#beckling

Walter waits for a break in Eyes and Ears’ conversation before wandering into the break room nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just overheard their heated discussion. He grabs his lunch bag from the fridge and decides it’d be better to eat at his desk, where he can wallow about the lamentable options available for his ship names in private.

After Walter rushes through his lunch, he tries to focus on his work to take his mind off the office gossip. He is currently developing a Version 2.0 of his multi-pen. His first multi-pen tool has been a hit with field agents, as it is so easy to hide the gadget in plain sight. The new model will come with advanced safety features and four new functions. It’s nearly finished, with just a few more adjustments needed to the Bubble Blaster setting before he sends it to the prototype lab for testing.

But even his excitement over the improved multi-pen isn’t enough of a distraction from the terrible ship names that Ears and Eyes had debated. By the end of the day, he feels a heavy grey cloud of disappointment hanging over him that even a dose of Kitty Glitter can’t cut through. Hoping that a low key night in with Lance will improve his mood, he rushes to pack his pens and notebooks into his bag before heading home.

Coming home does not improve his mood. He still is in a strop about the ship names as he empties the dishwasher and prepares dinner. He’s unusually quiet as they eat.

“Is everything alright, Walt?” Lance

“Yeah. Just some stuff at work bothering me.” Walter brushes off his concern. It’s just a silly nickname, why does he even care? Lance probably wouldn’t care.

“Alright. But, you know, I’m here if you want to talk. Or if you need me to blow someone up.” Walter flinches and Lance quickly tacks on, “With non-violent glitter bombs, of course.”

Luckily, Lance seems to drop the subject, turning the conversation to the flight training he did with Lovey and Marcy. Lance describes how Marcy ended up in the trash can while practicing a loop-di-loop maneuver and it has Walter in stitches, bad mood nearly forgotten.

After dinner, they settle in, such a quiet night together watching tv and talking about their days. He curls into Lance’s side, resting his head on Lance’s broad shoulder and is ready to forget about all the stresses from his workday. Until Lance finds a rerun of a Star Trek episode, which brings back all the same worries about the state of their ship name. As the episode plays on, his disdain for the proposed ship names his coworkers had created returns. He sighs deeply as Kirk and Spock interact. Spirk is a great ship name, short and catchy and not infantile. Not like Wance or Walster.

“Okay, what’s up.” Lance turns, jostling Walter from his position, forcing Walter to sit up and look at him.

“Nothing.” He deflects.

“Don’t “nothing” me. You’ve been weird since I got home. Did I do something?”

“No, of course not. You didn’t do anything. I just overheard something at the office. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine if it upsets you. Who do I need to fight?” He puffs his chest up protectively.

“No one, calm down.” Walter pats his chest, then smooths a crease in his shirt down as he adds, “It’s not even a big deal.”

“If it’s not a big deal, then you can tell me.” Lance pesters.

“It’s just that I overheard Eyes and Ears talking about our ship name. I don’t know why I’m upset. It’s so embarrassing.” Walter covers his face with his hands.

“Ship name? Are you building a ship in the lab?” Lance gets overly excited.

“No not a ship- ship. Like a relationship.”

Lance looks so confused, like he’d never heard that term before. “Oh, you’ve never heard of shipping!” Walter laughs at the realization. His boyfriend’s ineptitude for understanding pop culture is enough humor to raise his spirits a bit. Of all the things his smart, strong spy boyfriend can do, from catching the bad guy to turning into a literal bird, he’s still completely clueless when it comes to pop culture.

“Why are you laughing?” Lance pouts. He never likes to be the butt of jokes that he doesn’t understand.

Walter just laughs harder. It reminds him of the night he had to explain to Lance how memes worked. But eventually, he catches his breath and explains, “Shipping is when someone thinks two or more people should be in a relationship.”

Lance’s brows furrow. “We /are/ in a relationship.”

“Let me finish. A ship name is usually a combination of the people’s names, like a shorthand way to reference them. Like Star Trek,” Walter points at the television. “Lots of people think Spock and Kirk are in a relationship, so they call them Spirk.”

“Spirk,” Lance repeats skeptically.

“Yeah. So, like, I overheard Eyes and Ears arguing about it today and I realized that we don’t have a good ship name.”

Lance has a blank look on his face, like something isn’t quite making sense. Walter knew he wouldn’t understand why it upset Walter. “Never mind. I told you it was silly.”

“No, no. It’s not silly if it’s important to you. I’m just trying to figure it out. So, it’s like a code name?”

“Kinda?”

“Well, what’d they come up with? It can’t be that bad.”

“Walster and Wance.”

Lance grimaces. “Oh, those are bad.”

“Yep.”

“Why don’t you just make up one that you like?” Lance asks.

“I can’t just make up our own ship name!” Walter throws up his hands in frustration. “There’s like rules against that! It’s a name bestowed upon the couple.”

“Oh.” Lance falls silent. The characters on the tv screen fill the silence between them. Walter doesn’t know what’s happening on screen and doesn’t even attempt to focus on the episode, mind still stuck on his own personal travesty. If only he could hint at it, or get someone else to use a better ship name.

That’s it! Walter sits upright, eyes widening as the perfect solution comes to mind. “We could do it!”

“Do what?” Lance asks.

“Create our own ship name.”

“But you just said you couldn’t.”

“But, what if they didn’t know we’d picked our own? We are spies, we should be able to infiltrate the gossip network at the office and implant a better ship name without anyone finding out.”

Lance is still skeptical, his eyebrows raising as he tries to catch up to Walter’s thoughts.

“Come on, it’s a win-win. We can pick a name we like, and no one will know it was you that did it.”

“Do you even have a name picked out?”

“Well, I was thinking Beckling. You know, like Beckett and Sterling. It’s short and catchy. And cute!”

Lance rolls his eyes subtly. He can’t say that he loves that choice, but he is endeared by his boyfriend’s enthusiasm. And though he may not understand ships, he can tell this nickname means something to Walter. After weighing a few pros and cons, he comes to a decision.

“I guess.” Lance reluctantly acquiesces.

“Alright!” Walter pumps his fist in the air excitedly. “Operation: Launch the Ship is on! But, we’ll have to work fast before one of those awful names sticks.”

Walter quickly withdraws a notebook and an ink multi-pen from his work bag, eager to plan a fun mini-mission with Lance. It’ll be sorta like when they first met, just the two of them working together. “Let’s begin!” He clicks on the purple ink button with gusto!

The purple button, however, does not activate his favorite purple ballpoint. Instead it launches a stream of bubbles from the tip of the multi-pen. Walter watches in horror as the activated Bubble Blaster quickly fills the living room with a sea of foam. He must have accidentally brought home the unfinished multi-pen 2.0 instead of his favorite multi-pen. Unfortunately, as he was still tinkering with the design, there was no way to shut off the Bubble Blaster until the multi-pen ran out of ammo.

Finally, the multi-pen finally fizzles out and the last sudsy drops spill out of the end. Walter’s cheeks flame red, embarrassed to have accidentally brought another of his unfinished inventions into Lance’s house. It’d been two weeks since the last incident, and Walter had promised to be more careful. He is afraid of how Lance will react to this latest mishap.

“Walter… are the bubbles part of the operation?” Lance asks, tone unreadable.

“No…” Walter turns back to Lance, hoping that he isn’t too angry. Instead of anger, he is surprised to find the most adoring look on Lance’s face. “But they could be, if I can fix the multi-pen 2.0 in time.”

“I hope so. I think the bubbles could come in handy.” Lance says. Then he leans in and wipes a bit of foam from Walter’s cheek with his thumb.