extent | duplicitynet

Good thing I was awake then.

[ it's not exactly unusual, to be fair. nick's sleep schedule is erratic at best, heavily supplemented more often than not, but that's not the point. the point is nick's hand slipping up the back of oliver's shirt and the quick, soft kiss pressed to his cheek, and nick's faint smile as he stays leaned in close. ]

You want me to stay over? If it'll help.

Yeah.

( easy, as he starts wrapping himself around nick even further; raises an arm up to wrap it around his ribcage, just under his arm. slides the other under his neck so he can press closer without his arm getting uncomfortable. closes his eyes, even if he's very obviously not going to sleep just yet. )

I almost miss your apartment.

[ nick doesn't talk about home really, not here, not even with the people that are from that home. it's one of those things that people have more or less come to accept from nick, he doesn't often ask, and he hardly ever tells. nick's eyes close too, and he doesn't quite sigh, but there's something. a quiet little exhale, muffled against the parts of oli that are pressed up to him. ]

I do, sometimes. I think I miss it a lot, actually.

It's been a while for you, right?

( since he's been home, since he's been somewhere that hasn't been actively fucking him over. not that. home was much better, especially given nick's bullshit. but staying home with a shitton of weed and frozen pizza was significantly less complicated than being in a city that actively tries to fuck them over at least once a month. )

I guess it has, yeah. A year and a half.

[ he doesn't think about it too much, if he can help it, and lord knows if there's anything nick is good at it's ignoring an issue. nick never really has managed to figure out how he feels about being here -- or how he'll feel about getting back. ]

It was easier, wasn't it? When it was just me and you in that shitty apartment.

Yeah. ( back before he walked in on nick trying to hide fucking everything from him. before nick got fucked over enough to think he had to. )

I miss our outings. When we'd just fuck around for the fun of it around town.

I miss you breaking in for us every other weekend because I always lost my keys. Or, like, spooking out-of-towners with made up stories. That dumbass that kept mixing us up when he was trying to hit on us. Trying to convince you to go visit the mermaid in the middle of the night.

[ he misses the quiet moments more. oli's shoulder pressed against his as they watched lifetime films in the middle of the day, or stumbling back into bed in the night and finding oli already reaching to wrap his arms around nick again. but he already knows all of that, nick thinks, and these ones are easier to say out loud, anyway. ]

I never like, felt bad about not having my shit figured out yet, when you were there.

I was pretty sure she was going to eat me, you know. We didn't have a bond like you and her did. ( her teeth were terrifying, you know. pointy, definitely up for chomping down on some oliver bones if she felt the urge. but that's not really the point.

life was so much more simple when it was just them--and even before, when it was all of them together fucking around after classes, since nick wasn't attending them anymore. when pierce was still around, before ken went back home to her weird cult bullshit. before oliver asked nick if he could stay on his couch for a bit, which turned into two years because oliver didn't have anymore else to go. nick didn't have his shit figured out, but oliver's shit depended on someone else getting his shit figured out. so. )

I thought you were doing fine, y'know. Spending time with you was fun. It never felt weighted.

I was fine, I didn't like, want more, you know?

[ nick has been coasting for a long time now, years left unchecked in a town that doesn't really have a place for him. and it had been fine, for the most part, except for the odd quiet lonely night where nick would wonder if there was ever going to be anything more.

there's the other side of why nick doesn't like talking about home. yes, he misses some people fiercely, and yes, he misses a life where he wasn't so scared all the time, but there's this too. there's the fact that nick doesn't want to just coast anymore, and how easily that could be ripped out from under him.

he's quieter, much quieter, when he presses a soft little admission to the side of oli's face. ]

I don't....want to go back to that. I don't want to forget everything and just go back to doing nothing again, I want more. I want to be more, and if I go back I'm just going to like, forget that I can. It sucks.

( they'd both been--settlers. settling into whatever worked best, settling into what they were given. oliver settling in to wait for pierce to eventually come back for him and take him out of their shitty small town with jack shit to do, nick settling in to stay close to the school he'd never finished for fuck if oliver knows how long. oliver's goal had always been to stick with someone who he could leech off of; it still is, because he knows that's what he's best at.

but nick's learned a shitton over his time here. he's learned to better himself, he's learned that he doesn't have to settle for a little apartment surrounded by his plants and nothing else. he's learned he's capable of picking up stronger magics, he's mastered shit that oliver's fairly sure he couldn't pick up even if he spent a significant amount of time trying. nick has so much potential that he'd just let sit all those years before, and he knows he doesn't need to, now. )

You'll know, Nick. ( whispered softly against him, as oliver tightens his leg around nick's waist to pull him in closer. ) You've always felt like more to me, you know. I'm sure even if we do end up going back home and forgetting all of this, that you'll grow stronger, you'll figure out so much. I bet you'll get even stronger than Pierce one day.

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