#goosebarnacle

Prompt #31: “I need therapy after this.”

Hhhhh thank you! I was so tempted to take that in an angsty direction but…

Maxwell walks away from the white elephant gift exchange with a box of specialty tea from some remote village in China. Apparently it’s expensive and difficult to obtain.

Jacobi leaves with an unopened bag of socks. They cost about $6.

“I need therapy after this,” Daniel says. “Good lord, did you see Cutter’s face?”

“I thought he was going to have an aneurysm when he unwrapped the socks,” Maxwell laughs.

“Daniel…was it you who brought the socks to the white elephant?” Kepler asks, moving to block their path as they walk briskly back toward their quarters.

“…what kind of thoughtless, forgetful person do you think I am, Major?”

Maxwell smirks. “You know, Cutter calmed down when I ended up with his gift and gushed about how perfect it was. So maybe the night wasn’t…all…bad?”

“Maxwell, you’re not in trouble. Jacobi…answer me.”

“You know what, the culprit never came forward. Cutter dropped the issue…eventually. I just had to take one for the team and go home basically empty handed. What did you get, Major? Baseball signed by…some baseball guy? Man, wish I wasn’t so selfless…might’ve ended up with a cool gift too.”

“He gave us an allowance so that no one would be able to justify a cheap gift. We were supposed to put time and effort into finding a special gift to show how much we value our colleagues. And you brought a pack of fucking…tube socks?”

“To be fair…I thought it was a Christmas bonus!” Jacobi explains.

“Jesus Christ, Jacobi. Do you even read the memos? Cutter loves Christmas and you almost ruined his. Do you have any idea how angry he’ll be with you if he finds out?”

“Alana didn’t buy anything either!” Jacobi says.

“Hey! Now you’re throwing me under the bus?! I’ll have you know, I brought something very dear to me…the hard drive that contains the personality of my very first AI. I loved him. By the way, I’m gonna need your help to steal that back.”

“Oh yeah, of course—“

“Enough!”  

They both go quiet and Kepler runs a hand over his face.

“All right,” he says, sighing. “You’re lucky you’re my agents.”

“Aw, you’re not gonna tell on me? Thanks, Major,” Jacobi grins.

“Read. The. Memos.”

“Yes, Sir. Just call me memo boy from now on.”

“I also want you to get a nice thoughtful gift and send it anonymously to Mr. Cutter,” Kepler says.

Maxwell laughs.

“Or else we’re all going to suffer for his bad mood.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,“ Jacobi huffs.

45. “How much of that did you hear?”

“How much of that did you hear?” Jacobi hisses, pulling Maxwell into the lab with a firm grip around her wrists. She grins, not betraying anything and he glares.

“Maxwell-”

“Oh, relax. I didn’t hear anything, don’t worry,” she says, flippant. “I don’t really care what you do on your computer, frankly- don’t give me that face, your safety glasses are on the table when you usually wear them all the time.”

Jacobi blinks for a moment before he looks at the table, frowning as he sees the glasses there. Maxwell laughs, nudging him in the side with her elbow as he appears to have a full emotional crisis within the span of ten seconds.

“You should see your face,” she snorts. “Priceless, Daniel.”

“Why were you even coming down here?” he frowns, realising that’s probably what he should have started with, even though Maxwell doesn’t seem to mind.

“I wanted to ask what I should order from the Chinese,” she says. “You know, before movie night? I got your favourite in-”

“You got Saw?”

“- and everything. Um. No. I got Die Hard.”

“Maxwell, I hate Die Hard.”

“Oh. Well…”

“I’m kidding. I want some kind of rice. Don’t care what.”

Maxwell smiles again, pulling out her phone as she walks to the door, before Jacobi calls after her to stop her in her tracks.

“Seriously, how much of that did you hear?” he asks, nervous.

“None of it. I got here just before you noticed me,” she says, watching Jacobi visibly relax.

Maxwell smiles, again, but to herself this time. He doesn’t need to know she heard him talking to himself about what to get her for her birthday.

I couldn’t fit it in your ask box, so I had to de-anon. Sorry for the delay! Work and the time difference conspired against me. Have a nice Sunday :)

#9. Falling. (Set as an AU to your Masquerade verse)

He took a deep breath and kept his eyes closed. Waking up disoriented was starting to become a routine. Another day, another town: meet contact, eat, sleep, repeat. If they were lucky enough they’d make it to Hat Yai in the evening without a tail and then across the border to Padang Besar, and from there…

It wasn’t going to work. That certainty sat like a heavy weight on his chest. Sooner or later fatigue would catch up and they would get predictable, and the moment they didn’t have any capacity for surprise left they would be dead. Victor would be dead.

A warm hand touched his wrist. A rustle of sheets, a whisper, a sigh against his neck. Yuuri really didn’t want to open his eyes now. So he took another deep breath, and then a few more, in time with the ones he felt against his skin. He turned to rest his lips against Victor’s forehead, a hand starting to roam across his shoulder blades. A sudden pull and roll left him catching his weight on his forearms, half on top of his lover and looking directly into a piercing blue gaze.

Just like every single day in the last five years, he surrendered to the knowledge that he would pull the impossible for this, the world be damned. They would have to keep going beyond everyone’s expectations. He was completely sure that they would. And he let himself fall into that gaze.

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. – Paradise Lost, John Milton.

aaaaaaaaa thank you SO MUCH! 

This fic really means a lot to me; I definitely think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written (despite my perpetually-fluctuating writing angst) and it’s shaping up to potentially be the longest, too. And I just love all these disasters of characters *so much* and I absolutely respect the show ending before they reached Earth but I really really wanted to think about what might have happened next and do them *all* justice.

It’s so nice of you to let me know! Thank you! :D They were excellent fun to write. I absolutely adore the world of Fallen London

36. total control

Masquerade-verse - you guys get a little spoiler for the next update! 

Victor listened to the soft sound of Yuuri breathing in bed next to him, turned to look at his tattooed skin that stood out bright amidst the white sheets of their hotel room bed. 

He’d tried to hold on to himself, to his control. But the moment Yuuri had nearly made the ultimate sacrifice for him only a few months into this chaotic thing they had was the moment Victor lost it, the moment Victor willingly gave it up. 

All it took for Victor to remember that was for Yuuri to wake up next to him, to mumble his name in his half awake state and inch closer to close the gap that’d since vanished. 

He pulled Yuuri close and forgot about the world that waited for them both outside the hotel room door.