AN: Welp, this is the long-awaited sequel to my story Strawberries in the Morning, which you can find on this account and should probably read first, some bits of info are glossed over in this fic that are more fleshed out there. You may wonder why Erik is staying with Ismael in the first place if you don't read. Don't worry, it's good stuff and you'll enjoy this one better if you read the first one.

TW: drug use mention, suicidal thoughts, depression, bodily fluids.

Please enjoy!

It was a funny business, how it happened.

Suddenly Ismael was no longer Erik's friend. In the course of a single day, he'd lost everything he thought he knew. No more scathing critiques of his drab former cop's wardrobe. No more midnight chases through the city, Ismael preventing Erik from doing anything particularly stupid (or at least in the realm of a felony). No more replacing his shaving cream with whip cream when he wasn't looking and waiting for his cheeks to break out in gross oily pimples. No more arguing with him late at night about Christine.

There would be no more of that. His whole world had changed.

And it was all because of some bloody Godiva chocolates.

He hadn't realized he was buying them until the brown and gold box was in his hands, with its stretchy elastic ribbon being pinched and pulled in a vibrating rhythm in his nervousness. His knee bobbed up and down, hitting the back of the cab driver's seat every so often, as his legs were too long to sit comfortably in the space provided in the taxi. The dishevelled looking man spit foreign obscenities at him, which he could understand, mind, but he didn't seem to care. Not one bit. He paid him a generous tip, anyway. With Ismael's money. The chocolates were also purchased with a hefty swiping of cash out of his faux leather, Chinatown quality wallet. Perhaps he should stop doing that. Is that what one does now? Should he pay his own way, now that things were different between them?

He'd run out of the house when his companion wasn't looking. Erik was too overwhelmed, too full of the kindness and compassion bestowed upon him that morning that he'd just needed space — needed time. It wasn't like he'd experienced that kind of reassurance, like ever. It wasn't like anyone loved him, after all.

Definitely not Christine.

But he had to think.

He had a multitude of places in the city where he could do so. He went to the docks again, this time hiding in fishing boat while he stared up at the sunless clouds until its owner kicked him out (rather he reeled him out; he didn't realize how much fishing rods could sting against one's cheek until he'd been accosted by an old man in a hat bedazzled with plastic lures). He found his way to Broadway somehow, deciding to hide among tourists and people watch. He deduced about fifteen minutes in that he hated people and left through the sewers, but not before turning around the head of an off-brand Elmo and watching him crash into a help kiosk until police caught sight of him. Erik thought, both amused and dejected, that it was a shame those pretty dry-cleaned cops didn't like to get their uniforms dirty in the sewers anymore. Not like Ismael had over a decade earlier…

He'd been adventurous then. Always finding Erik in the worst of places, like an opium den in the red light district. Or sleeping in an alleyway in Harlem, wearing nothing but an ugly maroon tracksuit in the dead of winter. Or scaling the building of a certain Raul Chavez, who he might have been spying on, or possibly planning to kill.

Well… that last one might have been a more recent development. Luckily Ismael still had that old tan trenchcoat and a loaded gun. One day, he had always thought, he was sure he'd have to use it.

He wasn't so sure anymore.

Erik soon found himself on Fifth Avenue. He stuck out like a sore thumb there. All ladies with their dogs and kicky heels, men in their crisp suits and ties, and tourists gaping at the Macy's store windows. What was a disheveled middle-aged, sewer-smelling, greasy-haired man wearing a horribly unconvincing false nose and mustache, Carnegie Mellon hoodie with five holes, baggy cargo pants and plastic flip flops — trying to be fancy with a bamboo pattern laser printed on them — doing in the chicest district in town?

Fuck if he knows.

He walked until his eyes started to lose focus, and he had to stop walking and vomit into the nearest garbage can. Or it might have been a newspaper machine. Hard to say. But he was disappointed that he'd lost his breakfast, of delicious pancakes and strawberries.

What a farce that had been. All show, clearly. Ismael was just trying to get him to leave, appease him into a better mood and descend an outright order to pack his bags and disappear. That was why he'd left so urgently, because he couldn't handle that just yet. Is that right?

Well he would leave. He would leave and never come back.

The light down the street just turned green. It was one way, of course, and traffic was relentless. He decided to cross.

Erik stepped a solitary flip-flopped foot off of the sidewalk (straight into a puddle of rainwater and possibly dog urine, no less), and looked up at the sound of a woman's laughter.

Across the way was a charming couple just leaving the chocolate shop on the other side of the street. She wore mid-thigh khaki shorts with a fetching pleat, strappy sandals, and a white tank top that said "la femme est l'avenir." Her messy blonde hair was in a bun piled on her head. And she was holding a piece of chocolate inches away from the mouth of a handsomely tan Hispanic punk who was definitely not good enough for her, with a trail of caramel from his lips to her fingers. They were still laughing. And holding hands.

They didn't see him, second foot suspended in midair between the vestibule he'd hurled into and a light post flickering on and off. They traversed down the opposite way, the sun finally peeking out from the clouds and lighting her hair as she turned her back to him.

It happened in an instant and all at once, including his feelings, which seemed to burst into him like a chorus of tap dancers in skimpy leotards and sequinned top hats. He smiled.

Erik walked back onto the sidewalk and down the block until he reached the stop light, pushed the button to cross, and waited for the little white man to tell him when. And when he reached the shop, the happy couple were already long gone into the distance, swallowed up by the crowd and their happy future. He entered and cringed at the little bell, but otherwise kept smiling at the lady who greeted him at the counter.

"Welcome to Godiva, how can I help you?"

He surveyed the glass case full of sweets and thought back to their years of obligatory precinct Halloween parties Ismael would drag him to ("As my date, of course," he'd say with a wink when they tried on costumes; "As long as I get to wear a mask…" he'd acquiesced begrudgingly, though Ismael always seemed to look attractive in his outfits of choice every season). They would come home drunk with pockets bulging with candy and spend the entire rest of the night watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 and sort through the haul, Erik getting all the fruity candy and Ismael getting all the chocolate.

He licked his lips.

"Can I have a box with everything, please?"

The salesgirl with eyeliner nearly rubbed away and two low buns at the base of her neck looked frightened. "E-Everything?"

"Yes… one of every truffle in the case. How much is that?"

"Um… it's gonna be 70 dollars…"

"Okay. Do you take cash?"

"Y-yes…? Are you sure you want… that much?"

"Why wouldn't I be sure? I've just put in my order and I'd like you to get started on it. Now."

His smile had left his face somewhere between "um" and "now". He huffed and pulled the bundle of cash from his hoodie with the holes, and counted out the ones and fives methodically (why Ismael only had ones and fives, he'll never know). She stepped to the side and put together the box, whispering several derogatory statements to her coworker in a tone she thought Erik couldn't hear, and suddenly he realized he probably looked homeless. The ugly nose didn't help that ugly face either, that was for sure.

He ended the transaction with a dignified glare, even though he dropped three fives into the tip jar before flopping out the door with his foot-by-foot long box of gourmet chocolate.

The cab ride back to Ismael's apartment in Chelsea seemed to take ages. He wondered if the driver was taking him in circles to run up the meter, as Erik wasn't exactly the most agreeable of fares. But he didn't seem to notice or care. The only thing he felt was that he understood what he was feeling. Which was a relief.

Erik took the steps two at a time when he got to the building. People were still tap dancing on his heart, but his face was as neutral as ever. Even as those people turned into a dozen Ismaels, all gloriously shaved legs in gold heels and shiny corsets, shaking their top hats with canes under their arms, singing to him —

"Oh Erik, where have you been all my life—"

"Oh Erik, you've got that thing that I like—

"Oh Erik, where have you been—"

"Erik? Erik where the bloody hell have you been?!"

Ismael was shaking his arms almost too drastically. He'd only been gone a few hours, of course, but the great booby was always worried about him. Always so concerned that this ugly little sewer goblin didn't stub his toe or run off with a soprano. It was really quite sweet.

Speaking of sweet.

He started to pull out from underneath his hoodie (where he'd hidden the rather large surprise) the golden and brown box tied with an elastic brown ribbon. Ismael kept talking and talking.

"You had me worried sick! Erik, what were you thinking?! The police have been searching for you for months, and you just walk out of here like it's nothing? What if you'd been captured? What then? What would I do? I couldn't protect you then, you know I couldn't! You asked me to keep you safe and I can't do that if you leave, without even saying a word! Well answer me for god's sake—"

"I bought these for you. I hope you like them."

He held out the box with a genuine, earnest, godforsaken happy smile, which finally shut Ismael up. His calloused brown hands finally let up on Erik's shoulders and transferred to the box, head bobbing up and down and clearly wonder, was this Erik giving him a gift? Really?

"I… I don't know what to say… Except… How did you pay for them?"

Eyeroll. Erik flapped his hand and crooned. "Doooon't worry about it. I have ways."

Ismael left it at that with a short green-eyed glare. When chocolates were involved, Erik knew he had Ismael cornered. He couldn't stay mad at him. Especially when the taller, lankier man wound his arms around Ismael's broad shoulders, resting his hollow cheek on top of his dark brown curls.

But he might be mad when Erik said the next words bubbling at the top of voicebox.

"God you smell like a dead cat—" Ismael said just as Erik said, "I love you."

He waited for a response. It wasn't like this morning when he'd hugged him to take him up on the comfort he was offering. This was a great deal more of an exchange. There was much to be said, and a lot to be lost.

And Erik lost it.

He lost fighting over the cable bill. He lost the craving for cigarettes. He lost countless sleepless nights wondering if he'd ever be loved for himself. He lost loneliness. He lost hope that one day, Christine would look his way. She'd turned her back on him just that afternoon, after all. Hadn't she?

Erik lost a friend.

And gained so, so, so much more.

Ismael parted from Erik, eyes ridiculously wide and shiny. He found it partly endearing, and partly tragic that he'd be so surprised. Well, the monster was capable of loving the knight instead of the maiden, wasn't he?

Apparently, the knight found it funny, for he was laughing. His soft, tanned lips framed handsomely by a trimmed black beard showed his pearly teeth. Erik growled.

"Aha… haha!" he started by wiping from his eye a happy tear. "I'm sorry, I was going to reciprocate but I can't take you seriously with that stupid nose and mustache."

The tap dancing started again. His face lifted, and he quickly peeled the mustache from his upper lip, stinging the skin. And the nose was dashed from his face, hurtled across the room and causing a brief crash and smash in the kitchen. Something was broken. They both winced.

And they each peaked out of one eye, regarding each other with pinched grins and throats bubbling with laughter. It picked up until they were leaning against each other, heaving and sputtering like a couple of drunk hyenas, and then Ismael pulled Erik close again and found his mouth to shutter up with his own.

And Erik, poor Erik… Never having been kissed romantically in his life (there were a couple of times as jokes or dares, and then that one time with he was kidnapped by an Estonian gang leader and forced to do some weird things with a monkey), Erik was a dangling doll in Ismael's arms, but he was certainly smiling into it. And he was sincerely glad he'd eaten one or four of the chocolates in the Godiva box on the way home, because otherwise he definitely would have tasted like strawberry vomit.

It's funny how quickly you can realize you've fallen in love with your best friend.

I hope you enjoyed this little fic! It was written on a whim and I gotta say I think I'm a better writer when I don't plan anything in advance.

Please please PLEASE read and review and share! ESPECIALLY review. If you like the fic, REVIEW it. Please please please! With a strawberry on top (hopefully not one from that garbage can/newspaper machine).

-Rose

This fic is cross-posted on AO3