mxnster

Nico pulled the pan away from the fire just as the doorbell rang. His brow furrowed as he looked over at the clock, picking up the spoon to stir the sauce. The only person he was expecting was his sister and she always let herself in, never rang the bell. “Coming!” It wasn’t locked but he thought better than to tell someone to let themselves in. Queens wasn’t the seventh circle, but it wasn’t San Diego either, and seeing that he didn’t know all that many people meant this could get weird fast. Removing the sauce from the heat, he wiped his hands on a towel and headed for the door just as they rang the bell again. He wasn’t ready for what was on the other side.

“Be mine, now and forever. Be mine, you are my treasure. Be mine, please tell me it's true. Be mine, I love you!” The man dancing and singing on his front porch had to be over six feet tall, but that wasn’t even what made this singing telegram so shocking. Easily over two hundred pounds, this man was dressed in little more than a diaper and a sash. Easily, the largest cupid that Nico had ever laid eyes on. As the shock wore off, he had to admit that he was impressed. The man was practically solid muscle and the moves he was busting out made Nico wonder if he would even be able to do the same. “Man, whatever they are paying you, it’s not enough.” There was no judgement in his tone, in fact he even sounded impressed. Clearly a good natured man, Cupid smiled from ear to ear as he held out what looked like a gift basket full of candy hearts.

Find My Way Back - Cody Fry

I Miss You - Incubus 

Sing To Me - Before Their Eyes 

Who We Are - Nothing More 

My Kind Of Woman - Mac Demarco 

Stuck In Your Head - IPrevail

11 Blocks - Wrabel 

The Less I Know The Better - Tame Impala 

Robin Hood - Anson Seabra 

Nico was hunched over the desk in the back of Loch Ness Ink working on a new piece for an old customer. When the eighty year old man walked in Nico had prepared himself for a verbal beating. Usually when the older generation crossed the threshold to his shop it was to berate or threaten him for having inked the virgin skin of their child or grandbaby, but the older gentleman had come in as a client. As it turned out, he had recently lost his wife and was having trouble dealing with the void her person had left behind. After talking to the man for over an hour, they had come up with a simple, yet elegant, memorial for his sweet Dottie. Now it was Nico's job to make it come to life.

Pushing himself back from the desk, he took a moment to look over the piece. He had about a week before he needed something official, but he didn't like putting anything off until the last minute. He worked well under pressure but refused to leave a permanent mark on someone else's body for a pressure cooker situation. His clients deserved better than that and he held himself, and his shop, to a higher standard. With a critical eye, he studied the piece. It looked fine enough but something was missing. Something… integral. Hewas still turning that thought over in his head when the message alert sounded from his phone, distracting him from his line of thinking.

For the first sixteen years of Nico MacKeltar’s life he was not what you would call a rebellious child. At five he gave up his status as an only child but instead of raging against the dying of the light, he embraced it. Maybe it was because his new sibling was a girl, or maybe it was just who he was at his core, then again it might also have been the fact that his parents were amazing parents. Even at five, they took the time to make sure, emotionally, he had everything he needed. He never once wondered if he was going to lose the love of his parents to his little sister. Never even considered it. The truth was, the way they explained having another child made him excited to have someone else to share this life with. His world was expanding and he was about to have a partner in crime.

After his parents died, when he was still living out the middle of his teen years, he didn’t turn to rebellion then either. Instead, Nico MacKeltar grew defiant. In the same situation, anyone would like to say they were wise beyond their years, but Nico was more of a realist. It wasn’t some self aware, oddly wise for his age, part of him that colored his decision to stand against the statistics and overwhelming emotion that tried to cripple him. He didn’t turn to his pain or let it swallow him when his parents were ripped away from them. Instead, he clung tight to the defiance that burned deep and fought. Fought to build a life that could sustain himself and his sister and when he was confident he had that, he fought to get custody of his sister.

Rumors spread like wildfire, so quick to devour everything in its path. The worst part was that people were so bored with their lives that they were all to happy to perpetuate it. Nico knew this better than anyone and at the age of sixteen he was not surprised when it was his name traveling from mouth to mouth. His parents had died in a car accident that left him battered and broken. His body was bad, but his spirit was worse. In a frozen ditch, he held his eleven year old sister with a dislocated shoulder, a broken leg, and no more time to help his parents before the car was engulfed in flames. 

Six weeks was how long it took for his leg to heal, though it would never be the same. Six short weeks until he was walking back into school. All the faces were familiar, but none of them looked like the friends he left before winter break. By lunch, his childhood friend Sevastyan was tossing his lunch down on the table beside him. "Nicky, glad you're back buddy. I head a few really crazy stories going around." The oddly large Russian boy was speaking louder than necessary, clearly the message was for all the people sitting around him and not for Nico himself. Sev was the only person that had been by Nico's side practically through his entire recovery. "I even heard a rumor that you're bouncing from home to home because you keep starting fires." Just barely, but Nico was able to stop himself from cringing, the vision of his parents' car in flames flashing in his mind. Looking over at Sev, Nico knew he had a decision to make.

Nico’s head was down, embarrassingly focused on his phone, as he tried to read through yet another email. There had been an elevated number of correspondences since the new year, but had nothing to do with the turning of the calendar. One of his companies, the one that he was usually more comfortable taking a back seat on, was making a few changes as per his instructions. They were nearing the middle of the fiscal year which gave him a little motivation to check in on the running of Keltar Specialists. He trusted the people he appointed to the day to day operations but that didn’t mean he was naïve enough to be completely hands off. This year there had been a few choices in play that he wasn’t completely on board with and was spending the needed time to investigate the decisions and terminate those that did not abide the vision of the company.

Thoughts shattered against reality as his body slammed into a much smaller frame. The collision would have been sobering enough on it’s own, but he was distracted from that by the warm fluid that covered his torso. He stepped back to make a little space, his phone slipping from his hand and smashing against the floor. His sole focus was on steadying the woman before him before she too, crashed to the ground. “I am so sorry, miss. I should have been paying more attention.” The tiny brunette couldn’t be more than twenty one, twenty two at the most, but the way her hands covered her mouth and shock lit her eyes made her look much more youthful. She was apologizing through the muffle of her fingers. “Please,” Nico leaned over and picked up his broken phone, along with her now empty cup, “at least let me replace your drink.” 

Nightmares weren’t all the same, and they almost never ended in similar fashion as they did on the big screen. When his brain felt as though it had tormented him enough, he didn’t shoot up in bed with a scream. He didn’t gasp for air or clutch his chest or even drip sweat on his already damp sheets. When Nico MacKeltar was finally able to escape his nightmare it was a slow ascent to the conscious realm. His heart wasn’t racing but each beat felt as if it would crack his ribcage and the remnants of the dream felt heavy in his chest. Even in his waking state, he could still hear the way the engine ticked as gasoline puddled around the overturned car. 

Rolling onto his side, Nico grabbed his pillow and folded it, stuffing it back under his head as his eyes focused on his phone. There was just enough light coming in through the window of his Queens home to make out the shapes of his surroundings. He picked up the electronic device to check the time, unsurprised at the early hour. That was the first time he realized that the sound he thought followed him out of the nightmare was actually the weather outside. Flattening out onto his back, he stared at the ceiling as the nightmare played against the white surface. He knew better than to close his eyes or try to turn away, it was like a projector that didn’t need a special screen to taunt him.

Nico watched in silence as his family’s car traveled down the road, his traitorous mind taking creative freedoms to fill in the parts that he slept through. He watched as the sleeping face of his eleven year old sister filled his field of vision. She looked so peaceful and calm, still an air of innocence surrounding her. His own face was next, the sixteen year old features still soft with adolescence, his skin still free of ink. Before he could focus on his parents on the front seat the car began to slide across a patch of black ice. His father did everything he was supposed to, everything that should have helped them minimize the damage. It would have worked too, if the road wasn’t just too wet. He watched, paralyzed, as the car careened into the cement divider and sent the vehicle, along with the family of four, airborne. 

Nico paused to look around the shop, at the men that worked hard to help him make this place a success. He had to admit that when he moved here he was a little hesitant about opening another shop. His parlor back in San Diego was running well and his other company could keep him more than afloat while Tessa was in school. It was the fact that his days seemed to stretch impossibly long ahead of him that had made his mind up for him. Since he was a child, Nico was not the type of person to stand still, and when his parents passed away, that need to keep moving was pushed into overdrive. That was the reason he had been able to get his GED and a bachelors before his eighteenth birthday, slowing down now wasn’t really an option. The honest realist in him had always known it.

“Nico, someone named… Tessymac is calling your phone?” Nico’s attention turned to the shop manager, the thin man with a riot of pink hair was waving the lit up phone in his hand. Crossing the room, he took the phone, thanking Yash as he lifted it to his ear. “Hey Tess, how are your classes going?” He smiled as his little sister reprimanded him for leading with that question instead of ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss you’, or the best one yet, ‘How is the greatest sister in the whole world’? He chuckled as he headed to the rear of the shop, stepping into his office and closing the door. “What’s going on?”He listened as his sister talked about her woes of the day, hinting at the fact that today she was supposed to come for dinner. It took him a moment to realize that she wasn’t trying to back out of it, instead she was trying to get him to remind her. With a shake of his head and a smile that stretched from ear to ear, he did just that.

Drawing always helped Nick work out the feelings and emotions he couldn’t express otherwise. It had been why he thought a tattoo parlor would be a good business venture when he was only seventeen. It was what kept him moving through the turmoil of life. He spent the next half hour at his desk, working on a stencil for a commissioned back piece he was starting the following morning, and when he finally emerged from the backroom half of his guys had gone home but their clientele had doubled. Heading up to the counter, he called for the next walk-in with the hopes of getting a few people out the door before he followed suit.