#this is a lil short im sorry but my non speaking king has fallen silent as usual

[hvrtbroken]

nico drums his fingers against the wheel in expectation . he casts another glance at her , can see her phone lighting up with notification after notification . nico looks back at the road , the night sky . it's the same night sky that followed them into the maze , but it feels so different now . there's a tension between them that he can't define or wrangle his way out of . his eyebrows raise even further at her response . " you didn't make it weird . " he says , slow , but assured . nico shakes his head once again . " stop apologising . please . " he doesn't know what to do with them . doesn't feel like they're right or should belong with him in the first place .

he can feel her gaze on him now as he drives , and he's tempted to look back at her . but - he promised to get her home . he indicates and turns a corner smoothly . nico's fingers tap a little bit faster on the wheel . this feels like the longest car ride of their life . when she next speaks , nico lets out a quiet sigh . he closes his eyes at himself for a second and tries to see it from her point of view : she opens up , he says no , she feels wounded and left open to bleed . oh . his brain clicks . he gets it . " to be very clear , i'm never rejecting you . " nico feels he should clarify first . if anything else , that will always be true . " you . . . just seemed upset . and i didn't want to be that guy who takes advantage of that . " it hardly makes him a hero . the hero may have actually said more . may have comforted her . NICO IS AWARE OF HIS FAULTS . they stilt him at every turn . nico doesn't know how to say that he wasn't sure if she was even thinking about him in that moment . he doesn't know how to ask if she just wanted him as a way to piss off her ex , after what he'd done to her .

" what can i do ? " nico asks , after allowing them to drink in more silence . he wants to get better . he wants to understand her more . he's comfortable with sitting in silences and letting the communication come to him first - he isn't sure if that's directly helpful to her . it definitely wasn't tonight , that's for sure .

her eyes stay glued to her lap, her phone. fiddling with it, looking at the notifications roll in. from her mom, her brother, from maggie. her best friend's asking how it went, and somehow it makes her want to laugh. ironic, considering what happened. she doesn't open up her phone, instead turns it off, shifting the focus to the road ahead. how'd she get herself here? can feel the exhaustion settle in her bones, wants nothing but to get out of this dress she loves. is glad she has nothing scheduled except to send in a self-tape she'd filmed the day before. she couldn't handle it, honestly. ( even if she probably would do it still, work herself to the bone if she had to. )

nico replies, and hearing his voice somehow plants relief in her chest. lodges tenderness between her ribs, because somehow there was a little fear in the back of her head that convinced her he wouldn't say anything back. her voice is soft, but she tries to keep herself from being too much. "because i made it weird." it's the best way to say it, she thinks. the simplest way without saying too much or mentioning the wrong thing. doesn't want him to pull away from her as much as she wills herself not to, too. "and i'm sorry for that."

star finally, carefully, looks at his face properly this time. it's the first time since they'd left that stupid fountain, and it makes her throat scratchy again. he's asking what's wrong, and it makes her chest constrict. her breath hitches. god, she likes him so much. "i-" she pauses, thoughts scattering, overwhelming her. even through the smiling and idle chatter, all she thought about in the last couple of hours of the event was what happened. rationalizing it, considering every moment. it kept her distracted between trying to assume a smile. "i felt . . . rejected. when you pulled away." the confession escapes her lips, surprising even herself. she bites down on her lip, considering if she should continue. but she realizes it's too late. "i shouldn't have, and you did the right thing. it just . . . hurt for some reason." her words taper in volume slowly. it feels like she's peeling herself raw for him. and she thought she was done with that, ironically. "we were also working still so, you know. bad decisions all around from me." sputters a weak laugh after, a little pathetic, a little painful.