Valentine's Drabbles
Index/Timeline
Patrick had wanted Kati to take the day off work, but there's no way she can. This case is far too important and she can't let it be compromised, even if it is Valentine's Day.
Patrick's not sad about it for too long though. Kati asks if they should organise to do something in the evening, but Patrick just winks.
"Leave it all up to me," he says.
Kati doesn't know if she should be pleased or worried by that statement. Pleased, probably, hopefully, if previous Valentine's Days have been anything to go by. Say what you like about the guy, but Patrick's nothing if not romantic.
As she arrives home from work, later than she'd like and Valentine's Day all but over by some counts, Kati wonders what Patrick's got planned. He still hasn't told her anything about it.
Maybe he's bought her chocolates, or perfume, or a teddy bear. Maybe he's taking her out to dinner; he's done that before too.
For her part, Kati's gotten Patrick an expensive sweater that she's seen him eyeing up through a designer store window. Opening the door, Kati wonders if she should give it to him straight away, or if she should wait a little.
She doesn't have much time to wonder though, because Patrick's there to greet her as soon as she steps into the hall, and she's nearly knocked over by the enthusiasm of his hug.
"Happy Valentine's, Kati!"
Kati would reply, but he's already kissing her, slowly, and trembling a little, like he's holding back with some difficulty. Well, as sweet as that is, Kati grabs him by the back off the head and kisses him with all the energy she can muster.
The whimper he makes in his throat is more than worth it.
When Kati pulls back, Patrick is grinning like a loon.
She rests her head on his shoulder and sighs.
"Had a tough day at work?" asks Patrick, as she moves away and he follows her into the living room.
"Something like that." Kati takes off her shoes and coat then collapses into the sofa.
For a few moments, Patrick is suspiciously quiet. Kati opens an eye to look at him, and sees him wearing one of those little pleased smiles he gets when he thinks he's done something good.
Kati gives him a questioning look.
"If you're tired," says Patrick, trying to sound nonchalant, "maybe you'd like to come upstairs?"
Kati smirks. So that's what he's got planned for this evening. She's feeling a little too exhausted for it, to be honest, but she stands and follows him anyway. The loveable idiot.
But when they get to the top of the stairs, Patrick doesn't lead her to the bedroom. He takes her into the bathroom instead.
It's so humid inside that Kati's glasses steam up instantly and she has to take them off. When she does, what she sees is a full bath that is strewn with rose petals and surrounded by candles.
He'd known that she would want a relaxing evening.
Kati chuckles and gives Patrick a kiss. "You're a romantic fool," she says. And that's why she loves him.
Patrick grins at her. "Go on!" he says. "Get in! Relax!"
Laughing, Kati takes off her clothes and steps into the tub.
The water is wonderfully hot.
"Look!" says Patrick, rushing around. "I got champagne! And chocolates!" He leans over and presses a button. "And music!"
Kati's touched. It's her favourite composer. Patrick really has thought of everything. "Thank you," she says, sinking into the water. "Now, are you going to get in too?"
"Yes!" says Patrick, a little too loud. "I just have to go take off my clothes!" and he runs off into the bedroom.
Kati frowns. Patrick doesn't normally have a problem with getting undressed in front of her.
There's some crashing and banging from the hall.
"Patrick?" Kati calls out. "Are you ok?"
"Fine!" shouts Patrick. "Just a moment!"
Kati frowns harder.
When Patrick steps back into the bathroom, he's still wearing all his clothes.
"Patrick," says Kati, "I thought you were getting undressed?"
But Patrick doesn't answer. He just gives her a nervous smile and steps up to the bath.
And gets down on one knee.
Oh.
And pulls out a small, black box.
Oh.
"Kati," he says, voice shaking, and opens the box to reveal a ring.
Oh.
"Will you marry me?"
If Kati was shocked by the proposal, she's even more shocked by the fact that she says, "Yes," without even a moment's hesitation.
Patrick lights up like a Christmas tree, "Kati!" and he jumps into the bath to give her a kiss.
Kati laughs as half of the water splashes over the side of the tub and puts out all the candles. "Patrick!" she says. "You've still got your clothes on!"
But Patrick just grins. "It doesn't matter," he says, and kisses her again.
No, thinks Kati as she kisses back, it probably doesn't.
◊
Klaus used to not see the point in Valentine's day. Just an excuse to sell chocolates and flowers, right?
"I bet you anything Saji has something planned." Shirin points out, during that first year, stopping Klaus mid-rant about ridiculous heart-shaped decorations having appeared in every damn shop despite it being still mid-January.
Klaus decides to change his mind about Valentine's day, because if Shirin is right (and she probably is), then not having anything to give Saji anything in return is a bad idea.
Only one problem then: what to get.
Flowers seem sort of not right. Chocolates are kind of a cliche, and anyway Saji likes giving other people sweet things much better than he likes eating them for himself; Klaus would probably end up eating at least half of them himself. Pretty much every option suggested in any list of Valentine's gifts Klaus can find appears to be selected on the assumption that you are dating a teenage girl, so if only Klaus was Shirin and still in high-school then that would be fine, but otherwise useless.
He even considers, momentarily, asking Soran for advice.
While he's still hesitating, Soran looks over at him and says "Pillows."
Presuming that even was supposed to be a suggestion, it might be the most helpful one Klaus has had yet, which says a lot about the dire straits he is in. He says as much to Shirin, who helps him out in her usual fashion.
That is to say, she breaks into his apartment (okay, not really 'breaks', but that key is meant to be for actual emergencies), and puts a lot of pillow-related porn on his computer.
Klaus wonders if a naked pillow fight actually counts as a gift.
Probably not.
Damn.
The next day Saji mentions, off-hand, that he always gets Soran a pillow for Valentine's day and would Klaus like to sign the card? It could be a present from both of them.
Firstly, Klaus really learns to say no to Saji's puppy face. Secondly, there goes the pillow idea. He ends up shelling out for an expensive hotel suite, complete with non-alcoholic champagne, instead.
(It is several more years of last minute panic-purchases before one Joyce Moreno quietly takes him aside and explains the concept of the Valentine's day power tool. Apparently, when you're dating an engineer, love can be expressed in terms of rpm).
◊
There is Keats on the stairs. Billy picks it up to check if Graham's left any bookmarks.
Billy mostly tracks Graham's mental state by poetry; what sort he's reading, what sort he's writing, what sort he's reciting outside people's windows despite the fact that he might well be murdered for it since Setsuna F. Seiei has acquired their friendly local psychopath as a protector.
The run-up to Valentine's day is always interesting, but this one may be particularly so. By which Billy means that he spotted Lisa yesterday-- not by herself-- and was planning to spend Valentine's day falling-down drunk, except for the part where if he does that then Graham will run off and do something that is not guaranteed to be suicidal, but is guaranteed to be Graham.
He wonders how long this thing, this Setsuna F. Seiei thing, that is, is going to go on. Graham has never held on to one of his crushes before, because he loves like he does everything else: deeply, madly, and with the attention span of a stoned butterfly.
Or so Billy has thought. Better to be the friend eternal than one of Graham's passing fancies. He's almost made a mantra out of it.
Sometimes he really hates Setsuna F. Seiei, and not just because he can spend Valentine's day with Saji without being gutted and has never had his heart broken by a fickle, drunken, bitch.
If he throws one of Graham's books, Graham will pout and it will definitely put a hole in Billy's plans. He presses down his anger until it is all back in the dark simmering pit at the bottom of his stomach, and goes to find Graham instead.
He did have a plan, about how to convince Graham to come away for the weekend rather than sit around moping about-- things. He doesn't need it, in the end; Graham takes the briefest glance at the brochure, which Billy spent an hour last night fiddling with so it naturally falls open at the bit about how the outdoor spa offers spiritual cleansing and that rubbish.
Then he decides that renewing the bonds of brotherhood is exactly what they both need. By which Billy means that Graham gives him a soliloquy, gesticulating madly, on the subject, then a hug, and then runs off to pack.
Sometimes, he's really just so--
Graham.
Billy chances a smile in the direction Graham just disappeared, and then goes to check that he packed lube.
◊
Al doesn't really notice holidays much. It's a side effect of the labs, he thinks: for much of his childhood, holidays didn't exist for him, and so he never got into the habit of anticipating them.
He forgets about Valentine's day until he wakes up to Lasse with a flower-- a rose-- and a heart-shaped box of chocolates and, best of all, a bottle of chocolate syrup for them and them alone. There's a card, too, full of heartfelt wishes that make Al feel like he's falling in love with Lasse all over again. Fuck all the problems-- they do love each other, and that's what matters.
The syrup ends up being sickly sweet, but when Al tastes it by licking it off of Lasse's skin he doesn't mind so much.
◊
The student centre is pretty much as Lyle remembers it. Same slightly dingy paint-job in perpetual need of redoing, same slightly earnest looking undergradutes manning the bake-sale table, raising funds for orphans or puppies or some good cause or other.
He's not actually by the bake-sale table, of course. That would be too easy. Lyle makes a circuit, pretending interest in flyers for boxercise and the debate society, until he feels hot breath on the back of his neck, swiftly followed by an iron grip around his wrist.
This time, when he's dragged out of the centre, Lyle knows where they're going, and he's shaking with an entirely different kind of anticipation than he once did.
The anonymous hallways are still anonymous. The door that should be locked still leads to a bare brick sanctuary equally suited to fucking or murder. And being slammed up against those brick walls still hurts like a fucking fantastic son of a bitch.
Lyle grins, and drops to his knees as soon as Halle gives him an inch of room to move in.
Who says romance is dead?
◊
Tieria wakes up with a bed full of Neil and Lyle. Al slept in his own room last night, for the first time in a while; Tieria had thought it was because he had to wake up later than everyone else, but it seems now like that may have been a white lie.
Not that he minds. Lyle smiles, slow curving of his lips that makes Tieria acutely aware of the way his boyfriend's twin is halfway on top of him, hair hanging around his face as he looks down at Tieria. "Happy Valentine's," Neil says, from the other side, and helps Tieria roll onto his side so they can press against him from either side, him trapped in the middle like the sexiest sandwich since at least Wednesday when Neil and Al...
But he's not thinking: it's Valentine's day, and he hasn't gotten Neil anything. Willing participation is not a sufficient gift.
Al? Tieria sends, and is pleased to find Al awake. Come upstairs and join us?
Al does, of course; when he presses in behind Neil, he reads Tieria's thoughts and whispers a soft, "Happy Valentine's day, Neil."
Neil's only answer is a surprised sound, quickly muffled by the press of Al's lips against his. Tieria doesn't hear what happens after that, because Lyle tweaks one of Tieria's nipples and then captures his lips. Tieria gives in easily, and thinks that all Valentine's days should be like this. Particularly ones that Halle probably has to do rotations on.
Patrick had wanted Kati to take the day off work, but there's no way she can. This case is far too important and she can't let it be compromised, even if it is Valentine's Day.
Patrick's not sad about it for too long though. Kati asks if they should organise to do something in the evening, but Patrick just winks.
"Leave it all up to me," he says.
Kati doesn't know if she should be pleased or worried by that statement. Pleased, probably, hopefully, if previous Valentine's Days have been anything to go by. Say what you like about the guy, but Patrick's nothing if not romantic.
As she arrives home from work, later than she'd like and Valentine's Day all but over by some counts, Kati wonders what Patrick's got planned. He still hasn't told her anything about it.
Maybe he's bought her chocolates, or perfume, or a teddy bear. Maybe he's taking her out to dinner; he's done that before too.
For her part, Kati's gotten Patrick an expensive sweater that she's seen him eyeing up through a designer store window. Opening the door, Kati wonders if she should give it to him straight away, or if she should wait a little.
She doesn't have much time to wonder though, because Patrick's there to greet her as soon as she steps into the hall, and she's nearly knocked over by the enthusiasm of his hug.
"Happy Valentine's, Kati!"
Kati would reply, but he's already kissing her, slowly, and trembling a little, like he's holding back with some difficulty. Well, as sweet as that is, Kati grabs him by the back off the head and kisses him with all the energy she can muster.
The whimper he makes in his throat is more than worth it.
When Kati pulls back, Patrick is grinning like a loon.
She rests her head on his shoulder and sighs.
"Had a tough day at work?" asks Patrick, as she moves away and he follows her into the living room.
"Something like that." Kati takes off her shoes and coat then collapses into the sofa.
For a few moments, Patrick is suspiciously quiet. Kati opens an eye to look at him, and sees him wearing one of those little pleased smiles he gets when he thinks he's done something good.
Kati gives him a questioning look.
"If you're tired," says Patrick, trying to sound nonchalant, "maybe you'd like to come upstairs?"
Kati smirks. So that's what he's got planned for this evening. She's feeling a little too exhausted for it, to be honest, but she stands and follows him anyway. The loveable idiot.
But when they get to the top of the stairs, Patrick doesn't lead her to the bedroom. He takes her into the bathroom instead.
It's so humid inside that Kati's glasses steam up instantly and she has to take them off. When she does, what she sees is a full bath that is strewn with rose petals and surrounded by candles.
He'd known that she would want a relaxing evening.
Kati chuckles and gives Patrick a kiss. "You're a romantic fool," she says. And that's why she loves him.
Patrick grins at her. "Go on!" he says. "Get in! Relax!"
Laughing, Kati takes off her clothes and steps into the tub.
The water is wonderfully hot.
"Look!" says Patrick, rushing around. "I got champagne! And chocolates!" He leans over and presses a button. "And music!"
Kati's touched. It's her favourite composer. Patrick really has thought of everything. "Thank you," she says, sinking into the water. "Now, are you going to get in too?"
"Yes!" says Patrick, a little too loud. "I just have to go take off my clothes!" and he runs off into the bedroom.
Kati frowns. Patrick doesn't normally have a problem with getting undressed in front of her.
There's some crashing and banging from the hall.
"Patrick?" Kati calls out. "Are you ok?"
"Fine!" shouts Patrick. "Just a moment!"
Kati frowns harder.
When Patrick steps back into the bathroom, he's still wearing all his clothes.
"Patrick," says Kati, "I thought you were getting undressed?"
But Patrick doesn't answer. He just gives her a nervous smile and steps up to the bath.
And gets down on one knee.
Oh.
And pulls out a small, black box.
Oh.
"Kati," he says, voice shaking, and opens the box to reveal a ring.
Oh.
"Will you marry me?"
If Kati was shocked by the proposal, she's even more shocked by the fact that she says, "Yes," without even a moment's hesitation.
Patrick lights up like a Christmas tree, "Kati!" and he jumps into the bath to give her a kiss.
Kati laughs as half of the water splashes over the side of the tub and puts out all the candles. "Patrick!" she says. "You've still got your clothes on!"
But Patrick just grins. "It doesn't matter," he says, and kisses her again.
No, thinks Kati as she kisses back, it probably doesn't.
◊
Klaus used to not see the point in Valentine's day. Just an excuse to sell chocolates and flowers, right?
"I bet you anything Saji has something planned." Shirin points out, during that first year, stopping Klaus mid-rant about ridiculous heart-shaped decorations having appeared in every damn shop despite it being still mid-January.
Klaus decides to change his mind about Valentine's day, because if Shirin is right (and she probably is), then not having anything to give Saji anything in return is a bad idea.
Only one problem then: what to get.
Flowers seem sort of not right. Chocolates are kind of a cliche, and anyway Saji likes giving other people sweet things much better than he likes eating them for himself; Klaus would probably end up eating at least half of them himself. Pretty much every option suggested in any list of Valentine's gifts Klaus can find appears to be selected on the assumption that you are dating a teenage girl, so if only Klaus was Shirin and still in high-school then that would be fine, but otherwise useless.
He even considers, momentarily, asking Soran for advice.
While he's still hesitating, Soran looks over at him and says "Pillows."
Presuming that even was supposed to be a suggestion, it might be the most helpful one Klaus has had yet, which says a lot about the dire straits he is in. He says as much to Shirin, who helps him out in her usual fashion.
That is to say, she breaks into his apartment (okay, not really 'breaks', but that key is meant to be for actual emergencies), and puts a lot of pillow-related porn on his computer.
Klaus wonders if a naked pillow fight actually counts as a gift.
Probably not.
Damn.
The next day Saji mentions, off-hand, that he always gets Soran a pillow for Valentine's day and would Klaus like to sign the card? It could be a present from both of them.
Firstly, Klaus really learns to say no to Saji's puppy face. Secondly, there goes the pillow idea. He ends up shelling out for an expensive hotel suite, complete with non-alcoholic champagne, instead.
(It is several more years of last minute panic-purchases before one Joyce Moreno quietly takes him aside and explains the concept of the Valentine's day power tool. Apparently, when you're dating an engineer, love can be expressed in terms of rpm).
◊
There is Keats on the stairs. Billy picks it up to check if Graham's left any bookmarks.
Billy mostly tracks Graham's mental state by poetry; what sort he's reading, what sort he's writing, what sort he's reciting outside people's windows despite the fact that he might well be murdered for it since Setsuna F. Seiei has acquired their friendly local psychopath as a protector.
The run-up to Valentine's day is always interesting, but this one may be particularly so. By which Billy means that he spotted Lisa yesterday-- not by herself-- and was planning to spend Valentine's day falling-down drunk, except for the part where if he does that then Graham will run off and do something that is not guaranteed to be suicidal, but is guaranteed to be Graham.
He wonders how long this thing, this Setsuna F. Seiei thing, that is, is going to go on. Graham has never held on to one of his crushes before, because he loves like he does everything else: deeply, madly, and with the attention span of a stoned butterfly.
Or so Billy has thought. Better to be the friend eternal than one of Graham's passing fancies. He's almost made a mantra out of it.
Sometimes he really hates Setsuna F. Seiei, and not just because he can spend Valentine's day with Saji without being gutted and has never had his heart broken by a fickle, drunken, bitch.
If he throws one of Graham's books, Graham will pout and it will definitely put a hole in Billy's plans. He presses down his anger until it is all back in the dark simmering pit at the bottom of his stomach, and goes to find Graham instead.
He did have a plan, about how to convince Graham to come away for the weekend rather than sit around moping about-- things. He doesn't need it, in the end; Graham takes the briefest glance at the brochure, which Billy spent an hour last night fiddling with so it naturally falls open at the bit about how the outdoor spa offers spiritual cleansing and that rubbish.
Then he decides that renewing the bonds of brotherhood is exactly what they both need. By which Billy means that Graham gives him a soliloquy, gesticulating madly, on the subject, then a hug, and then runs off to pack.
Sometimes, he's really just so--
Graham.
Billy chances a smile in the direction Graham just disappeared, and then goes to check that he packed lube.
◊
Al doesn't really notice holidays much. It's a side effect of the labs, he thinks: for much of his childhood, holidays didn't exist for him, and so he never got into the habit of anticipating them.
He forgets about Valentine's day until he wakes up to Lasse with a flower-- a rose-- and a heart-shaped box of chocolates and, best of all, a bottle of chocolate syrup for them and them alone. There's a card, too, full of heartfelt wishes that make Al feel like he's falling in love with Lasse all over again. Fuck all the problems-- they do love each other, and that's what matters.
The syrup ends up being sickly sweet, but when Al tastes it by licking it off of Lasse's skin he doesn't mind so much.
◊
The student centre is pretty much as Lyle remembers it. Same slightly dingy paint-job in perpetual need of redoing, same slightly earnest looking undergradutes manning the bake-sale table, raising funds for orphans or puppies or some good cause or other.
He's not actually by the bake-sale table, of course. That would be too easy. Lyle makes a circuit, pretending interest in flyers for boxercise and the debate society, until he feels hot breath on the back of his neck, swiftly followed by an iron grip around his wrist.
This time, when he's dragged out of the centre, Lyle knows where they're going, and he's shaking with an entirely different kind of anticipation than he once did.
The anonymous hallways are still anonymous. The door that should be locked still leads to a bare brick sanctuary equally suited to fucking or murder. And being slammed up against those brick walls still hurts like a fucking fantastic son of a bitch.
Lyle grins, and drops to his knees as soon as Halle gives him an inch of room to move in.
Who says romance is dead?
◊
Tieria wakes up with a bed full of Neil and Lyle. Al slept in his own room last night, for the first time in a while; Tieria had thought it was because he had to wake up later than everyone else, but it seems now like that may have been a white lie.
Not that he minds. Lyle smiles, slow curving of his lips that makes Tieria acutely aware of the way his boyfriend's twin is halfway on top of him, hair hanging around his face as he looks down at Tieria. "Happy Valentine's," Neil says, from the other side, and helps Tieria roll onto his side so they can press against him from either side, him trapped in the middle like the sexiest sandwich since at least Wednesday when Neil and Al...
But he's not thinking: it's Valentine's day, and he hasn't gotten Neil anything. Willing participation is not a sufficient gift.
Al? Tieria sends, and is pleased to find Al awake. Come upstairs and join us?
Al does, of course; when he presses in behind Neil, he reads Tieria's thoughts and whispers a soft, "Happy Valentine's day, Neil."
Neil's only answer is a surprised sound, quickly muffled by the press of Al's lips against his. Tieria doesn't hear what happens after that, because Lyle tweaks one of Tieria's nipples and then captures his lips. Tieria gives in easily, and thinks that all Valentine's days should be like this. Particularly ones that Halle probably has to do rotations on.