Chapter Text
Evan had always known where Godfreg was in a room.
It wasn’t conscious. He didn’t look for him. It was the same way he knew where the nearest exit was, or how long before a conversation curdled into politics; an internal calibration, background noise. Godfreg occupied that register. Familiar, reliable, unquestioned.
Which was why it took him too long to notice when that familiarity began to.. tilt.
They were in the west wing office, late. Evan had stopped pretending it was for work an hour ago. Godfreg was perched on the edge of Evan's desk, sleeves rolled up, reading through a report Evan had already memorised. He always did this: checking anyway, asked the questions Evan didn’t bother asking himself anymore. That gray tweed vest again, Evan absently noted, pressed slacks that matched. Caramel hair starting to disobey the hairgel has a defiant strand poking his eyes. Accordingly as it does, Godfreg tucks them behind his ear. The silver watch coiled around Godfreg’s delicate wrist was a gift, courtesy of yours truly. Slender fingers loose, Montblanc pen cradled between the first and middle. Briefly, violently, Evan considers stealing it to graze his skin.
“You’re overextending the logistics chain,” Godfreg commented lightly. “Again.”
Evan snapped out of it, scoffed. “It’ll hold.”
“It won’t.”
“It always does.”
Godfreg didn’t argue. He just looked at him. Not challenging. Not indulgent. Just acknowledging. That look had followed Evan across borders, across oceans, across years where everything else had been provisional.
Evan felt the irritation spark, then fizzle out before it could land.
That was new.
He turned back to the window instead, watching the island lights blink on one by one. “You don’t have to stay,” he said, reflexively. A habit, really. He told everyone that. "I don't need you hovering over my shoulder like some insurance angel.''
Godfreg hummed. “I know.” And stayed.
That, too, had always been the rule. Evan offered exits, Godfreg declined them without ceremony.
The realisation crept in sideways, inconvenient as humidity. Evan wasn’t managing himself around Godfreg. He wasn’t performing, or posturing, or sharpening himself into something impressive or impermeable. He didn’t feel the need to be understood—only seen. He supposed (that last bit was a touch too sappy, Evan noted to himself, and got annoyed at himself when he couldn’t find a better way to put it). In the most boring, sustainable way possible.
Godfreg caught his gaze then, eyebrow arching. “What?”
Evan opened his mouth. Closed it. There was nothing to say that didn’t sound ridiculous.
Instead: “Do you ever think we stayed together too long?” He isn’t sure if he’s talking about tonight or since forever ago.
Godfreg smiled faintly. Not fond, neither teasing. Thoughtful. He's still reviewing the papers. “No.”
“No hesitation?”
“You left,” Godfreg shrugged like it was an afterthought. “I followed. That’s not stagnation.”
Evan laughed under his breath. “You make it sound simple.”
“It is,” Godfreg replied. “You just complicate things professionally.”
That earned a snort. Evan rubbed at his temple, the way he did when the world pressed too close. He felt it then; an odd, quiet recalibration. The sense that if Godfreg weren’t here, the room would be, off-balance. Not empty, neither lonely. Misaligned.
The thought startled him enough that he finally looked away first
“Goodnight.’’ Evan broke and called it a day before he did something sleepy and stupid. Fanning his blazer behind him, his arm snagged the sleeve and slipped in as he moved to the door.
"Night,''
Later—much later—Evan mentioned Godfreg to Eudora the way he mentioned weather patterns or shipping delays. Casually, as fact.
“He caught an error in the projections,” Evan said, pouring tea. “Saved us months.”
Eudora paused mid-note, pen hovering. It was those rare stretches of time where she was done with a set of studies (Evolution and Phylogeny of Dragonflies, this time), and had enough emotional clarity to spare her long distance husband a visit. Only for a weekend, before she would be restless to engulf in her world again. She processed his remark slowly, deliberately, like a botanist deciding whether a new growth was parasitic or commensal .
“That explains it,” she said.
Evan blinked languidly. “Explains what?”
“You come back less.. snappy,” she replied, unbothered. “When he’s around.”
He wanted to laugh at the ‘snappy’ bit but he found himself only managing a scoff and a smirk that wilted too fast. He stilled, just for a beat.
Eudora looked up briefly then, mildly curious. No accusation. Just observation. “He must be very patient.”
Evan exhaled, something loosening in his chest he hadn’t known was taut. “He is.”
She was facing him but her shy eyes were, as per usual, lowered away. He caught, though, the most imperceptible glint in them. Of cunning, of haunting knowingness. It made him bristle. It made him, actually, mostly embarrassed. Eudora knew. Evan knew Eudora knew, now, and he was embarrassed he hadn’t before.
“A useful trait,” she added, already returning to her notes. “You require a great deal of it.”
One night, alone in his office again, Evan replayed the past week with uncomfortable clarity. The way his thoughts had aligned more easily. The way silence hadn’t felt like something to dominate. The way, shamefully, he grasped that he was definitely ogling at a certain man’s freaking hands that Wednesday, of all body parts.
The way, for the first time, he wondered—not what Godfreg was to him, but when that answer had changed.
He didn’t feel guilt. Eudora hadn’t elicited it, hell, actually she punted it. That little cheeky look was her blessing. Her response was academic curiosity, tilting her head like a cat encountering a new texture.
Eudora giving Godfreg a quiet, sincere mental gold star for “handling Evan” could only feel this insulting because it was true. Because she knows: Evan is difficult, more stubborn than barnacles, bad tempered, bad mannered, and for only one other person to disarm him means.. Would mean..
Evan closes his eyes, heels of his palms digging there to ensure he would not open them, because if he did, he would do something absolutely stupid, as sleepy as he is.