Nesta Archeron x Eris Vanserra
A/N: Hey lovelies! I’ve been gone for a while, I know, but I’ve been working on this new fic for a little while and I wanted to see what you guys think. I’m excited and terrified. I’ve never done an AU or a multi chapter ACOTAR fic before, so this is all new for me. But, I thought, what better trope than enemies to lovers, and what better pairing than Nesta and Eris. Only instead of inconsistent world of Prythian, they’re elitist rich bitches in their final year of prep school. Anyway, I’d really appreciate if you guys tell me what you think. I might post it on ao3 if all is well. (Warning: strong language / mild slut shaming)
For: @a-court-of-valkyries @foxwithagoldeye
Nesta Archeron thinks she has everything under control. Not only is she the eldest daughter of a Fortune 500 mogul, she’s top of her class, Ivy League bound, and in the most stable relationship of her young life. And yet, when she finally believes she’s got it all figured out, estranged troublemaker Eris Vanserra crashes into her life like a storm, and challenges everything she’s ever known and loved. She’s taking on fame, love, and hiding a terrible secret. Eris might well be the reason she jumps, but will he be the one to catch her?
Chapter One ~ A Cappuccino Kind Of Girl
Nesta wakes up in someone else’s bed.
She lies there, silent and still, preserving the previous night in her mind like a treasured memory. It isn’t treasured, nor should it be. A mere mistake in a string of thousands, a single boy in an ocean of beds.
This one is still asleep, glossy brown curls spilling over his closed eyes, remnants of sweat clinging to his bare chest. He’s pretty, and perfect, and everything she doesn’t deserve. She wonders, as she stares at him, how he would fare in a fight. If he would even risk it, just to be with her. She imagines Cassian’s face, and his fists, and how hard they’d punch. She isn't sure he’d punch him at all. She supposes she isn’t really worth it.
The boy’s name is Alex — or Alexander, but he hates that. Last night, she tried to tell him her name was Lydia, but he told her he knew who she was, that everyone knows Nesta Archeron. She’d felt like an idiot then, but Alex had only laughed, and told her he understands. She doesn’t think so. Nobody understands, not really.
Though she’s staring, it takes her a moment to notice when Alex begins to stir. Nesta takes a moment, before expertly slipping from the tangled sheets to locate her dress from the night before. It’s under the bed, and one of the straps is torn, but she pulls it on anyway, and even without a bra, it holds. She finds her heels, one beneath the window and the other by the door, and she wonders what it would be like to wake up next to someone without shame. She wonders about a morning where the boy smiles as he strokes her cheek, and whispers a soft “good morning” against her skin.
She doesn’t stay at Cassian’s. He tells her it’s because Rhysand wouldn’t approve, and though he likes to kiss her in school and at the mall, she thinks it’s because he’s ashamed. That, or he doesn’t like her as much as he says. Feyre always says she’s better in small doses. Cassian is good. Far too good for Prythian and far too good for her.
With her silver Louboutins dangling from her finger, Nesta pads barefoot into the hall. She curses herself for ending up at frat house. Everything about her is messy, but avoiding places like this is her one real rule. Not only is it beyond mortifying, and despicably dangerous, but the volume of people remaining in the morning makes it rather easy for her to be caught.
As she tries to manoeuvre her way to the door, or perhaps a window — whatever’s closest — Nesta catches her reflection in the hallway mirror. She takes herself in, the ice cold eyes, the sharp as glass cheekbones, and the dusting of freckles across her face and shoulders. They’re barely there, but stand out against the pallidity of her skin. She’s always had a fondness for them, despite her mother’s insistence they are nothing save inconvenient blemishes. Cassian never comments on them, but he kisses them sometimes.
She fogs the glass with her breath and writes L-y-d-i-a with her index finger, before tiptoeing down the stairs. On her way down, she seizes an abandoned bottle of Jack by the neck, and takes a swing to start the day. She needs it, she realises, when she hears an echo of male voices. Nesta cringes, curses, and freezes where she stands.
She’d hoped to avoid this, she’d so desperately hoped. But if she’s learned anything over the years, it’s that hope is but a tool for misery and very little else.
The laughter downstairs intensifies, and though she’s resigned herself to it, Nesta can’t bring herself to move any further towards the door. Eventually, she starts off, and immediately stumbles, catching the attention of the group she now realises is gathered by the door she’s hoping to escape through.
Fuck her, this will be good.
About seven or eight fraternity brothers are mingling, a couple by the door, others lounging on leather sofas and watching the current interaction between their counterparts and whoever is at the door. One or two are without shirts, the rest in tanks or hoodies, and the guy speaking at the door wears jeans too low on his waist. He’s tall, and very obviously imposing, with a square jaw and cropped haircut that only makes it more prominent.
“Party’s over,” he says by way of greeting, but when he attempts to close the door, the visitor shoves his foot over the threshold.
“Yeah, it’s nine in the fucking morning,” he snaps. “No shit, the party’s done.”
Shit, she knows that voice. She knows it and she’s fucked.
“I’ve forgotten something,” he tells the frat guy.
“You weren’t here last night,” comes the reply. And he wasn’t. Not to Nesta’s knowledge, anyhow. “I don’t remember you.”
“I’m not all that memorable.”
Square-jaw sighed heavily, making a show of his impatience. Nesta doesn’t appreciate it overmuch. He’s only here to rescue her.
“We have a lost and found,” he tells him, but the visitors hazel eyes have already found Nesta, and the growing smirk on his lips combats the disapproval in his eyes.
“No need,” he tells the designated doorman. “She’s right there.”
The frat guy turns, and his eyes light up at the opportunity. Nesta sighs, resentful of herself and of humanity as a whole.
“You’re girlfriend’s a slut, dude,” he jeers, and his brothers grin maliciously.
Nesta hides her face and shoves past him out the door, not bothering to thank her savoir for pulling her away from this place relatively unharmed, for all sakes save her pride.
The cool October air assaults her lungs. It’s okay early in the month, but the sky is clouded over and smells as though it might rain. It’s heavy, the air, and if not for her now tangled braid, her hair would have already frizzed. Her escort falls into step beside her, hooking his arm through hers.
“Hope he was worth it,” he says with a bitter smile. Despite everything his eyes are soft. He pulls her away from the property and starts off down the street, not at all fazed by her whiskey stained slip dress or overt lack of footwear. When she doesn’t respond, he adds, “Your first walk of shame in a frat house…”
“You don’t have to sound so smug, Az,” Nesta sighs.
“Not smug,” denies Azriel. “I just don’t think the shame is undeserved.”
Nesta bites her lip to keep from snapping. After a quiet moment, she says, “You won’t tell him, will you?”
Azriel pauses and turns to look down at her. Nesta is tall, notably so, but Azriel is taller. Standing at close to six foot four, he towers over both of his brothers. He’s in his uniform now, donning the infamous black and red of Prythian prep.
“Have I ever?” he asks, and she shakes her head, refusing to meet his eye.
“I love him,” she says eventually. Quietly.
“Of course you do,” Az agrees. “I can see it in your eyes, when you can even stand to look at me.”
Nesta threads her fingers together. “I don’t want to hurt him.”
“You won’t. That is, if he remains none the wiser.” He checks the watch on his wrist. “Pick it up, Archeron. The car’s waiting.”
“You drove here to get me?”
“No, Nesta, I walked halfway across the city.” When she scowled, he sent her a look. “I called Jamerson.”
Nesta froze. Her father’s driver. “He’ll tell.”
“He’d always.” He raised a brow, but Nesta went on, “No one can lie Aurelia Archeron. I swear, Az, she is terrifying.”
“I concur.” He grins. “Your mother is a monster, but Jamerson loves you. I called for a reason. His lips aren’t loose like Harper’s.”
In fairness, there are very few people with as taxing a compulsion as Harper, the sisters’ collective chauffeur, and her perpetual need to snitch. Never had she once allowed the Archeron girls to get away with a thing, not even something so tame as an unapproved slumber party. Nesta honestly believes it’s because they are young and rich, and she is neither, but for that, Az calls her snobbish. Even still, he always chuckles when she says it.
Neither Nesta nor Azriel have utilised Harper’s services since ninth grade, when Helion Spellcleaver threw a street rager and Nesta took three too many opioids. The ambulance was taking forever and Harper was nearby, and Nesta was going to die, so Az did what he had to, and Nesta ended up in a screaming match with her mother not five minutes after coming round from her induced coma.
The secrecy of backseat conversations is an unspoken rule, and since that might, many a secret has been concealed by Jamerson, but Nesta has never trusted her parents’ employees again. Even Az prefers it when the pair display a certain level of self sufficiency in driving themselves, but now and again they are somewhat incapacitated.
Nesta’s own black and white Escalade is parked at the end of the street, and she wonders if her parents have noticed that it’s gone. It’s early, and she hopes not, but the Archerons are morning people, and more often than not are up before six-thirty.
Azriel ushers her into the car and slips in behind her, gesturing for Jamerson to set off. He takes in Nesta’s uneasy demeanour, and leans over to tell her, “I swear I’m not going to say anything.”
She looks up at him. “Promise?”
“I’ll even kill a butterfly.”
She glares at him. “You’re an idiot. And that doesn’t even make any sense.”
“I wanted certainty, not stupidity.” She straightens in her seat, attempting to appear dignified. “And that was my first and last expedition into a frat house… you know, until I forget and venture once more into the hands of misogynistic brotherhoods.”
“Even hungover, you speak with the delicate eloquence of a lady.”
“A lady that will shove her red bottoms up your hypocritical ass if you so much as smirk at me again.”
“You’re mean today, aren’t you?”
“What can I say?” Azriel muses, “My best friend is challenging.”
“Only because I haven’t yet had my coffee.”
At that, his smile broadens. And for a moment, Nesta does nothing else as to take in the young man’s sheer beauty. Not only was he tall, but he was well built, too. Not like Cass, whose bulk she finds obnoxious, or Rhysand, who is downright grotesque (though little Feyre has a tendency to outright swoon whoever he stops by), but just enough that it complements his height with equal persuasion. His eyes, though dark, are dazzling, and his face is fierce but kind. It sounds a strange thing to say, especially regarding one’s best friend, but sometimes she just likes to look at him for a while.
“Are we headed home, Miss Archeron?” Jamerson asks from the front.
She tries to say yes, but Az cuts in smoothly, telling the driver, “We’re meeting my brother at Thistle’s.”
Nesta pointedly glares at him, panic flooding her eyes as she gestures to her somewhat incriminating attire.
“Don’t worry,” Azriel assures her, and reaches into his school bag. “Your uniform, milady. Perfectly pressed and clean.”
Nesta takes the clothes from him with a grateful smile, releasing a breath she hasn’t known she’d been holding, and, the moment Az turns respectfully away, pulls her dress over head.
“Did you have fun last night, Miss Archeron?” Jamerson wonders from the driver’s seat.
Nesta raises her hips to pull her skirt up, and almost snappishly replies, “Not really. College parties are overrated.”
“And Mr. Windhaven wasn’t invited to this party?”
Azriel smirks and hands Nesta her socks. “I’m not as popular as Nes,” he answers for her. For someone so insistent on keeping her guard up, Nesta has never been a very good liar. Her emotions are bright in her eyes, or so she has been told, and she often lets her temper get the better of her. Azriel, on the other hand, is cool and calm, and everything that Nesta is not. He is easy and approachable, and more than anything, infinitely trustworthy. Perhaps that’s why they are friends. He keeps her secrets and she keeps his.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Jamerson says. And it isn’t, not really. Nesta has cultivated somewhat of a reputation as a cold and heinous individual. She is quiet at school, smarter than everyone, but purposely uninviting. Standoffish in her nature, she has very few friends save Azriel himself, and her connection with Cassian seems to be a glitch more than all else.
And then there’s Azriel, who, despite his mysterious nature, possesses a rather captivating air about him that makes him naturally enthralling. He’s unfairly attractive, but not in a way that makes him intimidating, and he’s clever enough to hold a conversation with just about anyone. Though unlike his brothers, he isn’t a star on the field, but he’s the school’s elected head boy and has an obviously promising future ahead of him. If not affection, he inspires awe in just about everyone around him, and of that, Nesta can’t help but feel jealous.
“And you stayed the night?”
“You’re not employed to ask questions, Jamerson,” Nesta hisses, and Azriel smacks her gently upside the head.
“She did indeed, Jamerson,” he tells the driver kindly. “One of her friends was too drunk to get home, and she didn’t want to call you so late. It wouldn’t be fair, would it, Nes?”
“No,” she murmurs. “It wouldn’t be fair.”
They barely escape the friendly questioning, but make it to Thistle’s unscathed. The bookshop café is one of Nesta’s favourite places in Prythian, a place she feels more comfortable than in her own home. It’s the ground floor of a redbrick townhouse, on the corner of a narrow avenue that opens onto the high street. It’s decorated with Ivy and, in the summer, scattered cherry blossoms begin to bloom.
Jamerson offers to wait outside, but Azriel spots Cassian’s car, and tells him they’ll make their own way to school. Slipping from the Escalade, Nesta shrugs on her blazer and pushes her stray curls behind her ears. She turns to Azriel, and allows him to appraise her.
He stares for a moment before touching his collar and declaring, “tie,” giving her a moment to put herself right before holding open the door.
Cassian is over by the window, in the group’s designated table. Nesta hates that table. She’d much rather be curled up like a cat in a nook somewhere, far away from the torrid elements of her reality. But she loves Cassian, and if this spot, and these people make him happy, she can weather her misery for half an hour every morning.
She insists on ordering herself, sending Azriel away with his own usual tucked away in her memory. They’d been coming here since freshman year, having met in their Lit class, and taken an immediate liking to one another. Cassian had caught on fairly quickly, and, having made Nesta the object of his affection, began to tag along. The unbearable Rhysand had been short to follow, operating on the embarrassing codependent principle that Windhaven brothers relied on. Cassian’s ex joins them now and again, but has made it her mission in life to avoid Nesta at all costs, so she’s rarely a taxing problem.
“You look like a cappuccino kind of girl.”
Nesta stares at the coffee boy. This one is new, with glossy red hair, and fiery amber eyes, and a bone structure akin to that of a Greek statue. He’s taller than herself, possibly on par with Cassian, if a little shorter, and has a lean build, as if he were once a dancer. Something about him, and this something is undetermined, screams trouble, in a way that peeves and intrigues her both.
“Actually,” she hums, scrutinising him, “I prefer my coffee Irish.”
“A little early for that,” he quips.
“Which is why I’m ordering an americano.”
She doesn’t like him, she’s decided. “Yes, and a dark chocolate mocha for the brooder over there.”
The boy nods, his eyes sweeping her lithe frame, lingering half a second on her chest. “I’ll have them ready for…?”
“You don’t look like a Jane.”
“I wasn’t aware names were in correlation to one’s appearance,” Nesta deadpans. She doesn’t appreciate his attitude. In fact, she doesn’t appreciate anything about him. Not his face, nor his hair, and especially not his inadequate customer service skills.
“Well,” he ventures, “I suppose there are, like in all aspects of life, outstanding cases. But such instances, I assure you, are rare.”
“Hence the ‘outstanding’,” she condescends. “Don’t I strike you as outstanding?”
“I don’t doubt you’re remarkable,” agrees the boy. “But I still don't believe your name is Jane.”
“And what do I look like, if not a Jane?”
“I don’t know about your given name,” says the boy, “but by your hair, your eyes, and your inherent superiority complex, I’d bet my life you’re an Archeron.”
Nesta throws her shoulders back, spine straightened and frame rigid. “Apparently, you aren’t as self involved as you look.”
“Ah, yes. You’re the older one, aren’t you?” He grins. “I’ve heard things.”
That fucking glint in his eye is pissing her off.
Nesta fought back a triumphant grin. “Where’s my coffee?”
“Coming right up, Princess.”
She grinds her teeth at the nickname, finding it harder and harder to bite back her retorts. Usually, she wouldn’t bother, but she’d rather drink her coffee without the extra shot of spit, so she holds her tongue, spears him with a glare, and joins her boyfriend’s friends at their table.
Without greeting, she slides into the booth beside Cassian, who drapes a heavy arm across her shoulders and pulls her into him. She wishes she weren’t so claustrophobic. She wishes that he would kiss her in front of his friends.
Its stupid that he doesnt really, given that he seems to have a problem with any other man that so much as glances in her direction. She can't tell if she hates or loves that about him.
She first came across Cassian at a family function he attended alongside his brothers and their parents (or in his case, adoptive parents, but that's really a lot to unpack so early in the morning). They’d barely interacted with one another, but she'd apparently caught his attention. Back then, however, she'd been so caught up in Tomas to even notice. She resents now, how stupid shes been.
With all else out the way, and the somewhat messy destruction of her relationship with Tomas successfully painted over by both parties’ parents, Cassian had only needed to pursue her for a few desperate months before she relented. She supposes, after everything, she just wanted to feel loved, and still does.
And besides all that, her mother is near desperate to find her the best possible prospect in a future husband, and the Windhavens have become like family as of late.
“...and she went so far as to threaten to have me kicked from the team.”
Az scoffs at her other side. “It's barely october, Cass,” he laughs. “How on earth did you manage that?”
“He shoved Thesan into a locker last week,” Rhysand tells his brother. “Something was said about Amren.”
“Amren can handle herself.”
“Yes,” Nesta agrees, “but Cassian is too brutish to help it.”
Cassian's chest rumbles against her as he laughs. “Thesan should be counting his blessings. Can you imagine if I let that miniature monster get to him first?”
“Something I'd have rather liked to see,” she quips, earning a laugh from her company.
Rhysand straightens across from her. “Where’s our coffee?”
Nesta narrows her eyes at him. “Oh, i'm sorry Mr. Princeling, but it sounds like you think me a waitress.” When he doesn't reply, she adds, “I didn't order for you, oh great one. I wasn't aware of my apparent servitude.”
Cassian squeezes her shoulder.
“It's common courtesy, Archeron,” Rhysand snaps. “Get with the programme.”
“Get your own coffee,” she retorts.
“Actually, Nes,” Az interrupts, not unkindly, “where is our coffee?”
“He said he’d bring it over.”
And just like that, Nesta’s day is ruined for good. “Windhavens, meet conceited prick. Conceited prick, Windhavens.”
The coffee boy smirks wickedly. “Your coffee, Nes.”
Where she snatches coffee, Az takes his own with dignity and a smile. “Who the fuck is Jane?”
The Redhead shrugs, smile broadening like a Hyena. “How should I know?”
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