#ncssianwrites

[ncssian]

time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires, now i’m missing your smile, hear me out. we could just ride around.

a/n: this is soooo long and MAJORLY unedited but it feels perfect for xmas eve so im posting it now. it might even be missing paragraphs but we ride

***

Nesta refused to go fully no-contact with her sisters. To this day, she didn’t know why, but that was how she found herself standing outside Feyre’s house for her mandatory family dinner, held only three times a year.

Three times a year, Nesta had to dress up and submit herself to a painfully awkward night of being left out of conversations and eating mediocre food. Tonight it was for Thanksgiving. She’d long resigned herself to the torture of it all, and she was nothing but grateful that it was only three nights out of the whole year.

That still didn’t make knocking on the door any easier, however.

“Nesta?” a voice behind her asked, immediately raising every hair on her neck. She turned away from the front door to find a familiar face walking up the lit pathway to the manor’s stone porch, approaching her.

Oh God. “Cassian?”

Wow, did he look… different. In the three years since he’d left to work for the Peace Corps, Cassian’s muscles had subtly grown not bigger, but more defined, his clothes now better-fitting. His dark hair was shorter than she’d ever seen it before, no longer wild and untamed, but still long enough to fall near his chin. He looked so tame in comparison to the hulking giant she’d used to know.

He laughed and rushed up to her to sweep her into a crushing bear hug, making her gasp in surprise. They’d never been close enough in the past for a greeting this enthusiastic, but maybe the Peace Corps had made him demented. “How have you been?” he exclaimed, setting her down on her feet and placing a hand at her shoulder so she wouldn’t tip over. “I was wondering whether I’d get to see you tonight.”

Nesta could only open and shut her mouth, no words coming out. “You’re back,” was all she could say.

He grinned wide. His smile had remained the same. “I am.”

Her mind frantically flipped through the encyclopedia of social etiquette. “It’s good to see you again,” she forced out. “How was—life?”

His laugh was quiet, but she didn’t know what was funny. “I should be asking you the same thing. What are you waiting out here in the cold for?” He nudged her softly.

“Just trying to work up the nerve to knock on the door,” she answered honestly.

“I see.” He nodded. “Well, if we both put our heads together, I'm sure we can manage it before dinner is served.”

Was he making fun of her? His manner seemed serious and earnest, and it was confusing the hell out of Nesta.

Just then, the door swung open, a rush of light and warmth spilling out onto the front porch. “I thought I heard a ruckus outside,” Elain said, thin brows furrowing as her gaze swung to Nesta, then quickly smoothing out with a smile as her eyes landed on Cassian. “Come get out of the cold," she said. "We’re so glad you could make it.”

Nesta knew Elain was addressing both of them, but she couldn’t help but feel the last part had been directed to Cassian more than her.

Cassian swept inside with a grin and greeted Elain with a kiss to her cheek, and Nesta had to force herself to look away. Suddenly the hug she’d gotten no longer felt like overkill. A kiss had to mean more than a hug, right?

“You both are a little late, but you haven’t missed much. I’ll bring everyone else to the dining room,” Elain said, before wandering off down one of the mansion’s grand hallways to get the rest of their friends.

Nesta took in a subtle breath, but a deep one nonetheless, as she set about taking her coat off. It was stupid to be so anxious about a simple dinner. In no less than four hours, she'd be tucked in her warm bed with a swoony romance book, and the whole evening would disappear like the fragments of a bad dream. This was nothing.

Cassian came up to her side as they made their way to the dining room, bending down to speak into her ear. "There's so much I want to catch up with you about. I wish I'd known you were going to be here earlier, I would've prepared more."

Nesta's responding look was confused, if not bewildered. Prepared for what? Was there something grating about her presence that required preparation? He kept saying things that sounded like potential jabs in the softest, friendliest manner.

She ran her jittery hands down the sleek low ponytail of her hair, then the blue velvet of her simple dress. "Yes, well." She didn't follow through with the rest of the sentence.

They arrived at the dining room, where it was both a relief and a weight to no longer be alone with just Cassian. Everyone else in her sister's little friend group was already there, ooh-ing and aah-ing over the platters of food and rushing to claim seats at the table.

Nesta heard several exclamations of "Cassian's here!", all of which she ignored as she tried to decide which seat would suit her best tonight. She might have heard Cassian say, "Nesta's here, too," but it was quickly swallowed up and lost to the rest of the room's conversation.

Cassian took a seat next to Azriel and started pulling out the empty chair beside him. His eyes searched for and met Nesta's just as she picked her seat on the opposite side of the table, near the very end. A look of defeat took over his face as Morrigan took the chair beside him. Nesta didn't understand what the look was supposed to mean, but as it was awkward not to smile at someone after a certain amount of eye contact had been made, she offered him a small smile that probably came off as a tiny grimace before looking away.

After a lot of scrambling around, Elain ended up seated on Nesta's right. Not too bad, as conversation with Elain was less likely to make Nesta's skin crawl than with others at the table.

Everyone started piling their plates with food, and Nesta let Elain take her plate to serve her. It was easier than drawing attention to herself by reaching out and getting the food on her own.

"You shouldn't have come so late, Cassian," Feyre said from the head of the table. "You missed all the appetizers, they’re all finished now."

“Don’t tell me you didn’t save me any of Elain’s lobster rolls,” he said with wide eyes, acting offended.

Elain giggled at that, but the sound seemed more calculated than genuine. It probably wasn't nice to think everything that your sister did was calculated, but Nesta wasn't feeling very nice tonight. She felt like staring into her mashed potatoes while dreaming about a handsome man crashing this dinner party and promptly sweeping her off her feet.

Morrigan and Feyre led the conversation by gossiping about some work friend of Rhysand's they'd run into on their latest shopping trip, and time melded around Nesta and held her captive. She imagined she'd been painted to match the printed wallpaper behind her, rendering herself invisible to the rest of the room.

To everyone except one, that was. But everytime she accidentally made eye contact with Cassian, she looked away before he could even register it. By the time she looked back, he'd refocused on whatever jokes or stories his friends were telling.

Thirty minutes passed by without anyone asking Nesta a question. She counted each one, until—

"So what do you do these days?"

It took a long moment of awkward silence before Nesta looked up from her plate to find Cassian staring at her, his eyes warm. She realized the question had been directed at her. "Me?" she said in disbelief, because she needed the confirmation.

"No, one of these other losers," he teased. Some made noises of mock-offense, while others stifled their laughter.

Nesta shifted uncomfortably at how all the attention in the room had shifted to her. Being ignored wasn't fun, true, but this was far worse. "I run a dance studio," she answered. She didn't mention anything about how she was also a ghostwriter of romance novels on the side, although maybe she might have admitted it if they'd been alone.

Cassian's eyes lit up, and he imperceptibly leaned forward over the table. "No way. What kind of dance?"

"Um, just pole for now." Normally she'd leave it at that, but something in her wanted to give the full picture to Cassian. "I'm working on hiring more teachers and splitting it into contemporary and hip-hop-based classes, though."

"No ballet?"

She shook her head, distracting herself from his heavy gaze by taking a bite of salad. Ballet had been Nesta's first love, even more so than the ballroom dancing her grandmother had forced upon her, but she'd been bitter for a long time at how puberty and big boobs had taken away any chance she'd had to dance professionally. More than that, its ways were too rigid and painful, and Nesta would rather teach students how to let go rather than restrain themselves.

"That's crazy," he said, grinning. "I never imagined you doing anything than classical."

Right. He'd seen tapes of her old performances once a long time ago, though she was surprised he still remembered them.

"Nesta got the idea from dancing at that strip club a few years ago," Morrigan interjected with a wave of her fork.

Nesta's face flamed with heat at the misinformation, because even though there was nothing wrong with being a stripper, there were certain things you couldn't say to certain people without being judged for it. Like announcing that you wrote erotica in your free time, or that you were bisexual.

"It was just a regular club, and I was a go-go dancer," she corrected, as if that would lighten the blow. Rhysand made a noise that implied this was not much better than stripping.

"Holy shit, how much have I missed?" Cassian sat back in his chair in disbelief, not picking up on the light waves of discomfort that floated around the group whenever Nesta's past was brought up. Then again, he'd never found anything about her to be uncomfortable.

After Feyre and Rhysand had cut off all sources of her income, she’d been forced to find a real job. Dancing was the only thing she’d been good at doing, and she knew from the seedy bars she frequented that one of the nearby nightclubs was hiring. Thanks to her body and skills, she’d been able to indulge her alcohol problem off tips alone, at least until she’d made the decision to get her life together. That had been a year and a half ago.

But she couldn’t tell any of this to Cassian. She didn’t need to, either, because Amren answered his question for her. “Nesta's unrecognizable from when you last saw her, isn't she?" she drawled. "Don't worry; I promise her personality's still the same."

"Indeed," Rhysand grumbled, and a few others laughed.

Cassian still had that smile glued to his face, but it now looked frozen and false, as if he was no longer happy but didn’t know what to do about it.

But the conversation was out of his control now, due to the unfortunate fact that once attention landed on Nesta, it was usually difficult to make it go away. The next thing she knew, she was being bombarded with questions from all sides of the table.

"Were you late tonight because of that old Toyota again? I told you you could afford a new car if you took up my job offer."

"One of my friends took a class at your studio and said it wasn't too bad. You should give me a free membership so I can see for myself."

"What's your new address again?" This one from Feyre. "I need it for my Christmas cards."

Nesta blinked hard, head spinning at everyone's words being thrown at her, wondering how unacceptable it would be if she just—snapped. Wondering if maybe she could get herself uninvited from these things from good.

"I—" Mor started to lob another question.

“Let the woman fucking breathe, Jesus,” Cassian chuckled into his wine glass, cutting her off. But it was targeted at the whole room to hear, and the bitterness beneath it was clear.

The room went still. Awkwardness, sharp and cold as ice, swept over the dinner table until Nesta felt like her bones were frozen in place.

When no one responded, Cassian took a large gulp of wine and set the glass down with a dull thud. “I mean, if we want her to come around more often maybe we shouldn’t be giving her reasons to never visit,” he said, his voice too loud in the quiet room.

“We’re just catching up since we never get to see her,” Feyre said, sounding hurt and defensive at the same time.

Rhysand’s barely-audible growl implied he wanted to kill whoever had put that hurt in her tone—which in this case and most cases, was Nesta.

“That’s enough,” a delicate but firm voice beside Nesta said. She felt a soft hand rest on her arm, and looked up to find Elain’s sympathetic brown eyes watching her. But when Elain opened her mouth to speak again, all that came out was, “Eat more, will you? You’re so skinny it’ll make the rest of us look bad.”

Nesta had actually been gaining healthy weight lately, but for some unfathomable reason this was Elain’s attempt at diffusing the hostility in the room, so Nesta hummed a sound that technically counted as a response and busied herself with picking at her cut of roast beef.

Her lack of aggression seemed to satisfy the table, and one by one, people slowly went back to ignoring her and redirecting their focus to another topic of conversation.

Not even a minute later, Morrigan cackled far louder than required at something Azriel had said, causing Nesta's shoulders to inch up toward her ears. The hand that held her fork had fallen still, and Nesta’s other hand was fluttering subtly on the table, her index finger digging sharply into the thin skin around her thumbnail. The pain was a welcome balm to her agitated nerves.

She forced her hand to straighten out and lie still when she noticed Cassian's gaze on her. The action only sent her pent-up nerves straight to her spine, where she feared they would spontaneously combust and cause a meltdown in front of the whole table.

But then she met his eyes, and something in her heart choked, then settled.

She’d long forgotten the true hazel of his eyes. Hazel could be any color and every color, but looking at Cassian now, even from this distance in this weak lighting, her brain was starting to fill in the gaps of her memory. So many shades of brown and yellow speckled with blue-green colliding together, reminding her of undiscovered planets.

He was the first to pull his gaze away, but it was slow and required effort. Spell broken, Nesta’s own gaze dropped to her plate. At the very least, she no longer felt like ripping her fingernails off.

Nesta was left fairly alone for the rest of the meal, but the odd tension that had formed with Cassian and spread over the rest of the room didn’t dissipate. Even when everyone once again became lost to bantering and arguing with each other, Nesta felt the sense of awareness burning along every line of her body. She tried telling herself it was just in her head, but when she caught Amren sneaking a glance at her out of the corner of her eye, it was undeniable.

As more and more people finished their plates, they got up from the table to use the bathroom, talk on the phone, or wander into the adjacent drawing room to make use of its minibar. Among the noise, Nesta quietly excused herself and made a beeline for the emptiest part of the first floor of the house.

Alone in the kitchen, she finally allowed herself a deep intake of air. It felt like her first breath all night.

Shuffling toward the liquor cabinet, she pulled the first bottle of red wine she could find and grabbed herself a glass. Low footsteps behind her made her look over her shoulder before she could open the bottle.

It was just Cassian. Though the sight of him made her insides flutter, she didn't think he would judge her for drinking, so she turned back to her glass and uncorked the bottle.

"I needed some air," he spoke after a few moments of silence. Nesta nodded as she filled her glass perhaps a little too high. He took a few more steps toward the counter where she stood, and she belatedly realized that he was trying to engage in conversation with her.

Her brain scrambled for something to say, and just as she thought of asking him if he wanted some wine as well, Cassian was speaking again. "I'm sorry for everyone's behavior back there. It was super embarrassing."

Oh no, Nesta internally groaned. She'd almost rather put up with Feyre's lecturing and Amren's nitpicking than deal with an apology.

"They're not usually like this," he promised. "Someone must have spiked their drinks tonight."

Nesta didn't bother telling him that he was wrong. She didn't know how to react to such an unexpected statement. "There's nothing to apologize for," she said, sounding stilted and awkward. "I'm not really a sensitive person."

"Still," he said, looking up at her, "the vibes in this place are so weird tonight." He shuddered to himself. "Don't you feel weird?"

Was he referring to his friends, the sharp-edged way they spoke to her, or something else? "Maybe because it's your first time back in a long time." Nesta shrugged. "I'm used to it."

"Well, I'm not. In fact, I can think of a dozen other things I'd rather be doing right now than having dinner here."

Nesta glanced at him, her eyes widened in surprise. "Haven't you missed your friends, though? They're so excited to see you."

He shook his head. "This is honestly, like, our fifth meeting together since I got back. I see them all the time."

"Ah."

"What about you?" he pressed. "Do you want to stay or go?"

Nesta looked around the kitchen as if someone else might have walked in during their conversation and he was talking to them instead. "What do you mean?" she said.

He let out a small laugh. "Do you want to ditch this dinner?"

"But—wouldn't that be rude?"

He shrugged as if the consequences didn't matter much to him. "The door's right there." He gestured with his head toward the hallway leading to the foyer.

Nesta didn't know what overcame her. She chugged as much of her glass of wine as she could and set it down with a thump, looking at Cassian. Less than a minute later, they were speeding out the front door on quiet feet, stifling laughter and the jingle of car keys as they went.

***

"What about my car?" Nesta asked as Cassian started up his Ford truck, turning the heat up to full blast.

"We'll come back for it later tonight," he promised, shifting into drive and pulling away from the hulking mansion. "After everyone's gone, so you don't have to run into them."

"That'll take hours, though," she said, chewing the inside of her cheek. There was never such thing as a short dinner when Feyre's inner circle were gathered together.

"I've got hours to kill," he shrugged, then glanced over at her. "You can go home whenever you want, though. I can drop you off or take you back to your car."

Nesta took half a second to mourn her dream of cuddling in bed with her books all night, then got past it. This wasn't such a bad replacement for her former plans, anyhow.

"What should we do?" she asked, hesitant excitement bubbling in her stomach. Cassian opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off. "Should we go to the movies? I wanted to see that new horror comedy—"

"I thought it wasn't out for another week."

"Oh." She sat back, trying to think of something else. "Is Nude still in theaters?"

Cassian chuckled. "Don't think so, Nes."

She ignored how the nickname made her feel. "What about Back to Black?"

"Director's a creep."

"The new Marvel movie?"

"Terrible reviews, and you hate mega-franchises."

True. "...Maybe we can just keep driving around?" she finally suggested.

Cassian surrendered with a cheery grin. "I love that idea." He glided into the right lane and made a turn that led them straight onto the highway. The truck hummed as it accelerated from 45 to 70.

In the dark lit only by the dashboard lights, Nesta kicked her heels off and stretched out in her seat, letting herself smile. She could hardly remember why she'd been struggling for air back at that dinner. This, driving at night with Cassian in silence, was one of the most relaxing feelings she'd ever experienced.

Even so, she was surprised to find she didn't mind it much when Cassian eventually interrupted the quiet.

“I really did miss you.” His words took her by surprise, and it must have showed in the look she threw him.

He chuckled lowly. “Is it that hard to believe?”

It was, actually, though Nesta didn’t tell him that. “I just don’t remember us being that close,” she said, shrugging. They’d rarely talked without Feyre or one of her friends in the room, and when they had talked alone, the conversations hadn’t been very deep. He’d tried to tease and challenge her in the beginning, as she was sure he did with every worthy person who came his way, but when Nesta was unresponsive to his efforts, he eventually dropped the asshole act.

“We weren’t,” Cassian agreed, “but sometimes your favorite people are the ones you see the least.”

That made Nesta’s breath hitch. He couldn’t mean it the way she thought he meant it. She couldn’t be his favorite.

"I had a huge crush on you when we first met, you know," he added.

Nesta’s shoulders deflated, in either relief or disappointment, she didn’t know. Of course; that was what he’d meant. She gave him a dry look in response. "Yeah, I sensed that."

He did a double-take from the road to her. "You did?"

It had been painfully obvious any time they were in the same room together, with the weight of Cassian's gaze feeling like hefting a barbell of anxiety and discomfort and embarrassment. She remembered how her skin would itch with how she blushed, how her throat would close up and her breathing would shallow out. It had felt like suffering from an allergic reaction.

Nesta didn't say any of that to Cassian now, though. "What made you stop liking me?" she asked instead, propping her elbow on the passenger-side window and leaning her head against her fist. She was genuinely curious to hear his answer. It had happened before she'd fallen too deep into her hole of depression and brought shame onto Feyre and the Archeron name, so it couldn't have been the fact that she'd been a hot mess. "Was I too rude? Too quiet? Too boring?" How had she let him down?

"What?" Cassian looked over at her like she'd gone insane. "No."

"Then what was it that made you stop liking me?" Because Cassian had stopped liking Nesta at a certain point. After a few awkward conversations and a failed attempt to spend time alone with her, Cassian had pulled away from Nesta as if he'd never known her in the first place. The heavy gazes lessened, then stopped altogether, and the conversation would rarely go past a friendly "hello" up until the day Cassian had left for the Peace Corps.

Cassian bit down on his lip, looking both amused and flustered by her scientific questioning. "I didn't stop liking you. I just stopped chasing you."

That information took Nesta by surprise. She was stunned, still figuring out what to say in response when Cassian continued, "I was too young and too stupid back then. I didn't know how to make decisions for myself, and I let other people convince me not to go after the things I wanted. I regretted it for a long time while I was away overseas, but eventually I just had to get over it, you know?"

Nesta blinked, staring out the windshield and saying nothing.

He'd wanted her. Even when she was drinking and fucking her way through every bar and club in the city, he'd wanted her, all the way up until the day he left—and even after that, if she was understanding him correctly.

"Anyway, what about you?" Cassian said, changing the topic. "You been seeing anyone lately?"

"Why? Are you asking for yourself?" She meant it to be taunting, but her natural deadpan tone made most things she said sound serious.

Cassian made a noise that sounded like a choked cough. "It was just a question."

She tried not to be disappointed at his response, even though it was no surprise that he was over her by now. Why would he be interested in reigniting something that had never sparked in the first place?

"No," she finally answered, her voice sounding small but not weak. "I haven't really been interested in meeting people lately, not even for casual hookups."

He threw a glance over at her, the surprise subtle but there. "Can I ask why?"

She shrugged, never having had to explain the answer to anyone else before. "I don’t like putting myself in situations where men want my body. I already feel like a blowup sex doll as it is, so it’s better to not date at all."

"Why would you feel like that?" Cassian said, the slightest hint of alarm and concern creeping into his tone. "Did somebody call you that?"

She shifted in her seat, feeling awkward at being put on the spot. "I don’t know, it’s just the way my body’s built. I’m always getting asked whether I do porn or have an OnlyFans. People always give me their unwanted opinions on my boobs or my hips or my butt."

"Who said that to you?" he demanded.

"I was a go-go dancer, remember?"

"That's not an answer." His voice was hard. "Or an excuse."

"I only told you because you asked why I don't date," she said sharply, suddenly cold. "I don't need your pity." And she was regretting opening up so much to him so soon.

Cassian opened his mouth to speak and she cut him off before he could decide to pity her anyway. "What would you do with the names of my harrassers, anyway? Find them and beat them up? Give them a real piece of your mind?" she mocked. "You can barely stand up to your own friends when they're being dickheads, tough guy."

Cassian made a choking sound, which soon devolved into wheezing, and when Nesta finally looked over at him she found that his shoulders were shaking with restrained laughter. Her brows scrunched up in confusion, her nerves getting whiplash from the sudden shift in mood.

"Holy shit, there she is," he barely got out between laughs of disbelief. "Where the hell was she all this time?"

"Who?" Her bafflement must have been written all over her face.

"The proud Nesta I first met so many years ago," he stated. "The one who'd rather choke to death on her own arrogance than give in to someone else."

Nesta felt like he'd just pointed to an obvious crumbling corpse that everyone else was trying hard to forget was in the room. That prideful Nesta was the opposite of the person she was trying to be these days, even though her ghost might have made an appearance when she'd been a little unnecessarily rude to Cassian just now.

She only shook her head, denying that old version of herself's right to exist. "I don't have the time or energy to be that person anymore. And I hate getting into fights. Losing all the time gets exhausting fast."

Instead of responding with something witty, Cassian drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel, his tongue poking into his cheek as he clearly thought something over. "The Nesta I knew never used to lose an argument," he finally said.

"A lot of things change once you lose all your financial and social capital," she murmured, almost too quiet for him to hear. It was the closest they'd gotten all night to touching upon that uncomfortable period of her life—Alcoholic Whore Gone Wild, as Amren had coined it. But she couldn't bear exposing that part of her past to Cassian, even though he'd already witnessed it with his own two eyes. She refused to say more, not wanting him to remember what a mess she'd been only a few years ago.

"Is it Rhys and the rest of the guys?" Cassian said, plowing right through the topic she was trying to avoid. "Did they outnumber you into changing so you'd fit into his PR campaigns or something?"

Cassian was scarily close to being on the nose of what had actually gone down, and it made Nesta flare her nostrils in defense. "I don't think we're close enough to be talking about things like this." She was back to being cold, even though it required more effort this time. "Change the subject."

"Fine," he said casually, though not even the dark could hide the subtle tightness of his jaw. "Let's go back to that sex-doll thing then. Did that start before or after I left?"

"Are you my therapist?" she felt the need to resist against him.

"Do you ever answer questions without another question?" he shot back. When Nesta still refused to budge, he released a sigh. "You just never seemed to me like someone who gave a shit about how others saw you. That was what made you Nesta. So yeah, sue me if I wanna know more about how your pretty little brain works."

Nesta swallowed his words like a rough pill, doing her best not to linger on the word "pretty". Now that he didn’t seem so uncomfortably shocked by her confession, she twisted toward him like she was telling a juicy story. Honestly, she felt a perverted excitement at getting to discuss parts of her life that she never got to speak about otherwise. "I used to not care that much about it," she started, "but one day while I was alone at home I saw my ass in skinny jeans in the mirror. I don’t know, it just flipped a switch in me. I felt so dirty. Like an object to be used instead of a person. And I realized that was how most people probably perceived me, too. It freaked me out so bad I just retreated from men and the dating pool altogether."

She felt dirty going out in certain clothes, and dirtier still when other people looked at her in those clothes. Even the dress she’d worn tonight, formfitting with the neckline cut out to accentuate her chest, had required her to avoid full-length mirrors while getting ready. She knew it wasn’t normal to feel the way she felt, but she also knew there wasn’t much to be done about it.

Cassian let out a low whistle. "That’s fucked."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"No." His answer was smooth. "But I think you'll get mad at everything else I want to say, so I'll leave it at that. It's really fucked you have to feel that way, Nesta."

Her swallow was tight, and she was more than a little surprised. Never in a million years could the Nesta of three years ago have imagined Cassian talking with her about things like this, and more than that, comforting her.

In truth, she had thought about Cassian too while he was gone. She wouldn’t say she’d missed him, because she didn’t know how to miss something she never had, but there’d been an empty longing on the rare occasions she thought of him. A bittersweet desire for what could have been, if only she’d been less of a mess and more of an easy person to be around.

She didn’t know how to tell him this, so she settled for, “For what it's worth, I really am happy that you're back.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cassian stifle a smile. He roughly cleared his throat and changed the subject. “You wanna go to Town Square and see the Christmas lights?”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay.”

Nesta tucked her feet beneath herself and got comfortable, and they continued driving in companionable silence. Twinkling holiday lights and towering decorations passed in a blur outside the windows, and at one point Cassian stopped at an In-N-Out to order fries and a milkshake. "You didn't eat much back at the house," was his only explanation as he handed the food over to Nesta.

She accepted the kindness without complaint, happily munching on fries and melting into her heated seat. Something about the warm truck made her forget time was moving, but the next time she pulled her gaze away from the windshield to check the clock, she saw it was already midnight.

Cassian seemed to take note of it at the same time she did. “Damn, I have an early morning tomorrow…” He trailed off, not stating the obvious—that their little getaway drive had to come to an end.

“Me too,” Nesta lied, so she didn’t sound stupid for wanting to stay like this, driving in silence.

She turned on her phone for the first time all night, finding no less than five missed calls and a handful of upset texts from her sisters. Holding back a grimace, she shut her phone off again. "Maybe you can drop me off at home instead of at Feyre’s."

"You sure?" Cassian looked over at her. "What about your car?"

She waved a hand. "I'll get it back later. I just want to be home right now."

Cassian didn’t hesitate before making a U-turn off the left lane. “You still live in Brentwood?” he asked casually.

Brentwood, with the roach-infested grimy one-bedroom she’d inhabited in the depths of her depression, back when it was all she could afford and all she could stomach to come home to after a long day of self-hatred.

Unlike most, Cassian had never judged her for it. He’d even shown up on her ratty doorstep one Christmas Eve to drop off gifts from her sisters, saying nothing but that he hoped she would be okay, and to have a merry Christmas. There was no direct mention of her obvious miserable state, but no tense avoidance of it, either. It had been the most ordinary interaction Nesta’d had that year: short, sweet, and simple.

Nesta blinked herself out of the sudden memory. Being reunited with Cassian was bringing back too many moments she’d forgotten had happened. She shook her head, even though he probably couldn’t see. “I moved to Goldridge.”

“Ooh, fancy,” he teased. He pulled out his phone and held it out to her. “Put your address into the GPS.”

Clicking on his phone, Nesta found notifications for several missed calls and texts on his screen as well. They were at least double the amount she had, but she didn’t let her eyes linger on the messages as she swiped up onto the home screen. Of course he didn’t have a password on his phone. He could be so dumb sometimes.

Typing her address into his Maps app, she turned the navigation on and set his phone down in the cupholder between them.

Cassian glanced over to it and squinted to read her address while he drove. "That's only twenty minutes away from where I live."

"Really?" Nesta perked up, intrigued. In the past, Cassian had always been an hour or so away, considering the heavy traffic between Velars and it's poorer outskirt cities. Now he was basically her neighbor. "But isn’t it far from your friends and family?”

She'd purposely chosen her current home for the distance it placed between her and said friends and family.

Cassian shrugged as he merged onto the highway. “Not too far, but not too close, either.”

The rest of the drive passed with light conversation between them. Addicted to how the low rumble of his voice paired with the darkness of the night roads made her feel fuzzy and sleepy, Nesta let Cassian ramble to her about his time in Tunisia while she leaned back in her seat, her eyes millimeters away from drooping shut.

Sometime later, Cassian pulled up to the curb of her brownstone townhouse and put the truck into park. He let out a low whistle as he inspected the tall windows and the quality brickwork, then looked back at Nesta, who was still blinking the sleep out of her eyes, with an embarrassed grin. “I’m a fool. I completely forgot to ask how you ended up with your dance studio.”

Nesta opened her mouth to tell him about her business, but Cassian shook his head fast. “Don’t tell me now. I want to hear the whole story, sometime when the night isn’t right about to end.”

Sometime other than now…? “What do you mean?” she voiced.

He met her gaze with serious intention, no amusement or nervousness to be found. “I’d like to see you again, Nesta Archeron.”

The words hung between them like the start of a promise.

Despite the sudden warmth flooding her insides, Nesta was hesitant with her answer. She still didn't completely trust Cassian—nor herself when she was around him. She didn't want to spiral into obsession over him just for him to break her heart. She still needed to test the rock face of this thing between them, checking for cracks and loose areas that could give way. “I’ll think about it," she finally said.

Cassian's lips slowly curled up into a clever smile, looking like he'd just won a prize. "Give me your keys." He held his broad hand out.

Nesta frowned. "What for?"

"I'll bring your car over in the morning. It'll be a quick drop-off."

"You really don't need to..." She trailed off as Cassian reached over and stuck his hand in her tiny purse, quickly finding and pulling out the shiny keys. He jingled them in her face. "Thanks for these," he said, as if she were the one doing him a favor.

She opened her mouth, closed it, then nodded. She'd given up on trying to keep pace with their conversations, especially not when he rendered her speechless so often. "I should get inside now," she said.

"Don't freeze on the way to the door," he said, even though it couldn't have been more than a ten second walk. Again, was he teasing or being genuine? Or somehow both at the same time?

"Get home safe," she responded, because that was the only phrase her encyclopedia for social etiquette held right now. She exited the car and reached inside again to grab her purse. She might have left it behind so she'd have an excuse to linger in the pinecone-scented warmth of his truck for a bit longer. Eventually, she had to force her head out of the front seat, away from Cassian's kind smile and gorgeous eyes. "Goodnight, Cassian." Nesta shut the door between them, eager to end their interaction quickly so she could go inside and spend the whole night thinking about him.

Even with the door shut and the windows too dark to make out Cassian's face, Nesta swore she could feel it in her bones when he murmured back, "Goodnight, Nesta."

***

a/n: the gifts were not from her sisters…but that’s a story for later (never)

tags:

@rarephloxes @moodymelanist @arinbelle @sayosdreams @bridgertononmymind @live-the-fangirl-life @a-court-of-valkyries @secretlovelybeauty @humanexile @helion-ism @my-fan-side @royaltykxx @xoblivisci @planet-faerie @katekatpattywack @imagine-me @meridainthedisneyland @jungtaekwoonie-is-life @rainbowcheetah512 @valkyriewarriors @loosingdreams @chosenfamily-valkyriequeens @perseusannabeth @that-golden-lyre @swankii-art-teacher @laylaameer01 @awesomelena555 @claralady @ghostlyrose2 @thewayshedreamed @drielecarla @superspiritfestival @aliveahaahahafuck @thebluemartini @nessiantho @missing-merlin @duskandstarlight @lucy617 @sleeping-and-books @cassianscool @wannawriteyouabook @everything-that-i-love @sv0430 @xstarlightsupremex @faeriebambula

#nesta archeron #nessian #cassian #ncssianwrites #taylor swift song drabbles #ncssian asks #nessian fic

[ncssian]

nessian second chance angst

Masterlist

a/n: unedited as usual. jealousy trope

***

Cassian has been pacing the length of the entire apartment for the last hour, unable to sit still while Nesta is out on her first date in months. 

It’d be one thing if she was on a date with someone who actually deserved her, someone who worshiped at her feet and ate up every word that came out of her beautiful mouth. Cassian would still be tortured, no doubt, but he’d at least find some relief in the knowledge that Nesta was being treated well. But to go out with Daniel Morano, the asshole from her office who constantly puts her down, uses her as his personal assistant, and has made her break down in tears after a work day more than once— Cassian is nearly climbing the walls with his pent-up frustration and desperation.

Did she learn nothing from all those years ago? What was the point of running away and cutting off all contact with Cassian, her sisters, and their friends all that time ago if she was only going to throw herself into a similar relationship years later?

He’s about to call it a night and resign himself to his bedroom when the sound of voices floats into the apartment from the hallway outside the front door, one low and feminine and the other belonging to a man. 

Even as a distant muffled noise, Cassian recognizes Nesta’s voice. He crosses the living room in long steps until he’s at the small entry area, not believing his ears. It’s only been an hour, far too soon to go on a date and return. 

“I’ll see you another time, then?” Nesta’s voice comes through the door, and it isn’t the Nesta who reads aloud from her books to him or cackles loudly on the phone with her friends. She’s Ice Queen Nesta, and Cassian can practically hear the fake tip of her long nail scrape down the front of her date’s tie in a move meant to seduce. Admiration surges in the same rush as jealousy as he listens to them flirt briefly out in the hall. Seconds later, Nesta is wishing the other prick a good night and shoving her way into the apartment. 

Only to run straight into Cassian, who is still standing way too close to the door. “What’re you doing here?” She stares up at him past false lashes and shimmery eyelids.

Cassian ignores her question and says, “He bothered to walk you up this time, did he?” It pissed him off earlier when Daniel hadn’t even come upstairs to pick Nesta up, making her walk alone to his car instead. 

Nesta rolls her eyes and shoves past Cassian, who hasn’t moved an inch from where he stands by the door. “Only because he thought I might bring him inside for sex. Not that I see how it’s your business.”

Cassian turns on his heel to find Nesta yanking off her shoes—kitten heels so she wouldn’t have looked taller than Daniel, probably—and shimmying out of her sheer tights. 

He ignores the sight of her bare legs and states, “I don’t like him.”

Nesta straightens with her tights bundled in a hand. Her glacier-colored eyes harden on him. “Again, I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

Cassian works his jaw in frustration, carefully picking his next words, knowing he’ll be in hot water if he oversteps his boundaries. “I just…What are you doing home so early?” he redirects so he doesn’t have to put his foot in his mouth.

“I told him I got assigned important casework at the last minute.” Nesta flings her tights to the side and pads to the kitchen. Cassian makes a note to pick them up later and follows after her. “But you didn’t?” he pushes.

“No.” She yanks the fridge open and starts rifling through it. “Do we still have those quesadillas from lunch? I barely got to touch the appetizers at the restaurant before I decided to leave.” 

“We’re out.” He reaches over her shoulder and gently pushes the door shut, forcing Nesta to straighten up and turn around to face him. Wedged between the fridge and Cassian’s hard chest, with a healthy amount of space for all the issues between them, Nesta pins an irritated glare onto him.

“I’ll make you more if I hear why you left early,” he murmurs. It’s a reasonable concern to have about his roommate, he thinks. Her reason for abandoning her date could be anything from getting her period to Morano being a grade-A asshole. Cassian’s pretty sure he already knows the answer, but he needs to hear the details to make sure Nesta wasn’t hurt by anything that man had done or said.

“Or I could just pick up the phone and order a pizza.” Nesta flicks his chest with a sharp nail. 

“You like my food more,” he reasons. 

She gives in pretty easily this time. It’s been taking less and less work to get Nesta to open up to him lately, like it’s no longer the fight of keeping things to herself. “It was just a bad date,” she confesses, rolling her eyes and ducking out from Cassian’s shadow. She hops her pert ass up onto the kitchen island and rummages around in the fruit bowl as she talks. “He’s kind of an ass, so I wasn’t expecting an amazing time or anything, but my tolerance for his personality must’ve been lower than usual tonight. My pussy dried up like the Red Sea, even though I was really hoping for a lay. So I made up a lie and now I’m here.” She finds a plum she likes and bites into it. “I still need to reschedule with him, though.”

“Once again, I don’t like him,” Cassian reiterates.

“You don’t even know him. He’s not that bad.” Juice dribbles down Nesta’s chin, and he briefly imagines what it’d be like to go over to her and lick the trail away.

And also imagines the swift slap he’d receive right afterward. 

“I know what you’ve told me of him,” he tries to argue.

“Make me dinner,” she snaps. 

But Cassian isn’t done talking, even as he moves toward the fridge. “Do you want the full list why?” he says as he pulls out ingredients and lines them up beside the stove. “He’s only nice to you when he needs something from you. He treats you like his personal assistant, even though you started working there only a few months after him.” 

“I don’t need to hear this.” Cassian turns around to find that Nesta’s jumped off the island and is walking away from him, toward the kitchen exit. 

“He’s verbally abusive,” Cassian calls after her, “and he made you cry only a week ago.” Dismissive, needlessly cruel, selfish—Cassian can’t be the only one who thinks Morano’s just a white male Amren.

“Oh, shove it, Cassian.” She spins around to face him. Her voice is dangerously icy when she says, “Need I remind you that we are not anywhere near close enough for you to be giving your unwarranted opinions on my relationships.”

“Fuck close,” he seethes, taking a step forward. “Why does it have to be him?” he pleads, needing to know the answer. “Why force yourself to be with someone who obviously couldn’t give less of a shit about you? You’re Nesta, there are men everywhere who’d be tripping over themselves to treat you the way you deserve!”

“Because you ruined men for me,” she bursts out, her voice the most emotional it’s been around him in all the time he’s lived here. “There, okay? You fucked up my idea of love and romance so bad that I can’t tell a red flag apart from a perfectly normal interaction, and every time I go on a date, I have to wonder whether I’m overreacting or if the guy in front of me is actually a huge piece of shit because he said the smallest offhanded thing. So yeah, I don’t feel comfortable around Daniel, but at the same time, I don’t feel comfortable around anybody! At least he’s obvious about the fact that he uses me. At least years down the line, I won’t have to look back at my relationship with him and feel blindsided by how toxic it is. At least I’ll never have to worry about him manipulating me, because he’s too stupid to bother with it. You can see why I’d prefer him over an actual decent guy, can’t you?”

Cassian stares at Nesta like he just saw his parents’ rotting corpses crawl straight out of their graves, his skin clammy and chest heaving with shaky breaths. Blinking hard to rid himself of the chaos in his head, he makes himself focus on Nesta’s current problem. That’s the only problem he knows how to solve right now, because she might never forgive him if he tries to dig into their past and fix that, too. 

“You forgot something, Nesta,” he says.

She blinks, her face still red with emotion. “What?”

He takes a step toward her. “You can’t get it up for a man that doesn’t care for you. In fact, it might be your biggest turn-off yet.” Cassian takes credit for that too, though not with a single bit of pride. At her responding noise of confusion, he takes another step closer. “You. Can’t. Fuck. Him.”

Nesta lifts that beautiful chin in defiance, her cool attitude already returning despite the outburst she just had. “I’ll just find someone who cares for me, then.”

Normally, it wouldn’t be too hard for a woman like Nesta. Cassian bets he could go outside right this moment and find someone just as enthralled with her as he is—and just as undeserving of her. But he knows her self-doubt will make things unnecessarily difficult for her. “That might take you a while,” he says in a low voice. “Considering what you just told me, that is.”

Her nostrils flare in challenge. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“Oh, I know you’ll do it. Just maybe not by tonight, which is when you wanted your needs sated by.”

 She rolls her icy eyes like this is already a well-established fact. “Obviously it’ll be me and the vibrator tonight.”

A moment of silence passes before Cassian says in a quiet voice, “Or you can have me.”

***

For a good several moments, Nesta thinks she hasn’t heard him right. “What?”

“Until you find someone who does it for you, I’m right here, and I check all your boxes,” he says in a way that is way more enticing and seductive than it deserves to be.

Nesta is shocked still, taken aback by so many emotions she can hardly pause long enough to describe them all: anger, indignation, disbelief at his audacity, and beneath it all—temptation. She shoves that last part away and focuses on the rest. “Have you forgotten that you’re the reason I have boxes in the first place?” she sputters. 

“I know,” he says, too calm for Nesta’s liking. “But you won’t take my apologies, will you?”

“It’s too late for them.”

“You won’t forgive me, either.”

“No chance.”

He nods, seeming disappointed by her first answer yet relieved by her second. “Good. Then at least take this from me. It’s the least I can give. You know I care about you. You know I can make it good.”

Her eyes turn dangerous. “If this is your fucked up way of telling me you still have feelings for me, then we’re going to have way more problems than just me wanting sex.” Because if he’s trying to confess to her right now, she swears to every being in the heavens that she’ll kick his ass out of this apartment before he can finish saying I love you. 

Cassian rolls his eyes at her accusation, waving it off like the absurdity it should be. “How many times do I have to tell you it’s not like that? I care for you as a friend. I feel like that would have been obvious by now. And as a friend, I want you to stop hurting yourself by seeking out shitty men—” 

“But you admit you’re physically attracted to me?” she cuts him off mid-sentence. She doesn’t know whether to feel betrayed or… something else. She really thought she’d finally found a male friend who didn’t only hang around because he wanted to fuck her one day. Once again, she was wrong.

Cassian shakes his head, sending her a look torn between pity and vague amusement. “As much as you might hate to hear it, a dead man could get it up for you, Nesta. Please don’t overthink it. My only question is whether you’re capable of being attracted to me.”

Nesta bites the inside of her cheek, hard. She must be the worst hypocrite in the world, because a single day hasn’t gone by when she hasn’t been attracted to him at least a little bit.  Even at his absolute worst, she wanted him at minimum on a physical level. It’s partly why she was so jealous of his relationships with Mor and Feyre. Men who look like Cassian are always going to be desired to some extent, even if it’s a desire buried deep, deep, down and locked away in a file marked Open only in case of apocalyptic disaster. It’s also partly why leaving him was so damn difficult in the first place. 

“I should kick you out for even suggesting this,” she seethes.

“Probably, yeah. But my offer stands.” He watches her with far too earnest hazel eyes, waiting for her answer.

Nesta inhales a deep breath, but it still feels like she’s at the top of a mountain. “If we do this,” she says slowly, clearly, “it’ll be on my terms. I’ll decide when, where, and how. And it certainly won’t be tonight.” If ever, but she leaves that door open. 

Cassian’s features are carefully controlled, but his eyes might as well light up like a Christmas tree. He’s relieved that she won’t be sleeping with Daniel or others like him anytime soon, and she knows it’s not just because of some misplaced possessive jealousy. He sincerely hates the thought of her giving the time of day to someone who would bully and use her.

Nesta remembers something Gwyn told her when she visited the apartment not too long after Cassian moved in. 

“Not only do I hate him, but it makes me sick to my damn stomach watching him look at you like that.” Gwyn pressed a hand to her tummy as if it actually hurt.

“Like what?” Nesta frowned. Had Cassian been leering at her without her noticing? She still found it awkward to make eye contact or talk to him for too long, so she wouldn’t know if he’d been staring lecherously or not. 

“Like a twelve-year-old schoolgirl. All that blushing and giggling. Ugh, if he’d started twirling his hair with cartoon hearts in his eyes, I would have hurled my dinner all over him. Promise me you won’t let that man date you, Nesta.”

Nesta was taken aback by Gwyn’s nonsensical assessment of Cassian, highly doubting it was as extreme as she’d made it sound. “I don’t need to promise,” Nesta assured her. “We already have an agreement not to bond more than necessary. His ass and belongings are out the door if he even thinks about trying something.”

The agreement still stands, though the line in the sand between them may have been redrawn. The second she thinks he’s falling for her, she’s kicking him out.

***

tags:

@rarephloxes @moodymelanist @arinbelle @sayosdreams @bridgertononmymind @live-the-fangirl-life @a-court-of-valkyries @secretlovelybeauty @humanexile @helion-ism @my-fan-side @royaltykxx @xoblivisci @planet-faerie @katekatpattywack @imagine-me @meridainthedisneyland @jungtaekwoonie-is-life @rainbowcheetah512 @valkyriewarriors @loosingdreams @chosenfamily-valkyriequeens @perseusannabeth @that-golden-lyre @marigold-morelli @swankii-art-teacher @laylaameer01 @awesomelena555 @claralady @ghostlyrose2 @thewayshedreamed @drielecarla @superspiritfestival @aliveahaahahafuck @thebluemartini @nessiantho @missing-merlin @duskandstarlight @lucy617 @sleeping-and-books @everything-that-i-love @cassianscool @wannawriteyouabook @sv0430 @xstarlightsupremex @faeriebambula

#nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #ncssianwrites #nessian fic

[ncssian]

nessian second chance masterlist

posted on ao3 as Better Man

prologue

a hot bath

he remembers

lasagna and a long talk

the proposal

#ncssianwrites #nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #nessian fic

[ncssian]

A wrinkle formed in Cassian’s brow when Nesta didn’t reply. “I was only teasing you,” he reassured, knocking his elbow against hers. “Is it a good book?”

“I should get back to work.” Overwhelmed, Nesta quickly turned away and shoved the book into a random shelf space. They were both wedged into a narrow aisle in a corner of the store, and there was no direction she could turn in without feeling his towering presence over her shoulder. She knew this because she spun in a full circle before knocking into his broad chest again and stumbling back.

Cassian reached out a hand to steady her, but again it only hovered without actually touching her. “Can I help?”

#this fic is purely a passion project atp there could be 0 people reading it and i’d still be partying with every chapter #nessian #nesta archeron #a cup of tea snippet #ncssianwrites

[ncssian]

thinking of deleting this scene so im posting it here (yes im still working on scarletwitch!nesta fic)

***

“I hate living alone, makes me go stir-crazy,” Cassian said, leaning against the checkout counter as Nesta filled out inventory charts beside him. 

It had become a habit of his to come up to her while she was working and start a random conversation out of nowhere, his words filling up the usually empty space Nesta worked in. She didn’t mind, of course. He had a nice voice, and he carried most of the conversation for her.

“I’m never at home, but when I am I have to constantly FaceTime my friends so the apartment isn’t too quiet. Anyway, what about you?” He looked at her expectantly, and Nesta realized that this was the part where she was supposed to relate to him by saying something about her own experience. “I like living alone. It’s comforting to me.”

That would be an understatement. Living alone was the greatest feeling in the world. For the small price of fifteen-hundred dollars a month, Nesta could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, unburdened from the noise and opinions of others.

“Damn.” He crossed his arms atop the counter and leaned in. “Don’t you get lonely?” 

“I like being lonely, too.” Loneliness was a worn and faded sweater she would never get tired of wearing. “It gets sad sometimes, but it’s the soft kind of sadness that feels like a hug.” Nesta sorted through the rattling coins in the near-empty tip jar, picking up dimes and pennies one by one.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’ll have to try it out,” he said, like they were talking about local restaurants instead of emotions.

Nesta slid a handful of quarters across the counter toward Cassian; his half of the tips. He slid them right back. This was another habit he’d picked up in their time working together—refusing to take tips. The second time Nesta slid the coins back, he picked one up between two fingers and said, “Quarter for a thought?”

Nesta didn’t really like talking about herself, but for him she wanted to find something worthwhile to say. “I brought my own lunch today.”

Cassian’s whole face brightened up with excitement. “Really?”

She shrugged, nodding.

“I’m so proud of you. Just for that, you get all my quarters.” 

Nesta thought it was more than a bit sad to get paid in quarters for sharing a single sentence about herself, but Cassian looked so happy for her that she didn’t have the heart to turn his coins away. 

His excitement was gone, however, by the time Nesta carried the lunch she’d brought over to an isolated corner of the bookstore and plopped down on a beanbag, book in one hand and sandwich in the other.  

He hovered near the counter until she looked up at him, meeting his gaze past rows of short shelves. “Something wrong?”

He cracked a knuckle, an odd look on his face that she couldn’t read. “You don’t want to eat with me in the back?”

“I’m good.” Nesta shook her head. “You can go eat. I’ll watch the store.”

“Right,” he murmured to himself, nodding. “Will do.” 

#nessian #nesta archeron #ncssianwrites

[ncssian]

If you are still taking Elucien requests, maybe Lucien falling sick and Elain going all mother hen on him

Cold Hands, Warm Touch

a very long canon-verse oneshot, post-acosf

***

Elain knew something was wrong when she woke up in the Band of Exiles' manor that morning.

There was something uncomfortable lodged in the back of her throat, irritating enough to have her clearing her voice all the way through breakfast. If she'd still been human, it would have been a telltale sign that she was about to develop a sore throat—and a cold not long after that. But she was fae now, and fae simply did not catch colds.

Yet as the day passed, her not-quite-sore throat was soon joined by a dull headache, and she found her hand reaching up to rub her chest from time to time with no apparent reason. Vassa was the first to pick up on it.

"Something wrong with the mating bond?" the redhead inquired that afternoon, looking up from the book of spells she was reading.

Elain quickly dropped her hand from her chest as if she'd just been caught stealing from a cookie jar. "What?" she spluttered. "No, of course not."

As far as Elain was concerned, there was no mating bond. Even if she was holing up in the same manor as Lucien, providing her seer abilities to help take down Koschei—and more importantly, making a point to her family that she was capable of participating in Things—the mating bond was no more or less relevant to her than it had been back when she'd ignore Lucien for months at a time. If he couldn't pick up a hint by now, well, it was hardly her fault.

Vassa only raised a brow. “Then are you having chest pains? Those are rarely a good sign.”

“I’m not having chest pains.” Elain squeezed her eyes shut against Vassa’s questions, her headache sharpening in its pounding. Hell, maybe she was getting sick. The dark gray clouds slowly overtaking the sun outside weren't helping her mood, either.

When she reopened her eyes, she found her hand had again drifted toward her chest, as if it could clasp the invisible thread there that tied her to a male she didn’t want.

And then what would her hand do? Elain wondered distantly. Would it snap the thread in half, or tug on it the way a child tugs on their blanket, blindly seeking comfort from it?

Elain didn’t need comfort right now, though. She didn’t know why such a thought had just passed through her head, but she was going to blame her headache for it.

“When are the others getting back?” Elain asked Vassa, affecting a casual tone. To say Lucien’s name in front of a woman like the firebird queen was to invite teasing and harassment into one’s life. Never mind that he and Jurian had been gone conducting work on the continent for almost a month now, and being in the manor alone with Vassa was starting to get dreadfully awkward.

Elain’s efforts weren’t enough, though, because Vassa still had the nerve to smirk as she said, “Give it a few more days. It’s not like the boys can winnow.”

Elain always shifted uncomfortably at those words—“the boys”, which implied “Vassa’s boys”. She avoided thinking about the pink couch in the manor’s sitting room, which she’d heard far too many stories about in the days that Lucien and Jurian had been gone.

It was nearing dinnertime when the sound of heavy knocking rang throughout the manor, cutting through the patter of rain drenching the world outside. Elain, who was about to make her way down the grand staircase toward the dining room, paused at the top of the steps as Vassa went to answer the door. The queen threw a questioning look up at Elain as she took hold of the knob—they were the only two people in the manor and its surrounding area, and neither of them were expecting anybody. Elain clenched the railing with her hands, wondering if this was one of those situations where it'd be best to have a weapon at hand.

But then Vassa swung open the door to the storming night. “What are you two doing back so soon?” she said in surprise. She moved to the side to usher two hooded figures inside, drenched and shivering from the rain. Jurian barked a curse. “Fuck, it's freezing outside.”

Vassa hurriedly shut the door and turned to Jurian and Lucien. On instinct, Elain's feet moved toward the steps, wanting to join the group and find out what was wrong, but she forcibly held herself back. They weren't her group of friends to join, and people tended to speak more freely when she wasn't nearby, anyway.

Elain took notice of how Jurian's arm was occupied with supporting Lucien's weight, and again her hand drifted to her chest. Lucien still had his hood on, though his back was turned to Elain, and he was the only one still visibly shivering at this point.

“This idiot,” Jurian's voice drifted up to where Elain waited at the top of the stairs, “went and got himself stabbed with ash wood and cut our mission short by five days. He's recovering just fine,” he added at the fear crossing Vassa's face, “but the wound was prone to infection and we thought it best to return. The storm hit as soon as we made land here, and he's been down with a fever since last night.”

“And what of you?” Vassa’s voice was sharp, pointed in its concern.

“I,” Jurian sounded on the verge of passing out, “could use a warm bed and some soup.”

“I really am feeling fine,” Lucien spoke up for the first time since he’d entered the house. Elain flinched from where she stood, not having been prepared for the sound of his voice after going weeks without hearing it. It was hoarse and weakened from sickness, but it was his voice, and it made her want to cover her ears and run until she could escape the flipping sensation in her stomach.

Vassa just looked both of the males over and shook her head. “Come on,” she waved them along, “you both need to get changed and fed. And Lucien—”

Lucien chose that moment to sneeze.

“Jurian,” Vassa amended. “Give me the rundown on what you discovered on the continent.”

They all moved toward the stairs with that, and Elain instinctively moved back. She ducked into a darkened hall before either Jurian or Lucien could spy her and stayed there, waiting like a coward until she heard the group walk past toward their own rooms.

Elain chose to forgo dinner to spend the evening hiding out in her room. Only an hour passed this way before her restlessness got the better of her and she emerged once again, planning to go straight to the kitchens and knead her frustrations out on some dough. She was uncharacteristically anxious, despite knowing that Vassa could take care of Lucien and Jurian just fine on her own. The same thoughts kept plaguing Elain over and over again: why hadn't she felt it when Lucien got stabbed? Why had she felt it when he fell ill this morning? Was he alright? Was he in pain?

The bond made all these questions unavoidable, no matter how much Elain did or didn't want to care about him.

She was caught halfway to her destination by Vassa, who was carrying a small pail of water with a washcloth flung over the rim. “Oh, Elain.” Vassa stopped her in her tracks with an all-business look. “If you're heading for the kitchens, could you grab some dinner and bring it up to Lucien? I don't think he's eaten anything all day.”

Elain leaned away from the other woman, taken aback despite her best efforts. “He hasn't eaten anything yet? What have you been doing this whole time then?”

Vassa's flame-blue eyes narrowed on Elain in a way that would send shudders through most people. “Taking care of our other friend Jurian, who lacks a fae immune system and also caught a cold during the journey here. I cannot nurse two males to health at once, and it's past time you started pulling your weight around here.”

“It's been over an hour since he returned,” Elain replied in cold indignation. There was no excuse for leaving a wounded and sick male unattended for that long.

“Then you'd better get to feeding him, hadn't you?” Without another glance, Vassa pushed past Elain for the staircase.

Repressing her fury, Elain stormed to the kitchen to prepare a tray of food. Ridiculous—just because Vassa had clear preference for one of her so-called boys over the other, didn't mean that Lucien should have to suffer. It definitely didn't mean that Elain should be the one burdened with taking care of him.

Except she knew that if Lucien had been any other male, she would have looked after him without hesitation. No one deserved to be ill and injured alone. But this was yet another drawback of the mating bond: Elain wasn't allowed to treat Lucien as if he were any other male. She couldn't grant him the same kindness and concern she'd grant anyone else without everyone in her vicinity staring and thinking loud enough to hear: She must love him, she must want to accept the bond, when is the date for the mating ceremony?

She brought the tray up to Lucien’s room and paused outside the door. She’d never wandered into his wing of the manor before, much less his bedroom. It was all terrifyingly uncomfortable.

Elain put on her most bland face and balanced the tray on one hip, knocking briefly with her free hand before entering the room.

A fire blazed in the hearth to her left, sending a blast of heat across her skin. But Elain didn’t take notice of the borderline stuffy warmth as she honed in on Lucien, who lay still beneath a mountain of blankets on the bed.

Crossing the room, she set the food on the nightstand and stood over Lucien, unsure of what to do now.

"Lucien," she tried saying, although his name came out half-whispered. Even after all this time, it felt foreign on her tongue.

She tried saying his name again louder, and when she got no response, she reached over and lightly shook the pile of blankets. The figure beneath it only trembled and clutched the quilts closer to himself.

Growing impatient, Elain tore the covers back and snapped, “Lucien!”

The male in question made a pained noise, taking an eternity to peel his eyes open. When his gaze finally landed on Elain, part-metal and part-russet brown, he blinked several times. “Elain?”

The sound of her name coming from that voice sent an involuntary shiver down Elain’s spine. He sounded nothing like his usual self, the poor thing.

Elain shook off the chills and said, “I brought dinner. You must eat.” Or else he would only get worse, was what she left unsaid.

“I see,” Lucien said. His eyes slipped back closed, and he added nothing else.

“Lucien,” Elain prodded again. Gods, this must have been the most she’d said his name aloud in years.

“I’m doing it,” he murmured, even though he was clearly not doing it.

He really must have been sick, if he wasn't showing a hint of difference that Elain had come here to his room of her own volition. Or maybe a month away had finally hit the nail on the head of what Elain suspected had started a long time ago: Lucien was losing interest in her.

She snatched up the steaming bowl of potato-and-beef stew from the tray and shoved it under Lucien's nose, feeling both annoyed at the male and sorry for him. “If you don't get up to eat this, I’ll have to feed you myself.”

Those weren't the words that had intended to leave her mouth at all, but it was too late to take them back. Elain didn't have much experience in making threats, and this was apparently the best she could do.

Lucien cracked his eyes open to look up at her, but did nothing else. As if waiting to call her out on her bluff.

Huffing aloud, Elain took a determined seat at the edge of the bed and shoved a spoon into the stew. "I'll do it," she threatened again, scooping up a spoonful.

"Take your time," he said. The words would have been more taunting if he hadn't had to turn his head into his pillow to cough right after.

Elain winced, but managed to shove away her pity enough to extend the spoonful of stew warily toward Lucien, like offering a hand out to a rabid dog that might bite it off.

Lucien was unamused by her bedside manner, yet he opened his mouth to accept the food. Elain managed to awkwardly shovel stew into his mouth a total of two times before he finally lost his patience, snapping his limbs out from under the covers and grabbing the spoon and bowl from Elain. "Give me that," he snarled.

Elain gave up the food with relief.

Lucien's skin was uncharacteristically pallid and his eyes were tired and watery, which is how Elain knew he must have been starving to be able to gather the energy to feed himself. Yet his chewing was slow and unenthusiastic; Elain wasn't sure if he could even taste the food in his current state.

"How are you feeling?" she made herself ask. It was only the polite thing to do.

"Cold. Weak," he grunted in answer. "Did you make this?"

Elain half-thought she was dreaming, for she couldn't remember the last time she'd held a casual conversation like this with Lucien, without his pining and their unresolved mating bond standing between them. "I did; they're yesterday's leftovers."

She had once been hypervigilant and paranoid about feeding Lucien her cooking and accidentally accepting the mating bond as consequence. She'd refused to cook for the Band of Exiles in her first days at the manor, and Lucien had been the one to finally catch on to her worries. He'd restrained himself from laughing in her face and instead explained that that was not how mating bonds worked, all with an amused little smile on his lips. That had been one of the only times Lucien had broken their unspoken agreement of ignoring each other since Elain had come to the Human Lands.

"How—where is your wound?" Elain awkwardly inquired.

Lucien took a moment too long to respond, entirely focused on downing his food. “Left shoulder. Got it in a tavern brawl.”

“Someone was carrying ash blades with them in a tavern brawl?” Elain’s eyes widened. She honed in on Lucien’s left arm, which he held tucked close to his body. What had he been doing in a tavern brawl, anyway?

He shrugged with his good shoulder. “Anti-magic sentiment is strong among humans on the continent, and I doubt all of this helped.” He gestured to his whirring enchanted eye and the scar framing it. “Why do you ask?” Why do you care?

Elain didn’t care. However, she was genuinely curious about something. "How come I didn't know you were stabbed?" The question had been poking at her ever since she'd found out about his injury. There was a lot she still didn't understand about the workings of the mating bond, but sensing when one's mate was gravely injured seemed like a requirement for it, didn't it?

Lucien chuckled, but it came out as more of a bitter rasp. "Usually only stronger bonds can sense such things. Especially accepted ones."

Elain didn't flinch. "I felt your sickness today, though. I felt ill as you felt ill." She knew now that was what had caused the odd sore throat plaguing her all day.

Lucien was silent for a long moment, his spoon hanging limply from his hand. He coughed a little and continued eating. "You must be mistaken," he said through bites. "It was only coincidence. You should take a draught if you're not feeling well, though."

Despite knowing he was being dishonest, Elain accepted his words with relief. She feared that pushing the matter would be like opening a door with blood pooling from beneath it, instead of choosing to turn her head and keep walking.

She changed the subject to another matter that had been irritating her recently. "Vassa told me some interesting stories while you and Jurian were gone." She was aware of the neutral distance between her and Lucien as she spoke, and she maintained it with a straight back and a blank face.

"Did she?" Lucien seemed surprised at this, which irritated Elain for reasons she couldn't explain.

"I couldn't tell which ones were true and which ones she made up to play around with me, but..." Elain toyed with a stray thread on the quilt tucked around Lucien.

"But what?"

Elain did not consider herself a calculating female, but her next words had been stewing in her head for quite some time now. "Have you ever... lain with Jurian and Vassa? Together at the same time," she added. "On the pink couch, specifically."

Lucien choked on his stew, which quickly evolved into a coughing fit. Elain only watched unempathetically and waited for him to catch his breath.

“She told you that?” he rasped.

“Is it true?” Elain repeated. She was only curious, after all.

Lucien put down his bowl. “You were in love with Azriel before he fell for someone else. You would have run away with him if you'd had the opportunity.” His words were frank, matter-of-fact.

“But I never—did anything with him.” All this time she'd thought Lucien had been celibate out of loyalty to the mating bond.

“You didn't get the chance to.” Before he left you for another female, was what went unsaid. “But I'm not blind, and I could see your intentions every time you two were in the same room.”

Elain stiffened. “I asked a question about you. What does this have to do with me?”

“At least I've never developed feelings for someone while being openly mated to another, is what I'm saying.”

"Are you—are you judging me?" Elain said, incredulous and indignant. She owed him nothing. Where did he get the right?

"Before you try to judge me for fooling around? Yes, of course." His response was smooth and light-hearted, diffusing some of the tension in the room.

"So you admit to doing it." She raised a brow. Whether it made her a hypocrite or not, she would judge all she wanted to judge.

"I admit to nothing." Lucien shrugged, though he clearly looked like he wanted to laugh at her.

Elain grabbed a bread roll off the tray and stuffed it into his unexpecting mouth before he could do such a thing. "Eat your bread," she snapped.

She looked away as he choked on the roll and struggled not to imagine the implications of his words. She hated the image of it. Was every time that Lucien had come around to Velaris, looking miserable while pining after her, been a lie if he'd been having so much...fun behind the scenes?

She didn't know why she cared either way. If anything, it should have been a relief that Lucien hadn't remained celibate while waiting around for her. It would have been, well, pathetic if he had.

Lucien thankfully said nothing about her behavior, and ate for a handful of more minutes before groaning and pushing his bowl back onto the tray, then pushing the entire tray away from himself. "No more, please." He shoved his arms back under the blankets as soon as he was done, trembling with cold despite the blazing fire.

“Ah,” Elain said, not really knowing what to do now that her task was over. “Is there anything else you need?” she asked, quite insincerely.

Lucien caught her false politeness, that metal eye narrowing at her in disapproval. "Thank you for dinner. I apologize for all the trouble it must have brought you," he gritted out.

Elain thought he was pissed at her innocent question, until she realized he was clenching his teeth together to stop them from chattering. He wasn't just cold, Elain noticed for the first time that night—he was freezing.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but he’d already turned his back to her, facing the fire and burrowing into his covers.

Elain was more than ready to leave; she'd already gone far beyond than was required of her by making sure Lucien ate his food. She was practically a saint at this point. It was time for her to get the hell out of this stuffy overheated room and back to her own bed.

Elain picked up the half-finished dinner, but didn’t turn toward the door. She just stood there unable to move. “I’ll leave you to it then,” she said.

Lucien hummed in response, eyes shut once again, but his shoulders were shaking.

Elain gritted her teeth against the emotions rising within her. She needed to leave, but she physically couldn't move, not with him trembling like he was trapped naked in a snowstorm. His muscles would start to ache from how violent his chills were.

It was the damn mating bond that made her put the tray back down and put one foot in front of the other. It must have been the mating bond, because Elain would never willingly walk toward Lucien and say to his back, "Move over."

"Moving hurts." Even his words came out in a shiver.

"The other side of the bed is closer to the fire." Elain softened her voice, trying to sound more appealing.

Lucien still shook his head from beneath the blankets.

Elain gave up with a sigh. She crossed the room to stoke the fireplace a bit more before toeing out of her slippers and climbing into the empty half of the bed.

"Don't mention this to anyone ever," Elain said as she pulled his blankets over herself, refusing to look at Lucien. "Especially me."

"What?" Lucien sounded like he was trapped in a dream. He barely seemed to be aware that Elain was still in the room, much less in his bed.

The severity of his symptoms made her stomach turn with worry.

A year ago, Elain might have gone so far as to hope that whatever Lucien was sick with was serious. She might have hoped it would silently take him away in the night, leaving her without the burden of a mate and free to love whomever she wanted.

But she knew him too well now to even consider such a thing. She knew his quiet kindness, his dedication to his work, how his indulgence in clothes was the only indulgence he ever allowed himself. He'd never revealed those things about himself to her—she had observed it on her own over the course of days and weeks, out of the corner of her eye. Elain was forced to admit that, mating bond or not, Lucien was an objectively decent male. And she didn't want him to suffer or die.

Rolling closer to him, Elain wrapped her arms around his lean body and huddled into his burning hot chest, intertwining her legs with his. Her movements remained distant and practical, about as intimate as performing mouth-to-mouth rescuscitation on a dying man. Despite this, she swore she heard an audible sigh of relief shudder out of Lucien.

It made her feel oddly proud of herself. Elain was a dainty thing, with thin skin and permanently cold hands and feet. People didn't tend to appreciate her body for the warmth it could offer.

With the fire roaring at her back and Lucien at her front and the layers and layers of blankets atop them both, it was easily the most uncomfortable and stifled Elain had ever felt in her life. And yet she didn't move an inch, because Lucien's teeth still hadn't stopped chattering. This close to him, Elain could feel how the chills went all the way to his bones.

She tightened her limbs around him, as if it could get his muscles to rein in their uncontrollable shivering. At the same time, she breathed in his rain-soaked scent of lemongrass and verbena, hoping it would distract her from the unbearable heat all around her.

She knew he was asleep as soon as the thumping beat of his heart slowed into a staccato rhythm. The sound of it was enough to eventually lull her into a tired daze as well.

Whatever sleep she and Lucien found was short and restless. Lucien was troubled even while asleep, writhing and squirming in Elain's hold with either chills or discomfort. In her half-conscious state, Elain had to reach out several times throughout the night to grasp his injured arm so he wouldn't end up agitating it further. Throughout all of this, she clung to him like ivy to a stone wall.

Elain's eyes peeled open again much later in the night, closer to early morning. There was no particular reason for her waking up, only a sense of intuition that told her to check on Lucien.

Despite having fallen asleep facing him, Elain now found herself pushed away nearly to the edge of the mattress. Turning on her side, she further found that Lucien had kicked his blankets off to the foot of the bed, and sweat dampened the hair along his temples and neck. He was trembling again, but not from the cold this time. From pain.

Elain sat up, reaching out to touch the shoulder where he'd taken that ash blade—and caught herself at the last second. She scrambled out of the bed instead, circling it to come stand at Lucien's side. This way she felt more like a nurse and less like a concerned wife.

"Is your wound hurting?" she inquired, though she already knew the answer. She was surprised she couldn't feel the dull pain in her own shoulder as well, even if she was pretty sure mating bonds didn't work that way.

He whimpered, not quite awake or aware of himself yet. "I need Vassa," he whispered.

Elain froze.

"Or Jurian," he continued. "Anybody."

"I'm here," she murmured, keeping her voice low and even. "Tell me what you need."

"Vassa," he repeated.

Elain would absolutely not get Vassa, as Lucien was clearly delirious while his body was fighting to defeat his fever. And yet, jealousy twisted through her heart at the realization that Lucien had more friends than Elain would ever have.

She remembered seeing Vassa bringing water and a cloth up to Jurian's room, and she remembered how her childhood nurse would use a damp washcloth on her forehead to cool her body temperature down whenever she fell ill.

"Wait here," she said grimly. "I'll be right back."

Lucien was fully sobered up by the time Elain returned with a jug of cold water and a clean cloth. He'd removed his thick sweater and left only his thin undershirt on. "What time is it?" he rasped, eyeing her with more caution than he had all night. Gone was any of his sardonic ease from dinner or his eagerness to be held by her.

"Too late for you to be awake." Elain set the jug down on the nightstand with a thump and dunked the washcloth inside. "Close your eyes and go back to sleep, Lucien."

He released a deep sigh, but seemed too tired to argue with her.

Elain folded the cloth neatly and laid it across his forehead. She’d have been lying if she said she didn’t feel a twinge of satisfaction from the way his muscles visibly relaxed at the coldness.

A few minutes passed in silence with Elain sitting on the edge of the bed like this, resoaking the cloth whenever it got warm and occasionally wiping away beads of sweat forming along Lucien’s temples. She’d thought Lucien had fallen back asleep until he murmured without opening his eyes, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“What wasn’t supposed to be like this?” she responded in reflex.

“Us.” The short word was a mere breath on his lips.

Elain had no idea what he meant, but she knew she didn’t want to prod further. “Do you want me to put out the fire?” she asked instead. The heat must have been unbearable when his fever was trying to break.

“I’m sorry.” He clearly wasn’t listening to her anymore—he might not have even been awake.

Elain stood up swiftly and suddenly from the bed, nearly dropping the washcloth in the process. “I’ll put the fire out then,” she said, hurrying away from Lucien as if she could escape his too-honest words.

***

The majority of the night was a blur to Lucien, spent in half-dream and half-reality. He remembered soothing touches, flashes of golden brown hair, a dying fire, but he couldn’t for the life of him tell his waking moments apart from his sleeping ones.

When dawn finally broke, so did Lucien’s fever. He woke early that morning to an empty bed, but the scent of jasmine still lingered in the sheets, as if its owner had been here not too long ago.

Logic and sense made its slow return to Lucien, and he used them to piece together the discordant pieces from the night before. He remembered a tender kiss on his forehead—that had been a dream, obviously, and a lovely one at that. Elain putting out the fire in the middle of the night—that had likely been real, considering that the air was no longer stuffy but cold and still.

Elain feeding him: real. Elain trying to cool him down with a damp washcloth: real. Elain crawling into bed with him to help combat his chills: he couldn't judge the extent to which this memory was true. The scent she'd left behind told Lucien she'd been in his bed, yes, but to spend the whole night there with him, holding him? That part had to be a product of his imagination.

WIth a weary groan, Lucien pushed himself upright in bed. His body ached all over, but his throat and chest were clear and there was a renewed vigor in his bones.

He knew better than to feel bad that Elain had had to take care of him last night. No matter how much she disliked being around him, Lucien couldn't take the blame every time they were forced into interacting with each other. It wasn't like he'd asked her to sit at his bedside in worry and handfeed him stew.

That was what he told himself, despite how embarrassed he was over the whole situation. And yet he knew Elain deserved at the very least a thank you. He just wasn't sure how to deliver it to her.

If she had been Vassa, he could have simply gone up to her and expressed his gratitude to her in person. But Elain was Elain, and she had something of an intolerance toward Lucien's face.

In the two months she'd been living under the same roof as Lucien, she hadn't warmed up to him a bit. He'd been a fool to think getting Azriel out of the picture would have changed her feelings toward him in the slightest. Even without another male to turn her attentions to, Elain didn't want Lucien—not just in a romantic sense, but in any and every sense. And Lucien, feeling too pathetic to pretend otherwise, had accepted that fact and wholeheartedly given in to it. It both stomped on his pride and only annoyed Elain further to try to create a connection where there would never be one, so he'd since refused to attempt conversation with his mate unless it involved work or other practical matters.

Ironically, this was the only thing that had gotten Elain to relax around him in the entire time they'd known each other. Once she'd realized that he had no interest in her and only ever spoke to her out of necessity, it was like watching her entire demeanor thaw and a weight be lifted off her shoulders. She'd even started adding little comments during their brief conversations, notes about the weather and how her day was going and whatnot.

An older Lucien would have been torn between being hurt and being relieved at the subtle change in her behavior. The current Lucien didn't care either way, because he knew better than to hope for anything more. He knew their bond was a hollow one that would never be supported by real emotions. They were both better off seeking that sort of true love elsewhere.

Last night had been an exception of…unimaginable proportions, but it could be easily excused due to his sickness. Lucien had been delirious with pain and fever, and even Elain wasn't cruel enough to have ignored him in that state. Today, everything would go back to normal.

He couldn't thank her in person if she'd only end up uncomfortable for it. It would break their unspoken rule of only addressing each other out of necessity, so that morning he settled on writing her a note instead.

He kept it short and simple, not really knowing what he could add that wouldn't potentially irritate Elain. Thank you for last night, he printed on a plain card. Perfectly, painfully neutral, with no hidden expectations or connotations. Just the way Elain would like it.

Lucien placed his note in the kitchens for her to find, and left feeling quite proud of himself for how he'd handled that situation. The storm had long since passed, and the arrival of a new day brought a brisk energy with it. It was definitely the stew, he thought. It must have been imbued with healing powers.

***

and then elain gets the note and is like what is wrong with this cunt he cant even say five words to my face what a pussy i hate him

tagging:

@rarephloxes @moodymelanist @arinbelle @sayosdreams @bridgertononmymind @live-the-fangirl-life @a-court-of-valkyries @secretlovelybeauty @humanexile @helion-ism @my-fan-side @royaltykxx @xoblivisci @planet-faerie @katekatpattywack @imagine-me @meridainthedisneyland @jungtaekwoonie-is-life @rainbowcheetah512 @valkyriewarriors @loosingdreams @chosenfamily-valkyriequeens @perseusannabeth @that-golden-lyre @swankii-art-teacher @a11yswift @aightimmaheadoutsblog @azrielbedara @champanheandluxxury @pixieelea @theoverlyenthusiasticwriter @teagoddess99 @seashade @amandlas @meher-sumedha

#elucien #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #elucien fic #ncssian asks #ncssianwrites

[ncssian]

nesta, her iron box, and finding comfort in a mountain cabin

a/n: i read an article about how women can sometimes misdiagnose the aftereffects of childhood trauma as autism and it got me missing neurodivergent nesta so i impulsively wrote this bonus scene from the early days of a favor. im not sure how well it fits with the rest of the story or if it's even in character, but if it contradicts A Favor then it can always be canon-adjacent lol

***

Nesta used to wonder whether she'd ever known true comfort in her life, or if her memories of hanging out with her childhood friends and having long conversations with her sisters were a rose-tinted lie. Even in the happiest scenes of her life, had she ever truly belonged in the story?

These old questions come back to her now as she tries to adjust to sharing a cabin with Cassian. She still feels out of place and awkward around him— she's only been here for three days, Jesus—but she can tell with every passing day that Cassian wants her to belong, desperately.

She doesn't know how to, though. As far as Nesta knows, there's always been two versions of her: the one that is forced to socialize and exist in the company of others, and the one that...

Nesta doesn't know what the other version of herself is like. That version was locked up in a dark iron box and forbidden from coming out a long time ago, and even now, when Nesta is all alone and away from prying eyes, she doesn't reopen that box. She can't. She's kept her natural instincts hidden and buried away for so long that she doesn't know how to find them again.

She worries that she's worn this mask for so long that it's glued to her face. She worries that this armor is permanently sewed to her bones. She worries that if she ever unlocks that iron box—

It will be empty.

Hollow, dark nothingness. What once held the real, original version of you now holds hollow, dark nothingness.

She inhales sharply, closes her eyes for a moment and imagines getting her brain wiped. She imagines going to sleep and waking up to a new family, one that is the opposite of dysfunctional. Words like "healthy" and "loving" float around in her brain, and everything in this makeshift dream is nice and soft and white.

If she didn't have a mother that smacked her spine with a ruler every time she slouched, would she still spend so many days in this squirmy state, feeling like her skin isn't the right fit for her body? If she had grown up somewhere quiet and peaceful, without her sisters screaming into her ear at every waking moment, would she still be unable to withstand crowds and clapping thunder?

If she hadn't been punished every time she cried as a child, would she still be living like a defective doll that couldn't react when her string was pulled?

She struggles to picture it. A Nesta without any of her signature quirks and oddities and pet peeves is no Nesta at all. She would be a Feyre or an Elain, and she finds she doesn't like that idea one bit.

"Nesta?"

She reopens her eyes to the view of evergreens and blue skies. The weather is in the midst of transitioning from summer to autumn, and she's outside on the first floor deck that lays beyond the living room windows. Between her chair and Cassian's, a round table sits holding steaming mugs of tea.

"Nesta." Cassian calls her name a second time. She blinks, suddenly embarrassed, and turns to him. "Yes?"

She doesn't like being distracted when she's deep in thought about something, but Cassian is still essentially a stranger to her, and she feels the overwhelming need to be as nice and accommodating as possible to him. If he'd been anyone else, she would have gotten irritated and found an excuse to leave the conversation and find a place to be alone.

He smiles slightly and waves a hand in front of her face. "Where did you go just now?"

"Somewhere nice," she answers honestly. And even though this cabin and this view are also nice, she wants to go back to the different family and different life she’s made up in her head.

"Ahh," he says. His smile is small and holds an emotion Nesta can’t recognize. "I’m jealous," he says, although he doesn’t look it. "I wish I could visit inside your head."

"Why would you wish that?"

He's quiet, trying to choose the right words. Finally, he shrugs. "I just have a feeling that it’s cooler than what the rest of us have going on."

It most definitely isn't. But Nesta is curious now and wants to hear more. "What do you mean?"

"Um..." He looks a lot like Nesta does when someone asks her any question beyond "how are you", like he wasn't expecting the conversation to get this far and he has no answers prepared. "When I look at you, that's just how I feel. I feel like rain ambience is always playing in your brain. Like you're always somewhere brighter and better than here. I would like to see what it's like there too, just once."

His words make something in her settle. A long-hibernating creature in her wants to peek one eye open.

"I could be wrong, of course," he rambles on. "Obviously I don't actually know what's going on in your head. But I'd—I'd like to know."

Nesta really doesn’t know how one is supposed to respond to that, so she just says, “Okay.”

She wonders if he’s disappointed like so many others that she can’t come up with a better answer. But his face is carefully unreadable save for the twitch of his mouth as he turns back to the view.

October is coming, and every nerve along Nesta’s spine takes rest for the first time since she moved in.

***

this was short but lemme add my general taglist

@rarephloxes

@moodymelanist

@arinbelle

@sayosdreams

@bridgertononmymind

@live-the-fangirl-life

@a-court-of-valkyries

@secretlovelybeauty

@humanexile

@helion-ism

@my-fan-side

@xoblivisci

@planet-faerie

@katekatpattywack

@imagine-me

@meridainthedisneyland

@jungtaekwoonie-is-life

@rainbowcheetah512

@valkyriewarriors

@loosingdreams

@chosenfamily-valkyriequeens

@perseusannabeth

@that-golden-lyre

#ncssianwrites #nesta archeron #nessian #a favor #sort of? #nesta on the spectrum sort of #the box is a metaphor for masking

[ncssian]

A Cup of Tea Masterlist

Multiverse AU; Scarlet Witch!Nesta

Summary: After slowly realizing that the Cassian of her dreams is not the same male as the Cassian she loves in reality, everything in Nesta’s life changes. In the months and years after her mating ceremony, while uncovering unresolved grief, pain, and rage, she also uncovers a hidden power that was left behind during her sacrifice to the Cauldron. With this power is her key to escaping the House of Wind, the Night Court, and the life she never asked for.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

#ncssianwrites #nesta archeron #nessian #a cup of tea #nesta fic #nessian fic

[ncssian]

There was no chaperone available to fly or winnow Nesta back home after her walk with Lucien. Rhysand had sent her an apologetic note with his magic telling her to wait in the townhouse until someone could pick her up, and Nesta had crumpled the note up and burned it into ashes with a passing thought.

She didn’t simmer in rage at reading the note like she once would have, at the implication that she was no different from a child who needed a parent to take her home after school. She simply winnowed right off the abandoned street she was on and into the dining area of the House of Wind, slicing through the wards with ease. When Cassian returned, she’d tell him she had climbed the ten thousand steps back to the House because she hadn’t wanted to wait for someone else to take her. She’d watch him turn guilty at the inconvenience he’d caused her for a few moments before he brushed it off and moved on, and neither of them would address how odd it was that Nesta’s own home was so difficult for her to enter and exit.

#nesta archeron #ncssianwrites #a cup of tea snippet

[ncssian]

a modern arrangement snippet

Giggling and breathless, Gwyn and Azriel step off the elevator and run right into a tall figure.

Gwyn’s laughter abruptly halts, her hand letting go of Azriel’s. “Oh,” she squeaks.

It’s Max.

A vague wisp of irritation rises in Azriel’s chest, but he doesn’t get the chance to question it before it’s overtaken by the feeling of being impressed. Azriel didn’t have the chance to get a good look at Gwyn’s work crush that night in front of her apartment, but now, up close and in broad daylight, he can confirm that the man is handsome as hell. Dark brown curls peppered with white hairs, neatly trimmed facial hair, borderline captivating eyes—

“What are you doing here?” Gwyn is saying, snapping Azriel out of his thoughts. Did he really just get lost in this man’s baby blues? 

Max’s answering smile is both charming and confused. “I work here?”

#a modern arrangement snippet #gwynriel #gwyn berdara #azriel #ncssianwrites #proof that ive touched google docs in the last two weeks

[ncssian]

doing the @vidalinav thing is so much easier than doing the writing a whole fic thing, so here’s a vague continuation from this valentine’s day snippet

context: in which nesta receives the love she never had from the man she least expected it from

***

What do you want for dinner today? Nesta’s phone buzzes at 5:15 on the dot.

After a brief period of discomfort at Cassian’s daily texts about meals, she’s learned how to respond as easily as if she were giving her restaurant order to a waiter. She’ll never admit it out loud, but his pre-dinner texts have become the highlight of her day. Mostly because she loves having free food provided at her every whim.

At a red light on the way home from work, Nesta types out a quick reply to Cassian: Carbs. Every kind of carb. Had a rough day.

Whatever awkwardness Nesta feels at sharing an apartment with her ex-not-boyfriend is outweighed by the fact that he cooks and cleans for free. Nesta has no business harboring resentment at someone who makes a killer filet mignon and does the dishes afterward, so she treats Cassian with casual friendliness instead. As if he’s a stranger she picked up off the street and offered to let live with her.

A new start, Cassian called it.

Nesta is surprisingly okay with this. She hasn’t at all forgotten the ancient, unhealed wounds that lie between her and Cassian, but…she’s more than willing to let go of the memories and the pain. She knows better now, and that’s the only comfort she needs.

When she gets home, she’s greeted by the smell of rose oil instead of the smell of cooking.

From the hallway leading away from the living area and kitchen, Cassian pokes his head out of the bathroom door, his hazel eyes searching the apartment until they land on Nesta at the entryway. A small smile makes his eyes crinkle up at the sight of her, but the look quickly turns apologetic as he says, “Change of plans. I didn’t want to make you wait for home-cooked food, so I ordered takeout.”

“Okay,” she says slowly, setting her purse and coat down. A bit of a disappointment, but she’s relieved not to have to wait for dinner. She’s starved after skipping lunch today. “What are you doing in the bathroom?”

“I had free time since I wasn’t cooking and I drew up a hot bath for you.” He waves her over to the hallway, and Nesta warily pads over to their shared bathroom. A blast of steamy air infused with roses hits her at the door.

Nesta never gapes, but what she’s doing now is dangerously close to gaping. “What is this for?”

“You said you had a hard day,” Cassian says. He shoves her lightly toward the fresh bath overflowing with bubbles. “Get undressed. I’ll make bread rolls while we wait for the food.”

Nesta stumbles into the bathroom and Cassian half-shuts the door for privacy as he leaves.

Too stunned to do much other than follow Cassian’s instructions, she slips out of her dress and stockings and cautiously approaches the bath. Dipping a toe in, she has to repress a full-bodied shudder at the perfect warmth of the water. The smell of bath salts and essential oils invades her nose and runs all the way down to her last frayed nerves, soothing away the stresses of the day.

Nesta makes quick work of climbing into the tub and fully submerging under the water. She doesn’t know how long she’s in there for, playing with the bubbles and swirling the water around, when a knock sounds and Cassian reappears at the doorway. “Got the rolls in the oven.”

Nesta’s ears perk up at that. She fucking loves his bread rolls.

“Can I?” Cassian gestures to the tub, one foot hovering over the bathroom threshold in hesitation.

Nesta has no idea what he means or what he wants, but the tub is high enough to cover her up to her neck, so she lets him approach her with a careful nod. She watches him out of the corner of her eye as he wanders in and takes a seat on the low stool beside the tub, but her body remains oddly relaxed at his presence. Even if this situation is weird and unexpected, being with Cassian these last several weeks has become almost as easy as being with Gwyn or Emerie— just two friends content to share each other’s company, with familiarity and comfort taking the place of tension.

“Wanna talk about your day?” Cassian offers.

The question eases the cautiousness slinking around Nesta’s body like a cat. She huffs, “Don’t get me started,” before kicking one leg up onto the rim of the tub, then the other. “I’m dealing with the worst case right now.” Just thinking about her current client makes her feel heavy; she reminds Nesta so much of her younger self.

“I can tell,” he chuckles in a low tone. “It’s all over you.”

“Thanks so much,” she drawls.

Cassian scoots his stool over so he’s positioned right behind Nesta and asks smoothly, “Can I? You look like you need it.”

Before she can think on it, Nesta nods. She doesn’t even realize what she’s nodding to until Cassian’s broad hands come down on her shoulders and squeeze firmly. Her breath catches in her throat and her spine straightens.

“Relax,” he orders in a gentle tone she’s never heard before these last few months. “You’ll make new knots before I get these ones out.” He emphasizes one knot in her back by digging his thumb into her shoulder blade.

Nesta presses her lips together until they turn white—not at the pain in her too-tense muscles, but at the utter shock that Cassian is giving her a shoulder massage. In a bath that he drew for her.

A thousand questions and concerns spring to her mind. Cassian rubs into a spot near the top of her spine that has her head falling forward onto her chest, and she breathes the deep scent of roses and pomegranate seed into her lungs. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice comes out in a croak she doesn’t intend.

She thinks he’ll play dumb, but he thinks over his answer as he massages her shoulders instead. “I just felt bad that you were feeling bad,” he eventually says.

That answers nothing for Nesta. Is he overcompensating for all the shit that happened between them in the past? Has he been feeling more guilty than usual lately, and this is his way of apologizing? Or—Nesta feels the old slither of distrust snake through her bones—he’s doing all this to manipulate her back into his bed before he hurts her yet again. He’s trying to gain her trust before twisting it into a weapon for his own use.

No—even if that were true, Nesta knows better now. She’ll never fall for that trap again, whether Cassian tries to seduce her or not.

She bites back a groan as Cassian works out a particularly tough knot between her shoulder blades, refusing to make a sound while she stews over these thoughts in the bath.

“You should let others take care of you more,” Cassian says when she doesn’t respond to him. “Even after all these years, you still carry too much by yourself.”

Tears prick Nesta’s eyes at his words. No one’s ever said that about her. No one’s ever done this for her, period, and even if it’s fake, it’s nice to experience.

She takes a stupid risk and decides to be honest to Cassian in return.

“You’ve changed,” she admits, twisting her head to look him in the eyes. “You’re so much… easier to talk to now. You’re a lot calmer when you have no one to answer to.”

Everything was always so tense between them in their past relationship, and not always in a good way. It was a relationship between her and him and five other people—his friends and family. Nesta always had her back stiffened and chin tilted in defense of an incoming attack, in case Cassian or one of his loved ones decided they wanted to pick a fight on whatever given day. It was an exhausting way to be in love.

“So I’m less of a volatile asshole, is what you’re saying?” Cassian says, his own eyes soft and teasing and…mournful.

Nesta turns back around, facing away from him. “Among other things, yes.”

A moment passes before he continues rubbing her neck. “Thank you,” he finally murmurs. “I really am doing my best.”

“That’s good to hear,” Nesta murmurs half-heartedly. She honestly isn’t paying much attention to the conversation anymore, because his hands feel so good on her back and the water is so warm and she feels so sleepy.

Her guard drops, and when Cassian runs a firm hand up her spine that lands at the base of her skull and squeezes, she lets an embarrassing sound of pleasure escape her.

She stiffens at the same time that she hears Cassian inhale a sharp breath behind her. All of a sudden, cold air replaces where his hands were massaging her skin. “I should go,” Cassian fumbles a bit breathlessly, knocking the stool back as he gets up. “I’m sorry, this was inappropriate.”

Before Nesta can even comprehend what just happened, Cassian is out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind him in a hurry.

***

@rarephloxes

@moodymelanist

@arinbelle

@sayosdreams

@bridgertononmymind

@live-the-fangirl-life

@a-court-of-valkyries

@secretlovelybeauty

@humanexile

@helion-ism

@my-fan-side

@royaltykxx

@xoblivisci

@planet-faerie

@katekatpattywack

@imagine-me

@meridainthedisneyland

@jungtaekwoonie-is-life

@rainbowcheetah512

@valkyriewarriors

@loosingdreams

@chosenfamily-valkyriequeens

@perseusannabeth

@swankii-art-teacher

@laylaameer01

@angelic-voice-1997

@awesomelena555

@claralady

@ghostlyrose2

@thewayshedreamed

@drielecarla

@superspiritfestival

@aliveahaahahafuck

@thebluemartini

@nessiantho

@missing-merlin

@duskandstarlight

@lucy617

@sleeping-and-books

@cassianscool

@wannawriteyouabook

@everything-that-i-love

#nesta archeron #nessian #cassian #ncssianwrites #god i wish i’d edited this

[ncssian]

A Modern Arrangement: Gwynriel Bonus Scene Three

Masterlist

A/N: NSFW, past sexual assault, trauma symptoms, Gwyn is unfairly self-deprecating + despite working on this since July I still don't know how science works and at this point I'm not gonna try to learn.

***

“Do you like movies?” he adds. “I’ll take you to the movies on Friday.” Preferably something boring and played out, so the theater will be empty and she won’t be paying attention.

Gwyn’s eyes widen. “Is going on dates also part of foreplay?”

“It can be,” Azriel shrugs. It will be when he does it.

Azriel tugs Gwyn by the hand down the carpeted halls of the movie theater, and it’s not until they reach their theater that she takes notice of the showing he brought them to.

“Ooh, how’d you know I love documentaries?” She turns to him with excited eyes. This is getting a lot more fun.

Az looks at the door leading into the theater, then at Gwyn, then down at the ticket stubs in his hand. “I didn’t,” he says, clearly disappointed. “I thought this would be boring. Should I get new tickets for something boring?”

Gwyn tugs on his hand as he starts to pull away. “No, don’t, I wanna learn about space!” She drags him forcibly into the dark theater, not caring about his foreplay plans that he probably uses on every other girl. Besides, this is the perfect way to ease her frenzied nerves and soothe her irrational fears. She can’t be anxious about Azriel touching her up if she’s distracted by a documentary.

“Your hands are sweaty,” Azriel notes with a hint of disgust as they climb past aisles of seats, searching for their row.

“They’re always like that,” Gwyn says cheerily, squeezing his palm tighter.

He makes a face and mutters something about forgetting hand sanitizer, but Gwyn doesn’t care as long he can’t tell how nervous she is.

Their seats are conveniently placed in the farthest reaches of the theater, hidden away in a corner dark enough that no one would see them even if they decided to straight up fuck there. Gwyn takes the seat closest to the aisle so she can make a run for it if panic starts to descend on her. She knows Azriel won't try anything she doesn't explicitly want—well, she mostly knows. You can never be too sure with a man. That's where the panic comes from.

She keeps her focus sternly glued to the previews as Azriel gets comfortable in the seat beside her. “You want a snack?” he murmurs over the sci-fi trailer playing in the background.

Gwyn throws him a look. "You just said five minutes ago we couldn't have snacks."

"Because I thought it would distract from your learning. Now I'm starting to think you need a distraction. Tell me what you want." He's already getting out of his seat.

Gwyn doesn't hesitate before answering, "Twizzlers."

Azriel makes a face. "I see your taste in sweets is still trash."

He's gone before Gwyn can comment, but it's safe to say that she's surprised he even remembers such an inconsequential detail.

Azriel used to be the kid who showed up to school without any lunch, always sitting empty-handed at the cafeteria, and one day Gwyn had felt bad enough that she offered him half of her turkey sandwich and a single straw of licorice. It wasn't charity or anything, considering how ten year old Az had taken one bite of the tough licorice and promptly spit it out. What was it he'd said to her face? I'd rather go hungry.

The documentary is starting by the time Azriel returns. He was right about distractions; she’s so intrigued as the voiceover starts playing that she almost forgets what she’s here to do. She gladly takes the Twizzlers from Azriel and settles in for an educational good time.

Azriel casually hooks his left arm around her right one, letting their hands tangle together on the armrest. Gwyn hardly even blinks. It’s just like the intimacy she has with Nesta or Emerie, except with a man. It’s not so bad.

Nesta and Emerie don’t run lines down her palm or play with her fingers while they’re holding her hand, though. Still, the touch is bearable. More than bearable, it feels good. Will Max hold her hand like this too when they finally go out? Gwyn turns giddy at the thought.

It’s a good ten minutes into the mysteries of deep space when Azriel says, “I don’t get it.”

“What part?”

“Any of it.” He moves his hand to her knee to grab her attention, looking genuinely confused. “I thought we were going to learn about planets, not theoretical stuff.”

“The theoretical stuff is the fun stuff,” Gwyn says indignantly. “Why are you paying so much attention to the documentary, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be foreplaying me up?”

Az’s hand tightens on her knee, and he looks like he wants to argue about the movie more before he says, “Fine.”

They go back to watching the movie, but now he’s drawing circles around her knee. The gesture is flat and emotionless like a soldier obeying orders, which only goes to show how truly touch starved Gwyn is: she practically melts anyway. Sitting back with a small sigh, she lets herself be lost to Azriel’s subtle touch, even if he’s not fully into it right now.

Or that’s what she thinks, until his circles on her bare leg become slower and lazier, more drawn out in their pleasure. “Explain space-time to me again?” he whispers to her a few minutes later, now trailing his hand up her thigh. The hair along the back of Gwyn’s neck raises with his touch. He’s not using his confused voice this time at all— he’s using his bedroom voice.

He’s struck her weak spot. She doesn’t know how he knows, but she can’t resist from commentating during movies. “Well,” she licks her lips, “the theory is that distance and time and gravity directly impact each other.” His fingers brush dangerously close to the hem of her skirt, but she swallows away her nerves and keeps talking. “Imagine space and time as a flat, two-dimensional plane. Like two sides of the same sheet of cloth that never ends. Now imagine planets and stars as 3D objects weighing down on that sheet, making it bend and warp. The heavier the mass of an object in space is, the more the space-time continuum has to warp to accommodate it.”

“Fascinating.” Azriel’s hand is well under her skirt now, and Gwyn…Gwyn only widens her thighs more. Even with the frustrating heat between her legs, she feels oddly relaxed.

“Tell me more,” Az hums, fingers stroking up and down the fabric of her panties. Panties that are slowly but surely turning damp under his touch.

“I mean, I’m not the best at astronomy,” Gwyn tries to say.

She’s cut off when Azriel suddenly presses down on her clit over her panties with his thumb.

Gwyn jolts, snapping her knees shut. No, no, no! her entire body revolts. Azriel immediately pulls his hand out from under her skirt, holding it up so she can see it. His wide eyes ask if she’s okay.

Breathing quickly, Gwyn shakes her head hard. “Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t touch me there.”

He nods and whispers back, “Okay, no clit, sorry.”

“You can still touch me in other places, though.” Gwyn doesn’t want one little scare to ruin the whole night. She was just doing so well, and her heart rate is already slowing down back to normal.

Az doesn’t say anything, but he abandons her legs to wrap his arm around her shoulder. “Let’s take a break. Watch the movie.”

Gwyn has no problem settling back into his hold. His jacket carries a strangely comforting scent of mint and tobacco, one that makes her want to bury her nose in his shoulder and fall asleep.

Okay, now she’s getting carried away. She doesn’t even know what’s going on in the documentary anymore.

Refocusing her attention on the soothing voice talking about neighboring galaxies, Gwyn lets herself forget the earlier shock her body took. Any lingering fear or arousal seeps out of her, and she feels so… at peace.

Some time later, she doesn’t know how long has passed, Azriel’s right hand lands on her thigh. A shudder escapes her as he drags his fingers along the inside of her leg, but when she glances toward him he’s still watching the documentary with vague interest.

She doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved that he isn’t going any further with his fingers. It’s just what she feared: he thinks she’s a freak, and now he’s given up. What’s the point in trying to seduce a twenty-seven year old with the mindset of a virgin?

She turns to look back toward the screen, and it’s only a second later that Azriel’s voice enters her ear. “Tell me where I can touch you.”

“What?”

“Tell me where to touch you,” he repeats slower, “and I’ll see what I can do with what you give me.”

Gwyn whitens, wondering what he means by what I can do. How far is he planning on taking their foreplay? How far does foreplay usually go?

Crap, she should’ve asked Nesta or Emerie for these answers before coming here.

“Um…” Gwyn stalls for an answer. She’s never thought too deeply about where she does and doesn’t want to be touched. “Nipples are a hit or miss for me,” she starts. “Sometimes I like it, most of the time I hate it. I guess it just depends on how comfortable I am in the moment. You can touch my throat, but don’t wrap your hand around it, ever. Everything else is fair play.”

He raises a dark brow. “Everything?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t say anything after that, and Gwyn would kill to know what he’s thinking. When he finally speaks again, it’s to say, “Remember when I fell off the monkey bars and landed on top of you?”

“Huh?” Gwyn is confused.

“You were so tall for a third grader. It took us forever to hit the ground, seriously.”

“I hate you,” Gwyn deadpans.

“We were both sort of a pile of mush on the ground,” Az continues, ignoring her, “and I had my face buried in woodchips and splinters for days, but you could imagine my shock when I sat up to find a nine year old giant had cushioned the worst of my fall. And then you threw up your lunch all over my lap.”

Where is he going with this?

“Do you remember?” he prods her again.

Gwyn rolls her eyes, getting more annoyed by the second. “Yes, I remember.”

“Remember what I did next?”

Gwyn thinks back to that faded sunny day, trying to draw up the memory accurately.

“What did I do next, Gwyn?” His breath fans out over her ear. He surprises her by finally moving his hand back under her skirt, running a finger along the crease between her thigh and pelvis.

Her lips bunch in confusion. “You laughed.” Azriel had looked up from the puke all over his pants and giggled in her face, not even the slightest bit upset. “You were so weird as a kid,” she says. “Why did you laugh?”

“I thought it was funny. Hilarious, even,” he answers. “And I thought you’d just been through a terribly embarrassing ordeal because of me, and I wanted you to feel better.” His other hand, the one still wrapped around her shoulder, runs distracting lines up and down her arm.

“That’s…almost decent of you,” Gwyn admits. “But what’s your point?”

“I just wanted to say that I thought you were cool. I mean, you were cool before the vomit incident, but afterward I developed a real puppy crush, didn’t I? I got up to turn in papers at the same time as you, ate lunch at the same table as you, asked you for homework answers even when you didn’t know them.”

His voice gets impossibly quieter. “Even after I moved away, I thought of you, Gwyn. For a while after I left school, I’d think every girl I saw with red hair was you.”

Her breathing goes shallow. “And then what?”

“And then I found myself here.” His finger traces the outer line of her underwear but makes no further move. “A lucky twist of events, don’t you think?”

Gwyn hums in assent, though her brain is kind of fogged out now. Is he implying that he still, in this moment, has feelings for her?

His palm suddenly flattens against her center, causing her to squeak. She clamps her mouth shut as her face flames in embarrassment, but luckily nobody seems to have heard her. Azriel only huffs a laugh at her reaction.

She realizes for the first time that his body is practically twisted ninety-degrees toward her, fully facing away from the theater screen. All his attention belongs to her, like she’s the most fascinating thing in the whole room.

His other arm unwraps from around her shoulder so he can bring a grazing touch to her jaw. “Where else are you sensitive, Gwyn?” he murmurs in a low voice. “Here?” He brushes the skin beneath her ear, triggering a delicious shudder throughout her whole body. “Or here?” His fingers bury lightly into her hair, scraping against her scalp.

Gwyn wets her lower lip, her eyelids wanting to flutter shut at the butter-soft touches. “Oh, you’re good,” she admits in a whisper. If this is what foreplay entails, then she’s definitely ready for it with…

Her mind takes a second to remember the name. Max. Yes, of course, Max.

Heat spreads between her thighs, impossible to ignore thanks to Azriel’s hand still snuggled there. She tries to rub her legs together to ease the growing ache, but it only presses his hand closer to her core. He said he wouldn’t touch her clit, and he technically isn’t. He’s touching all of her.

“If you want me to come,” Gwyn acknowledges the impossible outcome that’s been hanging in the air all night, “I should warn you that it’ll only end in us both being disappointed.” Orgasm has historically taken her forever to achieve, even though she tries for one at least once a week. No matter what toys she uses or fantasies she imagines, it never comes naturally to her body— only through strained effort and force.

“It doesn’t matter whether you finish or not.” Azriel’s voice in her ear is reassuring, easy. “It matters whether you enjoy it.”

That sounds okay. She can do that.

Very experimentally, Gwyn wraps her hand around Azriel’s right wrist, the one under her skirt. His other hand is lazily drawing lines against the nape of her neck and across her shoulders in a way that makes her want to giggle and squirm, but she represses any noise or movement and simply lets herself be washed away with his touch.

Holding her breath, Gwyn hesitantly grinds herself against his palm. It takes her a moment to decide if the touch is bearable, if she likes it. And once the answer is a decided yes, she shifts against his hand again. Keeping his wrist in a tight grip, she moves faster, with more purpose.

“That’s it, find what you like.” His voice is like shadows, impossibly low and meant only for her to hear.

“Can you just—keep your hand there,” Gwyn pants, breathless. As if her hand isn’t already wrapped around his wrist and she isn’t basically rubbing herself against his palm.

But Az doesn’t seem to be a fan of letting Gwyn have control of the reins the whole time. “Settle down,” he orders in a murmur as he presses against her core. An instinctive part of Gwyn can’t help but obey at his tone; she collapses limply into her seat and lets him take care of her as he sees fit. Azriel’s other arm twines around Gwyn’s on the armrest in an easy yet intimate gesture, his hand resting over hers. To anyone walking by in the dark, they’d look like a normal couple casually holding hands.

It’s that thought that makes Gwyn feel inexplicably comforted, like nothing bad can happen to her here. No force can be used on her. Even now he’s being careful to avoid rubbing too hard against her clit as he draws out her pleasure.

Is she going to…? No, there’s no way she’s going to. She’s never come this easily in her life, and it’d be insane if—

She tries clearing her throat, but it doesn’t work. “Az, I think I’m going to—” Her sentence is choked off by a sudden overwhelming pulsing in her core. It’s nothing specific that finally sends her over the edge, only the pure buildup of it all. She has to slap a hand over her mouth from the surprise of it, her legs clamping shut around Azriel’s wrist at the same time. She only recovers her senses in time to remember how to move and flex her hips over Az’s palm, riding out this wave for every drop of pleasure it’s worth. The documentary keeps playing, and not a single soul turns to look their way in the dark theater as Gwyn falls from her high.

The moment she returns to her physical body, Gwyn shoves Azriel’s hand out from under her skirt. Heat crawls up her neck and ears, and she glances around the theater dazedly, wondering if anyone somehow sensed her climax. She feels stripped raw and vulnerable, like a neon sign is flashing over her head announcing GWYNETH BERDARA JUST HAD AN ORGASM.

She also feels…

“So romance does it for you, huh?” Azriel interrupts her train of thought.

“What?” Gwyn blinks out of her haze, still coming down from that climax.

“When we were pretending I was in love with you,” Az explains matter-of-factly, “I could feel how wet you were through your underwear. If all you need is romantic feelings to get you going, then Max should have no problem getting you aroused.” He grins and holds up the hand he just rubbed her off with for a high five. “Congrats, Carrots. You just learned how to come with another man.”

Oh my god, right. He’d been pretending, it was all pretend. And it worked.

Gwyn swallows something back and smiles shakily, her heart pounding fast as she lightly meets Azriel’s high five. She feels funny, like she could either laugh or throw up, but it isn't because of fear or dread. No, she feels almost euphoric. It must be the victory celebration going on in her head right now.

***

A cool breeze hits Gwyn on the way out of the movie theater, heightening her post-orgasm bliss. Every muscle in her body is slack. She can’t feel her toes. This is amazing.

It doesn’t hurt that Azriel’s arm is still lightly hooked around her elbow, no intentions or feelings behind the gesture. Just casual friendliness.

The thought warms Gwyn’s insides. That out of this entire crazy arrangement, maybe she managed to find a real friend.

Gwyn drops Az’s arm as they approach his sleek little BMW. She runs up to the car and turns to him with her best pleading eyes. “Can I drive?”

“No way in hell.”

Gwyn feels brave tonight. “You said when we left the theater that I deserved to celebrate. This is how I want to celebrate.”

“Gwyneth.” Azriel comes up to her and stops only a few inches away, deadly serious. “This is a vintage luxury—”

“Wow, the door is unlocked.” Gwyn pulls the driver’s door open and starts getting in.

“Wait, this whole time?” Azriel sounds panicked. Gwyn twists her neck around to check for burglars in the backseat, and upon finding no signs of break-in settles back into the driver’s seat. She doesn’t even have to adjust the mirrors since their heights are so similar. It really is a nice car.

She reaches out to shut the door after herself, but Azriel, who still stands outside, catches it with one hand. After a prolonged staring contest between her and him, Azriel is the one who lets out a sigh and lets go of the door. He rounds the car to get in the passenger seat, and Gwyn nearly vibrates with excitement when he hands her the keys to start the car.

“I feel so good after that orgasm,” she babbles as they pull out of the theater parking lot. “I feel like I just got my back cracked by a chiropractor, that’s how good I feel. And the movie and snacks helped, too. Have you considered being a professional orgasm provider?”

Azriel hisses in an amused breath through his teeth. “Last week you shoot my ego down with no mercy and tonight you say this? What game are you playing at, Berdara?”

Gwyn turns sheepish, shrugging her shoulders as she drives. “I don’t play games. I’m being honest. You’re…good at what you do.” She waves a hand at him. “It’s not my fault if you let it get to your head.”

“If you don’t stop me, who will?” He adds after a moment, “I’m fucking starving, though.”

It is late, and they didn’t get a chance to grab dinner before the movie. “There are some Twizzlers left in my purse.” Gwyn gestures to the bag atop the middle console.

Azriel’s face twists. “You must be out of your goddamn mind.”

“Well, it’s either that or week-old crackers,” Gwyn retorts. “There’s no fast food stops on the way home, and I’m not about to turn in the opposite direction.”

“You are truly a heathen,” he tells her, even as he grabs for her purse. “I’ll take the crackers.”

He must seriously be hungry if he’s actually going to eat her crummy old purse food, especially considering his aversion to all things messy or unclean. Gwyn listens to him rummage around her purse for a bit when she hears a metallic jingle, and she glances over to find Azriel questioningly holding up a large keyring strung with a variety of objects.

“No judgment, but these are some scary looking sex toys, Freckles,” he says, turning the keyring over under the passing streetlights.

Gwyn scoffs as she drives, even though the sight of Azriel touching her keyring makes her itch. “Those are for self-defense. Put them back.”

“Seriously? Wow.” He picks up a purple spiked object dangling off the ring. “What’s this do?”

“Put them back, Azriel,” Gwyn repeats, her voice hardening this time.

“Are they for defending against me, too?” His question makes her blink in surprise, but she answers without hesitation: “You too.”

That gets Azriel to put the tools back in her purse. Neither of them speak for a few long minutes, and Gwyn internally kicks herself for answering his question so harshly. It’s not his fault she can’t trust men, but how is he supposed to understand that? Azriel was so nice for taking her out and helping her orgasm tonight, and now she’s returned his kindness by stating she doesn’t trust him not to hurt her.

Azriel finally breaks the silence. “Do you think you could ever feel a hundred percent safe around me?”

Gwyn grimaces. “Don’t make this weird, Az—”

“I’m just asking.”

Gwyn glances over to him then, and almost gets arrested in the simple, curious way he’s looking at her. There’s no judgment or disappointment in his eyes like she expects to find, only the sense that he wants to know more about her.

Azriel reaches over then and takes a hold of Gwyn’s jaw with one hand, making her breath hitch— but no, he’s just redirecting her focus back on the road. Gwyn jerks the wheel when she realizes she’s steered too close to the meridian, and Azriel hisses and leans forward as if he can protect his car from her reckless driving.

“Sorry,” Gwyn laughs nervously, throwing an apologetic look in his direction. To avoid a scolding about safe driving, she directs the conversation back to Azriel’s question. “To answer your question,” she says somberly, “no. Not with you or any other man. Don’t take it personally—”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“There’s just always a risk, you know? I’m jealous of people who go through life being ignorant of that risk, but it’s there inside everybody.” Especially when women like her are even more likely to be repeat victims in the future. Azriel might be good at convincing Gwyn to try a lot of things, but he’ll never convince her that there’s such a thing as being too paranoid when it comes to her safety.

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Azriel says. “It already makes sense.”

“Oh.” Gwyn’s voice comes out a little high-pitched. “Okay. That’s good.” Oddly enough, she believes him.

***

“It’s not a conspiracy, it’s fact—” Gwyn is arguing with Azriel by the time they arrive at her apartment building and pull into a parking space.

“You’re telling me the stars and planets can warp time? God’s time? You’re crazy,” he scoffs as they both climb out of his car.

“That’s literally how it works, Azriel. You think you know more than science?” She slams the driver’s door shut behind her, tossing the car keys over to him with more than a little irritation.

“How does science know about this so-called space-time continuum?” Az is practically yelling. “Was Interstellar a documentary too?”

“There’s math and physics to prove it, idiot,” Gwyn snaps as they both stomp up the stairs to her apartment. “Why are you still here?”

“I’m walking you home,” he snipes back.

“You’re trying to invite yourself in for snacks, is what you’re doing.”

“Of course I am; you tried to make me eat purse crackers for dinner,” Az mutters.

Gwyn comes to a halt as she reaches the second floor and finds a tall figure waiting outside her apartment door. Her heart rate picks up at the potential threat until familiarity kicks in. Gwyn nearly drops her purse. “Max?”

Azriel draws to a stop beside her. “Who?”

Her coworker turns around, brown eyes widening at the sight of Gwyn. “You’re here!” Max smiles pleasantly at her. “I was just about to give up and go home.”

Giving a little squeak, Gwyn stumbles backward into Azriel, who steadies her with his hands at her arms.

At six-foot-four with curly brown locks and the kindest eyes Gwyn has ever seen, thirty-five year old Max Kellan is currently Gwyn’s favorite man on earth. She also doesn’t know how to speak to him in the slightest.

“What—” Gwyn coughs, clearing her throat, “What are you doing here, Max?” Probably more important: how does he know where she lives?

“Merrill gave me your address, and I wanted to return this to you.” He holds up a plain gift bag that she doesn’t recognize. “You left your hoodie in my office the other day. I didn’t want you to wait the whole weekend to get it back.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Gwyn can see Azriel raising his brows nearly into his hairline. Max seems to take notice of him for the first time and says hesitantly, “I wouldn’t have come if I’d known you were on a date…”

“Oh no, no, no,” Gwyn rushes, shaking her head. Crap, how must this look to Max? “He’s not my date,” she says hurriedly. “He’s—”

“Her cousin,” Azriel answers, quick and smooth. “We just got back from a movie.” He has the nerve to elbow Gwyn in a teasing manner, like they’re schoolgirls on the playground or something.

Gwyn forces a laugh even as she elbows Az back a little too hard. “Yes, that’s right. We’re cousins.”

She can feel Max look between the two of them with skepticism, from Azriel’s brown skin and ethnically ambiguous features to her pale coloring. “Alright,” he says slowly. “Still, I’m glad I caught you. I’ll just leave this here then.” He places the bag in front of Gwyn’s door.

He’s leaving already? Gwyn tries not to let her heart fall in disappointment when Azriel blurts, “Don’t go!”

Both Max and Gwyn whip their heads toward him.

“Gwyn has something she wants to say to you,” Az improvises, shoving Gwyn toward Max.

No, she doesn’t. “No, I don’t,” she tries to hiss at Azriel, but he’s already backing away from her and Max. “I’m just gonna go…over here.” Azriel gestures vaguely in one direction, and walks over to a narrow wooden post by the stairs. He then makes a poor attempt at hiding behind it.

Left alone to face Max, Gwyn laughs awkwardly. “Thanks for bringing my hoodie back,” she manages to say. Honestly, she left it in his office so she’d have an excuse to return and pick it up, but this is a much better outcome than she could’ve expected.

A surge of bravery seizes her, fueled by the euphoric high she’s still riding after the movie. “I know it’s late but— do you want to come in? I can make you a coffee before you go.”

Azriel makes a choking sound from the end of the hall, but she ignores it, only having eyes for the man in front of her.

“I’d love that.” Max’s smile is soft, youthful. Gwyn turns into mush for the millionth time that night.

“Great, let me just—” She starts digging around in her purse for her keys. A small part of her is aware of the risk of inviting him inside, of course, but that’s what all her self-defense lessons are for. And for once, the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.

Remembering that there’s a second man with her tonight, Gwyn glances over her shoulder to shoot daggers at Azriel. Get out of here, she says with her eyes.

But what about snacks? he mouths back.

Her glare becomes an apologetic look as she takes out her keys. Sorry, I owe you, she mouths.

She’s pretty sure Azriel doesn’t catch most of that, but he gets the message. Nodding, he turns around and begins to head down the stairs.

Gwyn turns back to the door and unlocks it, shoving it open for Max. “You can go first and get comfortable,” she tells him, sweeping her arm inside the space. “Do you mind if I leave you alone for a minute? I need to give something to my cousin.”

Max nods. “I’ll bring this in for you,” he says, holding up the bag with the hoodie.

Gwyn is gone before he finishes his sentence, running down the stairs so she doesn’t miss Azriel.

She catches him already at his car, about to open the driver’s door. She grasps at the sleeve of his leather jacket to stop him, panting from the run down here. Damn, she’s dangerously out of shape.

Azriel’s hand drops from the door. “What is it?” he asks immediately. “Are you uncomfortable? Do you want me to stay?”

“What?” Gwyn pants. “No. I just wanted to say— thank you for tonight.” Can that really encapsulate it? How he made her feel safe and desirable and coveted despite the fact that they’ve only known each other for a short while? “I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,” is all she can muster. Because even if this arrangement is only temporary, she’s reaching milestones thanks to him.

Az’s hazel eyes soften at her words, but he covers it up with a smirk. “You flatter me, Gwyn.” He looks away and adds, “For what it’s worth, it was pretty memorable for me too.”

“Really?” she says, excitement creeping into her tone. “I was worried I wasn’t doing enough to hold up my end of the deal. It’s hard to rebound from an ex with a woman who can’t…” She shrugs instead of finishing her sentence.

Azriel’s smirk drops and his face becomes serious. “I didn’t go into this to get laid,” he states. “I did it to replace bad memories with better ones.”

“Oh. I never thought of it that way.”

“Now if you really want tonight to be unforgettable, you better get your scrawny ass upstairs to your real date.” He shoves Gwyn away from his car and back toward her building, making her laugh. “I’m going, I’m going,” she says. She scampers away before he can push her again.

On the walk back up the stairs, Azriel’s last words linger in her ear. Replacing the bad memories with good ones— that’s what they’re doing for each other. It sounds really nice when put that way.

***

tags:

@rarephloxes

@moodymelanist

@arinbelle

@sayosdreams

@bridgertononmymind

@live-the-fangirl-life

@a-court-of-valkyries

@secretlovelybeauty

@humanexile

@helion-ism

@my-fan-side

@royaltykxx

@xoblivisci

@planet-faerie

@katekatpattywack

@imagine-me

@meridainthedisneyland

@jungtaekwoonie-is-life

@rainbowcheetah512

@valkyriewarriors

@loosingdreams

@chosenfamily-valkyriequeens

@perseusannabeth

@that-golden-lyre

@imsointobooks

@skychild29

@laylaameer01

@aightimmaheadoutsblog

@azrielbedara

@awesomelena555

@agentsofsheilds

@champanheandluxxury

@pixieelea

@theoverlyenthusiasticwriter

@teagoddess99

@readiajin

@seashade

#gwynriel #gwyn berdara #azriel #a modern arrangement #a favor #ncssianwrites #gwynriel fic

[ncssian]

A Favor: Postscript [Two]

Fic Masterlist

a/n: NSFW, like the whole thing

***

Azores, August

Cassian observes Nesta sitting by the window of their hotel room, the backdrop island view framing her as she studies the ins and outs of Colorado state law.

She’s still in her bathrobe, despite the fact that she got out of the shower over an hour ago and her hair is no longer damp. Nearly the entire time they’ve been at the Azores, Nesta has been glued to her computer screen trying to consume as much information as possible in preparation for the Bar. A test that’s still a year away, not that one could tell with how fervently she’s been studying.

Of course no one supports Nesta in her studies more than Cassian, but right this minute he’s kind of missing their Costa Rica rainforest hut from two weeks ago: no internet or cell connection, only the two of them and the occasional terrifying insect on the wall.

He knows she’s only being like this because the one-year-long timer to the Bar has recently started ticking. The last couple of months have been filled with nonstop adventure and excitement, and he should’ve figured it was only a matter of time before this new, relaxed Nesta snapped back into hardworking, goal-oriented Nesta.

Still, he thinks she deserves a break.

Shirtless and wearing nothing but boxer shorts after his own shower, Cassian rubs a towel through his damp hair one more time before tossing it away and approaching Nesta.

He might flex his abs as he comes up to her, but it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t look up from where she types away on her computer. When it becomes evident she won’t spare him a glance on her own, Cassian casually hooks a foot around the leg of her chair and tugs her seat around to face him.

Nesta finally looks up, irritated at the sudden movement until she sees Cassian. “Oh, hey sweetheart.” She offers a distracted smile. It’s robotic, perfunctory, and it fills Cassian with disappointment. His charm has worn off. He might as well be dressed in a snowsuit for how much Nesta isn’t ogling him right now.

"Hey Nes." It's a struggle to not sound like he's whining for attention. He nudges her knee with his. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Studying." Her attention is back to the computer screen already. Cassian glances over and sees what looks like practice outlines for a case. The engagement ring on her left hand reflects the light as she leans over to continue typing, and a burst of frustration overtakes Cassian. Nesta belongs to him. That’s his ring on her finger, not the Bar exam’s ring.

“You’ve been studying since the moment we got here,” Cassian says, folding his arms across his chest in quite a pouty manner. “Are you really not going to take a break, for yourself if not for me?”

Nesta manages to throw him a frustrated look and keep typing a mile a minute at the same time. “Don’t be like this, Cass. Yesterday I spent all day at the beach with you.”

“And you were on your laptop the whole time.” His voice deepens, becoming more serious. “At this rate I think I’m going to have to take it away from you.”

Nesta moves lightning-fast to clutch her laptop close before Cassian can even consider trying anything. “You can’t,” she pleads with wide blue-gray eyes. “I’m almost done with this case, I swear.”

Cassian narrows his own eyes at her in judgement, but shrugs and says, “I’ll have to take your word for it, then.” He slowly lowers to one knee, then the other.

“What are you doing?” Nesta says, still wary that he’ll try to take her computer away.

“I’m letting you study,” he answers innocently. His hands skim up the backs of her calves, stopping at the knees to pry them apart. “But on one condition.”

Finally he’s succeeded in gripping Nesta’s attention. Her breath is a little shallow when she asks, “What is it?”

“You said you’re almost done with your case?”

She nods in confirmation.

“Then finish it,” Cassian says, nodding to the laptop. He circles his fingers around the sensitive skin behind her knees, and he sees her toes curl into the carpet out of the corner of his eye. “Finish it without getting distracted, and I won’t bother you again for the rest of our time here. But if it’s not done by the time you orgasm, you put the study materials away for the next week.”

“I’m going to orgasm—?” Nesta’s question is cut off by a sharp gasp as Cassian buries his head under her robe.

Of course she never bothered to put on underwear. He slips her legs over his shoulders and pushes the flaps of her robe up to her waist, baring her sex to the open air for his viewing pleasure. Gripping her by the hips for a better angle, he starts trailing open-mouthed kisses along her inner thigh, using just the right combination of tongue and lips and stubble to turn her creamy skin red with heat.

Nesta huffs from above him, in irritation or arousal Cassian doesn’t know. “Whatever; I can multitask.” She means to sound casual, but the breathiness of her voice gives her away. Cassian hears typing resume from above him. Bold of her considering that he hasn’t even done anything yet.

Cassian continues his teasing along the outer lips of her sex, purposely avoiding any actual sensitive parts. He wants to let her wetness gather and pool first before licking it away.

Nesta becomes antsy the closer he creeps to where she wants his mouth, her thighs shifting atop his shoulders. Cassian gives her legs a forceful squeeze in warning to stop moving, and he’s surprised when she actually obeys. Daring a glance up from her gleaming center, he finds that Nesta’s stopped typing. Her fingers still hover over the keyboard and her focus remains on her practice case, but her brain is clearly short circuiting— waiting to see what happens next.

So Cassian shows her.

The first lick from entrance to clit elicits a choked sound from Nesta, one that she cuts off short through that fearsome steel will of hers. Cassian doesn’t care.

The first taste is always the most stunning. He doesn’t know if eating pussy is supposed to feel like lapping up cold water in a scorching desert, but he does know that this will never get old. The taste of her arousal on his tongue and in the back of his throat will never be any less mouth-watering; the scent of her will never be any less intoxicating. He’ll be hungering for her in the grave.

He laps at her a few more times, slow and thorough where he wants to be frenzied, before miraculously managing to pull back just enough to look up at her. Her eyes are screwed shut and her head is tilted up toward the ceiling like she’s praying for someone to save her. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?” Cassian says, his tone more thick instead of smug like he intends.

Nesta releases a shuddering breath, her only sign that keeping quiet is having a toll on her. She opens her eyes with a bob of her throat, giving Cassian a cold look before twisting back to her laptop.

“As the plaintiff was not in the zone of danger when the incident occurred,” she mutters out loud as she types, “there are no grounds for—”

Cassian spreads her folds open with one hand to expose her clit. The typing halts and he strikes, wrapping his lips around her pink nub and suckling hard. Nesta’s hips jerk, her thighs clamping around Cassian’s head, but he only pries them back apart with patient hands and continues his ministrations.

From above, the typing resumes, but at a much more stilted rate than before.

Normally Cassian enjoys dangling Nesta off the edge of release, toying with her until her body physically can’t handle it anymore, but he has no time for that kind of leisure today. He has to win this game before anything else.

Cassian pulls back until Nesta’s legs slip off his shoulders, and he can swear a devastated whimper leaves her mouth. His own mouth is slick with her wetness, and when he looks up, Nesta is firmly avoiding his gaze and focusing on the case in front of her.

“You’re cute when you lie about how badly you want me,” he chuckles, taking one of her ankles and propping her foot up on the edge of her seat. He does the same with her other foot, leaving her entirely spread out and exposed before him.

“Maybe you’re just not that good at eating pussy,” Nesta says, voice roughened. Even in this new vulnerable position, she looks like a queen on a throne.

Cassian clicks his tongue in mock-disappointment. “If only you were capable of lying to me.” He leans forward and slips his tongue inside her at the same time his hand trails up her waist to find the tie of her robe and yank it undone.

He can practically feel her inner walls throb, feel the blood pounding through her core and against his tongue. It leaves him panting for breath, and he has to peek up through his heavy lashes to see if Nesta feels this intensity, too.

She’s too busy shoving her robe off to notice him. With her arms now free, she clasps one of her breasts in her hand and groans lowly, pushing her hips up against Cassian’s face. A lovely red flush has overtaken her bare skin from thighs to chest to neck, caused by no one other than him.

When she finally meets his gaze, he lets himself dip his tongue in and out of her once, twice. Only teasing. He doesn’t expect it to do much for her, but Nesta surprises him by whimpering louder, clenching the arms of her chair until her knuckles turn bone-white. “Please,” she whispers.

Shit. She’s close, and that knowledge alone puts Cassian on a dangerous edge.

He takes it as permission to finally unleash himself on her, spreading her thighs even further and devouring. Someone swears aloud, and he doesn’t know whether it’s him or Nesta. But the taste and sight and feel of her…

Everything Cassian knows is hot and pink and soft, to the point that he thinks his straining cock might burst if he keeps this up for much longer. He’s come untouched while eating her out before, but he has no intention of falling apart now when his entire focus belongs to Nesta.

One broad hand briefly lets go of Nesta’s thigh to snake down to his boxer shorts, squeezing himself over the fabric to try to relieve the ache. It doesn’t work, but he can’t keep his hands off his fiancée long enough to properly take care of himself.

None of it matters once Cassian slides a finger knuckle-deep inside Nesta and finds her swollen G-spot, scraping against it with a nail. That’s all he needs before Nesta’s hands are fisted in his hair, her hips riding his face, her inner walls pulsing and squeezing around his tongue in orgasm. Cassian’s eyes roll back in pure satisfaction as Nesta’s soft cries fill the hotel room.

This is how it was always supposed to be: her pleasure over his, her happiness over his, her needs becoming his needs. Some might call it a barbaric way to live. Nesta herself has said that Cassian needs to be more selfish, that there’s such a thing as being too selfless.

When it comes to this—and to her—he vehemently disagrees.

He keeps licking even as she comes down from her high, pulling away only when Nesta taps at his shoulders, telling him she’s overstimulated.

“Did you finish?” Cassian pants, licking any remaining traces of Nesta off his lips.

“Fucking obviously,” she gasps.

“I meant the practice case.”

“Oh…no.”

Before Cassian can even think about gloating, Nesta slams the laptop shut with one hand and tackles him to the floor. Her pelvis presses into the aching hard-on still trapped in his shorts. “You win,” she announces with a little giddiness, and promptly begins to strip him of his boxers.

It might be the only time he’s ever seen Nesta happy to accept defeat.

***

a/n: if they felt a little ooc in this one it’s because vacation changes people but it’s okay we’re going back to basics next chapter

taglist:

@rarephloxes

@moodymelanist

@arinbelle

@sayosdreams

@bridgertononmymind

@live-the-fangirl-life

@a-court-of-valkyries

@secretlovelybeauty

@humanexile

@helion-ism

@my-fan-side

@royaltykxx

@xoblivisci

@planet-faerie

@katekatpattywack

@imagine-me

@meridainthedisneyland

@jungtaekwoonie-is-life

@rainbowcheetah512

@valkyriewarriors

@loosingdreams

@chosenfamily-valkyriequeens

@perseusannabeth

@that-golden-lyre

@swankii-art-teacher

@laylaameer01

@angelic-voice-1997

@awesomelena555

@claralady

@ghostlyrose2

@thewayshedreamed

@drielecarla

@superspiritfestival

@aliveahaahahafuck

@thebluemartini

@nessiantho

@missing-merlin

@duskandstarlight

@lucy617

@sleeping-and-books

@everything-that-i-love

@cassianscool

@wannawriteyouabook

@everything-that-i-love

@sv0430

@xstarlightsupremex

@a11yswift

@aightimmaheadoutsblog

@agentsofsheilds

@julemmaes

@wickedqueenoffantasy

@observationanxioustheorist

@gisellefigue08

@courtofjurdan

@theoverlyenthusiasticwriter

@wolfiixxx

@cass-nes

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@monstrousloves-explodinggalaxies

@mercy-is-alive

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@verypaleninja

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@dead-on-the-inside666

@jlinez

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@planet-faerie

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@chosenfamily-valkyriequeens

@readiajin

@nessiantrashh

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@post-it-notes33

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@18moneytoad

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@teagoddess99

@mystic-bibliophile

@nesquick-arccheron

@vinylcryes

#ncssianwrites #nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #a favor ps #nessian fanfic

[ncssian]

A Favor: Postscript [One]

Fic Masterlist

a/n: sorry to my elucien and gwynriel fics but these two just come so easily to me

***

Washington State, June

Nesta smacks her arm just as an errant mosquito lands on it and grimaces at the insect guts now smeared across her palm. Looking around for someplace sanitary to wipe her hand off, she can only find the back of her fiance’s cargo shorts.

“What the hell!” Cassian jumps at Nesta rubbing her hand over his ass. He sees her and gives a sigh of relief. “I thought you were a forest creature.”

“For the last time, Cassian, no forest creature is going to try to eat your pants,” Nesta says, already reaching for the bottle of hand sanitizer clipped to her hiking pack. The air up here is humid and stuffy, making Nesta’s ponytail stick to the back of her neck with sweat. Every inch of her being itches to the bone, and she feels like she’s been smeared all over with dirt and germs, and she doesn’t know what she did to deserve this special trial run of hell that is hiking in the forests of the PNW.

“You know about that time that deer almost got my ass. You know how I feel about woodland animals,” Cassian says.

“It can’t be Bambi’s fault you have a yummy butt,” Nesta snaps back. Even when she’s hot and irritable, she can’t really be harsh with Cassian. It’s something she’s getting progressively worse at doing lately, but she blames it on the high of being newly engaged.

Just as she dreaded, Cassian grins and throws a heavy arm around her shoulder as they walk. “You think I have a yummy butt?”

“How much longer until we reach the viewpoint?” It’s been nothing but trees for the past two hours. Gorgeous, towering, Edward Cullen-esque trees, sure, but enough of them that Nesta is beginning to fear that she’ll never get out of here.

“Be honest,” Cassian says, ignoring her question. “If you were a deer, would you eat my butt?”

Nesta holds in a deep sigh. She knows Cassian is doing his best to keep her present and having fun, but right now there are absolutely zero things fun about hiking uphill through the woods. In summer. She would never say it to Cassian, but she misses their air-conditioned Colorado cabin more than anything.

As if sensing her mood teetering, Cassian drops the grin and leans in until his forehead is pressed to her hair. “There’s a bridge coming up in about five minutes. Half an hour after that, we’ll be at our destination.”

Nesta releases a breath. “Thank god.”

Other hiking groups trail behind and ahead of them, but they’re far enough away that Nesta doesn’t mind leaning into Cassian’s hold, pretending it’s only the two of them lost in the middle of nowhere.

She doesn’t know what exactly she had in mind when Cassian said bridge, but the bridge that appears in front of them a few minutes later is…definitely not it. Her pace slows as they approach the rickety thing, just planks of wood tied together by rope stretched across a clear creek that runs dozens of feet below them.

“I’m not crossing that,” Nesta says.

“It’s the only way to the viewpoint,” Cassian replies. Hikers all around them are taking turns crossing the wooden deathtrap, stopping here and there to take selfies as they go. “It’s a popular trail in a state park, Nes. It’s a hundred percent safe.”

Nesta doesn’t hear a word he says. “Over my dead body will I step foot on that bridge.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“I do.”

Cassian sighs aloud and looks down at his feet, as if thinking over a difficult decision. Then he nods to himself and slings his hiking pack off his shoulders, taking out his water bottle before placing the pack against a nearby pine tree. “Okay, let’s do this.” He gestures Nesta over to him.

“What are you do—” Nesta’s words turn into an indignant yelp when Cassian wraps his hands around her thighs and hauls her onto his back piggyback style.

Why does this always happen when they’re in the woods together? “Cassian, put me down,” Nesta orders, her tone sharp and demanding even as she clings to Cassian’s sleeveless shirt for life.

“Over my dead body,” he mocks, walking them over to the wooden bridge. He has his water bottle in one hand and is holding onto Nesta with the other, although she’s doing a great enough job herself of refusing to let go now that they’re at the first wooden plank.

“You can’t just leave your pack behind,” Nesta says, still trying to talk him out of this. “What if someone steals it, or a bear gets hold of it?”

“Now who’s having irrational thoughts about woodland creatures?” Cassian steps onto the bridge, letting go of Nesta’s thigh so he can grasp the tough fibers of rope railing on one side.

Her legs squeeze around his torso impossibly tighter, and the bridge actually sways. Side to side, like in some fucking Indiana Jones movie.

“There’s no way this is architecturally sound,” Nesta hisses into Cassian’s ear. “Is it even legal?”

“You’re gonna miss the view if you keep going on about architecture, baby.”

Nesta knows this, and she doesn’t care. She just takes the water bottle from Cassian’s grip and closes her eyes against his neck. “Use both hands when you walk. Tell me when it’s over.”

What feels like a hundred-foot-long bridge turns out in the end to only be about fifteen. With Cassian’s longer legs, he crosses it in just a few strides with a careless bravery that makes Nesta jealous. Cassian can face anything, it seems, except deer that get too close to his pants.

Nesta opens her eyes as soon as she feels the ground stabilize beneath her again, looking down to find sweet solid dirt beneath Cassian’s feet. That wasn’t so bad.

She expects Cassian to put her down and go back across the bridge for his hiking pack, but he surprises her by hitching her higher onto his back and continuing along the trail covered in fallen pine leaves and wayward twigs.

“Aren’t you going to put me down?” Nesta asks awkwardly after a moment.

Cassian squeezes her legs as he walks. “I don’t know, I like having you right where I can’t lose track of you.”

Great, now she’s his backpack.

Cassian is pretty strong, though, for being able to carry Nesta uphill with her hiking pack at the same time. Even after watching him lift weights on a near-daily basis, Nesta is impressed at the lack of strain on his face.

“Are you sure you can keep this up for another twenty minutes?” she asks after a while, starting to get concerned. “Really, Cassian, you can just put me down.”

“You’re gonna love this view,” Cassian says, pretending not to hear her. “It’ll make the whole hike worth it, I promise.”

Nesta wonders if she complained too much during the hike to make Cassian so eager to please her. This is their first solo trip together as a couple, without friends or family intruding upon them, and the last thing Nesta wants to do is ruin it by acting like she hates being here. “I’m not doubting you or anything,” she murmurs huffily. “The hike is already worth it.”

Cassian throws her a skeptical look over his broad shoulder, and she insists, “Really. I love pine trees. They’re my favorite kind of tree.”

“We have pine trees back home.”

“They’re better out here,” she argues back.

Nesta feels accomplished at the grin Cassian gives in to. She hates to admit it, but she doesn’t really want to get off his shoulders. The day has been long and sweltering, and the rhythm of his easy stride is enough to make her eyelids turn heavy. She leans down to rest her chin on his shoulder, fighting to keep her eyes open and attached to the scenery surrounding them. It’s a useless fight.

The next time her eyes open all the way, Cassian is carefully setting her down on her feet. Has it been twenty minutes already?

Stumbling to a straight standing position, she shakes off the last of her grogginess and hikes her pack higher onto her back. “Are you okay?” is the first thing she asks Cassian, who’s rubbing out his shoulders despite insisting that he was fine for the whole walk up here.

Cassian gives her an odd look but shakes his head lightly at her. “Turn around, you fool. We’re here.”

She almost forgot. Blinking, Nesta slowly turns around and takes in her surroundings for the first time. She lets her heavy hiking pack fall to the ground. “Um, wow.”

Mount Baker rises triumphantly in the near distance, its peak snow-capped even in June. She stands at the edge of a cliff that gently slopes downward, sparsely planted firs and pines leading the way to what looks likes a field of lavender encircling an ice blue lake. The air up here is cool and fresh, more early spring instead of summer. It’s the type of view that makes Nesta want to write poetry or shit.

This is why she agreed to take a year long sabbatical with Cassian, of course. Not because she loves hiking in the middle of nowhere, or being stuck in an airplane cabin for hours on end, or being away from home. She just likes looking at beautiful things with him. It’s as simple as keeping a promise.

Cassian comes up behind her and rests his chin atop her head. “Makes you want to build a home here and never leave, right?”

But they already have a home in the mountains, and that isn’t the point of this.

Nesta takes in the woods, the lake, the blinding white peak for another minute before turning back to Cassian. “Where to next?”

***

a/n: this one was super boring but i promise it gets more interesting with future installments

tags:

@rarephloxes

@moodymelanist

@arinbelle

@sayosdreams

@bridgertononmymind

@live-the-fangirl-life

@a-court-of-valkyries

@secretlovelybeauty

@humanexile

@helion-ism

@my-fan-side

@royaltykxx

@xoblivisci

@planet-faerie

@katekatpattywack

@imagine-me

@meridainthedisneyland

@jungtaekwoonie-is-life

@rainbowcheetah512

@valkyriewarriors

@loosingdreams

@chosenfamily-valkyriequeens

@perseusannabeth

@swankii-art-teacher

@laylaameer01

@angelic-voice-1997

@awesomelena555

@claralady

@ghostlyrose2

@thewayshedreamed

@drielecarla

@superspiritfestival

@aliveahaahahafuck

@thebluemartini

@nessiantho

@missing-merlin

@duskandstarlight

@lucy617

@sleeping-and-books

@everything-that-i-love

@cassianscool

@wannawriteyouabook

@skychild29

@allyswift

@aightimmaheadoutsblog

@agentsofsheilds

@julemmaes

@wickedqueenoffantasy

@observationanxioustheorist

@gisellefigue08

@courtofjurdan

@theoverlyenthusiasticwriter

@wolfiixxx

@cass-nes

#nesta archeron #nessian #cassian #ncssianwrites #a favor ps #nessian fic #nessian au

[ncssian]

A Favor: Part Twenty-Nine

Nessian Modern AU

Masterlist

a/n: not an ending, but a middle.

this chapter was ridiculously difficult to write and edit. it tops out at 7.5k words so… beware

***

Cassian and Nesta make full use of the summer house without his friends there, making love on every other surface just because they’re all alone and they can. Nesta shows a soft spot in particular for having sex in Cassian’s old bed, proving to him that she can be just as sentimental as he is.

Which is how they end up sprawled naked on the living room floor early the next morning, fast asleep in each other’s arms with nothing but a throw blanket to cover them.

Cassian is woken up by the sound of the front door being flung open, followed promptly by a feminine yelp as the intruder catches sight of the tangled couple in the living room. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Cassian whips his head up to find who interrupted his sleep, and his nostrils flare in shock when he sees Mor at the entryway. He carefully but swiftly moves his arm out from under Nesta’s head and replaces it with a nearby pillow before starting to stand up. “What the hell are you doing—”

“Fuck no, I can see your ass—No, now I can see your dick!” Mor squeals in disgust, promptly spinning around and clapping her hands over her eyes like she can burn the image out of her mind.

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Cassian whisper-hisses at her, throwing a worried glance at Nesta’s still sleeping form. She doesn’t shift an inch.

Scooping up his flannel sleep pants from the floor, Cassian pulls them on while Mor makes gagging noises with her back to him.

Spying a pair of underwear flung over the arm of a chair, she bends to pick them up with two pinched fingers and turns to face Cassian, who’s now appropriately covered. Heavy judgment wrinkles her nose as she casts a glance to the owner of the panties, then to Cassian. “Granny panties, Cass? Is this what your sex life has been reduced to?”

“Don’t touch Nesta’s underwear.” He stalks over to Mor and snatches them out of her hand, before grabbing her by the elbow and dragging her off into the kitchen.

She shakes him off once they’re out of earshot from Nesta and takes a seat across from him at the wooden breakfast table. She brushes her golden hair over a shoulder and smirks. “Someone’s been having fun on their own while waiting for the rest of the party to arrive.”

“What are you doing here?” Cassian repeats.

Mor waves a languid hand dismissively. “I ended up taking a commercial flight. I wasn’t a fan of being stuck on the same private plane as Az and Elain.”

Cassian blows out a tight breath, wishing he’d at least gotten some warning before his plans for the day were ruined. Plans that included taking Nesta in the lake before breakfast.

“But seriously,” Mor glances over her shoulder in the direction of the living room, “what’s up with the prude panties? I thought you would’ve thawed that ice pussy by n…” She trails off at the look on Cassian’s face, and a glimpse of fear crosses her own face. She forces a nervous laugh and twists her fingers together. “I suddenly remember making a promise a while ago,” she murmurs while staring down at the table.

“It’s a good thing you remember,” Cassian says stoically, “because I was just about to bring it up.”

“I know, I know, no criticizing your girlfriend.” Mor rolls her eyes.

“It’s about a lot more than that,” he grits. “It’s about how you’re only wary of her because you don’t trust me to choose who I give my love to. It’s about how you don’t respect my decision enough to maintain boundaries when you talk about Nesta.”

For once, Mor looks put off her game. “I never meant it like that,” she tries to say.

“That’s what it looks like,” Cassian retorts. “It looks like you’re judging someone you have no right to judge, like you’re trying to protect me from an imaginary threat.”

Mor coughs aloud. “Do I really need a scolding for a girl I see maybe twice a year? I haven’t even thought about Nesta since the New Year’s party.”

“It’s not a scolding,” Cassian says firmly. “It’s an order to be on your best behavior for the duration of this vacation, because the sisters and I went through a lot to get Nesta to come here. There will be no catfights, or backtalk, or rude looks and snide tones until we’ve returned home. The same applies for everyone else once they get here.”

“Or, how about this? I’ll stop making ice pussy jokes if you stop being this…” Mor waves a hand up and down at Cassian’s shirtless figure with a grimace, “unrecognizable creature with the tension of a forty year old single dad.”

Is Cassian tense? Of course he’s fucking tense. The last time he convinced Nesta to go to a family event with him was Christmas Eve, and he’s never letting that mistake be repeated ever again. His glare confirms it.

“Morrigan,” he says lowly with a hint of warning.

“Okay, okay,” she exclaims, throwing her hands up in surrender. “But for the record, I’ve never said anything rude to your girlfriend’s face, and I never plan to.”

Cassian crosses his brown arms across his chest. “No, you’ve only done it to my face.”

Guilt crosses Mor’s features for the quickest second. “Oh.” She bites her bottom lip. “In that case, I’ll pull back from now on.”

He releases a terse breath. “Good.” Now to hammer the message into anyone else who might threaten the quiet solitude he and Nesta have found here.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she adds somewhat apologetically. “You know I just want the best for you.”

“And you know I already know what’s best for me.”

Mor dips her head in reluctant acknowledgment. “Can we go back to normal, then? I don’t like feeling like your adversary.”

Cassian’s shoulders slump in relief, and his crossed arms fall away. “Of course, Mor.”

Like flipping a switch, Mor claps her hands together. “Good. I left my luggage in the rental car and it’s super heavy; I brought enough clothes for three outfit changes a day. Why don’t you put those big strong muscles to work while I get settled into my room?”

Before Cassian can object, she’s out of her seat and flouncing out of the kitchen. From the entry hall, Cassian can hear Mor say perkily, “Good morning, Nesta! Love the undies.”

Cassian drops his head onto the table with a thud, lifts it, then drops it again. Mor is going to be a work in progress.

“You okay?” A voice makes Cassian look up from the wooden table. Nesta stands in the kitchen entryway wearing nothing but Cassian’s shirt, and her hair is a rumpled mess from sleep. Her hands twisting into the hem of his tee tells him she couldn’t be less excited about Mor’s early arrival, though the rest of her doesn’t show it.

Exhausted apprehensiveness drops in Cassian’s gut. “How much of that did you hear?” he asks warily.

“Not much. I just woke up a minute ago and heard your voices.” She comes over to him and wraps a comforting arm around his shoulder. “Why, were you guys arguing?”

Cassian slings his arm around Nesta’s waist, basking in her warmth. “Not exactly.”

She frowns. “Was it about me?”

“It was about Mor.”

She nudges him. “Will you tell me about it?”

“No,” he quips, yanking her down onto his lap. He pecks a kiss onto her lips. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Nesta hums to herself. “So our morning plans are out the window?” she asks, raising a brow.

“Yup.”

“Does Mor actually like my undies?”

“Nope.”

***

The rest of Cassian’s friends and Nesta’s family arrive by late afternoon, piling out of a dark SUV in a frenzy of noise and colors. Nesta forgot how… many of them there were.

She lets Cassian and Mor handle the greetings, choosing to observe everyone from her spot near the stairs.

Azriel is the first to catch her eyes. He looks the same as ever, dressed head to toe in black even in the middle of a heat wave. Elain is an overdressed peacock in comparison to him, not that anyone would be comparing them, because they carefully stand at opposite ends of the entry hall.

He sends a simple nod Nesta’s way, which makes her narrow her eyes. Does he think he can act too cool for her just because they haven’t talked in a while? Idiot.

Feyre notices Nesta next and waves her arms wildly. “Get over here!”

Nesta reluctantly pulls away from the banister and nears their group, offering only a half smile to everyone there before hiding behind her sisters. Cassian cuts a glance her way in solidarity, and it feels like a pillar of reinforcement against her wavering self. She scrambles around for a solid ten seconds for something to say, either to her sisters or to the whole group, and finally comes up with, “What are we having for dinner?”

“That’s still hours away,” Rhysand assures. “Everyone scram and put your shit up first.”

“The girl has a point,” Amren grumbles. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah, Rhys, can we have an early dinner?” Mor whines.

And just like that, Nesta has melted into the background again. Which might be for the best, considering how loud it is right now.

Feeling overwhelmed, Nesta checks on Feyre and Elain to make sure they’re not paying attention to her, and then meets Cassian’s gaze through all the luggage and bodies. Tilting her head toward the back door to let him know that she’s leaving, she silently slips down the hall and out of the house.

Outside in the gardens, the light breeze soothes her heightened senses. It’s hot as shit at this hour, but she’ll take it for the peace and quiet.

Only a few minutes into her getaway, however, Nesta hears the porch door open behind her. Her shoulders stiffen when she hears footsteps that don’t belong to Cassian. There goes her peace and quiet.

Nesta is surprised to find Amren slinking up to her side, her small head appearing at Nesta’s shoulder.

Discomfort crawls through Nesta’s bones at the woman’s unexpected presence. It’s a subtle sense of wrongness, like being in the proximity of a predator but not having enough information to guess how they’ll attack.

“Hiding out from Rhysie’s big bad inner circle?” Amren taunts.

Nesta stiffens. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it needs to be thrown in her face.

“I suppose I can’t blame you,” she goes on. “We can be a scary group.”

“I’m not scared of anybody,” Nesta says, keeping her focus glued to the trees’ cherry blossoms. “I just wanted fresh air.”

“And I’ve wanted to find out what Cassian sees in you ever since he gave me that verbal lashing about being nice to his new girlfriend.” Amren turns to face Nesta fully, closing in. “What kind of pussy grip can a woman have to make Cassian of all men heel?” She hisses in a thoughtful breath through her teeth.

Nesta only shrugs, but her interest is piqued at the idea of Cassian warning Amren away from her. She definitely doesn’t need the protection, and once would have found it offensive, but… she likes the idea of someone standing up for her, being unapologetically on her side even if they have no good reason to do it. The only other times she can remember feeling defended were brief, subtle childhood instances with Feyre and Elain, and that was only because blood instinctively defends blood. It’s different to feel chosen. It makes her chest crack.

When Nesta doesn’t respond, Amren throws out, “Are you on the spectrum or what?”

Nesta again doesn’t reply.

“No one mentioned it, but I assumed as soon as I saw you.”

“It’s rude to make assumptions,” Nesta says, her voice cool as a running river.

Amren barks a laugh that sounds like a whip lashing. “I like you, girl.”

Nesta finally meets Amren’s silver gaze and states, “I don’t like you.” Her tone is blunt, to the point—but if she has to participate in this twisted version of small talk, then she should at least get to be honest.

Amren laughs aloud again, as if that genuinely amuses her. Nesta doesn’t know how amused Amren will be when she realizes that Nesta is serious.

She shrugs to herself, turning back to face the garden. It isn’t her problem, she decides.

***

“Even for you, this is overprotective.” Rhys’s voice comes from behind Cassian, who stands at the sliding glass door at the back of the kitchen that peers out onto the gardens. He’s been watching Amren converse with Nesta for the last seven minutes—or rather, he’s been watching Nesta, inspecting her body language to gauge her discomfort.

It was a struggle not to hold his arm across the back door and block Amren from following after Nesta earlier. Amren had the look of a cat going out to play with a new toy, and Cassian had nearly snarled at her for it until she gave him that expression: the raised brow and sneer that said Really, Cassian? Pathetic.

It made him think of how Nesta would feel if she knew he was trying to physically keep people away from her, and he managed to have enough shame to move aside and let Amren pass with only a warning look.

So far though, it looks like Nesta is handling herself just fine. He should’ve known better than to underestimate her.

When Rhys doesn’t get a response, he comes up to stand at Cassian’s side and get a look through the glass door. “I never thought you’d be applying your passion for security to your damn girlfriend.” Rhys lets out a low whistle.

Without taking his eyes off Nesta and Amren, Cassian tells Rhys, “Protecting her is protecting myself. When she gets hurt, I feel it twofold.” And he really doesn’t want to be hurt on this vacation. Nesta already thinks he’s a crybaby as it is.

Rhys is silent for a long minute, as if he can’t deny that he would feel the same way for his own girlfriend. Eventually he says, “I might finally understand what’s going on in your brain whenever you’re around her.”

Cassian only nods.

Rhysand claps his hand down suddenly on Cassian’s shoulder, breaking the somberness of his confession. “Call them in to help make dinner,” Rhys orders. “I want all hands on deck tonight.”

Cassian looks at his brother with narrowed eyes. “And what will you be doing to help?”

“I’ll be watching the game on the nice TV that I paid for, in the beautiful new living room I also paid for.”

“Bastard.”

***

Nesta and Azriel help prepare dinner in silence. Their quiet acknowledgment of each other is better than any words could be, but it’s all shattered when Mor dumps a serving platter on the counter right next to Azriel.

“Ooh, ricotta-stuffed mushrooms!” She grabs a handful and starts arranging them onto her platter. “Az, how was your mystery weekend away? I haven’t seen you since you got back.”

Azriel shares an unreadable glance with Nesta before sliding his chicken parmesan dish toward her and saying loudly, “Wow, is that football?” He promptly turns around and walks out of the kitchen.

Nesta glares after him in disbelief, but Azriel can’t hear her wordless cries for help because he’s already in the living room.

Left alone at the kitchen counter with Morrigan, Nesta keeps wiping at the wine glasses that have been gathering dust in the cupboards. From the corner of her eye, she can see that Mor’s mouth is tightened into a displeased line.

Not that Nesta isn’t grateful for it, but Mor usually isn’t one to keep her mouth shut. She wonders if something is wrong that she doesn’t know about. “You look constipated,” Nesta tells Mor under her breath. “Anything you want to get out?”

Mor only scoffs in indignation. Then she shakes her head and mutters to herself, “I promised not to say anything.”

Now Nesta is really intrigued. “Promised who?” she prods. “Cassian?”

“Like you don’t know about it.” Mor rolls her dark eyes.

Nesta doesn’t know, though after Amren’s comment earlier she might have a hint. “I would prefer you be honest with me rather than follow Cassian’s orders.”

“That’s funny, so do I.” Mor plucks up a stuffed mushroom and shoves it into her mouth.

Nesta thinks back to how she woke up to Cassian and Mor’s voices lowered in seriousness. After what Nesta overheard on New Year’s Eve, it’s no secret that Morrigan doesn’t care for her, but she suddenly has the urge to have it said to her face. “Well, if you want to stop holding back with me, I won’t tell.”

Morrigan sets down her mushroom platter with a thump, turning to face Nesta like she’s done her a personal wrong. “You know what I know about you, Nesta?” Mor says. “I know that Cassian has changed since he’s gotten with you. I know that he’s more serious whenever he’s around you. I know that you don’t love him as much as he loves you. How can Cassian expect me to trust someone that doesn’t want to be around his own family? How can he expect me to trust you with his heart? Not that I’m allowed to be saying any of this, because I’m supposed to be hiding my feelings about you to stop my best friend from hating me.”

It’s crazy how a year ago those words would have been enough to make Nesta retreat to her room and never come out again. Each statement pricks like a shard of glass against her skin, though none of them are accurate or true.

And yet Nesta finds herself hurting more for Cassian than for herself. She feels her familiar old mask go up around her face and harden there.

“It sounds like your problem is more with Cassian than it is with me,” Nesta says stoically. “Because I won’t be going through any trials to prove myself. I have nothing to prove. I don’t care if you like me or not, if you’re nice to my face or cruel behind my back—but it’s rude to shit over your friend’s life choices like that. He’ll stop trusting you if you keep it up, and it won’t be my fault when it happens,” Nesta finishes. She wordlessly gathers the wine glasses in her hands and abandons a silent Morrigan to go set the table.

Nesta knows the dynamic at dinner is off with her presence there.

For once, Cassian’s priorities lie somewhere other than laughing with his friends. He keeps a protective hand on Nesta’s thigh from the moment they take their seats, and he only removes it when he’s filling her plate with food.

With memories of Christmas dinner hanging over all of them, Cassian looks like a bodyguard prepared for attack— except he’s contributing to a good half of the tension at the table.

“How was the drive here?” Feyre pokes at the two of them in an attempt to break the ice. Nesta glances to Cassian for his response, but his attention is taken by the platter of bread rolls.

Sighing internally, Nesta answers, “Better than yours, that’s for sure.”

Everyone laughs hesitantly. A steaming bread roll then appears on Nesta’s plate, golden and fluffy with a buttery aroma; one glance at the rest of the bread tells her it was the biggest roll in the pile.

Nesta drops her walls enough to give Cassian a small smile and an arm rub of appreciation, and then she reaches straight for the bottle of wine.

She loves Cassian and hates this dinner too much to allow this to go on.

After filling Cassian’s empty glass high with Merlot, Nesta presses it into his free hand with a subtle kiss on his cheek. “Relax a little,” she murmurs into his ear.

It takes ten minutes and two full glasses for her plan to take effect, but relax Cassian does. Like oil slipping through rusted gears, the tension in the room slowly unwinds and natural conversation starts to flow.

“You guys will not believe what I had to walk in on this morning,” Mor announces at one point during the meal.

“Yeah, yeah, Cassian’s ass and dick, we’ve already heard,” Amren says.

Cassian’s glare at Mor is more lighthearted than life-threatening. “This is why I can’t talk to you anymore,” he states, pointing a finger at her. Nesta is so glad for the lack of tension in his shoulders that she doesn’t even care if everyone basically knows about her having sex in the living room.

With Cassian acting more like his normal self, the pressure to make useless small talk is no longer on her. Nesta is content to watch everybody share stories and laughter, but for once she doesn’t feel like an audience member on the outside looking in. Maybe it’s because no matter how much Cassian drinks, his hand stays steady on her leg the whole night, keeping her rooted there with everybody else. He doesn’t let her fade into the background for a second.

“What’s that on your wrist, Az?” Mor’s voice rings from one head of the table. Azriel snatches his hand back in a flash before Mor can reach for it. From his other side, Nesta grabs it smoothly out of the air to take a look at the cause of Mor’s question.

She raises her brow at the sight of three colorful bracelets lining Azriel’s right wrist.

Az tries to pull his hand away, but Nesta’s hold is tight. Even if the signature of the maker wasn’t stamped onto one of the childish bracelets, she would know who had made them with one glance.

“What does it say?” Mor asks her.

“Nothing. Just some beads.” Nesta pulls Azriel’s dark sleeve over the beads that spell out GWYN’S BITCH and gives his arm a little pat. She sincerely hopes Elain is thoroughly over Azriel by now.

“Was that Rainbow Loom I saw? Since when did you wear kiddy bracelets?” Mor snorts at Az.

Nesta’s attention is pulled away from their conversation by a heavy head falling onto her shoulder. “Nestaaa,” Cassian slurs, slumping against her side.

Blushing at the attention he’s drawing to her, Nesta tries to shove a drunk Cassian back upright. “I think we need to get you to bed.”

“Oh really? Promise you’ll tuck me in?” He tries to wink at her, but it comes off as a strained blink.

He looks ridiculous. It isn’t helping the blush on her cheeks, though.

“I promise.” Nesta shoves her finished plate aside and grabs Cassian by the bicep, standing up and attempting to drag him with her. “Come on, I’ll take you right now.”

Mor is quick to get to her feet. “We can take him,” she offers eagerly.

“Who’s we?” Azriel mutters. Nesta hears a hard stomp, and then Az is coughing, jumping out of his seat after Mor. “Yeah, we’ll take him,” he says.

Nesta reluctantly lets Cassian slip out of her grasp as Morrigan and Azriel take one of his arms from either side.

“Wait, but I want Nesta to tuck me in!” Cassian twists around as he’s dragged away, drunkenly finding Nesta’s gaze. He’s pouting.

Affection battles with secondhand embarrassment and wins. “I’ll be right there,” she promises with a wave. As soon as Mor and Azriel accomplish whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish. Her voice flattens into a cold warning when she adds after them, “Be careful with him.”

Daring a quick glance back at the table, Nesta wants to cringe when she meets everyone else’s eyes. Rhysand looks highly amused. Feyre looks disturbed, and Elain looks glum with envy, the love-obsessed bitch. Amren is Amren.

After dinner is over, dishes duty is handed over to Rhysand and Amren goes off to bed complaining about beauty sleep, which leaves Nesta alone with her sisters in the foyer.

She doesn’t quite know how, but she ends up forgetting her promise to Cassian and following the girls out to the front porch for some fresh air instead. The sun has long since set, taking some of the summer heat with it, but the air is still stuffy as the three of them settle down onto hand-painted wooden chairs. Lanterns on the porch are lit up to keep the darkness away, and the lake before them gleams with the reflection of the rising moon.

Feyre is the first to speak, her voice hesitant. “It’s hot out tonight, isn’t it?”

“I’m not doing this,” Elain announces. She stands abruptly from her chair and goes back inside.

Nesta and Feyre stare wide-eyed after the swinging front door, but a minute later Elain returns holding a decanter and three crystal glasses. She sets the glasses down on a side table and starts pouring. “It’s not really Tennessee without a strong whiskey,” she says to no one. “And I’m way too sober right now to handle this vacation.” The third glass gets an extra finger of liquor, and it ends up in Elain’s hand. She passes the other two to Nesta and Feyre before settling back into her seat.

Nesta grimaces at the drink in her hand without even tasting it. She hates most alcohol, but strong alcohol especially. For the sake of her sisters, however, she throws back half the glass without thinking.

Liquid fire scalds her tongue and throat, and she groans aloud. Instant regret.

Elain has no such issues downing her liquor. “Did you know,” she says after swallowing a gulp of whiskey like it’s apple juice, “that our old place is just a mile and a half that way?” She waves with her glass toward the back gardens.

“Is it really that close?” A frown wrinkles Feyre’s brow, like the memory of their old home might taint the perfect life she has now.

“Yes,” Nesta confirms. She doesn’t offer anything else.

Feyre shudders despite the temperature. “I hate even thinking about it. It’s so depressing. Reminds me of Papa.”

Which is also depressing, Nesta thinks to herself.

“It wasn’t depressing for me,” Elain says, chin tilted up in defiance.

That doesn’t surprise Nesta. Even in the depths of their father’s patheticness, he was Elain’s favorite man on earth.

Nesta used to wonder how her papa would have reacted if Elain was the one with crippling endometriosis pain every month instead of her. Would he have ignored her cries like he ignored Nesta’s, or would he have come running to her aid?

It’s not a question that’s worth Nesta’s time and energy, though. Not when the man himself has long been six feet under. Instead she pokes at Elain, “Then why did you hide your background from every guy you met like you were ashamed of it?”

“I was ashamed,” Elain says primly, “but that doesn’t mean I hated all of it. We didn’t all grow up with a ten foot stick up our ass; at least I could appreciate what we had without taking my attitude out on everybody else.”

The whiskey must be working quickly, because Nesta can’t hold back an unseemly snort. “There you go again,” she drawls in a cutting tone, pointing an accusing finger with the hand that holds her glass at Elain. “Dishing out shit when you can’t take it back. At least not without crying.”

Feyre, who was trying to hide her cringe with the rim of her drink, now perks up with eagerness. “She does do that, doesn’t she?” she exclaims. “I thought I was the only one who noticed.”

Elain’s lips twist into an indignant sneer. “What’s this dynamic now, why’s everyone ganging up on me?”

Nesta mutters, “Because you need to hear it every now and then.” Turning to Feyre, she adds, “God, she can be fucking annoying.”

“Oh, like you’re everyone’s favorite person to be around?” Elain scoffs.

“At least I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. That’s called a con artist, Elain. You’re a con artist.”

There’s stunned silence for a tense moment—and it’s broken by full laughter. Elain is chuckling sweetly as she says, “Well, I suppose it’s okay if only you two are the ones who notice it. It can be our little secret.” She presses a finger to her pink lips.

Feyre giggles along at that too, but Nesta remains quiet. Too sober for the current mood, perhaps. “Do you think someone will notice at one point?” she asks Elain. “That the smiles and Southern charm and—the kindness...” She doesn’t know how to feel about that word in relation to Elain. “Do you think someone will notice that that’s not all there is to you?”

Elain’s grinning face freezes quicker than an actress’s. “No one will know,” she answers smoothly, “because I’m not going to be with anyone else for a while.”

At the confused silence filled only by the chirp of cicadas, Elain supplements, “I’m trying out the single life.”

Nesta meets Feyre’s eyes, and it only catalyzes the sound quelling up in her throat. At the same moment, the two sisters burst into cackling laughter. Well, Feyre cackles. Nesta makes a noise that imitates a dying whale.

“I’m serious,” Elain insists, glaring at them. “If Nesta could spend all those years living like a widowed hag, why can’t I? I don’t need men to live.”

Nesta’s laughter sours at the insult, and she turns to Elain with seriousness in her tone. “No one needs anyone else, Elain—but you treat loneliness like a leper from the Middle Ages. Are you even happy for me and Cassian beneath all that jealousy?”

Elain shifts uncomfortably in her chair and mutters, “Of course I’m happy for you two.” And then she adds in a much quieter voice, “Deep, deep down.”

“Is that what was wrong with you on New Year’s?” Feyre asks gently. “You were jealous?”

Nesta raises a brow; she didn’t know this.

“I wasn’t exactly having fun watching you two suck face right after getting dumped by Azriel,” Elain tells Nesta. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy for you. I just…I’m not used to being the lonely one.” She huffs out a sigh and reaches for the decanter again. “If anyone should be in a happy and healthy relationship right now, it should be me.”

Feyre turns to Nesta and whispers too loudly, “You’re right, she is fucking annoying.”

“Don’t get too friendly; so are you.”

Feyre leans away from Nesta in affront. “I didn’t even do anything this time!”

“You don’t need to do anything for Nesta to think she’s better than us,” Elain chimes in.

The three of them break out into bickering, which soon devolves into hysterical laughter, which then morphs into a comfortable silence—which doesn’t last long until they’re bickering again. They spend the rest of the night going in small circles like that over their whiskey, occasionally taking breaks to talk of more serious things: Elain’s flower shop is finally starting to pick up business, but expenses are still too high. Nesta is worried about Cassian being all alone in Italy by himself, but she’ll never show it to him. Feyre’s work at the children’s art studio is making her seriously consider having kids (“Don’t you dare, you’re way too young,” Nesta threatens).

Each of them reveals that they miss at least one of their shitty parents these days.

Maybe it’s because they’re under the same night sky that they spent their childhoods under, but if Nesta closes her eyes, it’s like she’s seventeen again, letting her sisters stay up and talk her ear off even though it’s a weeknight.

***

The lack of Nesta in Cassian’s bed must stop him from succumbing to deep sleep, because his nap is hazy and doesn’t last more than a half hour. When he blinks awake, the fog of wine from earlier has mostly cleared away and the lamps in his room are lit. Mor sits on the bay window seat and Azriel lounges on a chair nearby, both of them murmuring quietly to each other.

Noticing Cassian’s movement, Az turns away from Mor and drawls, “That was quick.”

Groaning, Cassian rubs at his eyes and sits up straight. His shirt and jeans are flung on the floor, and he can only assume he took them off himself before collapsing into bed.

Holding the thin blanket to his chest, he demands, “What are you guys doing here?”

“Oh, now he has modesty,” Mor grumbles.

Cassian grabs his wrinkled shirt from the floor and shrugs it on before repeating his question. “What are you doing here, and where’s Nesta?”

“Don’t know,” Az shrugs from his chair. “But Mor wanted us to talk alone, so Nesta probably doesn’t need to be here.”

Growing wary, Cassian straightens up against the headboard. “Talk about what?”

Mor’s words take him by surprise. “I wanted to apologize.” She straightens up in her seat and throws a cautious glance at Azriel. “And I wanted Az with me for moral support.”

Az rolls his eyes to himself, likely considering the task beneath him.

“I didn’t take your words that seriously this morning,” Mor goes on, “but I’m taking them seriously now. Someone made me realize that I’ve been blaming your—girlfriend... for our relationship changing when I’m the one who’s been pushing you away the whole time. While you were falling in love, I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t trust you to find love without my input, and I didn’t respect you when you did.” Tears line her dark eyes, taking Cassian aback. “I’m sorry,” she says weakly. “Please don’t hate me.”

A headache takes root in Cassian’s temples, and he has to shut his eyes against the dull thudding. “I could never hate you, Mor,” he says past the lump in his throat. That was never the problem, though her words have eased some of the pent up frustration in his chest.

Cassian lets out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s not just you. It’s every single one of us. We’ve known each other so long, we’re so fucking entangled in each other, that even when I’m living by myself up in my cabin I feel like I can’t get away from it.” He stares out the window like he might find some relief there. “That’s why I’m going overseas. To get some space from all of this.” He waves between the three of them and laughs bitterly. “We created this incestuous little circle and now we don’t know how to care about anyone outside of it.”

He catches Az frowning, fingers toying with one of the bracelets on his wrist that Cassian spied earlier.

Mor sniffs away a lingering tear. “What about Nesta, then? Where does she factor in?”

Cassian’s mouth turns down in a distasteful frown. He still doesn’t like that he has to leave without her, but the fact that he doesn’t like it is only more proof that he needs to do it. “I can’t let Nesta be a part of me,” he answers. “I need to be all of me.”

Only once he learns how to do that can he be the friend and lover that the people in his life deserve.

***

Nesta wakes up the next dawn not on a hard chair, but in a soft bed. The smell of Cassian lingers on the sheets wrapped around her, and she blinks blearily as she tries to remember the events of last night.

Feyre fell asleep first. Elain and Nesta were just going to close their eyes for a moment and take a brief rest as well, but the next thing Nesta knew Cassian was helping her take out her contacts and laying her head against a pillow. Now the sun is dawning and she has a pounding headache. She needs at least another ten hours of sleep before she’ll be fit to face the world again.

She looks around for her phone to check the time and spots it plugged into the charger on the bedside table. Despite feeling like she’s been rammed with the flu, the tiniest smile lifts Nesta’s lips at the thought of Cassian carrying her to bed and making sure to charge her phone.

She finds her lockscreen blown up with notifications, all from her shared groupchat with Gwyn and Emerie.

Clicking into her texts, Nesta scrolls back through the hundreds of messages to see what she missed.

Emerie: i can’t believe nesta isn’t here for this.

Emerie: what the hell is she doing

Gwyn: probably hanging out with her best friends the inner circle

Gwyn: or getting railed

Emerie: >:(

A tired laugh escapes Nesta as she reads the texts, and she’s grateful for the reminder that these are her chosen friends. This is her found family, and she’ll be back with them soon.

Scrolling a little further back, Nesta finds the cause of all the commotion.

Emerie: A RACCOON JUST FELL THROUGH MY CEILING IM GONMA DUE &%!@

Emerie: DIE

Followed by multiple pictures of a scarily large raccoon chewing up Emerie’s bed.

Nesta shudders at the images. Reminding herself to message the girls back as soon as she has her head on straight, she puts away the phone and drags herself out of bed.

Her knees wobble a little as she stands upright and slips her glasses on, but her body keeps moving automatically toward the door. It’s not until she’s halfway downstairs that she realizes she’s looking for Cassian.

In the main hall that cuts through the house, Nesta glances between the back door and the front door. Instinct tugs her toward the front door, and as she passes the living room she spies Elain knocked out on the couch.

One of her legs dangle off the edge of the cushion and she still has her shoes on, like she dragged herself up onto the loveseat in the middle of the night and fell straight asleep.

Cassian brought Nesta up to their room sometime during the night, and Rhysand would have done the same for Feyre, but Elain… Elain has no one to carry her to her room, Nesta realizes.

Hating the unusual feeling of pity that blooms inside of her, Nesta goes over and grabs a throw blanket from nearby. She flings it haphazardly over Elain’s body. There, that should do it.

She might take a few seconds to tuck the blanket in a little better, but then she’s out the front door and jogging down the porch steps. Early morning dew beads the grass, and the sun isn’t high enough in the sky yet for the heat to be unbearable.

Like perfect timing, Cassian’s form appears from the lightly wooded running trail that circles the lake. He has his hair tied up and is wearing nothing but workout shorts, and even from this distance Nesta can see the sweat gleaming off his hardened chest.

She forgets about her headache and the bitter aftertaste of alcohol coating her tongue. Her feet speed up on the grass, and then Cassian takes sight of her too. He grins wide and breaks into a run toward her.

When they’re mere feet away from each other, Nesta is the one to halt first and hold out a hand, blocking Cassian’s incoming bear hug. “Don’t you dare.” She eyes his body with a warning look. Nesta will do a lot of things for her boyfriend, but sticking her face into his sweaty pits is not one of them.

Cassian looks her up and down with scrutiny, trying to decide if going in for the hug anyway is worth it. “Fine,” he gives in. He spins on his heel and walks down to the head of the pier, where a standing shower is set up for washing off after swims in the lake.

Twisting the faucet, Cassian stands under the cold burst of water and gives Nesta a look that says, Happy now?

Nesta cautiously goes over to where Cassian stands, but she gets too close—

In a blink, she’s being tugged under the shower stream, held tight to Cassian’s chest.

“Cassian!” Nesta splutters, trying to pull away. Droplets hit her glasses and blur her vision, and she has to shove the glasses up into her hair so she can properly glare at Cassian’s face.

He only laughs deeply and tugs her closer. “Like you don’t smell either. You’ve been in that dress since yesterday.”

Nesta catches her breath under the pouring water, glancing down at her soaked sundress. Right; she probably needs this more than he does.

The water isn’t freezing like she expected, she realizes as she relaxes in Cassian’s arms. It’s actually the perfect temperature, almost soothing after the initial shock to her senses.

Broad hands stroke long lines across her arms, like Cassian is making sure that she isn’t uncomfortable. The action triggers an old memory inside Nesta—or rather, an old familiar feeling. The feeling of Cassian in Nesta’s early days of knowing him, always pushing her out of her comfort zone but never tossing her in the deep end to drown.

“I handled my sisters and your friends pretty well the other night, don’t you think?” she murmurs into his chest.

Cassian looks down at her with pure reverence in his eyes. “I can’t be surprised. You’ve always been like that.”

“Like what?”

“Brave as hell. From the minute you stepped outside of the little circle you’d drawn around your life, you became the bravest person I know.”

“Not true,” Nesta states matter-of-factly. “I can name at least three braver people.”

Cassian pokes her in the ribs, but his smile is good natured. “It’s just an expression, Nes. Take the compliment.”

The shower keeps spraying around them, refracting the sunlight to scatter rainbows across Nesta’s vision. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” she tells Cassian earnestly. “I did the bulk of the hard work, but you…you gave me that first push. You taught me I could find safety in others, because you were my first real friend.”

Her words clearly take Cassian by surprise. Maybe it’s because Nesta is so rarely open about her true feelings, so her words have more value when she is. Maybe Cassian just wasn’t expecting to get so much credit, which is why he blinks rapidly now. “And what now?” he tries to tease, emotion tangled in his throat. “You have better friends?”

“Much better,” Nesta plays along, but her gaze carries all her sincerity. She suddenly laughs to herself, remembering: “I was terrible at socializing.”

It’s something she brushes off easily now, but few people will ever know that part of her inability to get close to others stemmed from a debilitating fear of rejection.

“Not to me.” Cassian reaches out to twist the faucet off, leaving the two of them standing soaked in the morning air. “I loved talking to you. I couldn’t stop wanting to talk to you, even if you didn’t feel like talking back.” That was how insistent he’d been on becoming her friend, that he would open up to her even when she was closed off to him.

Nesta watches Cassian tug his hair tie off, a little dazed by how much she feels for him in this moment. She isn’t ready for when he scrubs a hand vigorously through his loose hair, shaking the dripping strands out like a dog.

“Cassian!” Nesta scolds for the second time this morning. She flinches back at the water droplets hitting her eyes, making Cassian laugh when he looks back up at her. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. To make up for the assault, he delicately plucks her glasses off the top of her head and uses the hem of her wet dress to wipe off the lenses as best he can.

He slides the glasses back onto her face and nods, inspecting her. “That’s better.” Then he swoops down to kiss the mole beside her mouth.

Nesta wrinkles her nose in surprise. “What’s that for?”

“It’s a thank you,” he says. “Thank you for your car breaking down in the middle of the woods, and for agreeing to spend the night at my place last September.”

Nesta’s brows raise high in amusement. “Shouldn’t you be thanking Feyre? For calling in that favor with you?”

“One day, I’ll do that too,” he promises.

Nesta bites down on a smile and shakes her head, muttering, “Ridiculous.” Yet she can���t help but wonder: who would she thank?

The universe, probably. Whatever forces made it possible for her to wake up every day in the same bed as Cassian, eating the food he cooks and accepting the unconditional love he offers.

She suddenly shivers under the rising sun, becoming aware of how just uncomfortably her sundress clings to her body. Without Cassian’s words distracting her, everything is damp and cold.

Cassian notices and slips his hand into Nesta’s, already starting to pull her away from the pier and toward the house. “Let’s get you dry,” he says. “I’ll make us pancakes before everyone else wakes up.”

“With chocolate chips?”

“With chocolate chips.”

So hand in hand, the two of them walk back up to Cherrywood House.

***

a/n: IM FREE OF THIS BEAST. that ending was absolutely horrible to write, but i hope it satisfied you anyway. and if didnt, well, that’s what the epilogue is for

tagging: @sjm-things @thewayshedreamed @drielecarla @valkyriewarriors @superspiritfestival @aliveahaahahafuck @cupcakey00 @sayosdreams @rainbowcheetah512 @claralady @thebluemartini @nessiantho @missing-merlin @duskandstarlight @lucy617 @sleeping-and-books @everything-that-i-love @cassianscool @swankii-art-teacher @wannawriteyouabook @arinbelle @awesomelena555 @julemmaes @wickedqueenoffantasy @poisonous-bloom @observationanxioustheorist @gisellefigue08 @courtofjurdan @theoverlyenthusiasticwriter @wolfiixxx @cass-nes @seashade @royaltykxx @illyrianundercover @monstrousloves-explodinggalaxies @humanexile @that-golden-lyre @agentsofsheilds @mercy-is-alive @cassiansbigwingspan @laylaameer01 @verypaleninja @maastrash @bow-dawn @perseusannabeth @dead-on-the-inside666 @jlinez @hungryreadingaddict @anidealiveson @planet-faerie @shallowhighwaters @ghostlyrose2 @chosenfamily-valkyriequeens @rarephloxes

#nesta archeron #nessian #cassian #ncssianwrites #a favor #nessian fic #nessian au