Title: Contentious Intentions
Fandom: Nicoverse
Characters: Nico ♂, Lucian ♂
Rating: G- (L1 N0 S1 V1 D0)
Warnings: Oblique references to smut, shin-kicking, teh gay, expletives
Notes: Lucian really is the typical asshole older brother. One might even say that older brothers are all in some way based on Lucian, since he's older than everything but the Greater Lords. The prototypical older brother.
"So, Luci…" Nico grinned across the diner table, over a grilled cheese sandwich that dripped grease.
Lucian had time to look back, warily, the straw from the strawberry shake still in his mouth as he cocked an eyebrow.
"Your friend from the other night. The one that recognised me…"
Lucian interrupted with a hand gesture, mouth still occupied with the shake.
"Yeah, I know he's a dude. Is he a single dude? Does he date outside his species?" The grin was interrupted by a bite of the greasy sandwich, butter gleaming at the corners of Nico's mouth as he chewed.
Date? Lucian's hands asked, with some accompaniment from his eyebrows.
Nico just rolled his eyes, mouth still full.
Lucian batted his eyes and smiled as innocently as he could manage, with a straw still in his mouth, and in that way that meant only one thing.
Nico choked and washed down the last of the bread and cheese with a swallow of orange soda. "You? I thought you'd have gone for the tall one!"
Lucian looked preposterously smug and batted his eyes again.
"Seriously?" The sandwich hit the plate with a dull clatter, as the plate rattled against the table. "I hate that you don't have to breathe. I hate that you can carry on an entire conversation without breathing."
Lucian blinked and rolled his eyes up and to the left — a reminder. His throat still worked, swallowing the shake almost as fast as he could suck it through the straw, which wasn't all that fast.
"Yeah, I could. But, that would be cheating." Nico stuffed a chunk of the sandwich into his mouth.
Blinking twice, slowly, Lucian stared straight across the table at Nico, dead eyed, and Nico responded in the only sensible fashion, with a single-finger salute.
"You're going to give yourself brain freeze," Nico muttered around another bite of the sandwich.
Lucian smiled sweetly, in that asshole way he had.
"Mmm, right. Forgot you were brainless." Technically accurate, since Lucian didn't have internal organs, unless he needed them for something.
A swirl of red and gold lit Lucian's eyes from within, and he kicked Nico under the table.
"Resorting to violence! I win this round!" With hushed cheering sounds, Nico raises his fists in mock victory.
Lucian's lips finally unsealed from the straw. "A kick in the shins? You have not seen violence. Violence is Gabriel's speciality, not mine."
"Gabi? You're kidding. I mean, I heard about the one time, but that was under duress." Gabriel still complained about the temple, when sufficiently stoned, and Nico had heard bits and pieces.
Shaking his head, Lucian snorts. "You remember that Sodom and Gomorrah thing? Gabriel. The Assyrians at the gates of Jerusalem? Gabriel. Well, Gabi and Michael. Still… The defenders of the shrine at D'hul-Halasa?"
"D'hul-Halasa wasn't Gabi's fault. It wasn't even there," Nico pointed out. Gabi loved to talk about D'hul Halasa — the first time and the second time.
"Still, are you aware of how much ass-kicking I don't do?" Picking up the mixer cup, Lucian topped off his shake.
"Because you're too busy kicking ankles. Can you even get your foot up high enough for an ass-kicking?"
"Why don't you ask Gabi where I can get my feet? I'm sure it'll be educational." Lucian stretched and put his feet up on Nico's side of the booth.
"Speaking of where you can get your feet, you're hooking me up with your friend, right?" Nico grinned and dipped a fry in Lucian's shake.
"He's at that club with his cousin almost every night. You can hook yourself up with him." Swiping the shake off the table, Lucian glared across the top of it at Nico, but there was no heat in it. "And keep your salt out of my sugar."
"My salt hasn't been anywhere near your sugar. You'd know." Nico licked his fingers, smugly.
Lucian choked on his shake, but recovered quickly. "You should fix that. Missing out."
"Maybe I will. Then we'll see who's missing out." After rinsing the sass out of his mouth with orange soda, Nico stuffed more sandwich in his face.
"Still you." Lucian's certainty was unshakeable.
"You sure about that? I think maybe you're getting rusty in your old age," Nico teased, poking Lucian in the ankle with one greasy finger. "Can't keep up with the young talent."
"I think you haven't been incarnate long enough to pass judgement on my skills. Even if I add last time, you're maybe middle-aged, for your short-lived species." The words were low and calm, and all the bite was in Lucian's smile.
"See? I'm young, beautiful, and flexible. You're an old fart." Nico preened, twirling a black and purple curl around one finger.
"I'm an old Lord. I've got three hundred million years on you; I'm a Lord of Beauty; and I can reinvent my shell with a thought. Also, Belphegor, because I play by different rules than you."
"The Moabite?" Confusion crept across Nico's face.
"The Moabite." Lucian leaned back in the booth, looking like the cat that ate the canary.
"The Moabite Lord of Excrement?" The horror was audible, and the last bite of the sandwich fell out of Nico's hand.
The straw went back into Lucian's mouth, and he took a few swallows before he bothered to offer a correction. Nico's disgust was a delightful accompaniment to the taste of strawberry. "Libel. The Moabite Lord of Licentiousness."
Recognition blossomed on Nico's face. "I'm missing out."
"You are." Lord of Excrement or not, there was no mistaking the shit-eating grin Lucian delivered.
"Introduce me?" Genuine, bubbly likeability radiated from Nico, but Lucian, as usual, was immune.
"No." Lucian stuck out his tongue.
"Oh, come on! You're my brother!"
"All the more reason not to, according to modern sentiment."
"Since when have you had modern sentiment?" The entire diner looked over as Nico got louder. "Dick," he muttered.
Innocence did not sit well on Lucian.
