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It was awkward.
Seeing Lady up this close and full in detail was not something Nico was used to. Her stomach churned in a certain way when she saw Lady and no matter how many times it had happened already, she was never able to tell if it was anxiety or excitement. She didn’t know what it meant, but one thing Nicoletta knew was that it made her afraid.
It had been a few days since this weird arrangement between them started. Somewhere in the middle of last week, Lady had come up to her and asked her to take her someplace far away. That was all she had told her, nothing else and it was killing Nico inside to find out why Lady had come up all of a sudden. She's been waiting the past days for anything but Lady wasn’t budging and Nico was not willing to ask.
it’s not like they had done much talking in the past days of staying together. Nico would take Lady around on the van for any demon-hunting job she had and Lady in return would bring parts of the demon she had killed for Nico to make new inventions out of. It was nice for the most part, she was ever too busy making inventions; more so now that she had new materials to work with and Lady was out doing her job. There was no real time to talk and therefore a comfortable silence would settle between them while they did their own thing.
until there was nothing to do anymore. At the end of each day they would end up sitting on the couch together but this time around there was no pleasant silence following suit. It was the opposite, it’s like they became hyper-aware of each other's existence and didn’t know how to react. It felt like a wall was created and Nico never knew how to break it properly. You think she was good at it as she’s always been a loud one, but something about Lady made it hard.
she looked directly at Lady while she was lost in her mind and just stared. She couldn’t help but admire her all over. A pretty face, a pretty body, a pretty personality, and fuck was she beautiful. Nico wanted to hold her, the thought of doing so made her stomach prickle and the moment was gone.
suddenly the van felt much smaller and the too-tight walls were suffocating her, she desperately needed to leave. Without thinking much, she abruptly got up and made a dash for the van doors, leaving Lady behind. Her heart was hammering and she couldn’t help but let a few tears run down her face. she would do this every single time. She would start checking out Lady, freak out, and leave. This wasn’t even the worst part yet. The real kicker was how absolutely shameful she felt afterward. Lady was her friend and in a vulnerable position. She felt so gross for looking at her in such a selfish way.
What was the most terrifying thing about this was that she wanted to go back and look, soak all of her beauty in. It was so uncomfortable, she’s only ever experienced this strange fascination with one other person before. That being kyrie and it was now happening with Lady. What's wrong with her? She barely found anyone beautiful and when she did the two people were women. It was a sickening realization to make and it made her so scared for some reason.
Nico needed to clear her mind as quickly as possible and the only way she knew how to do that was by smoking.
-
Lady was always nice enough to never mention Nicos freaking out, either out of pity or discomfort. Maybe it was just mutual understanding as Nico never pushed Lady to tell her why she was there. It didn't matter much which one it was, she was just grateful that she didn’t have to deal with explaining to Lady why she has to get away from her on a daily basis.
The only major thing that had changed out of this whole routine was that Nico was starting to smoke more often than usual. Since the last time’s discovery, she hasn’t been able to keep it off her mind and it was slowly starting to eat away at her. What else was she supposed to do, it’s not like she had anybody to talk about how she only ever found women attractive.
It could all just be in her head and it’s something twisted her mind created. she never had an interest in men, and because of it she never was in a relationship. Maybe her mind was starting to crave the idea of being into a romantic thing. She was just so deprived of it all that her head was starting to use women as a sort of replacement for it and Lady is here after all. It made total sense, she was just confused, and don’t people usually always know if they are into women anyways? Nico was not like that, she just bit out of it.
Even with this explanation, how would her intense feeling for Kyrie fit into it all? She was not currently here yet she felt the same way for her as she did with Lady right now. What the fuck does this even mean at all. She’s just lost, nothing else.
She was about to go in for another smoke when Lady snatched the cigarette out of her hand. Her heart went straight into her throat, it wasn’t the sudden movement that caused it but the sudden skin contact. Lady’s skin was cool.
“Nico, I usually wouldn’t intervene in your business but I've noticed you've been smoking more. You reek heavily of cigarettes, which is not normal. Are you okay?” Nico wanted to burst into tears, how is she supposed to tell her that she is in fact not okay and that she was heavily struggling with these weird feelings she rarely felt? She couldn’t that was the thing and the best thing she could do was to dodge the question entirely.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” To say the least Lady was displeased with her response but it seemed that she was not going to prod any longer. She crumbled the cigarette in her hand while giving a frustrated sigh. “I'll drop it for now but cut back on the cigarettes. I'm worried about you, I'm here if you need to talk,” poking a finger into Nico's chest to enunciate that she was serious.
Lady grabbed a few things and left, muttering about how she forgot something for work; tacking a goodbye see you later at the end of it.
Nico was frozen in place, too much just happened in a short period of time. It took her a second to register everything that just went down. Her heart couldn’t help but do flips, it was a simple interaction yet it felt like something big. Having Ladys full of attention on her was so odd, they never really faced each other head-on. Which is a good thing because the idea of Lady looking at her directly made her face warm and she probably was doing so earlier without noticing. She was so pretty, it made her nervous down to her stomach to even think about it. The spot the Lady had touched earlier burned, even if she was cold she was having her whole body feel like it was being filled with fire.
Lady cared for her and something about that blossomed this whole new wave of stronger emotions than before. It brought up this new sense of security that ironically also seemed to amplify the feeling of confusion and oddness.
One thing about this all was that Nico did in fact start smoking less and Lady seemed satisfied about that.
-
it was all of a sudden when it all happened
Nico was finishing work on new inventions. They were coming out nicely and she was finally starting to break into some interesting new ideas. She was proud of herself and in her humble opinion, she found them to be works of art created by her own hands. Hell, she might even get Lady to test some of them out for her, improvement can always happen. She was just goddamn happy about them.
Her trail of thoughts had been busted when Lady had burst through the van doors in a hurry, taking all of her equipment off as soon as possible. This was unusual as it was way too early for her to be back from hunting and she was acting so frantic for some reason. It was like she was getting chased, Nico didn’t have a good feeling about this. She tried to gently call out to Lady, in an attempt to slow her down but it didn’t work. It wasn’t until she moved closer to her and tugged at her arm that she saw. Lady was crying, not some small tears either, she was crying hard like something horrible had happened.
For some reason seeing her like this made her heart squeeze in a painful way and without thinking about it she pulled Lady into a hug. She awkwardly maneuvered around, leading them toward the couch where she sat them down and began to softly caress the nape of her neck and something about that just made her cry harder. Nico stayed silent the whole time, just doing what she felt was right. Even if it took all day she was going to stay here comforting her, she didn’t want to see her like this.
Her body shuddered and hiccuped nonstop, each wave of it felt stronger each time. Her breathing was ragged, and Nico felt like she might end up choking from how absolutely hard she was actually crying. She wasn’t the one going through it yet it felt like she was getting punched in the gut. She was also feeling everything along with her.
It took some time but after a while, Lady had finally calmed down. She laid her head into the crook of Nico's neck, her breath ticking the area, and deciding it was okay she rested her head on the tops of Ladys. They stayed like that for another period of time, just seemingly enjoying each other's presence.
The thing is Nico was starting to notice how inevitably close they were and it slowly made her freak out. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest while her face flared up in warmth. She thought about how Lady was able to feel all of her reactions, she couldn’t stand it. She needed to shift her attention to something else.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Prodding at a stab of conversation while she went to caress her back, trying to ground herself. Lady made some humming sounds like she was thinking about her answer. “I guess that would be a good idea. Letting out, I suppose. I saw Trish today,” huh what does she have to do with this? sensing that Nico is not following along, Lady continues, “Trish and I are dating — well used to date. We broke up.”
The revelation made Nico go quiet, gears were starting to turn in her head. Suddenly things were starting to make sense and as weird as it sounds she felt better now. All she could muster while she processed was, “I never knew you guys were dating, few things are beginning to click now,” all Lady gave out to that was a pained laugh, like it was some sick joke. “Funny you mentioned that, our breakup was due to that. She wanted to keep it a secret and I wanted everyone to know. It was a secret but I got tired of hiding, I’m not ashamed of what I am.”
even in such a vulnerable position, she spoke with such confidence. Something about that broke a few of Nico's invisible walls down, making her feel like she got a comforting hug.”I'm sorry to hear it ended like that. A big difference like that is not easy to fix,” Nico patted her back in an attempt to be sympathetic towards her. It seemed that it worked because she felt Lady give a tiny smile on her neck.
”That's why we chose to break up. We loved each other too much to put one another through agony. Doesn’t make it hurt any less, that’s for sure,” Nico didn’t have any response to that but she felt like she understood. She felt Lady shuddering again and was about to start comforting her again when she changed the topic.
“Enough about my sappy shit, tell me what’s wrong with you?” Lady turned her head away, shifting it so she could look at Nico more directly. Nico pushed with a sigh, “a lot do want to hear all about it?” She tried to discourage the question. It seems this time Lady was not letting her off the hook so easily this time. She gave Nico an annoyed look, “I asked didn’t I?”
Nico laughed nervously, maybe because she shared something personal, or maybe because it was Lady but for some reason she let it slip from her lips. “um, I think I’m only into women and you might've triggered that discovery,” something about that statement was anxiety fueling and she didn't think she was ready to reveal that. Lady's reaction was not making it any better.
Lady was quiet, she straightened up and looked Nico in the eyes. “I was not expecting that,” she said, sounding surprised but happy in a way. It was confusing. It wasn't disgusting at least. “Neither was I,” Nico was starting to regret it, it felt like too much. She really did speak that into the world. her mind could only do one thing and that was to run. She was about to rush off like she always did and leave Lady behind when she felt herself get pulled back into the couch.
“Welcome to being a lesbian,” Lady said in the softest voice possible. Just something about this whole ordeal finally broke something inside Nicoletta and she couldn’t hold it anymore. She cried like the world was ending and her lungs burned as she had dipped them in acid. In a way, it felt like she was letting everything out in one single go and could no longer lie to herself. It hurt like a bitch.
Lady just held her, her touch was gentle and firm like she was Nico's current life support to get her through. she never made an effort to move, or touch her somewhere else. Nico was honestly grateful for that because if she did it would have probably made her whole breakdown worse. Just because she spoke it doesn’t mean she was okay with it. The irony of it all was that Lady was comforting now and that they came to each other on the same day. Even in this weird chaos, it made her feel safe to be between her grasp.
A blanketed hush filled the van.
“When I realized I also had a similar reaction to yours,” because it had been silent for a while that when Lady’s words registered they felt louder than usual. Nico hummed in response, she was honestly too tired to talk. It's been a long day. Lady took it as a sign to go on, “men were something I never looked at in an attractive sense but my friends did. They would speak about having crushes on boys and which one was the hottest. I didn't understand what they meant. They were all the same to me and in all honesty, I hated the idea of being with them.” Nico was a liar if she said she didn’t relate to that particular tune. It described her well.
“Then what happened?” Nico wanted to know more, needed to see if she would feel even more seen with her words. Lady reached for her hand as she was bracing herself, “one day I got into a fight with one of my friends about a boy. She kept getting hurt because of him and something about seeing her so broken, pained me so badly that I went off on her.'' She took a deep breath before carrying on,“ in the midst of it a thought ran through my head about how I could be so much better than him and I liked that idea. A sudden burst of emotions opened and I realized I liked her. That every single romantic feeling my friends described for men, I was feeling for her.”
She would have probably started crying again if she could but her body was too wrecked to even allow it. Her stomach and now her heart felt like they were being stabbed, how horrifying to notice. “Then you had a whole breakdown about it like me,” Lady laughed at her shot of a joke, it was a bad one but seeing her even slightly happy made her feel good. “That's right I did but I don't regret it. Finding yourself is worth it.”
“You make it sound so easy, right now it feels like my whole world fell apart,” Nico knows it was mean to say but you can’t expect her to be so okay with everything. She just found out she is a lesbian. “Nobody said it was going to be easy but you have me to lean upon this too and remind you that it’s okay,” maybe because of how much she liked Lady that she decided not to fight her any longer on this for now. Choosing to have a glimmer of hope and believe her. “If you say so.”
Nico felt a yawn through her, she hadn’t known how long they were on the couch stuck to each other. When she looked over at the windows of the van she could see the sky slowly starting to darken. It made her even more tired when she looked at it. She just wanted to sleep now. Another yawn pushed at her as she closed her eyes, she was starting to doze off.
She heard Lady laugh at her but couldn’t see it. Her body was finally taking everything from today and allowing her to relax. “you have all the time in the world to deal with it, for now, go to sleep. It's been a long day.”
as she was starting to fall asleep she swore she felt Lady give her hand a soft kiss but she couldn’t tell if her head was making things up because of how tired she was. But it was already too late, she was already in dreamland to decipher what it was.