tooth-rotting feysand/IC fluff oneshot, modern au, loosely inspired by this tiktok
a/n: my first fic! please enjoy :)
wordcount: 2.6k
tw: language
nessian follow-up/part 2
Feyre once told Rhys that she would marry him at the local courthouse wearing nothing but her pajamas.
He’s wondering now if he made a grave mistake not taking her up on the offer.
It’s not that he hasn’t liked every minute of wedding planning the past few months, hasn’t enjoyed all of the decisions on flowers and venue and seating and fucking hashtags (or the decisive lack thereof) that have brought him to this moment, standing at the makeshift altar on the rooftop of Rita’s, waiting for his fiancée to walk down the aisle. While they had collaborated on everything major, with Feyre overwhelmed with the opening of her gallery, he had volunteered to take the reins on all of the little decisions. He hadn’t been complaining, not at the time, finding it somewhat cathartic to be able to plan the day down to the minute.
But the need for it to be perfect was near overwhelming, and still is, and though the afternoon has gone off without a hitch so far, he can’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop, like maybe the caterers will screw up their order and serve fish instead of chicken, or Cassian will lose the rings in the ten minutes since Rhys has been away from the groom’s suite, or Feyre will decide she doesn’t want to spend eternity tied to someone who’s still trying to put his broken pieces back together, unsure if those shards will ever fit the way they used to, and the least he can do to prove his worth to her is by making sure that today is flawless—
“Breathe, cousin.”
Mor’s voice is gentle behind him, as is the hand between his shoulder blades, rubbing lightly at the knot of tension building there. He obeys, letting out a shaky breath even as he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his all-black tux. Having her officiate the ceremony had been the easiest decision of them all, but the musty courthouse that always smells like mothballs and peppermint candies still sounds very appealing, and he’s wondering if it’s too late for that option.
“You deserve to be happy, Rhys.” Her voice is barely more than a whisper. “You both do.” He nods, not turning to meet her eyes. His blood still roars too loudly in his ears, and he shifts on his feet. “Now, will you fucking relax?”
He tries to huff a laugh, but it gets caught in his throat, and he can feel Mor rolling her eyes as she pulls her hand away, but not before flicking the back of his head.
Then, the music changes. The guests stand, and turn to the back of the rooftop, where a staircase that leads down to the rest of the bar acts as the beginning of the aisle.
Two figures climb the steps, silhouetted in the light from the staircase behind them, and Rhys’s breath catches as Elain and Nesta’s forms become clear. They start walking toward him in nearly identical gauzy gowns, though Elain’s is a rosy pink that highlights the blush in her cheeks, and Nesta’s is a deep gray that brings out the steel of her eyes.
He distantly wonders if Cassian has gotten a glimpse of Nesta yet, and that thought should trigger a warning bell, but it doesn’t quite register, because it’s the gleam in Nesta’s eyes as she walks down the aisle, arm linked with Elain’s, that makes the hair on the back of his neck prick. It’s a gleam that nearly overshadows the fact that the woman, who has never gifted him with so much as a grin in the entire time he’s known her, is smiling at him, broadly, with all her teeth, like a mountain cat might bare its fangs before pouncing on an unsuspecting rabbit.
Mor’s delicate snort behind him, no doubt a reaction to the way his shoulders tense again, doesn’t help matters.
All of it’s enough to momentarily distract him from the simple, obvious fact, that something is off about the sight of Feyre’s sisters walking toward him, arm in arm, when it should do nothing but bring him joy.
It takes his scattered brain a beat too long to put the pieces together, and when it does, his mouth goes dry.
He’s the fucking rabbit.
Nesta sees the realization dawn on his face, and somehow, her smirk grows even wider.
And Elain—Elain winks at him.
The blood drains from his face.
Because Elain and Nesta should not be walking together. No, right now it should be Azriel striding down the aisle with Elain on his arm, followed moments later by Nesta and Cassian, and Rhys knows down to his soul the mishap is anything but accidental, because in addition telling their wedding party of four the order of the procession at least a dozen times over the past week, they also practiced at least three times at the rehearsal dinner last night.
Which means Cassian and Azriel…
His idiots of brothers are planning something on today of all days, the day he needs to run perfectly, the day he had specifically begged them not to pull anything.
He closes his eyes.
He’s going to kill them. Dismember them. Slowly. Painfully. Starting with their favorite body part.
Mor’s chuckling now, and he realizes that his cousin is in on the whole thing.
“Traitor,” he hisses as his eyes snap open, and she flicks the back of his head again before he can turn to face her fully.
When Nesta and Elain reach the top of the aisle and step up to the altar, they unlink their arms and stand to his right, leaving a space for Feyre. Rhys tries to catch their eyes, and when he succeeds, Elain’s smile is a little too smug to be apologetic and Nesta only mutters a “Welcome to the family, brother” under her breath, smirk never leaving her lips, and he wonders if Cassian and Azriel bribed them to get them to agree with their plan, or if they had jumped at the chance to torture him for free.
His money is on the latter.
But before Rhys can ask them what the hell Azriel and Cassian have gotten themselves into, the music changes from the light, classical piece that he and Feyre had selected together, to the intro of a loud, upbeat pop song with a thumping bass.
Rhys runs his hands through his hair, and prays to whatever gods are listening to give mercy.
Two hulking figures appear in the light spilling from the doorway.
And as Azriel and Cass step forward, Rhys revises his prayers to ask the gods to just strike him down then and there.
Because in addition to the all-black tuxes much like Rhys’s own—accented with a blue and red bowtie, respectively—Azriel and Cassian, despite the cloudy sky, are wearing sunglasses.
And fanny-packs.
And, as the music starts to pick up, they both unzip their fanny-packs with a flourish, reaching inside to grab a fistful of flower petals, which they toss in the air to cascade down and litter the aisle, all while remaining stony-faced, much to the delight of the guests and the horror of Rhysand.
He is thrown back, suddenly, to one of the wedding planning meetings that his brothers had tried to rescue him from with a bottle of whiskey. Cassian had stolen a sheet of paper from his desk that listed some wedding traditions that Rhys was to decide whether he wanted to include or not and had read them aloud one by one.
Garter toss?
Hell no.
Guest book?
… No?
Flower girl?
Rhys shook his head, not even knowing who they would ask.
C’mon, Rhys, Cassian prodded, eyes twinkling. You gotta have a flower girl set the stage for Feyre’s grand entrance.
Rhys shrugged, shaking his head again, and motioned for Cassian to keep reading.
If he had been paying closer attention, he would have noticed the cocked eyebrow Cassian sent Azriel’s way, or Az’s vehement jerk of his head in response, before pausing as thoughtful, pensive look crossed his face.
It appears his brothers had taken matters into their own hands.
Or, more likely, judging by the bounce in Cassian’s step compared to Azriel’s even stride, Cassian had taken matters into his own hands and dragged Az along for the ride.
So it’s Cassian Rhys’ll start with, then, when he murders them both.
Azriel starts a slow, steady strut up the middle of the aisle, distributing flowers evenly with a flick of his wrist to the left, flick of his wrist to the right, flat expression never faltering, while Cassian goes off course, weaving in and out of Az’s path, bopping his head along to the song.
When Cassian lasers in on one guest in particular, the one guest Rhys had put a veritable Cassian-no-go zone around, Rhys curses under his breath. Tarquin, sitting in the aisle seat, has murder in his eyes as Cassian strides closer to him, and though Rhys can’t see the glee that’s sure to be in his brother’s eyes, a grin splits across Cassian’s face and disrupts the straight expression he has managed to maintain to this point. Tarquin, never the one to let bygones be bygones, begins to shake his head as Cassian draws closer, but it doesn’t deter his brother, who fucking pirouettes, spinning on his toes with one arm arched over his head, before bestowing Tarquin with a shower of petals that float down on to land in his bright hair. Cassian then curtsies, blows him a mocking kiss, and strides away to continue his journey. Tarquin’s chin is somewhere between his knees and ankles as he stares after Cassian in shock at the Illyrian’s audacity.
And maybe it’s the stress finally getting to him, or the hilarity of the whole thing, or (most likely) a combination of both, but that’s all it takes for Rhys to lose it.
He doubles over, hands on his knees, guffawing, unable to stifle the howls of laugher that work their way out of him, the force of it so much that he loses his balance and actually falls back on his ass. Even then, he’s cackling like a madman, and maybe he is one, because he can’t stop even if he wanted to, and he doesn’t want to, because all the stress that has been making it so hard to breathe these past weeks just… melts away.
He can feel Mor looking down at him like he’s crazy, but she doesn’t bother to help him back up, sensing, maybe, that he needs this. Cassian and Azriel whip their heads toward him, and he thinks he sees Azriel sigh in relief that he’s not about to have his balls cut off, and Cassian’s grin grows impossibly wider, taking his reaction as encouragement to go on.
So his brothers continue their strut up the aisle, a little extra swish in their hips, stopping every so often to flick a handful of petals at a chosen guest. Helion’s having the time of his life in the third row (Rhys half expects the man to start showering his brothers in dollar bills), and Lucien’s face is unlined by stress for once as he chuckles, and even Amren is restraining a smile as they crown her with the remainder of their flowers in the front row, unstrapping their fanny-packs and dumping the contents on her and Varian’s heads, and as the bouts of laughter continue to wrack Rhys, he’s crying a little.
Or a lot.
Definitely a lot, he thinks, as Mor hands him a handkerchief so he can wipe his nose.
When his brothers reach the foot of the altar, they give a quick bow to Mor, before turning to the Archeron sisters. Azriel gives them a soft smile and gentle nod, while Cassian slides his sunglasses down onto the bridge of his nose and gives Nesta an appraising look over the top of them, eyes trailing up and down, brows raised in challenge.
Nesta quirks a single eyebrow in response, and for once, Rhys thinks the heat in her eyes as she looks at Cassian isn’t entirely from anger.
The feral delight that splits Cassian’s face says that he realizes it, too, but before he can say anything, Az nudges him in the back, and they turn to stride toward him, bending down to clap a hand on each of his shoulders as they pass by, making no acknowledgement of the little stunt they just pulled.
After they’ve taken their place behind him, Rhys can’t help but sit there for a few seconds, rubbing at his eyes with his palms, snorts finally easing to chuckles, then trickling to soft huffs of breath not unlike sobs, and that’s how he’s sitting when the music changes again, this time back to the original classical piece, and the lingering giggles from the guests go silent, and Feyre appears at the end of the aisle.
And she’s everything.
He starts crying in earnest again, not that he ever really stopped.
He doesn’t care that he looks like a fool on the floor, doesn’t care that he’s probably getting dust on the suit he had lint-rolled about six times this morning, doesn’t care that his brothers, the dumbasses, had disregarded his one request for a shenanigan-less wedding day and instead acted with what he can begrudgingly admit were the good intentions of getting him to “fucking relax,” as Mor had put it.
Because when Feyre looks at him, it’s just the two of them, and that’s what matters, what will always matter, whether they’re in pajamas or gowns and tuxes or fucking Hawaiian shirts. They’ll still be Feyre and Rhys. Rhys and Feyre.
She’s a little bewildered when she looks at him, a little amused, raising an eyebrow at the sight of him sprawled on the concrete as he wipes the last of the tears away. He can read the question on her face, written in the little language that has always belonged to them and them alone, and he’s been a godsdamned fool to ever doubt this, doubt them, to put so much stock in one day when they have the rest of their lives ahead of them. Everything okay?
Before he can register what’s happening, Cassian and Azriel are back at either side, wedging their arms under each of his shoulders to hoist him to his feet as if they know he wouldn’t be able to do it on his own with her in front of him. He peels his eyes away from Feyre to toss them a grateful grin over his shoulder. There’s something like pride and love glimmering in their eyes—visible now that they’ve ditched the ridiculous sunglasses—and he catches the same expression mirrored on Nesta and Elain’s faces as they gaze at their sister, who looks resplendent in white. And this feeling of rightness, with his brothers and cousin at his back, his new sisters at his side, the love of his life only an aisle-length away, strikes him stupid.
When he turns back to Feyre, he has his answer to her unspoken question, and even if the caterers mess up their order (they will), and even if Cassian loses the rings (he’ll temporarily “misplace” them and have to dart back to the groom’s suite in the middle of the ceremony to retrieve them), he knows that it won’t change. He smiles for her, broad and unrestrained, a smile he rarely shows to anyone that’s not her, and the beauty of the relief on her face at his wordless response is enough to send his knees wobbling as she resumes her walk toward him, toward their family, toward their future.
Kaz n wylan (in the scenario they grew up together a baby wylan go. B o p but also otherwise and never wacking the face only coverd skin wylan respecting boundaries)
even in normal fuckt up lil bros au, wylan can forgo whapping him with hands by whapping kaz with other things. like a towel. or a juice box. or a wholeass physics textbook.
