#augustuspierce

[ofniko]

𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡  ↬  𝑑𝑖𝑠(𝑔𝑢𝑠)𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔

niko: really?

[ofniko]

𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡  ↬  𝑛𝑖𝑘𝑜 + 𝑔𝑢𝑠

niko: i'm offended u didn't tell me u guys were working on new music ??

niko: as if i'm gonna leak anything,,,,,there's nothing i'm more careful about than making sure no one knows i know u 🤪

niko: tell me the tea or i'll leak a rumor that you smoke camel lights

[ofniko]

closed starter for @augustuspierce

     even as niko walks inside gus’s apartment--which had been unlocked, no big surprise there--he’s not one hundred percent sure he can go through with this. he knows it’s the right thing to do, that in terms of their mental health it’s what they both need, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult. the thing is, over the last three years he’s managed only to become further infatuated, except unlike before there are actual feelings involved now. feelings he’s cultivated and let fester and grow every time they’d slept together, every time he’d let gus kiss him and allowed himself to believe it was mutual. it isn’t, though; he has to constantly remind himself of that. even when it feels real, like it had at the lake, it isn’t. and that’s why niko had finally decided, impossible as the prospect feels, to stop doing this to himself. 

     there had been a hectic shift in gus’s mood over the last week--from being soft and sweet at the lake to being utterly unreachable afterwards and then playing games with him at rihanna’s party--which had played a large part in niko’s decision. it’s exhausting trying to keep up, and he’s not surprised to find that gus seems to have settled into yet another mood when he finds him playing guitar in his bedroom, for all the world looking perfectly relaxed and at peace with himself. at the very least, he’s clearly come out of whatever episode he’d been having. “gus,” niko says when there’s a pause in the strumming, giving him a weak half-smile when he looks up. “hi. i’m not interrupting, am i? i texted you, but you weren’t answering.” he realizes now it’s likely because gus had gotten lost playing his music. “i, um...i wanted to talk, if you have a minute.”

[ofniko]

𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡  ↬  𝑛𝑖𝑘𝑜 + 𝑔𝑢𝑠

niko: you DO realize ofc that i'll be at my most powerful when we're out in the forest in a couple weeks

niko: and there will be nothing you can do to stop me from kidnapping you and making you play all the new songs for me before you release them

[ofniko]

𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡  ↬  𝑑𝑖𝑠(𝑔𝑢𝑠)𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔

niko: i have ur nine inch nails shirt u were wearing at the lake btw in case....you've been looking for that lmao

niko: i've washed it twice and it still smells like campfire sorry

niko: what are you doing, i can come bring it over

[ofniko]

closed starter for @augustuspierce

     getting into gus’s building isn’t hard--the doorman is one of perhaps two or three people in the world who know that he and niko even know one another, let alone how often niko’s at his apartment. not dissimilarly to the way niko had talked his way backstage three years ago at a cherry bomb concert to try and meet who had then only been one of his favorite artists, he persuades the doorman now to let him into the apartment itself using a skeleton key which, technically, is probably only for the most extreme of emergencies. it isn’t not an emergency, though, he thinks as he enters the dark apartment, pulse quickening as soon as the familiar smell settles over him and with it, an ache that stems from deep within his gut. he hasn’t seen gus in over a week, since before all those videos had surfaced of him collapsing on stage, and aside from their brief but sufficiently volatile text exchange niko hasn’t even been able to speak to him. and he’s worried--he can hardly even admit the fact to himself, but he is. he knows it because he hasn’t been able to sleep lately, and his patience has been thin. because he skips past even his favorite cherry bomb songs on his shuffle and changes the station if an old one comes on the radio. so he’s come up with an excuse to stop by--one that even kinda-sorta works on himself, as well.

the lights are off in the bedroom and because it feels good to remind himself of his anger, he switches them on even though he knows gus is sick and this will likely be a painful awakening. “sorry, were you sleeping?” niko asks with an air of only half interest, making his way over to the bed and seating himself at the edge nearest to where gus is lying. in the unforgiving light, niko makes quick note of the fact that he looks bad, but not bad bad. the ever-present circles around his eyes are a little darker, his face is maybe a little thinner, but for someone who usually looks like drugs have brought him to within an inch of death’s door, he’s not terribly worse than usual. it soothes niko’s frayed nerves a little and he finds his anger again. “i’ve waited an entire week for you to decide if you were gonna die or not and now i want my cardigan back. i think i left it here,” he explains, and it isn’t totally a lie. he did lose a cardigan--he’s just pretty sure it wasn’t in gus’s apartment. “can you, like, rouse yourself from your sick bed long enough to help me look?”