nikolas had to admit, this was a novel way to try and get over a students’ anxiety; organize the library books by size and shape so you’re forced to speak with a librarian, that was some real shock therapy right there. of course, the school administration had evidently underestimated nik’s ability to avoid human interaction, to the point where he’d rather wander around the library in the hopes of finding what he was looking for. well, typically, he would rather wander, until he, miraculously, found a copy of python machine learning, only to turn around and realize he had no clue where he was. and he had class in, with a quick check of his watch, twenty minutes. perfect. 

he glimpsed another person in the stacks, and knew that, now, he was desperate enough to actually speak to somebody. “um, excuse me?” he asked, panic creeping into his voice,“do you know where the front desk is? i’m a little turned around.” 

nik had always found the blackthorne boys intimidating, but now? now he had a reason to find them downright terrifying. even when he learned this was a spy school, he’d thought that no way had any of his fellow students would have to take a life, it had barely even crossed his mind. (sure, he’d read threat elimination, and that thought had lingered, but- it felt more theoretical than anything.) but now, now he knew that the blackthorne boys were okay with that thought, expected to do so, and that was... well, it was something else. would he have been admitted to blackthorne, he wondered, and even if he would’ve, as soon as he heard about the final exam he would have fucking left. if he would be allowed to leave. 

and now, he had to meet with a man who would have been a year away from performing this final exam, to spar. sure, alec seemed like a good guy, had seemed kind and genuine, but he couldn’t help his obvious anxiety when he met alec’s eyes in the gym. “hey,” he offered, unable to look alec in the eye. “ready to spar?” 

nik had to wonder if it could possibly be considered heterosexual to ask another man to dinner. it wasn’t that weird, right? like, they were never able to go to roseville usually, so it wouldn’t be odd to ask bash if he wanted to try this restaurant with him. he had to wipe his hands off on his jeans, but nik managed to convince himself that this would be fine, nonetheless. he just needed to stop tugging at his shirt sleeves like a little kid and get this over with now, before the next bus left. “hey, bash!” he called out after the other man. “are you, uh, are you going into town? ‘cause i’ve heard a lot about this cool little pub and i’m dying to check it out. with someone.” nik tried not to cringe at himself. nailed it. 

this was literally the first time in months that nik had been able to relax, just walking around the roseville market, taking in the booths there. there was a big one of just christmas ornaments, and he was taking his time when looking at them, especially some of the zanier options. most of the ornaments when he’d been a kid were handmade, so he found it hard to believe what some people put on their tree. he turned to louis, holding up one of the more egregious offenders. “like, okay, some of these i get, they kinda have the holiday spirit. but this, this is just a fucking pickle.”

now that break was over, nik really had to get serious about finals. not too serious, evidently, because when he needed to spar, his first thought was to ask bash, which... was objectively a bad idea. it would be hard to focus on sparring when he had fucking bash to look at. but he didn’t wanna bug alec too much, claire would probably kill him and enz wasn’t willing so... bash was the most logical choice, right? “thanks for helping me out with this,” nik said, busy taping up his knuckles and bouncing on the balls of his feet. “and- and don’t go easy on me, okay? i need to get good.” he paused, shooting bash a smile. “okay, maybe go a little easy on me. let me get a punch in.” 

nik had texted enzo the night before, asking if he felt like cramming together on the sunday before break ended. now, here they were, at nine thirty in the morning in the library, nik trying desperately to finish his intro to stunt driving problem set. he hadn’t even taking the state driving test before, so a written test on stunt driving was proving to be exceedingly difficult. “when you’re losing control out of a turn, you don’t decelerate, right? you just... you take your foot off the gas. right?”

nikolas had spent the last two months ignoring the fact that going to spy school (spy school, he still had trouble digesting that) meant that he would actually have to start working out and actually fighting. the fact that he tossed onto the mat every other day proved excellent motivation, as were the disappointed sighs of his combat prof. point was, he was failing, (which was a foreign and frightening concept in and of itself) and he needed to pass this course to get his degree. and when he asked his combat prof if there were any tutors available, he’d said no, but gave nik a small list of students who might be willing to help him. he’d managed to track all of them down, and now, staring as surreptitiously as possible at him over his phone, he’d deduced that alec hill was the least scary option. 

of course, alec hill was still a fourth year, and looked as busy and professional as every other fourth year at this school, but at least he didn’t look like he was liable to throw nik into a chokehold if he said the wrong word. so, after a good fifteen (maybe twenty-five, shut up) minutes of psyching himself up, nik finally managed to get himself to alec’s side, tapping his shoulder. “hi, uh. professor parker gave me your name as someone who might be able to help me. for combat training. i’m really bad at it.” smooth, dahling. awkwardly, he offered his hand, trying desperately to salvage this interaction. “i’m nik.”

he didn’t see val until she’d snuck up right next to nikolas, causing him to jump when he turned and saw her familiar face. admittedly, at this point in the thanksgiving feast, he was a little tipsy, and that tryptophan was hitting pretty hard. once he recovered, he gave valeria a week smile and a thumbs up, “that was some, uh, some great assimilating.” he supposed that was the point after all, you didn’t know when valeria was there until it was too late. weird, even the more innocent sounding majors were terrifying if he thought about them for too long. he took a pull from his glass of water, “what’s up? are you having fun?”