Chapter Text
Kondraki stares down Jack Bright’s completely serious face as they remember once again, entirely too late, that the entirety of their tenure as Bright’s colleague and friend has been spent reinforcing over and over why they shouldn’t respond to requests they send them for unspecified “favors”.
“You’re kidding me.”
“I am one hundred percent serious here,” Bright says, putting a hand on the table between them and gazing up into Kondraki’s eyes. “Believe me, I wouldn’t ask for this kind of commitment as a joke.”
“You are seriously asking me to pretend to be your plus-one so the two of us can sabotage your family reunion,” Kondraki says slowly.
“I am doing that, yes.”
Bright’s face is maddeningly sincere, particularly in contrast to what they’re asking for. Kondraki knows their family situation is kind of… bad, to say the least (having both had a pulse and been around Foundation admin for more than fifteen minutes ever, they couldn’t not know about this if they wanted), but they’re still kind of surprised it’s reached the point where Bright wants to do this.
Or, well, having heard some things about Bright’s siblings and parents, Kondraki isn’t really surprised it’s that bad, to be honest; they’re much more reacting to how this is an insane thing to do and/or take someone on a fucking offsite lunch date to ask them to do.
“This is an insane thing to do,” they say. Bright sighs and pulls out of the cute-pose (at least Kondraki assumes it was meant to be cute) to pinch the bridge of their nose.
Twirling a strand of hair around their finger with their other hand, they say with no small measure of exhaustion “Believe me when I say that even if we pull this off to the letter this won’t crack the top three insane things going on there.”
“I mean, sure, but why—” Just as Kondraki reaches it, they’re confronted with the fact that saying “why pretend we’re dating” is oddly mortifying in a way they don’t fully get. “—Why do you need me in particular to ruin this? You know your family better than I do. You could probably fuck it up better alone.”
Bright’s eyes spark. They grin and wave their hands in the air for a moment before speaking.
“Okay, ‘Draki, what I’m about to say is one hundred percent coming from a place of love, so don’t get mad,” they say, visibly brimming with joy and anticipation.
“Oh boy,” Kondraki mutters, but they can’t help the tiny smile creeping onto their face.
“In the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve been total admin poison. Again,” they continue, slightly more defensively at Kondraki’s raised eyebrow, “place of love, but you’re the most unpredictable, erratic, impossible to control person I’ve ever seen make Site director— I’m still not sure how that happened . Sure as hell wasn’t because administration liked you.”
“Is this going somewhere?” Kondraki asks, suddenly very frustrated.
They smile up at Kondraki with complete earnestness, and their current body is honestly way too something because Kondraki can’t manage to keep the glare on their face looking down at their big eyes and little freckles.
“Look. None of this is bad at all. I’m just saying your personality is really frustrating specifically to high-ranking Foundation administrative officials.” (Kondraki is fairly certain more than Foundation administration dislike them, but they appreciate Bright’s efforts at sparing their feelings.) Bright’s grin widens again, impossibly big, and they lean in over the table. “And oh, Draki, you know how much of my family are high-ranking Foundation administrative officials? Particularly the ones I really wanna piss off?”
“Yeah?” Kondraki says automatically, and then “Oh.”
Ohhh.
Bright nods, laughing softly.
“So you wanna weaponize me, then,” Kondraki says with a little smirk. Part of them is still screaming that this is a bad idea, even though they can’t pinpoint why; they table it for the moment.
“Absolutely,” Bright says. “‘Oh, hey, I’m bringing my partner, we’re pretty serious’ and then we show up and you do your whole thing. Mikell might actually die.”
“Even if I’m only the fourth most insane person there?” Kondraki says, ignoring how much weirder some part of Bright’s last sentence made them suddenly feel.
“Oh, our collective sabotage will be the fourth weirdest thing at the reunion,” Bright says, pointing a finger very close to Kondraki’s face. “You as a person won’t even make the top ten, I’m afraid, and there’s only gonna be like fifteen people there.”
“Does this even need my help to fall apart at the seams?”
“Oh, it’s most of the way there already, trust me. It just needs one little push. One little…“ Bright gestures loosely to Kondraki. “Superstar site director butterfly enthusiast photographer-shaped push.”
While Kondraki mulls over how best to answer this, something blurs at the edge of their vision. They turn to see a little smudge hovering at the edge of the cup of apple juice they bought earlier. Bright follows their gaze and smiles.
“They’ve been pretty quiet this whole conversation, huh,” they say quietly. “Almost forgot they were there.”
“They know the rules about going offsite,” Kondraki says fondly. “Mundane sphere frowns upon taking butterflies inside, so they have to make sure to be careful and not get spotted when I take them places.” Kondraki’s shoulder and hair rustle in affirmation.
“Look at you smiling over those butterflies,” Bright says teasingly. “Should I call Clef for this instead? I’m not sure you’re the absolute nightmare I need.”
Kondraki rolls their eyes. “Clef wishes it could piss off admin like I do.”
“Y’know, considering how they nearly tried to assassinate you, I’m not sure it does.”
“Whatever. I’m not gonna get assassinated at your family reunion,” Kondraki says.
“Yeah, probably not,” Bright says, and before Kondraki can pick apart the ‘probably’ continues “Should I take you defending your position to mean you’re officially in? You’re my first choice, y’know.” They tilt their head, smiling up at Kondraki, and Kondraki has to break eye contact so they don’t blush even though they know Bright is doing this on purpose.
Okay, so this idea is internally consistent. It technically has a great deal of fundamental appeal to Kondraki, despite being on a surface level weird as hell. Also, Bright is obviously putting energy into buttering them up about this, and for whatever reason this feels less irritating than getting kissed up to normally does (if maybe a tiny bit weird, even though they flirt with basically everyone. Still, it’s hard to get mad at Bright).
None of this, to be clear, makes up a good idea. Another thing Kondraki has reinforced to themself over and over, throughout their entire life but particularly their Foundation tenure, is that very often things they find very appealing and which make sense in themselves turn out to be spectacularly bad ideas for one reason or another and they really shouldn’t be going ahead with them. Even, probably especially, when they want to.
But if Kondraki’s being honest, they like bad ideas like this, even if they tend to have unfortunate consequences. And this particular idea was literally tailored for them, and Bright is one of their best friends, and— what’s the worst that could happen?
They reach across the table and take Bright’s hand.
“Let’s irreversibly fuck up your family reunion, Bright.” They put their free hand on their chest. “Together.”
Bright laces their fingers and leans in subtly.
“Oh, please, darling,” they say, low and warm, and Kondraki almost shivers at the shift in demeanor before the facade breaks and they giggle, squeezing Kondraki’s hand, “we’re together now. Call me Jack.”