existential beginnings.
fuck, fuck, fuck. he's running late again, five minutes past the bell and he just knows he's going to land a detention for this (because miss winston hates him and his tattoos and his cigarettes and his general lack of care for school in its entirety), can feel the dread swelling in the pit of his stomach at having to waste yet another saturday morning holed up in a tiny classroom next to the kid with the ridiculously horrid body odor, and it's while he's lost in his head that he smacks right into a someone, or a something because jesus christ, who has a body built like that? rubbing at his forehead, lips curling into a frown and eyebrows creasing with a tremendous effort to look even more unimpressed and personally affronted, nic finally spares a glance up at his assaulter and oh, oh okay. it's not a big deal, not really, except for the fact that it really, really is because this is him kneeling in front of him, scooping up all of his books and mumbling out apologies in that slow, delicious voice he's only fantasized about for basically, oh, forever? his brain kind of short-circuits then and all he can even think to do is blink owlishly up at that face and those lips and oh god, how is this his life? who is miss winston again? what is he doing? does it even matter? just as he's managed to get past the erratic pounding of his heart that seems to be flooding his ears, nic realizes that the guy must have been talking to him because he's looking at him expectantly and also with a twinge of worry twisted into his smile, but he is, in fact, smiling and that's about all nic needed in life and he can now effectively go die happy. "um," he answers eloquently, because obviously he is a wordsmith in the face of the most attractive guy ever, and then he just starts laughing, the sounds hiccuping from his throat and vibrating up the walls of the otherwise desolate corridor, because seriously? of course this happens when he isn't even trying; the universe does tend to work that way, after all.