider what he would wear until his clothes were done being laundered, before there was a knock on the door.
“Egill?” It was Torbjörn. “’Ve brought you some of my clothes to wear, ‘f you want. Already clean.”
“Oh.” Egill felt himself flush, and not because of the water, which had cooled down quite a bit. He’d been here for a while. “Thank you.”
Torbjörn placed them just inside the door in a little pile, only his arm visible.
“I’ll be—”
“Wait,” Egill interrupted. “Wait, stay there.”
He quickly got out of the bath, dried off, and got into Torbjörn’s pants and shirt, both of which were, of course, comically large on him. The collar was slipping when he opened the door to let the man back in.
“’S not ideal.” There was some humor in Torbjörn’s voice, although his gaze lingered much too long on Egill’s collarbone.
“Better than nothing.”
“Maybe,” Torbjörn said, then cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. What did that mean?
“I need to shave,” Egill said.
“Hm. So do I.” Torbjörn had quite an impressive beard, after what must have been just two or three days without shaving. “Here.” He pulled out his own new razor, handing it to Egill.
“Can I… Add something?”
At Torbjörn’s nod, Egill laid the razor down on the edge of the washbasin and, using the sharp edge of a chipped piece of it, etched in a magic stave. His power felt good, back to normal.
“What does that one do?” Torbjörn asked.
“The stave?”
“Stave,” he echoed. “Yes.”
“It’s to prevent cuts.”
“Useful.”
Torbjörn watched him shave, hands clasped in front of him. The air was still warm.
Eventually, he said, “You saved my life, Egill.”
“Maybe. I…” He rinsed the razor in the basin. “Someone is dead, because of me.” His hand shook, but he didn’t cut himself. He still could, even with the stave, if it got worse.
“I know ‘s not an easy thing. Here.” Torbjörn took the razor from him, and Egill let him, turning away from the mirror. He used his left hand, just like Egill did, using his right to touch Egill’s face, tilting his head back.
A vulnerability swept over Egill, but he felt no urge to flee, not even to cover up. It was odd.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“I know.”
Egill closed his eyes for a moment as Torbjörn finished his pass, leaning back against the washbasin.
“You’re… A very strong man,” Torbjörn mumbled after a moment, tilting Einar’s head with his warm hand and carefully running the razor over his jaw, his neck. “But if y’can’t be sometimes, ‘s no reason to think less ‘f yourself. I want to take care of you, Egill.”
Egill breathed a curse, voice catching when he tried to speak. Torbjörn shushed him. He ran a damp cloth over Egill’s skin, and Egill opened his eyes.
“The only person who’s taken care of me is Einar,” he said, meeting Torbjörn’s icy blue eyes, steady on his face. “I don’t… Want that.”
“You’re not my brother.”
Egill made a noise in the back of his throat and reached for the shaving soap and brush.
“Turn around.”
Without a word, Torbjörn did, leaning on the edge of the washbasin in a slouch so Egill could easily reach his face. It’d been a long time since Egill had shaved anyone else—and it’d only happened with Einar, and, once upon a time, his father, who’d mostly done it to teach him. He willed his hands to stop shaking, certain he’d cut Torbjörn despite his stave if he didn’t.
His shirt—Torbjörn’s shirt—slipped down his shoulder. He saw Torbjörn gaze at his tattooed skin.
“They’re for protection,” he said, as he brushed shaving soap over his beard. “And to make me stronger.”
Egill was now standing between the other man’s long legs. He put the brush down and picked up the razor. Torbjörn tilted his head back.
“Fuck,” Egill breathed. The trust. He knew that he would kill ten more men if he could protect Torbjörn that way, even if it knocked him unconscious for a month. He raised the razor.
Egill was careful shaving him, listening to his breath as it sped a little, running his fingers over newly revealed skin when he rinsed the razor. Torbjörn’s eyes closed, only opening again when Egill ran the damp cloth over his jaw and neck. They were dark, and Egill made another strangled noise. Trembling, he continued to run his fingers over Torbjörn’s skin, over his faint freckles and the lines around his mouth.
“I want.” He swallowed. “I want to take care of you, too.”
“You can,” Torbjörn promised. “Be happy to let you.”
“You’re not… My brother.” His breath caught when Torbjörn touched his bare shoulder, running his large hand to the side of his neck. He must be able to feel how Egill’s heart was hammering, maybe even to feel his power thrum under his skin.
“Don’t wanna be.”
“Fuck,” Egill said once more, his body strung tight.
And then, he tugged at Torbjörn’s face with both hands until he leaned over, and kissed him. He was immediately pulled closer, and wrapped his arms around the man’s neck, arching into him as their mouths met. It was not frantic but it was deep, and Egill could swear he felt a spark leap between them, something that felt like his powers surging into Torbjörn. The man groaned, tilting his head into the kiss. His thighs spread around Egill’s hips, strong arms wrapped around him and almost lifting him off the floor.
It felt both safe and infinitely thrilling, and Egill did not want to stop. He wanted to stay here until he couldn’t feel his lips, until he couldn’t feel where his powers flowed from him into Torbjörn.
When Torbjörn did eventually pull back, his pale face was flushed and his expression dazed, and Egill could only think yes. He did that. His lips tingled.
“Stay with us,” Torbjörn whispered. “With me.”
Egill didn’t even really have to think about it. He realized that he hadn’t thought of why they were going to Havenbridge in days now.
“I won’t go into the mountains,” he said. Never again.
“I won’t make you.”
“You’re…” Egill shuffled, looking down at Torbjörn’s chest, hidden beneath that nice blue vest. “You’re a good man.”
“Hope so.” His fingers swept underneath Egill’s shirt, seemingly absentmindedly; he widened his eyes when Egill softly gasped.
“But if you don’t want to be for a while…”
Blue eyes swept over his exposed collarbones, and Torbjörn’s whole hand pressed underneath Egill’s shirt.
“I’d be happy to help.”
Torbjörn kissed him again, hungrily, Egill pressing him against the edge of the washbasin, the whole length of their chests touching.
“Hey! You folks gettin’ busy in there?” yelled Søren, outside the washroom door.
“Go away!” Egill shouted back, and Torbjörn seemed to choke, face going even redder.
“Just sayin’. We’re invited for dinner with the Baron, now you’re awake. Be presentable in a half an hour.”
Egill looked down at his messy, too-large shirt, Torbjörn’s hand rucking it up.
“Uh.”
“Let me, hm.” Torbjörn cleared his throat. “Let me go check with the launderer.”
Before he left, he ducked down and kissed Egill again, and Egill saw him smile as he walked away.
Søren, at dinner, seemed very amused. He and Torbjörn also seemed to be very well-versed in etiquette, which Egill wondered at. There was obviously a lot he didn’t yet know about the cousins’ history, but he would have time to learn, now.
As they turned in for the night, he debated going into Torbjörn’s room, but he needn’t have bothered; there was, after about fifteen minutes, a knock at his door.
“’S me.”
“Come in.”
Torbjörn was just in his undergarments, and Egill’s mouth went dry as he finally got the chance to openly gaze at the impressive figure the man cut in the low light. He made room for him on the bed, still on top of the covers, but Torbjörn didn’t sit. Instead, he leaned over to kiss Egill, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Egill gripped his short hair, arching up.
“Gonna take care of you,” Torbjörn rumbled against his lips.
“Oh—please.”
They ended up with Torbjörn sitting against the headboard, Egill kneeling over his impressive thighs. They had both removed their shirts but nothing more. There was no need to hurry, and there was enough to explore already, just like this. Torbjörn had, for example, kissed Egill’s neck, touched his chest with careful fingers, making his heart skip multiple beats.
“D’you do these yourself?” he was asking now, tracing the slightly raised skin of the tattooed stave that protected Egill from small fires.
“Einar. I don’t know how, or I’d—I’d…” He traced invisible lines into Torbjörn’s skin. “You and Søren both.”
He hummed, consideringly. “Does the person who does them have to be… Like you?”
“No, my father’s were made by my mother.”
“The man in Havenbridge, with the boat. He does tattoos.”
“The man who named your horse Torbjörn Jr?” Egill laughed, and was quite pleased to be pulled into a kiss to be stopped. He could get used to that.
The door burst open.
“Hey, Egill—Jesus Christ, I should’ve knocked!” Søren yelped.
“Søren!” Torbjörn boomed, certainly loud enough to wake the whole household, but for some reason, Egill could only continue laughing. He hid his face in his hands, shaking.
Torbjörn huffed.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked Søren.
“It was… Quiet. I can go.”
Egill looked at Søren, who clasped the back of his neck, and at Torbjörn, who looked unimpressed but somehow fond.
“You can stay,” he said, climbing off Torbjörn’s legs to sit next to him instead.
“Okay!” Coming closer, Søren widened his eyes when he looked at Egill. “Wow, that’s some ink! Is that… Magic?”
Egill nodded.
“Wow,” he repeated. Søren was also in his undergarments, and sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed. His hair was in disarray. “You comin’ along with us now?”
“He is,” Torbjörn confirmed, the fondness now creeping into his voice. Egill ducked his head, smiling down at his hands in his lap.
“Glad to hear it. Not goin’ down to Havenbridge anymore, then?”
“No, we are,” Torbjörn said.
“Oh?”
Egill leaned into his side, touching a hand to his chest.
For the Spotify wrapped requests, I was asked for #7 with HK/Nor, so here it is! And someone's dead in a fantasy setting again, I regret to inform you! It's a risk you run with my taste in music, haha :^) Although this is a slightly more modern fantasy setting, sort of turn of the century. It felt like it didn't make much sense to put HK in the middle ages. Also, ponytail HK makes a reappearance after like ten years! I'm trying something with the timeline here, bc I guess fics inspired by music lend themselves to weird ones? Anyway, non-linear/backwards plot stuff is happening! Hope you like it, egg friend <3
Send a number 1-100 and a ship/character and I'll write something inspired by the corresponding song from my most listened in 2025 :)
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Hiding In The Light
pairing/characters: Hong Kong (Leon)/Norway (Einar), Iceland (Egill), Taiwan (Mei), China (Yao)
words: 7070
summary:
They only got to spend five nights together, before Leon had to watch Einar burn.
.
now
Leon woke to shouts, and to something covering his body. He scrambled into a sitting position, but had no time to take in what was happening before there was more noise, indistinct yelling and the thumping of hooves on mossy ground, and something larger came crashing down on him. The tent, he understood, muffling a shout that got lost in the din. Where was Einar? He was supposed to be here beside him, unless…
They’d found him, just as he’d said they would.
Leon struggled to extricate himself from the heavy canvas of the tent and from the other fabric, which he realized was Einar’s heavy coat. By the time he finally crawled out, it was too late. The small camp was overturned and the sounds were fading away, echoing distantly on the mountainside. He was left alone, clutching the familiar coat.
So, that was it, then. He would never spend more than five nights in Einar’s company. The town had ripped him away, after everything Einar had done for them. Everything Leon had done.
Setting his jaw, he swung the coat, which was much too large for him and nearly dragged across the ground, around his shoulders, and began to make his way through the forest.
.
V
It startled Einar when he heard footsteps approaching his camp. Were the sheriff’s men already here? Had Egill come back for some reason? He stood as a figure stepped out of the woods, into the clearing. Familiar golden eyes glinted in the low light of dusk, lit only by his small cooking fire.
“Leon,” he breathed, sagging with relief and then immediately tensing up again. “What are you doing here?”
Leon stopped on the other side of the fire and looked up at him, beautiful face set in determination. He didn’t reply.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Einar whispered, even as he felt himself move close to him, drawn by some inexorable force, the same one that had drawn them together in the first place. Swallowing heavily, he touched Leon’s jaw, following its sharp line. The man’s eyes closed, his thick brow furrowing.
“You shouldn’t,” Einar repeated. Then, he leaned down and kissed him, cradling his face with both hands. Leon arched into him. He frantically tugged at his coat, slid his hands around Einar’s waist.
“Where else should I be?” he whispered back, mostly against his lips.
“Anywhere but here, Leon. Anywhere.”
“It’s too late for that now.”
Einar swore, pulling back to look down at him. He was carrying no supplies and was only wearing his normal clothes, nothing fit for travel. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“If they find you here with me—”
“I’m not leaving. Why are you still here, Einar?”
“There’s no way out for me.” He’d looked, of course, but he’d have to cross the river to get out of Goldcrest and the townsfolk were well aware of that, patrolling up and down the steep banks even now, in the dark, armed with lanterns and weapons. Somewhere, Einar had always known he’d end up this way.
“Then, there is no way out for me, either,” Leon said. Eyebrows jumping, he plucked at Einar’s vest. “I thought they might listen to me, maybe to Uncle Yao, but all they see is something they don’t understand. Uncle always… Prevented that.”
Einar caught his wrist, slid his fingers up over his hand so they tangled with Leon’s.
“You told me, once, that you were different. That I should not fall for someone like you.” He leaned close again, hair falling around both of their faces, and whispered, “That’s the first time someone has told me that. I could say the same thing. I should have.”
“It’s hard to miss. And it wouldn’t have stopped me, Einar.”
“I know. It didn’t stop me, after all.” Einar kissed him again, softly and sadly, while he pressed Leon’s hand over his heart.
“Let me stay,” Leon breathed.
Einar could feel his resolve crumbling. He’d planned to spend this last night alone, knowing that his brother escaped before things got really bad, that Leon was safe in his family’s inn, but now that he was here, he couldn’t let him go.
“When they find me, you hide,” he said. “Please, Leon. I will not have you die for me.”
There was a glint in his light eyes when he looked up. Something cold that made Einar shiver, though it wasn’t directed at him.
“I’ll make them regret it, Einar. I swear.” He moved his hands back to the front of his vest and pulled, slamming their mouths back together. Einar heard himself make a desperate sort of noise, almost a sob, as he entwined their bodies. He wound his hands through Leon’s smooth hair, tugging the long strands loose of his hair tie, while the man’s fingers fumbled with the buttons on his vest and shirt until they brushed his skin.
With a gasp, Einar pulled back. He closed his eyes when Leon laid his hand back over his heart, where black lines of protection were inked into his skin.
“Come,” he whispered, taking a step back towards his little tent. Egill, his brother, had taken most of their supplies, as Einar would have no use for them, but he hardly needed two tents. With a wave of his hand, he extinguished the cooking fire, so that only his lantern was left, the flickering golden light shining gently over both of them.
The magical protections he’d laid over the clearing still held, but would not work against people looking hard enough—in the morning, they would come. Leon followed him into the tent, and they tumbled down.
.
now
By the time Leon arrived at his family’s inn, having avoided the main road out of an abundance of caution, the only person there was Mei. His sister was pacing back and forth in the dining hall, but rushed over when he entered. She threw her arms around his neck, startling him.
“Mei?” He found that his voice was raspy, as if he hadn’t spoken in days. Clearing her throat, she stepped back and folded her hands into the hem of her jacket.
“Uncle’s gone into town believing he’ll have to save you from the gallows, Leon,” she hissed. “Your—your man was marched in in chains and you were nowhere to be found!”
“I’m here,” Leon said, unnecessarily.
“I can see that!” She slapped his arm, then seemed to take in his overlarge coat. Her voice went uncharacteristically soft. “Oh, Leon, I’m sorry that this happened. I—I know he means a lot to you.”
That was certainly a change of tune.
“I want to go—”
“Uncle will kill me if I let you go into town.”
“Mei, please,” he whispered. “I should be there, this is all because of me.”
“Oh, Leon,” she said again, now reaching for him and combing her fingers through his unbound hair. He let her, closing his eyes tightly to stop the tears from falling. From somewhere in the deep pockets of her skirt, Mei unearthed a comb and a hair tie and pulled his hair back.
When she was finished with that, she straightened his vest and adjusted the collar of his shirt.
“I won’t tell Uncle you were here,” she said, meeting his eye. “You must have gone straight into town from wherever you were.”
“Thank you,” he breathed, embracing her.
“Be careful,” she said, and stood there while he hurried off.
.
IV
“This isn’t the first time this has happened,” Einar told his brother as they walked through Goldcrest’s main street, Egill trailing behind as if he’d prefer not to be seen with him. As well he probably shouldn’t.
“Then, why are we still here?” he snapped, while doing a little hop over a puddle to catch up.
“You’re free to leave, Egill.”
“That is not what I asked. Where are we going?”
“I’m going to the Laurel.”
“I think that answers both of my questions,” Egill muttered.
Einar couldn’t deny that it did.
“I’m going to do… Something else,” Egill continued. They halted in front of the town’s small church, and he opened his mouth as if to say he’d go in there, before grimacing. “I’ll go…”
“It’s alright.” Einar was somewhat amused despite himself. “If there’s any trouble, you take the stagecoach and wait for me—” He kept speaking over his brother’s protesting— “At the cabin near the old mine at Kai’s Bend. Even if I can’t come, there will be other people you can trust.”
For a long moment, Egill just stared at the muddy ground between their boots, his jaw clenched. On the other side of the road, there was a cluster of people, whispering conspicuously.
“Is he really worth all that?” Egill asked in a strangled undertone. More than me, is what he didn’t say but what Einar heard anyway. Glancing at the group of strangers, he quickly grasped his brother’s shoulder.
“I feel it.”
Egill sighed, nodding. He would, Einar sincerely hoped, understand one day. Find that person for himself. Someone who wasn’t Einar, who would love him beyond the love of a sibling.
They parted ways. It was somewhat of a relief that the busybodies trailed after Einar, leaving Egill alone. He’d always done the more obvious things himself, precisely for this reason. They just usually didn’t stick around long enough for people to realize that the way they were helping their town wasn’t natural, at least to them. And that was beside the factor of what had happened at the Silver Laurel.
One of the people across the street suddenly shouted, “We know what you are!”
Einar ignored the man, tugging his hat low over his eyes.
“The Li boy may be under your spell, but this town knows about people like you!”
“People like me,” Einar muttered. That seemed unlikely, if for no other reason than that Einar himself only knew of three others like him, and one of them was his brother. He pushed his hand into the pocket of his coat, closing his fingers around a stone inside.
When the man stepped closer threateningly, fingering his holster, Einar glanced his way, squeezed the stone, and watched with satisfaction as he slipped on a sudden patch of ice in the road where before there had only been a puddle. His hat flew off, and he yelled. A woman gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth and staring across the road at Einar.
Although he was tempted to ask whether she’d never seen ice before—certainly, though it was early spring, they were high up enough that this wasn’t uncommon—Einar didn’t linger while the fallen man struggled to his feet.
Luckily, it seemed that the townspeople were too stunned to follow him. Or too wary of going against Leon’s family. It was difficult not to notice the sway his uncle had in town; they seemed to think of him as a protector.
The Silver Laurel wasn’t busy yet, and Leon, who was behind the bar cleaning dishes, smiled when he saw Einar. His sleeves were rolled up, his hair tied back. Sitting on a barstool, Einar watched him finish his work. With the dishes put away, Leon came over and leaned forward.
“How are you?” Einar asked. He reached across the polished wood of the bar to quickly touch his cheek.
“Fine,” Leon replied, glancing at the few patrons, who were not paying attention to them. Absently, and regrettably, he started to roll his sleeves down. Einar reached for his arm to button up the cuff.
“There have been…” Leon swallowed when Einar’s fingers brushed over his wrist. “There have been rumors in town. Mei tries to keep track of all that. Uncle likes to know.”
“I’ve noticed,” Einar replied softly, buttoning the other cuff. “It’s not the first time that has happened around me. People fear things they don’t understand. I just hope it doesn’t affect you.”
“Not with Uncle Yao around.” Leon bit his lip. “I don’t understand. You’ve brought us nothing but good.”
“Tell that to the men who hurt you.”
He ducked his head, touching his cheek.
“Will you come out with me?” Einar asked.
“Do you have more to show me?” Leon was obviously trying for a smooth tone, but the nervous wriggling of his thick brows betrayed him. Einar leaned further over the bar and lowered his voice to reply.
“Whatever you want to see, Leon Li.”
He swallowed, then nodded.
Just as he’d hurried off behind the bar to inform his sister, the batwing doors swung back open and admitted the same group of people who had been harassing Einar. Frowning, Einar grabbed a wooden coaster and plucked a graphite stick from behind the bar to draw on it. The intricate lines came to him easily, as they always had.
By the time the man he’d made fall reached him, he had hopped off his barstool. The man was shorter than him, but broader.
“Your kind is not welcome here,” the man said.
“My kind?” Out of the corner of his eye, Einar saw Mei poke her head out and her eyes widen.
“Your—your spells, the things you summon. It’s not natural.” There it was.
“You don’t like that I feed your children? That I heal your sick?”
“And whatever you’ve done to Leon Li—” He took a threatening step closer, but before Einar could channel his power into the coaster, the man stopped so abruptly that his hat nearly flew off again. He made a confused noise.
“I assure you,” a voice came from behind the group, icy cold, “that my nephew is not bewitched, nor am I.”
“Mr Yao,” the man started, sweating. The rest of the group appeared to be shrinking in on themselves.
“You will not harass my patrons. I decide who stays at the Laurel.” Yao’s tone brooked no argument, and Einar could swear he saw the air around the small man shimmer.
“But—” Impressively, the man tried to protest.
“You will leave.”
Lips twitching into a sneer, the man turned and marched to the doors, where he turned to yell, “The sheriff will listen to us! The Silver Laurel doesn’t rule Goldcrest!”
Yao folded his arms and frowned up at Einar.
“Thank you,” Einar said.
He shook his head, his eyes—so similar to Leon’s—zipping over him.
“You’re going to break his heart one way or another, but I’d prefer if it took a while longer.”
“I don’t intend to,” Einar told him softly. He just huffed, shaking his head again.
“Uncle!” Leon was hurrying over. “Einar, are you alright?”
“I am, thanks to your uncle.”
Leon looked startled at that. Yao cleared his throat, pulled his hand out of his pocket, and turned on his heel to leave. Einar reached for Leon, gently holding his shoulder, and the man looked up.
“Do you—want to come up to my room?” he asked.
“I would love to.” It would probably be better not to leave the inn yet, anyway, but Einar would take any time he could spend with Leon.
While, downstairs, the Silver Laurel filled up over the course of the evening, Einar and Leon took advantage of Leon’s bed, finally able to do whatever they wanted. Leon traced all over Einar’s tattoos, asking about their meaning and trying to decipher the magic staves. When Einar, hanging off the bed so as to not lose any of his warmth, fished the coaster out of his coat pocket, Leon watched with avid attention.
“I think that would be…” With a concentrated frown, he used some graphite to scribble lines on some paper, resolving into an elegant but spiky symbol like the ones Einar had seen on his uncle’s dishes. He blinked, and said, “I don’t know what that means.”
“Maybe your uncle will know. Mine does this.” Einar folded his hand over the coaster, and with some effort, the wood burst into a bright little flame that he could hold in the palm of his hand. He’d just wanted to startle the rude man. Leon stared at it, his eyes nearly as light as the fire.
“You’re amazing,” he breathed, hovering a hand over the flame.
Einar couldn’t hold it for long, and when it burned out, Leon sprang forward to press him down on his bed, his long hair falling down while he kissed him. Einar groaned, grasping at his warm body.
“Stay the night, Einar,” the man whispered against his neck. “Stay with me.”
“For as long as I can,” Einar promised, and let himself get lost in Leon.
.
now
“Uncle!” Leon startled. He hadn’t spotted his uncle until the man suddenly appeared from between the pharmacy and general store as he was trying to make his way through the crowd.
“Leon, you shouldn’t be here,” he said, dragging him into the shadows.
“People keep telling me that. They won’t do anything to our family—”
“Not because of that.” His uncle sighed, appearing suddenly older and more tired than Leon had ever seen him. “You shouldn’t have to go through this. To watch someone you care about burn. I’d hoped…”
“Burn?” Leon whispered, breath catching in his throat. He thought of the bright flame Einar had captured, just a few days ago, flickering over the sharp angles of his face, and found it too horrifyingly easy to imagine it consuming him. “Mei said—the gallows—”
“I’m sorry, Leon. And old method for old magic, they’re saying.”
“No—please, uncle, there must be something you can do.” Tears were burning in Leon’s eyes. He hadn’t cried in front of his uncle since the day his parents died, but there was a sympathetic light in Yao’s face now that he hadn’t seen even then.
He didn’t reply, just shook his head.
“I need to stay here, uncle. I can’t leave him.”
“I know.” Leon’s uncle sighed, then rummaged through his bag and pulled out a thin sheet of metal, maybe once part of a bucket. Etched into the surface was the symbol they used to make the special dishware. He pressed it into Leon’s hand.
“What is this?”
“I think you’ll realize. Someone needs to protect this town from itself. Stay hidden, Leon. They might not mean to harm you, but they could.” He walked briskly away before Leon could ask anything else.
Baffled, he glanced down at the metal, then put it in the pocket of Einar’s coat, where it clinked against one of his engraved stones. In the street, the angry crowd clamored. Leon eyed the pharmacy, and decided he would try to climb on the roof.
.
III
Einar was just finishing up placing magic staves around a field to help protect the farmer’s crops from inclement weather and rot, when he heard a commotion somewhere down the road. Voices echoed off the mountainside. Putting his knife away, he decided to see if he could help.
What else was his purpose in coming here, after all?
He had expected, maybe, to interrupt a robbery, or just a dispute between some townsfolk, but what he found instead startled him. At a bend in the winding road, just down from the stagecoach stop, there were two men crowded close to a familiar, small figure in red. Leon was backed up into the steep, rocky side of the road while one man, with a large mustache, was pointing an accusing finger at him and the other one, whose hat was comically large, continued to shout over his protests.
“You had to have known!” he screamed. “You people know everything, it’s what you do!”
Furious, Einar dug one of his stave-stones from his pocket. Leon had been nothing but kind to him and Egill—even when Egill was being sour. He’d shown Einar around Goldcrest, listened to Einar’s stories and was merely curious about the things he could do. Einar often recalled how he’d looked under starlight when he went to sleep at his and Egill’s little camp, and couldn’t deny he wanted to see more of him than these casual meetings allowed.
Stone in hand, he stepped out into the road. One man now gripped Leon’s shoulders harshly, both of them towering over him, both of them armed with pistols.
“You let him spin his lies to you!” yelled the man. “Or both of them, huh? Is that what you—”
“Is there a problem?” Einar interrupted sharply.
“Speak of the devil!”
Leon’s golden eyes widened while the man holding him shoved him in front of himself as if to use him as a human shield. A cowardly move. A sharp anger flared in Einar’s body. The devil. That wasn’t a first, but Leon didn’t deserve to be dragged into that.
“Please, let him go,” he said, very calmly.
“Or what?” the man sneered. And then, without warning, he turned and swung at Leon.
Before he’d even hit him, Einar’s power surged, and channeled through the stone, it rang out like a gunshot. It hadn’t often been so explosive before. Just as the man’s fist impacted Leon’s cheekbone, he abruptly doubled over, falling to his knees, while the other one cried out and reeled backwards, showing Leon away in horror.
Obviously disoriented, Leon stumbled, and though Einar rushed over, he couldn’t prevent him from pitching into the rocky ditch, tumbling head over heels. Einar hurried after him, leaving his attackers retching on the road behind him.
Luckily, Leon hadn’t further hit his head, but his nice red shirt was ripped at both sleeves and his pants were scuffed, blood seeping through one leg.
“I’m sorry,” Einar muttered, anxiously kneeling.
“Sorry? You saved me—ow, god.” Leon hissed when he tried to stand. Despite the exhaustion washing over him, Einar helped him to his feet. Leon stared at the road.
“Will they…” He didn’t finish.
“They’ll survive. They probably won’t remember,” Einar said curtly.
“Oh.” Leon’s cheek was bleeding too, and he winced when he put his weight on his foot. Einar bent down to get the man’s arm over his shoulders.
“I can… Help you,” he said, assisting him back to the road. Their significant height difference made the position awkward, and Leon was leaning heavily against him. With a deep breath, Einar ducked down and scooped him up, smiling when he yelped.
“Einar!” His free hand immediately grasped at his vest, and he tucked his head against Einar’s shoulder. He was just as easy to carry as Einar had imagined.
“I’m taking you to camp.”
It wasn’t that far, just up the slope and hidden between some tall cliffsides—made extra hidden by some strategically placed staves by both Einar and his brother. Egill was, in fact, present, writing in his journal while sat on a rock.
“What’s…” He stood abruptly. “Him again? What the hell happened?”
Einar set Leon down under the overhang of one cliff.
“Ignorance,” he replied.
“That’s—Einar, seriously?” Egill asked, meeting his eye over Leon’s head, while Einar ghosted his fingers over the man’s leg. “I’m going to check what damage you’ve done. I told you we should’ve left.”
Leon frowned as Egill stalked off, then hissed when Einar pushed his pant leg up.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Uncle has all kinds of healing herbs.”
“I got no doubt about that,” Einar said with wry amusement. Again, he dug through his pockets, pulling out the last of his paper and some graphite. “But I owe you this much, Leon.”
He drew a stave while the man watched.
“Most people will tell you it’s all nonsense, the old powers of the world.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Kneeling on one leg, Einar closed his eyes and drew on the power within himself until the paper felt warm in his hand, and he pressed it gently to Leon’s bleeding leg. The man gasped as the wound closed, seeming to go through the process of healing in just a minute. Einar knew it felt very odd, and held his other knee in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, squeezing softly.
“Einar,” Leon gasped again, curiously light eyes wide above his bruised cheekbone.
Without a word, Einar reached up and pressed his other piece of paper to that wound, leaning up between his legs. Luckily, this one was less deep and took less out of him. When the paper fell away, curling in on itself, Leon’s cheek was unblemished, though red rose under the skin when Einar swept his fingers over it softly. In the light of dusk, his eyes were a dark gold, and the delicate angles of his face were sharply illuminated.
Einar’s other hand slid up his thigh, and Leon’s breath sped up.
“They think… You know they thought you’ve been seducing me,” he whispered, small hand hovering over Einar’s face.
“Am I?” Or are you, Einar thought.
Leon’s fingertips pressed against his jaw. He leaned very close, until all Einar could see was that blazing gold.
“Yes,” he breathed. Einar heard himself make a noise deep in his throat as they both pressed forward so their lips touched, a spark leaping between them. He tilted his head and slid his hand into Leon’s silky hair, rising up on his knees to press them together. All his exhaustion seemed to melt away as they kissed, Leon’s touch searing through him like magic.
“And I don’t—know why,” Leon gasped between kisses. “Why me?”
“Why not you? There’s a power in you, Leon,” Einar breathed into him. “I wanna know it. I wanna know you.”
That made him curse softly and fist both hands into his collar, pulling him even closer.
“I should, I should go. Mei will worry.”
“I think Egill will carry the message.”
“Oh.” Leon looked at Einar. “You look tired.”
“It takes a lot out of me.”
He bit his lip. “Tell me about it? I want to know you, too.”
Einar did just that. Told him about his and Egill’s travels, trying to help, trying to put this strange gift his family had to good use and being misunderstood at many turns.
“You’re a better person than me,” Leon said, now carding his fingers through Einar’s hair as he rested his head against his thigh, both of them now in Einar’s open tent. Leon’s vest was unbuttoned, and Einar had draped his coat over himself. The evening was cold.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe, I’m worse in a different way. Egill would probably agree.”
That wasn’t actually true; Einar knew his brother would defend him fiercely if needed. He just didn’t know if it was always for the right reasons. Leon huffed a laugh.
“Yeah, so would Mei.”
They dozed off; Einar never heard Egill return.
.
now
They had actually built a pyre where the gallows usually were, as if they’d gone back to the middle ages. Leon watched with horror from the rooftop while Einar was finally marched out of the sheriff’s office, hands bound behind his back and wavy blond hair disheveled. His expression was impassive, but his dark eyes zipped anxiously over the crowd.
The crowd that jeered as the sheriff marched him to the yet unlit pyre, as if Einar hadn’t laid protections on their fields and houses, hadn’t healed their livestock and made sure their food stayed fresh, all without expecting anything in return. Leon touched his cheek, feeling the echo of the man’s power, and of his careful touches.
Maybe, his family had been doing the wrong thing, protecting Goldcrest; they had evidently decided that anyone who was different, had to go.
Once Einar had been bound to the pole in the middle of the pyre, which seemed to be part of the gallows’ structure, the crowd quieted down a little. The sheriff gestured. This wasn’t the whole town, Leon could see. It couldn’t be. He tried to memorize the faces, determined to do—something.
“Any last words from the guilty?” asked the sheriff.
For a moment, it seemed as though Einar wouldn’t speak, and the man bearing a torch stepped menacingly close. Then, he opened his mouth, and his deep, smooth voice reverberated across the square.
“You fear what you don’t know, and blame me for things you don’t understand.” He looked around again, and Leon was sure he saw those dark blue eyes linger on him for just a moment, a warmth suffusing him. “But I assure you, you will regret it. A poison will spread over you as it spread over your thoughts.”
“That’s enough!” the man with the torch barked, and he stepped forward once more.
“Your land will go sour,” Einar said, and he looked up at Leon before smoke obscured him from view.
Leon turned away.
.
II
“What are you doing?”
Einar nearly jumped at the curious voice at his shoulder, and turned, looking down.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” said the small man standing next to him in the general store, looking unapologetic.
“Leon Li, isn’t it? From the Silver Laurel.”
“That’s right.” He cleared his throat. “I hadn’t expected you to stay in Goldcrest. Do you work here now?”
“I like to help out.” Einar carefully replaced the shelf he had removed at the owner’s request back in the display, positioning it so none of his careful carving was visible. The food would hold much better now.
“That’s… Admirable. Einar, right?”
“Yes. Very impressive, you must see a lot of people.” Einar hoped that meant he had left some kind of impression on the young man; he’d left one on Einar. Leon shrugged awkwardly, pushing a long strand of hair out of his face.
“Not so many. We don’t really get that many visitors up here. Locals keep the Laurel going.”
Einar thought that sounded like a bit of an oversimplification, given what had happened to him and Egill, and he raised his eyebrows at Leon, who wriggled his own in return, indecipherably. Despite himself, Einar smiled. There was something very intriguing about Leon Li.
“Maybe, seeing as I’m such a rarity, you could show me around town.”
Leon’s light brown eyes narrowed. Einar blinked innocently.
“I certainly could. Where’s your brother?”
“Around, somewhere.”
A hum. “Are you done here?”
Einar nodded, and he followed Leon out of the store. He’d been promised he could come pick up supplies later, and was happy to spend some time with this odd man for now.
The town of Goldcrest was small but bustling, with horses and some wagons passing on the street, people talking as they went into the local pub.
“Don’t go there,” Leon warned as they passed it, and Einar couldn’t help but laugh, which made him smile. “I’m serious. They dilute everything.”
“Good to know. I’m sure you would never do anything to tamper with your guests’ food.”
Leon grimaced, but Einar just kept smiling serenely.
They wandered through town. People kept greeting Leon, asking how his family were. Einar slowly built a picture in his head of just how things worked around here, and Leon and his family were obviously an important part of it.
“So you just… Travel?” the man asked him. “That must be nice.”
“Sometimes.”
“Hm.” He glanced up through dark lashes. “Where are you staying if not at the Laurel? There’s nowhere else.”
“Well, let me show you something.”
Before Einar could lead Leon out of town, they did run into Egill, who had a new coat, and who narrowed his eyes at Leon.
“We’re not going back to the inn, are we?” he asked Einar suspiciously, stepping very close to whisper the question. Einar clasped his arm, shaking his head.
“Nice coat,” he said.
“Where are you taking him?”
“It’s not like…” Einar took a deep breath. “He’s intriguing.”
“I bet.” Egill pressed his lips into a thin line, looking up at him. “There are farmers that need staves of protection.”
Einar nodded. Leon, who had been standing quietly, cleared his throat.
“Should I go?”
“Be careful,” Egill said, and then he turned and walked into town, dodging a woman on a horse. Einar shook his head.
“He’s, uh.” Leon didn’t finish.
“We’re all we have,” Einar said. He worried about Egill sometimes.
“I know what that’s like.”
“I suppose you would.”
They walked up the mountainside, into the dense forest surrounding the town and to Einar’s and Egill’s little camp. It wasn’t much; his and Egill’s tents, a small fire under an overhang of rock. Egill had carefully painted a magic stave on the rock to prevent it falling and crushing them both to death. He was better with stones. Although Leon definitely noticed the black marks, he didn’t ask about them.
Instead, he asked where Einar had been before, listened to him talk about the sea, and told him about his life in this mountain town in return, though he barely mentioned his family. When he tugged the red hair tie out of his dark hair, it spilled around his shoulders like an inkstain, making Einar wonder whether it would feel as smooth as it looked. When he smiled, his eyes glittered like gold. His features were delicate but sharp, except for his eyebrows, which jumped wildly as if to hint at his thoughts.
They ate canned beans warmed over the fire, which wasn’t much, but Leon didn’t complain. Egill returned and went straight into his tent.
“Don’t mind him,” said Einar. “This… This has been nice.”
“Yes,” Leon agreed softly. “I’d be happy to show you more of town. Uh, both of you.”
“I’ll be sure to ask. I’m afraid I got nothing much to show you, though.” He tilted his head and looked at the sky, which was now dark and dotted with stars. “You ever heard the story of the White Mountain?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s up there.” Einar scooted closer to point. “See that bright star over the pine tree?”
Leon squinted up, his head brushing Einar’s shoulder. He nodded.
“That’s the peak. And down there, you can see the lovers.”
It was a story like many others, of forbidden love, two families who hated each other and the mountain that divided the lovers. Einar had told it many times, though he tried not to think too hard about why that one, out of all the legends he knew, had come to mind.
By the time he had finished, Leon was nodding off, and he startled awake when Einar gently shook his shoulder. On instinct, it seemed, he grasped Einar’s coat, and Einar curved a hand around the back of his neck.
“I should go home,” the man mumbled.
“You can stay.”
“I shouldn’t, I… Einar, you should know, my family, we’re…” He swallowed, still holding his coat. “We’re different, in some ways. You shouldn’t…”
He didn’t finish, but Einar could imagine, here in the quiet, after the story he’d just told.
“You’re not your family,” he said softly.
“Maybe.” He yawned. “I really should go.”
“You can stay in my tent, I can share with my brother. It’s too dark to go down the mountain.”
“Okay,” Leon acquiesced, untangling himself.
When Einar quietly got into Egill’s tent, Egill turned to his back to face him.
“You’re a fool, Einar,” he mumbled.
“Perhaps. Time will tell.” He ran his hand through Egill’s hair, smiling when he huffed and turned over, making room for him.
Different in some ways… It wasn’t like the two of them were so normal.
.
now
After nearly falling off the roof in his hurry to get away, Leon wandered aimlessly through the forest around town, Einar’s coat dragging on the ground behind as he sagged.
Eventually, he came back to the edge of some farmland, and followed a fence until he found a post with a familiar stave carved into the wood. Protection. He looked at the flourishing crops, seething. They certainly didn’t deserve—
Leon’s fingers closed around the piece of metal his uncle had given him, and he felt it heat under his touch. He pulled it out. Stared at the symbol he’d seen so often.
Now, remembering Einar’s final words, it suddenly made sense. It was him. It was his job to carry out his final wish.
The piece of metal became white hot in his hand, but he couldn’t feel it. All he could feel was power, and all he could read was what he’d known all along. Poison.
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I
The inn looked welcoming against the darkness, and Einar could hear his brother sigh in relief as the two of them ascended the few steps to the batwing doors.
Inside, there was lively music coming from a worn-down piano in a corner, and plenty of people talking, eating and drinking. An older man was behind the bar, short and with long black hair pulled back from his face. Einar went over to him while his brother hung back, surveying the dining hall.
“How can I help you?” the man asked brusquely, eyeing Einar’s pack. “Traveler?”
“Yes, sir, my brother and I would like a room for the night.”
“Certainly. What brings you to town?”
“Whatever is needed,” Einar replied. The man narrowed his light brown eyes but nodded.
“Will you be having dinner? It can be brought up to your room, and a bath can also be arranged.”
“Yes, please.”
“Good.” Turning, the man shouted, “Leon! Guests!”
From behind the bar came a younger man, about Egill’s age, just as small, his expression nearly bored.
“Yes, uncle.” He looked up at Einar, thick eyebrows jumping once. “Welcome to the Silver Laurel, my name is Leon Li.”
“Einar,” said Einar. “And my brother, Egill.”
Egill held up a hand when he gestured over, and Leon Li nodded. He led them up the stairs to a modest room at the end of the hallway.
“The bath is downstairs, it will be ready soon,” he explained.
“Thank you, Leon Li,” Einar told him, and his eyebrows quirked again, amusingly. Egill huffed a laugh.
“I will be back soon with dinner.”
Egill went down to take a bath immediately, which Einar couldn’t blame him for. They didn’t often venture into the mountains, and it was hard work getting all their belongings up the sometimes steep paths.
With a knock on the door, Leon Li brought in a tray of covered plates, which he set on the table.
“Dish of the day is beef stew,” he said, brows twitching.
“Thank you, Leon Li.”
“Leon,” he said. “My uncle says you’ve come to town to help?”
“In any way we can.” Einar watched Leon bite his lip, teeth leaving indents in the skin.
He was well-dressed, his red shirt shimmering in the light of a gas lamp, and Einar suddenly felt self-conscious about his muddy coat. He’d have to get it cleaned somewhere in town.
“Is it just you and your uncle?” he asked, taking the coat off and rolling his sleeves up, though not far enough that the black lines inked into his skin became visible.
“And my sister. And some staff, of course.”
“Hm. Thank you for dinner, Leon.”
“You’re welcome. If you need anything, you can find me down the hall.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Einar watched him go, wondering. He turned to the dishes to lift one of the lids off. It smelled delicious. His stomach rumbled. Cautiously, he picked the bowl up, and spotted an elegant symbol painted on the underside that somehow tingled at his fingertips.
“That smells good,” Egill said, stepping back into the room. Einar hummed as he put the bowl down. Something was going on here.
“Wait,” he told his brother, and Egill did, grumpily, while Einar bent over his discarded coat and pulled out a thin brush. “Where’s the ink?”
Egill retrieved it from his pack. Wetting the brush, Einar carefully drew a stave on the side of the bowl holding the stew, concentrating until he felt the tingle leave, the strange symbol losing its potency. He handed the brush to Egill and told him to copy his work. When his brother gasped, he knew he’d felt it too.
“Did they try to poison us?”
“Seems so.” Einar took a spoon and smelled the stew again. Still nice.
“Are you eating it?” Egill asked incredulously, although he looked longingly at the other bowl, his stomach also rumbling.
Einar put the spoon in his mouth. It was great, pleasantly spiced and distinctly un-poisoned now.
“Oh, alright.” Egill ate the stew, and when he was done, he immediately went to sleep while Einar finally went down for a bath.
The warm water was blissful, and it was great to wash the dirt from his face. The streams up here in the mountains were freezing cold, not great for bathing.
To his amusement, he ran into Leon when he was done, and the young man looked flustered to see him in just his shirt and pants, his suspenders hanging down.
“The stew was excellent,” Einar told him, watching him wince. What was the purpose of the poison? To kill them, to knock them out and rob them? Drive them out of town?
“That’s good to hear. Is there anything else I can do for you?” He was composed now, which intrigued Einar. How did this polite young man get tangled up in something like that?
“No, thank you.”
“Good.” He glanced over when two men, one with a large mustache and one wearing a very big hat, came into the hall.
“Who’s this?” Mustache asked loudly, probably drunkenly. “New faces in town? What does your uncle think of this, Li?”
Leon’s expression turned cold, and he shrugged disaffectedly. “You know my uncle. As long as he gets paid.”
“That is certainly true,” said Hat, voice low, shadowed eyes narrowing at Einar. The two men left. Einar blinked.
“Do you serve breakfast?” he asked casually.
“Oh—sometimes, if the occasion arises.”
“I think I’d like breakfast.”
Leon looked up at him, tucking his hair behind his ear. He opened, then closed his mouth. Nodded.
“I’ll see to it.”
“Great.”
Einar had an excellent night’s sleep.
.
now, and forever
Everyone in Goldcrest knew one thing: the Silver Laurel protected the town, but if you wanted to live in peace, you better not cross any of the family that ran it. If you did, a poison would spread, and any semblance of peace would be gone forever.
How about, for the Spotify wrapped prompt thing, #99 and whatever femslash ship you'd like?
Thank you! I hope you're ready for a tiny fic about some very toxic ladies! So many interesting options, but in the end I went for the Bels. Bel², heh!
And by very toxic, I mean there's just straight up murder happening, so, warning for that :V I imagine, for some reason, that this takes place in the sixties.
Manon is Belgium & Nadzeya is Belarus :)
Send a number 1-100 and a ship/character and I'll write something inspired by the corresponding song from my most listened this year :)
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The Final Truth
Manon is smiling. Why is she smiling?
It’s not a nice smile. It’s sharp, twisting her red lips in ways Nadzeya has never seen before, and her beautiful green eyes are like shards of glass in her face. Nadzeya has always known that there is something cold underneath the surface of Manon’s good cheer, but it has never been directed at her. It’s not supposed to be directed at her.
She’s not supposed to be smiling.
Nadzeya can hear her own heartbeat, thundering in her ears. It’s surely not healthy for it to be that fast.
“Manon?” she whispers. Her lips feel cold. Her voice wavers. It never wavers.
“I’m sorry, Nadzeya,” Manon replies. She does not sound sorry, and the smile twists further.
“What is this?” Why is Nadzeya so cold when her insides feel like they are burning? More importantly, why is Manon not cold?
“This is…” Manon reaches for her, and her fingers are scorching hot against Nadzeya’s cheek. “The end.”
“Why?” It’s all she can think to ask, while Manon curves her hot fingers around the back of her neck. Nadzeya tries to grasp her arm, but her fingers are quickly going numb, her body heavy. She accidentally scratches Manon’s pale skin. In the low, flickering light of the single lightbulb illuminating the basement, she seems almost statuesque, with her curled hair impeccable as ever, tucked into her headband. Her pearl earrings glisten like tears, but her eyes are dry.
“It’s too much, Nadzeya. It hurts too much.”
That is why they are here. Why they are both here. They were supposed to be together. She’s not supposed to be smiling.
Slowly, Manon lowers Nadzeya to the couch as her body grows heavier and heavier with each breath. Each shuddering breath. It’s so cold. Nadzeya keeps trying to grab her, trying to pull her close like she’s supposed to be. All this time they’ve been together, Manon has been warm, but not like this. Not this overwhelming heat. This sharp, malicious blaze of her smile. It hurts too much? What does that mean?
To Nadzeya, love has always hurt, and she thought it was that way for everyone for a long time. But for Manon, she has learned, it is soft. Soothing. No hidden truths, no twisted words. Until now. Because now, Nadzeya realizes as her eyes fight to stay open, she knows that it can hurt, and she can’t take it.
“I will be fine,” Manon says, cupping Nadzeya’s cheek. “I’ve learned my lesson this time.”
This time? Nadzeya tries to speak, tries to ask if there have been others who were stupid enough to walk into this obvious web of lies as she did, but her throat is closing up. She can’t feel her legs anymore. She can’t feel anything anymore, except for the white-hot heat of Manon’s betrayal, captured in that smile. Those lovely red lips that drew her in with a bright grin across a crowded dance floor, now smiling as she takes her last breaths. The sparkling eyes that winked at her are now watching her struggle dispassionately. Was this always how it was going to end, or has Manon deluded herself into believing that she’s looking for actual love? Will she, one day, find a woman who’s good enough for her? Who is good enough for the world to see?
“Why?” Nadzeya manages to rasp, again. She gets no reply other than a gentle shushing, like she’s just trying to get to sleep after a bad dream. She’s told Manon about her nightmares, about the fears her youth instilled in her. They’ve spent hours on the phone in the middle of the night, talking about nothing, or lying in bed, hidden from the world. But what does Nadzeya really know about Manon? How much does she actually understand about her life, about her past? Why has it never seemed important until now?
None of her questions will get answers, now. And maybe that’s all there is to Manon’s smile; the knowledge that her secrets are safe. That no one will ever really know her, or know about Nadzeya. That people will just see a lovely young woman, unattached and bright, dancing and smiling through life.
Nadzeya thought she was lonely, before she met Manon, but she sees with startling clarity that no one will ever be as lonely as her. That blazing smile is proof of that. She’ll never find what she wants. She can’t.
With her final breath, Nadzeya twists her own lips into a sharp smile to mirror Manon’s. She’ll not let her have the satisfaction of the last laugh.
The last thing she sees is Manon’s mouth curling down, and then everything is cold.
Of course! You didn't mention a particular character but I think this song naturally suggests a very specific group, so! Here's some vaguely ambiguous (probably romantic, could be read as Very Good Friends™) tragic fantasy Viking Trio! What's tragic fantasy, you ask? It's a fantasy setting and someone is dead, is what! Don't worry, they're gonna get him back :^)
Einar is Norway, Torbjörn is Sweden & Søren is Denmark!
Send a number 1-100 and a ship/character and I'll write something inspired by the corresponding song from my most listened this year :)
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Amid the raucous celebration, Einar and Torbjörn were cloaked in silence. People around them raised their flagons and drinking horns and cheered to their victory, praising Søren’s name.
Torbjörn clenched his jaw and watched Einar’s elegant fingers tighten around his cutlery. Neither of them had eaten a bite yet, nor had they drunk any of the richly flowing mead.
Søren can coax Einar out of any mood, with his smile undeterred by the man’s often dark countenance. He throws an arm around his shoulders, grins against his temple while he tugs Torbjörn over with his other hand, fisted in his coat.
“I don’t think they know how annoying he is,” Einar said, and then seemed to choke on the food he hadn’t eaten. “Was.”
Søren the Axe-wielder, they were calling him. The warrior who finally conquered the powerful entity most people were afraid to name. It was a title he would’ve loved, Torbjörn thought. Although he probably wouldn’t have been a fan of the way his axe was now being passed around like some sort of relic, by people that weren’t him or either of them.
“Very annoying,” Torbjörn agreed, his voice scratchy with disuse. “Never should’ve let him go out in the first place.”
He’s so earnest, so ready to lay down his life for them from the moment they meet, and seems confused that they’d do the same. Torbjörn worries, sometimes, that they aren’t good for him, that they’ll drag him down with their silences.
But he doesn’t know how to tell Søren that, so he tries to pour his appreciation into the wood he carves, making new beads for his wild hair or a new handle for his axe, talismans for both him and Einar. Just as Einar learns protective spells to lay on the wood and weaves tales by firesides across the realm to enchant both of them. It’s always the three of them.
“He can be so stubborn,” Einar continued, stabbing his knife into a piece of meat. He didn’t correct his tense this time, and neither did Torbjörn, who just nodded, reaching for his arm. He really should eat; it had been a long battle. Einar looked over at him, dark blue eyes edged with the wild, iridescent purple of his magic.
Or, maybe, it was just emotion this time. If it was, Torbjörn had not the skill to say. Søren would have known.
Relieved and adrenalin-filled after a mighty battle, Torbjörn tangles his hands in Søren’s ever-unruly hair while the man recounts the whole thing, and Einar tiredly crafts healing potions. Søren never shuts his mouth, and in moments like these, it’s a relief to both of them, to know he’s still there. The way he lets Torbjörn mend his armor and Einar heal his wounds means he’s relieved, too.
Eventually, they managed to eat some food, quietly. Ignored by the revelers in the tavern. Søren was still soaking up the attention that neither of them wanted, even though he was no longer here.
Einar kept cutting three pieces.
Sighing, Torbjörn continued to touch his arm, reminding both of them where they were. Who they were—even if he wasn’t entirely sure of what that was, now.
When the food was gone at long last, Einar laid his slender hand over where Torbjörn’s rested on his forearm. They sat still.
He never stops moving if they don’t slow him down now and then. Søren flies through life with little regard for his surroundings. He even wriggles and talks in his sleep. Einar keeps a parchment to note the strangest things he says, and Søren is always amused to find out.
Sometimes, when all three of them can sleep at once, without the need for a watch, he ends up between Torbjörn and Einar, and is still for once. And then, of course, he tells Torbjörn that he snores much too loud.
The tavern started emptying; the townsfolk were exhausted from the long day and full of food and drink. They left Søren’s axe, stained with tar-like blood, behind. Torbjörn wasn’t sure what they intended to do with it, so he stood up from his bench, marched over, and took it, glaring at the few people still hanging around. They did know who he was despite Søren getting all the fame, and let him.
Of course, Torbjörn used a sword most of the time, but perhaps he could take up this weapon as a tribute to Søren. He ran his fingers over the runes he had carved into the handle, and saw them light up with a familiar purple glow as he got back.
Standing, Einar also touched the axe. A frisson of energy ran through both of them. Einar took a deep breath, the light flaring with it.
“I can feel him,” he breathed.
An infectious grin, hands rough from gripping an axe, but ever so gentle in their touch. Hair burnished copper in the sun, a thousand freckles bunching as Søren laughs.
“’S not right,” Torbjörn said.
“It’s not,” Einar agreed.
“Supposed to be three of us.”
Their hands touched over the glowing runes, and Torbjörn could almost hear Søren’s exasperated exclamation of, ‘Just say what you mean for once, you guys! By the gods, you’d think words cost gold!’
They finally speak their unspoken pact the day before the final battle: it’s the three of them against everything else. Einar weaves a spell between them, connecting them all, and he drapes over both of them in a fitful sleep, his visions darker than ever. Torbjörn is still a knight at heart, even if he’s been caught up with these strange men for years, and his sleep is watchful.
Søren is the only one who sleeps well, content in the knowledge that he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be, who he’s supposed to be.
“He’s beyond this realm,” Einar said slowly, in the same sort of voice with which he issued prophecies or chanted spells—something deep and otherworldly that settled under Torbjörn’s skin. “But I don’t believe he’s beyond our reach.”
The runes flared as if in agreement, as if Søren was watching and he was grinning triumphantly, saying, ‘I knew you guys would figure it out!’
And even if he wasn’t, Torbjörn knew they would find him, would move mountains and challenge the gods themselves if they had to.
looking through old notebooks and found some mostly-finished fics I'd never even typed up that I actually quite liked, so here's one of those! I think this one was for a rarepair week. and it truly is... a rarepair :)
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more than you know
rating: M (semi-explicit sex scene)
characters/pairing: Czechia (Kveta)/Vietnam (Vinh), mentioned Thailand (Niran) & Slovakia (Zdeno)
word count: 4511
summary:
Both Vinh and Kveta work very hard. All it takes is one evening of letting loose for things to change.
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“Ugh!” Rather dramatically, Kveta flings her bag across the room, into Vinh’s couch. It bounces off, but she doesn’t pick it up before throwing herself after it. Her shirt flips up, giving Vinh a peek of a very orange, very lacy bra before it’s covered again.
“You seem chipper,” she says, mostly just amused by her friend’s antics. She knows Kveta does it on purpose; she claims she likes it when her emotions make people uncomfortable.
“Do not get me started, Vinh,” she muffles into a pillow, before sitting up straight and shaking her light brown hair out. “People are just so…” She clenches her jaw.
“Don’t I know it.” Vinh leans her elbows on her desk and rests her chin in her hands. Most likely, the kind of frustration that they each feel is different, because people annoy them in different ways at work, but she definitely gets what Kveta’s talking about. Sometimes, it feels as though that’s all they talk about.
“At least you can fight them,” Kveta’s saying now, looking quite wistful. Vinh huffs. That is not true and she knows it. In return, Kveta just grins, shrugging.
“Well, you’re done now, aren’t you?” Standing up, Vinh picks up Kveta’s bag on her way to the kitchen and throws it at her. Catching it with an oof, Kveta follows.
In the kitchen, she sits on top of the counter and watches Vinh scoop coffee beans into the machine, hands on her knees.
“I guess I am done. I’ve only got a couple small things to finish.” She rolls her eyes. “Provided that her majesty the fucking asshole doesn’t decide she wants to change the whole design again.”
Vinh absently pats her thigh through her jeans.
“It’s the fourth time!”
“You’ve said.”
“I’ve got four dresses perfectly tailored to a single woman and I have to fight her to get paid for even one!”
“You should take some time off.” Vinh hands her a cup of coffee.
Kveta falls silent, hands folding around her cup. Vinh blows gently on her own coffee while pulling her ponytail over one shoulder.
“And you,” Kveta says, eventually.
“Huh?”
A tired smile aimed down at her, most of Kveta’s dark lipstick having smudged off during her workday. The smile is a little lopsided, as it is most of the time.
“I’ve known you for 13 years and I don’t think you’ve ever just taken some time off.”
“We’ve been on holiday together,” Vinh points out. Well, them and Niran and Kveta’s brother, because those two were hard to shake back then. At times, it’d felt more like babysitting two grown men.
“I mean, just a few days, outside the regular holidays, you know. There’s always something else to guard.”
“I like my job.”
“So do I, but I am so done with it at the moment, Vinh.” She shifts, leaning forward a bit. “We should go out somewhere, like we used to.”
She says that like they used to party every night, even though both Vinh and Kveta had put most of that behind them by the time they’d met—and Vinh had never been one for stuff like that either way. She wasn’t yet in charge of her own security team, then, but she had been assigned to watch out at one of the city’s major art and design conventions—specifically, the fashion section, which was good, because although Vinh liked fashion in a way, she didn’t care much about the intricacies of the subject, and if it’d been the photography exhibit, she might have been more easily distracted by that.
Kveta had managed to charm her way past the other security to show her designs to some of the influential people there, who she was, of course, also charming in that very efficient way of hers and who had insisted to Vinh she could stay. She’d then promised her a drink afterwards to make it up to her. Vinh is still surprised at herself for taking her up on the offer.
“I’m too old to get drunk,” she says now, quirking her eyebrows and drinking her coffee.
“That’s bullshit. Also, I didn’t say anything about getting drunk! Where’s your mind at, Vinh?”
To be fair, Vinh isn’t convinced Kveta can get drunk. Or at the very least, not on beer. It’s… a talent.
Now quite enthusiastic, Kveta puts her coffee down and jumps to the ground. She isn’t actually much taller than Vinh, but is wearing towering platform boots and towers over her at the moment, even as she slouches.
“Let’s do it!” She grins, and Vinh can’t help but shrug and smile back.
“Fine, then. Should we ask anyone else?”
“I mean, you could try to convince Niran to leave his newborn child at home, but I doubt it’d work.”
That’s fair. And Mei, from next door, is away for the week, and Kveta’s brother, Zdeno, now lives on the other side of the country, which leaves basically no one they both know who’d be fun to go out with.
“Just the two of us, then,” Vinh concedes. She huffs. “Let’s see if we can keep up with the kids.”
“You’re not even 35.” Kveta stretches, her cropped shirt riding up so far that Vinh can see her bra again, as well as the graceful lines of the tattoo on her sternum underneath it. She bites her lip, looking down at her remaining coffee. Drains it.
“Just the two of us.”
Kveta was apparently planning on staying for dinner, as they both sometimes do, but now decides to go home, to ‘change into a good outfit’. Vinh looks forward to seeing it; Kveta’s job has its reflection on her clothing style, and it’s bound to be interesting. As for herself… During dinner, she considers the weather. It’s early spring, but it’s been a nice day, and she wouldn’t want to be outshined too much by Kveta, so she can probably get away with baring some skin. As long as she takes a coat.
And a scarf for Kveta, she decides later, just before she leaves, because Kveta is bound to forget. Well, forget—she’ll put her overall look above the weather until she gets cold. Kveta is a single-minded sort of woman that way.
They meet back up at Kveta’s apartment, since she lives closer to the city center.
The lipstick has been re-applied, but is now combined with a high-collared lilac dress that’s barely longer than a shirt, cinched at the waist by a shimmery gold belt, and Kveta is wearing two different shoes, considering which to wear out. Vinh doesn’t realize this at first, and immediately feels pretty stupid about it.
“If they were the same height, maybe,” Kveta says, sounding dead serious, but she winks when Vinh raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. “No, you’re right, I shouldn’t get carried away.”
She wears combat boots, in the end. They have gold laces.
Vinh hasn’t taken her coat off yet, and is very aware of the curious looks she’s getting. They’re nice, those looks, even if they’re just about her clothes. Biting her lip again, Vinh strides ahead of Kveta in her heels to where she can already hear muffled music.
“I hope you were kidding about being too old for this,” Kveta says, catching up with her. She tucks her short hair behind her ear.
“I said I was too old to get drunk,” Vinh reminds her. She’s never liked being drunk, anyway.
“That’s fair. Hey, let’s…” Kveta blinks, and Vinh bites down on a smirk while she shrugs her coat off and folds it over her arm. “Now, that’s not fair.” Gesturing expansively at all of Vinh, Kveta flicks her grey gaze up and down her body. Vinh tries to tamp down the excited thrill in her stomach.
It’s just… Kveta and those sharply-lined eyes of hers burning across her midriff as if she hasn’t seen it before. As if they haven’t been to the beach together. She just does that sometimes. What Vinh wishes it meant, is not relevant.
They’re holding up the small queue to get in.
Vinh clears her throat and shuffles ahead, and if it weren’t for the rapidly flashing lights, she’d say Kveta was blushing.
Once in the club where they haven’t been in several years, at least on Vinh’s part, Kveta goes ahead to the bar while she hangs her coat and takes note of the exits, mostly out of professional interest, and has found two unoccupied stools for them when Vinh catches up. Vinh signals the bartender while Kveta squints at the drinks menu, probably scrutinizing the beer options. In the end, Vinh has no idea what kind of beer it is that she orders, but she just asks for the same thing; Kveta will know.
It is early yet, or relatively so anyway, and the music isn’t quite so loud that Vinh has to shout, but Kveta leans close anyway, her knee tucking between Vinh’s, when she lifts her beer in a toast.
“To the two of us, then,” Vinh says.
“To the two of us!” Kveta toasts her with a grin, leaning even closer and tucking her hair back behind her ear with her other hand. “And to fuck work!”
“Sure,” Vinh agrees. She touches Kveta’s knee quickly, mostly to keep her balance, but it makes Kveta’s eyebrows quirk interestingly over the rim of her beer.
For a while, they sit at the bar drinking beer—several, in Kveta’s case, and she’s probably making notes about them on her phone—and watching people. Kveta gets giggly when she’s tipsy, and Vinh delights in pointing out people’s outfits and having her explain why they’re perfect for that person.
“The pants symbolize his youthful spirit, Vinh.”
“Hm, I’m pretty sure they symbolize a midlife crisis.”
A giggle. “Isn’t that what I just said?” And, “We should dance, I’m starting to feel very old just sitting here.”
Vinh lets herself be pulled into the fray by her hand, although Kveta stops after a few steps to inspect the rings she’s wearing.
“Looks nice,” she mumbles, looking from Vinh’s hand up to her face. “If you punch someone wearing these…”
“They’re gonna feel it.”
“Nice.” She flashes a grin.
They dance in close proximity for some time, not bothering to talk over the music, brushing shoulders with each other and everyone else around them. The lights flash in Kveta’s belt, and her grey eyes are bright.
“I’m gonna get another drink!” Vinh eventually shouts. “Want anything?”
“I—you know what? Get me a cocktail,” Kveta replies, leaning close. Her cheeks are flushed. “You pick. I’ll be right there.”
It’s a good ten minutes before she comes over to the bar, and Vinh has—inadvisably—done two shots of tequila and is only now remembering she is no longer twenty. Whatever face she’s pulling must be pretty funny, because Kveta starts giggling.
“Shut up,” Vinh tells her, and pushes at her shoulder when she gets up on her barstool so that she stumbles instead, bumping into a man who followed her out from the crowd.
“Hey!” he says, turning around with a frown—Kveta laughs apologetically; Vinh is already getting out of her seat and clenching her fists, but the man just grins and waves Kveta off, turning to the bartender.
“Well—whoa.” Kveta blinks up at Vinh, now actually slightly shorter than her. “Oh, fuck, I forgot you get aggressive when you’re drunk.” Her eyes have got very wide, and she parts her dark purple lips.
“I’m not—” Vinh clears her throat and sits back down, pressing her lips together. “I got you a Queen Elizabeth.” She slides the drink her way.
“Oh!” Sitting now, and scooting closer, Kveta inspects the glass. “Is that lemon?”
“Lime.”
“Huh.” She sets the edge of the glass against her lips but doesn’t drink yet, instead knocking her knee into Vinh’s thigh and smiling at her. “I’d have loved to watch you fight a man.”
Despite herself, Vinh snorts.
“I would’ve! It would’ve been so—just—” She tips her head back, drowning almost her whole cocktail in one go. “Fuck! That’s sour!”
At Vinh’s unimpressed look, she starts giggling again.
She gets another one, and tries to get Vinh one too, but Vinh is definitely feeling those tequila shots now and starts drinking water after a single gin and tonic. Kveta just starts complaining about her demanding client again.
“I’m not doing that again, Vinh,” she says, very seriously, and Vinh digs her nails into her palms to stifle the urge to just offer to punch that fucking woman and everyone else who’s ever upset Kveta. That’s stupid. It wouldn’t help.
“I’m not doing anything,” Kveta is declaring now. “I’m taking time off. Gonna visit Zdeno.”
“Good idea.”
“You should come.” She touches Vinh’s knee this time, fingertips lingering softly. “We could see the sights, you know?” Her hair falls messily against her flushed cheek, and Vinh reaches for it. She pauses when Kveta looks at her hand, blinking, but then the woman just leans over more, so she continues, tucking the strand away for her.
“I could do with some time off,” she agrees, and revels in Kveta’s beaming smile.
“Let’s do it!” She nearly falls forward off her stool, but just laughs when Vinh catches her. “I don’t care if I’m asked to dress a fucking royal wedding, I’m not doing it!”
That seems unlikely, but everyone’s entitled to their drunk fancies.
“My parents live pretty close to your brother, you know.”
Case in point.
“Yes!” She puts her other hand on Vinh’s other knee, fingers skimming the edge of her skirt. “I’d love to see your parents, they’re great.”
They are. They’re also very adamant that Vinh should get married, or at least find herself a girlfriend. And they love Kveta. Vinh suddenly feels like punching something again. She tightens her jaw while Kveta looks away.
Kveta gets a soda while Vinh goes to the bathroom, and then they dance for a little bit longer, but before long, they agree that it’s time to go. The crown is still thick, but they both feel like they’re done for the night. Kveta is still perky, almost bouncing while they walk to her apartment, although Vinh feels like there’s an almost nervous edge to it. She’s probably thinking about her job again, knowing her.
Belatedly, she drapes her scarf over her friend’s shoulders, and Kveta smiles brightly at her, pulling the fabric around herself.
In the portico of her building, Kveta runs into a man again, tripping over her own feet as she climbs the small step, and before the guy can even rise to his full height and glare at her, Vinh has shoved herself in front of her and is tensing her muscles, glaring up.
“Whoa!” Kveta says, grabbing the back of her coat. “Sorry, Sadık.”
The man raises his eyebrows and steps aside.
“Come on, Vinh.” Kveta tugs at her arm. There’s an odd tone to her voice that snaps Vinh out of her—well, whatever that was.
“Sorry,” she says, following Kveta up the narrow stairs. “I don’t know what…”
In front of her apartment door, Kveta turns around, eyes bright and determined in the low light.
“You’re dangerous when you’re drunk, Vinh.” She says her name very intently, like it means something.
“Sorry.”
“No, don’t be.” She turns to open her door. Takes a breath and turns back once again. “It’s really hot, actually.”
“Kveta…”
“It’s—you’re…” She steps backwards across her threshold and stumbles again, and Vinh catches her, of course she catches her, grasping her shoulder with one hand and her waist with the other, and Kveta presses her hands against her bare midriff. Her breath is heavy but she looks steadily at her.
“You can’t be serious,” Vinh says, jaw clenching.
“Vinh,” Kveta whispers. She steps back, taking Vinh with her.
“How drunk are you?” she asks under her breath, heart beating in her throat and skin tingling.
“Just enough to tell you how fucking hot you are. I want to—I’ve wanted to—” Her fingers are curling into Vinh’s stomach, and she looks down, parting her lips, before meeting her eye. “I know it’s probably stupid. I’m just…” She tries to step back, but Vinh follows, letting go of her waist only to close the door behind them. “Vinh…”
She runs her fingers up over Kveta’s jaw, tucking her hair back once more, biting her own lip.
“It probably is stupid,” she mumbles, but there is heat suffusing her body that has nothing to do with alcohol, and the brightness in Kveta’s eyes isn’t like that either, she’s certain.
“Yeah?”
There is a still moment that seems charged, and then they’re both moving as if magnetized, Vinh pulling and Kveta pushing until they collapse against the door, kissing with an almost desperate force. Vinh’s scarf falls from Kveta’s shoulders when Vinh pushes a hand into her hair, and their legs slot together like puzzle pieces. Vinh licks the aftertaste of beer from Kveta’s lips until she parts them on a breathy sound, hands clenching on Vinh’s sides.
Gasping, Vinh pulls back, head bonking against the door. She can feel Kveta’s breath, hot and heavy on her face. Can feel it when her friend laughs breathlessly, almost as if in disbelief.
“Doesn’t feel stupid.” Her lips skim over the cut of Vinh’s jaw. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Vinh.”
She swallows, tipping her head back to kiss her again, softly, capturing her upper lip before pulling away to look closely at her. Miraculously, her lipstick still looks almost perfectly fine, but her eyes are dark, yet somehow bright at the same time, pale skin flushed.
“Kveta, I…” Vinh trails off when Kveta raises a hand and swipes her fingers over her lower lip. Kveta swallows.
“You got some lipstick.”
“Oh.” Vinh notices that she isn’t even looking at her lips; her gaze meets Vinh’s steadily. Again, she asks, “How drunk are you?”
“Just enough that I can’t remember why this would be a bad idea.” Her free hand follows the curve of Vinh’s spine, touch feather-light. “And you?”
“I’m… The same.”
“Maybe it isn’t a bad idea.”
Vinh twists her hand in Kveta’s wavy hair and kisses her again, harder this time.
“If it turns out to be one,” she mumbles against her lips, “we can deal with it. We’re grown women.”
Kveta doesn’t even reply, just makes a sound deep in her throat and presses her leg up between Vinh’s, hand pushing underneath the waist of her skirt. Vinh’s toes curl in her shoes. Her whole body is thrumming with heat now, so she lets go of Kveta to shrug her coat off her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground along with her bag. Kveta takes a step backwards, and Vinh again chases after her so that their lips barely part, grabbing her upper arms for balance. Though it’s almost completely dark in the hall, the brightness in Kveta’s face is unmistakable.
“Come on,” she says, turning, and they both pretty much trip into the first room on the right—her bedroom. She blindly turns on the light while dragging Vinh close again, fingers curled around the back of her neck. In return, Vinh finds the clasp of her belt and undoes it. She follows it down with her fingers until she feels hot skin, as Kveta starts pressing messy kisses along her jaw and she tilts her head to the side. Pushing her hands back up, Vinh follows the lines of Kveta’s body until the woman lifts her arms, allowing the short dress to be lifted over her head.
Her hair is in even more disarray now, and her warm grin looks a little wild around the edges—although her lipstick is still mostly fine. Vinh can’t bring herself to look away.
“What?” Kveta asks. She takes a deep breath. “See anything you like?”
Vinh raises her eyebrows, trying to look unimpressed, which makes her giggle a bit, and then, she drags her own shirt up over her head in response, letting it also fall on the floor. Stepping close again, eyes not leaving Vinh’s face, Kveta reaches around for the zip of her skirt, and pulls it down. She swallows hard when Vinh steps out of it, gaze flitting across her body.
“God, Vinh,” she breathes, bravado suddenly forgotten, and Vinh’s heart stutters a bit. Belatedly, she kicks her heels off, bringing her to just below Kveta’s height as usual, and then she kisses her again, gasping against her lips at the feeling of their bodies pressing together, skin to skin. Kveta actually swears under her breath. She grasps at Vinh’s hips to pull her closer, pressing her thigh between her legs.
She’s warm, and pliant under Vinh’s fingers in a way she normally never is—that neither of them can allow themselves to be—and tips her head back so she can nip at her throat. She breathes Vinh’s name—Kveta has always seemed fond of saying her name, but never like this, never so breathy with this longing layered over it. Has she ever imagined saying it like that, breathed it late at night like Vinh has hers?
While pushing her nose into Kveta’s messy hair, Vinh feels the woman’s fingers skate up her back, until they hover over her bra. She pulls back to look up at her, biting her lip, and inclines her head.
Kveta opens her mouth. Closes it again. She snaps Vinh’s bra open with one hand and gently slides the straps off her shoulders so she can shrug it off.
Even this is technically nothing new; they’ve been skinny-dipping once before (at Niran’s insistence) but both of their breath hitches, and Kveta hurriedly reaches for her own bra—still the bright orange one glimpsed earlier, which doesn’t match her lime green underwear whatsoever. Smiling a little to herself, Vinh traces a finger over her sternum tattoo, lightly following the elegant black lines that cradle her breasts. She remembers there being much complaining about how annoying it was while healing, but Vinh thinks it looks beautiful. Kveta giggles, catching her wrist.
“Tickles,” she says, and kisses Vinh again, briefly. “Come on.”
She gestures to her neat bed, and Vinh hops up on it, sitting up on her knees while Kveta remembers her shoes and grunts in frustration, sitting on the edge to undo the laces.
“I’m never wearing shoes with laces again,” she grumbles. “I’m gonna—”
Vinh traces her fingers down her spine, cutting her off and making her fumble with her shoes.
“Don’t mind me,” she says.
“I don’t think that’s possible, Vinh.” Kveta sounds very sincere. Vinh shuffles forward and leans against her back, running her hands down over her shoulders and upper arms.
She gets one shoe off, kicking it clean across the room so it slams into her wardrobe. Vinh, not willing to stop this exploration right now, pushes her lips against the side of her neck and her hands down across her waist and down underneath the thin straps of her underwear. At that, Kveta evidently decides to abandon the idea of removing her other boot and leans back to lift her hips.
Heart beating overtime and heat pooling in her stomach, Vinh pushes the lacy fabric down her thighs until Kveta twists, doing the rest of the removing herself while pushing Vinh down, kissing her messily. Vinh grabs her hair, arching into her. Wrapping one leg around her thigh to press them together.
“Fuck,” Kveta breathes. And, “Hold on a second.”
She sits up, breathing hard, and just looks down at Vinh for a moment as if forgetting herself, a hand lingering on her stomach. Heat races through Vinh’s body. There is no question, now, what she’s looking at—not even really a question what she’s thinking, and it’s undoubtedly much the same as what Vinh is.
After a long moment, Kveta reaches for Vinh’s underwear, wetting her lips, and Vinh can’t help the noise that falls from her mouth when she hooks her fingers in it.
Kveta grins. “I wondered,” she says, while Vinh lifts her hips and raises her legs so she can remove the underwear. There’s a brand new tremor to her voice.
“What?” Vinh pulls her close again when the last bit of fabric is gone, gasping.
“I wondered if… If you’d be noisy.”
“You wondered,” Vinh echoes. She runs her fingers down Kveta’s sides. “And what did you imagine?”
“Lots of things.” Her eyes blaze. Vinh didn’t know grey was such an expressive color.
“Me too,” she whispers.
“Oh my god, Vinh.” They grasp at each other, rocking together, their lips meshing. “I don’t think this is a stupid idea anymore. Fuck.”
Vinh doesn’t reply, because her hands are everywhere and she presses one of her own between their bodies, finding Kveta’s skin heated and damp, relishing her gasping breath—even if it still smells vaguely of beer.
Once they settle into a rhythm of touch and breath and movement, it’s almost embarrassing how quickly they both tip over the edge—for Vinh, it’s all those times imagining that do it, the tension she’s unwittingly built up over those months, maybe years, releasing. Kveta might be the same. It’s a heady thought.
“Vinh,” the woman pants, heavily and repeatedly. “Vinh, my god.”
“Yes.” It’s a moan more than a word. Vinh’s arching her back, pressing all of them tightly together.
Finally.
Kveta falls apart just moments before her, gasping her release into the skin of Vinh’s neck, hair tickling her collarbones. Vinh herself breathes her name the way she’s imagined, trembling under her touch.
They keep lying there, silently entwined while their breathing slows—although Vinh’s heartbeat remains high with adrenalin, which she’s sure Kveta can hear, with her head still resting on her chest. She cards unsteady fingers through her hair, and Kveta slowly looks up at her.
“I think I usually imagine that lasting a bit longer,” she mumbles, and Vinh releases a breath.
“Maybe we can work on it.”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. I hope so.” She wriggles up to look down at Vinh. When her hair drags over Vinh’s cheek, she pushes it away again, resting her hand on Kveta’s cheekbone. “I think… We should talk tomorrow. But, Vinh, this is…”
“It’s good.” Vinh swallows. “We’re… Good.”
A curiously soft smile lights up Kveta’s face, her cheeks dimpling the way they seldom do.
“We are, Vinh. We will be. God, you’re incredible, I hope you know.” She wriggles. “I’m still wearing a shoe! I’ve got—”
Vinh kisses her, and she melts into it, falling silent and becoming soft and pliant once more.
They’ll take a shower, and lie in bed talking about nothing, and then, tomorrow, they’ll consider what this means. And then, when they take that time off, Vinh will finally be able to appease her parents, and neither of them will think about work for at least a few days.
(Except when Vinh’s mom asks Kveta if she’ll design their wedding dresses, and Kveta says, with a glimmer in her eye, that she already has plenty of ideas.)
31. “Are you drunk?”
32. "I think I deserve a kiss."
Whoa anon you went a bit back to find that list! But sure, I'm always up for more nedcan :D Those prompts seem humorous, but this little fic actually turned out pretty serious? I mean, not in a dark way, just in a sort of introspective way. There's still jokes in there though, that's just how I write :)
As always, Maarten is Ned, Matthew’s Can, and Alfred's America, of course. (And both Belg and Port get one mention, they're Manon & Simão.)
.
A loud ringing startles Maarten out of his concentration.
What the hell, is that his doorbell? Putting his brush down, he walks over to his window, from where he can see down into the street, to check who’s stupid enough to be ringing his bell at nearly midnight on a Thursday.
Expecting to see some rowdy pranksters giggling among themselves, Maarten’s quite surprised to recognize the men standing outside his downstairs studio, illuminated by the streetlights. Well, one is standing—the other is mostly hanging off him. He opens the window.
“Matthew?” he calls down, and the man supporting the other startles visibly, looking up. When he spots Maarten, he sketches a sheepish little wave.
“So sorry to—Al, for god’s sake—”
Alfred, who’s draped over his brother’s shoulders, waves up at Maarten with much more enthusiasm, yelling, “Hey dude! Matt’s very happy to see ya!”
“Oh my god, shut your mouth.”
Maarten decides to just go down and open the door before the brothers wake the whole street. Sure, he lives close enough to the city center that some amount of noise is expected, but Alfred’s got quite the mouth on him.
“I’m really sorry,” Matthew repeats as soon as the door opens. He’s red-faced and stumbling under his brother’s weight. “Al’s got a little, uh…”
“Matt, are you drunk?” Maarten asks.
“I’m really not, I had like, three beers, two hours ago.”
Alfred, who’s definitely had more than three beers, giggles drunkenly, as Matthew continues, “But that’s more than I’m willing to drive on and I’m really sorry to ask but can we just sober up a bit here?”
If it’d just been Alfred, there is absolutely no way Maarten would allow this—he might not have even opened the door—but when Matthew’s asking, he always has a hard time saying no, so he steps back and gestures them in.
“You rock,” Alfred slurs at him, trying to… Pat him on the head, maybe? Maarten ducks out of his reach, but the man knocks Matthew’s glasses askew with his uncoordinated gesturing. “Matt, your friends are cool.”
“That’s the first time he’s ever said that,” Matthew tells Maarten, and that makes him laugh as he closes the door.
By the time Matthew has wrangled his brother up the narrow stairs to Maarten’s apartment, it is exactly midnight.
“Is he gonna throw up?” Maarten asks warily.
“I don’t think so.” Matthew is slightly out of breath, and Alfred is leaning against a door, seemingly fascinated by the pictures on Maarten’s wall.
“’S you, Matt!” he enthuses, jabbing a finger against one of the frames.
“Yes, yeah, don’t touch Maarten’s stuff, Al.” He does look at the picture, and smiles, before turning to Maarten again. “If we can just… Sit on your couch or something.”
Maarten nods. It takes both him and Matthew to maneuver Alfred into his living room and deposit him on the couch; the man’s limbs are heavy. He’s obviously coming down from his high mood already, and drapes across the whole couch.
“Dude,” Matthew starts, tugging at him, but Maarten grasps his shoulder to gently pull him back.
“It’s fine,” he says, while Alfred yawns widely.
With a put-upon sigh, Matthew plucks his brother’s glasses from his nose and puts them on the coffee table, pats his hair, and then he follows Maarten to the kitchen without further comment from the man.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, pushing his own glasses up and his hair away from his forehead, which is still a little flushed.
“As long as he doesn’t throw up, you’re good,” Maarten tells him. And if he does, it’ll be on Alfred’s own head to clean that, not Matthew’s. “Want something to drink?”
Amused, Matthew echoes, “To drink?”
“Well, I was thinking some water, or tea,” Maarten clarifies. “But I’m sure I have a fourth beer if you want it.”
“Tea sounds nice, Maarten, thank you.”
While he busies himself with the water, and measuring tea into a strainer, Maarten asks, “So what exactly’s goin’ on here? It’s not every day you turn up at midnight with your wasted brother in tow.”
“Yeah, I told him to slow down.” Matthew reaches over to grab mugs from the cabinet with practiced ease, setting them down on the counter. “He wanted to celebrate getting a promotion. I was basically enlisted as driver.”
“And then you drank three beers?”
“Well, I didn’t know he’d be so out of it by midnight.”
“Must be good money in that promotion, huh?”
The water is boiling, so Maarten fills the mugs while Matthew laughs. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, watching with sleepy eyes as the tea steeps. Immediately, Maarten’s fingers itch with the familiar urge to draw him, to study every angle of his face and every line around his eyes that’s appeared over the years they’ve known each other. Even that urge, he’s admitted to himself some time ago, is just a stand-in for what he actually wants, but it’s easier to admit than the deep, nearly all-encompassing things he feels.
“You wanna go outside?” he asks. “It’s a nice night.”
“I could use some air,” Matthew agrees, smiling softly. On the way, he pokes his head into the living room; apparently, Alfred has already fallen asleep on the couch.
Out on Maarten’s roof terrace, the air is quiet and cool, moonlight illuminating his lounge set and the array of flowers he keeps up here. In these early days of summer, they’re doing well. Matthew sets his mug of tea down and goes around looking at the plants as though he’s never seen them before.
Definitely a little tipsy, Maarten thinks with amusement as the man tells a sunflower it’s looking beautiful.
When he’s done praising Maarten’s plants, Matthew flops over next to him on the rattan couch. He stretches slowly, and nudges his glasses up to rub his eyes.
“What were you doing, anyway?” he asks Maarten after a moment. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
“Nothing much, just some painting.” Come to think of it, he needs to remember to clean his brushes later.
“That’s something. Really, I’ll pay you back for this.”
“Matt, it’s…” Maarten takes a breath. “You’re my friend. Don’t worry about it.”
“Weren’t you telling me just last week about how Simão still owes you 50 cents?”
“Ah, see, the difference is, Simão’s annoying.”
That gets him a laugh. Maarten is mostly joking, was mostly joking last week as well—although it would be nice to get his 50 cents back.
“What’re you painting?”
“Hm, commission work.” Maarten blows over his tea, then takes a cautious sip. Too hot.
“At midnight?”
“Y’know, inspiration struck.” He glances over when Matthew fidgets. “Really, Matt, it’s fine. I owe you much more than you could ever owe me.”
Brow furrowing, Matthew looks at him and says, “I’m sure that’s not true.”
He probably thinks so, but Maarten knows that his life would have turned out much different if not for Matthew. If not for his sudden presence years ago, quiet and unassuming but steady, just when he needed it. Of course, there’s no telling what would’ve happened without him but, well… He’s never really told anyone that in so many words, let alone Matthew himself.
Now, he bites the inside of his cheek and inadvisably sips some more tea. The night is quiet, the wind carrying the sounds of nightlife away from the terrace and just rustling the leaves of the flowers instead. The two of them drink tea in easy silence, and when Maarten’s is finished, he digs a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it absently.
Equally as absently, he hands it over to Matthew when he holds a hand out. Then blinks, watching him take a slow drag.
“You know that’s just a cigarette,” he says, a little perplexed. Matthew just smiles, leaning back into the pillows.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Alright, then.”
Matthew’s smile is soft around the edges, and his hair is messier than usual, and Maarten looks at him smoking his cigarette with fondness. It’s still a bit of an odd feeling, although it’s been creeping up on him for years. In the beginning, it scared him sometimes; getting caught up, not in Matthew’s looks but the way he laughed at Maarten’s dry jokes, or how thoughtful his quiet insights could be, or the way his face lit up when he brought his dog home.
And that’s not to say Maarten isn’t attracted to him, but he knows sex, he knows what to do with that feeling. And this is… Something more than that.
“Al’s trying to get me to vape,” Matthew’s saying, unimpressed.
“I hear that’s bad for you,” Maarten replies, watching him laugh while he passes the cigarette back over, their fingers touching.
“So’s drinking too much.” He shifts towards him, pulling one leg up on the couch and resting an arm on the backrest. “Thank you, Maarten.”
He hums questioningly.
“Well, just, I know he isn’t your friend, is all.”
“Maybe I should ask Alfred for payment, then.”
“I’m the one who dumped him on you. Really, if there’s anything…”
Through the haze of smoke as he breathes out, Maarten looks over at him curiously. Something about his voice seems different than usual—maybe that’s down to those three beers, or the moonlight, or maybe it’s his own wishful thinking. He offers him the cigarette, which Matthew takes, but their fingers tangle together briefly as he does. There’s no reason for that to happen, unless they make it.
“There’s things, Matt,” Maarten says, tilting his head back to look at the night sky.
“Yeah?” he breathes, and his voice does something new again, going heavy with anticipation.
“But nothing I’d want to… Nothing you should owe me.”
“What if I just…” Matthew shifts abruptly; he pushes the cigarette out into the ashtray on the table, then leans back again. “What if I just want to do something? For you? Or—or with you?”
“With me,” Maarten echoes, swallowing.
Voice low, Matthew says, “Humor me, Maarten. What would you ask for?”
He takes a deep breath. “Well, you’re already here.”
“I am.” Fingers brush over Maarten’s shoulder. “Happy to be.”
“God, Matt, is this really—is this how…” Is this how this finally happens, is what he wants to ask. It seems so incongruous.
In a near-whisper, “Just ask me.”
“For putting up your brother, I think I’d deserve… A kiss.” He hears Matthew let out a shuddering breath. Maarten glances over at him out of the corner of his eye. “Is that… Is that something that’s on offer?”
“If it’s you asking, Maarten…” He leans close to brush his lips over Maarten’s cheek, his breath hot and the touch barely there, yet Maarten’s heart skips a beat. Even more so when Matthew’s fingertips brush over the back of his neck, almost ticklish.
“I am asking,” he mumbles.
“Then, yes.” Matthew presses a kiss against the corner of his mouth. Maarten can feel him smile when he involuntarily makes a small, somewhat embarrassing noise.
When Maarten slowly turns his head, Matthew makes a sound in turn, as their lips brush together and Maarten’s lower lip gets gently caught between his. Eyes nearly closed, he reaches up. Tucks his fingers around Matthew’s jaw, the shape of which he’s studied so often.
“Oh,” Matthew breathes. And, fingers curling around the back of Maarten’s neck, he tilts his head to properly kiss him.
Although the touch sparks through Maarten like wildfire, the actual kiss is easy and unhurried, so he lets himself melt into it, thinking only finally. He’d hardly let himself think about it, but when he did, it usually was like this; none of the frantic mess he could get from other people, just Matthew, kissing him like they’ve been doing it for ages. His lips are warm in the night air.
When Matthew pulls back a bit, just enough to look at him, he lets his fingers wander over his face, trying to memorize it in this new way. He tucks some blond curls behind his ear, ghosting the pads of his fingers along the shell. Matthew smiles, so Maarten runs his thumb over the man’s lips.
“I’m tempted to say finally,” Matthew says, which makes Maarten smile too. They both knew, then. Still, he wonders.
“Matt, why didn’t you ever…”
“Maybe it was easier not to.” He taps his fingers absently on the side of Maarten’s neck. “I guess I just needed…”
“Three beers?” Maarten supplies.
“Well, maybe.” A wry smile. “Don’t let that reflect poorly on me.”
“Never, Matt.” Maarten pulls him close to kiss him again, because he doesn’t think he’ll want to stop doing that now.
“Mh, why didn’t you?” Matthew asks him in turn, their lips still touching.
“Sometimes, I’m stupid.” He’ll try to explain, sometime, that it feels to him as though things like romance, or affection, are buried somewhere deep inside him and take massive amounts of time and effort to actually take hold, and that very few people have been worth that effort—but now’s not the time for that. “You’re—you’re important to me.”
Another soft noise, and Matthew bites his lip through one of those smiles that light up his face when Maarten looks at him. His eyes are bright even in the moonlight.
“Alright,” he whispers. Then, abruptly, he yawns, and Maarten chuckles.
“You could stay here, if you want,” he says, now absently winding those blond curls around his fingers.
Of course, he’s stayed before, but he asks, “Where? Al’s on the couch.”
“There’s space in my bed.” He wets his lips. “Not for anything—well, there’s space for that too, later, if you want.”
“Not with my brother here for sure,” Matthew says, huffing a laugh when Maarten grimaces. “But I’m sure that’ll be great later.”
Maarten nods, though he realizes at the same time that, when he imagines later, it’s not actually sex, right now. It’s breakfast the morning after, or kissing Matthew goodbye before work. Finding the most scenic spots on holiday to make him smile and talk with enthusiasm. Getting into silly arguments about plants at the nursery.
“What’re you thinking about?” Matthew asks. Maarten blinks.
“Flowers.”
A fond grin, tired eyes scrunching up behind his glasses. “Figures.”
“Really. What’s the date? I have to get you flowers in a year,” Maarten mostly-jokes, and so he’s smiling when Matthew kisses him quiet.
Against his lips, he says, “I want tulips.”
“I’ll remember.”
Pulling back, Matthew gazes at him for a while. “Can’t wait.” He yawns again, so Maarten stands, offering him a hand up.
“Let’s get you to bed, then.”
Before that, though, Matthew wraps his arms around his neck, looking up at him, and Maarten leans down a little, until their noses touch. He presses his hands down along Matthew’s spine, pulling him close. They stand silently entangled on his roof for a while, leaning into each other. It feels easy. Safe, even. Maarten’s eyes get heavy, and he yawns, which makes Matthew chuckle.
“You started it,” Maarten grumbles.
“So sorry.” A soft kiss pressed to the corner of his lips. “Come on, then. I hope Al’s still alive.”
Alfred, it turns out, has somehow eaten all of Maarten’s cornflakes—and nothing else—and then fallen back asleep on the couch. The only comment he has the following morning is, “Aw man, you guys. Now I owe Manon a twenty! You got any cornflakes?”
Maarten thinks he rather deserves another kiss for that.
at long last, it's part six of my ghost stories that are not quite ghost stories! in the last one, I wrote there'd be two more, but it turns out there's three! so two more after this one. the song this time is Lake of Silver Bells by Carbon Leaf, and I wish I could tell you what my fascination with lakes is but I have no idea! because it's the 1990s, please imagine the most nineties fashion you can for this one :)
word count: 8035
summary:
It was supposed to be a simple exploration, but what the journalist and the antiquarian find out on the lake, might be more than they ever anticipated.
also on AO3
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It’s only when a voice startles Matthew that he realizes he’s gotten quite lost. He blinks down at the unfamiliar street while his dog tugs at his leash, then looks up at the man who addressed him.
“You alright?” he’s asking now, lowering the cigarette he’s holding.
“Yes! Sorry, I was… Thinking.” Matthew adjusts his backpack, and the tall stranger quirks his eyebrows minutely. When he takes a drag of his cigarette, his green eyes pierce through the smoke, and Matthew feels a bit self-conscious about having interrupted his break.
He looks up behind the man. “Oh! Is this your shop?”
They are, in fact, standing out front of a narrow antiques store, the sign over the window proclaiming ‘since 1888’. Matthew’s dog sniffs curiously around the doorway.
“It is, matter of fact. Been my family’s for over a century.” Now, the man stubs his cigarette out on an ashtray resting on the windowsill and straightens, which reveals that he’s even taller than Matthew had thought. “Can I help you with anything?”
“I… Hm, maybe.”
“That’s intriguing.” He nods, gaze sweeping over Matthew. Gestures. “Come in.”
“What about Kuma?” Matthew holds the leash of his dog up, and Kuma lifts his great white head towards the man, tongue out. “He’s pretty gentle, but…”
“That’s no problem,” the man assures him, and turns to go into the antiques store.
Inside, the radio is on softly, and though there are many curious items on display, the small store doesn’t feel cluttered. There is no one else in at the moment, and Matthew follows the owner to the old-fashioned register, where the man leans on the dark wood with both hands.
“Alright, how might I be able to help?” he asks. His accent is local, which is probably good.
“Well, I’m working on an article about this town,” Matthew starts, gesturing as if to encompass the whole place. “For a travel magazine, you see? Anyway, I was hoping to learn more about the history of the place, and also to go out onto the lakes, but it’s, well…”
“It’s autumn.” The shop owner nods. “This place turns into a ghost town as soon as the tourists leave. You’re too late.”
Matthew pulls a pained face. “That was kind of the point.”
“I see, I see. And I guess… No, he’ll have closed up shop by now…” As he trails off, the man twists the bleached tips of his hair further up, frowning thoughtfully.
“I think the lakes would be gorgeous now. I’d wanted to take photos,” Matthew adds, petting Kuma’s head absently. He isn’t sure what to make of the antiquarian.
“They are amazin’,” he replies, then seems to decide something and leans forward again. “If you’d like, I could take you out on the lakes sometime. Haven’t used my boat in ages.”
Matthew smiles, somewhat startled by the offer. “Really?”
“Why not?” The man shrugs, although he smiles back slightly. He must be a few years older than Matthew, and seems both completely out of place and exactly at home in the antiques store. “I’ll need to check on the boat first, though, so give me a day or so.”
“Of course, no problem! Thank you, sir.”
The man grimaces. “Please, call me Maarten.”
“Right. I’m Matthew.”
“Good, Matthew, where are you staying? I can let them know when it’s ready.”
So Matthew tells him the name of his bed & breakfast, and Maarten promises to call. With that, he finds himself, and Kuma, back outside the shop on the still-unfamiliar street. Great. Now to find the way back.
The bell of the antique shop chimes when the door opens, and Maarten comes out.
“I… Do have some town maps, if that’d be helpful,” he says. “New ones, even.”
“I swear I’m not usually this bad at directions,” Matthew tells him, gratefully accepting a tourist map from him.
“No, I suppose that’d be a bad trait for a travel journalist. Don’t worry about it, happens to a lot of people.” With a nod and a brief pat on Kuma’s head, he ducks back into his store, and Matthew unfolds the map.
-
The next afternoon, Matthew returns to his bed & breakfast to find the hostess waiting there to tell him he has a message.
“Maarten van Dijk wants you to know he is ready to go out to the lakes,” the woman recites from a slip of paper. “He’ll be at the docks tomorrow morning at nine, unless that doesn’t work for you.”
“That should be fine,” Matthew mutters. “Thank you.”
“Mr Williams, are you sure…” She pauses, then shakes her head. “No, never mind.”
“What?”
“No, it’s nothing. It’s beautiful out on the water. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.” She nods decisively and walks away, leaving Matthew frowning after her.
It must be some smalltown gossip he’s not to know about, he guesses. Shrugging, he goes to his room. He adds his notes from today to his work folder, checks that he has enough rolls of film for his camera, and sets out again. Apparently, there is a local museum.
-
It is a beautiful, clear autumn morning when Matthew makes his way to the town’s docks—well, dock. Only two boats are moored there at the moment, and he spots Maarten on the furthest one, smoking and looking at a map or a chart of some kind. At Matthew’s approach, he looks up. Matthew smiles.
“Good morning.”
“Mornin’. Come on board.” He jerks his chin and stands up to steady Matthew when he steps from the dock down into the boat.
It’s a small vessel—Matthew doesn’t know nearly enough about boats to know its actual name—painted a muted orange that fits right in with the autumn canopy. He sits on a bench so he doesn’t fall.
“Alright. Anywhere in particular— Hey, where’s your dog?” Maarten asks, pausing in untying the boat from the dock.
“Oh, the hostess of my B&B takes care of him if I can’t take him. I’m not sure if it’s safe for him, or if he could scare the wildlife.”
Maarten mumbles something as he sits at the back of the boat to start up the motor. After the initial roar of noise, it settles into a gentle hum as they start to drive away from town.
“He’d probably be fine, but you’d be the best judge of that,” Maarten says. “Anywhere in particular you want me to take you?”
“I don’t think so. You know the lakes, presumably.”
“Yeah. We’ll just do a loop around. Give a shout if you wanna stop somewhere for pictures or something.”
Lake is really a generous term for the waterways they start making their way through. While there are open areas every now and then, a lot of the place is marshy, leaving only relatively narrow swathes of deeper water for Maarten to drive his boat through.
“I used to go sailing a lot,” he tells Matthew. “But you can’t really do that around here.”
“No, I suppose not.” He has to duck out of the way of a tree branch full of golden leaves. “You used to live somewhere else?”
“Not that far away, by one of the larger lakes. Before I took over the shop from my mother.” He gestures ahead. “Left or right, Matthew?”
“Left.” Towards the sun.
“Exciting.” When Matthew turns to look at him, bemused, Maarten huffs a laugh but doesn’t say anything else.
By ten, they reach a solid patch of land that actually has a small, sandy beach, where Matthew asks to stop.
“Can I get off here?” he asks. “Just for a moment.”
“Sure.” Maarten looks over at the beach, and frowns. “God damn it. They’re havin’ parties again.”
Matthew watches him stalk over immediately after securing the boat to a tree and start to pick up trash from the sand, furiously putting it into a garbage bag he pulls from the pocket of his windbreaker. Somewhat charmed by this side of the curt antiquarian, Matthew takes a quick photo of him doing that, and makes a note of it in his flipover notepad, but then sets about doing a little circuit of the island they’re on.
The autumn colors are stunning in the sun; he really doesn’t understand why more people don’t come out to the Lake Valley after summer’s end. Although he’s read that many birds live in this area, he doesn’t find any at the moment—possibly, the noise of the engine scared them away. Or possibly Maarten’s grumbling as he comes up behind Matthew, garbage bag slung over his shoulder. It’s pretty filled.
“Stupid kids,” he says. “It’s one thing to party somewhere dangerous, but then to leave your trash everywhere too…”
“Dangerous?”
“Would you know the way to town from here?” Maarten asks, and Matthew shakes his head, understanding where he’s going with that. “No. Now imagine that, but in the dark, and you’re drunk and possibly high, and eighteen.”
“Did you ever get lost?”
Maarten raises his eyebrows, looking amused, and says, “No. I know the lakes. Not saying I didn’t do the other things, but not out here.”
“Well, that’s fair. I grew up in the mountains. You don’t do that out there, either.”
“I can imagine. Mountains terrify me.” He looks up suddenly, frowning. “Did you hear that?”
Matthew didn’t hear anything in particular, but he follows Maarten as he walks to the islet’s shoreline, on the opposite side of where the boat is, and watches him squint into the distance. There is another relatively open space here, although hemmed in on both sides by tall trees, bent over the dark water like a tunnel. The sun frames Maarten’s silhouette as he listens intently, head cocked.
“Some sort of bell,” he mutters.
“Like a church?” Maybe, one is tolling somewhere in a town. There doesn’t seem to be any wind, but Matthew knows that back home, sounds could echo off the mountains for ages, so who knows what this flat land could carry?
Maarten shakes his head. “Closer to a shop bell. Hm.” He spends a moment longer looking out over the water, then turns to Matthew abruptly. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your work, Matthew.”
“Oh no, it’s alright. Should we go find that bell?”
The antiquarian blinks slowly, lips parting as if he hadn’t considered it.
“Maybe we should.”
Although Matthew still can’t hear any bells, he’s content to sit in the front of the boat and look around while Maarten steers them towards the supposed sound. They pass underneath the arched trees and into an open area, filled with sunlight.
And there, on the shore of a larger island, hidden behind trees, Matthew sees a building. It looks fairly old, but in good condition, with walls of multicolored stones and a roof of red tiles. A large weeping willow dips its yellow leaves into the water next to the building, where there is a small wooden dock. Matthew turns to Maarten, notepad at the ready, to ask him what the building is, but the man looks baffled, green eyes wide and fixed on the little island.
“That’s where it’s comin’ from,” he mutters.
“The bell?”
Maarten startles, looking as though he forgot Matthew was there. He nods, though.
“You don’t hear it?”
“No.”
“Odd.” He frowns. “Do you mind if we go…”
Of course, Matthew doesn’t mind. If nothing else, a mysterious building that even a local doesn’t know about will make an interesting little detour in his article.
Maarten drives the boat to the dock and ties it to a post there. Before he disembarks, he pushes on the wood, but it seems sturdy, so he climbs off the boat and starts walking to the building. Matthew follows, camera at the ready.
The building has two floors, and the windows are small but quite clear—Maarten is peering through one, his sharp nose nearly against the glass.
Following a gravel path, Matthew walks around the building a bit. There are even flower boxes on some windows, all empty right now, and the place seems deserted. Around the corner from the boat, on the short side of the building, Matthew finds a door. A small bell hangs over it, gleaming in the sunlight as if newly polished, that would surely chime if the door opened, but the door is locked. A name has been painted on the wood in elegant, white cursive.
“Does this mean anything to you?” Matthew asks Maarten as he walks up. The man blinks at the name.
“Yes.” He frowns, bemused. “Van der Meer was my mother’s name.” He tries the door handle and runs his fingers over the silver lock. “I think I… I think I might have the key to this place. At the shop.”
He meets Matthew’s eyes, and both of them are equally intrigued.
-
Of course, Matthew absolutely has to come with Maarten when he goes to try out the key that he has at his antique shop, the next day. Having explored the museum, there isn’t a whole lot else left to do in town, anyway. He leaves Kuma with the B&B hostess again, having no idea what is inside the building.
The key is the same silver as the lock on the mysterious building’s door, but more than that, it’s shaped like a small bell.
“It’s always been there,” Maarten explains as he maneuvers his boat through the waterways. “In the register. Always thought it was for something that was sold ages ago. Kept it just in case.”
“Very curious,” Matthew says. He can’t wait to see if it works.
When they get to the door, Maarten reaches up and trails his long fingers over the name on it.
“Fifteen years,” he mumbles. He lifts the key to the lock. Hesitates. Matthew waits patiently; he might need a moment. But then, Maarten turns to him and holds the key out.
“What?”
“Go ahead, Matthew.” A hint of a smile flits across his face. “Isn’t that what journalism is all about?”
“Eh, not my kind.” Matthew takes the key from him and releases a long breath. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He pushes the key into the lock, sharing a look with Maarten when it fits, and then, Matthew slowly turns it. Without a hitch, without a creak of age, the door unlocks.
“Who’d have thought?” Matthew breathes. With a hand on the door handle, he looks at Maarten again.
“I wonder what this place is,” the antiquarian says. “I wonder if my mother knew.”
“Let’s find out.”
The door opens with, as expected, the gentle chime of the bell overhead, and they make their way inside. It’s warmer here, the sunlight lighting up the space in bright yellow beams, dust swirling. The interior of the building doesn’t match the outside; there is geometric wallpaper, shades of brown and green that remind Matthew of his childhood home, and a heavy wooden desk that incongruously has a Bakelite telephone sitting on it, along with a thin, leather-bound book.
Maarten lets out a long breath.
“Looks almost like a reception,” he says, walking slowly over to the desk. “I’ve got a phone just like this at the shop.”
“Phones are antiques already?” Matthew asks him while he is cautiously opening the little book. Maarten chuckles, not looking up.
“Curiosities. Look at this.”
It does seem to be a log, maybe a ledger, of some sort, Matthew sees. The first entries are in old-fashioned cursive he has a hard time reading, but Maarten points the words out with ease, along with a date: 1888. The same year his store was founded.
“So maybe… Your family came to the area then?” Matthew guesses. “One person opened a shop, another opened this…”
He gestures vaguely around. Maarten hums.
“Might be.” He carefully flips to the last page that has entries, the handwriting more modern, listing expenses in ballpoint pen. 1978. Fifteen years ago.
“What does this mean?” Matthew wonders, as he pulls his notepad out to take some notes about the place he’s found himself at.
“I… Have no idea. Let’s look around.”
They stick together as they make their way to a door off the left side of the entrance, and find themselves in a well-appointed kitchen, again with green tiles just like there had been in Matthew’s parents’ house. It’s spacious, a large table taking up most room.
In the sunlight, the space looks inviting. Matthew can imagine the guests of this place having breakfast here. He’s stayed in a lot of inns and hotels and B&Bs over the years he’s been a travel journalist, and would be quite happy if they looked like this.
“Huh,” Maarten is saying, having pushed aside one of the striped curtains beneath the kitchen counter and taken out an ornate serving dish. “There’s one just like this at the shop. 1870s, very good condition.”
“Odd.”
“Not necessarily. They were pretty popular.”
They continue their exploration of the building by going out into a hallway behind the possible reception desk that spans the length of the ground floor. Matthew counts six doors in total, but when they try them one by one, they find them all locked.
“Alright, where would you keep the keys?” Maarten wonders.
“At the reception, surely.”
The keys are indeed in a drawer of the desk, all on one big ring; some have the same little bell-shaped handle. That reminds Matthew.
“Do you still hear those bells?” It’s how they got back here, after all.
Blinking, Maarten shakes his head. “It stopped when… I think when you opened the door.”
That makes Matthew shiver. He was willing to accept that Maarten just has better hearing, but that seems like too weird of a coincidence. He quickly jots it down in his notepad. Maarten looks closely at one of the bell-shaped keys, frowning.
“Still wanna try these?” he asks.
“Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?” Matthew shrugs. It’s just an old… Inn, or hotel. If it’s haunted, it wouldn’t be the first place he’s encountered, he thinks. Tourists love ghosts.
One of the bell keys fits a room labeled with the number one, and just as expected, it is a cozy little hotel room. Dust swirls in the sunlight here too, but there isn’t actually much at all on the nightstands or the little vanity, and it smells just fine—Matthew swears he detects the faintest hint of potpourri. The bed is even made with cheerful floral linens.
“This is nice,” Matthew says, but when he looks at Maarten, the man is frowning. “Maarten?”
“It’s getting really strange, now.” He walks over to a small wooden table that’s next to the sink in the corner of the room. “I’ve got one just like this.”
“At your shop?”
Maarten looks at him and nods, expression baffled.
“So there’s more than one.”
“That’s just it. There shouldn’t be.” He peers at the table closely, even kneeling to inspect the underside. “And it doesn’t look like a replica. If it is, it’s a damn good one.”
“So…” Matthew isn’t sure what to make of that, so he winds up his camera and snaps a photo instead. The click of the shutter makes Maarten look up at him. He’s right in a beam of sunlight, and his green eyes are bright. In his mint green windbreaker and sensible hiking shoes, he looks amusingly out of place.
“Well,” he says, standing, “let’s try those other doors.”
He hands the key ring to Matthew and gestures for him to go ahead.
The other five doors yield two more hotel rooms, a bathroom with a few shower and toilet cubicles, a laundry room, and, lastly, a set of stairs. The rooms also yield a plethora of random items Maarten recognizes as being at his shop, apparently never having sold—which he only now seems to realize is odd. A delicate glass lampshade here, a painting there; even a bulky transistor radio in the laundry room.
The two of them stand at the bottom of the stairs for a while. The steps are steep, wooden, and bathed in darkness; there’s another door at the top. Maarten takes a deep breath, shoulders heaving.
“I don’t know if I want to go up there,” he says. “Not… Yet.”
“Alright,” Matthew replies, even though he’s dying to learn what else this strange place holds. He is a journalist, after all. But something in Maarten’s deep voice makes him hold his tongue. The antiquarian clears his throat, turning to him.
“Maybe we can look around outside.”
Around the inn, there is an overgrown garden. Apart from the old weeping willow, there are pine trees and wild hedges surrounding barely-visible cobble paths that lead through what once must have been neat flowerbeds. They even find some benches, and a fountain, and a small, mostly-intact greenhouse. There are some markers still in the ground around, indicating which plants grew there.
“I bet this was lovely,” Matthew says, taking a picture of the moss-grown greenhouse. “They must have used their crops in the kitchen.”
“Yeah. That’s nice. You know, my mother was always…” Maarten sighs. “She was always gardening. I helped her often when I was little.”
“Do you think, now, that she was here?” Matthew asks, following him back towards the little dock, and Maarten looks up at the building, eyebrows drawing together.
“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe, she never left.”
-
They make it back to town, and Matthew is surprised to find that it is dusky. It was still sunny when they left the inn, but he supposes they lost track of time out on the water.
Standing on the dock, Maarten looks down at him, clasping the back of his neck.
“Thanks for coming,” he says. “I appreciate—hm. I’m sure you got a lot of, uh, writin’ to do. So I’ll—how long are you staying?”
Matthew only has his room for three more nights, but he says, “However long I need,” and Maarten lets out a long breath, nodding.
“I’ll walk you to the B&B,” he offers. “Or… You know, I think we stayed out longer than I thought. Are you hungry?”
“Pretty hungry.”
“Let me get you something to eat,” he says, a hesitant smile tugging at his full lips. Matthew bites his own lip and nods slowly. He still isn’t entirely sure what to make of the antiquarian, who’s friendly and open one moment and impossible to read the next, but dinner is always good.
Maarten takes him to get fried fish from a takeout place, and they eat it at the lakeside, while Matthew obligingly recounts some stories about places he’s visited for his job. When the food’s gone, they walk to the bed & breakfast, where Matthew turns to Maarten on the small step out front of the old building.
“Are you going back tomorrow?”
“I think so. Will you come?”
“As I said, however long it takes.”
“Hm, of course, journalism.” Maarten smiles slightly. “I think you could probably bring your dog, right?”
That would be nice, so Matthew tells him as much, and promises to meet him at the dock.
-
Kuma sits quietly enough in the boat, but he’s excited when they disembark at the inn’s dock, sniffing around the walls and jumping eagerly when Maarten opens the door. The antiquarian has brought a large backpack, which, he showed Matthew on the way, contains a serving dish identical to the one in the kitchen, as well as some smaller items he says are the same as one found at the inn.
Once in the kitchen, Kuma immediately lies down in a sunbeam, stretching happily, and Maarten puts his bag on the table to pull the dish out.
“What the hell?” he mutters.
Having retrieved the other dish from the cabinet, Matthew turns to see that the two now don’t match at all. In the boat, the serving dish had glinted in the autumn sun, but now, it’s dull and tarnished. Especially next to the nearly-pristine one from the kitchen. Both Matthew and Maarten stare at the two items, dumbstruck. Maarten’s other items have similarly been affected, become rusted or tarnished.
“That’s not normal,” Matthew eventually breathes. “I think this place is haunted or something.”
Maarten shakes his head. “There’s no such thing.” He meets Matthew’s eye, frowning. There is, Matthew notices, a thin scar on his forehead that disrupts his furrowed brow slightly.
“Then what’s happening?” Matthew asks. Maarten opens and closes his mouth. Breathes out slowly.
“But it feels…” He looks down at Kuma, who tilts his head quizzically, tongue lolling out of his mouth. “It feels nice.”
It does. Matthew sits on a kitchen chair in the sun, scritching Kuma behind the ears, and he can hear birds outside, the breeze rushing through the branches of the weeping willow.
“You really don’t know anything about the history of this place?” he asks. And then, the more obvious question occurs to him. “Wait, what happened in 1978?”
Maarten leans on the table. He wets his lips and flexes his long fingers against the light wood. Hesitantly, Matthew touches his forearm, and the antiquarian looks at him.
“My mother disappeared. October, 1978. That’s when I came back, took over the shop. I was barely twenty.”
“I’m sorry,” Matthew says softly. Kuma makes a small noise and rises up, padding over on the tiled floor to push his shaggy head against Maarten’s leg.
“She left this note for me. Said she’d gone out… To the lakes.” He shakes his head, smiling bitterly, although he reaches down to pet Kuma.
“And her name is here.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what to think, Matthew.”
“You don’t believe…” Matthew wants to say ‘ghosts’, but it seems a little insensitive now, so he trails off, gesturing around, at which Maarten smiles bemusedly.
“I think, if I were to get haunted, it’d have happened before now. You don’t wanna know how many people insist their antiques are full of spirits.”
Despite the strangeness of the whole thing, Matthew laughs, and Maarten smiles, looking down at the tarnished silver dish.
“I don’t know what this place is, but I know I want to keep looking,” he says. “Guess I should thank you for asking to get out here in the first place.”
“Happy to help.” Matthew realizes he is still touching Maarten’s arm across the table. He leaves his fingers there, and neither of them move.
-
The B&B hostess seems concerned when Matthew mentions going out to the lakes with Mr Van Dijk again.
Yesterday, they had done some more exploring of the garden and found a generator, which Maarten said he couldn’t make heads nor tails of, but Matthew was pretty sure was still in working order, given some fuel, and they’d both agreed that the greenhouse looked usable given some cleaning.
Kuma never seemed concerned, and that is honestly good enough for Matthew; his dog has great instincts about dangerous places. The hostess, though, as she’s serving his breakfast, frowns and shuffles her feet.
“Tomorrow is your last day here,” she cautions. “Surely, there are better… Ventures?”
“Don’t worry, I will write a great review of this place,” Matthew just says, which is, of course, not a reply to her question but does seem to placate her. And he has written a solid draft of his article already. It doesn’t mention the mysterious inn on the lake.
Before he goes to the dock, Matthew stops at the local post office to send his draft off, along with his photo negatives. What to do tomorrow, is another question.
For now, they make their way through a foggy morning to the inn—Maarten mentions that he’d wanted to let Matthew take a swing at driving the boat, but not with visibility so low. That would be nice, Matthew thinks. He’s only ever been in charge of rowboats, or the occasional canoe.
The generator does, in fact, work, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, so do the inn’s electric appliances and lights, even if they are all pretty old.
With the fog clearing, Matthew and Maarten go around opening windows and doors and taking stock of what exactly is in the kitchen and the bathroom. Then Matthew, much to his delight, gets to climb up on the roof to check the tiles and the chimney, and Maarten said he’d go see what he could do about the greenhouse, but instead he’s by the wooden ladder every time Matthew checks, keeping an eye on him.
And that is also nice, really. People don’t tend to notice him much. It is useful as a journalist, sometimes, getting to be an observer, but other times, it’s good to know someone’s watching. Especially if that someone is a handsome, mysterious antiquarian.
He smiles gratefully at Maarten when he gets back down, and the man ducks his head, clasping the back of his neck.
“All good up there,” Matthew adds. “It should be safe to use the stove.”
“I don’t actually know how,” Maarten says slowly.
“I do! My family has a cabin up in the mountains with a wood stove just like it.”
“Great.” Maarten smiles, a little melancholic, but doesn’t say anything else. Hesitatingly, Matthew reaches out to briefly clasp his upper arm, then turns to go inside.
Later, as they are cleaning up the greenhouse a bit, Matthew mentions that he only has one night left at the B&B, and that makes Maarten pause in his scrubbing one of the glass panes overhead. He’s straddling a stepladder, and peers down at Matthew with his hands resting on his strong thighs.
“Feel like I’ve kept you from your work,” he eventually says.
“I got plenty done,” Matthew assures him, pushing his glasses up. Outside, Kuma is happily playing around in the garden, probably getting his white fur unreasonably dirty. “Besides, I’ve kept you from yours as well, then.”
Maarten hums. Wipes his hands on his jeans.
“Where will you be going next, then?” he asks, quite softly.
“Nowhere fast. I mean, if you’re… Not getting sick of me. There’s a lot more here, I think.”
At that, Maarten just gazes down at him with those bright green eyes, as if he’s trying to suss him out. Matthew doesn’t think he’s a complicated person, but Maarten looks nearly bewildered.
“Surely, you got something to get back to.”
“Nothing that can’t wait a bit.” Everyone at home is pretty used to him being gone for considerable stretches of time.
Maarten nods slowly, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Of course,” he says. “Journalism.”
“Honestly? This is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Yeah,” Maarten agrees. And then, “Alright, which room do you want?”
“Which— Oh! I hadn’t…”
“It’s fine if you’d rather not. You know, haunted and all. But it is an inn.”
Actually, that sounds like a very good idea, so Matthew tells Maarten he isn’t picky about the room. Maybe, he’ll let Kuma pick one; he’s got good instincts, after all.
-
It is later than Matthew would have guessed when they return to town, but that’s alright. On the step out front of the B&B once more, Maarten asks him if he is sure he’d like to stay.
“People don’t tend to… Stick around town.” He laughs dryly. “Or around me.”
“Well, maybe they weren’t the right people,” Matthew replies, and shrugs helplessly when Maarten meets his eye, lips parted. The man doesn’t say anything, just nods, and touches Matthew’s arm, before he disappears into the night.
-
It’s easy, somehow, to lose track of time out on the lakes.
One day, Matthew is hauling his luggage into room 3, Kuma unhelpfully racing around his legs, and then another day, he’s taking Maarten into the woods to go mushroom foraging, and then he finally gets to drive the boat, after some instruction, back to town, where the B&B lady looks astonished to see him.
“More reporting to do,” he tells her, on his way to buy some rolls of film.
“More—?” She hurries after him. “Mr Williams, I have received some calls asking for you. Your employers, I think?”
“I’ll be back…” He wants to say ‘soon’, but feels strange putting an end date on his time at the inn. His time with Maarten. “But if my brother ever calls, please tell him I’ve found my thing. He’ll know. His name’s Alfred. Jones, not Williams.”
“Mr Williams…”
The town looks different, now. Less colorful, compared to the vibrant trees and cozy rooms at the inn. Even Maarten’s orange boat seems brighter once Matthew passes underneath the archway of trees. They’ve started losing their leaves, but still hide the inn from view well.
He finds Maarten in the garden plot, digging into the damp earth with floral gardening gloves and narrating, seemingly to Kuma, what crops he could plant where. The dog sits and listens obligingly. He likes Maarten.
Well, Matthew likes Maarten too. He seemed a little… Aloof, at first, but bit by bit, he keeps showing bits of wonder, and when his rare smiles reach his eyes, it feels like some sort of breakthrough.
Kuma notices Matthew first, bounding over to him for pets. Maarten looks up. Smiles. There is a smudge of dirt on his face.
“Town still standing?” he asks.
“Still there. Your store is alright.”
“Alright.” He hasn’t seemed too concerned about the antiques shop. Now, he gestures at the garden and starts his impassioned narration again.
-
Time keeps slipping by, it seems, in leaps and bounds, and Matthew can’t say how long it’s actually been but it’s started to snow, and the lake has started to freeze. They’ve made sure to get enough supplies, in case the waterways become impassable.
“Are you sure you want to stay?” Maarten asks, as he stands by a kitchen window, drying dishes and looking at the cloudy sky, while Matthew tends to the wood stove. His hair has grown, and the bleached ends have been cut off so it’s now all its natural dark blond, though still spiked up severely.
“I don’t see why not,” Matthew tells him, and he turns, holding the dishtowel with both hands.
“You’ve got a job. You have… Family.”
“It’s not been that long, Maarten. If you want me gone—”
“I don’t,” he says quickly. And, softer, barely audible over the wood crackling, “I promise you, I don’t, Matthew.”
“It just feels right,” Matthew says. He knows, when Maarten nods, that he gets it. Something about this place feels like exactly where they’re both supposed to be.
Still, as time slips by and they fall into a comfortable routine, neither of them goes up the stairs.
Matthew doesn’t have a reason not to, but Maarten is apprehensive, and he respects that. It does seem to be his building, after all, even if no official documents can be found in town, or indeed at Maarten’s store, about it even being built.
When Matthew comments on this, one day as they stand on the shore of the frozen lake, Maarten turns to him and looks down over the edge of his striped scarf for a long while, the tip of his nose red with cold.
“It’s yours too,” he eventually says, muffled through fabric. “For however long you want.”
He reaches for Matthew with his bare fingers. Hesitates. Matthew clasps his hand between both of his own and nods silently.
In different ways, he thinks they’ve both been lonely, and this strange place on the lake that seems so oddly suspended in time, so out of place yet completely at home, was exactly what they needed.
The strange place, or, perhaps, the company.
-
It doesn’t seem like a lot of time has passed, but Matthew finds himself learning Maarten’s little quirks; his tendency to sing odd little songs while he cleans, his elaborate bathtime routine, the very particular way he wants things arranged in the kitchen.
He’s a little surprised that Maarten, in return, knows exactly where he’s left his glasses every time he loses them, and how he takes his coffee, and when to pry him away from his latest project so he can eat.
The snow has gone in what feels like the blink of an eye, and Maarten’s crops are doing well, when Matthew finds the man at the foot of the stairs one day, key in hand.
He closes his eyes when Matthew touches his back, pressing his palm to his spine as he’s taken to doing. It seems every time that something slows when they touch. That it gets a little easier to breathe. Kuma curiously nudges Maarten’s leg, which makes the man smile.
He turns to Matthew. “I feel like…” He jerks his chin at the stairwell, trailing off.
“Kuma seems unconcerned,” Matthew says, his hand slipping to Maarten’s arm.
“Yeah. Matt…” He holds the key out to him without another word, and their fingers touch for much too long when Matthew takes it. He doesn’t ask if Maarten’s sure, because Matthew has learned by now that Maarten doesn’t do things he’s not sure about.
He quietly climbs the narrow staircase, the wood creaking under his weight. Kuma waits by Maarten’s side while Matthew fits the key into the lock, turns it, and opens the final door of the inn.
It’s… A room.
Just a room in the same style as the rest of the place, except this one feels lived in. There are books and photographs and paintings. A lounge chair by a modest fireplace, a record player, a large bed behind a beaded curtain underneath the slanted roof. There is even a small gas camping stove with a tea kettle on it. It’s nice.
Matthew pokes his head back through the doorway.
“Nothing unusual here,” he says, and Maarten’s shoulders sag. With a deep breath, the antiquarian starts to climb up too.
Kuma, with a delighted bark, races around the room before immediately lying down on the woven rug by the hearth. Maarten walks around the space, which spans the whole length of the building, fingertips dragging over furniture and windowsills.
“I don’t know what I thought,” he says softly.
Matthew has some ideas, mostly as they relate to his mother’s disappearance, but doesn’t voice them. Instead, he smiles when Maarten turns to him. The man inclines his head.
“Thank you, Matthew.”
“Of course!” He pushes his glasses up. “Journalism, remember?”
At that, Maarten smiles and shakes his head, coming closer. His fingertips now gently brush over Matthew’s wrist, his forearm, and he seems to be lost for words when Matthew meets his green eyes. His mouth opens and closes. Matthew swallows.
“Well, hey,” he says a little awkwardly, “you’ll have an actual living room, now.”
“Hm, we will.” Maarten seems to realize what he’s said, eyes widening. “Or, well—if you want that.”
“I… I do, Maarten.” Matthew touches his chest, running a hand up to his collar. He finds that his heartbeat thrums fast underneath the warm skin of his neck, just like Matthew’s own. “I’d love to.”
Maarten only nods, and when Matthew touches his jaw, he bends forward.
Time seems static for a moment, suspended as though in a sunbeam, and then Matthew reaches up and kisses him, finally and yet so soon. He swears he can hear a bell chime when their lips brush, but the sound is lost instantly when Maarten makes a wonderful, breathy noise and pulls him close, winding his arms around him as Matthew clings to his neck. Just like this place, it feels right, to stand there in the living room, exchanging slow kisses as if they’ve been doing it for years. Maybe they have been, or should have been. That’s what it feels like, in a sure way that makes Matthew shiver.
Slowly, Maarten pulls back to look at him, a flush on his cheeks that somehow smooths all his harsh angles. Matthew smiles, and he laughs softly, ducking his head.
“Glad you’re here,” he mumbles, pressing his lips to Matthew’s temple.
“Yeah. Me too.”
-
They have even more to explore now—each other, for one, but also the room. It becomes abundantly clear quickly that Maarten’s mother must have lived here for a while, possibly after she disappeared. There are photographs Maarten recognizes, of his parents and grandparents, even one of him as a grumpy toddler that makes Matthew laugh and tease him until Maarten kisses him silent. They listen to the records they find in a cupboard. Mostly things from the ‘60s and ‘70s. They open the windows while Maarten smokes in bed, and Kuma claims the lounge chair as his own.
Matthew thinks he means to go visit home, to pick up his things, to see his family and tell them about Maarten—they’ll be so happy for him—but every time, it seems, something comes up at the inn or in town, and he thinks it can’t have been that long anyway, and it doesn’t seem so important for a while. However long ‘a while’ really is.
Maarten starts working in the garden again. Matthew climbs up on the roof once more when a bird decides to nest in the chimney. This time, much to his delight, Maarten embraces him tightly as soon as he steps off the ladder, and just hums when Matthew assures him all is well. He is, it turns out, almost comically afraid of heights, barely able to listen to Matthew’s stories about his home in the mountains without shuddering.
“But I’ll come along if you want me,” he tells him anyway, and Matthew grins. There are so many things to show him.
Sometimes, when Matthew goes into town—Maarten hardly goes after a while—it will seem as though no time has passed at all since the previous trip, but other times, the seasons don’t even seem to line up, and it is disorienting.
But then, every time he gets back, it won’t seem so important.
And sometimes, out there on the lake, he hears those bells just like Maarten said back in the autumn.
He writes more notes, although he’s not sure what for, and takes pictures he doesn’t get developed. But that’s okay. It just doesn’t seem very important.
In the spring, they finally finish cleaning the greenhouse, and Maarten scolds Kuma for trying to eat some ducklings right before playing fetch with him on the lakeshore as Matthew watches from a kitchen window. He finds Maarten sketching sometimes, most often in ballpoint pen; he does pretty impressive depictions of the inn and the lake, of Kuma curled up in the sun.
In another time, Maarten says, he might have become a newspaper illustrator, and they might have worked together.
Matthew takes to hiking to look at birds, and fishing in the lake while Maarten putters in the garden. Kuma tends to scare the fish away, but occasionally, Matthew will catch something they can eat.
Then, it must be summer, although surely it cannot have been that long. The trees are densely, vibrantly green, and Matthew swims in the lake, splashing around with Kuma while Maarten reads one of his mother’s books on a garden bench. He makes them lunch with vegetables from the garden and tugs Matthew into the shower after Kuma shakes himself off and gets them both drenched.
They discuss many plans in the bed under the slanted beams of the roof, tangled together with the windows open and Kuma snoring in his chair. Plans to go to the mountains—even if Matthew will have to hold Maarten’s hand the whole time—to see Matthew’s family, to raise chickens or maybe another dog. To, one day, re-open the inn. Add ‘Williams’ to the door.
But those are all for later. Right now, Matthew is happy, and it never seems very important anyway.
-
On the day they realize it’s autumn, with the forest quite suddenly a picture-perfect riot of golds and reds, Kuma runs away.
He swims away, in fact, leaving both Matthew and Maarten to hurry after him in the boat. Matthew keeps trying to coax the dog back, to no avail. Kuma seems only to want to get away. He’s going quickly towards town.
Unexpectedly, the boat hits a tangle of driftwood and can’t continue, and Maarten hurriedly drives to shore so they can follow Kuma on foot, still calling out.
“He’s never done this before!” Matthew says, nearly in tears when they can’t seem to get through the underbrush.
“No, it’s—” Maarten jerks, looking up. “Did you hear that?”
“Kuma?”
“No, it’s… The bells.”
“The bells? Maarten, I don’t care about the bells!”
“I—of course.”
They continue to try and find the dog, to find their way off the lake, for what feels like hours. They have no luck. There is always something blocking the way. Brush, or water, or a hole, and Matthew can hear the bells as well, now. They’re chiming from the direction of the inn, and they’re louder than they ever have been.
“Why do you think he ran?” Maarten asks softly. Both of them are sitting despondently in the boat.
Matthew shakes his head, removing his glasses to rub his tired eyes. It’s getting dark. He tucks his knees between Maarten’s, and they sit quietly for a while, the bells chiming.
“I think his instincts told him something,” Matthew eventually says. “Something about this place changed.”
With a sigh, Maarten nods. They drive back to the inn.
It’s as lovely as ever, but seems too silent, now. Maarten traces his fingers over the name on the front door, and sighs again when Matthew embraces him from behind and leans his forehead against the man’s neck.
The bells still sound, now and again, close but not from the building itself.
“You know, I never knew my grandma,” Maarten says. “On my mother’s side, at least. 1948, I’ve been told she left. Grandpa supposedly died in ’63. There are pictures of them here.” He turns abruptly in Matthew’s arms. “I’m sorry, Matt.”
“No. Remember what I said? You’re the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“I don’t think that’s what you said,” Maarten replies softly.
“I just didn’t realize it yet.”
He breathes out slowly, eyes closing. Matthew watches him, arms around his waist. Eventually, Maarten reaches up to card his long fingers through Matthew’s unruly curls—longer now, than they ever have been. It’s familiar, the way he brushes over his scalp, tucks his hair behind his ear.
“So, what now?” he asks. “If Kuma doesn’t come back…”
Honestly, Matthew hopes he doesn’t. He hopes Kuma makes it back to town and stays there, safe and sound. He says as much. Maarten nods sadly. Kisses him. They go inside.
They both know that it is their last night, although neither is sure exactly what that means. Matthew orders all his notes and rolls of film, and some of Maarten’s sketches. Maarten diligently updates the ledger and tidies the inn. Maybe, it’ll take fifteen years for these things to be found. Maybe, since Maarten has no more family, they will never be discovered at all.
“You have me,” Matthew tells him, pressing him into the mattress, because, after all, it is their last night. “No matter what, you have me, and it’s been amazing.”
“I love you,” he whispers, and for a brief moment, the bells seem to pause.
“I—I love you, too.” That, at least, is important. Has always been important.
The next day, they consider going out to look for Kuma again, just in case, but a heavy fog has descended on the lake and the bells are louder than ever.
Matthew stands next to Maarten at the end of the dock. Maarten reaches down and tangles their fingers together.
“Follow the bells?” he asks.
“Follow the bells.” Matthew tugs at his hand so that he leans over and kisses him. “Wherever they make take us this time.”
“Journalism, huh?”
“And what a story I have.” Matthew smiles wryly.
“Glad to have been part of it.” Maarten squares his shoulders. Squeezes Matthew’s fingers.
They step forward, off the dock and into the mist.
originally I wrote this for lietweek, it just ended up being not as much about Liet as I wanted, but it's still a fun little fic! bc I'm always amused picturing characters interacting with whoever they're alphabetically next to, and this is an especially interesting bunch :)
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Liaisons
characters: Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova and Monaco
word count: 2193
summary:
A series of silly snapshots of the European meeting table around the letter L, AKA Lithuania is surrounded by teenagers.
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“It’s quite busy around here, isn’t it?”
Lithuania watches as Luxembourg sets his briefcase down and takes the seat next to him at the meeting table.
“I suppose so,” he replies, and Luxembourg smiles, pulling papers out of his case.
“It’s good to see you again, Lithuania.”
They haven’t met many times before, pan-European meeting not really having existed before the Second World War, but Lithuania recalls Luxembourg being quick-witted yet polite, so he nods.
“It’s good to be back.”
Latvia and Liechtenstein arrive at the same time, chatting quietly about something, which makes Lithuania smile. It’s nice to see Latvia relaxed after all these years of tension. He even pulls Liechtenstein’s chair back for her, which makes her laugh kindly as she sits on Lithuania’s other side.
“Good afternoon, Lithuania,” she says.
“Good afternoon.”
“Liech!” Luxembourg says, reaching around front of Lithuania and pulling an exaggerated sad face. “You’re so far away.”
“Finally,” she just says, laughing again and meeting Lithuania’s eye with amusement. They must have gotten quite used to each other’s presence, these past fifty or so years. Lithuania turns to Luxembourg and raises his eyebrows.
“And am I not good enough?”
Luxembourg narrows his eyes at him, probably trying to figure out if he’s joking. Lithuania smiles.
“We’ll see, I suppose,” Luxembourg says haughtily. It’s only ruined a little bit by Netherlands patting his head as he walks by.
-
Liechtenstein, somehow, knows all the gossip of the continent. While Lithuania can’t say he has any real interest in the personal lives of his fellow nations, Latvia apparently does, and so does Luxembourg, so he gets quite a lot of it during meetings, anyway.
Honestly, it reminds him of Poland’s incessant gossiping, and in its own way, that’s quite comforting after all this time. As long as Poland doesn’t expect him to remember any of the gossip.
Even Moldova, who seems to be getting taller every time Lithuania sees him, has started to join in from Luxembourg’s other side over the years. Luxembourg had been much dismayed to learn that Monaco was now also far away. No one really knows where Malta is, most of the time.
“I heard Belarus broke your fingers,” Liechtenstein is telling Lithuania now. Really? That rumor again?
“Nah, that’s old news,” Latvia says, unimpressed.
“No, it’s—that didn’t even happen, Lat! Poland was exaggerating.”
Latvia just looks over at him, expression never changing, and Luxembourg is laughing.
“I never hear anything interesting about you, Lithuania,” Liechtenstein laments.
“I suppose I’m just not very interesting,” Lithuania says, which gets him a shrewd look from beneath her blond fringe. He’s suddenly quite wary of her, tiny as she is.
“No, I’m sure Latvia has plenty of stories about you,” Luxembourg puts in from his other side, and Latvia actually grins.
“No, he doesn’t!” He’s surrounded by younger siblings, Lithuania realizes—he could even count Latvia as his own brother if he felt like it, although it seems less relevant now. All the gossiping suddenly makes sense. It’s probably a good thing Belarus is all the way over there… Even if she’s next to Belgium.
Luckily, Slovakia has finally set up his projector at the front of the room, and so Latvia doesn’t have time to say anything incriminating as they all fall silent to listen to his presentation.
“I don’t know. I’m missing Liechtenstein.” Lithuania ducks away when Latvia tries to poke him in the side. It’s the first time they’re in an EU meeting, both of them, and although the meeting table is smaller, the nations present seem to be making up for it by being even louder than is the norm.
Lithuania catches Estonia’s eye from where he’s sat, as usual, between Denmark and Finland—at least when England’s representing the whole UK—to find that he’s actually putting headphones on to drown out his neighbors basically yelling at each other. Estonia just shrugs. He’s always been good at ignoring the ruckus around him. It’s because he’s so damn old, Lithuania thinks, which also explains a lot of things about Monaco.
“No way! Malta’s here,” Latvia says, as the elusive nation enters the room.
“Oh, right.” Luxembourg sounds almost disappointed, and he shrugs when Lithuania shoots him a questioning glance. “I’ve gotten quite attached to Moldova, I guess. But at least I don’t have to sit next to this guy anymore.”
He gestures over at Netherlands, who just sends him a flat look and says, “Like Malta will ever show up again. You’re stuck with me, Lux.”
Luxembourg sticks his tongue out at his brother in a move that seems so at odds with his sophisticated persona that it makes Lithuania laugh out loud.
When that causes Luxembourg to stick his tongue out his way, he says, “You’re lucky Liechtenstein isn’t here.”
She likes to remind all of her alphabetical neighbors that she’s older than them; a few times, Monaco has even joined in, scolding them for the silliest things. Lithuania thinks Moldova does weird things on purpose, because it amuses him.
“Welcome, everyone,” Belgium calls, just as Malta takes a seat. “And welcome, new members—Denmark, please shut up.”
-
Just as he almost tips forward on to the table, Lithuania is startled by Liechtenstein shaking his shoulder. He blinks at her, and she smiles.
The meeting is running very late. Even though Lithuania is sure he has spent much longer stretches of time awake in his life, most of those times weren’t spent in a warm room, sitting in a moderately comfortable chair. It’s much easier to keep your eyes open when you’re on a battlefield, or under siege. Some time ago, Germany announced a break, although Lithuania can’t say now when exactly that had been. Right now, Latvia is in Montenegro’s seat, talking to Netherlands—probably about poetry, which, oddly enough, they’ve bonded over.
“Should I get—” Liechtenstein starts, but Lithuania gets startled again by a hand on his other shoulder, and then Moldova is leaning over next to him to slam a cup of coffee on the table. He grins and flops down in Luxembourg’s chair. The nation is all gangly limbs now; Latvia has been complaining that Moldova is taller than him since 2006.
“You look like you could use some caffeine,” he says.
“Thank you, Moldova.” Lithuania inhales the scent of coffee gratefully.
“Excuse me,” Luxembourg says indignantly from behind him, “what are you doing in my chair?”
Moldova swivels to him, still grinning.
“I’m expanding,” he replies, and he spreads his hands. “The Moldovan Empire, what do you think?”
“It’s really not all that it’s cracked up to be, you know,” Lithuania tells him. Moldova blinks.
“Being an empire?”
“Hm. Just… Being big.” He’d take having to drink many cups of coffee over a battlefield any day. A hundred years ago, he might have felt differently, but Lithuania knows the value of peace.
“That’s not what Bulgaria says. He keeps telling me about his glory days.”
“Yes, well.” Lithuania sips his coffee and watches with quiet amusement while Luxembourg wheels Moldova out of the way.
-
In the middle of Austria’s speech, Lithuania finds a slip of paper pushed in front of him.
Latvia says you’re good at English. Can you please look over my speech? Okay if not. Moldova.
The note is in Russian, and Lithuania can see Luxembourg squinting at it, but he has no idea whether the nation actually speaks Russian. He scribbles an answer, telling Moldova he’ll help during lunch break, and slides the note back towards Luxembourg, who passes it to Moldova.
When the break comes, Moldova nervously hands Lithuania a hand-written draft of his speech.
“It used to be that we just fought each other,” Lithuania tells him, smoothing the paper down. Sitting on the table, Moldova kicks his legs out.
“Yeah, no one ever asked me to do that. I looked like I was ten.”
Lithuania chuckles. “Alright, fair enough. I’ll warn you; America keeps telling me my English is old-fashioned.”
“That’s alright. I tried asking Romania for help, and I think he quoted Shakespeare at me.” He frowns. “It was that, or some kind of magic spell.”
“You never really know,” Lithuania agrees. He looks over the speech, correcting some mistakes and helping Moldova with some phrasings and pronunciations. He’s aware that, unlike most other European nations, his English tends to sound very American. Since he was the one who taught the language to both other Baltics and Ukraine, they’ve picked up a lot of the same quirks. Russia was not a fan of that, and Lithuania is a little proud that Moldova might be next on that list.
Moldova insists on buying him lunch as a thank-you. It’s nice, to be able to help.
As they head back to the meeting hall, Moldova briefly hooks his arm through Lithuania’s.
“Thanks!” he says brightly, and rushes to his seat.
-
“You know, we should go out sometime,” Lithuania hears Liechtenstein tell Latvia as everyone is entering the room. “Me and Lux and Mona used to, but it got so busy.”
“Oh yes,” Luxembourg agrees as he walks over to them. No one is sitting down yet, clustering around in small groups.
“I don’t think we’d…” Latvia trails off, and Liechtenstein smiles earnestly at him.
Moldova and Monaco, who have linked their arms together for some reason, approach their little group. Luxembourg laughs at them, and they both kick his shins. He swears under his breath.
“We should go out again,” Monaco says, evidently having overheard as well. “It’ll be… What do the humans call it? Team bonding.”
“Monaco, that’s very nice, but I don’t think we would… Fit in,” Lithuania says. She looks up at him while Moldova fidgets next to her.
“Oh, nonsense!” she says, waving a perfectly manicured hand. “Luxembourg does great karaoke, do you know?”
“Oh no,” says Latvia, while Moldova squints speculatively up at Luxembourg, “I had enough karaoke to last a lifetime in the nineties.”
“Yeah, Estonia went a bit overboard,” Lithuania recalls.
“Still!” Liechtenstein enthuses. “We could go to a bar!”
Moldova says, “I’ve never been to a bar.” And, in response to everyone’s looks, “I looked like I was ten.”
He still doesn’t really look old enough to go to a bar, but then again, neither do Latvia or Liechtenstein, who both proclaim immediately that they want to take him to one. Lithuania shares a concerned look with Luxembourg as the three of them conspire.
“Well,” Luxembourg says, “she is older than both of us.”
Monaco just huffs, somehow elegantly.
-
“You look bad,” Estonia says as Lithuania passes in front of him. Denmark and Finland both look up as well.
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” Lithuania says reflexively, not stopping on his way to his seat. He hears Finland laugh over Estonia’s indignant splutter.
France, just sitting down, says, “I think you look very handsome, Lithuania.”
He doesn’t, but it feels nice anyway. Apparently, the amount of alcohol his tiny alphabetical neighbors can put away in an evening, is enough to make even his head ache. He knew this about Latvia, of course, but even Liechtenstein, even Monaco could out-drink him.
Next to Latvia at the table, the Italy brothers are yelling at each other, as per usual, but Latvia seems perfectly fine, scribbling in a notebook while Netherlands leans over next to him and listens with interest. Luxembourg, with his head resting on the table, seems to be trying to shield himself from both his brother and Moldova, who is chipper as ever and playing cards with Monaco. Monaco is wearing sunglasses, but Lithuania isn’t sure whether they’re a fashion statement or a protective measure. He does think Moldova might be cheating at their game by looking at the reflection of her cards in the glasses.
“Team bonding, huh?” he asks as he sits down, and Luxembourg glares up at him with one green eye.
“Yeah, and I’m not,” Lithuania adds miserably. He wishes that stereotype was true right now.
“Alright. Sorry.” Luxembourg winces when his brother pats him on the head as he passes, like usual.
Latvia starts explaining his latest poetry to Liechtenstein.
“I’m changing my name,” Luxembourg says. “I want different neighbors. Not you, Lithuania. You can come along.”
“That’s nice. But what better options are there?” The question is mostly a joke, but Luxembourg lifts his head and looks around the European meeting table appraisingly, causing Lithuania to do the same.
Belgium and Belarus are already bent together and probably gossiping again; Austria looks terrified. Finland is still laughing at Estonia, somehow—and good riddance, Lithuania thinks—while France is leaning so close to Germany that Germany is nearly falling into Greece to avoid him. On their other side, Poland is having a conversation with Portugal and Romania that looks far too conspiratorial for Lithuania’s liking, and Russia is frowning at the three of them.
“You know,” Luxembourg says eventually, “I actually kind of like it here.”
“Yeah,” Lithuania agrees. “Let’s not tell Malta, though.”
I cheated a bit, in that the sentence is in there, but it's in Dutch. Here's a weirdly horny fairytale set in 1974, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (It's not explicit, honestly it's barely even mature, but just so you know, I guess!)
Maarten is Ned & Matthew, of course, is Can. And if some of Ned's lines seem slightly grammatically wonky: that is on purpose! It's realism...in this fairytale c:
Send me a pairing and a number and I'll write you a fic!
.
Dark clouds were massing on the horizon where the sky met the sea. Maarten eyed them from the beach, more annoyed than anything. If it was going to rain, he couldn’t paint out here, and he didn’t think it would even be worth it to get his canvas out.
Well, he could at least do some sketches. Summer storms always looked very impressive.
For a while, Maarten lost himself in the feel of charcoal smudging on paper. He roughed in the waves, the clouds, the dunes he could see out of the corner of his eye, until the skies got too dark for his comfort. He packed up his supplies and lit a cigarette as he hoisted his bag over his shoulder.
Turning to go, Maarten nearly dropped everything again.
Between the dunes, there was a man, standing quietly, with blond curls flying every which way as the wind picked up. The tall grass waved around his bare knees. There were scraps of what once must have been nice clothes clinging to him, and he was looking straight at Maarten.
“Godsamme, je laat me schrikken! Hoelang sta je daar al?”
The man frowned, and Maarten cautiously stepped a little closer. He looked fairly young, maybe in his mid-twenties.
“Hé, gaat het wel goed met je?” Maarten asked him.
“Sorry, I don’t…”
“Spreek je Nederlands?” Taking a drag of his cigarette, Maarten surmised, “You don’t speak Dutch?”
“Dutch,” the man echoed wonderingly, and shook his head. His voice was soft enough that Maarten stepped even closer, sand whirling about his feet.
“Are you okay?” he asked, repeating his earlier question. “Do you need help?”
“No,” the man replied. He took a few steps towards the beach, out of the grass. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I’d come so far.”
“So far from where?” Maarten swore when he felt a fat raindrop hit his head, and the strange man lifted his eyebrows.
“The other side.”
“Look, if you’re going to be cryptic, I don’t have time for that.” He started walking briskly down the beach to where he could cross the dunes, not really caring if the man followed or not.
The man did; by the time Maarten reached his bungalow just on the other side of the dunes, luckily still mostly dry, he was right behind him, seeming more curious than anything. Maarten glanced at him as he opened his backdoor, and his attention was caught by the man’s eyes. They were a bright, vibrant purple that surely couldn’t be real. He blinked, and the man blinked back. His eyes stayed purple.
Swearing once more, Maarten went inside his house and left the door open. Honestly, his life could use a little mystery.
He put his art supplies in their proper place in the living room, and when he finished, the strange man was standing in his kitchen. His clothes were barely more than rags.
“Really. What happened to you?” Maarten asked.
“I came a long way.”
“From where? What’s your name?” Maybe he’d been in a shipwreck. It seemed as good a guess as any, although he seemed pretty calm if that was the case.
“I’ve been called Matthew. When I was in Canada.”
Now even more confused, Maarten continued to stare at him and his strange eyes, as rain started beating against the windows. Surely, people in Canada didn’t have eyes like that either? He’d met Canadians before. They’d seemed perfectly normal to him.
“I’m… Maarten,” he eventually just said. He looked down at Matthew’s tattered clothes, and noticed, in the dim light, that there were shapes on the pale skin underneath, silvery-blue lines curving over his arms, his legs, even his face. They were faint, and didn’t make sense. Very little about this made sense.
“So, when you say you were in Canada… How did you come here?”
Matthew tilted his head, curls falling into his face as something almost like amusement flickered in his eyes.
“It was quite a long swim.”
“Okay. Okay. Fantastisch.” Maarten turned and pushed the beaded curtain aside to return to his living room so he could get another cigarette. He lit it and started to pace around his coffee table.
“You seem upset,” Matthew observed, peeking through the curtain. He sounded amused too.
“I’m not upset. I’m confused.” Maarten stopped in front of him, looking down—Matthew was tall, but Maarten was taller. He usually was.
“I don’t think I’m confusing.” His voice remained soft, almost melodious.
“Good. Great. Do you need new clothes?” It was easiest to focus on things he understood, Maarten decided. And he understood that Matthew, whoever he was, was very nearly nude. While Maarten had no problem with nude men, he preferred them in different circumstances.
“Need is a strong word,” said Matthew, “but I’ve been told it upsets people if I don’t wear any.”
Nodding, Maarten beat a hasty retreat to his bedroom, where he lit another cigarette and found a pair of old shorts and a short-sleeved shirt he thought might fit his mysterious… Guest. Back in the living room, he found Matthew peering at one of his paintings, shirtless. The lines swirled around his back, too, and disappeared beneath the rags clinging to his hips. His arms and legs looked muscular. They probably had to be, if one were to swim across the Atlantic.
Maarten cleared his throat.
“You’re an artist,” Matthew said, turning.
“Yes.” Maarten took a deep drag and breathed out smoke. “What are you?”
“I’m… A traveler.”
Apart from the mysterious lines and strange eyes, he looked perfectly human. He had a sharp nose and broad chest, even a hint of stubble on his chin. A traveler. Fair enough.
“I’ve been a traveler. Here.” Maarten handed the clothes to him.
Shrugging the orange shirt over his shoulders, Matthew reached for what remained of his pants, which once must have been slacks, of all things. Maarten blinked, cleared his throat again, and quickly looked away.
“So, what brings you here?” he asked, facing one of his macramé plant holders. Matthew rustled behind him.
“I get tired of the sea.”
Right, because that was where he lived.
The rustling stopped, and Maarten peeked. The shirt wasn’t buttoned up, and the shorts hung low on Matthew’s hips. It was difficult not to look at the shape of his hipbones leading down to the fly of the pants.
“So I wanted to come and see what was on this side of the ocean,” Matthew finished, seeming unconcerned by the staring.
“Alright. Well, I’m—I’m not sure I’m the right person to help you with that.” Maarten met his eye. “I don’t go out much, nowadays.”
He tilted his head. “But you used to?”
“I used to. But now I’m here, and I paint.”
For a long moment, Matthew just peered up at him, those violet eyes contemplative, but eventually, he nodded.
“Then, I will find my way. Thank you.”
“Alright.”
When Matthew left, stepping into the pouring rain, Maarten didn’t think he would ever see him again. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined the whole thing. If he was going to hallucinate anything, he supposed it would be a nearly-unclothed man emerging from the North Sea.
Just two weeks later, he was proven wrong.
On a crisp day at the tail end of summer, Maarten was painting the boats he could see out on the water, although framed by the menacing clouds from weeks before; there was nothing interesting about a clear blue sky, pleasant though it was.
When he glanced at the sea again, Maarten was startled to see a familiar figure walking out of the surf, somehow completely dry. Matthew’s blond curls shone like gold in the sunlight. He was still wearing Maarten’s clothes, the shirt now buttoned up.
“You’re back, huh?” Maarten said to him as he neared. Matthew smiled, obviously amused.
“It was nice here.” He sat down a few meters away from Maarten, bare feet in the loose sand of the dunes.
“It was raining a lot last time you were here.”
“And why would I mind that?”
That was a good point. If anything, he should probably dislike dry weather.
Since Matthew didn’t seem inclined to say anything else right now, Maarten continued to paint silently, not bothered by the presence on his left. A few people walked by on the beach, but no one paid him any mind; the locals knew who he was and knew he preferred to be left alone.
After a while, Maarten glanced over and saw that Matthew had removed his shirt again and was lying on top of it, eyes closed. He reminded Maarten of a cat, basking in the sun. Or… A seal, maybe, like the ones he saw out on the shoals from time to time. Wiping his hands on his corduroys, he picked up his sketchbook and started putting down light lines. A flyaway strand of hair curling over Matthew’s forehead. The muscles in his arms as he rested his head on them. The path of his dark chest hair as it trailed down into his indecently low shorts—Maarten’s shorts.
“What are you doing?” Matthew asked, and Maarten was startled, scratching a long black line into the paper.
Licking his lips, he slowly turned his sketchbook so Matthew could see. The man squinted and scooted closer.
“Oh,” he said softly, and looked up at Maarten. “I don’t think anyone has ever drawn me before.”
“It’s probably difficult, to draw in the sea.”
Matthew laughed, shaking that same springy curl away from his face, and said, “Well, yes, but even on land, in all this time…”
“How… Old are you?”
He shook his head. “By your reckoning? I’m not sure. We do have art, you know.”
“What? Your—your people?”
“Yes! We have sculptures, and etchings. But nothing like this.” He touched Maarten’s sketch with one finger, violet eyes soft. Maarten wondered if he missed his people, whatever they were, wherever they were. It seemed like he’d come across that whole ocean of his own free will, but still.
“I’d say you can have it, but I don’t think it would hold well in the sea,” he said.
“No, it wouldn’t. Not many things from the land do, but that’s also true the other way around.”
“You’re out here.”
Matthew sat on his knees and looked down at his hands.
“Only for a short while. If I don’t return to the water by midnight, I would wither.”
“Oh.” Maarten blinked, trying to process that. “So… Where have you been?”
“Along the coast. Most of your people don’t speak this—English. I learned it in Canada.”
“So you came back here.”
“Well, I also wanted… To see you again. You weren’t like most people.” He swept his hair away. The sunlight fell across his bare shoulders. There were freckles on the skin there that Maarten instantly itched to draw. He wiped his hands on his pants again.
“I didn’t expect to see you again,” he confessed. “But I’m…” What he really was, he thought, was fascinated, but that would sound a little too intense out loud. “Can I continue this?” he asked instead, tapping his sketchbook. With a curious smile, Matthew nodded.
He stayed close. The long grass of the dunes created interesting shapes on his skin that intersected with the lines all over his body, and Maarten lost himself in the patterns for a while.
Eventually, he noticed the light changing, fading into a soft orange, and he looked up. Matthew’s peculiar eyes were even brighter contrasted like that.
“I should get home,” Maarten said. And, “God, I’m sorry, you’re sitting there already this whole time.”
“I don’t mind. It’s been nice to watch you.”
Maarten swallowed and wet his lips, nodding.
“Most people don’t really notice me at all,” Matthew continued, laughing a little.
“How could they not?” Maarten had to ask, as he carefully put his sketchbook away. He looked at Matthew, who opened and closed his mouth, and then smiled down at his knees. “Do you eat, Matthew? I mean, do you eat things that we eat?”
“Eh?”
“Do you—I’m asking you to come eat with me, if that’s something what you do.”
“Oh! Yes, I’ve enjoyed most foods I’ve tried.”
“Good.” Maarten stood, brushing sand off his corduroys and folding up his little chair. He was glad to see Matthew do the same, although he just slung the orange shirt over one shoulder instead of putting it on. Maarten had no problems with this.
They plodded through the loose sand, across the dunes, to his bungalow. There, Maarten realized he absolutely could not let Matthew into his house like that; he’d get sand everywhere. Of course, this wasn’t an unfamiliar problem, even if Maarten never got quite this sandy, so he had a hose attached to his outside faucet.
“Land is so inconvenient,” Matthew said, when informed of the problem. “What should I do?”
“Rinse off.” Maarten raised the hose, and Matthew nodded and stood there expectantly on the tiled terrace.
Sand rinsed off his legs easily enough, and they kept dripping when Maarten was finished, the hair there darkened by the water.
“So, you do get wet,” Maarten observed idly, handing Matthew a towel he hadn’t been sure would be needed.
“Of course I do.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know it. I have never met someone like you before.” They stepped into the kitchen.
“I’ve never met someone like you, either,” Matthew told him.
Pausing in getting out some potatoes, Maarten blinked at him, and shook his head slowly, saying, “No, I don’t think that can be true.”
“It is,” he just said quietly, and then he watched him peel potatoes.
Matthew seemed to like the meal, and helped put dishes away according to Maarten’s instructions, and then, he was going again, finally putting the shirt on properly. It was getting dark outside.
“Will you come back?” Maarten asked him, and he smiled brightly. His eyes seemed almost lilac in the low light from the kitchen, in contrast to the green tiles.
“I will,” he promised. And off he went, across the dunes and towards the crashing of the waves.
When Maarten moved here, to this lonely bungalow on the coast, he had expected to leave most of the excitement of his younger years behind, both the good and the bad parts of it, but it seemed that it had found a way to creep back into his life now that he was in his thirties. Perhaps it was the sea, always equal parts generous and foreboding. Apparently, there was much more out there than he’d ever thought possible, and he was curious to see what it would bring.
The next day, the sea brought back Matthew. He appeared in Maarten’s backyard, where he was tending to his little vegetable plot, just after lunch and wanted to show him some seashells that had intricate, tiny carvings inside. They were scenes depicting figures that looked just as human as Matthew, but also fish and other sea creatures.
“Have you made these?” Maarten asked, studying them in the sunlight.
“Oh no, I’m not an artist.”
“No, you’re a traveler.”
“That’s right,” he said with a smile. “I had these stored. My seal went to go fetch them for me.”
“You sent a…”
“My seal.”
“Yes, I heard you.” Maarten blinked. Okay, sure. Domesticated seals. Why not, after all? They were akin to dogs, he guessed. “What do these depict?”
So Matthew told him in a steady, soft voice about celebrations his people held, about strange deep-sea fish that no human being had ever seen, about the shifting of currents and the legends they told about that. When he’d left once more, Maarten tried to draw some of those scenes as he imagined them, but he kept getting stuck on Matthew’s eyes, those lines on his skin, on the strong muscles of his calves and the freckles on his shoulders.
It was a long while before he got to sleep that night.
Over the next few weeks, as summer turned very abruptly to autumn, Matthew appeared almost every other day. Sometimes, he brought stories or questions about other places along the coast, sometimes more tales of his people. He was fascinated by Maarten’s bicycle and listened with apparent wonder to his stories about the travels he’d been on. They tried to map things using an old atlas, and Matthew seemed to realize just how far he had actually come, looking at the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean on the paper.
In October, Maarten swam out much too far trying to keep up with Matthew, and had to be dragged back to shore. He lay on the sand, panting and wet, while Matthew was completely dry and glaring at him, autumn wind ruffling his hair. Maarten reached up and touched his calf, unable to lift his hand any further than that. The skin felt warm under his cold fingers.
Matthew kneeled on the wet sand, knees sinking into it, and leaned over him, so Maarten touched his arm, the curve of his shoulder underneath the orange shirt.
“There’s a lot of sea,” he said, just loud enough to be heard over the waves and the seagulls.
“There’s quite a lot of land, too,” Matthew replied, gently pressing a hand to his bare chest. Maarten held it there as his breath calmed.
They just looked at each other, until Maarten shivered violently, cold seeping into him, and he had to go home. Matthew, as if in a huff, walked straight into the sea. Maarten painted him, as he’d been doing for weeks though Matthew didn’t know. This time, he was in the center of a storm that loomed the same purple as his eyes. Maarten had never mixed so many shades of purple before in his life.
The morning after that, the sky looked dreary, but Maarten knew he had to go into the nearest town to get some groceries. As he cycled back, it started to rain lightly. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad, especially since he found Matthew sitting on the bench outside his backdoor, seemingly unconcerned.
“Welcome back,” Maarten told him. Matthew smiled, looking almost relieved, and helped him bring in groceries. Maarten grew many things himself, but he still needed to get supplies every other week or so. He wondered if Matthew’s people grew produce.
“Oh!” Matthew was saying from the living room on the other side of the beaded curtain. Oh, right, the paintings. He’d left them out, not quite expecting him to be back.
Maarten went over to him.
“You have a good memory,” Matthew told him, looking at one of the earlier drawings, at the lines he had drawn.
“I’m an artist.”
“Most people don’t seem to notice.” Matthew smiled up at him, looking amused. “Not a perfect memory, though.”
With deliberate slowness, he eased his shirt off one shoulder so he could trace the lines on the underside of his arm. He glanced up at Maarten.
“See?”
Swallowing, Maarten reached for him, and with a soft “oh”, Matthew let him trace his fingers over his skin. It really felt just like any other person’s skin, soft and warm, the lines not tangible at all.
“Yes, I see,” Maarten whispered, and met Matthew’s wide eyes. “Uh—”
“No, continue,” Matthew said breathlessly, when he went to withdraw his hand. “It’s… Continue.”
Struck with inspiration, Maarten slowly reached around him with his free hand, and grabbed one of his brushes, never looking away from those strange eyes. When he finally did, it was so could look as he swept the brush over Matthew’s skin, following the same lines his fingers had.
“Oh,” Matthew gasped, and his breathing sped up when Maarten slowly brushed down his side, across his ribcage and back up to his clavicle, the touch light.
“You breathe, just like… Like a human,” Maarten said, finding himself quite short of breath too.
“I think we are. My people. We just—” Matthew tipped his head back when Maarten swept the brush up his neck.
“Is it… Magic?” Maarten asked him. He ran the brush just underneath Matthew’s lip and across his cheekbone, and followed the contour of his jaw.
“Maybe.”
A month ago, all of this would have seemed absurd. It still did. Absurd, but not impossible.
Maarten trailed his brush over Matthew’s shoulder, switching it to his other hand. He wet his lips and met Matthew’s eye when he made a choked little noise. The purple was dark and intense as Matthew shrugged his shirt completely off. Maarten shivered.
“Do you know what,” he started, but trailed off when Matthew touched him, running his fingers along the side of his neck.
“I know,” Matthew answered anyway, as Maarten leaned over a little. “We’re not that different.”
“Oh, good,” was all Maarten could say, before he was tugged down, and Matthew kissed him.
He let his paintbrush clatter to the ground to pull him close, fingers fanning over all that exposed skin. Matthew started working on the buttons of his shirt.
“Have you done this before?” Maarten asked, gasping when Matthew pushed his shirt away, off his shoulders.
“On land? Once.” He pulled back to look at Maarten.
It was raining hard now, beating against the windows, and Maarten nodded slowly, heart hammering.
“I did it in the sea once,” he said. “Not that great.”
Matthew laughed, told him it could be, and kissed him again. The taste of sea salt clung to his lips, to every bit of skin Maarten managed to get his mouth on. He tried to memorize the new lines on Matthew’s body that were revealed to him but quickly gave up because there were many other things to concentrate on. The way Matthew’s lips felt on his skin, or the noise he made when Maarten tugged him down onto the couch, or the rhythm of his heartbeat under Maarten’s palm.
It might just be a very bad idea to become so fascinated with this mysterious man from the sea, but Maarten found that he didn’t care, as he grasped the back of his couch and arched his back into Matthew’s touch, clutching his legs around the man’s hips. There were worse things to be fascinated with.
Afterwards, when they were done catching their breath and Maarten felt like he could walk again, Matthew watched him peel potatoes as he’d done so often now, and later still, Maarten got to trace over all the lines on his body with his dry paintbrush until Matthew was gasping for breath. Maarten rested his forehead against his thigh, kneeling on the carpet between his legs. It had gone eleven.
“Will you come back?” he asked, muttering into Matthew’s skin.
“I will,” he breathed.
And he did; throughout the rest of the month, he showed up almost every day without fail. He brought more stories of the sea and of Canada, and watched him draw, and Maarten taught himself to carve seashells, which was difficult but rewarding, and he almost swam out much too far again, and he wondered what else was out there that he didn’t know about.
And many nights, Maarten kept committing to memory the patterns of Matthew’s skin, the cadence of his gasps and the way he felt, over and under and inside him.
“I have to go away for a few days,” he told Matthew in November, catching his breath.
“Oh. Where?”
“Utrecht. I have an exhibition at an art gallery and need to be there for a bit.”
Matthew frowned. “Utrecht isn’t by the sea, is it?”
“No.” He carded a hand through Matthew’s curls. “I hope you don’t mind it.”
Matthew shook his head slowly, his nose brushing Maarten’s chest.
“I will say when I return,” Maarten said.
“I wish I could go with you.” Matthew muffled the words into his skin. And, “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to—”
“No, I wish you could, too.” He didn’t think they’d even bat an eye if he showed up with Matthew; the fact that he liked men was, especially in the art scene, the least peculiar thing about Maarten and ranked far below him living out here on the coast all by himself. Especially after all that the sea had taken from him.
There was always something about the water, though. Something that almost seemed to call to him.
When Maarten left for Utrecht on what was sure to be a tedious journey using public transport, Matthew was the one to ask, for once.
“Will you be back?”
“I will,” Maarten promised, and he biked away.
He took some of his seashell carvings to supplement the paintings that were already in Utrecht. He’d gotten quite good at this new art form already, he thought. While in the city, he contemplated finally getting a phone again if just so he would be able to call his own house and talk to Matthew. He refrained.
When he returned, it was freezing cold, and Maarten could see lights on in his bungalow. For a moment after putting his bike away, he watched through the window, where Matthew flipped a record over and looked at the clock. He’d explained to Maarten that his people’s concept of time was different, measured mostly in currents and seasons. To most of them, the mention of ‘midnight’ in their legends meant very little, but he had learned to read a clock in Canada.
Since it was very cold, Maarten quickly went inside, and Matthew smiled brightly up at him. It wasn’t very warm here either, but still much more pleasant, especially when Matthew looked like that. Quietly, Maarten sat next to him on the couch. He lit a cigarette while Matthew curled into him.
“I missed you,” he said softly, looking ahead at the record player. Wasn’t that something? In years past, Maarten had sometimes feared he’d lost the ability to care. That all his capacity for love had washed away into the North Sea twenty years ago. But the sea had brought it back.
“Yes,” Matthew breathed, curls brushing Maarten’s cheek when he pushed his sharp nose against his neck. “Me too.”
They sat, quietly for the most part, although the record kept playing until the end, and then Maarten shared some tidbits about his time in Utrecht.
“People liked the shells,” he said. “But I didn’t sell them.”
He’d planned to, but it hadn’t felt right. Matthew just hummed into his skin, then glanced up.
“I need to go,” he said.
“I wish you didn’t.”
“Me too.” He frowned. “My people have legends…”
“Legends?”
“I will tell you tomorrow. It’s late.”
It was late—very nearly midnight, Maarten noticed with a start.
So Matthew rushed out over the dunes and back to the sea, and Maarten lay back on the couch and sighed.
The next day, Matthew appeared just after dawn. He had told Maarten that he needed to stay in the sea until the sun rose. Although he wouldn’t wither immediately, it would be dangerous to go out on land all the same. This meant, as winter approached with the last day of November, that his time to be on land, be with Maarten, got shorter and shorter. Dawn was at half past eight already, and only getting later.
More than that, though, Maarten would just like to have him close throughout the night. To wake up next to him.
“So the legend goes,” Matthew started, barely inside, “that there is a way to be… Like my people.”
“What does that mean?” Maarten asked.
“If it is magic, if maybe we were created somehow, then this is the way to transfer it.”
“So I could…” Be with him. “And what is the way, according to the legend?”
“Do you want to—would you really want to…” Matthew trailed off, gazing at Maarten, who put his cup of tea away and nodded.
“I feel like it’s always been the sea, Matt,” he said. “It makes sense.”
Matthew gently touched his cheek. His jaw. Swiped his thumb over his lips.
“It’s about this,” he said, turning his arm and touching the mysterious lines. “If I…” Now again, he touched Maarten, trailing a finger down his neck, smiling when he shivered.
“That’s all?”
“If the legend is true. It could also be about love. It wouldn’t work if we didn’t…”
“I don’t think that’s a problem,” Maarten said, voice low. He met Matthew’s violet gaze.
“No,” he replied, equally soft. “It shouldn’t be.”
It took three days, and a few distractions, for Matthew to trace all the lines into Maarten’s skin so they mirrored his own, using a paintbrush wet with sea water, though they didn’t know if it would make a difference.
And then, December 3rd, Matthew swept the brush up the inside of Maarten’s ankle, and said, “It’s done.” He looked up and met Maarten’s eye, swallowing.
“Yes?”
Matthew nodded, slowly pushing himself up using Maarten’s knees, until their noses touched. He asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Maarten kissed him softly, swiping his hair away from his face. “Are you?”
“Yes,” Matthew mumbled against his lips. “You were right. It feels like it makes sense.”
It did, especially when Matthew kissed him again, pushing until he lay down and leaning over him, every part of them sliding together. Maarten was sure he felt a tingle under his skin that was brand new, a tingle that only intensified every time they touched, became more pronounced with every thrust of Matthew’s hips. It felt like longing, yet not the desperate kind he’d felt before.
“Oh,” he gasped, arching into it. “I can—”
“Yes,” Matthew said, violet eyes intense, his fingers digging into Maarten’s hips.
Even as they both came down from that, the tingle stayed, urging Maarten to move.
“Is this what it feels like? The sea?” he asked.
“It’s also what you feel like, to me,” Matthew murmured, and Maarten smiled. “But if we get to the water, you will know.”
And so, leaving Maarten’s bungalow behind, they walked across the dunes to the familiar North Sea, dark in the December evening. Maarten didn’t feel like he would return. There were seas to explore, and brand new coastlines and kinds of art and ways of living.
He paused only briefly at the edge of the water. Matthew waited patiently.
“Goed. Tijd om te gaan.” Time to go.
They walked into the surf, until a wave swept both of them under, and they vanished into the cold North Sea.
.
+ a clipping from a December 1974 newspaper, reporting on this. It reads, 'Missing. 34-year-old Maarten van Dijk from Scheveningen has been missing since December 3rd. His house was found abandoned. It is feared that an accident happened, possibly at sea. Van Dijk is over 1.95m tall and has dark blond hair. He is known as an artist. Tips to police in The Hague: 070-636969.'
Hello! I'm very late but from the prompt list, would you be able to write EstLiet with prompts 3 and 33? No worries if you're not up for it or no longer accepting asks though! <3
3. "Kiss me."
33. "You're cute with glasses."
No problem! Luckily, I didn't read the entirety of Return of the King before writing this, like I did a couple of years ago, so no high fantasy :) Instead, here's a romcom, featuring a Wacky Supporting Cast™ consisting of almost all of Eastern Europe, more talk of budgets than I expected, and a play I made up!
Names are pretty straightforward, I guess, (I write about these characters often enough) but since they almost never show up: Kveta is Czechia and Zdeno is Slovakia. I hope you like it <3
Send me a pairing and a number and I'll write you a fic!
.
“Join the community theatre, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”
As Tolys enters the theatre’s modest kitchen, he identifies the source of the grumbling as Eduard, who is scrubbing his hands at the sink and doesn’t seem to have noticed him.
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t ask the sound guy to paint, Borisov,” Eduard continues to himself.
“I see you’ve started monologuing too,” Tolys says, smiling when Eduard jumps in surprise, splashing water around. There is, somehow, a streak of red paint in his pale blond hair.
“It’s tempting,” Eduard tells Tolys while he walks over to make some coffee. “Is Raivis still going?”
“No, Dragos is doing his weird accent again and Erzsébet is yelling at him, as usual.” Tolys shrugs at Eduard’s incredulous look, with his eyebrows disappearing behind his hair. “It’s part of the charm.”
With a laugh, Eduard dries his hands. There is still some paint on his long fingers, flecks of gold and white over an old ink stain.
“And what do you do, Tolys?”
“Hm?”
“Well,” he says, leaning a hip against the kitchen counter and adjusting his glasses, “Raivis monologues, Erzsébet yells at people, Stefan keeps telling me I’m bad at painting. What’s your thing?”
Tolys doesn’t think he has a thing, but he tucks his hair behind one ear and says, “I guess you’ll have to find out,” so that Eduard raises an intrigued eyebrow and leans a little closer to him.
“I look forward to it,” he replies. “Any chance you can help paint the sets?”
Picking up his cup of coffee from the awful coffee machine he himself donated to the rickety community theatre building years ago, Tolys gestures for Eduard to lead the way. They pass through the main hall, where they speedwalk away from Erzsébet trying to drag them into her argument with Dragos about his ridiculous fake accent, and into a side-room turned workshop. The air is heavy with paint fumes.
Immediately, Stefan Borisov pushes a paintbrush into Eduard’s hand, all the while telling him he sucks at painting.
“I’m an accountant!” Eduard protests indignantly.
“Good, maybe you can find out why I have almost no budget.”
In response, Eduard rolls his eyes, and turns to a large plywood slab that must be a background, half-painted in some abstract pattern.
“What exactly… Is it?” Tolys asks him, and gets a grimace in return.
“I’ve been told it’s art deco, since the play takes place in the twenties.”
“Alright.” He tilts his head. “Well, I’m sure you have other talents.”
Stefan snorts on the other side of the room. Eduard narrows his light eyes at Tolys, who smiles into his coffee. It’s been nice, having someone new in the group who’s not yet used to the general chaos that is the theatre. Especially nice since Eduard has taken all the weirdness in stride so far. And, of course, since Tolys was immediately mesmerized by the man’s eyes when they were introduced, and Eduard has seemed more than happy to let him explain things so he could see much more of them—of all of him.
“I have plenty of talents, Tolys,” he says now. “I guess you’ll have to find out.”
“Hm. I look forward to that.”
Just then, Erzsébet storms into the room, agitatedly waving her hands.
“This is all your fault, Borisov!” she shouts. “You let him do his stupid accent one time—”
Stefan blithely continues measuring plywood, so Tolys sighs and tells her he’ll come talk to Dragos.
Not that it will help.
-
Now that they’re a good while into preparations for this autumn’s play at the community theatre, there are finally things to do for Tolys, and for Eduard. The two of them are in charge of lighting and sound respectively, but have mostly been helping Stefan with the sets until the cast’s blocking was close to finished.
This evening after he got home from work, Tolys had been quite eager to get to the theatre if just to spend time in his control box with Eduard, but he hasn’t been able to find the man anywhere.
Not, at least, until he walks into a dressing room.
“Not to interrupt…” he starts slowly. “Feliks, you know he’s not in the play, right?”
In a corner of the room, Eduard is sitting stiffly in a folding chair, blond hair pulled back from his face with a bandana. He’s squinting in Tolys’s direction, his sea-green eyes even more striking than usual because they’re, for some reason, framed by dark eyeliner. Something has surely happened to his eyebrows as well, but Tolys has no idea what.
Feliks swivels to him on his saddle chair, pointing a thing of mascara his way.
“No, but!” He gestures at Eduard, who squints some more. “He’s got a very similar complexion to Raivis and I need to know what works, and Raivis is too busy doing stress monologues.”
Raivis is currently, as far as Tolys is aware, trying to teach Zdeno to longboard in the parking lot, much to Erzsébet’s dismay, but it’s a fair point otherwise.
“Are you done now?” Eduard asks Feliks faintly.
“No! Sit still.”
Tolys tries to shoot Eduard a reassuring smile but gets no reaction, and that’s when he realizes that the man isn’t wearing his glasses. And that, even more than the eyeliner, is what’s making his eyes stand out so much. He watches with fascination while Feliks puts the mascara on Eduard, who looks terrified the entire time. Having been part of several plays now, including as an actor, Tolys has come to realize that more makeup always seems to be needed than he expects beforehand.
“Is mascara really dependent on complexion?” he asks nonetheless. Feliks just grins and winks at him over his shoulder, and then tells Eduard he’s finished. Standing, he snaps his fingers.
“Tolys, what do you think?”
“I think…”
Eduard seems terrified to blink.
“Well, he looks very handsome.”
With a dramatic sigh, Feliks elbows Tolys in the side and rolls his eyes when he looks over, obviously amused.
“Can I put my glasses back on?” asks Eduard.
“Yeah, sure. I’m gonna go see if Raivis has some time to spare!” Feliks waltzes out of the dressing room with a jaunty salute.
“If Raivis has time, why did you need—” Frowning, Eduard crosses his arms.
Tolys walks over, spotting the man’s wire-rimmed glasses sitting on a table. He picks them up and hands them to Eduard, who smiles gratefully as he puts them on.
“I feel like an idiot,” he says morosely, standing up and looking in a mirror.
“Don’t worry, Feliks putting makeup on crew members is basically tradition. That’s his thing, I guess.” Even when, as they do, the roles change and someone else is in charge of the makeup. “Besides, I do think you look nice.”
“Nice, hm?” Eduard pulls the bandana from his hair. “That’s a step down from handsome.”
“I believe I said very handsome,” Tolys replies, feeling his face heat.
“Is that your thing?”
“Huh?” Handsome, tall men? Those certainly are. At least some of them.
“Compliments.” Eduard smiles, a slight mischievous edge to it that is exacerbated by the eyeliner, which makes him look roguish. Tolys didn’t realize that was his thing, but he has to admit, it’s working. He blinks, Eduard’s response filtering through to him. Compliments?
“Only when I mean them.”
“Alright, good to know,” Eduard says softly. And then, “Hold on, how am I going to get this off my face? I don’t own any makeup remover!”
“Surely there’s some around here?”
They both look at the array of bottles and brushes Feliks has left behind. Eduard pushes his glasses up and squares his shoulders.
“Right.”
They find the remover and some cotton pads quickly enough. Sighing, Eduard takes his glasses off again and leans very close to a mirror to start to wipe the makeup off.
“How did Feliks rope you into this, anyway?” Tolys asks, sitting down on Feliks’s chair.
“He said he had ‘experiments’ to do.”
“And you just went along with it?”
“Well, I didn’t know! And I’m not afraid of experiments.”
“I guess that’s good to know.”
Eduard chuckles. As he leans on the table with one hand, Tolys’s eye is drawn to the lean muscle in his forearm, moving under the pale skin. He wonders at it; surely, an accountant shouldn’t have such nice arms.
“You’re left-handed,” he observes, clearing his throat. Eduard hums as he scrubs furiously at one eye with a cotton pad.
“Yeah. Oh, I wanted to ask you something.” He picks up another cotton pad. The eyeliner has smudged everywhere, which is also very distracting.
“Yes?”
“Do you play any instruments?”
“Oh, not really. Learned to play the recorder in school, like everyone 20 years ago, but nothing since. Why do you ask?”
“I had this idea.” He switches to his other eye. Cringes. “Oh my god, that is very unpleasant.” He’s tearing up, and Tolys can’t help but laugh a little. “No, shut up. I hate when things are in my eyes. I swear I nearly had a panic attack when I tried contact lenses.”
“I’m sorry, that’s fair,” Tolys says, even if he’s still a little amused. “Anyway, I think… I think you’re cute with glasses, so that’s alright.”
For a moment, Eduard is silent, although Tolys can see him smiling in the reflection even as he scrubs makeup away.
“It’s cute now, is it?” he eventually asks, and picks up yet another cotton pad.
“Better or worse than nice?”
“It’s all great,” he says earnestly, still smiling.
“I’m glad.” Tolys pushes a hand through his hair, suddenly quite warm. “What was that about musical instruments?”
Wiping a last, clean, cotton pad across his face, Eduard puts his glasses back on and leans back against the table. Feliks would probably call it a vanity, but it really isn’t; it used to be a set piece, several years ago. When Eduard crosses his arms, the muscles in his arms move again, distractingly.
“I was thinking about background music. Or at least some musical stings. But I barely have the budget for stock sound effects, after getting that new microphone.”
The old microphone broke during the spring play’s last showing; Erzsébet needed to shout all her lines. Luckily, she’s very good at shouting.
“So you want us to do the music?”
“If there are enough instruments among everyone. I play a couple myself, and I can compose some things…”
“So those are some of the talents you mentioned?”
Eduard laughs, uncrossing his arms to grip the edge of the table. His hair is still a little wilder than usual, when it is very straight down his forehead, and the scrubbing at his face has left him flushed, and Tolys would love to see more of that. He’d also love to know just how strong his arms actually are. If he could push them down, maybe, if just to watch the muscles work.
“What instruments do you play?” he asks instead.
“Mostly piano, or keyboard.”
With those long fingers? That makes sense. Oh, that might be where the muscles come in.
“I think Feliks plays the piano.”
“Organ, actually,” Feliks interjects from where he’s appeared back in the doorway, Raivis trailing behind.
Eduard jumps, rattling the table. Feliks snaps his fingers at the both of them.
“Get out of here. I’ve got experiments to conduct.”
“Godspeed, Raivis,” Eduard mutters. Raivis shrugs, and Feliks winks at Tolys again as he leaves the dressing room.
-
When Tolys enters the theatre, Iryna is singing. Apparently, she’s still upset they’re not doing a musical. This time, however, there is someone singing with her. It isn’t her sister, or Raivis, who is a great singer, but this voice is too deep to be his. Tolys knows Stefan can sing but just doesn’t, and so he has no idea who to expect until he opens the doors, leaving the summer heat outside, and sees that it is Eduard, who’s also playing the keyboard that’s somehow always left unattended somewhere in the building.
He has a very pleasant voice, a steady counter to Iryna’s nearly operatic vocals. It takes a moment for Tolys to realize that the song they’re singing is about the play, although most of the lyrics are pretty nonsensical. Are they making it up on the spot?
“Ah, Tolys,” says Kveta, apparently unimpressed as she enters the hall behind him. Eduard glances over and smiles, but his hands don’t falter on the keyboard.
Tolys greets Kveta. She taps his arm, and he reluctantly looks at her instead of at Eduard’s elegant fingers, or his arms. They’re very nice.
“Can I borrow you for a moment?”
“Are you doing experiments, too?” he asks her warily, eyeing her sharp eyeliner as she rolls her eyes.
“I just need a hand. I know you can sew.”
He can, so he follows her to the side room that’s been designated her workshop. It’s a little overwhelming in here, to be honest. With Kveta in charge of costumes, it was bound to be. Technically, she and Feliks share responsibility for makeup and wardrobe, and they are, from a creative standpoint, the best choices among them by far. Tolys does think the look of the play may end up outshining the actual play, though.
Kveta tells him to sew a trim to a dress that he thinks is for Nadzeya’s villain character, which is easy enough, so he sets to work at the sewing machine.
After a while, both Iryna and Eduard wander into the room, chatting amicably.
“Great!” Kveta says happily. “Iryna, I’ve finished the modifications to your suit.” She gestures her over, leaving Eduard to wander to Tolys’s corner of the room. Tolys looks up when he’s finished the trim.
“So, you sew,” Eduard says, sounding… Impressed.
“And you sing, apparently.”
Eduard shrugs, pushing his glasses up.
“That’s another talent. I can see why you volunteered to do the sound.” Tolys cuts the thread and flips the dress right-side-out.
“Well, I don’t think any of my many other talents would be useful at a theatre,” Eduard says, deadpan. He looks around at the explosion of fabrics and colors in the room. “Actually, I think I know where the budget went.”
“Yeah, we really shouldn’t have given Kveta free rein. There should be someone overseeing everything. Maybe for next year’s spring play.”
Iryna emerges, and Kveta makes a delighted noise that makes everyone smile.
“Maybe a little free rein,” Tolys amends. Iryna truly looks as though she’s stepped out of the 1920s. He holds both thumbs up at her, and she beams, and then he turns to Eduard, asking, “Do we have something to do?”
“Right, yes! Erzsébet wants to do the big reveal scene with Nadzeya and Raivis, and I think it will need lots of dramatic lighting.”
“Exciting.” He follows the man out of the dressing room. Eduard looks over his shoulder, curiosity in his eyes.
“Any reason in particular you know how to sew?”
“I, ah…” Tolys pushes a hand through his hair. “I do historical re-enactments. It’s very useful for that.”
“Really?” Eduard pauses in front of the door to their sound-and-lighting box, which is sure to be unbearably hot in the summer evening. He looks with something like wonder down at Tolys, which isn’t the reaction he’s used to receiving. “You know, I’ve always wanted to try that, it’s fascinating!”
“Yeah?” Tolys smiles. “Well, you know, everyone’s welcome. I’d be happy to help out.”
“What sort of time period do you… Re-enact?”
“Late medieval, mostly. I, ah, I’ve done archery since I was a teenager, and that’s the main reason I went in the beginning.”
“Archery,” Eduard says wonderingly, looking down at Tolys’s arms. “That’s very nice.”
“Any reason in particular you know how to sing, Eduard?”
“Ha!” He opens the door to the box, which does, unfortunately, feel like a sauna, so Tolys puts a chair in front of it to keep it open. “Mostly dumb luck.”
Fair enough. That reminds Tolys, though…
“Are you having any luck with the music thing?” he asks as they take their places behind the control panel overlooking the hall. Despite the general state of the building and possible misdistribution of the budget, the box is quite well-appointed. Tolys has never done lighting before, but he understands now why Zdeno was doing whole laser shows last spring; it’s very tempting to press all the buttons.
“Yes!” Eduard says enthusiastically. “Have you ever heard Dragos play the violin? He’s very good.”
“Really?” Tolys had no idea.
“And I wanted some jazz elements in there, you know, since it’s the twenties,” he continues. “No one has a trumpet, sadly, but Luca plays the saxophone, so that’s great.”
“Ah, yes, everyone knows about Luca’s saxophone. Dragos won’t shut up about it.”
Eduard snorts, putting his headphones on one ear so he can hear what’s happening on stage.
“He’s just proud of his brother.” Abruptly, he takes his headphones off again and swivels to Tolys, expression serious. “I have to ask. What’s the deal with Kveta and Zdeno? Are they related or married or what?”
Tolys laughs out loud, leaning back in his chair. “They do it on purpose, I swear! Every time someone new joins, they get confused. They’re siblings.”
“Real family affair around here, isn’t it?” Eduard asks, lips twitching with laughter as he puts his headphones on once more.
“You’re here because of your cousin,” Tolys reminds him.
“Yes, and she’s yelling at Dragos again. Also, I hope my brother never joins; he’s a horror fanatic.”
Oh no, that’s a bad idea. Tolys spent ages washing fake blood out of rented costumes a few years ago. Damn Dragos and his obsession with vampires. And Stefan, who had let him do his outrageous accent.
“Okay, ready,” Eduard is saying over the loudspeakers, so that it echoes through the empty hall. Tolys puts his headphones on as well and gets ready to push buttons.
-
“That looks really nice, actually!” Tolys enthuses, stepping back from the stage to take in the whole set.
“There’s no need to sound so surprised about it,” Stefan grumbles even as he gazes proudly at his work. Much like Kveta and Feliks, Stefan is the right person for this role, and he can actually work within a budget.
“Well, he saw me painting,” Eduard rationalizes. He’s sitting on the edge of the stage and typing on a laptop.
“I’ve heard you have other talents,” Stefan says dryly. “Right. Erzsébet! Give me a hand!”
She stomps onstage from the wings. Tolys hops up to sit next to Eduard, peering at his screen, from which he gleans nothing. It’s either accounting or music production, both of which might as well be magic to him. There are lots of colors.
Eduard glances at Tolys, the screen reflecting in his glasses, opens his mouth but doesn’t say anything, and then he shifts ever so slightly, until his thigh presses barely into Tolys’s. It’s a small, seemingly innocent movement that has Tolys’s heart skipping a beat anyway. Ever since the first time they met, he thinks they’ve both been aware that something could be there. It feels very much like it’s a matter of time, and he’s happy to let it play out.
“Anything I can help with?” he asks, knowing it’s probably futile.
“You can take a listen later and tell me what you think.”
“I don’t know anything about music.”
“That’s nonsense.” Eduard smiles at him. He’s close enough that Tolys notices he smells pleasantly like baked goods.
“Hey, Ed, can you come over here a second?” Erzsébet asks from behind them. “I have some questions.”
Nodding and throwing Tolys an apologetic smile, Eduard puts his laptop aside and clambers to his feet to go with his cousin. She’s the only one who calls him Ed; Tolys wonders if the man would mind if he did.
Feliks comes walking up to the stage, looking at his phone until he spots Tolys. For some reason, he’s wearing one of Luca’s costumes. One for when he’s a villainous henchman. Luca has a lot of roles; they really need more people to join.
“How’s it going with the new guy?” Feliks asks. He puts both elbows on the edge of the stage so he can lean his chin in his hands and look up at Tolys.
“He’s doing great, I think!”
“Sorry, I should’ve been more clear.” Feliks gestures with one hand. “How’s it going with your seduction of the new guy?”
“Seduction?”
“Courting?” he suggests, grinning, and then grinning even wider when Raivis, who is also wearing one of Luca’s costumes, comes up from the other side and says, “Wooing, surely.”
“Ooh!” Feliks snaps his fingers. “Romancing!”
“Guys,” Tolys says, looking back over his shoulder. “What is this, high school?”
“It feels like it sometimes,” Raivis says.
“You must’ve done a lot of very long presentations, then,” Feliks replies. Turns back to Tolys. “And I was homeschooled. Anyway, I’m not blaming you. He’s cute.”
“Very tall,” Raivis puts in, nodding sagely, as if that isn’t the first thing anyone would notice about Eduard. Well, aside from his eyes. Tolys puts both his hands over his warm face.
“No, like, really! I support you!” Feliks insists. “I just want to know how it’s going!”
“You want to gossip about it with Erzsébet, is what you mean,” Tolys mutters into his hands. “Look, it’s… It’s going. I’m not sure where yet, but it is.”
“Cryptic,” Raivis comments, while Feliks just sighs dramatically, although he’s grinning when Tolys looks at him, not unkindly. They’ve been friends for a long time, and he supposes it’s nice to know Feliks approves. Over the years, he’s proven quite insightful when it comes to his taste in men.
“Hey,” comes Eduard’s voice from behind Tolys once more, and one of the man’s hands lands gently on his right shoulder, “is there a reason everyone’s wearing Luca’s clothes?”
“Experiments,” Raivis just says, which makes Eduard chuckle warmly. He puts his other hand on Tolys’s left shoulder, long fingers gently pressing down, and Tolys bites his lip when Raivis quirks his eyebrows at him.
As Eduard thanks Feliks for his help with the music, Tolys leans his head back a little bit, and he can feel Eduard shift in response, until one of the man’s thumbs swipes over the collar of his T-shirt and across the bare skin of his neck. Surely, he must be able to feel Tolys’s pulse thundering?
“Right.” Eduard clears his throat. He pushes down briefly, so Tolys tilts his head further back to look up at him, meeting those sea-green eyes. What little hair Tolys has left out of his ponytail falls away from his face.
Eduard blinks, fingers curling against Tolys’s shoulders. Then, he smiles.
“Want to listen to some musical stings?” he asks, leaning down just a little bit.
“Sure.”
Stepping back, Eduard offers a hand to Tolys to help him up, which Tolys takes and uses to step close to him. In response, he only gets another smile, and Eduard bends down to retrieve his laptop, then gestures for him to come along.
“It really is going, huh?” Feliks asks. Raivis snorts, and Tolys laughs softly.
“It is,” he confirms, and follows Eduard to their box.
-
Somehow, things manage to get more chaotic as opening night approaches, but Tolys is certain it will all come together in the end, as it always seems to do. Luca’s doing all his costume changes in time now, Raivis has stopped his nervous monologuing, Dragos isn’t doing the accent anymore, and Iryna has remembered she’s supposed to act, not sing.
Nadzeya and Zdeno were already doing well, even if they both seemed disinterested at first.
All the budget going to costumes was worth it, Tolys thinks. Obviously, Kveta is just as concerned with historical accuracy as he is when it comes to his re-enactments.
It’s a shame, though, that Eduard won’t be wearing one of those nice suits Raivis has; Tolys has taken to imagining him in a waistcoat.
“Can I offer you some cake in this trying time?” the man in question is asking now, holding a Tupperware out to Tolys. Though he isn’t in a waistcoat, he has a nice blue shirt on, the sleeves distractingly rolled up to his elbows.
“Huh?”
“I made some cake,” Eduard elaborates. “Nothing fancy.”
Tolys gratefully takes a slice of cake, smiling up at him.
They’re in the foyer of the theatre, watching people come in—mostly family—to watch the dress rehearsal. There really isn’t any reason for there to be an audience during the dress rehearsal, but it’s a tradition started long before Tolys joined that everyone’s family and friends would show up to watch. This is also the reason, he thinks, that they have a relatively large number of siblings at the community theatre.
He waves at his mother as she arrives, and she blows him a kiss.
“Your mother?” Eduard asks, sounding amused. Tolys refuses to be embarrassed. Sure, he’s thirty-one, but he loves his mom.
“This is very good,” he says instead, swallowing. “Another talent, is it?”
“What, baking? I think that that’s more of an acquired skill.”
“There are people at re-enactments who make all these old recipes, over a fire and everything,” Tolys tells him, and Eduard lights up.
“That sounds so interesting!”
“Yeah, it’s…” Tolys smiles helplessly, a little taken aback by the full force of his enthusiasm. “I’d be happy to take you. You can borrow something of mine, even.”
Eduard’s gaze sweeps down Tolys’s body in a way that’s certainly not assessing if his clothes would fit, and Tolys shoves the last bit of cake into his mouth.
“That sounds great, I’ll have to take you up on that.” Eduard checks his watch. “We should go get ready now, though.”
They make their way to their box, the entrance to which is in an empty corridor outside the theatre hall. Tolys takes a deep breath, and Eduard turns to him, hand on the door handle.
“Are you nervous?” he asks with genuine curiosity.
“Not… Really. Not for myself, at least.” Tolys pushes a hand through his hair and looks up at Eduard to catch him blinking somewhat dazedly down at him. “I suppose I could always use…” He trails off, suddenly embarrassed.
Eduard raises his eyebrows, stepping closer and touching his arm briefly.
“What?”
“I was going to say… I could always use some more luck.”
Parting his lips, Eduard gazes down at him, until he smiles slowly.
“Well, certainly I could help with that. I have so many talents, after all.”
“You—” Tolys laughs, and then decides, might as well—it’s where it’s all been going—and reaches for Eduard’s collar, which reveals the dip of his throat, to fold his fingers into it. The man’s eyes widen, but he is still smiling. He touches Tolys’s arms again, this time lingering.
“Maybe I could sing you a song,” he muses teasingly. “Or write a piece of—”
“Eduard?”
“Hm?” He leans down when Tolys gently tugs at his collar, fingers trailing up his forearms.
“Kiss me already.”
He does, leaning down until Tolys meets him halfway, turning his face into the gentle slide of his lips. It’s soft, but it sparks through Tolys nonetheless, especially when Eduard pulls him closer by the waist until their bodies are touching.
“So…” Eduard starts, straightening just slightly and looking down with half-lidded eyes. “Another talent?”
Tolys grins. “That’s pretty presumptuous, Eduard.” He slides his hands up and around his neck, pulling him down again while he laughs.
This time, he catches Eduard’s bottom lip between his own briefly, which gets him a surprised little sound, Eduard’s fingers flexing on his waist, before the man tilts his head and parts his lips. It’s definitely going, Tolys thinks, pushing his fingers into Eduard’s hair.
He can’t tell how long they just stand there in the warm corridor, kissing slowly; all he knows is that Eduard looks beautifully flushed when they finally part, and somehow his glasses have been knocked askew. Tolys untangles one hand from his hair to right them.
“Yeah, cute,” he mumbles. Eduard laughs, eyes bright.
“Is that enough luck?” he asks.
“I suppose we’ll have to see.” Tolys blinks. “Uh, we really should get in there.”
“Right!”
They untangle themselves hurriedly. Tolys fixes Eduard’s collar, which makes him grin.
“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” he asks as they enter their dimly-lit box and take their places. “Your thing. It’s being helpful.”
“Eduard, I have many things.” Tolys quirks his eyebrows at him, and puts his headphones on.
-
“Oh my god, they’re both doing the accent,” Eduard says, distraught. “Tolys, is it normal for dress rehearsal to be such a mess?”
“Not… This much,” he replies, mostly very amused. Dragos and Nadzeya, who play the main villains, somehow sound both more menacing and absolutely ridiculous at the same time.
Earlier, Zdeno tripped over nothing and took Iryna down as well, and that apparently had been distressing enough that Raivis started stress-monologuing until they shut down both light and sound to end the scene. Then, Eduard had played one of his jazzy stings but somehow much too loud, and even the two of them had heard Erzsébet yell, “What the hell?” in shock.
At least, it’s almost time for the intermission. It won’t be as long as when they do actual performances, the next few weeks, but it’s something. The audience, at least, seem to think the accent is hilarious.
“They probably won’t do it again,” he tells Eduard, who is by now standing up and leaning forward over his control panel as if to see the stage better.
“No, because Erzsébet will murder them.”
“Could be.” Tolys changes the lights for the last scene, which is, unfortunately, one where Raivis speaks a lot and therefore has a high chance of monologue.
Honestly, it’s pretty impressive, the way he stays in-character as the prince the whole time.
“There he goes,” Eduard muses, gesturing.
Tolys decides to center the spotlight on Raivis, and Eduard laughs, glancing his way.
“I guess it wasn’t enough luck.”
“Well.” Deciding not to think too much about it, Tolys stands. He’s delighted when Eduard turns around eagerly, slouching against the control panels so that he can easily crowd close to him and kiss him again.
Now, Eduard pushes one hand into Tolys’s hair, and Tolys grasps his hips where they rest against the table, slotting their legs together. Eduard makes a hoarse noise in the back of his throat when Tolys swipes his tongue over his lips, and he puts his hand on the control panel as he pushes back. Tolys presses his own hand over Eduard’s, and they’re definitely pushing buttons but he’s not sure he cares, not when Eduard’s long fingers are tangling in his hair frantically and the edge of his glasses digs into Tolys’s nose and he gasps into his mouth when Tolys slides his other hand up until his fingers brush heated skin.
Tolys lets his hand linger when he pulls back to look up at Eduard’s flushed face. Then, he glances at the stage, where lights are swirling in a pattern he’s sure he never programmed and Raivis is still speaking over a rising wave of sound, somehow steadily.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Eduard asks, lips against his temple, his breath hot on his skin.
“Oh no,” Tolys replies, grinning up at him. “It’s very good.”
With both hands, he pushes every single slider down as Raivis’s monologue crescendoes, and then he tugs Eduard away from the control panels.
“I think we need a lot more luck for after the intermission.”
39. I don't want to keep us a secret anymore.
46. Or we could make out.
Yooo anon I'm always happy to write NorHong again! And these two prompts fit perfectly with a fic that I'd been vaguely thinking of already, except it grew more plot than I was expecting lol. I hope you like it!
As always, Einar is Nor, Leon is HK, Egill is Ice, Dragos is Romania, Mei is Taiwan and Arthur is of course England and Yao's China :)
Send me a pairing and a number and I'll write you a fic!
-
The door of the living room slams open, and Egill nearly falls off the couch when Leon storms in, looking very frantic and waving his phone around.
“What the hell,” Egill starts, pulling his earbuds out, “what’s the matter with—”
“Can you reach Einar?”
Egill blinks up at his roommate when he comes to a halt in front of him.
“Einar?”
“Yes, Einar!” Leon’s thick eyebrows jump wildly. “Your brother? You might have heard of him? Can you reach him?”
“I don’t know, it’s not like we speak every day,” Egill says. “Why?”
“Can you just…” Leon starts pacing around the coffee table, looking at his phone intermittently. “Can you try calling him?”
“I never call, he’ll think something’s wrong. Leon—”
“Good! Maybe he’ll pick up!”
“Leon, what is going on?” Egill repeats, raising his voice a little. “Why are you so worried about my brother?”
Still pacing around the table in the small room, Leon says, “I haven’t been able to get a hold of him since yesterday afternoon, and I’m—I’m worried.”
Why the fuck does he even have Einar’s number, let alone have such frequent contact with him that one day without is enough to send him into this much of a frenzy? And why is Egill not aware of it?
“He’s probably on one of his, I don’t know, nature trips that he does. Really, why are you so worried?”
“He’d let me know,” Leon mutters, which makes no sense; Einar frequently just disappears for a couple of days without telling even his closest friends where he’s off to. Even when it’s March and still cold like it is now.
“Leon…”
“Can you please just try, Egill?” He turns to him again, clutching his phone in both hands.
With a sigh, Egill unlocks his own phone and navigates to his brother’s contact info. He’s a good friend, he wants that on the record. If his best friend wants him to talk to his brother, he will. He presses call. Listens.
“Voicemail,” he tells Leon, the robot lady’s voice still reading numbers at him. Leon’s eyebrows draw together and he sighs deeply as he sits on the edge of the coffee table, facing him. Something in his eyes gives Egill pause. “Should I text him?” he asks. Leon nods.
“Please.”
Egill texts Einar a simple ‘what’s up’ message, but doesn’t get a notification that it’s even received, so he shakes his head at Leon, who presses his lips together tightly.
“Will you tell me what’s happening here, Leon? Why do you apparently talk to my brother more than I do? I didn’t know you were friends.”
As soon as Leon opens his mouth to reply, Egill realizes with sudden clarity that there’s really only one explanation, and feels like an absolute buffoon for not piecing it together sooner.
“We’re dating,” Leon says, just as Egill thought, although it doesn’t make it any less of a shock. “We’ve been dating for over a year.”
Over a year? Alright, that part, he didn’t see coming.
“What the… How the hell did that even happen?”
“It’s…” Leon clears his throat. “Kind of a long story.” He glances at his silent phone, eyebrows jumping indecipherably again. “But I guess I’ve got the time.”
-
There weren’t a whole lot of people on the train, but Arthur still insisted Leon stay near him at all times, as if he were a five-year-old likely to wander off without adult supervision. So Leon sat across from the man and scrolled through Instagram for lack of better things to do, occasionally glancing around when someone exited or entered the carriage.
“Arthur Kirkland,” he suddenly heard a deep, smooth voice say, from behind him. Arthur looked up and smiled in surprise.
“Einar!” he said. Leon turned slightly to look at the man Arthur was standing up to greet. He was taller than him, willowy and pale in a dark blue shirt, one long-fingered hand on the strap of a messenger bag as he shook Arthur’s hand.
“What brings you to the city?” the man was asking.
“I’m taking Leon here to school,” Arthur said, sitting back down and gesturing towards Leon, who lifted one hand in an awkward little wave. Einar raised his eyebrows so that one disappeared behind the wavy blond hair falling against his cheekbone.
“University,” Leon felt the need to clarify, because the way Arthur insisted on saying it made him feel like a child.
The train bumped on the tracks, making Einar stumble in the aisle, so he grabbed the back of Leon’s seat. His bag swung into his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. Leon shook his head, smiling politely up at him, and Einar smiled back minutely, before turning to Arthur. “So you… Work for the university now?”
Arthur shook his head, and Leon just knew he was going to say another one of his stupid confusing things. Sometimes, he thought the man did it on purpose.
“Leon is my ward.”
Yep, there it was.
“Ward?” Einar looked down at Leon, who rolled his eyes, which made him smile. His eyes were a surprisingly dark blue, especially compared to his pale eyelashes.
“His family has entrusted him to my care for now,” Arthur was explaining, which was a gross oversimplification of the whole mess that was that situation, and made Einar frown over at him.
“Arthur, we’re the same age.”
“Yes?”
“So that’s… How do you get a ward?”
“He keeps saying that,” Leon muttered irritably. “I’m nearly twenty.”
Surprisingly, he heard Einar hum a little laugh, while Arthur just said, “It’s a long story,” as if that explained anything.
Leon looked up at Einar, who quirked his thin eyebrows and smiled when he shrugged. He smelled like pine and firewood, which seemed out of place on a train.
“We should meet up sometime—oh, excuse me.” Arthur pulled his buzzing phone out and looked at the screen. “Must take this.” He stood and walked quickly out of the carriage with a clipped, “Kirkland.”
“Sure,” Einar said dryly, and then he sprawled into the man’s seat.
“How do you know Arthur?” Leon asked. Einar vaguely waved one elegant hand around.
“We went to school together. High school. Had this little gang of nerds.” He looked at Leon from underneath his eyelashes, then leaned forward. “What d’you study?”
“Oh, uh, criminology.” And, because everyone’s next question was always if he wanted to be a cop, “I want to go into research. Maybe lab work.”
“That’s admirable,” Einar said. He stretched his long legs out in front of him, tucking his ankles between Leon’s. “Is Arthur still at the apothecary?”
Leon nodded. “It’s how my family knows him.” He blinked at Einar, suddenly amused. “Wait, a gang of nerds? That seems, like, contradictory.”
Einar smiled enigmatically and tucked his hair behind one ear. Leon, who’d never had any problems picturing Arthur as a high school nerd, found it difficult to visualize this man as such. There was a quiet elegance about him that was pretty distracting.
“We really were, though. Or at the very least, we upset the teachers plenty by showin’ up at all hours to look for ghosts or play Magic: The Gathering in the basement.”
“Oh my god!” Leon laughed. “Really? How many of you were there?”
“Just three, mostly, although others definitely joined in every now and then.” Einar seemed amused, and his ankle, which was bare between his jeans and his shoe, pressed to Leon’s. “And to my dying day, I’ll proclaim my innocence about comin’ up with any of these plans. All Arthur and Dragos.”
“Hm.” Leon leaned forward. “But what would the evidence show?”
With a languid smirk spreading across his face, Einar only sprawled more in Arthur’s seat.
“I believe I have the right to remain silent.” It was the way his dark eyes flicked down Leon’s body that gave Leon the courage to smirk back. He shook his hair out of his face.
“Sure, but body language always speaks volumes, doesn’t it?” he said. His own body certainly did; his heart beat fast, and he swallowed heavily when Einar nudged their knees together by spreading his legs. On the face of it, it seemed innocent enough, but the sprawl he was in felt absolutely indecent to Leon.
The train was braking for the next station, which meant that there was only one more stop before he and Arthur had to get off.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Einar mumbled, biting his lip.
Arthur was still holding up his phone conversation, which involved a lot of ‘have you looked in the other drawer?’ and ‘no, the other drawer’, even as the train came to a halt and some new passengers entered the carriage. Luckily, it still wasn’t very crowded, and no one bothered to ask Leon to move his luggage. So he just sat there, with Einar’s legs pressed between his, while the train started moving again.
“Next stop’s mine,” he told Einar, who nodded, lip still between his teeth.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Arthur entered the carriage again, and both of them straightened up. Arthur just smiled and thanked Einar for keeping his seat for him.
“No problem at all,” Einar told him, standing. “We really should catch up, Arthur. I’m sure Dragos would like to see you, too.”
“Certainly! Here.” Arthur handed Einar his phone, and the man—presumably—programmed his number in, then looked over at Leon.
“If—Leon here needs any help… Gettin’ around the city or anything, I’d be happy to…”
Arthur was nodding, and so Einar handed his phone over to Leon in turn, smirking conspiratorially. He saved his contact info simply as ‘Leon Li’.
The train started braking again, and Arthur began gathering Leon’s luggage.
“Nice to meet you, Leon Li,” Einar said, his cold fingers brushing Leon’s when he took his phone back.
“Yeah.” Leon glanced at Arthur. “See you around, maybe.”
“I’d like that.”
Leon shouldered his bag, and followed Arthur to the train doors. It was time to go meet his new roommate.
-
“People tell me all the time how much I look like Einar and you didn’t realize?” Egill asks, choosing to focus on that instead of all the blatant flirting. He doesn’t know how his brother does it, honestly. Well, Leon’s disarming, he supposes, in a way. It’s why they’re friends.
“Well, it’s not like it makes any sense for that to happen!” Leon says. “Also, your hair was literally purple.”
Oh, right, it had been.
“Yeah, alright. But you must’ve realized pretty soon, right?”
“Uh, it took a while, actually.” Leon taps his fingers on his phone. Turns the screen on and off. “We had other things to do, at first.”
Egill squints at him, then grimaces. “Leon, I don’t want to hear about my brother’s sex life!”
“What? No, that’s not even it. Look, it took us until two months into the school year to even meet again.”
-
Leon would’ve liked to see Einar soon, if just to see if it was a fluke, the way the man had looked at him, or if the crackle it had sent down his spine would be more than a one-off. But, with the start of his second year at university, and settling into the new apartment with his roommate—who was a cool guy, Leon thought, even if he’d taken a while to warm up to him—there just never seemed to be time. Einar had texted, not long after they met, and he took Leon’s excuses in stride. His texts were friendly, mostly, although he always responded in kind when Leon dared to make a slightly flirtatious comment. He sent nice pictures of the city, or little observations, and seemed interested in hearing about Leon’s lectures.
So, when they finally did agree to meet, Leon felt like he had somewhat of an understanding of who Einar was, and vice versa, and he rather liked it.
There was definitely a crackle under his skin when Leon spotted Einar at the local park where they were meeting and Einar’s dark blue gaze swept down his body again. Standing up from the bench he’d been sat on, Einar smoothed out his woolen coat and smiled at Leon as he removed his headphones.
“Hello, Leon Li,” he said, and Leon rolled his eyes.
“Just Leon will do. Hi.”
“If you say so. Nice to see you again.” Einar held out a hand, which Leon shook, politely, although he took the opportunity to step close to him, so that he had to tilt his head back to meet Einar’s eye. Einar only smiled some more, slowly, and swept his fingers briefly over Leon’s wrist, under his coat.
“Y’know, I wasn’t joking,” he said. “About showin’ you around the city, if you want.” His fingertips now curled into Leon’s palm as he finally drew his hand back, which made Leon shiver.
Much as he wanted to make a flirtatious comment right then about just what Einar could show him, he decided to save it for later, if the opportunity arose. Instead, he nodded.
“I haven’t really gotten out a lot, I guess.”
“Yeah, I remember that from university. Wanna go get some food?”
“Sure.”
Gently touching Leon’s back, Einar led them out of the park and into the winding streets of the old city, while Leon told him about how his classes were going—that, one of these days, he might get used to hearing about all the horrible things people do to each other.
“What did you study?” he asked Einar, because that had somehow never come up in all of their texts, and the man smiled wryly.
“Medieval history. And now I edit a newspaper, so…” He frowned. “I forgot to ask, any food… Allergies, or preferences?”
“Will it change where you take me?” Leon asked curiously as they crossed a bridge into a less busy part of town.
“Hm, I could probably think of many places to take you. It’s just good to know.” The smirk Leon could see out of the corner of his eye told him that Einar definitely knew what he was saying. “You know, what if I want to make you dinner?”
“What if you made me breakfast?” Leon replied, and watched as a corner of Einar’s lips ticked up again, though he didn’t reply. “Anyway, I’m lactose intolerant, but nothing too bad.”
“Good.” Guiding him down an alley, Einar pushed open the door of a little café and gestured Leon in.
The odd thing was, Leon thought as they ate some delicious pastries, that it felt… Easy. It felt as though he knew Einar already. And, sure, he never really had problems connecting with people, but still.
“You got any plans for the rest of the afternoon?” Einar asked, looking at Leon over the rim of his dainty little coffee cup with those peculiar eyes.
“Not really.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and was sure he saw Einar smile as he sipped coffee. “Any ideas?”
“Hm… I could show you the river, or we could go to a museum…”
“Or we could make out,” Leon said, emboldened. He grinned when that made Einar splutter into his coffee, pale skin turning red. Oh, he had freckles! They stood out when he blushed.
“I guess we could do that, too,” he mumbles. Cleared his throat. “Very straightforward. I like that, Leon.”
Leon wet his lips, which Einar unsubtly watched, but then, the man frowned, and Leon met his eye.
“Look, we don’t have to,” he said.
“Oh, believe me, I wanna. But I do feel like we oughta talk about it first.” And, at Leon’s nod, he leaned forward over the table as well, lowering his voice until the smooth sound rose just above the general hum of conversation. “You barely know anything about me.”
“Isn’t that exactly the point of, like, dating?”
“Okay, fair enough. You really wanna date a guy twelve years older than you?”
Leon quirked his eyebrows, saying, “I’ve got no problems with that. A little into it, to be honest. Do you want to date a guy twelve years younger than you, Einar?”
“Y’know, I guess I do.” He blinked. “You’re… My brother’s age.”
His brother, huh. That hadn’t been mentioned before either.
“I’m also my sister’s age,” Leon offered. “On account of how we’re twins.”
“Huh. Got more to learn about you, hm?”
“Much more,” he replied, quirking his eyebrows again, and Einar smiled that languid smile that Leon already knew he would love to see more of, just because of the promise it held.
“Alright,” Einar breathed.
“Yeah,” Leon agreed. “You know, I’d actually really like to see the river.”
“I can do that.”
Einar showed him the river, and they didn’t quite get around to making out just yet, but Leon was honestly quite content with the way Einar tucked his hair behind his ear as they waited at the bus stop at the end of the afternoon, and how he swept his long fingers over his jaw softly.
“Goodnight, Leon Li,” he said, and laughed when Leon rolled his eyes, his bus pulling up.
“Night, Einar. I’ll hold you to dinner.”
-
“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me. Did you tell anyone?” Egill frowns at Leon, who fidgets. Sure, it would’ve been odd, but in the end, Egill only wants the best for both Einar and Leon; if ‘the best’ happens to be each other, then so be it.
“We didn’t really tell anyone,” Leon says. “It wasn’t even on purpose, at first. We were just, you know, going on a couple dates, having fun.”
“Oh, god, did he make you his fish surprise?” Egill laughs when Leon grimaces. “See, if I’d known, I could have warned you to steer clear!”
“Very funny, Thomassen. Anyway, there is one person who found out.”
-
Einar looked a little dubious, which amused Leon.
“Not your thing, is it?” he asked, standing on his tiptoes to get close enough that Einar could hear him over the music. The man made a vague motion with his hand, letting it land on the back of Leon’s neck as he leaned down a little. The electronic beat thumped through both of them steadily.
“D’you want me to be tactful about it?”
Intrigued, Leon raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
“Well, in that case, I feel like I could give a dog a drum machine and it’d be better than this.”
Leon couldn’t help but laugh, which made Einar smile.
“Fair enough.” When he turned his head, Einar’s sharp nose brushed through his choppy hair. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“If it’s alright with you.”
Leon didn’t mind; there would be plenty of time to check out this artist later, with friends who actually liked the music.
Once outside in the cold January evening, Einar turned to him as he was putting his earplugs away, saying, “You know this means you got full permission to make fun of the music that I like.”
“We’ll just have to agree to disagree, I guess.” Leon bumped his shoulder into Einar’s arm as they walked down the street. “Besides, you should hear the stuff my roommate’s into. Sometimes, I think he’s trying to summon something with all the, like, chanting and flutes and all.”
“That sounds like the things my brother likes.”
They had already reached the edge of the city’s main nightlife area, and it was getting less crowded. Leon didn’t have any particular destination in mind; over the past few months, it had continued to be easy to just spend time with Einar, and he was happy to do just that. Even if it meant walking outside in freezing weather, his fingers all but threatening to fall off.
As if Einar could feel it too, the man reached down and silently tangled their fingers together. Smiling ahead at the street, Leon tucked both of their hands into his coat pocket.
“How come your hands are warm?” he asked. Einar squeezed his fingers.
“Just used to it, I guess.”
Before Leon could reply to that, they were both startled when a hoarse voice ahead of them called, “Einar! You didn’t tell me you had a thing!”
Leon’s hand jerked, and Einar looked down at him with concern. He shook his head, squeezing the man’s long fingers in his coat pocket.
“Not that I’m calling you a thing,” said the man the voice belonged to, halting in front of them. “Unless you’re into that—”
“Dragos!” Einar snapped, and the man grinned lopsidedly, rocking back on his heels.
“Sorry, I’ll leave that to you.” He looked down at Leon with a frown. Although he was significantly less tall than Einar, both of them towered over him. “You either got good genes or Einar never gets to make fun of me for dating a guy eight years older than me ever again.”
“Dragos…” Einar started again, while Leon looked up and said, deadpan, “I am 59 years old.”
The guy, Dragos, barked a laugh while Einar fell silent. Leon met his eye and shrugged, biting his lip to keep a grin down.
“I like this guy, Einar,” said Dragos, and why was that name familiar?
“Me too,” Einar told him, in such a quiet, earnest way that it made Leon shiver.
Hold on…
“This guy is the other member of your gang of nerds?” he asked Einar incredulously, and Einar actually grinned while Dragos started to sputter indignantly.
“You have a good memory, Leon Li.”
“But you’re… And he’s…” He gestured with his free hand at Dragos’s floor-length coat and pointed boots and the eyeliner he was wearing, visible in the glow of streetlamps. “And Arthur is so… Arthur.”
“He had a whole punk phase,” Dragos said. “Besides, I don’t know if you know this, but this guy knits his own sweaters.”
With a jaunty little wave, he flounced off, while Einar angrily muttered, “It’s crochet and you know it.” And, calling after his friend, “Hey, Bălan, don’t mention this to Arthur!”
“Sure! See you later, Thomassen!”
“Thomassen,” Leon echoed, just as Einar was about to say something to him.
“Yeah, that’s my surname.” A pause. “Hm. Guess I hadn’t mentioned that before.”
“Einar…” Leon blinked up at him. “Is your brother’s name Egill, by any chance?”
Einar blinked back. Nodded slowly.
“Huh. Small world.”
-
Leon shrugs once more.
“I don’t know, I guess it felt kind of awkward to tell you at that point.”
Egill slumps against the back of the couch. Even if that’s true, he’s sure another opportunity could’ve been found in the year since.
“I can’t believe Dragos knew,” he just says. “Of all people.”
“You know Dragos?”
“Yes, I know Dragos! I was around when this infamous gang of nerds was formed.”
“Oh my god! You knew teenage Arthur!”
“Yes, but—Leon, I don’t think that’s the point right now.”
Sobering, Leon checks his phone again, and Egill does as well. There are no messages from his brother, and despite himself, he’s getting worried too.
“But Dragos is the only person?” he asks Leon. “You didn’t even tell your sister?”
“Dude, you know Mei. She can’t keep a secret.” Leon sighs. “It’s mostly about the whole mess…”
“With your uncle. Right.”
-
Wearing those platform boots, Einar was even taller than he usually was, and Leon might not understand his taste in music—it all, unfortunately, just sounded like men with sore throats shouting a lot to him—he very much enjoyed some of the outfits that came with it. The shoes made Einar’s long legs look even longer, and Leon focused on that. On how those legs would feel wrapped around his waist as he now knew they could be, or trembling around his shoulders.
It didn’t quite seem to work like usual, though, and by the time Einar was done playing him a song on his violin that was surely very good, the man looked concerned. After putting his violin away, he slowly crouched in front of Leon, putting his hands on his thighs.
Swallowing, Leon met the familiar dark blue eyes. He still kind of felt like an idiot for not realizing sooner that Einar was his roommate’s brother, or at least related. They had very similar features, especially the striking eyes. And here, in Einar’s house, there were actually plenty of photographs of Egill, but he’d been very preoccupied the first time he’d visited.
“You’ve been quiet.” Einar curled his fingers into Leon’s jeans.
“I know. Sorry.”
Einar shook his head, blond hair covering one eye. Leon swiped it away, letting his hand linger over Einar’s sharp jaw.
“Just let me know if there’s anything I can do?”
“I think…” Spreading his legs, Leon pulled Einar closer until he leaned up and pressed himself against Leon’s chest. “For right now, I think I just need to be distracted.”
“I can do that,” Einar breathed, voice heavy with promise and nudging their noses together. “You sure that’s what you need?”
“For now,” Leon repeated, and he turned his face down to kiss Einar, immediately deepening it.
Einar leaned on his thighs to press back, the smell of pine and woodsmoke surrounding him. He tasted like coffee, as he nearly always did.
“I want to make a request,” Leon mumbled into his mouth.
“Yeah? Whatever you want.”
“Leave the boots on.”
Einar pulled back and that slow smirk stretched across his slick lips.
“As you wish.”
-
“How the fuck is that relevant to the mess?” Einar shouts, desperately trying to erase the mental image his friend’s put in his head.
For his part, Leon is just laughing, doubling over on the edge of the coffee table.
“Jesus Christ, I’m suddenly very happy I was never informed.”
“It’s—it’s relevant, I promise,” Leon giggles.
-
While Einar finally tugged his boots off, Leon sat on his knees on his bed and leaned his forehead against the man’s bare back, letting his hair fall around his face. Einar stayed still until Leon shifted to rest his chin on the man’s shoulder, when he leaned his head back. Still quite flushed, the freckles on his nose and cheeks stood out. Leon absently carded his fingers through Einar’s hair, working out some tangles he’d probably caused himself.
“It’s about my uncle,” he eventually mumbled, his lips nearly against Einar’s neck.
“Hm?” Einar nodded slightly. Reaching back, he swiped his fingers over the top of Leon’s free hand.
“I never really explained how Arthur came to be… You know, whatever Arthur is.” Leon took a deep breath. “I’ve told you my uncle basically raised me and Mei. He’s run the apothecary my whole life.”
Einar hummed again, fingers stroking gently. He’d closed his eyes, listening.
“Arthur came to work there when I was, like, fourteen.” Leon bit his lip. “Anyway, long story short, some shady stuff happened, my uncle’s gonna be on trial for something he definitely didn’t do and so Arthur’s looked after us for a while and I really want to believe he wasn’t involved but sometimes I’m just not sure and I hate it, and I guess that’s just been on my mind today.”
Throughout his tirade, Einar had slowly turned to him and was now watching him with something very close to incredulity.
“I feel like that was a very long story, very short,” he said, but his fingers were still softly caressing Leon’s.
“Probably.” Leon pressed his lips to the junction of Einar’s neck and shoulder more deliberately, tugging at his hair in a way he knew he liked. Sure enough, Einar made a small, choked noise.
“That’s why you don’t want to tell your family about us?”
“It’s part of it. If Yao’s trial ever actually happens, I feel like we could…” He huffed. “Maybe it can be on your podcast.”
Einar, much to Leon’s amusement, had a podcast with the infamous Dragos, where they talked about legends and folklore. It did good numbers according to Einar, which Leon privately attributed mostly to Einar’s hypnotizing voice. Recently, Einar had confessed to him that what he really wanted to make was a true crime series, but Dragos just wasn’t interested. Leon would love to hear it, and he had plenty of ideas to contribute. Not about his uncle, though.
“Who knows,” Einar said, softly. And, “Really, again, if there’s anything I can do…”
“Honestly, it’s just nice to be with you.”
That made him smile one of those rare, beaming smiles that Leon loved to see, even as he shifted and climbed back on to the bed, and pressed Leon down into the sheets to straddle him. His hair was all loose in a mess of pale blond waves around his face, and Leon raised his eyebrows at him, amused.
“It’s almost summer, Leon.”
“Yeah?” It was; end-of-year exams were already underway.
“You wanna go somewhere?”
“Together?”
“Yeah. Somewhere else.” He kissed Leon, slowly, until Leon arched into him. “I wanna take my time with you.”
“I—ah— That sounds awesome.” He bit his lip as Einar ran his teeth along his jaw. “I have some—ideas.”
“About where we can go?”
Leon curled his fingers into Einar’s hair and tugged until the man looked up at him, blue eyes bright, flushed once more.
“Ideas about what exactly you could do with me, with all that time.”
“I have plenty of those, Leon Li,” Einar replied, and leaned back down.
-
“Please don’t—oh my god!” Egill interrupts himself. “I fucking introduced you guys at the end of the school year, and Einar was all ‘Hello, Leon Li,’ and I thought it was odd but—”
“I mean, it is a little odd,” Leon agrees. “I like it, though.”
“Weirdo. So that’s why you were so vague about your vacation? You spent it doing god-knows-what with my brother—do not tell me.”
“There was plenty of family-friendly stuff,” Leon protests. “Oh!” He turns his phone on again and shows Egill a picture of him and Einar, looking disheveled—though thankfully, fully clothed—on a riverbank. It looks nice, Egill thinks. They seem happy, and it makes sense somehow.
“He managed to convince you to go camping?”
“It was nice!” Leon says, smiling at his phone. “As long as I don’t have to his winter camping trips.”
“Fair enough. So, what do you guys do?” He narrows his eyes at Leon, who chuckles, but his smile turns soft in a way that Egill has never seen.
“You know. Stuff. We go to museums. We watch TV shows and then I watch ahead without him. I like to cook for him. He plays violin, or guitar, and I listen, or I play my keyboard. Stuff.”
“That’s nice,” Egill says, sincerely. Leon shrugs, but he’s still smiling. “But the mess with your uncle is basically done now, right?”
“Basically.”
“So…”
-
“What’re you doing here?” Leon asked incredulously. In the doorway of his and Egill’s apartment, Einar was framed by the hallway light, which shone through his wavy hair like a halo. He hoisted his shoulder bag up and didn’t immediately answer, biting his lip instead.
“Well, come in. Egill isn’t here.”
“Yeah, he’s home for the weekend,” Einar said. “I think him and dad went skiing.”
“Alright.”
“I heard your uncle got acquitted.”
Leon took a deep breath, leaning both hands on the kitchen counter, where he’d been waiting for water to boil for tea when the doorbell rang.
“He did.” He turned around, leaning back against the counter. The kettle clicked off.
“That’s great news, right?”
He nodded, smiling slightly. It really was. Finally, he and Mei had their uncle back, and they didn’t have to lose another parental figure.
“Would you…” Einar took a breath. “Would you introduce him to me?”
Leon looked up at him, somehow startled by the question.
“Or your sister. She sounds great. Or…” He stepped closer, and Leon hopped backwards on to the kitchen counter as he’d done many times in Einar’s house, to make them more level. Einar stepped between his legs as he always did, spreading his hands over his thighs.
“I want to,” Leon breathed. “Yao would like you, I think, and Mei’s gonna tease me. But it’s…”
“I don’t want to keep this—us—a secret anymore,” Einar whispered, leaning their foreheads close together. “I will, if you want that, if you aren’t ready, but I want to… I wanna introduce you to my parents, Leon. I wanna have Egill be disgusted at how much I like you. I wanna—”
Leon swore under his breath and kissed him quiet, curling his legs around the man’s thighs to pin him to the kitchen cabinets.
“I’m just…” Leon took a deep breath and met Einar’s eye. “It’s still not clear who is guilty. And I still don’t know if Arthur…”
“What if he is? What difference does it make for us?”
“I don’t—if Yao’s back, and this was all about control of the apothecary, and Arthur had something to do with it…”
“Leon,” Einar said softly, reaching up to push his hair from his face with ever-cold fingers, “do you think he did?”
“I don’t want to, but after everything, I just don’t know, Einar,” Leon confessed.
“And what does the evidence say?”
Leon paused. Huffed a laugh while Einar smiled a soft, fond smile, swiping his thumb over his cheekbone.
“Look, if all you’re worried about is Arthur Kirkland, I’ll talk to him, when you’re ready. Even if he did something, it has nothing to do with you, and certainly nothing with me.”
“I guess that is the only thing. It’s stupid.”
“Maybe.” Einar shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you can’t be worried about it. I’m claustrophobic.”
“Huh. Not really the same thing, but…” Leon nodded. “I’d like to meet your parents, Einar. Actually, your mom brought Egill food once. You look like her, both of you.”
Einar smiled wryly.
“But… Give me a couple more weeks. I need some time with my uncle, I think.”
“That’s alright. I can think about what to say to Arthur that doesn’t end with him thinkin’ I’m a creep.”
“I’m 21,” Leon grumbled, even as Einar pressed his lips to his forehead.
For a moment, they just stood there—or sat on the kitchen counter—silently tangled around each other.
“Wanna watch Ghost Adventures?” Leon asked, eventually.
Einar laughed. “Sure, let’s watch Ghost Adventures.”
-
“He said he’d go talk to Arthur yesterday,” Leon finishes. “And I haven’t heard from him since.”
Egill frowns. “And Arthur?”
“Not answering anything either.”
That certainly is odd, Egill thinks. He can’t really imagine Arthur Kirkland harming anyone, but then again, Leon probably knows him better, at this point. And he certainly knows more about psychology than Egill, who studies geology and mostly knows things about rocks, and tectonic plates, and volcanoes. He knows a lot about volcanoes.
“Do you think I should call the police?” Leon is asking, flipping his phone over and over between his fingers, like a card in a magic trick.
“Maybe we should go to Einar’s place first,” Egill suggests. “Aren’t you supposed to wait 24 hours or something to report someone missing, anyway?”
“Common misconception. If Einar would just make his podcast, you’d know. Alright.” Leon abruptly stands up. “I’m gonna go—”
“Me too,” says Egill, rising too. Leon blinks at him. “Leon, you’re my best friend. Even if it weren’t my brother we were talking about, of course I’d help out.”
“…Thank you.”
Somehow, at the exact moment that the both of them are in the hall of their apartment to get their coats, the doorbell rings. They look at each other, startled. The bell rings again.
Leon stands on his tiptoes to look through the peephole, gasps, and yanks the door open.
Einar all but falls into the hall, looking tired and disheveled but otherwise fine, and Leon immediately drags him down to kiss him, holding tight to the collar of his coat while Einar buries his hands in Leon’s messy hair.
Pressing his lips together awkwardly, Egill looks away, and only then notices that Einar wasn’t alone—Arthur Kirkland is standing out in the hallway, equally as tired as Einar and as awkward as Egill, but he has quite a nasty bruise on his jaw. With a sigh, Egill waves him in, shutting the door behind him.
“Well, it’s been quite the day,” Arthur says dryly.
“What the hell happened?” Egill asks him, because his brother is a little preoccupied whispering against Leon’s lips, slumped against the wall as if he can’t hold his own weight up. Arthur clears his throat lightly.
“To make a long story short… Yesterday afternoon, Einar was at the right place, at the right time, quite possibly saved my life, we got several people arrested, and we spent the night at the police station giving statements.”
“I’m sorry, what the fuck?” Egill bursts. Leon just stares up at Einar, who shrugs, as though this all makes perfect sense.
“My phone got smashed,” he says. And, “It’s not how I thought it’d go, but it worked out.”
“Worked out!” Leon echoes, tugging at his coat again. “I was so worried! I thought I—fuck—”
“I love you, Leon Li,” Einar whispers, barely loud enough for Egill to hear, but he gets a little choked up at just the soft expression on his brother’s face.
“Right,” he says, turning to Arthur while Leon whispers unintelligibly into Einar’s chest. “Do you want some coffee? You look like you need it.”
“Ah—right.” Arthur blinks, glancing once more at Leon and Einar. “If you have tea, that’d be nice.”
“Probably.” Egill leads Arthur into the apartment, glancing back once into the entrance hall. Einar smiles at him overtop Leon’s head, and Egill nods, smiling back.
Hopefully, he’ll get the rest of that story one day.
I heard it's @lietweek so I bring some liet! I'm a big fan of Random Bystander POV, especially looking at characters who aren't human, so here's one of those! tangentially, this is for the prompt hurt/comfort :)
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the road of life
characters: Lithuania + 1 random human
word count: 995
summary:
On a summer day in Vilnius, a woman meets someone familiar, although she has never seen him before.
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Miglė is staring at nothing in particular and shredding pieces off her supermarket sandwich, when she's startled.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” a man is asking, and though his voice is soft, it’s enough to make Miglė jump. She looks up at the man, who is patiently standing next to the park bench she’s on, facing the water. He’s in a tie and slacks, holding a battered notebook in one hand and a cup of takeaway coffee in the other.
“Oh, no, go ahead,” Miglė tells him, and he smiles kindly as he sits down on the bench next to her. For a few seconds, he closes his eyes and leans back into the pleasant shadow of the trees. He can’t be much older than her, she guesses, although he looks tired, worn around the edges. Then again, Miglė most likely looks tired herself. Sighing, she shreds her sandwich some more, eating some bits of it.
Behind the bench, on the other side of the water, the city is alive with the sounds of tourists, workers and students, and Miglė wonders which of these the man next to her is, if any. Tourist seems unlikely if just from his outfit.
She glances at the man out of the corner of her eye, to find that he's pulled a bright purple scrunchie out from somewhere and is tying his shoulder-length hair back with it. When he catches her eye, he just smiles, almost apologetic as if he knows it’s a little strange. Miglė can’t help but smile back.
“It’s very warm,” the man offers. She nods.
His hair is dark brown, but when he shifts into the sunlight, she can see some grey shot through at the temples. He’s quite handsome.
“It’s always getting warmer, lately,” he adds absently, while rolling up his sleeves. Across his forearms, Miglė can see the faint, pale lines of crisscrossing scars. She quickly looks away.
“You… Sound like you’re from the North,” she says instead, looking up at the man’s tired eyes. They’re green, startlingly so. Miglė didn’t think people actually had eyes that green, the color of a pine forest, or maybe a stormy sea.
“So do you,” the man is saying, taking a sip of coffee. “What brings you all the way to Vilnius?”
Shrugging, Miglė answers, “You know, the usual. Work, mostly. Love, although that’s…” She tears off another piece of her sandwich.
“Yes, I know what that’s like,” he says softly. He sounds so familiar, as if he could have been her neighbor growing up.
It isn’t as though Miglė never meets other people from her home region in Vilnius, but something about this man and his kind voice and tired smile makes her fiercely miss the place—the fields and backroads and familiar people. Swallowing heavily, she blinks at the man while he just looks at her with those strange eyes. It should be unnerving, and she can’t figure out why it isn’t.
“So, what… Brings you to Vilnius?” she asks him.
“It’s a long story,” he replies, and his eyes scrunch at the corners when he smiles. “But much of it, I think, is probably the same as yours.”
Miglė bites her lip. For his sake, she hopes that it isn’t, but she can see in his face that it must be. That, possibly, whatever he’s been through would make her struggles pale in comparison. And yet, here he is, in his slacks and his seashell-patterned tie, drinking coffee on a Vilnius park bench.
And, of course, here she is, as well. That must count for something, right?
A gentle breeze ruffles the man’s ponytail and carries a whiff of a smell over that is somehow familiar as well. Like her father’s infamous stew, maybe, or freshly-harvested fields back home.
“Have we ever met before?” Miglė asks the man, leaning a little towards him.
“Who’s to say?”
“Really. Something about you… I’m from Auksūdys.” She watches him absentmindedly touch his shoulder. He has long, ink-stained fingers, and many little nicks on his index finger.
“I haven’t been there in a while,” he mumbles. And then something under his breath that she can’t make out, while he quickly opens his little notebook and jots something down. His handwriting is spidery, the kind Miglė would expect in letters from centuries past.
“Where do you work?” he asks as he looks up again.
“At… The government.” She doesn’t go into more detail than that, because that would surely bore him.
“Really?”
“I want to… Do better. To help the country.” Miglė knows it’s vague, and it’s hard to remember that goal sometimes, but the man on the bench next to her smiles warmly.
“The country will certainly appreciate your help,” he says, which should, of course, sound completely ridiculous—the kind of stupid joke her friends back home would have made—but Miglė believes him somehow, and a hesitant but real new determination blooms under her skin.
“Thank you,” she says, and watches the man stand after he tips the last of his coffee back.
“No, thank you.” He bows his head, some strands of hair escaping from his purple scrunchie and falling around his face. “Perhaps we’ll meet again someday, Miglė.”
As he leaves, he tosses his empty coffee cup in a trash bin, and Miglė can only stare after him, dumbfounded. He didn’t sound like he was from the North anymore, but she couldn’t have pinpointed this accent. Who is he? Somehow, it isn’t surprising that he knew her name—although it would have been terrifying in any other case.
Something in Miglė tells her that she definitely knows his name as well, that it’s written not just in her passport but into her very being, and into every street in this city. In this country.
“That’s ridiculous,” she mutters to herself, and then quickly eats the many bits of her sandwich before she can say the one name she keeps thinking.
I changed my URL back :) but anyway, robul! I've realized that a bunch of the robul I've posted on this blog has been like... sad, but then nearly everything on ao3 has been pretty Not Sad :0 this fic is here to buck one of those trends, in that it's very light-hearted and pretty silly! it's also given me a bunch of new headcanons, which is always cool! I want you guys to know that the placeholder summary for this was 'stupid idiots in love, too stupid to know they're in love', which covers it pretty well
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(I'd Be) Better Off With You
pairings/characters: Bulgaria (Stefan)/Romania (Dragos), Norway (Einar), Belarus (Nadzeya), Sweden (Torbjörn), Hungary (Erzsébet), Moldova (Luca)
word count: 6473
summary:
In which Stefan makes Dragos better food, Dragos makes Stefan wear better clothes, and literally everyone knows they're dating except the two of them.
Also on AO3!
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By the time Dragos finally finishes up, it is very nearly dark outside despite it being early June.
With a sigh, he tidies up his shop and walks into his adjoining apartment through the back door. There, he realizes that the delicious smell he’s been noticing over the course of the evening, wasn’t coming from one of his neighbors’ kitchens as he’d thought, when he finds Stefan in his kitchen, humming under his breath and stirring a bubbling sauce in a pot.
“I didn’t think I had food,” Dragos says, by way of greeting. His stomach rumbles.
“You didn’t.” Stefan covers the pot and turns to him, leaning back against the kitchen counter. The shirt he’s wearing is threadbare, the hems actually frayed. It’s a shirt Dragos distinctly remembers telling him not to wear anymore, at least not in public, but then he supposes his kitchen isn’t public.
“Hm. Okay.” Dragos pauses. “Hold on, when did you get here?”
“I said hi to you! You were setting up your game.”
Dragos is sure he doesn’t remember that, but alright. It wouldn’t be the first time he got a little caught up in his preparations. Nor, of course, is it the first time Stefan has shown up unannounced in his kitchen.
“And what if I’d been eagerly anticipating takeout pizza, huh?” he asks him, even as he starts maneuvering around him to pull out plates and cutlery for two. Stefan turns back to the stove with a scoff and doesn’t answer. Dragos grins.
It’s nice, the way Stefan will take time out of his day to make sure he’s fed. There isn’t any reason Dragos couldn’t do it himself, of course, but he has to admit Stefan is a better cook. Besides, he seems to enjoy it, so, win-win. Especially if he can talk him into putting other clothes on at some point.
“D’you want wine?” Dragos asks, because he might not have had any food, but he certainly has that.
“It’s a Wednesday, Dragos.”
“And?”
“And I’m not twenty anymore.” Stefan looks at him with one eye. “Maybe one glass. Red, if you have it.”
Of course he does.
Stefan does only drink one glass of wine with his amazing pasta, which—yeah, he really isn’t twenty anymore, Dragos supposes, because he remembers him drinking far too much on a far too regular basis when they were that age. It’s probably a good thing he’s stopped doing that. Unfortunately, Dragos isn’t twenty anymore either, so despite having only two glasses himself, he’s slightly unsteady on his feet when he sees Stefan off later that evening.
He watches him go around back, through the small courtyard there that’s mostly filled with junk, and also Dragos’s bike, which he’s protective of but might as well be junk. Especially since Stefan accidentally kicks the front wheel on his way out, and Dragos giggles when he apologizes to the bike before clasping his shoulder and telling him it’s okay. Even if he is still wearing his shitty shirt.
Kindly, Stefan has left the leftover pasta for Dragos, which is good because he still has no other food, after all. Really, what would he do without him?
-
When it is time for his lunch break, Dragos quickly ducks out of the shop and into his apartment, where he heats his leftover pasta in the microwave. He carries the plate back into the shop, sitting down to eat at the table where they host their TTRPGs. Behind the register, Einar looks up from the many granny squares he’s been crocheting between customers.
“That smells nice,” he comments. “That’s why you didn’t want Nadz to get you lunch?”
With a chime of the shop bell, Nadzeya returns just then, brandishing cartons of fried fish from the local market, so Einar puts his crocheting down to take one from her, nodding his thanks. She sweeps into the side room in a cloud of black fabric and eyes Dragos’s pasta suspiciously.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Stefan made it.”
That makes her look over her shoulder at Einar, who shrugs.
“He’s bringing you lunch now?” she asks, pushing her sleeves up to dip a piece of fish in sauce.
“No, of course not!” Dragos laughs. “He’s got a job, you know. He made dinner last night, I’m lucky enough to get the leftovers.”
“I see,” Nadzeya says slowly, chewing on her fish.
Dragos shrugs and eats some more pasta. It really is very good. He’ll have to ask Stefan if he’d make it again. He could even make sure he keeps the ingredients on hand.
“So…” Einar is coming over to lean against the doorframe, fish in hand. “He stayed at your place?”
“What, where would he stay?” Dragos frowns. They both know he’s only got one bed, and his shitty couch, which he would never ask anyone to sleep on, least of all Stefan.
Einar and Nadzeya exchange an indecipherable look that ends with Einar shrugging once more and Nadzeya sighing.
“Guys, what’s up? I thought you liked Stefan.” Or maybe they’re jealous of his pasta?
“Oh my god,” Nadzeya mutters. “Yeah, sure, Dragos, he’s a nice dude.”
“Quite handsome,” Einar puts in, which makes her snort for some reason, though Dragos couldn’t say why. It is true; Stefan is quite handsome, with his bright green eyes and his perpetual stubble, even if he has no sense of fashion.
“Sure, but I didn’t think he was your type,” he just tells Einar, who, as far as Dragos knows, is more into tall blond guys, “though I’m sure I could—”
The bell over the shop door chimes to announce the arrival of a customer and Einar uncharacteristically rushes over to assist, so Dragos doesn’t finish his sentence. He turns to his last bit of pasta instead.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Nadzeya tells him, but she does that at least twice a day and Dragos has long since given up trying to figure out what it is he did wrong this time, so he ignores her, takes his plate back to his kitchen, and goes to see if the customer needs any help.
-
Stefan hears Torbjörn greet someone at the front of the workshop, but doesn’t pay attention to it until a shadow covers the chair he’s working on. He squints down at the wood, then up. The only clue he really needed was the ridiculous leather pants, but he smiles up at Dragos’s face anyway, putting his sanding tool down.
“Hey Dra,” he says, as he sits up and dusts off his jeans. “What brings you here?”
“Nothing, really. Well—oh!” Dragos shuffles his shoulder bag around to dig into it. “I got you a pastry. Only seems fair, yeah?”
He holds a crumpled paper bag out to Stefan, who has already closed his fingers around it when he looks up at his friend’s grin and notices… A glint.
Standing up abruptly, he leans close to Dragos, which only makes him grin wider, rust-brown eyes crinkling at the corners. As usual, his smile is slightly lopsided and Dragos is touching his tongue to a sharp canine, but what isn’t usual is the shimmer of metal beneath his upper lip, glinting silver.
“When the hell did you get that?” Stefan asks, incredulous. He saw him yesterday!
“Just now! It’s called a smiley piercing, isn’t that cute?”
That is cute, and Stefan thinks it’s very suited to Dragos, but he shakes his head in confusion and gestures with his mystery pastry.
“Dragos, you’re afraid of needles!”
“Oh, geez, am I?” He rolls his eyes ostentatiously, still grinning. “It’s not like I can see into my mouth, is it?”
The glint of metal is there every time he speaks, distracting Stefan. He frowns.
“You made me come with you when you got that tattoo.”
“Well—”
“The tattoo that is on your back.”
“That’s—no, that’s different.” Dragos pauses. Tilts his head, tucking some wispy hair that’s escaped from its ponytail behind his ear. “Did you want to come?”
“No?” Stefan thinks about it. “No. You can take care of yourself.”
Another smile, and Dragos brushes sawdust off his shoulders in that way he does; there must not be any in Stefan’s hair for him to finger-comb out.
“So you just… Came here to show me you got a piercing?” That just gets him a quirk of Dragos’s thin eyebrows. Alright.
“I guess I also wanted to tell you I’m not supposed to eat anything spicy for two weeks.”
Aw, really? Stefan wanted to make goulash. He must look disappointed, because Dragos grasps his shoulders and says, “Oh, I’m sorry!” with such an earnest expression that it makes him laugh. He touches one of his arms.
“It looks nice, Dra.”
A grin. Smiley, huh? How fitting.
“Anyway, I’m sure you’re busy, so I’ll leave you to it! Enjoy your pastry!” Dragos flounces off through the workshop in a little whirl of color. “Bye, Torbjörn!”
“Bye,” Torbjörn says, possibly sounding amused. It’s hard to tell, with him, especially compared to Dragos. Both because Dragos wears his heart on his sleeve, and because Stefan has known Dragos since they were kids.
“’S nice,” Torbjörn tells Stefan as he walks over to put his pastry safely away for now. “Used to bring Tuomi lunch when he worked ‘round here.”
“That’s sweet. Not really the same, though.”
Torbjörn and Tuomi have been married for over a decade, after all.
“Hm,” Torbjörn just says, which could mean anything, so Stefan shrugs and gets back to work.
-
If it were possible, Dragos is sure he would have broken the speed limit on his rickety bicycle, that’s how fast he rushes to the local hospital after he gets a cryptic call. Once there, he hurries to the second floor when the receptionist directs him up.
“Is it Luca?” he shouts, bursting into a silent hallway. For the first time in his life, he is mildly relieved to see Erzsébet Héderváry sprawled in a plastic chair, looking at her phone.
“Your brother is fine, Bălan,” she drawls. “Stefan fell down a flight of fucking stairs, though, and they won’t let him leave with me.”
“A flight of stairs? Is he—wait, why am I here?” Though he doesn’t understand why, he knows Erzsébet is Stefan’s friend, just like he is, so there is no reason he should have any more right to check Stefan out of this place.
“Well, his mother lives on the other side of the country.” Erzsébet is standing up.
“But…”
“Ugh, Bălan, just because you’re not fucking married yet doesn’t mean they won’t let him go with you.” She thrusts a bundle of fabric into Dragos’s hands, glaring up at him and jerking her chin at the door behind her. “Tell him he owes me one.”
And off she goes.
Dragos decides to ignore her, as he usually does, and walks into the hospital room to find Stefan sitting on the edge of a bed. He smiles when he spots Dragos, a sheepish edge to it. The only indicators of injury are a bandage wrapped around his right wrist and some scraping on both arms, and a bruise on his temple.
“Why did you fall down a flight of stairs?” Dragos asks.
Stefan bristles. “What do you mean, why? I didn’t mean to—and Erzsébet is exaggerating, I fell down the steps out front of her building!”
Yeah, that sounds like her. And yes, Dragos is biased against her, but still. He frowns, pushing his tongue up against his still-healing smiley piercing.
“You look stupid,” Stefan says, now sounding petulant, which makes Dragos smile. “Shut up. Anyway, they won’t let me go until they’re sure someone’ll watch over me. I guess I’ve got a mild concussion. And I sprained my wrist.”
“Hey, at least it’s your right!” Dragos tells him, trying to lift his spirits. And, “I’ll watch over you, no problem.”
That, at least, gets Stefan to smile as he stands up. Dragos unfurls the fabric Erzsébet has given him to find that it’s one of his own jackets, one he made Stefan take some time ago because blue just looks much better on him—and because Stefan has no idea it does, which means it’s up to Dragos to make sure he looks alright. It is a pretty chilly day for July, he supposes.
“Here.” Holding the jacket out, Dragos helps Stefan into it, careful not to jostle his wrist, and he dutifully buttons it up as well. “There you go.”
He smiles at Stefan, and the answering smile is soft. With the backs of his fingers, Dragos brushes the man’s bruised cheekbone.
“Ah!” A nurse, entering the room. “I see Mr Borisov’s partner is here!” He flashes a smile at Dragos. “Now, I’m sure you’ll be fine in no time, Stefan.”
“Thanks,” Stefan mumbles. “Dra—”
“Yeah, let’s go, then.”
They’ve made it nearly to the exit when he realizes, “We’re gonna have to take the bus, though.”
That will surely be annoying, but Stefan just hums, turning his face towards the weak sun when they step outside. His bruises don’t seem so bad in this light, especially when the breeze ruffles his dark hair over his forehead.
“’M glad you came out for me, Dra,” he says, and Dragos grins happily all the while until he has to drag his bike on to a city bus.
-
“Oh! Stefan!”
Startled, Stefan turns to the side room of the shop, from where Luca waves him over.
“What’s up?”
“Dra!” Luca calls, ducking back into the room.
“No need to yell,” Dragos says in a huff, though his face lights up when he sees Stefan, who smiles back.
Apart from the Bălan brothers, Einar and Nadzeya are also present, all seated around the large table, which is currently set up for one of their fantasy games. Stefan does not understand any of them; his only contribution over the many years he’s known Dragos has been to carve several small creatures out of wood, which Dragos has always been delighted by.
“Just the man we need,” Dragos is saying now, rising from his chair. Einar, who is at the head of the table, puts a heavy book pages-down and leans his elbows on it.
“Me?” Stefan asks. Dragos grasps his shoulders and gazes earnestly at him, eyes bright. Their eyes are perfectly level, which must mean he’s wearing heeled shoes again.
“Yes, you, Stef. We need—oh!” He looks down into the bag slung over his shoulder and grins. “Finally time for goulash, huh?”
Stefan nods. It’s been three weeks.
“Excellent.” The piercing is visible when he smiles.
“Dragos,” Nadzeya says, sounding annoyed and leaning back precariously on her chair’s hind legs.
“Right! We’ve got a problem!” Dragos gestures at the room at large, leaving one hand on Stefan’s shoulder. “Arthur’s bailed on us!”
“Dra, I don’t know how to play your—”
“Not that! Though you’re always welcome to try, you know that. No, see, there’s a festival coming up, and Luc’s friends are going as the Fellowship, okay?”
“Sure,” Stefan says, because sometimes it’s easier to just pretend to know what Dragos is talking about and circle back later.
“Right, and the four of us—” he gestures again—“are normally the White Council, but Arthur’s gone and so I thought you could be our Elrond!” He grins triumphantly, and Stefan just blinks at him.
“I have no idea what you just said.”
Nadzeya drawls, “The gist of it was, do you wanna dress up as an elf?”
An elf? Like Santa’s helpers?
“Cool elf,” Dragos clarifies. “Warrior and lord and all that. Very powerful. He’s played by Hugo Weaving!”
“I don’t know who that is. Also, played in what?”
“Lord of the Rings! I showed you Lord of the Rings, Stef.” He’s still holding one shoulder, squeezing or pulling gently with every other word as he’s wont to do. Stefan tries to recall any films about rings he might have been shown.
“Was that the movie with the… Like, little guys?”
Luca snorts, but Dragos nods, his expression caught somewhere between pained and amused.
“I don’t remember any elves.”
“Yeah, you fell asleep before they even left the Shire.” And, before Stefan can question what that means, “That doesn’t matter, though!”
“I mean,” Nadzeya says, “doesn’t it? Arthur knows basically the whole Silmarillion by heart, he’d be appalled. Maybe you should try reading a book, Borisov.”
Dragos immediately whirls around to glare at her, though Stefan just shrugs.
“I could try,” he says. “Pretty damn dyslexic, though.”
“Alright. Didn’t know that.” She tips her head towards him, and he nods back. Dragos turns to him again, light brown hair fanning around his face. He’s been wearing it up lately, claiming it’s too warm down, and it’s kind of nice to see it loose. It looks more familiar.
“So, normally I’m Elrond, but you’ve already got dark hair anyway, and we know you fit my clothes.”
“I’m sorry, why do we know that?” Luca interrupts. And then, immediately, “No, actually, do not answer that.”
Einar morosely mutters, “It’s gonna be completely innocuous.” Which, yes, of course, what other reason would there be? Stefan is content to let Dragos shove clothes at him, because it seems to make him happy and that is always a worthy cause in his book.
And so, he says, “Sure, Dra, I’ll dress up as this Allround character.”
Dragos beams, clasping both his shoulders.
“Who are you, then?” Stefan asks, because he knows Dragos will want to tell him even if it won’t mean a thing to him.
“Saruman! He’s like… The evil wizard. Einar’s Gandalf and—”
“Actually, since you’re someone different, we decided to switch too,” Einar cuts in. “Nadz’ll do Gandalf, I’ll be Galadriel.”
“Huh,” Dragos says, though he doesn’t turn to them. “Cool.”
Luca, for some reason, starts to blush while he stares wide-eyed at Einar, who smirks languidly at him. It’s probably a good thing Dragos doesn’t notice; despite the fact that Luca’s almost twenty now and goes to university, he’s still very much a kid to his brother. Stefan frowns at Einar in his stead.
“We, uh…” Luca clears his throat. “We wanted to go as Avatar, but there weren’t enough characters. And Leon kept calling everyone racist, though I think he was joking.”
“Oh! I’ve seen Avatar!” Stefan puts in. This is rare!
“What?” Dragos says, incredulous. “When did you watch Avatar and why was I not there?”
“I had a date, he took me. I don’t think I really got it.”
“Oh my fucking god, you mean the blue alien Avatar!” Dragos shakes his shoulders emphatically.
Yeah, there had definitely been blue aliens. “The guy tried to explain it to me, I think it was part two?”
“Who even thinks that’s a good date?” Dragos seems very impassioned now, which makes Stefan smile.
“I liked Blue Alien Avatar,” Einar says mildly.
“Oh, great! Stef, was this date a tall, blond dude, because he sounds like Einar’s type!”
He had been, actually. “I’d thought you might like him. He told me he does these historical dress-up things, too. Looked pretty neat.”
“Elves aren’t historical, Borisov,” Nadzeya says, while Einar leans forward with interest, chin in his hand.
“He kept trying to tell me about Rusvik.” Stefan shrugs. He still has no idea what that is. Might as well be elves. He also has no idea anymore what the guy’s name was.
“Huh,” Einar says, contemplative. “Y’know what, Stefan, that does actually sound like my type.”
“Fucking nerd,” Nadzeya snipes, somehow affectionately, as though she isn’t part of this strange group as well. Dragos smiles a conspiratorial little smile at Stefan, winking, and then tells him to go make his goulash and pushes him gently out the door, promising to fill him in on the elf business over dinner.
-
“Are you serious?”
Dragos chews on his lip and flails his hands apologetically. Stefan crosses his arms over his bare chest. Early morning sunlight streams in through the high window of the bathroom and across his shoulders.
“You have a fake beard and I have to shave,” he mutters. “How’s that fair?”
“You see why I’m normally Elrond.” Dragos bounces on the tips of his toes.
Stefan does fit his costume; they’ve checked. His chest is a little broader than Dragos’s, but honestly, that just means he fills out the robes better. Arthur’s Saruman outfit fits Dragos as well. He isn’t wearing it now, not yet, only having put a tank top on before telling Stefan to go shave before he put his clothes on.
“Anyway, I know you, you’ll have stubble again by the end of the afternoon. And really, you should see Nadzeya’s beard.”
Einar, of course, also fit perfectly into her Galadriel dress, apart from the stuffed bra he had to wedge underneath. He pulls it off, because Einar can pull everything off. It’s a real shame he’s not Dragos’s type. Maybe Stefan’s stupid former date will appreciate it.
Stefan is shaking his head but smiling wryly.
“The things I do for you, Dragos,” he says, running his fingers over the stubble on his chin. Dragos beams at him and touches his cheek.
“I’m sure it’ll look good. Besides…” He rests the fingertips of his other hand on his breastbone. “At least it’s just the facial hair, huh?”
That gets him a pained expression, followed by Stefan squirming away when Dragos moves his hand. Oh! He’d almost forgotten he’s ticklish! It seemed much more relevant when they were kids.
“Dragos,” Stefan says warningly, jaw clenching underneath his other hand. “Hey—”
Because Dragos wriggles his fingers some more, grinning with delight when Stefan gasps and grabs his wrist, squirming. He hits the sink when he steps back, inadvertently tugging Dragos with him.
“Oh my god,” says Luca, suddenly, from the bathroom doorway. Widening his eyes, Dragos turns to his brother, who is already in his costume.
“This is not what it looks like.”
“It… It’s not?” He looks between the two of them while Dragos takes a step back. Stefan shakes his head, crossing his arms again.
“Oh,” Luca says. “Are you sure?”
“Yes?” Dragos glances at Stefan, who shrugs, amused.
“Jesus fuck.” Luca turns and stalks away, throwing his hands up.
“Hey, language!” Stefan tells him before Dragos can, but Luca doesn’t react. And, “Hey, how come he gets a waistcoat and I have to wear robes?”
“Just go shave,” Dragos tells him, laughing, and he briefly touches his cheek again on the way out.
-
Erzsébet texts, ‘borisov ur such a pushover’, with a picture attached of Stefan in his Allround outfit, holding a sword, which he thought was actually pretty cool. Stefan blinks at his phone, pausing in eating his lunch.
‘whered you get that photo?’ he sends back.
‘luca. but srsly say no to balan sometimes’
‘I had a good time’
‘ugh. everyone i know is a nerd’
Stefan shrugs, returning to his salad. He doesn’t know, at this point, why Erzsébet dislikes Dragos, and vice-versa, but he thinks the two of them might have forgotten as well, so he’s not going to look into it at all. It’s probably something stupid anyway, knowing the both of them.
“Everything okay?” Torbjörn asks, across the table in their workshop.
“Sure.”
The man nods, eating his sandwich.
“’M takin’ next week off,” he says after a while. Stefan nods; he’d seen the schedule. Since it’s summer, it hasn’t been very busy, so he’ll be fine on his own.
“Special occasion?” he asks. Couldn’t be his birthday; that’s in June, and it’s August now. Torbjörn smiles minutely.
“Wedding anniversary. Twelve years.”
“That’s nice. Congratulations.”
“Y’ever think about getting married?” Torbjörn asks, lifting his cup of coffee.
Stefan laughs. “Sure, if I find the right person. Dragos has all these ideas about weddings, you know that? He’s a romantic, really. Probably knows what I should wear and all.”
Torbjörn stares at him with those piercing eyes of his, coffee raised to his lips and steam fogging up the edges of his glasses.
“I see,” he rumbles eventually. “And you’d let him tell you?”
“I trust him,” Stefan says. If anyone knows what looks nice on him, it’s Dragos.
“I see,” Torbjörn repeats.
“Anyway, next week—do you have any projects I ought to know about?”
-
Luca is looking uncharacteristically serious, which immediately has Dragos on edge when he opens the door. It’s not unusual for his brother to visit over the weekend; he has his own apartment now, with a yearmate from university, but he knows he’s always welcome in Dragos’s house. Even if Dragos is still a little insulted him and his odd friend group don’t use his specifically furnished side room to play Dungeons & Dragons. Luca says it’s too far away, but still.
“What’s wrong?” Dragos asks nervously.
Luca purses his lips. Swipes his ever-longer hair over one shoulder.
“I want to…” He frowns, seemingly thinking while he flops down on Dragos’s shitty couch. From the open window, the smell of fried food wafts into the room.
“You can tell me anything, Luc.”
“I know.” He smiles softly. “Okay, let’s say I need advice.”
“Okay, let’s say that,” Dragos agrees, leaning forward in his chair.
“What if there’s a… A guy, who’s my friend, right? And he’s always around?” Luca winds his hair around his fingers. “And I really like having him around.”
Dragos nods. He’s reminded of Luca coming out to him a few years ago, although that felt more matter-of-fact; he knew Dragos would have no problems with whatever his sexuality was. He must really like this guy.
“And this guy, he’s always touching me—which I like!—and he seems happy to see me whenever,” Luca continues. “And I like to help him out when he wants, you know? It makes me feel nice.”
“That’s great, Luc. It sounds like you don’t really need my advice—if you’d want to date this guy, I mean.”
“Yeah, you think so?”
“Sure!” Dragos leans forward to clasp his brother’s knee briefly. “Sounds like he’s into you!”
“Cool. So, uh…” Luca takes a deep breath. “Why exactly are you not dating Stefan?”
“What?” Dragos exclaims. Where did that come from?
“Those are all things you and Stefan do!”
“That’s… Luc, that’s different.”
“Why?” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not saying those things can’t be platonic, but I know you, both of you. They’re not!”
“Of course they are!”
“Do you touch Nadzeya that much? Does Einar come over and make you dinner?”
“Well, no—Nadz doesn’t like to be touched—”
“Stefan doesn’t like to be touched! You’ve told me that!”
With a gasp, Dragos says, “He doesn’t! Oh, do you think I’ve been overstepping his boundaries?”
“What? No, Dragos, that’s the point! His boundaries are different for you!” Luca flops backwards on the couch, pushing both hands into his hair. “You can’t be this stupid!”
“Hey.” Why is his brother so hung up on his love life, anyway? Or, lack of love life, as it were. Dragos had meant to go out to a bar sometime this summer, maybe meet someone, but then Stefan will be there with dinner and they’ll hang out and it’ll be too late. He never gets the sense Stefan minds, either. Maybe they could go out together.
“So there’s no guy?” he asks Luca.
“No, there’s no guy, Dragos. Not for me, anyway. Look, wouldn’t it make you happy to be with Stefan?”
“It already does.”
Luca stares at him. “God, I wish you were joking.” And, in response to Dragos raising his eyebrows, “No, that’s good, Dra. And if you were the type of person for a platonic sort of romance, then, you know, whatever. But you were the one reading me all those love stories when I was a kid. You’re a romantic at heart. I know you are.”
“Stef says that a lot.” Dragos smiles. It’s nice to hear.
“Oh my fucking god!”
-
“Hello, Stefan,” Einar drawls from behind the register, looping a green yarn over his fingers.
“Hi. Is Dragos in?”
“Out to get lunch.”
Stefan nods and makes his way to the door in the back of the shop, pulling his key to Dragos’s apartment out. He just needs to pick up a shirt that Dragos has said would suit him better; he’s going to dinner with Erzsébet and she insists he look ‘presentable, at the very least’. Her and Dragos agree that Stefan doesn’t know how to dress himself, and that’s the only thing.
It’s vaguely insulting, because he’s in his thirties, but at least Dragos will help him out, which is more than can be said for Erzsébet.
The shirt, found hanging over the back of Dragos’s couch, is a nice deep green, nearly black, and it fits great, so Stefan keeps it on when he leaves. He has no work this afternoon, so it’ll be fine.
When he opens the door, it almost slams into a customer, but the man jumps away just in time, narrowly avoiding a rack of trading cards.
“Sorry.” Stefan squints up at the man, who blinks back.
“Oh, Stefan. I didn’t know you worked here.” It’s the guy who took him to see Blue Alien Avatar, whose name Stefan still cannot recall even though he forwarded his contact info to Einar a few weeks back.
“He doesn’t,” Einar says, coming over to inspect the trading cards. And, frowning, “Is that that shirt Dragos bought yesterday?”
“He thought it’d look nice.”
“You two are precious,” Einar informs him flatly.
Blue Alien Avatar man adjusts his glasses, looking down at Stefan. God, right, that’s another reason that didn’t work; he’s just too tall. Stefan would prefer to date someone of his own height.
“So you’re… You live here?” the guy asks.
Before Stefan can clarify, Dragos bursts into his store and immediately exclaims, “I told you it’d look good on you!” He waves a panini around as he strides over. “You’re wasted on Erzsébet Héderváry, truly.”
“Ha, she wishes.” Stefan smiles when that makes Dragos laugh, and stands still so the man can adjust his shirt and gently muss his hair with one hand, wiping at something on his cheek with his tongue between his teeth.
Blue Alien Avatar guy turns to Einar and asks, “How long have—”
“They’re not.”
Dragos nods, satisfied, and holds his panini out to Stefan in invitation, so he folds his fingers over Dragos’s and takes a careful bite of it.
“Surely…”
“You see what I gotta deal with here, Eduard.”
Ah! That was his name.
“So no dinner tonight?” Dragos asks. Stefan shakes his head apologetically. “That’s okay. I’ll see you!”
“See you, Dra.” Stefan touches his arm and nods politely at Einar and Blue Alien Eduard as he leaves.
-
“Alright, I’ll give you a minute to—” Einar is interrupted by a rattling at the door of the shop that makes everyone look up. “What the hell?”
Frowning, Dragos gets up from the game table and pokes his head out of the window facing the street to see what the commotion is. The sun has not yet set but is low, and in its orange light, he sees that it is Stefan trying the locked door.
“Stef!” he calls, and leans further out of the window when Stefan peers into the sunlight at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
Stefan hurries over. He’s still wearing the nice green shirt and looks quite agitated, so Dragos leans over, resting his torso on the windowsill to grasp his friend’s shoulder.
“What happened? Did Erzsébet do something?” he asks with concern.
Blinking, Stefan shakes his head. In the orange light, his eyes are an almost translucent shade of green, and Dragos can see the brown undertones in his black hair, nearly gold.
“So why are you here? Are you okay?” Dragos touches Stefan’s forehead with his free hand, letting his fingers slip down the side of his face. He feels fine, sun-warmed but not hot. Inside, Luca asks something and Nadzeya grumbles an answer.
“I don’t… You know, it’s stupid,” Stefan says, voice low. He averts his gaze, pressing his lips together.
“I’m sure it’s not, Stef.” Dragos tugs him a little closer to the window so he can lean more comfortably on the sill.
“No, I’m pretty sure it is.” Stefan touches his wrist, fingers warm on his skin, and looks back at him. “We were at dinner, and someone thought we were a couple.”
“You and Erzsébet?” Dragos asks incredulously. He digs his fingers into Stefan’s shoulder. The nerve! He deserves much better than her!
“Yes! And I corrected the guy, immediately!”
“Of course!”
“Dragos, people think we’re a couple all the time!”
“Well—”
“And I never correct them!” His eyes are wide, almost frantic. “I just don’t!”
“But that…” Dragos frowns, and then he just looks at Stefan for a while, as Stefan looks right back, his fingers curled around his wrist. Because Dragos is still touching his face, basically cupping his jaw with one hand while he leans out of his shop window. The street is otherwise deserted, although he wouldn’t have cared if it weren’t.
Slowly, he runs his other hand up from Stefan’s shoulder, across his neck to his face as well. He rasps his thumb over the stubble on his jaw. Watches him part his lips and breathe out slowly.
“Why don’t I correct them?” Stefan asks, nearly in a whisper.
“Because…” Dragos meets his eye. “Because they aren’t wrong.”
“Fuck,” Stefan sighs, eyes closing briefly. “They’re not, are they?”
“Oh my god, Stef, we’re so stupid!” Dragos tugs him closer and leans further forward so that their foreheads touch, and he feels, more than hears, Stefan laugh. He tries to imagine, just for a moment, doing that with Einar, with Nadzeya, with anyone else, but… It doesn’t feel like it should even be a possibility. His boundaries are different for Stefan as well, he supposes.
“Have we really missed out on much, though?” Stefan is asking, wryly.
“You… You could make breakfast, not just dinner,” Dragos says, curling his fingers against his skin. “I could introduce you as my partner. We could—”
Stefan turns his face up and kisses him, slotting their lips together as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Dragos is sure he almost tumbles out into the street, the way he melts into it.
“Well, and we could do that,” he mumbles, half into Stefan’s mouth, and feels him smile against his lips before pressing them back together. The little noise he makes when Dragos swipes his tongue over his lips is sure to be seared into his memory from here on out—just like the way his stubble rasps against his skin, the way his fingers curl into Dragos’s hair, tugging it out of its half-up ponytail, the way—
“Fucking finally!”
Stefan almost drags Dragos from his window when he stumbles backwards, and Dragos blinks dumbly at him before registering the voice from down the street and turning to glare at Erzsébet.
“What the fuck are you—”
“Dra?” Luca asks from behind him, peering out of the window as well. “Hi, Stefan.”
“Luca!” Erzsébet yells, though she’s coming closer. Dragos wants to say something else, but Stefan rolls his eyes, steps back forward, and kisses him again, and he decides he really doesn’t care.
“No way!” Luca exclaims.
“I know, right?”
There is only Stefan for a long while, then, tilting his head to meet Dragos’s mouth again and again, as if he’s making up for lost time because they’ve really been idiots, possibly for years. When Dragos finally resurfaces from kissing him, Stefan is flushed, his eyes are dark, and, for some reason, Luca is outside on the street with Erzsébet, as are Einar and Nadzeya.
“Guys?” he asks, blinking, his voice somehow hoarse. They weren’t finished with the game. But… He looks back down at Stefan as he touches the corner of his lips with a callused thumb. “Right. Come in.” And, when Stefan steps closer to the window, “The door, Stef!”
“Oh, good, they’re gonna be stupid in brand new ways now,” Nadzeya says, but Dragos doesn’t really care because then Stefan is inside and he can press him against the door, fitting their entire bodies together.
Stefan touches his face, his neck, with careful fingertips as if exploring him. He smells, as he always does, like sawdust and cigarette smoke, and Dragos has known that for years, but the way he smiles sends shivers down his spine. He grins, and Stefan grins back, eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Oh my god, I love you,” Dragos blurts. He’s known that too, for years, he just didn’t realize how.
“Stupid,” Stefan mutters. But, as he leans so close their lips nearly touch again, he whispers, “I love you too.”
-
It’s dark by the time Dragos is done in the shop, and he eagerly makes his way to his apartment, only to find Stefan sprawled on the couch, looking at his phone. He smiles up at Dragos when he enters.
“What’s this?” Dragos lets himself be tugged down to sit sideways on the couch next to Stefan, and then gladly leans over to kiss him, his hair spilling around both their faces. Stefan tucks some of it behind his ear when he pulls back, licking his lips.
“What do you mean, what’s this?”
Dragos raises one eyebrow, which makes him laugh, eyes bright.
“I can’t just be at your place?” He sits up straight.
“’Course you can. I’d be more confused if you weren’t.” He puts a hand on Stefan’s thigh, stretched out on the couch next to him, and is pleased to note a hitch in the man’s breath. “You know several customers think we’re married?”
“Hm. How long have they thought that?”
Dragos grimaces, and Stefan laughs again, then suddenly blinks, falling silent. He meets Dragos’s eye and takes a deep breath.
“Maybe we should be married.”
“Maybe—what?” Dragos gasps. “Is that—Stefan, is that a proposal?”
“Huh, I guess.”
“You guess?” And, before he can reply to that, “I mean, yes, obviously we should get married—”
Stefan kisses him, hard, and Dragos lets himself be dragged back down eagerly. It’s a long while before they finally circle back—first to the shittiest proposal ever, which Stefan promises he’ll make up for as if he didn’t do just that, but Dragos is curious to find out what he’ll come up with anyway, and then to what Dragos had originally wanted to know.
He rests his chin on Stefan’s chest and looks up at him, asking, “So what’s for dinner, then?”
“You see,” Stefan says, flushed and rumpled underneath him, “sometimes, a man is eagerly anticipating some takeout pizza.”
hello! welcome to uhh... estliet meetcute time? nothing real fancy here, just a little thing based on a prompt I saw somewhere... at some point
--
Turquoise
characters/pairings: Estonia (Eduard)/Lithuania (Toris), ft background Ukraine (Iryna)/Belgium (Manon)
word count: 2139
summary:
The man sitting outside the fitting rooms at the store wasn't Eduard's friend like he expected, but that didn't mean he couldn't hear him out. He did, after all, look very nice.
--
With a sigh, Eduard turned to look at his own back in the mirror. After an entire afternoon of harshly-lit, upscale fitting rooms, he wasn’t even sure he could say how many outfits he had tried on, and his energy was waning. You’d think he was the one getting married, from the way Iryna had scrutinized the various suits. He wasn’t even in her bridal party; there was no way it really mattered this much what he wore at her wedding.
These slacks were nice, though. Or, at the very least, they were the right length. With how tall Eduard was, he’d flashed Iryna quite some ankle over the past few hours, so that was already an improvement. And he liked the color of this suit, a dark but vibrant turquoise, much more than that burgundy one she’d been enthusiastic about earlier. He had also learned a lot of new color words. Apparently, he looked bad in plum.
Nodding at his slightly messy-haired reflection, he pushed aside the curtain closing off the fitting room and started to walk out, calling, “I like this one, Iryna. The color’s different, but I think the rest is basically the same as that red one you liked. I’m still not sure about the vest, though, it seems a bit…”
He froze in his tracks outside the fitting rooms when he registered the person sitting on the bench there, who definitely wasn’t Iryna. Instead, there was a man, about Eduard’s age, looking up from a notebook with amusement on his face as he tucked long brown hair behind one ear. Eduard blinked at him and tried to pat his own hair down in the face of this handsome stranger watching him with curiosity.
“Uh, so sorry,” he said, flustered. “I thought my friend was… Did you happen to see a tall, blond woman around here?”
The man smiled, capping his fountain pen with careful, elegant fingers. “She just went back out into the store, I think.”
“Ah. Okay. Great, more suits.” Eduard straightened his jacket, absentmindedly watching his reflection do the same. He didn’t want to go out and look for Iryna, not in only his socks—particularly since he was unfortunately wearing Christmas tree-patterned socks in April—and thought it would be weird to go back into his fitting room now, like a child waiting for their parent to come pick them up. He glanced at the man on the bench, who was now tapping his closed pen against his lips, distractingly. There were a few shopping bags on the floor by his feet, and a small box sitting on the bench.
“Can I say something?” the man asked after a moment. He was soft-spoken but clear, his smile threading through his words.
“About my suit?”
He nodded, twirling his pen around.
“Go ahead,” Eduard said, turning more towards him.
“Well, I obviously didn’t see the red version of this, but I think this probably suits you better. Red would wash you out, I’d guess.” He shrugged, smiling and still fidgeting with his pen. “The vest probably depends on the occasion, but I think it… It adds something.”
The man ducked his head slightly, hair falling around his face, and Eduard bit his lip. He probably shouldn’t take fashion advice from random strangers, no matter how handsome, but he could see that, although the man’s clothes weren’t anything flashy, they were a nice quality and well-coordinated, from his maroon sweater to his dark jeans, and a woollen coat hung over the back of the bench. Vaguely, he thought Iryna might approve. He did; the red brought out gold in the man’s hair and warm tones in his skin. He didn’t think he knew clothes could do that before this afternoon, but he appreciated it now that he saw it in action. It made him want to touch.
“It’s for a wedding,” he clarified instead, curling his fingers.
“Then the vest is probably a good addition. And—hm.” The man looked up at the bright lights for a moment, allowing Eduard to see that his eyes were pine green, and then back at him. “If you usually wear those glasses, with the silver, those will match better with turquoise than red, I think.” He looked away again, to hook his pen into the spiral ring of his notebook. The writing on the page was in purple ink.
“So you’re… An expert?” Eduard asked, which made him laugh softly and melodiously as he shook his head.
“Not at all. I’m finishing a degree in psychology; I’ve just been cajoled into a lot of shopping trips by a friend of mine, and he has far too many opinions on clothes to ignore.” By the way he gestured at the fitting rooms, Eduard guessed this friend was the reason the man was sitting here at all.
“Well, thank you anyway. I feel like I’ve needed a second opinion,” he said, and looked in the mirror again. The vest was nice, even if the effect of its black fabric on his black shirt was subtle. Besides, it’d probably be useful to have, anyway.
“Of course,” the man was saying, and he ran a hand through his hair when Eduard looked at him, so that it fell in messy waves around his face. How did that manage to look so good? It gave him the appearance of being a little roguish, behind the gentle smile. “I’m always happy to… To help out a handsome man in a suit.”
Eduard blinked, swallowing hard. The suit suddenly felt much too tight, and the man’s smile was far too distracting to be allowed.
“Yeah?” he squeaked, embarrassingly. Where was Iryna? What was she even doing out there? Even after all these years, Eduard obviously still didn't know how to flirt, and she was getting married. She must have learned at some point, and he felt like he needed help.
The man let out a long breath and his smile widened a fraction, eyes crinkling at the corners as he looked at Eduard. His fingers were drumming on his notebook.
Luckily, before Eduard could say the only thing he could think of, which was ‘what about helping a man out of a suit?’, Iryna walked back into the fitting room area, carrying a bunch of ties, which she dropped on the bench to make a beeline for Eduard.
“Eduard, this is nice!” she said, fussing with his lapels. “Though I did like the burgundy on you.”
Eduard shot a look at the man on the bench, who quirked his eyebrows as he uncapped his pen.
“I think it washed me out, Iryna.”
She pursed her lips, then nodded and stepped back, and gestured for him to spin around, which he did.
“Alright, then.” She nodded again. “Well, I suppose this is the best we can do!”
While Eduard pushed at her shoulder, pretending to be offended, the man on the bench muttered something under his breath that made Iryna turn around, crossing her arms.
“Excuse me?” she asked, and the man cleared his throat, green gaze flicking to Eduard and back to her as he wet his lips.
“I was just saying, uh…” He made a small gesture with his pen. “This color brings out his eyes, and I think that… Certainly, no one would want to miss that.”
Mouth opening and closing, Iryna turned back to frown up at Eduard, who shrugged even though his heart was beating overtime.
“He says he’s not an expert, but I think he knows what he’s talking about.”
That made the man smile down at his notebook. Huh. Maybe he did know what to say, sometimes.
“Oh, alright,” Iryna conceded. “You know I was just joking. You look great, Ed, and Manon and I are happy to have you.” She gave him a gentle push back towards the fitting rooms. As he went to—finally—get changed back into his comfortable sweater and jeans for the last time today, he saw a short, blond man emerging from one of the other fitting rooms and stride out with a shirt slung over his arm.
By the time Eduard emerged, tugging his coat on, Iryna was waiting for him, sans ties, and no one else was there. He tried his best not to feel disappointed. It’d probably been a fluke. He hadn’t even asked the man’s name, after all.
“Alright?” Iryna asked, taking the turquoise suit from him.
“Ready to go,” he replied. “You promised Manon would make dinner, don’t think I forgot.”
As she walked away with a laugh, he spotted something on the bench, right where the man had been sitting. The box that had been there next to him—a tie box, Eduard realized. There was a small bow sitting on top of the box, folded out of lined paper with a trailing line of purple ink just visible. Taking a deep breath, he picked the bow up and unfolded it carefully.
In neat cursive, the page read, I think I’ve forgotten my tie. It would be appreciated if whoever finds it, could return it to me, particularly if they look great in turquoise and they don’t check who they’re talking to. Toris Laurinaitis, with a phone number scribbled underneath.
“Eduard!” Iryna called, marching back in while he stared at the notebook page, grinning like a fool. Toris. “I’d like to get home before dinner gets cold. You know how Manon gets about her stew.”
“Huh?” Oh, right. Food. Nodding, Eduard carefully folded the note and tucked it into his wallet. Iryna looked amused as he followed her out to the cash register to pay for his new outfit. They watched the employee fold the clothes carefully into a paper bag, and she nudged him.
“I guess the turquoise was the right choice according to the commentators?”
“Commentator,” he corrected, which made her laugh. She hooked her arm through his and led him out of the store, and finally over to her place to eat her fiancée’s long-awaited dinner.
After the stew, which was delicious as usual, Eduard tuned out Iryna and Manon chatting to pull out his phone and send a text.
Hello Toris, I think you’ve forgotten a new tie at the store. Honest mistake, I’m sure! But I would be glad to return it and to hear more of your expert opinions on what I’m wearing, if you feel inclined :)
Eduard Mets
It seemed only fair to offer his full name in return, he thought. Iryna glanced over with raised eyebrows when his phone dinged, and he smiled innocently at her before reading the reply Toris had sent.
As I said, I’m not an expert! But if you insist, I can probably think of something to say if and when you return my new tie
When sounds good, Eduard replied, saving the contact information in his phone.
“Any reason in particular he’s smiling like a doofus?” Manon asked Iryna, on the other side of the room, and Iryna snorted.
Great! Any chance at all you have a free afternoon this weekend?
I have a free Sunday afternoon :) I do hope you will recognize me without my suit.
Eduard squinted at that message after he sent it. Was that suggestive? It was hard to tell sometimes, and he hoped Toris wouldn’t think he was coming on very strong all of a sudden. He didn’t seem like a man who would appreciate that.
I’m sure I will either way. As I said, I don’t think anyone would want to miss eyes like yours
Adjusting his glasses, Eduard felt his face flush as he smiled at his phone. Another message from Toris appeared quickly following that one, as he was still trying to think of a good reply.
There’s a bakery off Main St that has these amazing pastries, if that’s something you’re interested in
Toris, that is all it would have taken!
He wasn’t even kidding.
Really? Well, good to know for reference. I really don’t think I have much more fashion advice to offer you
Just then, Iryna leaned over the back of her couch, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Eduard, just tell the man you’ll meet him for pastries,” she said, sounding amused. “And if you’re going to sext, please leave our house.”
“I’m not—” he stammered, tilting his phone away. How long had she been standing there? Manon laughed out loud, and Iryna shook her head at him, smiling.
“I know. But really, go meet him. It’ll be good.”
That’s alright, I’m sure there are other things to talk about. I’d like to find out. I will meet you Sunday off Main, then!
I’d like to find out as well. I’ll see you Sunday, Eduard
He would have to check if he had anything turquoise to wear.
Belarus and Estonia like to argue, and who's Lithuania to judge? However, he might have to judge a little when it suddenly turns into something else entirely.
--
1994
“—because you always think you’re so damn smart!”
Lithuania chews his sandwich and continues to ignore the stupid argument Belarus and Estonia are having. Or, well… It’s pretty one-sided from Belarus’s side, he thinks, because, especially over the past century, Estonia has really honed this mild, almost bland persona of his. It was often the best way to escape notice, which has been very valuable in years past.
“But I am,” he’s saying now, sounding ever-so-innocent about it, which is sure to rile Belarus up more.
Across the kitchen table, Ukraine catches Lithuania’s eye. They just shrug at each other. Latvia, quite wisely, decided earlier he’d go out to buy lunch to get away from all their official meetings today.
“Just because you’re fucking ancient doesn’t mean you’re smarter than me!” Belarus shouts.
“Hey, hey, I didn’t say that!” For the first time, Estonia slightly raises his voice in turn.
Lithuania glances over at the two of them, but quickly turns his attention back to his sandwich. He’s got another one, and is regretting having put cheese on both. He leans over to Ukraine.
“Any chance you want to trade me some lunch?” he asks softly, while Belarus shouts, “That’s what it damn well sounds like, Estonia!”
“Don’t put words in my mouth!” Estonia yells, which makes them both look over. That’s very unusual, for him, and as far as Lithuania knows, it always has been. Of course, Estonia practically lived a whole life before he even existed, but he likes to think he knows him well by now.
Ukraine tuts, turning back. “I have some salad, if you’d like that?”
With a slightly pained look, she slides a small plastic container across the table, and he hands her his second sandwich.
“You can’t take me, Estonia.”
“Ha! You fucking think?”
That makes Ukraine raise her eyebrows while she chews the sandwich, though Lithuania is less impressed. Just because Estonia doesn’t swear a lot, doesn’t mean it is particularly surprising either.
“Oh,” Belarus says, voice startlingly low in obvious challenge, “I would love to see you try.”
She has, Lithuania sees, crowded close to Estonia and is poking him in the chest with her long, black nails. Estonia is narrowing his eyes behind his glasses as he gazes down at her, drawn up to his full height. His fingers are flexing, and his nostrils flare.
Ukraine hums, swallowing, and says, “Do you think we should—”
Lithuania can’t even say which of them moves first, that’s how fast it happens; between one blink and the next, Belarus has her hands wrung into Estonia’s sweater, his hands are in her long hair, and she stumbles backwards as their mouths slam together. Lithuania hears her make a sound deep in her throat that he never imagined she could even produce.
“Uh,” Ukraine says.
She’s just as frozen in place as Lithuania is, both of them staring as Estonia backs Belarus up until she hits the fridge, their lips still locked and moving frantically. His glasses are knocked askew, and he is messing up Belarus's hair beyond belief.
“Lithuania,” Ukraine whispers urgently, “what in the world?”
He can only make a confused noise in reply, watching with morbid fascination as Belarus runs her hands across Estonia’s back and one of his long legs presses up between her thighs. What in the world, indeed.
Oh, thank god, they’re parting now—no, that’s not better. Both are breathing heavily. Belarus grins wildly up at Estonia, who honest-to-god smirks back and moves his leg, both of them obviously forgetting they are in a kitchen. With other people. She’s running her hands up under his sweater now!
Just as the two of them lean in again and press their lips back together, Ukraine whistles sharply between her fingers. Belarus knocks her head against the fridge, and Estonia stumbles back, tripping over his own feet. Both are flushed when they look over. As if it wasn’t weird enough before; Lithuania never thought he’d see the day Belarus blushed.
“Please get a room,” Ukraine says, sounding exasperated.
“We’re in a—” both of them start at the same time. They look at each other. Ukraine whistles once more before they start again, although Lithuania doesn’t know whether they were about to continue making out or arguing.
Estonia clears his throat, slowly disentangling himself from Belarus, who smooths down first his sweater and then her own hair, and her skirt.
“We should…” he starts. Belarus rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and then, without another word, she drags him out of the kitchen.
Ukraine and Lithuania sit in stunned silence for a while, blinking at each other. Eventually, Ukraine slowly picks up the cheese sandwich, lifting it to her mouth.
“What the fuck!” Latvia shouts, bursting into the room. “Why are Belarus and Estonia making out in the hall? I was gone for half an hour!”
Lithuania drops his forehead on the kitchen table.
