the exception to every rule {simon}

[PERCY YEATS]

As a general rule, Percy had never really bought into the whole Valentine's Day business. After all, he was a cynic with brutally high standards and a stone cold heart to boot; like dating, Valentine's Day had since high school become to him something inane and pointless. He scoffed at the shelves of red and pink heart shaped, flamboyantly wrapped chocolate boxes (he knew the chocolate wasn't any good, anyway), he turned his nose up at the chick flick blockbusters that came out around this time of year every year, all of them with the same predictable plot, each one only varying in which moderately attractive female lead was struggling to find love this time -

It was all so mundane, so typical.

Percy loved to think he was above it all.

But still, when he got a text message from Simon asking him to come over Tuesday night, the fourteenth of February, he may or may not have felt the tiniest bit of excited tingling in the tips of his fingers as he texted back with strategic delay, "I'll check my schedule," which he trusted Simon to understand meant, "See you at eight."

And even though he was quite sure that the visit couldn't possibly have any correlating relation to the fact that it was February the fourteenth, he still took a few extra moments checking himself in the mirror. He wore his finest bowtie and wore his hair loose as opposed to slicked back (not because Simon liked it better that way, as if, he just didn't feel like styling it tonight) and his favorite tweed jacket with the dark brown elbow patches and suede lapels.

He gave himself a critical once over, thumbing his hair from his face before mumbling something like, "It'll do," and making his way down out of his dorm building to the bus stop.

He arrived a good five minutes early, but this was fairly normal for him; he was promptly on time if not a safe five to ten minutes premature, never late. He knocked twice, rocking back on his heels, one eyebrow slightly raised in an expression of skepticism and a sort of repressed, tightly controlled glee.

He was not excited.
...Just curious as to what Simon wanted to see him tonight for, obviously.

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[SIMON CHAPMAN]

Simon had thought over all the was he could go about this. This being several different things. For one, he'd been trying to pinpoint the right exact moment to make this whole him and Percy "thing" official. Several times he'd begun to ask and in the same moment he'd stop himself. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Maybe commitment. Maybe he was afraid he wasn't cut out for real relationships. Maybe he was afraid Percy was going to change his mind about him.

At the same time, Simon was trying to figure out what two unofficially involved people were to do on the 14th of February. The obvious answer would be nothing. But that just didn't seem quite right to Simon. He wasn't sure why, but he felt like it was extremely necessary to do something on that day. Maybe to prove himself to Percy, to prove he though what they had could be something, like, special and stuff.

An idea came to him. One that said, "Hey Simon, why not kill two birds with one stone? Why not make you and Percy official on Valentine's day?." And, well, shit. This actually seemed like a pretty decent idea.

Now was just the how of it. How did he want to make this happen? Did he want to be cool and different and make the Valentine's day something outside of the neat, little, commercialized box? NO. Nooo. He wanted to be the commercialized box.

A day before the infamous holiday, Simon could be seen at the flower shop, the candy store, and even Hallmark. Three places one would put on their list of the last places Simon would ever be. Until now.

The next day, he spent the morning getting everything cheesy enough. (There was a bag of heart confetti over the door to his dorm. Percy sure would have a surprise there.) A stuffed bear with a big obnoxious heart that said "BE MINE" was sitting on his desk with the biggest box of chocolates he could have found anywhere (and there were some fucking big box of chocolates at Valentine's time).

Stuffing a bottle of wine quickly into his mini-fridge, he turned to the door. Percy was here early. As always. Eyes flying to the mirror on the wall across his room, he checked his appearance. Tie good. White button-up- a little wrinkled, but good. Pants on. Good. Nodding at himself he headed to the door, pulling it open and watching the heart confetti fly around. He had to hold back a laugh as he ushered Percy in and closed the door behind him.

"Percy Yeats! What a pleasant surprise!" He chimed, as if he hadn't texted the boy only a few hours earlier asking him over. "Don't you just look delectable." He purred out, still trying to keep from laughing. This was definitely the right choice. If he'd gone for the serious route, he'd be sweating bullets right now.

[PERCY YEATS]

Percy couldn't totally smother the slow smile he felt curling traitorously across his face when the door opened revealing Simon in all of his pompous taunting glory. He rolled his eyes at the cheesy greeting, taking a step forward into the room. "Well you know, I was just in the neighborhood..." He trailed off, his eyes having landed on the ridiculous set up on Simon's desk.

He'd gotten him a stuffed bear for christ's sake.

A disbelieving laugh of surprise came from him and he shook his head, looking at Simon, quirking an eyebrow, grinning huge and stupid despite himself. "A teddy bear? Really?" he asked. "I didn't expect you to be so full of holiday commercial spirit, Simon," he said, leaning against the edge of the desk, looking at Simon with a teasing lilt to his voice. It was awful cheesy, disgustingly commercial, terribly cliche and none of that at all explained the fact that Percy couldn't for the life of him stop grinning like a kid on Christmas morning.

[SIMON CHAPMAN]

"Well, you picked a pretty awesome time to be in the neighborhood." Simon smirked, noticing Percy's eyes had gone straight to the teddy bear. Pressing a finger to the obnoxious and demanding heart the bear was holding, he picked it up and held it out to Percy, letting out something between a nervous and a slightly amused laugh.

"I hear they're good for sleeping with. Not as good as me. But a close second I'd assume." He shrugged, and then slid the box of chocolates off his desk, this time just snickering childishly. The heart shaped box was almost too big to hold in one hand, and he peered over it at Percy, totally thrilled with himself. "These are your reward treats. If you're a good boy, I'll let you try one now." He cooed, setting the box next to the bear and dusting a piece of the heart confetti from Percy's hair.

"I was gonna go with a card. But that seemed like it'd be waaaayyy over the top." He explained, motioning for Percy to sit down anywhere.

[PERCY YEATS]

Percy raised an eyebrow, smirking a little at Simon's response. "Don't you seem excited," he noticed. "Seriously, I wouldn't have you pegged for the kind of guy who'd like Valentine's Day." The sassy grin softened perhaps just the littlest bit when Simon held the teddy bear out for him, but Percy was not yet won over enough that he didn't first roll his eyes with a dramatic scoff before taking it and holding it loosely to his chest. He traced the letters stitched into the plush heart "B E M I N E" with thoughtful fingertips.

"You will never catch me sleeping with a teddy bear," he said dryly, but he gave the stupid damn adorable thing a squeeze anyway.

He eyed the chocolate with appreciation because, yes when it came to chocolate he was as insatiable as a hormonal woman after a bad break up. And it was quite an impressive box. He looked back up at Simon as the other approached, standing close enough to reach with ease and brush his fingers over the top of Percy's hair that he may or may not have left unstyled just for this purpose. "I'll behave if you will," he challenged lightly, slipping around Simon to take a seat.

On the bed.

What?
It was the most comfortable piece of furniture in the room that's all.

[SIMON CHAPMAN]

Simon shrugged chipperly, leaning back against his desk and facing Percy, ever-so proud of himself. Cheesy worked. Cheesy didn't make him want to turn and run from all the things he still had to say. He figured the wine he had chilling still would help him find the words. Watching Percy take the bear finally, he felt a pang of relief as the other held onto it. He knew the commercial approach had been a long-shot, especially since Percy was the kind of boy to despise all things cheesy and commercial. But Simon was guessing, that just like himself, Percy was in need of some fluff, to make this whole thing easier. Mostly on Simon, though. He did have important things to say. But he'd say that after the wine.

Grin broadening at Percy's challenge he nodded lightly, "Deal." This was going well, no nerves yet. Going over to the fridge he retrieved the bottle of wine, raising a brow Percy's way. "Not that you're particularly in need of any alcohol, but." He smirked holding it up as he grabbed two glasses. "I got the one with the hardest name to pronounce. 'Cause I thought it'd be funny when you tried to pronounce it later." He teased, pouring himself a bit more of a full glass before handing Percy his.

Sidling up next to Percy on his bed, he took a quick sip of his wine before remembering he had one other completely ridiculous gift. Leaning behind Percy as he uttered an A-ha! he slid a box out from between his sheets. Letting it plop into Percy's lap, he grinned again cheekily. "Since you love them so much, I got one for the occasion." He explained, holding back another laugh. He watched Percy's face as he opened the box to reveal the insanely bright red bow tie with little white hearts all over it.

Definitely more valuable than flowers. Plus, it'd last longer.

[PERCY YEATS]

Percy set the bear down next to him on the bed, playing with the deep lust red innocent-disguised ribbon wrapped around the beast's soft neck idly, watching Simon grin, knowing that the goofiness was reflected mirror-perfect in whatever silly expression was leaking across his own face at that moment. It wasn't that he was buying into the holiday silliness, it was just... well, he was fairly impressed by the effort Simon had gone to to put the ridiculous little celebration together. He had spent money on chocolates and a stupid bear and he was acknowledging a holiday about love which was frankly shocking by Simon's very nature as he was just about as abrasive to the idea as Percy himself was.

And he was doing all of that... for Percy.

So he couldn't help but notice and it was only polite that he appreciate the gesture, of course. Percy was anything but rude after all.

His eyebrows shot up again as they had a habit of doing whenever Percy was surprised; Simon had pulled out a bottle of a wine. Not enough to get the both of them drunk, but Percy was fairly certain that there was a bottle of vodka somewhere in the room if the need arose later in the evening. He grinned, reaching for it. "Let me see. And shut up, I'm utterly coherent when I'm drunk 100% of the time," he said lightly and in all seriousness as if her didn't know he turned into a hot mess every time he had even the slightest bit too much to drink. He eyed the bottle's fancy gold label after Simon had poured them both a glass. "Well, it's not a martini," he said with a dramatic sigh. "...but I guess it'll do."

His lips curled mischievously around the rim of the glass Simon had handed him and he sipped and did his best to hide that he was actually rather impressed with the quality before turning his attention to the little box that Simon had magicked out of the sheets. "You hid it in the bed," he observed dryly, smirking and putting the wine glass aside to open the box. He bit the corner of his lip slightly, a smile exploding inside of him manifesting itself twitchingly on his lips as he looked at the ridiculous little bowtie.

He looked over at Simon, huffed lightly and rolled his eyes and pretended to make a fuss over it before leaning over suddenly and pressing a sudden happy kiss to Simon's lips, abandoning his pretenses for a brief moment because it was dumb but it made him so stupidly happy. "It's hideous," he mumbled against the other boy's mouth before pulling away and promptly going about taking off his current bowtie to replace it with the tacky one in the box.

Out of politeness, obviously.

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[SIMON CHAPMAN]

Snorting at Percy's claim of being perfectly coherent when under the influence of a bit too much alcohol, he decided to leave it for the time being. Besides, he rather enjoyed how loose Percy became after a martini too many. Pleased with the seemingly positive reaction Percy had to the expensive and unpronounceable bottle of wine, he set his glass aside by Percy's, eyes brightening at the fuss the other attempted to make over the unique- for lack of a better word- bow tie he'd received for the occasion.

Grinning into the kiss as Percy commented on the less than fashionable appearance of the festive garment, he sat back as the boy put it on in spite of how much he probably preferred the one he was wearing. Percy was playing along. That was a good sign at least. Reaching forward to help the boy straighten it, he help the bow between his fingers a second, smirking slightly and raising a brow Percy. "I personally think it suits you." He nodded, smoothing a finger over the crease in the bow.

Now that the cheesy was mostly out of the way, Simon was trying to find something to keep him from freaking over the more serious side of all of this. Stalling with simple talk as he tried to down a good portion of his wine and filling it back up as casually as possible again when he felt he needed an extra push, he finally set his again emptied glass back down and ran a hand through his hair.

"So, there's one thing I kinda wanted to ask-slash-talk about." He said, preparing himself, remembering that there was one more cheesy gesture to go along with with his question. Grinning slyly, he picked up the remote to his stereo, biting his lip before pressing play. Simon had never been a soft rock person, and he knew Percy was certainly not either, but who could resist a little Earth, Wind, and Fire? No one. That's who.

Clearing his throat as a laugh bubbled up in the back of his throat he turned back to Percy, trying to keep some semblance of composure while the lead singer of Earth, Wind, and Fire was hitting high notes. "So, uhm... You know we've been, uh, well...we've been seeing each other a lot lately, and we've kept it unlabeled, which has been good. But uhm, I- okay, fuck hold on." He sighed, picking up the remote again and turning the music back off. It wasn't calming him as much as it was stressing him out. Clearing his throat again, he returned his eyes to Percy's face, "So, what I'm really trying to get at is... I'm wondering if maybe you'd want to... make you and I official. I know that doesn't really entitle much, but I feel like it's some kind of a step." He rambled on, finally stopping himself, reaching for his wine glass again.

[PERCY YEATS]

Percy rolled his eyes again, for show, and challenged lazily, "So tackiness suits me, I suppose?" although there was little if any real venom in it. He was watching Simon with secret bubbling fondness, unable to keep from smiling as the other boy reached out to smooth his fingers across the bow tie in question. He tilted his head, lethargic, ever calculating, slightly to the side, observing Simon as some of his cool gave way to tell tale signs of nervous anticipation.

It wasn't like Percy was totally oblivious, after all; he himself had considered the possibility of being something "serious" and the idea of it was just as frightening as it was exhilarating. His past attempts at holding a real relationship had all ended fairly badly, but still...

He had at the very least considered it.

He focused his attention on his wine glass, thoughtfully sloshing the alcohol around before glancing curiously over at Simon as the other boy tried to force the words out. Eventually they came, and Percy took a moment to mull them over, considering.

"I've never had an official relationship end well for me," he mused, tracing the rim of his wine glass with a fingerpad before peeking back up and over at Simon. "I get jealous, you know." he said somewhat severely. "I'm not an easy lover, I'm very demanding... You'll have to put up with a lot, if I know myself." He glanced away, not entirely sure why he was throwing out such warnings instead of just answering the question. He cleared his throat. "...But I could be willing to try, if you were..."

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