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"Rhodes!"
His fist is banging on her door like his life depends on it. Maybe it does — not that he will ever admit it. Just not for that reason.
After endless minutes of ruthless knocking, Nico hears a shuffle behind the door. He keeps knocking mercilessly, until his fist hits air as Libby opens the door with a jerk.
"What the hell, Varona?" she snaps, red-rimmed eyes burying into his with fury.
She is a wreck. Clearly hungover. If it's because of the wine, beer or just the heady high of good sex, he doesn’t know — and doesn’t really want to know either.
As his eyes roam her small frame, taking in her messy state, with that despicable fringe spiked like a crooked halo around her head, oversized T-shirt displaying their college mantra, Nico swallows down the urge of making an abnormal comment (that she looks quite pretty, surprisingly) and instead matches her anger with his own. When she widens the door, crossing her arms while their staring competition goes on, he feels the unmistakable scent of smoke. In fact, Nico swears he can see small gray rivulets coming off of her.
Her temper is rising, then. Good. So is his.
“Well?” Libby asks, annoyed under the scrutiny of his gaze. “Did I miss today’s lecture or something?”
“Nah, Rhodes,” Nico replies with a smirk, always happy to have the smallest advantage on her. “Still Sunday.”
“Then wha-”
He walks into her space, relishing as her mouth snaps shut and she takes a step back, allowing him in. Better to have this conversation in private, instead of in the corridor. Or maybe not — Nico doesn't need any of the others witnessing some half-baked reckoning his irrational brain was pushing him to inflict on Libby, but he also didn't want anyone having the wrong idea if he's spotted entering Libby's room.
Well. Too late.
Without a second glance to her bed (he also doesn't want to know details of what happened there, or maybe it happened somewhere else, maybe someplace he frequently sits on, or lays on, or studies on, and oh my God did they have sex on the library table, or-), he spins on her.
"I've heard about your little tryst yesterday." The venom in his tone echoes between them after the door closes behind her. "I thought you said you didn't trust the others. Maybe I misheard," he adds, one eyebrow up.
"What are you talking about?" Libby asks, but as soon as her hand shoots up to curl at that weird mass of hair dangling from her forehead, he knows she understood him just fine.
"Cut the shit, Rhodes," Nico sneers. "Will you be joining their little alliance, then?"
"It was…" Her eyes dart away from him. So she actually considered a change of alliance? "Don't be ridiculous," she tries again. "It was just sex."
Fair enough. A guy with his reputation surely knows all about it, proudly so.
And yet, Nico finds himself inexplicably angry at her confession, at the truth in her words, at the fact that she was out there having her fun while he was worried about getting them both to win this damn thing. Nothing he already said feels enough to quench the irrational rage that takes over him at the sight of her guilty complexion, irradiating the very i-just-had-the-time-of-my-life-without-you energy he desperately wants to see gone from her body, so he lands one more blow:
"If only I knew all it would take was sex," he scoffs, expecting to see her bristling and setting him on fire again. Almost wishing for it.
But Rhodes doesn't rise up to his challenge. Instead of setting in a torrent of curses towards him, she only sighs.
"Are you here to slut-shame me, is that it? I really don't feel like justifying my actions to you, Varona."
He narrows his eyes to her response, and Libby runs one hand over her forehead, suddenly looking very, very tired. Of him? A sick feeling pools in his stomach. He will not feel guilty for taking advantage of her migraine. Not when she betrayed him like that.
But the poisonous words that spinned around in his brain throughout his stamping to her room don't come to him now. She has a point. Why is Nico here, banging on her door, demanding explanations for something he has no right to pry into?
And why the hell is he so worked up about Libby Rhodes fucking, anyway?
Sunday morning started off fine. He returned to the Society through the portal, found his way to the painted room to get some reading done before their lecture the next day, when he spotted Parisa in her little black dress, curled over a book at one of the long tables. He casually made his way to the table, flipping down on the chair in front of her, smirk in place, curls combed, ready to muster his most flirtatious self. But she cut him off before he could even open his mouth in a smooth greeting.
“Don’t even try.” Her eyes never left the pages she’d been flipping.
“Well, good morning to you too,” Nico announced, unfazed. Never mind she wasn’t in the mood to give him attention right then; he would get it eventually.
“Wouldn’t be so sure,” Parisa replied, probably to his thoughts. Díos, he hated when she did that. “I already had a taste of one of you.” Her mouth quirked up in a smug smile as she completed: “Don’t need to taste the other as well.”
Wait.
What did she mean, a taste of one of you?
“What?” he asked, utterly confused.
Parisa’s gaze finally found his, and he didn't quite like what he saw there.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she pronounced carefully, ironically, as if she didn’t want him to mishear, for the information she provided next was the very opposite of nothing. “I just had a really fun time with Libby and Tristan last night.” She brought one hand to her chin, thoughtful. “In fact, last afternoon, but then it was evening, and then we went on for all-”
"What?" Nico repeated numbly.
He had certainly misheard. Right?
But Parisa’s suggestive smile narrowed down his guesses, leaving only one possible interpretation for her words.
“Yes,” she granted, tilting her head, drinking in his every reaction. All he’d wanted five minutes before was this, to be on the other end of Parisa’s attention, but when he finally got it, the only thought roaming his head was: Libby Rhodes would never.
"Fucking Rhodes," he muttered, stupefied, because he couldn't quite believe what he'd just put together.
“Did that already.” Parisa sighed and turned her gaze back to the book in front of her. "Precisely what Tristan and I did, and what you wish you had done."
His mouth snapped shut. And then: "What."
Now he just sounded like an idiot, but it was like his mind had short-circuited after Parisa's words.
Libby Rhodes? His Libby Rhodes? On a threesome? With Parisa and Tristan? No.
Or, maybe... His Libby Rhodes, the one who would bristle at him at any provocative puns he might have thrown her way, at the mere slip of her boring boyfriend's name out of his lips... His Libby Rhodes would never, but the Society's Libby Rhodes might. Would. Did, in fact, if what Parisa was saying was true.
Wait.
When did Libby Rhodes become his Libby Rhodes in his head?
It didn’t matter anyway. Now, in their silent competition, Rhodes had the advantage.
Parisa gave him a knowing look — get the fuck out of my head, it's a mess right now — and muttered: "Nevermind.” She flipped him off, looking bored. “Can you leave now?"
Nico should've stayed right there. He should've touched Parisa's hand like he told himself he wanted to do as soon as he’d set eyes on her. He should've tried to flirt with her like he told himself he would. He should've made a point of how much better than Libby Rhodes he was — in college, in research, definitely in sex. Except… he didn't really know if that last part was true, did he?
Well. He should've gambled on it.
But Nico de Varona didn't do any of this. Instead, Nico de Varona left the painted room and Parisa’s black dress that left little to imagination.
Straight to Libby Rhodes' door.
Now, looking down at her in the middle of the room, he can’t quite understand the urge that drenched him and made him run towards her in haste. Was it the fact that he missed all the fun? Or that she seemed to have gotten into Parisa's pants so effortlessly when he'd been giving his all for just one glance in his direction? Or that she finally bested him in something he was sure he couldn't be bested? Or...
She was his ally. He was counting on her, and only her, to have his back in this competition. They had a truce, for God's sake.
And maybe Nico didn't like to share.
To avoid her comment, to which he regrettably doesn’t have a good answer, he turns his attention to their surroundings instead. Libby's room is annoyingly tidy, the very opposite of his. Despite not wanting to look at it before, now he glances at her bed, the white sheets being the only messy thing in the place, other than Libby herself. He just knows, without squinting, that her books are piled in alphabetical order in the shelves at the left corner, and no doubt her clothes are folded and already separated per week day inside the wooden closet. Monday: brown skirt with that awful cat sweater; Tuesday: large jeans with that yellow turtleneck so badly knitted that he could only suppose it was Fowler's handiwork; Wednesda-
"Hello. Earth to Varona." Libby's voice cuts through his musings of her abhorrent stylistic choices. But there was no spite in it, almost as if she was drained.
Nico decides then and there he doesn't like her tired. He likes her all lit up, fire scorching in her eyes, the smell of smoke in her wake. He cleans his throat.
"Well, since you've admitted it, maybe I'll let the information slip next time I see that dumb boyfriend of yours."
It pays off right; Libby's face contorts in rage. And because he is Nico, and she is Libby, and he can't help but try his best to get a rise out of her, he continues, nonchalant:
"I mean, we have work to do. You can't just go fucking around and waste a whole Sunday sleeping off a hangover."
"As if you hadn't done the same thing a thousand of times before," Libby rolls her eyes, and there is definitely smoke rising from her head.
"That was different."
"Oh? How so?"
Before, it was just me, and just you, he wants to say. Now we're a fucking team, aren't we?
Nico opens his mouth, to reply God knows what, but Libby beats him to it.
"You're just jealous I slept with Parisa before you did," she says, looking him dead in the eye. "You're jealous because you" — Libby presses one finger to his chest, pushing him back — "never had a chance."
Now that is a low blow.
She smiles, so uncharacteristically mean that he feels the urge of bolting out of the room, finding Tristan and Parisa and demanding they fix whatever they did to his Rhodes.
"Well, then," Nico bristles. "Enjoy being her puppet from now on."
"I told you it's not like that. And stop the damn earthquakes!" Libby hisses.
"How do you know it's me and not the alcohol left in your brain, huh?" Nico says, even though he can feel the ground shaking lightly beneath his feet, in response to her magic crackling in the air.
"I always know when it's you."
That makes him pause.
Their years together (not together, but together nonetheless) flash before his eyes as Nico looks down at her, face flushed, breath shallow, the scent of smoke permanently marked in his senses as hers. And for one brief moment, he wonders what it would feel like to inhale it right from her skin. To close this gap between them and kiss her.
Parisa's voice surges unprompted in his brain, as if on cue. What you wished you had done.
Nico didn't thought possible that one could fully know and understand someone else. But here they are, knowing each other's soul and magic in all the ways that matter, and here he is, longing for more. Because, in the strict sense of the word, he doesn't know every part of her. Perhaps he would have known, if only she had invited him for her little cheating party the night before.
Suddenly, a small voice dances its way to his mind, not Parisa's, but his own, begging him to tell Libby a secret, one he didn't let himself entertain until now. If you wanted to cheat on your boyfriend, I was right here. Who else was there? He's her ally. She's his equal. In sleepless nights back in college, after beating her in a test or getting his ass whipped, he'd liked to think that for both of them, no one else in the world would do.
Nico never had competition before, when it came to Libby. Sure, there is Fowler, but Fowler is just a phase, right? Once Libby notices how dim he is in comparison to her, she'll leave him, and it'll be just the two of them again, as it should be, with nothing else holding her back. Nico was a patient man.
But Parisa and Tristan… They're here for a reason. The six of them are the best of the best — and, truth be told, how can he blame Rhodes for falling into Parisa’s trap when he had been excited to do just the same?
They were one and the same, Nico and Libby. And yet, he feared she would neglect him in exchange of new, different talents, something she wasn’t familiar with, someone she didn’t know as well as she knows herself. Would she do that to him? If she asked him, his answer would be as clear as the day outside: of course not. He could never forsake her.
He wants to make her understand that whatever her little tryst with Parisa and Tristan was, it was a betrayal. Of sorts. He wants to hear her say she wouldn't forsake him, either.
"Okay." Nico hears his own voice echoing in his ears, seeming very far away, as if he's underwater. "I'll stop." And he does, pulling back his magic until the turmoil is kept locked inside his chest, alongside these stupid feelings threatening to slice him open.
It makes him angry. How low did he get, to burst into her room wanting to hear reassuring words that Libby would never give him willingly.
"Cool," Libby hums. "Do you have anything else to complain about, or are you done judging me?"
“Look," he relents, begrudgingly, the words like sand in his mouth. “I just want to be sure that you’re not regretting it.”
“Regretting what?”
“Me. This.” Nico impatiently gestures to the space between them, so small yet so damn big. “Us.” His mouth quirks up in a smile. “Like I said before, I still need you.”
God knows he doesn’t mean it now in the same way he had before, but she doesn't need to know that.
Libby's eyes soften a bit, as if she can see through his facade and grasp his full intentions, the hideous thoughts — of kissing her, bedding her, pulling her so close she would never be able to disentangle herself from him again — he's so desperately trying to hide. Nico feels his smile faltering.
She flushes and looks away, and for once he can’t pin what exactly she’s thinking. Does she…? No, not possible. Just in case, though, he has to sharpen this interaction once again. They're entering the dangerous territory of soft words and genuine smiles, and it won't do. He can't let her see through him, not this time.
“Never forget, though. If you become an useless and lazy alcoholic, I will dump your ass without a second thought.”
It works. Libby's eyebrows pinch together, and the red in her cheeks deepens as smoke rivulets frame her face. Once again, he relishes in how easy it is to predict her. How well he knows her.
"Get the fuck out," Libby grunts, pulling the door open with so much force that the hinges shake.
"With pleasure." Nico slowly parades his way out of the room, hands in his pockets, smirk in place.
"Have sweet dreams about last night," Libby says sweetly, mockery filling her tone. "Oh, wait. You weren't there."
And with that jab, she slams the door in his astonished face.
"Fuck off, Rhodes," he shouts anyway. "I'll dream with nothing remotely close to you."
Nico storms into his own bedroom, kicking the door shut behind himself and falling face down on the bed, their parting words spinning in his head. He will dream of Gideon, of course, and then meet him in their familiar realm, like always. He's sure of it.
Bullshit.
That night, he dreams of her.