#because Thena and Gil's dynamic works BETTER

[softquietsteadylove]

Hi, I am missing the Mr. And Mrs. Lee AU >< this is a very angsty request. Maybe you can write the part of the confrontation scene but a little different. Thena trying to fulfill the mission even though she already fell in love with the mission (him), but Gil never reciprocated the attacks Thena inflicted to him because he would never lay a finger on her. Thena's mad at him for doing that, she's desperately shouting him to fight her back, but Gil just can't. And when Thena already had the perfect opportunity to kill him, Gil just said with no hesitation that she can do it and it's okay. But of course she didn't.

And we all know what happened next after that...scene, right? But what about we change it? I think having some soft at the same time emotional moment instead of spice after this angsty scene would be good. We'd love to see a lot of comfort, them just holding each other in their apartment that now has broken doors and walls with bullet holes in it.

THANK YOUUU SO MUCH, LOVELY!!!

The house is a disaster. It looks like an entire team of assassins has torn through the place, when really it's just a husband and wife. Well, a wife--Gil couldn't raise his hand even once after finding out it was her on the other end.

Thena stares at him, her hand shaking so much it rattles the weapon she has pointed at him.

His hands are still up, palms out to her. He isn't looking down the barrel at all, just up at her with those eyes he knows can make her melt. "It's okay, Sweetheart."

She glares at him. He doesn't get to call her that now. He should be thinking of her as the enemy. "Don't."

"It's okay," he repeats, and slides his eyes closed as if he's lying down for a nap after a few beers while watching the game. He lets out a slow sigh, and it sounds the same as when they're going to bed together after a long day apart. "You've got it. Take the shot."

She tries. She tries to make herself take the shot and fulfill the mission she's had for the last five years of her life. The mission she was told was a life or death situation, it never being more important for her to maintain her flawless success rate.

But the mission changed. Somewhere along the way, he wasn't only the Mission; he became just Gilgamesh. Gil was sweet, and charming, and friendly in a way she had almost never encountered in her life before him. Then Gil was a pretty good date. She was used to having to play any part necessary, be that the blushing virgin, the seductress, the cold bitch. But Gil was himself, and somehow he had tricked her into being herself too.

Now he's Gilgamesh Lee, and he's a great home cook, and he likes beer but he hates red wine, and he's handy with home repair but he can't identify the difference between paint shades to save his life. He's Gil, and he brings her flowers for her birthday, and he lets her drive because she gets carsick as a passenger. He's her husband of four years, and they've built an entire life together.

And she has burned it to the ground in a single night.

"Dammit!"

Gil watches as she tosses the weapon aside, and sinks to the floor. She curls right up, which is her go-to posture; it protects her, makes her feel more secure. She hugs her knees to her chest.

"Baby?"

"Don't," she practically whimpers into her lap, balled up like a child in the face of her life choices. This is pathetic; she's a top agent, one of the deadliest in Eternal Agencies. And here she is crying like a fool over her first love.

Gil sighs, moving over to her on what remains of their polished hardwood floors. "C'mere, hot stuff."

She should be trying to kill him. She should be fighting and clawing at him to regain the upper hand. Just because she decided she couldn't take the shot doesn't mean she can give up on the mission completely.

Gil lets her curl up on his lap, pressing her tears into his - dislocated, and then re-located - shoulder. He grunts, but bears it as he wraps his arms around her. "Easy, Sweetheart, I've got you."

Thena presses her face harder against him, muffling her agony as she wails into him. She hasn't cried like this in...maybe ever. Maybe she's never felt anything like this, but she supposes Gil has made a habit of unearthing feelings she thought she had cut out of herself.

He rubs her back, presses kisses to her temple. Their home is crumbling around them and he spent the last hour trying not to get assassinated by her, but now he's holding her as if she's had a bad dream after a thunderstorm.

Thena tries to build up her walls again. She tries to think about the house structure, how she can get away and regain the high ground on him. She tries to think about where she tossed that weapon, or which door frames still have her knives lodged in them.

But all she can think about his her husband, holding her in his arms, safe from anything and everything, including the omniscient reach of a man called Father. These are arms which held her after their fifth date, in an apartment she procured just so they could go somewhere after dinner. These are arms which held her against his side in a gondola, and then held her that same night after proposing. This embrace is the only place she has ever felt safe enough to truly banish her other thoughts from her mind and just be Thena.

Missus Thena Lee.

Gilgamesh whispers and coos in her ear as her sobbing subsides slowly. He holds her trembling form against him, offering all he can when they've already been worn to the bone by life and its complications. "Sweetheart?"

She groans into his shirt. "Stop calling me that."

She can hear the smile in his voice. "Why?"

She stays buried against him. She doesn't even want to look at the house, right now. "You want the full list?"

Gil chuckles, running his fingers through her hair. "You're still my wife, Thena. Nothing about tonight changes that."

Fuck. He always knows exactly what to say to make her want to throw herself to the ground and beg him to love her for just one more day.

"Nothing changes that," he repeats in a whisper as she clings to him so tightly her nails dig into him. "Unless you're about to ask for a divorce, in which case I change my mind about putting up a fight."

He also knows how to make her laugh at truly the worst times. "Gil, I'm serious."

"Yeah," he lifts his head and looks around them, "I'd say it's pretty serious, Honey-Bun."

Such cutesy pet names; she once tried to convince herself that they were off putting and that she hated them. It didn't last long. They're cliche and embarrassing and she loves each and every one of them.

Thena lifts her head too, unable to avoid looking at the massacre of their home. A few shreds of wood fall to the floor as if they're paid actors. "Really did a number on the place, hm?"

Gil shrugs as if she's asked if he knows what the weather will be tomorrow, "I'm sure I could make some progress in here if I took some time off work."

Thena thunks her head against his chest again. "Work."

"Sorry," he apologises and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "We don't have to think about that now."

They will sooner or later, though. Both of them will, given all that they've learned in the past 36 hours.

"We'll figure it out," he says so definitively.

Thena looks down at her tattered and shredded dress. She looks at Gil's ripped and burned suit. She sighs, "they're going to call a domestic disturbance on us."

"Yeah, I guess I wouldn't blame them," Gil murmurs, shaking out his jacket and letting the bullets that got caught in its reinforced lining clatter to the floor. He lays it over her shoulders. "You hungry?"

Thena lets out an even longer, even louder sigh. She feels like she could throw up. "Starving."

Gil groans as he hauls himself to his feet. "Fridge is a little beat up, but I'm pretty sure there are a few eggs left."

"Scrambled?" Thena looks up at him from her miserable quarry on the floor, "with cheese?"

He leans down to kiss her, letting her hand rest on his cheek no matter how much he has to twist his neck. "I know what you like."

"Thank you," she whispers, hoping to memorise every line and feature of his face in case the next 36 hours also go to shit. She listens to the sound of him prying open the dented fridge door, pulling out the eggs, finding a pan that doesn't have bullet dents in it. She loves listening to him cook. "Baby?"

"Yeah, Hon?"

Thena smiles to herself. He's right, they will figure it out, and he is her husband; nothing about tonight changes that. "I love you."

"I love you too, Thena."

[softquietsteadylove]

Gosh your hospital AU is crazy sweet! Would you do another one? Just loved the idea and their dynamic!

Thena looks up from her charts, finding a protein bar wiggling its way into her view.

"Delivery for a Miss--no, Doctor Thena?"

Thena smiles, no matter how much she doesn't feel like it. Because Gil can always get her to smile, even after she's pulled an 18 hour shift to cover for absentee residents, handled some truly uncooperative patients and just wants to sleep face down on the floor.

"How you holdin' up?" he whispers, sitting himself next to her on the on-call bunk bed. He slips his hands back into his hoodie pockets as she accepts and unwraps the snack (white chocolate and cranberry: her favourite).

"Better now," she promises, sighing as she chews. She flaps around the paper copies of her charts that need signing off on, "I miss Ajak."

The nurse who did indeed keep things running smoothly had only gotten off shift an hour and a half ago.

"These are all done, though, right?" he guessed, peeking at them in her tight little fist. "You're just signing off on discharges?"

"Yeah," she sighed, sagging on the bed even heavier. "I'm just about done. Just this last little stretch always kills me."

"Yeah, last run is always the hardest," Gil sympathises, and she knows he knows exactly what they mean by it. He pulls the papers from her hand before she can abuse them further.

"How was your day?" Thena asks, although she pauses in her chewing just to yawn.

"Pretty quiet, actually," he smiles, although really he's making sure she finishes the whole protein bar. "Kingo spent most the run making tiktoks, so..."

Thena gulps down her bite and laughs. Gil feels at least a little bit better at hearing the magical sound.

"I know you're dying to get home, but maybe a little power nap wouldn't hurt before you get behind the wheel of any sort of vehicle."

"I know, I know," she groans, taking another bite of power bar as he takes her stethoscope from around her neck and even pulls out her ponytail for her. She moans even louder as he massages her head, relieving the tension that has become subconsciously ingrained into her at this point.

Gil pulls her to lean against him, wrapping his arm around her and trying to, as subtly as possible, get his other arm out of the sleeve so he can secure it entirely over her shoulders as a blanket. "They need to assign more interns to this place."

Thena shrugs, already leaning quite heavily on him as the warmth of him permeates her tired bones and the smell of him on his hoodie lulls her into relaxation. "They don't come down here to learn trauma care, they come here when they need extra cash."

Gil just rolls his eyes. Thena works herself to the bone, seeing everyone from people who have very normal reasons to come in and just can't make it to clinics because of their work schedules, to very real and urgent traumatic emergencies. And she and Ajak get so little thanks for it.

Thena is actively and visibly drifting off, turning her face into his bicep as she makes her self more comfortable against him. "What about you? When are you off?"

Gil is technically off duty now, also supposed to be heading home. But he's here because he asked Ajak if Thena was heading out too, only to learn that she was fulfilling the last of her 18 hours. And he would be damned if he trusted her to take proper care of herself when she was exhausted.

And he certainly wasn't going to let anyone else take care of her in his place, either.

"Gil?" Thena asks again, although she wraps both of her arms around his one, as if he's her own personal teddy bear.

"I'm off too," he whispers, leaning his head against hers as she dozes off against him, sitting up and wrapped in his work hoodie over her scrubs.

But she's sleeping, and it's all he wanted when he came in here.

The door opens and one of the interns - either very early or extremely late - pokes their head in. "Um, is Doctor Thena-"

"Get out," Gil glares at them, utterly remorseless for the harsh treatment. His eyes burn a hole in them, "quietly."

They do so, pulling the door closed for him as quietly as humanly possible.

The trauma surgeon from upstairs will be coming down any minute to take over for her anyway. And Gil is ready to sit up with Thena for as long as she stays asleep. He'll carry her to her car and drive her home if he has to.

Although part of him wants to stay here and let her hold onto his arm like this forever.

Thena mumbles in her sleep, and Gil smiles. She denies it every time he brings it up to her, but she's a sleep talker--mumbles out anything from patient charts to what she wants to eat when she wakes up. It's an oddly cute habit for the Goddess of War to have, which is why she denies it so vehemently.

Gil kisses her forehead, "go home?"

"Home," she sighs in agreement, still holding onto him. She's very deserving of her next 24 hours off, he thinks.

She won't like it--she'll be mortified if she thinks about the interns seeing it. But Gil knows what has to be done. He tries to pull his arm out of her grasp, only for her to whine at him faintly. He laughs under his breath. "I'm gonna take you home, honey."

Gil manages to extract his arm so he can pick her up bridal style, bundling her up in his arms so he can grab her backpack on the way. He does take a route that's not out the main entrance to the ER, for the sake of Thena's pride.

He carries her out the ambulance bay doors, heading for his car to drive her home. The paramedics getting ready for their first run of the day wave to him. He nods his head, and they seem to understand that he has cargo far too precious to risk waking.