Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hey Linhardt, we’re putting Caspar in with you for now! Good luck!”

That was the only warning Ashe gave me before shoving Caspar through the bedroom door and securing it from the outside.

“Ah, what the absolute fuck, Ashe?” I muttered.

“Yeah, what the fuck, Ashe?” Caspar yelled. “What do you mean ‘good luck’? I’m not that hard to deal with and Linhardt actually likes me so it’ll be fine!”

“That’s not what I meant and we both know it, Cas,” I said, burying my face in a pillow again.

“Linny, don’t sleep now,” Caspar whined. “I’m lonely and all alone and being kicked out into non-loneliness only to find myself once again in solitude because my favorite person in the entire universe is choosing sleep over me. Again.”

“I’m not your favorite, we both know Byleth is everyone’s favorite,” I grumbled.

“Not true!” he insisted. “I love you so much Linny and if you could just roll over-”

“Not happening.”

“Well then maybe I can just-”

“Not right now.”

“Aw Linny, you’re no fun. No fun at all!”

“Whatever. I just wanna sleep.”

“All you do is sleep though.”

“You’re the one who fell in love with me.”

“Right! Cuddles?” he asked, and I almost said yes but… well, I couldn’t.

“Nope. Too hot. I’m sweaty and gross and you’re a radiator so nope.”

“No fun,” Caspar huffed.

“Sure. I’m sleeping now.”

“No you’re not!” Caspar nudged my face so that I could see him, grin blinding as the sun and I really wished I hadn’t looked. Goddess could he do puppy dog eyes (or, as he and Ashe called them, kitty cat eyes).

“What do I need to do to be allowed to sleep?”

“Kiss me?” he asked.

“Nah, I’ll wanna keep doing that and I won’t sleep,” I explained.

“That’s… kinda the point?” Caspar admitted. “All you do is sleep anyways, it won’t hurt.”

“I’m tired.”

“Okay, then… hm.”

Caspar stopped talking so I rolled my head back over, thinking I had finally won and was allowed to sleep. Wishful thinking, really.

“What about a game? Or maybe just talking? I’m really bored, Linny! Please?”

“I already said no. Don’t make me do it again.”

“What is the ‘it’ this time?” Caspar asked, and I groaned. “There’s so many ‘it’s, Linny! You could mean saying no again, getting Ashe or Dedue, just… sleeping anyways and ignoring me, so many things!”

I raised my head enough to glare at him and his face donned an expression of realization.

“Oh, that ‘it’,” Caspar whispered.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I need sleep, okay?”

“But Linny-”

“Okay that’s it,” I grumbled, sitting up. “I’m doing it.”

“Linny!”

“Can’t stop me now,” I hissed as I got out of bed and walked over to the bedside drawers. “I’m doing it because I need sleep, don’t try and talk me out of it. If it’s really that bad Ashe or Dedue will help you out, I just want sleep.”

“Linny, do you have to?” Caspar whined.

I shrugged. “You wouldn’t let me sleep.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll let you sleep now!”

“Not enough, you can’t turn back time,” I grumbled, grabbing the ropes out of the top drawer.

“You know this isn’t their intended use, right?” Caspar complained. “You’re not supposed to just tie me up and leave me here!”

“Then how come I do it so often?” I asked.

“Because you hate me?”

“No, you idiot, I love you so much it makes it hard to breathe sometimes.”

“Then why the fuck do you tie me up while you sleep?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe so that you can’t bother me?”

“I think that maybe you just like seeing me tied up!” Caspar said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Now’s not the time, Cas,” I grumbled.

“Then when is?”

“When I’m not halfway into dreamland.”

“But you said before that you never dream?” Caspar frowned.

“It’s an expression, Cas.”

“Right. Those.”

“Now, let me tie you up so I can sleep.”

Caspar jumped out of my reach, grinning. “If I don’t let you tie me up will you be able to?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said, now also grinning.

“I don’t think you will.”

“Oh, is that a challenge I hear?” I asked.

“You bet it is,” Caspar said.

“Then you bet I’ll win!” I exclaimed, lunging for him only to slam into the wall as he stepped away at the last moment.

“Are you two okay in there?” I heard Dedue say through the wall. Okay, maybe we were being a bit loud, but Caspar wasn’t cooperating so it was his fault, really.

“Yeah, we’re fine!” Caspar yelled back in response.

“Linhardt? Are you okay?” Ashe yelled.

“Maybe?” I yelled back. “I just ran into the wall but other than that, yeah I’m fine.”

“Linny, you betrayed me!” Caspar said with mock offense.

“Oh goddess, Linhardt I’m coming in so please get decent if you aren’t already!” Ashe yelled before I heard heavy footsteps as he ran to the bedroom door.

I rolled my eyes. Like I’d want to be anything but decent while I was in this state. Knowing me, if Caspar and I tried to have sex like this I might actually fall asleep during it. I’d done it once… Caspar thought it was hilarious but I didn’t want to do that ever again.

I heard something scraping near the door and then everything clicked. Caspar hadn’t been able to leave the room because they had blockaded us in here. Goddess, he must’ve been annoying them extra badly.

I rubbed at my forehead with a sigh, sitting back on the bed. Caspar sat beside me, face all frowns and innocence like he wasn’t the one who goaded me into running headfirst into the wall.

“Hey Linny, I’m really sorry, man,” he said.

“Okay, you don’t get to use ‘Linny’ and ‘man’ in the same sentence,” I said with a laugh. “It’s just weird. The bro nickname and boyfriend nickname shouldn’t mix, Cas.”

“Got it,” Caspar said, giving me a thumbs-up as the smile went back on his face.

That smile vanished the moment Ashe walked in the room with a furious expression.

“What in Sothis’ name were you two doing in here?” Ashe hissed, walking over to me.

“Uh, I was tying him up?” I said sheepishly. “He wasn’t leaving me alone and that’s the one foolproof way to get him off of me, so…”

“Then how did you run into the wall?” Ashe asked, brow furrowing.

“Well, he was fast and I lunged to grab him,” I started, gesturing for Caspar to finish. He sighed, rolling his eyes.

“And then I may have moved a lot very fast at the last moment and that might have been what caused Linny to run into the wall,” he finished.

“Headfirst, mind you!” I exclaimed. “You goaded me to run headfirst with no hands free to catch myself into the wall!”

“Okay, I get it, I shouldn’t’ve challenged you to catch me and then moved that fast while you were tired,” he grumbled. “Still, though, it was a little funny.”

“Tell that to me and Dedue,” Ashe said with a frown. “We had mini heart attacks when we heard that crash and I was still terrified to investigate in case you two were doing… things.”

“If it had gone my way we would’ve been,” Caspar muttered and I elbowed him.

Ashe finally uncapped the salve he had brought with him and rubbed some on my forehead, mumbling about how stupid and reckless Caspar was and how they should’ve just left him to rot during the virus.

“So, as much as I hate you for that, Caspar,” I started, “I’m not going to tie you up. I expect you to leave me alone while I sleep, maybe go bother Dedue and Ashe instead of me.”

“You can’t sleep after all of that!” Caspar whined. “You can’t be tired after that, really!”

Ashe gave me a look that said, should I go now?

I nodded.

Once Ashe was gone I answered Caspar. “Actually, I think you’re right.”

“Really?” Caspar exclaimed, eyes brightening. “So? What are we going to do?”

“I think I’m going to put these ropes to good use,” I said with a grin. “After all, I think someone needs to be taught a few things about behavior.”

“Oh I’d let you teach me anything, Linhardt,” Caspar said excitedly before dropping his voice to a whisper. “Anything at all for you.”

“OKAY!” I said, shooting to my feet with all of the awkwardness of a teenager who was about to have their first run-in with a dick. “Enough talking! We’re going to do this and you’re going to be quiet now!”

All Caspar did was laugh, the melodic sound intoxicating as I got the ropes back out and put them to much better use than my original intent.

Chapter Text

Dinner time was always a hassle with the amount of competition that was known to go down in the Molinaro-Ubert household. Throw in the fact that Linhardt and Caspar were staying with them and you had a recipe, though the nature of that recipe depended on the day.

Today there was a bit of a challenge about to go down in the house, and Caspar had been complaining about that.

“Can’t you guys just make spaghetti?” he asked. “I miss spaghetti. Linhardt made spaghetti every Friday and I miss it.”

“Our house, our rules!” Ashe said, and I nodded with a smile.

“Oh, come on!” Caspar groaned. “You sound like my parents, I’m going to go hang out with Linny. I don’t wanna hang out with my parents!”

With that, Caspar left the kitchen. Ashe looked at me with a challenge evident in his eyes and I knew that it was time to begin.

“So, which one are we going off of?” he asked.

“Well, Caspar was complaining about missing normal food,” I said. “How about we try to make those corn dogs, see how he likes that?”

“He was complaining about spaghetti specifically, so why don’t we try to make that spaghetti dish?”

“I like the way you think.”

“Your idea was good too.”

“I know.”

Ashe laughed, turning towards the fridge. “You’re always so straightforward, love that about you.”

I just shook my head, pulling out the skillet.

“We’re leaving out the bacon, right?” Ashe asked.

“Linhardt is vegetarian.”

“Ugh, I know!” Ashe complained. “I miss meat so much, we’ve been accommodating too much. We need to get tofu or something next time we go out.”

“I agree.”

We cooked in silence, handing each other ingredients as we worked. Our competition was that we would make the same dish and then serve small portions of both and see which one Caspar liked the best. He was the only reliable one with voting, seeing as he’d eat anything we put in front of him.

When we finished I looked at Ashe’s spaghetti in comparison to mine. They looked exactly the same and I chuckled. We’d gotten too good at this.

“I’m still shocked we didn’t think to use that one yet,” Ashe said.

“I’m mostly surprised Caspar didn’t Google the list and force us to do it.”

“I haven’t mentioned the list yet, so he doesn’t know about it unless you told him.”

“Which I didn’t do.”

“So he doesn’t know, and he can’t force meals on us.”

“If he knew that we were using this website I’m sure he would’ve said something, so I agree that he doesn’t know.”

Ashe smiled, his expression telling me that he was about to say something before his attention turned back to the spaghetti.

“Right! The food! I’ll go get Caspar, I’m less afraid to out of the two of us.”

“And might I ask why that is?” I said with a joking smile.

“Well, when you were Caspar’s roommate in college you’ve… seen things.” Ashe shuddered. “Once you see those things, well, you’re immune to anything else he may throw at you.”

“That’s fair,” I said. “Dimitri was a far tamer roommate, but that may be because he was never in the room.”

“Where was he then?”

I shrugged. “I can only guess half the time. Most of the time when I knew he was with Claude, no surprise there, but when I didn’t know? Only the Goddess knows about those times.”

“I’m surprised that you put up with that considering how much you care.”

“It’s his life, if he was off having secret escapades that he never told me about that was his business,” I said, frowning. “Besides, I didn’t and still don’t want to hear about any things that may have happened between him and Claude. I still don’t know if anything did happen, but it was never worth the risk.”

Ashe let out a bark of laughter at that, the sound melodic like the windchimes on my mother’s door. I simply smiled, gesturing towards the guest room door in an unspoken suggestion to go get Caspar and Linhardt. Ashe nodded and walked away, and I waited for the judge to come out.

-----

I was staring intently at Caspar when he tested the food, and Linhardt was sleeping on the table. I still don’t understand how that boy slept so much, you would think that he has some secret energy supply that wakes up when he finally does. Maybe he does, I wouldn’t know. It was either that or he was spiderman, and I didn’t know which one I liked more.

We never told Caspar who cooked what until after he told us his favorite, simply to avoid bias. He always ended up picking Ashe’s, and no matter how much I tried to add a bit of flair to mine that would make it better it never worked. At one point I even asked Ashe what the hell he did to his food, but he just shrugged and said the secret ingredient was love. He was always so cheesy and I couldn’t help but love that about him.

“This one,” Caspar said through a mouthful of food, pointing at Ashe’s dish. I sighed.

“That’s Ashe’s,” I said.

“Again?” Linhardt grumbled. I guess he wasn’t asleep after all. “Isn’t that, like, all that ever happens? Can’t we just say Ashe is the better cook? Go back to you two cooking together?”

Ashe’s eyes went wide and I chuckled. One of the best things about Linhardt was that he had absolutely no filter unless he was somehow fully awake, which almost never happened. He just said what he thought and I admired that about him. He was either really ballsy or really delirious, and I could never tell which it was.

“I, uh, Dedue’s cooking is amazing!” Ashe stammered. “He just doesn’t have the secret I use is all, I just know how to make Caspar like it better because I lived with him for years!”

“And you’ve been using it?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow. Now this was new; I knew there was a trick, I just didn’t know that Ashe had tailored it specifically to Caspar.

“He likes winning,” Caspar said, flicking his fork in a way that made me glad there was nothing on it. “After knowing him for years it’s easy to tell. He always wanted to be the best at everything he was good at, so he probably started this competition.”

Thinking back on it I realized that Ashe had. He started the competition a week into quarantine under the excuse of boredom and it caught on. I didn’t blame him, if anything I was thanking him. It was fun, after all, whether he was cheating or not.

“I didn’t do it to win!” Ashe protested. “I would never, not with Dedue!”

“Ashe, it’s fine if you did,” I said. “Honestly, if I was competing with anyone other than you I would’ve cheated to win far earlier. It’s infuriating how good you are at this.”

“Then we call it a win for Ashe,” Linhardt mumbled. “Yaaaaay.”

The other three of us burst into laughter. Linhardt was the best source of comedic relief around here, despite his protests that he was the only educated one and we shouldn’t find him funny. I decided that, at least for today, he was definitely delirious.

“So, no hard feelings?” Ashe asked.

“Never.” I smiled. “Say, mind telling me that trick?”

“Maybe I can show you next time,” Ashe said. “For now, though, let’s just enjoy dinner.”

Linhardt finally picked his head off the table and we ate dinner peacefully. Well, as peacefully as one can in a house with Caspar, that is.