#nico1

THE XAVIER INSTITUTE.

DECEMBER 31st, 1997. NEW YEAR’S EVE GALA.

“Looks like you’re having a shitty night too, huh?”

He hadn’t had the foresight to charge his phone. Or, perhaps, he’d had the forethought to let it die just in case he got it in his alcohol-addled mind to call Stef before he was ready to drop the bomb of his arrival on her. Either way, as he made his way back to the motel in pitch darkness, he barely made it to his own door-- tracing the numbers by feel to make sure he was standing in front of the right one-- he searched his pockets for his keycard and found his wallet missing entirely. Panic began to really set in as he searched all of his pockets for a third time and came to the same conclusion.

He must have left it when he’d bought his drinks.

Cursing himself, he felt his way back through the hall and out into the streets where a slight madness at the blackout was beginning to dawn. He thanked the heavens for his good memory, though, as he retraced his steps easily enough to the place he’d been only a half hour earlier. But it was too dark to see much of anything and he pulled his phone from his pocket only to be reminded, once again, that it was dead and absolutely useless. 

Why didn’t he just stay in his room? Fuck.

“Excuse me?” he asked out loud in the general direction of the silhouette closest to him. “You wouldn’t happen to have a flashlight on your phone I could use really quick, do you?”

Maki’s first instinct was to flee. Run as far as she possibly could, getting away from the situation and feign ignorance. In the city, though, her worst fears might suddenly become her...urg, okay, she was not going to say saving grace, but it would be something kind of like that. Just. Way tamer.

“Nico Nico-chan!” Instead of running away, she ran towards the other, interrupting her signature phrase and pose. Now that she was in front of the older girl, she didn’t really know what to say. She was relieved? That meant acknowledging emotions though. Not her thing.