#goodddd they're so nervous and | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ellebeebee · 7 years ago

Text

2.537

Part Three

Part One || Part Two

Phrixus Jaril, 13, moves to the Citadel at a delicate age: namely, the peak of his teenage angst. He doesn’t expect much from these rich Citadel kids. But then he meets the Ryder twins, and all their friends, and realizes that he may have been a wee bit wrong about things. His relationship with Mira Ryder evolves over the years, and he never expected things to end up the way they did.

2942 words, Female Ryder|Sara Ryder/Original Male Turian Character, teen rating

AO3

“Mira, c’mon. It wasn’t that bad. Really. Just come out.”

“No! You don’t know– you weren’t even there.”

“I was there for part of it.”

A long pause. In which Mira was probably making a hilarious face or punching herself or something. Forta sighed again, and rolled his eyes (again). He stood at his sister’s door, jabbing half-heartedly at the panel that had been locked tight all morning. Leaning against the hallway wall, Phrixus shifted his weight. His mandibles twitched uneasily. He held a plate of levo eggs and a glass of water.

He felt strung out and tired, with only a few restless hours of sleep. When the sleep cycle had ended, Forta had come into the living room finally, and Phrixus got up with relief. They’d made breakfast and waited a couple hours for Mira to get up. When she didn’t show, they messaged her. When she didn’t answer, they got worried and found her door locked.

Phrixus nudged Forta and nodded to the door. Forta shrugged, threw up his hands, and backed away.

“Alright!” he said loudly. “I’m going, but if you starve to death in there I’m taking all your stuff! And I’m not telling Grandma you’re dead, so I can steal your five-credit birthday card.”

Mira didn’t reply, and Forta walked off down the hall.

Phrixus stood before her door for a long, silent moment. Then he gently tapped on the faux-wood inlay of the door with the edge of the plate in his hand.

“Mira? It’s me.”

Another drawn-out and super dramatic pause.

“Hey,” she finally said.

Phrixus exhaled, something in his carapace loosening. “Um, you know…”

The silence in the hall pressed down, the presence behind the door and the shadow in the gap at the bottom making his throat tight.

He tried again. “Hey, if you want to, well. You know, just forget about last night– that’s okay.”

The shadow at the gap twisted. He breathed into the pause and shifted his weight. His spurs were numb.

The door slid open a few centimeters. Mira looked up at him.

“I don’t want that,” she said quietly.

Phrixus blinked at her. His mandibles waved in vague little circles. He opened his mouth, closed it. Avoiding her wide eyes and her flushed face, he looked down.

“Here,” he muttered. He pushed the plate of eggs and the water toward her. “You’re probably dehydrated.”

“Thanks,” she said.

They looked at each other until Phrixus turned away with a cough. “Okay, well. I gotta go– There’s a thing– anyway, see you later?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

He scratched his neck, lingered a touch too long, and then he nodded as he went down the hall.

“Wait.”

He stopped and looked back at her peeking around the edge of her door.

“You don’t want that right? To forget…”

“No,” he said.

She blinked, biting her lip. “Oh. That’s good. Uh, call me?”

“Yeah.”

He left the Ryder apartment, ignoring Forta’s stupid face, and only half-way trying to stop the grin he wore down the street and all along the tram ride home.

He will never understand how news spread so quickly. But by the time he went back to school, everyone seemed to know that he and Mira were a Couple™. Which was funny, because the last time he checked, he certainly didn’t know that, or Mira either. Or maybe they did? Well, they talked the evening before, after she napped and got rid of her headache (and they were both significantly less nervous). They made plans to hang out, but– couple? Boyfriend, girlfriend? What? Is that what happened?

The teasing was good-natured, and his own good mood prevented him getting all worked up and prickly as usual. He snapped out the sarcastic returns, but didn’t put any heat in it. Aela didn’t even get under his carapace. Because she was partly to thank for the whole situation. Mira didn’t seem to mind the teasing either, and seemed less embarrassed.

Which was good.

Yeah. It was…

Good.

And then, between programming and galactic history, in a flash that floored him and even later, when he remembered it would still wind him a little– before leaving for her own class, Mira stopped him and tugged sharply on his shirt to get him to bend down and… She tapped her forehead against his. The bridges of their noses brushed. Just like that. Extracting his brain as she skipped away (she wasn’t skipping, more like half-running in giddy horror at her own moxy). But still. He couldn’t think and it wasn’t until someone shoved at him that he got moving again.

Yeah. So that happened, then.

“–just don’t know what I’m supposed to say to him. ‘Oh, the reason it didn’t get filed is because you’re a lazy idiot?’ You know his ego is basically like a baby hanar. Can’t sneeze at it without him crying bloody-murder.”

“Dunno, hun. Kill him?”

“That’s not a solution. That’s an indulgence.”

“Well, I just love to indulge my honey-wunny–”

“Awww,” Calix crooned and leaned over the salad and the casserole to trade a face-caress with Domera. Both of them making stupid noises.

Phrixus silently kept eating, thinking. About a nose brushing his. She was so short, how did she even…

He realized they were looking at him.

“What?” he asked around a mouthful.

“One, gross,” Calix said, wrinkling her nose. “Two, hello? No ridiculous groaning if we even think about touching each other? Are you feeling okay?”

“Do you need to talk?” Domera jumped on. “Is someone bullying you? Who is it? We’ll write them a stiff letter.”

Phrixus swallowed his food, pushing casserole around his plate with his fork. He worked his mandibles for a pause while he thought, digging up the words.

“Uh,” he said. “What would you guys say if I was dating a human girl?”

Forks clattered onto plates, glancing off onto the table and flicking little dressing splatters everywhere. Calix and Domera leaned forward, staring at him. He kept his face carefully neutral.

“Are– are you saying you have a girlfriend?” Domera asked.

He glanced away. “I mean. Yeah.”

“What! Honey, that’s great!”

“Wait- waitwaitwait. Human? Do you mean that Ryder girl?”

“Yeah–”

“Spirits! She’s so cute!”

“Wait, hold on, wait!”

Domera leaped up and went to the fridge, reaching over the top and fumbling all the boxes of cereal and crackers.

“Where are you hiding that cake? We have to have cake!” she called.

“To the left– yes! There!” Calix said “Oh! Should we go get ice cream? Dom, are there candles?”

“Freaking–” Phrixus exhaled loudly. “Would you two quit it?”

“Hush, no one asked you.”

“Yeah. Phrixus Jaril, if you think we’re not going to celebrate every milestone of your life, you are obviously defective and we should take you back to the sperm bank.”

“You–”

“Oh!” Domera exclaimed, putting a half-mauled cake down on the dinner table. She leaned into the table, staring at Phrixus. “You’ll tell us when you lose your virginity, right?”

Phrixus threw down his fork. “I’m going to my room.”

“Aww, c’mooon–”

“Nope.”

He ended up barricading himself in his room, until they smoked him out by blowing wafts of (slightly stale) cake scent underneath the door. The three of them huddled in the floor of his little bedroom with their little plates of cake. He promised to bring Mira over at some point, and no, he didn’t know either of her parents’ numbers or e-mails. He kicked them out when they started taking pictures.

All things considered, it could have gone worse. They could have actually put candles on the cake, and like. Sung. Spirits.

Shortly after, a new file appeared in the apartment’s communal data library. It was unlocked, and labeled ‘DEFINITELY NOT THE LIQUOR CABINET’S PASSCODE.’ Inside were a bunch of infographics and e-pamphlets about safe intercourse between turians and humans. And Phrixus would never, ever, ever (not even on pain of torture) admit to reading all those files.

But that was getting way, way ahead of things.

Or that was probably his moms’ intentions. You learn about that stuff way before you need it. Maybe if he had kids himself he’d know.

Anyway.

Those first bits after they started dating would always be cloaked in this, like, painfully sweet filter.

Once, he went to an in-theater feature of Fleet and Flotilla where you have to dress up, but they serve real alcohol, so it wasn’t terrible. (But the choice in going certainly hadn’t been his.) And when it got to the part at the end, where they separate forever– he didn’t know what came over him. He really never was much for this sappy crap. But he sat, staring at the screen, seeing some fictional bittersweet romance meant to give catharsis, and all he could think about was trading face caresses and kisses with Mira Ryder in between classes. Behind the school’s auxiliary buildings, touching her hair.

The way she laughed as they shared cheap street food and he made some stupid, definitely not as funny as she was making it comment. Sitting on a bench after a ‘oooh-romantic’ walk through the Presidium, playing with each other’s fingers. Hanging around Aela’s, Aela and Forta busy with some video game, and he and Mira sprawled out watching them, her fingers curiously exploring his spurs. The one time they found themselves alone at his place (despite his moms’ best efforts) and they ended up making out until they were both very frustrated, and very confused.

He so often tended to be a sad drunk, and his head would sometimes turn back to those first bits then.

And actually, the more he thought about it, his moms had probably been onto something. Because along with those first bits, things progressed quickly. They didn’t talk about the reason why. They probably didn’t even admit it to themselves, because to admit it would be to admit the approaching danger of an end. Their school was already prepping the turian students for their departure, giving them the study materials for their final evaluations which would be sent on to their bootcamps for placements.

But to admit that they were aware of, and afraid of, that change would be to maybe admit that their relationship wasn’t entirely based on feeling. That maybe they were rushing out of fear.

At the time, he definitely and vehemently refused such an idea. Mira made his stomach flutter, she made him feel good and better, and he wanted to protect her and make her laugh. But later, he would wonder. It didn’t make that painfully sweet filter disappear or anything. Maybe it added to that nostalgia; that with all those innocent and tender feelings of curiosity and fondness, there was also an urgency, an intensity. Everything was changing and they were just trying to keep up.

Also they were teenagers, so of-freaking-course his moms made a sex ed data file for him.

“So vacation is next week,” Mira said.

“Yeah,” Phrixus replied.

He was only halfway listening. They were walking back to the tram station after spending the evening at his apartment; they’d baked this like fudgy turian dessert with tons of chocolate with Domera. They’d suited up Mira with these ridiculous long and yellow protective gloves, and a pair of safety goggles. She still had a red outline where the goggles had dug into her face. Phrixus considered the bonding time a success: Mom had been impressed with Mira’s curiosity about dextro food, and had only made one comment about the safety gear and ‘protection.’

As curfew approached, he’d shuffled Mira out with a minimal amount of Domera’s cooing about their holding hands. He’d let go about halfway, though, to message Forta about leaving for the tram.

“–can come over, because, you know, Dad’s on assignment and Mom’ll be working and Forta won’t be a problem or anything…”

He retook her hand and nodded. “Sure.”

He glanced at her, and paused at the look she gave him, brows raised and eyes a little wide. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, and they were near the tram station, so he just looked up and squeezed her hand a little. And then– what she said hit him and he dropped her hand like one of those fake retrograded pistols from the Arena that didn’t use thermal clips. Overheated.

He stared at her, and she stared back at him. Phrixus’s head whipped around to stare at the people around them. No one was paying them a bit of attention, but he was terrified that the loose crowd was hanging on to their every word. He picked up her hand again, tugging her off to the side of the lane underneath the awning of a closed store.

“Feel free to– you know, whatever if I’m way off, but–” Phrixus said, low and probably too fast. “But, are you saying you want to hang out or– or…”

Mira looked up at him. She was biting her lip, her eyes shifting away and back to him. Away and back.

So they’d gotten the face caress and the kiss down to a near routine (if a routine was meant to cause heart palpitations and flushed cheeks and splayed mandibles on every occurrence). Figuring out the kiss had been… something. His lips didn’t work the way hers did, or his tongue, and the nearness of it, the warmth and the… well. It was. Something. And she didn’t have mandibles, but she’d do this thing where– And there was the time they’d ditched everyone in the middle of a match and their hands had roamed. And then N’tessa’s last week (vids and beer) and their hands had really roamed–

Well.

To say he wasn’t curious, that he didn’t want that, would be a damning lie. He still remembered, at least a couple times a week, how that alley couple had fit together. And he’d done his own, well, research.

But it was just. Uh. A big deal, and like…

They were still holding hands, and Mira squeezed tightly, bringing him back down from orbit. She was looking at him, and then her eyes darted down. But she squeezed his hand and inhaled sharply.

“Well,” she started. “I mean. Yeah, that’s kind of what I… meant. I mean, I’ve never–”

“I haven’t,” Phrixus cut in sharply, clutching at her hand. “Either…”

Looking down, she bit her lip against a smile. She shook her head.

“I guess we both already knew that,” she said.

“I guess.”

He ran a finger over the back of her hand; you could feel the delicate bones there. He cleared his throat, staring at his own hand on hers. He was having a hard time looking at her, too.

He tried again. “But– you want… with me?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “If you do.”

“Yeah,” he said. “If you do, yeah.”

She rocked back on her heels, an after-image of a smile floating around her face. The false sky was really turning black. The fluorescent light in the awning above them cast each of them in stark relief. She burst out a snort, and started giggling. He did, too. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the people (still ignoring them) walking to their homes or the tram station. He looked back at her, met her gaze, and shuffled her backward into the corner where the shop met its neighbor.

She looked up with her eyes glittering until he stooped into her, pressing their not-meant-to-be-yet-absolutely-meant-to-be lips together. Her arms flew up to cradle around the back of his neck. His hand found the steep curve of the small of her back, straining with the effort to reach him. She was on tippy-toes, he knew.

They parted, wedged into the corner and a breath apart.

“Um,” she said. “I should… probably go– the tram…”

“Right,” he said.

He backed them out of the corner, hands probably permanently glued together now. They resumed their walk back toward the station. The first part of their walk seemed a thousand years ago, before their world-shattering commitment.

When she got on the tram, she sat, and turned to look out the window at him standing on the platform. They waved. And he spent a good long while watching the tram’s taillights disappear through the district.

He wasn’t even a fraction of the way home before he started worrying.

He opened his omnitool.

[phrixus] hey

[mira] hi?

[mira] whats up

[phrixus] did you say your parents will both be gone

[mira] yeah

He paused for a long time, staring at empty air. He’d been to the Ryder place a couple times now. Met her mom, Ellen a couple times. She seemed nice, but busy. She was some kind of big deal scientist with human biotics. The dad, Alec, he’d only met the once. Polite, but kind of gruff. Mira hadn’t been kidding about him being military. One of the first through Relay 314, had been there at Shanxi. Phrixus, if he were being truthful, was nervous that her dad didn’t like him, didn’t like the fact that he was turian.

He didn’t care to imagine being caught with Mira by either of them.

[mira] phri?

[mira] it’s cool if you changed your mind

[phrixus] no

[phrixus] i still

[phrixus] you know

[phrixus] but if you change your mind thats completely fine

[mira] i know

[mira] u okay tho

[phrixus] yeah just theres stuff we have to get

[phrixus] ill take care of it

[mira] i can help

[phrixus] no let me

[mira] if you want

[mira] are you home yet

[phrixus] no

[mira] well be safe

[mira] domera’s probably waiting

[phrixus] yeah

[mira] night

[phrixus] night

#mass effect andromeda #mass effect #fanfiction #sara ryder #turians #my writing #original turian oc #sara ryder/orignal turian character #look at them #i cant even w these cuties now #goodddd they're so nervous and #just #these two

2 notes · View notes