Work Text:
Sometimes, you receive information you never would have thought to ask about, but is delightful regardless. In this case: there’s a Twisted Wonderland equivalent to Hot Ones. And Vil has been asked to be on it.
“Are you going to say yes?” I ask, keeping my tone as neutral as possible. Epel’s just gotten over his sickness, so I’m helping him with his homework and Vil is supervising. Which is why we even know about this in the first place, because I don’t think Vil would have told us otherwise. He’s staring at his phone like it’s informed him a beloved pet has died.
Rook is reading the invite over Vil’s shoulder. Vil keeps shooing him away, but Rook keeps coming back. “It seems they will be on Sage’s Island in a week’s time, and they have already booked the Roi des Neiges!”
Vil’s expression grows tighter. “Hm.”
Epel and I exchange looks. Vil’s got that rivalry with Neige, sure, so he might be willing to go on just to show him up. But, on the other hand, there’s nothing less dignified than being on Hot Ones- or, as it’s called here, Fire Breathers.
Also, Vil’s food is… well, he puts some salt on it and maybe a pinch of pepper, but it’s not at all what I would call spicy. I don’t know if he can tolerate spice very well.
“Are you going to accept it?” Epel asks again.
“I’m not accepting any jobs right now,” Vil says, closing and lowering his phone.
“You accepted some promotional stuff,” Epel points out. “There was that photo shoot you did in Pomefiore a while back.” He says it like a prisoner might recall a particularly bad time in solitary confinement.
Vil gives him a withering look. Epel droops over his books, putting on a show of looking pathetic, assisted by him not totally having his color back yet. He’s gotten better at using his looks to his advantage since the VDC. Vil doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t pursue it.
“I’m not convinced it’s the right kind of publicity,” he says. I translate that as ‘this is not going to showcase me at my most beautiful, and is therefore not worth my time.’
“If it helps,” I say, “you’re probably the only person who could eat a bunch of spicy food and still look beautiful.”
Vil glances at me. “Hm.” He seems a little surprised by the comment.
“Agreed! Roi du Poison, this would be another fascinating side to your beauty! Witnessing it would be most magnifique!” Rook adds.
Vil presses his lips together. “That’s true,” I add. “If you want people to see a different way of looking at you, maybe this would help.”
I might have overstepped a little bit, since Vil’s expression darkens a shade further. “I’ll think about it,” he says. With a swish of his robes, he leaves the room.
We don’t hear anything about it for a little bit. But Vil is suspiciously absent from dinner on Wednesday of the next week, and he seems extra pissy for the entire next day. And a week after that Epel, Ace, Deuce, Grim, and I all gather around Ace’s phone to watch the newly uploaded Fire Breathers episode.
We do watch Neige’s episode first. He handles it surprisingly well, though his face is cherry-red by the fifth sauce and he’s hiccupping like crazy by the sixth. I’ve never seen Vil do anything as uncontrolled as hiccupping before, or even sneeze. It’s like he’s some kind of invulnerable statue that’s done away with such silly human things.
“Got any bets for how Vil’s going to do?” Ace asks as the video concludes. “Five thaumarks he taps out after five.”
“If he knows how many Neige did, he’s going to try to beat it,” I say.
“Yeah, but is he going to do it?” Deuce asks.
“Betcha he can’t handle a lick of spice,” Epel says. His expression is scarily determined.
Ace clicks the video with Vil’s face on it (immaculate as always) and it loads in. There’s some fluff at the beginning where Vil and the host chat, then they start doling out the hot sauces. If Vil’s nervous, he’s not showing it.
He handles the first three spices with ease, just as poised as ever. At about the fourth one, though, sweat starts to bead on his forehead. By the fifth, there’s a pink flush on his cheeks. By the sixth, the pink flush has spread over the entirety of his face.
Admittedly, he’s more poised than a lot of other people in the show, and certainly more poised than Neige. But there’s definitely a strain there. Actually, I’m getting kind of nervous, because there’s this vein in his neck that’s starting to throb, and the last time I saw that happen, he was about to overblot.
He’s been drinking water regularly throughout the episode, but the seventh sauce makes him take a big gulp. He dabs at his mouth with the cloth he’s been given and pauses. The makeup he’s wearing must be waterproof, since his eyes are watering, but the mascara’s not budging. He gives a single cough and blows his nose- obviously it barely makes a sound. That’s also the point where Epel starts really snickering.
The eight sauce finally makes him start hiccupping. His eyes go wide and he claps a hand over his mouth. They’re silent, but his shoulders jolt with every one.
The ninth sauce doesn’t make much of a change, except that Vil looks more miserable. By the tenth sauce, he just looks like he’s regretting his entire existence. He dabs at his eyes with a napkin and wipes his nose again before drinking a massive glass of ice water. His face is bright pink under his makeup. He manages to get through the last couple of questions while suppressing the hiccups behind a napkin.
The video ends and Ace puts down the phone. “Rats,” Epel mutters. “I was hopin’ he’d cry.”
“He almost cried,” Ace says. There were tears on his lashes, but he kept dabbing at his eyes before any of them could fall.
“He seemed really upset,” Deuce says.
“He was eating a lot of hot sauce,” I say. “I think that would upset anyone. He handled it better than I thought he would, though.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Epel says, sounding for all the world like he wishes it was different. “Woulda liked seeing him get knocked off his pedestal…”
“The hiccups were funny,” I suggest. Deuce glances through a few of the comments and I lean over to look at them as well. Most of them talk about how well Vil held himself together, a few comment on him being hot or pretty, or even cute when he started getting affected by the spice. A few other people are commenting on how funny it was to watch his poised composure crack a bit. And there are a few nasty comments about him that I can’t help but grimace at. Guess people are shitty on social media in every world.
“I guess that’s why he was in such a bad mood that day,” Epel mutters. “Thought he’d bite my head off when I missed one spot of vacuuming.”
“Was he mad because he was on the show or was he mad because his mouth was still hurting?” Deuce asks.
“It would have been long enough that his mouth shouldn’t have been hurting anymore…” I said. “I guess maybe if the sauce was really strong, it could have burned his mouth. Oh, man, actually, hot sauce can mess up your stomach, can’t it? Do you think he was in a bad mood because his stomach hurt?”
“Weak!” Grim complains. “I eat stuff all the time, even spicy stuff, and I never get a stomachache!”
“Your stomach’s made of steel,” I say.
Ace nods. “Yeah, someone who eats actual rocks doesn’t get to comment on this conversation.”
Grim grumbles as Ace takes his phone back and cues up another video for us to watch. I, meanwhile, think back about Vil’s rather miserable expression on the show and feel a tiny twinge of guilt. If he lightly seasons food because he has a sensitive stomach, being on that show must have been pretty tough for him.
That night, I stop by Vil’s room. He hands over the potion without a second glance, but looks up when I linger. “Do you need something else?”
“Um…” I’m not sure how to start the conversation. “I saw that video you did for Fire Breathers.”
Vil’s expression doesn’t change. “Did you?”
“Yeah. Um. I- you did look good, even when you were eating that really hot sauce.”
Vil lifts an eyebrow as if to say, ‘I know, what’s your point?’
“I just- um, I hope being on the show wasn’t too uncomfortable for you. You seemed kind of upset the next day. And I know I said you should go on the show, so I don’t want to make it seem like I was trying to be pushy-”
“Oh, please,” Vil sneers. “Do you really think I’d take an offer just because a couple of spudlings said they would like it? It’s insulting that you’d think I’m that malleable.”
I shrink back just a little at his tone. “Uh. Okay! That’s good. And, hey, you did better than Neige, right?”
Vil’s expression crushes back into bitter irritation. “Hmph.”
Oh, right. Vil did better than Neige at handling the hot sauces, but in terms of view count, he trails Neige by about fifty thousand.
“Uh.” I pause. “Can… Can I say something? About the Fire Breathers thing?”
“You already are,” Vil says, but he looks at me and waits.
“You were really good in that episode,” I say. “But you were also, um. Really composed. And Neige… wasn’t. And sometimes that’s more exciting.”
Vil keeps looking at me. He doesn’t look pleased, but he’s not throwing me out of the room. “I’m just trying to say, um, I think people would still like you even if you weren’t perfect all the time. It seems like you put a lot of pressure on yourself, and probably other people put a lot of pressure on you. But I think you have people who would like you if you weren’t perfect. I… I would.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence. I’m already regretting speaking. “Uh, yeah, that’s all I wanted to say! Thanks for the potion, night!”
I hurry back to my own room. When I see him next, Vil doesn’t bring up what I said. But he does seem just the tiniest bit less tense.