adam goldstein, officer thorough (boychik) wrote in cultureic, @ 2017-01-30 21:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | adam goldstein, tiberius mclaggen |
אני לדודי ודודי לי
WHO: Adam Goldstein and Tiberius McLaggen.
WHAT: Two important conversations.
WHEN: 23rd January (after Herc's obliviation) and 27th January (after the Final Battle).
WHERE: Their home in Nunhead; the DMLE; the London Eye.
WARNINGS: Feelings.
It was early. Early enough that the sun wouldn't officially rise for another two hours, early enough that the chill which clung to London was positively Arctic -- so early, in fact, that a sleepless Tiberius had time to get up and fix himself a sizeable cup of coffee, before returning to bed and slipping himself back into his vacated spot beneath the blankets before the heat left them. If he moved with practiced quiet, it was because he didn't want to disturb the man curled on the other side of the mattress. The past few days had been a horror-show from an Obliviator's standpoint -- he had no way, really, of qualifying just how bad it must be for Adam, knowing that a former lover was effectively gone. Their New Year's optimism likewise felt long gone. Tiberius had taken ample care, but Adam still stirred when the covers did, still turned a little to face his boyfriend and sleepily open his eyes. He blinked, twice, and then: "Hi," he murmured, voice heavy with dream. His arm looped about Tiberius's waist, drawing him a little bit closer. "Mm. Was afraid you'd gone somewhere." Tiberius could just as easily have stayed in the kitchen, downing his coffee there, but he'd felt particularly unwilling to leave Adam alone for any unnecessary period of time ever since…. well. Perhaps he was a little overbearing, and Merlin knew he'd tried to hold back on the big protective outbursts, but when Adam got home that night wearing a blank expression of shock, his attempts all collapsed into the realm of futility. He tried to make himself as available as he could. Now, his free hand reached out to tangle loosely in Adam's hair. "It's five-thirty, Adam," he whispered. "Go back to sleep." Adam leaned closer for a kiss, morning breath be damned. "It's okay," he said, resting his head then in the crook of Tiberius's neck and shoulder. "I'm okay. I'm not going to break, love." The initial horror had been all-consuming, but two days later Adam was starting to process it all. Process what it meant. Fifteen years of -- love? -- of something with Heracles Crabbe, and all of it gone. Only Adam could remember it now, could live with it now. "I'm all right," he promised. "Never thought you were on the verge of breaking," Tiberius replied, a return kiss pressed to Adam's temple, slow and heavy and still, despite the coffee, sleepy despite his own wakefulness. "That doesn't change the fact that it's five-thirty in the morning. One of us should try to make the most of the hour left to them, mm?" Turning this over in his mind a bit, Adam nuzzled deeper into his lover's embrace. "Dreams've been lousy," he admitted, after a moment. Beneath the covers, he hooked an ankle around one of Tiberius's. "I like it better here with you." What was an hour, anyway, in such a restless time? It was only staving off the inevitable fact of work, of crime scene photographs, of trying to remember any and every word from Herc that might have been helpful. Realising it would be fruitless to argue, Tiberius passed over his cup of coffee. "If you want to talk about it, we can talk about it," he tacked on. "But we don't have to. Whatever you want, Adam." A hearty sip, as Adam sat up to accept the cup. Then he looked down at the beautiful man who shared their bed and frowned a little. "Do you really want to hear what I'm feeling about my maybe-a-Death-Eater ex who's now a vegetable?" "If that's what you want to talk about, then yes, I really want to hear it." Tiberius nudged Adam's foot with his own. "A terrible thing happened to a person you have history with, and I think you're holding yourself responsible for something." "I think... Well, you're right about that, obviously. And I know it's stupid, but I can't shake it." Adam passed the coffee cup back to Tiberius, settling up and back against the headboard. "Like I should've seen it coming, or done more to help him, or seen Imogen for what she was a long time ago. I was so..." His expression darkened a bit. "I was so angry that he chose her over me. And now the idea that he might not have, that it might not have been a choice at all..." Adam lay a hand on Tiberius's chest. "Don't mistake me, it was for the best regardless. This... you. This is all I want. He was bad for me." A beat. "I loved him, I think. I did. G-d help me. But not like I love you. Nobody's ever..." Tiberius cut him off with a kiss, lips lingering on the corner of his mouth. Gentle reassurance, this. "Darling," he began quietly. "Your history with him doesn't make me feel insecure. That was then. You're allowed to have loved him, and you're allowed to have been angry, to feel like shite. You can still feel like shite, Merlin knows the situation he's now in is..." The shrug did little to conceal the shiver -- a total wipe like that was horrifying, and there was nothing he could say to change that. "This isn't on you, though," he added after a moment. "You're not his keeper, not then and not now." "You're right," Adam said, though it was clear he'd need a bit of time to fully convince himself. "And even if I were, there's nothing to be done about it now." His arm curled about Tiberius's midsection, fingertips tracing up and down his spine. Another kiss. "I'm trying to focus on the future now, anyway." "Yeah?" A grin flashed, warm and open, as Tiberius settled himself more comfortably against Adam. With one hand wrapped around the warmth of the mug, and the other drawing lazy circles across his boyfriend's skin, Tiberius realised he was far too comfortable to even want to think about going into work. "Anything good out there?" "Well, there's this one fellow," Adam mused, a mischievous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "A Scotsman of all goyische things. He makes me feel... everything." He raised a hand to the side of Tiberius's face, thumb swiping over cheekbone. "He makes me feel everything," Adam repeated. And then: "I think I might want to keep him for the rest of my life." Merlin help him, but his fiery officer of the law was so adept at making Tiberius' heart skip a beat, suffusing his chest with warmth in its place. "That's convenient." The drawl was all louche affectation, but the kiss placed on Adam's brow was pure affection. "Because he's already worked you into all of his five, ten, fifteen-plus year plans." It was all hands on deck, but there were remarkably few Muggle casualties in this battle, which meant many members of offices which often collaborated with the DMLE were milling around, waiting to be told how to be helpful. Tiberius didn't particularly want to be helpful. He was here out of pure (frantic) self-interest. People were beginning to stream in, Amelia Bones was somewhere nearby directing things, and all he wanted to see just then was Adam -- not on the casualty list, nor on the list of the critically injured, but here and now. As luck would have it, there was Adam, rounding the corner. "Oh! You!" He hadn't expected to see Tiberius up here, not so soon at any rate, and he made haste to pull his boyfriend into a tight hug. Scarcely a bruise on him, Adam's face was flushed with excitement, barely containing his sheer exhilaration. "I arrested a vampire," he said, preening a bit. "Of course you bloody did," was muttered into the hard breadth of Adam's shoulder. Tiberius was working very hard these days to WORRY LESS LOUDLY -- there was, after all, so much to worry about, and it wouldn't do to worry himself hoarse -- but he absolutely could not suppress the relief which washed over him in one heated wave spurred on by Adam's hale and happy appearance. "They're saying it's over. Is it over?" "It's over." A slow exhalation, then, as Adam fully realised this fact for the first time. "Yes, love, it's over. It's over. He's dead. He's dead and we've got almost all of them in custody now." It wasn't the most professional thing to do in the office, but he tilted Tiberius's chin towards his own to open his mouth for a languid, delighted kiss. When their lips parted, he grinned. "Which means lots of paperwork, but then I think you and I are due a long holiday." Damn professionalism -- Voldemort was dead. The consequences of that would be something they could all puzzle over later, but right now, Voldemort was dead and the nightmare of their lives could be lifted and all Tiberius could manage as a response was a shaky smile, fingers desperately tight around Adam's arms (because he represented anchorage, stability, safety). "I'll go anywhere with you," he managed to say, voice a little hoarse. "I mean. Yes." Adam looked at Tiberius with a wild fire in the back of his eyes, with his heartbeat pounding in his chest, and then: "Come with me somewhere right now." He lifted his hand for Tiberius to take. "Adam..." But the quizzical note in his voice didn't stop Tiberius from tightening his fingers around his boyfriend's, because he meant what he'd said. Besides, there was something beautifully daring dancing in Adam's gaze. "All right." One quick sidelong apparition later and they were standing on the South Bank of the Thames, beneath the watchful London Eye of the Millennium Wheel. The same eye that had watched over them all those months in Tiberius's old apartment, the grand view from his window in the place where they'd fallen in love. Adam looked to Tiberius with a shy smile. "Do you want to go up?" "Topmost one?" The Eye, its slow rotation halted for the night, glowed a vibrant red. At this late hour, the daytime crowd had thinned into the faintest trickle of commuters making their way home; Tiberius found himself lowering his voice, the sudden quiet a bright shock as only minutes ago, they'd been enveloped by the thickening racket of a DMLE returning to base with success hot in their veins. He pointed. "That one?" "Yes," Adam said. "That one." He swallowed, color rising to his cheeks a little. "Is it um. Is it closed?" Blushing deeper red, now. "I wasn't... I wasn't thinking, I was just excited. But I'm sure we can still get up there! Wizards and all that." He squeezed McLaggen's hand. "You want to take us up, love?" With a hmm, Tiberius pulled Adam close, then lifted his gaze again, squinting at the highest capsule on the Wheel. A steadying breath and a quick calculation later, and the tug of another sidealong had them materialising within it. With a grin, Tiberius turned. "Tiberius McLaggen, gentleman apparationist," he said, pressing a kiss to Adam's lips. Adam hummed into the kiss with a happy little sound in the back of his throat, and then he pulled away just a bit to look out at the view. Muggle London was shining all around them, bright and full of possibility, and it nearly took his breath away. "I've never been up here before," he said. "Thought about it when we'd be on your couch, but..." He turned back to Tiberius and cupped his boyfriend's cheek, thumb brushing gently over his lower lip. "I love you," Adam said. "I love you more than I ever thought possible. I don't understand how it took me so long to find you, but I'm so bloody happy I have. It's been... it's been less than a year, I know, but so quickly it just felt like the thing I was... the thing I was missing. It's here now." His other hand tapped at his chest. "You've given me that. I didn't think I..." His voice grew softer. "I didn't think I could have it." Not for the first time, Tiberius found himself at a loss for words (sensible words, graceful words) in the face of Adam's fervent disclosure, that quicksilver tongue of his lodged heavy within his skull as emotion grew thick in his chest. He didn't know how to frame what he was feeling in any sort of vocabulary that would do it justice; he didn't want to cheapen this with a simple, if truthful, me too. But he had to try. Even if he was on the unsteady verge of something that felt suspiciously like tears. "It's not happiness, it's more..." He encircled Adam's wrist with his fingers, finding his pulse point, drinking up the heat of his skin. "It's more. You are so important to me, Adam. Like air." At that, Adam closed his eyes. Took a deep, shaky breath. And got down on one knee. The former Obliviator's prized wit was blunted by the events of the night, and now he blinked down at Adam, confusion edging its way into his expression. "Adam, what are you..." And then realisation snapped across him, and he fell silent. Because Adam was down on one knee and Tiberius needed to not gape at the man he loved. "We don't have to rush anything," Adam said. "We can take our time. I just... I want you to know that for me it's forever. I want you always. I want to grow old together, and... be really sexy old guys." A cheeky little grin, tongue poking out between his front teeth. "I want... G-d, Tiberius, I want to be your husband." The box was simple and small. He'd gone looking after they'd taken back the Ministry, still high on victory and waiting for Tiberius to finish up his paperwork on what had happened with Crouch. For a month, he'd stared every night at the place where he'd hidden it, in a chest of drawers in their bedroom. Now he opened it to reveal two titanium rings, gleaming silver, matching. "Tiberius McLaggen, will you marry me?" Those rings were real. And one of the pair was for him. And there was a rush of something threatening to overwhelm him, and so Tiberius cleared his throat, grabbing Adam's hands (tight, though careful not to knock over the precious box and its symbolic contents) before dropping down to his own knees. He barely felt the cold bite of the floor beneath him, barely glanced at the rings, had eyes only for Adam. "I can't do the looming over you thing," he said by way of explanation, words tripping over each other in their rush to hit the air. He was Tiberius McLaggen and he'd never seriously considered himself husband material, but here they were, two men presented with only one possible answer. "Yes." "Oh," Adam said, eyes wide. "Oh, thank G-d." He lifted the first ring carefully out of the box and, hands shaking, placed it on Tiberius's finger. He leaned forward just a little to whisper in the other man's ear: "Ani L'Dodi V'Dodi Li." It was engraved inside each ring, too: אני לדודי ודודי לי. But that was something Adam could explain to him later. For now, all he wanted was to kiss him, and so he did. A soft, happy note escaped his fiance. "Wait, I have to…" Tiberius broke the kiss and looked down, exhaling a shaky breath as he took the remaining ring, Adam's wrist caught in his other hand. He had no bloody idea how this was meant to be done, had no idea what Adam had just said to him, only that it'd felt beautiful, and he was a vulnerable, happy mess and that was fine. Holding the ring pinched between thumb and forefinger, Tiberius held it up between them and caught Adam's eye. "I'll have to learn how to say that back. But." A small laugh, before: "Adam Goldstein, do you want to marry me?" "Yes," Adam breathed. "Yes, yes, yes." |