Chapter Text
Ashton Greymoore didn’t wake to the sound of an alarm.
Instead, they woke to the cacophonous racket of cheerful birds gathered on the trees outside their bedroom window, the elderly woodworker swearing loudly in his shop beneath the apartment, the bell from a bicycle passing below. Ignoring all of it, Ashton rolled over and threw an arm out over rumpled sheets and empty bed and, not finding Orym there, bundled his pillow up against their chest. Now that they were awake again, Ashton indistinctly remembered his voice in their ear, low and rough when he told them to go back to sleep, and a brief, dry kiss before they did just that.
Blinking their eyes open, Ashton was greeted by the bright intrusion of sunlight into the room, passing through the beaded curtains Ashton had brought when they moved in, casting a rainbow of color on the far wall. The morning sun wasn’t oppressive, but just bright enough that it must have been hours since Orym had gone for his morning run, showered, and then left again.
But that wasn’t unusual these days. Most of their mornings were like this. Orym left early to open Nobody Reads while Ashton slept in, joining him late in the morning to take over shop business with Fresh Cut Grass while Orym worked through a steady caseload from a table in the corner, only putting his work aside when the teenagers ambled through the door with all their raucous noise late in the afternoon.
The mornings apart were worth it for the quiet peace of their evenings, though. Grissen still belonged to Orym’s regular dinner with Dorian, although Ashton now spent those same evenings with Fresh Cut Grass, who relished the idea of having traditions. There were Yulisen nights out, most often for terrible music and worse service at the Brute, and Da’leysen mornings where Orym stayed in bed with Ashton until noon, until he couldn’t stand being idle a minute longer. But the nights Ashton liked most were the ones they spent spread out on the soft, plush couch: Sid curled up on Orym’s stomach, Blossom a seemingly inanimate pile under the coffee table, and Orym’s socked feet mindlessly rubbing along Ashton’s calves while they read together.
So things had gone for months now, and so they would go for as long as Ashton could foresee. He still had the occasional spike of insecurity – this couldn’t last, could it? – but those came less often the more time passed without Calamity crashing down over Ashton’s world. If his relationship with Orym was one that took work and dedication, then it was well worth the effort on both their part.
It wasn’t all easy, but Ashton’s worst fears of what might happen never came to pass. Dean Hexum and her disappointed aspirations for Ashton had already faded to a memory. No one came looking for Fresh Cut Grass again. A dark night in Bassuras could just be that now.
Change was slow, but that too had come in time. The first reports of Armand Treshi’s conspiracies emerged around the same time as the public news release that there had been new evidence in Dancer’s murder. Gavis Aranda had never publicly denounced Treshi, apparently cowed by whatever dirt Treshi still had on them, but Ashton supposed there would be no reopened case and no special team of investigators brought in from outside Jrusar without the silent support of the Voice of the Quorum.
How much of that could they say had anything to do with their efforts? Ashton wasn’t sure they’d ever know.
Now though, they checked the time on their phone – later than they’d realized – and dragged themself out of bed. They found a pair of loose, paint-splattered pants and a tight, cropped t-shirt that might have once been one of Orym’s, then staggered out to see if Orym had left any coffee in the pot before leaving for the shop.
A sunlit, ragged clump of fur yowled at Ashton as they passed beside the alcove overlooking the garden. Sid outstretched one paw with her claws extended enough to catch on the fabric of Ashton’s pants and blinked sleepily up at them, completely ignoring the bird noises outside.
“That’s enough of your shit,” Ashton said fondly, rubbing their crooked forefinger underneath Sid’s jaw. “Retirement’s made you lazy, Sid.”
She only yawned noisily and pulled her front paws over her face, her scraggly tail flicking happily before settling in front of her open eyes as she followed Ashton’s progress toward the kitchen. There was a vacuum sealed mug of coffee set next to the already cleaned-out coffee machine, a note scribbled in Orym’s hand folded underneath reading She’s been fed. See you soon.
Sure enough, Ashton looked back to find Sid watching them over her tail, an undeniably hopeful tinge to her normal grouchiness while she watched them take the coffee and head to the door to pull on their boots. When she was sure they weren’t going to feed her, Sid rolled onto her back to expose her belly to the sunshine spilling across the floor.
Ashton welcomed the way the warmth of the sun seeped into their bones on their walk between the spires, though the oppressive heat and far-off mountain of clouds building on the horizon promised storms later in the day. While stopping for fresh coffee, Ashton considered whether they could use the threat of rain and the promise of ordering takeout to convince Orym to stay behind and help with closing rather than heading home to start dinner early in the evening.
They were still daydreaming about that when they pushed open the door to the shop, the tinny ringing of bells overhead greeting them half a second before a startled ruff! and Blossom’s footpads skidding across the wooden floor as she raced to the door, wiggling enthusiastically at them.
“I brought coffee,” Ashton called toward the back half a second before stepping around the display blocking their view of the counter, where Orym was leaning with his hand curled around one of the shop’s chipped old mugs, his head bent over the newspaper with a thoughtful furrow deepening the crease between his brows.
“I made some in the back,” he said, setting aside the cup, the cords of his forearms flexing as he pushed off the stool enough to reach Ashton’s mouth for a brief, warm kiss. “But we really need to replace that thing.”
“Tastes terrible, doesn’t it?” Ashton replaced the mug in a swift trade for the freshly refilled tumbler from home, grinning down at the paper. “I see you’ve had a busy morning.”
Orym flipped open the cup and drank with a relieved sigh. “Letters and I finished the restock before we opened.”
From anyone else, it would sound smug and superior, but Orym said it with such unbothered cheer that Ashton decided it one of their top five reasons for loving him. Orym’s mornings at Nobody Reads were an expression of love, anyway: Ashton knew that.
Ashton pushed away at the momentary surge of nagging disbelief – that this was their life and Orym loved them – pulling off their bag and taking a long drink of coffee. “Guess you didn’t leave me anything to do, then?”
“Nothing to do but waste your time with me,” Orym said with a wink, folding the paper open so the front page was visible and turning it around to show them. “Big news today.”
Ashton scanned the front – political news about a new edict from the Quorum across the top, bridge construction between the Smolder and Core Spires that had been held up for months. They were about to ask what they were looking for when the words rose up off the paper, tucked into the bottom corner of the front page: Treshi charges expanded to include robotics engineer’s murder.
“Holy shit.” Ashton read past the headline before flipping toward the middle of the section, searching for the rest of the article. “Where is – Wardens unveiled new charges – already facing charges for blackmail and criminal conspiracy – expected to appear in court today – Treshi expected to continue under house arrest until the trial begins later this year.”
“You heard the news!” Ashton looked up from the paper in time to see Fresh Cut Grass emerge from the stockroom with a cheerful beep.
They dropped the paper back on the counter and Orym picked it up to fold it into a neat square before setting it on top of the rest of the paper. “Holy shit, we did it.”
“Still more to go,” Orym said, taking another drink of coffee. “Anyway, whatever pillars of power are getting rattled further up the spire, it’s been quiet down here.”
Ashton turned over the paper again, scanning through until they saw another familiar name. “There’s a note toward the back of the section about an investigation into Gavis Aranda’s business contracts. I assume Aranda’s going to weather that scandal easily.”
“Maybe.” Shrugging, Orym leaned forward to bump his mouth against theirs again, reaching for his coffee and beginning to climb down from the stool. “Maybe not. I don’t know and–”
“–and neither do I.” They rolled their eyes, dropping the paper back onto the counter in favor of holding Orym in place for a longer, more sedate kiss than the one he’d given them before leaving that morning. “Fuck. You did that.”
“You did that,” Orym corrected. At Ashton’s indignant huff, Orym laughed and wrapped his fist in their shirt, tugging at it with a fond smile that told them it really had been one of his once.
“Fine,” he conceded and pulled their face back down to his own. “We did that.”