Chapter Text
It’s in a stumble of limbs and obnoxious noises of sucking-face that Wolfwood and his personal stranger for the night burst in through his apartment door.
Though he prides himself on being a whore, he’s not exactly been the type for this sort of thing lately. He’s been leaning a little heavier on a much more energy efficient vice of his: smoking like a chimney. But he’s not too proud to admit that when needs must- and shit, do the needs ever must- he needs something a little more involved.
The new semester starts in a week or so and Nicholas is putting an egregious amount of time into a degree he has a draining lack of passion for. (He had thought that wouldn’t bother him, when he was fresh out of high school and procrastinating picking his major- it’s not like he’s ever been something anyone could describe as passionate or fiery. There’s no raging fire in Nico but a banking hearth, reserved for inconsolable babies who finally go quiet in his arms and the kids with scraped knees and missing teeth who call him Nico! and his siblings, whole and happy and safe.)
Simply put, Wolfwood has reached critical condition in not giving a fuck- he’s almost starting to want to.
That’s when he turns to tonight’s fare: fucking off to a bar as far as he can manage from the campus he attends for the sole purpose of finding some pretty boy to take home that he begs to god he will never see again.
He finds this pretty boy in a tall, blonde man with a lean, muscled runner’s build and maybe the bluest eyes Nicholas has ever seen. He’s definitely older than Wolfwood, but he has a childish way of joking and an evasive way of smiling that annoys the fuck out of Nick as much as it intrests him. He responds to Nicholas’s advances with a wide, charming grin that slowly grows into something more subdued and warm- something real.
He introduces himself as Vash Saverem.
Nicholas gives his name and a hand to shake in return, upping the ante with the cliche ‘let me buy you a drink.’ Vash is coy and playful, which would normally make him end the conversation as quick as possible so they could hurry up and get to the part that they’re both here for already- but as they talk, something slows Nick down. They keep meeting each other tit-for-tat, they keep not missing any beats in the flow of conversation. It’s smooth, somehow, flirty and fun- Nick is having fun- quipping and laughing and bantering and every other bullshit word for genuinely pleasant conversation with this smiling blonde stranger.
He calls Nicholas cute with a smile that crinkles his eyes at the edges. Nicholas can’t remember the last time he was called cute, but he knows it’s never made him feel so- fucking bashful. His cheeks heat and a pleasant something settles under his skin.
Vash whistles appreciatively at Nicholas’s bike, and Nick feels more smug than he did buying the damn thing. Vash’s arms slide around his middle and Vash’s chest presses up against his back on the ride back to his place, and Nick needs to take a second to examine the unfamiliar rush of heady anticipation that sparks in him. Nearly every feeling he gets from being near this man is new for him, and he can’t say he understands it. He definitely should be freaked out, but the anxiety turns to thrill when it meets the sensation of Vash wrapped around him, and it’s all he can do to enjoy it.
So, he does. He enjoys the touch, the want that lances through him. He enjoys the urgency as they reach his door- god, does he enjoy the frantic giggling need they come together with.
He’s having such a good time fumbling with his keys as he makes out with a stranger in his doorway that he has to spare half a thought to incredulously side-eye his own eagerness. Like, yeah, there’s some newness to this, but still- he’s not exactly inexperienced. Has it really been that goddamn long?
Vash rolls against him and shit, he thinks, it’s either that or something about Vash himself- a man he just met tonight- that has him downright giddy to finally get his door open and flail into his entranceway with this particular warm body. In sparing that thought he decides he doesn’t like either option, and firmly resolves to just stop thinking about it: how he’s doing is none of his business.
They’re inside now, taking the scantest of moments to kick off shoes and hang up jackets. They break eye contact as little as possible- another beat in the conversation somehow neither of them missed, an unspoken competition to see who can do it faster. Nick’s been pulled in. It’s childish, and silly, and so not how things normally go, and he’s winning!
Vash has only just pried his boots off his feet, barely gets the chance to shove them to the side before Nicholas has him pressed against the door. He gets his teeth on Nicholas’s bottom lip as they both struggle Vash the rest of the way out of his jacket. Nicholas lets up on the kiss and goes for his neck, letting Vash hang the jacket up on one of the hooks next to them.
“I like your place,” Vash compliments, breathless and somehow smiling with his voice. He makes a sweet little noise at the firm pressure of Nicholas’s teeth over some particular spot on the side of his neck.
“Thanks, blondie,” Nicholas snorts. He leaves a sweet peck on the point of Vash’s jaw just below his ear, adding, “You’ll have to tell me that again when you see it literally at all past the door.” Vash gives a short giggle against the kiss Nicholas starts up again. He meets it eagerly, wrapping his arms up tight around Nicholas’s neck and clutching at his hair and shoulders.
He slides one hand up under Vash’s shirt and the other over his ass, savoring the give in a reasonably desperate squeeze, grunting when it forces Vash’s hips to kick up into his own. Vash makes his own noise and starts sucking on Nicholas’s tongue, so he tangles their legs together, slotting his thigh between Vash’s and pushing up and closer to make Vash’s hips kick again.
“Mmh-!” Vash moans into the kiss.
Nick indulges in Vash’s desperate grinding against him for half a minute more before he nearly begs, “Lemme suck you off, sweetheart, please?”
“Oh my god, yes, like you even have to ask-” He cuts off with an affected sound when Nicholas palms the front of his jeans, slipping his fingers down and pressing over the seam at the crotch.
He yelps when Nick drops to his knees between his legs, though, “Oh! Right- right here?”
Nick grins and nods where he’s already got his face pressed up between his legs, rubbing the bridge of his nose at that seam, right where Vash is throbbing. Vash squeaks and lands a hand in his hair as he carries on nuzzling against the warmth there.
“Alright, well, when you put it like that,” Vash laughs, sweet and breathless. Nicholas undoes the button and fly of his jeans with his teeth.
Vash wiggles his hips to help Nick slide his pants and underwear down his legs. Scars reveal themselves, varied and interesting. They get one ankle free before Nick becomes immediately distracted with the bounty before him- namely, t-dick- abandoning the jeans and hiking the free leg over his shoulder to get a better view.
This upsets Vash’s balance shockingly little, but he still braces his other hand in Nicholas’s hair, petting it when Nick brings up two fingers to stroke over his slit.
“Ah, you’re so cute like this,” Vash coos down at him, voice hitching a little as Nicholas dips his fingers in to collect the wetness at Vash’s entrance. “Nick, how are you still so cute like this?”
The word settles hot in Nick’s stomach. He can feel his face flush darker from it, and he grins up helpless and bemused at the angel- the stranger- in his doorway. “Pretty sure I can count the number of people who’ve called me cute on one hand, blondie. Hell, two of ‘em would be you.” He splits Vash’s lips with his two fingers, rubbing up and down to make Vash shiver.
“Mmh, what a shame,” he sighs, “‘Cause you are, you’re so,” Nick trips his fingers up over his clit, “So cute and-” he rubs circles there, then dips lower, making room, “-and sweet, and,” he presses his mouth to Vash’s cunt, licking up from his hole and laying a sweet kiss on his chubby little dick, “mmh, so good! You’re so good, Nick, so good for me already-”
Nicholas buries his burning face between Vash’s thighs. The praise is messing with him more than he’d care to admit- another thing that’s new and unfamiliar and sinking into his bones like warm molasses as much as it’s making his heart pound.
Normally, he’s the one praising his partners. But sweet words seem to spill from Vash freely and sincerely, and it has Nicholas utterly eager to please.
He eats Vash out right there in the doorway until he’s coming all over Nick's face. When they make it to Nick’s bedroom, Vash insists (very politely) on returning the favor. There's something about Vash's eyes watching him from below and his full mouth and his teasing, squeezing hands that has Nick keening and whining like he never has before. It’s a heady, almost automatic submission that has him keeping his hips as still as possible in Vash’s light hands.
He’s tried subbing before, didn't like it enough to try it a second time. Of course, that guy was never so gentle with him as Vash is right now- Nick had asked for a rough hand, because kindness from strangers made him fidgety and unsettled.
Something about Vash, though- something about his eyes, his mouth, his hands- soothes him. It’s almost embarrassing.
But what's definitely embarrassing is how fast he jerks up and finishes into Vash’s mouth. He looks too endeared to be upset or disappointed, but Nick still tries to assuage him.
“I can go more than once,” he pants.
And then Vash looks less endeared and more- intensely interested. Nick tries to squash his smug preening before it gets out of hand.
While Vash gets to work on verifying this claim, Nick gets to work on proving it. (He takes a moment to pat his past self on the back for maintaining a healthy condom supply.)
Eventually, they clean up and pass out wrapped in each other. Nick doesn't even think about how he has to kick this stranger out, or how awkward it might be in the morning. In fact, the only thought he has is that if he has to go without pussy like that for the rest of the fucking semester, he might need to take drastic action. He resolves to get Vash’s phone number before he leaves.
And then he falls asleep fast, dreams deeply, and when he wakes up, Vash is gone.
There's no note, but there is a coffee-ringed mug in the sink, and an extra mug still steaming on the counter. He takes a sip and scoffs, “Yeah man, sure, help yourself to my shit and leave, whatever,” he mumbles.
Nick leaves the mug on the counter without drinking anymore. He doesn’t dwell on the feeling the empty bed cursed on him. There’s a semester he has to prepare for, and last night was just a silly little fucking break.
He's never going to see Vash again. He needs to get over it, and so he does.
A week or so later, and Nicholas has finally started classes. He didn't really pay attention to his schedule other than the where and when of it, so when he walks into this particular lecture hall at this particular time, he does so without any knowledge of the names or faces associated with it.
But it’s worth mentioning that even if he had known- if he had bothered to give one singular fuck where it really would’ve mattered- he never would’ve been prepared to see Vash there. That is: at the front of the hall, preparing to start teaching.
“Aw, shit,” he breathes. Their eyes meet over the collected students in the room, and Nicholas is pierced and stayed by the bluest eyes he's ever seen. “I am so fucked.”
“Oh wow, I am so screwed,” Vash whispers, awestruck at how screwed he is.
How, how, how, how, how!?! He checked and double checked and triple checked his enrollment a mere week ago, he always does! There’s no way he could have possibly missed his name on that list!
In thinking that, Vash quickly corrects himself- it’s definitely possible, actually, because it happened, right here in front of him. He probably should add a quadruple checking, he’s always thought so.
But god, it doesn’t actually matter, does it? Even if he had seen Nick’s- Wolfwood's name there! What was he gonna do, kick him from the class? It's Vash’s class! If Nai can’t kick students from it, he can't either!
Setting up his stuff to recenter himself, Vash starts in on starting his class. A resounding WHATEVER! loops in his head.
As busy as he is with actively looking everywhere but where Nick's sitting, he’s been teaching a long time. This is to say he’s a certified professional: his introductory monologue marches out of him on autopilot with nary a stutter.
Unfortunately, this does mean that before he can think better of it, he tells his students at large that they can call him whatever they want- but if it's anything other than his name he's going to be at least a little weirded out. Once he does think better of it, he immediately thinks again that it probably doesn’t matter. Even if he was strict in his insistence for anyone to call him anything- like Doctor Saverem, for example, imagine- he somehow knows for certain that Nick would’ve simply carried on assigning him whatever nickname he damn well pleases.
He still wishes he hadn't mentioned anything about his name or what they should call him, though. The memory of Nick cooing blondie at him over the bar, or purring sweetheart into his neck, or finishing with a whimper of Vash in his ear swells in him unbidden and he hitches on a pause mid-syllabus explanation.
He is a professional, though, so he obviously rolls right over it effortlessly. He rolls right over the rest of the introduction, too, and the new part at the end he just added where he tells his students he’s deeply sorry, but he has somewhere very important to be, actually, so please email him with any questions, ok, bye.
He doesn't look anywhere towards where Nick- Wolfwood! God! Where wolfwood sits! In the middle-back of the hall. And he rolls- runs- right out the door.
This repeats the next time that class meets, and then the next, until Vash honestly has to scratch his head in wonder at how many students are apparently entirely willing to just email him instead of coming up to him and discussing their questions face-to-face. It is only the beginning of the semester, of course, there’s probably not yet much to discuss in depth, but still! Maybe Vash doesn't actually need to make himself available for in person questions after every single class!
Ha! Hahaha! Ahahahaha. No.
It's a few weeks into the semester when Vash’s ill-gotten good luck streak finally ends. The class in itself is the usual thing- he gives his lecture, casual and a consummate professional about it, practicing a blind spot on the middle-back of the room. Not for any particular reason, of course, just- casual, consummate professional.
But after the lecture ends, a student stops him at his desk. He redirects his energy to appearing like he wasn't just gearing up to flail frantically out the door again. He hopes desperately Nick will just get bored and leave.
Vash, of course, has no such luck.
The student at his desk has his attention for the next 15 or so minutes it takes to answer their question. When they leave, Vash looks up around the lecture hall to find it all but empty- just except for one Nicholas D. Wolfwood. He looks at Vash and raises his eyebrows, like he’s surprised he's still here, like he's asking if he's going to run again.
They look at each other. And then, Nick advances.
In a desperate attempt to get him to stop advancing, Vash does his best impression of a person who has ever turned down a student with a question: “Hey, I’m sorry, student hours are on Mondays and Wednesdays-”
Nick cuts him off with a light “oh,” taking a hard turn toward the door. Bright hope and flaming despair churn him in equal measures, but it all freezes at once when Nick just locks the door instead of leaving. Turning to walk back to Vash, he says, “That’s good. I was worried we might get interrupted.”
On his way over to Vash’s desk, he grabs a chair and pulls it right up to where Vash sits. When he heaves down onto the chair, looking far more comfortable than Vash has maybe ever been, their knees touch. Their knees touch. Vash stares at the brush of contact.
“Blondie,” Nick starts. Vash presses his lips together and stares harder at their touching knees. “We should talk.”
“Right, yeah, of course, we should talk, we should- talk about what, really, though?” He tries.
Nick looks at him, and Vash finally braves looking back. His expression is helpless and distantly miserable- it's hard to pick out, and if Vash hadn't already seen his face in several shades of ecstatic and eager, he might have read it as consternation. Knowing what he knows now though, Vash can only understand it as the sort of apprehensive dejection he himself is feeling.
Vash gives in.
“Look, I don't know what you want me to say. I didn't see your name on my roster until that first class! How did this even happen?”
(Meanwhile, about three weeks earlier: Nicholas D. Wolfwood scrolls through class sign ups with an inappropriate amount of nonchalance for how close the deadline is. Lazy and dispassionate, not bothering to care about the names teaching the classes other than their score on ratemyprofessor, he conveniently misses the mile-long waiting list for the class he just signed up for.)
(And then, a week after that: Nai “Knives” Saverem, who’s only ever wanted to see failing students fail harder, sits in his office. That is, the Dean's office. Enduring his third fight with Vash that month, he looks through the waiting list for the classes his brother is teaching. He recognizes the name of a student he knows is on a warning for academic probation, and, formulating an excellent plan to win his weekly argument with Vash, he bumps that student to the top of that list. Maybe it's that he doesn't have the proper motivation, Nai thinks, maybe he doesn't think he’s making any difference here. That would be just like him. Either way, Nai is willing to try anything to convince Vash to stay even one more year- and ideally forever. He sits in sweet ignorance about what it is exactly he just sent to his brother.)
(At that point, all it’d take is one student dropping the class, or a simple glitch in an outdated and overworn system, and the waiting list would automatically fill the empty spot with whoever was at the top of it. Not that Vash could ever guess all this. Not that it would help, even if he could.)
On the other side of this, Nick wonders why it even matters now.
“Your guess is as good as mine, Blondie.” He huffs, crossing his arms’ “God’s sure got a twisted sense of humor sometimes.”
Vash groans, head on the desk. He peeks up. “Look, I think it's great you're coming back to school and all-”
“The hell are you on about, ‘coming back-?’”
“So you're just starting then! And that's cool too! Better late than never, I always say- some take a year, some take a decade-”
“a decade-? What are you fuckin’- I came here right outta highschool?”
Vash pauses. Looks at him very carefully. “No, there's no way.”
Nicholas opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by Vash holding up a finger and rudely shushing him.
“Shh-sh wait, hold on hold on wait. Shh. Hold on.”
Nicholas holds on.
“How… old… are you…?”
“I'm twenty-two?”
“No! Twenty-two?!? No!!”
“What is your deal-”
“I slept with a twenty-two year old!! I slept with a twenty-two year old??? Like-! Like some sort of cougar?!?!”
“Like some sort of what?”
“I'm a CRADLE ROBBER!!”
Nick has to burst out laughing at that. “Ok, bit dramatic- think I'd have to be at least half your age for you to qualify as anything like that, Blondie.”
“…Nicholas.”
“Hm?”
“I'm forty-eight.”
Nicholas stops. Stares at Vash. Forty-eight?
Actually, when Nick thinks about it, that makes plenty of sense. Despite his slack mouth and wide eyes and raised brows, and the vague sound of glass shattering in the back of his mind, he isn’t even that shocked.
“…No shit?”
“Yes! How old did you think I was?!”
“I put you down for 35 at most!”
“I put you down for 35 at least! It's those damn cigarettes. I know it is. God, I should’ve-”
“Wait, what, you don't think I could've been aged by like, trauma?” Nick refutes. Vash scoffs at him. “Wisened by my shit experiences?”
“I have trauma too! Lots of it! And I don't look a decade older than I actually am!”
“Right, yeah, ‘cause your trauma was tripping and falling into the fountain of fuckin’ youth.”
Vash raises his prosthetic. “I am missing. An arm.”
Nick spreads his hands. “And maybe that's the cost of eternal beauty! Hell, I dunno, wizard shit?”
“You can’t just say ‘wizard shit’! And forty-eight isn't even that old!”
“Yes! Exactly! So what's the problem?! Tell me honest to God, if I had walked up to you in that bar and said ‘hey by the way I’m twenty-two’ would you really not have gone home with me?”
Vash takes a breath and holds it. Then he lets it go and leans back in his chair, conceding the point. Nick sighs through his nose around the weightless relief that flutters in his chest.
They consider each other.
Vash sighs. “It's not like it matters now.”
Nick nods, presses his lips together and hesitates. Then he bites the bullet: “…Can I ask you something?”
“Mh.”
“Was I that bad?”
“What- huh? bad?”
“Because I was under the humble impression you were having a great time,” Nick barrels on, “but when I woke up you were gone. And you hadn't left your number.”
“I-. I didn't leave my number.”
“…Yeah?”
Vash looks at him with a strange, scrunched up expression. Then he tips his head back and looks at the ceiling. “I knew I was forgetting something.”
“Seriously?!”
“Stop yelling at me,” Vash hisses.
Quieter and slightly guiltier, Nick says, “You're telling me you wanted to? You meant to give me your number and you meant for me to use it?”
Vash nods sadly, and it's only because of how pathetically he sags in his chair that Nicholas believes him. The guy looks like his image would pop up first if Nick were to look up the words ‘sad kicked puppy.’ Nicholas bravely resists the strange and powerful urge to pull closer and comfort him.
He's dangerously close to giving in before Vash says, “I had a lot on my mind, alright?” And yeah, Nick can relate to that.
“Sure. I did too. That's why I was at that bar at all.”
Vash looks at Nicholas. He wonders if Vash is thinking about that night now too. If he wants like Nick does.
Nicholas groans, rubs at his eyes to banish the thoughts, and says, “I guess I could see if I can drop your class?”
Vash tilts his head and pouts. “You wanna drop my class?” He whines.
Nick stares hard at Vash, who just pouts sadder and tilts his head more. This guy is never beating the sad kicked puppy allegations.
“In order to have sex with you that isn’t ethically dubious, yeah.”
Vash shifts up a little straighter in his seat. Nick shoves down that overwhelming feeling that wells up in him when Vash seems to be excited by this. “Oh yeah,” he says, like he forgot that part, “yeah, that’s- try and see if you can’t drop the class.”
Later, in the Dean's office:
“You can't drop the class,” Mr. Nai “Knives” Saverem says, throwing a folder down on the desk between them that probably doesn’t even have anything in it. Nick bets he’s just using it for emphasis and the drama of it all, the absolute prick.
Nick opens his mouth and raises a finger to protest, but Knives smooths on like he doesn't even notice Nick is there: “Look, even if it weren’t past the deadline to drop classes without incurring a fee- a fee of at least half tuition, mind you- you are on academic probation. If you drop one more class, you’ll be put on suspension.”
Shit, these guys were keeping track of the classes he dropped? That’s not fair, don’t most twenty-somethings in college change their major like fifty times? Do people really only get a set number of failed attempts before they’re kicked out? Even though they’re the ones paying for it? What the fuck is Nick doing here?
Knives looks at him pityingly, and it washes over him like curdled milk. He mocks, “Nicholas, have you ever even heard of a SAP appeal?”
And then, even later, back in the lecture hall:
“So. I can't drop the class. But,” Nick stalls, holding up both hands, “guess who’s on academic probation?” He says this in the tone of someone announcing they got a promotion at work.
Vash levels him an unimpressed deadpan. Nick gives him dancey little jazz hands. Still no dice.
“Ugh,” Nick groans, giving up, “so it looks like you're gonna be my professor for the rest of the semester.”
“How did you even end up on academic probation, n-” Vash clears his throat, “Wolfwood?”
“Well to tell you the truth, Professor Saverem-” Nick says, horribly vindicated at the way the title makes Vash lightly recoil. And some part of him hesitates to tell an earnest teacher that he’s a bad student, but he’s stubborn and he hates himself a little, so he continues, “I am clinically unable to give a fuck.”
Vash raises an eyebrow. “Clinically, huh?”
He leans forward like he's sharing some hot secret, “Did you know that if you drop classes, even if you’re still technically a full time student, you still have to fill out what we here in College call a SAB appeal?”
“SAP appeal,” Vash corrects.
“Right, SAB appeal, that’s what I said.”
“No, like- sap, like tree s-”
“And if you don’t submit any SAB appeals before the deadline of each semester that qualifies,” he spills out over Vash’s deeply unimpressed look, “then each dropped class is forever counted towards Shit That Can Get You Kicked Out of College, Not to Mention How It’ll Fuck Up Your Financial Aid?”
“Is that the academic term?” Vash quips dryly, expression thawing to something begrudgingly amused.
“Obviously, didn't you hear the capital letters?” Nick retorts. Vash snorts at him. “Anyway, if you do all that- completely oblivious to the mountain of shit you just set up for yourself- when you drop enough classes to be considered a part-time student for the first time in your college career, you'll be slapped with a big ol’ academic probation, right across your forehead.”
Vash looks at him for a bit. He has his arms folded, face screwed up in a weird half-frown, like he's trying to hold back laughter and visibly feels bad for wanting to laugh at all. “I did know that, thank you,” he finally says. Nick scoffs at him, the smartass. “Why in the world would you drop all those classes?”
Nick blinks at him. “Uh, the aforementioned clinical inability to give a fuck?”
“Why not just not sign up for the classes in the first place?” Vash argues.
“The implied expectation that every new semester will be the one to finally cure my aforementioned inability?”
“God, what inability could that possibly be?”
Stifling the chortle bubbling up in him, he answers, “The clinical inability? To give a fuck?”
“Ohh, the clinical one,” Vash comments lightly. A chuckle flits freely from Nick's chest, despite his best efforts. Vash smiles helplessly at him, then proposes, “You know, you can still submit appeals for this semester.”
Nick blinks, feeling the vague sensation of an ice cube dropped down the back of his shirt. Right. Right. Thousands of dollars of grant money and scholarships and savings, hundreds of hours at his stupid fucking job, on the edge of being wasted. Every class he drops, every SAP appeal he doesnt submit, every fuck not given is another thing standing between him and finally being in a financial position to do something for those he cares about.
“Yeah, I know. And I will, now that I know that I need to, but,” Nick raises his eyebrows pointedly, “I still won't be able to drop this class. I can't afford the fee.”
“Ah. Right.” And the smile Vash gives him now is resignation lined with badly hidden dejection, which threatens to piss Nick right the fuck off. But he doesn't really want to make it worse, so he shuts up and sits in quiet commiseration with Vash for a minute or so.
Fuck it, he thinks, and grasps for anything to make Vash stop making that face. Rolling out his hand in a play at innocent curiosity, he asks, “If you were to like, I don't know… give me some sort of grade on my performance that night-?”
“Nick!” Vash cuts in, scandalized. Delighted, a little.
“-Notes on what I should be studying more? Opportunities for extra credit?”
“What are you-” and Vash is biting down an amused grin, “be serious!”
Nick smiles wide and wicked, leaning into exaggeration. “I am! I'm trying to cope with the loss of the best pussy I've ever had, could you have some compassion?”
Vash snorts. “Now who’s the dramatic one-”
“I'm devastated! Is this what heartbreak feels like?”
“Oh, come off it, it’s- it’s not that bad-” his words are broken up with more sincere giggles now.
“This is literally the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my life.” Nicholas pauses for effect, looking emphatically at Vash. “And I'm an orphan.”
And it works: Vash bursts out laughing. Nick can't help but break into a grin.
“You're laughing? I don't get parents or pussy, and you're laughing??”
Vash just laughs harder at that. And here Nicholas notices he’s unwittingly been leaning closer to him, only realizing just how close when his eyes crinkle open, wrinkles on the corners and still giggling.
He trails off quickly though, and they spend a few tense seconds way too far in each other's personal space, staring at each other’s eyes. Nick's gaze dips to Vash’s lips, and he looks up in time to see Vash looking at his mouth, and then they both take a sharp, hissing breath in and pull away all at once.
“Ok, so-”
“Yeah,”
“That’s uh- that’s not. We can’t do that.”
“No,”
“That's, while you and I are, y’know, we-we can’t. That’s a big no-no-”
“Yeah, no, for sure,”
“In fact maybe! Maybe it's best if we just-! Uh!”
Nick tries his best not to grimace or- God forbid- pout as hard as he wants to. “…If we just avoid each other?”
Vash looks how Nick feels. “…Yeah.”
Badly hidden disappointment reflects over both their faces.
Well. At least they're in this together.
“But hey, y'know what?” Vash claps his hands together, “This semester will probably fly by, and by the end you'll probably have forgotten all about me!”
Nick blinks to process that, then stares hard at Vash in wide-eyed incredulity. “Are you serious, Spikey? Even if I wasn’t gonna be seeing you at least twice a week- in what world would I ever fucking forget you?”
Vash startles at that, for some reason. Then he bites his lip and looks away, down at his desk. His profile droops sadly. “You’re going to have to,” he says, “this class is completely accessible online and my inbox is always open for questions.” Then he pauses, and adds, “About the classwork,” with pursed lips and eyes narrowed a little at Nick.
Nick scoffs at the idea he’d abuse his fucking student email to talk to his professor about- what, them having sex? Doesn't matter how admittedly tempting the idea is, a man has principles! Mostly!
“So,” Vash continues, silent point sufficiently made, “what that means is we’re both perfectly capable of going the rest of the semester- at least- without ever seeing each other!”
Nick feels those words and Vash’s fake ass smile like a flat palm going fifty miles an hour straight into his sternum. “Yeah, whatever Blondie,” he takes the strike like a bitch, “see you never, I guess.”
And then Nick gets up and heads out towards the door, grabbing his bag as he leaves.
“Bye,” Vash says lamely, and Nick doesn't look back.
Vash said they’d be going the rest of the semester at least without seeing each other, after all. Nothing to get any sort of worked up over. SAP appeals don’t submit themselves, would that Nick could be so lucky.
Whether he likes it or not, Nick has his future to pursue.