forthsofar | there's no controlling the unrolling of your fate, my friend

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nick

there's no controlling the unrolling of your fate, my friend

Just like last year, the return of Movies in the Park was one of the main topics of chatter that day at school: groups of people making plans or shouting lines back and forth at one another in the hallway; gossip about who was going with whom (or who might say they were going and forgo the movie for other, more private entertainments); a few intensely enthusiastic people from the AV club discussing going in costume as one character or another. Strange though it was, as Darrow traditions went it seemed, at least, fairly innocuous. Especially after the summer that’s just passed, things like that seemed more and more of a rarity the longer she stayed in the city.

For a moment, Rosie considers attending herself, but when she hears that Charlie and Sabrina had already made plans to go--and that the movie scheduled for tonight was one of the blood-soaked horror films Sabrina loved so much--it’s all too easy for her to drop the idea entirely. Her offer to spend the evening at Nick’s is met with a lack of resistance, especially from Sabrina, that she might have thought suspicious under any other circumstance. Relieved as she is at having avoided a night of watching wholesale cinematic slaughter, though, she barely pauses to question it.

Hardly notices, too, the slight spark in Sabrina’s eye and the quiet look of planning both her best friends exchange as they turn away at the end of the lunch period.

When she gets to Chelsea that night, it’s just in time to say a quick hello in the lobby to Sabrina and Charlie on their way out. They’d done things like this on numerous occasions over the last two weeks, briefly checking in or updating one another on how Nick was feeling; this time, at least, it’s for a slightly lighter and easier reason. Rosie waves them happily out the front door of the building, then takes the familiar elevator ride up to the top floor and lets herself in to Nick’s apartment.

“Shift change,” she calls out to him, laughing a little. “Let me just put my bag down, and then I’ll be…” She trails off, noticing the neat pile of things on the coffee table: takeout menus, DVD cases with cover art that looks nearly as lurid and gory as that of the movie playing in the park, even a set of disposable cups and plates and a folded picnic blanket. And, prominently displayed, a note in Sabrina’s familiar handwriting exhorting them both to Have fun tonight!

“Oh, good grief.”

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A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth and he reaches up to brush a curl of her dark hair back from her forehead.

"That soon, huh?"

"You snuck into a castle full of monsters in search of me, Nick," she says, her slightly pointed tone shifting into one that's a little softer with the touch of his fingers in her hair. "That has an effect on a girl."

Rosie grins, tilting her head up and just looking at him for another moment or two.

"It was just something...I wasn't sure what it was, then. Whether it was just the circumstance, or the fact that we all became so close after that, all four of us. But it got stronger, the more time we spent together. More important."

"I think I realised when we came home," he says. "When you fell asleep with your head on me. When we were all safe."

There’s something that tightens in her chest, hearing that; remembering that evening. Fraught and terrifying as it had been to get there, for all of them, it had been worth it for those moments in the small hours of the night.

What’s your something good? he’d asked. Rosie thinks she has her answer now.

“That was...that makes sense,” she says, nuzzling against his chest briefly, letting herself be held. “It felt like something changed for all of us that night. We all got closer.”

"Like magic," he says, his breath catching when she nuzzles against him like that. "Apparently, Sabrina and Charlie figured it out a while ago."

"Like magic,” she echoes. The idea of it pleases her—almost as much as the way hearing that hitch in his breath does, if differently so. There’ll be time for that later, she knows, or hopes, or plans for.

The news about Charlie and Sabrina hardly comes as a surprise, but Rosie still finds herself blushing again, her face flushing hot. “Oh, goodness,” she murmurs.

"I guess it must have been obvious to everyone but us," he says, brushing his fingers against her reddened cheek. "Doesn't matter how, does it?"

"No," she says, leaning into the touch of his fingers, chasing the contact just slightly. "It doesn't."

There's a knock at the door, and even though she'd been the one to put in the order in the first place, Rosie still looks back in surprise. "I'll get that, and then..." She looks up at Nick, still a little disbelieving at the turn their evening had taken. Even if it had surprised no one else, it wasn't at all what she'd expected when she'd talked to Sabrina and Charlie at lunch. "And then I suppose there's more to talk about, isn't there?"

"Yeah," says Nick, taking a sip of his beer as Rosie climbs up off the sofa. "I suppose we'd better figure out how this is going to work."

Just before she opens the door, Rosie looks back at Nick, watches him just sitting on the couch and drinking his beer. It's the same, he's the same, as it had always been--and yet, somehow, there's more to it now. She smiles, something soft and almost private, then turns away again.

The delivery person on the other side of the door is Seth, her lab partner from biology last year; amused at seeing one another so unexpectedly outside the halls of Petros, they chat a little while Rosie fishes out money for the pizza from her purse. Once it's paid for and the front door shut again, Rosie brings the pizza box over, moving the stacked DVDs and extra takeout menus to make space on the table before setting it down.

"So," she says, putting a slice of pizza on a plate and passing it to him before taking one of her own, "this is...I suppose you have a better idea how all this is meant to work than I do."

"I suppose it's going to come down to how you'll be comfortable," he says, taking a bite of his pizza. "Like it was with Charlie. I've done this kind of thing before so I know how it makes me feel."

She nods thoughtfully, eating her pizza as she weighs the situation before her. "And David was the first person--the only person, up until now--I was ever with." Rosie wrinkles her nose, a brief, quick frown of displeasure crossing her face. "And we both know how well that went."

She sighs, going quiet again. "I know I want to be with you, and...and I know that I don't want to get in the way of what you have with Sabrina. I wouldn't ever want to be in the way of that."

"I'm sorry I wasn't more...present for that," he says. It's maybe not important right now, but he still wants to say it. "It won't get in the way, though," he says. "No more than me and Sabrina gets in the way of her and Charlie."

"It wasn't your fault," she says, reaching over to take his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "You would've been, if...if you could have." It feels a little too much like euphemism, talking about it like that, but it's all the both of them can manage for tonight. And still true.

His confidence, the way he reassures her, eases the faint uncertainty that had settled in her chest. "So we'll manage it the same way you already do? You and I, seeing each other, being with each other, when Sabrina and Charlie are together." Maybe she ought to be upset by that--but she isn't. She can't be, not when it's them, the other two people forming their odd, wonderful knot of connection with one another.

They all matter too much to her.

Nick nods.

"If you think we can make it work like that," he says. "Maybe other combinations sometimes if we figure out that works."

"Other..." she starts, then trails off again with a slightly astonished breath of a laugh and a renewed flush to her cheeks. If she thinks about lying in Sabrina's bed the week before, about the sense of something changed or charged between them, it's brief; something to consider at another time. "If we find that works. But only once we know what works for the two of us."

She takes another sip of her beer, her head spinning a little with all that's come into focus now. "I won't...I know you know this, I know you'd never, I just have to say it. I'm sorry." Rosie pauses, taking a breath. "I won't be thought of as secondary. If I'm with you, it's...I'm your girlfriend, not your other girlfriend, not someone to the side." She looks up at him, catching her lip in her teeth, watching his face.

It hurts, a little, that that's what she thinks, that she thinks it could be possibly be like that. He shakes his head.

"No way," he says. "Like neither Charlie or I are secondary for Sabrina."

She can see the way her words sting him, the momentary pause before he shakes his head. It's enough to make her wish she hadn't said anything at all--but she had to, even as she'd feared it would be hurtful. If anything like this had happened at home, that's how she suspects it would have been; something clandestine and secret, a scandal tucked into spare and furtive moments.

For all that Rosie loves the drama of being a little scandalous, she's been a secret before, and too recently.

"No, neither of you are," she says at last. "You both mean the world to her, and...that's what I'd want. To be as important to you as Sabrina is. Even if all the rest of this is new to me, even if we'll need to work out how it all fits between us--all of us, in a way, you and me and Sabrina and Charlie. That's the most important part of it to me."

Nick nods, because he can understand that, completely. How much she might want reassurance on that.

"Rosie, believe me," he says. "We wouldn't be doing this if I thought of you as anything less than a girl I could fall for, okay?" Could. Had. Whatever. The point still stood.

“Okay,” she says, and there’s so much behind just that single word. More than she might have ever thought possible. “And I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone other than you.”

She moves close to him, curling up along his side again and brushing a soft kiss against the line of his jaw.

He smiles at that, turning his head to catch her mouth with just a brush of a kiss.

"Is it going to be alright for you," he asks, leaning his forehead against hers. "Me being with Sabrina too?"

It’s her turn to be a little surprised, briefly and quietly stung, even though she knows the question is a valid and genuine one. “Of course it’s going to be alright, Nick,” she says, smiling at the light pressure of his forehead against hers. “I’d never...Sabrina means so much to you, and she’s one of my best friends. I love her.”

She leans in, kissing him once more, almost a seal to the words she’s just spoken. “And...it’s going to be alright with you?” she asks. “To be shared? I know you’ve said before you’re...used to it, to sharing, but being shared, I don’t know if that’s different.”

"I dated all three of the Weird Sisters at once," he says, not sure if he's every told Rosie about that. "If I could make that work, I can definitely make it work with you, Sabrina and Charlie."

"That’s true,” she says, recalling the brief mention he’d made of it, that night after their flight from Kagura. “If nothing else, the three of us are somewhat...nicer than the three of them. At least from what little I’ve heard.”

Still staying close, wanting to, now that things have changed between them, Rosie nibbles at her pizza, content. “Is there...do you need me to do anything in particular?” she asks. “To make this work the way it should, for you and Sabrina?”

"You definitely, one-hundred percent are." He tousles the fingers of his free hand into her dark curls. "Just talk to us, I guess. About what you want. About what you...need out of it. It'll only work if we're all happy."

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