beejfu | IC Inbox

i miss u too bb bear summon me

[He's in his bed, bundled under the covers in his cabin:]

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse.

[and he appears in all his gross glory, dropping down on the bed next to the comforter stack that covers Rhys]

[Rhys immediately tosses his communicator off to the side, and pushes back his duvet to invite Betelgeuse in.]

Hey. Get in here babe.

[Let him hold you, you big soft baby.]

[he snuggles up underneath the duvet at the invite, hugging onto whatever bits of Rhys he can find in the dark]

[Rhys pulls Betelgeuse in close, hugging him in tight, pressing his nose into the other man's hair.]

Are you really okay? I was worried about you in that other place.

[He wraps his arms tightly back around Rhys with a snuffle into his belly.]

Actually I'm doing way better than Rosie and Jasper. That place sucked but it's mostly third-hand embarrassment for being such a pushover schmuck.

Rose... she's on the list of people who I'm not convinced should even be here.

[Rhys admits, petting Betelgeuse's back gently.]

I'm not surprised it's hitting her hard.

She hulked out earlier. Stan and Ford talked her down. I was proud of her.

[he drops his head into Rhys' lap]

You're a good friend.

[Rhys had seen it, mostly stayed out of it.]

She's gonna need you sticking by her.

[Then. After a long pause.]

You talked to Hange much?

[he visibly stills, before muttering]

I don't wanna talk about Hange. She sucks.

She told me what happened.

[his voice is soft, comforting.]

I'm sorry. You know-- her feeling like that, not feeling like that, it's not because there's anything wrong with you, right?

[his breath hitches as he buries his face, consigning himself to this ugly conversation]

Sure.

[Oh, Rhys knows a brush off when he hears one. Rhys drops his hand down to caress Betelgeuse's cheek.]

I know it still feels like crap, even if I say that.

[his hair, contrarily, grows darker purple]

I spent-- a really long time thinking that Elijah didn't really care about me.

[Rhys confesses, after a moment.]

I knew he liked me, but I was-- stupid, knock out, crazy about him. And he just liked me. And it sucked. Trying to talk myself into being okay with being the one in a relationship who likes the other guy too much. Trying to get ready for the fact that he had plans for a future that I wasn't going to be in. Trying to keep my own plans straight.

Elijah wasn't your warden. You weren't a job to him.

[he stirs, rolling over to his side]

She just summons me out of the fucking blue to get drunk and tell me she's been here a whole year. Do you know how long I've been trapped in hell, or invisible? And she looks at me like it's my fault.

Holy shit, I'm sorry if the Big Guy upstairs isn't pairing her with the right kinda inmate she can love and snuggle with and doesn't get skeezed out about holding. I'm trying to get out of here too. Maybe her plan is to make me so fucking miserable I'll graduate just to get away from her.

Kinda wishing she had just lied to me.

She looks at you like what's your fault? Her being here for a year?

[Rhys asks, sincerely not quite following.]

Hey, talk me through this, Betelgeuse: Do you not believe that Hange even likes you?

Oh, I think she likes me. Most people think I'm funny, and that gets them to like me.

I think I'm also an idiot to think she could ever love me.

Jesus, Stringbean. She...

[he sighs, trying to come up with the words]

She knows about me, about how that word affects me. She knows how much I love her, how I'd do anything for her. We weren't even talking about anything serious and then everything fell apart.

Guess I wasn't expecting it to hurt that much, is the thing.

Saw the message she left, apologizing not for wrecking my heart but for some weird shit her face-twin got up to. Then wants to party. I'm still reeling from helping to save Rosie and Jasper telling me she hates me and you and your Stringbean adorableness getting through our first fight and she just wants to summon me like nothing's wrong.

I could have killed her.

[Rhys doesn't interrupt him. Doesn't stop him or try to correct him, then finally:]

She doesn't just like you because you're funny.

[Said softly, but it's firm. No arguments on this one.]

Betelgeuse-- I'm saying this as a guy who adores you: You get mad at people for breaking rules that they don't know about, and that they don't control. She doesn't get to choose whether or not she loves you, all she can choose is how much she does for you, which is everything she can, same as you would for her. That's why you love her so much, right?

[He gives the other man's arm a squeeze.]

And I know it hurts, because you really need to know you matter to people. But she can't control how you feel any more than she can force herself to love you.

[he scrubs his face, letting a low breath out slowly]

I know.

I saw Rosie and Ford together, and they were hugging and so goddamn happy and I wanted that.

And I know it ain't gonna happen and it just makes me feel like shit. Hollow. Hollow shit.

You and Hange aren't Rose and Ford. It's never going to be exactly the same, but that doesn't mean it's shit.

[Rhys says, softly.]

The thing with Elijah-- I brought it up because I think they might be kinda similar. Him and Hange. You're like-- okay, imagine that you're a record player, and your max volume is ten, and when you're turned up to ten, it's so loud that the windows are shaking. Well, maybe with Hange, when she's turned up to ten, okay, she's loud, but the windows aren't shaking, so you're wondering why she can't turn it up as high as you, or wondering if there's something that you've done wrong, or thinking that she must want somebody else better, when really--

Her ten is just in a different place to yours.

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

I just have higher highs, lower lows. Nothing we do is gonna change that, I get it.

I don't know how I'm going to go back to working with her after this.

It's not something wrong with you either. You're just at two ends of a spectrum on how high those highs go.

[He tugs the demon back in close.]

Maybe you should write some of this down? I think she'd get it-- if you could explain how it feels like you did to me. But if you say it out loud to her and you're still feeling raw about it, it'll probably be harder not to get mad again.

[he snuggles tighter to Rhys, petting the other guy's arm.]

Sure. Only problem with that is that I can't spell great. You've seen how I am with my own name.

And I guess I'm kinda worried she'll yell at me.

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