Work Text:
The house was too quiet.
It was also a chaotic mess, with plates and glasses, bowls with spoons poking out of them littering every flat surface in the area, papers on every other in cluttered stacks, schematics and notes, and a screwdriver or two lying exactly where they could be painfully stepped on in the night.
Not that Stretch knew from experience or anything.
Stretch took a moment to kick halfheartedly at the pile of books that was rising around the sofa like turrets in a paper castle. It was enough for him to gain access and he squeezed through to settle onto the cushions. He gave the television a considering look but he'd just sat down and since the remote was currently lost somewhere in the bowels of Castle Sofa Cushions, he decided to give it up as a loss. Spending an hour not finding anything to watch on Netflix was a decent time waster but he'd gotten sick of it two days ago.
He was trying to decide between the choice of going to the kitchen for the seventh time to find nothing he wanted to eat in the refrigerator or poking through the books surrounding him and not finding anything he wanted to read when his phone rang. That, at least, was in his pocket and it only required him finding which one it was in rather than braving the medieval furniture chaos.
On the third ring, he managed to press answer, "thank you for calling the skellie whore zone, you phone 'em, we bone 'em, how may i pleasure you?"
"You aren't funny." Despite his words, Stretch was pretty sure he could hear a smile in Edge's voice. Pretty sure. Either that or it was the weird underlying buzz that Stretch could always hear when he took a call from overseas. Sans said he was imagining it and Stretch had told him that it was size of his dick that required imagination. The conversation had gone somewhat downhill after that but at least Stretch had gotten half a dozen new insults out of it.
"my thousand twitter followers beg to disagree."
"They don't live with you," Edge pointed out and yeah, that was definitely a smile.
Stretch closed his eye sockets, listening to the buzz and the very faint sound of Edge breathing. "you know, you don't have to call me every night. i know it's three o'clock in the morning there."
"It is and if I believed for a minute you'd allow it, we'd be Skyping," Edge said. "But since I know you the way I do, I am fully aware that you've been working on whatever blasted project you've got going on right now the entire time I've been gone. I can also guess that you don't want to give me a chance to see the dark circles under your sockets, that you've been wearing the same clothes for three days, and that you'd need at least a couple of minutes to push all the dirty dishes and clutter out of camera range."
"you know me so well," Stretch murmured. He lounged back on the sofa, ignoring the lumps of unwashed laundry and the occasional shoe beneath him. "how are things going?"
"The negotiations are going fine, probably because I have nothing to do with it," there was a creak of springs and Stretch imagined he was settling back on the bed. "They can list me as a diplomat if they like, but as far as trade agreements go, I'd rather keep to the security detail with Red."
"yeah? how's that going, taking orders from your bro?" Stretch teased. With a grimace, he reached under his back for whatever was poking him. A hardback copy of 'How to Talk to Dogs in Spanish". When had he gotten that?
"On the first day he told me that since I went by 'Boss' in Underfell, he'd made a list of more appropriate titles for me to call him," Edge said dryly. "Amongst them were, 'His Honorable Grand Poobah, Holder of the Fires of Tintantabar' and 'Kevin'."
"i hope you went with kevin."
"I went with ignoring him and calling him Red, exactly as I always have."
"uh huh," Stretch shifted, trying without success to find a more comfortable position. No wonder no one used laundry as furniture, it was terrible for lumbar support. "so, is this where we have phone sex? i'm asking for a friend."
"I would normally be agreeable to that, but I am actually tired," Edge said softly and Stretch couldn't even pretend that his own exhaustion wasn't relieved to hear it. "I only wanted to hear your voice before I went to bed."
There should be something smart and clever he could say to that. Something teasing and distracting, a quip or a pun, something that would make Edge sigh in exasperation, and he'd make that expression. The one that looked like he was annoyed but that Stretch knew meant he thought Stretch was hilarious, that inside he was laughing and he loved it. Stretch could see it in his eye lights, Edge let him see it, always, he never hid it, he always let Stretch see it. Always.
Except right now.
Instead, Stretch said, his voice rough and small and probably not at all what Edge was hoping to hear, "yeah."
Another rustle, Edge shifting on the bed and Stretch knew for a fact that Edge had stripped the bed when he'd gotten to the hotel and put on his own sheets. He'd make do with borrowed blankets but never sheets. One of his quirks and Sans had speculated on it once, how odd it was that a Fell monster would be so fussy and Stretch wished he could explain better that it was because he was from Underfell that Edge was so picky, control issues all the way around.
Sans hadn't been mocking him for it, though, had even offered to pack an extra set into his own meagre luggage, and if they weren't already friends, Stretch would have kissed him for it. With tongue, if necessary.
"It's only for three more days, snowflake," Edge said softly.
"i can count, asshole."
"I know. Do me a favor? Try to get some sleep tonight?"
"you don't need to worry about me so much," Stretch said and it was a challenge to keep his irritation from his voice. Edge had called to hear him, not his issues.
"I know I don't. I do it anyway because I love you, brat." And Stretch had to close his eyes against that warm affection, the love in that voice that ran so much deeper than the simple words. He wasn't…he…it was too much for him and Stretch figured they probably both knew it. He didn't deserve all that, he really didn't.
But he took it as greedily as a wilting flower in a rainstorm.
"i love you, too," Stretch managed, forcing it past his tight throat; not because it wasn't true but because it was. It sounded raw and wrong, and yet he could almost feel Edge relaxing from a thousand miles away.
"And make sure whatever cleaning service you're secretly planning on bringing in comes the day before we come home, to give the house time to air," Edge said dryly.
"no idea what you're talking about, lover," Stretch breezed out. "get some sleep yourself, okay?"
"I will. Goodnight."
"'night." Stretch touched the end button and let his hand drop to his chest, eye sockets closed as he lounged in his own chaos. He startled when his phone vibrated, looking at the screen to see he had a text alert. Curiosity was rough on cats and skeletons, and he opened it immediately to find a picture of all the others, Sans, Blue, and Red with their arms slung around each other and Papyrus and Edge standing but not touching. Behind them was a view of London with that huge fucking wheel Stretch recognized from the intro to Sherlock.
The text said, 'Next time, you'll be in the picture, too.'
He sent back, 'only if i get to be in the middle.'
There was no reply and Stretch tossed his phone a little too roughly onto the coffee table. Briefly, he considered going to bed and dismissed it as pointless. He'd never admit it, not for torture or money, but he couldn't sleep there right now. It didn't smell like Edge anymore.
Instead, he tugged a blanket out of the mess of twisted fabrics on the sofa and curled up amidst his own dirty socks, books, and maybe the television remote. May as well try to get a nap in, he had to be up early tomorrow anyway.
That was when the cleaners were supposed to get here.
-finis-