pocketpretzels | MHA #14, Saturday Morning

Nell said her goodbyes to Lana and the others and had made her way to Marc and Steven's. It was early and she had to admit she'd listened at the door for a moment to see if anyone was up and around before she went in.

She took a few minutes to put her things in Marc's room and then check on her plants. Once satisfied that they had been well cared for she thought perhaps it would be all right for her to make a cup of tea before retreating to the balcony for a while. It would be easy enough to take one of the chairs out so that she could have her tea there.

She washed her hands in the sink before filling the kettle and setting it on the stove to heat up, then puttered around quietly to get down a mug and a tea strainer for one of her morning blends.

Watts had his mobile telephone in hand and was in the process of placing an order for breakfast delivery as he puttered his way down the hall and into the kitchen. So he could perhaps be forgiven for not realising right away that there was, in fact, someone else in the kitchen.

Nell didn't notice anything till she heard footsteps heading into the kitchen. She smiled a little shyly as she turned, ready to greet Marc or Steven (and probably apologize for being in the kitchen) and offer to make them tea or coffee and other breakfasty things.

Instead she got an eyeful of shirtless detective.

The spoon in her hand fell to the floor and her eyes followed its trajectory and stayed glued there. She hadn't even got past bare chest to see who this person was other than NOT Marc or Steven.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered quickly. "I must be in the wrong apartment, I completely apologize for my intrusion and I'll..."

But wait. It couldn't be the wrong apartment. Not with her plants all here.

"Or... I... Ummm... I'm just very sorry and I will... come back another time."

Except that there was a shirtless detective blocking the door and there was no way she was going to move any closer to him!

The sound of the spoon hitting the floor had Watts looking up, just as he'd pressed the button to confirm the delivery address for the breakfast order.

Annnd then his phone was joining the spoon on the floor. Thank goodness the salesperson who'd sold it to him had also recommended a nice, sturdy case. Not that he was thinking about that at the moment. Not that he was thinking much of anything besides Oh no, no, no, no, no, as he stood frozen in place. If Nell was saying anything, it didn't quite register.

Edited 2022-08-27 18:52 (UTC)

Nell's eyes were glued to the floor. Studiously. They were not moving. All she could see was his phone and his feet.

"If you maybe - if you could just -" If he'd move somewhere, she could flee.

"I'm sorry," she said again miserably.

Well, he was looking at a spot on the wall just to her right, eyes wide and panicked.

"I- I should-"

Should what? Finish the sentence, probably, for starters.

"Oh no, this is entirely my fault," Nell said, "I should never have -"

Well, anything, really.

They were both going to stand here frozen, weren't they? Why yes, yes, they were.

This would be far easier if she were yelling, honestly. But she wasn't.

Also, he was quite certain it was his fault, all things considered. After all, she was a resident here (however temporary). She had a key.

"No, no," he managed. "You're- you should-."

He and Steven had, in fact, discussed the possibility of this very scenario last night, he recalled now. Why hadn't they followed through on their plan to go back across to his apartment? If only they had, then none of this would have happened.

"If I hadn't come back too early," she interrupted. "No, if you could just... then I could..."

Flee. That's what she could do. She could flee. The woods would be so very much better.

“You didn’t,” Watts said. “I, I should have- not, ah, not stayed so long.”

Though funny her narrative should mention the woods, as he felt rooted to this very spot.

Look, Steven had closed his eyes for a moment, all right. Everyone knew that was a perfectly valid thing to do when waking up in the morning and in no way led to falling right back asleep again. Especially when you could shift over and curl up in the warmth left in the bed when your amazing boyfriend got up to make you tea.

But moments turned to minutes and thus Steven drifted awake again when Llewellyn didn't come back. Not something to worry about, really. They'd already discussed how Llewellyn wouldn't leave without also leaving some sort of note. Plus some of Llewellyn's clothes were still scattered about, so clearly he hadn't gone far.

Assuming this had something to do with breakfast, Steven got out of bed and put on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt (because everyone knew Marc was the one who looked good with his shirt off, obviously) and headed out into the rest of the flat to see what was going on.

The first thing Steven spotted was Llewellyn stood in the middle of the doorway to the kitchen, prompting him to say, "Something wrong, love?"

Then Steven was close enough to spot Nell inside. "Oh! Nell! Welcome back. Trip go all right?"

It was possible Steven's innate optimism was keeping him from seeing the various issues the other two were having.

Yes, something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Or, well, maybe not wrong, because again, she had every right to be there, but the problem was she was there, and he was also here, and Watts was just gonna-

Just gonna make a wordless noise of distress and finally, actually move to scoot behind Steven and in to relative safety.

Well not that Steven objected to having his shirtless boyfriend near. Nor did he mind that Llewellyn clearly had an instinct to treat standing behind Steven as something to do to keep safe, since frankly that was correct and should be encouraged. (Did Steven have a tiny bit of an ego about knowing he could protect the people he cared about? Yes. Completely. Not even tiny, frankly.)

But the issue was who Llewellyn was worried about, which had Steven confused. He wondered if this might be some sort of strangeness, like the reunion weekend. "Llew, it's Nell."

Then Steven realized that if it was island strangeness, perhaps he was assuming incorrectly. "You are Nell, yeah?"

(Llewellyn was shirtless. Steven could bloody well tell he was the correct person.)

"Mmmhmm," Nell managed, eyes still glued to the floor. And unfortunately Steven was still in the middle of the doorway so fleeing continued to not be an option.

"I... yes."

Sorry, Stevn, that's all you're getting.

Right. Now Steven was looking between the both of them with confusion. "Have I missed something? We're all friends here, yeah?"

Nell managed to drag her eyes from the litchen floor to give Steven and utterly horrifed/terrified/something Look before her eyes went back to that lovely spot that she was completely memorizing.

That was a look, to be certain. Lots going on there. Not nearly enough for Steven to be able to decipher what was going on. So he was left trying to make a guess. Nell was upset, Llewellyn was hiding from her...

"Llew, did you hurt one of her plants?"

Watts looked at Steven, his own expression… quite frankly a mirror of Nell’s.

“No,” he managed to croak out. “I- I- she-“

She’d seen him here and she knew.

And hadn’t they just touched on this topic, the other day, the difference between people knowing in the abstract thanks to something like the radio broadcasts and actually seeing the two of them together?

Which, his presence in the apartment now was certainly some irrefutable proof now wasn’t it?

Oh. All right. This was enough like the first time Llewellyn had stayed over that Steven suddenly understood the problem from his end. He turned around to face Llewellyn, giving him his full attention (though not moving away from the doorway, sorry, Nell). He put his hands on Llewellyn's arms to give him something to draw his awareness elsewhere. "Hey. You're fine. It's all fine. It's only Nell, yeah? No harm at all. You're safe."

He tensed, slightly, at the touch, but didn’t pull away.

“It’s fine,” he echoed, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than actual agreement.

Steven had anticipated some sort of reaction to the physical contact, but he knew from personal experience it could still help to be reminded of something outside of yourself. So he left his hands where they were. "We're all fine. Everyone's friends here, yeah? No different than if Marc were here as well, is it?"

It was a little different but Steven figured baby steps.

(Marc, for his part, was more than happy to let Steven handle a mess that was, by Marc's way of thinking, Steven's own making.)

Oh, it was a lot different. Marc wasn't standing here without a shirt. And if he had been, well, at least Nell might have been prepared to at least see him and she could ignore.

"All fine," she whispered, eyes still locked on her new favorite spot, just waiting for the doorway to clear.

It was absolutely a lot different, agreed. And not just because Marc had been the one who’d been trying to clue Steven in to how Watts had felt about him once upon a time.

Watts’s gaze drifted down to Steven’s hands. “I should- go?” he said, still not sounding really sure of anything.

"You should do no such thing," Steven said, gently. Because if Llewellyn needed to go that was one thing. But feeling he should was incorrect as far as Steven was concerned. "We haven't had breakfast yet, have we?"

And then, just so it was clear all around, Steven added, "Nell? Have you eaten?"

"No!" Nell had said loudly over Steven. "He's fine. It's me."

Detective Watts should absolutely not leave because of her. He belonged there.

She almost missed what Steven said, but she'd gotten out about as much as she could manage easily, so she just shook her head. "I'm fine."

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