#and also baron 'emotionally constipated' von gikkingen wouldn't be able to proclaim to be haru's fiance without one or both of them

[catsafarithewriter]

Desperate Measures

A/N: Do you know how sometimes you get an idea that’s so stupid you immediately have to write it? Well, I saw THIS POST, and instantly latched on to the “The Fiance You Thought Was Lost at Sea” flavour and couldn’t resist. 

Human AU.

x

The date was going badly. 

Not covertly-ask-the-bartender-for-a-taxi bad, but definitely veering into climbing-out-the-bathroom-window territory. 

At least, it would have been if the windows were large enough. 

(They weren’t.)

(She’d tried.)

Haru hummed her way through another of her date’s monologues on the virtues of the different brands of modelling paint and subtly checked her phone. Still no reply from either of her housemates in the last thirty seconds. 

She wistfully looked over the pudding menu and tried to convince herself that the triple-fudge brownie was worth dragging the date out to a second course. 

She needed chocolate. Lots of it. 

She deserved it, really, she rationalised. As a prize for her patience. 

She made a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat as her date moved on to the various selections of glue and good god was she bored of toy planes.

She ate a little faster and dismissed the brownie. She’d come back for it another day. Even free pudding wasn’t worth this. 

“...and of course, there’s CA, which will bond between most dissimilar materials, including plastic to metal, but it can discolour some plastics...”

It wasn’t that she disliked model planes. Or tanks. Or trains. Or whatever her date made. (Truth be told, she’d forgotten within the span of dinner arriving.) It was more to the fact that it had been forty minutes and he hadn’t asked her for a single detail about her life. 

She had tried. But it turned out that derailing (all puns intended, she needed something to amuse her) a topic on scale model building was harder than it sounded. 

“...so personally I prefer an epoxy resin, even if it does take longer to dry. Of course, if you’re wielding plastic to plastic, then the obvious choice would be a solvent cement...”

Dear god, kill me now, Haru thought. 

And that was when Louise burst through the pub doors with a raucous bang and cried, “HARU, I’VE RETURNED!” at the top of her lungs. 

The bar went silent. Even Haru’s date trailed off on the merits of solvent cement. And it wasn’t just because of Louise’s dramatic entrance or her outburst, although either might have been enough. 

She was soaked.

Like, dumped-in-a-river soaked. 

Her usually perfect hair was plastered along the sides of her face, her clothes bedraggled, and what looked like a crab hung off her ear like a huge and ugly earring. 

“Haru?” Haru’s date asked. “Do you know that woman?”

“Uh,” Haru said. 

Louise cleared the pub in three easy steps - mostly because people swiftly got out of her way - and drew Haru into a bone-breaking hug. From this proximity, Haru could smell saltwater.

“Louise,” she wheezed. “What are you doing?”

“Saving you from your god-awful date,” Louise whispered, and released her. “Haru!” she boomed. “I know you’re in shock, but it’s me! I have returned! Your fiancée, lost at sea, but finally I have come back to you!”

Louise paused. 

It took Haru a moment longer to register that this was her cue. Luckily, everyone else seemed so perplexed by the turn of events that they didn’t notice her hesitation. She threw her arms around Louise and buried her head into her housemate’s shoulders to hide the hysterical laughter. 

“Louise!” she cried back, and she hoped people mistook her shaking voice for heartfelt emotion and not the physical restraint of hiccuping giggles. “It is you! I almost didn’t recognise you after all this time! How did you...? How did you survive the shipwreck?”

“Ah.” Louise leant back and Haru could see her mental gears frantically whirring. “It is a tale of drama and suspense and daring-do of epic proportions. It will live on in history as a tale through the ages. In song! In verse! Maybe in a little Broadway show.” She paused and reconsidered the rapt audience she had. “It is a story for another day!”

Haru’s date got uneasily to his feet, paler than Haru remembered him. “Uh, hi, should I be leaving or...?”

“Haru!” Louise bellowed. She was going to have no voice tomorrow at this rate. “Who is this man you’re with?”

“This is...” Good god, she’d forgotten his name. 

“Going,” he supplied. “Haru, it was... this was an experience, but I’m going to go now. It looks like you have a lot of catching up to do.” He paused. “I’ll pay on the way out.”

Haru was beginning to feel somewhat bad about her date, however boring he had been, but then Louise swept her off her feet in an overly dramatic lift and spun her through the air and Haru was too busy trying not to yelp/laugh to worry. 

As her feet touched back down, there was a shocked kind of applause from the onlookers. Again, Haru wasn’t given any time to process this before Louise grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the bar. She passed at least two bar patrons who were filming the whole incident. 

“Fiancée?” Haru managed to ask as they slipped back outside, as if that was the only question she had in her mind. 

“It sounded better than girlfriend. More dramatic.”

“You have a girlfriend,” Haru reminded her. 

“Yes, and she’s waiting for us in the car. There she is.” Louise gave a cheerful little wave at her mini, which currently contained her brother and her aforementioned girlfriend. 

Persephone was settled comfortably in the driver’s seat, while Louise’s brother and fellow housemate, Baron, was squashed into the back with his knees about his ears. 

Haru opened the passenger door and stared bemusedly at the occupants. “So what’s all this then?”

“What does it look like?” Persephone asked. “It’s a rescue mission. Now get inside before we attract any more attention. Louise, towel.”

Haru slid into the seat beside Baron while Louise ruefully dried herself off. “And who decided that posing as a fiancée lost at sea was the best way to get me out of a boring date?”

Persephone and Baron both pointed to Louise.

“Oh, come on. You can’t say that wasn’t fun,” Louise protested. 

“We did suggest alternatives,” Baron said. 

“Yes, but they were boring and no fun.” Louise twisted in her seat to look back at Haru. “We drew straws to see whose idea we’d go with.”

“And what were the other options?”

“Fire alarm,” Baron said.

“Isn’t that, like, illegal?”

“Only a little bit.”

“And only if you get caught,” Louise added. 

“Sephie?”

“Awkward third wheel,” Persephone said. 

“I’m not gonna lie, that’s kinda anticlimactic after the other two.”

“Never underestimate the power of an awkward third wheel. Cringey date stories, constant photos of my ninety cats, random facts on the mating rituals of bats, you name it. And even if it doesn’t end the date in thirty seconds, at least you’ll have an interesting conversation.”

“Your imagination never ceases to amaze me,” Louise said. 

“Oh, I do actually know about bat mating rituals. Blame late night nature documentaries.”

“I was referring to the cringey date stories.”

“Honey, I love you, but you once punched a guy on our anniversary.”

“He deserved it.”

“We nearly got arrested.”

“But we didn’t.”

“No. But we did get permanently banned from that bar.”

“The food wasn’t even that good there anyway.”

Haru leant over to Baron, although that didn’t take much in the confines of the mini. “Did you really suggest setting off the fire alarm to end my awkward date?”

“Toto proposed one of us pose as your child from the future and mutter about how you were late to meet your future spouse, if that puts my suggestion in a better light at all.”

“Toto was in on this too?”

“And Muta. He suggested posing as an FBI agent on the next table over.”

“Why?”

“I think his train of logic was that it would eventually freak your date out into leaving early--” 

“No, I mean why do either of them even know about this?”

“Ah. Yes, well we had to stop by their place to grab the final costume pieces. Toto still had a fake crab from the Little Mermaid school play he helped with.”

“Oh god. Is there anyone who doesn’t know about my terrible date?”

“I believe Hiromi is still ignorant to this.”

“Nope,” Louise said cheerfully. “I texted her for ideas and she’s the one who suggested the bucket of saltwater to add that extra briny effect.”

Haru cradled her head in her hands. “You’re all mad.”

“Hey,” Louise protested. “It got you out of the date, didn’t it?”

[fanlovedlt]

I want friends like this

Desperate Measures

A/N: Do you know how sometimes you get an idea that’s so stupid you immediately have to write it? Well, I saw THIS POST, and instantly latched on to the “The Fiance You Thought Was Lost at Sea” flavour and couldn’t resist. 

Human AU.

x

The date was going badly. 

Not covertly-ask-the-bartender-for-a-taxi bad, but definitely veering into climbing-out-the-bathroom-window territory. 

At least, it would have been if the windows were large enough. 

(They weren’t.)

(She’d tried.)

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