Notes – Done for 15_pairings. Set five years post-AJ.
They say habits are hard to break.
When Apollo and Trucy first met Vera she was nineteen, so any habits she had were habits she was very set in her ways about. And she certainly had a lot of them – drawing to illustrate her feelings, not talking for hours on end, nail biting. The list went on.
But after so long Trucy stopped seeing these as habits so much as that was just who Vera was.
And after a few years she'd be the first to tell people that she could talk enough for both of them anyway, so it didn't matter about how quiet Vera was.
It didn't feel as if it had been that long since the murder case when they'd met her really, but it must have been because Vera was now so much a part of their lives that it was hard to picture her not being there. It had started with them visiting her, sort of out of the guilty knowledge that she had no other friends and now no other family either, then it became a daily routine to check in on that quiet girl. Not so much to talk with her, since Vera didn't do much talking, but to tell her about how their days had been. Vera was very good at listening.
The years went on – Vera was now twenty-four and still living in her father's old apartment. Habits must be hard to break after all.
At least, Trucy would reason, it was easier to get her to leave than it used to be. All it took these days was a simple phone call asking if she wanted to go somewhere and Vera would usually agree.
Because of Vera's love of magic and Trucy's desire to become a magician - she was almost there, she knew it – it was very easy for the two of them to find places to go to together. Every magician to perform in the city must have been watched by the two girls, somewhat more critically from Trucy as she got older.
Her dad would often joke that Trucy spent more time with Vera then she did at home nowadays, to which Trucy would just laugh and say it was because she wanted intelligent company.
They both knew that Apollo would be there more if he could, but his work kept him busy. He was becoming much better known as a defence attorney now, so people were requesting him to take on cases more frequently. In herself Trucy knew that Apollo probably preferred work to socialising, even if he was too nice to admit that hanging around with two girls was embarrassing.
And if she was completely honest she sort of preferred hanging out just her and Vera.
If only she could find the right way to let Vera know that…
As the two of them sat in a restaurant, enjoying some much needed food after the latest magic act had finished, Trucy asked, "Don't you ever want to hang out with other people?"
"Not really," Vera mumbled, always flustered about directly being asked a question. She would rather be vague and not have to explain herself.
"But, you know, there's more to hanging out with people then just friends," Trucy went on, and when greeted by silence continued to say, "You could, well, have a boyfriend too. If you wanted."
The curious look that Vera gave her was enough to make her feel uncomfortable.
"I've never thought about one before," Vera said.
Trucy gasped.
"You're joking, right? You're really pretty and there are lots of boys around who would look after you. Apollo doesn't really count as a boy, since he's one of us," she explained, not realising how much Apollo would have protested to that if he was with them.
Vera didn't reply to any of this, instead she said, "But you haven't ever had a boyfriend yourself, either."
It was a good point.
To be honest, she hadn't thought about it. She'd been too busy looking after Vera and wanting Vera to adapt to the world that she hadn't really gone in for dating. Even her crush on Prosecutor Gavin seemed to have fizzled out without her noticing.
"I guess… I'd rather be doing other things, then making time for a boyfriend," she confessed, feeling a little embarrassed by that.
Nodding, Vera agreed, "So you understand how I feel."
"It would be too much work anyway," Trucy said, not wanting to drop the topic just yet, "He'd have to hang around with us all the time. So instead of just going out as the two of us we'd have to take a guy with us, two guys if we both got boyfriends, and we'd have to take into consideration where they wanted to go. Maybe they'd find art galleries boring or complain loudly about how fake magicians are."
Those two points were almost a crime in her books, even if it had taken quite a long time for Vera's love of galleries to get through to Trucy.
"Why can't we just carry on the way we are? It's perfectly fine just the two of us," Vera said.
And Trucy noticed how strained she looked – how her eyes waivered and she looked so desperate for everything to remain the same, as if even talking about bringing a new person into their group would shatter what they had.
She did something she'd not done before, and took hold of Vera's hands to comfort her. The other girl automatically flinched at the touch but willed herself not to pull away.
She looked directly into Vera's eyes and said, "Nothing has to change, it can just be the two of us if you want it to be. Because I want it that way too."
The last line had blurted out of her mouth before she'd had time to stop it. The colour went into her cheeks almost instantly; her pulse seemed to double in speed. Why had she said something like that?
"We should," Vera said, after it was clear Trucy wasn't going to speak anymore, "I… I want to be with you. If, um, if you wouldn't mind…"
It was hard for Trucy to believe what she was hearing. Vera was asking her out. It should have been the other way around, and she knew it.
"I'd like that," Trucy said, simply and honestly.
"Th-thank goodness for that…" Vera said, voice cracking with the nervous relief, "And your hands are shaking, Trucy."
"So are yours!" Trucy pointed out.
The two girls descended into laughter, still holding hands that were shaking considerably more now, not caring that the people on the tables around them were looking over as if they were mad. Trucy found herself particularly proud of Vera for not worrying about other people judging her, even if it was just for a moment.
When they'd finished the two let go, Trucy wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes as Vera said, "…It took so long."
"What do you mean?" Trucy quizzed.
"Well… I've, well, liked you for a long time, but I thought you'd never notice," Vera whispered.
No way, Trucy thought to herself. All this time she was supposed to be the one liking Vera, and Vera was supposed to be the one too shy and timid to realise that. Had it really been that she'd been the oblivious one herself all along?
Or perhaps they were both oblivious.
"You don't need to worry about that from now on, I'll notice as much as I can," Trucy said cheerfully, "But nothing will change too much if you don't want it too," she added quickly, "We can still do all the same things, we'll just be closer I guess."
She really didn't know much about how relationships worked, so she'd have to find out about that.
The two of them finished eating with feeling much more content, though neither of them felt that much like food anymore. It was like a gap between them had been bridged.
They were both going to find out where that bridge led.