#rhys and cassian definitely had their work cut out getting him out of his shell

[acourtofmishapandmistakes]

Cassian: We have fun, don't we, Az?

Azriel: I have never been more stressed out in my entire life.

[redisriding]

The Right Swipe - Chapter Four

A Court of Thorns and Roses Modern AU Fanfic

All character’s belong to the wonderful Sarah J Maas.

Tag List: @superspiritfestival  @duskandstarlight @perseusannabeth​ @courtofjurdan​ @omg-aelin​ @keshavomit​ @rainbowcheetah512​

“What about this one?”

“No, it still doesn’t look right.”

“How are you both bigger and smaller than me at the same time?”

“All my suits are tailored to me, they’re not the cheap off the rack stuff you buy.”

“You say that like I own more than one suit.”

“Don’t you?”

“Nope. One suit. I wear it weddings and funeral, that’s it.”

“Then why do you need to wear one tonight?”

“Because, Rhys said this place is fancy, as in dress code fancy. They have some stupid rule about wearing jackets.” Cass sighed. He thought it would be easy to borrow something of Az’s to wear tonight for his date with Nesta, they were roughly the same size. Turned out Az was both leaner and slightly taller than he, and when the former got his clothes tailored, they looked stupid on the latter. There was no point asking Rhys, if Az’s jackets didn’t fit Cassian, Rhys’s definitely wouldn’t.

Az cocked his head to one side surveying Cassian. “Why are you bringing her to this place anyway?”

“Because it’s fancy and she’s the kind of girl who you have to bring fancy places.”

“Perhaps, but you’re not fancy—.”

“Thanks?”

“No, hear me out. You have been talking to this girl and you like her, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re getting dinner so you can get to know each other better, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“But this guy,” Azriel gestured to Cassian standing in front of him in an ill-fitting suit, “Is not who you are. You don’t go to fancy restaurants that have dress codes and names of food you can’t pronounce or alcohol you can’t afford. And this girl…Nesta?”

“Nesta.”

“She has been getting to know you over the last week and a half too. She must like you if she’s agreed to go on a date. Do you not think she’s going to realise pretty quickly that a fancy restaurant is not your scene at all.”

Cassian sat down on the end of Azriel’s bed and put his head in his hands. He did not need this right now. He was nervous enough about his date with Nesta he didn’t need his best friend to undermine his plans for the evening with logic. 

“I don’t stand a chance with her if I don’t take her somewhere nice. I know she’s been on dates with other guys, I’m sure they’ve brought her to the best places in Velaris. I need to go all out if I want to impress her.”

“Who cares where other guys take her, she’s single and going on a dat with you, so it clearly hasn’t worked out with them.”

“All the more reason to go all out.”

“Be real Cass, you don’t stand a chance with her at all if she thinks that you really are whoever you’re pretending to be tonight. Sooner or later it’s all going to come tumbling down.” 

When he looked back on it later Cassian would realise that not only were Azriel’s words true, but they weren’t really intended for Cassian. They were words that he wanted to say to someone else. Someone who had lead him to believe that they were one thing, a thing that Azriel fell in love with, and when that person revealed their truth, his whole world crumbled. 

But in the moment, confronted with his own insecurities, Cass didn’t react the way he wished later he had. 

“That’s the thing though Az, girls don’t like the real me.”

“Girls like you—.”

“No Az, they don’t! Girls like you, they always have. Mysterious Azriel, he’s so handsome, he’s so smart, he’s so talented,” Cassian was aware that his tone had turned mocking but it was too late for him to roll back on it, “they liked you before you had fame and money, they sure as hell like you more now. If you weren’t so terrified of having your heart broken again then maybe you would see it too.”

He knew he had said the wrong thing the second the words were out of his mouth. Regret flooded Cassian as Az recoiled from him as if he had been dealt a physical blow. 

He stood from the foot of his bed where they both sat and headed for the door. 

“No, Az, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that…I just—.”

“Good luck on your date tonight Cass,” Azriel said cutting him off. “I hope for your sake you don’t fuck it up.”

Azriel’s words, his wounded expression, bounced around in Cassian’s head an hour later as he stood outside the entrance to the House of Wind. 

Okay, that was a lie. He couldn’t standing still. He was pacing up and down the sidewalk, no doubt wearing away the soles of Azriel’s shoe’s he had stuffed his feet into. They were the only thing he wore that fit. 

Cassian didn’t think he’d ever been as nervous in his entire life. Then again, he had never been on a proper date before. 

He’d had drinks before. When they were in school, he would hound Az into asking one of the girls who hung around the hockey team out for milkshakes, and convince her to bring a friend for Cassian. It always ended the same though, he would gaze longingly at the girl, trying to strike up conversation, while she would have eyes for no-one but Azriel. It was pathetic, and Cassian remembered being awkward, but never nervous. Maybe because Azriel’s presence meant there was no real chance of anything happening. No risk of being rejected by someone he really wanted. 

Later he would sometimes ask Emerie for a drink as a prelude to their evening. He liked the company. 

But he had never been on a ‘try to find out if we’re compatible enough to spend the rest of our lives together over the course of a dinner’ date before. 

And he was terrified. 

He desperately wanted to run his hands through his hair, a nervous habit of his. He had tried a couple of times too. Only then to remember that he had gelled his wild mane in place in order to look presentable for tonight. 

The doormen eyed him as he paced back and forth, like they knew he didn’t belong there. If there was one thing that Cassian learnt living in the mountains however, was that you should never show weakness. Not to the wild creatures that lived in the forrest, not in the face of the potentially deadly weather, and certainly not in front of the battled hardened locals. 

So, he met those stares right back with a menacing one of his own. 

His fingers found the soft petals of the rose he held. He had bought it for Nesta from one of those carts that rolled around the city, catching men unawares as they strolled with their ladies. He knew it was an over priced and cheesy but it had felt right. 

He might not be the kind of guy who wears suits and eats in fancy places often, but he knew that if he had a girl he would absolutely dote on her. And so a single rose seemed like a good place to start. 

It was on what felt like his millionth time passing the restaurant that he saw her. Crossing the road towards him, she emerged from the bustle of pedestrians like Aphrodite from her shell. 

Cassian’s world seemed to slow. The nerves that flooded his body became still. The only thing that he was aware of was his breathing and her. 

Nesta. Nesta. Nesta. 

Something deep inside of him was called to the surface at the sight of her. 

She was every bit as stunning if not more than she was in her pictures, brought to life by movement. 

Dressed in a simple, yet elegant grey dress, her hair was coiled on top of her head. It was then that he remembered her bio, how apt it was, a queen that he would have to earn.

“Cassian?” She asked, her expression quizzical as she neared him. 

“Hi—,” Cassian squeaked. Squeaked! He hadn’t heard his voice that high since his balls had dropped. Loudly clearing this throat, he tried again. “How are you?”

Better. 

“Good thanks. How are you?” She came to a stop, looking up at him with deep stormy eyes that cut right to his core. 

His head emptied as he gazed down at her. She was so much smaller than him, her head reached the middle of his chest. Her body was soft and curvy; deliciously feminine, but her face…the pictures didn’t do her beauty justice. The depth of her eyes, which she had lined with kohl for dramatic effect. Her high cheek bones. And Cassian didn’t allow his gaze to drop to her lips, which she had painted a deep red. It was sinful.

He was still motionless, gaping like a fish, when she moved. Stepping closer to him and rising up onto her tiptoes, she placed a hand gently on his shoulder to steady herself. A jolt of electricity shot through Cassian, his senses suddenly shocked back into action. 

He leaned down to meet her. He went to his left as Nesta went to her right. Instead of bussing cheeks, he ended up colliding with her mouth. 

His lips met hers. 

It was only a gentle brush. 

And only for a second. 

But it was fireworks. 

Like a star exploded somewhere inside of him.

Cassian’s fists clenched as he tried to restrain himself from grabbing Nesta and pulling her onto him right in the middle of the busy street. 

A small laugh came from Nesta as she stepped back. Her cheeks were stained faintly pink. 

It only added to her beauty. 

Cassian felt his own cheeks heat, and knew that in comparison he resembled a tomato. 

He looked down, away from her for a moment, and cringed. The rose was a crumpled mess in his thick palm. He flushed further. He wished he could hide it, or dump it in a bin somewhere, but Nesta had already seen.

“Eh…this is for you,” he thrust the rose awkwardly at her. 

Nesta accepted the rose with a wry smile, “You shouldn’t have.”

“I really shouldn’t have,” Cassian sighed, “I’ve already ruined this date and it hasn’t even started properly.” 

Nesta didn’t seem to hear. She looked down at the rose, rubbing one of the crushed petals between her finger tips. 

Cassian just watched her for a moment, unsure what to say. Maybe he should call the whole thing off now, to save whatever dignity he had left.

But when Nesta looked back up at him, something in her face had changed. “So, shall we go in?”

————

Nesta had to suppress a laugh. The date was going badly. Terribly even. It was categorically, beyond a shadow of a doubt the worst date that she had ever been on. 

Cassian was not what Nesta had expected at all. The person sitting across the table from her was not the sexy mountain man from his pictures, whom she had been messaging for the last week and a half. 

Another lesson in online dating, she supposed, you really need to meet a person in order to get to know them. 

But that was just it. Nesta didn’t think she was getting to know Cassian at all. 

Instead, she was on a date with the person Cassian thought she wanted him to be. 

She should have guessed when he had first suggested that they get dinner at the House of Wind that it was somewhere he thought she expected to be brought, rather than somewhere he would ever actually go. 

Nesta had been to the House of Wind on many occasions, most recently a few days previously when she had met another Swipe date, Eris, here for drinks. A fact that Nesta thought was best not to mention to Cassian. 

The House of Wind might be fancy, but it was cliché. The kind of place men brought women to lubricate them - socially, with alcohol - before they brought them home to their bed. 

Sure, that was what Eris had done, wasn’t it?

On the many previous occasions that Nesta had been at the House of Wind she had never seen a guy like Cassian there. 

The type of guy who, in an attempt to look presentable, used so much gel in his wild hair that it more closely resembled a helmet. Who cobbled together a suit, that clearly neither matched nor belonged to him, in order to meet the dress code.

The type of guy who brought his date a crumpled rose to impress her. 

The gesture was so tender that something hard inside Nesta’s chest had cracked at the sight of it.

Thomas had only bought flowers to appease Nesta after an argument. ‘Now let us forget about all that’ he would say to her. Flowers were a sign that he was done arguing and wanted to sweep the matter under the rug, resolved or not.

Nesta glanced at the rose that was lying on the table beside her. She knew, regardless of how this date ended, she was going to bring it home and put it in water. And then, when it eventually died, she was going to press it gently between the pages of a book and keep it forever. 

A memory of this night. 

That she was deserving of someone who cared about her. 

Cassian cared. He cared about impressing her, about making sure she had a good night. He cared so much about what Nesta thought of him that it was stifling any attempt of getting to know him. 

And he was nervous. 

That much was apparent when he clumsily bungled their greeting. 

He still had lipstick on his face from when he’d accidentally kissed her. It had only been the faintest of brushes of their lips, but Nesta’s heart had leapt. 

Something had ignited inside of her like a burning fire. 

More than it had when Devlin had taken her to his bed the night before. Even with his head between her legs she hadn’t felt that much of thrill. 

So Nesta didn’t tell Cassian about the lipstick.

“Everything okay?” She asked, as Cassian looked up from the bill that had been handed to him.

“Eh…yeah. It’s just…” he blanched. 

“Yes?”

Whatever he was going to say he decided better of it. “Nothing,” Cassian shook his head, “I just need to make a quick call. I’ll be right back.” 

Cassian hurried away from the table, towards the door. Once he was out of view, Nesta leaned across the table and picked up the bill. 

Ah. 

She figured she hadn’t known he was ordering $100 glasses of whiskey. She probably should have said something, but she didn’t want to emasculate him. Other men she dated would not have reacted well to that. 

Beckoning for the waiter, she pulled her credit card from her purse. 

The date was truly awful, and yet Nesta found herself utterly endeared. 

———--

Across town, squeezed into a tiny little sushi restaurant, Elain laughed. Harder than she had laughed in a very long time. 

Maybe it was the foreign feeling of food warming her belly, or the Sake that she had been sipping, but Elain was pretty sure it was the company itself. 

“That’s not true!” She giggled at Lucien’s latest punchline. 

“I swear it on my life,” he said, his eyes going wide, sincere. 

“I still don’t believe you.”

“Scouts honour!”

“I bet you weren’t even in the Scouts.”

Lucien laughed, raising his hands in the air, caught. “Okay, I was not in the Scouts…But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

Elain giggled again. Lucien was not only more handsome in person, but his easy and charming nature had put Elain at ease from the beginning. 

“Elain.” Lucien said, his laughter dying. 

“Yeah?”

“I think this place is closing.” 

“What? Oh!” Elain looked behind her to find the restaurant empty and the staff beginning to clean up. Tucked into a little nook, Elain felt like her and Lucien could have been in a world of their own. 

Elain glanced at her phone. There was a text from Feyre in their sister group chat, wishing her and Nesta good luck on her respective dates, but it was the time that had Elain jumping up. 

“Oh figglesticks, the time! I must hurry if I want to make the last train.”

Lucien gave her an amused look. “Figglesticks?”

Elain felt herself blush, “Sorry, I’m just used to being with children all day. It’s bad to swear.”

“I think it’s very sweet,” he said with a soft smile, “Let me just pay and I’ll walk you to the train.”

Elain made a move to pull her purse from her bag but Lucien stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm, a shiver went through her. “This is on me,” he said. 

“You’re very kind,” she said, blushing again. 

It had been a long time since a man had done anything like that for her. In an instant the warm mood of the evening evaporated, fear overtaking her. What if Lucien was only paying because he wanted something from her in return? Was she safe walking with him to the train stations? What if he dragged her down an alleyway and had his way with her? Leaving her cold and crying with no way to get home. 

Elain closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. This were the kind of intrusive, anxious thoughts that she had been working to overcome with her therapist. 

There was nothing in Lucien’s behaviour tonight to suggest that he was anything other than a nice guy.

“Ready?” He asked, returning from paying for their meal. 

“Yes.” 

He offered her his arm as they stepped out into the cold autumn night. 

“The nights here are beautiful,” he said, gazing up at the clear nights sky. 

“Velaris is the best place to go star gazing.” 

“Sure looks that way.” 

“Have you been here for Starfall?”

“Not yet, I’m looking forward to it.”

“My sister always throws a huge party to celebrate. It is really spectacular.” 

“I can only imagine.”

The continued like that, strolling along on the empty streets, looking at the sky, chatting about nothing in particular until they reached the train station. 

“So…” Lucien said, coming to a stop, “I had a really great time tonight.”

“Me too!”

“You sound surprised?”

Elain shrugged, “I guess I didn’t really know what to expect.”

“Would you maybe like to do it again sometime?”

“Yes, I would really like that.”

“Good,” Lucien smiled. 

He hesitated for a moment, before deciding to lean in.

Elain held her breath, her fingers wrapping around the keys in her pocket. A pathetic weapon, but one that might make the difference if she needed it. 

But Lucien simply brushed his lips to her cheek before pulling back. “Safe home, Elain.”