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"Spirou?"
Spirou didn't turn to look at his boyfriend opening the door.
Fantasio stepped into their bedroom. Well, Spirou bitterly reminded himself, officially just Fantasio's bedroom. How ironic, that once they had actually started dating Spirou had gotten his own apartment again?
Fantasio frowned. "We need to be there in twenty minutes. You haven't changed yet?"
Spirou turned to look at the bellhop uniform laying on the bed. He had been putting changing into it off... And his mood was slowly souring even further.
"I'm not going to."
"What?"
Fantasio picked up the uniform and pushed it at Spirou. "Don't be silly! You need to wear the uniform. The audience will be expecting that."
"Why?"
"What why?"
"It wasn't like I wore always wore it!" Spirou threw the uniform on the bed and gestured at the sweater he was wearing. "This was good enough!"
"Yes, but..."
Spirou shook his head, it felt like something was breaking. Things he had wanted to tell Fantasio for so long...
"Things have changed, haven't they?" he almost yelled. "This is like back then again, isn't it?"
He hadn't put it into words, but now he was feeling like he was finally getting somewhere.
"Back then? Spirou, I don't understa-"
"We're not living together anymore," Spirou interrupted him. "We aren't publicly a couple."
"We need to be careful-"
"You don't even hold my hand publicly!" Spirou yelled. He lowered his voice. "Not anymore."
"Spirou..."
Spirou let the older man pull him into a hug. "It used to be simpler, didn't it, Fanfan?"
"Maybe."
"For years, we'd live together, and hold hands, and hug publicly, and... And I didn't understand. Only when I eventually after years realized what it was that I felt, and could... Then we had to hide it. Not even things we had done before, just in case someone would start to wonder. So I... And now it feels like you want to push me even further back, back when I was a kid and am I making sense?"
"It's tough," Fantasio said.
"And I feel, I feel like I wasted all those years," Spirou confessed. "I was in love with you and lived with you and had no idea. And when I understood myself, and..."
"Spirou, never say those years were wasted."
Fantasio brushed a tear that had rolled to Spirou's cheek away with his thumb. "It is because of those years that I love you now. It wasn't love at first sight. Well, you were a kid back then, not that I was exactly mature... But slowly, over years... I fell for you."
Spirou reached to kiss him. "I'm sorry."
He turned to look at the uniform. "It's just that... if I wasn't the Spirou, if I wasn't a mascot for the-"
He stepped out of Fantasio's embrace. "Never mind. I feel silly now."
He reached for the uniform. "And we should be going."
Fantasio pulled the uniform from him. "No we're not."
"What?"
Fantasio pulled him into another hug and laid a kiss on the top of his head. "I'll call them you got ill and can't make it. And we'll stay in, and watch Netflix, and order some Chinese, and I will cuddle with my boyfriend all day."
Spirou couldn't help a smile. "But shouldn't we be going?"
He let out a yelp that turned into a giggle as Fantasio picked him up and held him bridal style.
"They just have to survive without you for a day," Fantasio informed him.
His smile disappeared. "It's not simple."
"I know."
"We have to talk about it. We have to think about it. We could tell Seccotine. I'm pretty sure she knows already anyway. And some people at the office maybe..."
Spirou smiled. "But for now, I seem to recall I was promised cuddles?"
Fantasio returned his smile. "Yes."