[P] Why Can't I?

It was just past noon on Saturday when Nikkolai awoke. It was the weekend, so there were no classes, and despite the freedom that the weekend brought he dreaded it. There was nothing now to preoccupy his mind from what had happened the night before and it took him what seemed to him like hours to get out of bed when it had really only been five minutes. Falling asleep again wouldn’t happen, not with how early he had gone to bed last night and how late he was finally waking up today.

The funny thing about sleep, Nikkolai had come to notice, was that it either left you feeling refreshed when you woke up or even worse. He supposed, in his case, that he had woken up worse. He felt nothing but grim melancholy for what had happened and it was slowly shifting into a sort of apathy. Everything he did after waking up he had done out of mere routine, from taking a shower to getting dressed, just drifting through it all as if it meant nothing to him. Nikkolai just felt… numb. He’d almost cried before going to sleep but he hadn’t allowed himself to, and the talk with Dorn hadn’t helped him at all, and now…

Now everything that had remained unsettled was merely bottled up so deep down that he wasn’t even sure it existed anymore, to the point where it felt like everything had been completely sucked out of him. Sighing to himself, Nikkolai pulled a box of cereal from one of the cabinets, figuring he needed to eat even if he wasn’t even hungry.

A sudden knock made Nikkolai turn his head toward the door.

Nikkolai closed his eyes as he moved to the door, figuring it was a necessity to answer it. He wasn’t expecting to see Seth on the other side though and his eyes widened, his heart starting to pound the second he saw his face. Everything that had been buried for the time he had been awake started to revive. Why did Seth always have that ability to make him feel like he was alive? Did he even know he did that? Nikki averted his gaze; it seemed neither of them could look each other in the eye. What was he supposed to do?! He hadn’t come to a conclusion yet, he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know if he wanted to avoid Seth or if he wanted to see him or if…

He felt dizzy. Dammit, no, not again.

Nikki was silent until Seth spoke again, his gaze languidly traveling back to him. Why did this have to happen now? Why did they have to do this, why couldn’t they just act like nothing was wrong? Sucking in a deep breath, Nikkolai decided if they both weren’t going to put up that front, then he at least could, for both of their sakes.

“Yeah, of course,” he said with a forced smile, opening the door wider and stepping away from the threshold. He lifted a hand and scratched the back of his neck, tangling his hair around his fingers as he continued to step away. Could Seth see how nervous he was becoming, how broken up he still was? “What’s up? Are you okay?”

Just pretend like it never happened. Just pretend it never happened and if you forget it, it never existed.

But something like that… something so simple and yet so explosive…

Hard as he tried, he could never forget something like that.

Nikkolai cringed visibly when Seth said they had to talk. Did they really have to? Was it necessary to go over this? A sense of dread hung over him and he moved to the kitchen table, hopping up on the top of it and letting his legs dangle off the side. The table was stable enough and he was light enough to be able to do that; he just had a feeling he’d rather sit than stand for this.

He listened as Seth spoke with a vague idea as to where he was going with this, but he wasn’t entirely certain. After all, Nikki shared some of the same examples that Seth had just explained – how was he supposed to know what he was getting at? “Well… I’ve never had a girlfriend either and I’m only a year younger than you…” he said. “And I play piano and I’ve got a tattoo, too… and I’m lean – well, okay, underweight is the correct term but it's only by a little tiny bit.” The more he tried to piece it together the more confused he became.

If Seth was getting at what Nikki thought he was trying to get at then why was Nikki getting at the same thing when that wasn’t what he was trying to say at all?

And that had only just puzzled him more. Unless of course it was more obvious than he thought it was – oh but it couldn’t have been! Only Dorn knew that!

“Um, I don’t think I do,” he concluded finally, giving Seth a somewhat innocent grin. “Sorry.”

"I'm gay, Nikki."

Nikkolai just looked down, cutting short the eye contact they had made for that brief period of time. His hair fell to cover his face and he scrunched his lips to the side. He knew what it meant, and he had figured as much from the affection Seth had shown him and the admission that he liked him, but it still came as a surprise. He hadn’t actually thought Seth would just say that.

The desire to tell him was mounting inside of Nikkolai and he had to take a deep breath to try and quell it. This was his opportunity to just explain everything, to make Seth understand just why it couldn’t happen. This was the only chance he was ever going to have to work it out with the only person he really needed to work it out with. “I…” He was going to say it, it was right there in his throat, right on the tip of his tongue –

I am too, but Seth…

But what? What was he supposed to say? But you deserve someone who isn’t afraid, and that someone just isn’t me, even if I want it to be.

Nikkolai finally looked up and pushed himself off the table, moving toward Seth and shrugging his shoulders. He’d wanted to pull him into a hug – a man-hug of course, not one of those touchy-feely ones – but he knew that if he so much as touched Seth right now it was all going to come spilling out, so he merely kept his arms at his sides.

“I don’t care,” he said. “That you’re gay, I mean. It doesn’t change anything or whatever you thought it was going to do.” Nikkolai smiled to reassure him of this. “What happened at the park happened, we can’t change it and I don’t mind. I don’t hate you or anything… I’m sorry for reacting the way I did though.”

At least he’d apologized for that.

Seth’s smile was infectious. Nikkolai smiled in return, although he wasn’t entirely sure why he was smiling. He had nothing to smile about, not with the internal turmoil he was suffering from and the lies he just continued to spout. But Seth’s smile… it was so relaxing and genuine and beautiful… it was hard not to be happy when he was subjected to something so simply wonderful.

Nikkolai shook his head. “It’s really okay,” he said. “You shouldn’t worry or anything. It was kind of sweet the way you tried to pull it off.” Nikkolai laughed. It wasn’t kind of sweet, it was entirely too sweet – dammit, there he was lying again. “Someone’ll be lucky to have you one day.”

I just wish so much it was me.

At the mention of this ‘Cass’, however, Nikki’s head tilted to the side. His eyes widened and his face flushed, putting two and two together relatively fast. The bend-and-snap girl was easy to remember, especially with the stunt she had pulled in front of so many people. “You know her?” he asked. “Was that planned out?” He wasn’t angry, just a little embarrassed that had come up. After all, he’d been the only guy in the area around her to not react in the slightest to what she had done.

Did Seth know that?

Oh, God, with the way things were going he had a feeling that his secret wasn’t going to stay a secret for very much longer.