Midnight Snack (Nick + Nari)

Nick rummaged around in a drawer and, unsatisfied with his findings there, opened the refrigerator and settled on a yoghurt. Yoghurts were a great deal healthier than crisps and chocolate, he supposed.

He was in the middle of opening said yoghurt when he heard the door. Did Nari’s mother work late? Great, he had no idea what he was going to say to the woman, whom he had rather tried to avoid since he had begun living in her house. He glanced over – and froze, for it was not Nari’s mother, but Nari herself.

That Nari was out at such a time was a mystery all on its own, but it was not that which made Nick stare. No, what made him stare was the fact she was covered in enough blood to fill a tub – and the exposed bra really did not help in the slightest even if the blood was significantly more important.

“Rough night, I take it?” he asked.

When she had first brought him here she had joked about being a cannibal – at least, Nick had assumed it was a joke at the time. Now, he was not so sure. His throat was suddenly very dry. He put the yoghurt down, readying himself on the inside to spring into action. On the outside his eyes did not leave her, prepared for even the smallest movement – though they kept moving back to her bra. A part of his brain pointed out the ‘covered in blood’ look was actually pretty hot and the rest of his brain yelled at this part to shut up.

He certainly hoped she had a damn good explanation.

Nick remained poised, wondering how the hell Nari could appear so calm in her situation. He slowly, carefully considered he words. He supposed if Nari wanted to eat him she would have done so already, therefore she was probably telling the truth when she said he had nothing to worry about. She also did have a point that he was currently in a much better condition to fight than her.

Still, none of that changed the fact she was covered in blood, which was likely not entirely her own. He doubted she would be that bloody if all she had done was pop down to the local convenience store.

He wanted to ask her what the hell had happened, who’s blood that was, whether she did this often, did her mother know about any of it and seriously just what in God’s name was going on. He opened his mouth and…

“You can strip if you want,” he said, followed by the horrifying punch to the face realisations that that was absolutely not what he had meant to say and he had said it out loud. “I mean – shit – I don’t know what I mean!” His face could not have grown any more obscenely red.

Please let me wake up now, he groaned in his mind. I’ve had enough of this dream!

Nick stammered like a complete blithering idiot, which was exactly how he felt; “No, it’s not like that, I’m not…”

He trailed off as she teasingly removed her skirt, eyes completely wide and glued. That was certainly not how he had expected her to react; he had been anticipating violent retaliation. His trousers were suddenly a hell of a lot tighter. His brain was no longer saying anything of sense. His tongue ran across his lips and he made a move to grab her, only to receive her clothes instead.

He opened his mouth to protest, but she was already gone and making her way to the shower. He stood there for a moment before some clarity returned to him and a hand immediately slapped the side of his face.

“What the fuck am I doing?” he cried. “She’s not the one…” But ‘the one’ despised him with every fibre of her being, as his night terrors loved to remind him. No thanks to his own actions. All he had wanted was to feel loved, just for once in his miserable mess of a life, but he had ended up destroying things forever and making them infinitely worse.

Being reminded of this horrible truth made him feel nauseous. He shook his head, regretfully dealing with the clothes as asked as fast as possible and then making for his bedroom. He knew he would not sleep, but his intention was to bury himself in the sheets and try and block out the world regardless.

Nick reached his bed and threw himself onto it with so much force it was a wonder he did not break it. He had barely buried himself into the pillow when he heard Nari at the door, however.

He groaned. In his current state, he really did want to be left alone to stew. He rose reluctantly as she poked his shoulder and took the yoghurt from her, which he set down on the table beside the bed.

He supposed he still did want to know what the hell had happened to her. He sat and listened to her explanation.

“I see,” he said dumbly at the end of her explanation, surprised at how straightforward she was.

‘Villain’ he knew to be the term given to any Quirker who stepped outside society’s boundaries. To most of his native England, the Gifted Underground were villains for their willingness to use violence to draw attention to their cause. Nick did not agree: their cause was just, and the reason they used violence was because the peaceful, law-abiding methods of drawing attention had not worked.

Nari had not given her reasons for doing what she did, at least not yet, but nothing was ever simple. Besides, it was not like she was the first villainous individual he had spent time with. Nor was he an innocent angel himself…

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay at least.” He did mean that. “I mean, it’s not like I can judge you. You know I hurt another student…” He paused to brace himself as those memories came clawing back, his body tensing. “Badly. So badly I can’t ever go back to Yuuei. And then there was the time I poked someone’s eye out.” Not that the someone in question had not deserved it completely. “And before that, there’s the fact I was raised by a group most people consider villains where I’m from. I killed other children to prove myself strong enough for them.” He laughed, bitter and mirthless. “So maybe I’m a villain. I don’t know anymore.”

He looked back to her and his eyes wandered down her body with minds of their own. He caught himself and quickly looked away again. His mind was an emotional wreck, but his body was so frustrated it just did not care, apparently. Not that his crushing loneliness helped.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Nick fell silent as Nari rested a hand on him and began to speak. He would never have expected someone who had just confessed to murder to attempt to be – sympathetic? Encouraging? He was not sure, but it was certainly not hostility she was showing him.

When she finished, he let out a long, strained sigh from the depths of his soul.

“That’s something I’m still trying to figure out, I suppose.”

Which was much easier said than done. With his mind in an utter shambles – hell, ‘shambles’ was a generous term – it was a struggle for him to so much as get out of bed on a morning, let alone figure out what he wanted to do with himself.

He considered what she said about making up for his bad deeds and immediately scowled. What he had done to Rin was not something Yuuei would just give him a simple detention for. They would not want him back. If any other students knew, he had little doubt they would try to kill him on sight. There was no return from it.

“But I need to do something.”

Resolve came surging back to him from nowhere hotter than molten magma. He had shown far, far too much weakness to Nari, and that would not do. His body tensed and his fingers dug into his trousers.

“I’m still going to fight for us Quirkers.” The fire had come back to his voice, too. “Maybe in a different way than I might have at Yuuei, but that’s okay by me. As long as I can bring about a better world for us…” A world where the strong ruled. “Then I’m fine.”

His eyes wandered to her again, somewhat undermining his attempt to be serious, and he quickly forced himself to look away. “That was incredibly cruel what you did back there with your skirt, you know. Especially if you intend to just leave it at that.” No weakness. No letting his emotions mess with what his body was apparently desperate for. Not that he expected her to take him seriously in the slightest. He was not entirely sure if he was being serious himself.

Nick’s eyes narrowed in a slight frown. Good God she was literal-minded. Or at the very least, not terribly good at grasping what he actually meant. Perhaps he was not being clear enough.

He watched her eyes lower down, and his own did the same – immediately going wide as his cheeks burned bright red. Had he really done it again just from thinking about her like that? He shuffled, but there was no hiding it.

No, no, what had he just thought to himself? It would do him no good to keep denying his increasingly frustrated body, even if his mind still yearned for someone else – someone it would never have, but did not seem capable of accepting this fact. He wondered if it ever would.

But that was not what was important right then.

“Yeah,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I do. If you would be so kind…”

He did not wait for an answer, not wanting to give her a chance to back out and leave him with certain parts of his anatomy bluer than the clear summer sky. He attempted to wrap his arms around her and pull her into a crushing kiss that showed exactly how desperate for affection he truly was.