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Kaela’s been acting weird. Weird for her, which means super weird to Bijou. As her partner she knows what qualifies for ‘weird’ and Kaela was swimming in its definition. Even by her standards, the blacksmith had been acting just a bit…odd. Quirky, beyond her usual shticks and jokes, not wholly different just a little…off.
It starts with a simple question.
“Hey can you hold out your arm?” Kaela asks. Bijou was two steps in from the door, returning from a nice dinner out with the rest of Advent. Kaela, having elected to stay behind to ‘grind it out’, now looks like she lost a fight with a grease monkey as she stops Bijou at the door of their home.
It’s a simple request, far from the oddest thing she’s asked of her, and Bijou loves to humor her. A simple convention of dating a smith.
“Can I at least take my shoes off?” She jokes, digging one heel into the other as she shirks off her footwear.
“Yeah yeah, shoes whatever, now hold out your arm, straight ahead okay? Like you’re throwing a punch.” Kaela urges, hand waving Bijou’s casual pace.
With a confused look, and tilt of her head, she shucks her shoes and holds out arm. Straight and flat, hand lazily clenched and extended away from her. Despite all the times she’s modeled something for Kaela, and that is what she suspects this is, this is a new pose.
She watches as Kaela stares at the arm, an analytical glint in her eyes as she hums thoughtfully. Hand resting just in front of her mouth, slightly agape as she loses herself in those thoughts. All her focus went to what was on her mind, providing a fierce expression.
It’s one of the cutest things Bijou ever gets to see and it fills her heart up to its brim knowing she gets to be the one to see it. There’s a swell of pride in her chest, adding a tint of blue to her gem, knowing she gets to be the one first in line for this expression, a front row seat to the wondrous show that is Kaela Kovalskia.
After a half moment of this, Kaela makes a move. Hand reaching out, Bijou thinks it’s about to stop on her own but goes just a little farther up, stopping just above the fist. Where she then grabs the gemstone’s arm, finger and thumb touching with ease as the hand wraps her wrist.
Her breath catches, the moment lingering. Confused, but somewhat entranced by the act she says nothing as Kaela seems to awkwardly hold the limb. A quiet string of mumbling slipping out her lips, mindless drivel that bordered madness.
A question starts to form on her lips, a question of what exactly this was for, but just as abruptly as she started Kaela moves her hand. The blacksmith holds her hand more like an object than anything else, leaving behind a trail of grease wherever her hands went. Moving Bijou’s hand over, flipping it from one side to another, poking, prodding, like the limb was suddenly foreign to her.
Kaela huffs, “You have small hands.”
“Y-yeah?” Bijou balks, the abruptness of it throwing her a little. “Maybe your hands are just too big!” A bit of heat rises to her face. Yes, Kaela’s hands dwarfed hers easily, yes, she was leaving a gross mess over her hand, and yes, Bijou didn’t know how to feel about it.
“My hands aren’t too big, you just have tiny wrists. You need to eat more ‘lah.” Kaela continues, seemingly a little dismissive as she holds her hand. “Have you eaten yet?”
“I just got back from dinner.” Bijou blinks slowly. It was starting to sink in that Kaela’s usual eccentricities seemed to be just a little more pronounced. “I told you I was going out to eat.”
“Oh right, right.” Kaela hums distantly, clearly still focused on whatever it was running through her mind. The blacksmith finally pulls back her hands, cupping her chin in thought, spreading the grease mess further on to her face. It’s a shame she wears it so well, otherwise Bijou would’ve loved to poke fun at her for it. “But did you eat?”
“I ate!”
Her indignance gets a snort out of Kaela, and in turn her own mood lightens.
“That’s good, that’s good.” Kaela hums, “Okay then, I’m going back to the forge, I’m very busy.” She turns to leave, but not before Bijou pulls the back of her shirt.
“Wait, have you eaten yet!?”
“Uhhhh…” Kaela's guilty pause tells everything.
“Kaelaaaa!” She nags.
“I’ll eat in uh, later. I got work to do.” Kaela says, walking away, quite easily with Bijou dragging behind her. Socks sliding across the ground as Kaela goes through the house.
“Kaelaaaaaaaa!”
“Can’t hear you, working too hard. Oop, here’s your stop.” Kaela pauses in the living room, and with little effort untangles Bijou from herself. “I’ll eat later. I promise.”
“You promise?” Bijou gives Kaela the biggest, wettest, saddest look she could muster. To her credit she does see hesitation cross her girlfriends face, an awkward cheek scratch as Kaela looks just off to the side.
“Yeah yeah I promise…mm, you can take me out next time or whatever, or I can bring you some place, later, or something.” her words drift off, muttered without confidence, but Bijou knows this was probably the best she’ll get. Maybe she was the rock between the two of them, but somehow Kaela was the real hardhead between them.
“Okay…” She relents, pouting big time as she moved to flop on the couch, “Promise?”
“Yes, yes, promise.” Kaela hums. A soft and gentle smile warming its way across her face, something so kind and pretty Bijou feels her worries melt away.
With no other retort in mind, she watches with mixed emotions as Kaela turns back and heads to her forge for the night, the fire already lit.
A big hand, calloused and rough from years in the forge, tussled her hair. It takes a lot of Bijou’s effort not to nestle into it, and continue being indignant.
“Why nooot?” She complains, “Why can’t I go in?”
“Because…it’s uh…super dangerous.”
“Super dangerous?”
“Super duper dangerous, it’s a bomb actually. A super crazy bomb.” Kaela hums confidently. “It’s actually a bomb that blows up rocks.” She says, flashing Bijou a sly smirk.
A pout reaches her own face, “C’mon, pleeeeease? Is it like, super awesome? What is it! What’re you working on!?”
“It’s a secret!”
“Please!?”
“No.” Kaela affirms. Holding herself in that confident, smarmy way that Bijou unfortunately loves.
The secret in question being a sudden ban on the forge for Bijou. A big paper sign that said ‘Bijou don’t come in here’ clearly put up in haste. This was followed by several more signs saying roughly the same thing, with some variations like ‘I mean it’ and ‘this is no place for rocks!!!’
“Eugh, fine…” She surrenders, Bijou knows better than to argue with a tall strong blonde. That still didn’t help her feel like she was being repelled.
It’s not like the forge was in their house, a large shed across the yard where Kaela would get most of her work done. A place firmly hers, where she would decompress when overwhelmed or zone out for hours when she wanted the space.
And while Bijou was happy to give it, she thinks they’ve maybe spent a grand total of three hours together the past week with how often she’s been stuck in there.
The eyebags growing on her face weren’t helping her feel at ease either.
Still. She’d respect that line, at least until the moment it becomes too much.
“How old are you anyway?” Kaela asks one lazy evening. They were both on their phones, avoiding responsibilities and giving their couch purpose. Bijou with her feet kicked up on Kaela’s lap, and Kaela sitting like a normal human being.
“Uhh…” the question does give Bijou some pause. She hadn’t really kept track of the exact number, nor did she care too, after getting to one thousand what was the point of keeping track? “Old.” She settles on.
Kaela snorts, “Okay, how old?”
“Old old.”
“You’re not gonna tell me?” Kaela jeers, grabbing one of Bijou’s legs and giving it a shake.
“I don’t know! It’s hard to keep track of!” She giggles.
“You don’t know how old you are?”
“I’m like…” she scrunches her face, using all her brain power to do the barest minimum math. If she was in the cell for that long…and out of the cell for this long…then…
“Don’t hurt yourself thinking too hard.”
“I’m not!”
“You look like you are.”
“Blehhh!!!!” Amazing retort Bijou, sticking out your tongue will show her. “Why do you wanna know anyway?”
“Was just curious.” Kaela shrugs, and Bijou thinks that’s fair. Dating an ancient emotionally charged rock probably left one with a lot of questions. Even if she doesn’t really see the value in it.
“Uhhh…” where was she? Oh right, numbers. “I think I’m like…nine…”
She watches as Kaela seems to grow more attentive, looking at her more seriously now.
“Ten? Thousand?”
“THOUSAND?”
“Y-yeah!? A couple thousand years old? It might be closer to twelve though-“
“…Twelve thousand!?” Bijou isn’t quite sure when the last time she heard Kaela sound this flabbergasted. She sounded like she might lose her voice.
“Yeah!”
“Years old!?” Kaela repeats in disbelief. Bijou snorts, smothering laughs as they rattle her body.
“How old did you think I was!?”
“I dunno! Few hundred maybe? A thousand at most?”
She squeaks out laughter, holding her stomach as Kaela reins in her bewildered expression. It’s a rare moment seeing the blacksmith so emotive, so Bijou commits it to memory, but the fact it happened here just cracks her up.
“A couple thousand years old…” Kaela exhales.
“Yeah…honestly probably like, way more.” Bijou chuckles, content with the disbelief Kaela was giving her.
“Okay. So, you’re like, super grandma then.”
That gets a sputter from her, “What!?” She bursts, almost kicking Kaela. Kaela who is now looking a little smug.
“You’re so old, you’re like grandma now, aren’t you? So old…I bet your bones hurt.”
“Hey!” With dramatic offense, she pulls a leg back to dig into Kaela’s side. Unfortunately it doesn’t do much, just making Kaela look more amused, so she tries again and again. All it does is make Kaela silently laugh, which is victory enough in Bijou’s book.
“I can’t believe I’m dating a grandmaaa…dahlah.” Kaela dramatically sighs, hanging her head and grabbing one of the offending legs trying to kick her. “You’re gonna hurt yourself grandma.”
“S-stop!” Bijou wheezes, “I’m not that old!!”
“You’re sooo old.” Kaela sings, effortlessly holding the wriggling leg away from her side. “You are like literally…a fossil.”
“I’m not!” It comes out as a squeak as Kaela nearly pulls her off the couch. “Whatever!” She suddenly proclaims, “You’re the one dating me! You’re dating a grandma! How do you feel about that Kaela? Huh? You’re dating an old old lady?”
Kaela simply rolls her eyes, blowing air out her nose. Releasing her legs, “Old isn’t bad. I like you and you’re old, that’s fine.”
That warms her heart a little, enough to at least stop attacking her.
“Aw…you like me!”
“Of course I like you, even if you’re a troublesome old whiny woman-“
“HEY!”
They laugh, and joke, the next half hour going by in flash before Kaela excuses herself back to the forge.
She sits on the couch, head resting in her hands as she grouches.
Bijou didn’t feel particularly owed anything for her birthday, her feelings on it less than strong. That said, any bit of leverage she could swing over Kaela was worthwhile.
Dating Kaela, which she loved more than anything in the whole wide world, did come with some…she calls them nerfs. Balance patches to help even out how awesome Kaela is. A mismatched sleep schedule, problematic height gap, all things she’s fine hand waving away, but it gets tougher when it comes to her partner's love of the forge.
It’s tough when your competition is literally fire and hot metal, a tough lesson she’s learned over the years. She doesn’t need all of Kaela’s attention to know they love her, so losing to a forge doesn’t sting all that much.
Today though, Bijou thinks, it does sting a little.
Staring out the glass doors, connecting their home to a yard, and beyond that the doors to Kaela’s forge, she wonders if this is how her birthday will be spent.
Still, better than most she supposes.
Maybe she’d needle Kaela for time together. That’s still technically her birthday right? It's hazy, she just wants an excuse to force her girlfriend to play games with her. Instead, Kaela seemed to want to spend all her time hammering away at whatever.
It’s as she’s thinking this, the door suddenly opens, rattling Bijou from her thoughts.
Kaela stands there, covered in a fresh layer of grime and ash.
“BIJOE-oh you’re right here.”
The loud announcement of her presence sends Bijou tumbling to the ground in surprise.
“Kaela!” She squawks, pushing herself back up.
“Bijoe! What are you doing on the ground, you should get up.”
“I am- you- you startled me!” Bijou squawks.
“Oh did I? Well just don’t be startled next time.” Kaela smiles, like she’s not being a jerk. Arms folded behind her back, a mischievous aura surrounding her.
Bijou fits her with a glare that just seems to bounce right off of her. While she stares, she stands up and dusts herself off. Sadly the embarrassment doesn’t brush off so easily.
“So,” Kaela says, arms still folded behind her back, “You’re not busy now, right?”
“No…?” Bijou answers, curiosity growing. “What’s uh…up?”
“I…” Kaela starts, but quickly drops off. Her face scrunches up in some slight confusion before starting again, “I don’t know how to do…this.”
“This?”
“I have…a gift.”
Bijou immediately perks up, the shame and confusion she was wearing immediately shaken off. “A gift? For me?”
“Yes, yes, it’s like…” Kaela grumbles, conflicting emotions dancing across her face, “...I don’t know if it’s a big deal or whatever…I know I said we’d hang out today and I’m a little late to that…”
“That’s- That’s totally fine! That’s fine, that’s one hundred percent fine and cool!” Bijou quickly reassures, “I didn’t…today is low key! We’re chill vibes!”
“Okay cool, cause like! I don’t really know how to do all the…celebrating and stuff…or…you seemed to wanna be chill?”
“Yeah yeah yeah! Chill is fine!”
“Chill is fine…” Kaela breathes out a sigh of relief. Letting a small awkward silence grow between them.
“...You said you have a gift…? Bijou asks. She tries not to sound too interested, her hands fiddling with her fingers as she sways on her feet, failing to hide some of her antsy feelings. She wasn’t expecting this.
After a week-ish of being left aside for work, Bijou wasn’t really expecting a gift, or anything special. Which was fine! Ten ish thousand years of birthdays, she didn’t need any of them to be special.
“Oh! Right! Yeah! Yeah I said that, okay so…um…” For a moment, Bijou reads the expression on Kaela’s face as mildly constipated. “It’s not…much, but here.”
Nervously, Kaela unfolds her arms, revealing in her hand what looked like a large gold band. Blatantly to big to be a ring, far too small for a circlet, it looked…like maybe it’d be a little big on her wrist, but as she looks at it Bijou realizes that’s the only explanation possible.
“Woah…” Is the best Bijou musters in the moment. The, probably-almost-definitely-no-totally-for-sure, bracelet looks…simple and stunning. No immensely intricate designs at first glance, it just looks like quality craftsmanship as it rests in Kaela’s hand. She makes an offering gesture and Bijou gingerly takes it.
“I wanted to make earrings, but small is annoying…” Kaela grumbles, for a moment looking sheepish. Her head turned, free hand scratching her cheek absently.
“Mm, mm, small is annoying.” She absentmindedly agrees.
“Yeah…” Kaela sighs distantly. Her eyes settling on Bijou as a telling silence begins to fill the air.
“…Hey! You’re not saying that about me are you!?”
“Noooo no no no!” Kaela waves her off, croaking in silent laughter, “Not you, no, never you. You are never…” She trails off where an answer should be, looking away guiltily.
“Kaelaaaa!”
“Whaaat? I still love you, don’t I? I made you a nice bracelet, you should be nice to me.”
She wastes no time putting on the gold band. Sliding it over her wrist where it sat quite comfortably loose. It looked nice, not super flashy or reflective but still elegant and high quality. Perfectly round, a seem running its length, and not a fault or blemish in sight.
Looking at it closely Bijou almost didn’t recognize the craftsmanship. Something about it felt so…unlike Kaela. It was simple, but still carried an air of being very carefully made. A delicateness she hadn’t seen in any of Kaela’s other works. It was deceptively simple, she thinks, something about it just screamed painfully crafted.
“Yeah, it was tough. Small metal jewelry is…it was difficult.” Kaela seethes, crossing her arms. “I tried like, fifty million times making things but it just never turned out…right.”
“You made this!?” Bijou blurts, like she doesn’t already know.
“Of course I made it! You think I’d buy something I could just make!? I spent hours trying, and failing, and starting again until I made it perfect and you think I just bought something? Aduh, gadas ini…” Kaela’s bitterness turned into quickly muttered indonesian cursing that Bijou had no right knowing.
The sudden burst of emotion has Bijou laughing, “Okay okay! You’re right, you’re right! Sorry! Sorry, I know better now!”
“Obviously…” Kaela huffs indignantly. “So…do you…like it?” She asks with uncharacteristic caution.
“I love it…I love it a lot.” Bijou grins, marveling at the masterpiece of jewelry. It slid over her hand with little effort, resting quite nicely on her wrist. It looked perfect, the size was exact, resting comfortably right under her hand. A classy bit of jewelry that Bijou could already tell she would want to wear every single day.
“I really love it…”
“Oh thank goodness.” Kaela breathes a sigh of relief.
“I really like it…” Bijou hums. Idly playing with the bracelet, she’s a little conflicted. Obviously she couldn’t be happier to get such a gift, to know how much time and effort Kaela put into making something for her.
She really didn’t think Kaela would go this far for her birthday…it was just supposed to be another day. But she did, she spent all that time and effort, how could she not love it? It just felt…weird.
“Hey Kaela?” Bijou asks, Kaela giving an affirmative hum, “You know what else I like?”
“What? Don’t say earrings. Please.” Kaela looks at her, a hint of genuine concern in her eyes. A sense of haggardness surrounding her, more so than her usual amount.
“No no!” She giggles, “I just wanna spend more time with you! You worked so hard on this and I love it! But we can just…hang out, play games. You look so exhausted working so hard I feel kind of bad!”
Kaela blinks owlishly, “But…then you wouldn’t have gotten your gift on your birthday?”
“I don’t need fancy gifts. You're my gift.” She grins wide, affection pouring over in her heart. “But…the bracelet is super nice. I’m gonna wear it forever.”
“Aw…wait, that is actually really sweet.” Kaela says, sounding a little taken aback.
“Of course it’s sweet! I’m super sweet!” She barks back.
“Mm, I don’t know…”
“Kaela!!!”
“Kidding kidding! I would never insult the birthday girl…” Kaela mutters happily, pulling Bijou in for a loose hug.
“Good!” Bijou grins, holding Kaela tight in the embrace. Wanting to drink up as much of the warm contact as she could, unabashedly. There was no exaggeration when she said Kaela was her gift, nothing was quite as sweet to her as the blacksmith’s presence.
“But you like the bracelet?”
“I love it!” She giggles.
Maybe this could be a special day after all. She was already looking forward to next year.