Work Text:
It’s… different.
This is strange- a new sort of comfort. York is lying against the bed frame, propped up by pillows, and he is surrounded by blankets and quiet. Lying against his left side is Grandma, looking through a bag of nail polish. Sprawled out on his right is Rosé. She’s fiddling with a rubix cube.
Nobody has said anything for a while.
It just sort of happened. There were no agreements, no questions asked. It was just: He’s in bed. Rosé is bringing in cups of coffee while he blinks sleep away, and he’s gently nudging Grandma awake to hand him their cup. She leans against his rib cage. She picks up the rubix cube from the bedside table. Grandma wakes up. They leave and they come back with a bag.
They are all snuggled together and there is nothing to be said about it. They just are.
And it’s- it isn’t like this, in the Northern Tribes. York loves his heritage and he loves his family but there isn’t really any relaxation there. He sleeps on the ground. It’s always noisy, because work doesn’t stop at night. There are parties and there are get-togethers but there is nothing really… soft.
He liked it. He liked the excitement. He liked the determination, the adrenaline, and he wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
But now he is surrounded by warmth and his friends are here; he is lying in a bed, and he finds he likes this a lot more than he expected.
(really, they’re his partners, too. sometimes they call him their boyfriend and he feels warm. but he likes calling them friends more, because they’re friends first, even if romance wasn’t involved. they’re his friends and they’re something else.)
“Yellow would go well with your jumpsuit,” Rosé murmurs. And- it doesn’t break the silence, because nothing is sharp here, there are no edges- it just kind of melds.
The clinking of bottles pauses as Grandma considers this. Then they grab gold, set the bag on the floor beside them, thank Rosé, and start. York smells the nail polish before he sees Grandma apply it. It’s pretty.
Time passes. York watches, vaguely, as Grandma paints and dries and adds another layer, then he looks over at Rosé’s work in progress and watches that too. The curtains are open, sunlight streaming in. It has to be at least twelve. He wonders if their alarms went off. He wonders how long Rosé was awake before she make them drinks.
He should get up, he thinks, thoughts foggy and brain mush. He’s wasting the day just lazing around like this. They don’t have any work to do and he doesn’t have a plan but- there’s always something, isn’t there? He’d figure it out.
He should get up.
But Grandma is taking a break from blowing their second layer of paint and leaning over York’s stomach, head next to Rosé’s as he looks over her work with similarly furrowed brows. They suggest she work on a certain side. A moment later, Rosé complies. She brightens. Something good must have come from that one.
The truth is, York doesn’t fully understand this. He doesn’t understand the point in loafing around all day when he could be being useful. He doesn’t get painting yourself(it would have chipped off from the labor), and he has never been good with puzzles(he’s been told he’s a better worker than a thinker). None of this makes sense. None of it is logical.
And yet-
York has never been shown love this way. Love has always been exciting and it has been natural and it has been exhilarating but it hadn’t been soft until now. It’s work and it’s a payoff. His friends are here and he is warm; His friends are safe and he is comfortable.
His friends are enjoying themselves. He is too, York realizes.
He is too.
Rosé is the first to notice, which isn’t ideal, because as soon as she sees she blurts out a very worried “Are you crying???” that causes Grandma’s head to swerve around and look at him with wide eyes.
“Maybe,” He chokes out. But he is being very brave about it. “Have you finished your puzzle box?”
She has, but this has apparently been put to the side, because Rosé and Grandma are pushing themselves up to sit and York is mirroring them because he’s York and Rosé is babbling at him, asking him what’s wrong, while Grandma does the same thing but a lot less frantic. Her hands are cupping his face. Grandma is holding his hand with both of his own because he is so large compared to her- they’re both so fragile- York wants to protect them and he doesn’t have to because they’re in their shared apartment, the house is quiet, and something about that makes York break.
His voice is strained. He is trying very hard to not let it crack, but it wobbles anyway.
He is telling them he loves them. He is telling them he cares about them. He is telling them they are his best friends, he doesn’t know where he’d be without them, he knows Rosé has memorized the copious amounts of sweets he puts in his coffee and he knows Grandma has been working very patiently to teach him to read and-
He is telling them he loves them. He does not need to but at the same time he does. There is something desperate clawing at his throat rendering him unable to stop.
Rosé’s eyes are filling and she’s crying too, she’s trying to sooth him and dry his face but she’s obviously emotional. Grandma grabs York’s coffee from the bedside table and tells York to drink, bud, you gotta calm down, and York does. He swallows down creamer and tears. He tries to remember how to be normal.
Rosé squeezes his hand, grabs onto Grandma’s too, and declares they are the best partners she could have ever asked for. Grandma is agreeing and desperately trying to hold it together even though they are clearly touched. It doesn't last long.
Nobody is stable anymore, all tears and smiles and snot. The sun is shining through the window. It has to be an hour or two past noon, and everyone is a mess.
York thinks- well. They aren’t the most put-together adults anyway.
They end up ordering Chinese.
Rosé tries and fails to teach the group how to use chopsticks, even while struggling herself. To everyone’s credit they go at the job for a good ten minutes: But then York’s stomach growls. And so does Rosé’s. And so does Grandma’s.
Who are forks for if not those who have failed to use chopsticks?
To leave the bedroom and pick themselves up into almost-functional people is like breaking an illusion. The bedroom is peaceful, comfortable, and the uncarpeted living room feels out of place. The couch creaks when they sit on it. The TV has a black splotch in the bottom right corner that doesn’t interfere with watching too much, but it makes getting the captions pulled up a pain.
The heater is loud. They open the fridge and the shelf breaks and it’s a mad rush to pick up things that have spilled and to catch things that can break. When York is in such a loving mood, to find himself still in Grandma’s(legally theirs but really, it’s everyone’s.) dingy apartment is… it feels wrong.
But then Rosé decides to put her hair up in some messy buns, pink and brown falling in her face in wisps as she holds needles in her teeth. While drinking soda Grandma laughs so hard it comes out their nose and they can’t compose themselves enough to clean it up, choking out that they’ll do it, they’ll do it, but it ends with Rosé and York giggling and grabbing towels and seeping it up for them.
It makes York’s heart feel close to bursting. So maybe none of that stuff matters anyway. He smiles and he swallows down noodles.
And it’s different. Everyone is thoroughly tired, so they decide to go back to bed early, even if the most they’ve done today is curse the fridge. This never would have happened in the Northern Tribes. York gets into bed first and the others quickly follow suit.
Grandma is buried into his side. Rosé has slouched against him, legs bent and tilted against York’s knees as a dead weight. He has an arm around both of them.
The curtains are pulled. The sun hasn’t fully set yet. The room is dark, his friends- partners- are next to him, and the house is quiet except for their snores.
He’s exhausted. His eyes are puffy.
York feels soft.
He falls asleep easily.