Valentine's Day fics are fun right?
Setting: early season one
I don't own House of Anubis.
Quietly, Fabian strummed his guitar as he sat on the edge of Amber's bed. Nina was sitting on the floor by her bed, engrossed in a book from her seemingly never-ending shelf. Occasionally, she would look up to show a grin of approval at a melody Fabian played.
"You've gotten much better," Nina laughed after a while. When these nightly visits began, he could just barley play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; Tonight, Nina was almost positive she heard a bit of a Jason Mraz song in his strumming repertoire. Nothing amazing, but pleasant sounding nonetheless.
"Why thank you," he chuckled. Tiring of his strumming, Fabian laid the guitar down and moved himself across the room to sit next to Nina. Peering over her shoulder, he asked, "What are you reading?"
"It's stupid," she shook her head.
"Why are you reading it then?" he questioned, eyebrows raising in curiosity.
"I thought it'd be good," she sighed. "And once I start a book, I always have to finish it, or else I go insane. It's a curse, really."
"Interesting," he nodded with a smile. They sat for a moment in silence, both looking for words, but none being found. An exchange of nervous laughter was all that could be mustered before Victor's voice boomed from downstairs.
"That's my cue," Fabian let out a sigh.
"Night," Nina's eyes followed his as he stood up, their contact not breaking until Victor's final words.
"Night," he said, grabbing his guitar and making a dash for the door.
"Well well well," Mick said, amused by his roommate's late arrival.
"Well well what?" Fabian knew what was coming, and tried his best to dodge this bullet, but his efforts were useless.
"This is becoming routine," Mick hinted, trying to agitate Fabian into telling.
"What is?" he pulled the oblivious card as he set his guitar down on it's stand.
"What do you two do, anyways?" Mick mused, almost to himself, as he tossed his football up and down in the air. Teasingly, he questioned, "Do you play her love songs on your guitar?"
"We just...hang out," Fabian shook his head, internally pleading with his cheeks to stop burning in such a furious matter.
"No, really, what do you do?" Mick prodded, obviously not believing a word of the truth. Suddenly, a small smirk slipped across his lips. "Do you...you know?"
"No! We're just friends. I don't see what's wrong with that," Fabian shook his head, hopping into his bed.
"Oh, nothing," Mick shrugged, getting up to turn off the lights. "But you know, you have the perfect window of opportunity for it."
"Really?" Fabian tried to be sarcastic, but couldn't help the twinge of curiosity that hovered in his tone.
"Valentine's Day, mate. It's in three days."
"So?"
"So," Mick began, exasperated with his best friend's lack of romantic experience, "ask her out on a date."
"No," Fabian protested immediately.
"Well why not?"
"I...we're just friends!"
"That's what a chicken would say," Mick rolled his eyes.
"Chicken's can't speak, Mick: they're chickens."
"Well, that's what they're thinking they would say. And they're thinking it because they can't speak and ask out their attractive American girl chicken friend who gazes at them during meals and in the pasture that they hang out with before bed."
"You're really bad with analogies," Fabian laughed.
"You get my point though," Mick groaned.
"Yeah," he sighed.
"And that's why we're best mates. You understand my analogies and I help you with your chicken issues."
"Okay Mick," his laugh continued. Accompanying the laughter of now both boys was the angered stomp of Victor.
"Campbell! Rutter! Quiet in there!"
"Sorry Victor!" Fabian called back. As Victor left for his office, the two stayed silent. Following the slam of his office door, Mick spoke up.
"You really should, mate. She'd say yes," Mick whispered-he wasn't kidding around anymore.
"You think so?" Fabian whispered back.
"If she says no, I'll eat Alfie's socks."
"I'd like for you to live to see tomorrow," Fabian couldn't help but laugh at this. Alfie's socks were notorious for being unapproachable; Trudy would have nothing to do with them.
"Well it's a good thing she'll say yes."
"Cereal anyone?" Trudy offered as she bustled around the table the next morning.
"Me," Nina raised her hand halfway. Trudy gave it to Fabian who passed it on, his hand making brief contact with Nina's. She shot him a smile, but he looked down. Last night, he'd gone through a planning process: today, he'd ask her. If the answer was no, he'd play it off as if it never happened. If the answer was yes...he had a lot of work to do. What did people even do for dates? And did Valentine's Day mean he'd have to step things up even more? This was much more stressful than it needed to be.
Breakfast went on quickly, Amber chattering away about the play they were working on in Drama. Fabian kept his head down, staring at his bagel intently as he pondered over date ideas. Personally, he thought stargazing could be "romantic", or maybe a moonlit picnic, but the more he thought about it, the more dumb it sounded to him. As the housemates began to leave for school, Nina tapped his shoulder.
"You alright? You seem a little...out of it," she her face twisted in curiosity, confused with this deep contemplation Fabian had been absorbed by.
"Uh-yeah, fine! Great! Ready to go?" he scrambled to get up, knocking over the cereal container and a glass of milk in the process. "Oh, Trudy! I'm so sorry! I'll clean it up, don't-"
"It's fine deary, I don't want you to be late," Trudy patted his cheek.
"Thank you," he sighed. Everyone left in the room tried their best not to laugh, but Mick couldn't hold back for too long.
"Smooth," he chuckled in a low tone, bumping into Fabian's shoulder on his way out into the hall.
"Shut it," Fabian hissed.
"Are you sure you're fine?" Nina asked later that day. "You've been sort of jumpy any time I say something."
"Oh! Yeah! Just...thinking," Fabian tapped his head with his pencil, trying to maintain a smile.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Nina offered, inching a bit closer to Fabian on the couch they shared in the drama room.
"Erm," Fabian muttered. "Well, it's nothing. Thoughts about this week."
"Oh," Nina nodded. "This week. Oh! Wait, this week!"
"What about it?" he laughed at her revelation.
"Valentine's Day!" Nina laughed a little. Fabian's face went pale, hoping against hope she didn't know anything of his intentions.
"Yeah," his laughter turned nervous. "That."
"Sort of commercial, if you ask me," she shrugged. He was almost sure he felt his heart drop a little.
"Don't let Amber hear you saying that," he tried to cover up his disappointment.
"I won't have time to say anything, she's been talking about it every night after you leave. I made a "No Valentine's Day Talk While We're Sibuna-ing" rule, so I guess you haven't gotten it yet," Nina laughed. "It's not that I don't like it, but it's tiring to hear of someone else's love life all the time.
"Oh," Fabian nodded, not sure what to think.
"Maybe if I had something to bring to the table for these conversations, they wouldn't be so bad, but oh well," Nina laid an awfully non-subtle hint, but Fabian was too wrapped up in his flying thoughts. Truth was, she'd been doing this (against her better judgement) for the last two weeks. She'd liked Fabian since she'd started here, and the thought of being forever friends was nice but not what she had in mind. Amber said never ask the boy out unless he's completely oblivious. Was this a good enough situation to? Nina really wasn't sure.
"Yeah," Fabian nodded, biting his bottom lip in concentration. He couldn't imagine why she'd bring that up. He felt as if the sentence taunted him, saying it was his time to stop being, as Mick would say, a chicken. At that moment, the bell rang and Amber swooped over to the pair.
"So, are we Sibuna Snooping tonight in the attic?" Amber asked excitedly.
"Yeah, we only have two more cylinders left," Nina breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good, the attic is just a bit too spooky for me," Amber nodded.
They'd been in the attic for nearly an hour as they were experiencing difficulties with the cylinders.
"We can't do this tomorrow night," Amber yawned.
"Why?" Nina asked, leaning her head against the wall as Fabian took his turn with the cylinder and trying to open it's stiff surface.
"Because I need to be well rested for Valentine's Day!" Amber said, thinking it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Amber, remember the rule?"
"I'm sorry, but this is important too! Mick says he has a surprise for me!" Amber squealed.
"Does he now?" Fabian asked, still focused on the cylinder. He and Nina knew it was just best to amuse Amber when it came to topics like this.
"He does. And he said he's been trying to get Fabian here to-"
"Got it!" Fabian cut Amber off nervously, but held the opened cylinder in his hand.
"You're the best," Nina grinned, putting the cylinder in the phonograph to play it. Fabian returned the smile, and now everyone was smiling.
A cautious exit from the attic over with, Amber said something about having to run to the bathroom and brush her teeth, scurrying off rather fast. Looking at his watch, Fabian saw it was nearly two in the morning.
"Okay, we have to keep searching," Nina said after Fabian recounted the time. "Since Amber's not going, I guess tomorrow-no, tonight really, it'll just be you and me. Unless you have any big Valentine's Day plans the next day," the both of them laughed nervously. Before she could stop herself, she asked, "You don't, do you?"
"No," Fabian laughed, a wave of comfort washing over him.
"Good," Nina sighed. Quickly, she realized what she had said and tried to recover from her flub, "I mean, no, not good! Well, good for Sibuna, but not good for you?"
"Actually," the nervous feeling starting nipping at Fabian once more, "I was sort of hoping I would?" mentally slapping himself at how lame that sounded, he tried again. "I mean...wow. Okay, what...what I'm trying to say-um, well...Nina?"
"Yes?" she couldn't decide whether to be very happy or very flustered and nervous, so it was sort of a combination of the three.
"Do you think you'd maybe like to...uh, maybe...well, like-do something with me? On Valentine's Day? Sort of like...like a-um, a," his stuttering came to an all time high.
"A date?" she couldn't help but laugh a little, finding this all adorable.
"Yeah," he let our a sigh of relief, glad she understood what he wanted to say when he barely did himself.
"I'd like that," she grinned, trying her hardest not to laugh in excitement.
"Really?" Fabian asked, a bit stunned.
"Really," she nodded.
"Great," he smiled, glad the asking was over.
"Great," she nodded.
"Well, I guess I'll see you at breakfast," not all the nervousness was gone from his tone. "Night, Nina."
"Night, Fabian," neither could contain a beaming grin at this point.
"Night," he said instinctively, earning another mental slap from himself seeing he now sounded like a babbling idiot.
"Night," she repeated, a bit of a giggle coming out of her tone.
A/N: well that was stupid but oh well. There'll probably be one more installment...two if I actually get an idea for a filler in between.
Review with what you think their date should be after all! I have a few ideas, but hearing yours would be great too :)
Thanks for reading!
