Work Text:
One
Lao was six, sitting by Nova’s side as they read together. Sometimes Nova read aloud, sometimes Lao tried to, but this time, they read separately, yet together. They were always together.
A frown crinkles its way across Lao’s delicate porcelain brow. Nova watches as his button nose scrunched, his lips drawing upwards in a scowl, until Lao demands, “What’s a Valentine?”
“Some weird holiday. On February fourteenth you ask the person you love most to be your Valentine. Guess it means they love you most too.”
Lao’s eyes bulge and Nova immediately realises he should’ve picked his phrasing more carefully to avoid the inevitable.
“I love you most!” Lao cries. “Brother! Be my Valentine!”
Nova winces. “Not… that kinda love. Like. The person you wanna marry.”
Eyes still bright, hands clenching with determination, Lao says, “I want to marry you. So we’ll always be together.”
Nova rolls his eyes. “We can’t. We’re brothers.”
“Then I’ll change the rules when I’m minathia!”
Nova snorted. “Just wait until you find out what real love feels like.”
“Huh? Are you my Valentine yet?”
“No. Not gonna happen.”
Lao refuses to speak to him for three whole hours.
Two
Lao is eleven and won’t stop shaking. He’s been shaking for days. The war has destroyed his nerves, his spirit, and that destroys Nova more than anything else could.
Nova gives him a chocolate, shaped like a heart, because that’s all they got in the raid. It’s not the invitation Lao takes it for.
“Brother,” Lao says, “is it Valentine’s Day?”
Nova glances at the clock. “Barely.”
“Are you asking me?”
“No way.”
Lao laughs. He eats the chocolate, pressing his lips against Nova’s cheek in a staining kiss.
Three
Lao is fifteen. A song has consumed his life, until he taps it out, constantly, whispering conspiracies about where his memories went, who took them, and why he feels a lingering sense of love luring him away from his brothers.
“That’s called romantic love,” Nova replies. “It’s different.”
Lao shook his head. “We’re meant to be together. I can feel it.”
He leaves a bouquet of chocolate roses by Nova’s bed. Nova feels, something stirring, something mixed in with how the light reflects from Lao’s hair, the innocence shining in his eyes again, the complete and total love Lao has for the world and --
And Nova knows Lao loves the entire world so much it blinds him.
He hides the roses in the bin, buried so Lao can’t find them, and ignores any hints Lao makes at their existence or Valentines or forbidden love.
Four
Lao is sixteen. Everything about him burns like fire, not gentle light. How his eyes drag slowly over Nova leaves no room for ambiguity. He means it. He always meant it.
Yet Nova refuses to see his brother, his soft, gentle brother with a core of pure fluff, dissolve into ashes. He cannot be the thing that finally consumes Lao, destroys him, because Lao is too precious, too unique, too perfect. A world without Lao would be one of darkness, of coldness, of no love.
“Brother,” Lao says, “Please be my Valentine.”
Still Nova cannot face it. Still Nova refuses.
Still Nova is a coward denying his own truth.
Five
Lao is eighteen. In a fit of anger he shouts that he is leaving home, leaving Nova, never to return, good luck finding him, he can’t do this any more, he can’t live like this, he can’t keep turning away from love.
Nova grabs his arm, pulling him close and hisses, “You’re abandoning me? The fuck, Pixie? You think I’m gonna let you do that?”
“You don’t want me,” Lao replies. “You only want to play pretend. You don’t even know me any more.”
Nova frowns, thinking, how can he not know someone he spends every single second of every single day thinking about? How can he not know that bell-like laugh, that sweet soothing voice, the coolness of Lao’s hands, the warmth of Lao’s soul, when they are burnt to his soul by the fires of Lao’s intensity?
“You still don’t get it,” Lao says, tears in his eyes. “You think how I love you is gross. Wrong. A sin.”
‘You’re the one who called us brothers,” Nova says.
“I don’t care,” Lao replies. “I love you. I need you.” His voice catches in his throat and, a bitter laugh emerges instead. Though it’s nowhere near the date, he asks, “Be my Valentine already.”
Nova pulls him close. Lao lowers his head, expecting a hug, but Nova can’t do it any more. He can’t ignore the fire. Lao’s fire, catching him, bringing him in to Lao’s world, exactly how he wishes.
Nova kisses Lao, roughly, demandingly, needingly, and Lao kisses back the same.
“Always,” Nova says.
Lao starts crying, his tears shining with happiness.
Plus One
Lao is nineteen. Nova wakes him with a hand on his shoulder, a gentle touch, savouring the smooth sweetness of Lao’s skin.
“Mm, brother,” Lao protests.
“Wake up,” Nova says.
Lao slowly opens his eyes. They widen as he sees it; chocolate roses, chocolate hearts, cards, and even a fuckin’ teddy bear, all pleading: this time, be my Valentine.
When Lao kisses him, it feels like home. Nova realises suddenly and all at once: they were never brothers. They had simply been too young to recognise the soulmate before them.
And Nova kisses back without hesitation.