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sunkissedpages · 3 years

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instead of you [part sixteen]

pairing: [best friend’s brother] tom holland x college!reader

summary: you didn’t expect to spend your summer pretending to be your best friend’s girlfriend- then again, you didn’t expect to fall for your best friend’s brother, either.

warnings: swearing, mentions of alcohol, smut (18+) additional warnings under the cut

word count: 3.1k

series masterlist

smut warnings: female masturbation, porn, mentions of choking

“‘We’? Like, you and me?” you clarified, hoping you had misunderstood.

“Yeah, it’ll only take a second,” Tom assured you.

You looked to Sam for help, but he looked just as lost as you were. “I’ll go try and find a microwave to heat up your leftovers,” he offered and took the container back from you. “I’ll be right back, babe.”

“Okay...”

You watched him shrug past both you and Tom and then disappear into the hallway with a sinking feeling in your chest, knowing he trusted you completely. He had no reason not to, and that’s what consumed you.

“What do you want?” you muttered, reluctantly stepping to the side to let Tom in.

He didn’t answer right away, giving you a moment to collect yourself. His eyes followed you around the room as you found your pants and tugged them on. He averted his gaze when he realized you were getting dressed mumbling a “sorry” as he trained his eyes on the carpet.

You sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to explain why he was there.

“You weren’t there today,” was all he said.

You blinked. “Yeah?”

“Was it because of me?”

“I wasn’t feeling well.”

Tom’s tongue poked at the inside of his cheek. “Is that all?”

“I had a lot to drink last night,” you reminded him.

“So you don’t remember anything?”

“I never said that.”

“So it was because of me?”

“I never said that either.” You sighed. “If you’re here to ask me if I told him you kissed me, I didn’t. And you could’ve just texted me to ask.”

“No that’s not why- I don’t have your number anyway.”

“I’m in the trip group chat with your family.”

“Oh, right. I’ll save it to my contacts.”

The tension in the room was palpable. It felt like all of the air had been sucked out and replaced with thick, suffocating silence. Arbitrarily, you wondered who the most famous person in his phone was. He was a Marvel actor, he probably had Simu Liu’s number, right? Who would your contact information be sitting in between? Maybe if you ever forgave him for what he did you could ask him.

“Is something funny?” The firmness of Tom’s voice cut through your train of thought and brought you back to the present. “Why are you smiling?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said despondently. “Sam’s gonna be back soon. What did you want?”

“I just wanted to check up on you. Sam said you were sick.”

“Oh, so you wanted to see if I was lying?”

“No! God, why is it so hard to believe that I’m genuinely concerned about you?”

“Because last night you only seemed concerned about yourself.”

Tom pursed his lips and shoved his hands in his pockets, expelling a breath harshly. “Okay, I deserved that.”

You hummed in agreement, and let your eyes trail down the veins of his arms to where they disappeared into his pockets. It looked like he was fiddling with a coin or something small, but you couldn’t tell.

“Are you feeling better?” he said the last part through gritted teeth.

“Yes, thank you. This chat has helped considerably.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Well, lucky for you I’m not your problem to deal with. I'm Sam’s.”

He flexed his hand in his pocket and sighed. “Okay, well, I also wanted to apologize again for...” the word kiss seemed to die on his lips, poetic irony at its finest. “Being a dick.” Less poetic.

He finally fished his hand out of his pocket, holding a delicate piece of paper between his pointer and index fingers. He shifted uncomfortably where he was leaning against the dresser. “We went to the Academic Gallery today. I saw this in the gift shop and thought of you.” He presented you with what turned out to be a postcard, creased down the middle unevenly and smudged with pen ink.

You turned it over to look at the front first, admiring the artwork printed on it. It was a picture of Michelangelo’s David drawn in swoopy black lines and filled in with watercolor paint. Instead of a museum, the statue was in the middle of a garden, the centerpiece among dozens upon dozens of flowers.

“Sorry it’s folded,” he mumbled. “It wouldn’t fit in my pocket.”

You flipped it over to read the back only to see iou scribbled in his handwriting and nothing else. You turned it over again to see if you had missed something on the front, but there was nothing.

You looked up at him in confusion. “Iou?”

“Yeah, you know... I feel really bad about last night, and I don’t really know how to make it up to you so I’m letting you decide.”

“That’s not really how it works.”

“I think that this counts as an exception, since we’re kind of in uncharted territory.”

“Maybe for you. My boyfriend’s brothers make out with me all the time.”

“Fuck you, I didn’t make out with you- it was barely a peck.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “It was more than a peck.”

His cheeks were beginning to grow pink with what you couldn’t tell was either embarrassment or frustration. He cleared his throat awkwardly and changed the subject. “Anyway, if you ever need a favor or anything, just let me know. Think of it as me owing you one.”

“And do I have to give back the postcard when I cash in this ‘favor’?” you asked.

“No, you can keep it.”

“Good, because I was going to keep it anyway.”

He chuckled in spite of himself and shook his head. “Knew you’d like it.”

You flattened the card on your lap, smiling as you tried to iron out the little crease with your fingers.

“It’s pretty, thank you.”

Tom nodded in acknowledgement and straightened his posture. “I should get going. I just wanted to give you that, and see how you were doing since tomorrow’s a travel day and I know you get a little motion sick sometimes. I didn’t want... whatever you’d come down with to make it worse.”

How did he know that? Had Sam told him? You didn’t have time to ask because he was already walking towards the door. He paused when he reached it and turned his head towards you, hand already on the knob.

“Good night, y/n.”

“Good night, Tom.”

He opened the door and let himself out into the hallway, catching it suddenly on his foot as he saw Sam coming off the elevator. Tom held the door for Sam, since his hands were full, and then said goodnight to his brother as he finally left.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find the microwave,” he explained. “I had to ask the night manager and they heated it up in the break room for me.”

“Oh, Sam, you didn’t have to do that! I would’ve eaten it cold.”

“I know you would have, and that’s why I’m not letting you.” You gave him a look, which he ignored and handed you the container of food. “It’s carbonara, it’s one of the things Rome is known for. I couldn’t have you eating it lukewarm.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He ran a hand through his hair and took a seat next to you on the edge of the bed, pulling the ottoman closer to use it as a makeshift table. He watched as you tried the first bite, gauging your reaction. It was something he did whenever he cooked for you, especially if he was trying out a new recipe. He always needed your approval, and valued it above anybody else’s. But he hadn’t even made this, and as his eyes searched your face you found yourself wondering if they were looking for something else.

“Do you like it?”

You breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Your paranoia was starting to get the better of you. “It’s delicious,” you assured him. “I’m sad I missed dinner.”

“I’m sad you missed the whole day. Spending time with my family without you was hell.”

“Oh come on, it’s probably good that you got some real family time.”

“It’s real family time when you’re there. It felt like something was missing.”

You let a small smile slip past your lips despite the guilt that bubbled under the surface. You pushed it down and took another bite of the carbonara.

“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you? It can’t have all been bad. Tell me about the good stuff. I wanna hear that.”

Sam nodded and pushed his curls back again, grinning like he’d been caught. “Fine, maybe there were some okay moments.”

“And what were they?”

“We went to the Accademia Gallery today. I think you would have really liked it. They had a whole wing of instruments from some of the most famous inventors and musicians from history. They even had pianos from Bartolomeo Cristorfori, the inventor of the piano.”

“Wow,” you said, impressed. “I bet it was beautiful.”

“Of course if it was played, it wouldn’t sound anything like the piano we’re used to hearing today, but I’m sure it would still sound incredible.”

“Even if it hasn’t been tuned in a few hundred years?”

It was his turn to give you a look. “Yes, of course.”

“Sorry.”

“And they had a Strativerius, I don’t even want to know how valuable that thing is. It must cost millions. I took some pictures for you, but I know they won’t compare to the real thing. The lighting in museums never does the art justice.”

He handed his phone to you to scroll through. You swiped the photos, smiling whenever you came across a selfie he’d taken with a statue or painting. You reached the pictures of David and couldn’t help but zoom in on-

“Hey!” Sam yelped and grabbed his phone back from your hands.

“What!”

“Michelangelo would be so ashamed of you! I bet he’s rolling in his grave right now.”

“No way! If anyone appreciated good dick, it was Michelangelo.”

“Unbelievable.”

“If you don’t want me to judge these statue’s penises, don’t take pictures of them.”

“I didn’t take pictures of their penises! I took pictures of the whole statue- you’re zooming in on- you know what, nevermind. Arguing with you about this is pointless.”

“Smart boy.”

Sam rolled his eyes at you and put his phone in his back pocket. “Oh yeah, did Tom give you that postcard?”

“He told you about that?” you asked, suddenly panicking. Sam hadn’t said anything about last night so far, but maybe Tom had-

“Yeah, said he wanted to give you an iou for the limoncello last night.”

“What?”

“He said you paid the tab for it since he left his wallet in the room and that he wanted to pay you back for it.”

“Oh. Right.”

Another lie. You had very much not paid for the drinks last night. Tom had. And you knew he had to make an excuse for why he was buying his brother’s girlfriend something from the gift shop, but to add another lie to the ever-growing list made your throat burn with regret. You wouldn’t be able to keep the secret forever, and it was only a matter of time before everything came crashing down around you.

In the morning you took the train from Rome to Naples, and then took a taxi to Sorrento to spend the last bit of your week in Italy by the sea. The atmosphere was much more relaxed than it had been in the busy cities of Rome and Florence. Even though there were still hordes of tourists, they were far more dispersed and less overbearing than you expected. The whole town seemed slowed down, like it had escaped the chokehold of time.

Sam’s parents took everyone out to lunch by the water and went over the schedule for the next day and a half.

“So, you’re on your own after dinner tonight, and then tomorrow morning we’re going to take the ferry to Capri for the day before our flight that night,” Nikki explained as she read through the spreadsheet on her phone.

“There’s an Irish pub down the street from our hotel,” Harry said. “Do you guys want to go after we eat tonight?”

“I’m down,” Sam agreed.

“Sounds good,” Tom chimed in.

The boys all looked at you for your answer, but you hesitated. Thinking about what happened the last time you drank didn’t make you eager to do it again, and you were already exhausted from travelling.

“I’ll pass.”

“What? Why?” Sam asked, sticking out his bottom lip in a pout.

You leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder with a sigh. “I’m tired, and I’d rather go somewhere Italian... since we’re in Italy.”

Harry shrugged. “Your loss.”

“We’ll have a shot in your honor, babe,” Sam said and pressed a kiss to your temple.

“Please don’t. Something tells me you’ll have plenty to drink without an extra shot for me.”

“You know us so well.”

After dinner, you walked back to the hotel with the Hollands and said good night to Sam’s parents before parting ways to your separate rooms. Sam went with you to change into clothes for going out while you changed into pajamas.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

You nodded from where you were on the bed and yawned. Sam didn’t push any further, instead resolving to finish getting ready in silence. He paired his black jeans with a pair of converse and a dark green button up over a black t-shirt.

He turned to you for approval.

“Fake girlfriend approved?”

“Fake girlfriend approved,” you repeated and gave him a thumbs up.

“Okay, well I’m headed out,” he announced.

“Have fun! Don’t kiss any cute girls without me!”

It was something you always said to each other, but it sounded strange since it was supposed to be coming from his girlfriend. Sam just chuckled and blew you a kiss as he let himself out.

You heard him greet his brothers outside and then listened to their footsteps fade into the distance before pulling up an incognito window on your phone. It had been weeks since you’d been able to get off and it was killing you. The amount of stress this trip had given you only made it worse. You were wound so tight that you were sure you’d snap soon if you didn’t get some relief.

And you thought that maybe if you rubbed one out it might help you forget about... the confusing feelings you had for your best friend’s brother.

Seeing as you had the night to yourself, you figured you might as well take advantage of it. You copied a link from your notes app and pasted the url into the address bar. You didn’t feel like digging through your luggage to find your earbuds so you set the volume low enough for only you to hear.

The video started playing and you let your hand wander from your side up to your neck, brushing your hand lightly across your collarbone. You traced the curve of your breasts with a finger before squeezing one of them gently, feeling your nipple harden under your palm. You only had one hand to use since the other was holding your phone, but you made do.

The video was one of your favorites, one you found yourself watching at least once a week. It was one of the few videos of hetero couples you had favorited, and it started with the guy going down on the girl before fucking her...

You admired the muscles on the man’s back, watching intently as they flexed whenever he moved his head. The woman moaned, struggling to keep her legs open while he brought her closer and closer to orgasm.

You let your hand travel down further until it was sitting at the waistband of your pajama shorts. You knew you had a while before Sam would be back, but you were too impatient to wait. You propped your phone up on a pillow next to you to free your other hand as you started to play with your clit.

You pictured someone’s head in between your thighs, imagining them moaning against your pussy as they tasted you for the first time.

The man was taking his pants off now and lining himself up with his partner’s pussy. You tried to follow along, putting yourself in the moment with the couple. You gathered your own wetness on two of your fingers to lubricate them and slid them inside yourself, sighing in relief. Your entire body tensed as it accommodated to the stretch and you gave yourself a few beats before moving your fingers.

When you finally did, you felt yourself relax and sped up your pace so that it matched the actors on screen.

The angle the video was shot at hid the man’s face and you found yourself wondering what he looked like. If you squinted you could almost picture Tom- no. You tried to shake the thought from your mind, but it was already there.

Closing your eyes didn’t help either. You just imagined Tom’s fingers sliding in and out of you instead of your own, imagined the veins on his arms becoming more pronounced as he tightened his grip on your thigh.

“Fuck,” you cursed, knowing you should stop.

You were too close to stop now, and the pleasure was clouding your judgement. Suddenly the man brought his hand up to the girl’s throat and began to choke her, sending her hurtling into her own orgasm. You moaned accidentally, thinking about Tom’s hand around your throat. You curled your fingers up so that you were hitting your g-spot and whimpered pathetically.

This was wrong. This was bad. Not only were you fantasizing about your best friend’s brother, but you were confusing yourself even further.

You tried to fight it, at least that’s what you told yourself, but all you could hear were Tom’s moans echoing through the speaker. You pictured the way he’d look on top of you. His eyes would be so dark and he’d be smirking like the cocky asshole he was, chain hanging down in your face- just inviting you to take it into your mouth. It didn’t take long before you felt your orgasm begin to build. The video was still playing in the background, the man still chasing his own high and bringing his partner to her second orgasm, but you’d tuned it out by now. You came around your fingers thinking about Tom’s hips snapping into yours.

You were fucked.

lmk what you think!! i always appreciate feedback

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that-was-anticlimactic · 3 years

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reki with tourette’s headcanons

[ID: it’s reki from sk8 the infinity wearing a yellow sweatshirt with his hands on his hips. he’s wearing a red bracelet on his right wrist and he’s smiling. behind him is a touette’s syndrome awareness flag. end ID.]

so. @zukkaclawthorne got me hooked on reki with ts and now imma post headcanons i wrote oops

okay so first—that little skateboard he plays with??? stim toy, actually.

he likes the sound the wheels make—that whirrrrrr sound. it makes his arms flappy :)

he also finds the rolling motion soothing and relaxing and it always calms him down—it takes his mind to a happy place

he rocks back and forth and shakes his legs a lot. that also contributed to why he was terrible at skateboarding the first few times he tried—because his body would be like “time to rock back and forth!” and it would mess him up

neck twitches for days :)

no but for real—neck twitching is one of his worst tics because sometimes—if he’s in a bad mood or if he’s sad or anxious—it gets harsh and violent and really strains his neck.

so, langa gives him neck / upper back neck massages to help with the pain

he went through this phase for a couple of months where whenever his neck would twitch, he would snap his fingers two times.

he has a lot of hand tics which can be stressful when he makes skateboards because sometimes he’ll be in the groove and then suddenly he’ll mess something up

speaking of messing things up, he has a tendency to dig the bottom of his palm into his forehead whenever he feels like he does something stupid—he doesn’t even realize it until someone points it out.

he feels like even more of a failure of a skater because of his tics because they can hold him back and make the course more dangerous.

if his blinking tic resurfaces, sometimes the blinking gets so intense that he literally cannot see for anywhere between five seconds and a minute depending on how bad it is. that is how he got some of his worst scars.

or sometimes he’ll make a really aggressive hand motion and it throws him off balance on the skateboard due to the intensity

anyways back to hand tics: he points a lot and does symbols like the “rock on” sign or certain numbers (for some reason, the most common number for reki to throw up is four—though sometimes he throws up whatever number he hears) he also grunts a lot as a tic so he sounds angry even when he is’t.

sometimes, his hand tics really hurt and his hands become shaky and his fingers start to feel the way his heart feels when he’s anxious. langa helps in different ways—he holds reki’s hand, he gives him something to fidget with to try to distract him (sometimes it’s his own fingers—he’ll just set them in reki’s palm and be like “let me carry some of the pain”—no, reki didn’t totally cry when he said that what)

sometimes, reki sticks pencils in his ears. his teachers have been trying to stop it since he was young, but he always did it anyways—he couldn’t help it.

his hair is also long enough for him to chew on. yes, he chews on the tips of his hair because i say so. sometimes, to stop him from doing that (and from swallowing his own hair), langa will try to make him laugh so it falls out of his mouth and then he’ll scoot close and tuck the hair behind reki’s ears… once they start dating, he kisses him too. but also that’s one reason why he wears the headband—to try to keep his hair out of his face so he doesn’t chew on it.

reki’s favorite form of stimming (other than his skateboard toy, that is) is stress balls. he’s got a couple of stress balls in his room or backpack—even one with string attached so he can carry it around his wrist. he just really likes the texture of them.

after his second race against adam, cherry and joe were so proud of him and also impressed and worried dads that they bought reki a big stress ball, like, the size of a stuffed animal. it was a blue cat. he uses it all the time.

speaking of fricking adam, we all know he would so use reki’s tics against him during a race. like, when he grabbed his wrist and “danced” with him, he would mock reki’s tics or say creepy things about how his verbal tics are music and his motor tics are him dancing along and it makes him so uncomfortable and like even more shaken

oh and adam purposely does things to trigger his tics, like when i mentioned that number tic??? yeah, adam will purposefully say numbers to make reki do the hand gestures

one time, reki wanted to tell langa that he loved him but got nervous so he signed it in sign language instead. but, since reki’s tics are occasionally hand gestures, langa thought that it was just a tic and mentally was like “i wish that was for me…” and reki is like “i wish he knew it was real…” and joe, cherry, shadow, and miya are all facepalming and groaning at their obliviousness

reki prefers taking hand written notes to electronic notes because he draws / doodles to stim and he can’t really doodle well on a laptop. so, he’ll doodle in class all of the time

sometimes, his pictures / notes turn out pretty bad / illegible depending on how bad his tics are, but that doesn’t phase reki. it used to when he was younger, but it doesn’t bother him at all anymore. in fact, he thinks it adds personality

during class, he’ll draw pictures for langa and slid them on his desk. they’re usually really random things like the teacher or the back of someone’s head or squiggly lines or whatever he sees outside. more often than not, it’s abstract art. langa loves these drawings and he keeps them all on his desk in his room.

reki also started drawing pictures for the rest of the sk8 crew and gives it to them during races. when he gave everyone their first doodle, he was like “i’m not the best artist ever and sometimes my tics mess up the doodle, but i thought of you while i drew it so i want you to have it”

(shadow didn’t shed a couple of unwilling dad tears when he got home that night what)

anyways, they all keep them. every single one. miya puts them in their school binder so they don’t feel as alone / isolated at school.

although shadow and miya give reki a lot of crap / teasing about not being as good as everyone else, the second they hear anyone comment about “the weird red head that makes noises” and comments on his ts in a negative way, oh, they will stop you.

sometimes, reki whispers words he hears under his breath as a tic (echolalia, baby~) and when he overhears people saying stuff about “that redhead that always follows snow around” or about him not being good enough or how he’s an idiot to face adam, he ends up muttering that too. and it’s not a one and done kind of thing—like. he does it for days. it makes him so upset (and i already hc him, with depression so it just makes it worse)

having tics while having injuries is not a good combination—especially if it’s with a broken arm. the crew made sure to keep an eye of reki’s comfort / pain level after adam broke his arm and literally tried to kill him in their final race. joe let reki squeeze his hand whenever he felt the urge to tic and cherry would ask him how much pain he was in after he ticced and depending on how bad it would be, would make joe or shadow fetch a heating pad or an icepack for reki.

joe also taught reki about the magical thing called physical therapy tape and helped him put it on his shoulders, neck, and back one time. it was his idea to use the tape on reki’s fingers when he was injured to make him feel better (because it literally makes my fingers feel better)

also langa kisses each of reki’s fingers and knuckles, slowly and tenderly, soft so he doesn’t hurt him or trigger a tic. a way of showing that he loves him not despite his tics, but even with his tics and that he loves him and his tics.

cherry isn’t always the best at showing he cares, so he’ll wear a ts ribbon sometimes in a way to show support (and it makes reki beam)

shadow once gave reki a flower shaped stress ball because there were “extra at work” (not true—he went looking for one)

miya didn’t really know much about ts at first and asked why reki made those noises and made weird movements all the time and langa explained so then that night when miya got home, they did research on ts so they could understand it better. later, they told reki that whenever they called him a slime, they meant it purely about skateboarding and it had nothing to do with his tics—even that his tics didn’t make him less of a skater

all his life, reki had been the different one: the one no one wanted on the team because sometimes his tics messed him up, the one who was asked to leave classes during tests because his tics were too distracting and made him take the test in the hall, when sometimes he’d get too overwhelmed by how close people were in the halls or at races and would have panic attacks, how he rocked in his chair and adjusted his position seventeen times an hour and sat on his feet while the other kids didn’t, how he shook his legs more aggressively than others, how he couldn’t skate as well as everyone else because of his tics and because he wasn’t good enough

which is probably part of the depression that weighs on his shoulders

the first time reki had a panic attack during a race due to closeness and overstimulating noises (and this is the first one after the sk8 crew happened) langa was racing and wasn’t there to help, so shadow kind of panicked and like picked him up under the armpits and carried him away from the crowd since reki could barely process anything other than panic and the sound and feeling of static and they sat in shadow’s car for the rest of the race and once he felt better, he gave shadow a huge hug and shadow returned it.

one time it happened and cherry was nearby and he saw the signs before it got bad (remembered from the previous time / his own experiences) and helped talk reki down before it got bad (he has a soothing voice)

usually, though, when / if it happens (because reki usually feels safe there), langa is the one who helps

but it got so much worse after skating against adam the first time because he no longer felt safe and suddenly everyone cheering adam’s name even after witnessing what he did to reki was too much but langa was racing adam so langa wasn’t there and this time it was joe who kneeled in front of him and started talking just loud enough for reki to hear and he was like “you’re safe—we won’t let anyone hurt you. we won’t let him hurt langa. you’re safe. i’m here and so is cherry and shadow and miya and langa will be waiting for you at the end of the race…”

it happens again at the next race he goes to—and this time it’s miya who notices and they tug on langa’s sleeve and is like “i think you need to take reki somewhere else” and langa does :)

okay i’ll end on a positive ts note or two—langa asks reki to add the ts ribbon to the design on his skateboard

shadow finds chewelry at the store one day when he’s shopping and buys it for reki (and gets a matching one for langa!)

once reki came back after his mental health break, the first thing joe said to him was, and this is nonnegotiable “reki! i missed you and your tics!”

miya once overheard reki muttering to himself about his annoying tics were, so they intervened and was like “your tics aren’t annoying. they’re you and anyone who think s they’re annoying is an idiot”

and for the first time in his life, reki doesn’t feel alone and isolated and so different from everyone (at least, he’s working on that last one) and he’s finally found a group of people who want him on their team and a boyfriend who always supports him and makes him feel less isolated, tics and all <3

i uhh I have a lot of feelings,,,

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

Note

NMJ is the only one that knows bc he’s the only one that NHS truly trusts, he’s the only one who knows why NHS focuses so much in painting and art, NHS doesn’t know why or how but with a little bit of spiritual energy he’s able to bring what he paints in paper to the real world and with that the Nie sect has the beasts of legends under their command

on ao3

“How about you draw a flower?” Nie Mingjue said without much conviction. It was hard to have conviction when you knew it was pointless.

“No!” Nie Huaisang shouted, unsurprisingly, because toddlers always shouted. They seemed to have a great deal of feelings and sound for such small frames. “Taotie!”

Nie Mingjue grimaced. “No, no, not Taotie,” he said quickly. Never Taotie, not again. “How about the Baihu? Nice fuzzy tiger?”

“No!”

“Fenghuang? You like birds.”

Nie Huaisang considered it. “I like birds,” he agreed.

Nie Mingjue heaved a sigh of relief. “Me, too,” he said enthusiastically. “I love birds.”

He had never had especially strong feelings about birds, but he was willing to develop some.

“Okay,” Nie Huaisang said, and patted his thigh comfortingly. “I’ll draw you a bird, da-ge.”

“…thanks,” Nie Mingjue said.

When Nie Huaisang was done, he proudly presented Nie Mingjue with the results of his work.

Nie Mingjue put the baby phoenix in the new aviary he’d secretly had constructed behind his father’s back, thinking to himself that the high-grade construction materials he’d insisted on were totally worth losing his allowance for the next year.

The phoenix chick - it looked like a plucked chicken with maybe three feathers total - weakly coughed smoke.

Because of course it did.

Sometimes Nie Mingjue wished that he could just tell someone about Nie Huaisang’s unusual gift – it was a pretty big burden to bear, and he really wasn’t sure he was old enough for this type of responsibility – but no one else deserved to know. If they didn’t have the good taste to like Nie Huaisang when he was no one and nobody, pointless and useless, they didn’t deserve the benefits of knowing him now that he could do stuff.

Even if it was weird stuff.

Stuff like his ability to summoning the things he drew into existence.

Even things that might not really exist.

Besides, the thought of Nie Huaisang getting wrapped up into war and politics when he was still so young –

No, better to just store away what he made and hope he grew out of it.

And no more Taoties.

“Lan Zhan said his uncle shows people his artwork,” Nie Huaisang said, sitting on Nie Mingjue’s table in the family study. “Why don’t you ever show my artwork?”

“You do art?” their father asked absently, most of his attention on the report he was reading.

“Huaisang does great calligraphy,” Nie Mingjue interjected very quickly. “You’ve seen it – it’s beautiful. And his poems are very well crafted, too.”

“But Lan Zhan said –”

Nie Mingjue mentally resigned himself to not being friends with Lan Xichen any longer, no matter how well they’d gotten along, on the basis that the other boy would probably take it personally when Nie Mingjue murdered his brother.

“He also said stuff about rules,” he said. “Hundreds and hundreds of rules. Do you want to listen to all of those, too?”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said sulkily, five years old and bitter with it. “But…”

“How about we show Lan Wangji your aviary?” Nie Mingjue coaxed. “Go ask him if he’d like to see it. I bet he’s never seen anything like that – and you can ask him what type of animal he likes best, too!”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes went wide at the thought and he dashed off.

“You spoil him far too much,” their father commented. “An aviary – you talk about it more than he does, and you’re always getting birds to fill it up for him, too. Why are you so devoted to him learning to like birds?”

“Better than him liking fierce beasts,” Nie Mingjue said, omitting to mention exactly where he obtained the birds that filled the aviary. “Or corpses.”

“If he liked fierce beasts, perhaps he’d be more martially inclined.”

No, we would be, Nie Mingjue thought. He’d gotten a lot of spare practice with Baxia trying to fight corpses that had no business being there during the period in which Nie Huaisang had gotten temporarily interested in the things in his father’s stories – and that was before Nie Huaisang had learned about yao.

“I don’t want him growing up morbid, that’s all,” he said.

“You’re his brother, not his nursemaid,” their father said, a little exasperated. “Nor are you his mother. Why are you fussing over him so?”

Nie Mingjue huffed and shook his head. “How goes recruitment for the border?” he asked instead, and listened to his father tell him about how people barely a year or two older than him were being sent to risk death in the name of sect honor.

Not Nie Huaisang, he promised himself. Not yet.

He’d tell his father when Nie Huaisang was old enough to handle the consequences.

“Huaisang, didi,” Nie Mingjue said, and tried to smile, even though it pained him. “Can you do me a favor? A really, really big favor?”

Nie Huaisang sniffed, clutching at his arms and shaking. “What, da-ge?”

“You remember Jiwei? A-die’s saber? Can you draw that for me, please?”

It only made it worse.

“Da-ge?”

“Yes, Huaisang?” Nie Mingjue asked, scowling at the map. It didn’t get any better the longer he looked at it, but maybe if he kept glaring he could cow it into submission.

“Don’t you want me to help?”

Nie Mingjue looked up at where Nie Huaisang was wringing his hands by the door. “Help? With what?”

Nie Huaisang rolled his eyes at him, like it was Nie Mingjue being dense instead of him having started a conversation in the middle. “Uh, with border defense?”

“Why would I ask you to help with that?” Nie Mingjue asked blankly, then realized how his words could be misconstrued. “Not that I wouldn’t ask you to help, of course, but you’ve never really liked battlefield strategy, and anyway you are only twelve –”

“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang whined. “I meant drawing!”

“…as in maps?”

Nie Huaisang’s glare could light fires.

Nie Mingjue coughed and put aside his work to focus on his brother. “Huaisang, why do you think I would use your drawings in planning out a possible battle?”

“Because they’re useful?” Nie Huaisang said, crossing his arms. “I can make things appear, da-ge, just by drawing them. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but that’s not something that normal people can do.”

“I know,” Nie Mingjue said. “It’s not. But just because it’s not normal doesn’t mean it’s not a wonderful ability, Huaisang.”

Nie Huaisang looked a little bit appeased.

“But just because it’s wonderful doesn’t mean I’m going to abuse your ability,” Nie Mingjue continued. “You should be playing, not working, and if anyone tells you otherwise, you tell me and I’ll straighten them out.”

Nie Huaisang came up and hugged him. “So it’s not that you’re not ashamed of me being weird and useless?”

“I think we’ve already established that an ability like yours is far from useless. And I don’t care how weird you are, principles are principles: you’re too young to be used for battle. Sorry, Huaisang; my hands are tied.”

Nie Huaisang laughed at him and left, looking much happier.

“So what would you like?” Nie Huaisang asked, eyes sparkling. “Me and my brush are at the ready, here to help!”

Nie Mingjue rubbed his forehead. “If you’re sure…”

“Da-ge! I’m seventeen – you were already sect leader for two years by my age. And it’s not like I’m going out there on the front lines or anything; I’m just going to draw some stuff for you.”

“You say ‘just’,” he grumbled. “It does drain your qi, you know. That’s why you took such a long time to form a golden core…”

“Yes, but I did get there eventually, didn’t I? And anyway, it’s fine, I’ll do it instead of my usual landscapes. What would you like? A dragon to devour our enemies? The white tiger, nipping at their heels? A taotie –”

“No Taotie.”

“You’re so weird about that,” Nie Huaisang complained, rolling his eyes again. “Fine. Then what?”

��Sabers,” Nie Mingjue said, giving in. “Standard steel, not spiritual. Horses, feed, saddles. Say, how are you at drawing arrows?”

“Da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said. “I can draw you the beasts of legend, and you want me to draw you arrows?”

“Yes. As many as you can bring yourself to create, really; everyone’s always short on arrows. More rice would be good, too –”

“This wasn’t exactly what I was expecting when I volunteered to help,” Nie Huaisang grumbled.

“Are you going to do it for me or not?” Nie Mingjue asked, unimpressed. “You asked me to use you, not to give you an art project.”

His brother heaved a sigh. “Yes, yes, I will. Can you explain to me why this is your choice, at least?”

Nie Mingjue ruffled his brother’s hair. “Huaisang, when you draw something, it comes to life. Fully to life, as a separate and independent creature of its own – if you draw a dragon, who’s to say that the dragon will choose to fight the Wen sect, instead of turning on us? It wouldn’t be much help if we had to run out, sabers drawn, to deal with whatever it was, only to be exhausted before the Wen sect even arrived.”

“…oh.”

“When we’ve made some progress in the field, I promise to let you help build fortifications,” Nie Mingjue said. “You can start thinking of really nasty traps –”

“Da-ge?”

“Yes?”

“…is that why you hate the idea of me drawing Taotie so much?”

Nie Mingjue coughed.

“Da-ge!”

“Don’t worry about it. It was always really good saber practice…”

“And if anyone tries anything against you at the camp, you draw something really mean, okay?” Nie Mingjue said, pressing paper and a brush into his brother’s hand in addition to the ones he’d hidden away in his luggage - there was a chance that might be confiscated upon his arrival. “I don’t care what it is.”

“I know, I know –”

“Promise me!”

“I will!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed. “I promise already!”

“Not just if they’re aggressive. Even if things just look suspicious –”

“Suspicious? Like what?”

“If they take you somewhere secluded,” Nie Mingjue said, face drawn with worry. “Somewhere where it’d take us a long time to find your bodies. I don’t care if you put other people in danger from your creation, okay? Don’t make me have to find your corpse.”

Nie Huaisang was silent for a moment. “I understand,” he finally said. “I promise.”

“I’m never drawing anything legendary ever again,” Nie Huaisang sniffed into Nie Mingjue’s collar. “That Xuanwu was awful. It tried to eat all of us!”

“Do you want me to help with the logistics, Sect Leader Nie?” Meng Yao asked.

“You already help with the logistics,” Nie Mingjue said, not really paying attention. If it was serious, Meng Yao would bring it to his attention – he was a truly remarkable aide-de-camp. “You already help with everything.”

“I appreciate Sect Leader Nie’s confidence in me,” Meng Yao said, smiling a little. “But no, I meant – with the imports.”

“Imports?”

“Every week we receive new shipments of goods – food, weapons, defenses – from Qinghe, and we don’t send any money back. Surely such expenditures are putting a strain on the Nie treasury..?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Nie Mingjue said. “Huaisang is handling it. It’s good for him to have responsibility.”

Meng Yao looked a little skeptical, but in his defense, he’d met Nie Huaisang.

“Really,” Nie Mingjue assured him. “He’s not going to hurt our budget – it’ll be fine. They’ve come steadily every week so far, haven’t they?”

“If Sect Leader Nie is content, then so am I,” Meng Yao said, but he was pouting a little, perhaps at the perceived lack of trust. He did so love to be helpful.

“You know I trust you with my life,” Nie Mingjue told him. “But this is something that Huaisang is, for once, best placed to handle. Don’t worry about it.”

It wasn’t really his secret to share, after all. Maybe when the war was done.

Nie Mingjue was on his back in the throne room of the Fire Palace, staring up at the man who murdered his father and who was about to murder him, too, when he heard the sound.

A high-pitched squeal, unlike anything else he’d ever heard – a little like a pig, a little like a wolf, a little like the long slow grate of metal against metal. It burned on the ear, a vile sound on the verge of being physically painful.

“What is that?” Wen Ruohan asked, frowning. He was standing above Nie Mingjue, his foot crushing down on his chest; Baxia was out of reach, knocked away, but at least no longer in the traitor Meng Yao’s hands. “Meng Yao…?”

“I - I’m not sure, Sect Leader Wen,” Meng Yao said, looking equally confused.

Nie Mingjue laughed.

They both looked at him.

He grinned up at them, blood in his teeth.

“What?” he said. “Never heard a Taotie before?”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #my fic #my fics #purple crayon #timetomakeanewwish

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ncssian · 3 years

Text

A Favor: Part Fifteen

Nessian Modern AU

Masterlist

a/n: NSFW!!😈😈 please disregard colorado window tinting laws for this chapter

***

Cassian has yet to regret getting Nesta that personalized record, despite the fact that she plays it everyday on repeat with a near obsession. Is this what true love is? Letting your girlfriend blast the same songs through your home again and again, and never tiring of it? Never tiring of her?

He doesn’t get to ponder on it, because while Nesta spends the week lazing pantsless around the house (“I’m getting ready for the party,” she states while he rubs her feet. “Spiritually and all that.”), Cassian has to figure out how to turn the cabin into an inviting space for forty wealthy guests.

All of Nesta’s shit gets shoved in the back of his bedroom closet. Personal items and framed pictures of the two of them are swiped off any surfaces. Lights go up around the house. Catering is secured.

By the time it’s all finished, the cabin has been stripped of all warmth and familiarity and turned into something chic and upscale, suitable for a small gala. Nesta stares around at the space when it’s done, her face revealing nothing.

Cassian points to the small sitting area on the second floor, directly above the open living room, that leads outside to the wraparound balcony. “We’ll be able to see fireworks from there,” he says. He turns to see Nesta’s face is still carefully blank, the way it is when she’s thinking too many things at once. “You sure you want to do this?” he asks. “It’s not too late to cancel the whole thing.”

She looks at him in horror. “It most certainly is. The party’s tomorrow.”

“Still not too late.” Cassian might not have that much power in the overall Night Court hierarchy, but for Nesta he could figure it out.

She smiles wanly but shakes her head. “We’re doing this, and we’re not letting it go to hell like last time.”

***

Nesta knows her sisters are aware that she’s on the guest list for the party (though she can’t imagine what Cassian’s explanation for that one was), but she still stiffens when she enters the cabin through the open door. Her eyes fall on various men and women that she’s never seen in her life, all glammed up and dripping self-importance, until recognizing Feyre and her boyfriend laughing with an older couple in a corner. The only thing that brings Nesta a little peace is that the snide woman, Amren, isn’t here tonight, having chosen to spend New Year’s with her boyfriend in California instead.

Nesta eases up when nobody takes notice of her, though a few nearby guests throw appreciative glances in her direction. She looks like a disco ball in her sequined wrap dress, and a freezing one at that. She shuts the door behind her, sealing the winter air out, but quickly pulls her hand away from the knob. It feels like the door isn’t hers to touch. She realizes that even though the cabin is her home, no one here except Cassian knows that.

Speaking of Cassian, she needs to find him. Nesta is not such an advanced creature that she knows how to survive in a room full of strangers on her own, and she no longer cares if anyone finds her clinging to Cassian weird.

She makes it three feet before she’s accosted by Morrigan, carrying her usual champagne glass like it’s an extension of her.

“Nesta!” she exclaims, loud and bright as ever. She smiles broadly, with too many teeth. “You’re here.”

Nesta blinks in response. She doesn’t understand how Morrigan benefits from this exaggerated excitement. Is it supposed to be insulting or polite?

“By the way,” Morrigan adds when Nesta doesn’t reply, “what exactly are you doing here?”

A heavy arm slides around Nesta’s shoulders, pulling her close. “I invited her,” says Cassian with a smile. “Because she’s my friend, and this place is practically hers.”

“Oh, I think that’s an exaggeration,” Nesta says sharply, trying to step away from Cassian.

He holds her closer. “No it’s not. We were roomies for over two months, remember?”

Morrigan winces, looking between the two of them. “Right,” she says slowly. “I keep forgetting that. Cassian is like this with everybody,” she says apologetically to Nesta. “Don’t take him too seriously.”

Nesta nods solemnly, wanting this conversation to be over. “I won’t.”

Her exit is made clear when the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it,” she says quickly, escaping from under Cassian’s arm.

Hurrying to the door, she swings it open.

Eris Vanserra stands looking irritated on the other side. He freezes when he sees Nesta, and then his face lifts into a smug grin. “Oh, this is too good.”

“So Cassian Madani was your sugar daddy all along?” Eris asks her later.

“Say sugar daddy one more time. I dare you.” Nesta stands near the stairs with her arms crossed, trying to pretend she isn’t associated with Eris. Which is more than a bit difficult when he keeps badgering her with questions, and Cassian is giving the two of them odd looks from across the room.

“I mean, what are the odds?” he laughs.

“My sister is dating his CEO brother.”

Eris throws her a look of surprise, but Nesta says, “How do you even know him?”

Eris sticks an hors d'oeuvre from a nearby platter in his mouth. “He manages security and logistics at every event Night Court is involved in. Can be a real pain in the ass to work with when I’m trying to get shit done for my dad’s company.”

“You’re a pain in the ass,” she retorts.

They’re interrupted by Feyre and Rhys appearing before them, Feyre with her hostess smile and Rhysand with an inquisitive look on his face. Nesta can’t tell which one of them is more attached to the hip of the other.

“Eris,” Rhysand greets smoothly.

“I see you’re already acquainted with my sister,” Feyre says. Her tone is tense, either because she’s still pissed at Nesta or—even worse—she feels protective of her.

“We’re classmates,” Nesta says tightly. “Does it matter?”

Feyre tries not to look hurt. “No—I just didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do.”

“Ladies,” a new voice says warningly. Cassian’s left whatever droll conversation he was stuck in and made his way over to them.

“Is the entire party congregating here?” Eris looks around himself.

“No, we are not,” Cassian says, all his usual friendliness gone around Eris. “I just came to ask Feyre to talk to the representatives from Spellbreaker before they pull all their money out of our latest operation.”

Feyre’s eyes go wide and her tattooed hand goes to her chest. “That’s not really my job—”

“Oh, come on, darling.” Rhysand slides a hand around her waist. “I’ll go with you; the art of negotiating is easier than it looks.”

Nesta nearly pukes in her mouth, but she maintains a careful blank face until Feyre and Rhysand are successfully out of sight. Cassian turns to Eris with a stony look. “You’re still here?”

Nesta sighs internally; this man has never hidden his feelings in his life.

Eris shares an amused glance with Nesta as if he’s thinking the same thing. “Is there anywhere else I should be right now?” he replies.

“Maybe in hell.”

Nesta claps a hand on Cassian’s shoulder and fakes a smile at Eris. “Tell your brother hi for me,” she says while pulling Cassian away. “I miss talking to a sensible redhead.”

“That’s because you have awful taste,” Eris calls after her. Nesta drags Cassian deep into the hallway, where no one lingers.

She releases him without flourish. “Are you doing okay? Because it seems like you’re having a harder time with this than I am.”

“I’m fine,” Cassian defends. “I was just hit with a terrible memory back there.”

“Like what?”

“That you’re friends with Eris.”

Nesta rolls her eyes. Friends is a very liberal term, but she won’t correct Cassian while he’s acting like this. “Thank you for helping with Feyre and Mor,” she says instead. “I didn’t need it, but I still appreciate it.” It’s a hard thing to admit, but she wants him to hear it.

“I was just trying to get you alone,” he says, leaning against the bathroom door. “I’ve been trying to get you alone all night.”

Nesta looks him up and down, from his white dress shirt and tied back hair to his uncharacteristically polished shoes. “For what?” she says warily. “If this is about a sex thing, don’t bother. There’s nowhere in this house for us to go without raising suspicion.”

Cassian pushes off the door with a dark look. “I wasn’t going to suggest staying in the house.” He holds a bronzed hand out toward her. “Wanna get out of here?”

***

Cassian doesn’t remember how he ever managed to fit all six-four of himself into the cramped backseat of his truck when he was fucking girls in college, but for Nesta he figures it out somehow.

Her pretty little dress is shoved down to her midriff, baring her arms and flushed breasts, and her skirt is bunched up high enough that Cassian can watch as he moves his fingers inside her. The glow of lights from the cabin lands on her perfect face as she throws her head back in pleasure, and he can only watch her in awe.

He laughs lowly when she whimpers and eases a third finger into her wet heat, in no rush to return to the party anytime soon. Let them all wonder where he and Nesta wandered off to.

But Nesta has far less patience than him; she pulls him in for a frenzied kiss and uses the distraction to slide her hand into his boxer briefs, palming his cock. He groans into her mouth as she pulls out the length of him from his unzipped pants, and it’s at that very moment that two voices interrupt their panting.

“Thanks,” a muffled female voice says from outside the truck. Cassian looks up through the dark tinted windows to find—Jesus Christ—Mor accepting a cigarette from Rhys. The two of them stand some feet away from the truck, unaware that anyone is occupying it.

“Some way to end the year,” Rhys is saying, watching the clear night sky. Nesta’s gone completely still beneath Cassian, not needing to get up and look to know who stands in the driveway. “Would have been even better without Nesta terrorizing Feyre at every turn.”

Sickness turns Cassian’s stomach at hearing such ugly words about Nesta come from his brother, but that sickness is quickly replaced by rage as Mor huffs a laugh. “She’s not that bad,” Mor says, taking a pull from her cigarette. “Though I could do without the attitude at every damn gathering.”

Rhys clicks his tongue. “She’s always been like that, even when the sisters were kids. It kills Feyre.”

Cassian glances down at Nesta, terrified of what he’s going to find on her face. But Nesta doesn’t look hurt or enraged like he expects. Instead, she’s listening closely with her brows furrowed, studiously intrigued.

Noticing Cassian’s attention on her, she meets his eyes and her breath hitches. A blush takes over her cheeks, and she clenches involuntarily around the fingers still deep inside her. Cassian realizes that his fury is written all over his face. And she likes it.

His anger at his friends flickers—or rather, transforms. Slowly, he pulls his fingers out of Nesta. He sits up a bit straighter and kneels properly on the backseat, earning a curious look from her. Hunching so his head doesn’t hit the truck ceiling, he wraps his hands around her thighs and maneuvers her legs up, up until they’re hooked over his shoulders. She nearly chokes at the new position.

He adjusts them so his cock is pressed right up against her sex, and looks out the window again, where Rhys and Mor are still talking. It’s all idle gossip, he knows, but... “What do you think, baby?” He slides his length over her slick folds. “Should I go out there and defend your honor?”

“Absolutely not,” Nesta gasps, shaking her head.

“And it’s like when she’s not quiet as a brick, she’s being rude,” Mor rants outside, flicking her cigarette. “I know Cass is friendly with everybody, but I have no idea what he was thinking inviting her here.”

“Oh, she’s not so quiet when I have my head between her legs,” Cassian murmurs at Mor. He glances down at Nesta with a knowing smirk. “She’s not so rude when I give her the right incentive, either.” He pats her bottom lip with his thumb, the bright red lipstick smearing. “Isn’t that right, Nes?”

“Bastard.” Nesta squirms, trying to line up her entrance with the head of Cassian’s cock. She’s not even listening to the conversation outside anymore.

“I think he likes her,” Rhys says, his breath clouding in the freezing night air. If only he knew. “We don’t always use reason when it comes to people we like.”

“Maybe,” Mor ponders. “But I can’t imagine it going anywhere. They’re too different.”

“I disagree,” Cassian mutters. He finally gives in to Nesta’s efforts and pushes inside her, sliding to the hilt in one thrust. She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her moan.

“There are plenty of things we have in common, don’t you think, Nesta?” He sets a steady rhythm with his hips, pumping in and out of her. “Like how well we fit together.” Her head bumps the car door with every thrust.

“You—you’re gonna rock the truck,” Nesta tries to whisper. Cassian hides his smile in the crook of her knee at the rare use of informal contraction. She’s adorable.

“We wouldn’t want that to happen,” he teases, leaning forward to take a pert nipple into his mouth. A whimper slips past her lips; she’s nearly bent in half beneath him. With this new, deeper angle, Cassian moves slow enough that Nesta feels every solid inch of him.

His loose hair falls around his face as he drops his head to the center of Nesta’s chest. It takes every bit of restraint he knows not to suckle at the space between her breasts, not to leave reddened marks there that everyone will be able to see when they go back inside. But damn if this position isn’t driving him crazy.

Mor, Rhys, everything beyond the haven of the truck falls away. He doesn’t know if anybody is still outside, or if people have noticed his and Nesta’s absence from the party. He doesn’t care, not as he swears and thrusts particularly deep into her tight warmth.

Even her hand can’t contain the sound she makes at that.

Cassian moves one of his own hands to the crown of Nesta’s head, creating a barrier between her and the car door. With his other arm, he locks her thighs into place against his chest, and begins slamming relentlessly into her.

“CassianCassianCassian—”

He silences her with a searing kiss, and flicks her clit with a calloused thumb. Nesta scrabbles at his arms, at the seat upholstery, as her orgasm crashes into her. Her walls milk his cock almost painfully, and with a few more thrusts he’s coming, too.

As he rides out his climax, he intertwines their fingers together and presses them to the freezing window. Outside, there is no one to see the handprint they leave on the fogged up glass.

***

Nesta needs a moment to catch her breath while Cassian zips himself up. Leaning against the hard truck door, she achingly fits one arm back into the sleeve of her dress, then the other. “I think I have a bruise from where that seatbelt buckle stabbed me in the ribs,” she mutters.

“Where?” Cassian looks her over, but she waves him away and reaches over to dig in the back pocket of the driver’s seat, finding a packet of makeup wipes she left there some weeks ago. She plucks out a wipe for herself and tosses the rest of the packet at Cassian’s chest, which is covered in her lipstick marks.

He accepts the wipes with a “thanks” and begins rubbing at his reddened mouth and neck. Nesta watches him instead of wiping at her own lipstick, taking in whatever the light of the moon highlights: his unbuttoned shirt, his loose hair that fell forward into her face while they fucked, his skin peppered with her marks.

He notices her stare. “What?” he says, smiling.

“Have you ever done that before?” She nods outside to where Mor and Rhys were standing ten minutes ago. It wasn’t exhibitionism since nobody had seen them, but it still felt... dirty.

Cassian snorts, starting to button up his shirt. “I’ve done far worse.” He meets her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten off to the sound of other people shit-talking my girl, though, so that’s new.”

Nesta blushes, and pretends to look around for her shoes to hide the reaction. She’s always known her bedroom experience was pathetically limited, but she’s just now starting to realize how much of that was Tomas’s fault. Not only was he boring when it came to sex, but he left her too hurt and untrusting to try anything with other men until Cassian came along.

Cassian nudges Nesta’s knee, and she finds him already holding her heels. Instead of letting her take them, he takes her feet and starts putting them on for her. “Clean yourself up,” he directs as he buckles a silver strap into place. “It’s almost an hour to midnight.”

Right. Cassian tosses her her panties, and she uses them to clean up the mess between her thighs before discarding them on the floor. “Don’t—” he tries to protest, but sighs and gives up. “You’re filthy.”

“You love it.” She picks up her forgotten makeup wipe to scrub at her smeared makeup. “Do I look okay?” She turns her face to him after a moment so he can check.

“You missed a spot.” He takes the wipe and rubs at her chin. “There,” he says softly, gazing more intimately at her than usual. “Beautiful.”

She most certainly doesn’t look beautiful right now, with the mess that’s been made of her face and hair. But he seems to believe it all the same.

I love you. The thought comes to her suddenly, unexpectedly.

“What?” Shock turns Cassian’s face.

Nesta blinks, realizing the words weren’t only in her head. “What?”

“You said—”

“I said ‘Let’s get out of here’,” she says quickly, swinging her legs down from the seat and reaching for the door handle. “Let’s go!”

She shoves out of the truck without waiting for Cassian and foots it for the cabin, breathing harshly like she just fell from a great height.

***

Nesta goes straight to the master bedroom to redo her makeup and pick up a new pair of underwear. She knows it’s cowardly to leave Cassian downstairs, stuck chatting with wealthy donors and unable to follow her, but she won’t let him confront her about the confession that spilled back in the truck. Not yet.

When she finally finds the courage to stick her head out of the room, she nearly jumps at the sight of Azriel leaning against the hallway wall.

“What are you doing in my brother’s room?” he says, as if he was waiting for her to come out.

The best lies are half-truths. “Avoiding people,” she answers vaguely, exiting the room fully and shutting the door behind her. She clears her throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Snooping.” He pushes off the wall and slides his hands into his pockets. “It’s interesting; I don’t think I’ve seen you all night, and now I find you in Cassian’s bedroom of all places.”

What is this, an interrogation? “I’m good at blending in,” Nesta says. “Few people ever notice me.”

“And I’m good at observing,” Azriel retorts, dark amusement gleaming in his gaze. “Where did you run off to earlier?”

Nesta looks him up and down, too bored to bother answering him. “I’m going to go now.” She shoves past his shoulder and walks away, leaving him too stunned to follow.

She comes across Elain near the top of the stairs.

“Nesta,” her sister says in surprise. Her brown eyes flicker past Nesta’s shoulder, to where Azriel still lurks in the hallway. She looks back to Nesta. “I wasn’t sure if you actually came tonight. I haven’t seen you at all.”

“Yeah, I’ve been hanging around.” Nesta waves a dismissive hand. It’s like Christmas Eve never happened between them. That’s the wonderful and terrible thing about sisters, Nesta supposes: there are no apologies, only moving on and moving past.

“Well, you look like you’re doing good.” Elain seems distracted. “I wish we could talk more, but I don’t have time for a fight tonight.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Azriel says, who’s snuck up behind Nesta. “If it’s me you’re worried about, I was just about to leave.” He’s addressing Elain, but won’t quite look her in the eyes. He turns to Nesta instead. “Happy New Year.” And then he’s gone down the stairs.

Elain stands there looking torn, wondering if she should go after him or not, but then Nesta says, “Why do you assume I would start a fight?”

“I—”

“Because if I remember correctly, our last fight was started by you.” She crosses her arms.

Elain sighs. “I just said I don’t have time for this.”

“I’m asking a question in response to a comment you made unprovoked.” When Nesta is calm, she can talk circles around Elain all night.

Elain throws her hands up. “It was just a stupid comment! I said it because we argue all the time. I can’t remember the last time we talked without arguing.”

“September twenty-eighth,” Nesta snaps.

Elain’s mouth drops open. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. You got the loan for your flower shop approved and you called me to celebrate. I was happy for you.”

Elain shakes her head, but Nesta can’t read what she’s feeling. “You remember the most inconsequential things.”

It doesn’t sound like an insult, so Nesta shrugs. “Don’t bother me and I won’t bother you.” She turns to go on her way. Of course, Elain doesn’t stop her. She’s never been one to get in the last word.

***

It’s ten minutes to midnight and Cassian still hasn’t been able to get a hold of Nesta since she ran from the truck. He doesn’t know why she’s running from such a simple truth, but he doesn’t plan on giving her much more time to hide. He has so much he needs to say to her—

A hand comes down on his shoulder as he’s about to slip away upstairs to find Nesta. Cassian turns to find Rhysand there, wearing the serious face he only uses for work-related business. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Cassian is not in the mood. He already had to repress the urge to find Mor and Rhys and tear into them when he returned to the party, and now he’s not sure if he can manage a conversation with his brother without snapping. Without spilling everything he’s worked so hard to hide.

“Not now,” Cassian says, trying to act chill. “It’s almost midnight and I’m trying to catch the...” He trails off as his eyes catch on Nesta, who’s appeared at the second floor sitting area with Eris.

“...fireworks,” he finishes. He turns to Rhys. “Let’s go upstairs to watch.” Half the guests, including the rest of his friends, are probably already outside for the countdown.

He keeps his eyes on Nesta as he climbs the stairs. Watching as she takes notice of him and quickly turns away, smiling at Eris instead. She lets the dickhead place his hand on her back to guide her out to the balcony.

Rage and disbelief take Cassian by the throat. Hiding in another man’s arms to avoid him? Coward fucking move, Archeron.

She steps outside with Eris, and before Cassian can follow he’s stopped once again by Rhys grabbing his arm. “Cass, will you slow down and listen to me for a minute?”

“What is it?” he snaps impatiently. They’re stopped at the top of the stairs, and other guests flow past them as they head for the balcony doors.

Rhys inhales, getting visibly irritated. He says, “I got a call from one of our overseas partners the other day—”

“Rhys!” Feyre calls from the balcony doors, waving her arms at him. “Get your ass over here, it’s almost midnight!”

Rhys turns to his girlfriend, his face lightening. “Be right there, darling.” He gives Cassian a sharp look. “We’ll finish this later.”

Cassian only nods and whirls on his heel, nearly shoving people out of his way to get outside. To get to Nesta.

Up on the wraparound balcony and down below on the frosty ground, guests are lined up with their partners, wrapped up in coats and eagerly awaiting midnight. He barely feels the cold, but he knows Nesta must. He should have grabbed a coat for her.

“Thirty seconds to midnight!” someone announces, answered by loud cheers.

Spotting shining red hair, Cassian grabs Eris by the suit jacket and whirls him around. “Where’s Nesta?” he demands over the loud chatter.

Eris makes a face like he’s been manhandled by a filthy dog. “Clearly not with me,” he retorts, shoving Cassian’s hand off him. “She got all pissy and went that way.” He gestures at a faraway section of balcony where most of the guests are crowding, hoping for an optimal view of the fireworks.

“TEN!” Someone starts the countdown. Others quickly catch on.

“NINE!” Cassian heads in the direction Eris pointed, searching through the sea of glitter and gold for a glimpse of Nesta.

“EIGHT!” He hears his friends calling after him distantly, asking where he’s going.

“SEVEN!” He catches sight of Nesta.

“SIX!” He doesn’t know what he’s thinking as he navigates through the crowd, reaching for her. But he knows she’s shining brighter than the moon right now. He knows he’s been fooling himself since the moment she stepped into his cabin this past September.

“FIVE!”

He closes in on her, her back turned to him.

“FOUR!”

Let’s not go out of our way to hide this anymore, they agreed after Christmas Eve. Let’s just be ourselves around our friends and family, and they’ll find out when they find out.

“THREE!”

In Cassian’s defense, he’s simply being himself in this moment.

“TWO!”

He takes Nesta by the elbow and spins her around. She meets his eyes in surprise. “Cassian. I was looking for you—”

“ONE!”

He pulls her into his arms and kisses her.

***

a/n: punk 57 was a shit book but i gotta give it credit for the truck scene

taglist: @hellasblessed @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 @awesomelena555 @julemmaes @wickedqueenoffantasy @poisonous-bloom @observationanxioustheorist @gisellefigue08 @courtofjurdan @theoverlyenthusiasticwriter @wolfiixxx @cass-nes @seashade @royaltykxx @illyrianundercover @queenestarcheron @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 @readiajin @nessiantrashh @live-the-fangirl-life @ifinallygavein

#nesta archeron #nessian #cassian #ncssianwrites #a favor #nessian fic #nessian au #for some reason i’m not showing up in the tags??#i’m gonna kill everybody

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wisteria-lodge · 3 years

Text

snake primary + snake secondary (bird model)

Hello, I hope you’re doing well! I’m having a lot of confusion over my secondary, so a second opinion to help me untangle things would be lovely.

I’m pretty confident I’m a Snake with a Badger model that determines what I do when my people aren’t involved. Essentially, people are always important, but my people are most important to me. When push comes to shove I will protect them first (or feel worse about myself if I fail to).

So far, so good.

I think my secondary is at least a little burnt, in part because I’ve always struggled with interacting with people and don’t tend to think of myself as someone who’s capable of making an impact in people’s lives when it matters. I can remember several situations where I didn’t reach out to someone who needed my help, especially one of mine, because I was convinced that person would never want help from me.

That’s proper burnt secondary talk. You knew what you wanted to do, you knew what would feel good to do, but you DIDN’T do it because you didn’t think it would work.

I know better than to do that now, and I’m trying to get better at believing in my own abilities (and the fact that other people can want me around). I’m hoping it’ll help to get a better idea of what those abilities even are.

You’re unBurning. Good.

I’ve thought ever since I first discovered this sorting system that I must be an improvisational secondary. I’ve never thought of myself as a fan of plans and prepwork - I get stressed out that I’ll forget important things and be left stranded. I remember back in high school when I was getting used to using public transport, my mum went with me to do a trial run of a route I needed to travel in advance. I was stressed enough about the event I was travelling to as it was, and the trail run made it so much worse, because there was so much to remember, what if I forgot something? What eventually made me feel more comfortable about it was trusting myself to figure it out on the day.

What a gorgeous way to explain the difference between a Built (prepwork) secondary and an Improvisational secondary. Trial runs make me feel so much better and so much more comfortable. And I’m a built secondary (and I bet your mom is too.)

Nowadays, when I’m travelling somewhere I’m unfamiliar with I’d much rather just leave half an hour early to give myself some breathing room in case I mess up.

Perfect. Excellent improvisational secondary problem solving.

Following strict schedules just trips me up too - say I’m doing classwork for the afternoon, for example, I need the freedom to be able to say that actually I’m more in the mood for Subject B than Subject A. I like having space to improvise, and I feel really proud of myself when I pull off something on the fly!

Once for a final exam in high school, we had to write an essay for The Lord of the Flies using a set of quotes from the text we’d chosen and memorised beforehand. The essay question was only revealed in the exam, and it turned out to be asking us to write an essay about one specific character - except I didn’t have enough quotes for any one character, I’d deliberately made them very spread out. What I did instead was to argue for the symbol of the Lord of the Flies as a character, and make each paragraph about each different character’s relationship to ‘him’ and what that relationship revealed about the characters, so I could make use of my range of quotes. I’m sure my writing wouldn‘t hold up now, I’ve gotten better at writing since then, but I still think of it as one of the essays I’m proudest of.

I would have given you an A. That sounds brilliant.

So that all seems to point to an improvisational secondary, but - reading about Rapid-Fire Birds has made me question whether that’s actually what I’m doing instead, and I have no idea how to tell. What‘s the difference between an improvisational secondary using information they already have to help them improvise, and a Rapid-Fire Bird doing the same thing? To what extent can Birds dislike relying on lists and planning?

You’re an Improvisational secondary. A pretty loud improvisational secondary (and almost certainly a Snake because you value the ability to pivot quickly so highly.) Rapid-fire birds can *look* like Snakes from the outside, but it’s a totally different internal experience. A rapid-fire bird might be comfortable improvising their bus route - but only in an area that they already know super well. Rapid-fire birds look like Snakes… as long as they are operating within their area of expertise, are coming from a place of strength.

And where does looking for more information while you solve a problem, rather than beforehand, fit within the secondaries?

Feeling more comfortable and confident looking *around* you while solving a problem (versus bringing in a bag of tricks at the start) is an Improvisational secondary thing.

When I’m involved in a debate about something that relies on a piece of information - a definition of a word, a statistic, some sort of other fact - I’m known as the person who’ll pull out my phone and say ’oh! I’ll Google it!’.

This might be a Bird [model] thing, but I’m inclined to think it’s just a person thing.

(Sometimes people don’t seem to get why I do that - they’ll say it looks like I’m taking things too seriously when it’s just a silly discussion for fun? But it just makes sense to me, we need information and that information is easily in reach, why shouldn’t I go get it, silly conversation or not?)

Okay, scratch that, I actually think this is a generational thing. *Baby Boomers* get annoyed at me when I do this.

I’m the same way when I research for writing. I don‘t tend to go looking for specific resources when I don’t have a story on them planned, but I love digging into specific subjects and resources and systems to ground a story in, once I have a concept to work with and I know what could be useful.

I love digging into complex systems in general, really (hello, sorting hat chats!). But it’s not like I do it because I think it’ll be useful later - unless I know it will be, because it’s relevant to a problem I’ve already been presented with. And I know just having nerdy interests does not a true Bird make.

I think you probably have a fun Bird model.

But if I’m not a Bird - or if it’s only a model - which improvisational secondary do I even have? I’ve always figured Lion seems more likely, because I’ve never related to the ‘silver-tongued’ skill of Snakes.

I wonder if you relate at all to the idea of single-player snake - constantly pivoting, using their environment, problem solving on the fly. I think of Scotty from Star Trek - someone I would never describe as silver-tongued, and who’s happy being solitary. But he still problem solves the way a Snake does.

I do tend to be pretty stubborn and dig my heels in when I’m challenged, in a quiet sort of way. But the difference between charging or swerving when you head for something has always seemed hard to grasp, for me. When you’ve got something to go for, you just… go, and some obstacles can be barged through and some you can’t, so you try and then go around.

I actually think that’s a very Snake way of putting things. A Lion would say that you *can* punch though everything, given enough will power and enough time. It’s what makes their energy so intoxicating, and where a lot of their power and trustworthiness comes from. They keep at something until they fail.

(oh and also ~ I have noticed that generally, Lion secondaries make no sense to Snake secondaries and vice versa.)

I do relate more to a Lion’s interacting with everyone mostly the same - with ‘varying degrees of awkwardness’, as I think another asker phrased it - rather than creating masks for everyone on the fly. But I’m not sure anymore if that’s powerful for me or if it’s just… all I can do. This goes back to being burnt socially, I think - I feel like I‘m working with nothing at all when I talk to people.

Whatever secondary I’ve got, I don’t think I’m capable of using its ‘multiplayer’ skills very well. Or at least, I haven’t learnt to yet, and I feel like I‘ve gotten worse. Although, more than a year of not being able to talk to most people in person hasn’t helped.

Yeah, you and me both. You’re a little burned about this, which makes sorting hard. You might just be a Snake who… isn’t very social.

And as for Lions valuing authenticity… I do and I don’t? I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m a private person and I don’t like exposing all of myself and my interests and opinions, it makes me feel vulnerable.

I know it sounds crazy, but if you were a Lion, that would make you feel strong.

But I won’t lie about myself if someone asks about something I’m not willing to share, I’ll usually find something that’s still true and answers their question but’s less personal. To what extend do Lions do that?

Generally, “I don’t owe strangers the real me” is just… not something Lions secondaries think. Sometimes they lower their intensity. But they are unusual because they feel best and strongest when they put themselves out there.

But I also think that any ‘mask’ you create is still, to a great extent, a part of you and a reflection of who you are. People talk about it like you have a ‘core’ that is completely you and then a performance you make on top is automatically ‘fake’. That doesn’t make sense to me.

That’s because you’re a Snake. If you were a Lion, you would relate more to this idea of an ideal presentational “core.”

Performances can be helpful to express yourself, in a sense. And everything you make is self-portrait.

That is an incredibly Snake thing to say. Also, Snakes have a tendency to conceptualize their masks as “art.”

In any case - I hope this wasn‘t too long. Thank you for helping me sort through all of this!

You are very welcome. I thought this one was really interesting.

#sortinghatchats #snake secondary #snakesec #lion secondary vs snake secondary #snake primary #bird secondary model #sortme #wisteria sorts

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hercleverboy · 3 years

Text

jealous

spencer reid x reader

summary ↠ spencer comes to terms with the fact that the reader will never love him the way he loves her.

category ↠ angst

warnings/includes ↠ heartbreak, unrequited love.

word count ↠ 2.6k

“But I always thought you’d come back, tell me that all you found was heartbreak and misery.” — Jealous by Labrinth

‘I'm jealous of the rain

That falls upon your skin

It's closer than my hands have been

I'm jealous of the rain’

Spencer loved the rain.

Well, not exactly. He loved to watch how it fell from the grey, angry clouds above as he sat warm and cosy in his apartment. He loved the rain if he was safe inside. He wouldn’tlike to get caught in a downpour, however.

He watched contently as the droplets fell against the window, staining the glass and jarring his view of the street below. It made him feel peaceful, and he would argue that there was no better sound to read to than that of the rain.

His focus dropped from the copy of ‘War and Peace’ in his hands, his mind focused on something else entirely.

Not so much something but someone.

Y/N had been Spencer’s closest friend for years at that point, having met him a few months after he’d started working at the BAU.

They spent pretty much any moment they could together. Spencer took her to museum exhibits and art galleries and she would listen intently as he rambled. He’d always stop mid-sentence and blush, apologising for getting ahead of himself but she’d simply smile and shake her head.

“You don’t ever have to apologise for sharing your wonderful knowledge with me, Spence. You know I could listen to you all day,” She’d say, “Keep going, please?”

He never could say no to her.

If there was anyone in the world he felt most comfortable with, it was her. She never ridiculed him or babied him like the team had a habit of doing. If there was a case that ended poorly she never pushed for him to confide in her, giving him the time and space to disclose his feelings when he was ready (something he was incredibly grateful for.)

For a long while, things were strictly platonic for Spencer. One day she was his best friend, the person he felt the most himself around, and the next day it was something more. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment in which his feelings for her changed, or what had caused them too. Since when had her welcoming hugs begun feel so warm? At what point had her giggle caused the butterflies in his stomach that he’d only ever read of in great poetry or love stories?

He tried to push the feelings away, he really did, but ultimately his attempts to avoid his newfound affection for her were fruitless. Nothing could be done, he finally had to face the facts. He was in love with her. In love with every adorable quirk, every smile, and every part of her; even the parts she deemed unworthy and ugly, he loved them all the same.

He wanted her to be his so badly.

There was only one slight problem.

Y/N wasn’t his to have. She had a boyfriend, a long term one at that. She was in a committed relationship with a man that wasn’t Spencer and he’d still allowed himself to fall in love with her.

Nice one, Spencer.

Spencer looked up at the clouds above him, frowning at the sight of the different shades of grey they were. He looked over at Y/N who walked alongside him. He’d gotten them tickets to a Russian Film festival, and he’d insisted she went with him so he could do a simultaneous whisper translation while they watched.

“It looks like it’s going to rain.” He broke the comfortable silence between them, his voice wavering slightly.

She looked up, a grin coming to her lips at the sight. “I hope it does, you know I like the rain.”

He chuckled lightly at that. “I do too! But who wants to be caught in it and end up soaking wet?”

She gasped in mock hurt. “I’m sorry Mr. 187, maybe I want to get caught in the rain, like a scene in some cheesy rom-com.”

He shook his head at her, his gaze dropping back down to look at the pavement beneath them.

Then the downpour started, just as Spencer had predicted. The rain was heavy and cold, essentially soaking them in seconds.

Spencer ducked under nearby shelter, pulling his coat tighter around him. He looked back over at Y/N, surprised to find her stood out in the rain, her arms outstretched and a grin on her lips.

“Y/N! What are you doing? You’re gonna get cold!” He shouted out, trying to make himself heard over the loud pelts of rain.

“I’ll be fine!” She called back.

“You know there’s a widespread myth that you lose the most body heat through your head. Studies have actually concluded that you only lose about ten percent of heat through your head.” Spencer shouted, and she turned to him with a smile, one that dismissed his facts. “You’re not even wearing a jacket, Y/N!”

“You know as well as I do, Doctor, that there’s no direct correlation between the rain and getting sick, so don’t even try that with me.”

“You’re right, but there’s a very real chance of hypothermia. Actually, last year it was reported that approximately 700 people in the US died of hypothermia-”

“Spence!” She grinned, politely interrupting his statistics. “Come join me! Live a little!”

He shook his head adamantly. “I’m okay, thank you. But you carry on.”

He watched on in awe at the sight before him. He pushed all the statistics on the probability of her getting sick to the back of his head, focused on how she looked it that moment. Her body was lit only by pale moonlight and dim streetlamps, but Spencer thought she’d never looked more beautiful.

He should’ve told her, then. Should’ve told her how much he loved her, how he could give her everything she craved, more than her boyfriend ever could. He wondered how he would put into words that he’d find a way to give her the world if she asked for it.

But he said nothing.

He could envision himself saying it.

He allowed himself to dream of speaking the words, how her face would light up and he’d finally get to hold her the way he yearned to. He thought of how proud Garcia would be of him since she’d practically been begging him to make a move ever since she learned of the situation. (” It’s not that simple, Garcia. She has a boyfriend!” “That’s a minor detail, Reid!”)

He could picture himself saying the words. He could see how she’d look over at him with those adorably furrowed brows and stunning eyes. The rain would pour over them like in the scene from Pride and Prejudice, as he finally dared to say the words he’d held onto for so very long.

‘I love you, most ardently.’

His very own Elizabeth Bennet.

But he said nothing.

Instead, when she came back over to him, her figure shivering as the cold finally set in, he simply offered her a cheeky grin. A simple look that said, ‘I told you so’. He quickly shrugged off his jacket and placed it over her shoulders, waving off her protests that he was going to get cold now.

As if that mattered, as long as she was warm.

Any attempt to sleep seemed useless. No matter how many poems he read to himself in his mind, sleep simply wasn’t coming. With a frustrated huff he moved to lie on his back, staring up at the ceiling defeatedly. Although he wished it wouldn’t, his mind travelled to Y/N. His heart lurched and just the thought of her, accompanied by the newest of the plethora of emotions he was feeling- jealousy. He wondered if her boyfriend knew just how lucky he was to be lying next to her, to have the privilege of holding her close, of telling her he loved her.

Spencer wasn’t a possessive man, he knew very well that Y/N didn’t belong to him, nor did she belong to anyone. She wasn’t an object to be had, and Spencer would never treat her as such. However, he found himself wishing to a being he wasn’t sure he believed in that she would be his. Perhaps it was selfish and wrong, to hope that she’d turn up heartbroken on his doorstep so that he could pick up the pieces of her broken by another man. It was definitely selfish to wish her so much heartache so that he could ultimately get what he wanted.

He recognised that she didn’t owe him anything. She didn’t owe him her love in return for his. But that almost made it worse; that this situation was nobody’s fault. It wasn’t Y/N’s fault for not returning his affections, nor was it her boyfriends’. It wasn’t Spencer’s fault either, he knew that deep down. He knew that no matter how many times he wished he’d told her sooner, before another man had swept her away, it wouldn’t have changed her feelings for him.

It almost brought him to tears. It’d be easier, he thought, easier if she did something that made me hate her. But he didn’t hate her, he didn’t think he ever could. He loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone or anything and there no words to describe the burning pain in his chest as the realisation that he was all alone dawned on him.

Y/N didn’t love him. At least, not in the way he wanted her too.

He could almost kid himself into thinking that she was going to knock on his door, tell him she’d left her boyfriend and confess her love for him. It was silly, and really doing him more damage than good to indulge in this self-serving fantasy he’d created, but it was the only thing that gave him enough peace to finally fall into slumber.

He nearly said it one day.

It was a Friday evening, and they were sat together at his apartment, having just finished watching a bunch of films. Y/N was mid-tangent about an interesting fan theory she’d read up on, while Spencer sat next to her trying to clear his thoughts.

His mind was screaming at him, this is it, it said, this is your chance. He knew it was selfish, quite possibly the most selfish thing he’d ever do. Especially when she was with someone else, the man she was building a life with- and Spencer was going to tear it all down with three simple words.

The most selfish thing he’d ever do.

And some part of him, some silly, hopelessly romantic part of him told him she wasn’t going to reject him. No, instead, she would admit she loved him too- and everything would be okay. Right?

“Y/N I-“ He interrupted her, and she looked over surprised as she stopped talking. She took in his tone of voice; how pained it sounded. She watched at how he cringed for interrupting her, his trembling hands coming to clutch fistfuls of his beige coloured cardigan in a nervous attempt to calm himself.

He evidently had something he needed to get off his chest.

“Yeah, Spence?” She prodded when he didn’t speak.

“I- I have to tell you something, something I should’ve told you a long time ago.” He rushed out, his voice shaking. He knew he’d have to force himself to say the words. He told himself to stop thinking so hard and just say them, because he knew all too well that he wouldn’t get the opportunity again.

“Okay. It’s okay, take your time. It’s just me.”

“I-I” He stuttered, trying to force the three simple words to leave his lips but he couldn’t seem to do it. He desperately wanted to, and it ached because he could feel them on the tip of his tongue.

Then his eyes met hers, and he stopped. His brain seemed to grant him a moment of clarity among the chaos and overwhelming thoughts. He tried to profile her, to use what he knew about human behaviour and how he’d read once that the eyes were the windows to the soul. He recalled how happy she always was when she spoke of her boyfriend, and Spencer couldn’t deny that from what he’d heard, he treated her well. Like she deserved. It shattered his heart all over again, but how could he sit there and tear away the happiness of the woman he loved? He knew what him confessing would do to her. She’d go into overdrive trying to compensate for not feeling the same, overexert herself trying to be the greatest friend she could be — and all the while she’d smile, as though the knowledge that she’d (unintentionally) hurt her best friend wasn’t killing her inside.

He couldn’t do that to her.

Not as he stared at her now, her worried eyes on him as she tried to figure out how to help him.

He couldn’t hurt her like that.

Spencer would hurt himself a hundred times over if it meant she was unharmed. He supposed that was what the meaning of love really was. Sacrificing yourself for the one you love.

He gave a sad smile and shook his head. “Um, you know what? It’s nothing.”

Her eyebrows knitted together as she scoffed. “Seriously? You’re gonna leave me hanging like that?” Her tone was amused although she feigned disappointment.

“Guess so.” He forced a chuckle, and Y/N opened her mouth to speak before the sound of her phone ringing cut through the air. She looked over at it, a small smile reaching her features at the sight of the name that flashed across the screen.

“Is that your boyfriend calling?” Spencer asked quietly.

She nodded. “I’ll tell him to call back later.” She moved her hand to click decline but Spencer’s voice stopped her.

“No. It’s okay. You should answer it now, it might be important.”

She seemed hesitant but nodded nonetheless, moving a few paces away from him before answering and talking softly into the phone. A few minutes later she hung up.

“Everything okay?” Spencer questioned.

She hummed. “Of course. He just wanted to know if I wanted to grab dinner with him, but I told him I’ve got plans with you-”

“No- no- you should go. With him.” Spencer breathed out.

“Are you sure? I thought we were gonna order in from that Chinese place you love?”

He gave her a small shrug. “We can take a rain check. You should go, I-I wouldn’t want you to be late for dinner.”

She frowned over at him, pocketing her phone as she moved closer to him. She clasped his shoulders in her hands and pulled her to him in a hug. He tensed at the initial contact, but eventually he relaxed into her hold and wrapped his arms around her.

“You know you can tell me anything?” She promised, her voice soft, warm.

“I know.” His voice broke, and his throat burned with the sob he was holding back.

She pulled back, concern on her features as she hesitantly let go of him. She promised she would give him a call later that evening before leaving the apartment.

Spencer stood for a moment; eyes fixated on the door as it closed behind her.

He wondered how he was ever going to move on from her, from the dreams of a future that was so close but just barely out of reach.

Ultimately, he wasn’t jealous of the man who got to have her.

He was jealous of the fact that she was happy because he could only wish that he was happy too.

‘It's hard for me to say, I'm jealous of the way

You're happy without me’

permanant taglist; @beyonces-breastmilk @pinkdiamond1016 @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto @thelovelyrose @averyhotchner @cynbx @calm-and-doctor @reidyoulikeabook @ssa-m-187

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid one shot #matthew gray gubler x reader #matthew gray gubler #mgg x reader #mgg #criminal minds #spencer x y/n

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lovelylogans · 3 years

Text

the words you read (my heart’s been displayed)

how did you know 'cause I never told but you found out I've got a crush on you the words you read, my heart's been displayed you found out I've got a crush on you —“crush on you,” the jets

warnings: awkward clueless teenagers, crushes, slightly overbearing matchmaking uncles, mentions of government surveillance, mostly fluff, please let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairing: virgil/logan, secondary patton/roman and janus/remus

word count: 5,761

notes: this is for day 5 of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “vocab card/skateboard” and i have decided to write about vocab card! please enjoy!

⁂

In Virgil’s opinion, Logan Sanders is the cutest boy in all of the sophomore grade.

He was the cutest boy in freshman year, too, and eighth grade, and seventh, and all the way back to kindergarten, but Logan’s changed over the summer.

He’s sprouted up a few inches, so now he’s a half-head taller than Virgil. He still looks a little gangly, like he’s going to grow more. He’d always been shorter than Virgil before. He’d gotten new glasses, too, black frames that suit him way better than the silver ovals he’d used when they were little. His voice has gotten a bit deeper, his jawline’s gotten stronger, and Virgil’s helpless crush on him has only grown with Logan.

Logan isn’t just cute, either, he’s smart. He carries around stacks of notecards, blank and filled in, and there’s all sorts of things written on it—interesting fun facts and the latest slang terms, in rubber-banded stacks next to rubber-banded stacks of notecards of terms that will be on their next exam. Logan has a way of explaining anything and everything in a way that is really understandable and never makes you feel dumb. Logan’s always top of the class.

And to make matters worse, they’re next-door-locker-neighbors this year, because Chloe-who-was-between-them-alphabetically moved away. Which means that Virgil cannot quite get away with admiring Logan from afar, the way he has since they were little. Which means that when school starts, on the first day when Logan asks him what homeroom he’s in this year, Virgil’s brain can only go ahhhhHHHHHH and the fact that oh my God Logan is tall now oh my GOD Logan has the locker next to mine now! makes him delay his answer because he’s just staring at Logan, and Logan looks at him a little oddly and then repeats his question as if he thinks Virgil didn’t hear him, and Virgil kind of wants to crawl into his locker to hide there forever thanks.

“Oh,” he manages. He closes his locker. “Um. I’m in Mr. Morales’ homeroom this year.”

Logan smiles at him. Logan SMILES AT HIM. And then he says, “I am, as well. Perhaps we’ll be seated next to each other in homeroom, in addition to being locker neighbors. I would enjoy that.”

He would ENJOY THAT!!!!!

Logan clears his throat and fiddles with his glasses, finally just pushing them a little further up his nose, even though they’re pretty high up on his nose already. “Would you like to walk together to Mr. Morales’ classroom? I was in his home economics class last year, I know where it is.”

“Um, sure,” Virgil says, voice cracking embarrassingly, and he considers opening his locker back up again so that he can hide there. He’s pretty skinny, he might be able to fit.

So they walk to Mr. Morales’ classroom. Logan’s the one talking, mostly; Virgil’s grateful for that, because he’d probably just be rambling nervously the whole time, and it’d be tempting fate to have his voice crack in front of Logan again. But now he can just listen to Logan’s various opinions about their summer reading for their English class, which is much safer. He sure has a lot of opinions about it, which makes Virgil sweat a little nervously—Logan sounds like he’s ready to sit down and write an essay about it, as if they’re going to have to, and Virgil’s pretty sure that if he sat down to take a multiple-choice quiz about that book right now he’d flunk it.

They end up not being assigned to sit next to each other. Mr. Morales says to just sit wherever, since they’re all going to go to an assembly once he takes attendance anyways, and that he probably won’t assign seats for the whole year.

And then Logan ends up sitting next to him anyways.

Like he really meant that he’d like to be next to Virgil in homeroom.

Mr. Morales smiles at them, and then, inexplicably, gives Logan a double thumbs up? And then Logan’s cheeks go kind of red? Logan turns his face away from Mr. Morales, turning to more fully face Virgil.

“You were in his class last year, right?” Virgil says.

“Erm, yeah. Yes. I was.” Logan clears his throat, turning away from him. “He supervises my study hall, too.” Then he mumbles, “also he’s my uncle.”

“He’s your uncle?” Virgil repeats. This is news to him.

“Through marriage,” Logan explains. “Mr. Regnant is my father’s brother.”

Mr. Regnant is the arts-and-music teacher, and, though they don’t talk about it very much (students do, but then, students always gossip), Mr. Morales’ husband.

Mr. Regnant is also, not that Virgil would ever tell him so, Virgil’s favorite teacher.

“Which dad?” Virgil says, because Logan’s two dads were basically his only version of real-life gay representation when they were really little. He knows Mr. Sanders better than Logan’s other dad.

Mr. Sanders always volunteered to be part of the PTA moms who supervised them during holiday parties and field trips, though, looking back, he doesn’t think the PTA moms liked him very much. The kids, on the other hand, loved Mr. Sanders, who would treat them like very short adults and once a year would bring in his mamba Eve for kids to pet and hold.

Logan’s other Dad had been the one who encouraged the kids to throw paints and roll around in the mud and tear things up. Logan’s other Dad had come to supervise one holiday party and was politely asked to never do so again.

“Not Pa—I mean, Janus,” Logan says, looking briefly embarrassed. “He’s Dad’s—Remus’—twin brother.”

Virgil makes an “ohhh” sound, because that makes sense. Now he’s thinking about it, Mr. Regnant and Logan’s dad really do look alike, if one looked past their contrasting senses of style.

“That’s cool, though,” Virgil says thoughtfully. “That you’re related, I mean. Mr. Morales is really nice.”

“Yes, he is,” Logan says. “It’s been a bit strange to adjust to calling him Mr. Morales instead of Uncle Patton, though.”

“Yeah, I guess it probably would be,” Virgil says.

The bell rings, and Mr. Morales ushers them off to the assembly.

Logan sits down next to him on the bleachers at the assembly, too. Their knees bump together as they listen to the principal welcome them back from summer vacation and give some announcements.

And Logan keeps sitting down next to him.

At lunch, in their two shared classes, in homeroom. He wishes Virgil a good morning and good afternoon every day at their locker. As the months of the school year slowly creep by, Virgil definitely does kind of feel like crawling into his locker, sometimes, but less and less so, because.

Because he and Logan are kind of friends now.

Logan asks him about his favorite hot beverage and then starts bringing him chai when he and his uncles stop by a café before school. Virgil sketches out drawings of astronauts and space when Logan goes on a loving tirade about it that lasts, on-and-off, for a week.

He still definitely has a crush on Logan. His increased presence near him is both a blessing and a curse.

They share earbuds and laugh at videos in homeroom, they sit quietly side-by-side and do their homework together in study hall. Virgil even tags along, sometimes, when Logan takes time out of his day to visit his uncles. His uncles always seem delighted whenever Virgil drops by, which Virgil guesses makes sense—Mr. Morales is just kind of Like That, and he’s been taking classes with Mr. Regnant since freshman year, and they’ve been sassing at each other for just about as long.

Logan makes those visits rare, though. He always seems a little self-conscious about how excited his uncles are during their visits, the way they elbow Logan and give him thumbs-ups and wiggle their eyebrows. Virgil doesn’t really get it—he thinks it’s nice that his uncles are so excited to see Logan with his friend.

But then his mom unexpectedly comes by and drops off his lunch and ruffles Virgil’s hair right in front of Logan, and Virgil spends the rest of the day going beet red even Logan assures him that it’s okay and he thinks it’s nice, something in his brain... clicks. A little bit. Even though it doesn’t make sense.

Does Logan...?

No, his brain tells him. There’s no way.

But Virgil keeps an eye out for the next week anyways.

On Monday, Logan’s uncles give him a ride to school and also drive him by the café, so Logan hands over a chai for Virgil. Virgil smiles and thanks him.

Have Logan’s ears always gone red whenever Virgil thanks him for bringing him tea?

On Tuesday, their fingers brush when Logan’s passing over a stack of notecards for Virgil to study for an upcoming exam during their study hall. Simultaneously, they look away from each other, redirecting their attention to their textbooks.

Have they always done that?

On Wednesday, Logan and Virgil swing by Mr. Morales’ classroom. After Virgil laughs at a somewhat sarcastic comment that Logan says, and redirects his attention to the sketch he’s been doing to turn in for approval for his end-of-semester art project, he peeks through his bangs to see Mr. Morales waving his hands eagerly, and Logan go red and gesture sharply for him to stop.

Has Mr. Morales always been so excited whenever he and Logan spend time in his classroom?

On Thursday, Logan seems chilled by the overenthusiastic air conditioning, so Virgil gives him a spare hoodie he had in his locker. Logan looks at him, looks away, and then proceeds to huddle in Virgil’s hoodie for the rest of the day, even after the school adjusts the temperature and it isn’t quite so cold.

By then, his brain saying no way! No way, you cannot afford to be wrong on this so you aren’t even going to try, there’s no way—

It’s after school on Thursday, and Virgil makes sure Logan has already gone home when he descends the stairs to Mr. Regnant’s art-and-music studio.

“Oh, Virgil, hey,” Mr. Regnant says, distracted, looking up from the sheet music he’s laying out across four desks. “Gimme a second, I’ve got the feedback for your sketch on my desk somewhere—”

Virgil looks to Mr. Regnant’s desk. He can’t even see the mug of pens on his desk that Virgil knows is there, it’s so buried in papers and models and paint palette piles. It’s like an avalanche waiting to happen.

“Uh, that’s not—you can give it to me tomorrow,” Virgil says awkwardly. “Um. That’s not why I’m here.”

Mr. Regnant blinks at him. “All right.”

“I,” he wipes his hands on his jeans and grimaces, not quite believing that he’s about to do this. “I need advice.”

Mr. Regnant pauses, before he manages to find an empty desk and sets down the sheet music. “Okay.”

“Before I say anything,” he says. “I need you to give me this advice as Mr. Regnant, faculty supervisor of the GSA club.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Regnant says. “Yeah, ‘course, Virgil. I’m always—”

“Mr. Regnant, faculty supervisor of the GSA club, is a separate person from Mr. Regnant, Logan’s Uncle Roman,” Virgil interrupts, twisting his fingers together anxiously. “Right?”

Mr. Regnant opens his mouth. Closes it. He gestures for Virgil to sit on one of the choir risers, settling there himself, but Virgil sits on the floor. This is a time in which floor-sitting is necessary.

“He could be,” Mr. Regnant says eventually.

“Well I need him to be,” Virgil snaps. “Okay?”

Mr. Regnant presses his lips together and nods.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice a little higher pitched. His lips twitch and he clears his throat. “Yeah! Yeah.”

“Oh my God, you’re about to laugh at me,” Virgil says, horrified. “I knew this was a terrible idea, forget it—”

“No!” Mr. Regnant says hastily. “No I’m not, no I’m not. I swear I’m not. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is not about to laugh.”

“Is Mr. Regnant Logan’s uncle about to laugh?!”

“I thought they were different people,” Mr. Regnant sasses back, seemingly on instinct, and Virgil buries his face in his hands and screams a little bit. Just a little bit.

“Shi—shoot, I mean shoot!” He says, and tugs lightly at Virgil’s arm. Virgil peeks at Mr. Regnant from between his fingers.

Mr. Regnant’s face is very serious. There is no more sign of lip-twitching, throat-clearing, or mirth in his eyes.

“Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is here and listening,” he says. “Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA does not have any relatives to speak of. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA does not have any twin brothers or nephews. What on earth even are those? Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA would have no idea. Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA doesn’t even have parents, or a husband, that’s how absolutely relative-less he is. Okay?”

“Mr. Regnant the faculty supervisor of the GSA is an asshole,” Virgil mutters.

“Faculty supervisor of the GSA is starting to not sound like words anymore,” Mr. Regnant says, “also, you are so lucky school is technically over, otherwise I would have totally given you a detention for language.”

“You’re such a hypocrite, you literally just almost swore.”

“Almost,” Mr. Regnant says, “is not the same as did. Now. What can I do for you, Virgil?”

Virgil takes a deep breath in.

“What do you do if you think the boy you have a crush on likes you back?”

Mr. Regnant’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, but otherwise, he doesn’t react.

“You could talk to him?”

“Okay, maybe I should be more specific,” Virgil says, “What do you do if you have an anxiety disorder, and you think the boy you have a crush on likes you back?”

“I know you’re not gonna like this,” Mr. Regnant says, “but my answer is still you could talk to him.”

He holds up a hand before Virgil can protest. “I know it can be scary, I know it can be anxiety-inducing. I know that can be a deterrent for a perfectly neurotypical person, let alone someone who’s got a diagnosed anxiety disorder. But, I mean. Your only options, as I see them, are, A, tell him, or B, sit quietly and wait for him to maybe make the first move.”

“But how can I be sure?” He says.

“Well, why do you think he likes you back?” Mr. Regnant says reasonably.

So Virgil tells him. Virgil tells him all about it—thinking he was cute since they were kids, then suddenly becoming friends this year: the chai, the sketches, the music listening, the blushing and the awkward chats, and how they’re friends now but Virgil still really likes him in a romantic way.

“Does that sound like he likes me back?” he asks anxiously.

Mr. Regnant bites his lip. “As the faculty supervisor of the GSA? I think it could definitely be likely.”

“Likely?” Virgil wails.

“Well, as the faculty supervisor of the GSA,” Mr. Regnant enunciates carefully, “I can’t be certain.”

“I can’t go and tell him based on if it’s just likely! I need to be sure he likes me back or else there’s a chance he says he doesn’t like me and then I’m going to have a heart attack and die!”

“Virgil! As the faculty supervisor of the GSA! I really think you should go for it!”

Mr. Regnant looks like he’s about to reach out and start shaking Virgil by the shoulders. His eyes are huge, the way he always looks at actors onstage who have forgotten their lines, like by just staring at them he’ll be able to psychically impart the script to them.

“Forget it,” Virgil groans and reaches for his backpack, swinging it over his shoulders and standing up. “I’m doomed to suffer in silence. Thanks, I guess, I’ll see you in class tomorrow. Please don’t tell anyone I told you all this.”

As Virgil is closing the classroom door behind him, he’s pretty sure he hears Mr. Regnant screeching.

Honestly, Virgil should be the one screeching. He can’t believe he just told him all that—who knows if Mr. Regnant will be able to keep the information of a crush concerning his nephew to himself?!

⁂

“Okay, here’s your mocha-with-extra-espresso, please don’t tell your Dads,” Uncle Patton says cheerfully, passing back a to-go cup to Logan. “And the chai! I think it’s very sweet that you keep getting this for him, kiddo.”

“Gestures are a good way to express affection,” Logan says anxiously, carefully setting the chai in a cupholder. “I’ve been trying to vary my approaches based off the five love languages. I’m not sure if it’s working.”

Uncle Roman in the passenger seat, his arm thrown over his eyes, makes a sound of great discontent, the way he’s been doing for the past week whenever Uncle Patton has tried to give him any advice concerning Virgil.

“Are you okay, Uncle Roman?” Logan asks again.

“Thinking about being the faculty supervisor to the GSA,” Uncle Roman moans, as if in pain.

“Is the club schedule about to be particularly busy?” Logan asks, frowning. “You typically enjoy your work with the GSA.”

“You could say that,” Uncle Roman says tightly, then groans again.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do personally, in order to relieve any undue stress,” Logan begins, but is cut off by Uncle Roman shrieking.

“Um,” Logan says, looking to Uncle Patton, who snorts, shaking his head.

“He just, um,” Uncle Patton says. “Well, I think something’s happened, except he told me he can’t tell me what it is without betraying someone’s trust, so.”

“I see,” Logan says, frowning, except for the part where he doesn’t see, really. But that happens fairly frequently with Papa and Dad. Honestly, it’s rather curious that Uncle Roman has not acted in a way that seems strange to outsiders. Dad does it all the time, and they’re twins.

Oh, well. He’s sure he’ll understand eventually.

“I’m fine,” Uncle Roman says, and he sniffs loudly. “I’m fine, it’s all—fine.”

Uncle Patton pats his hand sympathetically, before directing their car to school.

Logan sips his drink, before he says idly, “I think I’m going to tell him I’ve had a crush him today.”

Uncle Roman immediately spews coffee onto the windshield in an impressive spit-take. It is hilarious. Even though Uncle Roman is choking a little.

Uncle Patton meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, his eyes bright with excitement. “Really?!”

“Really,” Logan confirms. “I mean, it’s been—it’s been a couple months. We are friendly enough. I do not think that Virgil will discard our friendship if I confess that I have had a crush on him since last year.”

“Well!” Uncle Patton says, so flustered that he accidentally turns on the windshield wipers when he means to signal a turn, and then when he tries to fix that he turns on his hazard lights, before he manages to get the car under control again. “Well, that’s great, kiddo! I’m so excited for you!”

“You are the smartest kid I know,” Uncle Roman says, turning in his seat to face Logan, his expression near-worshipful. “I love you.”

“Um. Thank you?”

“I know you don’t believe in psychics, but are you—?”

“Why are you bringing up psychics?” Logan says, perplexed. “I figured—well, I’ll tell him. And it is time that the Halloween festival will begin this weekend. That seems like a date that Virgil would enjoy.”

“Right,” Uncle Roman says. “Okay. Well—go for it! Please go for it!”

“I have already told you I will,” he says.

“I think it’s gonna go great if you go for it!”

Strange. Uncle Roman is acting as if he has had too much caffeine. As far as Logan is aware, the beverage they have just stopped to get is his first coffee of the day, and he does not metabolize the effects of coffee that quickly.

“Right,” Logan says, adjusting his glasses and taking a sip of his coffee. Then, “Right.”

Then, “What if he says he doesn’t like me back?”

Uncle Roman throws his arm across his eyes and makes that same groaning sound again.

Uncle Patton absentmindedly reaches over and bracingly rubs Uncle Roman’s thigh, again meeting Logan’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Well, kiddo, if he says he doesn’t like you back,” he says, then frowns. “It’s understandable to be disappointed, or a little bit upset, but it’s important to accept his answer graciously and kindly. No means no. No is a full sentence. But Virgil seems like a very nice boy, I can’t imagine he’ll be very mean about it at all, and you two have gotten close over the past few months. It might be kind of awkward for a bit, but with a little work, your friendship will be able to survive it.”

“I suppose,” Logan says quietly, looking down at his lap.

“But,” Uncle Patton adds hastily, “I think the chances are really good for him saying yes to the date! We both do, don’t we, Roman?”

Uncle Roman lets out a very strangled “mm-hmm.”

Logan chews his lip, before he says timidly, “Can I borrow one of your phones to call my Dads?”

“Cupholder, just a bit in front of ya,” Patton says cheerfully. “You already know the password.”

Logan does. He swipes it in—his uncles’ wedding date—and presses on Papa’s contact number. Dad’s phone is lost more often than not, and almost always turns up in strange places, like inside the gateau he’d tried to make, or inside the neighbor’s rain gutters.

His father picks it up almost immediately.

“Patton, if this is about the adopt-a-thon, if I have told you once I have told you a thousand times—”

“Um, hi, Papa,” Logan says awkwardly; he does not want to get into the family squabble about sharing a pet between their households again. Eve is a sufficient pet, even if she’s not as cuddly as Uncle Patton might like.

His father’s voice transforms from chiding to concerned in a second. “Logan, is everything all right?”

“Yes, everyone is operating under adequate parameters,” Logan says. “Is Dad there?”

There’s the sound of something crashing in the background, as if on cue. Knowing Dad, it might have been.

“I’ll get him,” Papa says wearily.

He hears his Papa say Remus, our son is on the phone, please put down the—Uh, Jan, sexy-pie! I thought you were! On the way to work!—what the—REMUS, we’ve TALKED about this, how did you lay hands on a HERON—and then the conversation gets a good deal more muffled. He is pretty sure that Papa is shouting at Dad about capturing local wildlife again.

He waits patiently, before he hears the clatter of the phone being passed into someone’s hands, and Dad asks, “Did someone die?! Do you need help covering up a murder?!”

“Remus, please,” Papa groans, “the boy is too smart to implicate himself by opening the opportunity to be recorded over the phone lines.”

“That’s right, Logie-bear, the government is always watching,” Dad says solemnly. “Big brother, all hail. Also lean over and give my little brother a wet-willie for me, it’d be so funny—”

Logan, accustomed to conversations of this tone since birth, continues stolidly onward. “I’m going to tell Virgil I like him today.”

“Finally!” Dad hoots.

“That’s excellent, Logan,” Papa says placidly. “Please know that I am fully aware of the misogynistic roots of the what are your intentions discussion, and I’ve been doing research in order to make our version as feminist as possible. Also, your father has been warned to discuss minimal amounts of gore when he comes to our home.”

“What is the point of a shovel talk then!”

“We already agreed no shovel talk,” Papa says irritably. “When we threaten the boy, we’ll do it subtly.”

“Please don’t threaten him,” Logan says anxiously. “I don’t even know if he likes me back yet.”

“Of course he likes you back!” Dad says, outraged on his behalf. “Why the hell wouldn’t he like you back?!”

“How did you two know that you loved each other?” Logan asks. The question feels slightly childish, and he feels even more so when he curls up in his car seat, but he cannot deny the posture brings a certain level of comfort.

There’s a pregnant pause.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Papa says.

“I’m sixteen in a matter of weeks!”

Dad makes an absurd gagging noise, because he is ridiculously averse to the concept of Logan (and therefore, himself and Papa) aging. Logan thinks that it might have to do with a latent existential crisis, but he has not asked, because knowing Dad, he will spin it out into thirteen separate absurd reasons, and ten of them will make Logan cringe away, repulsed.

“Trust my judgment on this,” Papa says. “You do not want to know the origins of how our romance developed. However, when we actually had the discussion concerning feelings, your father—”

“I wrote him a beautiful letter in my best calligraphy,” Dad says proudly, then, “You probably don’t want to hear about the ink, do you?”

“Is it disgusting?” Logan asks warily.

“Quite, but,” then, in a voice that literally every other person wouldn’t realize is Papa’s version of profound sappiness, “that’s your father.”

There is the sound of kissing. Logan resists the urge to make a gagging noise of his own, because somehow, he is the mature one in the entire family.

“As it is, just,” Papa says, then sighs. “I cannot believe I am about to give such... Pattonish advice. But. As it is, just be yourself. If this boy likes you back—”

“—as he should, and if he doesn’t he’s in desperate need of a lobotomy,” Dad mutters.

“—then he will like you for you, just the way you are,” Papa says, as if Dad had not said anything remotely worrying. “Tap into your strengths, Logan. You are intelligent, and observant, and thoughtful—”

“—and the best son there is—”

“Well, that goes without saying, clearly,” Papa says. “As long as your confession comes from you, then there is no way that it can go wrong. You are simply too excellent a person for it not to.”

“Even if it turns out he doesn’t like me?” Logan says timidly.

“If it does, then have your uncle forge an excuse note for you to get out of school early today and we’ll plot accordingly,” Papa says evasively. “But I do not think that outcome likely.”

Logan chews his lip. Papa is the best liar he knows, but—

But hearing his encouragement is too comforting to really analyze if he is lying.

“Thanks, Dads.”

“Knock him dead, kid!” Dad shouts. “And if he doesn’t then I will!”

“What did we just say about discussing potential evidence over the phone lines,” Papa scolds, and Logan hangs up, smiling.

Just be yourself.

Uncle Pattonish advice it may be, it has given him an idea.

⁂

Waiting over this past week to see if Mr. Regnant will crack and spill to Mr. Morales, or even worse, Logan himself, has been absolutely agonizing and Virgil’s kicking himself over going to Mr. Regnant for advice surrounding Logan at all.

That morning, though, Mr. Morales is at his desk, and a chai is waiting for Virgil at their usual spot, but Logan is nowhere to be seen. Virgil tries his hardest not to act too much like he’s keeping an eye out for Logan, but he is pretty sure he’s not succeeding, because Mr. Morales is smiling at him way too wide.

He actually seems really excited about something. Like, Mr. Morales usually gets excited when it’s fresh chocolate chip cookie day at lunch, but this is beyond the pale for fresh chocolate chip cookie day. Maybe the assembly they have today is something special? Except Virgil’s pretty sure it’s to pass out honors for the last quarter and talk about fall sports. That’s nothing particularly special.

Logan slides into his seat just before the bell rings, though, wrapping a rubber band around one of his notecard stacks. It’s a thin stack, it must be for something that’s just started; usually Logan compiles every unit of every class into thick stacks, able to be differentiated by the different colors of the notecards. These are just basic white ones.

He fiddles with it, darting looks to Virgil as Patton takes attendance, and, as they’re all filing out of the door, Logan holds out the stack of notecards.

“Here,” he blurts out.

Virgil blinks. “I don’t think we have a test soon?”

“They’re not for a test,” Logan says. “Just—take them. Read them during assembly. Please,” he adds belatedly.

“Uh,” Virgil says and takes them. “Okay?”

“Okay!” Logan says and nods. “Okay. Okay. Great! Um—please take your time to consider them carefully, and I await your response,” and then he practically runs off to fall into line near Mr. Regnant.

So that’s... weird.

But Virgil sticks the notecards into his hoodie pocket, anyways, ready to read them during assembly like Logan directed.

He waits until the principal is droning on about the importance of school spirit to take the notecards out of his pocket.

He spares a glance for Logan—who is several rows ahead, near the faculty, sitting next to Mr. Morales and Mr. Regnant, Mr. Morales occasionally reaching over to rub Logan’s shoulder bracingly—and then angles the notecards so that a teacher looking into the crowd wouldn’t really be able to see them.

He stares at the title on the top notecard. Blinks hard. Blinks again. Looks down at Logan’s back, then back to the notecard.

Reasons why I have a crush on Virgil.

He reaches over to pinch himself. Nope. Not dreaming, then.

And Logan really doesn’t seem like the type of person to make a joke like this.

He flips the cards and reads them slowly, savoring each and every word written in Logan’s blocky, neat script.

He is exceptionally witty.

He is knowledgeable about a great many things, such as music, art, spiders, novels, and mental health issues.

He is sarcastic.

He is thoughtful and deliberate in the formation of his opinions, even ones as small as the proper preparation of chai.

He is very handsome.

He is never rude without reason, and when he is rude, it is usually because the other person is “an asshole” and should be receiving backlash.

He is a remarkably talented artist.

Virgil keeps reading on, he is, he is, he is...

When he gets to the end—I would like to take you on a date. I would also like to be boyfriends, though I understand if you would like to table that conversation until we have established a rapport. Please let me know if you would be amenable to that suggestion.—he feels kind of dizzy. His throat is tight, his heart is pounding, and his hands are so sweaty he’s had to wipe them off on his jeans twice already.

Is it really possible that someone as wonderful as Logan would think of him so highly?

It’s like he’s describing someone entirely different—awkward, anxious Virgil couldn’t possibly be the snarky, witty, caring, deep-thinking guy that Logan’s writing about. There’s just no way. But, Virgil thinks, heart twisting, but Logan doesn’t lie about things like this. Is this the way Logan sees him?

Is it really possible that someone as wonderful as Logan would have a crush on him at all?

He likes Virgil. He wants to take Virgil on a date. He wants Virgil to be his boyfriend.

There’s the rumbling of everyone standing up from the bleachers, and Virgil jumps—has it really been the entire assembly?—and hastily gets to his feet, so he won’t get swept up in the crowd of students returning to their classrooms.

As he’s heading for the door, Logan practically materializes in front of him, hugging his books tightly to his chest.

“Did you read them?” He asks fretfully. Now that Virgil’s close to him, face-to-face, he isn’t sure if he’s ever seen Logan so nervous. He isn’t sure if he’s seen Logan nervous at all. Logan’s shifting his weight from foot to foot, drumming his fingers on his books, holding the books like they’re a teddy bear.

“Do you,” Virgil says, his voice cracks, and he clears his throat. “You really like me?”

“Since last year,” Logan admits.

“I’ve liked you since kindergarten,” Virgil blurts out.

Logan blinks at him, jaw dropping. Then he says, “Really?!”

“Really,” Virgil promises. “My mom has this journal entry saved where I kept writing about how I was going to be Mr. Virgil Sanders, oh my God, she’s going to be so embarrassing about this—”

Logan snorts, ducking his head. “You’ve withstood my uncles handily.”

“Your uncles are cool, though,” Virgil says, confused.

“My uncles are embarrassing,” Logan says, “and my Dads are going to be so weird, I’m very sorry in advance, but—but if you can handle all of that, then I’d—I’d really like to take you out to the Halloween festival. I’d really really like that.”

Virgil’s smiling so wide that it hurts his face. “I’d really really like that too.”

And then the bell rings, and the pair of them jump at the sudden loud noise.

“I—we have to go to class,” Logan says, sounding very put out.

“Yeah,” Virgil says, then, “I’ll see you at lunch?”

Logan beams at him. “Lunch sounds wonderful.”

Virgil hesitates, before he reaches out and places a hand on Logan’s shoulder. He leans in and presses his lips to Logan’s cheek.

Logan’s bright red when he pulls away.

“Lunch?” Virgil confirms.

“Lunch,” Logan squeaks out, his voice cracking.

They emerge from under the bleachers, and have to split ways. Even when Mr. Regnant pulls him out into the hall under the guise of talking about his project and starts whisper-shouting about “do you know how HARD IT WAS to keep QUIET when i KNEW all along that you both LIKED each other bacK,” even when Mr. Morales ducks his head into his math class to pass over papers and gives Virgil some super-obvious thumbs up, even after he texts his Mom and his mom sends him screenfuls of exclamation points and immediately asks him to invite Logan over so that she can show Logan all of Virgil’s baby pictures—

Virgil cannot stop smiling.

#my post #text #my fic #analogical #analogicalweek #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #logan sanders

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doomstypewriter · 3 years

Text

Excuse me while I panic

New chapter, yay! Didn't I tell you I'd be faster?

Thanks for all of the lovely comments and interest, it really motivates me to write more.

Word count: 3041 | AO3 | <<Previous

Summary: Roman gets to work. Wooing Virgil will be a piece of cake!

Right?

CW: Swearing, anxiety, mild angst, maybe unsympathetic Janus (I don't really think so but it could somehow be interpreted as such because of Virgil and Roman talking about him, so I might as well give a warning). I don't think there's anything else, but, if you spot it, do tell.

Be yourself and let things develop naturally... that's just boring

Once he returned to the main living area, the noises of arguing and Logan’s screams could not be heard anymore. They were instead replaced by the clicking of spoons against teacups and mugs.

The moment the three noticed him they looked upwards at the same time. Patton, Logan and Janus were sitting at the table, drinking hot chocolate, coffee and tea respectively. The lights in the kitchen were on, illuminating them partially.

Logan nodded at him.

“How did it go?” he asked.

Meanwhile, Patton smiled and Janus stared at him inquisitively.

Roman went fully downstairs, hurrying to move a chair back. With his hands still on the backrest, he began to speak.

----

“Haha… I actually wanted to ask you…”

“Did something happen?” Virgil held his breath. “Is it about me?”

Roman could not stand the tension emanating from every pore of Virgil’s body. Thinking optimistically, he probably had no idea about his real motivations to come there, still, the thought of it eliciting such a reaction made Roman feel even more frozen in place.

“No!” he answered all too fast.

His body language went even stiffer with worry, to the point where he raised a hand to his mouth and began to nibble on the sides of the tip of his thumb.

“Then…”

“Everything is fine, Pierce the Nerves, I promise”.

“Okay… hmm what’s up with the rose?”

“It’s… uh…” Roman looked at it and began to felt ridiculous. “I just picked it up and it’s the same red as my sash!” he laughed as he placed it on the lapel of his suit.

“No comments. What did you want to ask me?”

----

Janus looked at him with a mix of horror and disbelief as Roman finished his recollection of the events.

“So I panicked and then I said that you had decided to help Patton bake something and now we need to make cookies this instant because Virgil will suspect something if we don’t!”

For a moment there was silence. Then, Janus ran his hands over his face.

“Roman, please take a seat already or put the chair back in place”, said Logan.

“Yeah, right” Roman sat down.

“Brilliant idea, Roman, there’s no way Virgil won’t buy that I’m making cookies and, of all things, invited him to try them. Why would you get me directly involved in it?”

Roman stood up, earning an exasperated eye roll from Logan.

“I drew a blank! I cannot come up with perfect stories on the spot while under pressure!”

“So you thought putting me in it would just magically fix how terrible you are at talking to your crush?”

“He’s not my--” Roman went deadly quiet, rethinking his life in a matter of microseconds. “Look, if I can trust you to do something is lie. So when Virgil comes down those stairs you need to help me fix this! You were the one who insisted I talk to him, so it’s your problem too”.

“Can I trust YOU not to mess up any of my--”

“Hey”.

“Aaaah!” Roman and Janus screamed in unison.

One sigh later, Virgil added:

“You invited me to have cookies”.

“Oh, yeah, well… about that…” Roman began saying. “Patton and Janus haven’t started--”

“Kiddo, we already got them ready while you went to call Virgil” Patton interrupted him. “They’re cooling in the kitchen” he pointed.

“If you had paid attention you would have noticed the bowls in the sink” Logan added without bothering to look at him.

“Roman, close your mouth, you’ll catch flies” Janus finished the series of comments directed at him.

----

Virgil’s chair moved back as he stood up.

“Well, uh…” he said. “Thanks for the cookies. Hmm…”

A frown appeared on Virgil’s face as he was leaving. His feet stopped all of a sudden and he turned around.

“Janus?” it sounded like saying the name itself pained him.

The side in question raised his head, looking openly confused. Or was it an act?

“Yeah?”

“Hmm… Roman told me you invited me. And that’s… em…” he bought time, wondering what to say. Whether to lie or not. “Suspicious. So, a word?”

Janus raised his eyebrows, not buying it, but he followed him nonetheless.

They left the room, both walking at a distance from each other. For a second, Roman thought he saw worry in Janus’ face.

“What the hell was that?” Roman asked no one in particular.

“He’s trying to be nice” Patton smiled. “I’m so proud of him!” his tone was ecstatic.

“I guess… hey, padre, how did you know I’d ask you for the cookies?”

“Patton anticipated a few outcomes from your confession attempt and decided cookies would serve as a suitable response for either” Logan replied matter-of-factly.

“Yes…” he grimaced apologetically. “I thought that if everything went well we could celebrate, and if it didn’t… well, we’d be there for you, so the cookies might cheer you up”.

----

A few days after the confession fiasco, Roman decided to try again and woo him a little before pouring his heart out.

He popped into the living room, only to find Virgil and Janus sitting six feet apart. One was listening to music and, presumably, checking out Tumblr, while the other read a thick book.

With the volume of the music, Virgil didn’t notice him, Janus on the other hand…

His face stopped being obscured by the wing of his hat as he looked up at him.

Janus shook his wrist, making Logan’s watch appear on it. The other side wouldn’t be happy about that, but if Janus had survived stealing his crofters, Roman figured he could get away with pretty much anything.

“Well, look at the time!” he said theatrically as he stared at the watch. “I need to take care of other things, pitty to miss out on your company”.

Virgil moved his headphone to the side, managing to listen to the last part of what Janus had said.

“At least he doesn’t make it awkward”.

“What?” Roman asked.

“Yeah, you’re still angry with each other, right? I can ignore him, but having the two of us in the same room with him would be like asking for an argument”.

One short stare later, Virgil spoke again, a bit unsure.

“Do you want me to move so you can sit here too?”

“No”

“Oh, okay”

“I mean, I didn’t come here to be on the couch, actually I came to see you”.

“Miss me that much?” he teased.

And it was too good of a bait to just let go without reply.

“Terribly, I’ve been swooning and mopping because I didn’t have someone blasting Paramore around me!” Roman answered draping a hand over his forehead.

“Truly tragic”.

“I know. Anyhow, I was wondering…”

Virgil raised one of his hands to stop him right there.

“If you want me to do something stupid and dangerous in the imagination with you, I’ll pass”.

“Afraid you won’t be able to keep up?”

“No, it’s more like I don’t want to have to drag your ass back here when you get hurt”.

“Hey, I’ll have you know I’m the best swordsman in there”.

“So is it like, empty then?”

Roman gasped.

“Tss. It seems like it is”.

“No it’s not!”

“Well, if you keep inviting me, I guess it isn’t, even if we are the only people in there”.

“Virgil, you have seen my servants”.

“Hmm… yeah” he looked to the ceiling playfully, then back at Roman,

“I don’t seem to remember about it”.

“Okay, well, I guess I won’t ask the royal artisans to frame your painting, since they don’t exist”.

“What painting? Are you also hallucinating art?”

“No. I was about to ask you if I could paint you!”

“Wha-- really? You want to paint ME?” Virgil pointed at himself as if to make it somehow clearer.

“If you’re willing”.

----

The whole painting idea had gone well. Still, Roman wasn’t able to get the right atmosphere to confess with Virgil constantly teasing them. To be honest, he ended up forgetting about it once they began to get caught up in the conversation.

He had tried other things, of course.

None had gone as planned.

Writing poems would just make Virgil uncomfortable or even correct him, because, apparently, listening to all of those lyrics from obscure indie bands had made him a better poet than him.

Then there was the whole incident with the ukelele.

Roman had been trying to play something to catch his attention, set the tone and just tell him, but the string snapped and hit him in the face. Now he had an ugly cut and some bruising on his cheek.

He felt stuck.

Worse than all of that, Janus kept lurking around Virgil. Pretending to be nice and reformed.

But never mind about everything else. He needed to keep trying.

Eventually, Roman would manage to get it right.

-----

Finally, he had a plan!

The last time Roman had gone to Virgil’s room to confess, he had panicked and let the effect of the room get to him. But, none of that could happen if he didn’t speak.

This would be perfect because Virgil would love it. Roman had recorded a playlist of their favourite songs into a vinyl record, just to make it a bit fancier. He’ll gift it to him and Virgil would understand.

Maybe he’d even ask him to dance to it!

Roman crossed the darkness of the entrance almost running.

This could work!

His mood deflated instantly when he emerged into the room.

Virgil was sitting on his bed, knees to his chest, hiding all of his upper body inside his hoodie. He left the vinyl on Virgil’s desk and walked up to the bed, making sure to be a bit noisy so Virgil wouldn’t be caught by surprise.

The other let a long breath out in some kind of acknowledgement.

Eventually, Roman sat next to him.

“What’s wrong?”

Virgil sighed and let his face come out of the cocoon of his hood.

“It’s not that something’s wrong per se. I…”

Without thinking, Roman placed his hand on top of Virgil’s. The contact made him feel like nothing bad could happen to Virgil as long as he held onto him.

Roman got the sudden realisation that he would be willing to protect him from anything. Which wasn’t too groundbreaking of a concept. He’d try to save pretty much everyone if given the chance, but that was his need to be the hero, to be “good”, whatever that eventually entailed. With Virgil, though… he just didn’t know what he’d do without him.

“Whatever it is, I’m here and I’ll make sure you’re okay” Roman promised.

Virgil chuckled. It stung a little.

“You can’t just say those things so seriously when I’m feeling bad, Princey, I never know how to react when you’re being so…”

“Annoying?” Roman tried to complete the sentence.

His head turned to the other side. He still didn’t let go of Virgil’s hand, but he could afford to, at least, not let him see how self-conscious he felt right now.

“Princey, look at me”.

“I’m not sure I want to, Virge”.

“Hey, I’m the one who’s feeling low. Don’t try to steal the spotlight, it’s kind of an asshole move…”

Hearing that only made him feel worse, now adding guilt to the mix.

“Especially since”, Virgil continued, “I was about to say you’re nice”.

“I’m sorry I reacted poorly” Roman finally managed to stare at him, “here you are, feeling like crap and I’m only thinking about myself. I can be very selfish sometimes. I apologise”.

Virgil frowned.

“Okay. Fuck off”.

“Did I--”

“No. Listen to me. Whatever you’re thinking I’m thinking right now is wrong. I know what you’re doing because I do it all the time. I’m not mad. And you’re not selfish. Not one bit. You’re self-centred, very much so, but not selfish”.

“Virge, I’m pretty sure those are the same thing”.

Virgil shook his head.

“You can be annoying when you make everything about yourself and try to be the centre of attention. But you never ignore people when they need you, even if that doesn’t benefit you. You’re willing to give up things you want just to do what you think is right. Hell, Princey, you let go of your pride just to be friends with me. How could anyone think you’re selfish when you’re so stupidly wonderful?”

“I--”

“Don’t get too smug about it” Virgil cut him.

It got quiet for a second. Roman savoured the moment and squeezed Virgil’s hand. His smile began to return to him a little bit.

“Thank you. It means a lot, you have no idea” Roman muttered.

Virgil visibly relaxed. He slumped a bit more, letting himself fall against Roman’s side. The dark hair tickled his collarbone, but Roman wouldn’t ever dream of complaining about it.

“Yeah I do” Virgil whispered, so quietly Roman could have imagined it.

Having Virgil’s head on his shoulder made sense. Like it was meant to be there all along.

“What were you sulking about?” Roman asked.

“Not sulking”.

“Sure thing, All the time low”.

He felt Virgil muffle a laugh against the shoulder pads of his suit.

The laugher died down soon after a long sigh.

“I’ve been thinking about doing something”.

Roman stayed quiet for once, leaving him room to breathe and let things out at his own pace.

“I… I am considering forgiving Janus”, Virgil paused, twisting his neck to see Roman’s expression. “Maybe be friends again if it comes to it”.

A sigh.

His thumb started to move in circles, caressing the back of Virgil’s hand. Roman swallowed.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” he asked tentatively.

“You’re not mad?”

“I don’t know. Should I be? It’s not like I’ve exactly forgotten about all of the bad blood between us. But… he makes Patton very happy and it seems like he’s trying to help, so I don’t know what to feel about it”.

“Roman, I know he hurt you”.

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

“In part. There’s more to it. But I can’t just go and bury the hatchet with him if that would hurt you again”.

A small part of Roman felt good knowing Virgil would keep on being angry with Janus if he wanted him to. In a way, it showed his willingness to stay by his side.

That’s why Roman couldn’t ask him that.

Besides, Janus had been helping him too. It wouldn’t be right for him either, as much as it stung to admit it.

“If that makes you happy, I will be happy too”.

“Yeah, but that’s not what I’m asking. I don’t want to know if you would ignore your issues with Janus for my sake”.

“I really don’t mind--”

“And I know that. But… fuck, Roman, you shouldn’t be constantly forced to put everyone first just to make things better for everybody else except you”.

That was… a lot to take in. Roman didn’t know very well what to respond. Eventually, Virgil must have interpreted his silence as him doing something wrong.

“You’re my friend. I… I care about you. I won’t do something you’re not okay with. You’re more important”.

“No need. It’s okay. Getting over my stuff with Janus is my own

problem. I also care about you, a lot. If you want to be friends with him I’ll support you, it has nothing to do with my problems. You won’t hurt me. I promise”.

“That’s good to hear. I mean, I’m still struggling with the decision and I don’t think I’ll be making up my mind anytime soon. But knowing that helps a lot”.

“Do you want to talk about it more?”

“Hmm. It’s… it’s so confusing. I thought nothing he did could rub off how angry I’ve been at him, make me want to trust him again. Before… well, no need to get into the specifics, but it made me feel very betrayed” his voice trembled a little. “The problem is, he didn’t exactly betray me, so I guess the doubts about whether or not things could go back to what they were, remained”.

Virgil swallowed, trying to compose himself.

“And it sucks because there’s a part of me that can’t tell if this is all part of a big scheme and he’s just trying so hard to be nice to me because he wants something, or because he actually cares. I’m scared of letting my guard down and have him ruin everything I’ve tried to achieve. What if I go back to how I used to be?”

“I won’t let that happen”.

“How can you be sure? How can we be sure of anything when it comes to him?”

“We can’t. But I have no doubts that, no matter what happens, we’ll figure it out. Even if it gets to the worst, you know me and I know you. Most importantly, I believe in you, Virge. I’m not going to tell you, of all people, that there’s nothing to be afraid of. But if you’re scared, know that you can trust me and you can trust who you’ve become. We’ll be fine”.

“Roman…”

For a second, it seemed like Virgil was going to cry, or worse, do something like hug him AND cry.

“To be fair, though”, Roman went back to his usual self. Both would welcome the respite after… well, big conversation to unpack. “I honestly don’t think Janus is planning anything. He’s even trying to get on my good side just to make you happy. I’m not the best side for him to manipulate anymore, not after everything, and he isn’t that stupid. So I’d say the bitch is being sincere. That being clear, it would still be a pleasure to punch him if you asked”.

Virgil shifted a bit.

“Ouch!” Roman shouted after Virgil elbowed him. “What did I do now?”

“You’re dumb”.

“So are you, emo, what’s your excuse?”

“I’m friends with you and I think it might be starting to affect me”.

“Well, it’s about time. I knew even you weren’t impervious to my dashing good looks”.

Oh. Perhaps he had let on too much. Roman tensed up the slightest bit.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever lets you sleep at night, Princey”.

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Taglist: @itsjust-la-me , @bard-in-blue , @simplestoryteller , @winterwynd , @extraintrovertedalien , @some-fander , @the-sad-strawberry

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#prinxiety #sanders sides #ts roman #ts virgil #background moceit #platonic anxceit #romantic prinxiety #prinxiety fic #doomywrites #doomstypewriter

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whatifxwereyou · 3 years

Text

The Oncoming Storm Part 28: Big Bad Wolf

Liu Kang x Reader and Kung Lao x Reader (gonna do both, two paths!)

Just when you think that things were getting a bit more under your control shit gets incredibly real. Why does it feel that things are going to get worse before they get better?

The choice is coming, but have a bit more plot first. Don't worry, I'll break up the angst with some fun soon enough. Y/N needs a hug, right? Hoping to do some more art of her today too. Also, wanted to say thanks again for reading. You guys are the best ;_;

Part 27 Part 29 Chapter Index

Grounding exercises helped and while you were still shaky, you managed to get cleaned up and ready for the day. As you made your way toward Raiden’s chamber, you felt considerably more put together than you had only moments ago. Hopefully, that would be enough false confidence to fool everyone else into believing it, too. The good news was that you didn’t think that Raiden had any interest in your emotional state and he likely wouldn’t pry. You were grateful for that.

Sometimes with trauma you just wanted to move on instead of dwelling on something that was so far beyond your control you had no idea where to begin with coping.

Turning the corner, you found Kung Lao walking toward you. You were relieved to find that he looked much better than the day before. Color had flooded back to his face and while he was still bruised and bandaged, he seemed chipper. You waved at him in greeting and then, much to your surprise, he picked you right up off of the ground, spun you around, and then set you back down on your feet.

“Whoa, hey!” You laughed, getting the shivers. He was back to his old self again. “Someone’s feeling better.” You peeked at the bandages you could see and he didn’t swat you away. In fact, he seemed pretty proud that you were checking on him.

“Much better. A little sore but the fever’s gone so practically good as new.” He took a step back from you and nodded down the hall. “Yesterday is kind of a blur. Were you actually there with me or did I just hallucinate that you were?”

“…do you hallucinate often?”

“No, but…”

“Are these hallucinations usually of me?”

“I had a fever, Y/N.”

“Have you considered talking to someone about these hallucinations? Therapy is incredibly helpful.” You teased him and he rolled his eyes. “Yes, I was there with you. You were sick.”

“Did I give you a hard time? I felt terrible so that’s possible.”

“No harder than the usual.”

“Good!” He laughed but seemed relieved. What was he hiding, exactly? “Glad to hear it. What about you, Y/N? Are you feeling okay? No mysterious artifact-related illness?”

“Yes, I’m uh… I’m fine. As you said, I’m probably cursed, so I’m used to feeling like crap.” You had expected him to ask you but your voice still quavered nervously and you were annoyed with yourself. Covering it up with sarcasm was your only defense remaining.

“You are a terrible liar.” He didn’t get the chance to tease you further because Liu Kang was joining you from down the hall. Even from afar he looked terrible. He was still cute, but he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week and was paler than you’d ever seen anyone before.

“Oh no, Liu!” You gasped.

“Wow.” Kung Lao was laughing at his brother and so you smacked his arm to silence him but it didn’t work.

“Are you okay, Liu?” You glared at Kung Lao and then gave your attention back to Liu.

“I’ve already been to the infirmary.” Despite how gray he was, he smiled. “High fever but nothing I can’t handle.” He took a step back from you and tilted his head, looking you over from head to toe. Then he brushed his finger over your cheek just beneath your eye and you stiffened up in alert. Kung Lao was looking at him as though he had some nerve, too. Then you swatted his hand away and stepped back. “Have you been crying?”

You averted your eyes and tightened your lips. How could he have known? Just by looking at you? What kind of crazy in tune with your body and emotions was he? Kung Lao snapped to you in alarm and then pouted as if annoyed that he hadn’t noticed you’d been obviously upset. So much for having felt good about your façade.

“…no?” You’d taken too long to answer. Kung Lao’s pout faded and he chuckled.

“You are the worst liar, really. It was a joke at first but now I’m serious about it.”

“Is everything okay?” Liu was trying not to sound worried but was failing at it. You nodded to let him know you were fine. “Just… having a moment or…?”

“I… uh…” You wanted to say yes. That you’d had a moment. A moment where you’d needed a good cry. There was no point in you rattling through what you’d seen twice since you would have to tell Raiden. Besides, it was easier to talk to Raiden about these things. Discussion with him over it was clinical. Discussion with Lao and Liu was emotional. You could explain your bruised palms and the crazy ink web you’d created later. Oh, and the demon that had tried to murder you again. Instead, you stuttered and betrayed yourself.

“You had a vision.” Liu knew too much. He was too intuitive. He had to be stopped. Kung Lao stepped next to Liu and folded his arms over his chest in judgment. They were both judging you for trying to hide the truth from them. You huffed in frustration. How could he read you so easily? How had he known? Why couldn’t you have just said it had been hormones or something?

“Look, I’m going to talk to Raiden and I figured that I’d just tell him when I’m there. Don’t make me tell this story twice, please.” You stubbornly walked toward them and they stepped out of your way on either side of you to allow you to pass. Kung Lao caught up to you and walked alongside you on your left. He leaned over just enough to talk to you covertly.

“Are you okay?”

“I just said I didn’t want to talk about it.” You swatted him away but he kept walking closely alongside you.

“What did you see?”

“Guys! Really! I’m obviously doing okay.” You gestured to Liu who had joined you on your right and he laughed in surprise. “Liu is a different color today! Can we talk about that instead?”

Liu Kang and Kung Lao exchanged a glance in front of you and then spoke in unison. “No.”

You sighed and continued walking through the finally familiar halls. “Well, that’s too bad. I told you already, I’m fine. The most important person to talk to about this vision is Raiden. I’m not wasting my breath by saying it twice because you two are nosy.”

“Wow.”

“That’s harsh,” Liu coughed, covering his mouth with his arm as they caught up to you again.

“She’s wasting her breath, Liu.”

“I know, Lao. Here we are, worried about her, and she’s wasting her breath if she tells us what happened.”

“I hate you both so much right now.”

“Wow!” Kung Lao threw his hands into the air in mock aghast.

“She hates us now.”

“All because we care.”

“Oh my god.” You laughed and then walked faster to get past them. Them teaming up on you was intimidating but also hilarious. You sure wished that Chen’s voice wasn’t rocketing around through your brain. Your face was hot and you tried to breathe through it. Kung Lao caught up to you again and slipped his arm around your shoulder to slow your walk.

“We’re just teasing, Y/N.”

“I know how much you hate us worrying but we do worry and I’m no sorry for that.” Liu caught up slower than Kung Lao had, prayer beads wrapped around his palm.

“Especially since your arcana does violent things when you have those visions.”

“And your palms are bruised.” Liu tapped your wrist and you pulled your hands close to your stomach to hide them from him. Kung Lao pulled his arm back from your shoulder and took one of your hands, turning it over so your palm was facing up. He clicked his tongue in disapproval.

“Lying. Hiding bruises. Maybe you were right, brother. She has been spending too much time with me.”

“Okay, okay boys.” You chuckled nervously and snuck away nervously from Kung Lao’s grasp. “You’ve made your point. Now hush, before I tell Raiden on both of you.”

“Tell on us? For what? You’re the one who lied.”

“Very poorly, I might add.” Kung Lao grinned. You were no longer worried if he was actually feeling better or not. It was clear he was feeling just fine.

“You would think that with all the time I’m spending with you that I would be a better liar.” You teased in return. You were glad that Liu was at least feeling well enough to joke even if you had to slow down for him. “Get it together, guys.” You scolded and then walked with them into Raiden’s chambers which had been left open in anticipation of your arrival.

You bowed before Raiden who joined you from a doorway on the left. The joking mood you’d had only seconds ago faded. Within the room were the two pedestals that you recognized from when you’d given Raiden the artifacts. Both were encased in glass. Raiden walked between the pedestals and gestured to either side of him. “They are not to be touched without my permission by any of you.”

That was an interesting way to start the conversation but you each nodded in understanding. You weren’t eager to touch them again but had a feeling you would have to. Raiden glared at Kung Lao as though that warning had been meant specifically for him. Kung Lao looked up and away, feigning innocence. Raiden then walked before you, hands clasped together behind his back.

“They have eluded my sight but I have divined that they were cursed many centuries ago and tainted by many hands. They have been locked.”

“What does that mean, Lord Raiden?” Liu stepped closer to the pedestals to get a closer look but was careful to keep his hands folded.

“It means that whoever hid these items did not wish for them to be found. More than that, they did not wish to risk their cleansing. Either these are incredibly powerful tools or conduits for something else.”

“Conduits?” Kung Lao frowned and as he stepped closer, Liu held his hand out to stop him as if to remind him not to touch.

“There are many possibilities but my magic hasn’t uncovered them. They are protected by something powerful.”

“An elder god?” Liu theorized.

“That’s one possibility.”

“What can we do?” You chimed in. It was all well and good to theorize what they were and why but what you could do was what mattered.

“Well, Y/N, you were the one who located these items with your sight. I have a feeling that the same creature who cast a shadow over you is one of the more potent hands cast upon these artifacts. It’s why you saw him.”

“And I have seen him now.” You confessed, turning your attention to the floor. “I saw him before but his face was a blur when I woke. But now? Now I’ve seen him.”

“When?” Raiden didn’t seem as alarmed as Liu Kang and Kung Lao were behind him. Merely curious.

“We fought a creature in the springs protecting the jade. I saw him in the water. I saw him clear as day. If you know an artist then I could probably describe him for a picture or something. Then this morning I saw him again.”

“This morning?” Raiden tilted his head curiously and you felt alarm radiating off of Liu Kang just like his fire.

“I couldn’t see his face this time. He stood beside my bed.” You knew it hadn’t been a nightmare but it hadn’t exactly been a vision either. “Both times he was trying to hurt me. I woke up and my room was filled with ink but it was… it was different.” You felt all eyes on you and you hated it. “It’s hard to describe. I’m sorry that I’m not better at this.” You bowed apologetically.

“You will get better with time. For now, I will read your vision as I had before with the protection of Liu Kang and Kung Lao. That will come later. Are you up for the task of trying to unlock these items, Y/N?”

“Me? Unlock them?”

“Yes. I think that your gift is connected to them. Perhaps your sight could be of some assistance in either unlocking them or for seeing a way to do so.”

“Yeah, I’ll try. Anything to help.” You bowed again and then walked between the pedestals nervously.

“Is this going to make me sick again?” Kung Lao sighed dramatically and Liu Kang shushed him.

“These are powerful and dangerous artifacts, Kung Lao. If I cannot solve this riddle then we will have to remove them from the temple. Or you will all be sick.” Raiden looked to him knowingly and Kung Lao bowed his head apologetically.

“I’m not ready to give up. Let me try.”

“Good.” Raiden walked past you and to the pedestals. With a brush of his hand against the tops of each protective container, the glass faded. You were momentarily stunned. His magic was wonderful and constantly took you by surprise. He gestured for you to join him and so you did.

“…what should I do?” You were lost. You had no idea where to begin. Even using your arcana was still nowhere near second nature to you. It was easier to do in the heat of battle or in the moment. This was premeditated and planned and more about your visions- something you had never mastered.

“Follow your gut.” Raiden instructed like that was something easy for you to do. “Touching them might help.” He stepped back to give you room.

You would try.

You touched the dotaku, fingers brushing along the ornamental designs. “Funny. It’s hot.” You admired the designs curiously. If it hadn’t been cursed then it would have been beautiful. The warmth of the bell wasn’t hot perse, but it wasn’t the natural temperature for a metallic object either. It wasn’t anything near even the inherent warmth of Liu Kang. More like a kettle that had been turned off a few moments before you’d entered the room. Raiden gestured to the jade and so you reached across the gap to touch the jade with your other hand.

It was like a hand brushed over your eyelids to close them. A hum resonated from the bell and through your body to the jade, using you to do so. You opened your eyes and when you did, the room was empty. All that remained were you and the artifacts.

You tried to snap your hands back but they were stuck fast to both items. The items wouldn’t budge from their places on the pedestals either. You tugged and pulled in a panic to try and get free your hands but it was no use. The items grew hotter and hotter beneath your touch, glowing with orange light and burning your palms.

“Let go!” You shouted in frustration, trying to tug your hands free. Then the horned man was in front of you. Skin gray and sick, eyes milky white and staring into yours. His mouth moved but not in time with the words that came out of him in a hiss.

“You will not see.” The eerie whisper traveled all around you and filled you with inescapable dread. Your legs were literally trembling beneath you. You would have crumpled in a heap had you not been trapped and stuck to the artifacts.

“Why?” You sounded rather brave for someone who had no leg to stand on. “What are you?” He tilted your chin toward him with his index finger, as if you were something too filthy for him to properly touch. His hands felt disgusting. Cold. Clammy. You shrunk away from his touch and he clutched your chin. Then his whole body was wrapped in shadow and his hand snapped to your throat so hard that you choked and were instantly without breath.

You tried to fight but there was nothing you could do and no escape. The squeezing on your neck was so intensely painful that you felt yourself fading and quickly at that. Then, for the first time, you watched as ink exploded from your hands, from your chest, spreading throughout the room, tearing through the shadow that held you prisoner.

You could breathe but your vision changed. Instead of Raiden’s chamber you saw smoke billowing from the windows of the temple, flames engulfing familiar halls. Rooms crumbled to pieces. Silhouettes of bodies laid still on the ground in the smoke, dark stains surrounding them. War was being waged on the temple! You tried to scream, to move, to help, but your hands were stuck fast. Clawed fingers ran over your arms and back to your neck, you felt each finger slowly wrap around your throat until you couldn’t breathe.

Your body was failing, limbs going numb, falling limp between the artifacts that held you prisoner. The hands grasped your face and obscured your sight and then suddenly your hands were free. The dotaku burned your hand as you let go and cracked with an ear-splitting shriek of grinding metal. As it had happened in your vision, ink exploded from within you and spread throughout the room, from wall to wall, floor to ceiling.

Liu ran to you and tried to pull you into his arms and you felt the hot spray of his blood splatter over your face and chest as the ink tore through his flesh. He fell away from you. You collapsed in a heap, unable to move, the ink taking every bit of your energy. Your body was prey to something far beyond your control. You couldn’t breathe and you tried to crawl away, to get to Liu Kang who was holding his bloodied arm. Skeletal creatures rose from the ink and a monster dripping with ink joined it. The ink had recreated the monsters you’d fought that protected the artifacts.

Kung Lao dodged them and tried to make his way through the ink web to get to you but it had crystallized and kept him at bay. He sliced through the webs with his hat, shouting words you couldn’t make out. He was making his way through but it would take too long to get to you or Liu.

“You have to breathe, Y/N!” Liu’s voice cut through the buzzing in your head but just barely. You tried to do as he asked but the more that you inhaled the more impossible it became to exhale and your lungs were so tight that you didn’t think you’d make it much longer. Ink was spreading further and further throughout the room. If you didn’t stop, you were going to kill them.

Suddenly you were burning all over as a jolt of electricity shot through you.

“Enough!” Raiden’s voice boomed like thunder and you collapsed in a heap on the floor. You gasped for breath, struggling, but at least you could get a little air. You couldn’t feel your fingers anymore and briefly the world had gone white. When your vision cleared the monsters were gone and the ink fell piece by piece before fading into dust. Your body was too frail to keep it up.

Liu rushed to your side and Kung Lao was only steps behind him. Raiden’s voice bellowed again. “Do not touch her!” You struggled to breathe, struggled to sit up, your body failing. No matter how you tried, simple things that you were used to doing just to exist weren’t working. There were spots in your vision and you tried to push yourself up to your knees but your arms were trembling. “What did you see?” You coughed and tried to speak through it but you tasted blood and collapsed back on your chest.

“She’s suffering!” Kung Lao started toward you again but lightning cracked in front of him to stop him.

“What did you see, Y/N?”

“A-a… a devil…” You managed to choke out. Pain radiated up your arm and through your shoulder, down into your chest. You grasped at the sleeve of your shirt and managed to find the strength to sit up just enough so you could pull the sleeve down. Your shoulder and chest were burning. You didn’t know what was there but you knew that something was there. It was tremendously painful.

“The bell.” Liu nodded to the crack in the bell. His arm was drenched in blood. You caught a glimpse of the bell and then looked to your shoulder where you could barely see the crack that spread from your shoulder and further beneath the lining of your shirt. You ran your fingers over it and pulled them back suddenly. Touching it sent fire through your body, agonizing shots of misery, like your bones were being burned from the inside out. Your breathing was labored again. “What does that mean? Raiden, what does that mean?”

“You are tied to these objects.” Raiden tilted his head in realization.

“What?” You had never seen Liu so mad. Kung Lao looked like it was taking every bit of his self-control not to say fuck it and run to you. “Why? And by who? How is this possible?”

“I only know the answer to one of those questions, Liu Kang. She just told us. A devil.” Raiden approached you then walked past you to the dotaku. You managed to lean up on your elbows while taking quick, shaky breaths but your whole body was rigid with pain. You could barely think, barely feel anything other than the white-hot agony spreading from your chest to your shoulder.

“Will she be okay?” Kung Lao was, again, restraining himself.

“I don’t know. I will try to repair the bell.” Raiden placed his hand so it was hovering only an inch above the metal. Lightning sparked in his hand and surrounded the metal of the bell, his eyes white and glowing. Then he pulled his hand back as if the bell had shocked him.

You pushed yourself onto your knees and stumbled to your feet. The blood rushed to your head and you nearly collapsed. Blood filled your mouth and you could feel it dripping from your nose. Liu Kang was at your side and helped you stay on your feet, his bloodied arm hanging uselessly at his other side. Kung Lao urged your other arm over his shoulder and helped keep you upright.

Liu Kang was glaring at Raiden furiously, as if he knew what would come next. You stumbled and Kung Lao wrapped his arm around your middle to help keep you upright. “You’ll be okay, Y/N,” he reassured quietly but you knew that none of you really understood what was going on.

“I must see what you saw.” Raiden stepped closer.

“She can barely stand, Raiden.” Liu seethed, his anger and frustration far quieter and much more frightening than Kung Lao’s outright fury.

“She needs rest first.”

“Time is of the essence.”

“No,” you choked, finally managing to find words. You grasped Liu’s hand that was too tight around you. “He’s right. He has to see.”

“Y/N, no, you’re too weak, what if he…” Kung Lao objected loudly. Before either of them could resist on your behalf, Raiden rested his hand on the top of your head.

Then there was pain.

Not even darkness.

Color swirling in your mind’s eye and the type of pain that you had only read of.

Then there was numbness, as if your mind had been removed from your body to spare you the pain.

Then there was nothing.

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