#touchinganelectricdove

A phone background commission I did for @touchinganelectricdove ~!  Thank you so much again for commissioning me!

(ㆁᴗㆁ✿)

u3u thank you, darling! 

There are certain things that are hard to look away from. 

Be it something horrible, something mesmerizing, or something beautiful, the world is full of them. 

And really, he never expected to have one of those things by his side for the duration of his life. It’s a little distracting. He finds himself looking up from what he’s doing, catching Rhett biting at the cap of a pen or typing out an email or-- or any mundane little thing, if he’s honest. 

From the curls on the top of his head to his ridiculously long legs, Rhett is a sight to behold. He’s golden and beautiful, and Link doesn’t ever want to look away. How could he? 

It’s not often he gets caught, and even less often that he gets a grin and a teasing look in return. But he’s having an off day, he guesses, and Rhett’s hand on his thigh has him fumbling through the rest of the text he was typing out before he accidentally started staring at Rhett. 

“It’s not polite to stare, you know,” Rhett says. His voice is low, his hand is still on Link’s thigh, and they’re very much so still at work. 

“Oh? What’re you planning on doing about it, then?” 

The fingers digging into his thigh go a little tighter, and Rhett hums. “I could go to the boss, see what he has to say about it.” 

“Hm,” Link teases, scrubbing at his chin playfully. “You might have to see him after hours with something like that. Sounds pretty serious.”

“You think he’ll still be here by then? I know he likes to go home early when he can,” Rhett asks, standing up slowly, getting his hands on either side of Link so he can straddle him in the chair he’s in. “Or maybe you can make it up to me?” 

The storm billowed up from nowhere. One moment, Captain Neal and his crew were sailing smoothly along. The next, violent scrambling as the crew hurried to take the sails in. A mound of dark clouds was quickly approaching. Then came sheets of rain, falling so hard that he could barely see his hand in front of his face.

Captain Neal had been in many storms before, but never one like this. His glasses were torn from his face almost immediately. The deck heaved beneath his feet. He heard his men shouting around him. He did his best to keep calm, roaring orders to the helmsman as the waves crashed against the ship.

Then there was a sudden, violent crack. Neal was swept from his feet. Everything became a whirling of darkness and rain, screaming and water. He had no idea if he was in the ocean or still flying through the air.

The next thing he remembered was opening his eyes to the sight of a hermit crab mere inches from his face.

He yelped, scrambling backwards. The crab observed him for a moment before scuttling away.

Slowly, Neal got to his feet. He was on a beach with pure white sands, the horizon clear enough for him to wonder if he’d imagined the storm. He didn’t seem to be injured, aside from a few tender bruises.

Further down the beach, he saw a large piece of driftwood. Something was moving near it. Another survivor, perhaps.

Neal headed towards it. He tried to think of where they might have wrecked. There weren’t any islands around for miles.

When he reached the driftwood, he found a body curled up beside it. To his relief, the man was still breathing. His hair and beard were caked with sand. The face was vaguely familiar; one of Neal’s new crew members.

“McLaughlin, can you hear me?” Neal shook the man’s shoulder gently.

The man’s eyes fluttered. “Yes, sir.”

“Can you move?”

McLaughlin tried to sit up, but fell back with a groan.

Neal ran his tongue across dry, briny lips. He wasn’t prepared for this. As a captain, he was aware of the possibility of a shipwreck, but he’d never thought it would happen to him. The fact that the beach was empty except for him and McLaughlin was worrying; had the storm been bad enough to wipe out the other hundred members of his crew?

The sun beating down on him was beginning to make him dizzy. Neal made up his mind. He would do his best to help his one remaining crew member, and search for the others as well.

“I can’t believe it,” is the only thing that Rhett seems capable of saying. He paces the length of their office like a caged animal. “I can’t believe that one of my own boys…” He trails off and begins walking again, from the wall of Haggard records to the nap loft ladder and back again.

Link waits for him to calm down. He sits cross-legged on the couch and strokes Jade behind the ears until her eyes drift closed.

Rhett finally sinks onto the sofa beside Link.

“I just never expected one of my own kids to come to me and say, ‘Dad, I’m gay.’”

“Are you mad?” Link asks.

Rhett thinks for a moment. He sighs, shaking his head. “No. It’s just a shock, I guess.”

“What did Jessie say?”

“She cried and hugged him and said she was proud of him for coming out. I hugged him too, but I didn’t really know how I was supposed to act.”

Link snorts. “How are you supposed to ‘act’?”

“I feel like I don’t know how to talk to him now. He said he’s known for years, but he’s only now decided to tell us. What else has he been hiding from me?” Rhett runs a hand through his hair. “Makes me worried that I did something wrong.”

“Hmm.” Link thinks for a moment. “Don’t think of it like that. He probably didn’t know how to tell you, y’know?”

“That’s true.”

“And it’s not like people haven’t called us gay before.”

Rhett can’t help chuckling at that. “Also true.” His smile vanishes quickly. “That’s another thing, though. He’s going to have a struggle ahead of him. What are the kids at school going to say when they find out? Is this something I should be concerned about? Should I talk to his teachers-”

“Rhett.” Link puts a hand on his arm. “You’re freaking out the way I do now. Take a deep breath.” He thinks for a moment before speaking again. “You and Jessie can still do a lot to help him, y’know? Listen to him. Try to put yourself in his shoes when he opens up to you. Be happy that he still wants to.” He grins. “Lando broke a vase last week and I didn’t find out until I went to take out the trash and heard the sound of broken pottery.”

Rhett sighs. “You’re right.” He leans back against the cushions. “This will just take some getting used to, I guess.”

“Definitely.”

The two of them are silent for a long while. Barbara hops up on the couch and positions herself between them both. Somewhere else in the office, they hear crew members laughing.

“What did you think when kids used to call us gay?” Rhett asks quietly. “It didn’t get to me much but I never thought about how you felt.”

“Bothered me at first,” Link admits. “But then I realized I didn’t care what they said. Having you as my friend was more important.”

“Yeah.” Silence again. “Do you think things would’ve been different for us if we were gay?”

Link considers this. It’s not something he’s thought much about before. “I don’t know,” he says softly.

4. Movie of the year?Wonder Woman!

9 answered here!

10. Something that made you cry this year?bahaha there was so freaking much but let’s go with Coco :p