Work Text:
“Nice.”
“Mmhm?”
“Nice, seriously.”
“You’ll have to use your words, Lin Ling. Other, more specific words.”
“You’re actually gonna make me— okay, you know what? Fine.”
With a groan, Lin Ling digs an elbow into the mattress and leverages himself up to reach the lamp switch. He squints, corneas burning, then rolls over onto his side so that he’s facing Nice.
Nice—and his one hundred and twenty centimeter Hero Smile doll, which Nice is hugging to his chest with the kind of possessive glee usually reserved for yandere male leads in the otome games Lin Ling will never admit to playing.
“This,” Lin Ling says, his eyes flicking between Nice’s face and the oversized, overstuffed blond head tucked beneath Nice’s chin. In response, Nice nuzzles into the plushie and looks up at Lin Ling from beneath his unfairly pretty lashes.
“Words, A-Ling,” Nice reminds him, and Lin Ling can hear the smirk in his voice.
He’s too tired for this. Nice should be too tired for this, given they both didn’t get in until almost midnight, and Nice was out of the apartment before Lin Ling even woke up this morning. And unless Lin Ling breaks his rule about not drinking coffee after 10pm (that Nice himself enforces), he is going to continue being too tired for this until he gets roughly ten hours of sleep. Which he can’t do, because their bed is not big enough for three people.
I’m going to burn it, Lin Ling thinks, blinking dry, irritated eyes at the enormous plush monstrosity that’s stolen his boyfriend’s affections. I’ll throw it into the dumpster behind the Thai takeout place Nice refuses to step foot in. I’ll burn it and then throw it into the dumpster.
“I am falling off the bed,” Lin Ling says, “because Smile’s fat ass is taking up too much space.”
Nice huffs. “I don’t complain about the Moon doll you insist on tucking into bed every morning.”
“First of all, how the fuck do you know that, you never get home earlier than I do and you always leave first. Second, she is ten centimeters tall. I did not consent to a goddamn threesome—”
That startles a laugh out of Nice, and, weak man that he is, it nearly derails Lin Ling’s outraged line of thought, because it’s that cute, wheezy laugh that Nice never shows to the public.
And then Nice smiles, knife-sharp—striking the match—before he says, “You should know by now, A-Ling… I’d kick you out of bed for Smile any day of the week.”
Lin Ling’s rage, dwindling to lukewarm embers in the wake of Nice’s unexpected laugh, roars back to life in an instant.
Match, meet kindling. Every fucking time.
“If Moon ever comes back from her sabbatical I am leaving you, you jackass!”
“Isn’t this what they call a hall pass? It’s normal for couples! You have one, too, clearly.”
“I—“ Well, shit. Lin Ling scrunches up his face. He did just say he’d go with Moon… assuming she’d give him a chance. And it’s not like he’s really upset that Nice has his uber-crush on his childhood hero. Mostly he finds it endearing, that that devotion has survived all these years—including Smile’s retirement a few months ago. “I… am gonna buy the biggest Moon plush I can find.”
Nice’s smile widens, delighting in how quickly the fight seeps out of Lin Ling’s body. He somehow manages to snuggle into Smile even more aggressively than before. “You’ll probably have to get it custom made. That’s what I did with mine. I’ll text you the link to the website I used while I’m on patrol tomorrow.”
“I hate you.”
“So you don’t want the link?”
“…I do. Send it to me.” Lin Ling pauses, watching the pointed arch of Nice’s brow. Ugh. “Please. Please send it to me.”
“My pleasure, A-Ling. Now, it’s late, and as you pointed out, I have an early start. So let’s get some rest, hm?”
And with that, Nice turns over, taking Smile with him. Not that he’s out of Lin Ling’s sight; the doll’s so bulbous one of the arms peeks out over Nice’s side, like it’s giving Lin Ling a cheeky wave.
He contemplates arson. Again. Just for a minute or two. Then he sighs and admits to himself he’s lost the battle, at least for now. He resigns himself to a long, drawn-out ordeal, needling at Nice until he agrees to leave Smile in the living room. More likely, he’ll deposit him in what Nice insists is their “reading chair.” Neither of them read much in the bedroom, or at all, really, so the only action that particular chair sees is when Nice pins Lin Ling to it before—
Not the time, he reminds himself, turning his thoughts to his own plans for tomorrow. Chores, and more specifically, deep-cleaning the bathroom. The phantom scent of bleach is, thankfully, enough to put a damper on his libido. He sighs again, somehow even more exhausted than when he first crawled into bed, and twists to shut off the light.
His hand finds his phone first, halfway to falling off the nightstand (he really needs to mute his guild group chat at some point). He hesitates, then snags his phone and thumbs it open to his camera app.
It takes a little finagling to get the angle right, and a degree of grace Lin Ling almost never has to avoid clueing Nice into what he’s doing, but manages to snap a few decent shots. The best of the lot gets loaded onto FOMO, along with a quaint little caption he knows will amuse Nice to no end.
Satisfied, Lin Ling slides his phone back onto the nightstand and shuts off the light, wriggling under the sliver of covers Nice and Smile have graciously left him. He’s a lot less careful about jostling Nice this time, all elbows and knees and jabby hip bones, jockeying for his place in the bed.
What a fucking strange tableau they must make. He hopes his suffering gives his friends a laugh, at least. Someone should be happy here, and Nice sure as shit won’t count until Lin Ling’s finally allowed coffee again.
(In the morning, Lin Ling will realize the error in taking revenge when he’s so sleep-deprived—when his manager wakes him up at the crack of dawn demanding why he decided to out his relationship with Nice using a fucking meme photo on his hero account.
But for now, Lin Ling jabs his elbow into Nice’s ribs one last time before settling into his usual sleeping position, and drops off with a smile as cheery flames flicker along the edges of his dreams.)