Work Text:
The sound of the apartment door unlocking roused Linhardt from his nap, and he groaned, blinking wearily. It looked like his laptop had fallen to the floor while he slept, and he reached for it lazily with one arm, swiping a finger across the track pad to wake it up. His first thought was that surely it couldn’t be Caspar, because there was no way it was time for him to be home from work already, but the time that appeared on his laptop screen when it lit up surprised him. His thoughts were confirmed a moment later when he heard Caspar’s voice echoing through the apartment.
“I’m home!” he called out.
Linhardt dragged his fingers through his hair and clambered to more of an upright position, settling his laptop on his lap. “In the living room,” he rasped, surprised by how out of use his voice sounded. How long had it been since he spoke out loud? He’d been asleep when Caspar left in the morning, so probably last night.
He heard Caspar come into the room behind him. The couch creaked as he leaned over the back to kiss Linhardt on the cheek. “How’s your research going?” he asked, and Linhardt shrugged.
“Will probably work through the night again,” he mumbled, checking to make sure none of his windows had closed during his laptop’s less than gentle tumble to the ground.
“Aw,” Caspar replied, straightening up again. “You got time for dinner? I’m starving.”
"You’re always starving,” Linhardt said, shutting his laptop and moving it to the side table. “We can get takeout. I’ll pay.” The funds from his father hadn’t run out quite yet, and he tried not to rely on Caspar too much, especially because he was the only one of the two with a job right now.
Caspar grinned and joined him on the couch, pulling up the menu on his phone. They spent the next few minutes hashing out what exactly they were going to order. Far from being annoying, it felt like Caspar’s chatter pushed back on the fog of exhaustion over Linhardt’s thoughts, and by the time Caspar was off again to pick up their food, he felt awake enough to shuffle to the kitchen and start clearing books, jackets, and various other debris off the kitchen table, at least enough that they would have room to eat.
They had perhaps let the mess get a little bit out of hand, he thought, scooping together a pile of postcards from Dorothea, unopened bills, and junk mail, including a particularly shameless letter from their old school asking for money. As if either of them had the sort of job that allowed them to donate such large sums, or any amount at all.
It was around that time that Caspar returned, bringing the very aura of life back into the apartment, and Linhardt settled for shunting the stack of papers onto the kitchen counter. They’d deal with it later.
“They only gave us three egg rolls,” Caspar complained as he sat down at the table, peering into one of the containers, “Didn’t we order four?”
“You can have two, I don’t care,” Linhardt told him, opening the other containers methodically and sliding Caspar’s order his way. Caspar gave a whoop of delight, and Linhardt felt a bloom of warmth in his chest. Caspar really had no idea of the sunshine he carried with him, didn’t he?
“What?” Caspar asked after a second around a mouthful of food, and Linhardt started slightly, realizing he was staring, chin cushioned on hand. He promptly turned his attention back to his own food.
“Nothing. Tell me about your day.”
Caspar immediately launched into an animated retelling, waving his fork around. Apparently, today was dodgeball day (except dodgeball was banned now, so they called it ‘notball’, which was apparently short for ‘not dodgeball’. Etymology truly was fascinating). “There’s this kid who reminds me of you,” Caspar was saying, “she’s like ‘oh no I won’t be playing today, I will just read over here, thank you’,” he imitated a stuffy sort of voice, “and there’s this other kid she bosses around a ton, even when I made her play she was basically trying to feed him strategies and stuff, it’s super cute.”
“Excuse me, I didn’t boss you around, it was you who came to me for advice,” Linhardt reminded him with a tone of mock offense, and Caspar laughed.
“I never said I didn’t enjoy it! Also Colm made Neimi cry again, she reminds me of--”
“Bernadetta,” Linhardt supplied, as it wasn’t the first time he’d said this, and Caspar nodded.
“Yeah. She’s got good aim too, so once she actually got into it I think she had fun. Geez, the first graders this year are a handful though.” Caspar scratched at the back of his head with one hand. He had rice stuck to his cheek, although he quickly realized when Linhardt tapped his own cheek in the same spot and he wiped it off.
“Every year is a handful. We were a handful,” Linhardt told him.
It was true; through every year of school since they’d been placed in the same kindergarten class at a fancy private school, the two of them had been a bit of a nightmare, both separately and together; Caspar with his boundless energy and inability to see a wrong go unrighted, and Linhardt with his apathy and desire to do as little as possible. Seeing Caspar’s fond amusement over his own students eccentricities, however, Linhardt wondered if they were really as much trouble as he’d thought.
"I guess so! What are you doing tomorrow?” Caspar asked.
Linhardt felt a pang of guilt. “Ah… probably working on my dissertation.” Normally the fact that he’d spent all day sleeping wouldn’t make him bat an eye, but the fact remained that he was heavily behind where he should be.
“You should get out of the house! Go see Marianne or something.” Caspar peered at him worriedly, and Linhardt wondered if he could tell he’d spent the entire day sleeping. Maybe he’d had a cushion imprint on his face when he came in or something.
“Absolutely not. Those two are in full on wedding mode and Hilda is a masterful delegator, I refuse to end up being in charge of coordinating a dj or filling tiny favor bags or whatever she’s onto now.” Linhardt pushed his leftovers around the container. He’d have them for lunch tomorrow, probably, but they just looked so unappetizing right now.
“Oh, hell yeah. It’s in the summer, right? I can’t wait, Hilda throws the best parties.” Caspar had finished his food, and was looking hopefully at the remnants of Linhardt’s egg roll, so Linhardt speared it on a fork and passed it to him.
“I’ve never been to one of Hilda’s parties, personally,” he said.
“Oh, I have!” Caspar volunteered cheerily.
“Yes, I remember you drunk calling me from her bathroom.” They’d been dating for two years at that point, but Linhardt had been forced to spend valuable nap time convincing a drunk and weepy Caspar that yes, he did know he loved him, and yes, he did return the sentiment, and no he would not leave him just because he’d thrown up in Hilda’s toilet and clogged it somehow. “But as it’s also Marianne’s wedding I find myself hoping it will be a little more… subdued.”
“I guess,” Caspar said doubtfully. “Do you think she’s gonna use real doves?
“What?”
“Like ‘cause she’s a vet and stuff,” Caspar added, as if that clarified things.
“I don’t think that being a vet means you have unlimited stores of trained animals,” Linhardt replied, and Caspar pouted.
“It just sounds cool,” he insisted.
“I suppose,” Linhardt replied. “Honestly, the whole thing sounds like a lot of hassle to me.” Caspar pouted harder, and Linhardt looked down at his food, an odd feeling in his stomach.
..
That morning, Linhardt was awoken by the sound of voices in the kitchen. The other side of the bed was empty, which made sense; Caspar was essentially never there when he woke up, although sometimes he came back to bed on weekends to cuddle. His voice was one of the two in the kitchen, and the other was… Linhardt blinked at the ceiling. Oh, it was Ashe, wasn’t it? He’d only met him once or twice, but he knew that he and Caspar ran together in the mornings. Which explained why it was -- he rolled over to check-- 7AM. Disgusting.
He thought about going back to sleep. He’d fallen into bed around 4AM, after having made limited progress on his dissertation, and his head felt full of wadded up cotton. However, the presence of an almost-stranger in his apartment made him worried that something might be wrong. For example, what if Caspar had fallen and hurt himself while running? The thought helped Linhardt to lever himself out of bed. He found a pair of pajama pants Dorothea had probably bought him as a joke which were covered in pictures of cartoon smiling sloths, and sort of tried to scrape his hair into some semblance of order with his fingers as he headed for the kitchen. He was wearing one of Caspar’s shirts as he often did to sleep (Caspar stretched them out and it made them more comfortable somehow, he didn’t understand the science behind it but it was objectively true) but he figured that wouldn’t be noticeable to their guest, so it was fine.
“I dunno, I just wish I could be more of a help with all this stuff?” Caspar was saying, and then he spotted him in the doorway and grinned guiltily. “Oh man! I hope we didn’t wake you up.”
If this was what Caspar wears every time he goes running, he doesn’t have to worry about ever being hit by a car, was Linhardt’s first thought. His running shorts were a horrific lime green, his shirt was bright red (and from high school, so too small now for his more built frame, but Linhardt tried not to stare at that situation for two long) and both clashed with his hair. By comparison, Ashe looked like a shy little pigeon, and he lifted a hand at Linhardt in what looked like a combination wave of greeting and apology.
Between them on the table sat a cardboard box.
“What’s that?” Linhardt asked, any niceties wiped away by exhaustion.
“Naruto,” Caspar said cheerfully.
“What.” Of all the things Linhardt expected Caspar to say, that was definitely not one of them.
“Oh, that’s what I named our new cat,” Caspar said, beckoning him over to the box. “Come see!”
Shellshocked, Linhardt shuffled over to the box and peered inside. It sure was a cat.
“It’s because he’s orange,” Caspar told him helpfully, “Ashe and I have been passing this guy every day for like a week and we were sort of worried about him? Ashe’s apartment doesn’t allow pets, so I figured we’d take him. He can keep you company during the day!”
Linhardt gingerly lowered his hand into the box. The cat regarded it with suspicion. “Caspar, you can’t just grab cats off the street. It needs food, and a litterbox, and vaccinations, and to be spayed or neutered or whatever. Also, even if we were keeping this cat you absolutely would not be allowed to name it Naruto.”
When it came to Naruto, Linhardt had done his time listening to Caspar gush about it all through middle school. He’d accompanied him trick or treating when Caspar wore that horrible orange jumpsuit that clashed even more with his hair than what he was wearing now. He could not take any more influence on his life from this fictional man.
“Weren’t we just talking about how you should talk to Marianne? I bet she’d love to help get Naruto all set up. You wanna meet Marianne, don’t you, you darling widdle ninja baby,” he said, leaning into the box for that last bit and presumably addressing the cat (Linhardt hoped).
“She’s getting married, I’m not bothering her with this,” Linhardt argued back.
“Um,” Ashe said nervously, holding up his phone with the time on it. Caspar jumped.
“Shit! I gotta get ready for work! See you tomorrow, Ashe, Lin’ll see you out.” Caspar leaned over to give Linhardt a quick smooch on the forehead, gave Ashe a thumbs up, and then dashed for the bathroom.
For a second there was silence. “Sorry for waking you up,” Ashe said, to which Linhardt gave only a grumpy shrug. He didn’t want to be rude to his partner’s friend but… god he wanted to go back to sleep so badly. He walked Ashe to the door and let him out, and managed a wave, and then returned to the kitchen to look at the cat.
Even in his head he refused to call it by that stupid name. It was cute, though, he supposed. It lay curled in a ball in the middle of the box, and it was a kind of pretty orange marmalade color. He considered trying to pet it, but it was a stray, after all; he had no intention of getting clawed. Instead he went back to bed, returning to the pocket of warmth still contained beneath the blankets. Right around that time Caspar came barrelling out of the shower, hopped around the room getting dressed (and dripping water everywhere) (Linhardt might have watched him a little) and then sat on the edge of the bed to kiss Linhardt goodbye.
“I don’t usually get to do this in the morning,” he said with a grin as he leaned in.
“Trust me, I’m not happy about it either,” Linhardt grumbled, but he hooked an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. “Dry your hair before you go.” It was spring, but it could still be cold in the morning, and he didn’t want him getting sick.
Caspar flashed him a smile and left, and Linhardt drifted back into blissful sleep, pulling the pillow over his head. It didn’t feel like nearly long enough before heard a crash and jolted out of sleep again, blinking blearily. It was past ten now.
Oh. The cat.
Linhardt extricated himself from the mess of blankets and wandered into the kitchen. The cardboard box was on the floor and the cat was nowhere to be seen. Shit.
He peered under the table and into the laundry room, and then started to check under the couch when he heard a noise behind him. When he turned to look, at first he couldn’t see the cat, but then he noticed a slight shape behind the curtains. He crept towards it, hands outstretched to pull the curtain aside, but the cat burst from cover and fled before he could do anything. What should he even be trying to do? He’d never had a cat before.
With a sigh, he went to go get his phone to call Marianne. He found it twisted up in his blankets, and when he pressed the home button he was greeted by his home screen, a picture of he and Caspar on the beach trip their friend group had taken after graduation. Dorothea had set it about two years ago when a couple of them had met up for her birthday, and he’d never had the energy to change it back. Plus, he had fond memories of that trip; it was then that he and Caspar had officially discussed living together (although Linhardt figured it had always been implied) and it was the last time the group of them had all been together in one place. Hell, he didn’t even think he’d seen Edelgard in person since then, although she skyped in from her fancy ceo office sometimes when they got together, on an ipad Linhardt swore Hubert carried around for just that purpose.
“Hey, Marianne,” he said when she picked up. There was a horrific amount of background noise, and he wondered where she was.
“Oh! Linhardt! Please hold on,” she said, and he heard a quick flurry of conversation in the background, then the background noise tapered to a more tolerable level. “Sorry, I’m at some sort of… bridal convention right now? We’re meeting with vendors.”
“Oh. I don’t want to bother you,” he started, and she rushed to reply.
“No, not at all! I’m happy to hear from you. It’s been some time.”
Linhardt frowned at that. Okay, maybe it wasn’t fair to avoid one of his old school friends just because her fiance was a nightmare incarnate. “Sorry. How’s everything going?”
“Oh, wonderfully! If I’m being honest, Hilda has most of these details figured out already, but she really enjoys that people give us free stuff when we attend these events.” He could hear the glowing happiness in Marianne’s voice, and it was such a stark difference to the dour woman he’d met in his intro to Biology classes that he smiled despite himself. They chatted for a few minutes about the wedding, and then she asked him about Caspar and he remembered the situation with a start.
“That’s right, Caspar brought home a stray cat today and I think he wants to keep it, for some godforsaken reason.” He dragged out his words in a long-suffering sort of way and was rewarded with a soft laugh from the other end of the line.
“Do you want an appointment? I can message my assistant, I think Friday morning is free.” Ick, morning. Oh well.
“That would be nice. I don’t really know what I’m doing here,” he admitted.
“Don’t worry. I’ll send you some information when I get home, and then I’ll see you Friday,” she told him.
They said their goodbyes and Linhardt hung up, looking around for the creature. After a moment, he spotted an orange tail poking out from under a bookcase.
This was going to be a long day.
…
Shockingly, he got more done on his dissertation that day than he had on any other for the past few months. Most of it was that every time he started to fall asleep, the cat would appear out of nowhere and dart across his field of vision or knock something over. Once it even walked directly across his chest as he was almost unconscious, and he jolted upright in shock, almost dropping his laptop. The other part of it was an odd sense of drive that he felt growing within him-- he didn’t know if it was because of the cat, or reminiscing about the beach trip, or talking to Marianne about her wedding.
When Caspar got home he asked him about cat-- and seemed heartbroken that Linhardt still didn’t like the name, even though Linhardt seemed to have given up on dissuading him from keeping it-- and then breathlessly told him about his day. There’d been a fight, he’d had to break it up, but peeling first graders off each other was nowhere near as dangerous as the sort of fights that he used to get into when they were in school, at least, so he reassured Linhardt he didn’t need to be worried.
“That girl that reminds me of you is still a total riot,” Caspar told him, “Her name’s Lute, and I guess she figured out a blindspot by the bleachers and hid there for like fifteen minutes reading before I found her and made her do laps with everyone else.” Linhardt remembered doing things like that in school too, so he supposed that the comparison was fair.
Caspar had picked up some cat toys and food on the way home, and Linhardt showed him Marianne’s email with more specifics. The two of them went out to grab everything else on the list that they didn’t already have, and despite the temptation to crawl into the shopping cart and fall asleep, they returned successful.
The next two days passed similarly, with the cat waking Linhardt up all day by clambering all over him, and him actually getting things done because of it. Then it was Friday, and he took the cat to see Marianne, who pronounced him healthy, gave him all the necessary shots, and gave Linhardt even more literature on proper cat care.
“Be free, you strange little creature,” Linhardt said when they reached the apartment and he opened the carrier case. The cat disappeared into the kitchen, and he sat down with his laptop again.
Because of the cat’s tactics, he found himself actually ready to sleep when evening came, and Caspar beamed up at him when he joined him in bed. Linhardt noticed, from the corner of his eye, the way he watched him when he untied his hair.
“I’ve made some headway this week,” Linhardt told him casually, “So if you want to do something tomorrow I can probably take a break from my research.”
He didn’t think it was possible for Caspar to smile any harder, but apparently it was. Didn’t smiling that hard hurt? “Hell yeah! Let’s go on a date!”
It seemed a bit silly to call it a date when they’d been together for almost ten years, and living together for around half that time, but Linhardt nodded. “Sure.” There was a moment of quiet, and Linhardt shifted to lay his head on Caspar’s shoulder. It’d been a long time since they’d cuddled like this; he usually didn’t come to bed until Caspar was already asleep.
“I saw Marianne today,” he said. “She seems happy.”
“Well yeah. Even Miss doom-and-gloom would be happy marrying the person she loves,” Caspar replied with a laugh.
“She’s not really like that anymore,” Linhardt told him, “That’s what I mean. It’s nice.” There was a pause, and then he said, “Have you ever thought about getting married?”
It had been hard not to think about it, during his conversations with Marianne. He had been hoping Caspar would be the one to bring it up. He felt Caspar go still next to him.
“Like in general?”
“To me.” Obviously, he tried not to add. Who else was Caspar going to marry, at this point?
“Oh. I mean, yeah.” Linhardt glanced over at him, and Caspar was blushing. Cute. “But I mean, it’s not like we hafta.”
“Maybe when I finish my degree,” Linhardt suggested. There was a second where he could almost hear the wheels in Caspar’s brain churning. “If it’s not clear,” he clarified, “I’m asking you to marry me.”
Caspar’s shoulder vanished from under his head and Caspar rolled on top of him, grinning from ear to ear. “Definitely! Let’s definitely get married!”
Before Linhardt could respond, Caspar was kissing him. They kissed often, little ‘welcome home’ kisses and ‘goodbye’ kisses, but Linhardt realized with a start how long it had been since Caspar had kissed him this way, with teeth and tongue and a certain heat behind it. He responded with a pleased hum, winding his arms around Caspar’s shoulders. He was so warm and solid and close, and Linhardt realized he’d missed this. When Caspar pulled away he gasped for air, and then gasped again as Caspar’s lips found their way to his neck.
Caspar mumbled something that sounded like “love you,” against the curve of his neck, and LInhardt sighed in response, holding him close. A knee nudged between Linhardt’s legs, and he cupped the nape of Caspar’s neck, urging him onward, when…
“Mrow?”
Both of them froze and looked over to where their cat sat on the floorboards a few feet away, watching them. Linhardt breathed a puff of laughter and Caspar made a sound like “Nooooooo,” climbing off of Linhardt and gathering the cat up in his arms.
He carried the cat into the hallway, and Linhardt heard him say, “Do not mess this one up for me, Naruto. He’s been really busy so we haven’t done this in like, ages, okay? Just stay in here.” Then Caspar came back into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Ugh,” he said. Linhardt snorted again.
“I had not realized I’d starved you so,” he told him teasingly, and Caspar flushed.
“Nooo, I know your stuff is important, I just. Kinda missed all this. You know?” Caspar was inching back towards him like he wasn’t sure if he should rejoin Linhardt or go around to climb in on the other side of the bed instead. Linhardt opened his arms to help him make the decision, and he clambered back on top of him.
“I know,” he told him, kissing Caspar’s cheek as he wound his arms around him again. “I did too. In a way, I think we have… Naruto to thank for this.”
“You think?” Caspar asked, then it hit him. “You said it!”
“Hmm, and I’m regretting it. Kiss me again so I can forget I did so.”
Caspar, of course, was happy to oblige.