phyripowritesthings

[phyripowritesthings]

prompts 32 & 31

pairing: nedcan

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.)

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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.

[phyripowritesthings]

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 :)

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The Silver Bells

characters/pairings: Canada (Matthew)/Netherlands (Maarten)

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.

[phyripowritesthings]

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.

-

“This feels familiar,” Luxembourg tells Lithuania.

“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.

“Damn… Eastern Europeans,” he grumbles.

“Hey now, I’m fine,” says Liechtenstein, walking over.

“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.”

[phyripowritesthings]

ooh how about nedcan/18?

18. "How long have you been standing there?"

[yells] HELL YEAH NEDCAN!!

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.'

[phyripowritesthings]

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.

“It’s for good luck,” he says.

“That’s nice. My brother gave me the finger.”

Tolys laughs at Eduard’s pained look, narrowly avoiding spraying cake crumbs everywhere.

“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.”

-

“It’s going, huh?” Feliks asks.

“It’s going,” Tolys confirms with a grin.

“Yeah, I thought so. Your shirt is inside-out.”

fin.

[phyripowritesthings]

ooooh omg, norhong and 39? or 46?

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.

[phyripowritesthings]

Two things:

I'm doing requests! And I realize I've got followers here that don't follow my main blog so, if you want, send me a pairing and a number from this list (here or on my main blog) and I'll write you a fic!

My tags have been re-organized in a way that's even accessible on the mobile app. It's mostly for my own convenience, but feel free to take a look :)

[phyripowritesthings]

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: 1016 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 is 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, and on the other side of the water, the city is alive with the sounds of tourists and 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, only to find that he has 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, and 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, really.

“It’s always getting warmer, lately,” he adds absently, while he’s rolling up his sleeves. Across his forearms, Miglė can see the faint, pale lines of crisscrossing scars, and 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 even of a stormy sea.

“So do you,” the man is saying, taking a sip of his 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 his 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… 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 the same, 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 like 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 quite 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 any 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 one of 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.

Lietuva.

[phyripowritesthings]

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.”

[phyripowritesthings]

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.

[phyripowritesthings]

the last outsider POV first kiss ficlet for now! but I might do more :)

--

released

pairings/characters: Belarus/Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia

word count: 852

summary:

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!”

“Oh, sure,” Ukraine answers, smiling. “How about…”

“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?”

“That’s…”

“I’ll put my fucking fist in your mouth—”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Lithuania blinks. “That sounds nice, thank you, Ukraine.”

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.

[phyripowritesthings]

another first kiss outsider pov fic! you know, I don't think I've written prumano since, like, 2012. pretty sure they were one of my first solid Hetalia ships!

--

belong

pairings/characters: Prussia/Romano, Germany

word count: 721

summary:

Germany is in search of Romano, and finds something unexpected.

--

2001

There is an empty chair at the meeting table. Since they can’t discuss Italy’s plans when only half of Italy is present, Germany sacrifices himself to go in search of Romano. He can hardly get more hated by him, anyway.

After not spotting him in the hotel lobby, Germany goes and knocks on South Italy’s door, but gets no reply. If he was in, he reasons, he’d certainly answer if just to do some yelling, so what else? The restaurant, perhaps. He checks. No Romano.

Popping his head back into the meeting hall just in case, Germany finds that he hasn’t arrived in the meantime. He starts climbing the stairs, thinking Romano might be hiding in the stairwell? But no.

However, at the top of the stairs, there is a door that says ‘staff only’ and is slightly ajar. In the interest of checking all avenues, Germany pushes the door open and finds himself on the roof of the hotel. It’s windy up here, but sunny and quiet. He listens more carefully. No, not quiet. He can hear a voice, too far away to make out the words, but it certainly sounds like Romano. Just as he is about to step around the stairwell, Germany recognizes that there is another voice, and thinks, Oh no, there should have been two empty chairs.

They forgot about Prussia. Again.

Taking a deep breath, Germany walks up to the corner of the stairwell and looks around it.

Romano and Prussia are sat, not quite on the edge of the roof but on a ledge a bit away from it, their backs to the stairs. They sit close together, bent towards each other, Romano with one leg folded underneath the other and gesticulating wildly as he speaks, Prussia watching him with a wry smile. They are both wearing suits, as though they got ready for the meeting and then just… Ended up on the roof. Germany would love to know how that happened. Are they friends? Why does he not know?

He really should get them both to come down.

Just as he wants to step forward and clear his throat to get their attention, Germany sees Prussia shake his head, in response to which Romano gestures emphatically—more emphatically than usual—and grasps his lapels with both hands. This visibly startles Prussia, and Germany curiously watches his brother touch one of Romano’s hands, turning more towards him on the ledge.

The wind carries some of Romano’s words over, most notably, “No, you fucking idiot,” in French, no less, and Germany bristles on behalf of his brother, but then—then Romano leans forward and kisses Prussia, without any anger behind it, just a softness Germany would never have expected from him.

And he thinks, oh, more than friends, even, but then his gaze catches on the way Prussia freezes for just a moment before he responds, curling his fingers around Romano’s wrist tentatively and leaning his whole body into him as his eyes close. Germany realizes with a shock that this must be new, brand new, and suddenly feels like an intruder. He takes a step back.

Which, of course, makes his foot smash into a vent with a loud clang.

Prussia and Romano startle. Look over at him. Germany holds both hands up apologetically, though Romano’s expression has already turned murderous.

“What the fuck do you want?” he shouts, no longer in French but Italian, letting go of Prussia to gesture. With only one hand though, Germany notes, the other still curled into his lapel.

“I’m—there’s a meeting,” he says. “It was supposed to start thirty minutes ago, but we’re missing half of two countries.”

Prussia looks over at him, then, and smiles. He touches Romano’s hand and says something to him that gets lost to the wind but makes his face soften in a way Germany has never seen.

“Fine!” Romano shouts.

They’re both coming over, then, and Romano is pointing a threatening finger at Germany without a word as he stalks past to the stairs. Prussia shrugs when Germany looks at him, though he’s smiling as well while he smooths out a crease in his lapel.

“Better day than I expected, West,” he just says, and hurries after Romano.

Alright. Germany supposes that, in the end, that is the best anyone can ask for.

[phyripowritesthings]

because I'm finally back after Years, I've got several small fics about someone witnessing a first kiss! this is the first of those :)

--

open doors

pairings/characters: Australia/Seychelles, England

word count: 586

summary:

England finds two of his guests throwing propriety to the wind after the Queen's coronation.

--

1952

England couldn’t immediately place the laughter he heard, although he knew it was at least somewhat familiar. Feminine, which certainly narrowed the options down quite a bit, but not enough by far.

Curious what was so amusing, he followed the sound through the halls of the palace, where many nations were currently staying as honoured guests, until he found the room it came from. Just as he peered around the corner of the doors, a more familiar, masculine voice joined in the laughter.

Australia had grown a lot over the past half-century, and was now a tall, strong young man, but he still had the same mischievous laugh and wild hair as centuries before. England could see that right now, he was only wearing a short-sleeved undershirt despite the draught, and that the female nation with him in the room was, in fact, Seychelles. Her dark hair was still piled on her head in artful curls, but she was now draped in several layers of clothing over her formal dress—including both Australia’s shirt and jacket.

England shook his head, unnoticed. The boy still had no sense of propriety.

“You can’t be serious!” Seychelles was saying through laughter, tugging the jacket tighter around her shoulders. From his place hidden by the doors, England could see both of their profiles, and he saw Australia grin as he leant forward in his seat.

“I promise, Sey, I’m dead serious. Smuggled himself all the way to Sydney. Never seen England so baffled again.”

Sey? Honestly, that boy. And—wait—not that story!

“Just as well, probably,” she was saying, drawing her feet up on the settee (!) and smiling back at Australia.

Really, England thought, leaning against the doorframe, he ought to put a stop to all this.

“Could be,” Australia replied, voice gone curiously soft all of a sudden. It was quite startling to England, who’d only ever known him as loud. “It’s not all bad, anyway.”

“D’you reckon?” Seychelles asked, and now she sounded… Teasing? What had France taught that girl?

“Well, good chance I’d never have met you if not for the Queen, yeah?”

“Long live the Queen then, isn’t it?”

“Long live the Queen.”

England peeked around the doors again and saw that both nations had now leant far forward in their seats, Seychelles sitting cross-legged and with sleeves covering her hands in her lap. She looked down at them, then up at Australia, and smiled again.

“Sey,” he started, and England had no idea what passed between the two of them in the moment after that, but he saw Australia stand suddenly to step close to the settee. Seychelles tilted her head up to him, then lifted one sleeve-covered hand to his face as he leant down and kissed her, both hands curling around her jaw.

England clasped a hand over his mouth to stifle a noise that wanted to escape and quickly hid behind the door again. No propriety at all! Anyone could see! Not to mention… Oh—they’d probably not see each other for years and years after this, having no close political ties and only being in London for the coronation.

Foolish young nations. That was a hard lesson to learn, England knew this all too well.

Cautiously, he peeked once more. The two of them were now both on the settee, faces close together and talking much too low for him to understand.

With a sigh, England silently closed the doors to the room, and went on his way. Long live the Queen.

[phyripowritesthings]

hello! it seems to be @aphrarepairweek2021 and I'm not one to ignore that! here's some... domestic denfin stuff for day 1, language. I've gone for a pretty liberal approach to the prompts this year, but that's mostly so that all my fics will fit into the same universe :> (it is also the same universe as two of last year's rarepairweek fics! I'll make a tag for it) (that is also the reason I had to call sve berwald and not torbjörn like I usually do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) they will all be standalone little fics but take place in the same au, over the same sort of time period!

--

in major scale

pairings/characters: Denmark (Søren)/Finland (Tuomi), Estonia (Eduard), Sweden (Berwald), Hungary (Erzsébet) + past SuFin mentioned word count: 2219 summary: Tuomi admires how much Søren cares about other people. It inspires him to do the same.

--

A series of thumps and clomps heralds Søren’s arrival home. Tuomi looks up with amusement when the door of his little home studio in the back of their house bursts open.

“Tuomi!” Søren shouts. He brings with him the smell of recent rain and early spring blossoms.

Eduard, who is sitting behind Tuomi at his keyboard and wearing headphones, very nearly tumbles off his stool in shock.

“Søren!” Tuomi just returns, while his brother rights himself and glares. “You seem unusually excited.”

Eduard snorts, which makes Søren grin. ‘Unusually excited’ means something different when applied to him than most other people.

“Guess what!” he says, closing the door behind him and leaning against it. His socked feet are both tapping on the ground, with no rhythm to it. Tuomi is sure he couldn’t say what’s got into him; as far as he knows, Søren was just looking after his young nephews for the afternoon.

“Your brother didn’t hide the sugar well enough,” he guesses.

“No, that’s—well, he didn’t, but that’s not my point. Berwald’s gettin’ married!” Now, he waves his arms around wildly. “My brother’s gettin’ married, Tuomi! I’m so proud of him.”

Turning slightly, Tuomi exchanges an amused look with his own brother, who has taken his headphones off and is leaning forward over his keyboard, elbows planted over the keys.

“Now, Søren,” Eduard starts, using his haughtiest voice, which is very haughty. It’s an odd talent.

“Don’t you dare,” he interrupts, though he’s still grinning, “bring up the time he and Tuomi were plannin’ on gettin’ hitched, ‘cause that was ages ago and ain’t relevant anymore.”

“Alright, alright.” Eduard holds up his hands placatingly, and Tuomi just snickers. Søren’s right, he thinks; it’s been over fifteen years since then, and although the whole thing where he took up with the brother of the man who was nearly his husband was awkward at first, for all that it happened several years later, he’s since become good friends with Berwald again. It’s probably better this way.

“That’s great, Søren!” he just says. “And you’re gonna be the best man, I assume?”

“Of course!” His dark blue eyes crinkle at the corners, scrunching up his many freckles in laugh lines and dimples. Tuomi really admires how much Søren cares about other people, even if sometimes it comes at the expense of himself. Tuomi can always remedy that, after all.

“That means you’re gonna have to help with a bunch of organizing, isn’t it?”

“Don’t sound do skeptical of me, Eduard!” Pushing away from the door, Søren lightly strums the strings of an uncovered acoustic guitar sitting in its stand before taking a large step towards Tuomi and bending down to kiss him over the microphone between them, Tuomi angling his own electric guitar out of the way. He smells like sea wind and hair gel, and does taste distinctly sugary behind the smile his lips are still curved into.

Tuomi mutters, “I think you’ll do great. Berwald’s lucky to have you.”

“I hope so. Y’know, the boys are excited as anythin’.” Now, he practically melts, draping his long limbs over Tuomi and his guitar. He always does this when he as much as thinks about his nephews, Berwald’s young sons. Tuomi and Søren are very much the fun uncles. It is a title they both wear with pride.

Patting his jeans-clad ass affectionately, Tuomi pushes his nose into Søren’s wild coppery hair.

“Yeah? They’ve given their blessing, then?”

“Already fightin’ over who gets to be ringbearer.”

“Cute.”

The door of the studio opens.

“Whoa! Am I interrupting?” shouts Tuomi’s half-sister, bursting in.

Eduard, now leaning his head in his hands, says, “Please save me.”

“Berwald’s gettin’ married!” Søren shouts, into Tuomi’s ear. He gets along with Erzsébet far too well.

“Tuomi’s ex?” she yells back, and Eduard promptly loses it. He doubles over his keyboard in hiccupping laughter, shaking and pressing almost all the keys in a horrifyingly discordant tone. Søren looks betrayed in a very comical way. He crosses his arms as he turns to Erzsébet, folding his hands into the sleeves of his red knit sweater. Berwald made that one.

“She not wrong,” Tuomi tells him, holding back laughter of his own. Now even more comically betrayed, Søren turns back to him, with his dark eyebrows raised high and ready to deliver a quasi-outraged speech, but Erzsébet forestalls him.

“You need to make a song for the wedding!”

“Yes!” Tuomi perks up, almost poking Søren in the hip with the neck of his guitar.

“A song?” the man echoes, looking between all three of them. Eduard is now only playing a couple of notes at the same time, thankfully, and he straightens up fully to explain their family tradition.

“We always do it for weddings. It has to be something they’d like, and something the couple can dance to.”

“And then we give it funny lyrics,” Tuomi finishes, “about the person getting married. But we always make sure it’s good.”

“Well, I ain’t surprised about that part, ya snobs.” Søren shakes his head affectionately. He has absolutely no feel for music, but that just means that he appreciates things that most other people wouldn’t give their time of day.

It also means that he somehow considers Tuomi’s very musically inclined family to be elitist about music, which Tuomi thinks is dumb, but he’s not one to argue. He’ll leave that to his brother; it’s very amusing. As a matter of fact, Eduard is already narrowing his eyes at Søren, but doesn’t say anything before he continues.

“I don’t know if Berwald would like that, honestly. It’s not really something we do.”

“Come on, everyone likes music!” Erzsébet enthuses, walking further inside and skirting around Søren and Tuomi in the small space to lean an elbow on Eduard’s shoulder.

“Sure, he likes it, but, I mean—we ain’t like you guys, is all.”

No one is quite like his family, Tuomi thinks, but he appreciates that all the more these days. Søren is the most generous, openminded person he knows, and has broadened his worldview amazingly in the time they’ve been together. Not that his family isn’t openminded; they’re just less inclined to explore than Søren is.

Still, “Music is a universal language, isn’t it?” Tuomi asks him, bumping his shoulder into Søren’s upper arm. He inclines his head in agreement. “It doesn’t even have to have lyrics if you think Berwald wouldn’t like it. Or his fiancé, of course,” he adds, because he doesn’t know the man that well but knows he, like Berwald, doesn’t really appreciate being made fun of, even in good humor.

This is, again, unlike Søren, which is probably why it didn’t work out with his brother and does work with him.

Well, it’s part of it.

Erzsébet, the lyricist of the family, gasps dramatically at the mention of not having lyrics to go with the song, and coughs. She should really quit smoking. Eduard pats her back awkwardly, getting a face full of long brown hair for his efforts.

“And then?” Søren’s asking, but his head is still tilted thoughtfully, as if he’s considering it.

“Well, then it can be for a dance! Consider it a wedding gift from me.”

“His ex,” Erzsébet murmurs, recovered, and Eduard starts giggling again.

“His brother-in-law.” Tuomi blindly throws a guitar pick at her over his shoulder, which, going by the plink and following yelp, hits Eduard’s glasses instead.

Huh. That’s pretty impressive.

“Well, someone will have to teach him how to dance first—”

They all look away.

“—but that sounds awesome, actually! Would you guys be willing to play it?” In his excitement, Søren has leaned very close to Tuomi again, vision filling with his grin and his many, many freckles, and Tuomi can’t help but kiss the corner of his mouth.

“I’d love to.”

His siblings make agreeing noises.

“Right! Well, should I—what’re you guys workin’ on, actually?” Søren gazes around the small space as if hoping to glean clues. Which clues, Tuomi is not sure. He can’t really read music, after all.

“Just tinkering a bit,” Tuomi says. Eduard plays the first few chords of the most recent wedding song they’d written, several years ago already. Erzsébet slaps the cymbal of her drum set in apparent agreement, reaching behind her.

“Hey, I wrote some lyrics, actually,” she says. “I think they’re pretty good.”

It’s been years since they actually made original music that they deemed good enough to send out into the world, but their songs are still getting decent amounts of listeners on Spotify, which is nice; it’s mostly a hobby for all three of them, after all. Lately, though, Eduard and Tuomi have started seriously considering making some new material, and Erzsébet seems to be on board. She promises to send the lyrics to both of them. Although she, like both of her half-brothers and much to Søren’s amazement, plays several instruments, she doesn’t have much talent for composing.

Tuomi tried to teach Søren guitar once. It was fun, but very unsuccessful. He does like the drums.

That’s probably why he gets along with Erzsébet so well.

Deciding that today is probably not going to be very productive, all four of them go into the house instead, and Tuomi makes coffee while Søren hands out some cupcakes that he made yesterday, because Søren very much believes that food is a universal language. He isn’t wrong, if you ask Tuomi, but that’s mostly because Søren is very good at making food, unlike Tuomi.

They’ve all got their talents, he supposes, and it’s how they use them in combination that matters. Even if he’s been banned from using the oven for anything more than frozen pizza.

Eduard, of course, asks for the recipe, because Eduard didn’t get that memo about talents and has too many of them.

Tuomi’s siblings don’t actually stay around for very long after that, both promising to think about the wedding song for Berwald. It is mostly an empty promise on Erzsébet’s part, but that’s okay. Eduard walks away while muttering about waltzes, which Tuomi appreciates, because Berwald seems like a man—is a man, he knows this—who appreciates a bit of tradition, and he’s never tried to compose an instrumental, mostly classical song before.

“You’re adorable, you know,” he tells Søren, who’s standing behind him in the hallway of their house after having seen his siblings off. Søren just grins, rocking back on his heels, hands clasped behind his back and looking much younger than he is.

“I’m just happy for my brother.”

“I know.” Tuomi reaches up to flick some errant hair out of the way. “It’s really cute.”

He gets excited about the smallest things, Søren. Random dogs on the street and odd world records and warm coats and almost everything that’s even a little bit nice. It’d get annoying, Tuomi’s sure, if he weren’t so sincere about it all the time. He got very excited about their civil union as well, which was honestly mostly practical. Tuomi had almost wanted to get married, just to see his reaction to it, but he’d decided years before that marriage wasn’t for him, and remains glad that he stuck by that belief, in the end.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Søren suddenly asks, blue eyes searching Tuomi’s face.

“What? Oh, no, of course not. Berwald’s a good man, and he deserves to be happy.” He shrugs. “I know he’s always wanted the whole… Domestic thing.”

“Guy’s had a plan for a wedding since he was twelve or something,” Søren confirms, grinning. “Only took him thirty years and a couple kids.”

Tuomi knows; he was shown the plan, sixteen years ago, but he decides not to mention that. It’d been quite intimidating at the time; he’d only been 22 and much more interested in… Well, practically anything besides marriage.

Søren slings an arm across his shoulders, squeezing him tightly to his lanky form, and starts walking them both back to the kitchen.

“You’d know, I guess,” he muses, then pulls a face. Tuomi laughs.

“That one was your fault!”

“I know, I know. Don’t remind me.”

Tuomi stops walking, tilting his head up at Søren.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asks. Turning back, Søren blinks at him.

“Obviously not,” he says, but he bites the inside of his cheek and furrows his dark brows, so there’s evidently something more there.

There’s another thing Tuomi had to be taught by Søren; reading body language. It’s not his fault his family is so unexpressive!

“But?” he prompts.

“I just hope I can do well for him.” Søren shrugs. “He’s my big brother, y’know, and I do kinda feel like I ruined his first chance of marriage sometimes. I know that’s dumb,” he adds hastily.

Tuomi mumbles, “Yeah, that was definitely me.” And then, “Like you say, he’s your big brother. He loves you. Speaking as someone with two older siblings, they might razz you a bit—”

“That’s just your siblings, Tuomi,” Søren interrupts, but the grin is back on his face and just as bright as before. “But I get what you’re saying. Thanks.”

Tuomi boots him with his shoulder, and he laughs, clomping ahead. Tuomi follows, quickly.

Before he eats all the other cupcakes.

[phyripowritesthings]

who wants some corny slice of life lietpol? the answer is me! because I had not written anything yet this year and it felt Bad. I might do more of these little..... moments, for other pairings. it’s a fun exercise in characterization. 

--

sunshine (once again)

characters/pairings: Lithuania (Tolys)/Poland (Feliks)

word count: 1800 

summary:

On a sunny spring day, Feliks can only be glad of where he is right now.

--

Feliks draws idle shapes on his sketchpad, tracing shadows as they pass through the sunlight. The shadow of the brim of his hat is the base—he imagines it’s the surface of a new planet that he can populate as he wishes.

Irrevocably, though, his eye is drawn away from what is supposed to be work and across the small tiled terrace in the backyard, to where Tolys is humming under his breath and kneeling amid the flowers, carefully digging holes for new ones and removing weeds. There is sunlight in the man’s hair, bringing out both the deep gold and emerging silver among the brown strands. His dirt-caked hands are careful with bulbs and flowers, and quick with weeds.

Looking back down, Feliks draws a vaguely humanoid shape on his sketchpad, which he really shouldn’t be doing because it’s expensive, professional paper, but, well, this sheet is already wasted either way, so he can’t do further harm. It’s relaxing.

Tolys interrupts his humming.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he says, gently. “Get out of here. Go home.”

He’s shooing the neighbor’s cat away when Feliks looks, waving his little spade at it.

“Come on, go on. No, I don’t have anything to eat for you.” Helplessly, he looks over at Feliks when the cat drops itself to its back without preamble as if it’s asking for pets. Feliks sketches an amused little wave and gestures at his nose. Tolys shakes his head, unimpressed but amused.

Well, it is true that Feliks doesn’t usually let his allergies deter him from petting any cat. Or dog. He’s not picky. He just doesn’t feel like getting up right now.

“Get,” Tolys tries again, to the cat. And then, “Well, fine.”

After he pets the cat for four seconds, the animal jumps up and races away, leaving his hand hovering in mid-air. Feliks snorts.

Then innocently looks at his ridiculous drawing so he only hears Tolys’s answering huff.

Before long, the large sheet of paper is just about full of nonsense—although Feliks made an effort at the last moment to at least do some experimental sketches of buildings one might find on this planet of his. Just as a thought exercise. He’s pretty sure the geometry doesn’t make sense on at least two of them.

Tolys, who has by now upgraded to whistling the same tune—or downgraded, maybe, Feliks couldn’t say—is patting the ground around the last sprout into place when he checks, reaching across the other flowers carefully. His sleeveless shirt shows off his shoulders, strong and tanned by the late spring sun. Feliks knows he has freckles there, which fascinates him because there are none anywhere else on his body as far as he’s aware.

A shadow falls over his paper.

“I thought you said you were working,” Tolys says, amused and standing in front of Feliks. He shields his eyes from the sun and tilts his head to look at the drawing.

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Feliks shrugs up at him, smiling faintly, and Tolys laughs brightly. When he swipes his hair away from his face, some dirt crumbles off his fingers to slide down his shirt, and he looks at his hands. Feliks shivers at the dirt under his nails. He can practically feel it.

“Remind me that we need gardening gloves.” Tolys picks at his fingernails.

“Got it.”

“I’ll go and wash this off, at least.”

Feliks nods, then puts his sketchpad on the bench next to himself and stands, pushing his hat back a little so he doesn’t hit Tolys in the face with it.

“Do you want some coffee after you’re done?”

“Yes, thanks!”

Waiting for him to take his old sneakers off outside and enter the house through the conservatory, Feliks follows him to start up the coffee maker in the kitchen. He stares absently at the gentle drip of fragrant coffee while the water runs in the bathroom, combing his fingers through his own hair where his hat has flattened it, until Tolys come back downstairs, wearing different clothes and with clean hands.

“Almost done,” Feliks mumbles. Tolys pulls their usual cups down from the cupboards.

When they both have their coffee, they go outside again. Tolys takes a banana as well, which he breaks in half to share with Feliks. Feliks, meanwhile, kicks his slippers off and sits cross-legged on the bench, turning his face to the sun for a moment before shielding it with the hat again.

“Are you done with the garden?” he asks Tolys.

“For now, yes.” He smiles at it over the rim of his coffee cup. “It’ll be beautiful come summer.” Resting his cup on his thigh, he flexes the fingers of his free hand, which, while clean, now look quite red and very dry. Feliks frowns, shoving the last piece of his banana into his mouth.

“Give,” he says, beckoning. Tolys startles and raises his eyebrows.

“What?”

“Your hands.”

“I’m holding—”

“One hand at a time.” Turning sideways on the bench, shifting the cushions on the wood a bit, Feliks grasps Tolys’s left hand, which is the one closest to him. The man doesn’t say anything, just smiles and cradles his coffee cup with his other hand.

Feliks tsks as he runs a thumb across the new calluses on Tolys’s index finger and palm, holding his hand between both of his own. Feliks’s fingers are small and pale compared to Tolys’s, graphite staining his left hand but the nails smooth and clean. He pushes his thumbs down gently at the base of the palm, sweeping one down over Tolys’s wrist, where his skin is soft and warm.

“I should really have some, ah, like, some hand cream,” he says absently, and Tolys smiles.

“This is good enough.” With the back resting on Feliks’s knee, his hand is limp while it is gently kneaded, only the fingertips curling inwards. Grinning, Feliks taps them with his own as if pressing piano keys, before moving on to Tolys’s fingers.

They’re always thoughtful, those fingers, gentle with flowers and sure with those old-fashioned fountain pens Tolys likes to use for work. They may not know how to play the piano or how to braid very well, but Feliks trusts them to touch him in a way he doesn’t trust many things to. Because Tolys knows when to stop, and Feliks has learned to tell him to do so in return. And to listen.

He warms Tolys’s fingers between his own in the sunshine until he’s satisfied that he’s comfortable and swipes his thumb over his wrist again.

“Let me guess, you want my other hand now,” Tolys says without looking at him, face turned to the sun and eyes closed.

“Well, you do use both of them.”

At that, he opens one mossy green eye to look at Feliks, inclining his head slightly.

“I use the right hand more.”

“All the more reason, then.” Feliks reaches across his body with both hands and grasps his right one, pulling it towards himself. Although Tolys laughs, it’s gentle, and he shifts just enough to be comfortable. He closes his eyes again.

Opens them.

“Don’t forget to drink your coffee.”

Oh, of course. Reluctantly, Feliks drops the hand to grab his coffee and drink it all quickly. He grimaces.

Tolys snickers, then closes his eyes again and looks perfectly innocent.

“Can’t believe you,” Feliks mutters, but he watches the smile curl around Tolys’s lips with warm affection anyway as he picks his hand up again. Despite the gentleness of the smile, it pulls at his cheek and the corner of his eyes, marking the skin with little lines that speak of something true.

“You keep drinking coffee,” Tolys says mildly.

“You keep buying this brand.” He ghosts his fingertips over the sensitive inside of his elbow, which makes him jump just a little, and laughs.

“Feliks.”

He just keeps smiling. It may be cheating a bit to tickle someone when being tickled himself makes Feliks extremely uncomfortable, but Tolys has assured him that he doesn’t mind, every now and then.

When Feliks is done with his right hand as well, Tolys opens his eyes again, looking a little bleary. He blinks, looking up at him from his slight slouch.

“Where did you learn that?” he asks, as if just now realizing what he was actually doing.

Feliks just shrugs. He honestly doesn’t know where he picked up half the things he knows—it just took him a long time to find his way in life, and he took a lot of detours to get there.

“Well, it’s nice.” Tolys turns his hand over to clasp his knee for a moment.

“I could do your head, too,” Feliks puts in, pretty sure he did a course where he learned about scalp massages once.

“Hm. You just want to get in my hair.”

“You like it when I do.”

In response to that, Tolys just smiles innocently. They’ve spent many evenings with Feliks silently braiding and re-braiding Tolys’s thick hair while he listens to music, the man’s head in his lap. Tolys will doze or read a book propped on his chest. It’s a kind of intimacy that suits them both perfectly, and gives Feliks’s restless fingers something to do.

“My head got quite sweaty, actually,” Tolys is saying now. “I meant to take a shower after dinner.”

“Then can I?”

He grins, nodding so that his hair sways against his jaw. Feliks doesn’t think it looks sweaty, but then, it’s harder to tell with Tolys’s dark hair than his own pale blond, which gets stringy very fast. He sometimes suspects that he is the main reason that Tolys keeps it at the length he does, which is fine by him.

Now, Tolys leaves his left hand resting on his knee and reaches over with the other to pick up his sketchpad. He holds it up as if inspecting the drawing.

“I’m quite curious about this, Feliks,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, so am I, really.” Looking at it again, it’s really just a mess, although those windows he drew in the corner are quite nice. Tolys laughs.

“I’m working, he says.”

“I made an attempt.”

“Hm.” With a lingering smile, Tolys hands the sketchpad over, drumming his fingers on Feliks’s leg once. Feliks plays an imaginary little tune on his knuckles in return.

The neighbor’s cat sits down right at the edge of the patch of new flowers, looking quite curious as well, but Tolys has closed his eyes again and doesn’t see it. Feliks puts his finger over his lips before pulling his pencil from behind his ear and adjusting his hat until it shadows the sketchpad again.

Maybe, he can get some actual work done before dinner.

[phyripowritesthings]

hey uhh..... advent denest!! this is just the first chapter, every day from now until christmas there will be a new one featuring a christmassy/wintery prompt for that day, but I won’t bother you with that here--check out the ao3 link! :D (maybe I’ll get some other chapters on here too, just to remind everyone, but I’ll think about that)

--

Snowfall Music

pairings/characters: Denmark (Søren)/Estonia (Eduard), mentioned Finland (Tuomi)/Sweden (Torbjörn), Sealand (Peter), Ladonia (Lars), Vietnam (Vinh), Czechia (Kveta) word count: 4782 summary: Eduard has enough to occupy him this December without having to look after his young cousins, or trying to organize events on his radio show, or having to field strange phone calls day after day, but it seems the end of the year has it out for him.

And somehow, Søren manages to brighten every dark day. Hopefully, he'll stick around for a while.

also on AO3 - further chapters posted there!

--

“Today on Radio 8, I have some pretty special guests on the show. Now, this was a surprise for me as well—” Eduard opens the audio channels of two of the other microphones in the studio— “but I’m excited they’re here, so welcome to my cousins, Pete—”

“Once removed,” Lars interrupts, raising his eyebrows and wrinkling his freckled nose as if he thinks Eduard is a bit dim. He probably does, come to think of it. The boy is just at that age.

“Alright,” he amends anyway, “my first cousins once removed, Peter and Lars. They’re my first cousin Tuomi’s sons. Is that better?”

“Yes,” Lars replies imperiously. Peter is rolling his eyes, and Eduard has to stifle a laugh while he turns on some background music.

“Their parents are on a trip out of town for the week, so Peter and Lars have been entrusted to Uncle Eduard for the time being—first cousin once removed Eduard, I know, Lars, but I’ll start saying that when you start calling me that.”

“I will.”

“I don’t doubt it. Why don’t you two introduce yourselves, and then you can think of a song you’d like to hear.” He prays Tuomi hasn’t managed to instill too much of his taste in music in his sons just yet, because although they’re ostensibly a rock station, he doesn’t think his listeners are quite ready for metal that heavy.

“I’m Peter,” Peter all but shouts into his microphone, so Eduard lowers his volume slightly. “I’m twelve, and I, ah, I play hockey, I guess?”

That sounds about right.

“And Lars?”

“Well, I’m Lars, I’m also twelve, and I have a podcast.”

“A podcast, really? What’s it about?”

“School and things,” he replies, and nothing else.

“That’s great,” Eduard enthuses anyway, because he does think it is. “You must be excited to visit the studio, then. Would you like to work in radio someday?”

Peter is shaking his head quite frantically and making slashing motions with both hands, but the damage is done, as Lars huffs, wrinkling his nose again and leaning in close to the microphone.

“Radio is very different from podcasts. You just talk around the music.”

Eduard blinks. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t.”

Eduard looks helplessly over at his production assistant, who seems uncharacteristically amused by the whole exchange, her eyebrows twitching ever so slightly.

“Where did you get that sass from?” He knows it must be Tuomi, unless his husband, Torbjörn, has very deeply hidden depths. And, before Lars can actually reply, “Peter, what should we listen to? What music do you like?”

Lars is opening his mouth, but Peter forestalls him, yelling, “Imagine Dragons!”

So Eduard starts a jingle as he lines up an Imagine Dragons song from the station’s playlist and an older rock song to play after that, pushing the slides for the microphone channels down. When he looks at Lars, the boy is just glancing away, attempting to seem disinterested in everything going on by crossing his arms and pressing his lips together. Eduard shakes his head fondly as he scrolls through some of the messages people have sent the show, including some asking if his cousins will help him judge his weekly dumbest pun contest, which he doesn’t imagine will benefit the already low bar for that one, so that’s perfect.

When he asks the boys about it, Lars starts to say something undoubtedly disparaging about how his podcast never has puns, but Peter quickly interrupts again. Eduard is around them enough that he knows this has been their usual behavior for the past few years, and more often than not, the brothers remind him strongly of himself and Tuomi at their age. They always were more like siblings than cousins, and when their older cousin Erzsébet was asked to babysit, she never seemed inclined to stop them.

Granted, he wasn’t doing podcasts when he was twelve, but he does remember using the house phone to call the local radio station multiple times until his parents started threatening to take the phone bill out of his allowance, and then how was he going to buy CDs? The radio show hosts actually wondered what happened to him after a couple of days without word and his parents had to call in to explain. It’s a fond if embarrassing memory.

The show continues in a slightly messier fashion than usual, mostly due to Peter’s attempts to interrupt every single sentence his brother starts to say and Lars stubbornly talking over him, but it’s fun. Eduard reminds himself to make a compilation or something to give Tuomi and Torbjörn when they get back home.

He lets Lars pick a song as well, as his afternoon show nears the end of its first hour. While the mildly surprising requested obscure progressive rock plays, he becomes aware of movement out of the corner of his eye.

Turning, Eduard huffs a laugh when he spots the sheepish-looking freckled face peering through the studio’s windowed door.

“Boys,” he says, ignoring that Lars just glares at him for daring to interrupt his very intent listening, “looks like your uncle finally showed up.”

Peter’s face lights up when he sees the man on the other side of the door, waving enthusiastically. Søren waves back, face splitting in a grin. Although he is Torbjörn’s brother and not a cousin, he doesn’t bear much more resemblance to his brother than Eduard does to Tuomi. He’s tall, but not as tall as Torbjörn is—or Eduard, for that matter—and his eyes are a darker blue pronounced by nearly-black eyebrows that don’t match his coppery hair at all. Eduard has always thought of him as not handsome necessarily, but definitely interesting, and he’d be lying if he said he minded having to look after his cousins with the man.

They’re not close, but he and Søren have spent some time together, albeit mostly when Tuomi and Torbjörn needed someone to look after their sons for a while.

Now, Peter is moving his hands in a flurry of signals Eduard can’t make much of, except that he points at him at the end, and Søren is quickly signing back, his eyebrows jumping wildly.

“He can come in, you know,” Eduard tells Peter, slightly bewildered. He ignores the annoyed look his production assistant is giving her soundboard. At least, he thinks it’s annoyed. It can be hard to tell, with Vinh.

Peter dashes to the door to let in his uncle, who ruffles the boy’s unruly blond hair, waves at Lars—who ignores him—and grins at Eduard with a sheepish edge to it.

“Hey,” he says, “thanks so much for looking after ‘em! Sorry I couldn’t get there in time. Hope they didn’t cause too much trouble for you.”

“Lars is having loads of fun,” Peter declares, then proceeds to duck out of the way when Lars throws a wad of paper at his head. Eduard shrugs at Søren.

As Lars’s song ends, a commercial break begins, and Vinh wanders away to grab some tea and probably gossip about him with the other hosts, so Eduard puts his headphones down and turns his attention fully to Søren. The man is dressed in the same leather jacket he always seems to be wearing and a T-shirt, but doesn’t appear to be cold in the slightest. He has stuck both hands into the pockets of his jacket, but he still moves them wildly when he speaks. A backpack is slung over one shoulder.

“Thanks again. I really couldn’t get out of work, so I’m glad you could take the boys to yours.”

“Of course, no problem.” Eduard pushes his glasses up. “We did have fun, right, boys?”

Predictably, the response is lackluster, since Peter and Lars are too busy swatting at each other with Eduard’s papers.

“I promise we did,” he tells Søren a little forlornly, receiving a full laugh in response, blue eyes glittering in the studio’s bright lights and crinkling up at the corners.

“One day, they’ll learn to appreciate us, Eduard.”

The dubious expression he pulls in return must be funnier than he imagined, because Søren laughs again, extracting a hand from his jacket to clasp his shoulder. He smells pleasantly like the winter air outside, and like hair gel.

“I aspire to help ‘em keep as many secrets from their parents as possible, so they’ll be forever in my debt.”

“You have to wonder if that’s worth incurring Tuomi’s wrath.” Eduard turns back to his soundboard and patches the newsreader in from another location.

“I can take Tuomi.”

“I think that’s your brother’s job.”

Søren makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh and that makes Eduard grin, shaking his head.

“Are you staying for a while? The boys have a pun contest to judge, and I’m sure my listeners would like to hear from you.”

“Sure, sounds great,” he says, his grin softening surprisingly. “I just gotta ask you to keep the background music to a minimum, if you can.” He gestures vaguely at his ear, and Eduard remembers something.

“Right, you don’t hear so well, do you?”

“Practically deaf without my hearing aids, kind of a bummer when you’re on a radio show, I imagine.” He smiles, his eyes crinkling up.

“That’s why pa taught us sign language,” Peter pipes up. “Dad is so bad at it. Uncle Søren, I’d like it if you stayed.”

“Sign language,” Eduard repeats, because of course that’s what that was, but also, how has he never realized that before now? He’s more-or-less known Søren for over fifteen years by now. “Well, I’ll watch the music. Let me know if it still bothers you.”

Vinh returns just as the short second commercial break is ending, inclines her head towards Søren, who waves and does not seem the least perturbed by her lack of outward response, and they set off on the second hour of the show. Eduard lowers the volume of the background music to nearly zero, gesturing at Vinh to leave it.

“While we were away, my first cousins’ once removed actual uncle finally showed up, after he promised he’d pick his nephews up from school—”

“Hey,” Søren interrupts, “you’re painting me in a bad light here, and I don’t appreciate it.”

“It’s the light of truth.”

Astonishingly, Lars snickers at that. He apparently doesn’t care who gets made fun of as long as it’s not him.

“Well, he’s here now, so hello, Søren. He works for the same company my cousin does, so… Is it your fault that we’re saddled with these kids now?”

“Well, I did introduce their parents to each other, so I suppose…” Søren winks at Peter, who sticks his tongue out. “Hey, Eduard, I hear these two got to pick a song to listen to. Do I get a go at that?”

Eduard laughs. “No, no. You need to do a better job of picking them up from school for that. Maybe next time. Actually, I think we’re overdue for some Christmas music. It’s December, after all!”

Peter crows triumphantly. Søren just grins, shaking his head at Eduard, who shrugs in turn, amused.

The hour goes by fairly quickly. Søren animatedly asks the boys questions about their school day during songs that even Lars answers sometimes, and Vinh doesn’t seem to mind him, which is high honor.

By the time the host of the early evening show has arrived and is setting up her stuff while the last song of Eduard’s show plays, he has received quite some messages asking if his cousins or their uncle, who, according to one of his frequent listeners, ‘sounds like a rad dude’, will return. He gestures Søren over from where he’s now already making merry conversation with his colleague, who looks more bewildered than anything.

“What’s up?”

“Well, it seems my listeners like you more than they like me.” Eduard gestures at his computer screen, and Søren grins as he leans over next to him to read the messages. He’s taken his leather jacket off. There are freckles on his bare arms too, and he is making Eduard cold just by looking at them.

“Y’know, the only way to make ‘em rethink that is if I do come back, ain’t it? I can just be an all-round terrible co-host.”

“I like that idea,” Eduard replies, before turning his microphone on as the song ends. “Bruce Springsteen and Born to Run, and it’s the end of another afternoon. Kveta just got here—” he turns his attention to the next host, who nods— “Kveta, anything we can look forward to today?”

“No family members, I think, unless anyone wants me to prank call my stepbrother again.” She laughs. “I’ve got some great new tracks, and there might be some live music going on.”

“Very nice.”

“Of course. So, Eduard, are your family members coming back?”

Søren, who is still next to Eduard, pokes him in the side, then leans further forward to speak into his microphone.

“I’ve always dreamed of being a radio star.”

“I think he’s coming back to usurp me.” Eduard turns to Søren, almost poking his nose into the man’s spiky hair. “He’s already using my mic. And who knows what Peter and Lars will do, they’re twelve.”

“I guess that’s true,” Kveta replies. “Wow, Eduard, he’s really up in your face. I feel like someone should be shielding your cousins’ eyes.”

Peter laughs from where he’s now standing next to Vinh, peering at her screen. Vinh raises her eyebrows at Kveta, who smiles, bites her lip, and looks away. Eduard has to smother a laugh.

“Again, they’re twelve. And I think it’s time we all start heading home, so I’ll leave you to it, Kveta. Please don’t bother your stepbrother too much.” He tilts his head towards Vinh, quirking his mouth, and Kveta glares but sounds upbeat as ever when she replies.

“Can’t promise anything. Now, next hour, we’re starting off with some new music, so stay tuned. Eduard will be back tomorrow afternoon at four.”

The commercial break starts, and Eduard sets about packing up his things, gesturing Peter away from Vinh so Kveta can talk to her a bit before her own production team takes over. Most days, he’d stay at the studio for a while, but he decides to go home right away—Lars and Peter left some of their school supplies at his house that they’ll probably need tomorrow. So, after saying goodbye to Vinh and Kveta, he herds his cousins and Søren out of the studio and towards the elevator, which they ride down to the parking garage. Søren swings his backpack around and pulls out a knit red scarf.

When they reach the garage, the man grasps Eduard’s shoulder as they exit the elevator, stopping him in his tracks. The boys are already racing towards the car, which Eduard also wouldn’t have taken on most other days, preferring to use the bus, but he figured it’d be smarter to take his cousins that way.

“Hey,” Søren is saying, “I biked here, so—”

“In this cold? Do you want a lift?”

He blinks. Scratches his temple.

“There’s a bike carrier on my car,” Eduard adds. “It’s pretty new, I—”

“Uncle Eduard!” Peter calls, waiting by the back door of the car. Eduard holds up a hand—while Lars reminds his brother it’s first cousin once removed Eduard—and pulls the key fob out of his bag to unlock the door for him, then turns back to Søren.

“It’d be no problem; I could take you all over to your place after we stop by my house.”

“We should do dinner,” Søren says, à propos of nothing, his face bright in the gloom of the garage. “Yeah? I owe you one. What kinda food d’you like?”

“I… No, it’s fine, they’re my cousins, it was no trouble at all! I don’t need anything, Søren.” Eduard laughs awkwardly, fiddling with his glasses and looking towards his car. Peter is peering over the backseat.

“We could take the boys out somewhere—this weekend, maybe, before Tuomi and Torbjörn get back. Doesn’t have to be anything fancy.” His hand, still on Eduard’s shoulder, squeezes gently with every other word as if Søren is trying to get his usual gestures across that way. Or, now that he thinks about it, those are probably actual signs. He smiles.

“Well, maybe. I don’t have a show on the weekends.”

“Yeah?” When he pulls his hand back, Søren’s fingers glance off Eduard’s neck. They’re warm. “I’m sure we can find something even Lars will approve of.”

That sounds dubious, but Eduard will hold out hope. Søren agrees to a lift, though, and they figure out how to put his bike on the carrier without difficulties before piling in and driving over to Eduard’s house.

Søren traipses inside after Lars and Peter, peering around curiously.

“Nice place,” he tells Eduard, who waits in the hall while his cousins collect their things. And, “Hey, you should stay for dinner at mine.”

“Søren…”

“Just sayin’, why eat here all by your lonesome when there’s plenty of food at mine? You gotta go there anyways.” At this, he pokes Eduard’s arm gently. “I mean, if you need some alone time after dealing with those two, I ain’t judging.”

Huffing a laugh, Eduard shakes his head. “I don’t know how Tuomi and Torbjörn do it.”

“Together, and with practice, I guess. Wanna come?”

Eduard contemplates it for a moment, looking into the living room and thinking about the leftover spaghetti he has in the fridge.

“Alright. Thank you, Søren.”

Søren smiles, softer than seems to be the norm for him, his cheeks dimpling gently. It’s like a little ray of sunshine on a December day.

“Boys!” he yells, clasping Eduard’s shoulder again when he winces. “Sorry. I’m no good at regulating my own volume.”

Lars is glaring at his uncle, having already been standing in the doorway to the living room with his school bag in hand and having heard him loud and clear.

“Sorry,” Søren repeats, this time signing it as well, putting his hands together as if in prayer.

“What?” Peter yells back from somewhere else. Seconds later, he skids into the hall, his sneakers leaving black marks on the wood floor. “What.”

“Eduard’s coming over for dinner. Got everything?”

They both nod, and Peter claps Eduard on the back as they all head back out. Søren laughs. He takes his scarf off when he gets into the car this time.

“Hey, are you allergic to anything? Or vegetarian?”

“I’m not, don’t worry.” He checks over his shoulder that his cousins have their seatbelts on, then starts his car. “I mean, I don’t eat a lot of meat these days, but I won’t say no.”

“Hm, yeah, that’s good. I oughta be better at that.”

With Søren’s instructions—gestures included—Eduard finds his building on the outskirts of one of the older suburbs easily. Søren tosses Lars the keys to his apartment and the boys run off while Eduard helps him get his bike down from the car, then waits while he parks it somewhere in the shared storage space.

“Alright! C’mon, Eduard, I don’t really want ‘em to break my kitchen down.”

After taking the stairs, they reach Søren’s apartment on the second floor. The door has been left open, and little lights twinkle around the frame.

“Hey!” Søren says, surprised, as Eduard curiously looks around the narrow hall. It’s much neater than he somehow expected, probably just because of Søren’s slightly chaotic mannerisms. Since he sees that his cousins have lined their shoes up by the door, he takes his own off as well, putting them next to Peter’s.

Entering the living room, he understands Søren’s surprise. Peter and Lars are rushing to set the table, apparently trying to outdo each other in speed. There is a tiny Christmas tree on a dresser that suddenly seems quite precarious.

“Be careful,” Eduard says, a little feebly, and Peter grins at him, his hands stacked with far too many plates for four people. It seems to be going alright for now, so Eduard leaves them be to seek out Søren.

“Uh, Søren?” He walks into the kitchen. It’s a surprisingly large space, and Søren already has some pans out and is reaching up for a cutting board. He doesn’t appear to have heard Eduard over the clattering happening in the living room.

“Are you sure about… That?” Eduard asks, when the man has a hold of his cutting board and spots him.

“What, the boys? They’ll be fine.” Something crashes loudly, and Søren pulls a rueful face at the door. “I jinxed it.”

“We’ve got it, Uncle Søren!” Peter yells.

“I’m gonna just… Hey, Eduard, can you get some water boiling while I go check on that?”

“Of course,” he replies, holding a thumb up. Søren pauses on his way out of the kitchen and smiles.

“Of course,” he repeats, moving his hand forward while he first holds just his pinkie up and then opens his whole hand. He does it again, slightly slower, and Eduard tries to replicate the sign. “Hey, great!”

Before he rushes off to assess the damage, he makes an okay sign with one hand.

Eduard fills a pan with water, assuming it’s for the rice Søren’s put on the counter, and turns the stove on to heat it. Søren returns quickly, carrying almost all of the plates Peter was hauling around.

“I think Tuomi and Torbjörn are raising ‘em too well,” he says, putting the plates away. “I don’t think I ever voluntarily set the table until I moved out. Can you slice these peppers?”

Eduard can, while Søren pulls some chicken out the fridge to fry it.

“They’re just hungry. Besides, didn’t they just break a plate?”

“Just the one, it’s fine. I definitely wouldn’t have done a chore if I was hungry. Gotta wonder how Torbjörn turned out so decent.”

“Keeping you in check?”

Søren laughs heartily at that, leaning his hands on the counter so that his shoulders shake visibly. He’s just in his T-shirt again, and Eduard can see now that it is merch of a band he plays sometimes and likes well enough, although he wouldn’t call himself a fan. He slices the bell peppers and some cauliflower, and smiles as a delicious spicy scent fills the kitchen a while later.

Peter sidles into the kitchen as Søren covers the pan to let it simmer for a while. He looks like he’s about to lift the lid again.

“Hey, hey, watch out,” Søren says, pulling his hand away. “That’s hot.”

“I just wanna see.”

He’s always done that, as far as Eduard knows. He can clearly recall a load of pictures of toddler Peter pressed up against the glass of ovens and washing machines and microwaves. He wonders when he’ll grow out of it, or if he’ll be like Tuomi, who still watches whatever he’s cooking for at least ten minutes, but then Tuomi is bad at cooking and might just be making sure it’s not going to explode.

Peter stubbornly crosses his arms and stares at the pan.

“Are you planning on staying there?” Søren asks.

“Probably,” he replies brightly, turning his head to address his uncle. Søren throws a fond smile at him and ruffles his hair before he can duck away.

“Eduard, by the way, I still think we should get dinner this weekend,” he says, pointing a finger at Eduard, who accepts that with a helpless gesture, mostly aimed in an amused Peter’s direction.

“Is that where you get that stubborn streak from?” Eduard asks him, and both Peter and Søren burst out laughing at that.

“It’s like you’ve never even met his parents!”

“Pa says no one is allowed to play Monopoly anymore.” Peter shrugs. “Not that I wanted to, Monopoly’s boring, but Lars got real upset about it.”

“Dad stole all my hotels!” Lars yells from the living room, sounding extremely indignant. Tuomi really is that sort of person, Eduard thinks, glancing at Søren in amusement, but Søren is narrowing his eyes and looking at Peter questioningly.

“Dad stole Lars’s hotels,” the boy relays, and Søren nods, now returning Eduard’s look.

“No Monopoly, got it. I’m sure I got some other games, though, we’ll check it out later.”

Peter grins, nodding. Eduard fears that both his cousins have inherited Tuomi’s competitiveness.

Dinner is good. Eduard is used to eating by himself, or sometimes with Vinh or another coworker, often the early afternoon duo—he tends to spend that time looking at his phone, or, in the latter case, trying to mediate yet another argument between them. It’s nice to have someone to talk to instead of just listening to music or reading news articles.

Søren still gestures wildly while he’s eating, cutlery and all, sometimes even half-forming signs, but he somehow manages to avoid flinging any food as he does so. He says it’s an acquired skill, then launches into a story about throwing soup into Torbjörn’s hair when they were teenagers that has Peter laughing so hard he nearly chokes and Lars, in turn, yelling at him not to throw up or he’ll kill him.

“I’m not,” Peter replies, glaring fiercely even as he breaks out in a hacking cough again, and then quickly signs something at his brother that makes Lars glare back. They definitely inherited that from Torbjörn. Eduard gently claps Peter’s back, and even though he doesn’t think it’s helping much, Peter eventually quiets. His breathing settles back into a normal rhythm, and he takes a large gulp of his water.

“Peter, don’t confuse your cousin,” Søren says, making a downward slashing motion with both hands.

“Sorry, Uncle Eduard,” Peter tells him. He picks his fork back up.

“It’s fine,” Eduard replies, after realizing Søren is talking about Peter using sign language, which he doesn’t understand. Lars, on the other side of the table, rolls his eyes and touches his hand to his shoulder, which makes Søren sigh and shake his head at him.

“It is difficult, Lars.”

Eduard gestures for him to leave it be—wondering as he does so what his gesture might actually imply—and Søren doesn’t say anything else about it, but he does grumble, later, while they load the dishes into the dishwasher, that he knows his brother made it a point that they shouldn’t use sign language to exclude anyone on purpose.

“Probably ‘cause our parents had the same rule,” he explains, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms. His T-shirt stretches across his shoulders, quite nicely, Eduard thinks. “Although that was mostly ‘cause we were better at it than them. Still are, and my mom would still put me in timeout too, 39 years old or not.”

“That sounds fair. I really didn’t mind, though.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, y’know?”

There is a ruckus from the living room. Søren raises his dark eyebrows questioningly.

“They’re, ah… They’re arguing over which game they want to play.”

“Yeah, that seems about right. Are you staying longer or are you heading home?”

“I should probably be going, I like to do some preparations before I go to sleep.” He adjusts his glasses. “Thank you for dinner. You’re always welcome at mine, too.”

“Might take you up on that, Eduard.” Søren runs a hand over his hair and pushes away from the counter. “I’ll probably see you around before the end of the week, I need your help with those kids.”

“Like I said, their parents do it together too.”

That gets him a lopsided grin and a wink that he doesn’t know what to think about but quite likes anyway. Eduard goes to collect his coat and shoes, bids his cousins a good night before they both try to convince him their choice of board game is the right one, and heads out. Søren walks him down to the parking lot.

“I’ll see you, then,” he tells the man, biting his lip when he gets another lopsided smile.

“See you ‘round, Eduard.” He waves shortly when Eduard pulls up in his car, illuminated for a moment by the headlights as he turns off the parking lot. Still just in his T-shirt.

Back home, Eduard leans over to get his papers out of the glovebox, and his hand brushes against something soft. Blinking, he picks it up from the passenger seat and lets the soft wool run across his hands. Søren’s scarf, he realizes, and takes it inside with him.

He’s sure he’ll have the opportunity to return it soon enough.

[phyripowritesthings]

33 with EstLiet? 👀

33. “You’re cute with glasses.”

Yeee! I’m so sorry that this took an actual century! What happened is: I wrote three separate stories for this prompt pretty quickly, didn’t like two of them and accidentally turned the third into a different pairing (but I did like it so I will post it in the near future), got discouraged, read the entirety of Return of the King in procrastination, and then I wrote this high fantasy... Thing. Honestly, I’m still not sure I’m satisfied and it’s very Out There considering the prompt but yeaH,, I hope you like it anyway :V

uhh so names are pretty straightforward but y’know, Tolys is Liet, Eduard is Est, Raivis is Lat, Erzsébet is Hun and Nadzeya is Bela c:

--

Finally, they have arrived in the southern Elven kingdom, and Tolys’s Elvish traveling companions have been whisked away by their kin immediately, expectedly. This has left him with only Raivis, who is sitting on a high table and looking around in wonder at the Elven building. His small legs swing out as he leans back on his hands.

“I knew we were traveling with an Elven Queen,” he says, “but this is all so incredible!”

Tolys nods. He could never have predicted that his search for his family’s long-lost heirlooms might lead him to find company in not only Raivis, who is most likely the first of his kind to travel so far south, but also in a party of three northern Elves seeking to join their kin in the newly reclaimed southern kingdom. Let alone could he have foreseen, of course, that one of them would actually be the Queen-in-exile.

“Everyone will be so jealous back home,” Raivis is now saying, as he inspects the fine, light clothes the Elves have gifted them. Although the lands remain yet war-torn, the Elves of the south have been more than generous to the Halfling and the Man. Tolys wagers that Erzsébet has been exaggerating their involvement in overcoming the obstacles on the way here. She acted as the Queen’s guard and became fond of Raivis in particular, having hardly met his kind before.

It's also difficult not to be fond of Raivis in general, Tolys thinks.

As approachable as Erzsébet was, with none of the expected Eleven superiority or contempt, so closed off and cool were Queen Nadzeya and the Elven clerk, Eduard. At least, when first they met. Both of them looked like northern Elves, tall and pale with hair of starlight and eyes like the lakes in their kingdom, and Tolys had been starstruck by their otherworldliness, thinking at first that Eduard must be a prince himself. However, he was merely a scribe, traveling along to record the Queen’s journey south, and he was, in fact, Erzsébet’s cousin.

“Do you think we’re allowed to leave?” Raivis asks, jumping the considerable height off the table so that his bare feet thud on the wooden floor. The buildings here have been rigged up by some ingenious engineering, or perhaps magic, between the jagged mountains and the unnaturally tall trees.

Many of the trees were felled over the past centuries, since the Elves were driven away far before Tolys was born, and more yet torn down in the battle to reclaim the land. It hadn’t been difficult to feel his companions’ sorrow as they entered their kingdom. Erzsébet had appeared particularly upset at the jagged wood, and Eduard had sung softly to the earth itself. New sprouts were already coming up.

Tolys imagines Raivis wants to take a look at the young trees himself—Halflings, that much he has learned, have a fondness for all growing things.

“We weren’t told to stay here, were we?”

Raivis shrugs, standing on his tiptoes to peer out of the window. His blond curls barely reach the edge. He gasps.

“Tolys, Nadzeya is coming over here!”

Raivis never quite warmed up to the Queen, which, in all honesty, Tolys doesn’t blame him for. She is so intimidatingly beautiful that it’s difficult to see past. It took him many weeks, and he attributes it to his upbringing more than anything.

Now, he stands and opens the door at her knock.

Unsure what the proper Elven greeting for a monarch is, he bows.

“Welcome, Your Majesty.”

Raivis follows his example, albeit with a stutter and clasping his hands together in what must be the way of the Halflings.

Nadzeya blinks, silent. Her eyelids are painted dark as ever—apparently a sign of mourning in the north, for family she lost in the battle for the south. Erzsébet had marked her body with intricate ink patterns in the southern way. Eduard had cut his hair short. He had, he told Tolys, lost his younger brother in the fight led by the southern Prince.

It’s still difficult to believe that he is related to Erzsébet. They look so little alike.

All of a sudden, Nadzeya laughs, just for a second as if startled into it. It definitely startles Tolys and Raivis in turn.

“Your—” Tolys starts. She shakes her head sharply.

“Oh, please, I’ve had enough of that for a few centuries. Eduard is looking for you, I think you’ll find he has important news.” She rolls her eyes. “The idiot.”

Tolys bristles a little on Eduard’s behalf, and Nadzeya snorts in the most un-royal manner. She isn’t wearing any kind of crown now, not even the silver circlet she wore to travel. Her hair is, in fact, completely unbound. He knows that is unusual for Elves. Maybe, it’s part of some sort of ceremony or ritual.

“Where can I find Eduard…” He bites his lip. It feels strange not to add an honorific. “My Lady?”

“You know what, even that’s too much.” Nadzeya’s expression is unreadable, as usual. “As for Eduard; he is, of course, in the library. We have some extensive genealogies preserved of important families of Men.”

“Ah,” Tolys breathes, now recognizing the amused spark in her eyes. “Yes, of course. Where…”

Gesturing, Nadzeya says, “That way, the building says library. I know you read Elvish.”

“Shall I come?” Raivis asks nervously, glancing up at the Queen. Tolys shakes his head.

“I’ll return shortly.”

As he leaves, he hears Nadzeya say something dry to the Halfling, and hopes he will be all right.

It seems odd for the Queen to be out like this, but then again, what does he really know about Elvish traditions? Let alone courtly ones? Perhaps, this is just how it goes around here.

It is a short walk to the library, and he meets no one on his way there. More Elves are expected to arrive over the coming year, to help restore the kingdom and make it the thriving realm it once was, but as of yet, very few are here.

Eduard is easy to spot. The Elf sits by a window, pale hair shimmering in the golden sunlight. He’s shielding a scroll from the sun, long fingers skimming over the parchment. With his other hand, he adjusts—

“I have never seen an Elf wear eyeglasses before,” Tolys finds himself saying.

Eduard starts, looking up at him through the round spectacles, pinched on his nose with golden a golden frame.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

At that, he smiles and shakes his head. He carefully rolls the scroll and slides it back into its casing.

“I don’t mind at all.” He adjusts the frames, smiling faintly. “It’s good to have them back. My handwriting is much better when I can see what I’m writing.”

Tolys takes a seat at the high desk across from his Elven friend, glancing down at the scroll’s tube. He bites down on a wry smile.

“That’s good. They look nice. You’re—you’re cute with glasses.”

“That…” Eduard is stunned silent, which is endearing, and obviously not thinking about the scroll at all, which is good. “Cute?”

“Hm.” Tolys bites his lip and leans his chin in his hand. “Like a young Halfling would be, I imagine.”

“I’ve never—do you know how old I am?”

Interested, Tolys leans forward. He actually does not know. It was enough to understand that he was the youngest in their little company. Raivis, despite appearances, is almost forty years old, a few years older than Tolys. Halflings age slowly. Elves, of course, hardly age at all.

“Two thousand two hundred and twenty-two years old, and you call me cute.” He sounds more amused than indignant. It’s quite a pleasant sound.

“That’s a nice number,” Tolys says absently, much more interested in the sparkle that has entered Eduard’s light eyes than the glasses itself.

“I suppose it is.” He glances away. Sighs, and laces his long, elegant fingers together in front of his chest. “I was injured during the first battle. It damaged my sight.”

“I apologize.”

“No need. Most Elves use charms to see when such injuries occur, but we passed through a human kingdom on the way north, where I was introduced to eyeglasses like these. I find that they’re much less straining.”

Tolys know the story of the Elven refugees well.

“The kingdom of Vilnius,” he whispers. He cannot help but look at the scroll again, the familiar crest on the case. If his father had known the Elves kept all those histories here, protected for centuries…

“Indeed.”

They study each other for a long while. Tolys knows he doesn’t look like much to an Elf, even after being given the opportunity to bathe in a natural hotspring and festooned with an outfit far too fine for the likes of him. He isn’t terribly tall, and his brown hair is always a mess, curling when he doesn’t want it to and getting in his face despite his best efforts. Eduard is… Well, he’s an Elf. While they were on the road, it was easy to imagine that they were friends, and perhaps they are, still. But Tolys has no illusions that it will be the same. That he will ever get the chance to address the profound trust he has in Eduard, the appreciation for his almost Mannish groundedness but Elven whims at the same time.

Especially not when Eduard, who’s possibly the smartest being Tolys has ever met, clearly know that Tolys has lied to him, if just by omission.

“I met Queen Saulė, as we fled north,” Eduard eventually says, voice soft. “They said she had eyes like the plains of her kingdom, but they reminded me of the forest I left behind.”

Tolys lowers his own eyes. He studies the elegant woodgrain of this desk, that had stood here for all that time. It must have been protected somehow, and it wouldn’t surprise him if Eduard himself had placed the guarding charms.

“I know you looked familiar.”

With a sigh, he meets Eduard’s eye.

“I am the first in a long time, my father has told me, to have her eyes.” He tucks his hair away. “He saw it as a sign, especially after the Elves went south. It’s an age for reclaiming, he said.”

“Maybe, he was right,” Eduard says, looking thoughtful. “When Vilnius fell and your people were exiled like mine, the north came to their aid. We weren’t many and couldn’t fight for the realm, but we have since preserved the symbols of Queen Saulė’s power. Your family’s power.”

“What?” Tolys blurts. In his shock, he nearly topples of his stool, and Eduard grasps his arm, fingers cool through his fine green tunic. He smiles.

“That is what your father wants you to find, isn’t it?”

Tolys nods, wide-eyed.

“My people will bring the Sunstaff south. You may take it, and we would send Elves with you to take Vilnius, if you wish.”

“That—no—but.” Tolys takes a very deep breath. “I’ve lied to you. I lied to the Queen. Will Nadzeya even—”

Eduard ducks his head, clearing his throat. The pointed tips of his ears flush.

“I lied,” Tolys repeats faintly. Raivis knew, because just wanted to help, but…

“Yes, you did, but it’s no matter.” Again, Eduard clears his throat, and he finally removes his hand from Tolys’s arm to adjust his eyeglasses. “Not when your lie was no greater than any of ours.”

“What do you mean?”

He keeps fiddling with his glasses. The gesture is endearing, strangely.

“I hope… I hope you can forgive us—me. It would be a terrible loss to lose your…” He meets Tolys’s gaze, his eyes like sea-glass, strong yet brittle and colored like a quiet tide. “Companionship.”

“Nadzeya isn’t the Queen, is she?”

“Nadzeya is a northern noble. Her brother and sister followed my brother as he rode out.”

“Your brother.”

“I tried to stop him, but he was so young, barely an adult when we left the south. I always knew he would be the one to lead the quest, and I think I always knew I would lose him for it.”

“Your brother led the Elves?” Tolys feels quite heavy as the understanding of what this means dawns on him. “Your brother was the Prince-in-exile.”

“He was.” He sighs. “And a stubborn fool, too.”

“But that means you…” He bites his lip. “Erzsébet is the Queen.”

“Indeed. We decided to travel incognito.”

There had been some skirmishes on the road, nasty traveling beasts and Men who always went for Nadzeya on her horse, attracted to her gown and jewels even if they weren’t aware she was the supposed Queen. Tolys had thought it seemed inadvisable to travel with such a small party, at least at first. Erzsébet, who not only had mourning inks but also warrior’s lines and scars across her body, could probably have fought all the enemies off by herself, especially because they never paid attention to her, but Tolys was glad to help, and Nadzeya defended herself admirably with an innate magic that hurt Tolys’s eyes and head whenever he tried to look at the crackling darkness.

More than before, he feels for Nadzeya, because her position in this was one where she could be killed, and she had evidently taken that risk willingly.

Eduard wasn’t much of a fighter, but he held his own, and so did Raivis, much to the Elves’ surprise. Tolys already knew Halflings were a hardy folk.

“But… Why put any of you in danger like that?” he asks. “Why not travel with the larger caravan, or pretend none of you were royalty?”

Eduard smiles wryly, pushing his short hair away from his handsome face.

“It was known the Queen would travel south—rumors have wings—and the larger caravan will also have an Elf pretend to be her. It was mainly Erzsébet’s idea to go swiftly, before the enemies gather larger groups.” He sighs. “I am sorry I couldn’t tell you. I don’t wish to lose your trust.”

Tolys reaches across the desk, although he refrains from touching the Elven clerk.

“You haven’t.”

And, really, it is easy to see how this was the best decision given the circumstances, similar to how he hid the nature of his own quest from the Elves. Eduard looks at his hand, the rough fingers so different to his own slender ones. With a curious frown, he touches them quickly.

“Then, I thank you, Tolys of Vilnius.”

“Thank you,” he breathes in return, gaze flicking to the scroll again.

“I would be honored to come with you, of course,” Eduard continues, adjusting his glasses again. “If you would have me.”

Tolys wasn’t lying, earlier. He looks younger with the spectacles. A little less ethereal, more like someone warm and trustworthy, as he truly is.

“I would be honored to share it with you, Eduard.” He curls his fingers, grazing Eduard’s warm palm.

For a while, they are both silent, gently touching across the desk. Eduard is smiling absently, those light eyes shimmering in the sunlight as it dims ever so slightly. Tolys cannot wait to show him his home; even though it will be next to nothing compared to this place, even in disrepair as the kingdom is, he will be proud to share it with the Elf.

“Oh!” Eduard says. “I had nearly forgotten. I promised Erzsébet to take you and Raivis to her. She would like to extend the official friendship of the Elves to both of your people.”

“I left Raivis with Nadzeya.” He blinks. “So she isn’t royalty at all?”

An amused little smirk crosses Eduard’s lips, and Tolys breathes out slowly, curling his fingers a little more.

“What is it?”

“If Erzsébet has any say in it, she will be.” Suddenly, he frowns, peering over his glasses. “You left Raivis with Nadzeya?”

“I’m certain he’ll be fine. He’s tough.”

Eduard looks dubious, but he stands and gestures for Tolys to follow him to the grand door of the library. It has turned dusky, and the light filters through leaves to tinge his pale hair gold and his eyes almost translucent as he stands in the arch of the doorway. There, he turns to Tolys, bowing a little to bring their faces level.

“Thank you,” he says, voice soft and Elven accent giving the words a musical lilt.

“For what?”

“Being here.” He touches Tolys’s upper arm, letting his long fingers linger. “Letting me know you.”

“Of course.”

The fingers slowly trail up to his shoulder, sliding across the smooth green fabric until the tips touch his clavicle. Tolys reaches his own hand up and covers Eduard’s with it. The Elf rests their foreheads together for a moment that feels like a promise.

Just then, they both hear Erzsébet’s distinctive laugh, echoing merrily over the carved walkways. Both of them straighten to see her coming their way, her face bright and an intricate crown of golden leaves resting on her dark hair.

“My friends!” she says, and is hauling Tolys into a hug before he can even greet her, let alone think of bowing. “I’m so glad to see our secret has not put a strain on your friendship.”

There is an emphasis on friendship that Tolys doesn’t imagine for a second is the product of her accent.

“It couldn’t have, when my own secrets are similar, Your…”

“Just call me Erzsébet. Eduard was right, then? We will be equals before long.” She smiles. “And I’m certain my cousin will be glad to help you, should you so desire.”

“Erzsébet,” Eduard says, sounding long-suffering and not at all like a Crown Prince, which he is and Tolys will be soon enough. His cheeks are getting red. Tolys didn’t know Elves blushed, but finds that he would like to see it more often. It is mesmerizing.

“There you are,” come Nadzeya’s dry tones from the direction of Tolys’s temporary home. He hears the distinctive tread of Raivis’s bare feet approaching behind her nearly inaudible footsteps, and when they come into view, the Halfling bow slightly towards Erzsébet.

“Your Majesty.”

“I tried to tell him Erzsébet would be fine,” Nadzeya informs the Queen, and Erzsébet laughs again.

“Come, we have much to talk about. Much to plan.” She gestures all of them along. Eduard touches Tolys’s wrist. Raivis catches his gaze, quirks his eyebrows and grins.

Tolys smiles back and runs his fingers along the back of Eduard’s hand. It appears the journey was worth it.