Rafael putters around the dorm tidying up, straightening Nicholas’ bed sheets, dusting his own bookshelf, neatening all of Stavros’ skin care products on the sink, throwing the clothes on the floor into the hamper-

“He’s not going to even notice you cleaned,” Stavros sneers, storming past with an armful of Nicholas’ clothes to then shove it all angrily into his bed.

“He’s not going to talk to you just because you stole all of his stuff,” Rafael snaps back before he can stop himself. “I – we need to apologise.”

“We’ve tried! I’ve tried!” Stavros cries, yanking his blanket over his hoard. “He won’t even look at me! Every time I get him alone, he runs. I even tried as Hearth and he fucking-“

Stavros turns into Hearth, who keeps making furious shrieks and barks as he ducks under the blanket and starts angrily forming his den. After a moment the violent rustling stops and then the fox starts whimpering quietly because the animal instincts have finally won out over the human need to mask it.

Rafael sighs and walks over to take a seat on the edge of Stavros’ bed. He pats around inside the tunnel until he finds something warm that’s shaking and gently rubs Hearth’s back. “I know, I know. What I meant was that you shouldn’t chase him down. And you need to stop leading a conversation with ‘I’ll explain it better’. You don’t need to explain it, we need to apologise.”

Hearth unfolds into Stavros, who hurls the blanket off, a scowl on his face. “No, we need to explain why it happened.”

“That’s not going to matter.” Rafael thinks about Nicholas downstairs, having so much fun with others building a pillow fort that Rafael had to shut the door because hearing Nicholas' laughter right now hurt. Nicholas hasn’t even glanced in their direction for days now. “He must know. He must at least suspect, he can't be so completely oblivious. It’s his way of letting us down nicely.”

“He doesn't suspect shit!” Stavros complains, throwing up his hands in frustration. “Nicky is…he thinks this is what friends do. He doesn't even understand what's wrong. We hold hands, we sleep together, the constant touching he needs to be satisfied. I flirt with him, you feed him, it’s – we already do everything. There’s nothing to hint at because we do it blatantly.”

“What if Luca tells him something?” Rafael worries.

“Luca is on our side,” Stavros reassures. “Luca has an image of the future so he's more certain than anyone. Plus with Christos, I don't think Luca will be trying to split us up.”

Rafael pauses, unsure. Stavros grabs a fistful of his jumper and reels him in until they’re wrapped around each other, Stavros’ head on his shoulder.

“I should have stopped us,” Rafael whispers.

“Yeah, well, it was a team effort,” Stavros mutters snidely.

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The InCore common room is a large, carpeted room, high ceilings and tapestries or paintings on the stone walls and constantly changing. The stairs up to the dorms go in a spiral around the outside blocking it in but there are large, magically made windows streaming in early morning sunlight regardless. The common room, like all common rooms, has noise suppression and a few automatic cleaning charms.

It’s mostly a strange mash of furniture that people conjure or vanish depending on what they need. Beanbags everywhere, some ominous highbacked armchairs, lots of comfortable couches, some more artistic spherical things with cushioned insides or odd shaped lounge-things. Tables of all shapes and sizes for studying -but mostly board games- and there used to be a TV but people have mostly moved computers and gaming systems into their rooms instead.

Currently, the dorm has very little furniture and instead a sea of sheets jutting up on the backs of chairs or just poles because half the InCore students banded together and made the massive pillow fort by cheating heavily with magic.

Nicholas started it of course, so choked up from pretending with Mariana even though they’re casual now, and desperately needing something fun instead of being upset with Stavros and Rafael, that he had to get it out somehow and this was the tamest way. Chaos and fun, but nice and family-friendly.

After a half-asleep Stavros punches the pillows into submission, he then ignores them entirely and rolls onto a still sleeping Nicholas, both of them hidden from view by a maze of sheets, faint muffled chatter or snoring coming through from other parts of the nearby labyrinth.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Rafael sniffs them out quickly anyway, having gone up to change and freshen himself up (and roll around in Nicholas’ bed to keep his scent because Nicholas won’t hug him anymore). He drops to his knees in the blanket nest -moves Nicholas’ abandoned glasses so they won’t get crushed- and shakes them gently, which is incredibly nice because his first instinct was to shake them with a foot instead.

“Breakfast is starting,” Rafael warns them.

“Bring me eggs,” Stavros mutters into Nicholas’ hair.

“Hard-boiled,” Nicholas slurs. “Hmm, peel it for me.”

“I’m not feeding you,” Rafael tsks but knows he’ll end up feeding them.

Nicholas slowly blinks awake, staring up at the ceiling. For a long moment, he doesn’t know what’s wrong, then jerks up and shoves Stavros off him, scrambling for his glasses that Rafael nudges closer. “I can’t fucking believe you! Ambushing me?!”

“Nicky,” Stavros tries, sitting up.

Rafael immediately backs off. “We came to say goodnight last night and you pulled us down to sleep with you.”

Nicholas throws his arms up. “Why would you not remind me I’m still mad at you?” he cries, incredulous. Then he just staggers up, jabbing a finger at Stavros who opens his mouth to explain. “No! No, we’re not talking.”

Nicholas stomps off through the blanket maze to go back to sleep in Luca’s bed.

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Two very long weeks go by where Nicholas sleeps in Luca's bed instead and he doesn't sit next to Rafael or Stavros in class, and pretends they don't exist in favour of hanging out with Mariana and her friends rather pointedly.

Rafael and Stavros keep popping around anyway, leaving snacks and such out for Nicholas, passing him notes from class, and giving him sad puppy dog eyes in the halls. Hearth tries a few times but Nicholas doesn’t even look at the fox when normally he’d melt.

Luca bounces between the two groups awkwardly but spends more time with Nicholas because if Luca doesn't, Nicholas runs off to go spend time with Mariana and his smiles get more and more fake.

No one will tell Luca what happened but this is getting to be a bit much. Nicholas will even tell Luca, to tell Stavros, orders during Loops practice. After Nicholas actually misses the night of a full moon with Thoth, and it was in the beacon tower that Nicholas had been so excited about before, Luca decides something needs to be done.

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"Nicholas," Luca says, catching his dad just before lunch. "Can we talk?"

"Sure," Nicholas says and turns to Mariana with a smile. "Sorry, Ayad stuff."

"I'll save you a seat," Mariana says, eyes darting towards Luca, and their hands slip out from one another as she continues down the hallway.

Luca leads Nicholas into the nearest empty classroom and sets up a silencing spell before turning on the other. "What happened between you guys? If you tell me, maybe I'll know how to fix it?"

"You can't really fix being an asshole," Nicholas says mildly.

Luca pauses. "Was it…something I did?"

"What? No, of course not."

Luca grimaces. "Because, I mean you're still friends in my time so it must have been me, right?"

"No, no," Nicholas says quickly, putting his hands on Luca's shoulders to reassure him. "No, they just…were being mean. They ganged up on me and said mean things, then chased me around – and…what's up with that face, Luca?"

"I'm having a hard time imagining it," Luca admits. "What did they say?"

"Just…" Nicholas pulls away to vaguely flail his hands. "Mean things, about my love for Maria."

"That you're doing it out of obligation?" Luca clarifies.

Nicholas pauses. "You – do you think that too?"

"Well, every time you talk about her with me, you always mention us being a family and such." Luca shrugs. "It just sounds like you're doing it for me – which I really appreciate but it's your life and I want you to do everything at your pace. It kind of seems like you're rushing."

Nicholas says nothing for a long moment. "I like Mariana as a friend, and it’s great hanging out with her more, but the whole relationship is built like a sandcastle. She doesn’t even want to…” No, Nicholas shouldn’t say that, it’s too early. “I’m sure if we learned each other better it would work, but I’m lying and she thinks I’ve changed because of the kidnapping.”

"This isn’t necessary, you know that, right?" Luca offers. “You don’t have to do it. Do you, personally, want to keep dating her?”

"I don't know," Nicholas admits. "Her friends are kind of boring. And Mariana doesn't like the things I do so conversations kind of die off unless I…pretend." He grimaces. "It was funny at first but it's starting to be not good for my mental health."

"You're seventeen, it's okay if you're not ready to marry someone you've been dating for a month now," Luca tries to joke. "Besides, I think you two only get together after you graduate, there's room for both of you to change still. Basically, if it works then it works. If it doesn't, I don't mind."

“I’m going to go a bit slower,” Nicholas admits. “I want to keep dating her and see where it goes.” He puffs up. "Never get a girlfriend, Luca! Live with me for the rest of your life. Adopt kids so I can have grandbabies."

Luca laughs. "Okay, whatever you want."

Nicholas smiles before the expression drops. "I still don't like Rafael and Stavros."

"Have they apologised?"

Nicholas rolls his eyes. "Nothing that wasn't empty words. They still think they're in the right, and I just need to 'calm down' like they didn't fucking pin me down and talk shit about my bad personality." Nicholas tenses. "Not - not that I was fighting back with my full strength, you know, your dad is super strong, I would have hurt them."

"You're very strong," Luca agrees immediately and then frowns. "And I love everything about your personality. Don't worry, I'll make them apologise."

Nicholas looks away with a pout. "No, don't bother. They…were maybe right. About one or two things."

"They were still mean to you," Luca argues. "Doesn't matter what they said, it's about how they said it."

"Yeah!" Nicholas cries, bouncing back. "How dare they! What, they can't have a normal conversation? And they spilled snacks all over my bed!"

"Exactly!" Luca says. "Let's go give them a piece of our mind!"

"Yeah!" Nicholas snaps and storms out of the classroom, Luca trotting along behind and feeling particularly accomplished.