#i'll crosspost this to aksug when the current hell.txt is complete because it's the start of that plotline

[magistralucis]

18 for soft gop bromance, please! The usual (^_^;) Thank you, love you!!

18: Drinks on the patio/deck of your fave place // Gopnik AU Bromance (Soft ver.)

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Louis was at his happiest in the evenings.

After sunset was when he worked at the restaurant. It was the last artifact of their previous life, now made safe through his efforts: he loved to cook, oversee the kitchen, weave gently through the conversations of the night. He had never felt more alive as when he was there, meeting and helping people. The restaurant healed him from the years he'd spent neglecting the goodness of human beings, and afterwards, healed his lover too. On summer evenings, when Mike was on break from university, they would step out the back and share drinks together. The nights were warm, and now and then a cat would come along, nudging insistently against his hand. Life was good.

Tonight, however, was special. Tonight they were awaiting not only customers, but precious guests. A table was prepared for them in the part of the patio usually sectioned off for reservations. The guests were coming straight from their travels, so presumably, they'd want to be - no, it was the polite thing to serve them right away. It was for that reason Mike and Louis were kept busy from early afternoon; Louis sank into a chair, and took a deep breath, as the hour of their arrival drew near.

It had been years since they'd last met.

Louis was elated this reunion was happening at last, though he was mildly nervous as to whether Vincent and Sebastian would be like he remembered. Whatever he felt, though, he knew Mike would be feeling in spades. Amidst table settings and special menus he refused to forget his lover, and the moment he caught sight of him, he called out: "A drink for you, Misha?"

Mike turned around. “A... pardon?”

He was dressed casually but handsomely, befitting his reputation as the best-looking man in Krasnodar (when he was around - as well as in Kaliningrad, of course, when he was around). Louis was enamoured. “Shall we have a drink before they get here? Just the two of us.”

Then, more softly: “It’s all right. You know no one can see us here.”

No one else was to be seated in this area that night. Only the two loving couples, if all went as intended. Mike smiled. His expression was still uncertain, but he took Louis’s offer and sat down opposite him. Two beers, chosen for their chill more than the flavour. They were silent for a while, sipping from tall glasses, ice clinking against the sides. Louis watched the foam subside in his glass for a moment before he spoke up again. “How are you feeling?”

Mike laughed slightly. “Nervous.”

He wouldn’t even have admitted to that, once upon a time. Louis was surprisingly relieved. In their old city, Mike had grown to see Sebastian and Vincent in a near paternal light, and he still felt that way most of the time: he was struggling with the impulse to seek their approval, to really show them he had improved as a human being. “Is that weird, Lyova?”

“Not at all. It’d be more unsettling if you weren’t nervous.” Louis shook his head. Condensation dripped down his hand and the summer breeze soon dried it away. “I feel the same, too. It’s the anticipation that kills, doesn’t it?”

“Indeed.” Then much to Louis’s surprise, Mike suddenly began speaking of the past. “I’ve been waiting for this moment since we settled in Krasnodar. Even when I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again, when all I had were my staff and my pigeons trailing behind me... I was always thinking of how I could thank them for all they’ve done. For being there for us before we left. We must have put them through so much, when we disappeared...”

He faltered, paused, then resumed again. His cool fingers laced between Louis’s own. “I feel I haven’t even paid back a hundredth of what they did for me. Letters and gifts only go so far from this distance. It feels as if I’ve been waiting for about fifty years to see them again - and now they actually are nearby, and I actually know how to show my gratitude - I’m, I’m so tense. I’m so excited I can hardly breathe. But I’m also equally worried I’m messing this up somehow.”

“Believe me, you’re doing incredible.” Louis was amazed: Mike very seldom talked about their past unless prompted, and even then, it was mostly in apologetic terms. This was the first time Louis had heard him actually analyze his feelings across a timeline, and admit to something that wasn’t guilt for once. “If you messed up at any point, which you didn’t, I did also. I mean, look at me: it’s not just you who’s got the tremors.”

He pointed below the table, where unnoticed by Mike, he’d been bouncing his leg restlessly throughout the entire conversation. A wry little smile returned to his lover’s face. “Besides, it’s not just the plan (whispered with a wink) that expresses our thanks. I think they’d be extremely proud of you if they heard what you said.”

“Do you think so?”

“Mm.” Louis clinked his glass against Mike’s own. It was already dark. Across the surface of their glasses darted pinprick reds and greens of the traffic across the road. “They helped give you back a life of excitement and you took it. Imagine returning to your garden after a long absence, and finding that a sprout you’d left behind had grown into a tree and was flowering.”

A quiet light entered Mike’s eyes. He did not comment more upon this, nor did he obviously take this as a sign of approval, but he didn’t need to. That look told Louis everything there was to know. A creak sounded several steps away. Someone was walking across the patio. Louis and Mike stood up in a hurry, just in time to see the figures of two men led by a cheerful young waiter. They turned the corner, entered the section - saw - and stopped.

One had vivid silver hair, star-bright beneath the restaurant’s lamps. The years had been kind to him; his brown eyes softened in laughter as soon as he saw the couple, and it was ever so familiar, the warmth in his expression. Beside him stood dark-haired Sebastian, his face exactly as piercing and pale as it had been when Mike had first met him. His first reaction was much like Mike’s own, disbelief followed by relentless joy - so relieved, and so overwhelming, that he literally didn’t know what to do with himself as they rushed to meet in the middle.

Louis felt his heart swell with warmth. That was pride, all right.

“Welcome, my friends!” He cried, laughing as Sebastian and Vincent nigh tackled the two of them into an embrace. “So many summers, so many winters! - Oh, I’ve missed you both so much!”