You're So Vain
Also. This may be a modern AU, and Nia is not a catgirl, but Dromarch is still a talking white tiger for no reason. It's never explained. You just have to deal with it :).
"That's your car?"
Mythra leaned proudly against the massive, if a little beat-up and quite honestly shitty, baby pink pickup with her absolute smuggest look. "It sure is. What are you looking at, anyway? You came here in a truck too."
"Yeah, yeah, but Minoth keeps his truck clean. The suspension, and everything. And it doesn't have a sticker on the tailgate that says 'Pussy Wagon'."
Mythra rolled her eyes. "Okay. But what about the flag one, did you like that?"
"What flag one?" Nia sauntered back around to the rear bumper and hovered a searching index finger over the decal-studded paint, the other hand propped by the knuckles on her hip. "Oh, this one. 'Kneel for the Flag'. What's so special about that?"
"Wow. You're no fun," Mythra deadpanned. "What?" "Oh, you didn't see it. Look underneath."
Nia did, and when she found the additional magnetic piece of the puzzle she started laughing softly. Then, she started cackling. She kept cackling for a long time until Mythra walked over and smacked the back of her head. "It's not that funny."
"Sorry, sorry, it's just-- No, it really is. 'Kneel for the Flag' but it's the trans flag? I can't, that's too funny. I have to show this to Minoth when he comes to pick me up."
"What, you're not gonna let me take you home?" Smug again, and a little perverse, but not in an uncomfortable way. Just in a way that might make a certain other girl blush.
"You can drive me home," Nia twisted the words around to be agreeable. "I'll just have to send him a picture."
And when she pulled out her phone to snap the requisite photos, she threw in a shot of Pussy Wagon just for good measure. For kicks. Whatever.
"You have a good time?" Minoth asked, somehow in the least possibly patronizing manner, when Nia showed up at his apartment after classes fairly late the next day.
"I mean, you got the picture, right? She's a basket case." Backpack heaved and said sender flopped unceremoniously into a chair.
"You're a basket case, my dear," he said, shuffling his notebooks swiftly off of the table so she could lay down her things. "Where's Dromarch?"
"Outside. Sunning himself, or whatever." "He still doesn't like me, huh?" "Huh? Nah, I think he likes you better than he likes me, sometimes." "Hang in there, Nia. He's just taking care of you the best way he knows how. We both are."
Nia couldn't help but smile; her relationship with the freelance playwright was still somewhat of an awkward thing, but she'd met him while working on stage crew for her work study, and they'd become fast friends. "You want a clementine?" Of course she did. And who wouldn't want a friend like that?
"I just wish it wasn't so embarrassing having her drive me home," Nia said as she plunged a pinky finger through the pedicel with abandon.
"And just why would that be? Your dorm is perfectly nice." Minoth was comparatively more well-mannered; he had used a toothpick to get the first part of the peel free.
"My dormitory," Nia reluctantly stressed the extra syllables, "is perfectly nice. My dorm room is nasty, and it's all my horrible roommate's fault."
Minoth considered this. "It's certainly not the most becoming for a young woman like yourself, but it's not below college students to be messy. She must be the same."
Nia gave a colossal sigh, because of course he was right, and yet... "Yeah, her room is messy, but in a cute way. It's artsy. And she's an engineer, so everything she does is better."
"You're looking at the very most liberal of artists, Nia. That complaint isn't hardly ever useful, because I'm not going to tolerate you being down on your major, and she's just going to feel bad that you said that, even if she doesn't show it."
His reaffirming words didn't help stave her regret of taking up gender studies instead of bioengineering or even biology all that much. Especially not when one considered their larger topic.
"Oh, no, she won't feel bad. She'd agree with me. She's so...confident."
"Is that why you're dating her? For her confidence?"
"I didn't- we're not-- We're not dating!! We just went on one date. And it was to flippin' Armu Monarch!"
"I suppose you're right, milady. Depends on how gone on her you get to be."
"Can we stop talking about her, already? As I was saying." Nia gave a miniature harrumph that more sounded like Dromarch hacking up a hairball.
"She has an excuse for not taking me to her place - even though she acted like she didn't - because it's her brother's apartment, and he's incredibly annoying. Incredibly."
Minoth had to hide the smile teasing at his lips, because Nia was still talking about Mythra. Going, going, gone.
"And I'm to be annoying just the same, hmm?" Nia laughed, pointy canines and all. "No, you're not annoying, but your boyfriend is. Maybe it is all down to him going to business school."
"He went to business school, and now he's rich and I'm poor. Careful with the stones you throw." True to form, Nia mimed hefting just such a rocky item and smashing it directly into Minoth's already quite broken looking nose.
"Anyway. So you want to bring her over here and play Chooby Tubes with your two gay dad-adjacent figures? You can't possibly think I'm just going to give you the key offhand and skedaddle."
If Nia was perhaps a freshman or a sophomore, she might have pouted at the easy derailment of her plans, but now she was a junior, and that meant she was crafty. She'd put off Effective Speaking until last semester, and maybe that had been a tactical error...nevertheless, she was all shored up and ready to wheedle.
"Why not? You always complain about how you want to go stay over at Addam's, but you're afraid to leave your place and your truck alone because the city's so crappy in this area."
"And I should trust you to keep her safe? Our heights are perfectly complementary in the worst way." Minoth stood over her as he said this, and pulled out his hair tie to shake down the waves for even greater towering effect.
Nia, below him, could only make a half-hearted swipe at his side. "Hey! I could scratch 'em, or somethin'. And you're forgetting! Dromarch would be here."
As if preternaturally summoned, there came a muffled thumping at the door. Observing the impending change in mood, Minoth gathered up the stray orange peels and piths, tossed them away, and settled onto the couch to watch Nia let the great white tiger in.
"Afternoon, Dromarch." Just as announced, Dromarch padded elegantly across the carpet, offering a "Good afternoon to you as well" to their host and a purring nuzzle to Nia's expectant hand.
"She fill you in on her little escapade of last night?"
He, the both of them, ignored Nia's scowl. "My lady doesn't inform me about much, but I gleaned it well enough. Miss Mythra is...certainly a force to be reckoned with."
Nia crossed her arms. "What, you gotta make it out like I'm a disaster waiting to happen, every time? I clean up nice!" No comment from her avuncular older pals.
"And that's another thing!" As she proclaimed it, Nia pulled out a rumpled piece of paper from her back pocket, and Dromarch gave a groan. "Oh, can it, furball. See, these are all the girls I like, and-- C'mon, Dromarch, lay down so I can write." (Tune changing so fast, my girl?)
"My lady, I happen to think I'm more than just a table to be used at your whim."
"What?! I've seen you let him do it more times than I can count!"
"Yes, well, Sir Cole has rather more...high-minded pursuits."
Minoth, embarrassed at the renown of his pseudonym, simply said quietly, "Thanks for that, old-timer, but need I also mention that there's a perfectly good desk right here?"
"Yeah, but it's like...gay," Nia said distractedly as she contorted her fingers around each other and smoothed out the paper.
In a simultaneously deadpanned and dramatic tone, accompanied by a truly Shakespearean point of digit, Minoth gave his most cutting denotational epithet: "Your list is a lesbian."
His audience just stared at him for several breathless, incredulous seconds before Nia positively collapsed on top of Dromarch, now sending him thudding to the floor without so much as a warning.
"Can you-- Can you put that in your next play?" she got out between heaving gasps of laughter. "I wanna see the looks on all the posh old parents' faces, the ones who drive an hour out to see their trust fund baby say two lines and then get killed off."
"Nia, Nia," Minoth started with a gratefully accepted hand leant down to ruffle Dromarch's mane, "I could never kill off someone with such an eloquent line of absolute queerness like that. It's foul play, and you know this."
Artistic discussion over, they returned to baser things and spent the next several hours arguing respectfully (to the subjects of conversation, not necessarily to each other) about the merits and demerits of each girl, Nia supplying insight on who gave the best cuddles, Minoth tastefully agreeing where appropriate but cautioning against those who had dropped out of school, of which there were surprisingly many, and Dromarch just shaking his head.
Eventually, Minoth got up to look in on his stag beetle tank and check the substrate for excess moisture on the humid day. When he returned with water for himself and Nia, and a dish of the same kept specifically for the purpose of Dromarch's visits, the girl was fast asleep - probably not such a good choice to have gone careening around with a date, for fast food or not, the night before her all-day block of lectures, recitations, and work study hours.
Shaking his head, he placed the water dish carefully on the floor and brushed away a few stray hairs that had escaped the confines of the ties at the front of her bob. "You need a lift, of her off of you?" he asked Dromarch in a stage whisper, but the big cat just gave a warm smile and nestled his nose among his paws. "Suit yourself. I'll be in my room."
Meanwhile, at the aforementioned apartment, Mythra made her own post-obligations appearance, tossing down her backpack in much of the same fashion as Nia had across town and campus, but doing so relatively more gingerly thanks to the laptop she was ever-conscious of within.
"Malos?" she called out, and got no answer. Someone who was decidedly not her brother emerged from the kitchen with oven mitt in hand.
"Oh my god, you're baking again? You guys better not make me go to the store for you again this week, I have too many midterms for that."
Jin arched an unamused eyebrow. "If you have to pull your own weight in exchange for free rent here once in a blue moon, I won't stop it. And you know you're going to eat the cookies anyway."
"Oh? Are they spicy?" "As always, because you two peas in a pod are gluttons for punishment."
"Nice," Mythra declared, and flung her overencumbered keychain across the bistro cabinet on the near wall, where it and all its passenger items of veritably pronounceable junk collided with everything else thereupon landed. "Malos!" she called again. Still no answer.
Jin almost smirked at her, almost, as he spoke the same name to elicit rapidly shuffling bootsteps from the bedroom at the far end of the apartment. Maddening.
"So? 'D you pull?" Malos asked, making an ambling beeline for his boyfriend and the promised cookies (he got a light slap on the cheek in retribution, then a kiss in the same spot to make it better).
"Whoa there, Captain Asshole," Mythra said as she reached a cavalier hand up to ruin his fauxhawk. "I drink my respect women juice, and I've got a magnet on my truck to prove it."
Sneering his amusement, Malos pulled out a seat from the kitchen/dining room/foyer table, flipped it around so he could sit crotch to the backrest, and offered in a derisive snort, "Yeah, and hanging on your keychain, and pinned to your backpack, and plastered to your laptop. Insecure much?"
Mythra huffed, arms crossed and eyebrow quirked. "It's called swagger and self-confidence, ever heard of it? Nia loved the ambiance, I'll have you know. She even wanted to show 'em to the guy who dropped her off."
"Somebody dropped her off? She can't fucking drive? Lame, Myth, lame." Jin gave no commiseration, only turning away from the odd conversation and back to his still-raw dough and filling.
"I mean...not really," she said, lamely herself. "Big guy, with long brown hair in a ponytail and a scar on the left side of his face. Looked like a deceptive asshole, like you think he's nice enough but he actually really sucks."
Malos tipped back forward from where the chair had been teetering dangerously on its front, now rear, legs. "Wait a minute...what kinda ride? Big purple truck, except not flashy and stupid-looking like yours?"
Mythra nodded, ignoring the insult. Maybe it wasn't one, to her. "Yep," with a pop of the P. "You know him?"
Instead of answering her, Malos just started laughing, first breathy guffaws issuing from a disbelievingly shaken head, then the fast-approaching followup of straight-up belly laughs.
"Mythra, I used to date that guy!" he exclaimed his explanation once he'd gotten control of himself. (Jin had come out to peek, smiled, perhaps victoriously, and withdrawn once more.)
Mythra should have been taken aback, maybe even shocked by the serendipity or the lack thereof, but she wasn't, only making an appraising face and lurching down into a chair herself.
"So?" she prompted. "What?"
"Is he an asshole, or no? I mean, I guess he'd have to be, to end up with you, even for a little while. Full offense, Jin."
"All taken," he batted back from within the kitchenette.
"No," Malos said unexpectedly softly. "He's actually a great guy. Little too flamboyant for me, which is why he's with a total goofball for keeps now, but it's good for Nia if he's looking out for her. You made a good pick, Myth."
Eyes rolled all around the room. "Yeah, whatever. Don't bother me about it again, 'kay?" Mythra said, for her part impossibly sweetly. "I've got a database to drop."
Malos paled momentarily, thinking that she was perhaps referring to that of the website she ran for Jin's online bakery shop, but said proprietor flashed him a reassuring grin, and he dropped the fear himself as Mythra slung her backpack back up over her shoulder and made for her room.
The better part of a week passed before the girls had another of their ever-fateful meetings, this time at the sandwich shop, concisely titled The Dragonmen, down near the south end of campus. It specialized in a menu full of references and homages to regular customers and pop culture, so when they'd taken their seats, it was with The Aegis, a bag of sweet chili chips, and a peach-lemon tea (Mythra) and The Sub of Shining Justice, a bag of sour cream and onion chips, and a strawberry soda (Nia) in hand.
"What'd you get?" Mythra asked, blunt as ever. "I think it's a...BLT with cheddar cheese, or something," Nia answered as she peeled up the top layer of bread around the toothpick. "Ugh, they put mayo. I don't know if I can finish this, or even start it."
"What? You don't like mayo? Gimme." And Mythra literally made grabby hands as she shoved her own plate around to the other side of the table.
"Not so fast - what did you get?" "It's a roast beef. Ardainian dip, or whatever, here's the sauce."
She was licking her fingers, having apparently already tried some. Nia was...picky about people touching her food, to put it lightly, but hey, if she was gonna kiss the girl eventually, and she did plan to, whether Dromarch and Minoth approved or not, no harm in starting the slippage here.
"Pretty swanky name for such a stupid little sandwich," Nia commented after Mythra had taken her first bite.
"Yeah, kinda weird. Maybe that's what the guy they named it after was like, all bark and no bite. Bite, ha, get it?"
Okay, this is it, Nia. Go out on a limb. Be. Confident. "Kinda like you then, huh?"
Shoot. She'd gotten the bottom of her crop top caught in the plastic cup of sauce as she'd leaned over the table, and Mythra just stared engrossedly on, no rejoinder, retort, or snarky remark in sight or sound.
Wait...what? Does she, like, think I'm cute?
Nothing for it now. "So, ah, haha...you wanna come back to my place after this? I've got funfetti macarons, if you're into that sorta thing. Y'know, kneel for the flag, and all..."
As unsure as she sounded, Minoth had indeed sent her picture proof of the crucial saccharine supplies he'd picked up for her from the local supermarket (she'd made him promise not to get anything more expensive), along with a picture of him kissing Addam on the cheek, with the captions "There's your prop, there's your inspiration, and this is your cue. You're on, Nia, and I know you'll do great." And then he'd sent the cowboy emoji. God. That probably hadn't even been Addam's suggestion.
But back to the real world, the present moment. Mythra wrinkled her nose and tilted her chin up at Nia as she resumed devouring her sandwich, unbothered. When she had done chewing, she replied, "Gay rights dessert, huh? Hell yeah. It's in walking distance, right?"
"Y-yeah, of course." Nia worked her hands in her lap, feeling nervously at the belt buckle on her high-waisted paper-bag pants. "But it's not the best part of town, so we'd better be careful. You wanna...hold hands?"
"Wow." Mythra was wiping her sticky appendages on a napkin now, before steepling and lacing her fingers and resting her chin thereupon. "You've really been working up the courage for a long time, haven't you? Just waiting to make out with me."
At that, Nia spluttered a multitude of undignified words, probably with a mess of curses mixed in too. "Can you stop being so flippin' cocksure?"
"Sure, Nia. Suck my dick."
I can't go one fic, modern universe or not, without making Minoth Nia's trans/gay older best friend, I'm sorry but I can't. It wasn't supposed to be more than the simple mention in the truck scene but then I had a discussion about cowboy-catdad momence, and well...please endure my brainrot in service of the Nythra <3.
Here's Minoth's truck, which is named Iona in all instances where he has this and not the pony car.
Here's Mythra's truck, bare of decals because it was hard enough just to find this one image, for whatever reason.