Chapter Text
“Okay, how about this idea!” Nimona said, sounding alert despite the late hour. Ballister and Ambrosius both looked up at her expectantly; she was hanging upside down from the ceiling as a bat. “I go to the Director, as Ambrosius, to ‘talk,’ and then make her confess! And one of you hides and records it.”
This plan had flaws, to say the least. “She’s been lying to me for years. What makes you think she would confess?”
“You’re very pushy. I think you could annoy her until she snapped. Besides, she would be willing to confess if she didn’t think the knowledge would get out. You’d be talking to her alone– it would be easier for her to kill you and pretend boss did it. The kingdom would probably believe that. You two definitely have would-stab-each-other-homoerotically vibes.”
Ambrosius immediately forgot every other part of that sentence. “We do not have those vibes!”
“Yes you do. You already chopped off his arm. Homoerotically.”
“Arm chopping is not homoerotic!”
Ballister cleared his throat. “I’m choosing to ignore this last part of the conversation. Nimona, if the Director killed Ambrosius– you– would you be okay? I told you, no plans that would get anyone killed.”
She flew down, shifting into a teenager on the way. “No one’s getting killed! I’ll only fake die. I don’t get hurt, not like people do. Remember the arrow? I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” he said, not impressed when she showed him her leg. Ambrosius was impressed. The arrow had hit her earlier that same day, and it had healed completely. That wasn’t possible.
“Yes, boss, relax. You don’t have to worry about me.” Her eyes softened, just for a moment, then she became Ambrosius.
The real Ambrosius had to take a step backwards. He was slowly getting used to Nimona, her shifting and her chaos and her weirdness, but this… this was a little too weird. She looked exactly like him. It was like looking in a mirror, if a mirror could smirk at you.
She gave the stupid smile he always had to do for commercials, complete with the ding in his teeth. “Hey,” she said, and winked.
“That’s not a good Ambrosius impression,” Ballister mumbled. “He never acts like that when he’s not doing a commercial. You won’t fool the Director with that.”
“Okay, Ambrosius Expert, what does he act like?”
“I’m right here,” Ambrosius tried to say.
“Well, his actual smile looks nothing like that, but that doesn’t matter since he wouldn’t be smiling when he was talking to the Director anyway. He’d probably storm in saying he needed to talk to the Director and completely ignore all the guards telling him he can’t, especially if Todd– you know, punchable face guy– is one of the guards. When he’s upset he speaks quickly and usually asks a lot or rapid fire questions, without giving the Director a chance to answer, and you should probably punctuate all of them by hitting the desk.”
Nimona cracked her knuckles. “Lemme give this a try.” She crossed her arms and snapped “Let me speak with the Director!”
A flash of pink, then Todd was standing before him. Ambrosius knew it was just Nimona, but that didn’t make the sight any less annoying. “You can’t come in here, Goldenloin! Also, I’m a loser!”
Back to Ambrosius. “Fuck you, Todd! Don’t tell me what to do! Pow!” She threw a punch. “Now that punchable face guy has had his face punched, I’ll walk in. Director! We need to talk! Alone!”
“Good dramatic entrance,” Ballister told her.
“Thanks, Boss,” she said in her normal voice, then went back to Ambrosius’s voice. “I was with Ballister every second of every day before the knighting ceremony, because he’s my boyyyyyfriend and I love him a sickening amount–”
“I don’t sound like that!” He glanced at Ballister, hoping for support, but Ballister was shaking with silent laughter. Traitor.
Nimona ignored his protests. “–he wouldn’t have had time to be alone with the sword! Someone else must have tampered with it, or swapped it. Was it you? Did you really hate Ballister that much? Tell me the truth!” She slammed her fist on the table, making the scottie dog jump.
Back to her teenage form, she bowed. “How’d I do?”
“Not bad,” Ballister said. His voice was still full of laughter, and Ambrosius stuck his tongue out at him.
“The beginning was bad! I do not sound like that!”
She shrugged. “It’s two against one. Anyway, what do I do when the Director kills me? How do I sound like him dying?”
“Hmm. Just scream a lot and flop around dramatically.”
“Hey!”
“What? That’s what you do when you’re injured.”
“I do not!”
“Remember that time Chad stabbed your leg in training? You were absolutely screaming and flopping around dramatically.”
Ambrosius wanted to be mad, but really, it was hard to fight a smile at the fact that he was bickering with Ballister over something ridiculous, just like they used to. Still, he crossed his arms. “I had gotten stabbed in the leg!”
“Whatever. I wasn’t nearly that dramatic when my entire arm got cut off.”
There wasn’t really much he could say to that without sounding like a complete asshole (even more of an asshole), so he sighed and conceded. “Fine, okay. Nimona, you have my permission to scream and flop around dramatically when you imitate me dying.”
“Didn’t need your permission, but thank you. Let’s rehearse again!”
Ambrosius groaned.