WPOV

I don't know which thing I noticed quicker; Nico's usually soft looking hair that was now gelled down in an unfairly god-looking way, the dilating of his pupils which almost swallowed away the coffee brown ring in his eyes or the guy behind him who was sipping his Boba tea as if his favorite reality show had just begun. 

"Wha- why are you looking at me like that?" 

Caught off guard by the frightened expression that flashed in his eyes for a second, my anger slowly fades away.

"What's wrong?"

He glances back at Piper and the unfamiliar guy who are watching our every move.

"Excuse us for a moment."

With that he grabs my upper arm and leads us away from the table to a corner pasted with yellow tinted posters and faded colors. From our left a couple is making out against the wall and on our right a man with red rimmed eyes takes another drag of whatever it is that he's smoking. 

"What's wrong?!" He releases me abruptly, my back bumps against the dirty wall and I look at him silently, "Maybe the fact that you come in barging in the club with false accusations, maybe that's what's wrong!" He hisses while poking a finger roughly against my chest. 

"Stealing your doctor equipment, I'm the one who gave it to you, idiot!" 

His breathing is fast, his dark eyes sparking with rage and his face has unconsciously moved a bit closer to mine. I feel myself shrink like a tiny lost Alice who drank from the wrong bottle. 

"You gave it to me?" my voice is barely audible over the noise in the club. 

Something in his eyes sharpens. I'm afraid that if he narrows those coal burning eyes of him one more time, he'll squeeze them into diamonds.  A cold feeling spreads to my chest, I can feel the blood stream out of my face.

"You forgot?"

I pretend to not notice the slight wavering in his voice. I don't even bother to answer on that, instead I focus on the glowing warmth coming from my chest.

"Nico...That... that's probably the kindest thing a friend has ever done for me."

He moves a bit backwards from me and I barely resist the urge to immediately pull him back. For the first time I notice the dimples in his cheeks.

He shrugs casually.

"I got it from a bonus and I knew how much you wanted it."

How did I never see the way he wraps his hand around his own wrist as an attempt to comfort himself? How did I never realize that this shield of confidence and bold decisions actually hides an overflowing well of insecurities?  I can feel my heart beating out of its ribcage.

It's like I was watching these strange flashes of red and blue for hours without end before someone gave me some 3D glasses. I see it now, I think I'm understanding it now. There's no longer a migraine of red and blue piercing through my skull, it makes sense, he makes sense.

As if sensing the smallest crumbling, the slightest scraping of my fingernail over his sky-high cement walls, he immediately shoots back into defense. 

"So don't you dare say I took it back. It's on your own dumb ass if you can't find it anymore!" The familiar temperament flares up as he glares me into the wall behind me. With all those bangs out of his face, it becomes even more obvious how immorally beautiful his eyes truly are. The heat between us becomes almost touchable in the air. I know now that whenever Nico feels vulnerable he always pulls out either a fight or a joke so I don't even bother to hide my smile at the fierceness echoing in his behavior. 

"What are you so smug about?" 

The equipment doesn't even seem that important anymore. My eyes dart down to his lips before shooting equally as fast back up again.

"I'm sorry about the accusations I didn't mean to hurt you." 

He scoffs, "Nobody ever does, right?"

I eye him closely.

"What do you mean?"

He turns his head away from me, trying to glide a hand through his hair before remembering that it is gelled down. 

"Nothing."

I frown.

"It's not nothing, else, you wouldn't say that." 

The smallest shake of his head. I take a step forward but he immediately takes one back again. My heart cries out in agony.

"It's just a bad choice of words, it's nothing, truly," he ads as an afterthought.

Knowing that not one word will follow after that, I decide to just shake it off, Nico and his curious ways... it is what it is.

He gazes down at his hands, which are covered by black fingerless gloves, before quickly fumbling them away in his pockets again when he catches me staring. 

"Are you wearing fingerless gloves?" 

I can barely hide my amusement.

The roll of his eyes nearly makes my knees buckle. Like seriously, who decided that it was a good idea to give a boy as charismatic as Nico, a hairstyle like that?

"I just wanted to add something to my look."

I bite my lip to contain my laughter, in the end, I fail.

"I wanted to add something to my look." I mock in a childish voice. 

The laughter that bubbles out of him makes the hard shove in my chest worth it.

"You're so childish!" 

His smile is radiating with contagiousness. Before he can pull his hands back, I wrap them in my own and hold them close against my chest. His fingers feel ridiculously cold in my own. For a moment I just gaze at him, taking in the side of his happy face that slowly gets taken over by a faint pink blush. I grin stupidly. His eyes dart down.

"You should do that more often."

"What?" his voice is rough and he quickly clears his throat, "Push you against the wall?"

I make a face as if considering it before smiling back at him. The warmth that spreads through my chest is the earnest feeling I've felt in what could have been months.

"Laugh." 

It spreads to my cheeks. It spreads to my heart. Chills run over my back by the sight of him.

"It's a really nice sound." 

For a moment he just stares at me with a twinkle in his eyes that I can't decipher. His mouth opens before soundlessly closing again. Something in his expression is close to desperation before it disappears again in that endless sea off blankness. 

He gently pulls his hands out of my grasp. For a moment he just gazes at the floor while biting his lip in thought. My hands still hover before me as if holding his ghostly fingers before dropping them down again with a sharp pain in my chest.

"Will," His voice is hesitant, "I- I think there's something I need to tell you."

His words get almost lost in a happy shout of a man who just won a game of poker. Nico glances over his shoulder as he jumps up and dances around the table in a drunken frenzy. 

"it..." He closes his eyes and wraps his arms around himself, "It might upset you."

My heart hammers so wildly in my throat, I think I can throw it up any minute now.

"I-"

"Oh for the love of God!" 

Both our heads snap to the gruff unknown voice. Next to us stands the man who was smoking his cigarette by the poster wall before we had our whole discussion. His long wavy, brown hair is greasy with some crumbs of who knows what in his ends and unkept beard. On his crooked nose stands some pink sunglasses with way too tiny glasses.

Really, what is everyone's deal with wearing sunglasses on a pitch dark evening?!

"Just make out already!" He grumbles while taking another drag. "Seriously, watching Twilight was less agonizing than watching you two love birds quarreling with each other."

I feel the heat spark through my face. I don't dare risking a glance to my side where Nico's standing. From the corner of my eye, I see him take another step away from me.

The sloppy kissing of the couple next to us stops for a second. 

"Hey, Twilight was a good movie, dude!" The guys says with a purple lip stain trailing from his mouth to his neck and his shirt half pulled over his shoulder tainted by hickeys. The girl giggles before pulling him back in another heated kiss with him.

My eyes travel to the figure by my side. I bite my lip at the unwanted images that flood my mind.

Oh how I'd love to that to you.

Wait did I really just think that?

"We're not together." Nico states matter of factly. The words plow like a wrecking ball through my daydreams.

The man ignores him and gestures vaguely to my direction. 

"Tell him that," he comments dryly, "besides you don't have to be now, do you? it's 2019, there are more affairs than there are relationships." 

With every word a string of smoke puffs out of his mouth. My face has the temperature of a baking oven by now, I can even feel the red tingling in the tip of my ears. 

"Ha-ha very funny but no thanks, I'm a loyal boyfriend." 

The man sniffs in amusement; " This club isn't very known for its loyal boyfriends and neither is the street where it's located in to be fair." 

True. Club Dionysus is like a brooding place for affairs, not to mention the girls from the red lights who hover around the corners in tiny skirts and broken dreams almost every night.

I swallow away the thick feeling in my throat. 

"Leave us be." My voice is more shaky than I wish it was. 

"Whatever," the man waves his cigarette around, "but if I were you boy," he gives me a knowing look behind those ridiculous sunglasses, "I would've made my mind up, a long while ago." 

With that he rolls himself around with his shoulder tightly pressed against the wall, successfully ripping a piece of a poster off with a button on his scruffy jacket before stumbling further through the club. 

I can only watch him with empty eyes. 

Oh how I wish.

How I wish so deeply and too much.

"Hey! Don't listen to him alright? He's just an old drunk." 

Nico's hands grip my shoulders in reassurance. He smiles smugly.

"I know how much you love that purple atrocity of yours." 

Electricity tingles in my stomach.

"Steve?" with the greatest difficulty I look into his face.

"Yeah," he laughs brightly and I melt a bit, "don't tell me you forgot his name."

"We broke up." The words gush out like hot lava erupting from a volcano. Nico pulls his hands back as if he laid them on a cooking stove. His eyes are wide and frantic before distorting into something close to a glare. He wraps his arms over his stomach as he starts maniacally laughing. 

"Oh, you - you," he wheezes out of breath, "you had me there for a moment, I must admit."

I don't budge. All seriousness laced in my face.

"Nico it's not a joke."

For some reason that only makes him laugh harder. He tries to look back at me through his blurry eyes. With a viciously sharp shot in my chest I realize what I'm seeing.

That is not humor, that's absolute terror wrapped in a very bad coping mechanism. 

"Nico I'm serious."

The laughing stops. The grin melts of his face as he takes in my expression. 

"Will... y-you can't be."

"Why not?"

"Because!" His hands clasp frantically at the sides of his head.

"Because what Nico? Say what you mean for once!"

"I..." Frustration and desperation is etched in his usually so neutral expression. He squeezes his eyes closed and groans.

"I... why would you-that's not..."

Irritation prickles in every inch of my being.

"That's not what?!" I nearly yell, "What are you trying to tell me so badly?!"

His knee bounces up and down in a jittery way. He buries his face in his hands and shakes his head in defeat. 

"He's a good person, he'd be good for you, I'm sure of it."

I scoff in annoyance, "That doesn't make me want him more, and besides, who are you to tell me what to do and what not?" 

He drops his arms lifelessly to his sides again.

"I care about you Will." His voice sounds absolutely tired. I clear my throat awkwardly as my heart makes a triple tumbling roll. 

"Believe it or not but I do." His gaze never leaves mine. 

God. 

He's really going for the kill isn't he?

I don't think I've ever wanted to kiss anybody this badly before.

"Just think about it. I know your head is messed up with your ghost prince or princess charming," he pokes the side of my head softly and I smile painfully, "but don't throw a good person like Steve away, please, there are so many vile men out there. You're safe with him." 

I look at him.

What's that underlying tone in his words? What is that sad glimmer in his eyes?

Like a Rubik's cube he shifts before my eyes, twisting in a new pattern of mystery. Just when I thought I had figured him out, he turns right in my grasp into something else. 

"I don't understand you," I mumble softly. 

"I'm sorry what?" He gestures to his ear in a way that tells me, he didn't catch my words. 

"I said, I'll think about it," I lie instead. 

He nods in approval. "You better." 

and there is that little grin again.

I'd absolutely die for it.

I wrap my arms over each other and give him a cocky smirk.

"So a loyal boyfriend in the club huh, Steve must be thrilled." 

Nico chuckles softly at the memory of the drunk hippie.

"That was one wack-ass guy."

Now both of us are laughing. 

"Why the sunglasses though? Everyone seems to be wearing those lately." 

Nico quirks a brow at me in amusement.

"Why? Are you jealous? Do you want some tiny pink sunglasses of your own?" 

I lay my hand on my chest in mock dramatics, "In fact I would, I'd love to add something to my look." I pop the k in my mouth.

Nico bites his lip in an attempt to not burst out laughing. I can't help making fun of him, it's just too easy.

"First of all your Italian accent sucks so much it could replace my vacuum cleaner, second of all-" With every word that comes out of his mouth my grin only grows bigger.

"You're just jealous of my style." 

I gasp in mock hurt. 

"Me jealous of your style?! Please, your hair looks like an eagle just made its nest in it!"

Nico frowns in confusion while gently gliding a hand over his carefully gelled down hair. 

"No it's not, it's completely gelled d-"

I wrap my arm around his neck while rubbing with my one free hand as much hair in the wrong direction as I can muster.

"Will!" Nico tries to sound mad but he can't help himself from dissolving into laughter, "Will, you asshole!" 

His hands dig into my arm and he struggles out of breath. From up close, his scent seems to invade my mind. 

Daisies and honey.

"Will let go!" 

His hair stands wildly in every direction, my arm releases its deadly hold and he pushes me off. The disbelieve and amusement shimmering in his eyes make his whole face light up with mischief. 

"Bastard!" He cries out. 

I snicker at the sight of it. He looks up at me with a smile that's so blinding that I almost have to put a hand to the wall in order to not fall down before his feet. His bangs all ruffled up and the chaos radiating from his appearance...

My stomach clenches with wanting.

"Solace" he glares through his smile, "I'll get you back for that." 

I cross my arms over each other and smirk.

"I'm sure you will, death boy, I'm sure you will."

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- Baby - 

Piper shoots him another dirty glare as he keeps slurping on his already empty Boba tea cup.

"Look at them," Baby says without taking his eyes from the bickering duo. Piper leans lazily backwards in her chair to see a wildly resisting Nico stuck in Will's hold before disappearing half behind the corner again. Baby slams his empty cup against the table while gliding a tongue over his teeth to get rid of the too sweet taste.

"Fucking idiots," He says emotionlessly.

Piper raises her own glass in agreement with him.

"Fucking idiots." And with that she downs it in one go.

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WHOOOO that was SO longggg!!!! Help, I can't stop writing!!

I'm addicted to your comments I'm afraid, I love waking up and seeing that readers are enjoying my work, thank you to all who comment, you're the reason I smile a bit brighter, the reason I write a bit longer. :)

Let me know what you think!

And please vote for my bad decision to write instead of study.

p.s Any thoughts on my baby Baby?