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Luke walks through the NXX headquarters, hooking his ring against the rim of the bottle cap and pushes up to open yet another beer. He places it on the table, sliding it towards the other man who decided to join him on this slow night. He opens the second bottle in his hand with ease before he takes a sip, the chilled liquid sending a shiver down his spine.
The two are going over some case files for their upcoming missions, planning out their plan of action before they need to present it to the other three the next day. Luke runs a hand through his hair, his other hand picking up the thick folder. He flips up on the pages and his eyes scan through the lines of text.
“You know, I don’t mind taking the lead on these missions.. But sometimes, I wish I didn’t have to do all the heavy planning.” His colleague complains, letting out a heavy sigh.
“We already have DAVIS to do most of the reading for us,” Luke peers up from the folder. “We can’t make him do everything for us, Marius..” Luke reminds him, his eyes going back to reading the file.
“We’re only stuck doing all of this because Rosa and Artem are taking care of an important lawsuit and Dr. Richter’s second home is the research center. Which only leaves us.” Marius takes a long swig of his beer before he puts it back down with gentle force in annoyance. “Plus, this part is always the most boring.”
“What do you suppose we do then to make this more entertaining?” Luke puts down the case file, picking back up his bottle at the neck to twirl it around between his fingers.
Marius shrugs his shoulders and spins around in his chair. “What if we just stop what we’re doing and call it a night?”
Luke lets out a dry laugh. “You know we can’t do that. We have to give our game plan speech in the afternoon tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but I was going to try to meet Ros--” Marius stops mid-sentence then scoots into the table to pretend like the case files were of interest to him.
Luke purses his lips as he gazes at the bottle, the condensation gliding down the glass. He is aware of Marius’s budding relationship with his childhood best friend. They have been trying to be discreet about it, but he took notice whenever they would gather at the NXX headquarters and they’d graze hands or meet eyes and smile at each other.
Dr. Richter had even pointed it out one day when the two of them were left behind after a meeting. “Marius and Rosa seemed to be in good spirits today,” Dr. Richter pointed out as he was shuffling papers together on the table.
Luke looked up from his tablet, his cheek resting on his fist. “Hm?”
“Did you not notice how the two seemed to make a lot of eye contact and smile at each other while Artem was talking? The lawyer was oblivious to it all, but for me it was rather distracting to say the least.” He clicked his tongue in slight annoyance.
Luke took a second to recollect all that happened during their meeting, but he only remembers catching them whispering to each other in between Artem’s report. “I must have not been paying attention…” He muttered, but he glanced over at Dr. Richter.
“I’m surprised you didn’t catch it, detective. I think the two have been spending more time outside of work lately. Some days, when I ask Rosa to be my teaching assistant, Marius would come pick her up after my lecture. I thought maybe he was just asking her for assistance on legal matters for PAX. But I am under the impression it may be more…” Dr. Richter filled him in.
“Huh…” Luke didn’t know what else to say but that. He was a bit blindsided by this new information because he wasn’t even aware that Marius had any romantic feelings for Rosa. Nor was he aware that Rosa had her eyes set on anyone else.
Ever since that day, Luke had been extra observant whenever Rosa and Marius were in the same room. He did begin to notice how she seemed to give him extra attention. Or she would always make sure to give him reassurance whenever the two oldest would give him a hard time and give their two cents about how his plans wouldn’t work out. Luke had approached her one day and asked her if she’d like to join him for lunch, but she had told him that she already had plans with Marius.
Now that he is more aware of what was going on with his best friend and his colleague, he can’t help but feel jealous. It isn’t him who is pursuing Rosa like he originally planned after he bumped into her after eight years of being apart.
He sighs then looks over at Marius. Luke tussles his hair between his fingers and slides the bottle of beer away from him. “How long have you two been? You know..”
Marius sets the papers back down on the table then shrugs his shoulders. “Rosa has been stubborn and refuses to put a label on what we are. But it’s been about two months since I confessed. But only about a month since she reciprocated those feelings…” Marius answers him with the truth without beating around the bush.
Luke observes Marius’s posture and he’s a bit hunched forward, his head down, unable to meet his eyes. It’s as if he feels guilty that he pursued Rosa when he knows about the feelings that he has had for Rosa since he was younger. On nights like this, they would talk about their differing childhoods, but one thing they always seemed to talk about was how Rosa was growing up. I guess that was one of the signs that Luke should have paid more attention to back then.
“What does not putting a label on mean? You two are either dating or not..” Luke furrows his brows, wanting to know what the first part of his answer meant.
“Well, we do share romantic feelings for each other. But I don’t think she wants to label it as dating quite yet.” Marius slowed his sentence down, possibly realizing how ridiculous it sounded to technically be dating someone, but not actually calling it that.
Luke lets out a half-hearted chuckle. “You know that sounds a bit weird, right?” He asks him.
Marius nods his head slowly. “Yeah..”
There’s a silence that lingers between them, Luke taking another sip from his beer. “Whatever you two are…” He sighs before he glances at Marius. “Just promise me that you won’t hurt her. Or I swear to God. You won’t know what hit you. I don’t care if you are some rich executive, I will hurt you.” Luke warns him before taking the finishing drink of his beer.
“Oh, you wouldn’t dare hurt this pretty face of mine, would you?” Marius jokes around with a bit of a pout.
Luke puts his bottle down and shoots a glare at his friend. “You’re really questioning if I’d hurt you, Marius? I would make it seem like an accident. I have the resources, Mr. von Hagen.”
He watches as Marius shifts in his seat. “I have no intentions of hurting her, Luke.. She is the only one who has ever treated me so genuinely. Even if she tries to act annoyed around me, Rosa is the one person who doesn’t pretend to be nice to get through for my wealth. She is sincere and she sees me for me..”
Luke squeezes his eyes shut. “You have to promise me, you have to keep her happy for a long time. It can’t just last for a year and you decide that you’re done with her..”
“Wh--You really think I’m just toying with her?”
“Can you blame me?!”
“I care about her, Luke!” Marius retorts back.
“I know you! You’re known to be a playboy. I can’t be too sure what your true intentions are with Rosa, Marius.” Luke hangs his head low after he raises his voice.
“I can assure you that I have no intentions of letting her go so easily. I’ve never cared so much about another person until I met Rosa. I want to give her my all and I will do anything to make sure she gets everything and anything she wants.” Marius tells him, his voice sounding genuine.
“G-Good..” Luke says in a soft voice.
“Why are you even concerned? If Rosa and I do ever break up, I already know you’d be the first person she would go to for comfort…” Marius mutters, his hands shuffling around paper on the table.
Luke can’t help but laugh sadly, his head falling into his hands. He rubs his face gently, before pulling his hands away. “If you break up with her after two years, I won’t be here to comfort her.”
A silence looms over the two of them once again. Luke peers over at Marius and he can tell his friend is trying to figure out what he meant by his words. Luke doesn’t wait for him to respond. “I only have about two years left, Marius..”
“Two years until you have to go off on another mission…? Or…?” Marius doesn’t finish his question, as if he doesn’t want the unspeakable option to be plausible.
“Until I die…” Luke looks away, unable to look Marius in the eye after his response.
The two don’t speak for some time. Marius is digesting this sudden news and Luke is just unable to bring himself to say anything.
“Does she know…?” Marius finally breaks the silence between them.
“No.. I haven’t told her yet. I don’t have the heart to tell her. If I tell her she will just panic and say that I should seek help to prolong my life. Unfortunately, I do not have a solution. I have been seeing a doctor for a while now and he can’t promise me anything longer than the three years he told me.” Luke runs a hand through his hair and eyes the beer, wishing he had more to drink his despair away.
“You’re her best friend. Aren’t you two supposed to trust each other with those kinds of stuff? How could you keep something like that from her?” Marius questions him.
“I don’t want to hurt her more than I already have. I missed eight years with her. I didn’t even want to return and see her again. I thought it would have been easier to just spend the rest of my time left by just keeping tabs on her to make sure she’s okay. I didn’t want to reunite with her. But then we ran into each other by chance and the second I did, I realized how much I didn’t want to regret not getting to say a proper goodbye..” Luke has tears forming in his eyes and he doesn’t react quick enough to wipe away the tears that slip down his cheeks.
Marius lets out a bitter laugh. “Now I feel bad that I even got in between the two of you.”
“Don’t you dare feel that way!” Luke glares at Marius through his tears. “You have already confessed to Rosa and she feels the same way towards you. Do not let what I told you tarnish those feelings so quickly. You need to keep your promise. Be with her until the end of your days together. I want to make sure that I am going to leave her behind with someone who I can trust will keep her happy. It’s obvious that you will be more than capable of doing that.” Luke clenches his fist and blinks away more of his tears.
Marius’s violet eyes are searching his face then he lets out a sigh. “I promise.. I will protect her and I will cherish her until my last breath.”
“Thank you…” Luke wipes his away the tears wetting his face with the back of his sleeve. He inhales shakily and he gets up from his seat. “Want another beer?” He pats Marius’s shoulder.
“Sure..”
Luke disappears into the kitchen to get another beer to accompany them for the remainder of this long night.