Welcome to Gaia! ::

tab Mason managed to keep a good front up for the rest of the day he spent with Halia; any angst or anxiety he felt about the sudden change in his understanding of their relationship was kept firmly in the tight little box in the back of his mind, right up until the second the front door of his house closed behind him and he watched Halia’s truck disappear around the corner.
tab “MADS!” Mason shouted immediately, turning on his heel. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
tab “Why are you yelling?” Madeline asked, more concerned than actually irritated as she stepped out of her bedroom. “What’s wrong?”
tab “Halia likes me!” Mason blurted. He’d fully intended on having this conversation a little more delicately - not from the bottom to the top of the stairs, mainly - but it burst out of him like an 80s horror movie, unable to be contained for even a second longer. Madeline raised her eyebrows slightly, took out her headphones, held up one finger, disappeared into her room, and re-emerged a monet later. Then she darted deftly down the stairs, grabbed his hand, and pulled him into the kitchen, where she began busying herself with getting them each a bowlful of–
tab “Ice cream?” Mason asked, blinking in surprise. “I didn’t even know we had–where did you hide that?” Mason squinted at her, but Madeline just grinned.
tab “Secret sister compartment,” she answered, sliding his bowl over to him after topping them both off with whipped cream(!). “Okay. Start at the beginning. What happened.”
tab Mason relayed the day, blushing bright pink when he was forced to admit his stupid joke that had accidentally prompted Halia’s confession, but he got through the story otherwise uninterrupted.
tab “I’m amazed she told you,” Madeline admitted. At this, it was Mason’s turn to be surprised, pausing his spoon halfway between his bowl and his mouth.
tab “Wait, what?” Mason said. “You knew??”
Madeline rolled her eyes. “Of course I knew, Maseface. She doesn’t exactly have a world-class poker face or anything. I’ve known for ages. Why do you think I’m always so cranky at her?”
tab Mason blinked as he tried to buffer the second piece of baffling news he’d received in less than six hours. “Wait, what?” he finally said, the information simply refusing to process. “My brain is so tired. What?”
tab Madeline smiled and shook her head. “I’ve known since she took us to her planet, if not before,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug and a delicate spoonful of ice cream. “I mean, she’d be crazy not to have a crush on you. Everybody should have a crush on you all the time, you’re amazing, but also, like, is anybody really good enough for us? I mean, for you?”
tab Mason blinked, blinked, blinked again. “Since she–since, like, Starfest? Why didn’t you tell me??”
tab Madeline sighed and put her spoon down. “You were dating someone else. It wasn’t appropriate under the best of circumstances, and it wasn’t like that relationship was going so well for you anyway. I didn’t want to make it harder or more complicated for you, and I really didn’t want Halia to screw it up, which I was pretty sure she was going to. Fortunately, you remain the most oblivious boy on planet Earth.” Madeline paused. “Perhaps on every planet, now that I know about the aliens.”
tab “Wh–hey! I am not!”
tab Madeline rolled her eyes again. “Mase. She looks at you like you hung the moon, the stars, and possibly also the sun and several nearby planets. You really had no idea?”
tab Mason - shook his head. “No,” he admitted, sounding halfway amazed and halfway miserable. “I really had no idea. She’s–she’s my best friend, aside from you.”
tab “Better be aside from me,” Madeline snorted. “From the womb to the tomb, little brother. Nobody gets to replace either of us as each other’s number one. I don’t care how pretty she is or how good her hair smells or–” Madeline blushed lightly and refocused. “Anyway. Do you like her?”
tab “I–I don’t know,” Mason admitted. “I mean, she’s–she is beautiful, and her hair does smell good,” he couldn’t help but tease, the smile still on his face as Madeline kicked at him under the table. “But she’s–she’s my best friend, aside from you. She’s–she’s been there for all the–the insanity from this year, and I just–I just screwed up my relationship with–”
tab “Hold up,” Madeline said, waggling her spoon at him. “You did not screw up that relationship. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
tab “I mean, I sorta did–”
tab “Mason. You know I’d be the first to tell you if you messed up. Could you have paid a little bit more attention? Maybe. But part of dating you is realizing that you’re gonna have periods of inattention. If he couldn’t handle that, that’s his fault, not yours. He’s the one who dumped you to work on his own stuff–over text, need I remind you–not because you did or said anything wrong. You were the perfect gentleman. You were even so absorbed with him you didn’t notice the girl making herself an absolute fool three feet in front of your face.”
tab Mason blinked. “I…guess that’s true. But–but I mean, Mads, what if–what if I do mess it up with Halia somehow and we’re not friends anymore? I mean she said we’d still be friends no matter what but like–there’s no real way to know if we’ll be able to do that. I haven’t heard from…” Mason sighed, trailed off. He didn’t really want to hear from Khaz anymore, not at this point, and if he did, it would probably send him into a freak-out hissyfit of an anxiety spiral, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that he was 0 for 1 in the relationships department, and attempt number 2 being with his best friend felt - risky.
tab “Well, you said you were going to give it a try, didn’t you?” Madeline said, not unkindly. “So I think you need to give it a try. If she breaks your heart, I’ll kick her cute little booty myself,” she added with a careless shrug, designed to make Mason laugh, which it did.
tab “You’re a Page. She’s an Eternal Senshi. I think she might do the butt-kicking there, Mads.”
tab “I never said I’d be powered up. She’d never see me coming.” Mads held up her fists in mock-fisticuffs, which made them both laugh. “Really, Mase. Halia cares about you, clearly. Maybe a little too much, but that might just be because she’s been making herself insane for the past however many months. Maybe she’ll calm down once you guys actually start–you know, dating. And if she’s still–you know, coming on so strong or being too intense or being too anything, just pull the plug as nicely as you can and carry on with your day.”
tab “You make it sound so simple,” Mason sighed as he stirred his ice cream into a milkshakey mush. “But I’m pretty sure if at the end of a couple weeks I’m not feeling it, her heart will be like, straight up broken into a gazillion pieces.”
Mads reached out and put her hand over Mason’s, giving it a gentle squeeze. He peered up at her, genuine worry in his eyes.
tab “I don’t want to hurt her,” Mason whispered. “And I’m afraid that I will, just–just by not liking her the way she likes me.”
tab “That’s not your fault either,” Madeline said gently, brushing her thumb over her brother’s knuckles. “She’s an adult. More of an adult than we are. She’s going into this with her eyes open, hopefully. Not wanting to break someone’s heart is not a reason to stay with someone you don’t have feelings for, okay, Mase?” Madeline was deadly serious as she spoke, but still gentle and soft. tab “That’s not fair to either of you, and if you know you don’t feel the same way, you should tell her, sooner rather than later. Don’t string the poor girl along, but don’t stay with her just to avoid hurting her feelings, either. That would be like–lying. About love.” The way Madeline said it made it sound like a cardinal sin, which - in both twins’ opinions - it was. “Can you repeat that for me, Maseface? That not wanting to break someone’s heart is not a good enough reason to stay with someone you don’t have feelings for?”
tab Mason - hesitated, staring at their hands; hers were so much smaller than his, but held so much warmth. Where would he be without his sister?
tab No matter what happened with Halia, he reminded himself, he wouldn’t be alone. Even when he had nothing, he had his sister.
tab “I promise I won’t stay with her if I don’t feel the same way. Not wanting to break someone’s heart is not a good enough reason to stay with someone I don’t have feelings for,” Mason repeated, dull but dutiful. “What do I say? If I don’t? I can’t say ‘it’s not you, it’s me’, even though that would be true, there’s nothing wrong with her, it’s just–it would just be–”
tab Madeline studied her brother as he floundered for words. “Do you already know?”
tab Mason stilled slightly, unable to deflect or deny his sister. “I–if she just–if we weren’t doing this whole…trying it out thing,” Mason said, slowly, “then…yeah, I don’t think I’d–like, right now, I don’t feel–that way about her. But…” Mason sighed softly, then gave a little shrug. “Maybe that’ll change, right? It could change?” It came out like a question, and Madeline knew he was asking something else: did I make a mistake already?
tab “It could change,” Madeline finally answered, giving his hand a little squeeze as she leaned back in her seat. “People’s feelings change all the time. Heck, maybe when you guys actually start dating, she will realize she doesn’t actually like you as much as she thought she did.”
tab “...Hey,” Mason said, brow knitting slightly. “I think I’m insulted.”
tab “Well, we’re amazing, but we’re not that amazing,” Madeline said, with a tone that implied the exact opposite. Mason laughed and Madeline couldn’t help but smile - her brother, happy, was the best thing in the world.
tab “What do I say? If I still feel–then, how I feel now?” Mason asked after a few moments of quiet ice cream eating. “Really.”
tab “I think…I think you say that you’re glad you tried it, but you just…don’t feel that way,” Madeline said with a little shrug. “If only ‘cause that’s the truth and the easiest thing to remember, right?” Mason nodded. “And if that does happen - give her space, I think.” At Mason’s panicked expression, she held up a hand to stall any objection. “Not forever, I’m not saying you guys won’t be friends if it doesn’t work out, relax, I just mean–nobody likes to hear that their crush doesn’t like them back, right?” Or at least Madeline had to assume as much, as she had never had a crush or been crushed on, as far as she was aware. “So she might need some time to adjust. Again, not forever, but like…a week. Maybe two. But just - you know, you’ll figure it out. Make it clear you don’t hate her forever and you still want to be friends and you’ll be fine, Maseface.”
tab Mason - was not convinced that he would be fine, or that he would figure it out, but he did feel better, in spite of himself. He’d give it a try, because he said he would, and because people’s feelings could change. They had a plan.
tab “Hey Mads?” Mason asked a few minutes later. “What if…what if it does work out?” It had just occurred to him - that disaster was, maybe, not the only way this could end.
tab Madeline just smiled at him, and he couldn’t help but smile back.