Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(CHAPTER 1: The poker scene. I honestly can't remember how much of this is the same as the version that wound up in SPOTLIGHT, but I feel like this version had a lot more detail that I found unnecessary and therefore cut in the final chapter.)

But then, of course, it takes a turn. Green-shirt guy goes from chirping him for his babyface to cracking a joke about the gay bar being down the next block, asking if Nico wandered into the wrong place by accident while looking for his boyfriend. Nico wins the next round, though the excitement is overshadowed by his growing annoyance. 

He glares at the douchebag. 

“What, pretty boy, that one get under your skin?” Green shirt smirks. The dealer hands them all new cards. One of the women at the table no longer looks like she’s having fun, glancing between her hand and her friend like she’s considering getting up and leaving. The man in purple on Nico’s left licks sweat off his lip and taps his fingernails on the table. 

“I’m not the one here who apparently know where the gay bars are,” Nico says, dragging his tongue over his front tooth.

Green shirt’s nostrils flare. “What the hell are you saying?” 

Nico doesn’t bother acknowledging him as he looks at his cards, the king of hearts and queen of spades. Not bad to start. 

The first few rounds are quick and quiet, 

Since Nico and Purple Shirt to his left put down the small and big blinds, it’s up to Green Shirt to make the first bet. He raises it to two hundred dollars, of course, because he’s an asshole and he’s been making big ass bets like that the whole time Nico’s been at this table with them. 

The first bachelorette lady, on Green Shirt’s left side, folds, and leaves the table completely, putting her chips away into her pocket. She pats her companion on the shoulder, says something, and strides off toward the bar. 

The remaining woman shrugs and calls, placing two chips down with a little click . The third man, the one in blue, sighs like it comes from deep within him, but he also calls. 

Nico calls too. What the hell, right? He’s kind of got nothing to lose here; this is what they brought him out for, so he can be the crazy rookie everybody keeps razzing him to be. Might as well blow through nineteen hundred dollars in one sitting. It’s more fun that way. 

Purple Shirt folds, tucking his hands down under the table. Makes sense, since he lost four hundred dollars on the last game. 

The dealer gathers all their bets into the center and deals out the flop, expressionless - the aces of spades and diamonds, and the seven of diamonds. 

Nico schools his face to something purposely blasé, but that’s definitely not bad for him. An ace pair with his king would win, though the way Green Shirt glances at his cards has him a little worried. Does he have a king too? Nico has the queen of spades, so Green Shirt can’t get a royal flush, but there’s plenty of other hands he could build that would beat what Nico’s got. 

He puts the bet out at five hundred, to be a dick. Green Shirt calls without hesitation - interesting - while Bachelorette hesitates, before calling as well. 

Blue Shirt folds, leaning back and crossing his arms like he’s about to watch an intense sports game go down.

The dealer flips the turn after the bets are added to the pot. It doesn’t do anything for Nico’s hand, the four of spades, but Green Shirt’s face jumps for a split second, his eyes widening. His hand comes up to cradle over his cards like he’s protecting them from sight. 

Nico had an aunt with that same tell who would always, always lose on the next turn. It meant she was one card away from finishing a hand she was building, that she’d banked her whole game on betting high and hoping for luck. 

God, Nico hopes Green Shirt is making the same mistake. If he’s going for a straight flush, Nico’s fucked. 

He bets a hundred, watching the other two with the same intensity he would watch a faceoff, the same intensity he tracks the puck on the ice.

Green Shirt immediately raises to four, which Bachelorette matches, her face doing a little smirky thing. Maybe she’s got a good hand too - Nico actually wouldn’t mind losing to her. Would be better than douchebag mcgee, anyways. 

He lets himself smirk despite lacking the confidence to back it up, and calls. 

“Does your daddy know you’re wasting all his money?” Green Shirt sneers, glancing at Nico’s remaining pile of chips left like he’s genuinely judging him for following the high bets. Asshole. 

“Even if it was my dad’s money, he wouldn’t care. I can afford it.” He assesses the situation, counting the pot, watching how much Green Shirt is sweating, and how Bachelorette keeps licking her lips. He’s got half a chance here, as long as he can trust his gut. 

The dealer flips the river, the queen of diamonds, which gives Nico two pairs and a king. Frankly not what he wants to be heading into the showdown with, but whatever, it’s not like he’s about to concede. 

Green Shirt, however, looks like he got kicked in the nuts for a split second before he closes his face off, a bead of sweat running dramatically down his nose. Nico is quick to look away before Green Shirt catches him watching. 

A sickly little satisfied thing wriggles around in his stomach that Nico washes down with a sip of his beer. He pushes the rest of his chips toward the pot, eight hundred dollars worth, and reclines, turning his head toward Green Shirt with as polite a smile as he can muster. 

Green Shirt goes red, but he does call, shoving out most of the rest of his chips, which Nico arches an eyebrow up at. The guy doesn’t look too happy about the bet, tapping his fingers and glaring down the center of the table, his lips twitching minutely. 

Bachelorette laughs. “Too rich for my blood, boys,” she says, and folds, resting her elbows on the table, pressing her fingers against her lips. Purple shirt chuckles, but it’s obviously tense, and he glances between Nico and Green Shirt like he’s expecting an argument to break out. Blue shirt says nothing, his eyes trained on the cards and the cards alone. 

Nico flips his hand first, looking at Green Shirt, who’s eyes go round, face goes ruddy and red, no doubt piecing together the pairs. He swears viciously and flips his own cards, practically throwing them down, a useless king and two of spades. Just like Nico’s aunt. Ha. 

He takes the pile of chips that the dealer pushes in his direction and starts standing up before he’s even really done sorting them out, sticking them into his pocket. “Well, this was fun,” he says amicably, and very purposely scratches his nose with his middle finger when he catches Green Shirt’s eye. 

Blue Shirt snorts. Nico makes a quick exit before an actual fight can break out over it. 

(CHAPTER 1: This is what I originally had before Nico stumbles his way over to Snowy, Jason, Kent, and Tater. I decided I didn't like how I was representing Nico in this scene; it read to me more like he hated women and found them disgusting rather than him disliking that a stranger crossed his boundary, which wasn't how I wanted him to come across. And I also didn't like that Nico kept winning (lmao) so I decided to remove this scene from the chapter completely.)

Just for the hell of it, he puts some money into the slot machine, keeping one hand pressed over his right ear to block out the rest of the casino’s noise. He pulls the lever, and watches the little wheels spin, and spin, and spin. 

Eventually, the first one clicks into place. His heart sinks. 

Three matching symbols align over the next couple seconds, reading out “TRIPLE” straight across the screen. He keeps his ears plugged and clenches his eyes shut while the stupid thing starts flashing, making a helluva lot of fuss over the stupid fucking win. He’s not supposed to win these stupid machines. What the fuck. 

When the lights stop flickering over his eyelids, he tentatively peeks, which evolves into outright glaring. The stupid thing is still telling him he’s won, with the previous spin’s reward pulsing behind the “spin again” message. 

The woman beside him sucks her teeth and sighs, her own machine flashing up three mismatched shapes. Nico blinks down at his cash card, full of money he doesn’t want or need. 

He clears his throat. “Uh, hey,” he says, maybe too quietly. The woman doesn’t really react. He clears his throat again, and says, louder, “uhm, ma’am?” 

That works. She lifts her eyes off her screen and huffs, glancing him up and down in a quick, judgemental motion. “What.” 

“Do you want this? I just- won, uh. And I don’t want it.” 

“You- what?” She sounds less annoyed this time. She looks at the card, and then at his machine’s still-flashing screen. Her eyes, painted all around in a blue that brings out their pretty deep brown, go huge. “Sweetheart, that’s. That’s six thousand dollars that you just won.” 

“I know.” Christ, he’s aware of how much money it is. His temple twitches unpleasantly. “Here. Just- have a good night.” 

She takes the card from his hand and stares at it for a little while, and then up at him again. Her mouth is shiny purple-pink, catching some of the flashing light’s reflection. It almost looks like she’s somehow trapped rainbows in glass and affixed it to her mouth. “You have a good night too, young man,” she says, and leans into his bubble of personal space, kissing him on the cheek, her mouth sticky and soft and gross in all the ways Nico does not want to think about. She bustles away fast, damn near running through the floor. 

Nico shudders in a full-body way, disgusted by the ghost feeling of her mouth on his skin, and shoves off his stool so fast he nearly falls over, only half remembering to grab his stupid fucking poker chips, abandoning his gone-warm beer. 

He needs a napkin, he needs- the bar, there are napkin dispensers at the bar, oh god, ew, ew. There’s nothing there on his cheek he’s sure, but still, he just needs to clean it off, just, get the fucking feeling off. 

He nearly tears the dispenser apart, clawing out a handful of rough, cheap squares. He scrapes them desperately against his face until he’s sure there’s nothing left but raw skin, his fingers shaking. 

Why the hell do strangers do shit like that! God, okay, he gave her a ton of money, but that doesn’t give her the right to kiss him, Jesus Christ! He shoves the napkins into his pocket and wipes his cheek against his shoulder one last time, huffing.

Chapter Text

(CHAPTER 2: This is the original version of the "bar scene", where Jason decides he shouldn't drink. In the original version of hockey AU Jason was a lot less anxious about a lot of things, which you'll see in more of the scenes from this chapter. It started feeling like he had no motivations, like he wasn't really a person at all (in my eyes), so I edited it to what we have in the actual story now! As it is, I hope you enjoy: Nico and Jason flirting by buying each other horrendous drinks.)

Nico shuffles off, so they’re not within hearing range of their group - he feels weird about staying too close to them, as if Snowy and Parson will eavesdrop on their conversation. Christ, or Tater, who is even worse at social cues than Nico and wouldn’t hesitate to tease Nico with any embarrassing shit he thinks of. 

Absolutely nothing else should be read into Nico’s motivations for being alone with Jason Grace. It’s just an added bonus. That’s all. 

They take an unoccupied spot at the far end of the bar. 

Jason leans over to the nearest bartender and orders a fucking Jäger Bomb like he has a goddamn death wish. 

Nico can only barely withhold a look of disgust. If it were literally any other human being but Jason Grace, he might not hold back, but- this is a special case. 

“Dude, what,” he can’t help but mutter. 

“Oh, it’s not for me,” Jason says nonchalantly, and then pushes the drink at Nico . 

His jaw drops open, a jolt of genuine horror threading into his throat. “You’re fucking with me.” He can’t be serious. Who the fuck orders that shit for someone they’ve literally never met before, what kind of psychopath…? 

Jason just shrugs and looks between Nico and the glass, like he’s daring him to do it. He is doing a pisspoor job of hiding the stupid little smile tugging at his mouth which gives away that he knows how fucked this is. If Nico was still playing poker, he’d be about to wipe the floor with Jason, what a lousy tell. 

His fingers shake for a second as he lifts the glass up. “I’m getting you back for this,” he says, staring into the fizzy, oil-piss colored liquid. He had to drink it. He can’t not, he has to. Nico can never turn down a stupid fucking dare. 

Before he can think more about it, he lifts it to his mouth and chugs, squeezing his eyes shut desperately to try and block out the vile wash of too-sweet energy drink and black licorice and bitter herbs, swallowing desperately to get it off his tongue as fast as he can. 

A full-body shudder wracks him after the final gulp. He shoves the glass away and drags the back of his hand across his lips. His throat burns. He can feel his stomach turning unpleasantly. 

“That was mean,” he informs Jason, and then makes good on his threat of retaliation, choosing a shot off the menu-board that he recognizes from other seedy bars he’s been in with the team - it’s designed to curdle the second it’s taken, some vile combination of lime juice and Bailey’s. 

The bartender sets it down without batting an eye. 

Jason isn’t even phased as he lifts the shot glass up and knocks it back with misplaced confidence. 

Jason’s hand almost immediately slaps over his mouth as he makes this sound like a gag. He turns away like it’s taking everything in him not to spit the combination back out. His shoulders shudder with an obvious attempt to swallow. 

Nico is a little too gleeful about it. He chews his lip to stifle laughter. Jason eventually comes back up for air, glaring out the corner of his eye. “ That was mean,” he mutters, pushing the glass away. 

Oh, fuck- did Nico actually piss him off? A split second spark of panic jolts down his body at the unwavering frown, the crease in Jason’s eyebrows. He didn’t mean to- he just wanted to- to pay the joke back, not- 

The corner of Jason’s mouth twitches. After another beat, his whole expression collapses, breaking into something brighter, happier. “I’m teasing,” he says. He jostles his elbow into Nico’s side.

(CHAPTER 2: This is an alternate version to the scene where Jason and Nico walk back to the hotel. oh my god this scene gave me SO much trouble. I think I rewrote it 4-5 times trying to get it to a place that it felt natural and I liked, and I wound up having to remove a LOT of details. you'll notice that that tends to be a big thing with me. i'll give you SO many details if not restrained.)

It is real life. So real it punches into Nico’s lungs as dry-hot Las Vegas desert air and flashing neons and life surging up to them outside the casino. It’s less crowded, less trapped, but still undeniably claustrophobic. Nico is walking through Las Vegas with Jason Grace, in awkward, shared silence, and it is real. 

Nico keeps reminding himself to take deep breaths in time with their steps. 

He’s not nearly as overwhelmed now that everything has dialed back - outside, there’s more space for the noise to echo out, for the light to diffuse, for Nico to expand his body and relax. It’s okay. He’s okay. 

God, but every time he glances over and catches Jason glancing back, his heart somersaults and he has to remind himself to breathe again. 

It’s real, alright. It’s sur real, to just be- walking! Beside this guy that’s he got a massive, creepy ass crush on, and- and Jason isn’t speaking (not like Nico is either), and Nico just- he can’t tell if it’s a good silence, or it’s a silence that one of them is supposed to be breaking sometime soon. 

Nico half hopes that Jason is just as freaked out on the inside as Nico is, and that Jason is just better at hiding it. 

It’s a weird thought to entertain, but Nico can’t really count it out no matter how much he wants to. Jason obviously wants to get to know him, enough that he’s willingly going to a strangers hotel room where they’ll be all alone, with no one else to leech conversation off of, or to tell Nico when he’s being too weird. 

He drags his fingers through his hair and checks the directions on his phone again, taking a turn up a street that he does remember, sort of, from walking with the guys before. 

The silence finally breaks. Jason whistles, low and impressed. 

Nico…can’t blame him. 

The hotel is one of those fancy ass resort-and-hotel combinations, the closest one to the stadium that was able to provide the modicum of privacy a professional sports team would need. It’s over the top in the way everything in Vegas is, opulent topiaries and glitzy fountains and glamorous everything else - Nico might have grown up rich, but he can still appreciate luxury when he sees it. The places they stay at aren’t always fancy fancy like this - they do have a budget to maintain, after all - but, y’know. When in Vegas. 

“Just wait until we’re inside,” Nico says, finally remastering the art of speech. Jason shoots him a look that is mostly eyebrows. 

(CHAPTER 2: The conversation scene! In the first few versions of this scene, I started to feel like it was me speaking through Nico, and not Nico himself telling Jason things, so I decided to chop it. You'll also see some differences in Jason's anxieties in this draft of the conversation, too. I didn't have as good of a grasp on where he was mentally when I first wrote this . Finally, when editing , I felt like the two of them weren't making enough mistakes/faux pas (like asking about Jason's mom, Jason not knowing Nico's terrified of heights, etc etc) which is why those things are present in the final edition and not here.)

“It’s not silly.” Nico glances out the window too, trying to see it from Jason’s perspective. He takes in the twinkling lights, the flashing of thousands of lives all occurring together in silence, way far below. It is a little romantic, if he thinks about it like that. “I mean, aliens are no less silly than any of the fucking superstition stuff we do as hockey players, right? Believing that routine brings good fortune or whatever.” 

“Ha! You know what, yeah, that’s- yeah. I can believe in aliens if other guys can, like, believe in- in pucks under their pillow, or- oh, shit-” Jason’s face goes sheepish and pink. “That’s your superstition, isn’t it?” 

Oh, god. “Yeah, it is.” Does Nico even want to know how Jason knows that? A giddy little thing expands between his collarbones, beneath the well of paranoia. It’s an uncomfortable dissonance to have inside of him. “Did you like, find that in an interview?” 

Jason’s ears catch the pink from his face. “Uh, yeah.” He scrubs a hand up against the back of his neck. “You and Snow did, uh, a video about your pre-game rituals, a while back. In pre-season, I think. You mentioned that you always sleep on your first shutout puck. I think Snow said he does yoga?” 

That sparks a memory in Nico’s brain, of one of the first PR interviews he ever did for the Falcs, back when he was shaky and nervous about the camera being on him. They put him and Snowy in a room with a black sheet up behind them, all the lights off except these two big spotlights like what they use on film sets. Nico remembers shaking through the whole thing. Snowy bought him a milkshake after, like he was a scared little kid or something. 

He was, but that’s secondary to the point. 

He can’t believe Jason watched that. Jason had said he was a fan, sure, but Nico assumed that just meant he watched the game, not that he was a- a fan of Nico, as a person.

“Can I,” Jason starts, and then stops and turns all the way around so he’s facing Nico, perching on the opposite arm of the chair. “Am I allowed to uh, hear the story about it? About- how you picked up that superstition, the puck one. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me, or-” 

“It’s not that interesting,” Nico interrupts, stunned by the earnesty. 

“I really want to know,” Jason leans forward, his eyes alight with curiosity. 

Nico looks away, to the blank TV screen, and then to the painting of a vase of flowers on the other wall. Jesus. “Sure, I guess, uh…” he fiddles around with his hands again, and clears his throat. 

“It, uh, started with my first shutout, obviously, when I was in my first league, on this team in Ashburn. Virginia. I got hurt pretty bad during the game, which is. Important. 

“My mask was busted. We were in the third period of a one nothing game, and I didn’t want to call for like, a new one or anything ‘cause we had maybe four seconds left on the clock and I had an hour drive home. I did not want to go to OT, and if I called for a stoppage there was a possibility, you know, that momentum could shift or whatever. I don’t know, I was like, fourteen and stupid. 

“The kid who had the puck- he was being an ass the whole game, talking shit to me and my teammates- he got way too close to me, saw an opening and just shot the puck straight at my face. I dunno if he aimed, or what, but it felt like he did it on purpose, you know? 

“It was just too fast, too close, I took the full force of it right into the cracked part of my mask, because of fucking course I did, and it just- broke it open. The mask just fully busted apart, it was crazy. I basically took the slapshot from point-blank range right to the face. It knocked one of my canine’s out and busted my chin up.” He runs his tongue absentmindedly over his fake tooth, wrinkling his nose. He can still feel the way his jaw cracked, that split-second before the pain registered, the sharp bite of it into his skin, plastic and bent metal and torn padding. “I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.”

Jason rips in a sharp, sympathetic breath, which he exhales back out like a hiss. “Holy shit.” 

“Yeah,” Nico agrees, resisting the urge to touch where they’d sewn his chin back together. It didn’t even scar. “It was fucked. But I kept the puck out of the net, since time had run out before he even shot it. My team’d won, and I got my first shutout. 

“They let me keep the puck, obviously. My coach gave it to me while I was still in the hospital - I don’t remember this part, but my step mom basically told me that I was wicked loopy from the painkillers, and that I kept talking about the tooth fairy. I guess I was stressed about having lost the tooth entirely? All that I actually remember is getting home, and thinking that I had to put the puck under my pillow. Like, I was convinced I would die or some shit if I didn’t. 

“When I woke up the next morning, there was a twenty dollar bill on my nightstand sitting under the puck, with a note signed from the tooth fairy. I knew my dad had written it, I recognized his handwriting, but…I dunno. It just, it felt like a little bit of good luck in a shit situation, you know? And- it also made me feel like my dad maybe approved of me playing hockey, finally, at least a little bit. 

“So I kept putting the puck under my pillow before games, to give myself something to focus on. It’s evolved, I guess, to- like, I can’t touch the puck until after the game, ‘cause that’s where I store all my negative thoughts.” Oh, wait, that’s- that makes him sound actually insane. Nico puts a hand over his eyes to try and combat the flush that skates down his skin. “Not- I mean, obviously I don’t fucking- I meant like-” 

“No no, no, I totally get it,” Jason cuts in. Nico peeks between his fingers - Jason leans way forward on the arm of the chair, his eyes wide behind his glasses. He looks…riveted. “It’s like when people meditate, or carry around crystals. I totally get it.” 

“Yeah.” Nico pulls his hand down and fiddles again, looking out the windows, counting how many flashes of light he can see before he has to draw his eyes back to Jason. “Uh, so- so that’s it, I guess. My puck superstition. Nothing really fancy.” 

Jason blows out a breath of air in a woosh and shakes his head. “You’re kidding, that’s- that’s a crazy story, dude. I’m really sorry to hear you got hurt, though,” he says. He’s so sincere about it that Nico has to avert his eyes to the plain white bedspread. 

“Don’t be. It was my own fault, going into the crease with bad equipment. I should’ve told somebody, but I wasn’t really thinking about the consequences.” God he fucking wishes he had, back then, wishes he hadn’t put himself into that position to get hurt so bad. He triple checks his mask for weak spots before every game, now. He watches the puck and the ice and shooting distances and speeds just as much as he watches the puck’s position, watches plays happening before his eyes. Every single time he gets on the ice, he’s that freshman kid again, too small for the pads he’s in. He’s never protecting the net. He’s protecting himself. 

Jason shifts his hands down, folding them across his legs. He shakes his head. 

“That’s so hard to imagine. Fourteen, you said you were?” 

“Yeah.” A stupid fucking kid. “Still at that stage where shit doesn’t scare you like it should.” 

“Oh, what, like you’re scared of that stuff now?” 

Nico snaps his eyes up to Jason’s face, like an electromagnet switched on. Jason is teasing, obviously, his lips are crooked and he’s got one eyebrow up, but- a thousand different too-honest answers nearly spill from Nico’s tongue. He could tell Jason that he’s terrified of being in a glass closet. That he’s convinced he’ll leave every game in an ambulance. That sometimes, he can’t believe he is himself at all, sharing games with the starting goalie of an NHL team, staring down men twice his weight, twice his age, three times as strong as those kids in Bantam, who will do anything to get that fucking puck past him. 

Nico swallows down the honesty. “You’re gonna be taking shots on me next season, dude. I can’t give away all my secrets.” 

Jason’s face lights up, grinning from cheek to fucking cheek. Nico stares at him - really stares, like, wide eyed, full-attention staring. It overwhelms him all of a sudden, that he’s seen that smile on Jason’s face in post-game interviews, this is not just Jason, some guy he met in Vegas. This is Jason Grace, who plays the best pre-NHL hockey Nico’s ever seen. 

That Jason Grace is grinning at him, excited, as if the idea of playing against Nico on professional ice is the best thing he’s heard all night, like it gives him the same rush that winning a game does. It’s like- how the fuck did Nico get here? How the fuck did he manage to catch this guy’s attention, how did he manage to convince Jason he’s worth any time at all? 

Nico doesn’t do this, Nico- Nico hides, lets the adults do the talking; he stares at people until they get creeped out and leave him alone, he doesn’t- he doesn’t bring them back to his room to talk, he doesn’t tell them about his complicated history with pucks, doesn’t consider telling them his fears. And- beyond that, it’s not supposed to feel like this, like- like they’re just buds, just pals catching up, two dudes chatting in a swanky ass hotel room. 

Nico has a fucking crush on this guy, he’s- they’re not supposed to just get along, like, it’s supposed to be fucking awkward, god dammit, it’s supposed to be weird!

What is he supposed to do, now that it isn’t? 

He doesn’t know what the next step is. There is no back-up social script for this, he doesn’t have somebody else to rely on for conversation, for- for picking them out of the awkward silence, is he supposed to- to, like, offer to talk about Jason’s superstitions? Or- do they just move on, to the future, or- is it okay, to just sit in unfinished silence? Nico doesn’t fucking know. He’s lost, no sign of land, SOS, help. 

Jason shifts and clears his throat, as if trying to recapture attention. 

Nico startles back into the real world. 

Holy shit, he spiraled out fast. He blinks starbursts from his eyes at the shock of it, like coming out of a fucking fireworks show. 

“I, uh,” Jason says, his eyes scanning Nico up and down. Then, he looks down at his knees. He drums his fingers over them. “I think you’re the first person who, uh. Who didn’t, like, immediately start grilling me about my life, and career and stuff.” 

Nico wrinkles up his face - his normal walls aren’t back up yet, sue him for behaving rudely. “What?” 

Jason chuckles, but it’s mostly breath. “People hyperfocus on the fame, and the story, y’know, but you- you haven’t, even though you obviously know who I am? You’ve just treated me like, like any other person. Oh- uh sorry, that- that sounded kind of conceited, I-” 

“I get what you mean,” Nico interrupts, and then flinches, cringing. “Uh- shit, I didn’t mean to cut you off.” 

“You’re good.” Jason looks intrigued, pretty baby blue eyes wide and alert, attentive. Nico makes an effort to not stare into them again. He drags crud out from under his nails instead. 

“I just- you know, like. I can be a fan of yours and still respect you as a person. It’s not that hard.” Nico wipes his hands off on his pants. “I guess it kinda makes sense that other people don’t have that automatic flip, y’know, to filter out the fan behavior, I just. I dunno. It’s cool as fuck to meet you, and I am, you know, super excited, but- you’re also just another player, at the same time?” He rubs the back of his head. He’s not sure he’s even explaining this right. “Every other week I’m facing guys on the ice that I look up to, that I- that I really admire. I just know how to act around people like that, I guess. With a big name and even bigger history. Like…Kent Parson took us out to a casino. My captain is Jack Zimmermann. ” 

Jason clears his throat again and looks down. Nico has half a mind to ask if he needs a glass of water or something. “Right,” he says. “Zimmermann, uh. I hear his name a lot, when people talk about me.” 

“Oh.” Nico wrinkles his face up again (alright, maybe he’s just a little rude in general). “I wasn’t, like comparing you two. He was just an example of, like, a famous name.”

(CHAPTER 2: An alternate version of the discussion about which team Jason is best suited to play for :D A lot of the edits to this chapter weren't made to change the content, but to make the content flow a little bit better - so in the final version of the chapter, this conversation is formatted so it doesn't feel as forced and stilted, in my opinion.)

Jason makes some sort of huh noise. “You guys don’t happen to have cap space, do you?” he asks, and it’s a joke, Nico knows it’s a joke, but it also kind of doesn’t sound like one. 

He bites down the gut response to tell Jason he’s already asked, that Georgia said their numbers couldn’t adjust for the salary they’d want to give Jason. That’s too weird.“Not with our first line, sorry. Besides - whichever team gets first pick at the drafts is going to take you. That’s not going to be the Falcs. We’re going all the way to the playoffs this year, guaranteed.” 

“Oh?” There’s a shift in Jason’s voice that Nico doesn’t know what to do with. He frowns and squints, suspicious. 

“Yeah…?”

“I don’t know.” Jason’s tone lightens into something recognizably teasing, or chirping, maybe. Jason leans forward again, the chair arm squeaking under his weight. He looks over the rim of his dorky ass glasses. “The Panthers are having a pretty good season, and the Bruins, I mean, I dunno. The Lightning’s creeping up there too-” 

“Are you doubting my intuition? You’re not even drafted yet and you already think you know the NHL better than me?” Nico narrows his eyes and leans in too, challenging Jason’s space. Jerk. Nico knows this shit. Gambling odds are in his blood, after all.  “Sixteen teams go. You better believe the Falcs are gonna be one of them.” 

“Alright, mister know-it-all,” Jason leans back again, relaxing at the shoulders, his head tilting. He folds his arms up over his chest. “Tell me what team is gonna get to choose first at the draft. Since you know the league so well.” 

Nico’s bravado drops in an instant. 

That…is a loaded question. There’s no shot Jason asks that without at least a hint of intent. Not after the way he was panicking in the casino. That’s not a thing Nico is willing to joke about, where Jason’s going to go. It’s not a joke, not to him. He doubts it is to Jason either, and it sure as fuck isn’t a joke to the rest of the NHL. 

So who does he think it will be? 

It’ll be a team that doesn’t make the playoffs, which disqualifies a bunch of big names Jason’s possibly hoping for - Pens, Bruins, Canadiens, those are pretty unlikely. Nico doesn’t know who Jason could be angling for, either, does he want to go to an original six team? One of the Canadian teams? It could be the Senators, maybe, or the Leafs, they kinda always sink to the bottom of the pack, but something in his gut is telling him that’s not it.

(CHAPTER 2: This is basically a continuation of the last scene, but with a couple of the spoilery lines removed, so I'm putting a paragraph break. Just know this is essentially a continuation of the last passage)

Jason cocks his head off to the side and stares like Nico said something way out of left field. 

He kind of did. The media, after all, has deemed Jason as, “the kind of talent designed for a team with depth and history; it's a waste of his skills if he doesn’t go to an original team, or at least to Canada.”

Really, truly, honestly? The media can go fuck themselves. 

Jason’s mouth opens and shuts. He blinks, and blinks again. 

“Where…do you want to go?” Nico asks tentatively. Jason seems- awfully shocked by that answer. What, was there a boundary there that Nico didn’t recognize? 

Jason half shrugs, still blinking like he’s got an eyelash in his eye. “I, uh. I haven’t let myself want any specific team. I’m gonna go where I go,” he admits, but there is something about him that looks satisfied beyond the shock, something in the crinkle of his eyes, the pull of his mouth. 

Nico scoots back from the edge of the bed, until he’s got his back to the headboard. Jason watches him, his eyebrows rising. 

“Uh.” 

“There’s plenty of space up here,” Nico pats at the bed beside him, feeling a little- he doesn’t know, floaty, maybe. Intrigued. He waves his hand at Jason’s posture, all hunched up over the arm of the chair. “That can’t be good for your back, you’ve got a game tomorrow. I mean- as long as you don’t mind, uh-” 

“No no,” Jason gets up like he’d just been waiting for an invitation. He takes his shoes off - Nico hadn’t noticed he’d kept them on - and then climbs up onto the empty space of the bed, coming to rest beside Nico against the pillows. “I don’t mind if you don’t.” 

They’re aligned shoulder to shoulder. Nico shakes his head, but it does still take him a moment to adjust. Jason isn’t as warm as Nico thought it might be. Their legs press together, which was Jason’s doing, Jason sat so close to him. 

(CHAPTER 2: So much of this chapter was me taking these deleted scenes, and just changing some details around/futzing with the paci ng, but largely keeping the details that I liked, so some of these passages might have actually appeared in the final version. I got real poetical about things in this chapter haha, a lot of that was from original versions that I just transplanted into the final version. This passage especially has some of the original (or even identical) lines from the final version, that when I was editing I just really didn't want to accidentally lose.)

Nico’s creepy fanboy schtick is back. He forces his shoulders to relax every time their elbows make contact, and stops the giddy little tapdance of his heart every time he inhales, punching himself internally every time he thinks, this is what Jason Grace smells like. 

Christ, Nico is such a goddamn creep. 

Their knees bump. Jason shifts, stretching his legs straight out toward the foot of the bed, crossing his ankles together. His hands rest on his belly. Nico totally doesn’t notice how he weaves his fingers together, still picking at that hangnail.  

“...do you really think I’ve got what it takes? For the NHL?” Jason asks, so soft it’s nearly lost under the rattle of the AC. 

“I do.” It’s easy to be recklessly confident about stuff like that. “I think you’re gonna go first in the draft.” 

Jason looks at him. 

The experience of it is earth shattering from this distance, locking eyes, that fucking magnetic yank nearly cracking him to pieces. It’s electric. Chilly tingles run down Nico’s arms. Every hair on his body is suddenly on end. 

Jason’s eyes are vibrant when they’re not dulled out by flashing disco lights and voices and the stench of spilled beer. There are flecks in them, specks of brown-gold and white amongst the sky of lightning-blue, different hues of each color like each line, each vein, was a different brushstroke. 

Those eyes dart all over. Jason must be examining Nico just as close as Nico’s examining him. He can’t even begin to articulate how that makes him feel. 

~

Nico still can’t get over the fact that he gets to have this, with Jason. This…space, this comfort, this- shared, something. Everything that’s happened to him in his life, every fucked up thing, it’s all led to this, like a placation, an apology. Like a hand soothing over his hair, down his back, saying, wasn’t is all worth it? Wouldn’t you do it all again? 

He’s not sure if he would, but he’s here now. This is what he gets for it, and- no, it might not all be worth it, for everything- losing his mama and Bianca, god, he would never choose that, not even for this, but- but he has this, now. It’s not a fair trade, it never will be, but it fucking got him here. 

They’ve changed each other’s lives, him and Jason have. Inadvertently, sure, and just by nature of being themselves, but that maybe makes it all the more punishing in Nico’s sternum. If he’d been less adamant when he was younger, if he’d never transferred out of that shit team in Springfield, none of this would have ever happened. 

Chapter Text

(CHAPTER 3: This is a different version of the "so you do like me?" scene. When I was editing chapter 3, I found that a lot of these bits of conversation didn't flow the way I wanted them to, so I removed them and kept them in the deleted doc just in case I needed to go back to the original phrasing to figure things out. I also found I didn't like this kiss scene, with the way that I rewrote the chapter, hence why we have an entirely new layout for the conversation and the scene as a whole! Also, as an aroace person who has been "kissed" a grand total of one time, I didn't have much experience to draw from when it came to the phrasing/feeling of kissing, so that's why in the end I scrapped everything you'll see below and went with a shorter version of it.)

Jason shifts around again, like he’s not entirely sure how close he should be sitting to Nico, now. “So, uhm,” he starts, a perfect grin across his face, showing off just how far down his pretty little white scar goes, splitting a line through the pink of his mouth. “...now that that’s out of the way, uh.” 

It takes Nico a couple seconds to figure out that Jason’s insinuating something. He blinks. “You said you wanted to be friends.” 

“I s-said that being friends was a good start, actually,” Jason corrects. His hands fall into his lap, weaving together and fiddling. Nico mimics, tugging at his pinkie fingernail. “But you’re, like. Obviously not, uh. Uninterested?” 

“In what?” Nico’s not- his heart starts to pound, but he’s not jumping to conclusions, okay, he just, he needs to know what Jason means, in like, explicit terms. What does he mean by Nico not being uninterested, specifically? 

Their arms bump again. Jason says, “in, uh. In me.” 

God. God. 

Nico wants to fucking sprint back to the casino and find Kent Parson and hug him for beating them tonight. He wants to text Snowy and tell him he better not dare come back to the room, wants to open up his Twitter and scream incoherently about every little thing he’s learned since they walked into his hotel room. 

How is this Nico’s life right now? How is he ever going to go back to the way things were? This will always be a pivot, a moment wherein everything else in his life will be defined as after. 

“Definitely not uninterested.” A smile runs unbidden across Nico’s face, powerful enough that it aches in his muscles. It’s a joy he’s never felt before, this- this thing, bounding through him, floating, light, but tight. He could fuel all of Vegas with the energy in him right now. 

“We can’t date, though,” Jason rushes, his eyes darting back and forth. “I’m- I can’t risk that, I can’t get distracted.” 

“I can’t risk it either.” Nico’s already under so much fucking pressure; trying to keep a relationship with his long-time crush a secret would be too much. 

But where does that leave them? Is there somehow a space between friends and dating that they can linger in? What are they allowed to do about it? 

His eyes drop down to Jason’s mouth again, half by accident, but he’s sure Jason’s doing the same so he doesn’t bother feeling embarrassed. His fingertips are sparkling.

“Can I-” Jason falters. 

This is so happening right now. Nico curls his hands into fists. “ Yes , please.” 

Jason leans down, and kisses him. 

It’s- it’s weird, actually, the sudden, foreign feeling of a face touching Nico’s face, lips on his lips, soft and warm and in his personal space. Jason’s nose presses against his at a funny angle, their chins touching. 

The first time Nico was kissed, he was hidden beneath the bleachers at his high school in DC, shaking and anxious, trying to remember where he was going to run if the janitor came back to collapse the seats in early. He remembers straining to listen for sneakers on the polished floor. 

Now, though…there is no rush. The room door is shut and locked, and even though the curtains are open, nobody could possibly see them. Nico doesn’t have to remember to watch his back, to worry about the world closing down on them. It’s just- this. 

He tilts his chin up when Jason shifts, their heights staggered awkwardly even with Jason stooping over. Because Jason Grace is four inches taller than Nico. Because this is Jason Grace he’s kissing. 

Nico tips back to breathe through the dizzy reminder, his face overly warm. The air is thick all of a sudden. Practically humid. 

“Are you okay?” Jason whispers. His tone cuts through Nico’s buzzing thoughts, snaps him into reality. 

He nods. “Yeah. Uh. Perfect.” Jason Grace the public figure and Jason the real boy suddenly align as one in Nico’s psyche, and the odd, cozy, giddy feeling in his sternum resurges back with a vengeance. He fights down a shudder. “Uh. Do it again?” 

Oh god, that’s embarrassing as fuck. Jason doesn’t seem to think so, though, because he just grins, and kisses Nico again, pressing his smile in. Nico can feel the stretch of his lips in a way that makes it hard to actually kiss him at all. Their noses bump when he tries to adjust. Jason giggles. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” Nico whispers, a squirmy, upset thing in him genuinely worried that Jason thinks he’s bad at this. He is, Nico knows he is, he’s never fucking done this before, okay? His face burns hot. Can Jason feel him blushing? God, he must think Nico’s so lame. 

Jason’s eyes open, so fucking close Nico can practically feel his eyelashes. The veins of his irises look like waves, like the folds in curtains. Nico wants to hide from him. 

“I’m not.” Jason wraps an arm around him, though it feels weird and not-quite-right with the way they’re sitting. Nico flushes anyway, his scalp prickling. “I just- kinda can’t believe, uh. That this is happening.” 

“Same,” Nico whispers, dropping his eyes down to Jason’s scar again, to the pink of his mouth. It’s too good to be true, even as stilted and awkward as it is. Jason’s arm around him feels warm and heavy, like a good hug. 

He reaches up and cups Jason’s jaw, mimicking the way Jason’s hand lays flat against his spine. Nico runs his fingers against the upward swoop of bone just under and behind Jason’s ear. He touches the swipe of purple under his eyelids, and runs his thumbs down over his pretty cheekbones. 

Jason shuts his eyes as Nico trails his fingers over his nose, intrigued by the little bump in the bridge of it — a hill that curves into an almost pointed tip, somewhere in the realm of wide, long. Jason’s skin is soft and smooth under Nico’s fingertips. Elegant. 

He tilts Jason’s head and pulls him into another kiss, even though his shoulder is starting to twitch and ache enough to make his hand shake. Kissing feels too revolutionary to stop for something so silly as that. He’s discovering a new element that’s been hidden inside of him his whole life, something that just needed the proper catalyst to make itself known. His shoulder can fuck off. This is a miracle in action. 

Nico drifts one hand to curl around the back of Jason's neck, rubbing the short shave of his hair for a second, enamored by the texture. 

Jason makes a cute little humming sound, with a lilt at the end. Nico takes it as an affirmative and shifts his hand further up, through the prickly shaved back, following the curve of Jason’s scalp until his fingers get tangled up at the top, in the longest part. It is soft, despite what he thought before, winding through his fingers like silk. Jason is unbelievably well groomed for a hockey player. 

It’s Nico’s turn to smile against Jason’s mouth, unable to stop it. Jason Grace, famous junior hockey player, well groomed with pretty skin, soft hair, and a thing for Nico di Angelo. 

God. He’s on top of the world. 

~

“Your phone,” Jason whispers against Nico’s mouth some time later, not quite drawing back. 

Nico blinks his eyes open, slowly, wrinkling up his brows. “Huh?” he mutters. He doesn’t have his phone on him, what is Jason- 

Oh, his phone is ringing , shaking the mattress beneath their shoulders. 

How long has it been going off? Whoops. 

Nico flails his hand around behind his back, too wrapped up in being close to Jason to actually turn around and look for the damn thing. He can’t find it, dammit, fucking- 

 Jason snorts and presses a quick kiss to his jaw, his arm coming around Nico’s side to help search, sitting up a bit in the process. 

Jason finds the phone first, pulling it up with a triumphant sound. 

“Oh,” he says, propped on an elbow. “Uhm- it’s Snow. Er- Snowy.” 

Well, shit. That might not be good. 

Nico sits upright and takes it, rubbing the lingering warmth off his mouth as he goes. 

Hopefully they’re not looking for him or anything. Maybe he should’ve gone and found Marty and Thirdy before leaving. How long has it even been? What time is it? Did something bad happen? “Uh- sorry.” 

“It’s all good.” Jason rests his head on his hand, and watches Nico with the softest look in his eyes. 

How is this guy for real? Nico’s embarrassed just looking at that face. What the fuck is Jason doing looking at him like that, like Nico’s something precious? Christ. 

He answers the stupid call, captivated by the way Jason’s pupil’s look in the light. 

Snowy immediately starts laughing in his ear. 

“ Bro,” he wheezes out. “Fucking finally! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for like, ten fucking minutes. I was starting to worry that Jason Grace had killed you,” he cackles, loud in a way that means he’s drunk as hell.

Nico reaches down and threads his fingers into Jason’s hair, the nerves in his chest resolving. No emergency, then. Good. “I just couldn’t find my phone. What’s up?”

 Jason lays back down, dipping in closer to Nico’s side. His arm scoops around Nico’s waist like a belt. Nico chews his lip. Jason makes it seem so easy, to just- reach out and touch him, curl up close to him, as if they’ve been doing this for years. Nico tries not to squirm about it. 

Snowy says, “ me ‘n Tater Tot are gonna go spend the night at Parser’s place. He swore he could beat me at FIFA and I’ve had about as much of him kicking my ass tonight as I can take. I gotta prove him wrong.” 

Perfect . Nico turns his head up into the air and cheers internally. Holy shit, how fucking brilliant is that. “Okay,” he clears his throat. Hopefully he doesn’t sound too excited. “Just, uh, don’t stay up too late.” 

“ Aren’t I supposed to say that to you?” Snowy snickers. In the background, somebody says something loud and indistinct. Whatever it is makes Snowy laugh, and ask, “ right, hey, Grace is still there, yeah?” 

Nico looks at Jason, his nose tucked in against Nico’s hipbone, glasses hooked into the neckline of his shirt. Nico drifts his fingers through that pretty golden hair again. Jason sighs. “Yeah.” 

“ Wicked. Parser said to keep him company. I know you’re so good at that.” 

“I’m not, but, uh. I think I can handle it, this time. He’s easy to talk to.” 

“ Good man, Angel. I’ll see you in the morning, yeah? Don’t touch my shit.” 

“Yeah yeah. See you tomorrow, Snowy.” 

Snowy makes an obnoxious kissy noise into the receiver as he hangs up. Nico rolls his eyes, tossing the phone back onto the mattress, stretching both arms up over his head. Thank fucking god Snowy wasn’t that drunk when Nico was still with them. He gets embarrassingly clingy. 

Jason’s head tilts back up. “Everything good?” 

“Mhm. We have the room to ourselves for the rest of the night, apparently everyone else is going over to Parson’s place.” 

“Oh, cool. Hope they have fun,” Jason says as he flops onto his back, arms crossed behind his head. He looks so relaxed . 

Nico reaches out to touch Jason’s hair again, marveling at his own bravery. 

“You know,” he drags his fingers down behind Jason’s ear, trailing his nails gently across his smooth jaw. He rubs his thumb over the ridge of Jason’s top lip, his cupid’s bow, then down over the infamous scar. “I’ve never been this comfortable with someone before.” The fact he doesn’t feel weird about straight up manhandling Jason’s face speaks volumes. The desire to just reach out and touch without permission, that’s not something he’d ever do, not even with his current close friends, like Snowy or Seas or Jack. And yet with Jason, it’s almost like he never even got the chance to put up that barrier, to affix that restraint to himself. 

“Yeah?” Jason looks pleased, an easy little smile across his lips. 

Nico shrugs. “You’re a comforting person,” he says, even though that’s not what he means, not really. He means…non-judgemental. Jason takes oddities in stride without a second thought. It’s soothing, a balm to the part of Nico that always scrambles for social cues, and makes him regulate the face he’s making and the tone of his voice, and tries to over-analyse situations to make sure he didn’t miss some supposedly inherent thing. 

Maybe they’re soulmates or some dumb shit like that. Maybe they’re linked together by that…what is it, the twine of fate? Interweaving them together, or something. 

He snorts, shaking his head. 

“What?” Jason smiles. His whole face lights up, actually, and he sits straighter like he wants to see Nico better. “That was cute, what was that for?” 

“I was just thinking about stuff. I dunno, shut up.” He rubs his fingers down Jason’s nose to make him scrunch it up, pressing his thumb into the point of it, lighting up unexpectedly at the way Jason looks at him, with his eyebrows all wrinkled. He’s smiling, though. He’s amused. “D’you want to watch a show, or something? It’s getting kinda late.” 

Jason blinks. “Oh, sure.” 

“Awesome.” Nico rolls out of the allure of Jason’s bubble, tilting off the side of the bed to grab his laptop from the ground. 

His shoulder twitches, a far deeper, more unpleasant ache that’s double-tapped by a bruise pressing into the edge of the bed. 

Fuck, Nico should get some ice for that shit, shouldn’t he. 

“Uh, here,” he says, turning around while the screen boots up. He places the laptop across Jason’s legs. “My Netflix should be logged in already, you can just close out all the Aces tape tabs. I gotta hunt down some ice so the trainers don’t fucking murder me.” 

“Your shoulder?” Jason watches him climb off the bed. 

“Yeah. I dove wrong against the Ducks a few days ago, wrenched it pretty bad. And tonight I kept taking shots to the same place on my ribs. Doesn’t matter how many pads you’ve got on, shit stings.” Nico taps his fingers over the spot - the same spot the stranger in the bar brushed against him. It aches every time he breathes now. 

“Gotcha,” Jason hums, though he still glances Nico up and down like he’s trying to determine if he’s hiding another injury. 

Nico rolls his eyes. Somehow, it doesn’t shock him that Jason is a worrywart. 

“I’ll just be a little bit,” he promises, grabs his room key and wallet, and steps out into the hallway. 

As soon as the door shuts, Nico presses his fists against his mouth, stares wide-eyed down at the carpet, and squeals into his hands. 

Holy fucking shit . His life is a goddamn movie.

(CHAPTER 3: want to talk about a fossil, this is just about the oldest deleted scene I have from this fic. While the previous scene was largely the ORIGINAL chapter 3, the kiss scene from the true First Draft was immediately rewritten- it was just too much. However, just so you can REALLY TRULY see how much this chapter evolved from where it started, I've decided, despite how embarrassed by it I am, I wanted to share the real, first draft of the Kiss Scene, unaltered from when I wrote it for the very first time.

So. Here it is. LMAO.)

“Can I-” 

“ Please .” 

Jason leans and Nico’s eyes fucking flutter when he shuts them and they kiss, sitting side by side on Nico’s swanky ass hotel bed in Vegas. 

For all his bravado and interest, Nico’s actually not kissed many guys. He can count the number on one hand, and one of them doesn’t count because it was Tater, who gets way excited about wins and loves giving cheek kisses. Nico just turned his head at the wrong time once. 

None of it - especially that one with Tater - could have ever prepared him for how it feels to have Jason’s mouth on his. The pressure of it, the warmth, it’s like. It’s like his first kiss all over again, stowed away beneath the gym bleaches in the few moments they had before the custodians folded them back down for the night, but it’s also not that kiss. It’s not rushed, or shaking, or anxious at all. They’re safe behind a locked door, too high up for anybody to peek in the open window. Nico can lean into it, and he doesn’t have to worry about watching his back, he doesn’t have to worry that the walls might close in. 

He has to tilt his chin up to meet Jason’s slight stoop, their heights awkwardly staggered. Nico isn’t sure, but he thinks Jason’s hands might be shaking. 

He draws backward for a second to breathe, dizzy from blushing. He has half a mind to ask what Jason’s aiming for with this, because they can’t date, but what does that leave them as, or does Jason just want to kiss the boy who made him realise his big gay hockey butt was big and gay? 

Jason leans back in and kisses him again before he can structure the thought, and honestly, there’ll probably be time for it later. Jason can’t have asked for his numberif this was just- just a one time thing. Maybe they’ll be something, and maybe that’s enough for now. 

Jason shifts in closer, fully pinning their sides together and makes this sound that Nico’s never heard anyone make before and alright, yeah, he maybe melts a little bit because it’s fucking cute, okay, like a little hum with a lilt at the end.

He cautiously puts a hand on Jason’s bicep and finds himself pinned into an awkwardly angled hug for it, Jason’s arms swooping in around him. It’s too tight - it twinges his bad shoulder. 

He draws back to try and get the pressure off, wincing. The fact he’s eighteen with a bad shoulder is bullshit , by the way . He gulps down the complaint with a breath of air, blessedly cool. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, when Jason looks confused and concerned and nervous, like he might’ve done something wrong. “You’re tall and- my shoulder hurts, that's all.” He licks his lip and fights the urge to chew on it. Jason watches. That’s- crazy. “Uh- can I, like. I dunno.” 

“W-Would it, uh, be easier if I like. If you, uhm.” Jason stops. His face turns bright red, worryingly red. He settles back, though, and pats his outer leg. “Sat, here, I guess?” 

Oh Christ. “Uh.” He feels like his eyes might physically shut just from the heat of his embarrassment. How is this his life right now. How is this happening to him. “Y-Yeah, that would work.” 

He shimmies up onto his knees and stares maybe a little too intensely at the expanse of Jason’s thighs trying to figure out how the fuck he’s going to do this and not make it weird. Hockey thighs are no goddamn joke, either, like, there is a lot of real estate. Fuck. 

He plants one knee as well as he can just above where Jason’s thigh meets his knee, and then swings his other leg over, nearly tipping off-balance, oh shit- but Jason catches him around the waist before he goes over sideways and holds him up. 

All of a sudden, Nico is the one with the height advantage, staring down at the guy that he like, really likes. It’s the strangest kind of headrush. 

“You okay?” Jason asks, soft and gentle and so fucking sweet, god, Nico’s- he’s dangerously involved already. It’s an impossible feeling to have, this deep, aching thing that’s telling him he’s got everything he needs in life right here, right in front of him. He recognises that it’s one of those stupid teenage impulses that’s totally irrational, and yet. Here he is. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, and he cups Jason’s jaw just like he thought about doing earlier and pulls Jason closer into another kiss. It feels different like this, head on, able to relax his shoulders and settle his weight down. He’s pretty sure Jason’s stupid thighs can handle his weight, anyway, no need to worry about crushing him or anything. 

Jason’s hand on his waist slides further over, curving along his spine, and Nico wraps his other arm around the back of Jason’s neck for stability, and it’s- perfect. There are sparks crawling through his skin again, there have to be, he’s electrified and it’s all Jason’s fault, maybe he’s hiding a livewire between his shoulder blades or something. Their chests aren’t pressed together from the angle, but they’re pretty damn close, close enough that Nico can’t tell if it’s his heart or Jason’s that he can feel thumping fast, arhythmic. 

He tilts his head in a way that brushes their noses together. Nico feels like he’s in a goddamn romcom, drifting his hand off of Jason’s jaw, resettling his arm down around his shoulder. He draws back again, genuinely breathless, and settles back enough so he’s not, like, panting right in Jason’s face. 

“A-Are you okay?” Jason asks, his fingers shifting along the bumps of Nico’s spine. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, drifting his hand up into Jason’s hair along the shorn back, into the longer top. It is soft, even though it doesn’t look like it should be at all. He forgets his little lapse of embarrassment in the marvel of it, bringing both his hands forward to comb through his hair from front to back. 

“How are you so well groomed?” Most hockey players don’t put much effort in, really. Jason doesn’t even seem to have any acne, or telltale scars of it. Just the pretty little white line scar on his lip. Nico knows the story behind that one. He wants to hear Jason tell him about it some other time, though. 

Jason smiles up at him, apparently unphased by the sudden touchiness. “Good genes, I guess.” 

Nico presses through his hair again, with enough force that Jason’s head tilts back. Nico leans down and gives him a peck, right on the mouth. “You’re a dork, Jason Grace,” he murmurs. 

He can feel Jason’s smile. Goddamn, is he on top of the world. 

Chapter Text

(CHAPTER 4: i completely rewrote this chapter a good 2-3 times, so, this is an entire different iteration of chapter 4. this edition is actually what inspired the Intermission chapters - I really wanted to show Jason and Kent's relationship, but I couldn't find a way to fit it into the edition of the chapter that I went with, so, the intermission chapter was born. This chapter to me felt like it didn't have enough plot to drive it when I originally wrote it, hence why there's so much more drama in the actual chapter.)

Nico jerks awake to somebody pounding on the hotel room door. 

He’s immediately disoriented — he doesn’t remember falling asleep, but it’s morning now, light pouring in through the still-open window. His laptop and phone have both been relocated to the nightstand. His phone is buzzing. 

Nico kicks his leg around behind him, trying to get a sense for where the hell he even is on the bed. 

The other side is empty. Did Jason get out already?

The banging on the door stops. 

Nico rubs his eyes and sits up, uneasy. Jason isn’t anywhere in the room - Nico’s vision is still sleep fuzzy, but he’s pretty sure she’d be able to see if there was another person, and there isn’t; not on Snowy’s bed, or in the uncomfortable chair, or at the desk. 

Did he…leave? Nico wouldn’t blame him - spending the night wasn’t part of the plan, and if Snowy came back while they were asleep assumptions could be made about why they were sharing a bed instead of one of them taking Snowy’s empty one. Snowy’s a chill guy, he probably wouldn’t have actually cracked any jokes, but Jason wouldn’t know that. 

Still. Nico would have appreciated a note, or something. Just waking up to find Jason dipped in the middle of the night kind of sucks. It prickles a little bit like annoyance. Like, all that talk about being friends, the kissing, just for Jason to wimp out in the morning? That’s lame and uncool. And…doesn’t really sound like Jason. 

Nico puts his hands over his face and groans with feeling. Maybe he just didn’t know the guy as well as he thought. Damn. That sucks. 

He rolls over and finally picks up his annoying-as-shit phone, half-hoping to see that Jason sent him a message or something. What he gets instead is the cold shower of reality: a fucking wall of missed call notifications from various teammates, incoming texts from both private and group messages, and the blaring reminder right across the homescreen that it is, in fact, fifteen minutes until the time that Nico is meant to be on a flight back to Rhode Island. 

Uh, shit. That’s not good. 

The banging starts on the door again. Nico swings himself out of bed as fast as he can without fucking tripping up in the sheets, dragging a hand through his hair desperately. It has to be Jack outside, or the coaches, maybe, unless it’s Jason trying to get back in but that seems unlikely, with context. 

His head goes woozy as he trips over Snowy’s luggage on the ground. Fuck, he’s in so much trouble. He’s gonna get chewed out for this, they missed their fucking flight because of him, God, oh God- 

Nico stares, for a few seconds, at the deadbolt on the door. It’s locked, pulled over so even with a keycard, it can’t be opened. 

What the fuck? Nico didn’t do that last night, did he? 

He pulls it back, his heart under his goddamn tongue, and opens the door with an apology already primed on his lips. He freezes at the sight of Snowy on the other side, though, with this fucking haunted look on his face, like- 

“Kid,” Snowy whispers, and then hugs him. The door clicks shut again. 

Nico’s heartbeat rushes in his ears, blood pumping so fast he can feel it racing in his limbs, why is Snowy hugging him? Why did Snowy look so worried? Why wasn’t it one of the coaches, or Jack, or- someone yelling at him? 

“What happened?” Did somebody get hurt, did something else happen aside from missing the flight? Nico hugs back, body on autopilot. “I just woke up, I’m really sorry-” 

“Why was the door bolted?” Snowy interrupts. Nico’s head spins. 

“I don’t know. I just woke up,” he repeats, in case Snowy missed that part. “Jason must’ve done it, or- maybe I did, I dunno.” 

“Jason? He’s still here?” Snowy tugs back, but he doesn’t let go entirely, holding Nico at the shoulders like he might slip away somewhere if Snowy lets go. He tries not to squirm about it. He still feels gritty and weird from sleeping, and he can taste his breath. It’s gross, and he’s confused, it’s- overwhelming. He’s getting overwhelmed. So much is happening. He wasn’t even conscious two minutes ago. 

“I-I guess? I- I, maybe he’s in the bathroom, I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know.” Nico missed their flight but Snowy doesn’t even seem upset about that, why doesn’t he seem upset by that? And why all the hugging and touching, that’s not like Snowy, not in the morning, and why didn’t Snowy know Jason was still here, and- 

“Go sit down,” Snowy says firmly, giving Nico a push. He listens, but only because he’s really dizzy and he’s pretty sure his legs might fail him if he stays upright. “And for the love of fucking god, check your phone.”

Sinking back down into the edge of his bed, Nico pulls his phone out again. He can comprehend the messages on-screen now, at least, but it just makes him feel fucking worse. The most recent notifications are all asking about him. 

“What,” he whispers, clicking into the group chat he has with Jack, Seas, and Snowy. It’s- the three of them discussing what would happen if they called the ambulance, if the- the potential press was worth it, Jack fucking vehemently saying it is worth it if it means getting Nico help , as if- as if he might be- 

Oh, god, he feels fucking sick. 

“You thought I-?” Because the door was locked, and he wasn’t answering his phone after an embarrassing loss where he drank and then walked back to his hotel room with a stranger, and those three know that Nico could- that if he wasn’t in a good place, if he was freaking out, he might-  

Snowy sits down on the bed opposite from him. He says, “we only thought- I only thought, when the door was locked…I remembered the last time you got drunk and wouldn’t answer my calls. I panicked.” 

“I’m sorry.” Embarrassed heat rises up through Nico’s face. How fucking humiliating, to have his teammates so freaked out because a door got locked, like- he’s had one bad day, just one time where there was an emergency, man, fuck. 

“It’s alright, kid. Can’t fucking blame you for sleeping in, I didn’t wake up until like, an hour ago. We didn’t miss the flight because of you.” Snowy rubs his hands up across his face, resting his elbows down on his knees. He exhales long and deep. “Okay. Shit, we gotta pack, the coaches aren’t pissed yet, but we really gotta get our asses into gear-” 

In the hallway, the bathroom door swings open. Nico jumps hard enough to twinge his shoulder.

Jason steps out, with this weirdo look on his face, blank and void, null. Nico watches him look obviously between the two of them, and then gulp and shove his hand through his hair, sticking it up. 

“Uhm,” Jason’s voice cracks. He clears it. “Hello. Sorry.” 

Anxiety crawls up Nico’s throat - how much did he hear? Could he hear anything? Did he piece together what Snowy was freaking out about, does he not want anything to do with Nico now, they just met, that’s so much to just drop on somebody no matter how much they talked last night and- 

No. That’s- Nico’s therapist would tell him that’s not constructive. He can’t just assume what Jason would do. He doesn’t know Jason well enough to guess. Deep breaths. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, getting up off of his bed. Snowy follows suit, tossing his bag up onto the mattress; he’s got more packing to do than Nico does. 

Jason shrugs, looking a bit like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Uh, yeah. I just- took a shower.” 

And maybe deadbolted the door. Nico refrains from comment there, chewing on his dry lip. Jason looks uncomfortable enough without the blatant coverup being pointed out. 

Stupidly, Nico wants to kiss the little crease between Jason’s eyebrows, to soothe the crevice away. Whatever happened, he wants Jason to know it’s okay. Nico’s not mad at him, he’s just- he’s confused. And sleepy, and in a weird numb hazy state of shock that three of his closest friends thought he’d- that he might have- ugh . 

Snowy zips his bag up with an aggressive motion, and flops over onto the bed beside it. “Flight leaves at one thirty, Angel,” Snowy mutters into his bedspread. “Pack your shit and say goodbye before we gotta move.” 

“Right.” No time for awkwardly fucking staring at each other or whatever the fuck. He scrubs his hand against his gritty eyes and throws the melted, damp icepack off of his back, going to shove his laptop and charger into his backpack, his puck and pillow into his luggage. 

“Uh-” Jason clears his throat again. “Parser’s going to pick me up soon, to take me to the airport,” he says. “I’ve got a game today.” 

“Oh, right.” Nico turns back around, fluttering his fingers open and shut to try and get the last lingering, sick energy out. Maybe the morning is redeemable after all. Maybe they don’t need to talk about what any of them might or might not have heard or seen. Maybe they can just move the fuck on. “Phantoms, yeah?” 

Finally, a little smile blooms on Jason’s lips. “Yeah.” 

God, Jason is just as fucking cute in the daylight as he was under the streelights, under the lamplight last night. Nico spares a glance at Snowy, now buried in his phone (no doubt telling everyone Nico is all good), and rubs at his hair again. “Let me change clothes and everything and I’ll walk you downstairs?” 

Jason nods, looking grateful of all things, which like, cool. Privacy, maybe a space to like, say goodbye without acting like they’re totally normal bros or whatever. Hopefully Jason still wants to be more than just totally normal bros. Christ that makes him fucking nervous. 

Again, though. Assumptions. Nico’s gotta knock the habit of making those. 

He steps into the bathroom with a change of clothes over his arm and locks the door, relieved to have a solid thing between himself and the other two, so he can just- take a second, to recompose himself. 

He flicks his fingers together, avoiding his reflection as he strips out of yesterdays clothes, takes his medications and nearly trips over his jeans when his foot gets caught in one of the ripped knees instead of the actual exit hole. 

Christ, he’s gotta get a fucking hold of himself. Panicking so soon after waking up just- it always fucks with him, it throws him off kilter. He’s just gotta fuckin’ push through it. And also hope his pills kick in. It’s been, like, seven fucking minutes since he woke up. Jesus Christ. 

Double timing his normal routine, he finally glances at his reflection, all puffy-faced and rumpled like he’s thirteen again, yet to hit that last vital step of puberty. It strikes an embarrassed plume through him that Jason saw him like this, though he’s also fairly certain that of everything to happen this morning, the way that he looks isn’t likely to be what pushes Jason away. Still, he looks like a dweeb and that’s not cool. 

He crams all the rest of his stuff into his toiletries bag, double checks that they didn’t leave anything else out (notes that the shower is dry), and steps back into the main room. 

Jason gets up from his seat by the window. Snowy is still face-down on the bed, his phone counting down a thirty minute timer beside his head. 

“He, uh, said he was gonna take a nap, but that you guys have to meet Jack at noon to make sure you’re not late to the flight.” Jason glances at Snowy. “But, y’know. Parser’s waiting in the lobby…?” 

“I can walk you down.” 

Jason visibly perks up, his eyebrows raising along with the corners of his lips. “Awesome,” he says. He sounds like he means it. 

Nico nods, and holds the door open.

They take the stairs all the way down to the lobby at Jason’s insistence, for privacy. Nico tries not to think about what they would need privacy for, skating his hand down the railing and glancing occasionally over every so often just to catch Jason looking back. It makes his stomach swoop like a rollercoaster every freaking time. 

“Wait- here,” Jason says when they reach the bottom floor. He grabs Nico’s hand (his heart palpitates, because apparently he is thirteen again) and tugs him beneath the flight of stairs, out of anybody’s potential sight. “Hi.” 

“Hello,” Nico mumbles as he flushes, leaning back against the wall in a half-baked attempt to regain any semblance of chill. Jason puts a hand on his waist, and like, dammit. How is it possible, how is this possible, for one guy to be so charming, for him to- to make Nico feel like this, after the freaking morning they’ve had. God above. 

“Thank you,” Jason says, voice deep and warm and sincere. Nico doesn’t know what the fuck to do with that, that’s too much.  “For last night, y’know. It was, uhm. This was great, meeting you, and hanging out.” He wets his lower lip, his hand shifting just slightly against Nico’s shirt, thumb brushing up and down. “...I won’t lie, uhm. I freaked out a little bit this morning.” 

“When you woke up?” 

“Uh, not…not immediately. I saw that Snow had texted you, that they were coming back to the hotel - it showed up on your home screen, sorry. And- and I’d forgotten, I guess, that like- someone was coming back, and- and I panicked and bolted the door, and…hid in the bathroom, uhm- if I had known, that it was going to- that it’d be a problem-” 

“It’s okay.” Nico wouldn’t have even guessed it’d be as much of a problem as it was, so, he can’t fault Jason for that. He shifts his legs. “You don’t need to apologize.” 

“I freaked you guys out, though, didn’t I?” Jason tilts his head and chews on his lip, looking like a fucking kicked dog. Nico sighs. What is he going to do with this guy. 

“Nobody got hurt, or outed, so…win in my books, I guess. I…” hm. He touches Jason’s wrist, and glances around the vicinity of his eyes. “I dunno what you heard, from- from Snowy talking to me, uh, but- y’know, I can handle my guys worrying about me. It’s- it’s better, that they were worried about me, and not- I doubt they even suspect a thing about you. So it’s- it’s almost good that it happened like it did.” 

Jason nods along, though it still seems tentative and slow. His shoulders slump, his hand tightens. He says, “you’re sure?” 

“I’m positive.” 

“Okay.” The line of tension in his jaw loosens, finally, the corners of his eyes seeming to sink, turning his expression soppy and warm, the same way he looked at Nico last night after they kissed for the first time. 

Nico leans forward and kisses him without really thinking about it. Jason doesn’t startle, just leans in, settling something into place in Nico’s chest, something he hadn’t even noticed coming undone. 

Last night wasn’t just a one time thing. This morning didn’t completely throw Jason off. There’s still this. 

It is still far too early for Nico’s heart to be pumping the way that it is, twisting and bunching up in his chest. He draws back first, dizzily trying to re-catch his breath. Is kissing Jason always going to be like that? 

Shit, the thought of always and kissing Jason- he’s going to have a stroke, seriously. Someone needs to reign him in, apparently he can’t fucking do it himself anymore. 

“Make sure you text me, please?” Jason whispers, still leaning in Nico’s space. He’s totally allowed to be. Nico doesn’t want him to leave. “And let me know when you have the t-time to call. I want…I really want to be friends, and, I. Uh, I mean, I hope that you do too.” 

Nico nods, Christ, of course he’s going to make the effort here. Dude better prepare to have his full, undivided attention, like, who is he kidding. He’s a serially bad text-responder, but for Jason? The effort is worth it. “I’ll set alarms and everything,” he jokes, just to watch Jason grin and laugh. 

They kiss again, short and sweet. 

Nico breaks it when an overwhelming thought occurs, pushing Jason back by the shoulders quickly. 

“I have to get tickets for the draft,” he says all at once before he can possibly forget. 

“Oh my god.” 

“I’m serious, do you think I’m not serious? I’m so serious.” He wants to be there, desperately, to see Jason’s face go slack with awe when his name gets called. He wants to dress up in a stupidly expensive suit and watch Jason go to the NHL in person, he wants to take all the embarrassing, obnoxious pictures he can of Jason with his family, of all the lights and crowds and hullaballoo. 

He wants to be there when Jason goes to the Aces. He wants to be able to look him in the eyes and say he called it. 

Jason’s smile quiets down to a privately pleased little thing, the corners of his obnoxiously nice lips curved into an upward arc. “Well if you’re so serious about it, I guess I’ll just have to get you a ticket, then,” he teases, and Nico can’t help it, genuinely he can’t, when he pulls Jason back in to kiss him one more time. 

It’s immediately slower, deeper, if that makes sense. It means more, maybe, coming from a commitment like that - that they’ll still be something important to each other that far down the road, in June of next year. Nico kisses his sincerity into Jason’s mouth and hopes he can feel it. 

Jason’s phone buzzes against Nico’s hip. They draw back at the same time, Nico resting his head against the stones behind him. Jason does follow, though only to press their foreheads together. Nico can’t avert his eyes even though the contact burns. He can do it. He wants to. 

“I’ll call you tonight, okay? After my game.” Jason touches Nico’s wrist, just a gentle pass of his fingers against skin. “After we win.” 

Nico loves that confidence. He nods, keeping his expression as serious as he possibly can as he says, “you have to score a goal for me.” 

“Only if you promise to watch,” Jason hums. His blush runs back to his ears and Nico is definitely too deep into this already, he likes Jason so much, it’s unbelievable that they only met for the first time last night. Or- met as in spoke to one another. Met as in became more than just another boy from the TV he has a crush on. 

 Nico adjusts the way his hands are on Jason, folds them up so they’re clasped behind his neck, and really fucking tries not to dig the hole deeper. 

“Deal,” he murmurs, and seals it with a kiss. For luck, obviously. 

By the time they make it to the lobby, another five minutes later, Kent Parson is already posted up in a chair, slumped all the way down with his hips hanging off the edge, his phone perched on his chest held up by an Aces PopSocket. 

He certainly doesn’t look like a grown ass man, let alone a multi-millionaire hockey captain, but whatever. At least he’s dressed better than he was last night. 

He’s never going to get over that, that he used to- like this guy who shot a puck over his shoulder last night and smirked about it, who dresses like he can’t see colors. 

Parson doesn’t notice them. Nico seizes  the last opportunity to admire Jason at close-distance, taking in the shade of his eyes, the fall of his hair, the exact way that scar on his mouth looks. Jason watches him back.

“I can get you into one of our home games,” Nico offers. Any excuse to see Jason again, god. Anything at all. “If you’re interested, y’know. I can get you good tickets.” 

“I might take you up on that.” Jason bumps him with his shoulder gently, flashing him a blinding camera-grin. No fucking wonder reporters always swoon all over him, Nico’s fucking heart nearly leaks out of his ears. 

“Sick,” he hears himself say. He shudders off the urge to say fuck it and kiss Jason right then and there, everything else be damned. Probably not worth it to out them. Probably. “Uh- the PR people could, like, sneak you in. No press or anything.” 

“That would be awesome.” Jason looks like he’s refraining from kissing Nico, though maybe that’s just because he’s excited about going to an NHL game, who knows. “I’ll look at my schedule, see when we could make that happen.” 

“Awe, already planning your next little play date?” 

Nico startles back from Parson’s voice. Fuck, he’d forgotten that guy was there, that’s- he gulps and takes a half-step away from Jason’s side, watching Parson unfold from his chair and stretches with an obnoxious ass noise. Is he trying to be as big of a bother as possible? 

The guy plants his hands on his hips and shoots the two of them a (much less kissable) camera smile. “Nice to see you again too, di Angelo. You two have a fun time last night?” 

“We watched that baking show,” Jason says like it’s nothing to talk to Kent Parson. For him it probably is, the guy’s his mentor and all that. He’d implied that they’re fairly close friends. Nico shuffles his feet and watches the carpet beneath his shoes. Parson snorts. 

“You are a marvelous, weird-ass young man, you know that Gracey?”

Jason makes a funny half-laughing kind of sound. “Yeah, I know, whatever. Uh- did my mom text you my flight details?” 

“She sure did. We’ve got ten minutes to get on the road before you're late, and unlike this kid, you’ve got a game to make it to tonight.” 

Nico scrubs a hand through his hair and looks at the art installation behind Parson, instead of committing to eye contact. “You’re technically the reason we missed our flight,” he mutters. He can’t really be upset about it - if Parson hadn’t gotten so under Snowy’s skin enough to make him drunk and competitive last night, Nico and Jason would’ve had a much different evening. How weird is that, that Nico’s weird former hockey crush kind of…enabled him getting to know his current one. 

Ew. He hates that. His ex-crush is mentoring his current one too, this- ugh, he shakes the thought back out of his hands and tries to school his expression away from one of blatant disgust. 

“Anyway,” Jason clears his throat. Nico looks up at him - a far more pleasant image. Jason is smiling back at him. “This was really great. Getting to meet you and hang out, y’know.” 

“Oh. Yeah, man, of course.” Nico’s good at doing the bro thing, at least. He offers his hand out to even do the stupid bro-hug. Jason complies, his grip firm as he pulls Nico in closer and pats him on the back. “And I’m serious about getting you tickets.” 

“I’m serious about taking you up on it. I’ll text you the next time I’m available.” 

“Dope.” 

They draw back, a palpable thing left unsaid between them. Nico looks at Jason’s blue eyes, the flecks in them, something clotted in his chest. He doesn’t know what it is, it almost looks like Jason’s feeling it too. His eyebrows twitch. 

Parson loops his arm around Jason’s shoulders and tugs him away before Nico can figure out whatever it is. The moment shatters. 

Disappointment floods through Nico’s veins, a sadness that maybe shows a little bit on his face as the two of them move towards the door. 

No real goodbye then. It really shouldn’t sting in his chest the way that it does. 

“See you guys,” he says, watching Jason give him a little knowing look, his mouth pulled off to one side, eyebrows just a little squished in the middle. He shrugs, halfway, still trapped under Parson’s arm.  

“Have a good flight. Kick the Av’s ass tomorrow,” Parson says to Nico over his shoulder, and pulls Jason through the front doors. 

“I will,” Nico says to himself after they shut, suddenly alone in a hotel full of people, living an entirely different life than the one he was last night. 

It’s fucking nuts just how fast everything changed. He can’t fucking believe it, honestly - he met Jason Grace. He kissed Jason Grace, he got his number, he…he touches his lips, staring down at the chair Parson left an indent in, blinking slowly. He can’t tell anybody at all, about the whirling, ribbon-like feeling in his chest, this fluttering thing made of windchimes and open-air and vastness. He has to bundle it all up and keep it to himself, somehow. 

He’s up to the task, of fucking course it is, especially if it means the difference to Jason’s career. But still - it’s not going to be easy. Not when the hurt is already rearing it’s head, not when he already feels like he’s missing something that he barely even got in the first place. 

Shit. He sighs and scrubs his hands viciously over his face, through his hair. He really is too deep into this already. He’s pathetic, is what he is. 

He rides the elevator back up to the twenty second floor and ignores all of the people who get on and off along the way, fiddling around with all of his text conversations instead. 

Snowy had sent out an all-OK text to Jack and Seas, thankfully, who apparently relayed to everyone else that the crisis had been averted. Nico tries not to backread any of the conversations. He doesn’t want to know what kind of panic he caused. 

The room door is propped open when he makes it back, after literally the longest elevator ride of his life. He can hear that it’s Seas inside, Seas always leaves the doors open. Dude was no doubt looking to fucking pester him or something. 

Nico sticks his phone in his back pocket and braces for the immediate, “there’s the little fucker!” that greets him when he steps past the threshold. 

“Ta da,” he mutters. Seas stands up- more like launches up, really, throwing his whole weight forward and barrelling at Nico like a speed train. 

The impact of his hug stings, but he bears it, gripping back tighter than he normally would. He scared them this morning. Hugs are okay when he’s made them fear for the worst. 

“You feeling okay?” Seas ruffles his hair, every ounce of his worry written into his face, his stupid too-green eyes. Unlike Jason’s, his are just green , thought and through, no little flecks or squiggles or anything. 

“Mhm.” Nico sidesteps him to get into the actual room, sharing a knowing nod with Snowy. He does feel better, better than he did this morning, even with the stone of disappointment heavy in his gut. Good enough. 

Seas leans on the wall. “You know Jack’s gonna sit next to you on the plane and do his constipated captain thing.” 

Ew. Nico wrinkles his nose on principal. “...can’t you like. Tell him not to.” 

“Nope.” Seas pops the p and grins. “I told him specifically to do it no matter what.” 

“You do know that I hate you enough to power a small town, don’t you?” Nico says, glaring at his least favorite teammate ever. Snowy snorts from his bed. Seas doesn’t look out off or anything. It’s a familiar, well-worn chirp between them. Jerk. 

Nico’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He puts his hand up to cut Seas off from whatever dumbass comment he opened his mouth to make, pulling the phone from his pocket. 

It’s a new text from Jason. Nico’s heart jumps twenty BPM. 

((Hey

I'm gonna get you that goal :)

<3))

What a dork. Nico bites his lower lip to smother his smile, texting back a simple little smiley face to match. Seriously? Now Nico has to watch that game. He can’t wait. 

“What was that about?” Seas asks in his nosy big-brother way. Nico rolls his eyes as dramatically as he can, catching a side-glance at the curiosity on Snowy’s face too. Shit, they can already see the difference in him, can’t they. Can just tell there’s something up. 

Nico tries to shrug it off, flopping over backwards on the bed, hiding his phone in his pocket. Totally not incriminating at all. 

“Nothing,” he mumbles, “just a text from my friend.” 

It’s the honest truth, which makes him ten times happier than it has any right to. Jason Grace, his friend, is going to score a sick ass goal for him tonight. How insane is that. 

Seas and Snowy must share a look behind his back or something. At the same time, I’m the same tone, they both say, “ sure. A friend.” 

Nico grabs one of the hotel pillows and chucks it blindly behind his back. One of the men yelps like a child.

(CHAPTER 4: this was before I'd decided that Nico would be outright angry about how Jason was behaving and had instead had them sort of dancing around the situation. You'll notice that some things are identical to both the past section, and the actual used section in the story.)

“Can we, uhm…not go back up to your room, yet? Like- can we wait for Kent down here?” 

Nico resists the urge to groan and throw his head over the back of his chair. 

Breakfast was good, but he doesn’t feel any less upset or bitter with food in his system. Jason is still hiding and it’s starting to feel more and more like it’s Nico that he’s hiding from . 

Jason rubs his hands together on the top of the table, wringing them. “We can go take a walk outside, or something, I-I just want to…maybe go somewhere more private. Where it’s just, uh. Just us?” 

That’s an intriguing notion, considering. Nico doesn’t squint. “Okay,” he concedes, maybe a hedge more suspicious sounding than he should be. 

Jason’s eyebrows quirk up. He smiles. “Yeah?”

“Stretch our legs as much as possible before we’ve gotta be cooped up on planes for the rest of the day.” Ugh, that’s going to suck too. Fucking flying, knowing he’s going to get stuck sitting next to Jack because Tater and Snowy will be sleeping off their hangovers and Seas will always cede control over to Jack. Everybody knows Seas will get the A as soon as Thirdy or Marty retires. Seas more than lives up to that standard. 

Nico fucking wishes he wouldn’t. 

He follows Jason’s lead out of the cafe, through the lobby and out through a set of doors at the back of the hotel. 

It is, annoyingly, far more tolerable to be outside than it was inside. Nico didn’t realize that his ears were buzzing until they stepped onto one of the pool decks, and it washed away with the soothing sounds of the pool in use. 

Jason walks close enough beside him that their shoulders brush, but whenever Nico looks up at him, Jason is admiring something off in the distance like he can’t even bring himself to look at Nico. 

He’s grumpy about it until they find somewhere far enough out of ear and eye shot that Jason seems to deem private. He tugs on Nico’s wrist, toward a set of lounge chairs under a little pagoda overlooking the faux-beach built around the poolside. 

Nico slouches into the chair and stuffs his hands into his pockets and pointedly refuses to look at Jason as he settles into the other chair. 

“I’m, uh,” Jason starts, and then clears his throat. “I’m getting the idea that I did something wrong, but I don’t…really know what? And, uhm. I don’t want you to be mad at me, so I- I want to talk. About it. If you want to.” 

Nico tilts his head back against the chair and glares up at the underside of the pagoda overhead, folding his arms tight across his chest. He has all the exact words he needs to parse out what he’s feeling, which almost makes it worse that he can’t figure out how to actually say them. He wants to say, “I don’t like that you’re treating me like we’re just acquaintances,” because that feels too needy and raw and unnerving considering they literally just met last night. But he also wants to say, “I want to be more to you in public than just another camera to lie to,” and, “if friends to you means this then I don’t know if I can actually be your friend.” 

He tests the flex of his knuckles against his own sides, exhaling at the press of firm bone into his bruise. Jason’s earnest. Of course he is, because last night did happen, happened because Jason pushed. Nico…has no right to be angry, when Jason was calling all the shots right off the bat. 

God dammit. This sucks. “...you’re going to laugh at me.” 

“No I won’t.” 

“Right, because nobody who’s said that has ever laughed at-” 

“Nico,” Jason interrupts. His hand brushes against Nico’s, careful and cautious, just his fingertips dragging over his rough knuckles. “I’m not going to laugh at you. I want to know why you’re acting so…different. Did I do something that upset you? I know this morning was kind of weird, uhm, but if I did something, I want to know? So I can fix it, and- not do it again.” 

It’s that same fucking golden boy earnesty that keeps Jason looking at headlines with his name in them, keeps him in the dark about his own skills. Nico’s fucking helpless to it, when it’s directed at him in full force, when Jason seems to think Nico’s opinion is worth grovelling over. 

He lets his hand brush back against Jason’s, shifting his eyes somewhere slightly more forward focused. 

“...it’s really stupid,” he mutters, giving Jason one last pitiful out. 

Jason manages to wind one finger in through and around Nico’s, tugging gently. 

Nico looks at him, resolve breaking. “I thought that being…friends, in public, would mean- something. Different.” 

Jason’s eyebrows knit. “Different?” 

The words squirm through his head again. “Just, you know. It feels like you’re walling me out, I guess.” 

“Oh.” Jason doesn’t sound entirely shocked. Like maybe he did know he was doing it. “Uhm. I don’t mean to, if I am. Can you…tell me, what I’m doing? That’s making you feel like that?” 

“You’re not really looking at me, for one thing,” Nico mutters, watching as Jason even now skips his eyes over Nico and instead to their surroundings. Jason guilty makes eye contact. “But you’re not really talking, either? And,” he adjusts his neck on the pillow and shrugs. “I don’t know. I can just see it on your face, I guess. The way you keep looking at everyone around us, like…I don’t know, like you expect them to know something’s off?”

(CHAPTER 4: a different version of the "let's go somewhere and talk" scene transition. I found it was unreasonable and weird for them to go up to the roof, but I liked some of the phrases so I didn't want to fully get rid of this sequence. The fight itself is different as well - I can't exactly remember why I decided to change that part, actually. I think it felt too much like Nico was somehow in Jason's head or something? who knows. enjoy!)

“Parser is coming to pick me up.” 

Nico jerks his head up from his signature, heart dropping into his stomach. “O-Oh, already?” 

Jason shrugs, picking at his fingernails. “My flight back home leaves at three, so.” 

Nausea rolls like a distant storm. Nico feels green. “Shit. I didn’t- I forgot you- fuck.” 

That catches Jason’s attention, at least enough for him to flick his eyes up. He frowns, glancing between Nico and the receipt. “What?” 

“You’re leaving soon,” Nico says weakly. Jason’s leaving and Nico’s been an enormous douchecanoe all morning. After everything Jason told him last night, Nico’s been acting like- like he’s owed something. “Can we- go somewhere private, maybe? And talk?” He needs Jason to not leave here thinking Nico is the asshole to end all assholes. “Please.” 

“Uhm, sure.” Jason shrugs, his confusion written in the lines of his face. 

Nico signs the receipt and stands up, fumbling his card back into his wallet at the same time. Jason follows him, neater, adjusting their used dishes toward the closer edge of the table as he goes. 

Nico tries to wrack his brain for a place in the hotel that would be private. For as expensive as it is, the place is busy. Guests roam between the restaurant and the lobby in packs, pouring in and out of the back doors that lead to the pool decks, walking up and down the halls leading to the other amenities. Nowhere is guaranteed to be people-free. 

They’ll just have to go somewhere guests aren’t supposed to access, then. 

Nico grabs Jason by the wrist and pulls him toward the stairwell. 

“Nico,” Jason starts, but he doesn’t fight, letting himself get tugged through the door and up the stairs. Nico clenches his jaw. “Where are we going?” 

“The roof,” Nico mutters. 

“The what?” Jason squeaks - his voice cracks - but he still only gives one vague protesting tug. Nico holds him tighter. “Why are we taking the stairs to the roof? How many floors even is that?” 

…fair point, actually. Nico diverts on the second landing and yanks Jason into the hallway, beelining for the elevators. 

“Nico!” Jason pulls harder this time. “Will you tell me what is going on, please?” 

Nico has all the exact words he needs to parse out what he’s feeling, which almost makes it worse that he can’t figure out how to actually say them. He wants to say, “I don’t like that you’re treating me like we’re only acquaintances,” and, “I want to be more to you in public than just another camera to lie to,” and, “if friends to you means this then I don’t know if I can actually handle it.” 

“You’re acting differently around other people,” Nico snaps, instead, and punches the up button. The elevator on the left opens. 

“Sorry,” Jason says to the strangers in the reflective box - a family with two kids. They smile, polite and bland like strangers do. Nico tucks himself into the corner and slaps the button for the top floor. 

It is an excruciating ride, albeit a quick one, despite the couple of stops the elevator makes. Certainly quicker than trying to run all the way up forty three flights. 

Jason sighs, long and put-upon, when Nico pulls him back into the stairwell, but there’s no more up to go. Just a platform that ends with a cement wall and a door that reads, NO GUESTS BEYOND THIS POINT. 

He takes stock of the ceiling and whatnot, until he’s fairly assured there are no security cameras or anything that could see them. The stairs make a dizzying spiral all the way down. 

See? Private. 

He sits down as out-of-sight of the two doors as he can. 

Jason doesn’t sit - he looks down at Nico with his hands on his hips and annoyance in his eyes. Finally, the real boy again. “Why are we up here?” 

“I’m sorry I was acting like an asshole,” Nico starts. Apologies are good, recognizing his own behavior first. He tucks his hands up in his lap and makes an honest effort at eye-contact. “But I cannot stand the way you’ve been treating me this morning.” 

“What?” Jason scoffs. 

“You were closed off and you wouldn’t talk to me,” Nico continues, feebly. He really fucked this one up, didn’t he? He plays with his knobbly knuckles. “I mean, you were talking , but it was like I was a reporter that you didn’t want to give an interview to. You were acting like…we were strangers, like I was somebody you had to hide from, and it pissed me off so bad. But you weren’t doing it on purpose, were you?” It’s hard to stop once the words start flowing, yet another hole Nico’s digging himself into, but this one is important. This is a hole that’ll dig itself if he doesn’t take over. “Because you kept asking me what you were doing wrong and- and you were just trying to be friends, like, friends, but if- if this is what friends are, if friends to you is- shutting me out, then I don’t- I don’t know if I can do that.” 

Jason sits. It’s a slow process, but Nico tracks each movement, tracks the way Jason bends and flexes, the way he tucks his left foot under his right ankle when he criss-crosses them. Jason watches him back, with a pinched up thing drawing into the center of his face, mouth and eyebrows scrunched, eyes wilting. 

Finally, at least, it looks like he understands. Finally, Nico can see Jason again. 

“Nico,” he whispers. “You thought I was shutting you out?” 

“You were shutting me out,” Nico insists. Jason was. “That’s why I was upset.” 

“Why didn’t you say that when I asked? ” 

“I don’t know,” Nico whispers, afraid and hurt and nauseous. He doesn’t know. He couldn’t speak up , not in front of all those people, he couldn’t call Jason out for being fake like that. Jason’s image is everything, even if Nico disagrees with the extent Jason’s gone to keep it in control. It’s hypocritical and his teeth itch for it. “I was scared. So much happened this morning, I-I was afraid.” 

Jason looks all over his face now, eyes darting to his eyebrows, his temples, his cheeks, lips. “I don’t regret any of this,” Jason says. “I-I don’t regret- coming out to you, or- kissing you, or-” 

“But if friends means you treat me like you treat everybody else-” 

“I can’t treat you differently, Nico, people will notice if I- let myself differentiate. People are going to see how I really feel.” 

Nico’s heart squeezes so tight he swears it’s going to pop in his chest. “I’m not asking you to treat me like a boyfriend,” he manages to get out, around the pressure. “I’m just asking that you treat me like I’m more than a stranger.” 

Jason examines him for another few moments, his face all complicated knots. He’s hunching his shoulders in, making himself smaller. “I don’t know how to do that,” he admits, low. “I like you so much, man. I like you so much I- I freak out, thinking that other people can see it in the way I look at you, like- how am I supposed to hide that kind of thing, if I don’t keep my boundaries strict?”

“Don’t think about it so much.” This is what he was saying last night, dammit. 

“That really doesn’t help as much as you think it does.” 

“The media isn’t going to automatically leap to queer accusations, Jason.” Nico knows that it’s hypocritical, but his closet is made of glass and everybody’s known it since he was thirteen. Jason’s closet is forged out of titanium and chains and shadows, hidden so well it’s practically invisible. “What you were worried about last night, the media thinking you’re favoring teams, sure, they’ll speculate about that all they want. But this is hockey , where a quintessential part of our culture is tackle-hugging after every goal.”

Jason sighs. He puts his face in his hands and sighs again, fingers curling up in his hair. 

Nico feels so immensely guilty, for all of this morning, that it overwhelms him. It wriggles around in the back of his mind that he’s not only forgotten to take his medication last night, but also this morning, which might be a little bit of why he’s so- out of his depth. Why he feels so fucking sick. 

“I can try,” Jason says into his hands, and then lifts his head up. He looks- something. Not guarded, but there’s something defensive about the thing in his eyes. Nico chews on his lip. “I can’t promise anything. I really can’t promise, but I…I can try. Is that- good enough?” 

“Yes. Yeah. Of course.” God, Nico will take that to the moon and back. 

Jason finally cracks a tiny smile. He shakes his head. “You have to tell me, though, okay? When I’m- closing you off. I didn’t realize I was.” 

“Okay.” Nico can probably do that. Maybe they can come up with a signal, or something. They can work on it. “I’ll- try not to be so, uh, judgy. About…about how you act, in the future.” 

“Thank you,” Jason says. He sounds softer now, kinder. When he smiles, it feels like the roar of a sold-out crowd, like tapping helmets with his team after a solid, hard-won win. 

Nico breathes out shakily and looks into his lap. “So I, uhm. I didn’t fuck everything up, right?” 

“What?” 

“With- us. With this.” He curls his hands up in the hem of his jeans, remembering all of last night in too much sparkling detail. He was so cautious with everything last night, carving out comfort in their conversation, but here he’s off-center. “You still, uhm. Want to…be friends with me?” 

“Nico, yes,” Jason exhales. He doesn’t touch, but Nico can feel Jason's hand hover in his space like he’s thinking about it. “We had one bad morning, okay, yeah. But I-I’m still just as psyched about this as I was last night. God, I’m so stoked, it’s- yeah. Yes, I still want to be friends with you.” 

Nico fiddles harder, ears burning just a little at the open earnesty. “...friends who, uhm. Who kiss?” 

Jason doesn’t say anything. Nico glances up at him, just to see if he’s crossed a boundary or finally said the wrong thing. 

Jason’s pink all over, his glasses crooked, a stupid little smile on his face like he was shocked into it. He meets Nico’s eyes. The smile gets goofier - it’s embarrassing. 

“Are you asking me to kiss you again?” 

Yes, of course he was. Jason has to leave soon and Nico feels like an idiot and he just wants everything to be okay again. He wants reassurance that he didn’t break anything. He twists his hands up harder. “...maybe.” 

Braving the distance feels different in the fluorescent lights. Jason tastes like honey and coffee and morning. Nico loosens his grip on his pants so he doesn’t lose his balance and collapse against Jason. That would definitely make things weird. 

Jason still looks at him like he’s a marvel, when they separate. Nico doesn’t feel pukey anymore. 

A phone buzzes - Jason’s, which must mean, “ah, Parson’s here.” 

“Man,” Nico mutters, a swift ache curdling him. This morning felt like a flash. Who knows when he’ll even be able to see Jason in person again? “Promise to text me, okay?” 

“I definitely will. And you too, I’ve heard that you’re apparently bad at that kind of thing.” Jason unfolds, standing up taller than before. He looks easy and relaxed, now. Nico admires from his vantage point on the floor, until Jason offers a hand out. 

His strength is admirable, pulling Nico easily to his feet. Nico definitely needs to get on ice with him, ASAP. Slapshots. Lots and lots of slapshots. 

Jason grins a broad, sappy smile, and squeezes Nico’s hand in his grip. He leans back in to kiss him again - quick, a gentle press of warm lips, before he steps back and stuffs his phone into his pocket. “Walk me to the lobby?” 

Nico will take every second he can. “Can we take the long way down?” 

Jason turns soppy, puppy-dog eyes on him, every bit as beautiful and earth-shattering as they were last night. 

“Yeah,” he says, tone drenched in fondness. “Of course we can.”

Chapter Text

(CHAPTER 5: this is the original intro I had for chapter 5, and then I cut it off and kept everything starting from where the actual chapters starts. This was originally a continuation of the version of Chapter 4 where Nico actually comes face-to-face with Kent, which wound up not panning out for the posted version of Chapter 4. Some of the details in this chapter might be insoncsistent with what we know in canon now as well.)

Kent punches Jason in the arm as Nico gets into the elevator back up to his room. 

“Ow, dude,” Jason mutters. “What?” 

“Don’t what me, that was weird and we both know it.” 

“It was not weird.” It was a little awkward, but only because Nico seemed to all of a sudden not know how he was supposed to act. He kept glancing at Jason and frowning at Parser, and was overall just quiet. They hugged, promised to text, but that was all. 

Jason’s not blaming Nico, not after the mess from this morning. But Kent is also, well…Kent. He’s like, the last guy that Jason would ever worry about being bad with the whole secretly queer thing. It makes sense that Nico wouldn’t know that, though. The fact that he adjusted his behavior accordingly is, y’know, it’s promising. 

Kent gives him an unimpressed look. 

“It was a little weird,” Jason concedes, sticking his free hand into his pocket. He adjusts his box of take out in the other and shrugs. “We had a weird morning.” 

“I know, Mashkov kept me updated once he and Snow made it back here. He didn’t say shit about you and di Angelo being involved, though.” Kent steps back, starting toward the door. 

“We overslept,” Jason admits. Kent throws him a surprised look. “Not like that, just fell asleep before we could set an alarm last night. And then, uh…I’ll tell you the rest in the car.” It’s too weird to talk about it out loud (especially in a place like Vegas, where there are always cameras and microphones and people listening). 

Kent’s stupid, overpriced car is parked in the short-term parking lot, a dark red Porsche Cayman that Kent bought new in 2015. Jason feels like a douchebag climbing into it, and not just because it’s so short it’s awkward. What kind of eighteen year old knows a guy who owns a freaking Porsche. 

He clicks the seatbelt and drums his fingers against the leathery-hard-plastic door interior. Kent fiddles with the radio until it’s playing obnoxious pop music before he revs the engine and grins when Jason ducks his head. 

“You suck.” 

“Gracie, you are the only teenage boy in the world who hates sitting in a car like this, I guarantee it.” 

“Whatever,” he snorts, rolling his eyes. “D’you want to hear about me and Nico’s morning or not?” 

“Alright, alright,” Kent laughs, and turns over the seat to back out. “So, tell me why your boy looked like he was about to puke.” 

“He’s not my boy, don’t call him that,” Jason says, watching the rearview mirror. He’s a nervous passenger, but for Kent’s sake (who is a nervous driver) he tries to curb it. It’s not that Kent’s a bad driver, it’s just that Jason spent a whole summer spiraling down a rabbit hole of car-crash compilations the year the woman who gave birth to him died. 

They both stay quiet until Kent’s out of the parking lot altogether. 

“We had an argument,” Jason says, tapping his fingers along to the beat. “Well, no, not an argument. A misunderstanding. So, I was kind of freaking out about all of his teammates being around, like, everywhere, everywhere I turned there was a new teammate, right? And- you already know how nervous I get in general, so I like. In his words, I froze him out, that’s how he described it. And he got really pissed off, he told me that he couldn’t be friends with me if I kept treating him like he was a reporter, basically.” 

“What the fuck, kid got mad at you?” 

“Mm.” And honestly, Jason gets it. He’s not even upset anymore, not entirely. If Nico had done that to him, the way it sounded, especially after last night…yeah, Jason probably would’ve been pretty mad too. “But we kinda talked about it, a little bit. And he promised he’d text me later once he gets home, so we’re not just leaving it either. I think we both were in the wrong, honestly.” 

Kent makes a face, checking his mirrors before changing lanes. Jason has to stop himself from gripping tighter to the door reflexively. “Still. I don’t like that he jumped to getting mad at you, dude, that’s not cool.” 

“No, I know it’s not cool. And I don’t…I don’t know. It’s just complicated. But I know it’s not cool, you don’t have to get all-” Jason waves at Kent’s tension. “Mama bear, or whatever. 

“I am not being all mama bear,” Kent argues, and then drops his shoulders and shoots Jason a side eye. “I’m just looking out for you. I’m the one who introduced you two, if he sucks and is a bitch then that’s on me.” 

“Definitely got nothing to do with my mom threatening you when she found out you took me to a casino?” 

Kent reaches out and punches him hard in the arm. Jason laughs, shoving back as carefully as he can without interfering with the driving. “Promise me you’ll set boundaries with the kid.” 

“I promise.” His phone buzzes in his pocket - he defends against Kent’s next attempted shove one handed while he digs it out. It’s Nico. Apparently his captain and other mentor-friend on the team were waiting to talk to him back at his room. 

Kent gives Jason one last little prod and snorts.

(CHAPTER 5: here's an extra little text exchange that didn't make the cut either. obviously Jason's feelings about telling people about their relationship have changed in canon)