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malimaywrite · 9 months

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gavin/freelancer | mature | wc: 7.1k

cw: mentions of childhood emotional neglect

notes: she/they freelancer, physical descriptors of characters included, non-canon backstory included, banner image from 'fall of icarus' (1607) by carlo saraceni, title taken from 'sunlight' by hozier | read on ao3 (log-in required)

It happened when they clutched tighter to him as they both lay tangled in the pale blue and yellows of their sheets. Not the kind of clutches he was used to with heavy breaths and flushed lips. No. It happened while they slept, their eyes closed as they drifted along the in between away from him. All soft and tucked away—peaceful. They shifted and curled closer. His heart fluttered. Thrummed and hummed louder than the birds that darted past the window. He furrowed his eyebrows at himself. He'd lost count how often it happened now. When had he lost count? Freelancer opened their eyes. Smiled. And the sun rose inside of him. Warming him up and beaming the longer they looked. It terrified him. /// five times Gavin meant to say 'I love you.' (Takes place from months before to the night of 'Your Dom Incubus Confesses His Feelings to You')

the icarus to your certainty (oh, my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight)

“You are wonderful, Freelancer. The light in my heart.”

They shifted and curled closer. His heart fluttered. Thrummed and hummed louder than the birds that darted past the window. He furrowed his eyebrows at himself. He'd lost count how often it happened now. When had he lost count? Freelancer opened their eyes. Smiled. And the sun rose inside of him. Warming him up and beaming the longer they looked.

It terrified him.

“Who's watching who sleep now?” Freelancer muttered, all at once too close and too far from the racing in his chest. They stretched away from him for a moment. His bare skin where their arms had been cooled.

He ignored the incessant noise beyond his rib cage and propped up a smirk.

“I'm simply primed for an early morning round,” he said.

They snorted. And his heart gave a hard thud even at that. He stilled himself with a deep breath—taking in all vanilla and shea butter. All them.

“You are greedy,” they said, dragging out the last word. Their smile widened and the sun brightened.

“I could've said the same to you last night.” He tilted his head from their pillowcase. “Or the night before or the night before.”

He found himself pulling them in closer and closer with each 'or.' Freelancer needed thicker blankets. The morning chill always managed to slip underneath their sheets was all. Pulling them closer long after they'd reached euphoria kept him warmer. That was all. He told himself so for the thousandth time, each time rang more hollow. But a couple weeks ago, he'd started to admit it was partially to stave off his least favorite part of their morning afters.

Freelancer's arm draped across him again. They buried their face just into the crook of his neck and along the pillow. He rested his chin on the cloud of their hair. His hand caught in the coils and curls there. His other trailed along their back while Freelancer's fingers drew lazy circles along his. Their chest rose and fell against him, light breaths against his collarbone.

He didn't know how long they held each other. He didn't, but worlds could have collided and Aria could have turned to stardust and he wouldn't have dared to move. He'd have gladly spent his eternity just like that. Home.

He froze. That familiar terror pinpricked along his spine again. It overwhelmed him, bubbled in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed it down. That usually helped. Freelancer's fingers stopped their art. He scrambled for a sly comment, an innuendo. Something to distract them and himself.

“You okay?” they said, pulling away. Dark brown eyes stared up. A line formed between their brows.

An instinct. He placed a kiss right along the furrow, hoping to will it away. His lips lingered for a moment. Their face soft when he met their gaze again. The gentle kindness in them. The awe that swelled in him as he followed the sharp line of their nose and curve of full lips. His heartbeat banged a loud and cascading roar in his ears.

For weeks and weeks that fear had blossomed from the smallest of seeds. Every smile, every gaze, every touch ignited it. Another swallow. It hardly helped.

One of their eyebrows rose. He finally got himself to nod. A pause. Another soft smile from them. And the sun blazed—blinded him. The sharpest terror struck him yet again and he realized its actual name, the phrase that explained it. The truest of words.

He loved them.

“You sure?” They curled into him again. Their turn to pull him in. “You stiffened up a bit.”

The three words echoed in his head like a song. He tried to think of another tune before the air in the room could dissipate.

“Of course, deviant,” he let out slowly. “Your naked body is pressed up against me.”

They laughed. “My naked body is pressed up against you often.”

“But 'often' surely isn't enough.”

He felt their smile against him before they rolled away with another stretch. They sat on the edge of the bed completely out of reach. There it was. There was his least favorite part of morning afters.

Freelancer checked their phone from their organized clutter of a nightstand, balked, and shot up faster than he could blink. They grabbed one of the sheets to cover themself. The three-worded song in his head played too loudly for him to conjure up a remark quick enough.

“'Often' will have to be enough,” they said. “I set it for PM, not AM.”

They grumbled at themself before darting to the bathroom in a half tiptoe, half sprint. The dragging sheet dropped before the door clicked shut. He didn't realize he'd had his own small smile on his face until the sound made it drop, until the room chilled after. The most unsteady of breaths left him as the faucet cut on beyond the door.

He loved them. He loved them with everything in him and he didn't know what to do.

///

It happened when she yelled. Or yelped, rather.

“Why are you headed towards the only other car in the parking lot?” she said. A quick and strangled laugh followed.

Gavin gripped the steering wheel—both hands, as she'd requested—and slowed their crawl of a drive across their corner of the campus lot into a near stop. Her car—Chip, named for the several paint scuffs that decorated its bumper ever since she bought the used vehicle—sat at an angle across the white lines.

“Because when I drive well,” he started slow. Wondered if he should elude the truth, slip out of reach of sincerity. “When I drive well, you stop speaking.” He failed. He wanted to hear her voice, his spellsong. Always.

Even if it only begged him to use a blinker.

A heavy pause. He'd shifted the air, stifled it of the lighthearted. He dared to look at her and her face scrunched up. Warmth radiated off of her with that small smile, blanketed and eased any twist of tension in him. Beautiful.

“What is a demon on the road to do without direction?” he said, catching the daze in his own voice.

Freelancer lifted her eyebrows. “You want me to command you.”

He'd shifted things back into place. The drop in her voice and playful twinkle in her dark brown eyes threatened to shift something else. A quick and subtle surge of sexual energy from her flowed through him, made him sit up straighter.

He smiled. “We have tried it a few times.”

He never longed to be a telepath, but the second surge that rushed through him in wave told him she took a moment to relive one of those tries in her mind. He wanted to relive it with her.

She shook her head after an audible breath. Her focus lasered in on the emptied pavement ahead of them. He loved when she did that. He caught it during her long—sometimes too long—study sessions, her eyebrows bunched as she peered over lines of text. He etched it in his mind when she squinted in the mirror, comb in hand, and she tried to part her coils for braids; when she huffed, cheeks puffed, and stirred egg whites into stiff peaks during their dessert days.

She took another heavy breath. The tiniest surge. Barely enough to taste. He held in a sly comment.

“Let's head out to the street after one more lap.” Her voice steady. “I have a reward for you if you decide to be a traffic law-abiding citizen.”

His turn to lift an eyebrow. Oh? “Yes, deviant,” Gavin said.

They'd squeezed in some driving practice between her 17th century western magic history and intermediate levitation classes over the past week. Huxley's away game meant an almost six-hour road trip over the weekend and Damien declared that everyone would contribute to the drive over and back. An agreement everyone felt comfortable with until Gavin mentioned he couldn't remember the last time he drove. Lasko's eyes had widened at that. And they only grew wider when Gavin mentioned he somehow still had a license, however.

Freelancer had offered a driving retread before the concern could spill from Lasko's pretty mouth.

Gavin hadn't quite needed the lessons—the only thing related to humans' fast-moving metal contraptions that really confused him still were roundabouts—but it meant spending more time with Freelancer. A gift he'd always receive with gratitude, with reverence. As long as their lessons didn't mean longer study sessions for her or added stress, he'd welcome it. He found himself taking a couple glances over to her as the towering thick trees and D.A.M.N. dorms whipped by to see if she did as well.

He eased to a stop at the oncoming red light, flicked on his blinker, and waited to make a right turn. Students roamed by in a flurry of school logos and heavy book bags. Once they cleared out, he headed on. The sidewalk pedestrians and bars of the university stadium entrance in the distance blurred.

Her lips pressed against his cheek. Light and quick, the softest of touches.

Heat rose along the length of his neck, simmering up to his temples and to the tips of his ears. Luckily, the next light caught them right at the line. It was a little harder to ease into that stop. What? Gavin didn't know it was possible to surprise himself.

“What?” Freelancer said.

Whiplash might have followed with how quickly he faced her. He felt the confusion on his own face. Freelancer raised an eyebrow, snorted.

“You said 'what,'” she said with a smile in her voice. She leaned forward. Looked directly at his cheek. “Are you..?” Closer.

He was. He had never before. And especially not over the most chaste of kisses.

He caused flushed cheeks—trembling hands, flubbed sentences, and ceaseless moans—out of others. Once he sensed the person's attraction to him, it could happen as easily as blinking for him. Not a single instance of nighttime rendezvous and midday flirting had someone made Gavin blush. What in all of Aria was wrong with him? A thrum, an echo, a song played in the back of his head yet again—bang, bang, banged in his chest. He ignored it. He had to. It threatened to swallow him whole.

“Deviant,” he said, all performance as the light flickered green and traffic continued on. “I have been graced with a sizable share of kisses from you. Along every inch of me.” His words slowed. His lips on her body a trail that his mind followed. “And—while a welcome gift—a soft kiss to the cheek can't be enough to make a sex demon blush.”

It can't.

It was.

It was when it came to Freelancer.

“Plus, Chip's A/C isn't working as well as it once was,” he added before he could stop himself.

He felt her smile before he spotted it in his peripheral. Warmth radiated from around Freelancer in rays. The sense of comfort and care from her wrapped around him. He swallowed hard. The only thing he wanted to do was nuzzle in it. He opened his mouth, hoping to remind her of the many times Chip had to bear witness to their rapture. But Freelancer's hand traveled the length of his arm until she pulled one of his own from the steering wheel and laced her fingers with his. Their linked hands rested between them. Her thumb glided along the back of his hand.

That familiar and incessant pounding. A frantic search for a tease followed. She had wanted both of his hands on the steering after all. But he found something else first: a beg. A bellow of a beg for him to not send her hand away from his—to not mess up what felt right. Of course that was where his hand should've been. Of course it was always, always, always meant to be interlocked with hers.

Thoughts like that had grown to loom larger and larger, harder to cut down and distract with each passing day. Maybe. Maybe he could've let them roam.

He lifted their hands and gave his own chaste kisses. One to each of her knuckles. Each one pressed three words against her skin.

///

It happened while knots formed and twisted tighter, threatening to snap with every Mother's Day Sale commercial and multi-colored tulip bouquet that seemed to catch her eye. He called her name in the middle of the grocery store—his hands full of her preferred pastry flour—as she stared at a set of pink balloons. The words 'Best Mom Ever' decorated the plastic in cursive. He rubbed her wrist at Max's—calling her hadn't worked that time—as her eyes bore into two women that ate in the booth behind him. The only difference between their small features was age as they sat closer than what seemed feasible. Freelancer flinched and smiled away his concern each time—clouds covered the sun.

Each knot tightened the closer that Sunday inched. He attempted to distract her the best ways he knew how—worshiping every line of her, leading her to the wealth of bliss she deserved when she wanted. He attempted to distract her in the ways he'd forced himself to learn how. He binged every comfort show she'd mentioned during their pillow talks with her. He'd hum the tune to the one with the field and parks in the introduction, recite parts of the opening monologue from the cartoon with the air elemental. It earned him a smile that lit her up each time.

Gavin tried every “kitchen sink” cookie recipe he could find, swapping with the human and magic way each time. He tasted cookie dough with her and off of her fingers. Her eyes gleamed every time a fresh cookie instantly appeared in his hand. They talked about everything and nothing at the same time while they waited for batches to bake. He gave her space when she asked. He recruited friends when Freelancer had the bandwidth for socializing. Huxley, Lasko, and Damien up for board, card, and video game parties often. Caelum ready for couch cuddling and more cartoons just the same. Every time he heard her laugh, something surged in him. He could feel when the knots in her loosened ever so slightly as if they were his own.

But that Sunday still came.

Gavin tasted her as morning streamed in from the curtains, they showered together, and made breakfast. He made sure to keep the television on streaming—keeping the commercials at bay—all the romantic comedies lined up and ready for another binge. With Freelancer's head going from his shoulder to his lap in 45-minute increments, they made it through two movies before she got up. She headed to her room with her phone in hand as credits rolled. Told him to give her a second, to start the next one if she took too long for him. The final logos appeared before she did. A tight smile on her face and the knots even tighter. The same thing again after the next film. Another departure, another twist.

He didn't want to press her, only held her hand when she rested against him again. A reminder that he'd be right there when she wanted to tell him what caused the new coiling, if it wasn't only the day itself doing so.

Freelancer left again in the middle of the next movie. Gavin paused. The 'Last Holiday' summary faded in over the actors' faces as she darted by.

“You didn't have to. I've seen this part,” she muttered. “Sorry, I'll be right back.” Another attempt at a smile. It dropped.

Gavin's stomach did the same.

Freelancer disappeared into the room. He started for the door after minutes that moved like days, but she burst out of the room before he could make it to the hallway. The phone gone and replaced with her half open book bag.

“I have a lot to do,” she said under her breath. Her frown deep, her head aimed at the floor, her shoulders low.

She maneuvered around him. Dropped herself and her bag with a thud between the plush of the pastel green couch and the dark hardwood of the long coffee table. She rummaged through her bag with her eyes still aimed at the floor. His chest ached in the worst of ways.

The feeling radiating from her sunk him into the depths of Dahlia. The heavy weight of despair, the cold and sterile and impenetrable fog of devastation. His insides quaked.

“I still have two finals to get through,” she said. Her fingers flicked through pages, never landing on anything. “I just have a lot to do. We can finish the movies later.”

He sat next to her, taking her in. She didn't look at him. Her eyes blinked hard at her textbook, portraits of famous energetics and elementals of the past few centuries flashed by.

He wanted to touch her. He wanted to place his hand on top of her frantic ones, cradle her face, rub her back. Anything to soothe her.

“Freelancer?” he said. That dear word asking all the questions and spilling all the worries he had in him.

A pause.

Freelancer's hands stopped moving. Dark brown eyes still on the page.

“I'm blocked,” she said. Her voice harbored the slightest tremble.

His head tilted, but he kept quiet. Waited. Let that beautiful mind of hers work through what she wanted, what she needed to say next.

“She still won't answer the phone.”

The room went cold. The tears Freelancer had tried to blink away spilled over. She finally turned to him.

“Gavin, she won't answer the phone.”

A choked back sob. A tear inside of him. They reached for each other at the same time. He cradled all of her on the floor. She gripped his shirt tight as she buried her face into the crook of his neck, tears dampening his skin. His chin rested along the puff of her curls. His arms wrapped around her as if doing so was all that would hold him together too.

The devastation thickened, threatening to choke him. Every sniff and gasp from her tore at him. He noticed the quake that shook his being again when she trembled against him. His magic. It did the same with her. Shuddering. The thuds in his chest begged him to clear the fog, to send her pain to the stars. His neck muffled her soft cries. His magic burned when she held onto him tighter. He did the same to her.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't be so...”

He shook his head. He'd expected her to say it. She apologized a little less now when people bumped into her, when she said 'no' to things, but apologizing when any emotion besides pure happiness made an appearance still happened often.

“You don't have to apologize for feeling,” he said again. He'd say it over and over until he could one day sense her belief in it. “You're hurting, Freelancer. Let yourself feel what you need to without judgment.”

Freelancer's childhood and adolescent stories made it seem as though her parents never allowed her that. Treated her as though she'd come into being fully formed and ready to care for everyone without complaint. Stories of her walking home from school to an empty house right before her younger siblings—all expectations for her to heat them food when she was barely even big enough to see the stove properly, to help them with their homework before she got to hers, to send them to bed before she got to dream. Her mother's only comment to her after a late night arrival was to critique the way Freelancer washed the dishes.

How her mother's distance began after Freelancer first showed her mom that she could make her old dolls fly.

“At least she didn't seem to hate me as much when I helped around the house,” Freelancer had said the night she'd first told him with a soft and weak laugh.

Gavin closed his eyes. Held her just that much tighter just like he'd done then.

Tales of the gap years “tending to the household” between high school and her local unempowered humans' university, the several semesters of mornings working at her neighborhood bakery and getting her siblings ready for school, her afternoons in lecture halls, her evenings either back to work or with her head in her books filled the nighttime talks between them. Any mention of stress in those years, of not being able to leave her bed was met with irritated dismissal from her mother. The pressure had built up in her, right in her core until it cracked.

“I couldn't do it anymore,” she had mumbled against his chest.

“You shouldn't have had to.”

The shatter happened days after she'd had to declare her withdrawal from college—the financial, mental, and physical strain too much—and hours before the high school graduation party for her youngest brother. One cold comment from her mother about how late Freelancer managed to pull herself out of bed, another on how she cooked the breakfast eggs too early, another about how her cake's icing hadn't set properly, how she'd set the tables wrong, how she didn't know how to tie her brother's tie, how she was of no help.

Freelancer remembered crying and opening her eyes to screams, shouts of 'where did she go?' The table, couch, and breakfast bar stools hovered high against the popcorn ceiling. She hadn't realized she'd cloaked until she ran into her room, flickered in and out of view in her dresser mirror. Freelancer was kicked out of the house by sunset.

“Why won't she at least just answer the phone?” Freelancer whispered. Barely audible even with her mouth so close.

After almost three months alone, all she essentially had was the name of a rumored magical academy and the auras she could always vaguely sense, but not name herself yet.

Freelancer's softening sniffs pulled him back fully. He rocked her ever so slightly as her grip on his shirt loosened. He wished on Aria that he could go back to those months, to the day Freelancer's magic finally had to scream out, to the years she spent small, suppressing, and placing a household on her shoulders because that seemed like the only way she could receive a single emotion beyond disdain from her mother.

“It's my first mother's day without...” she started. She didn't have to finish it.

He couldn't make up for it, the affection and care she deserved then. No one could. But he would spend all his eternities giving her all the affection and care he had in him. He didn't know if he could pull her any closer, but he tried. He'd always try. Her breathing steadied and his magic, his entire being, did the same.

Three words roared in his head for the umpteenth time since he'd finally admitted them that one terrifying morning. He let them spill from his mouth. It morphed into three different ones. Their meaning all the same.

“I'm sorry, Freelancer.”

///

Freelancer pulled the sheet over Caelum as he slept on the couch. A couple of their multicolored scrunchies rested along the base of his lavender horns and Dory stickers sat along his puffed cheeks. The credits for the fifth Pixar movie of the day scrolled up on the television screen. Freelancer smiled down at him before moving a small bowl of tropical skittles away from his limp hands.

Gavin didn't fight the smile that rose on his own face. Nor how much it grew when they approached him. The sun, all warm and bright. He leaned against the doorframe to their kitchen as Freelancer stopped right in front of him.

“I'm so glad he doesn't have to rely on actual sustenance from us,” they whispered. They popped a skittle in their mouth.

Gavin tilted his head. “Oh, don't be so harsh on yourself, deviant,” he started, voice quiet as well. “You have been a delectable source of sustenance for me at least.”

They snorted. A roll of the eyes followed a flicker of a glimmer before they headed into the kitchen. He let out a small, soft laugh as he joined them.

Freelancer poured the excess candy back into its bright blue packaging. They clipped it closed after pouring a handful into their mouth.

“You know?” they said through the candy. “I refuse to wake him, but I don't want the last movie he watched tonight to be 'Cars 2.'” They seemed to consider then shrugged. “As long as he liked it though then it's fine.”

“He did go...what was it?” Gavin said.

“Ka-chow,” they grumbled.

His smile grew. “That's right. 'Ka-chow' about fifty times before we got to middle.”

They pulled out three mugs. Gavin already knew what they were about to make. He leaned down to the low cabinets. They set out the one big and small grater. He pulled out a saucepan to place on the stove and turned it to medium-low. Freelancer poured milk in and then pulled out a bar of their favorite semisweet chocolate. They both started grating after Gavin added a pinch of sugar to the pan like he'd seen them do all the times before.

They both gave reviews of the movies they'd finished. Gavin had taken a liking to the one with the little robot, swore to Freelancer that someone who worked on the emotions one had to be empowered, and wondered why anyone would go to a stadium to only watch screens in the monsters' college one. They both finished their grating and Gavin poured the shavings into a glass bowl, letting Freelancer heat it up in the microwave. He'd somehow set it to defrost and low power last time he tried to warm anything in it.

The first set of thirty seconds hummed to a beep before Freelancer spoke up again.

“They have exemption exams,” they said.

He raised an eyebrow, running through the monsters' college movie in his head again. “When did they mention exemption exams?”

They shook their head. “Oh, no not in the movie,” they said. “D.A.M.N.”

He stilled, barely. But it was enough that Freelancer's gaze traveled to his shoulders, his stance. He forced himself to loosen. He didn't even know where they were headed. An eyebrow remained high and he made sure a sly smirk covered his face.

Freelancer held steadier than him. “You remember a few nights ago?”

“I remember all of our nights, deviant,” he said. “We can reminisce on the first, second, and third time you came apart for me last night.”

They didn't take the bait.

“We only kinda talked about it once,” they said. “But, you've been mentioning things about school for a couple weeks now.” They finished with a soft smile. One that made him want to step closer.

Had he?

His comment from last week hit him. Whilst walking Freelancer to class, he'd somehow got on the subject of how inconceivably handsome he'd look in a cap and gown. Another from a couple nights ago where Freelancer mused over making their schedule for next semester, rambled over an electro class they were nervous to take. Gavin urged them to head to Lasko if a class ever made them uncomfortable. How he wished he could have done the same. A final comment from yesterday. Freelancer had sent in their last essay for the semester and during a celebratory round of pizza and wings, he'd mentioned how much he had grown fond of writing essays back then—even the research ones.

Freelancer made it sound as though there were even more examples.

“It was on the D.A.M.N website,” they started again. “They had it a little hidden in the 'academics' section, but you can take this pretty comprehensive exam and get full certification. We can ask Lasko about it.”

Full certification.

The words a pang in both his sides. He'd stored that hope away after classes where he'd caught a whisper or two of 'leech' as he passed rows of classmates, after more than one professor scoffed at his interest in any subject that didn't center around him fucking, when morphing himself into someone he wasn't to get an A made him want to fade back into the Elision Well.

Freelancer had asked him if he'd wanted to go back for full certification awhile ago. The conversation flipped when he asked them if they wanted to be 'full of him.'

He must have been quiet for too long. He couldn't gather up an innuendo in any of it. His mind rummaged through all the reasons he'd set that goal aside and buried it deep.

Freelancer wrapped their arms around him, looking up.

“We can do study sessions together,” they said with another smile that rivaled the stars. They rubbed his back. His shoulders eased. “I can get you back for all the other sessions we've had. We could do practice quizzes, we could do the whole review and have you explain concepts back to me, we could do flash cards. I love a good set of flashcards.”

Light swelled in his chest. He'd finally managed to move his arms around them, their words jolting his body.

“If you want to go the other route, I can make sure you don't have to take that shitty class ever again,” they said. All defiance and defense in their voice. He took in a deep breath and shea butter comforted him. “You shouldn't have to since you already have the credits. I'll head down to any counselor's office if they tried it.”

Gavin could not get a single word out of his mouth. Care and conviction radiated off of them with enough intensity to warm him up from the inside out. Waves of it hugged him tight.

“You get to choose how you get it,” they said, "if you want to get it."

That got his mouth to open, but he had to take more than a couple of deep breaths in. There didn't seem to be enough air in the kitchen.

“It was a joke, Freelancer,” he said, deflating. “They were jokes. What you all call 'the funnies.'”

Freelancer only kept their gaze on him. So gentle and kind. It overwhelmed him, stripped him naked in the only way that made him uncomfortable.

They nodded, but placed their warm hands along his cheeks to cradle his face. The slightest tremble of a chill rushed through him. Their lips against his, just as gentle as their gaze had been.

They tasted sweet.

Their forehead rested against his for days, months, centuries. All until they pulled away enough to look at him again.

“I know in my heart of hearts that you would do amazing, Gavin.”

The sun would never set again.

Gavin had to will himself to take in breaths slow. Freelancer's words carved themselves into the depths of him. He'd never had someone, anyone give the slightest hint that he could strive for something—accomplish something. Heaviness in his chest. That familiar thrum and song that played in his head. He welcomed it. And the tiniest candlelight flicker in the pit of his stomach, one that once went out when he too declared his withdrawal from school. It felt a bit like hope. That hope felt safe with them.

He wasn't ready to fan the flame larger. He'd explain that to them later. He didn't know if he ever would be, but their dark eyes on him made ask himself again.

“Thank you, Freelancer,” he said with his song. His voice garbled even to his own ears.

Freelancer dropped one hand and rubbed his cheek with the other. The room continued to suffocate him, everything in him threatened to bubble over. He almost asked to step away for a moment. Instead, he let his head tilt, let it relax into their hand. They'd beamed at him before he closed his eyes. Their thumb still grazed his cheek, their body so close to his. All warmth radiating from them yet again.

The softest of any laughs huffed through his nose. All those romantic comedies they'd finished. The declarations from the tops of monuments and between the greenery of parks. None of them—not a scene nor a monologue—had described love well enough.

He opened his eyes to the sun again and kissed them.

A knock and a creak of the door before it could even register.

“I tried really, really, really, really, really hard to wait for when smooches were over to ask,” Caelum started at the door, sheets wrapped around him and over his head. They pulled apart with a snort from Freelancer. It took Gavin a bit longer to blink out of his haze. “I even knocked like you told me to, Gavin, but I didn't know how many times to knock to stop the smooches. Smooches were making you both really, really happy and I want you both to be really, really, really, really happy 'cause it makes me really, really really, really, really happy times infinity and infinity is a big number. I think it's the biggest...”

Caelum continued his ramble as Freelancer turned off the boiling milk. They headed to him, patted the sheet pulled taut over his head and horns. Caelum interrupted his numbers ramble to circle back to the topic of 'smooches.' Another easy smile graced Gavin's face.

“After smooches,” Caelum continued, “can we watch Rata—ratatulle? Ratatoe? Ratatat? Ra—can we watch the rat one?”

Freelancer threw an arm around his shoulder. He moved closer into them with a little shuffle before they spun back to face the living room.

“Absolutely,” they said. “And I think it might even be infinity plus one times better than the one we just watched.”

Caelum gasped as they both left. “Infinity plus one?”

The door swung shut and their muffled talk faded. The small smile on Gavin's face only grew. A huff of a laugh through his nose. That light, a kaleidoscope of color filled him to the brim. The haze and daze still hovered all around him, spinning him around as he stood still. He half-wondered how his legs hadn't given out, how much wider his smile could get. His cheeks ached. The imprint of their hands continued to warm them.

That candlelight flicker in the pit of his stomach grew.

///

“Really though,” Freelancer said, gesturing to the night sky. “She's gonna wake up every day not knowing who he is or her own kid. In her mind, she went to bed years ago in her own room in a house with her dad and brother. She wakes up and she's on a boat with a whole kid and husband.” Their jaw dropped. “The days where she woke up visibly pregnant.” Their eyes widened.

Gavin snorted as they huffed. Their head rested on his lap. They both lounged at the center of the courtyard along the trimmed grass, between the reach of high-branched hackberry and pistache trees—Huxley had told him the names. Underneath lamp posts' glows, an occasional student strolled down the alumni bricks of the walkways—the names and years of graduates of old etched into the steps leading to study halls.

“Horror story,” Freelancer finished. A forced shudder ran through them. “Not a bad movie, but I think we should start on the pure comedies next.”

He raised an eyebrow. “As opposed to..?”

A smile from them. One rose on his own face before he even noticed it.

“Is there one you want to start with?”

He'd considered after a moment. Freelancer asked him what he wanted often—movies, food, how he wanted them—and he still wasn't used to it.

“I do remember a certain 'Spaceballs' coming up in conversation,” he said slow, ready for their reaction.

“How did I not guess that would be the title you'd remember?” they said. They rocked side-to-side against him. “We should do that first then try 'Friday.'”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Don't the five of us have that trail hike then?”

They shook their head. The curls of their afro danced along his upper thighs. He placed a hand along the coils puffing at their hairline, fingers gliding over the soft strands. Freelancer closed their eyes for a few moments and breathed in deep. That familiar warmth radiated off of them. Their eyes shot open.

“Oh, no,” they said. “It's a movie.”

That didn't help the confusion. “They made a movie about a day?” A head tilt. He shrugged inwardly the humans made movies about talking toys. The concept wasn't that odd.

“Not technically,” they said. “It's a specific Friday for these characters.” A pause. “It's where that one old phrase 'Bye, Felicia' came from.”

His expression must have given him away. They seemed to read it quickly.

“It's a phrase to dismiss someone,” they explained, waving away the sky. “She was a neighbor?” Another shake of the head. “She came over to the main character's house and wanted to borrow their microwave. Or was that a different scene?” They waved themselves away that time. “We'll see.”

He huffed. “Why anyone would want to do that escapes me.”

“One day I'll get you to use one properly,” they said with a quick laugh—music that floated up beyond the leaves.

He waited for both songs to quiet just enough for him to speak.

“There are more important lessons, my deviant,” he said. A pull dragged him down to kiss them.

Freelancer kept their eyes closed long after he'd straightened back up. Their full lips drawn into another smile. Gavin nearly kissed them again.

Their recent movie review soon followed. Freelancer reminisced over the 'dial-up noise' and the robotic 'You've Got Mail' voice. They both bounced scenes of their favorite Tom Hanks—Freelancer had to remind him of the actor's name twice—movies. They each attempted to remember the complete, itemized list of the ways to make shrimp that one of the major characters mentioned in a favorite—they always forgot one of the two ways to fry it.

Their talk trailed off into Gavin's attempt to help Freelancer make fried sweet potato hand pies and how often Gavin had asked them why they'd clutched a box of baking soda so tight. They agreed to make the apple pie version soon and Freelancer remembered the last time they'd had it. They'd scarfed them down on an elementary school camping trip as all the other kids looked up at the stars too and made up their own connected constellations. Freelancer and Gavin proceeded to do the same through fits of laughs and innuendos Gavin made sure to find. And Freelancer asked if they both could look at the same set of stars when he was in Aria.

The moon roamed higher in the black ink of the sky and they quieted down after long, settling into comfortable near-silence of cicadas and footsteps. The gold hue from the lamp posts painted Freelancer's dark brown skin, highlighted the same deep tone in their eyes. Both of their gazes remained locked on the other and that was all it took.

The earth pulled him under and he couldn't look away from them, tethered. He felt his breaths deepening, felt the air shake inside him. The song drummed in his head louder than any passing conversation and toll of the courtyard bell. It traveled down from the top of his head to the tips of his ears to the center of his chest. Louder and louder as they looked at each other. That haze of light, of care and affection and warmth was home to him. It hovered from them to him. He knew it radiated from him too. He wished they could sense it from him. He had to let them know. He needed them to know.

His heart, all double-timed thuds slammed against his rib cage at the prospect. My love, my love, my love was what the thuds sounded like. He swallowed hard.

Gavin had to distract himself. Had to pull back.

He kissed Freelancer instead.

Slow, languid. The song deafened him. Their lips soft against his. The roaring, the pounding only grew louder. He had expected it.

He breathed them in once their lips parted, finally a steady inhale.

Gavin meant to mutter one of his innuendos. He scavenged for one about the kiss, about their head in his lap. Anything. Anything to lessen how overwhelming it was just to look into their eyes again. He couldn't find one.

He sat there with Freelancer under the stars, holding each other with their gazes, and that was enough for him. More than enough. It felt like coalescing, coming into being all over again when he was with them. All natural and ease and magic. That same magic thrummed in him like it called to them.

Gavin was so immensely and impossibly happy.

“What are you thinking?” Freelancer said softly.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

An instinct.

He let that clear and truest song play as his scavenge finally found him a sly remark. It felt like the last one he would be able to dig up over this before everything in him forced out that spellsong to them. His fingers trembled as he laced them with theirs.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

An unsteady breath once again.

“What you'll look like tied up underneath me,” he said low. Voice trembled even more than his hand had, more than any teasing comment that slithered from his mouth ever had.

Freelancer didn't scoff or roll their eyes. No wave or ripple of sexual energy rushed off of them. No soft slap to his chest or giggling shift away from him. Only that same warmth. Brighter.

They squeezed his hand.

“Me too,” they said. Just as low as him. Their eyes gleamed as he watched their smile rise.

And sunlight beamed in the middle of the night.

#redacted audio #redacted asmr #redacted fanfic #redacted gavin #redacted freelancer #was gonna post the only other fic i have in this fandom here but uh #that geordi/cutie is spicy and i don't want the bots badgering me lmao like pls but it is also on ao3 #even thooo i wanted to post here so people wouldn't have to log in but i digress lol hope you like it here #my writing

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