[ in vinos veritas ] - chapter one
a frat!austinbutler au by mamaspresley
SUMMARY : With a narcissistic mother and a helpless younger brother at home, Charlotte Prescott might not have the ideal life. Safely tucked away at college, she finds comfort in her studies. That is, until something new begins to occupy her mind. His name is Austin and, on the surface, he's just like every other frat douche out there. But when Charlotte and Austin spend more time together than expected, they come to realize that neither is what they seem. “In wine, there is truth; in vino veritas.” TRIGGER WARNINGS : mature content, heavy alludes to familial abuse, erotic content in future chapters
a special thank you to @sassy-ahsoka-tano for writing the amazing summary!!! and coming up with the title!!!
fc for charlotte here
A / N : warning this is long - guys!! my first fic. i’m so excited to be posting this. the first thing i need to say is the BIGGEST thank you to some of my best friends for helping me write this. i must give credit where credit is due and this storyline could not have been possible without my bewbies (tagged at the end of the chapter). this idea was created and the first chapter was written within two hours start to finish. i have never been so excited for a fic in my life, i hope you guys enjoy it and i can’t wait to post chapter two! thank you so much for all of the love and support on all of my one-shots. this fic is dedicated to all of my readers and all my polk salad annies<3 i love you guys
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Chapter One
Word Count: 3823
It would have pissed Charlotte off a lot more when her brother called her at seven in the morning, had she not heard his trembling voice and occasional sniffles on the other line when she answered. Her class didn’t start until ten, so usually she wouldn’t be rolling out of bed until nine at the earliest. This morning was different though — she could feel it as she glanced over at your phone buzzing on the nightstand, Tyler’s name flashing across the screen.
“Hello?” she answered groggily, moving to unplug the charger as she rolled over onto her other side.
“Are you sleeping?” the younger boy said, and Charlotte only mumbled a response that was supposed to come out as a no. She pressed the speaker button and rested her phone on the pillow beside her. “Sorry. I’ll call you later.”
“No, s’okay, Ty.” She forced her voice out of her throat this time after hearing his own weak, feebly attempt at a response. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
It broke Charlotte’s heart hearing her brother’s voice crack in the middle of speaking, and unfortunately phone calls like this happened more often than she’d liked to admit. Tyler was fifteen, only four years younger than her but she still considered him her best friend. The trauma bond between the two of them was what brought them closest — honestly, she hated the kid up until she left the state for college the previous year. It was a common sibling rivalry between both of them, and it took abandoning him with her arch nemesis of a mother that made Charlotte sympathize with the boy.
“What happened?”
“Just… Mom.” Tyler proceeded to explain to his older sister the events of last night, which transferred into this morning, where their mother had another psychotic break and nearly threw Tyler out of the house. The woman who raised them was nothing short of unstable, emotionally and financially — she could barely afford to keep herself afloat let alone two children. Oftentimes Charlotte hated herself for abandoning her baby brother, but as he got older she knew that he could handle his own. He always did the most to assure her that leaving was what was best for her, but despite being raised by a narcissist, Charlotte couldn’t help but worry about everyone else before even thinking about herself.
What felt like ten minutes on the phone had nearly turned into two hours, and when Charlotte rolled over to check the time, she was surprised when it said quarter to nine.
“I’m sorry, kiddo, but I gotta go. Are you gonna be okay the rest of the day? Mom went to work, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” her brother replied, and for the first time that morning Charlotte actually believed him.
“Okay. I love you. I’ll be in class until noon but you can text me if you need, okay?” She was sitting up now, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes although she’d been up for quite some time now. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.” The boy hung up and almost immediately, Charlotte leaned her head back, making contact with the wall as she let out an audible groan. Her hands rubbed down her face, in some sort of attempt to relieve herself of the stress that early-morning phone call had caused. Even from across state lines Charlotte was still dealing with her mother’s shit on a daily occurrence.
After checking the time again, a mental debate took place in Charlotte’s head whether or not she had time to fall back asleep. The stress of hearing about her little brother’s fall out with their mom was enough to put her to sleep for hours, but the most she could do was thirty minutes. And that was if she skipped breakfast, which she knew she’d need for sitting through two hours of her chemistry class that morning. Deciding against the more tempting offer, Charlotte pulled herself out of bed and headed for the shower immediately, hoping that would wake her up some.
About forty five minutes, a refreshing shower and a cream cheese bagel later, Charlotte was heading out the door. She shared the same ten a.m. class with her roommate, Brooke, so the two always walked together in the morning.
“Is that today that Davie was talking about the project? Or did he say Tuesday?”
“I didn’t even know we were doing one.” Charlotte hoisted her tote bag up higher on her shoulder, moving her hair out of the way. “When did he say that?”
“Last class.”
“Fuck, I skipped Friday. He didn’t go over it already, did he?” the girl worried, looking over at her live-in best friend. Brooke shook her head, and Charlotte let out a relieved sigh. It wasn’t often that she dipped out on her classes, but last Friday morning she fell victim to the temptation of her bed, and thankfully her well-needed slip up hadn’t cost her too much.
“No, he only mentioned it. Said we would go over it today. Or tomorrow. I don’t remember.” The two girls walked across campus every morning together, but the walk still felt longer than she remembered despite the routine they had going. Maybe it was the two hours of sleep she’d missed out on this morning, because Charlotte swore once they got into class, she was gonna fall right back asleep with her head on her desk.
Once they got there, Charlotte and Brooke both slid into their respective seats, together at the same table, and waited for their professor to show up. It only took about five more minutes before the taller, dark skinned man walked into the room, and Charlotte looked at the clock. 9:50 exactly. “If you’re not early, you’re late,” Mr. Davie had told his students the first day of classes, and he had stuck to his motto the entire way throughout the semester, so far.
“Alright, people. We’re doing labs. Did I give out the partner list on Friday or did I say we were going over everything today?”
A few murmurs came from the crowd of students and apparently, Davie got his answer, because he clapped his hands together loudly and nodded. The sound had startled Charlotte awake from her trance, eyes barely being kept open. “Okay. Let me find my sheet… If I call your name, find the person I call as your partner. Charlotte, you’re with Austin. Butler, that is, not Williams. Austin Williams, you’re with Bradley. Kathryn, you’re with Mila. Brooke P., you’re with Ryan…”
Brooke looked over at her friend with a sad face, her bottom lip pouting out. Charlotte only shrugged, offering a “that’s okay,” as she began packing up her things. The entire beginning of the semester had been the two of them partnered up for assignments, anyway, so Charlotte was excited to branch out. She knew of the boy who she was paired with, he sat a couple seats up with a kid named Dylan who Brooke was supposedly in love with for the entirety of the first week of school. Charlotte made her way up to their table, dropping her stack of books onto the desk in front of the darker haired boy.
“Move it, Dylan,” she said jokingly, and the boy laughed as he raised his hands in defence. “This is my seat now.”
“Easy, Prescott. Got a big attitude for such a tiny girl,” he teased, and she only stared back at him blankly. The comeback he offered wasn’t one of any originality, and maybe she would’ve cracked a smile had the joke been funnier. “Alright, tough crowd. I get it.”
“Move.”
“I’ll see you at practice, Austin.” The boy got up and Charlotte slid comfortably into his seat, pulling her books closer as she looked over at the boy beside her. Austin. She’d never really gotten a good look at the boy, but now she was thinking to herself, how could she have not? Blue eyes, blonde hair, full lips, a couple freckles scattered over his cheeks and it seemed like every curve of his face was sculpted out with this most delicate precision she’d ever seen. He was, for lack of a better word, beautiful, and Charlotte hadn’t realized she’d been staring until he spoke up.
“Hi.” If it weren’t for the embarrassing moment, having been caught in the act and him laughing about it, she would’ve spent more time focusing on his voice. Deep, raspy, dreamy… he laughed again when she didn’t response and she snapped out of her trance.
“Hi! I’m Charlotte.” She raised her eyebrows some, smiling as she stuck out her hand.
“I know. We had, like, four of the same classes last year.” He shook her hand anyways, gripping it firmly. You can always tell a good man by the way he shakes your hand. Charlotte thought back to what her dad had told her when she was just fifteen, applying for her first job. The number one thing to remember in the workplace, especially as a woman, was to always have a good handshake, he told her. Her dad had passed away only a few years back, and there were a lot of things he had taught her before then, but that was just something that stuck.
“Forgive me, but I, like, completely blocked out every memory from freshman year,” Charlotte said, earning a laugh from the boy beside her, and she continued. “A lot of it I don’t remember, from all the excessive drinking, but I just tried my hardest to forget everything altogether.”
“Honestly, that’s fair. I think I remember seeing you at parties. Didn’t you jump off the roof into the pool at Skylar Boyd’s house during spring break?” His words caused a part of her memory to unlock, and almost instantly a hand flew over her mouth. “That was you!”
“Oh my God, that was terrible.”
“I knew it! That was fucking hilarious,” Austin laughed, and once she heard the angelic sound come from his lips, Charlotte had almost completely forgotten the topic of conversation. “You were so drunk, I remember that. Literally no one told you to, either. You just did it with no warning whatsoever.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been that drunk in my life,” she responded back, and the two laughed for a few more minutes about that night before their professor interrupted them. Davie explained the object of the assignment, handing out a sheet of paper to each group which had a list of the instructions.
“Now I would like everyone to note that at the bottom of the sheet, it says a full, in depth report at the end of the lab. Yes, that is mandatory, and yes, it is for a grade. For some reason every time you guys see the word ‘report,’ you think I’m kidding.” Charlotte bit the tip of her thumb as she listened to her professor speak, mentally banging her head against the table. Reports were her kryptonite. “You’ll have all week to finish this. I’m gonna make it due Monday, so you have time to write up your reports over the weekend. Everything you need should be in the lab desks or up at the front, and each group is assigned a different variable, so don’t even think about copying off your friends. Any other questions, just ask me and I might help you if I’m feeling nice.”
Charlotte was already reading over the criteria for the assignment before their teacher had finished talking, so when Austin asked how to begin, she looked up at him with a set answer. “It’s liquid chromatography, just the basic shit we’ve been learning about all semester. We’re determining the caffeine concentration in certain drinks.”
“Okay, whatever that means.”
Charlotte pressed her lips into a line, holding back a smile as she tried to explain better. “Basically how much caffeine is in a bottle of Coke.”
He nodded. “Okay.” Then he furrowed his eyebrows. “How are we supposed to find that out?”
The smile was slowly starting to break out on Charlotte’s face, and she bit her lip to contain it as she slid the sheet over to him. “By calculating the dilution and using the syringes as filters for the caffeine.”
Austin looked down at the sheet, his eyebrows raised as he nodded, trying his very best to look like he understood what he was reading. “Mm… mhm.”
“How about,” she began, stealing the sheet of instructions from him, “you get the materials, and I’ll start the lab?”
“Sure, make me do the hard part,” he teased, and this time Charlotte let the smile creep onto her lips as she watched him stand up. Austin stole a glance at the list of materials needed, having to lean over the table to read the manual. He peeked over Charlotte’s shoulder as his left hand came to rest on the edge of table inches away from her arm, his right hand coming to rest on her back as he held himself up… the close proximity was getting to her head, and Charlotte found herself trying to blame the mix of chemicals in the air that had her mind foggy.
“Okay. I’ll be back.” As quick as he was leaning in, his touch on her skin electric, Austin was disappearing, and Charlotte was left by herself. Her lower lip found home between her teeth as she stared down at the page, her leg bouncing up and down just like her heart was doing in her chest.
The rest of the class was spent trying to explain each part of the process to Austin, but Charlotte could tell she was losing him with every other word she said. “Okay, so now we have to inject the sample into the lever… and push the event button and leave the syringe in the injection port.”
“…Uh, okay.”
Carefully, Charlotte followed the task she just read out, using one hand to push out the contents of the syringe while using her other hand to steady the injection lever. She could feel Austin’s eyes watching her, as he had been doing pretty much the whole class, not having a single clue how to do the assignment, but for once she didn’t mind being the one doing all the work.
“Okay,” she finished, leaving the syringe and closing the port. She held her hands up after letting the needle sit skillfully, and then looked back at the instructions. “Now we have to record the data.”
“I can do that part,” he offered, “I think.”
Charlotte smiled, holding back a laugh as she looked over at the boy, who sat there with his hands clasped together, his elbows leaning on the desk. “You sure? Writing down a couple numbers I tell you might be a little above your pay grade, Bill Nye.”
“I’m feeling generous,” he joked back, and picked up his pencil. Austin wrote down every variable she gave him in their respective slots in the hand-made graph he had scribbled out earlier, and within ten minutes he had each sample, object of velocity, and the value recorded down onto the paper.
“All done,” the boy concluded, setting the pencil down. He flipped his wrist over, checking his watch. “And with two minutes left to spare. Look at me go.”
“I mean, you practically did all the work. Who knew you were such a chemistry geek?”
“I know. I’m super big into the whole science thing,” he said, raising his eyebrows as he offered a nerdy thumbs up, and Charlotte couldn’t help but giggle. A schoolgirl laugh, a sound she could’ve sworn hadn’t fallen from her lips since middle school. The excitement in her stomach was the same, though — a foreign feeling she recognized as butterflies, something she hadn’t experienced since her last crush in her junior year of high school.
“Davie said we had all week to do this?” Charlotte asked, even though she already knew the answer. She’d heard the teacher say so at the beginning of the class, so truthfully she just wanted to hear Austin’s voice one last time before parting ways at noon.
“Yeah, the weekend too, if we need it. I think we’ll be fine, though.” Austin was turning his pencil between two of his fingers, hitting the eraser on the table with every other flip. “I can write the report at the end, if you want.”
“What?” Charlotte was already packing up her things, taking it upon herself to carry the papers for the project in her binder.
“He said we have to write a lab report at the end, just a conclusion I’m assuming. So I can do that part,” Austin was standing up, grabbing his backpack from the floor. Charlotte’s eyes fell to the hem of his shirt, which lifted up to expose some of the skin on his stomach when he reached down to the side. It wasn’t a lot, but enough for her to know that there was more she wanted to see. Lots more. “I actually enjoy writing a hell of a lot more than I do this shit. So let me do the report.”
Snapping her gaze back up to the boy, Charlotte raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You would do that?”
“Yeah. I don’t mind.” Austin shrugged his backpack over his shoulders, the black straps contrasting against his white t-shirt that hugged his biceps graciously. “I feel bad, with you doing basically all the work. But I just… don’t understand chem.”
“No offence, but, if you don’t like chemistry at all, then why are you taking it?” The clock struck noon and almost as soon as the minute hand made contact with the twelve, all of the students were piling out of the classroom. Charlotte found herself straying back a bit, walking out with Austin as they waited for the rest of their classmates to leave first.
“I’m majoring in engineering. This is the only chem class I’m taking. After this, I’m out,” he said, laughing at the thought of never having to sit through another torturous chemistry lecture again.
“If you’re majoring in engineering then you still have to take other science-based courses,” Charlotte said, and after the words left her mouth she hoped she didn’t sound like an asshole. He knew that, she didn’t need to bring it up like she thought he was stupid.
“I know. That alone is gonna be hell, but at least this is my last chem one,” he answered, thankfully not taking her comment the wrong way, and Charlotte nodded as they stepped into the hallway. “What are you taking?”
“Sorry?”
“What’s your major?”
“Oh,” Charlotte clutched her books to her chest, looking down. She couldn’t help but notice the two of them fall into step with one another, right foot first, then left. “I’m a pre-med psychology major.”
“No kidding. So you’re a nerd?”
“What?” Charlotte looked back up, laughing as her cheeks instantly turned a light shade of pink. “I am not.”
“I bet your entire course load is all science classes, not a single arts elective.”
Taking a moment to think, Charlotte fell silent as they walked down the hall. She tried to rack her brain of any arts lecture she had, or any extracurricular she had thrown herself into over the last two years that didn’t involve some sort of science, but unfortunately, she drew a blank.
Taking the silence as a win, Austin smirked. He bumped her shoulder slightly as they walked. “See? Nerd.”
“Just because I like science doesn’t mean I’m a nerd. It just means I’m… intelligent.”
“Are you calling me dumb?” He faked an insult, holding a hand over his chest as if she had just shot him right then and there. Charlotte rolled her eyes.
“At least you can read and write, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Hey, ask me about the history of Van Gogh and I can write you a thousand word essay in under an hour.”
“Bull-shit.”
“No promises it’ll be good if it’s under an hour, but I can do it,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest as he stated his point. Charlotte smiled to herself, clutching her books even harder into her chest as she turned her gaze back to him.
“So you’re an art history nerd.”
“What?” It was almost the exact conversation they’d had one minute prior.
“You know a lot about art history?” she asked him, and Austin shrugged, suddenly falling silent at the mention of his apparent favourite subject. Charlotte never would’ve guessed, but the shock factor was what had her intrigued to ask more. “Why are you an engineering major then?”
“Art history isn’t really something to build on,” he answered, and from his tone of voice at the end of the sentence, Charlotte assumed that he didn’t want to talk any more about it, which she respected. So she pulled out her phone as an excuse to check the time, and then looked back at Austin.
“Well, I have to go, but I’ll see you on Wednesday, then?” she asked, and the farewell made Austin look back at her. His blue eyes met hers and she noticed a sense of melancholy to them; she wasn’t sure if she had struck a nerve, or if he had simply grown bored of the conversation.
“Wednesday, yeah.”
“Bring your thinking cap, maybe I’ll make you do some of the lab this time,” she joked, hoping for a response from the boy instead of a blank stare. Thankfully, a soft smile perked on his lips, and he nodded firmly at her.
“Sure thing, boss.”
Smiling, Charlotte offered him a quick wave, and she fell out of step with the boy, opting to take the exit to her right. Before she pushed open the doors, Charlotte glanced back down the hallway, landing her eyes on the boy she had previously just left. He was taking his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, unlocking it and beginning to text someone. She couldn’t help but smile and admire the way he looked, his curly blonde hair that sat perfectly atop his head and fell short at the nape of his neck, his large arms flexed underneath the sleeves of his t-shirt, the tan skin contrasting against the bright white fabric. Even his jeans, that hugged his lower half a little too nicely and his brown combat boots that looked like he’d worn them every day for the last five years.
As she pushed open the double doors and began her trek back home to her dorm, Charlotte wondered where this boy had been the last two years. Okay, he’d been right under her nose the whole time, apparently in most of her classes last year and at some of the parties she attended, as well. But why hadn’t she noticed him until today? And how the fuck could she ever go without noticing him again?
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the biggest of thank yous to my best friends who have helped me come up with, write, and post this fic: - @sassy-ahsoka-tano - @shimmeringlights44 - @austin-butlers-gf - @dontbesussis - @x-earthangel - @sagesolsticewrites - @imanibyfaith
and ofc my wonderful taglist: ➳ @satninbeaulieu @suspiciousbutler @sagesolsticewrites @shimmeringlights44 @imanibyfaith @butlersbitxh @floralcyanide @sassy-ahsoka-tano @austin-butlers-gf @butlersbabe @dontbesussis @x-earthangel @anangelwhodidntfall @she-is-juniper @butler-on-beale-street @iloveaustinbutler @http-sponge @theliterarybeldam @melodydior @dances-and-dolly-dresses @mommy-maia @alligator-person @elvisabutler @scarlet-knight @austiebutbut @80s-outsiders @a-bolanos @sweetheartlizzie07 @ghxst-heart @matchaluvr123
