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However fortunate or unfortunate it is, Steve is, in fact, not stupid.
He’s a little slow, sure, he’ll be the first person to admit it. Too trusting? Also true – he’d needed to be gullible enough to join the Emperor’s Coven in the first place, after all. But not stupid. He knows his limits, he knows his strengths; he knows how to get himself out of a dangerous situation.
He also knows that talking as much as his little brother does about one specific person probably isn’t normal.
Steve, in all his not-stupidness, can understand that talking a lot about one person isn't necessarily inherently romantic; he knows this from personal experience. However, no one could really talk about this Augustus character the way Matt does – not only is it often, it’s genuinely adoring even when Matt insists that it isn't; little details that only someone that’s been looking way too hard could have picked up on.
Steve, do you have the chips you gave me yesterday? Augustus likes them.
Ooh, this shampoo! Smells like Augustus. Do you think this is the same type he uses?
Do we have any pink wrapping paper? I’m making a birthday gift for Augustus and he likes pink. He wears blue a lot more but he told me pink is his favourite colour. Isn’t that weird? What a weirdo.
Despite his older-brother privileges (and somewhat desperate want to), Steve doesn’t ask about it. Matt’s never been good with direct confrontation, despite his demeanor and whatever stupid things come out of his mouth, and Steve knows how his little brother been treated in the past. So he keeps his mouth shut, instead giving little knowing smiles and raised eyebrows whenever Matt mentions this elusive Augustus. It’s not direct teasing, but it has an effect that is probably just as potent – Matt’s face will go red and his ears will flick uncomfortably until Steve looks away, causing his half-brother to mutter incoherent strings of swears to himself as he retreats back into his room or out the door on the way to Hexside.
“You’re such a fucking idiot,” Steve will say afterwards to no one in particular, purely for his own entertainment.
He doesn’t meet Augustus for a while, and when he does, the kid doesn’t even have to say his name for him to know who he is. Steve only has to lay eyes on the boy beside Matt on their doorstep for it to click.
The kid is tiny (a little taller than Matt, but that’s not really an achievement), with dark skin and dark blue eyes. He’s wearing a pastel blue dinosaur hoodie with matching shoes – so Matt really wasn’t kidding about the blue thing – and a tiny mirror pinned in one of his ears. He and Matt aren’t holding hands, but their arms are so close they probably could have been beforehand, and the way Steve’s little brother keeps glancing at the other boy’s hand makes him think they probably were.
And then Steve realizes. Oh. It’s this kid.
Augustus gives a tiny little jolt as his gaze lands on Steve and then immediately plays it off like he hadn’t, leaning forward to give him a once-over like a parent trying to decipher a child’s handwriting.
“You’re… the father?” he asks finally, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face like butter as his question earns him a long, drawn-out groan from Matt. Steve shakes his head fondly. Drama queen.
“How are you so wrong all the time,” Matt complains, head in hands.
The boy shrugs at him. The movement is a full-bodied one. “What can I say? I have a natural talent.” He glances back up at Steve, eyes wide in expectation. “So? How wrong was I?”
Steve has to bite back a laugh as he extends a hand; this kid is really one for first impressions. “I’m the half-brother. Name’s Steve. I take it you’re the Augustus Matty keeps talkin’ about?” he can feel a tiny smirk playing on his lips as he speaks; he can’t help but indulge himself in a little sibling teasing. He is still a big brother, after all. “He talks about you a lot.”
Matt’s nose scrunches as he glares at him, his ears pinned to the sides of his head. It’s a move Steve recognizes as him trying – to no avail – to hide the pink in his cheeks and tips of ears. “I do not. Stop calling me Matty! ”
(Acting like he doesn’t smile a little whenever he calls him Matty in other contexts. Steve scoffs internally.)
Augustus, to his credit, ignores him, looking down at Steve’s outstretched hand and slapping his own hand against it instead of going for the handshake Steve was intending. “You can call me Gus. That was a high-five! I’m trying it out.” He gestures vaguely in Matt’s general direction. “I’m here to do Matt’s illusion homework.”
“He’s here to help me with my illusion homework,” Matt corrects bitterly.
Gus grins. “I’ll consider changing my phrasing once you’ve managed to pull off those solid illusions we’ve been practicing that you keep collapsing whenever I so much as look at you.”
“Everyone thinks you’re so perfect and innocent, Augustus Porter–”
“Okay, okay, chill out, get inside before you rip each other’s heads off, Titan.” Steve moves aside to let them in, chuckling and flicking Matt lightly upside his head as he passes him, causing his little brother to yelp and then stop to glare at him. “You two need to be separated.”
“Nah, Matty can’t live without me,” Gus responds without looking at them, perching on the living room couch and nonchalantly flicking through the illusion textbook he’d brought with him like he hadn’t just made Matt’s face burst into flames with just a few words.
Steve glances at Matt and raises his eyebrows.
His brother shakes his head, averts eye contact, and pulls the hood of his jacket over his head as if it could do anything to stop his steadily reddening cheeks. “I told you to stop calling me Matty, Augustus,” he says, but it’s too soft; no bite behind the words.
Gus’ smile becomes a little less for show and a little more gentle. “And I ignored you.”
“And on that note,” Steve says loudly, walking away from them and towards the kitchen. This is going to turn into something he’ll feel like he’s intruding on, he can feel it. “I’m going to go make myself a sandwich.”
“Bye, half-brother!” Gus calls over his shoulder. Steve can hear a crumple of fabric as Matt shoves him, followed by the two of them giggling, and rolls his eyes to the ceiling.
Steve doesn’t really fall in love, and he’s… also kind of forgotten that it’s actually an option for his little brother. Matty has never explicitly shown much interest in being in a relationship, but then again, Matt doesn’t like to share a lot about his friends or romantic interests at all, not intentionally – Steve mainly finds out about them from little details his brother throws out offhandedly and then forgets about or from Matt’s very poor attempts at secrecy (which honestly give more information than if he’d just not said anything at all).
It’s a little dispiriting, sometimes, seeing how far they’ve grown apart and how Steve now has to discover things about Matt from the breadcrumbs he leaves behind, but Steve is trying. And he can tell Matt is, too, in his jaded Matt way.
So this Augustus… something about the way Matt looks at him (and speaks about him and smiles around him) makes Steve realize that this is, in fact, not a breadcrumb. This is the whole damn loaf.
Steve shakes his head to the empty room and has to put a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter.
When he comes back, sandwich in hand and a glass of water in the other, the two are situated way too close to each other on the sofa, the backs of their heads peeking up above the sofa pillows as orange light flashes before them.
“No–” Gus is saying through giggles, “You don’t need to stare at it like it killed someone you cared about, you just need to focus enough so it stays solid. Like this.” A faint tinkly whoosh of another spell circle, blue this time, and Matt sighs and mimics it with his own orange magic. A pause, and then Gus clicks his tongue. “Stop looking at my face, dumbass, that’s distracting you!”
Matt sticks his tongue out at him and grumbles something that sounds like “stop having such a pretty face, then,” to which Gus gives a startled bout of laughter.
“You’re cute, but get this done, jerk,” the other boy says lightheartedly. “Or else I’m doing it for you.”
“Stop offering to do my homework, idiot. I won’t learn that way.”
“Didn’t think you cared about that.”
“I don’t. I just wanna make you feel guilty.” Matt turns, and there’s a shadow of a smirk on his face from what Steve can see, flickering like he’s trying to fend it off. “Is it working?”
Gus laughs again, and Matt’s eyes go soft. “Okay. Do the thing, tough guy.”
Steve bites back a scoff and turns away, smiling to himself as he raises his sandwich to his mouth. His little brother is going to be so insufferable about this guy now that Steve’s finally met him, he can feel it.
Why on the Boiling Isles Matty is awake at 1 in the morning, Steve can’t tell you – the reasons for which being that his mouth is currently mushed against a pillow and he can’t be screwed to move, and also because he, honest to Titan, has no idea.
Matt is infamous at Hexside, Steve’s heard, for being 1.) an abrasive asshole and 2.) thinking he’s being subtle when it’s blatantly obvious he isn’t. This is probably one of those instances because according to how loudly he’s giggling, he probably doesn’t know or remember how thin their walls are.
Steve is partially inclined to just yell at him to go to sleep and then leave it at that, but he’s also an ex-coven scout, and there’s a deep-rooted instinct that tells him to scope out the situation before approaching it while he still has the element of stealth. And while this circumstance obviously isn’t life-threatening, he lies in silence to see if he can get more context anyway.
Silence for a bit, followed by another bout of giggling, followed by a sudden sharp rap like something small hitting a windowpane.
Steve sits up so quickly he can actually hear his back crack, heart pacing rapidly.
“Matty?” He calls, element of stealth be damned. If his brother is in trouble… “Matty?”
There’s a shuffle, and then a muffled “yeah?” from Matt’s side, and oh, thank Titan . Steve can hear the grin still in his voice.
“Are you okay?” he presses through an eyeroll. His little brother. Titan.
“Uh, yeah, I’m okay! Sorry, something just hit my window. I’m fine!” More muffled giggling. “I’m taking care of it.”
Steve considers. “Okay,” he calls. “Go to sleep.”
Matt gives a prolonged, dramatized groan in response, but despite his qualms, he falls silent relatively quickly. After a moment of silence as he confirms that there’s no danger, Steve quietly sinks back into his bed as well.
“What the fuck was that?” He hisses at the ceiling.
He gets his answer the next morning just before Matt’s about to leave for school, in the shape of an incriminating purple scroll lying on the kitchen table.
It’s not incriminating on its own, he’ll admit. It’s his own scroll, the one he uses to post stupid pictures of Lilith on Penstagram with (and also the one he uses to argue with Lilith in the comments), however, it becomes a little convicting when you take into account that the kitchen table is decidedly not where Steve had left it last night, and that Matt has his own Penstagram account logged on it to talk to his friends (or lack thereof) because Steve can’t afford to get a second one for him just yet.
Steve doesn’t mean to pry. He genuinely doesn’t. He just goes to open the scroll to check his Penstagram and to close whatever viruses Matt’s managed to pull up in the past few hours when it just so happens to already be open to a conversation, and because of how large the text on Steve’s scroll is due to his god-awful eyesight, it is very hard not to read.
masterillusionist: psst are you awake
matt_rocks: no
masterillusionist: i’m outside your house
matt_rocks: ur SO FUNNY. this is why u have more friends than me
OH WAIT U WERENT KIDDING
WHAT ARE U DOING HERE????
I CAN SEE U OUTSIDE MY WINDOW
masterillusionist: forgot my textbook at your place, was considering waiting til morning when i pick you up on the way to school to come and get it but there’s an illusions test tomorrow and i really need it tonight so. hello
can i have it back please
matt_rocks: august it is 1 in the morning
masterillusionist: your point?
matt_rocks: do u just want me to throw it down to u???
masterillusionist: yes please and thank you
soon, preferably, it is really cold out here
don’t have your arms to keep me warm 😩😩😩
matt_rocks: ur so stupid how did u skip two grades
masterillusionist: just so i could stay two grades above you mwa mwa
PLEASE CAN I HAVE MY TEXTBOOK BACK MY LOVE
i’m going to throw rocks at your window
matt_rocks: WTF?!?1/1?1//!/!?
DUDE. THAT ROCK SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME
im trying so hard not to laugh rn you are so dumb why am i dating u
IF U BREAK THE WINDOW STEVE IS GOING TO KILL U YKNOW
masterillusionist: no he’s going to kill YOU because it’s the window to YOUR ROOM and of course i am going to deny everything about this situation having anything to do with me
give me back my textbook if you want your window to live
never in my entire fifteen years of life have i been more serious
matt_rocks: titan i keep forgetting how scary u are when u wanna be
ok i threw it down!! if it gets dirt on it thats ur problem
masterillusionist: THANK YOU how will i ever repay you
matt_rocks: let me copy off you for the illusions test? i forgot about it <3
masterillusionist: alright bet
goodnight mattholomule tholomule!! <3
matt_rocks: i hate that u know how to spell it right every time
but YES goodnight goodnight i love u be safe getting home bla bla bla
masterillusionist: that is nicest thing you’ve ever said to me i love you too <3333
matt_rocks: thats awesome now pls get out of my backyard
Steve swipes out of the conversation before his eyes can reach any more text and mutters a little “damn” as he stares at the blank screen of the scroll for a moment. It’s been a month since he’s met Gus and he hasn’t really seen the blue-clad witch since, which was why this situation has kind of been pushed to the back of his mind, but…
So they’re definitely dating. For some reason, he’s not even remotely surprised.
“Steve?” comes a voice from the hallway, making him jump, and Matt trudges through in all his bed-ruffled glory, school uniform hanging off his shoulders and still rubbing the last remnants of sleep from his eyes as he glances around the kitchen. “Have you seen my bag? I threw it somewhere here las’ Friday but I’unno where–” He stops suddenly, eyes fixed on the scroll in his brother’s hand.
Steve blinks at him.
Matt swallows. “Uh. Did you see… anything? On that?”
Biting his lip, Steve considers his next words very carefully. “Oh. No, I closed all the shit you pulled up last night, don’t worry.” It’s most of the truth. “But for real, man, you gotta give this back to me before you go to bed. I need you to sleep.”
“Ugh. Okay.” Matt rolls his eyes, but his shoulders relax a little. He shuffles toward the living room, stifling a yawn as he does so. “Oh! Found it. I’m leaving now!”
“Bye, nerd,” Steve calls.
If Matt flips him off in response, he can’t see it.
The door gently clicks shut. Steve can hear Matt’s receding footsteps down the path, and then he’s left with the silence of an empty house.
“Gotta get the kid his own scroll,” he notes to himself, sighing through his nose as he moves toward the cupboard to make himself some breakfast. He’s not gonna let Matt know that he’s aware of the relationship, he decides – that’ll just make him think that Steve was intentionally snooping around his personal business and will just make him wall himself up even further, undoing what little progress Steve has made with him. It’ll be better to let him admit it of his own accord, no matter how long Steve has to wait.
He’ll wait. He’ll do it for his little brother.
And in the meantime, he’ll just have to endure these two being disgustingly sweet for a little while longer.
It’s Grom night, and Steve is at the end of his straw.
Not because of Gus and Matt, no – they’re obviously gross, but he’s already established that that’s none of his business – but rather, about this stupid entire Grom concept at all. He never liked it as a kid and he still doesn’t like it now, especially since Grom was defeated for good a few years ago by some human and her girlfriend and now there is literally no reason for the festivity at all.
Steve likes to party, don’t get him wrong. He just doesn’t see much of a point to this one anymore, and his knowledge that there is no reason for this party will definitely tick him off the entire night. On top of that, having to babysit his half-brother while he tries on the same outfit for the third time is absolutely not helping.
“Matty,” he says for the fifth time today, dragging out his words like he’s speaking to a toddler, “you look great. Calm down.”
Matt whines and whirls around from the mirror to glare at him in a blur of brown and red cashmere. “I don’t, though. My hair looks messy as shit, and the colour fucks with the suit. I’m gonna look like a dumbass and then he’ll– and then everyone’ll think I have no drip!”
“Because you don’t.” Steve lets the lighthearted insult fall naturally from his lips as he gets up to briefly adjust his little brother’s collar and then moves to inspect his hair, receiving a light punch in the shoulder as he does so. Matt’s hair does look a little off, but it’s only because his horn had just come in a few weeks ago and his hairline is very clearly not used to it yet.
“Give me the hairbrush,” Steve says exasperatedly, holding out his hand. “I’ll fix it.”
Matt hands him the brush disgruntedly like a child handing over something they weren’t supposed to take, and Steve gets to work. He gathers Matt’s hair into his fist, careful to make sure none of it catches on his brother’s horn, and twists it into a short ponytail, using the brush to straighten out the hair as he goes. Matt complains halfheartedly about the yanking, but falls silent as he catches sight of himself in the mirror.
“Wow,” he says. “You did it.”
“Did you ever have any doubt?” Steve grins, completing his work with a flick to Matt’s ponytail and motioning for him to spin around. His little brother does so, blinking bewilderedly as Steve goes over Matt’s outfit one more time with narrowed eyes.
“It looks good,” he deduces finally. “You clean up well. The colours don’t clash, you’re just overthinking it.” He sits back, tilting his head at his little brother. “You are you trying to impress, anyway?”
Matt’s ears go pink. “Uh.”
Steve straightens up without really expecting an answer, brushing himself off and inspecting his own suit – muted yellow with blue undertones. He’s half-considering throwing on his Steve shirt on top of it and embarrassing Lilith by having her admit that she’s friends with him, but he also doesn’t really want to make a fool of himself at Matty’s school. On the other, hand, though, he doesn’t want to be boring. Does he?
“It’s Augustus,” Matt blurts.
Steve looks up. “Sorry?”
“I’m– trying– to impress– Augustus.” His speech comes in sporadic bursts, coming out like someone’s pulling out his teeth. “Because we’re… dating.”
Ah. There it is. Steve blinks in surprise for a moment – he didn’t actually consider what to do after Matt’s actually come out about this to him. A piece of his brain is telling him to say the basic things like congratulations and I’m so happy for you, but what comes out of his mouth is decidedly neither of those things. “On purpose?”
Matt groans and covers his face with his hands. “You’re supposed to say better things; what the hell was that?”
“No, like–” Steve wants to kick himself. “Sorry. Titan. That’s cool, that’s awesome, I’m happy for you! Really. I just genuinely thought you had no game.”
His little brother draws up his chest and glares at him. It’s supposed to look intimidating. He looks more like a distressed kitten. “I have game. Fuck you. I was the one that asked him out.”
“You were?”
Matt shoots him a dirty look.
“Okay, okay, sorry.” Steve gives a chuckle and breathes in. “Starting over. Matty, I’m happy for you. Honest. It was… kind of obvious but I’m glad you told me!”
“You knew?”
He grimaces. “Kind of? You’re not the most secretive person, my guy, sorry. But I didn’t want to interrogate you about it. I know how you are about being confronted; I wanted to wait until you were ready.”
Matt blinks, seeming to be genuinely taken aback. “That’s… really cool of you. I mean, kinda pissed you didn’t say anything, but I know you meant well. So, uh. Thanks.” He looks up. “You’re a good brother. I don’t think I say it enough.”
“Yeah, man,” Steve says, a little embarrassed, shoving his hands into his pockets. They don’t do heart-to-hearts often. “You are, too. Uh. So what’s he like?”
“Definitely… a person?”
“I’d hope so.”
Matt shoves at him again, and Steve ducks his hand with a laugh, going instead to pat his little brother’s hair lightheartedly, careful to not screw up the ponytail he’d worked so hard to perfect. “You’re growing up. Proud of you, little man.”
“Leave me alone,” Matt growls, but it falls flat because of how hard he’s smiling.
The doorbell chirps at them suddenly, and Steve’s little brother immediately perks up like he’s just noticed the sun, eyes shining. Steve scoffs.
“Go let him in,” he says, and Matt smiles as he runs off to do so, almost tripping over the fabric and clothing strewn across the floor like a hurricane had blown through their living room. Steve bites back a laugh. Idiot.
As he hears the click of the door opening, a sharp intake of breath, and a soft little “oh, okay, be pretty, then,” in a voice that sounds like Gus, he can’t help but smile. These two are so, so fucking stupid.