#leesquared

lee and rutherford are my go-to ship along with chengsquared and my koh ships … truly! i luv them! the thing is, litchfield are a pretty tight-knit group, peppered with a two or a three here or there that get more looks and raised eyebrows than others, (the chengs are an example– they’re pretty notoriously close, the cricket team reserve places for henry to sit and holler at chengtwo at training and meets, henry champions, jokingly or not, chengtwo’s unofficial fanclub) but none of them are really inseparable, you know? the vancouverites are self-aware and ambitious enough to acknowledge that everything is temporary. as a whole, they are a finely-oiled machine. as a rule, they don’t play favourites.

except, lee and rutherford … do. they’re a little odd as a couple– really, the general consensus amongst the aglionby girls, particularly the more slanderous of the first-years, is that any other pair would make much more sense. rutherford and chengtwo have always been close, leesquared and sicksteve’s banter frequently edges on flirting, leesquared’s casual, constant, closeness to ryang and koh has always bit of a piss take amongst the wider aglionby population, etc, etc! that’s probably the reason they’re dating, though– their dynamic is so domestic and unremarkable and … un-scandalisable that they can settle quite comfortably into each other’s lives without, say, carruthers asking lee what sicksteve’s been up to all-too-knowingly, or the swim team hounding rutherford on his thoughts on chengtwo’s latest infatuation.

they’re, like, the indisputable parent couple see– no one really knows when they started dating, least of all themselves. leesquared’s a touchy-feely sort of guy and rutherford’s never minded it, and two weeks into the second semester of their first year koh starts addressing them as a twosome when assigning weekly duties. they never really had a honeymoon phase. neither of them can ever recall obsessing over the other, or meeting eyes for the first time, or their first conversation. they’ve always just …. sort of been? leesquared’s always been able to find a home in rutherford’s arms when he gets home late from lacrosse; in turn, rutherford’s memorised the feel of the curve of lee’s waist against his palm when they spoon to muffled reruns of rutherford’s favourite episodes of the x-files. they move around each other’s orbits like clockwork, their relationship only apparent in the ease and lack of thought with which lee leans his head against rutherford’s shoulder as they queue up at the dining hall, or rutherford’s ability to rattle off lee’s preferred toppings to whatever poor soul manning the booth at nino’s, who’ll have to divide one pizza into seven flavours, and make it dairy-free on top of that.

see, litchfield house is really constantly in flux due to ryang’s rages and henry’s secrets and chengtwo’s … entire existence, but there are some constants within the mess of it all, and one of them is that come evening, or afternoon, or really any other time when they’re all present and friendly with each other, leesquared and rutherford will always have returned to each other. (another is that sicksteve will be complaining about the stock of ice cream– henry likes pumpkin cheesecake, sicksteve likes phish food. ryang only likes the really absolutely fucking ridiculous flavours, like urban bourbon and confetti cake, jesus. leesquared is the friend who keeps a lock on his ice cream. koh is a vegan and hates them all.)

they’ve always just been sort of married, you dig? the chengs are the couple who everyone knows are going to get married, and they do, just with the addition of blue and gansey. leesquared and rutherford? they are married. they move in, just like that. they’re so good at arguing with each other, they can time how long it’ll take for them to make up again.