Both he and the coffees go flying, the slickness of the grass under his feet eliminating any chance Ashton might have had to stop the horrifying sequence of events that follows. Before he can react, the world is upside down and he’s nothing but a witness, feeling like he’s watching it happen from outside his body. Thankfully, the concrete steps leading down to the Soul-arium’s entrance are there to break his fall, and Ashton goes tumbling down them, too, whacking his forehead on the edge of the last one as he rolls.
Flat on his back and swimming in a mix of mud, coffee, and dirty water that’s been accumulating on the stone at the bottom of the steps, Ashton blinks dazedly up at the gray sky. His head throbs and spins as rain continues to pelt insistently at his exposed skin. The droplets are cold and sharp, each hit a stark reminder to Ashton that he is just not the kind of man for whom things ever go right.
“Wonderful,” he mutters, a drop hitting him squarely in the eye. “Just wonderful.”
“Holy shit, Ash!” Link's voice comes from somewhere to his left, because of course,of course,Link was here to witness his monumental failure at simply being alive.
Before he can protest the babying, Link's arm is sliding underneath Ashton’s shoulder blades, encouraging him upright with a firm, steadying hand that wraps securely around his ribs. The motion grates against the newly-tattooed skin of his back, but compared to the pain filling his head, it’s just a minor nuisance.
“C’mon, Fred Astaire,” Link quips, “Let’s get you inside.”
Stumbling over the threshold together, Link slams the Soul-arium’s door shut behind them while Ashton leans heavily against the wall, trying to catch his breath and regain some semblance of composure. Water sluices steadily from his hair, running down his trenchcoat to create puddles on the iron walkway. As his heartbeat returns to something less reminiscent of hooves in a horse race, Link's face appears in front of him, shaking the rain from his own head with a goofy smile on his face.
Ashton opens his mouth to say something, toapologize, but is distracted by something warm and noticeably thicker than water trickling down over his right eyebrow and obscuring his vision. The smile slides off of Link's face as he steps forward, hand reaching out in concern.
“Do I need to put you in a bubble, or what?” Link asks softly, pulling off his robe and then his t-shirt without any hesitation. He’s balling up the latter and pressing the material against what is very obviously a significant cut to his forehead before Ashton realizes what he’s doing—he’ll blame the concussion. Despite the pain in his head, the blood in his eye, and the fact that he’s humiliated himself (again) in front of Link, Ashton can’t help but be charmed by Link's presence.
They’re close, with mere inches—just thetiniestchasm of space—between their faces, and Link's doesn’t offer any indication that he’s uncomfortable with that. In fact, as he holds pressure on the wound and Ashton finds the courage to meet his gaze, all he can find in Link's expression is fond warmth. If he wasn’t soaking wet, muddy, and quickly becoming chilled to the bone, Ashton doubts that he’d be able to stop his body from reacting to the proximity of Link's muscled, naked chest. As it is, he just shivers.
Taking notice of his increasing discomfort, Link lifts the crumpled t-shirt enough to check on the status of the injury underneath. “It’s not as bad as it looked with all that blood on your face,” he declares, picking up Ashton’s hand and plucking free the mangled drink carrier he’s still clutching. “Probably don’t need this,” he teases, dropping it into a trash can by the railing before relocating Ashton’s hand to hold pressure on his own head.
“Right, of course,” Ashton murmurs, embarrassed, but he clutches Link's shirt tightly all the same.
“Let’s go get you cleaned up,” Link continues, stopping at the top of the stairs to pull off his own wet socks and to make sure that Ashton is steady enough to make it down without help. He seems totally unfazed by this whole, disastrous event, no matter how hot Ashton’s cheeks burn or the way he tries to sink into his jacket, hoping to disappear forever.
Sam is nowhere to be seen, probably in the library setting up if she happens to have an early client. Ashton is grateful for that—this situation is awful enough without adding extra witnesses.
The path Link carves for them through the halls of the bunker is familiar, and Ashton recognizes that they’re headed for Link's room, through the atrium and past the kitchen. As they walk by the open door, some tempting smells waft to reach his nose: bacon and eggs, fresh coffee, toast. Ashton abruptly feels immensely guilty.
“I apologize for ruining your breakfast,” he says, reflexively catching Link's forearm without thinkingtoomuch about the urge that leads him to do so.
But Link just smiles amiably, glancing over his shoulder and patting Ashton’s hand on his arm. “No worries, bud. Food can wait. Anyway, I made all that stuff for you. Sort of a ‘welcome to the team,’ first day celebration thing. We’ll get you cleaned up and then see what needs reheating.”
“This is mortifying,” Ashton mutters, as they arrive at their destination and a still-shirtless Link holds the door open for him.Holds the door open,like he’s not some sort of casual Adonis, like it’s not takingeveryounce of Ashton’s willpower to keep from openly gawking at his form. In true Link fashion, that casual cool persists as he tosses his robe onto the bed and rifles through his bureau. While Ashton stands there, destroying his original shirt, Link pulls out a fresh one alongside a pair of jeans and changes into both without pause.
It’s not as if Ashton hasn’t seen the man down to his underwear, hehas.Not to mention, both of them happen to be seasoned professionals, veteran artists working jobs where it’s natural and expected to see various exposed body parts nearly every single day. Heck, earlier this week, Ashton had a topless woman in his living room and he was about as interested in that as a toddler at the Met. Heshouldn’tbe fazed now.
But Link has some kind of magic about him, an energy that Ashton’s never encountered before. Itmustbe magic—that’s the only way to explain his magnetism, his charm.
The ease with which a half-dressed Link moves around him in the room, the comfort he has with his own body and whoever might see it—Ashtonwisheshe could be more like that. When Link catches him looking, he just grins and tosses a bundle of clean clothes Ashton’s way. Grappling with them clumsily, Ashton isn’t entirely sure whether to prioritize those or his head, awkwardly managing to keep hold of both.
“First of all,” Link says, now fully-dressed after shrugging on a flannel, “You tripped. It’s no big deal, shit happens. It’s not some kind of prophetic sign that the universe hates you, alright?” Narrowing his eyes, Ashton finds himself wondering whether Link is actually this intuitive, or ifhe’sjust that transparent.
“Second, this place is the most easy-going work environment you’re ever going to find, so let’s just get that out of the way. Me and Sam love our work, but we also live here, so it’s home first. Same vein, when you’re here, you’re home, too. Cool?”
Without waiting for a reply, Link points towards a sink that’s mounted to the wall, lifting his finger to the mirror above it before skating out the door and leaving Ashton behind. As it closes behind him, he calls out, “Come to the kitchen when you’re done and I’ll fix up that head of yours.”
The latch clicks, and he’s alone.
Still dripping wet and clutching the pile of dry clothing (and the bloody t-shirt), Ashton glances around Link's room. He’s unable to stop himself from entertaining the thought that this isnothow he imagined returning to this space. Moving towards the sink, he sets everything he’s holding down on Link's desk and then strips. A glance in the mirror tells Ashton that the wound on his forehead is still oozing, but nothing that appears overly serious. The memory of his skull connecting with sharp concrete flashes across his mind’s eye and makes him wince, which in turn has him believing that the healing charm on his ribs is working overtime.
Somewhat awkwardly, Ashton manages to stick his head underneath the running faucet in order to rinse the mud from the back of his hair and neck. He winds up swiping a towel from the back of Link's door to dry off, crossing his fingers that Link won’t mind. Ashton can’t imagine that a towel would be his line in the sand, but one never knows.
The clothes Link offered fit him well enough, if a touch long in the leg when it comes to the jeans. It sets a funny feeling loose in Ashton’s belly to consider that he and Link are virtually the same size, as the idea of Link wearinghisclothes is something that provokes more interest than it probably should, at this point.
Clad in his new t-shirt, flannel, and feeling much better, Ashton makes a brief and ultimately fruitless attempt to tame his completely destroyed hair before throwing his hands in the air and opting to lean into the wild, unstyled look. “Sex hair”, as it were, has always been a thing he’s naturally capable of sporting, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious to see Link's reaction to it today.
Not that he’s testing the waters or anything, but after his earlier entrance, Ashton is of the mind that he deserves a bit of a redemption arc. While his socially awkward vibe might be interminably unfixable, Ashton himself is neither stupid nor naive. The hair ishot.
