For once, Zevran woke beneath the blankets; she must have been awake already and covered him on her way out. Slipping on his plush sweatpants and sweatshirt, he headed toward the kitchen to find her. And coffee; he really needed some coffee. He yawned and stretched, running fingers through his hair.

10am? She said she would wake him before she left so they could have breakfast together. She hadn't, and he felt sad and disgruntled; they wouldn't get to see each other until late that night. Opening the fridge, he made sure she at least took her lunch with her. Why does she still have this fucking job anyway?

Reluctantly admitting he hated waking without her, he poured his coffee, sat at their table by the window in their dining room, and Cat immediately flopped onto his lap. Basking in the morning sun, it took him a moment of absent table-staring to notice an envelope with a bow on it. Oh shit, what now? He opened the envelope with an excited smile; it contained two airline tickets. She must have planned a trip for his paid time off coming up next month, how cool! First class, nice! He had never flown first class before.

His coffee cup, which had been on a journey to his mouth, slipped from his fingers and hit the table. Coffee on the tickets, his sketchbook, the cat…

Mexico City.

"Fuck! What the fuck, Nyla!" He ran frantic to grab kitchen towels, the cat bitching in his arms. Wiping Cat off with a damp towel, he made quick work of the rest, his sketchbook wet around the edges; it ached a little, but nothing completely ruined. Dropping wet tickets in the sink, he had a strong urge to cram them down the garbage disposal.

With jaw clenched, lips pursed and trembling hands, he strode to the bedroom and grabbed his phone.

Nyla.
Nyla.

Goodmorning pumpkin!

What the absolute fuck?

Ooh… absolute fuck. This sounds serious!

I'm pissed.

Oh.

Yes. Oh.
How fuckign dare you

Wow
Alright
I see. Take a deep breath.

I just… do not even know how to comprehend how you thought this would be a good idea

You said you wanted to see your parents.

You never asked if I am ready! I am simply drinking my coffee and suddenly 'hi Zev you are going to Mexico in two weeks.' Nobody here to, I don't know, DISCUSS IT WITH ME PERHAPS? Now I sit here in a mess, have to work in three hours.

Hold on, Zev. Slow down. I'm coming home.

GOOD!

Just breathe, honey.

"Cass, I gotta run," Nyla went toward the break room to grab her things.

"I need you to stay." Cassandra spoke bluntly, following her. "You will be reducing us to one server for lunch."

"She'll appreciate the tips." Nyla pulled on her coat, slipped her purse over her shoulder, and grabbed her lunchbox. "Give her my tips from breakfast for her trouble."

"You know it's not that simple."

"I hate to do it, I really do, but I have a family emergency."

"I need to hear a little more than that to legitimize keeping an employee who keeps calling off, showing up late and leaving early."

"Shit." The threat of termination gave Nyla pause. "I don't want to be fired."

"Then I need to know I can rely on you. Do you want to be on the schedule for fewer days? Do you want to be on it at all?"

With heart aching, she smiled at Cassandra, a woman she respected and admired, and would miss. " Can I… get back to you on that?"

"Yes. Consider this a final warning. I don't mean to be a hardass, I do like working with you, but I need to run this business."

"I understand," Nyla nodded, biting her lips. "Okay I'm going to go now."

Cassandra sighed and rested her hands on her hips. "Why are you leaving?"

"Zevran is deeply upset." As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she shouldn't have bothered.

"Zevran is…" Cassandra looked at her incredulously and made a disgusted noise. "He can't just wait another seven hours?"

"I don't want him to. He shouldn't have to." Tilting her head at Cassandra, imploring her to understand she dug herself in a little deeper, "He's a priority, Cassandra. I'll always choose him."

"Get the fuck out of my restaurant before you give me cavities," she chuckled swatting her with a hand towel. "And for fuck's sake, get your shit together and tell me what you want to do."

"Okay, okay! Jesus christ."

"Zev?" Nyla called out, kicking her shoes off and hastily dropping everything on the floor.

"Dining room."

"Shit," she whispered; such a rarity, to see him so angry. "Are you calmer now?" She asked as she went toward the next room.

"A fair bit." He sighed, running a hand over his hair. "I do not like being angry at you, Nyla, and I am very angry right now."

"Because you wanted to discuss it first," she sat next to him.

"Yes! You got us this extravagant gift, how, exactly, did you not know it needed to be discussed first? You don't know if I am ready to do this."

"That's true, I don't know if you're ready. I assumed." After a few moments of silence she added, "I wish I had not assumed."

"Nyla, I don't know if it is even safe to be there. And you are coming too?"

"Safe how?"

"Nyla, you know why I left. How do I know… I mean… why the fuck can't we bring them here?"

"Slow down, honey. Rosa is afraid to fly. I discussed this with them."

"You told them but not me? " he stammered, scrubbing his face with his palms. "What if they see me? What if they recognize me? Nyla, what if it's you this time?"

"What do you mean? Who?" Nyla spoke patently, running a hand along his arm. Watching him closely, he sighed deeply again, in through his nose, out through his mouth; a practice he partook in the most stressful of times. Nyla understood more as he scrubbed his face with his hands for a second time. "Oh, ohhh shit, Zevran. Honey, come here." She wrapped her arms around him, and he remained stiff in her arms.

"I do not want a hug! Hugs won't fix this!"

"They'll help, come on." She rested her head on his shoulder. "We don't have to go, sugar."

"How does that even work," he grumbled at the woman clinging to him despite his no. "You buy expensive things without giving me a chance to say no, cornering me into a trip I am not at all prepared to make-"

"We cancel the flight, and don't go. Look at me." She stopped her awkward side hug, keeping a hand on his arm. "I didn't mean to make you feel forced into this. It's a gift, and if you don't want it, I'll take care of it."

"First class tickets are expensive, " he sighed, furrowing his brow at her, "How can I say no? I cannot fathom how we could afford to buy first class tickets out of the country and then waste them. Even refunding tickets will yield a great deal of loss."

"Listen. Okay, if we bought our own island, we could call that expensive. Understand?"

"No."

"Zevran, I'm rich. You're rich with me." She stroked his back. "The flight cost us like, four grand. The suite was a bit more, because it's on the water… and I got a really big one so your moms can stay with us if they like. The whole trip, I estimated, including room service and shopping, will only cost around twelve grand."

"Only cost- Nyla, what the absolute fuck? "

"Alright, okay." She took his hand and sighed, wondering how she could take the chaos of their conversation, and turn it into something that made sense. "We need hammock time. Go wait for me with your coffee on the roof, I'm going to change out of my work clothes."

"And why do you have this fucking job anyway if we don't need money?" The more he spoke with her, the less shit made sense. "Why the hell do we live like this and not donate to people who need it? We can afford to waste more money than some see in a year on a trip nobody fucking asked for-"

"Okay, Zev, stop." Nyla spoke sternly. "I understand we have a lot to talk about, and things are bottlenecking right now. I love you, we're going to address all of these things in a few minutes. I need to go change, I need to breathe and relax by myself as I do this, and I will meet you on the roof."

Zevran headed upstairs with his coffee and a frustrated pout. In open air, his head began to clear, his heart ached a little less, and he realized what a needy little shit he had been; she had come home from work just to make sure he would be okay. I am a spoiled man. Sitting on the hammock, he rocked himself gently, breathed deeply, sipped on his coffee, and looked out on the city. Several minutes of alone time, and he felt calm, and also felt like an ungrateful prick.

"Hey sweetie," she spoke softly, sitting next to him, wrapping an arm around his waist. He rested his arm over her shoulders and she smiled, "You're feeling a little better."

Nodding, he pulled her closer. "I was hard on you, amor. How do you have so much patience for my bullshit?"

"Mmm. It's alright," she leaned into his touch. "You were upset, and getting more upset. You respected my request for you to stop, that's what matters. Sometimes just taking a little space helps."

"I will consider this before going off on you in the future," he offered a small, crooked smile.

"A lot came up," Nyla began slowly. "Any financial loss from not going to Mexico is not a big deal. I know this still stresses you out, so let's pretend it's not a thing for now, and talk about why you don't want to go."

"No… how is losing twelvish thousand dollars not a big deal? " Zevran spoke incredulously, "I don't understand how having too much money means it is okay to waste."

"Okay, imagine on your income alone, you buy a gallon of milk. You leave that gallon of milk in the fridge, and it spoils. You've lost like, four bucks. Us not going on this trip would be like that."

"But I could not have done anything significantly helpful with that four dollars."

"I do significant things with my money all the time! I have someone managing my money, and donating money for me. I like donating to Amnesty International. I'm a fan of Habitats for Humanity. Zevran, I'm a person with too much money, it keeps accumulating, it's managed by someone I pay… that person is managed by Fergus, and I do check on it, out of curiosity now and then."

"Rich people used to disgust me, Nyla, with their tendency to live too extravagantly and not consider those in need."

"Ouch, jesus christ." Nyla furrowed her brow at him. "First of all, if you ever saw where I grew up, you would realize we don't live that extravagantly. And we do donate to a lot of places. But not the Salvation Army, because of their anti-gay sentiments."

"Oh." Zevran chuckled, his heart warming, "You really have thought about this."

"Yes! Of course! Do you think I don't understand that I'm privileged as fuck?"

"I honestly had no idea whether or not you noticed." He sipped his coffee, "We have not talked about this."

"I donate, I give my tips to people sitting on street corners with cups in their hands. I have to be careful because anyone could see me do this on the regular and I could get hurt." She sighed, looking at the ground. "I keep my job because I don't know how else to contribute to society. I used to know where I fit in, back before I lost my parents. I still feel like I belong nowhere. Like, what am I doing with my life, besides waitressing and making sure my boyfriend is happy?"

"Nyla, will you tell me about what made your parents so rich, that even our grandchildren's grandchildren will be so well off?"

"Children! You wish," Nyla chuckled, and he didn't. Damn. "My father owned an oil company. My brother was a lawyer, because it interests him, now he does our dead dad's business stuff. My mother was a psychiatrist with her own practice. She did sliding scale, so anyone could go to her office. It was beautiful. I was going to work for her. I think she was setting me up to take over, and I wanted to."

"Not anymore?"

"No, I'm not feeling it anymore," Nyla shrugged. "I don't know what I'm doing with my life."

"Time, amor. Give yourself the understanding and patience you offer everyone else."

"Yeah," she nodded, relaxing a little, just knowing he understood her. "Thanks honey. I'll show you my finances junk if you want to see it, so you know what funds go where and such."

"Jesus fucking christ, oil? No wonder you are so loaded. I would like to see where you donate, and the numbers. I believe knowing the particulars would help me relax around the whole thing." Putting down his cup of coffee, he laid back on the hammock. "Come here amor, and don't flip us this time. I need to learn coping mechanisms for being wealthy."

"You'll get there, pumpkin. We still haven't talked about the trip," she laid between his legs, her hands on his chest, her chin resting on them. "You had a lot of concerns. Start from the top."

"I may be recognized by… undesirables."

"That's one way of putting it," she smiled, his fingers tucking her hair behind her ears. "I doubt anyone you hung out with is around anymore. Not with living that kind of lifestyle. After eight years, they're probably dead or in a nursing home coping with permanent injuries."

"You might get hurt just being near me. Even the remote possibility of this makes the whole thing not worth it."

"Think about it rationally, Zev. We arrive at an airport full of people. We take a cab to a pricey hotel none of them could even afford to walk into. We go to the beach, populated shopping areas, we escort your mommies around and see some tourist sights because I love that kind of shit. The odds of seeing someone you used to know are so small. And on top of the odds of even laying eyes on you, they would have to recognize you. I promise, if I get my head blown off in Mexico, it won't be from-"

"Shhh." He pressed fingers over her lips and whispered, "Don't fucking say it like that."

"Sorry. That was inconsiderate of me," she stroked his arms, resting her cheek on his chest. "We're safe."

Relaxing beneath her soft stare, he stroked her cheeks, her hair, her beautiful and intact head, "Amor, I think I'm not ready."

"Okay honey, I'll cancel the trip."

"You really have no qualms with this," he smiled, relaxing more and more, hanging one leg off the hammock and swinging them gently.

"No! Let's plan something else. Or just stay here. What do you think?"

"Nyla is so smiley," he looked at the pale blue sky, felt the cool air, her weight on him, the love in her touch. "I wish to go to Mexico."

"Okay," Nyla spoke patiently. "Done."

"No," he looked at her and her beautifully intact head. "Nevermind, it's not safe."

"Take your time."

"What if I went without you?" he spoke absently, and Nyla whined, kicking her legs a little. "Okay, Nyla wishes to go."

"Do you think your moms would adopt me too?" Nyla grinned, wrapping her arms around him, tucking them beneath his body.

"Mamá says you are far too smiley not to keep." He smiled at hearing her gleeful laughter. "Amor, I don't feel like going to work today. It has been such a long week and I feel fucking… worn."

"Call off and go shoe shopping with me. I'll recruit everyone. Emergency shoe shopping."

"Ooh." Zevran picked up a pair of high-top canvas shoes covered in a colorful butterfly print. "Nyla," he turned around, but she was gone. Probably looking at shoes her own size, he shrugged, and sat on the bench. It fit nicely, and he laced it up, stood to look in the mirror. Nice! He put on the other shoe. Fucking. Yes. Perfect. "Amor, come look!"

"I'll be right there, pumpkin!"

Leliana sat next to him with several shoe boxes in her arms. "I found so many nice things to try on. Fuck off, Anders, take those off, NOW!"

"Wow." Zevran chuckled, "Damn, Leli being a little harsh- actually yes Anders what the fuck is wrong with you, take those off."

"Have you ever tried these? They feel great! They have a fur lining-"

"Off." Leliana demanded, "I will not have crocs under my roof."

"Who dare try on crocs?" Nyla called out, moonwalking to the isle they had regrouped, abruptly stopping as she located her friends. "Baby, look what I found- oh my god, Anders. I knew it was you."

"They're fluffy on the inside. Leliana won't let me keep them."

"No, I won't. Not even if you pout. Zevla, you can't buy matching shoes. It's like, a rule."

"Oh my god," Nyla cackled, looking at her feet, and then Zevran's. "How dare you look precious in those. They're cuter on him. Oh my god." She stormed away, shoulders slumped and arms flopping in mock tantrum. She stopped in front of the mirror for a few moments, and moonwalked back to them. "I was wrong. I need these."

"Zevran also needs these." Looking at his feet he wiggled his toes to make sure they fit; the shoes made him so happy he didn't want to take them off, and the $200 price tag did not phase him. "I am wearing them out of the store."

"Anders, after you take those off," Leliana began, "Will you please buckle these? It still hurts to reach."

"Of course, dear."

"Is that all you're getting, Zev?" Nyla bounced a little to the music playing.

"I did not find anything else," he shrugged, sitting on the floor to watch Leliana coo over a thousand shoes. His girlfriend moonwalked away.

"Did you try the men's section?" Leliana asked, tilting her head and moving her foot around.

"Men's shoes are all the same," he shrugged, until Nyla moonwalked back to him with a Gucci box in her hand. "Ooh what did amor find?"

"Black leather high-tops with tasteful gold embellishments." She smiled, knelt by his feet and began unlacing his butterfly shoes. "They're very you."

That they could afford Gucci shoes was disgusting, however, "Damn, these are nice," he stood in front of a mirror and raised his pant legs a little. "Ugh they go perfect with everything. Why are they so comfortable? I need to go dancing in them. What the fuck?"

"You get what you pay for," Nyla chuckled, grinning and giddy and biting her lip. "They're yours."

"I still want to wear the butterflies," Zevran smiled, pulling the shoes off.

"Of course, darling, whatever you want," she moonwalked away from them again. "Back in a minute."

"Why is she moonwalking everywhere?" Leliana chuckled.

Zevran shrugged, "Strengthening her ankles for bachata." His shoulders slumped, hearing the next song begin. "Oh, shit. Shopping ruined. Good mood gone. Girlfriend broken."

"What?" Anders chuckled, looking up from where he was buckling a strap around Leliana's delicate ankle.

"Music just… does things to her. She was dancing to this song that time she saw me and Isabela-" he cut himself off as she came walking toward him with a soft and sad stare; distinctly different from the angry frown of last time. "Preciosa," he spoke softly as she sat on the floor between his legs and let him curl his arms around her. "Te amo," he whispered, and she looked up to offer up a small smile. "Do you wish to go home, mi amor?" He stroked her hair, relieved she would come to him with this softness, instead of her ire.

"I'm not sure yet." Nyla vaguely felt the ache of abandonment, the jealousy, the humiliation; her preference by far was to continue having fun. Meeting his eyes, she whispered, "Do you love me?" Nyla smiled at his enthusiastic nod. "Am I the prettiest?"

"By far," he whispered, chuckling at the innocence and sweetness of her game.

"Am I your favorite?"

"Mm hm."

"I believe you," she whispered, kissing his cheek. Hopping up she felt refreshed, invigorated, and ready to moonwalk. "Be right back."

"You both disgust me," Anders held Leliana's hand to assist her to standing.

"She just wants reassurance of my continued devotion," he spoke with a shrug. "I like it."

Anders let out a low whistle. "Yes. Sexy legs, Leliana. Yes. I like those."

"Very sexy, Leli. Should wear them for Anders and nothing else." Zevran enunciated with a nod, "While cooking."

"I concur!" Nyla moonwalked to Zevran with another box.

"The moonwalking is driving me crazy, Nyla." Leliana chuckled. "You're going to knock someone over."

"I am strengthening my calves and ankles," she argued, spinning on her heels and hopping onto her toes with arms in the air. "For bachata."

"Lies!" Leliana hissed with a pointed finger. "Anyone who can moonwalk like that already has strong calves and ankles."

"Do you have any idea how tired my ankles are right now?" Nyla quirked an eyebrow at Leliana, held up her middle finger and moonwalked away from her. "Don't judge me until you have bachata'd in high heels. Try on those shoes, baby."

Zevran snorted and laughed as she rounded the corner, pulling the lid off of a box containing some okay-looking leather boots. "I love that woman-child."

"You're both disgusting." Anders sighed, helping Leliana into a pair of strappy high heels.

"We are. Promise me, Anders, if we get on a tandem bicycle you will end us."

"What?" Nyla glided in with shoes in her arms. "Tandem bicycle? I'm so down."

Zevran pursed his lips. Her excitement brought him excitement, and he was already good to go. "God dammit."

"They have heelys in my size, and I am getting some." Nyla dropped her armload of shoes on the floor and glided away, her face buried in her elbow, and one arm extended out behind her.

"Did… did she just dab?" Anders chuckled.

"She did the dab." Leliana sighed. "Someone needs to tell her the dab is over, as well as the moonwalk."

"I do not think she cares." Zevran stood up and looked at the calf high boots. "Let her moonwalk and dab if she wants to, Leli, or I will ask her to do the robot right here."

Anders mumbled with a smile, "That would be fun."

"For her," Leliana interjected. "She's going to get us in trouble if she doesn't start behaving like an adult."

"You would be surprised what these fancy places put up with when they know you have money," Zevran shrugged.

"Security just asked me to please calm down." Nyla pouted, sitting on the bench.

"What were you doing, amor?"

"I was going to go upstairs in my heelys to look at lingerie."

"Lingerie?" Zevran smirked, and bit his lip. "We will be lingerie shopping if you need us."