#heartfic

[heartpascalispunk]

FINK 🦊🧡

[ellayuki]

19122022 - Heartstopper (Netflix)

~

"I, um," he says, and okay, he could have just said this over text instead of calling Charlie. But the excited, bubbly, warm feeling in his chest was too big, too overwhelming to convey in writing. "I told my mum."

There's a breathless second of silence, before Charlie asks, with what can only be surprise in his voice," What? You… you did?" like perhaps he hadn't expected Nick to start telling people so soon. Which, totally understandable.

Nick nods, though he knows Charlie can't see him. His face hurts, honestly, from smiling so much, even as his eyes still sting with the happy tears from earlier. "I did. I came out to her. Told her… Told her about you and me, too."

"And… How did she take it?"

A hell of a lot better than Nick had expected, though to be fair to his mother, he hadn't really thought she'd react too badly about it. Especially the part about Charlie, because she's grown to love him as much as if he were her own, Nick knows. "Really, really well. She told me she loves me, and that she's proud of me. Thanked me for telling her. It… Yeah, yeah it went really well."

"Oh, Nick," Charlie says, and he, too, sounds proud, and he sounds happy, and he sounds… on the verge of tears?

"Are you crying?"

"Shut up," and now there's embarrassment tingeing Charlie's voice for a second before it softens. "I'm just. I'm really happy right now. For you. For us. I'm allowed to shed a tear or three."

"There's snot running down your face, isn't there?" Nick teases, even as he, himself, is wiping his face with the corner of his bed cover.

Charlie groans. "Shut up. I'll hang up. I'm hanging up right now."

But he doesn't, and they both burst into tearful laughter. "Why are we like this?" Nick asks again, when they've calmed down a bit.

"Somehow, I blame you," Charlie answers, just as teasing.

Nick buries his face into his pillow, wishes Nellie wasn't asleep in the living room so he could cuddle her. Wishes Charlie were here so he could cuddle and kiss him. "I can't wait 'til Monday morning."

"Yeah," Charlie answers quietly. "Yeah, me neither."

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [1242]

“Having fun?" Bull asks, glancing up at Ellana as she flops face first onto the bed they sometimes, with increasing frequency, share. He hears the dull thud of her shoes falling off of her feet, thumping onto the carpet. He turns around to really look at her. He’d missed her at dinner because he was out checking out new properties he was thinking of buying. There’s a pretty good abandoned factory that he can have renovated as either a nightclub or some kind of manufacturing site. He’s not sure which yet. He needs more feet on the ground to get a lay of the land in that area. And of course, he needs to figure out where the fuck his current leak is coming from.

“Tons,” Ellana says, voice muffled. "Don't you know that a rich woman’s greatest pleasure is spending money?”

Bull stands up, stretching his arms and his back as he ambles over to flop down next to her. Ellana laughs as his weight causes her to bounce on the mattress. She rolls onto her side, folding her arm under her head. She gives him a very light kick. Bull grins at her, reaching up to pinch her cheek. Ellana swats at his hand but catches it before he can pull it back entirely. She lightly holds it in hers, a little uncertain but taking the steps she’s capable of one step at a time. It’s unfamiliar territory for Bull, too. He’s not sure if someone’s ever just held his hand for the sake of holding it.

“Are there rumors floating around the Chargers about me? There must be.”

“They’re good people. They mostly don’t know what to make of you,” Bull says. “They do like you though. They’re just not sure what the heck you’re doing.”

“Can a woman not just shop because she’s got obscene amounts of money? Must there be some ulterior motive behind it?”

“Perhaps other women who aren’t you,” Bull replies. “And the Chargers might not know you as you’ve let me come to know you. But I like to think I have some idea of what’s going on behind the curtains. You want to clue me in on the rest of it? Or is it not ready?”

Ellana taps a finger into the center of his palm. Then another. She walks her fingers up his hand, his wrist, his forearm, and back down again.

“Hm. It’s coming together,” she concedes. “But it’s slow work. My family’s influence isn’t well known here and — to be fair to you, you’re very good at what you do. But the way you built your network runs somewhat counter to mine.”

“You mean the fact that I’m known to have had multiple affairs is making people give you the side eye because they’re worried you’re the jealous type and it’s the end of the Iron Bull as they know him?” Bull replies dryly.

Ellana pinches his wrist. “I wasn’t going to say it, but yeah. I’m going slow. Careful. You’ve got too many past lovers and some of them I can tell wish they were in present tense instead of past. I have to avoid accidentally triggering any landmines. But I think I’ve got some good leads. It’s just a matter of…establishing myself as a non-threat. I’m not here to stop anyone from having their good time…riding the bull as it were.”

Bull can’t help but laugh and Ellana kicks him again, a little harder. And when he doesn’t protest or otherwise react she really kicks him like she means it. She probably does.

Bull stops laughing, but only because he can’t talk and laugh and sound coherent at the same time.

“Alright, do I dare ask if you need any help?”

“I think your version of helping has done enough as it is,” Ellana says. “Though I do appreciate the advanced list of names and faces and such that you’ve given me. Now it’s a matter of working around them  until they can’t go anywhere without hearing about me and how much of a normal, absolutely run-of-the-mill person I am.”

“Which you aren’t.”

“Okay, fine, yes. But you’re the only person who knows that.” Ellana pauses. She gets this look on her face, as she looks into his eyes. Bull isn’t sure how to describe it. It’s like she’s seeing him for the first time, every time, and is astounded at what she’s seeing. Like she doesn’t know what to make of him: good, bad, dangerous, safe, comforting, unnerving. Ellana, in these moments —

These moments when he reminds her, with plain fact and word, that he knows what’s really behind that face of hers. He knows, he’s looked at her and traced her movements and studied her for. He’s actually looked at her. And he saw, what most — everyone — else did not. What her own family, either willfully or unknowingly, missed.

And he really, really, really likes it.

In these moments, Ellana seems to always stand on the precipice of vulnerability. She’s not quite there, but so close to it that it catches her off guard and unsteady. And she is always torn between raising the defenses, pulling back and doubling down on this facade she’s crafted, or allowing herself to fall knowing it won’t hurt. It’s not that he’d catch her, over this edge, because that isn’t his place. It’s more that she could fall and it wouldn’t hurt because there really isn’t a ledge at all. There is no harm in being honest here. With him. There is nothing waiting to hurt her if she lets slip pieces of her truest self.

Ellana, after a long run up contained in a short amount of time, links their fingers together.

“You really are the only person who knows it,” she says quietly. And then she clears her throat, the not-quite-vulnerability retreating underneath layers upon layers upon layers. “Now. I actually do need your help but in a different way than I imagine you’re used to helping. I need property. Not one that can be tied to me directly, per se. It doesn’t need to be very big or fancy. I just need a building I can use. I’m going to establish an art gallery. That’s the best way to go about it, I’ve decided. I was toying around with making some kind of charity here, or some kind of outreach program, but after going around the area for the past few days I’ve realized those types of strategies aren’t as effective. I’m going to need to do an appeal to the ego. So. Art gallery.”

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [1059]

“Fuck and damn, Wolf, you've gotten mean. Turned into a real bastard haven’t you?” Rocky grimaces as he holds his arm. “You used to be nice when we spar.”

“You all left me to have one on one with the Iron Bull,” Ellana replies, “What, exactly, did you think was going to happen?”

“I didn’t think you’d hold a grudge.” Even as Rocky says it, Ellana can see him realizing the folly of his words. “Alright. I mean. It’s you. Of course you’re gonna hold a grudge. Wouldn’t be you otherwise. I didn’t think you’d take it out on me like this though.”

“Again, what did you think was going to happen?” Ellana rolls her shoulders, testing the movement of her arms. Rocky had gotten her legs out from under her and given her a good toss. There’s a slight pull on her right bicep that could either be from her poor landing or a poor punch she’d thrown at a bad angle. Ellana tests her right arm again to see if the strain persists.

It does, unfortunately.

“Knowing you, it’d be more subtle than trying to cave my face in during a sparring match,” Rocky continues. “I thought you’d…rearrange the patrol schedules to give me a really bad one. Or purposefully get me sent out on a shit mission to the marshes or somewhere like that.”

Ellana shoots Rocky a fond look. “Like engenders like, Rocky. Fair turn around. You leave me to suffer in the training ring with the Iron Bull, the next time I catch you in the ring you’re mine to toss around.”

“So…after this are we even?” Rocky asks.

Ellana smiles at him. Rocky wilts under it.

“What do you think the answer to that question is, Rocky?” Ellana replies, sweet like syrup and sugar pastry.

“I think you’ve got a vindictive streak wider than this damn mountain range,” Rocky groans. “And I think if you angled that last hit any differently you might have popped my arm out of socket.”

“Lucky you,” Ellana replies, prodding her own arm with her fingertips. Maybe it’s just a bruise. The more she moves her arm the less it hurts. Or maybe her pain tolerance has grown. She’ll ask Dalish to check it later. Not Stitches. “Maybe consider not leaving people to the Chief’s ruthless mercies next time.”

“It really was for your own good, you know,” Rocky grumbles. “You needed the hand to hand combat training. Sure you weren’t awful at it before, but now look at you. You can hold your own against templars.”

“I could always hold my own against templars,” Ellana points out.

“With your fists?” Rocky shakes his head. “Right. Sure. And I’m the real Herald of Andraste.”

Ellana scowls at him. “I’m not arguing that it hasn’t been helpful. I’m trying to make a point that you all didn’t have to abandon me for one on one when you could have stuck around to help me. You know what he’s like.”

“Consider it a right of passage.”

“Consider this the consequences.”

“Wolf,” Rocky meets her eyes, “Look. Consider it a betrayal if you want — “

“I do want. And I do consider it as such. I do not need your permission.”

“ — but can you think about it from our point of view for a second?”

Ellana stares him down in silence before answering. “There. I thought about it. For a whole ten seconds. I don’t consider it justified. I’m still going to hold it against you.”

“I mean, really think about it. You think any of us want to be hanging around when you and the Chief are flirting?”

“You call him making me swing a training sword for two hours flirting? I assure you, I do not. I would have deeply, deeply appreciated any sort of interference,” Ellana replies. “I did not come out of any of those training experiences feeling flirted with. There were no positive associations or thoughts going through my head then or now when I’m thinking about it. If anything I crawled out of those experiences with more negative thoughts in my head about him and the rest of you than I did going into them.”

“Alright, fine. Maybe it didn’t seem like flirting to you. And maybe the Chief only thought of about ten percent of it as an opportunity to tease you and rile you up. But I promise you from an outside perspective the tension you two create when both of you get focused on something and get into it is enough to choke on.” Rocky grimaces. “Even when you two are arguing with each other. It’s intense, Wolf. It’s stupid intense.”

“The Iron Bull has an intense personality.”

“So do you.”

“Only when someone forces me to,” Ellana retorts. “And the Iron Bull seems to enjoy forcing me to.”

“I think you enjoy being forced to rise to the occasion,” Rocky replies. “It gives you an excuse to let loose. You’re normally so quiet and buttoned up.”

Ellana points to herself. “Me? Buttoned up? I think you have me confused with some other elf who’s been signed on with the Chargers. Or some other elf in general. No one’s ever considered me…buttoned up in my life.”

“For a Charger you’re pretty tame unless someone pokes you,” Rocky says. “Like a hornet’s nest.”

The man grins, gesturing to his face, “You even got the warning stripes.”

Ellana rolls her eyes, shaking her head as she pulls herself over the side of the training ring fence to collect her things.

“Are we even now?” Rocky asks.

“Don’t do it again,” Ellana says.

“I am not interfering in whatever special training plans the Chief has for you unless explicitly ordered to.”

“Then we aren’t even,” Ellana says. “You haven’t learned your lesson. And I will continue to be as brutal in our sparring sessions as need be until you do.”

“Come on, Wolf, mercy.”

Ellana throws Rocky a sharp smile over her shoulder. “Asking a wolf for mercy, Rocky? Really?”