#rusty and raven half grew up together and rusty's a bit more of a worrier than usual

[owlafterhours]

[ac6] rusty/freud : what happens in vegas, doesn't always stay in vegas

Hello sorry for being extremely distractible, absolutely astronaut things incoming but this has definitely been on the brain (thank you kiva and the rusty/freud thread!) and i do not have the willpower to write this out proper. This is pretty tame. Nobody is terribly unhinged, but it’s admittedly not a premise where anyone can be properly unhinged, except sorta drunk.

CW: alcohol

IN WHICH: Rusty’s sorta hungover and hitched, Freud’s got the cream and the canary and Raven?? Is being a great spectator, that’s what. Featuring Space Vegas and the nebulous idea that they’re still AC pilots but like, things are a bit different. A lot less life or death.

–

Rusty wakes up on the couch of his hotel suite. His mouth feels like it got bonded together with year-old glue. Head’s not pounding though, so that’s good. He’s got some idea of what happened the night before but honestly, not that great of a recollection right now. Not a problem - he’s familiar with this, he’ll remember when he gets a bit of food and water in him. 

His phone is going off - it’s his morning break alarm. Ugh. He’s been out a while.

Makes sense though. What was it last night? He and a few of the others had gone out after the mandatory Arquebus company dinner and complained a bit. Rusty always knew that O’Keeffe and Hawkins had it in them to drink like fish, and he’d been careful to pace himself but Freud had appeared and then…more drinking. He’d wanted to share a drink with the guy. But that many? There are sixty-something messages waiting for him. Well, that’s not much of a surprise.

O’Keeffe, Flatwell, Freud…Buddy? 

Oh shit. Something better not have happened. Rusty’s fairly sure he’s at least five hours away from Raven, so he hopes his buddy didn’t get himself in trouble ‘cause Rusty sure ain’t going to drive all the way over to bail him out. 

>>morning >>congrats

Huh???

Rusty scrolls up. He feels his brain freeze, juuust a little. It’s almost like that first time he met Raven, when the tyke had a bag of flour and a lighter. Except with more consequences! 

There are pictures. Of him and Freud. At one of those walk-in wedding places. He doesn’t look as drunk as he probably felt, and neither does Freud, which helps explain how it happened in the first place. It’s a string of like, ten pictures, and he can see that:

a) they did, indeed, get married b) no rings c) yes, certificates d) and raven had, indeed, been there if that one photo with a blurry officiant meant anything.

It’s at that time that the door to his hotel room swings open and Freud’s apparently just let himself in with two large paper bags. From the smell, Rusty can tell there are at least fries in it, but that doesn’t stop him from freezing. Freud just spares him a glance before setting the food down on the shelf by the door.

“Don’t tell me you forgot everything?” There’s a bit of a mocking edge to it. 

“Ah…no. I. remember most of it.” He mumbled back.

If his rapidly recovering memory is right, Freud had volunteered to take Rusty back to the hotel, while O’Keeffe and Hawkins had stayed behind to nurse a few more drinks. On their way back, Freud had complained about Rusty like, not taking notice of anything he was doing, and offhandedly mentioned that he’d probably have to marry Rusty to catch any hints. Rusty, drunk, had said ‘maybe’ and Freud had apparently, just.

Stared.

And gone. “Really now?”

“Sure, yeah,” drunk Rusty had slurred, “Fly with me.”

Rusty thinks he can remember that. (Damn. He. really said that. To Freud.) He’d looked straight back into Freud’s eyes, because they had been very nice under the lights at night, the flecks of LED colour reflected in them. 

It’d been a pretty alright kiss at the altar, all things considered, and he passed out on the couch pretty quickly after getting back. Who knows why Freud had just left him there, but he supposes it’s better than waking up half naked or something of the sort.

Rusty looks at Freud now, standing there with two bags of take-away and figures that alright, maybe yeah sure. They can. Work it out. 

It’s a pretty awkward breakfast, mostly from Rusty’s end, but it’s more or less Rusty being like, ‘not sure if. that. was. my best moment.’ and Freud being ‘I do not try. I do. so trying to catch you was horrid.’ and whilst Freud is very ‘why not just leave it as is’, Rusty gets the feeling that if he doesn’t deal with this in a Responsible Manner, he’ll have a minimum of three people on his ass, maybe more. 

Flatwell, at the very least, will be Very Disappointed. Ziyi as well. That is never a good combo.

Anyway, O’Keeffe absolutely finds out because he takes like, One Look at Rusty and Freud before sighing and wandering off for more coffee. Snail seems to suspect something, which means that Swinburne shoots glances at them, and Pater’s got a curious glimmer in his eyes. Maeterlinck is firmly in I Do Not Percieve territory. Nobody actually comments on it though, so they get through the last full day of this company working holiday with little incident. 

Freud absolutely finally gets to take Rusty on a ‘proper date’ - aka an illegal drag race. It’s a good time! The vehicles are very nice. It feels like what they usually do, except they’re not the ones behind the wheel.

It only hits him the morning after, that he has no idea what Raven was even doing at the wedding venue, let alone the area. He’s managed to corral Freud into neatening up the bedroom at least, so he shoots off a message while he’s checking the kitchenette for anything they might’ve left behind.

what were u doing there did i ask u to come?

He gets his reply twenty minutes later when they’re getting ready to leave.

>> no

Followed by a selfie. Raven never takes selfies. There’s a shit-eating look in his eyes. He’s wearing a jacket that isn’t his, and it’s got an uncomfortably familiar logo on it. He can also see that someone’s head is resting on Raven’s shoulder and, you know what, that hair? Also uncomfortably familiar. 

Rusty hopes that it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means as the photo gets pushed up.

>> but also >> i was ur witness >> dw >> it’s freud who owes me

“Is that Raven?” Freud comes and hooks his chin over Rusty’s shoulder and Rusty has to stop from startling - he gets the feeling that Freud’s going to be doing a lot of that, even after they sort out this entire marriage fiasco. Rusty scrolls back up again to the selfie.

“No idea what he sees in that man.” Freud mutters, disgruntled.

Well, that’s another thing they agree on.