sliceitwithwind | Kiddie AU

Entry tags:

Kiddie AU

Aya and Dilan had been dating for a bit over a month. During that time, Braig quietly put his affairs in order, so to speak.

Oh, not in the wills and death kind of way, but rather in the way that he broke up with the girlfriends as Dilan did (which raised no eyebrows, that was the way it had always been after all), and in the way that he started, and abandoned, a million different ways to approach the other two. Aya first, he knew that much. Dilan was, after all, polyamourous and more likely to follow the other two just because that was what he'd always done. Aya - Aya was monogamous and it could bring this whole house of cards tumbling down.

A house of cards that Braig had spent the majority of his life building, step by step and moment by moment. He'd known what he wanted since he was eleven years old, from the time that Aya shrieked Lions! in her little girl's voice, and Dilan paffed into the dust behind her.

It just took another twenty years for the two of them to start getting the idea...but...they might not want him.

Oh, Fire and Ice, they might not want him.

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"I know, Dilan's told me." She sounded, oddly, worried. "A lot of work. I hear the social scene has been suffering, badly." And Braig got stressed and testy when he didn't get out!

"Yes! Get over here! You know better than scheduling, you have a key!" And if she couldn't get off work, well, it wouldn't be the first time he'd entertained himself for an hour or two until she got home! And, naturally, he whined about it but hey, it was Braig.

Okay, dropping in unannounced? He hadn't done that in the last month and a bit. Helped keep the wistfulness at seeing them together down. "Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about me, Aya, I'm fine. See you then, okay?"

"Braig, I always worry about you." That wasn't going to change no matter how many times he asked her to stop! "See you when I see you! And eat, I know you live on coffee but you need to be alive and well to run a grill!"

"I've been eating! Dilan has the freezer, like, packed." Besides, he loved food. "Love you, babe." he said into the phone before hanging up on her.

+++

Two days later, he banged on the door once, then headed inside to either talk or wait for her. Dilan? Was at the labs.

Yes, he might love food but even he got distracted during heavy work weeks! SHE WAS ALLOWED TO WORRY!

Naturally, two weeks later she was...late. Just a little late! Half hour tops! And covered head to toe in honey and several pillows worth of feathers. Of course Braig was there. OF COURSE. "Not a word." Not one until she could get showered and clean! Her boots, by dint of how she was built, had escaped the worst of the deluge, so they got left by the door. "You didn't bring Dilan right? He does not need to see this."

"Nah, he's at the labs." The tone, the words, were easy...but he wasn't settling. Which was, to say the least, strange. Normally Braig found a good place to slouch and didn't move until pried, begged, or threatened into good behaviour.

"Good." She didn't want to think about OCD and honey...on the note of behaviors though...observant cop was observant? "Braig? You're flitting. Pass me those paper towels." A task might help him orient? Even if it was a minor task?

Plus she didn't want most this gunk in her shower.

"Right." he headed that way and grabbed the towels, "So, like. What happened?" It was so easy to delay. He could justify it without trouble; she was a mess! She needed to shower first! It gave him, what? Another half-hour to think?

She accepted the roll with a nod of thanks and started scraping gunk off to toss in the bin. "Highschoolers." Damn kids. "Senior prank was suppose to catch one of the teachers off guard, but the teacher saw suspicious activity, called the cops, it was on my way home..." Ugh.

Ugh ugh.

"I'm going to haul the whole senior class up on a trumped up 'assaulting an officer' charges unless they give me the responsible ones..."-

"Ah, be cool about it." Braig...didn't help her scrape stuff off. He was too worried that his hands would start shaking. Luckily, it's easily passed off as being too lazy to help. "Remember what Dilan and I got up to that year?"

"Being cool about it sets a precedent, Braig." Aya was well aware of what happened to authority figures that could be walked all over! "They want to pull pranks on school property it's not my problem unless they're breaking in. Off school property? They are toast. Besides, you two were very careful not to tell me things about your senior pranks." She had suspicions but...

"Plus I know who did this. I just want them to admit it in front of the student body." Because that was one of the better punishments she could think of? "Is the Coalface still under the sink there? I think I need heavy duty soap and I moved it out of the bathroom..." Since he wasn't helping with the honey he could go digging?

"Oh. Yeah." he grinned that grin of his and dropped down to look for the soap, passing it up when he found it in a hand which shook only slightly. This would have been SO MUCH EASIER if he could have just started blurting things out at her.

Yeah, well, patience was a virtue? That and he could still totally blurt when she was clean! "She snagged the soap from his hand and grinned. "Back soon then!" Bye! Gahhhh honey felt like creepy, sticky velvet. Shower...a shower that took most of the deluxe hot water heater to handle!

Braig tossed himself on the couch and stuck his hands in his hair up near the scalp to go over things while he waited. The image of Aya covered in honey? So didn't help. At all.

Yeah, well, she probably wouldn't apologize even when she realized his quandary? The honey was unplanned!

When she flopped down on the floor by the couch, she was wearing an old pair of Braig's sweats, a t-shirt that was nearly sheer with age (Dilan's, from when he was a Freshman), and a towel draped over her shoulders so her dripping hair wouldn't soak her PJs. "Headache?" YES THIS WAS HER FIRST ASSUMPTION WHEN HE WAS HOLDING HIS HEAD!

"Little bit." He allowed, not moving them, "So." yeah. So.

"So...have you taken anything for it?" She was mentally running down the list of painkillers in the house. "Or should I just put out the lights and tuck you into the couch there?"

"Neither, babe." He's always called her that. He turned his head and cracked open his eye, "How're things going with Dilan?"

"If you say so." She turned to lean her shoulder against the couch rather than her back so she could reach his forehead. Fingertips petting through his hair could help sometimes? "...good. Very good." Yes, stretching her other hand to knock on the wooden coffee table!

"I haven't pissed him off. I haven't weirded him out. Hell, I haven't run screaming. It scares me, waiting to screw it up."

"You won't." Braig said, fingers catching hers in a light, gentle squeeze. He fell silent again. Space and wind, how to start? How to start?

"I love you." it's blurted out, and having begun by sounding like an idiot, he just continues, "You and Dilan. Always have. I knew it since you were six, when you fell in the lion pit." His fingers convulse on her hand, "I...fuck me."

"I love you too." It's a simple statement of fact that! She did. Utterly. She wasn't sure, though, where exactly he was going with it. Reassuring her about Dilan?

Um.

Since they fell in the lion pit?

"...what?" She'd missed something. SHE'D MISSED SOMETHING.

"No. Aya."

He sat up...then stood up so that he could pace. Braig wasn't good at this, not at all. That's because, not that deep down, he always knew the girlfriends were temporary. One way or the other.

"You and Dilan always thought of each other as siblings. I guess you thought, think, of me like that too. I've never thought of you as siblings. I love the two of you."

No? No was NOT an answer to 'What'.

She watched him get up with wide eyes, trying to follow things, then watched him pace, turning her head as necessary. What? No, really, WHAT?! "...h..." No, 'How' was a dumb question. "...si..." 'Since when?' had already been answered.

"Six?!"

...

...

...he always called her 'Babe'.

Oh hell.

He kept pacing, forging on with the air of someone waiting to be shot.

"But you always wanted to be siblings. So, like. I was all...got to wait. See if they'll grow out of it. I always knew...if not the two of you, nobody." None of her boyfriends was ever good enough for him. None of them. "Not for long term. I've always loved you. Both of you. You've been mine."

Her gun was in her safe. It had been there all day. She'd forgot that one when she went to work, used her spare at work.

"Braig..."

WHAT THE HELL?!

NO, WHAT?

IT WAS BLOODY CONFESS TO AYA SEASON WASN'T IT?!

"SIT DOWN!" He was making her neck hurt. And her head hurt. And her chest hurt. And she wasn't parsing things very well and ONE OF THOSE VARIOUS HURTS NEEDED TO STOP! "Just...sit down." What was she suppose to do about this?! She had a boyfriend!

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