#coderbfs

find it on ao3 here :

Tobin and Leif go stargazing. Tobin listens to Leif talk about constellations. Tobin tries not to kiss him. Tobin almost succeeds.

- - - - -

It was a warm summer night, air cloying even through Tobin’s shirt, hoodie long abandoned on the blanket spread against damp grass.

“There’s the Summer Triangle, Tobes. Straight up.” Leif craned his head back, hands falling behind him to hold himself up. His left one landed on Tobin’s right, and he flipped his palm over to clasp Leif tighter.

“I see it, yeah.”

Leif glanced over his shoulder to Tobin, lips spreading into a thin smile. “The star on the lower left, that’s Deneb. It’s the tail of Cygnus, the swan constellation.” He turned his head back to the sky and Tobin leaned in, eyes following as Leif lifted his right hand to point.

Leif’s hand glided down slightly. “Cygnus flies south along the Milky Way. It’s right by Aquila… there, there it is. The eagle constellation.”

Tobin grinned to himself, gaze flickering between the stars and Leif’s face, open and expressive in a way it never was under harsh fluorescent lights. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It used to be right next to the Antinous constellation, but they got merged together a long time ago. Kinda sad…” Leif turned his head again, a few inches from Tobin’s face. Tobin grinned and made a vaguely inquisitive noise.

“Antinous… he was this guy who either drowned or was sacrificed.” Leif’s voice was quieter, eyes glancing at Tobin, the sky, Tobin again. “His lover, emperor Hadrian, was so devasted he named a city after him, Antinoöpolis,” Leif said.

Tobin swayed forward a little. “Oh.”

“And he made a statue of him. He minted coins with his face on him across the empire, and said he was a God, and he, uh, named a constellation after him.”

“So he could always be with him?”

“Yeah.” Leif’s voice rasped. He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

Tobin squeezed Leif’s hand. “That’s pretty gay, Leif.”

Leif let out a big laugh and leaned back, hand leaving Tobin’s to push his hair off his forehead. “Yeah! Yeah, uh, they were pretty gay, Tobin.”

Tobin tried not to miss the warmth. It was warm enough, anyway. Summer. He fell onto his back with a sigh. “Hadrian, huh?”

“Yeah,” Leif said, still sitting up. “He, like, focused less on imperialism and more on unification within Rome? So that’s cool I guess. He started a cult, though.”

“Gay rights.”

“Tobin.”

He laughed and tilted his head up to look at Leif, who was trying to look scandalized but was failing.

“Nah, but really, Hadrian sucked. For a lot of reasons. Like, slavery, dude.”

“Shit, yeah.” Tobin sat up again to face Leif. “Antinous, though. He was cool?”

Leif shook his head, still smiling. “I dunno, Tobin. It was a long time ago. I only read so much of the Wikipedia article.”

They fell into a comfortable silence again. Tobin watched a mosquito flit around the edges of the frayed quilt they were sat on. “Hey, look,” he said, wrapping one arm around Leif’s waist and gesturing upwards with the other. “Orion’s Belt.”

Leif turned up, then to Tobin, eyes soft.

“See, I can be smart for you, too.”

Leif melted against his side. His hand came up to cup Tobin’s cheek. “Everyone knows Orion’s Belt, idiot.”

Tobin’s eyelids fluttered, and he swayed forward half an inch, leg jolting slightly closer. “Admit it, you were impressed.”

Leif pressed his face against Tobins shoulder and slid his hand back from his cheek to against his neck. “Was not.”

“Was too,” Tobin whispered, and tilted down to press his lips against Leif’s hair. Leif lifted his head at the action and stared.

“...Was not,” Leif repeated dumbly, and Tobin smiled, and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him.

These absurd dumbasses are in love, fight me

❥: who is more likely to plan something big for valentine’s day?

leif, definitely. i'd kinda like to think that he hears about max's flash mob thing for zoey and asks for the number to set one up for tobin, probably to surprise him at work (bc of course they'd still have to work on vday). leif gets super nervous in the days leading up to it bc he's a perfectionist who needs everything to go exactly as planned and maybe he can't get a certain part of the choreography down so he starts Panicking as he waits for tobin to show up and zoey helps give him a pep talk. he still stumbles on the one move but tobin doesn't mind, he has tears in his eyes from just the lengths leif would go to for him and he just pulls him into a kiss right there in front of everyone. (and he's also lowkey embarrassed bc he just bought leif some chocolates and wine at the grocery store, but he absolutely makes up for it in the bedroom.)

i'm sorry this one got away from me lol

ღ: who is more likely to initiate hand-holding in public?

tobin. he's the type who really loves casual pda and he'll call leif "babe" even at work, so of course he'll also just reach over and grab leif's hand whenever their walking together, or sneakily brush a hand against his under the table during a floor meeting (even though the table is literally made of glass so everyone can see you, tobin-- not that he cares, though)

he's just so glad that after x number of years, he and leif are finally a couple, so he wants to show their love off to the world (bc i absolutely love the hc of tobin quietly pining for leif for years, maybe even since they first met, just baby tobin being like "oh this boy is pretty and nice and shared his soup with me so i love him" ....yeah)

💕: who is more likely to make huge declarations of love in front of other people?

pffft, i kinda indirectly answered this with the vday thing, didn't i? well, actually, no, like i just said, tobin is more the one to be loud and proud about his love for leif. holding his hand all the time, calling him "babe", casual cheek kisses at work. probably even buying a shirt that's like "that's my boyfriend" with an arrow on it and always having leif stand on that side of him when he decides to wear it.

TOBIN vs MAX

Who would win in a fight? Look, I know canon implies that it’s probably Max what with the whole “secret buff” thing and also Leif’s whole “plus, what if he fights back?” bit but. Tobin spent three years in prison. He’s got to be scrappy af. My money’s on Tobin. 100%.

LEIF or ZOEY

Who do I like better? Hmm. Let’s see... stares at icon. stares at discord name. stares at my plans for the ZEP meme. I’m gonna go with... Leif. Final answer. And yes, as your resident Zoey kinnie, you can quote me on that. Part of it is because I’m a massive MTG simp. I’ll make no apologies for that. But also he’s just a really great character with an interesting arc and I just want him to have good things always.

TOBIN + MAX

How do I ship them? Well listen. I’m a multi-shipping binch. I’ll ship just about anything romantically as long as it’s not weird/gross, and Tobin/Max is no different. In fact, I’m playing around with a ZEP S1 rewrite that makes the love triangle Leif/Simon and has Max sing ITILY to Tobin, so. I’m definitely on board with that ship. But in the context of canon, I’d really love to see a Tobin/Max friendship develop. That’d be some damn good shit IMO.

✔️ - my baby, Devi Vishwakumar!!

❌- Uhhhhh... I guess Paxton? It’s not even that I don’t like him, persay, he just has like... no personality and I’m absolutely indifferent to his existence