Chapter Text
“You have everything?” Ilya asked, for the thirteenth time in ten minutes. Luca got the distinct impression he was much more worried about this whole sleepover thing than Luca was, even if he was valiantly pretending to be very chill and nonchalant about it. It was only mildly embarrassing, having Roz fussing over him like he was a little kid off to his first ever slumber party. It would be worse if he was doing it in front of the team. It would probably also be worse if Roz wasn’t also embarrassed about his own fussing, which was why he was pretending not to be.
It was sweet, if Luca was honest. Made him feel like he was someone that mattered. Shane had insisted on helping him pack his backpack in his own version of motherhening and triple checked that Luca had all the things he needed for the night. Even, to his embarrassment, a pull-up tucked discreetly in the front pocket alongside a soska. Luca was mostly just glad neither of them had insisted on his bringing a diaper with him. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle the shame of it, if someone found the cutely patterned padding in his bag, even if he was only going to Youngs house.
“You have Blossom for bedtime?” Ilya asked. Luca nodded. He didn’t really need Blossom for bedtime when he was big, but well… he wasn’t opposed to having her. She was a nice weight in his arms and she smelt like home.
“She’s in my bag.” He promised. “I’ve got everything, Shane made sure.”
“You will call us if you need us, yes?” Ilya said.
“I’m just going to Nicky’s place.” He said, trying not to giggle at Ilya’s worry. It felt mean. It wasn’t unwarranted anyway, Luca’s dropping had been a bit…unpredictable at the moment with his teeth still coming in. He’d spent more time little than not, or hovering somewhere in-between. Sometimes it felt like the only time he was fully big was at practice or during games.
“You will call us if you need us.” Ilya repeated sternly. “For anything malsyh.”
“Okay.” Luca said. “I’ll be okay though, it’s just one night and I’m like 10 minutes away from home. I could walk back if I needed too.”
Nicky’s place was actually weirdly close to Shane and Ilya’s place. Probably because Shane had recommended it to him when he was looking to buy a place though. Ilya looked a little pained at the idea of Luca walking home, so he added a quick “but I promise I’ll call.” just to reassure him. He was subject to another round of questioning before he was actually allowed to get out of the car, promising that he would check-in every now and then for “shane’s” sake, and that he would let someone know as soon as he felt small with the caveat that no one would force him to come home unless he asked or Nicky dropped too. Which was unlikely but apparently enough of a risk Roz felt the need to add it to his list of things to make sure Luca knew before he went to hang out with his friend.
“Have fun zaychik.” Ilya acquiesced eventually, ruffling Luca’s hair as he was finally allowed out of the car. Luca, because he was big and trying not to embarrass himself, fought the urge to squeeze Roz into a tight hug goodbye as he climbed out the passenger seat. He waved almost the whole way up the drive, Roz not pulling away until Luca was inside.
He didn’t knock, on account of the fact he had his own key. Mostly because Young had a bad habit of locking himself out of his own house and Luca’s apartment was the closest for a rescue. He’d been told he was allowed to use it whenever he wanted though, which mostly meant not bothering to wait to be let in. He was promptly attacked by Nicky before he’d even finished getting his shoes off.
“I am so fucking glad you’re here dude.” He said, voice muffled by the fact his face was buried in Luca’s shoulder. He wasn’t much taller than Luca in reality, but when they were like this, with Young hunched to bury himself in Luca the difference felt more somehow. Not in a bad way, just… tangibly. He sounded happy and honestly kind of stressed. Unthinkingly, Luca rubbed a hand over his back.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just wired I think.” Young sighed, heavy and tired. He pulled back, giving Luca a lopsided grin. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.” Luca answered, hoping that his face wasn’t actually as red as it felt as they made their way out of the entryway towards Youngs living room. “We haven’t hung out in forever.”
“That’s because Roz and Hollzy are hogging you.” Young pouted, eyes sparkling with humour. Luca rolled his eyes, shoving him in the shoulder.
“Fuck all the way off.” He said.
“No I get it, you’ve abandoned us lowly rookies for the high life.” He sighed, the dramatic motherfucker that he was. “No time for the rest of us now that you’re living it up with the superstars—”
He was cut off by Luca smacking him in the face with one of his stupid novelty throw pillows. This particular one was cross stitched with ‘It's not a whore house its a whore home’ which had been a gift from Pointy; who had made it himself, because he was in his own words ‘a man of many talents’. Young blinked at him for a moment, stunned. Then he was arming himself and Luca was sprinting as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
The pillow war didn’t actually last for long, Young catching Luca after about ten minutes of a scooby doo style chase around the first floor of his house that involved a lot of the both of them accidentally slipping into walls because of Youngs stupidly well polished floors. Luca was promptly pummelled into the floor with a pillow until, in between breathless laughter and trying not to let his glasses go flying, he admitted defeat. They moved on quickly after that drifting from activity to activity.
Like most of the times they hung out, Young utilised the power of having someone else in his house to actually get things done, Luca following him from room to room as they talked at length about league drama, that asshole Jack Riley from Tampa who everyone kept trying to push them into being friends with for the sake of being able to keep all the littles in one group, Holmbergs secret girlfriend they weren’t supposed to know about.
Luca sat on his bed with a pillow in his lap watching him put away laundry, then they washed the dishes in the kitchen standing side by side at the sink, arms brushing when Luca would pass the dishes to Young to be dried and put away, because Young hated the idea of touching old food even when he had gloves on. Eventually, they gravitated back towards the living room and mario kart was turned on.
Luca probably liked hanging out with Young the most out of all the other rookies. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t like hanging out with Bergy and Pointy, it was just different with Nicky. It felt more settled. His phone chimed halfway through a round of rainbow road, and he ignored it in favour of trying to pull ahead of Nicky, only for it to buzz again incessantly as more texts came through. Nicky turned to him, brow furrowed.
“Who is it?”
“It’s just Roz.” Luca said. “He’s just checking in, it’s not urgent. I’ll let him know I’m fine in a second.”
“Oh.” Nicky said face scrunching up almost like he was annoyed. Luca didn’t know why, he had been happy literally two seconds ago.
“You good?” Luca asked raising a questioning brow as his phone chimed again. This time when he glanced over it was actually just the rookies groupchat, Pointy sending a meme or something probably, but Nicky laughed snidely.
“I’m fine.” Nicky said. His smile was mean as he paused the game, slouching off the couch. “I’m gonna go get a drink. You better text daddy back before he decides the baby is too precious for sleepovers.”
Luca blinked as Young disappeared, hot embarrassment sparking in his stomach. It left as quickly as it came though, because that was fucking weird. First of all because it was uncharacteristically mean of Nicky, who while he didn’t have the same reputation for being nice as Luca was certainly not a dick, but also because even if it wasn’t Nicky was little too. Why would he even chirp Luca about that?
Luca huffed, answering Pointy’s text first before letting Roz know that he was fine and getting off the couch himself to follow Nicky into the kitchen where he was lingering by the sink with a glass of juice. He was staring blankly at the tiles in front of him, breathing in slow for counts of six before holding them. He looked really tired. He looked like Luca had a few months ago.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, which startled Nicky bad enough he almost dropped his juice. He caught it in time, only some of it splashing over the rim of the glass onto his hand, but he made a feral, frustated little noise about it.
“Talk about what?” He snapped, setting the glass down roughly and turning the tap on to rinse his hand off. Luca stared at him pointedly.
“Whatever crawled up your ass and died.” He said blandly. “We were having fun, why are you being so weird now?”
“I’m not being weird.” Nicky said, glaring at Luca as he smacked the tap off again. “I’m getting a fucking drink, I know you’re probably not used to having to do things on your own Haasy, but that’s what people who don’t have mommy and daddy doting on them 24/7 have to do.”
“That’s what this is about? Your pissed I’m staying with Roz and Hollzy?” Luca asked, incredulous. Nicky scoffed.
“Forget it. Let’s just go back to the game.” He said, tipping the rest of his juice down the sink and moving to brush past Luca. Luca scowled, stopping him with a hand on his chest and pushing him back a little.
“No, I don’t want to play with you when you’re being a dick.” He said simply. “What’s going on? What’s the matter?”
“Oh my god you are such a baby.” Nicky snapped. “You don’t want to play with me? What are you five?”
“You’re a baby too!” Luca snapped right back. “You’re the one throwing a temper tantrum about fucking nothing!”
“I’m not throwing a temper tantrum!” Nicky shrieked, foot stomping alongside the shouting. Luca wondered if this was what he looked like, whenever he was the one insisting that he totally wasn’t little right now. It was sort of obvious now that it was right in front of him, the fact that Nicky was slipping. Luca was all too familiar with what it looked like to regress involuntarily and unexpectedly. It was upsetting and scary and it made you kind of a dick.
“Okay. You aren’t throwing a tantrum and you aren’t upset about anything.” Luca took a big breath in, calming himself down. Nicky blinked, deflating like the wind had been taken out of his sails when he realised Luca wasn’t going to fight with him. “Do you want to keep playing mario kart?”
“What?” Nicky asked, blinking at Luca with wide eyes.
“You said your fine, I believe you.” Luca said simply, reaching forward to take Nicky’s hand. His fingertips brushed against his pulse-point, which was thumping rapidly. He was probably scared. Luca squeezed their linked hands gently. “I’m here, we’re both okay. Lets keep playing okay?”
“Okay.” Nicky agreed, nodding his head and swallowing thickly. He cleared it awkwardly once they were sat back on the couch, picking at the edges of his throw blanket while Luca found their discarded controllers and switched them off rainbow road to a slightly easier track. “I’m sorry for calling you a baby. Wasn’t nice.”
“I’m sorry I called you a dick.” Luca shrugged easily, sitting back down as the jaunty theme music for moo moo meadows played. He reached over for Nicky, tugging him towards him for a cuddle. Nicky went easily, settling against Luca’s side until they were slumped together completely. The sniffling started not long after.
Nicky rubbed at his eyes, trying to wipe away tears that hadn’t actually fallen yet while his breath hitched. Luca didn’t really know what to do. He didn’t know if Nicky was hungry or tired or just plain old sad. He was just a baby too. Babies weren’t supposed to look after babies, only bunnies.
“Do you want me to take you to the centre?” Luca asked softly, rubbing Nicky’s back the way daddy and papa did for him when he was sad. He would need to call them after he called the centre for Nicky, because that had been the rules, but Nicky seemed littler than Luca right now so he should probably go first. Luca was surprised when Nicky shook his head sadly, the tears spilling over properly as a whimpered “No” fell from his mouth that was quickly muffled by Luca’s shoulder.
“No centre?” Luca asked, and Nicky nodded into his shoulder. “Why not?”
Nicky shrugged again, his thumb making it’s way to his mouth. Luca tutted like daddy did, wriggling out of their cuddle pile to go find his backpack and dig his soska out of the front pocket. Nicky watched him from the couch and Luca smiled at him reassuringly as he plopped back down beside him to hand him the soska.
“This is mine, but you can borrow it. Fingers are yucky.” He explained, swapping Nicky’s thumb for the soother. Nicky furrowed his brow at Luca as he sucked on it experimentally, but it smoothed out quickly. “How come you don’t want to go to the centre? Did something bad happen?”
“Just don’t like it anymore.” Nicky said, scrubbing a fist over his cheeks with a sad sniff. “I want a mommy and daddy too.”
“Oh.” Luca said thoughtfully. That made sense, Luca liked having daddy and papa a lot more than he liked going to the centre. “I can share my daddy and my papa with you, they’re really good.”
Nicky shook his head again. “No, want my own.”
“Maybe Hazy can be your daddy.” Luca suggested. “He looks after you sometimes, right?”
“Dunno.” Nicky mumbled. “What if he doesn’t want me like your daddy and papa want you?”
“Then he’s dumb.” Luca decided. “And you can borrow my daddy and my papa until we find you your own daddy and papa, okay? Like my soska.”
“Okay.” Nicky nodded, snuggling back up to Luca who wrapped him up tight like Papa did and patted his back gently. It was too bad Nicky didn’t have his own Blossom or soska. Luca would have to tell Hazy he needed them when he was Nicky’s daddy. Luca blinked in surprise when Nicky got heavier all of a sudden, eyes closed and breath slow, fast asleep in Luca’s arms. Huh, maybe he had been tired.
Gently, Luca wriggled just far enough out of the cuddle pile so that he could reach his phone, clumsily opening it to find daddy’s number. Luckily Luca didn’t need to look very far, because it was right at the tippy top. It only rang twice before daddy answered.
“Hey buddy, what’s going on?” His voice was tinny through the phone. Luca hummed.
“Nicky’s itty bitty but he doesn’t wanna go to a centre so I said he could borrow my daddy and my papa.” He explained. Daddy was quiet for a second. Luca imagined he was making his thinking face.
“Nicky is little?” He asked, surprised. That made sense. Nicky wasn’t usually little when he didn’t mean to be.
“Mmhmm. He’s sad so he’s taking a nap.” Luca explained. “I’m taking care of him. I gave him a cuddle and my soska so he wouldn’t be sad anymore.”
“That’s nice of you baby.” Daddy said. “Where are you both?”
“In Nicky’s house on the couch.” Luca reported dutifully. “We played mario kart. Will you be super fast daddy? I don’t know how to look after a baby.”
“We’ll be so fast baby.” Daddy promised. “Just stay right where you are until we get there though, okay?”
“Okay daddy.” Luca nodded. He didn’t think he would be going anywhere, considering Nicky was napping on top of him and it felt mean to wake him up. Now he just had to wait for daddy and papa to get here.