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“Dude, has anyone ever told you, you have like, freakishly pretty hands?”
Adrien blinks.
“Huh?”
“Yeah,” Nino grins, lifting them as if Adrien had never seen them before. “Not a scratch! And you fence! And play piano. How are they not all scuffed up?”
Adrien can’t help but smile, wondering if Nino would cackle about the meticulous skincare routine he had, that his father suggested. “Well, I am a model—or, I was,” he says. “I did a lot of hand modeling for the brand, actually! Watches, cufflinks, rings, that sort of stuff. Father used to say I was perfect for it, too. As long as—“
Nino missteps, twitches weird, knocking over the paint bottle while simultaneously running the brush over Adrien’s knuckles. Horrified, Nino looks down to his crime, a broad stroke of black across golden skin.
“Oh shit, dude, I’m so sorry!” Nino squeaks, his glasses hanging half-off. He scrambles for the bag of products they borrowed from Marinette, digging through it wide-eyed and guilty.
“Woah, Nino, don’t worry about it! Really!” Adrien wonders if his smile was always this reverent or something ingrained in him from a modeling coach. A tool, a new face put on, a mediator. “She’s got nail polish remover in there, right?”
“Y-yeah, right, sorry.”
“It’s fine! Don’t worry.”
Remover and cotton balls in his hands, Nino tips his head to work and Adrien can't find him anymore.
There is a diseased sort of knowing when someone can't figure out what to say around you. Did he watch Nino tiptoe around the corners of his eyes, or was it just a trick of the light?
Maybe Nino pities him. A lot of people are doing that lately.
Adrien curls his fingers and straightens them out again, watching the twin rings dip and fall into a reflection of sun. They soak it all in like a mass, wrapping around his skin like a communion. Maybe they were simpler than that. Pieces of silver unknown on malleable bones. These rings would always be unknown to him. But these hands? Oh, he knew them. They had names.
He knew his right, righteous and hideous and bubbling with rot. His left, married to a missing past, a double coffin, a white butterfly.
Nino doesn’t wear any rings, Adrien notices. His hands are clean.
And warm.
Nino’s a much better person than he is. If he gets close enough, maybe something will rub off on him.
“I'm really sorry.”
Nino’s voice is raw and quiet, simply there, sitting down his words next to a friend. Adrien flicks up his cap, just enough to see his face. Almost enough to realize it.
“It’s only nail polish,” he smiles, probably of too little comfort to matter.
“Not that.”
“Oh.” So he was right. “You don’t have to—”
Nino squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry about everything.”
Adrien barely registers the words. Glosses over them, files them, and stores them to be thought about later when he lies awake until daylight. His fingers twitch, though, so which way do they want to run? They don’t know and neither does he.
That’s okay. Adrien is good at being still.
“It’s not your fault.”
An automated response. The funeral, his friends, his Father’s friends. Thank you for coming. For your condolences. For your care in his death. For your share of the stock.
Adrien knows he probably would’ve despised it, all those people around him. He makes a better statue than he ever did a spectacle. Or a father, for that matter.
“I know,” Nino says. “But I know what it’s like to lose a dad. I’m just sorry that you had to lose one, too. I’m here for you always, you know that, right?”
He lost the idea of a dad, Adrien thinks, more than an actual one. That’s really what Gabriel was—a concept, a memory, a tinted glass through an Agreste Manor window. He could miss him there in nowhere.
Until he was there, and Adrien never felt any less uncomfortable than before.
The absence of his father pressed out from between his ribs, gradual and dragging, but the presence of him seared. Burned through his gut like an open, spilling wound, ashamed of being stabbed and ashamed that he bleeds. Missing a father and not wanting him near at the same time could co-exist, couldn’t it?
His guilty, rotten conscience scolds him like a petulant child for that. The voice is familiar.
He knows about Nino’s dad, too, but never the extent of it. Not anything more than Nino would tell, and no more than Adrien would ask. He was too scared. Adrien preferred listening to Nino explain the plot of another SpaceMutants Vs. GhostSharks sequel rather than opening his mouth and sounding out phrases he doesn’t know how to say.
“I guess we’re our own little club, then.” Adrien sighs.
“What’s our first club activity? Watching dads play soccer with their kids in the park and crying on a bench? Tried that already.”
Adrien barks out a laugh, then puts his head in his hands. Adrien doesn’t even know how to play soccer. His Father always said he didn’t want him out in the sun that long, he could burn! Or play in the dirt; that was sloppy and unkempt—he wasn’t a barn animal. Agrestes were more refined than that. Why would you need to roll in filth when you can go practice piano? Father was only trying to help him.
Does Nino know how this all feels, too? Would he understand him? Could he tell Adrien the right way to do it?
What was Nino’s dad like?
“Or, you and I can just play.” He says abruptly. “I would obliterate you, though.”
Adrien’s lips fall open, horrifically delighted. “Seriously? You wouldn’t even give me a little break?”
“Dude. It’s every man for himself on the field.” He says, dramatics turned up to campfire ghost story. “It’s ball or be balled.”
“Okay, fine.” Adrien snorts. “Good to know you don’t play around about your balls.”
“That’s taken out of context!”
“Uh-huh.” Adrien smirks, eyes narrowed and feline. Then he shakes his head. “But, I really would like to play soccer with you, I just don’t know how. Can you teach me?”
“Of course, dude! I’m your man, you know that. I bet you'll end up beating me, though. You’re perfect at everything you do. Maybe you should teach me some stuff.” Nino practically gushes, or no, that can’t be right. Adrien’s probably reading the situation wrong again.
Except they can’t tear away and Adrien doesn’t know how to answer. And it’s all too silent. And they stare. And stare. And, shit, when is he supposed to be looking away?
Nino coughs, thank god, but like he’s just figured out some secret; something Adrien never gets let in on. “Hey, uh, don’t you need an umbrella or something, model boy?” He accidentally looks way too close to the sun, hand up to shield his bleary eyes. “We don’t wanna ruin your perfect skin with, uh…UV rays.”
“Right.” A phantom tail lashes behind him. How does Nino make it so easy to smile? “What does UV stand for, again?”
“I—man, I don’t know. I’m not a meteorologist.”
“Isn’t that, like, the study of weather?”
“Okay, sorry I’m not a sun scientist. I’m literally just a DJ.”
Adrien snickers behind his free hand. “It’s fine, Nino. I don’t burn.”
“You don’t burn in the sun, either? What else? You can’t feel pain and sprout angel wings at will? I bought SPF 50 special for you!”
“I wish.”
And he half means it. Maybe Adrien would be better at living if the pain went away. Or being a better friend. The angel wings—cool—but not practical.
“You know, I’ve never had my nails painted before. Manicured and trimmed, yeah, but colors?” He smiles proudly at them, black and green like someone he knows. “Father would never let me.”
“You’re gonna be trying a shit ton of new things now that you—“ Their eyes catch like a hook in the mouth. Nino sinks. “S-sorry, I shouldn't have—that was uncool of me. I guess I really don’t have it in me to walk on eggshells. Especially when it comes to you.” Nino mumbles, absentmindedly pressing into the crease of Adrien’s fingertips to collect any mistakenly placed polish, to fix or to help him. Adrien always admired his honesty. “He was so controlling, dude. I want you to be happy, you know? You deserve to…try new things. See new people. Whatever you like.”
“Really? I, um—thank you.” Adrien can’t help the bubbling up in his throat, and all the way to his cheeks. He thinks for a moment. “Well, then, for starters…I like this.”
Adrien holds on to Nino as if asking a question. It’s fine if he pulls away or doesn’t squeeze back, really. Adrien has made his peace with a lot of things. Things he doesn’t deserve, people he’ll never have. He’s fine staying still and being Nino’s friend. He doesn’t think about what the word ‘more’ means.
“Hmm.” Nino’s hand is strong, structured like the walls of what a home might feel like—at least before he yanks him in. “I think I could do that, as long as you hold still. Seriously, are you nervous or do you just have to pee?” Adrien didn’t realize how much he’d been fidgeting with his rings. Hadn’t even seen how gorgeous Nino’s face looked when he grinned like that. “Am I making you nervous?”
“What? No!”
“Why’s your face all red then?”
“It's…from the sun.”
“I thought you said you didn’t burn?”
“I—“ Adrien starts, then drops his head against Nino’s shoulder with a pathetic whine. “Can you just do my nails? I didn’t sign up to be harassed!”
“They’re already done, you big baby. There,” Nino, puffed up and proud, shows Adrien his new hands. “Perfect, right? I’m thinking about quitting the whole DJ biz and just becoming a nail tech.”
“Dude, this—“ Adrien doesn’t have it in him, but the way he snorts definitely does. “Woah. I love it.”
Nino recoils. “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met!”
It’s awful, truly, a fourth-grader’s finger painting project. “No, no! I s-swear—“
“And you’re still going!”
“Ninoooo!” Adrien practically throws himself at him, limp and boneless and maybe he was a petulant child after all. Maybe Nino didn’t mind that. A mess of limbs on a plaid picnic blanket, they fall on their sides, heads in the grass and facing the other when Nino grabs him in a panic.
“Don’t move so much!” He pins Adrien’s hands flat against his chest. “You’re gonna ruin my hard work! I’m never painting your nails again.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!” Adrien interlocks their fingers instead, giggling madly and distracted by Nino’s silly laugh. Always distracted. “I’ll be good. Swear.”
“Good.” Nino grins, cheesy and way too close. He presses his hands to Adrien’s. “Now. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir? This would be the perfect time to hand-feed you grapes, don’t you think? Lounge by the pool while I fan you with a big leaf?”
There are grass stains on their jeans and a million things he wants to say, but Adrien keeps them close to his chest, tucked between his ribs and the teeth of his smile.
“No,” he laughs. “Just this.”