#the baebees

[overplannedbutunnamednpc]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[overplannedbutunnamednpc]

Things You Said When 1, 4, 18, 25 for Clover ☘️💛

and More........ because we're so fucking normal about them.

this IS just fanfiction so bekah gets to read about Them. but i also wanted to write about them. its called mutualism.

yall who are playing DONT READ!!! idk if theres spoilers i'm not bothering keeping explicit spoilers out of here (writing this before I write all of em). but if yall arent playing dia with us check it out. these guys are sooooooo . rachel knows. rebekah knows. if yall wanna know and youre NOT in their game. come hither....... welcome to my maze..... and then dm me about it. directors commentary etc

Clover

1. Things you said before you knew any better

Honeybee's hair is softer than Clover knew someone's hair could actually be.

It's not that it's actually feathers, because Clover has felt Honeybee's feathers, and they're soft, yeah, but they don't feel like hair or anything. Even the ones that tuft up around his ears don't feel like hair, so it's not just that Honeybee has hair that's all feather vane, or vane that’s all hair. His hair's just really fucking soft.

Clover knows this, because Clover has been playing with it for a half an hour, mostly marveling.

It's not the shampoo he uses. Clover's used that, stole it even though it's the good stuff all the way from Waterdeep and Honeybee complains about it whenever he notices that the bottles run out twice as fast as they used to. Well, it's technically Clover's shower, so Clover's calling them even.

His head’s lolled back to rest on their knee, and though they shouldn’t be letting him sit on the floor in case it aggravates his bum leg, they’ve said nothing yet. They’ll help him up when they’re ready to move. One day they’ll actually go to bed at a reasonable hour. The night is stretching long and dark and quiet before them, though, and its temptation is as real tonight as Honeybee’s loose-limbed relaxation, as it’s always been. So tonight might not be that night.

Gods above and so below, they need a deep-clean.

They just need to clean him out of the creases of their brain, where he stuck like - well, like honey, in the niches of its comb. Someone needs to take a good handful of steel wool and lye and pluck the troublesome organ from between their ears and cleanse them of Honeybee.

That, or Honeybee needs to stop - it was a couple of things. It was a list of things, little things, things Clover is better off forgetting just for now, things like the little crease by his eyes, the lopsidedness of his smile, the - the stupid tattoo that peeked out the back of all of his shirts, right at the perfect spot to place their hand on the back of his neck, and the way that when they do give into the temptation to handle him there, he actually relaxes into it, like he's been waiting for the callous on their thumb to swipe over the knob of his vertebrae at his nape, every time.

They don’t mind it, sometimes, the anticipation of it. They’re fairly assured it was anticipation, anyway, but the two of them have a lot to do together that, quite frankly, Clover would be distracted from if their choices were between “cold night of surveillance” and “warm night in bed with Honeybee”. There’s only so much delayed gratification one person can take, and they’ve delayed it long enough that they are fairly sure if they broke now it would not be a temporary issue of distraction.

So, they can wait.

At least tonight isn’t a cold night of surveillance, or they would both be being very derelict in duty indeed.

That reminds them.

"Honeybee?"

"Mm?" Maybe they were wrong about not getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Honeybee sounds as if he’d been dozing a little. Whoops. Maybe they’ll carry him to bed, make up for it.

"Will you come with me, to my mother’s?"

The question rouses Honeybee a bit, makes him move to twist and look at them properly. They let his hair go to allow the movement, then twine their fingers back into his hair in a loose fist, because he’s suddenly between their knees facing them and they need to control that situation quickly, before they either throw all their musings about anticipation to the wayside or get distracted from the question they are asking or both.

"Really?"

Clover nods. "She wants to meet you, and—" They pause, considering their words, thumb rubbing over the section of soft hair it’s found itself over. "You’re… a part of my life now. You should come."

Honeybee looks a little skeptical. "And… Luckey?"

The right question to ask. Clover shrugs, though. "I agree with you, about Ult’s people. Half of them must have left by now, and he hasn’t made any real moves in a bit. I don’t think there’s much for them to do right now. Especially with practically no one here anymore." Ultiss was a bit… smug, every time they saw him now, his eyes always lingering on them too long, but that doesn’t change the fact that he hasn’t been doing anything, and there’s only… four? five? of them left in town. "They might come back, but… I haven’t really seen anything that worries me, and you said you didn’t either, so… yes. Come with me. Let’s take a break."

Honeybee brightens, incrementally. This is another thing he does that sticks in Clover’s head. The way he brightens up like a cloud’s revealed the sun on a spring day. It’s too deep into winter for there to be any more flowers, but the ones Clover did put on him seemed to refuse to wilt for longer than they should, probably for exactly this reason. Waiting for the sun. Clover’s always waiting for it, and Honeybee never disappoints.

4. Things you said instead of “I love you”

This is actually a pretty shitty room.

Not the worst inn room Clover’s ever stayed in, but not top thirty, certainly. Probably not even top fifty. Definitely not nice enough to justify the amount of coin Clover had forked over for it.

Probably because I was tipsy. Or maybe it was that obvious how bad I wanted a single. That’s a bit embarrassing.

Well, not as much anymore. Honeybee saw through the single room thing, too. He didn’t seem to mind.

Honeybee.

Clover is playing it cool. At least as much as one can when still… sticky, because they and Honeybee had just.

Don’t freak out about that.

It was a good thing! They never thought otherwise. Months of buildup and they had, actually, made good on it. And it was good. Shit, it was good. Months of buildup were perhaps worth the late lone nights type of good.

It is new, though, for sure. Good-new, yeah, despite the shitty room and clumsy attempt to manufacture intimacy, regardless of the fact that it worked.

How many seconds is us recovering before it becomes us just not talking?

Not a question they know how to answer. Honeybee's face is tucked into the crook of their neck, and he's not, like, lying down, but this could definitely go to cuddling if they shifted a little bit and he went to his side. That's a good sign, hopefully.

Okay. Talk. You've caught your breath. He needs to know this wasn't just- and you need to know he's not just drunk.

They swallow. "That was."

Honeybee nods against their neck.

They chuckle, mostly just to get rid of the post-coital nervous energy. "Yeah."

Honeybee draws away. The curtains in the room aren't drawn, so there's only a little bit of light in the room, and Clover's darkvision softens him into shades of gray. His hair is bright white, reflective even with barely any light to do so with, and the honey of his skin has gone rich-dark gray, and whatever spark that lives in those eyes of his fixes down on Clover, who can't help the smile, because he is gorgeous. His neck's a little bruised - their fault, but they're not apologizing - and his breathing's still a little fast, and when they lick their lips, his eyes flick down to them.

We can kiss now.

The realization is a very welcome one. They actually sit up slightly for it, which would make Honeybee shift to move away and give them room if they didn't also grab the back of his hair and pull him down to kiss them again. Then again.

Because they haven't actually talked, they keep the number to only three before releasing him. He doesn't go far, though, and they incentivize as much by running a wondering hand up one of his thighs to a hip. He has such nice hip bones. And collar bones. And the bones in his wrist don't lose him any points, either. If they keep up the having-sex-with-each-other thing, they'll almost certainly find some other parts of his anatomy to have new appreciation for. In many ways, they already have, though that appreciation can't be called aesthetic at all quite yet.

Talk. Talk.

Unsure if they're ordering themselves or Honeybee, Clover complies anyway. "I hope you had expectations, because that far exceeded mine."

"Oh, yeah," Honeybee replies, then pauses. “That’s- you mean you had high expectations and I still exceeded them, right?”

Clover chuckles. “Yes. Great expectations, still surpassed.” They start rubbing their thumb over their favorite spot on Honeybee’s hip, where the tattoo is. “I…”

You should probably say it. This would be the time. You’ve been biting it back for how long? This is a good time.

It would be, that’s true. Honeybee’s breathing’s evened a little now that they’ve exchanged words, but he hasn’t moved from above them, and they can’t tell exactly where he’s looking without his eyes moving in response to stimuli they give him, so they lick their lips. His eyes flick down a bit. He was looking them in the eyes, then. Well, no longer.

Don’t get distracted. Tell him.

“I should-” Tell him. Tell him. I love you, just like that. “I wasn’t planning on this happening when I suggested the trip, so you know.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t- planning on anything when I suggested the dinner.”

“I’m glad you did.” Tell him.

“Me too.” Honeybee smiles. He’s beautiful like this. Which is why they should tell him.

The cuckoo clock down the hall starts squawking. Clover has no sense of what time it is, starts to count the chimes to figure out how long they've been wrapped up in Honeybee, how long they might still get to be.

One. Two. Three. Tell him.

It would be easier without darkvision, maybe. They can still see the details of him. Even better, now, because there's coming a glow through the room window. Red-orange looks good on Honeybee, lights up the gold of his skin. Thank you, whoever just lit that fire outside.

Six. Seven. Eight. Tell him, now. Now, Clover. Ten.

"I've- been thinking about that, though, for a while," Clover says, all in a rush.

Honeybee says, too, overlapping chatter, "I think I should-"

They both fall silent. Clover counts eleven, twelve and, when Honeybee makes a gesture to give them the floor, instead, they do not let themself wonder about what he thinks he should be doing, and instead plow ahead, forcing their nerves to steel rather than shake. "I just wanted to say, I-"

And then-

BOOM

somewhere in the distance. Clover sits up, immediately on the defensive. Their sword's always right by the bed, so they just need to find where Honeybee put their pants.

“What the fuck was that?”

18. Things you said that were a promise you intended to keep

Luckey, perhaps predictably, didn't actually have that much going on in it.

It was a small town - Clover could count the number of people that lived here in a slow afternoon if everyone was at home. They numbered around two hundred or so. Enough that, at least if they were looking at faces, Clover could name everyone in town.

That made it very strange to come across this.

They practically tripped over the man. It wasn't their fault. It was raining, and they were carrying wood and the man was small and on the ground, so it certainly wasn't all their fault. Their foot caught on his form, and Clover stumbled, one of the switches they were carrying clattering to the ground and making them flinch. "I'm sorry, I wasn't - oh. Are you okay?"

They switched immediately from apology to concern when they saw the state the man is in. His face was bloodied, and that was saying nothing of what might've been going on under the clothes he was wearing - they weren't really able to tell, medicine wasn't their strong suit. "I'm sorry, let me get a look at you. I'm Clover."

They set down the wood they were carrying and got to their knees to give him a cursory inspection. He had clearly been beaten up, which drew a frown across Clover's face.

The man seemed a little out of it, and blinked wide eyes at Clover. His jaw worked slowly. "S- Sehonivee-Haien. Charmed."

Bit of a mouthful, Clover thought. With his feathery ears, they had to wonder if he was an aasimar, too, with one of the names like their mom, long enough to gain someone importance. Not exactly a polite question, though, not while he was bleeding on the ground, so they just gave him a smile. "Charmed. Can you stand?"

Sehonivee-Haien's face twisted. "Jury's out."

"Alright. Here," Clover said, and pressed a hand to the side of his face. There was practically nothing divine still left in them, but they could still force whatever spark was still there into a bit of healing, which could be the difference between life and death, sometimes. Or, in this case, the difference between standing and walking, and getting tripped over in a sidestreet. "Okay, let's try it."

They stood, offering him a hand. He hesitated, but took it, and Clover hauled him up as gently as the verb "hauling" allowed. He ended up on his feet, anyway, though he was a little newborn deer about it. Clover took care of that with a steadying arm around his back, which, definitely hurt a broken rib or two from the way he hissed in pain.

“Sorry,” Clover said. “But it’ll hurt more if you fall.”

“Hurts pretty bad now,” he replied, with a grin shot through plenty with pain. They were pretty good at reading people, but really didn’t have to be, to see that much.

They gave him a smile right back. He deserved it. This was their town, and the fact that he had gotten beaten half to death on their watch? It spurred at something ugly in Clover's chest, something angry enough for them to show teeth. Even if that was accompanied by upturned lips. "My home isn't far. You'll be safe there."

Somehow, this man had the widest eyes Clover had ever seen, never mind the fact that one of them was already swelling shut.

Clover's version of healing was not very divine. At least they could be fairly assured that he wasn't bleeding internally on them.

"Are you- are you sure? I'm not... I don't want to bring anything to your door, if someone has something against me..." Oh, he was so worried.

Clover patted his cheek. "Hey. Hey, look at me.” He did. He had very striking eyes. “You- You're not getting hurt again, okay? Not on my watch."

It was a promise they meant. A promise they kept.

Mostly.

Mostly, except for that - that little scar.

But that—that was a very different promise.

25. Things you said that you still think about today

It was a joke.

Or, okay. Not a joke, because if Honey had actually asked, Clover might have done it. At least given it due consideration. That was not saying much, because Clover would have done pretty much anything Honey asked, back then, and they weren't going to consider how much they'd do for him if he asked even today, but.

Anyway.

It wasn't serious. Clover didn't think so, anyway, and they weren't about to ask Honey now if he ever meant it when he said they should go off and live somewhere else. He was a big-city sort, or so he said, and Clover was no stranger to cities, so it wasn't like they couldn't make it work.

He was pacing the kitchen—he was restless some mornings, just like this. Clover didn’t know why back then, just accepted it as a quirk of his to sometimes be soothed away. Now, of course, Clover had connected his restlessness to the mornings he had left late last night or early that morning, presumably playing his part in whatever part of their lives was real rather than the fiction they’d created.

“Maybe we could leave Luckey sometime,” he suggested, apropos of nothing. Clover fetched a mug for their morning coffee, kept an eye on him.

"What, run away together?" they asked, after a second of observing his behavior. He was restless, certainly. Small-town fever, they thought. People got it. Not Clover, but people. “Or do you mean more of a day trip?”

He looked over at them, and allowed himself a smile. “Well, what do you think?”

“Of running away together?” Clover poured themself a cup. They wanted to give him the benefit of clear consideration. “I think it’s ultimately unnecessary. We’d have to be running from something, by definition.”

“Ult’s guys,” Honey suggested.

Clover added cream to the cup, still taking Honey seriously. They had thought he was a coward, back then, tiptoed kindly around his caution. He had, after all, still borne the scars of their treatment—did, actually, to this day, so perhaps that was not all act—and they thought that his caution was a boon, making them more thoughtful. “I’m not convinced they’d follow us. Not running away from anything, that way.”

Honey hummed. Paced some more. “Okay, but. It’s kind of? Small?”

Clover nodded. “Two hundred or so.”

“Yeah, so. Small.” Honey nodded to himself. “That doesn’t… you like that? You’ll like that forever? What if some people here end up sucking?”

“Depends how much they suck,” Clover said, after another pause to make sure his question had been given its due consideration. “People here right now do suck. I’m still here.”

“Forever?”

Clover shrugged again. And then, in a moment of what wasn’t irony but certainly couldn’t be anything else, said, “It’s a sweet thought, Honeybee, but I’ll be honest… Luckey will have to have burned before I’d leave it.”

Honey had given a half smile and sat down. “Well. That’s not happening anytime soon.”

Satisfied with the answer and with the fact that Honey had actually gotten his ass in a chair, Clover sat with him and reached across the table so they could squeeze his hand in theirs. “We can still go on a day trip.”

It was a strange thing, the fact that they were so assured that he would stay right there with them, looking back on it. Honey did, of course—he slept in the next room, though far from Luckey—but they did wonder. If they never left Luckey, where would Honey be? Still sitting at that table?

The what-if and what-is suspends there, in their mind. They try to be self-disciplined about these things. The memory pauses right there, fingers touching their Honeybee’s, and palms not yet met.