Chapter Text
Worick wasn’t going to ask. He wasn’t going to ask. He was a hundred percent certain that he didn’t want to know. He wasn’t going to…
“Nic, what are you doing?” Worick sighed. So much for that resolve.
Nicolas blinked, that perplexed look crossing his face, the one that meant he was thinking or planning something in advance. It was stupid, the way he squinted and seemed mildly concussed. Even more stupid was how fond Worick was of it. The confused frown and the rest of Nic’s odd mannerisms in general.
Worick watched Nic’s hands carefully as they moved, graceful and delicate and precise, nothing like his actual voice.
I don’t understand. Again?
It was one of their more common phrases. Unfortunately. Nic was getting better at coming across less like a machine with faulty wiring and more as an actual human being, but he still stumbled frequently. Worick needed to rephrase and specify and, because they both needed practice, he sat up to face Nic fully and signed back.
Past days, Worick explained with a sweeping gesture, you stay there. He pointed and Nic tracked the movement with his usual intensity. Now, you stay here. Why? What change?
Not quite the eloquent speech he’d been raised to mimic without thinking, but he was improving. They both were. Conversation was possible with dual understanding and input of subject matter. Once they were fluent, Worick assumed smoothness would come more naturally.
Sorry. That was probably the most frequent sign. Worick wished he was surprised. Nic stood, likely intending to move away without any fuss.
“No.”
No. Worick made a slash with his arm. No problem. No wrong. Only– He didn’t remember ever seeing the correct motion for this particular word and let his hands drop, trusting Nic to read his lips instead. “I’m just curious. I don’t mind. You’re fine really.”
Okay? Worick asked with his hands as Nic slowly sat back down.
Nic’s hands came up, hovered, and then went back down. His voice, when it came, was uncomfortable and rough and flawed. “Wa-nted ta‘o wa-t...ch. Ehf ‘ou ne-ee-ded me…”
He signed then, just once. Right hand over left, index finger extended. Kill?
A shiver ran down Worick’s spine and his chest clenched painfully. He could follow Nic’s train of thought easily now that he knew him. It was never complicated. It always made sense, in a horrible Nicolas kind of way.
Nic wanted to watch Worick with his clients so that if one hurt him, he would be in a position to immediately act. To eliminate the threat to Worick’s person like a good bodyguard should.
Worick felt like crying.
One step forward and then three back. Progress was grueling and painful like pulling teeth and forced him to think hard like few things truly did. But he would keep going, pushing Nic every step of the way if he had to, until his friend believed that he had a right to be his own person and move and live and love under nobody’s power but his own.
He took a deep breath and shook his head. No. Opened his mouth and clearly said, “No.” Made the slashing motion again. No.
You think bad. Yes? Worick’s hands moved with deliberate care. You think gross, ugly, wrong. You want watch. No.
No. Nic signed back, face crumpling, his eyes narrowing, as upset as he was capable of getting. Them. Bad, gross, ugly, wrong. You. No. You safe. Good. I want you safe. Nic did the last over again, more vehemently. I want you safe!
Worick frowned. He’d push the issue but a woman was giving him the eye and they did have to eat. He stood up, brushing his knees off, and sent her a coy look.
Nic had said, I want. No matter the reasoning behind it, he had said it, so Worick would, reluctantly, let this play out.
“Just this once,” he muttered, signing fast and loose. We try. One. Okay?
Nic nodded solemnly.
Worick groaned low in his throat and forced a smile onto his face. How badly could this go, really?
*
The answer to that, he discovered, two minutes later, was really fucking badly.
The woman saw Nic’s tags and screamed and it all went rather downhill from there.
He ended up with four stinging cuts on his face, courtesy of the hysterical woman’s nails, and no cash. Nic had unsheathed his sword the second Worick started bleeding and it had, unsurprisingly, done absolutely nothing to improve the situation.
Worick cut his losses and shoved the lady away before things could escalate to complete disaster, kicking her in the shin for good measure because what was wrong with people?
Honestly, when he wasn’t going out of his way to threaten people, Nic looked about as dangerous as a puppy. A small, adorable, underfed puppy. Of course, there was the sword, which didn’t help matters, but Worick hardly noticed it anymore so perhaps he was biased.
While the woman continued to rave about twilights like a complete lunatic, Worick grabbed Nic by the wrist and took off down the street, ignoring the slurs still being hollered after them.
They stopped running five blocks over when Worick was wheezing too hard to breathe.
“So that,” he paused to gasp, pressing a hand to the stitch in his side while Nic watched impassively, having not even broken a sweat, “was a stupid idea. Let’s not do it again, yeah?”
Nic paused, considering, and then nodded.
“Wonderful,” Worick moaned and almost — almost — missed when Nic patted his shoulder lightly.
He smiled. Progress. Voluntary physical contact. Okay, so not a total loss.
Fantastic.