Daemons
Chapter 17

“Fell, hurry up! They’re getting away!” Sci had shouted at him, furiously yet skillfully pressing keys on his own keyboard while the daemon resorted to button mashing. They were playing Titanfall and were playing together on the same team, each using one of the two computers in Sci’s dorm room since the smaller skeleton’s techno-geek nature had been all the justification Sci had needed to have two different computers. A member of the enemy team was currently being chased down by the two of them, and despite Sci being turned away from Fell and focusing on the screen on his desk while the taller was on the other side of the room due to space constraints, the scientist was barking orders left and right in an effort to catch them. Fell had learned early on to trust any and all instructions given to him by his soulmate, as the smaller skeleton had logged over hundreds of hours playing the game.

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” The cat daemon had growled, looking up ahead at where he was being led by his teammate. “How the fuck do you do the wall strafe thingy?!”

“Doesn’t matter, there’s a reason you’re piloting the titan. Now hurry up and shoot that bastard before he gets a titan of his own!” The pair had kept running after them, Fell continuously shooting whenever he was sure that Sci wouldn’t be hit. At one point Sci rounded the corner in pursuit, only to freeze on the spot before turning back around to face the friendly titan lumbering after him. “Fell, eject right now!”

While he didn’t think that he’d sustained too much damage, the daemon did as he was told and ejected, watching the anti-titan weapons fired at him from behind and blowing it shortly after he managed to get to safety. “Thanks for the save,” he huffed, turning his attention to the other pilots that were now shooting at the two of them.

“No problem babe,” Sci had said without hesitation, causing his teammate to completely freeze up and feel his face flush red at the nickname. He’d avoided using anything affectionate despite his desire to move their relationship to the next step, knowing that the two of them hadn’t really known each other too long. The distraction had been enough for him to be overrun, quickly gunned down and eliciting a string of curses from the amateur player.

Apparently the scientist wasn’t happy about him being killed, whether that was simply his competitive streak or related to his earlier use of ‘babe’. Either way, Sci was clearly ready to rain hell down on the enemy team, calling his own titan down and proceeding to wipe the floor with them all in the time it took Fell to respawn and get back.

The game round ended shortly after, and thanks to Sci’s last minute push they’d managed to get enough kills for their team to come out on top of the deathmatch. “Woo! Take that you noobs, get wrecked!” The smaller cheered, the daemon grinning at his enthusiasm as he pushed away from his own keyboard, a silent sign that he needed a break. “You’re getting better babe, I’m sure if you keep practicing then the two of us will soon be unstoppable! Wait... why are you blushing?” He asked, the second use of the affectionate nickname leaving the edgy skeleton bright red in the face while the other remained completely clueless as to the cause.

“You... y-you c-called me babe,” Fell simply said, stuttering slightly as he wasn’t quite sure how he should feel. On one hand he was elated, wanting to see this as a sign that they were finally moving past friends, but at the same time he didn’t want to get his hopes up in case it was a simple slip of the tongue or held some significance other than romantic affection to the smaller.

Sci blinked a couple times, as if processing the daemon’s words, before his face erupted in bright green as he realized what he’d said. “O-Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I-I don’t know where t-that came from, it j-just slipped out! I-I just... you weren’t saying it so...” The scientist trailed off as he realized that he’d made another remark of a similar nature that left him hiding and quietly yelling into his hands. “O-Oh god, oh jeez, I-I’m so, so sorry. What’s gotten into me today?!”

Now it was Fell’s turn to process what had been said, his face turning an impossibly deeper shade of scarlet as he managed to piece everything together. Sci really did want to move things along, just like he did! Before he could think of anything else, he lunged to his feet, hugging his soulmate into his chest as he celebrated that they could finally ditch being friends and be something more. “If you wanted me to call you babe, all you had to do was say something. Though if you don’t mind, I might mix in sweetheart or something like that every once in a while.”

“W-What?” The timid skeleton asked, finally pulling his hands away to look up at the skeleton currently hugging him and revealing the bright emerald hue across his cheeks that only seemed to darken with every passing minute. “Really? I-It’s not t-too soon or something like that? I-I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable o-or anything...”

“Sweetheart, that’s the exact reason why I haven’t called you anything like that yet. Didn’t know if you were ready so I figured that I could wait.” He’d waited so long to find his soulmate in the first place, so he figured that he could wait until Sci was explicitly ready for the next step. And damn did it feel good to finally be there.

The smaller took a moment to process that before excitedly hugging back, the pair giggling as they let their awkward and flustered states each subside before continuing. “And here I thought that I was jumping the gun by wanting you to call me babe,” he chuckled, scratching a bit at his cheek. “So does this mean that I get to call you anything special now?”

“Well I guess that’d be fair babe,” he admitted, making sure to use the newly approved title considering it seemed to make his soulmate quite happy.

“Alright, Edgy Mc My Chemical Romance,” the smaller snickered, Fell opening his mouth and closing it repetitively in response to the title.

“Okay first off, I was expecting something that wasn’t a joke. Second, My Chemical Romance is heavily overrated and Panic! at the Disco is so much better,” huffed as he stepped away, playing up an indignant tone as he pretended to suddenly care about his music preferences.

“Sure thing, Edgy Mc Panic at the Disco... I chime in with a haven’t you ever heard of...”

“Closing the goddamn door!” Fell immediately belted out, watching as Sci eagerly shot to his feet.

Without even wasting a beat, the pair immediately moved to the next line of the song, never breaking eye contact as the practically yelled the lyrics. “No, it’s much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality!” They didn’t manage to get anything further though as both of them broke out into laughter, hearing someone down the hall continue and scream out the next line of the song. That only caused more laughter, Sci actually doubling over for a moment before they both managed to get a grip over their giggles.

“Oh! I just remembered something!” The smaller blurted out, the cat daemon watching curiously as he bent down and rummaged in the bottom drawer of his desk for something. How he managed to keep everything so organized in this room was beyond him, as the only things that weren’t immaculately clean were a few random piles of papers held down by either some sort of academic book or a half-finished robot. But that organization meant that Fell wasn’t kept waiting much longer, watching as Sci spun around to face him, still on one knee with something clasped between his hands and the scientist’s signature green blush plastered across his face. Wait, wait, wait! He just got the permission to call Sci babe, were they going to skip straight to a proposal?!

Oblivious to what the daemon was assuming, Sci continued on with what he was doing, including a little speech that only further cemented the idea of what this was in Fell’s mind. “Look, I know we haven’t really known each other for very long, but I really like you... like you. And once I thought about doing this, I couldn’t get it out of my head.”

Oh god, he really was going to propose! What do I do?! What do I say?! Fell thought to himself, his internal panic going unnoticed as the smaller continued, gazing fondly at what had to be a small box clasped in his hands.

“I hope this isn’t too forward of me or that I’m not making this awkward...”

Forget you being awkward, I’m gonna be the one that’ll be a mess!

“But... Oh god I really hope you say yes...”

What the fuck should I say?!

“Will you...”

Think Fell, think! He’s about to say it, you need to have your answer ready!

“Make me the happiest nerd alive...”

To be honest I always thought that I’d be the one to propose... no, focus! He’s doing it! Get ready!

“And go to the upcoming comic convention with me?” As he said this, the smaller opened his hands and held out the VIP guest pass, grinning widely as he waited for an answer.

Unfortunately for Fell, he’d gotten himself so psyched up that he couldn’t stop his mouth from saying exactly what he’d been preparing to say. “Yes, I’ll marry you!”

Both froze and silence filled the room as they looked to each other wide-eyed, one out of shock and the other out of horror. It wasn’t a proposal. IT WASN’T A PROPOSAL! Both of their faces were suddenly flushed with their signature colors, neither one able to get words out for the longest time as they just stared wide-eyed at each other.

“M-M-M-Marry you?!” Sci eventually managed to stutter out, finally finding his voice. “God, we just got to the point of using pet names, I don’t even know if we’re officially dating! How could you think that I was asking for marriage?!”

“You are literally still down on one knee and were hiding that pass like a ring!” Fell immediately countered, trying to salvage the situation in a way that didn’t make him look like a creep. “Your whole speech screamed proposal too by the way.”

That made the scientist pause, finally realizing his position as he seemed to be going back through his words. His cheeks only grew a deeper shade of emerald the longer he knelt in silence, the smaller skeleton eventually groaning as he buried his head in his hands. “Oh god, I’m such an idiot.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t say that,” the daemon immediately countered, kneeling down to hopefully calm his soulmate down. The last thing he’d wanted to do was upset him, cursing his own inability to handle social situations properly as he tried to fix things. “You’re like the smartest person I know, there’s no way you can be an idiot. Now if you want an idiot, one of my brothers managed to climb up onto a ceiling fan and told us to turn it on because he thought it would be funny.”

“Wait, really? That’s dumb... what happened?”

“Oh, the idiot screamed like a girl the second it started moving too fast and we were all laughing hysterically until we got shouted at to turn it off before something got broken. So, in a way he was right, those of us on the ground thought it was hilarious.” Dust was such a moron sometimes, though he was great for a laugh whenever one of his shenanigans inevitably backfired. The story seemed to be effective in calming Sci down as well, the smaller bursting out in laughter at his brother’s idiocy as he gave up hiding his face. “There, now you can’t possibly call yourself an idiot, because I’m stuck with the definition of an idiot.”

While Fell always found himself being a social klutz with most people, Sci seemed to be one of the few that he always managed to find a way to fix any embarrassing mistakes made whenever he tripped over his own tongue. It was one of the things that further cemented in his mind that they were meant to be together. “Okay... okay you win this round,” the scientist relented, still giggling at the story the cat daemon had shared with him. “So... about the question I actually asked...” He trailed off as he looked to him expectantly, waiting to get a proper answer this time.

“The answer’s still yes babe. Both to going with you...” The edgy skeleton leaned forward, placing a quick kiss on his companion’s forehead without any warning before pulling away with a smirk. “And to being your boyfriend.” As expected, he managed to stun Sci into silence once again, watching as the green quickly spread across his face again and he returned to hiding in his hands. Muffled screaming could be heard coming from him that only made Fell laugh, the taller shifting and pulling him close as he gently rubbed his skull. “You know you’re really cute when you’re flustered, right babe?” That comment only led to more muffled screaming, though this time the nerdy skeleton moved to hide his flushed face in Fell’s side instead. It left the daemon blushing as well, but he wasn’t going to complain, not when he’d wanted to be this close to him for what felt like so long.

After the pair managed to both come to terms with what was said and calm down, the night progressed much the same as any other night they hung out. They played a few more rounds of games, ordered in pizza using Sci’s university discount, binge watched some shows while eating said pizza, and Fell eventually left for the night. The main differences were the looks the two kept sharing, the awkward giggles as they would look away, neither quite sure what to make of their new official status as boyfriends or what kind of change it would mean for their current relationship. Fell for the most part just didn’t want to push his luck and say something embarrassing again, once was enough for a day in his opinion.

“Guess I’ll see you this weekend,” Sci stated with a smile as they were saying goodbye, the daemon wishing that he could be brave enough to ask to stay the night or see him sooner. But he knew that his soulmate still had his own work and studies to do, and the last thing he wanted to be was in Sci’s way. As he handed over the VIP pass, he paused as if having a lightbulb moment. “Oh, I’ll need your help grabbing some stuff from my workshop when we leave, so just swing by there instead of here Saturday morning.”

“Workshop instead of room, got it,” Fell repeated, taking the pass and carefully shoving it into his pocket so that he wouldn’t lose it. See ya Saturday then babe.” He quickly leaned in to place a kiss on the smaller skeleton’s cheek, quite enjoying the smile that the simple notes of affection were getting him. He didn’t dare push his luck and try for the mouth yet, honestly just content that they were now officially boyfriends.

As he turned around and left, he instinctually took out his phone to update the others, informing them that he’d be unavailable at any point this weekend, only to glare at the date displayed on the lock screen. Why did it have to be Wednesday? That meant that he had to wait two whole days to spend time with his little nerd. Sighing, the cat daemon proceeded to send his message to the group chat, snickering at how Dust immediately whined about how he’d had his date interrupted while Nightmare seemed fine with him taking the weekend off. It was at that point that their leader decided to share that he wouldn’t be available on Sunday either, outright refusing to offer anything more even when pestered by their group’s resident moron. Fell for the most part wrote it off as Nightmare either having plans with his newly discovered soulmate or with his twin brother, as according to Killer things between those two weren’t the best right now either.

Those two days seemingly dragged on forever, his actions not much better than Reaper as he was for the most part content to simply wait it out and be ready to go for Saturday. He couldn’t even hang out with Horror like he usually did when he had nothing better to do, as the snake was apparently spending his time pampering his little dancer, something about shaken confidence or something. The cat daemon had for the most part lounged about the mansion after completing the few tasks assigned to him, mostly recon since Nightmare’s paranoia had shot through the roof ever since Reaper’s encounter with a hunter in the heart of the city.

With nothing discovered that could cause issues for any of them and nothing of interest happening for the most part in general, Fell eventually managed to make it to Saturday and found himself outside of Sci’s private workshop at 7:30 in the morning as requested. It was a bit earlier than he usually liked to get up, but the excitement of seeing his soulmate was more than enough motivation to get out of bed.

Shortly after knocking on the door, it was flung wide open to reveal Sci, though it took him a minute to realize who it was. Other than his signature glasses, his little scientist’s look had completely changed. He looked like an army soldier from a science fiction movie, leaving him gawking without saying anything at first. “I’m gonna take the stunned silence instead of a hello as a sign that you like my costume?” The nerdy skeleton offered with a laugh, causing Fell to blink a couple times as he processed that comment.

“Costume?”

“Yeah! I mean we’re going to a convention right, and half the fun of going is dressing up in cosplay!” Oh god, the daemon just couldn’t handle how cute Sci got when he was passionate about some nerdy thing, even though Fell still didn’t understand what he was going on about half the time. “That’s why I asked you to show up so early, the convention doesn’t open its doors until 9, so that’ll give me enough time to make sure your costume works properly!”

Now Fell was even more confused than before, once again asking for clarification in possibly the shortest way he could manage. “My costume?”

“Yep! I know I kind of sprung this on you last minute, so I’m really hoping that this works. I originally built it for my friend Geno since he’s usually my con buddy, but since he’s in the hospital you might as well wear it.”

“Oh okay, that’s cool. So what did you... oh my god is that a titan?!” He yelled out, finally seeing what Sci had been dragging him towards. It looked like the mech had been ripped right out of the game, although designed on a much smaller scale to be practical for a convention setting.

His reaction seemed to be exactly what Sci was hoping for, the scientist’s eyes practically sparkling as he ran over to his creation. “Yep! Built this beauty from scratch myself! Isn’t it amazing?! We’re so gonna have some of the best costumes in the whole con! Everyone will want to take pictures with the amazing titan and its pilot!” He gestured to himself as he said pilot, the edgy skeleton finally cluing in as to why Sci’s outfit seemed so familiar. He was dressed as one of the titan pilots from the game, though standing beside a titan made it infinitely more obvious.

“How... did you manage to make this?” The daemon mumbled, standing in awe before his boyfriend’s creation and wondering if he was even able to touch something this cool. “It looks just like the ones from the game.”

“It does?! Really?!” His words only seemed to further excite the smaller standing beside him, leaving the proud and mature scientist acting like a giddy child. “I know I worked really hard to make it as accurate as possible while still making it something feasible for the con, so you have no idea how much it means to me to hear you say that!”

While his boyfriend continued to ramble on about certain features that went completely over Fell’s head, the daemon merely marveled at how smart Sci really was. The smaller had explained that his research was in robotics the first time he came over and found half a dozen partially assembled gizmos scattered across the dorm room, but this went way beyond those little trinkets. This looked like a walking, functioning titan, and if he didn’t know that it was a costume, he’d think that the thing was loaded to the brim with the same weapons as its in-game counterpart.

“Fell... Fell? Fell!” The daemon finally managed to snap himself out of his little trance, turning to his eager boyfriend who kept waving his arms around in the direction of the now open machine. “Come on! I gotta make sure everything works! You’re around the same size as Gen so space shouldn’t be the issue, but I still gotta run diagnostics and brief you on the controls!” The scientist was practically pushing him in at this point, Fell mutely following along for the most part as this was still quite overwhelming.

Once he finally managed to climb up to the cockpit of the fake titan, the edgy skeleton paled and found himself wondering how the hell this was simply just some costume. “Sci, baby why does this look like the inside of a plane cockpit?” There had to be more buttons in here than he had bones!

“Oh come on, it’s really not that bad! Just get in, you big baby, and I’ll run you through a little tutorial.”

“You’re treating this like this is some video game and I have absolutely zero risk of stepping on you.”

“That’s because you don’t! This beauty has the latest collision avoidance software which warns you of any obstacles that you might not immediately see, including me. And if I ever somehow manage to get myself directly in your way, it’s designed to prevent you from moving if it deems current trajectory to be hazardous to an individual or property.”

The daemon paused, turning around to make his bewildered expression clear to the smaller. “Sci, English babe.”

While the bespectacled skeleton frowned a bit at the request, he was quick to oblige. “You won’t step on me or anything, I designed it that way. Think of it as... like a giant Roomba! The most you’ll do is bump into someone! And at that point it’s their own fault for running into an 8′ tall mini titan.” Fell understood that explanation far more, though he was now picturing the robot heading straight in a given direction until it hit something before suddenly changing directions and going until it bumped something again. Sighing as he figured that any argument he could ever come up with would be simply explained away by his genius boyfriend, the edgy skeleton just bit the bullet and fully climbed in.

The chair he was greeted with was actually quite comfortable, the kind he figured that he could easily spend an entire day sitting in without issue. “Okay, I’ll admit that this is nice,” he muttered as he sat down, quickly getting comfortable. This wouldn’t be a bad kind of chair to take a quick cat nap in.

“It should be, the friend I designed it for is always in and out of a wheelchair so I designed it to be something that he could sit in all day,” Sci called, though his voice drifted away towards the end of the sentence. Before Fell could ask what was going on, the machine suddenly shifted as the panel in front of him lit up, the cat daemon clinging to the armrests for dear life as the metal contraption began shifting and shaking before the outside light disappeared entirely and he was sealed within.

A large screen illuminated next, a quarter of the screen showing Sci’s face while the rest showed the front door to the workshop and everything else in front of the titan. His boyfriend looked up from what he could barely see was a keyboard only to snicker at how freaked out he must’ve looked. “You can let go of the seat now Fell, you’re fine,” he soothed, watching as the taller slowly eased his death grip from the armrests and began to relax so that his eyes weren’t as wide as moons. “There you go! Alright, I’m just running initial systems checks, stuff like ventilation, lighting, hatch locks...” He trailed off to run these checks, Fell taking the chance to explore the interior of the titan.

While the thing looked intimidating from the outside, only about half of the lights were lit up to where he could see what they were... and for some reason, the setup closely mirrored the keyboard controls used to play the game this damn thing was based off of. Maybe Sci did that on purpose to make everything more intuitive? If his thoughts of the controls lining up were correct, then that meant that he knew how to move this thing...

“Don’t touch,” Sci ordered even though he barely looked up from his work, the edgy skeleton flinching back into his seat. “Just give me a minute, I can’t have any conflicting commands while still running system checks.” So he sat there for probably another ten or fifteen minutes of waiting before being given the all-clear. And after that came the tutorial, a brief rundown of every illuminated button on the panel that confirmed his suspicions of the intent behind the layout. It was a little more confusing though, as instead of weapons controls, he had to learn the finer motor skills that the robot was capable of and how to control something like its hands. A lot of it seemed to be computer controlled for the most part, which made things significantly easier to control for the technologically illiterate skeleton stuck trying to pilot the thing. One thing he was quite happy about was the fact that apparently all of the buttons and controls not currently illuminated were also deactivated, meaning that he couldn’t accidentally flip a switch and engage insta-kill mode or something like that.

“Remind me why I’m not the one dressed like a soldier?” He whined partway through, finding all of this really hard to keep track of. While he loved and praised Sci’s intelligence any chance he could get, the fact that it was far beyond the daemon’s occasionally left him feeling frustrated or inept... this was one of those times.

His boyfriend looked up from his work with an apologetic smile, finally pulling away from the panel he’d been working at for at least half an hour now. “Sorry Fell, but I need to stay on the ground. Not only am I the one that knows how to navigate the con, but I’m also the one that needs to be capable of overwriting systems on the fly or initiating emergency procedures if something goes horribly wrong during the con. Which it shouldn’t!” He quickly added once he saw Fell starting to freak out again, managing to calm him before he got too worked up. “But I can’t do any of that if I’m the one in the cockpit, and you wouldn’t know what to do in case of a system failure or something unexpected.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he grumbled, sighing as he eased up on his own frustrations to avoid upsetting the other. “Well, we’ve still got close to an hour before this thing starts, should we get started heading there?” the other visibly perked up at his suggestion, the small camera focused on his face able to capture his wide smile as he led the way.

Walking went smoother than he thought it would honestly, the titan moving naturally as he used the keys in front of him to control its movement. Rotation was a little slower on the response time than he was used to, but that was a limitation of physics and the fact that he didn’t have some disembodied third person view of everything at once like in the game. The real fun though, was transit. Fell didn’t like being gawked at on a normal day, associating attention and stares with danger as anyone in a crowd of humans could really be a hunter looking for any clue that he was their prey. This time was a bit different though, as he felt everyone staring at the thing he was inside instead, everyone looking at the 8′ tall machine just barely sitting on a train seat and dwarfing his companion by comparison, a train ticket tightly clasped between its metal fingers that proved it paid to ride.

As they travelled, the stares didn’t ease up, only getting more intense as more people got on towards the city center. But the closer they got to the convention, the more stares of awe he found himself registering. Other people dressed in costumes, all gawking in shock at the large robot on the crowded train. Eventually the crowds grew too heavy that Fell, using a newfound sort of courage that allowed him temporary expertise over the controls, plucked his boyfriend from the seat beside him and protectively placed him on the machine’s lap. This of course left his little scientist completely flustered, and many of the onlookers that had yet to see the machine move were now quietly freaking out to those sitting with them. Fell could care less, only wanting to make sure that he never lost sight of Sci for a second in this chaos.

Eventually they came to their stop, with the daemon managing to figure it out even without Sci telling that it was theirs from the sheer number of people in strange outfits getting to their feet. He let go of his protective hold over the smaller monster, offering instead his hand as they managed to push their way off of the crowded train and make their way out of the station. One nice thing about piloting this thing was it was easy to get people to back off and give them space since nobody seemed to want to mess with the miniature titan.

They made it two steps out of the train station before two girls in maid outfits ran up to them with their phones out. “Can we get a picture with you guys?!” The one with the phone squealed, Sci quick to agree as they snagged a random person to hold their phone while the scientist instructed his boyfriend on how to pose the robot nicely for pictures.

By the time the girls were done and on their way, another person had stopped to ask them the same thing... and another, this time just wanting a photo of the two of them. This continued on for a good ten minutes, the two skeletons altering poses every so often before they were eventually free from the latest wave of train riders and managed to actually make it to the convention. Fell had to admit, it was kind of fun to pose for the photos.

“Aw crap,” Sci muttered as they got to the security check, his glare being directed in the direction of the security guards up ahead.

“What’s wrong babe?”

“The guard up ahead, the one with his face all bandaged, guy gives monsters grief every single year and yet the con still hires him despite the numerous complaints. Is it bad if I hope that all those bandages are because someone cut up his face?”

“Nope, not in the slightest,” Fell snickered before turning his attention to the security guard in question, quietly enjoying how the bandages crossed along his face in a way that just barely missed his eyes and made it clear that the asshole had recently suffered a very bad day. “Any way for us to avoid him?”

“Not unless we get lucky enough for the queue to be just the right length that we get the other security guard instead of him, he’s not nearly as bad and probably would let us in without much hassle by comparison.” The smaller sighed as he led the two of them into the queue of con guests waiting to be admitted, both of them hoping to avoid the racist prick.

One of the advantages of being in an eight-foot-tall mechanized suit was the fact that Fell for once in his life towered over everyone else, able to clearly see the number of people between them and the security checkpoint. And as he kept counting, the daemon realized that, since the line split at one point and it worked out that roughly every other person or group went to the one guard, the two of them were gonna get stuck with the prick. They were quickly approaching the split point, with the edgy skeleton making a last-minute decision as he called out, “Hey Sci, something’s not working right on this, I can’t move.”

“What?! But you were just moving!” the scientist cried out, likely distressed that his precious creation was ‘broken’. Yet when he went to look at the video feed that let him see his boyfriend’s face, he was met with Fell grinning from ‘ear to ear’ while gesturing for the smaller to stay quiet about what he was doing. Quickly catching on, Sci smiled before he let out a dramatic groan and stepped to the side, letting people go ahead of them while he ‘fixed’ the suit.

The two played it up perfectly, making it seem like they were running some complicated diagnostics while others wordlessly slipped past or wished them well in getting the titan moving again. While Sci checked things over, Fell kept tabs on the number of people and the groups going past them, waiting a bit to keep it from being obvious. Once his count hit a magic number, he grinned and pressed the key to move it forward, feeling it lurch to life once more and chuckling slightly as it startled the others in line. “Hey, you fixed it babe!”

“Guess I did,” the smaller chuckled, the people next in line being kind enough to let them back in. And Fell’s counting proved to be spot on, the two of them making it into the proper line and avoiding the Scarface rip-off. The man seemed to know exactly what they’d done, a fierce glare on his face, though that might’ve just been due to the fact that Sci’s costume didn’t hide that he was a monster. The normally timid scientist sent the glare right back, with Fell rotating the titan to look at him. Having the robotic suit honed in on him seemed to be enough to encourage him to get back to his job, leaving the pair to head through their own security check with zero issues minus a brief examination of the titan to ensure that there were no weapons on it.

Once they were safely inside, the pair looked to each other before bursting out in laughter. “Okay, I get that you were saving our butts there, but don’t scare me like that again!” The smaller playfully chastised, smacking the side of the machine with the back of his hand.

“What? I panicked! You said he was an asshole, so I didn’t want us to have to deal with it! I just happened to make use of the fact that for once in my life I’m taller than everybody and did some basic counting, then immediately acted on the first idea I had. At least it worked though.”

“Yeah, yeah, just yet again, don’t scare me like that. I like you, but if you break my precious baby then I will make you suffer.”

“Ooh, I’m soooo scared,” Fell said sarcastically, making the titan wave its arms around for dramatic effect. “What are you gonna do? Use big words on me?”

“Depends, are the words ‘manual control override’ big enough for you?” The skeleton soldier asked, bringing up the small arm-mounted computer that he’d been using for systems checks and their shared camera feed.

“Manual contr-aaa!” The cat daemon screamed out as everything started lighting up in front of him, all the buttons and controls turning red while his external camera went dark and was replaced with red text saying ‘manual control override engaged’. All of a sudden the titan lunged into motion, leaving the edgy skeleton completely disoriented as it spun around and moved completely out of his control, the machine remaining unresponsive to his panicked button mashing. Honestly though, it was a pretty accurate reflection to how he sometimes got in the video game.

While Fell was for the most part in a blind panic as he tried to stop the dizzying motion, one detail did manage to catch his attention. All the lights on the console were lit up, including the ones that had been left grey and deactivated for him. And as he read over some of the now active controls, the skeleton paled. They sounded like weapon systems, ones directly matching a titan out of the game.

Before he could look over all of them or truly confirm his suspicions, the motion stopped as suddenly as it started and the controls went back to how they used to be. As the daemon shook off the dizzy sensation, a glance towards that side of the panel revealed the controls grey out and unreadable once again. “There, I think that should be enough,” Sci’s voice called out, ripping his focus from the controls to the camera that was once again live. His soulmate had such a smug look on his face while several onlookers surrounded them, many with their phones out as they took pictures or video.

“What... did you make me do?” He hesitantly asked, only for Sci to spin around and refuse to answer. “Sci? Babe come on! Tell me, what the hell did I just do?!”

“I’ll show you later Fell, but come on, the events are just opening up and I don’t want to miss a thing!” The scientist gestured for him to follow, Fell quick to do so as he didn’t want to lose his boyfriend in this massive place full of strangers.

In Sci’s own words, he wanted to give Fell the ‘full con experience’, taking him to panels and shows, walking him through the vendor hall and artist alley where the two spent way too much money, and lots of pausing for photos. The pair even entered the costume contest in the couples category, managing to get third place. Honestly the daemon was just surprised that they were so close to winning, even if he knew their costume was pretty good.

“Still can’t believe we lost the contest, my baby is beautiful and perfect!” Sci complained as the two neared his workshop, bags of merchandise in hand after a long day of walking around the convention and trying to see everything at once. The scientist wasn’t even walking right now, instead curled up in Fell’s robotic arms while hugging an oversized cat plushie that he’d had to have when he saw it. The cat daemon still couldn’t deny the overwhelming happiness that he’d felt learning that his soulmate was obsessed with cats and absolutely adored them, having cheerfully listened to him rant about how he wasn’t allowed to have one in his dorm room so he instead regularly left food out for the campus strays by his workshop to encourage them to visit him.

“To be fair, the other costumes were pretty good. Still can’t get over how the two winning couples were gay though.”

“Yeah, guess I can’t get mad that Tony Stark and Dr. Strange got first, with the amount of Marvel fans there must be and the quality of their costumes they kind of deserve it. That kiss was a purely dirty move to get the shippers going crazy though. The puzzleshipping was also a really nice surprise, they pulled it off pretty well.”

“Puzzleshipping?” The edgy skeleton echoed, confused by what his boyfriend was referring to.

“The second-place couple? Yu-Gi-Oh? Please tell me you know one of the most iconic card games in nerd history.” When the daemon remained silent, the smaller sighed and shook his head in disappointment. “I have so much to teach you.”

“Alright, it’s a date then,” Fell simply said, smirking as his soulmate’s face went emerald green and he began sputtering. “Damn, you’re so cute when you’re flustered.” As the daemon laughed he reluctantly put his boyfriend down, the couple finding themselves in front of Sci’s workshop.

“Fell,” Sci whined, giving up on stopping his boyfriend’s laughter as he went to open the door and let them in. Only he stopped halfway, bursting into giggles as he apparently found something quite funny. “I just realized, all three finalists in the couples contest were so gay!”

It took Fell a moment to realize what he meant, his own face going scarlet as he burst out laughing as well. It didn’t take the pair long to get inside and for Sci to get his boyfriend completely out of the suit for the night. Honestly the taller skeleton was just thankful that going to the bathroom wasn’t a concern of his or that suit would’ve been far more awkward to deal with.

Sci had a bit of work to run on the titan once he was out, so the edgy skeleton simply waited, letting him run his performance checks or whatever they were. Seeing that he was waiting for him to finish, the scientist beckoned him over with a grin. “Here, why don’t you check this out while I’m finishing up? I shouldn’t be too much longer, I just want to make sure all systems are still running at peak performance and nothing seriously broke while we were out.”

Since he really didn’t have anything better to do, Fell took the phone that had a YouTube video loaded up and ready to play. He didn’t think much of it when he pressed the button, never even bothering to check the title of the video since the player had already been full screened. And all it took was a single second of footage for his face to burn bright red. There was him, in the titan, dancing the Fortnite default dance. “This is what you made me do when you locked me out?!” He screeched, thoroughly embarrassed while his boyfriend was now dying of laughter.

“That’s what you get for messing with the nerd that built your robot!” He squealed, falling over himself and his computer as he just couldn’t stop laughing. “God, I don’t know how I wasn’t dying laughing when that happened, I don’t even like that stupid game but it was either that or Gangnam Style!”

“Think I would’ve rather done Gangnam Style,” the cat grumbled, looking away from his giggling mess of a boyfriend. His keen eyes caught a detail though, one that should’ve seemed to out of place but didn’t due the video reminding him of what he saw when the titan was out of his control. In one corner of the workshop were several pieces of plate steel, almost all of them with holes shot through them. He’d seen enough in his life to recognize most of the damage as bullet holes, though the grouping was so clustered together in most cases from what he could see that there weren’t single, distinguishable holes in the metal but rather one large chunk missing from the center. One even looked like the metal had been burned and melted through rather than blasted apart, and there were a couple piles of destroyed metal near the discarded plates.

Once again before he could focus on them too much, Sci stole his focus away as he announced that he was done and had even managed to change out of his costume, leaving him in his typical clothes minus his lab coat that was neatly hung up nearby. And since Fell only saw those plates due to his enhanced vision, he decided not to say a word about them or what he’d caught on the control panel. Sure, he was curious, but he also knew the old saying about curiosity and cats.

“I hope you had fun today. Looking back, I can’t help but worry that I took you to too much at once.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it sweetheart, I very much enjoyed it. It was a little overwhelming at first, but it felt nice to be more... myself in public for once. Nobody judging me or expecting me to act a certain way. Walking around in the titan was pretty damn cool too, though if you ever make me do a Fortnite dance again I’ll... come up with something for revenge. I don’t know what yet, but I’ll do something!”

The scientist let out a light-hearted laugh at the pretty much empty threat as they walked back to Sci’s dorm room, the daemon figuring that walking him back was the least he could do and it would ensure his soulmate’s safety despite the relatively secure area. “So... is Gangnam Style still on the table?”

“... Maybe.” It wasn’t much longer before they made it, Fell honestly disappointed that their day together was over already. “Can’t wait until we can hang out again,” he sighed, hoping that it would be soon.

“Um... you mean tomorrow?” The daemon blinked a couple times, his wide-eyed stare causing the smaller to laugh as it became clear that he really didn’t know. “The convention’s a three-day event thanks to a long weekend, and this was day one. If you’re up for it, the VIP passes cover all three days and there’s plenty of day-specific events that we can go to. Some vendors are also only there certain days, so it’s fun to check out absolutely everything all three days to make sure you’re not missing something amazing... like this wittle guy!” Sci immediately cooed as he waved his stuffed cat around, snuggling into it while Fell watched on fondly.

This was the dork that he was meant to spend the rest of his life with... and he couldn’t be happier. “Don’t worry babe, I’d be more than happy to go with you the other two days. I can just show up at your workshop tomorrow morning at the same time if that works with you.”

“Really?! That’s great! Yeah, just show up tomorrow morning and we can stuff you back in the titan for day two, there’ll probably be even more people taking pictures so it should be even more fun to wear! Thanks Fell, you’re the best!” The smaller ran over and gave him a big hug, one that took the daemon a second to process before he happily returned it. The kiss to the cheek though was something that left him fried, both of them blushing from the action as Sci suddenly got timid. “S-See you tomorrow Fell, I-I’m looking forward t-to it. H-Hope you don’t m-mind, b-but I k-kinda booked us for a m-maid c-café.” With that the scientist waved goodbye, collected his purchases, and left, leaving behind his stunned boyfriend.

Fell eventually stopped waving to the now empty space in front of him, managing to turn around and stumble his way back to the main path so that he could head home. As he made the solo journey, three things dominated his thoughts. The first was that kiss, the sweet gift from his boyfriend still leaving his head reeling and his soul fluttering, red staining his cheeks the more he thought about it. The second though were those metal plates and the deactivated controls he’d seen, finding himself wondering if he was making a bad jump in logic or if those clues really pointed to what he thought they did. And the third was Sci’s mentioning of a maid café, the cat daemon having no clue what exactly was involved in that event. And while it was probably something innocent and fun, the edgy skeleton couldn’t keep his thoughts from being dominated by the thought of his bashful little nerd all dressed up in a maid outfit. Maybe he’d have to keep his eyes open tomorrow when they were checking out the vendor hall, and if he was lucky it’d be his turn to give Sci a costume to wear.

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