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“Lance,” the younger man tried. “Laaaance.” he tried again, now gesturing wildly in front of the other man’s face, hoping for any sort of reactions.
“What?” the older man asked, trying his hardest to mask the fact he’s been distracted, and succesfully failing.
“I’ve been trying to get through you for minutes now. Whussup with you?” he slurred half in excitement and half in concern. Sterling seemed kinda off but it didn’t seem too serious and the scientist was just too all over the place because of this new project to focus on him.
“’S nothin man,” he lied. Looking casual was still one of his strong suits, even if neither of them believed it. His companion was getting way too good at reading him.
“Is this the same ‘nothing’ thats been keeping you away for the past four weeks?” Walter asked. He turned his full body towards the spy instead of just his head, his attention shifting from the new formula for the glitterbomb, to Lances very very subtle fidgeting.
“What are you talking about?” Lance tried his hardest to keep up the pretence. He failed. “Maybe,” he sighed finally.
“Well, if you shared with the group there are good chances I could help,” the young man stated.
“It’s none of your concerne!” the spy screeched, if Walt didn’t know better he’d think the man was being defensive. But ot the greatest spy, Lance Sterling? Never!
A bit less sarcasm and more close attention, and maybe he could’ve caught him, but before Walt could do anything, Lance was already out the door. This wasn’t the first occurance of this for the two. In fact it was the eight. Walt was keeping account.
He knew it wasn’t right, of course he knew. Friends are not experimemt subjects, he knew that much. But whenever he tried to ask or help, Lance was running away, and he couldn’t exactly do anything about that. So he was tying to figure out what was going on his own way instead.
Satating the facts, he tried to figure out what set these reactions off in his partner companion.
First he thought this was about the compliments. He wasn’t quiet about his admiration after all. But that just wouldn’t make sense. The Lance Sterling got complimented all the time. Besides, kudos only occured on four of those eight incidents.
Beckett was still mulling this on the next day. It couldn’t be the close proximity either. Sure he was a very-touchy feely kind of guy, more so than the agent, but that didn’t seem to bother Lance in the past. Surprise him? Maybe, but by now even that was lost. He was practically hanging off of him just last week, and he didn’t seem to care. But then why would he be out the door two days before that from an inocent hug? No this didn’t make sense either, not in the slightest.
The next logical conclusion was his info dumping. He was always going off about something when his the agent lost it. But again, he was yapping all the time, and yet Lance only lost it a few times. And again, there wasn’t a consistant theme. He wasn’t even talking about stuff in the same territory.
It took two more days for the pin to drop. It was falling painfully slowly, all through an awkward eye contact, but it finally hit the tiles of his lab. It took him a Lance Sterling standing at his office doorstep, boquet in hand to get it.
He truly thought Sterling didn’t get his geeky ass flirtying, and even if he did, he surely didn’t take them seriously. Not until the gifts at least.
It wasn’t anything wholly special to Walt. He liked giving gifts to the ones he loved. But he never realised it wasn’t obvious to Lance he loved him. It all started with that pebble. It reminded him of the spy’s eyes.
“Found this on the way to the lab, reminded me of the gorgeous honeybrown of your iris. Couldn’t just leave it there and keeping it would be kinda creepy, so here you go”
Soon it was special made matching mug set that read ‘team weird’. Lance’s had a littl bow tie under the caption, while Walt’s had safety googles over his. The next was one of is favourite books he thought the spy would like, then a very complex origamy pigeon he made on an admittedly boring meeting.
But the peak was the spy-pen. It was made of sleek metal, practical, well developed. Clearly custom made for Lance, but it was just so Walter.
And it was all coming together. He gave the most precious one of his inventions to Lance, the second he got the chance. So following Lance’s heart and mind, it was only logical to give the most sacred part of himself in exchange.
“I just… it’s so stupid. But I—” he begun, “You opened so may doors for me, and to be honest I didn’t even know half of them existed,” he took a deep breath, if Walter didn’t knew better he’d think the great spy was steeling himself for something.
“You can take this either way you want,” he started again. “At first I just wanted to show my adoratin and adamiration, because you are both a good friend and a good role model, even for an old fox like me,
but then I kinda got carried away and decided well, it is what it is so— you gave me kinda mixed signs— or maybe I was just too afraid to read too much into them…
Ayways take this however you decide” he sighed. He extended the flowers but he couldn’t find it in himself to look the scientist in the eyes, so he looked down in defeate instead.
Defeate? What defeate? Walter couldnt’t let that slide, so took the last few steps in between them and hugged the larger man in a very close manner. “You’re a fool, I hope you know that” he chucled, but it came out strangled and kinda wet from the emotions swirling in him.
The way the scientist nuzzled himself into the spy’s chest made Lances heart flutter in hope. He couldn’t help but take a whiff of Walt’s cookie scented shampoo. It sent down a shiver on the brunettes neck.
Then he started chuckling again. Only this time it was even fonder. He took half a step back and looked up at the older man satring owlishly at him. He reached for the buouque and decided to enjoy it’s nice smell. “Thank you,” he spoke again. It wasn’t rare for him to be the more talkative out of the two.
“Let me just—” he stepped away to put the flowers onto his desk. Then he slipped back right into his agents arms.
“Now, where were we?” The agent spoke finally. His personal mix of terrifiedness and emberassement slipping away.
They were right there in font of each other, bare. Neither of them were brave enough to state it but both of them knew just how the other felt about them.
Lance looked down at Walt. He ever so slowly extended his arm to cup the younger mans head. He swore it was just an experimental dip of the head, to see if Walt was following the lead, but soon the were crashing into eachother.
Their lips met, then so did their bodies. Experimental hands began exploring one another. Lances other hand travelled down to Walts hips. Meanwhile Walts hands where holding onto Lances back for dear life. Then one of the shorter mans hands climbed up to the agnts neck.
A fierce mash of lips soon developed into a sweet and gentle kiss. Not a long time passed until kissing ended up as making out. But before they could get too carried away, Lance broke the kiss.
“I don’t want to rush this.” he confessed, phanting.
“It’s not like we don’t have the time in the world,” the other man added, smiling. “It’d only be reasonable to take this new thing on a slower pace.”
But let’s be honest, we all know, being reasonable wasn’t the strong suit of either of them.