My Other Half // PRIVATE with Crocs

Tessa was about to open her mouth to argue with Markus, then she caught onto his last words. She peeked around Markus and grinned when she saw a napping Nikolas, a slow grin on her lips as she beheld what Markus saw. "He's all yours," she murmured with a slight tap to Markus's shoulder with the back of her hand. Not letting him register her words, she scurried upstairs with her own bags of clothing—some from a men's store because comfy.

Nikolas opened his eyes, tipping his head back over the headrest to look at Markus upside down. The movement irritated his back tattoo, but he only let a small wince show as he stared at the boy in the doorway. "Hey," he murmured, just a little sleepy as he steadily woke up.

Nikolas groaned softly as he sat up, shifting on the couch so that he was fully facing Markus, running a hand over his neck, keeping it hanging there even as he went still. "Yeah, just my back. Still a little sensitive." Technically always a lot sensitive but he doesn't need to know that. His mind paused. Yet. The thought had his lips twitching up slightly, but he ran his thumb over his bottom lip to erase it as he nodded, letting Markus know what he was okay.

He hummed with another nod, standing up and turning around so that Markus could see the other tattoo. "Yup. Figured I might as well get them both while I got the time. Hurt like a bitch, but I'm used to it." He looked over his shoulder with a lopsided smile and an amused gleam in his eyes. "I got a popsicle afterwards, so it's all good."

Nikolas turned around, expression flickering slightly as he tapped his pulse with two fingers, looking slightly on edge. "Ah, no. Does it look it?" he asked with a forced crooked smile, showing his arms. He let go of the illusion he had around the very faint but still visible track marks, his smile turning slightly sad. "Nah, things… shit happened when I was a kid. I kinda accepted it and stopped fighting. For the most part, at least. Until Tess showed up and fought tooth and nail."

"The pain, my pulse, the clock, the people talking, the phone." He crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging even if the look in his averted eyes said it wasn't just something to shrug off. "I focused on something else to take my mind off of it. I focused on how it hurts, or the sound of my heartbeat. The ticking of the clock, the buzzing of the artist's needle." He offered a slightly wobbly smile, peeking through the strands of fallen silver. "I thought of how badass it's gonna look once it's done and over with." He took a shaky breath and looked up at the ceiling, head tipping back. "I'm not doing it again, though. Twice in one day is enough. For now." That was his ultimate secret to dealing with it, though. Giving himself a goal to overcome it even if he didn't want to. He didn't barricade himself with his fear.

Nikolas opened his mouth, rubbing the back of his neck. "I… There are different things, Markus. Different demons. Needles was just another thing to get over if I wanted to finally have a semblance of a normal life. This," he gestured to the tattoo on his chest, "was absolutely terrifying, both during and after. I might've been able to distract myself with different things going on around me, but it wasn't enough to make me completely fine with it. I'm not saying it's all hunky-dory now that I've forced myself to go out on a limb, but it's one step to normalcy."

He ran his hand through his hair, taking a shaky breath, then another one. He looked up at the ceiling again, refusing to look at Markus. "Tess and I share a fucked-up childhood, and it's not just foster care. We lived on the streets 8 times out of 10. No one cares about street rats, so no one knows when things happen to them. We…" He sighed and closed his eyes. "There are bad people out there, and we had more than a few face-to-face encounters."

Nikolas looked down when he felt a light touch on his arm, finding Markus closer and tracing some of the marks on his skin. He stayed silent as the boy talked, watching his face—for what, he didn't know, but he watched. He found no trace of a lie spilling from Markus's lips. He clenched his jaw, the muscles in his cheeks feathering, but he didn't pull away. He made himself stay, even as that small voice in the back of his mind told him to run, to save himself from harm as Markus declared that he cared about Nikolas. But he didn't, he stayed. "I wouldn't mind if you stuck around," Nikolas murmured, looking at Markus's closed eyes.

Nikolas smiled softly and shrugged, dropping his arms to hook his thumbs in the waistband of his sweatpants. "Don't worry about either one of those; I don't mind the first, and the second wasn't that bad." He didn't look away from Markus this time, though he didn't make the mistake of playing another round of chicken with Markus—that had ended in a far different way than he planned. So he simply stood there for a few seconds, then his silver eyes flashed bright as he remembered their earlier conversation. "Oh, I hope Tess didn't wear you out too much. I still gotta take ya stargazing tonight."

Nikolas laughed as well, knowing how Tess was. "Yeah, I love her, but she can be a bit much. Hopefully I'm not the same way, but I guess you'll be finding out tonight." He absentmindedly rubbed at the tattoo on his chest, the pain just a small throb now, then dropped his hands, unhooking his other thumb from around his waistband. "Leme just change real quick, then we can go." He shifted as if going to move around Markus, but paused with his mouth slightly parted, as if thinking of saying something else. "You might want to bring something to sleep in. We'll be spending the night." He left with a wink and a soft smirk, heading upstairs to change into actual clothes.

Nikolas didn't know what Markus was thinking as he pulled on a simple dark blue tank top, then changed into black form-fitting and ripped jeans. He didn't worry about grabbing anything else, as he already had stuff over there for times like this. Besides, very rarely did he sleep at night. He was mostly worried about Markus getting sleep than he was about himself. Once dressed, he came out of his room and made his way downstairs.

"She didn't take you to get new ones?" Nikolas questioned with a slight crease to his brows as he approached Markus, a thumb running over his throat unconsciously. Another thing that was his fault, but he pushed past that before he and Markus got into another discussion over their past. It was just that—the past. Now to carve out a different future, whether that be how Nikolas was hesitantly starting to want it to be or not. As long as they were on good terms, that was perfect for him.

Nikolas stared at Markus for a bit, thumb running back and forth over his bottom lip, trying to come up with a way to offer to pay for them without making it seem like charity. "Favor for a favor," he finally said, lip quirking up slightly, "I do something for you, and you do something for me." He stared pointedly at the broken pair of glasses, clearly indicating that the something he would do for Markus was buy a new pair for him sometime.

Thank you, Tess, for inadvertently letting me steal your flawless system. Nikolas nodded, though his eyes shone with a flicker of happiness that he was able to at least fix this mistake. "You know it. We ready to go?" He tipped his head towards the door without looking from Markus. "I might be able to pull some strings and get you a new pair tonight, if we hurry." Akitta, please be in a good mood.

Nikolas chuckled at Markus's last statement, then held his hands up in surrender when he told Nikolas he didn't want to cause trouble. "Alright, alright. Stars it is, then. Glasses can wait." He grabbed his keys and walked to the door, quickly pulling on some simple shoes instead of his usual boots. "και μετά," he said, switching to Greek almost flawlessly.

Nikolas tipped his head, brows twitching together. "Oh, yeah." He hadn't realized he had switched, which was slightly bad considering he was supposed to be a born and raised American. Hopefully his accent didn't show up. "It means 'onwards.' He swept a hand towards the door, opening it. He leaned out of the house to flip a switch, opening the garage door to reveal his precious car. It was a black Dodge Challenger—a Hellcat, to be exact—with some modifications to make it sound nastier and go faster, the former for personal reasons and the latter for racing purposes.