Work Text:
Daisuke had spent all day hauling furniture and boxes up the stairs to his new apartment, and he was tired as all hell. Luckily Anya and Swansea had been able to provide some help with the heavier stuff but they’d eventually migrated downstairs to help with sweeping and wiping down the soon-to-be-an art-studio down. By the fifth overly packed box Daisuke really wished they hadn’t all lost track of Curly after getting back to Earth. Dude probably could have carried like all five boxes at once and tossed Daisuke over his shoulder while doing it if he asked nicely.
How only two people had so many things was beyond him, but it was cool. Less that they had to buy on their shopping trip tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that. Daisuke already felt damn awful and the ache in his body hadn’t even had time to fully set in. Maybe tomorrow would just be a day to rest.
Daisuke hadn’t gotten a good rest day in a long time. Space travel always brought some sort of uncomfortableness, and being back on solid ground was great but life still moved. Plus everything with Jimmy. They try not to talk about Jimmy. Then there was settling back into life on Earth, deciding what he really wanted to do going forward.
Swansea had been willing to give him a position at the new garage he was planning to open up. Swansea didn’t have quite enough money to retire on, but there was just enough to open his own business and set his own hours. If some of Daisuke’s dad’s funds helped with extra unexpected costs they certainly didn’t talk about it.
Working on cars and other odds and ends could have been pretty cool. Sapphic girls on the internet loved girls who worked on cars, and he probably could have gotten a decent social media following going to satisfy that part of him that wanted to create, but it wouldn’t have made him happy.
At least it was a plan. That’s all his parents had really wanted by sending him to space. Go out, make new connections, come back with some sort of plan instead of getting black out drunk at parties, ending up on strangers couches, do anything productive…
It was crazy, Daisuke never felt like he had to hide the playboy magazines from his parents but his art was always kept in folders and piles in his room, because they didn’t think art could support him and they wanted him to be his own woman and be self sufficient. They’d always be here if he needed it, even if it meant Daisuke didn’t get what he wanted.
Turns out all Daisuke wanted was Chie Monet and everything she was about.
Daisuke had known Chie for years before the Tulpar. She’d been his best friend since they were sixteen and ‘sharing’ a ticket to a drag show after Chie lost hers. Daisuke and Chie found mutual comedy in each other; in how Daisuke was a girl who used he/him after a lifetime of people calling him it anyways because his name was traditionally for boys, and Chie was a boy who used she/her after a lifetime of being mocked for feminine interests and embraced it instead, and somehow they had managed to meet. They both really liked girls, and gossiping over magazines and celebrities had been how they bonded until their other interests had bled through.
Chie was as listless and futureless as he was, and he liked that. He liked that he didn’t have to worry about what was to come when he was with Chie. He’d even come so close to shaking off the notion that his love for Chie was just platonic because Daisuke considered himself a lesbian and just because Chie liked girlish things, she was very secure that she was comfortable being a boy so it couldn't be different then just love between friends.
The realization had come too late for him to say anything before he’d ended up in space, but he’d spent little time confessing after returning home. Things moved fast after that, because Chie had come up with plans in the near years Daisuke had been gone for. Plans that she had hoped to include Daisuke, if he’d have her.
Which brought them to now, starting an art studio together. Daisuke’s parents had resigned themselves to the fact, given him the money to purchase a building with an upper apartment so they wouldn’t have to worry about a commute. They said if it didn’t work out he always had Swansea’s shop to fall back on. His parents really liked Swansea. He was actually a little concerned his dad was gonna propose in front of both their wives.
The plan was to get settled in, work on their own projects to refine rusty skills, and eventually open the public to just… make things. Share the joy of creation.
Daisuke was just deciding whether the bed frame was worth building tonight or the mattress could stand to be on the floor for the entire night, when the front door opened and a very sagging and tired looking Chie stumbled in.
“If I ever see another speck of dust eeeh-ver I’m buying a flame thrower and destroying every bit of dust on Earth.” She settled Daisuke’s debate by basically throwing herself at the mattress and groaning loudly.
“That would be, like, so epic. We’d have to find a new use for feather dusters! Maybe decorations? They already look like alien plants. If there were, you know, actual aliens to show us their plants.” Chie just gave him a very tired thumbs up, and Daisuke laughed. “How’s the others? They done for the night?”
“Swansea’s girls are fixing a shelf that broke while we were moving things around, but otherwise yeah. I gave them the keys to lock up because I am done” To emphasis this, Chie pulled off one of the blankets folded on the couch, and rolled up in it, making dramatic fake snores.
Daisuke smiled, and grabbed the larger one. Chie really did have the right idea. “I really should tell Swansea I’m a girl so he stops giving me those weird looks any time I'm around his daughters.”
Chie stopped the fake snoring as Daisuke settled in beside her, draping the blanket over them both. “Shhh, leave it a little longer. Let him figure it out on his own. It’s not as funny if you tell him.”
“It's been two years if he hasn’t already figured it out I don’t know what will get him to see it.”
“Maybe he knows and just doesn’t care.”
“Quite possible.”
Daisuke moved to settle his head on Chie’s chest. “‘Night, Chie,”
“Love you, ‘Suke.”
“Love you too…”