#beloveds my beloved dumbasses | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mediumgayitalian · 2 months

Text

part three

——��

The first step should, in all likelihood, be the easiest.

(“I’m not sure this is something you can really plan,” Annabeth had suggested gently, “as much as my mother would disown me to hear it. I mean, everything I did with Percy kind of just…happened.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure the five years of pining misery and fighting off several other people — one of whom was literally me — was a real walk in the park for you.”

“…Plan on.”)

It is not the easiest.

“You’re telling me the flowers…say things.”

If Nico reaches back into the farthest recesses of his memory, as in things that are shoved somewhere between his sister’s soft sobs the one time he got sicker than he’d ever been and has ever been since and the time he’d walked in on Alecto skinny dipping in the Phlegothon, he can vaguely remember a lengthy rant from his stepmother on something called the language of flowers. He had, at that time, assumed she was simply trying to convince him that everything had voices again, and ignored her.

“Yes,” says Miranda from Demeter Cabin patiently. “Every flower has an assigned meaning. More than one, usually. You can say very rude things with flowers.”

Nico perks up, intrigued. “How do you say ‘you’re a fucking c—”

“Okay,” Jason interrupts, plastering a strained smile on his face and slapping a hand over Nico’s mouth. Nico bites him, hard, and the smile becomes even more strained. “We are actually looking for much nicer things to say with flowers. Kind things. Appreciative things. Feelings, you know. Nico?”

He lifts his hand, looking at him in warning as if Nico is going to be quelled by his Stare of Judgement, of all things. Nico stares back at him until he starts to look appropriately cowed, satisfyingly afraid of the horror that lives inside Nico’s eyes, except he — doesn’t.

He doesn’t look scared at all, actually, which is — which.

Nico takes all thoughts pertaining to the issue and shoves them away.

“I need,” he says haltingly, looking back at Miranda. She looks at him encouragingly.

She doesn’t look afraid of him, either, although she glances quickly down at the circle of grass he’s killed by virtue of standing on it and says, politely, “If you could maybe stop that, I would appreciate it.”

Nico swallows, stepping back. “Sorry.”

“No worries.” She swoops down, hands outstretched, murmuring something too soft for him to pick up. Under her gentle fingertips, the grass blooms slowly back to life, tiny strands uncurling and swelling with virility, stretching towards the sun. Even the dirt smells sweeter, like churned garden soil rather than graveyard dirt.

Something dark and bitter crawls up Nico’s throat — he will always need people to clean up after his messes. No matter how hard he tries. Miranda with the plants, Solace with every one of his endless injuries, Bianca with — everything. She cleaned up after him a lot.

She was only twenty-seven months older than him. He wonders how she would have liked being fourteen, and has to choke back the sob that tries to claw its way out of his trachea.

“Not a lot of people have flower language memorized,” Miranda says, dragging him roughly back to the present. Her large brown eyes are back to focused on him, so he forces himself into normalcy and stares back. “And it’s kind of vague, so I need something to start with. Who’s it for?”

“Classified.”

Nico considers, once again, opening up a chasm beneath his feet. His geokinesis is no bene so he’d probably take Jason and Miranda down with him, but. Necessary sacrifices, et cetera.

“Understandable,” Miranda responds without so much as a beat. Huh. Suddenly, he feels bad for considering her collateral. “Just this then: friend or foe?”

Nico looks at Jason. Jason looks back at him, like, dude, seriously. Nico scowls at him and his uselessness.

“Friend,” he says begrudingly. “…More.”

Miranda nods in understanding. “Ah. Will, then.”

Nevermind. Chasm it is.

“Man, I hoped you guys would finally do something,” Miranda continues, oblivious to the ground trembling slightly under her. (Jason, however, appears alarmed, so Nico summons a tiny skeleton hand to grab his ankle in revenge.) “I love Will to pieces, but there are only so many times I can hear him wax poetic about you before it starts to get embarrassing. When we were twelve you saved his life and he actually cried because he didn’t know how to form the words. Just weeping everywhere about your sword and your hair and how you look a little crazy when you smile in battle. Did you know there are, like, a million syllables for brown? I do. He thinks your eyes are a tie between moonstone and agate, in case you were wondering.”

“I have actually heard that,” Jason mumbles, as Nico’s brain whites out and leaves him, tragically alone, to suffer. “I thought he was just super into geology.”

“Oh, he is. He’s a little into everything. There’s a bi joke, for you.”

“Oh, ha, I get it.”

Is that his body, stranded somewhere below him? Hi, body. Good to see you. You look like hell. Feel free to summon your soul back into yourself at any time, that’d be great.

“I am generally bad at functioning,” he admits, once his essence has begrudgingly reattached itself to his cells and his blood stops ringing quite so loudly in his ears.

Miranda shrugs. “I think you’re pretty okay. Once Percy had to get five stitches on his lip because he was half asleep and mixed up his plate and pizza and bit clean through his plate. It only really needed four stitches, but Will laughed so hard he couldn’t focus right and tore the wound a tad before fixing it. By accident.”

Nico tries very hard not to picture that laughter, not to remember the first time he heard Will laugh, not the hundreds of times after; a loud sound, a musical sound, despite his insistence that he has no talents. Laughter like olive oil laughs in the pan, like wind laughs as it rushes through the poplar trees.

Jason nods sympathetically. “Mondays are hard.”

“Please,” Nico begs the both of them. The nerve he’d summoned after the encouragement of his friends is slowly leaking out of his eyeballs and soaking the ground. “I just need —”

He can’t finish that sentence, either. I need to give Will flowers so he knows I have….intentions, with him, is the most embarrassing sentence ever to be conjured by man, and if he has to say it aloud he knows his father will smite him out of pity, as is their deal. It must only be implied, and even then, he could get egged by any member of Cabin Eleven and turn into a breakfast buffet, his face is so godsdamn hot.

“Will, is, like, unbelievably dense,” Miranda says, taking pity on him. She waits for Nico to finish choking, patting him firmly on the back before continuing. “I guess that’s not fair. He can be quite observant, he just has worse self-esteem than you, even, no offense, so if you are trying to seduce him you’re going to have to be very obvious.”

The wheezing that she has just circumvented starts all over again. This time, Jason joins him. Miranda has no qualms or shame — fitting, since Nico has met her mother, who also has no shame about anything. Nico will never be able to forget that she is the goddess of fertility.

“Who the fuck said anything about seducing,” he manages, finally, lungs chilling somewhere on the grass.

Miranda ignores him. “I would usually say something simple like daisies, but they can be representative of friendship and he will for sure assume they are friendship flowers. Hyacinth can communicate a much deeper breadth of emotion, but, uh —” she glances at the Apollo cabin — “I would avoid Hyacinth.”

Nico sobers. Yeah. That would be wise.

“I think roses send a little too strong of a message for your purposes, so I’m thinking carnations. Pink ones.”

Recovering from the implications of the roses — he’s a little out of time, not stupid, he knows what they mean — he looks at her curiously. “What do pink carnations mean?”

She shrugs. “Love and affection, really. Sometimes gratitude, and in some poetry their colouring is compared to a pleased flush.”

Although he expected much more agony in this particular step of the journey (not that their wasn’t a good, healthy amount; can’t feel good feelings for too long if you’re Nico di Angelo, Cursèd, Son of Hades, Prince of the Underworld, Ghost King, Et Cetera, Et Cetera), pink carnations seem surprisingly…right. Love and affection, he can handle that, and if there’s one thing he always is, regarding Will, it’s grateful. Maybe the whole damn camp should be giving him pink carnations.

“Here.”

Sensing Nico’s hesitant acceptance, Miranda swoops down to the ground, digs around a second, shoots a quick prayer to her mother, and waits. A moment later, several blush-pink flowers shoot from the dirt, along with — Nico squints to read it — a book about the history of grain cereals. Miranda looks confused about one of those two things.

“I am constantly plagued by the Ancient Greek Theoi and their various whims,” Nico explains.

“Your life confuses me,” Miranda responds. She hands him the book and the flowers. For once, Demeter’s gift seems to be the less volatile object of the two. “I’m going to go meditate about it.”

“Good call,” says Jason.

“Thank you,” Nico calls, belatedly, to her retreating back. He glances down at the flowers in his hand. “Jason,” he says, voice strained.

He sighs. “Oh, here we go.”

“Jason, I have to move.”

“You’re fine here,” Jason says patiently. He places a hand on Nico’s shoulder and begins to steer him towards the Big House. Nico, distraught, refrains from judo flipping him into a tree.

“I ruin everything I touch, Jason.”

“You helped out with the strawberries just fine last week.”

“Strawberries are not people, Jason.”

“The kids seem to like you. You let them keep weird skulls and rocks and shit they find in the woods, and they like that.”

“Children are not completely incomprehensible sons of the sun, Jason.”

“Will likes you. By his own admission. He thinks — and I’m quoting here — that you’re gorgeous, even when you’re glaring at him and rueing your own existence.”

Nico has nothing to say to that, because he still can’t quite believe that’s true. It’s — surreal. He had no arguments against it, because he knows, objectively, that Will was not lying, and he can see, with his eyeballs, that Will smiles every time they make eye contact, unless Nico did something stupid in which case Will is huffing and muttering about patients and demigods and how increased power is directly correlated with increased stupidity.

Mostly smiling, though.

At Nico. With love and affection and oh, gods, he is going to ruin things so bad.

“Look,” Jason says, stopping them in front of the porch. Nico takes the pause with equal parts relief and panic, turning to him with the flowers clutched to his chest. “You have — issues.”

Nico blinks, waiting for more sentence. Surely that cannot be all of it.

“…Yes,” he acquiesces, when no sentence is forthcoming. “I am an interloper in this timeline. I am an omen of death. I am —”

“Gods, you’re dramatic.”

Nico agonizes.

“You will be fine, Nico, please, I don’t even know what the hang-up is. He said he likes you, there is literally not a single soul in this camp unaware about how much he likes you. Right?”

The rickety screen door of the infirmary bangs open, slamming against the frame, startling them both so hard they cause a slight earthquake.

“Oh, you got them, you got them!”

The overworked and overstressed whirlwind known as William Andrew Solace bursts out of the infirmary, tripping over his own shoes and nearly landing on his face had Jason not caught him.

“Woah, dude,” he says, steady hand on his waist. Nico reacts to that totally normally and Jason’s shadow does not at all try to swallow him. “What’s wrong?”

Will barely responds. “Nico, you are the best, I owe you forever —”

Stumbling out of Jason’s hold, he lunges over to Nico, plucking the flowers out of his hand and spinning right back to the infirmary. In total bewilderment, Nico and Jason follow him, watching as he tosses the bouquet in the air, hands glowing golden, and mutters a quick hymn. The flowers begin to droop, then wrinkle, then fully shrivel up, totally dead as they land back in his hands.

“What the fuck,” Jason whispers.

“Sun-dried is better, but I don’t have time,” Will frets. “Son of sun will have to do. Ha. You, and you, over here.” He points to the nurses desk with the yellowed stems, no trace of a question in his voice. The two of them scramble to comply, ducking under the half-door and standing awkwardly behind the counter as Will clears it off.

“That stupid prank — remind me to kill Cecil tomorrow, Nico, if you don’t mind — has three whole cabins covered in skin welts. I don’t have enough beds for them all, and they need to be quarantined, anyway. I haven’t had time to go get more ingredients in between cabins, let alone time to make more ointment.” Two massive stone mortars slam the counter, making both of them jump, followed by pestles with blunt heads roughly the size of Nico’s fist. “Pulverize the petals as fine as you can.” He splits the dead bouquet in half, handing them each six flowers each. “Petals only, no stems or seeds. I’ll be back in twenty minutes to gather it. Oh, and Nico —”

He pauses for a moment, taking a breath. Hesitantly, Nico reaches out and places a gentle hand on his wrist. Instantly, the worried line between his eyes melts away, and he smiles; tired but radiant.

“I owe you one,” he says softly. “You always know just what I need. I’ve been using rose, ‘cause that’s what we have, even though pink carnations is better, but we ran out an hour ago and I’ve been freaking out cause I —”

“Solace,” Nico interrupts. He squeezes gently. “Breathe.”

He does. Inhale, hold, exhale, breath tickling the hairs in Nico’s arm, causing goosebumps to bristle all over his skin. (The grateful smile pointed towards him at full power has nothing to do with that. Obviously.)

“I’m good. Just — thank you, Nico. You knew exactly what I needed.”

A loud groan sounds from somewhere to the east, in the vague direction of Cabin Ten, and Will rushes off without another word, medical bag stuffed to bursting. There’s a thump, and a quick, “I’m good!” and then the sound of running in flip-flops. Nico ducks his head to hide a smile, turning to the dried flowers.

“Well,” says Jason after a moment. “You tried.”

Nico shrugs. He starts plucking the petals off and dumping them in the mortar, Jason quick to follow his example.

“I’ll just have to try harder next time.”

———

part five

212 notes · View notes

drysaladandketchup · 2 months

Note

for the "things you said" writing meme -- matthew/leon, 12 :)

Thank you for the request <3 I realised very quickly I have no idea what constitutes a 'mini' fic. I struggle to write 'mini' anything lol. Hopefully this still satisfies :)

12. things you said when you thought i was asleep

It takes all of Matthew's willpower not to reach over and smash his phone just to shut up the alarm. All that saves his wallet and an awkward trip to the Apple store is the split-second realisation that the shrieking in his ear isn't his usual alarm.

It's a ringtone. Not his own, either.

He pries his eyes open to find the world through the window is still dark. One of the balcony doors is still ajar, letting in a cool night breeze. He's lying on his side in his own bed, the end of the all-star weekend memorialized by several aches and bruises.

His hips and ass are a little sore too, but that's unrelated. Technically.

The ringing stops. Someone huffs behind him.

Someone. Yeah, no, Matthew knows who it is. They may have met up at the bar once the media was done swarming, but Matthew was far from drunk. Painfully sober, in fact. If he's being honest with himself, he was hoping things would turn out this way.

One more time. One more moment. Because it's been a long time since they were them. Longer still since the sex was just sex, since hate became want. Matthew is strong in a lot of ways, but not against this.

"Davo." Leon's voice is low, and still gruff from sleep when he answers his phone. He sits up on his side of the bed, trying not to disturb Matthew, pulling the covers back up over Matthew's shoulder like he thinks he'll freeze to death in this balmy Florida winter.

Usually Matthew's a heavy sleeper. But never when Leon's around. He makes it impossible for Matthew to completely relax, to let time slip by. Leon's just too big of a presence, almost too much to bear. It was more important that everything linger, to bask in the strange comfort of their relationship, whatever it was. They had so little time. Even less, now.

"I know it's late. No, no, I'm not at the hotel. I'm... I'm with Tkachuk."

Leon says his last name like it's wrong, like it's rotting on his tongue.

When he corrects himself, says, "Matthew", it's better, lighter. Like it's ambrosia.

Matthew remembers when Leon Draisaitl saying his name wouldn't have meant a damn thing to him. When that simple act didn't fill him with fondness.

In the silence, Matthew can hear McDavid talking on the other end, but can't quite make out what he's saying. Matthew tucks up under the duvet, breathing quiet and even, trying to focus instead on the distant sound of waves and the ticking clock on his wall.

Ticking. Always ticking. Time bleeds out when they're together.

He doesn't even remember falling asleep last night, but he wishes he hadn't now. He wishes he'd stayed awake longer, just to... just too see him. To look Leon in the eye, to talk about everything and nothing until dawn, to feel big, too-warm hands on his body more and more and more. He wants to make sure he'll remember how Leon feels, sounds, tastes.

"Connor," Leon says, a warning, followed by a sigh. "I know. I know, okay? It was stupid, but..."

Maybe it was. Matthew has a good thing here in Florida. Better than ever. He was happy to leave Alberta behind and start over. So why did leaving make him feel like a coward?

Because leaving was about Calgary, and the Flames. About his career and his future. It wasn't about Leon. Leon was the wrench in the gears; the one thing he didn't expect to have to say goodbye to, the kind of hurt he never could have accounted for.

"I needed to see him." Leon sounds helpless. He's not the only one.

The only time he's heard Leon so lost was after his team was knocked out of the playoffs last season. The Oilers meant nothing--Matthew was pretty fucking glad considering they'd beat out the Flames--but he never wanted to hear Leon like that again.

He definitely never wanted to be the cause of it. Not like this.

Leon is still mumbling into his phone. "Yeah, I'm fine. He's... we're good. He's happy."

A hand settles on Matthew's head. Fingers play with his curls, nails scratch his scalp. A thumb presses just behind Matthew's ear, stroking the soft skin where only hours before Leon had put his lips, whispering sweetness and filth in equal measure.

It takes everything for Matthew not to groan, to whimper and surrender, roll over and climb on top of Leon and take all over again. Beg him to take something--everything--from Matthew.

"I don't know," Leon says then.

It's easy to guess what McDavid asked.

He's happy. But are you?

"I can't even tell him I still love him."

Still. Matthew didn't even know there was a before, let alone a still. Leon never said anything. Fuck, if Matthew wasn't busy trying to remember how to breathe, he'd roll over and punch him.

Then again, what did Matthew ever say? They never talked about it. Never let those closet hook-ups and slipping out back doors and little drinks and dinners and overnights excused as practical necessity be anything more than that. A bunch of chirps and half-truths and aborted discussions because it was all becoming too much. There was too much uncertainty. Too many ways it could go wrong.

It did go wrong. It became something. It became real.

Maybe that would have changed something. Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything at all. It doesn't matter now. Matthew left, and neither of them said a word about things like love, because it was easier to hope it would shrivel and die with distance and time.

"I know I'm being stupid." Leon pauses when McDavid interrupts, then huffs. "No, I am. Fuck, I really thought I'd get over it. Maybe I will. Eventually."

Don't you fucking dare, you piece of shit, Matthew wants to scream.

"Not sure I can, though." Leon swallows so loud Matthew can hear it. Then quieter, like he's not sure he's even allowed to admit it, he says, "I don't really want to."

He's still playing with Matthew's hair, occasionally dragging a finger over his bare shoulder or down his back, tracing imaginary lines across Matthew's flesh. Like he's something to be memorized and cherished.

They're both so fucking stupid. Matthew bites his lip and tries not to choke on the lump in his throat. Could be his heart, climbing right up and out of his mouth. He clings to the sheets with shaking hands.

"I'm not going to fuck up what he's got here," Leon says tiredly, voice thick with tension and pathetic resignation.

Leon's not here to drag him back. He wouldn't do that. So why is he here? Just to torture them both? Being with him doesn't feel like torture. It feels like winning. It feels like defiance and decadence and too much and not enough. It feels like what could have been and what could still be.

He didn't find Leon at that bar and bring him home out of pity, or nostalgia, one last fuck for old times sake. It was... it just was. Not an ending. Not some final goodbye. Proof maybe there could still be something. Getting over it was never an option, Matthew knew that well before he stepped onto the ice as a Panther and found himself staring Leon down all over again.

Matthew's vision is blurring. His eyes sting, warm and wet. There's blood pounding in his ears, and a hand clutching his heart, a vice around his lungs. He hardly remembers how to breathe.

He doesn't catch the rest of Leon's conversation, except something about meeting Connor back at the hotel tomorrow. Meaning he's staying the night, at least. He's staying.

When Leon hangs up the phone, Matthew finally comes up for air. He relaxes his shoulders, listening to the soft thump as Leon taps his phone against his forehead over and over. Then it clatters on the side table. Leon sighs, sniffs, and sinks back under the covers. He tucks right up against Matthew's back, still burning like a furnace, soft muscle and skin brushing Matthew's spine in all the right ways.

He throws an arm around Matthew and finds one of his hands, worming his fingers through the gaps to hold it. His palm is sweaty, not that it matters at all to Matthew. He can't help squeezing Leon's hand a little, but if Leon notices, he doesn't say a word.

Not until he's wrapped tight around Matthew, near suffocating, like any part of them that isn't touching is a sin.

"Love you," Leon mumbles, barely more than a whisper, pressing his lips right to the base of Matthew's neck. Matthew's body can't seem to decide whether to shiver or melt under the heat.

Leon says it like it's inevitable. Painful. Pitiful.

What he's saying is, I'm sorry I love you. I'm sorry I couldn't say it before. I'm sorry I don't know how to say it now. I'm sorry it's too late, it's the wrong place, the wrong time.

Like he doesn't think Matthew could ever understand. And that's the worst part of it all. They're still not on the same page. Tearing down what they never built.

If Leon's only brave enough to say it when Matthew's asleep, then Matthew will just have to be brave enough to say it in the light of day. He doesn't run, and he won't now that he knows he doesn't have to.

He stares into the night outside his window, listening to Leon breathe, feeling his heart beat through Matthew's chest like that's where it longs to be.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow maybe they can stop chasing time long enough to make the most of what they have. To make up for what they've wasted. And whatever happens after, well, maybe they can stop being afraid of that, too.

#hockey #mattdrai #matthew tkachuk #leon draisaitl #my writing #asks #i can take any prompt and shove angst into it just watch me #'mutual pining dumbasses who can't communicate' my beloved trope #i hope it's obvious this is happening during/right after the 2023 asg #i know 2020 was the sacred texts but I feel like we don't use 2023 for mattdrai purposes enough #poor connor always suffering through mattdrai bullshit #leon has a scrapbook full of pictures of matthew and will be like 'remember when my bf left me ;_;' and connor wants to jump off a bridge #'mini' fic they said. i don't think 1.6k is mini. it got away from me. but i have never been concise in my life why start now

149 notes · View notes