Final Christmas || Scaraven Modern AU

12

ventis pov

I open my eyes to arguably one of the worst headaches I've ever felt. I lift myself up and chug water from the glass on my side table, immediately sighing and falling backwards. After a few minutes as I'm pulling the sheets off myself I hear footsteps and freeze.
And in walks none other than Scaramouche, holding a plate of food out to me
"You're awake just in time sleepyhead", he says
"What the fuck are you doing in my house.." I say with a tired and strained voice while rubbing my eyes and trying to balance myself
"Well you're welcome.." he says sarcastically, before sitting down beside me and poking my head, "you don't recall?"

I rack my brain for any recollection of the past night at a few spotted things come back to me, like drinking at the bar, ending up at a nearby park..
"I took you home and you wouldn't let go of me until I slept next to you."
I instantly feel my face heat up
"I- w- what? Oh my god, I'm so so so sorry please don't worry about me, please, forget everything, go home, you never have to speak to me a-"
"No, I didn't mind at all.." He cuts me off putting a hand on my shoulder and slightly turns his head away
"But.." I look down guiltily and start anxiously fidgeting, "everythings far too complicated between us.. you can't just pretend we're friends.."
"I'm not pretending Venti." he sighs, "I want to restart. If thats okay with you, of course, I know I hurt you and stuff but I , I needed some time to learn what friends are meant to be. I'm still learning but.."
"You don't hate me for blowing up at you..? And making you deal with all my bullshit, and.."
"No, no and I never will. I know it's hard for you too."

I immediately wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his shoulder
"I..." I shut myself up before I say anything stupid and I feel tears forming the moment I feel his arms on my back
"You're such a crybaby" he says, though I can tell he's smiling from the way his cheek moved against my hair
"And you're such an asshole", I laugh through sobs in return

It's a sunday morning so we spend the next few hours just talking to each other, about ourselves and our pasts and sorting through our differences and overall enjoying each others company, surprisingly with minimal conflict.. though I feel like I've shared everything about myself and still don't know an awful lot about him, so I dare to ask..
"Hey it.. it kinda feels like you're leaving things out. Are you hiding something?"
He pauses, staring away and then sighs
"Well I.. considering how much you've confessed to me I suppose it's only fair."
I stare downward waiting for him to continue
"Venti, would you rat me out to the police if I had a. . . not so clean record?"
I grip my forehead and sigh, "You're asking the guy who's addicted to alcohol many years under the legal age.."
"No," he looks away, "worse than that."
"What, are you like a serial killer or something?" I say sarcastically smiling
He looks at me with a serious face and then his eyes drift away again, not replying.
My smile drops into disbelief. "You're kidding me right.."
He snaps out of his pause and shakes his hands, "No! No no no, well, not exactly like that.."
"Not exactly...?"

He goes on to fill in the gaps of his story and untwist his lies, the truth of who took him in and 'raised' him, the things they made him do as only a child, and the situation with the most likely woman to be his biological mother. It's a little hard to process all the changes in his story but I only have one piece of advice for him
"..Why dont you tell her?"
"D- you idiot, am I supposed to just go up to her and say, 'yeah by the way yknow how you left a kid in a box? So that was actually me and I was adopted by criminals and I murdered your wife, no biggie'? The police will get involved and I'll never be able to have a fresh start."
"How can you move on anyway if she's friends with your caretaker?"
"You make an excellent point... uugh look, I don't know what to do, okay?"
"Well I wouldn't report you.. If I did you'd just report me back", I giggle
He rolls his eyes, "Yeah thats the only reason I'm telling you all this shit"
"Hey I thought you actually trusted me now!" I say getting up and shoving him playfully
"You started this whole life story oversharing shit I just didn't want you to feel left out!", he laughs and pushes back

We banter on and talk about who knows what for god wonders how long.. but early afternoon Scaramouche decides to head home to keep Nahida from worrying too much about his absence.
I wave him goodbye and fall onto my bed, heart beating out of my chest.. I've never been so honest with someone before. What am I going to do..

-

late april - july, venti pov

For the last few months Scaramouche and I have grown a lot friendlier.. sure we have disagreements now and then but I try my best to hide it when I'm upset at him. I hang out with him at school and have kinda migrated into his friend group with Nilou, Layla and Faruzan.. we spend a lot of time outside of school hanging out with them, or with just us, studying together, shopping, anything.
He's very blunt and blank most of the time so it's a little difficult to tell what he sees me as, but I've come to see him as my best friend, I really want to spend as much time with him as I can.. I can only hope he sees me as amazing as I see him.

At the same time though, I suspect he might be getting a little tired of me.. I kind of wish he didn't have any other friends, I'm scared every day that he thinks the other's in the group are better than me...
But I don't have the right to be so jealous. He's perfect, he can be around whoever he wants, a waste of space like me is selfish to complain about such things.
Thats right. I'm just a waste, an embarrassmet, a leech who he cant rip out of his skin. Of course he doesn't want me around.. of course he'd rather spend more time with the others...

He'd be better off without me.
They all would.