Work Text:
Kaelix is still several desks away from where he has to be—at Wilson’s, to talk over the deck they’ve been reworking since the skincare division moved their launch up two weeks—when Claude opens his mouth, not even looking up from his screen.
“Don’t go over there, dawg.” Claude takes a swig of the Diet Coke that’s been sitting at his desk since god actually knows when. “They’re playing fuck, marry, kill, and EVERYONE is killing you.”
Kaelix stops. “Huh?”
Claude, though, is already back to whatever he’s been doing, which is speedrunning the analytics summary that the social team suddenly needs two business days from when they’re set to present it to the energy drink brand leads. Kaelix stands there processing what he’s said for a moment, when, from across their floor, he hears someone say “yeah, well, kill—” and then the vague sound of his own name, followed by laughter.
He goes over there anyway.
“Hey! Hey!! I’ll have you guys know, I would be a delight to be married to.” He reaches Wilson’s cubicle and parks himself on the free side of the desk, which isn’t much between all the stuff that’s on it.
“Yeah?” Wilson leans back in his chair, making room for him to sit a little more comfortably (or as close to it as he can get) on the edge of his desk. “Bet if we took consensus outside this department, people would be allll over fuck Kaelix.” And he shudders like that’s supposed to be a bad thing.
“Wait, true!” Elira agrees, already cackling.
Shu tilts his head. He’s at his own cubicle, technically behind Wilson’s, but everyone in the vicinity has turned their chairs inward to face each other, and the sheaf of papers on his lap has decidedly gone ignored for what might be the better half of twenty minutes by now. “Didn’t think Freo would be the popular husband pick here, but honestly?” He nods to himself. “I can see it.”
“WELL, yes,” Kaelix says with a small huff. Because of course Freo is the marry pick—Freo who always has a plan, who works through problems methodically and checks in with everyone before moving forward, who does his best to speak clearly and say what he means, who is kind and sweet and handsome and funny and... and, Kaelix could go on because he’s got a very long list. But he also can’t say any of it. At least, yet.
“Oh! Oh—” Petra sits up straighter in her chair, cutting through his thoughts. “Speaking of Freo—Freo, come here a sec.”
Freo is halfway to the pantry, mug in hand, which tells Kaelix he’s working on something important or something he wants to finish fast because he’s on the way to coffee three with an earbud in. But he redirects anyway in neutral compliance, probably assuming she needs him for something work-related. He’s already pocketing the earbud as he approaches. Kaelix opens his mouth to give him a heads-up about it, but Petra’s already asked by then:
“Sooo, fuck, marry, kill—anyone in the company.”
Kaelix tries not to look so flabbergasted on Freo’s behalf. There are probably over two-hundred people in this office alone; it goes into the thousands if they’re talking about the whole company. But then again, as these things go, people tend to get siloed into their own circles (or departments in this case), and realistically, no one is ever really thinking beyond this floor.
“Oh.” Freo blinks.
Elira’s got her chin in her hands. Wilson clears his throat too audibly, and Kaelix tries very hard not to grind his teeth because why is he suddenly waiting for the answer with bated breath? He tries to school the look on his face into that same easy expression he watches everyone with, and gets somewhere just shy of it. At least everyone appears to be just as rapt.
“F—sleep with Seible,” he says, like he’s selecting a menu option.
A noise comes out of Elira that she has to cover with both hands. Wilson mouths ‘Seible?’ at Shu, who mouths back ‘his car though’ and Wilson concedes the point with a tilt of his head and a shrug.
“Marry Kaelix,” Freo says eventually in that same cadence that Kaelix may or may not be reading a bit more surety into.
“Kill—” Freo pauses and his brows crease. “Do I really have to pick one?”
“Rules are rules, Freo,” Petra says.
“Then, Vanta,” he replies.
“Me?!” Vanta calls out from somewhere behind a filing cabinet.
“He promised the home appliances team I’d be on set for their smart fridge campaign shoot because the actress they booked apparently asked for me specifically, and the team wanted to keep her happy. I don’t mind going to shoots if I’m leading something, but I wasn’t on that project. He just told them I’d be there. I was there for six hours holding a reflector or fetching her a water bottle just to give me something to do.”
“BUT YOU KNEW HOME APPLIANCES WAS ADAMANT! YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T MIND! AND YOU TOLD ME YOU WEREN’T UPSET!” He looks genuinely stricken as he walks over. “You literally said, verbatim, ‘it’s fine, I can handle it, Vanta.’”
“Yeah,” Freo says, mostly addressing Petra. “I’ll go with that.”
The bit dies down not long after because Elira’s three o’clock lights up on her screen and that ascending trill starts looping from her speakers, spooking them all back into work because the sound reaches everyone’s nervous system as soon as it starts. Wilson remembers he hasn’t sent the deck revisions that were due at two, and Kaelix remembers he still hasn’t actually talked to Wilson about the other deck—but also that he has his own pile to slog through if he wants to get out at five on the dot later.
Vanta stays hounding Freo, asking why he’s kill and not at least fuck, which Freo doesn’t even dignify with a response. They pass Seible’s desk on the way to the pantry, where Seible stops them to wink and ‘assure’ Freo that he would “one hundred percent, Furi-chan—I would definitely take care of you!!” Freo just rolls his eyes and pats his head, before forging on to his original destination with Vanta in tow. Kaelix can already hear him redirecting the conversation to an actual thing about work.
At thirty past five, Kaelix jogs out through the back entrance of the building, dress shoes not really built for the pace he’s asking of them right now, the collar of his coat flapping in the rush he’s making to get outside. The alley’s mostly empty, the street lamps are just starting to come on even though it isn’t fully sundown yet, and Freo’s already there, leaning against the brick with his bag on one shoulder, scrolling through his phone like he’s been waiting a while, which he probably has, because Freo always manages to be early and Kaelix, much to his own chagrin, has recently been the opposite of that because the start of Q4 has eaten him alive.
Freo pushes off the wall as soon as he sees him, walking over to his side and reaching for his hand as soon as he gets there.
“Not worried someone’ll see?” Kaelix asks, lifting Freo’s hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the flat of it, smiling against his skin.
Freo just shrugs and tugs him away from their office building.
The walk to their dinner plans for tonight is going to be a short one—a cut through the park two blocks from the office and then another few minutes on the main road. Freo had mentioned a dumpling noodle soup place that opened recently—one Seible had told him about—that he wanted to try, and though Kaelix has had what feels like all forms of noodles over the last week because it was the quickest thing he had on hand at home to cook after back-to-back overtime—well, what Freo wants…
Unable to help himself, Kaelix only gives Freo the briefest squeeze of his hand as warning he’s about to potentially bring up something awkward for them both to broach. “Alright, so. What was that about earlier?”
Freo glances over his shoulder, then turns fully to walk backwards, their hands still linked between them, likely of the mind that this is earnest conversation (it is, but also, he’s about to remember his boyfriend is Kaelix).
“What about earlier?” Freo asks.
“You’d marry me?” Kaelix’s lower lip juts out, which does most of the work here—at least he likes to think so. He tries to pull the kind of face that’s historically gotten him out of trouble with clients and into trouble with everyone else at the office, including Freo sometimes.
Which, case in point—Freo takes his hand back and turns right back around, walking ahead.
“I mean.” He looks out into the rest of the path they still need to walk. “Zeal might also be…”
“Well, too bad for him!! You’ve locked in your answer, Freodore.” Kaelix takes two long steps to catch up, hooks his arms around Freo’s waist from behind and presses his face into his hair. Freo doesn’t even stop walking, just tilts his head slightly to accommodate him, and Kaelix holds on for a few steps before letting go so he can find Freo’s hand again.
Freo exhales out a sound that might mean he’s vaguely amused by all this, which is as close to a concession as Kaelix is going to get.
But Kaelix isn’t quite done probing the matter yet. “ALSO. ALSO! You would sleep with Seible?!”
“I thought I had to give one person for each?”
“Not the point!” Kaelix frowns. “It should be fuck Kaelix, marry Kaelix, and kill Kaelix!”
“Even kill?”
“Yes, even kill. Actually, maybe even especially kill. I feel like you would make a really hot villain if you put your mind to it.”
Freo laughs, a little more than the last this time, so it echoes off the quiet path, his nose scrunching at the thought. They’re deeper into the park now, somewhere nearer tree than streetlamp, and Freo stops walking. His hand finds Kaelix’s tie and pulls gently, just enough to close the distance, and he leans up and kisses him on the mouth.
“Sure,” Freo says, against his lips. “We’ll get around to it eventually.”
Kaelix is smiling too hard to kiss him back properly but he does it anyway, one hand at Freo’s waist, the other at the side of his neck. He means to pull back after that but Freo’s hand is on his tie still, so he kisses him again, slower this time, and nips gently at Freo’s lower lip until his mouth opens a little more for him, until Freo loops his arms around Kaelix’s neck and Kaelix pulls him closer. There’s a tree about two steps behind Freo and Kaelix is very aware of it and the amount of remaining self-control he’s running on not to walk him backwards into it, dinner plans be damned.
“I know something we can get around to tonight though,” Kaelix murmurs, lips still close enough that he feels Freo exhale.
Freo smacks his arm, but only sighs that sigh Kaelix knows the quality and shape of too well by now as he slots their fingers together again, and they keep walking.