Archive of Our Own ^beta

Puzzle wasn’t fool enough to forget Logos’s “threats” from his birthday, three months prior.

The 5th of December was as unsuspecting a day as any. He didn’t have friends , per se, on Rhodes Island, so that was completely within Puzzle’s expectations.

(He hadn’t specifically intended on being on the landship for today, but the Duke of Caster seemed to still think that his experience on Rhodes Island was important for… having somewhere to spend his free time. Puzzle honestly didn’t think that he did anything out of the ordinary there, instead spending more of his time solving puzzles than ever, but that wasn’t something he was about to divulge to her.)

The Banshee didn’t waste any time at all. The moment Puzzle left his room and went to the cafeteria, Logos ambushed him and dragged him in a corridor just slightly off to the side and presented him with a gift box.

“A gift?!” Puzzle asked, knowing that his tone sounded the same as always but knowing Logos would be able to pick up the surprise in it. “I didn’t expect -”

“I know. I have no shortage of wages from what Rhodes Island pays me, and I don’t think that I express my appreciation for you as a comrade-in-arms often enough. So, here.” Logos was far too polite to thrust it into his hands, much more than what Puzzle could’ve said for certain people (he appreciated Mitm, the young man who’d basically seemed to have taken himself under Puzzle’s wing without him even extending it, but the enthusiasm was not that needed). “This is the first part, at least.”

“ Part ?!” Puzzle asked.

Logos shrugged, holding out the box, which Puzzle finally accepted, then the Banshee was continuing to speak. “Come along, now. There’s more lined up for you.”

“...Is this part of an extended plot to silently torture me?”

Logos held out his hand expectantly and didn’t answer.

“So it is,” Puzzle mused, but he put his hand in Logos’s and let himself be dragged into the cafeteria.

The first thing he was aware of, when Logos lightly shoved him through the door, was the sudden blast of some kind of dust right in his face that he attempted to avoid, but Logos’s body was blocking him from moving backwards.

He might have let out a curse at that.

“Happy birthday, Puzzle! ”

The yell that seemed to come from all sides simply made him blink, pausing to cover his ears slightly then letting go with the yell abated. His eyes were still shut against the… dust? - and he wiped them with the back of his hand before daring to open them.

He wasn’t surprised whatsoever to see Harmonie holding a bag of flour, being the one to have hit him with a handful of it. Ho’olheyak - an operator that he’d somehow formed an…unlikely understanding with, was also standing there with her indecipherable smile, looking very much like she definitely had a hand in all this. Mitm, the young man who’d immediately taken Puzzle as his mentor, grinning mischievously with what appeared to be a bag of sugar in his hands.

Puzzle turned around to glare at Logos, then noticed that his suit was also covered in flour from where he’d been blocking Puzzle’s escape. “...You sacrificed yourself for the cause? Don’t think that’ll make me any more sympathetic to your trickery.”

“Mmm.” Logos ushered him further into the room, and Puzzle was quick to attempt to dodge when Mitm threw roughly half a bag of sugar on him. Unfortunately, it was impossible for even him to dodge that amount of sugar, and he only just managed to prevent it from getting onto his face. “...How exasperating. May I ask, what exactly was the point of all this?”

“It was Harmonie’s idea,” Mitm supplied, not at all wavering in the face of Puzzle’s stare. “The idea was to make you into a cake, with the flour and sugar and… well, eggs, but we weren’t about to egg you.”

A deep sigh of exasperation left Puzzle. “What sort of numb-brained idea was this?”

“You do look like an excellent cake, Puzzle,” his Feline co-worker practically purred at him, her tail swaying with amusement. “Pretty delicious.”

“Doesn’t a cake usually refer to one’s assets?” Ho’olheyak observed dryly.

Puzzle couldn’t be sure if he’d seen her gaze flick over his shoulder, but before he could investigate further, Logos chimed in, “He has that, too.”

“...Banshee.”

“Not that I would know.” Ignoring his warning tone, Logos moved out from behind him and approached the table, leaving Puzzle glaring at the three of them who showed no remorse whatsoever in their expressions. “Now, would our cake like to have his actual cake and gifts?”

Ho’olheyak gave Puzzle an oddly sympathetic smile that resembled more of a smirk, gesturing for him to approach the table. Trying to straighten out himself as much as he could while being partly covered in flour and sugar, he had just a moment to take in the cake on the table, along with a few boxes before Logos assaulted him with a slightly damp cloth to wipe away any traces of mess on his face. He soon found out the reason when Harmonie popped up on the other side of the table and snapped a few pictures.

…The remaining traces of flour and sugar would still be visible on his hair and clothes, but at least his face was clean.

Puzzle surveyed the table, his eyebrows raising ever so slightly when he saw the choice of cake. Lavender Earl Grey cake, something that he did rather enjoy, perhaps that was Logos picking them up from the Victorian snacks he often shared with him. And the gifts he’d gotten were… ah, his favorite pastime, boxes of puzzles of all kinds. Rather touching, if he did say so himself.

“You lot didn’t have to go to all this trouble…”

“Now now, how could we possibly remain silent when we knew when our dearest colleague’s birthday was?” Mitm chirped. “Come on, are we singing a birthday song or what?”

Thankfully, everyone’s blank stares (and the extremely hilarious follow-up where everyone slowly turned and looked at Logos, who shook his head), convinced him otherwise.

Puzzle obligingly cut up the cake for all of them to share, all five of them sitting down to eat and mostly poke fun at him. He indulged them. Very slightly. Not once betraying his real feelings by maintaining his poker face.

After all, this day only came once a year, didn’t it?

He even allowed Harmonie to smear some of the cream on his face for some of their photos, allowing Mitm to throw one arm around Puzzle’s shoulders and Logos on the other side holding his waist. After carefully checking with her that those photos wouldn’t leave the social circle of these five people currently here.

If he saw Logos privately saving those photos later on, he didn’t say anything about it.

***

“Puzzle.”

“Be quiet. Your voice is disturbing the pieces.”

“When you invited me over to spend the night, I didn’t think that this was what we were going to be doing.”

“What did I just say?”

Logos huffed softly, but obediently remained silent.

Puzzle had definitely done this on purpose, and he knew that Logos was aware, but the Banshee had chosen to play along further. Or alternatively, he’d decided to humor Puzzle. Both were rather appreciated.

Therefore, he had Logos there, head tilted sideways and resting on his fist, watching Puzzle assembling a puzzle. He’d been sitting completely still prior, watching Puzzle with rapt attention so far - Puzzle could acknowledge that it could be fascinating for the first couple of minutes to observe his thought process, but it surely got old after… a quick glance at the digital clock told him that Logos had been waiting for over an hour .

He slotted in two more puzzle pieces, the weight of Logos’s gaze falling away as he gradually closed his eyes to doze. Huh, Puzzle might’ve even started feeling the slightest feeling of guilt.

Which must’ve been the reason why he assessed the state of his completion. Not at all an ideal spot to stop at. Puzzle knew that he’d likely feel an itch in the back of his mind for the rest of the time if he left it incomplete here, but… perhaps he could offer a compromise.

“If you promise not to disturb me, I’ll allow you to let me sit on your lap.”

“Oh?”

Not nearly as pleased as he should’ve sounded. But perhaps that was understandable when he’d been invited to Puzzle’s room but had spent the time just watching him put together a puzzle.

But Puzzle obligingly stood up, allowing Logos to sit down on his chair and pull him onto his lap. The Banshee’s warm arm encircled his waist, shifting the chair closer so that he could still access the table while being pressed against Logos.

Even Puzzle, world record holder of not having outward emotions that would interfere with his job, had to admit that this was kind of enjoyable.

He reached for his cup of tea, sipping it briefly before setting it back down and examining the loose puzzle pieces in front of him again. Logos’s arm remained around his waist as he leaned back and closed his wings over his eyes, starting to doze off.

…Puzzle could easily admit to himself that this was the best birthday he’d ever experienced.

***

The next morning, when Logos left his room to return to his own and freshen up (yes, Logos could actually stay the night now because he’d insisted on replacing Puzzle’s sheets with ones that he could tolerate), Puzzle opened the gift box to see - 

A fountain pen? Amused, Puzzle turned it over in his fingers, then noticed a small note in the box.

Happy birthday. This fountain pen never runs out of ink, made with a special Banshee spell. Enjoy.

Running his finger along the side of it, Puzzle noticed the small puzzle piece engraving on the side of it and had to hold in a smile. That was a rather nice touch, if he did say so himself.

Grabbing for his phone, he texted Logos:

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Puzzle: Be careful, Banshee. If you don’t behave yourself, I’ll start thinking that you actually care a lot more for me than you let on.

15 minutes later

Logos: What a funny threat you just made.

Logos : I’ll take that to mean that you liked your birthday gift very much.

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