extent | duplicitynet

I'm the family embarrassment, what didn't I do?

[ it's a funny story now, honestly. it's been long enough, and frankly, his problems these days are a little bigger than family politics. nick's head tips into the gentle touch, he smiles just a little. that's not for the story, though, that's all chris. ]

Sleeping with a married man. One of her coworkers, my old teacher. I didn't know she was coming to work for the school when I did it. Apparently it's hot goss, I guess. Our parents are in a like, 'family is good' stage so they actually invited me to dinner, she basically told me not to show up.

[ he shrugs a little. it's not his finest moment, one of his more shameful ones really, but on the sliding scale of terrible choices made by nick, it's easier to forgive himself for the affair these days. if nothing else, this city has done wonders for putting nick's problems from home into perspective. ]

I don't really...talk to a lot of my family, I guess. Nia and Matty, they're the babies, that's it really. Nia just went to arts college with the regular humans, but she's nearby. Matty's graduating high school this year. They're both much nicer than me, that's probably why they still like me.

[Chris knows he's making a face, but it's easy to bury it in Nick's hair.]

Well...I can see how that'd make things a bit awkward, but he's as much to blame for any slips if his spouse would have a fit over it.

[Chris was...a very firmly poly person and, until Kallian came back into the picture, he'd accepted he'd likely only be with Ra'ah through their time together since the rogue was much more monogamous. That was a conversation they'd had though, if Chris had messed up and slept with someone behind Ra'ah's back, that'd be Chris fault.

As far as he was concerned, Nick's 'misstep' was minor compared to this man.

He shrugs.]

Besides, seems little to your sister's business unless she also plans on sleeping with someone she's working with. But you hardly seem like the 'mean one' or even bad one, Nicky. Messy, I'll grant you, but not bad.

It's a reputation thing. She's mad, because people whispering about what I'm doing will probably lead to them whispering about her, now that she's back in town.

[ granted their problems run deeper than nick's ill-advised affair, but the complicated intricacies of nick's family problems could keep them here all night probably. well into the next day, if he wanted to be thorough.

he doesn't want to be thorough. he wants to paint a nice picture of people that all love each other, but it wouldn't be very true at all. ]

You only know me here. Back home I'm just...lazy. I dropped out of school at like, fifteen, and right after my parents put me up in an apartment in town so that I'd be like, out of everyone's way. I don't do anything, I just get high and sell weed and hang out with Oli.

Ah...the life of 'modern' nobility. I see.

[He'd vaguely wondered once or twice, what nobility looked like in the time and worlds Nate and Nick and Caleb came from. He was aware Nate's family history was complicated and Caleb's and now Nick's. Maybe that was just the universal trade-off for money and power: bullshit never-ending.

There's a bit of that he's still thinking over, but he starts with the part that stands out most to him:]

And you think they'd be disappointed in the you here? Cause what you just described doesn't sound like what you've made of yourself now. Nothing's stopping you from being lazy here too.

We're not, like, the kind of big deal that comes with titles. O'Broin's are more like, a medium deal.

[ it's a funny notion, the idea of nick as a prince or a lord, and a decent reminder that it could have been worse. he can't imagine how much pressure would have come with a position like that, but he probably wouldn't have slid out of the family radar quite so easily.

he shifts a little, twists in chris' lap to look at him instead of the ocean. despite the less than cheerful topic, he's still smiling. his family might be complicated, but this...this is nice. even talking about them. nick is surprised to find it doesn't grate on him as much as he'd have expected. ]

Oh, they'd find something. It's basically expected of me. [ it's not the sort of thing that bothers him too much anymore though, when nick shrugs it's genuine. ] Tell me about your twin?

[Nick turns about a bit and Chris meets him with a small kiss to the corner of his mouth.]

Maybe they would...but I bet they'd miss how sweet and loving you are. Foolish, maybe, and certainly...[how did he say this nicely?] out there...but still plenty clever and plenty good.

[He gives another kiss, this time to Nick's temple.

Then pulls a hand back to make a motion, a purple light forming in his hand to form the face of a girl, hair darker in the purple light and tied back in a ponytail, but a bright smile like sunshine as she looks over her shoulder at them.]

My twin's name is Rhyt. She's older by five minutes and would tell you such. She's stupid as a stone, but such a way with people as to light up a life by looking at it. [Even with his more 'harsh' assessment, his voice is suffused in adoration and longing.]

She's a rogue and an assassin, but she doesn't take life cruelly, only as necessary and if she can talk her way out of a problem, she'll try that before pain any day. 'Niceness before knives.'

[ nick's always at least a little impressed by visual magic because his is so rarely, but this one is all the more captivating for the sentiment. nick's head tips, his cheek resting light against chris', and he lifts a hand until his finger grazes the edge of where the girl's shoulder might sit. ]

She smiles like you do.

[ it's a particular kind of painful, missing people in this city. when being with someone means abandoning everything here and returning home, or having them trapped here with you, where every option feels--equally bad. nick is well-versed in missing his family at this point, he's been doing it since he was a teenager, but some days feel a little harder than others.

right now, nick thinks he wouldn't mind some stern disapproval. ]

Are you guys close? How does she feel about all your...lord king shit?

[That hits him a little more sharply than he expects and the laugh he gives is breathy and light, almost like a sigh.

Once, he'd been starkly aware of just how similar they looked. To the point of resentment, not at Rhyt (never at Rhyt) but at his own soft jawline and shorter stature and very slight curves that gave away what binding and clothing tried to hide. Then there'd been blessed magic and a wish and he'd gotten all the looks he'd wanted: the height, the facial hair, the sharpening of his jaw and slightly broader shoulders...and he looked a little less like his twin.

It stung to have something sharp in a change that should have been sweet, not that he'd ever breathed so much as a word of that to anyone. Nick saying that, that he still looked like her in a noticeable way, was more a relief than he could have guessed.

His eyes sting but he blinks it away.]

We're very close. We got separated when we were four and didn't come back together until twenty-two, but we wrote as we could and we spend as much time together as we can most days now. She's technically Lady Sonom, but she'll be taking up spywork and assassin's trade as my left hand, so, whatever she feels on it, she thinks she'll be there for me and that's all I could ask.

Edited 2022-05-11 19:25 (UTC)

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