Work Text:
The thick wooden floor creaked ever so slightly under Varian’s shoes as he moved up to his fiancé. The light flooding in from the window was the nice fresh summer green of sun shining through the leaves of the big center tree of Aberdeen. Dust particles shimmered in the light as they danced through the air, giving their lovely little home an almost magically serene feeling.
Hugo was sitting at his work table, hands ever busy with his new project. Varian placed his hands on Hugo’s shoulders, finding their place with familiar ease. He leaned over like he always did to sneak a peek at Hugo’s work.
Hugo’s left hand was holding on to something small and gold, his other hand holding small tweezers and moving very carefully within the small golden structure that looked finer than any watch work Varian had ever seen. Hugo had a multitude of magnifying glasses attached to his goggles to see the most minute parts of his handiwork.
“What are you working on?” Varian asked.
“It’s a secret,” Hugo answered, not looking away from his work, right hand moving ever so slightly.
“Is it, now?” Varian asked and looked up at the pinned drawings on the board on the wall. Some big technical drawings were held up and showed some inner workings of… something. Varian could make out that there were a lot of moving parts like gears and wheels in there, so it was most likely something that could move around. But there were many more parts in there whose purpose he couldn’t recognize from these few drawings. There were some parts that could extent and rotate but it also had small pulley systems. He could definitely recognize some parts from back in the day when he reversed engineered those automatons. But it was nowhere near the simple design Varian had used. This was complex.
Varian looked up to the lettering at the top of the drawings that had a code that Hugo used to keep track of what part the drawing was exactly portrayed. Varian read out loud the title that was written in Hugo’s neat hand next to it. “Project Olivia,” Varian cocked his head to the side and couldn’t help the smile on his lips. “Ever so cryptic, even with your project names.”
“I told you it was a secret,” Hugo said, a smile clear in his voice.
Hugo had apparently come to the point that he could let go of his project and placed it carefully on the fabric piece he had laid on the table. It looked very fragile to Varian. Hugo pulled his goggles down and let them rest on his chest as he turned to look at Varian.
“You’re going to train again?” he asked and placed a kiss on Varian’s cheek.
“Yes, I’ll be out for a while,” Varian said, returning the little peck with a sweet little kiss on Hugo’s lips. Hugo smiled against Varian’s lips and pushed in further, making the kiss longer and deeper.
Varian broke the kiss and moved back, brushing his hand through Hugo’s blond locks. “You’ll be careful?” Hugo asked, like he always did.
“I promise,” Varian answered, just as he always did as well. “Girda is going to join me.”
“Will you be long?” Hugo asked.
“I’ll be back in time to help you with dinner, okay?” Varian said.
“Sounds good to me,” Hugo said, pulling his goggles back up.
Varian made his way to the door where he picked up his staff, his moon focus nestled firmly within its wood. He could feel it the moment his fingers touched the wood as the familiar feeling of his magic extending towards the staff and focus came over him. Varian looked back for a moment, seeing Hugo settle back into his concentrated hunch over his project and smiled. This was the dream, wasn’t it?
He took a deep breath, the scent of himself, Hugo and the old wood of their house feeling warm and safe. “Watch your back,” he said and opened the door.
Hugo gave a nonchalant grunt. “Your fingers are magic. Literally. You’ll get the kinks out of it in no time.”
Varian laughed. “See you tonight.”
“Later, babe!” Hugo’s voice sounded before Varian stepped out of the door and closed it. He was ready for a new day of practice, and with the nice weather they had outside, it seemed like the world was too.