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bigasswritingmagnet · 2 months

Text

Stop. Talking.

Fandom: Girl Genius Pairing: Gil/Tarvek/Agatha Summary: Tarvek and Gil are perfectly happy sharing Agatha. They're getting along really well these days. Except...for some reason, all of a sudden, Gil just can't seem to stop insulting Tarvek. He's not even trying to do it! It's just like when he was trying to propose to Agatha-

Uh oh.

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‘The consorts are fighting again.’

Agatha didn’t look up from the clockwork spread out on the workbench in front of her.

“They do that,” she said, distractedly.

‘In my experience, such restlessness is usually caused by particular needs going unfullfi-’

Without looking up, Agatha picked up a small death ray from a nearby stool and pointed it at a particularly pretty mosaic on the wall.

“What is my rule?” she asked, using her free to hand to rearrange the cogs.

‘My presence and opinion are unwelcome in the bedroom,’ the castle said, quickly.

“Correct,” Agatha said, and set the death ray back down. “Don’t worry about it. Bantering is how they communicate.”

‘It seems a little one-sided for bantering…’ the castle said, uncertainly.

Gil’s plaintive calls fell on deaf ears as Tarvek stormed down the hallway.

“It was a compliment,” Gil insisted, hurrying after him.

“It was not,” Tarvek snapped, white-faced. “My family practically invented the art of devious, backhanded fake compliments so believe me, Holtzfӓller, when I say that that was an insult.”

Gil winced. Tarvek only made that particular nominal slip-up when he was really, really mad.

“Well, it was supposed to be a compliment!”

Travek entered his study and slammed the door shut so abruptly Gil nearly walked right into it. Gil opened the door and immediately ducked as a letter opener sliced by, directly where his ear would have been.

Gil stared in shock at the letter opener—apparently having been sharpened more than Gil felt was necessary for merely cutting paper—vibrating half-buried in the wood of the far wall.

“Were you trying to—”

Stars burst in his eyes as something heavy slammed into the back of his head.

“Ow!”

Rubbing the back of his head, Gil turned around and had just enough time to dodge volume 2 of the Encyclopedia Horrifica (which covered chanting, ominous through corn)

“Get! Out!”

“I’m trying to apologize!” Gil protested.

“No, you’re not!” Tarvek shot back. “You’re explaining to me why I shouldn’t be angry! That is not the same thing!”

“I—! Okay, fine! I’m sorry that you thought my compliment came across like an insult!”

He managed to avoid volume 3 (cosh through dzyzxs) but not volume 4, 5, or 6 (all of the letter E), which knocked him straight off his feet. Before Gil could rise, Tarvek slammed the door shut again. This time, Gil heard him lock it.

Agatha’s tongue stuck out in concentration as she picked up the fragile blown-glass bulb with the tips of her gloved fingers. Slowly, she lifted it up and set it in the gap between two pipes, holding it in place with one hand. With the other, she turned a dial, fraction by fraction, slowly increasing the pressure on the seal that would lock the whisper-thin—but extremely necessary—bulb into place.

Gil burst into the room with a crash of the door.

“You have to talk to Tarvek!”

Agatha didn’t even flinch.

“What did you do now?” she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the task at hand.

“Wh-! Why do you think I did anything?” he demanded, indignantly.

“Because when he starts it, you have no problem finishing it. You only ever come to me when it’s your fault.”

“Wh-! You-! That-!” Gil sputtered.

“There!” Agatha said, as the pressure gauge clicked green. She locked the mechanism in place and stepped back, tugging off her gloves and looking at Gil.

“So. What did you do?”

“I gave him a compliment!” Gil said. “And he got mad at me!”

Agatha gave him an I do not believe you look.

“We were talking about that big conference with the neighboring city states, and he made a couple of suggestions that were, y’know, Tarvek level sneaky.”

“Mm-hmm…”

“And I said…I don’t remember exactly what I said, but he asked me what I meant and I said we all know you’re a devious underhanded weasel, but this is the best double-crossing you’ve done since Sturmhalten’. And he—” Gil paused at the look on Agatha’s face. “What? It was a compliment! He managed to outplay the Other! That’s impressive!”

“He was also outplaying me!"

Gil scoffed.

“Well, yeah, but I wasn’t talking about that.”

“You didn’t specify!”

“Why should I? We forgave him for that, he knows that!”

Agatha shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“He’s sensitive about it.”

Gil snorted.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

Agatha pointed back at the door.

“Go apologize.”

“But I didn’t do anything—!”

“You know what he’s like! He expects double meanings and power plays everywhere, all the time! You gave a compliment; he heard you trying to dig in the knife by reminding him of what he considers one of the worst things he’s ever done.”

Gil opened his mouth, outraged. Gil considered what Agatha had said. Gil closed his mouth.

“What is with you lately?” Agatha demanded. “It’s like every time I turn around you’ve said something stupid enough to make him go storming off—Gil?"

Gil had gone pale.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

“What? Gil, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Gil did not answer. He was staring into space, gazing at some unseen horror. Agatha took him by the shoulders and shook him.

“Gil!”

“It’s pathological,” he said, hoarsely. “It has to be. I thought it was just you, but no, this is, this is just what I’m like—”

“What are you talking about?” Agatha exclaimed. He lowered his head slowly to look at her, his eyes haunted and hollow.

“I’m in love with Tarvek.”

Agatha stared at him for a moment...then she put her hand to her mouth and let out a soft gasp. “Oh, it is pathological.”

“This is all my father’s fault,” he snarled, fists clenching. “All that work he put into protecting me and making me physically stronger and faster and he didn’t do anything that could save me from my own big fat mouth!” He collapsed forward, head on the workbench, arms flung over his head.

Agatha put her hands on his shoulders, patting reassuringly.

“I’m doomed,” Gil wailed.

“No, no, you’re not. Come on, Gil, you weren’t thinking about it before, but now that you know—”

“No!” Gil said, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. “Don't you understand? Tarvek and I hated each other for years! It took dying to get us to have a civil conversation, and now—!”

He clutched at his face, his imagination dancing nightmare scenarios before his eyes.

“I’m going to ruin everything,” he moaned. “I’m going to destroy everything we’ve built. You’re going to have to choose between us. When we have dinner he’s going to ask you to ask me to pass the salt because he won’t even want to talk to me enough to–Ack!”

Agatha spritzed him with the squirt bottle again.

“Stop that!” she said.

“You stop that!” he said, blinking water out of his eyes. “What is that?”

“It’s von Zinzer’s. He uses it when I start talking about dismantling the town for parts. Now listen to me.” She set the bottle down firmly and put her hands on her hips. “You are not going to ruin everything. You managed it with me, you can manage it with him.”

“Are you joking? We had to be trapped in the castle and almost permanently die about ten different times before you could trust me! And then we had all the–" Gil waved his hands around in a gesture that quite succinctly managed to sum up the overlay, his father freezing the town, two years of Agatha being missing in time, the collapsing empire, Martellus, Paris, England, god queens, inter-dimensional disasters, exorcism engines, and Martellus again. "–everything before we could be together!"

"You and Tarvek were mad at each other for years, and it took you two days in the castle to get over it."

"By dying!"

'If you think it might help, I could always kill you again,' the castle suggested.

Without looking away from Gil, Agatha picked up the death ray and shot out a light.

"Gil, relax. You're overthinking this. Give Tarvek time to cool off, then go to him, and tell him you love him. No big explanation, just 'I love you'. You can do that, can't you?"

"Yes," Gil said. "I can do that."

He straightened up.

"I can do that," he said, confidently. Then he sagged "No I can't."

"Gil."

"I'll just start babbling! You know me! I'll open my mouth to say it and explanations will come out! Can't you tell him for me? He likes you."

"He likes you, too!"

"But he doesn't love me!"

Silence.

Gil swallowed hard, his eyes going overbright.

"I can't tell him," he whispered. "Not when he doesn't...and he doesn't."

Agatha sighed, softly.

"Gil..." She picked up her gloves and began whacking him with them. "Are you joking? After everything you two have been through together? Of course he loves you! That's why he doesn't stab you when you're an idiot!"

Gil caught the gloves and pulled them out of her hand.

"You don't know that!" he insisted.

"I absolutely do! You, me, and Violetta might be the only people in the world who really know Tarvek, and I hear the way he talks about you when you're not there–" She grabbed the gloves back and punctuated her statement with three solid whacks. "So I am telling you! With confidence! That he loves you!"

She pointed at the door.

"Now go think about what you're doing to say to him. Plan it out. Give him time to cool off. And then go tell him how you feel, or so help me Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, I will tell the Jӓgers you want their help."

Gil waited two days. Not because it took Tarvek two days to stop being mad at Gil, but because Gil was sure his nerves would eat him alive if he waited any longer. Tarvek had stopped leaving the room when Gil walked in, and Gil would just have to hope that that would be enough.

Tarvek was in the library, flipping idly through a book on poisons and occasionally making corrections in red ink. He didn't look up when Gil cleared his throat.

"I'm busy."

"I need to talk to you."

"Write me a note."

"Would you please just—" Gil sighed. "Just hear me out?"

Tarvek, every motion extremely pointed and deliberate, set the pen aside, slid the bookmark between the pages, shut the book, and gave Gil his full attention.

Gil's palms began to sweat.

“And let me actually finish, before you start yelling at me.” Gil said, and winced internally. No, that was much too rude, now Tarvek was narrowing his eyes and bristling. Quick, quick, the speech! You practiced the speech! What was the speech?

“The reason I've been so rude lately is because you—” No, no, no, no, you are NOT starting a love confession with it's your fault I'm insulting you. “I know I’ve been acting like an idiot lately—”

He paused, expecting Tarvek to make a comment, but Tarvek just raised his eyebrows.

“The thing is,” Gil said. “The thing is, I…” He took a deep breath. “I’m—”

“You’re in love with me,” Tarvek finished for him.

Gil’s jaw dropped.

“You knew?”

Tarvek snorted.

“Of course I knew. I knew months ago. It was so obvious.”

“It wasn’t obvious to me!” Gil blustered.

“Really? You didn’t notice that you’ve been acting exactly like you used to act around Agatha?”

“Eventually!” Gil sputtered. “So all of this being mad and throwing things at me, you were just winding me up?”

“No,” Tarvek said, plainly. “You were genuinely insulting and I didn’t see any reason to let you off the hook just because I knew why it was happening.”

Gil stared at him, and Tarvek’s mouth curled up into a smirk, the cat construct that ate the mutant canary.

"And I was winding you up."

Gil stared, speechlessly. Tarvek tossed his book onto the cushion beside him and stood.

"Actually, I was kind of hoping you'd take longer to put it together—it’s fun watching you flail around.”

“I take it back,” Gil said, flatly. “I hate you. I hate you forever and ever and ever.”

Tarvek put his hand on the back of Gil’s head, and kissed him.

It was a very, very good kiss. Gil was relieved to find he enjoyed it exactly as much as he enjoyed kissing Agatha, which had been a concern, but then Tarvek put his arm around Gil and pressed in close and opened his mouth against Gil’s and that was about it for any sort of higher brain function for Gil for the remainder of the kiss.

“Um,” Gil said, finally. “You’re. Very good at that.”

“I am,” Tarvek said, sweetly.

“I still hate you.”

“Sure you do.”

#gilgamesh wulfenbach #tarvek sturmvoraus #agatha heterodyne #gil/tarvek/agatha #girl genius #gil/tarvek #gil/agatha #tarvek/agatha

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