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bluejayblueskies · 3 years

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storge

n. familial love, born out of familiarity or dependence; a natural, unforced, instinctual love

Words: 3.3k

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationships: Danny Stoker & Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Tim Stoker (background)

Characters: Tim Stoker, Danny Stoker, Sasha James, Minor OCs

Additional Tags: AU - No Supernatural, AU - Everyone Lives/No One Dies, Internalized Acephobia/Arophobia, Implied/Referenced Arophobia (minor), Aromantic Character, Asexual Character

Summary:

Danny finished the last slice of the pizza they’d ordered, stared at the credits scrolling across Tim’s television screen from the cheesy Valentine’s Day rom-com they’d just finished watching, and said with feigned casualness, “I don’t think that’s for me.”

Tim, who had wanted that last slice of pizza, thank you very much, rolled his eyes and said, “Well, then I’m picking the pizza toppings next time. Maybe then we won’t have a pizza that only tastes like jalapeños.”

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Or, read below (additional warnings below the cut):

Additional warnings: - character forcing himself to stay in a romantic situation even after he becomes uncomfortable - character mentioning the possibility of forcing himself to have sex with someone (doesn’t actually occur)

So here’s the thing: Tim is terrible at giving gifts. It doesn’t matter how long he’s known someone or how many of their favorites he can list off the top of his head—he still always ends up getting them something so incredibly, horribly generic because he just can’t do it. Sasha’s never going to let him live down the time he got her the exact same mug she keeps in the archives because he panicked, okay? And it was the only thing he could think of that wasn’t just candles or soap.

(“I honestly would have preferred soap,” Sasha said as she covered her mouth with one hand to stifle her laugher, the other still grasping the mug. Tim was significantly less amused.)

The one silver lining to the whole thing is that it’s never been a problem with Danny. Not because Tim is necessarily any better at getting gifts for him, but because Danny treats each and every gift from Tim like it’s something incredibly special and unique. Once, Tim got him a six-pack of plain black socks—just to test his theory that Danny was just being nice, or maybe just as a joke (or possibly both)—and Danny said, with a million-dollar smile, “You know, I was just thinking the other day how cool it would look to pair a patterned sock with a black one. This is great, Tim!”

Yeah, Tim’s pretty sure that Danny’s just fucking with him at this point. But honestly, Tim doesn’t really mind. It takes a lot of pressure off him during any of the traditional gift-giving seasons because he knows that whatever he gets Danny, Danny will just smile and thank him like it was what he’d always wanted.

Maybe that’s why Danny does it, Tim thinks as he stares at the dozens of tabs open on his computer, each for a different online retailer. To relieve the pressure.

If so, then Tim’s really ruining the whole thing now, isn’t he? Because instead of doing that follow-up Jon requested two days ago, Tim’s been agonizing over whether to get a mug or a shirt or a pin, or maybe something more personal like those sunglasses he’d seen the other day, or—

Or maybe something from the million other terrible ideas Tim’s had. With a long, drawn-out groan, he pushes back from his desk, stands with a too-loud pop of his back that has Sasha glancing up from her paperwork with a grimace, and makes his way to the breakroom.

He needs coffee.

As he waits for the pot to brew—because he’s the only one who drinks coffee in the archives (and yes, Sasha’s intricately named espresso beverages are technically coffee, but he doesn’t deign to count them)—he closes his eyes and tries to convince himself, yet again, that there’s a good reason he’s putting himself through this, and that no, it is not a stupid idea that has a ninety-nine percent chance of backfiring horribly.

It had gone like this:

Four months ago, Danny had finished the last slice of the pizza they’d ordered, stared at the credits scrolling across Tim’s television screen from the cheesy Valentine’s Day rom-com they’d just finished watching, and said with feigned casualness, “I don’t think that’s for me.”

“Oh, absolutely not. Last time you put pineapple and pepperoni on it, which is grounds for termination from topping-decisions for life.” Danny paused, and then he took his eyes away from the television, looked at Tim, and said, with distinctly less casualness, “I meant the movie. Um. The romance part, specifically.” Then, with a disarming smile: “I’ve got the comedy more than covered, after all. I told you I got that wedding gig, right? Maybe I can try some of my jokes on you.”

Danny opened his mouth again, clearly ready to launch into a demonstration of his latest vocational pursuit, but Tim’s brain had finally parsed Danny’s words enough to say, maybe a bit too abruptly, “Hold on, hold on. Let’s go back to the romance bit, yeah?”

He really, really hoped the statement had come off less accusatory and more encouraging. It must have worked because Danny’s smile faded into an expression that didn’t look afraid, only nervous. Still, Tim felt the need to add, with the edges of his words sanded down into something softer, “Obviously, you don’t have to tell me anything you aren’t comfortable with. But I’m all ears.”

“Mm, they are pretty big,” Danny quipped. “Only going to get bigger, too.”

Tim just sat back on the couch, crossed his arms, and waited. The credits on the screen continued to roll, the peppy pop music that accompanied them disrupting what might have, in any other situation, been an awkward silence. It still felt like an awkward something.

Then, Danny sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, worried it for a few seconds, and said, “Okay, so- you remember telling me about when you figured out you were ace, right?”

“Right,” Tim said.

“Right,” Danny echoed. He fiddled with the silver ring on his left thumb absently, like he always did when he was nervous or when he had a million things racing through his head and he was trying to decide which thread to pull that would make them all come together into a neatly-stitched pattern. “Well, I guess all the stuff you said about liking sex but not wanting it with anyone in particular got me thinking about things that I like. And, uh. Things that I don’t.”

There was another pause. The television screen had gone dark and the silence that stretched over them didn’t feel awkward anymore. Just heavy. Danny gave the ring on his finger another twist and said, “It had never really occurred to me that I could like to do something but not with anyone in particular, you know? Like- okay, so I enjoy flirting. I think all those stupid, cheesy pickup lines are hilarious, and seeing how people react to them is really fun. I mean, sometimes people laugh, sometimes people get annoyed, and sometimes people blush. But I never want anything out of it, you know?”

Danny stared at the blank screen; the profile of his face showed a smile, but the lines of his forehead and the creases around his eyes were tight. Wordlessly, Tim moved closer so that his shoulder pressed against Danny’s, light enough that it wasn’t oppressive but a grounding presence all the same. From the way that Danny relaxed slightly at the touch, Tim decided that it was a good move.

“One time, actually, someone offered to buy me a drink. You would have liked him, Tim—he had this really strong jawline, little bit of a five o’clock shadow, bright red hair. So I got the drink, and we talked, and even though he was funny and I had to stop sipping my drink because I kept choking on it when he would tell another joke, I just had this itching underneath my skin, like I just couldn’t get comfortable. But,” Danny said with a tight smile, “I ignored it. I told myself, You flirted with him first, Danny Stoker, and this is what happens when you flirt with people. Sometimes, they flirt back. So I had my drink. And then another, you know, because drinks are like potato chips, you can’t have just one.

“He didn’t ask me to- to come back to his place or whatever, which was- god, I don’t know what I would have done.” Danny bit his lip, leaned more heavily into Tim’s shoulder. “Probably would have said yes? And I don’t need you to tell me that that would have been stupid. I know.

“Instead, he gave me his number on one of those fancy business cards—I don’t really remember for what company, I threw it away as soon as I got home—and told me to call him. And I knew, as soon as he said that, that I wasn’t going to. That it- it wasn’t fun anymore, because there was this expectation to deliver.” Danny’s forehead creased, and he shook his head slowly. “No, that’s- that’s not quite right. An expectation to reciprocate, maybe?

“The thing is, the idea of romance and dating and all of that sounds interesting in theory, and sometimes I can even imagine myself doing it—albeit not with anyone in particular, just like as a thought exercise I guess. I tried, a few times, to put a specific face to whoever I was going on lovely Italian wine tours with or- or hand-feeding grapes to on a bed on some island. Tim, don’t make that face, wine tours and grape feeding are peak romance. Uh, I think.

“Anyway, anytime I tried to imagine dating someone instead of just dating, I got that same itching feeling under my skin. And I thought, well, I’m just not picking the right people. It’s got to be someone I really like, you know, someone I care about. Clearly, red-haired guy had not been the one.

“And then… I found someone. Her name was Ash and she was just everything I ever could have wanted. She was funny and brave and did this little thing with her nose when she laughed that made me laugh, and she was a much better rock climber than me but I was better at rappelling because she could never trust herself to lean back unless someone guided her down, and I really, really thought that it could be her, you know? I knew that I loved her, and even though most of my standard lines bounced right off her, a few stuck. If I tried, really tried, I even thought I could picture it: every single corny, cheesy date I’d ever imagined, with her face cut and pasted into the image. It was a bit like a bad Photoshop edit, you know, where the edges clearly didn’t fit? But I ignored it because it fit well enough, and she made me happy.”

Danny took a long breath and let it out just as slowly. Tim thought of a million things to say, a million reassurances, that he eventually let sink to the back of his mind and dissipate. Instead, he fought back against the instinct to break the silence with a laugh or a word or just a noise and instead leaned further back against the couch. Patience was not his strong suit, but he could do it for Danny.

Finally, Danny continued, “And then one day, she… she asked me out. I guess I must have looked pretty shocked because she laughed and said that she’d been flirting with me for weeks, just like I’d been with her, and so there was no need to look so surprised. The thing is, I hadn’t even noticed. Every time she’d made some joke and I’d laughed, I’d thought that was just normal. Being friends, you know? Maybe that’s stupid, given that I’d been flirting with her too. Maybe not. I don’t know.

“I said yes. And spent the next four days regretting it. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. We were planning on going out to dinner that Friday, and the entire night before I got maybe an hour of sleep? I just kept thinking, you know, is she going to want to hold hands? Is she going to want to kiss me? Is she going to want to do more than kiss? What about other things, the wine and the grapes and rings and weddings and kids and—”

Danny cut off with a sigh, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Yeah, so I called her an hour before I was supposed to meet her at the restaurant and said that something had come up and I couldn’t make it. Which was a lie of course, and I’m pretty sure she could tell because instead of asking what was wrong or what had come up, she just said okay. In a voice that sounded like it very much wasn’t okay. And when she hung up, I realized we hadn’t scheduled a new date. And it filled me with so much relief that I just felt guilty, because I still loved her, you know? And I just couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong, why I liked to flirt but felt so uncomfortable when it actually worked, why the idea of dating didn’t bother me until it became a reality, why every single ‘crush’ I had just felt so forced even if I cared about the person so much it hurt.

“And then you told me that you were ace, and you talked about how it felt to be ace, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about Ash. I didn’t think that your situation was the same as mine, but it just—it felt close? So I finally thought to look up how I felt. And I’m still not one-hundred percent sure what label fits or whatever, but just knowing that there’s labels at all, that there are people out there who feel the way that I feel and that I’m not just- just doing it wrong—god, it was just this huge weight lifted off my shoulders.”

Danny laughed, a bit harshly, born more of a release of nerves than of humor. “Is it a bit weird that I still really like to flirt? Maybe I should give a disclaimer before every pickup line: Hello, I’m Danny Stoker, I’m some flavor of aromantic and asexual, this flirting is purely platonic. Hmm, that’s a bit wordy.”

Then, a smile cracked Danny’s face in two, tinged with more than a hint of devilish teasing. “Maybe I’ll make a business card.”

Finally, Tim broke his vow of silence with a snort. He nudged Danny’s side with his elbow and said, “It can be a family venture. Stoker and Stoker, aspec brothers in crime.”

Danny’s smile softened into something subtler, and he said, with an unusual amount of sincerity in his voice, “Thanks, Tim. I… I mean, I didn’t think you would react badly, but still. Thanks.”

And Tim’s heart broke just a little, and he pulled Danny to his side and wrapped his arms around him tightly. “Never,” he said firmly. “I’m really glad you told me, Danny. Really, really glad.”

So yeah. Tim can’t mess this gift up, because Danny had trusted him with this part of himself, and Tim really, really wants to support him in every possible way. Even if that way involves cheesy novelty mugs striped with the colors of the aromantic flag.

Ugh.

Tim grabs his distinctly not cheesy plain black mug of coffee and makes his way back to his desk, entirely absorbed in a swirling mess of thoughts filled with blacks and greens and whites and purples. Which is why he doesn’t notice Sasha sitting at his desk until he nearly sits on top of her.

“Christ,” Tim says, jumping back so quickly he nearly spills his coffee. Sasha barely acknowledges him; she’s too busy typing away at something on his computer, and when Tim looks over her shoulder, he realizes with a sickening horror that she’s closed all but a few tabs on his computer. Tabs that he’d carefully curated. Tabs that he needs.

(Tabs full of indecision and terrible, terrible ideas. But he needs them all the same.)

“I hope,” Tim says with a voice that’s only slightly on the saner side of panic, “that there’s a perfectly good reason why you’ve thrown a wrench the size of a small house into my gift planning process? Because otherwise, I am three seconds away from freaking out.”

Sasha waves a hand at him, still not looking away from the screen. “All your gifts suck, Tim.”

“Hey!”

This time, Sasha does look at him, something apologetic in her eyes. “Sorry. But they do.”

Sullenly, Tim says, “Danny doesn’t think my gifts suck.”

Sasha sighs and turns back to the computer. “Danny loves you a lot more than he loves your gifts. But that’s not the point.” She types something on the keyboard, navigates through a few windows without even taking the time to look at their contents. “You’ve been scowling at your screen all day, Tim. And I know it’s not because of that Remmier case that Jon assigned because I finished that yesterday.”

“Oh. Thank you?”

“Yup. You owe me coffee.” Sasha types a few more things, squints at the screen, then makes a noise of triumph. “There. Get him that and thank me later.”

Then, Sasha’s out of his chair and back at her own desk, leaving behind only a warmth that Tim can feel as he takes his own seat and finally gets a good look at what’s on the screen.

Huh.

Tim orders it. And a few days before Danny’s birthday, he has an idea. Maybe the only good gift-giving idea he’s ever had.

So the next time he’s at the shop, he picks up some supplies. And for someone who majored in anthropology and doesn’t know the first thing about graphic design, he’s quite happy with the final product.

And when Danny unwraps the box on his birthday, sat on Tim’s couch with empty boxes of Thai takeout in front of them, the first thing he sees are the cards, set right on the top. It’s a silly little design, a set of two mountains striped with the aromantic and asexual colors, and next to them:

Stoker & Stoker, Inc.

Aspec brothers in crime

Where the flirting is platonic, NOT erotic!

Underneath the cards, there’s a new climbing rope, striped with greens and whites and greys and blacks, and a matching set of metallic purple carabiners, something that Tim absolutely never would have thought of but that’s perfect nonetheless. Danny takes a card in one hand, runs the thumb of the other over the edge of the climbing rope, and looks at Tim.

And Tim thinks he gets it, then. Why people put so much time and effort into giving people thoughtful, meaningful gifts. Because Danny’s expression isn’t fucking with him or relieving the pressure or just being nice or even this was what I’d always wanted. It’s something truer, something softer, something that sits in the pit of Tim’s stomach and burns softly, warming him gently from the inside out

Yeah, Tim’s never going to be able to go back to generic gifts after this. He’s going to need a much larger coffee budget.

(This conviction lasts, at least, until later in the evening, when Tim confesses that Sasha helped him with the gift and Danny laughs and says I figured, before saying in a quieter voice that the climbing equipment is great but the cards were Tim. That the black socks and novelty mugs and vanilla candles were generic but that they were Tim as well and that Danny had made it a game to try and guess what Tim was going to get him that year, keeping a bet with Sasha on how long it would take Tim to accidentally give him the same gift twice.

Hey, Tim says, but his mouth is twisted into a smile. He ruffles Danny’s hair in that way he hates and says that he’ll stick to the basics from now on, then, and they put on some shitty comedy that Danny insists on watching and eat ice cream until their stomachs hurt.

And if Tim sees Danny glancing at the business card every so often, wearing a smile so soft it’s almost melting, he certainly isn’t going to mention it.)

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