This has been sitting in my docs one post away from being complete since Dec 2017, so that's when it took place. Maybe I'll get better at tagging again one day...
This was probably going to turn around to bite him in the butt. He knew things were already kind of awkward whenever the whole… tax return thing was brought up, which was very rarely. Unless Jericho was around, then all the time. But Ilian supposed that meant it worked.
He did think more about what Lovely would think or feel when he did things like go out into the night to collect energy, or when Aquamarine would help lure people out of clubs for Ilian to drain. He was more careful about his ambitions. He was researching youma before actually delving into the Rift to look for one to bond with.
Ilian felt as though he was growing as a person, even if he was still an average height.
“You’re home early,” he said when Lovely shut the door behind him when he entered the apartment they shared. “I was just about to make tea. If you grab the cookies from the fridge, I can throw them in the oven,” he offered with a shrug as he filled up the kettle. It was late, but not too late. Ilian didn’t know whether to be pleased about that or not.
---
Lovely hated work.
That wasn’t true. He hated customers, mostly. The work itself was fine. He opened boxes. He sorted through merchandise. He folded things. He hung things. He organized and rearranged things. Sometimes he built displays. It was simple and mind-numbing and not really a bad way to make money. So long as people left him alone. Unfortunately, he had to do a lot of his work out on the sales floor, which meant customers would bother him for stupid s**t. Or he was forced to stand and watch while they ripped his displays apart.
Stupid ********. Black Friday wasn’t even that long ago. Lovely was still recovering.
His first order of business upon arriving home was to kick his shoes off at the door. Then he dropped onto the couch with an “******** the cookies,” he mumbled into one of the couch cushions. “******** everything. ******** people, mostly. Did you know some stupid high school ******** ripped my jean wall apart this afternoon?”
He probably didn’t know, considering Ilian wasn’t there for it and Lovely didn’t have the chance to text him about it. Lovely stood and watched the destruction, and when he couldn’t think of a way to stop it that didn’t involve a lot of shouting and cursing and a bruising punch to the a*****e’s face, he turned around and clocked out ******** that. He’d deal with it in the morning. He had a s**t ton of PTO saved up anyway.
Two seconds later, Lovely’s head popped back up, and he stared into the kitchen over the arm of the couch. “******** the cookies. I want them. Make them for me. My day was s**t.”
---
The moment Lovely flopped down onto the couch Ilian figured he would be making the cookies regardless. Lovely didn’t say no to cookies, although clearly he didn’t want to make the effort to help Ilian get them ready to actually make. That was fine. Ilian was capable of doing it himself, he was just trying to save some time.
He turned the oven on and worked on getting the mugs for the tea ready while Lovely was bitching about his horrible day. Ilian worked at the register mostly, although he did what he could to straighten up before it was his time to clock out. It wasn’t too horrible, although it definitely got frustrating.
“You know someone is going to just destroy it. You spend too much time trying to fix that wall. It looks really good while it lasts, though. It’s easier to find sizes at least,” he tried to offer as encouragement, but he figured Lovely’s day was just shot and everything was s**t.
“You’re scheduled tomorrow aren’t you? I don’t go in until noon and stay until close,” Ilian sighed, taking a break to go and sit down on the coffee table, because Lovely was taking up the couch.
“Did you need me to heat up some leftovers, or did you eat?”
---
“I have to be in at six for the truck,” Lovely complained. “********, I hate holiday hours. And it’s set week. I’ll bet you anything I get stuck doing overtime.”
Which was something he probably should have considered before clocking out early, but he’d been working at that stupid store for almost two years now. He deserved to leave early every once in awhile. He deserved a s**t ton more than that, actually, but he probably wasn’t going to get it. He considered himself fortunate enough that he still had a job despite his bitchy attitude. He got away with avoiding customers as much as possible because he did good work in every other aspect of the job.
Lovely heaved another sigh and rearranged the careless sprawl of his body long enough to shed his blue leather jacket, which he left hanging over the arm of the couch until such a time as he felt like putting it back in the closet. Then he was draped over the couch cushions on his stomach again, pillowing his head with his arms.
He turned his head to peer at Ilian. At least Ilian let him b***h when he wanted to. That was probably why this thing between them worked.
“I’ll just eat cookies,” Lovely told him. “Unless we still have turkey left. I could eat a sandwich.”
Thanksgiving for them meant hoarding leftovers from various neighbors. If they could get away with not having to grocery shop for the next week because of it, Lovely would call it a win.
---
He wasn’t able to sit for very long, but it was at least long enough to let Lovely rant about the day. Ilian didn’t mind. It was just something he’d gotten used to over the years. And it had been years. They’d known each other for a handful of years now.
“Yeah I think we’ve got turkey,” he said as he pushed himself back up to head over into the kitchen, digging out the plate and what was left of the bread. They didn’t have a lot, but they made it work. The water was turned off and poured into the mugs, and the cookies were spread out onto the cookie sheet and pushed into the oven once it beeped to signal it was done preheating.
Everything he’d prepared, minus the cookies because they had about twelve minutes to cook, was brought out into the living room and set down on the coffee table, where he also sat again. The two mugs and plate with the sandwich for Lovely…
And a small box that Ilian pulled out of his pocket and shrugged as he set it down on the table.
“I just thought you should have one too,” he said, picking up his mug so he could take a very small sip, since it was still pretty hot.
---
Lovely stayed right where he was on the couch. He should have probably been less of a lazy a** and gotten up to help, but Ilian didn’t complain, and it wasn’t like Lovely was always this lazy. He was actually surprisingly not lazy, considering the pampered life he used to lead.
He didn’t push himself back up again until Ilian returned with the sandwich and tea. Lovely reached for his sandwich first, taking a large bite out of it just when Ilian pulled the box out of his pocket.
Then Lovely choked, just like Ilian did months ago at the Mexican restaurant, because even if the box wasn’t fancy, he already knew what was inside of it.
He had to swallow a few times to get the bite of his sandwich to go down. It hurt, because he didn’t chew enough, and it got stuck long enough that he grew concerned and grabbed his tea to wash it down. Except the tea was still hot, so Lovely ended up scalding his mouth.
“What the ********,” he meant to shout, but it came out as a croak.
Lovely’s face went red. He blamed it on the tea and nearly dying via turkey sandwich.
“You stupid ********,” he swore. “What are you doing?”
---
The fact that Lovely nearly choked on his sandwich when everything was already done and they could legally file joint tax returns and all that, was enough to fluster Ilian into flushing red. He knew Lovely would have said it was stupid, but that didn’t change the fact that they did what they did.
He watched Lovely in concern for a few moments, and considered getting up to get him some water or something, but he seemed to get the sandwich down eventually.
“What the ******** ever,” he grunted and shrugged, going back to staring intently at his tea. “You did it, so it’s only fair that you have to wear one too. It’s not like you don’t already wear jewelry,” Ilian pointed out. It wasn’t as though they did this because they were being sappy or whatever. It was just a thing. Yes, he’d spent a good bit of money on it, but it wasn’t anything super fancy.
“Maybe I want you to think about me too, and maybe not try to embarrass me so much in front of other people,” he said, still wishing that Lovely got along with his recruits and that they weren’t just a bunch of children for him to babysit.
---
Lovely was able to get over the awkwardness that was him giving a ring to Ilian by not talking about it after the fact. Not talking about it meant he didn’t have to think about it, and not thinking about it meant they could go on pretending it wasn’t a big deal.
And it wasn’t. Because it wasn’t sappy or anything. It was just… a thing. Nothing more, nothing less.
This made all that awkwardness from before even worse. They’d gotten over it. They’d moved on. They’d done what they’d needed to do at the courthouse, and then they went on with life the way they had before. As Lovely had insisted, nothing changed. Yet here Ilian was, randomly presenting him with a box that obviously held another ring, four months later, and it was even stranger the second time around. Having the act reciprocated was not what Lovely intended at all.
“When the ******** have I embarrassed you?” Lovely asked.
Instead of waiting for an answer, he dropped his sandwich back onto the plate and set his mug of tea onto the coffee table. With his hands free, Lovely grabbed the ring box, which was Christmas themed, red with white snowflakes all over it, probably because that was all the store happened to have on hand for rings other than the nicer boxes for engagement diamonds. He ripped the lid off to look at the ring inside and instantly felt his face burn hotter.
It was a silver band with a square cut stone. It would have been an exact match for the one he got Ilian, except that the stone on this one was ********, you idiot,,” Lovely said. He hunched over so he didn’t have to look at Ilian. “At least tell me you got it when everything was on sale on Black Friday.”
---
”You always get… mean around the others. Like at Halloween,” he said as he watched Lovely pick up the box, and then averted his eyes again. “I mean, meaner than usual. I don’t want them to listen to me because they have to, you know. It’s not like I’m some great… person…” he amended his train of thought, not wanting to talk about the Negaverse while in their apartment, but also wanting Lovely to know that he was serious about wanting to do things on his own terms.
“And yes, ********. I got it on Black Friday. I’m not that stupid,” he grumbled. His heart was doing weird things in his chest. Like he was anxious or something. Like this actually meant something when it didn’t. It was just a stupid ring. And they were already… they already had the papers signed… and that was a thing… they could pull the plug on each other if something happened. That was all that mattered, right? <********, if you don’t want to wear it, then don’t wear it,” Ilian finally said and stood from where he sat on the coffee table so he could head out to the kitchen and turn off the beeping timer and pull the cookies out of the oven.
“Or return it. ******** if I care,” he added from the kitchen, feeling stupid for even making an effort when it was obvious that Lovely thought this was stupid.
---
Lovely thought he was stupid himself when he bought a ring for Ilian, so it only seemed natural that he should think Ilian was stupid for buying him a ring, too. But at least Ilian got this one on sale. Perhaps he was less stupid than Lovely then, who bought a ring on a random day in the middle of the summer when there weren’t any big sales going ******** it. Whatever.
He took the ring out of the box while Ilian was in the kitchen. Not having to look at him made this easier. Lovely didn’t even bother to try getting the ring to fit on another finger. He slid it right onto the ring finger of his left hand.
Of course it was a perfect fit. Lovely had plenty of cheap a** rings for Ilian to choose from to get an idea for size.
This one felt a lot more substantial than any of the others Lovely took to wearing, though. It wasn’t cheap. The band was sturdy, and the stone was set securely.
“I’m only mean when people deserve it.”
A lie. He was mean because his default setting was “b***h.” He only denied it because it was an easier topic of conversation than the rings.
“Your recruits deserve it,” he continued. “Most of them are Senshi. I thought Senshi were the enemy. I thought that was why we joined the ******** Negaverse to begin with. And now suddenly you’re recruiting them like we need them. We don’t. They’re a waste of effort. Don’t even act like you trust them. Or that you like them. I know you don’t.”
---
”They’re all senshi,” Ilian grumbled to himself, not even waiting for the cookies to cool all the way before he was scraping them off the pan and dropping them onto a plate. “And yes, senshi are the enemy, but… the senshi in the Negaverse are all…”
This was something he struggled with. People knew he hated senshi, but didn’t really know the reason why. He didn’t even tell Aurostibite about it. When asked, he would just say that he hated them and that was all. He didn’t tell people that a senshi killed his brother in front of him.
But it wasn’t just that they were enemies fighting. The senshi really seemed to enjoy the fact that she’d just ended his brother’s life.
“They’ve got tactical advantages,” he said instead, because that was easier to say than that he was trying to be more accepting of them. They weren’t horrible, at least his recruits weren’t. And he knew he would be lying if he said he didn’t want to try to make things work with them.
“Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be. This is what I want to do. This is who I am. Can we please not start…”
Part of him wished they could go back to talking about the stupid rings.
---
No part of Lovely wanted to go back to talking about the stupid rings. He would be more than content if they never talked about them again.
He did, however, leave the ring on his finger. The box he tossed back onto the coffee table, reaching for his sandwich again while he rolled his eyes at Ilian’s poor defense of his own recruits. If “tactical advantages” was the best Ilian could come up with, they really were worth nothing.
Lovely glanced into the kitchen while he took another bite of his sandwich, doing his best to ignore the way the ring glimmered under the overhead light. He would just… not question it further. He’d wear it, and he’d get used to wearing it, and everything would go back to normal, just like before.
“Can we not start what?” he said around a mouthful of bread and turkey. “You don’t want to talk about it because you know I’m right. What happens if they step out of line? What happens if they turn out to be a liability? ******** all of them. I didn’t sign up to make friends, especially not with any White Moon ********. I don’t care if they happen to wear black and have a couple of extra holes. A Senshi’s a Senshi, and if it wasn’t for them, you and I wouldn’t be doing this right now.”
He didn’t say “your brother wouldn’t be dead,” even though that’s what he meant. It was one of the few kindnesses he’d ever extended to Ilian, because he knew how much Ilian’s brother meant to him.
Lovely swallowed and turned his eyes back to his sandwich, grumbling, “It’s only you and me. That’s all I give a s**t about.”
---
Ilian was glad that Lovely didn’t mention his brother. It was bad enough that he still had nightmares about the whole thing, which was stupid because it had been years by now. Yet, he still felt as though a part of him had died when Sorin had.
And Ilian knew if something ever happened to Lovely, he might not be able to recover.
Because even though they bitched about the whole thing with the rings and what it meant or didn’t mean, Ilian still felt more for Lovely than he did with anyone else. And he couldn’t exactly express that because Lovely would blow him off or tell him he was being stupid. And he was being stupid. He was stupid because they set themselves up in all of this and they had no idea what it might mean for them in the future. If there even was a future.
“Here are your cookies,” he mumbled and set them down on the coffee table when he came back from the kitchen, but he wondered if maybe he should just call it a night before the conversation got uncomfortable again, this time for him.
“I know that’s all you give a s**t about, but I’m the one responsible for them. I don’t need them to be my friends. I need them to be useful and for them to do their jobs. We didn’t have a General to report to, but they do…”
Sort of. Because Ilian avoided them, but he was trying to be better about it.
---
“Thanks,” Lovely mumbled.
He didn’t reach for the cookies right away. He finished his sandwich with a few more large bites. Then he nursed his tea, staring at the plate of cookies instead of glancing up at Ilian.
The cookies had Christmas trees on them. Neither of them cared much for Christmas, except it meant Ilian had his holiday job playing the piano at a fancier department store than the one they worked at together. They only had Christmas cookies because they were on sale and the regular cookies weren’t. That was the only reason they got much of anything these days. Money wasn’t tight while they were both working, and they still had a good chunk of what Lovely took out of his account before his oldest brother completely cut him off, but they were smart with it. They were frugal.
Except when it came to the rings.
Lovely looked at his. He twisted it around his finger while he sipped at his tea. At least it didn’t look too out of place with the rest of his jewelry. It would match everything. People might not even think anything of it when they saw it, even though it was on his left ring finger.
“I have a General to report to,” Lovely argued. Then he grabbed a cookie and shoved the whole thing into his mouth. It muffled his voice somewhat when he continued, “Recruit them if you want, I don’t give a ********. But I’m the only one that matters.”
The “to you” was left unspoken, but Lovely thought it was pretty obvious what he meant.
---
The comment about having a General to report to had Ilian pausing, his shoulders slumping a little in resignation. He knew what Lovely meant. It was obvious, even if they didn’t talk about it. Ever. And that was probably part of the problem. They didn’t do the whole sappy and romantic stuff. And that was fine, but it sometimes left Ilian questioning himself.
There was a long moment where he stood and watched Lovely shove cookies into his mouth. He looked from the ring on his own finger, to the ring on Lovely’s. They never said it, and probably would never say it, but Ilian did care about Lovely.
It was different than how he cared about Jericho, or any of the others in the Negaverse, or at work. But he wasn’t going to try to dig deeper because there was no point. Talking about it wasn’t going to change anything.
He took a couple steps around the coffee table, put one knee on the couch to balance himself, and leaned down. His hand lifted to push Lovely’s chin up, making it easier to kiss him. He knew there was a chance he would be shoved away, but… there was also a chance he wouldn’t.
---
Even when Lovely acknowledged to himself that he cared about Ilian, he could never think of the right words to actually say it. Not to Ilian. Not to anyone, though it wasn’t like anyone else actually mattered. Lovely’s life had revolved around the two of them since the day he decided Ilian was important — a day he couldn’t even specify exactly. Was it the day Ilian returned after the abduction? Was it the day Lovely ran away from home? Or maybe the very moment he broke into the apartment, trying to find clues about Ilian’s whereabouts?
Whatever the case, the only thing that mattered to him anymore was Ilian. And that was probably the stupidest thing to ever happen to him, but it did happen, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. They were… together. They were a thing. A pair. In it for… well, however long they managed to live, he supposed. Considering they were part of the Negaverse, Lovely didn’t expect that would be long.
A year ago, maybe even as little as a few months ago, he might have shoved Ilian away instead of kissing him back — not because he didn’t want to kiss Ilian, but because the conversation was too awkward, and kissing would only make it weirder. But he did kiss Ilian back. He sighed through his nose and brought his free hand to Ilian’s face, holding tight to his mug of tea with the other. His heart did that stupid fluttery thing in his chest, and even though he wanted to pull away and gag, he quashed the compulsion and opened his mouth to deepen the kiss.
Because kissing was familiar now, even if all the emotional s**t left him out of sorts.
A few moments later, Lovely broke the kiss with a smirk. “If you don’t want me to be mean around your recruits, you could just shut me up like that. I’d stop talking, and they’d know I’m the only one that matters. It’s a win-win.”
---
Lovely not pushing him away or punching him in the nose was nice. He would rather not get awkward glances because he went to work with a new shiner. It was bad enough that he got injured doing Negaverse things. Ilian just assumed people thought he and Lovely were in an abusive relationship due to the number of bruises they both ended up having.
Or in a fight club.
“I could shut you up by pushing you down to your knees, too,” Ilian scowled as Lovely pulled back, his face flushing over the idea of kissing Lovely in front of other people. He doubted he could manage something as tame as kissing, much less anything more inappropriate for public, despite his half hearted threats.
Or promises.
“Whatever,” he grumbled, although his voice was resigned and a bit embarrassed, especially since Lovely really did decide to wear the ring. Because it was a thing and that was all. A convenience and… it was just a thing.
---
Lovely couldn’t help himself. He snorted at Ilian’s threat, then tossed his head back and laughed. He couldn’t take Ilian seriously, even if he knew he should. Sort of. He didn’t doubt Ilian would do something like that in private, when they were alone in their apartment with no prying eyes. But around anyone else? Ilian didn’t have the nerve. Their relationship was far from common knowledge. As far as Lovely was aware, the only person in the Negaverse who knew for sure was Jericho. It was implied to others, but unless Ilian went around talking about it when Lovely wasn’t around, no one else would have explicit confirmation.
“I’d like to see you try!” Lovely crowed, making an effort to restrain his laughter. He stopped being so loud about it after a couple of moments, but snorted a few more times as he got himself back under control. “Thanks for that. I needed a laugh after today.”
He paused to catch the look on Ilian’s face, assuming he’d probably be moody and disgruntled for a while before trying to reassert himself later. Lovely leaned up briefly to place another kiss onto Ilian’s mouth before giving him a gentle shove backwards, pulling himself off of the couch as he gulped down more tea.
“I’m gonna shower,” he announced, grabbing a handful of cookies to take with him as he began to round the coffee table. “I’m disgusting. My hands smell like metal. We can talk more about your plans to bend me to your will later.”
He snickered again, and threw a smirk over his shoulder as he practically skipped toward the bathroom. “Don’t eat the rest of the cookies without me!”
Guine
For your records boo
