you still doing the 💌? We've spoken like twice but ksjdghkdjf
OMG NO MY VAULT ... i love u ur truly one of the OGS 😭🙏 ive never really been a lorehead but i was sure if i was something that was a dreblr member and u guys adopted me so fast😿 i was so happy when i learnt you were going to the droncert .
ur awesome and i love your art sm AND YOURE SO KIND. i got reports of u (and kiuda) from lee and everything he had to say was so incredibly nice. i love your presence in my dash youre always so chill and sweet🫶
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The third last thing that Hewitt remembers before the vault is dying. The less said about that, the better. The second last is the Hall, which is less clear than they expected. The last thing is the Rising Stars game. Hands on their arms. Shouting and knowing it was too late. Being carried away. Gold pouring into them and gold pouring out of them.
And now here they are. In the vault. The less said about that, the better, too.
(A story about the vault, gold, legacies, cooking, community, Hewitt, Sosa, York, and the things we do for one another. 22k, CWs in author’s note.)
interpreted "vault trio" loosely here bc i had this idea and i liked it. vault fic missing scene set after the queens/georgias show up, cw for vault fic typical turning-to-gold and also nonsexual nudity
98. "you were always gold to me"
It’s an incredibly long day — mostly because of Hewitt, the news, one of the players on the Georgias systematically walking Sosa and York through every catastrophe in the league. Sosa had sat silently, collar of eir pajamas stained with golden tears, and asked questions when e wanted to. York had asked questions about everything.
Jazz spends the day in a random kitchen, making huge pots of goulash and paprikaš for everyone, and then sits next to Sosa for the tail end of the recap. Ze’s quiet, but it’s a careful, terse quiet that Sosa knows well, something approaching anxiety. They sit side by side until York has exhausted himself hearing about dead teams and teammates, and leaves to go find Hewitt, who’s hopefully asleep somewhere.
It’s only now, as the knot of people begins to dissipate, that Jazz touches Sosa’s elbow lightly. That’s all it is, a touch, but it’s enough that when ze excuses zirself, Sosa follows without thinking twice.
Jazz leads em to a cozy apartment, everything white and minimalist, and closes and locks the door behind them. And at last, voice quiet and measured, ze says, “Can you show me?”
Sosa doesn’t hesitate. E figured this would happen, after all. Jazz is smart. E pulls the pajama shirt off and then the pants, leaving em standing in the middle of the room in only boxer briefs as Jazz walks a slow circle around em. The nudity is normal; there’s no space for awkwardness about bodies between the two of them anymore. This is about Sosa’s body, and familiarity, and. And.
The time that the gold crept up eir wrists has long since passed. Things have gotten worse, despite Sosa’s best attempts to act as though it hasn’t. It’s between eir toes, clearly visible on eir bare feet. Eir hair is shot through with streaks of it. There’s a nagging sensation of dullness between eir shoulder blades somewhere e can’t quite reach, and e hasn’t gotten around to asking Hewitt to confirm eir suspicions yet. The gold is everywhere, encroaching upon everything.
Including eir tear ducts, apparently.
“Душица,” Jazz murmurs. Zir hand brushes along one shoulder, works its way to the small of eir back as ze comes to stand in front of Sosa. Ze’s smiling, but it’s forced and tremulous and not at all right. “You were always gold to me, but this is a little much, no?”
Sosa snorts a laugh that e carefully reins in so it doesn’t escalate into crying. “You know me. All about the aesthetic.”
“You wouldn’t have done it so…” Jazz wrinkles zir nose and waves zir free hand, pressing zir palm more firmly against Sosa’s back. “So ugly. You would have done it on purpose.”
On purpose. It has been a long, long time since e felt like e was doing anything on purpose. Mostly e’s been borrowing Hewitt’s sense of purpose, although e gets the feeling that’s about to be in critically short supply. Maybe it’s time e scraped together some more purpose of eir own.
“It’s a fixable problem,” e tries. “Hewitt and I—”
“Fixable until you cry,” Jazz says, just this side of too sharp. “You saw their eyes.”
Sosa did. E wishes e hadn’t.
“Okay,” e says, and eir voice doesn’t quaver. “Maybe not fixable.”
Jazz softens all at once. “Come here,” ze says, and presses zir face into Sosa’s shoulder. Ze’s still wearing shoes so ze’s tall enough that it’s comfortable, that it’s even familiar, and Sosa doesn’t let eir breath catch because— because—
“I don’t know how to do this,” Sosa says. It hurts to say, not just because of what e’s saying but because of the sharpness in eir throat, the rawness that’s hard to speak around.
Jazz says something in Serbian. Sosa waits, carding the fingers of one hand through zir hair, until ze says, “Sorry. English. Neither do I.”
It shouldn’t be comforting, but it is. They’ve been lost together countless times, lost in business ventures and on road trips and when Parker MacMillan walked onto their team. This is just one more obstacle. One more solvable problem.
Or maybe it’s not solvable. But all the big things feel a little smaller with Jazz’s hands on eir skin. That’s always been true.
“You know,” York says, in a way that would make Sosa groan if it were anyone else, “can you really say it’s yours?”
Sosa folds eir arms. “Explain.”
“Well, the vault…” York waves a hand. “It gives us things, you know? This doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to Lootcrates or something. Or the vault itself.”
“It doesn’t belong to you either.”
“It does today.”
Sosa rolls eir eyes. The truth, the thing that neither of them are going to say, is that it’s obviously Hewitt’s shirt. It’s green, for one thing, and flannel for another. It’s too bright to be York’s and not big enough to be Sosa’s. E’s not even sure where York found it. The vault has a way of taking things away when you’re not looking, putting them back in their place.
Maybe the hub is Hewitt’s place. Sosa would like to think it is. Even when they’re out looking for other people, even when they’re not here, this is their home. That’s what this means. More importantly, it means York misses them, and Sosa can’t let that happen. Not when they’re coming back.
“If you want to steal clothes so badly,” e says, “let’s go raid what the other Queens have. I bet they’ve got something that would make the gold pop.” It’s a distraction, and not a terribly good one.
But York still takes eir hand when e offers it. “The difficulty is in not making it pop,” he says, and he’s a little unsteady on his feet, but he’s smiling as he lets Sosa lead him away.
