Nikola’s P.O.V

I know that you’re technically an adult now, but I know how much you love them. Plus, there’s no real age limit on legos,

Hagen.

I swipe my fingers over Hagen’s obnoxiously large handwriting, the words barely fitting on the tag attached to the large gift bag and read them over twice more. I let the tag rest before I dip my hands inside and pull out the box marked ‘BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT EVER’.

I’m sure I would’ve smiled if I wasn’t so tired, but even that small stretch of muscles would’ve ached.

I doubted any person who had to endure shutdowns enjoyed them, but I truly loathed them.

I knew it differed for every person, supernatural or not. No brain was exactly the same, so it varied, but I was one of the unlucky ones who were left painfully aware when my brain crashed.

I felt it climb up and watched it happen while remaining frustratingly incapable of making it stop as if I were placed as both player and spectator in some terrible game.

It was being made mute that I hated most. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a garrulous individual; it was infuriating to have the ability, the choice, stripped away.

But I’d learned not to hate myself because of it. It only made things worse.

All I could do was learn my triggers and remove myself from any stressful situation that could make my brain regress to only performing the most basic functions. I’d done that over the years, and thankfully, I hadn’t experienced a shutdown in years.

Not until Thursday.

Nothing could’ve stopped the crash after I was forced to watch Hagen’s hopeful expression slowly twist into one of pained regret before he’d turned away, his brown eyes made wet because of me.

It had all been too much. Amongst fighting against my maddening instincts to claim him and the agony that came with keeping us apart, seeing that look on his face had been too much.

Hagen hadn’t even made it to the bottom step of our staircase before my brain unplugged, allowing my magic to escape in a torrent without my usual control over my magic.

Torrent was the only way to describe the destruction.

Ma had reconfigured most of the house by the time I’d picked myself up from the corner in my room I’d shrunk into, but there were still parts of it that smoked, piles of our home reduced to rubble.

Ma and Dad were great about it, they always were, but that didn’t help soothe the misery that followed after seeing what I’d done to the house.

The only thing that was worse than that was recovering what I’d done to my mate. My Hagen, who I’d somehow managed to hurt when I was only trying to protect him.

That torn expression flashes before my eyes once again, forcing the jagged blade of my guilt to sink even deeper.

This won’t help – Neo advises, his worry evident as I free the pieces of tape keeping the box together – it will only hurt more.

I lift the top of the box and pass my eyes over the carefully labelled, pink ziplock bags that held lego blocks in each.

At first glance, they seemed to be sectioned by size, but the second revealed that their colours also separated them. Resting atop them all was a small booklet, a handcrafted instruction manual filled with Hagen’s scrappy handwriting.

When you finish, you’ll see what it is! Happy Birthday, Nikola!

My eyes linger on the last page, and it’s two lonely sentences for a while.

The last three words replay themselves, coming to me in the harsh whisper Hagen had muttered before he’d dropped this and left.

Nikola – Neo tries, but I ignore him as I bring the box to the floor and start laying everything out.

I enjoyed legos, puzzles and problems too, but I usually avoided doing them until I had a sectioned time to get lost within them, though now all I had was time.

I hadn’t left my room since Hagen’s visit, not that I could with the barriers surrounding it.

After I’d left Hagen following our date, I’d barely made it home before I’d passed out immediately from maintaining the agony of keeping us apart. When I came to, Ma was there, telling me all about ‘Mate Awareness’ with a grim expression on her face.

I learned that Mate Awareness was the term coined for the agony that came to a pair of mates who allowed any barrier to come between them. Even a closed-door would trigger it, and it only got worse the longer the pair were kept apart.

The answer was simple to me, to take the pain away from Hagen so he wouldn’t hurt, but Ma didn’t like that. She wanted me to tell Hagen to stop barring the pain of it on my own, and I wanted her to stay out of it. Dad had tried to keep things civil, but he agreed with her.

The last thing I wanted was to fight with my parents on my birthday, but that’s exactly what we’d done.

But no amount of arguing could make me change my mind, especially when the matters I had to deal with kept increasing.

Suddenly, it wasn’t just the link, but our new bond, and the added misery of being apart.

Taking the pain away from Hagen didn’t dim mine in the slightest, only making my need to be with him worse, so to be safe, I’d locked myself away, placing unbreakable barriers around the borders of my bedroom to keep me away from him.

The plan was to stay barricaded behind until I was certain I could control myself around my mate, even if that meant formulating spells to do it.

The last thing I’d expected was for Hagen to come to me.

Agony couldn’t describe the pain of keeping us apart in that moment when all I wanted was to be close to him, only made worse when he’d tried so hard to draw close.

I wanted to explain, to tell Hagen exactly what was happening, but I didn’t want him to be scared of me, and he would’ve been.

He’d only just agreed to try, to give us a chance if we took things at his pace. If I told him that I was barely keeping myself from claiming him, he would’ve run, and I couldn’t have that.

But in the end, even with my best efforts, I’d ended up hurting him.

I seemed to always end up hurting him.

Looking over the waiting legos, I ignore Neo’s warnings and start putting them together.

I follow Hagen’s careful instructions despite each line making my heart bleed with the clear effort that he put into this, for me. All the while, I picture Hagen’s smile and that bright light in his eyes that I’d smothered not even a day later.

It’s a mystery, how much time passes before I finish, but I’m sure even more drifts by while I stay in my place, staring blankly at the lifesize Lego Emperor penguin.

Neo’s voice gets lost in the chaos that floods in unabashed, the ones that twist my emotions and thoughts into a mangled mess that leaves me hollow.

My chest twists itself into knots, making each breath short and laboured, but I ignore it as I start dismantling the penguin, piece by piece, even as my vision blurs and my fingers shake.

───────────────────

A knock on the door makes me stiffen, but it doesn’t take my attention away from the 1681 legos in front of me.

I’d counted the pieces during my sixth construction and then once more on my eighth to make sure I hadn’t miscounted. I was on my twenty-third construction now and no longer needed the manual, but it still remained laid out in front of me.

“Nikola,”

My fingers freeze at the sound of Damon’s voice, strange to hear within my own home.

I check my calendar. Today was Saturday, not Tuesday, so I hadn’t missed our usual meetings, though that didn’t matter when those always happened in his office, not in my home.

It wasn’t that Damon never came over because he did, during those few times Ma and Dad hosted for their friends, but even when he was here, he never came to my room. Nobody did.

I didn’t like having people in my room.

My fingers remain stuck in their place while my mind wavers, trying to find the words whilst making a decision.

“Come in,” I manage before I press the small black cube into its place.

The door opens just enough for Damon to slip inside before it shuts behind him, closing us within the space of thrumming magic that undoubtedly made him uncomfortable, but he doesn’t make any of his usual comments.

I listen to his steps as he draws closer until I glimpse a familiar figure settle at my side from my periphery. He looks around, no doubt for Knots who’d been hiding from me with how unstable I’d been recently.

When nothing comes out to assail him with snuggles made of cold scales, Damon relaxes and focuses his attention on the base of the lego sculpture. He stays quiet until I finally glance at him in a silent cue that he could talk.

“Apollos called me,” he explains without me having to ask, “told me you had a shutdown.”

I nod as I take another black cube in hand.

“Will wanted to come, but I thought that might be too much,”

I nod. I liked Will, he was one of the few people in this world I trusted, but I trusted Damon more, especially when I was like this.

“I ruined everything,” It takes some effort, but I get the words out eventually.

Damon raises a hand aimed for my shoulder but he drops it when I stiffen, “You didn’t.”

“I did,” I argue, chest tightening, “he came to me, he tried to talk, and I…” I rub my fingers over the block’s ridges and breathe deep, “I ruined everything.”

Damon could say differently, find ways to argue the fact, but it was still a fact.

“Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?” He offers after a moment, “If it’s too much, I’ll leave so you can build your…”

“Penguin,” I fill in. That came easier, as did most things that involved penguins.

Damon snorts, “Of course it is. Let me guess, an Emperor penguin?”

I nod. Emperor penguins were my favourite animals; anyone who knew me knew that.

Hagen knew that.

I wasn’t sure what it was about them that I loved so much. I could only remember being four when I saw one for the first time I saw one on TV, and instantly, I decided that they were my animal.

It was highly unlikely that the opportunity would present itself, but if I was ever put in the position, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I’d take a bullet for one.

I’d do anything for the species.

“It’ll take a while,” I reply when I’m able to lift my eyes to Damon again.

Damon offers me a smile, one of his kind, open ones that he reserved for pack and pack alone, “I’ve got time.”

I highly doubted that.

Damon was a busy man. He had a family, a mate and an entire pack depending on him, and still, he made the time for me. I could never understand why.

To this day, Damon refused to tell me why he’d appeared at our door when I was eleven, asking to stay for dinner where he’d made his case of becoming my ‘mentor’ – the title still felt odd to me.

I knew that he’d initially tried to speak to me because William had asked and there wasn’t a thing in this world that Damon wouldn’t do for his mate, but our first encounter hadn’t been good.

I’d been annoyed that my time was being wasted with Hagen’s older brother instead of Hagen himself, not that Damon had been particularly delighted to see me either. I’d broken his ribs a few months prior, and he hadn’t been shy to let me know that he didn’t want to spend any time with his ′brother’s stalker’.

During that first sit-down, we’d ended up staring at one another for almost an hour before Damon finally opened his mouth and said, “So, you have really fucked up issues, huh?”

I’d left immediately.

With the thought that my future alpha was even dumber than I’d originally thought, I’d carried on with my usual route, believing that that was the end of that. But then Damon had shown up at the house a month later and made his case.

Only Goddess knew why Damon had set his mind on working so hard with me when I pushed him away at every turn, but I thanked her for it constantly. Because after all these years, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Damon cared about me, and that was enough for me.

So, with some effort and too much time, I tell him everything.

About the date, how wonderful it had been, how I’d done all we’d practised, and how I’d made Hagen smile twenty-five times. I tell him how Hagen had agreed to give me a chance and how that chance had been ripped from me almost instantly.

We’d expected things to be different with the bond, but the overwhelming need to claim Hagen was nothing like the link I’d worked all these years to overcome.

Damon listened to it all, even as I struggled to share how things had quickly fallen apart from there, peaking when Hagen showed up, wanting to talk at the worst possible time.

I don’t have to explain the details of why it all went wrong afterwards.

Damon knew how I struggled to say the right things when I was stressed or felt out of control.

A feeling that had only been made worse when I’d eventually peered into the crumpled gift bag Hagen had felt behind.

But I don’t tell Damon about that.

I couldn’t because having to voice that the pieces before us had been carefully put together by Hagen himself to create this special model of my favourite animal was more than I knew what to do with.

By the end of it, I find myself fighting a headache, exhausted from the growing ache in my chest that made each breath an unenjoyable challenge.

“You can’t blame yourself,” Damon says after some time.

I make a non-committal sound.

“Don’t give me that shit,” Damon snaps, “you did the right thing.”

My eyebrows pull a little closer together.

I knew that I’d done the right thing by keeping distance between Hagen and me. But in doing so, I’d also pushed Hagen away when he’d tried to make a real effort between us for the first time.

Goddess only knew if he’d do it again. That parting look in his eyes said he wouldn’t.

“Nikola,” Damon says, bringing my focus back to him when I hadn’t even realised it wavered. But when my eyes reach his blue, steady ones, I feel the dark magic encroaching on my room.

I calm myself through deep, extended breaths that stretch my lungs to their capacity for several seconds before I let them shrink and start again.

The constant press of my defiant magic wasn’t anything new. I was used to the strain of it. What was different was the weighted urges that made me itch all over, pushing me to see him, to close the unbearable distance I was keeping from the one person who could make it better.

It wasn’t a lie, Hagen would make it better, he always did, but I would only make it worse.

“You have to tell him, Nikola,”

I didn’t have to do anything.

Damon sighs before rewording, “Don’t you think it is best to tell him?”

The topic isn’t anything new, but it still causes my jaw to tighten with aggravation.

I shake my head.

I didn’t have to look at Damon to feel the way his gaze hardened on me.

“It’s different now Nikola. It’s not just you fighting for your bond, Hagen wants to try as well, he told you that,” Damon presses beside me, “it will help you guys move forward if Hagen knows you better. You have to tell him.”

I shake my head again.

“It’s not always going to be pity,” Damon argues not for the first time.

“I don’t trust him,”

Damon quiets, his discomfort at the admission only troubling to him.

There were only a handful of people in this world that knew I was autistic; my parents, Dr.Otu, Damon, Jacob and Will, and while each of them told me I should tell more people, I wasn’t inclined to expand that list.

I understood my disorder enough that I knew why it was a ‘good idea’ to tell more people. Logically, it would make my life easier because if people knew I was autistic, it would give them a chance to understand me a bit better – or as best as they could seeing the engma my brain was in its own spectrum – and maybe then people would stop calling me a freak.

But it always gave them the opportunity to pity me.

When most supernatural individuals heard the word autism, pity was all that followed, that and the undeniable sense that you were somehow damaged. Their perspective immediately changed as if autistic also meant helpless, when it simply meant that I was wired differently than most people.

I didn’t care very much how people looked at me, but I didn’t appreciate being handled or coddled.

Autistic or not, I was still a powerful warlock who operated just fine in this world. It had taken some time since it’d been hard to understand why nobody else thought like me as a kid, but I knew now and I functioned much better now.

I didn’t need pity.

So I only shared that information about myself with people I trusted, and I did not trust Hagen.

I loved Hagen, more than anything in this world. I wouldn’t hesitate to offer my life to preserve his or take others to do the same.

Hagen Calderon was all I cared about, but I didn’t trust him, not with myself.

“Nik-”

“No,” I snap, eyes reaching Damon’s to make sure that he saw this wasn’t something he could push me towards.

I would tell Hagen one day, when I felt comfortable to do so, but not a moment before.

Damon rubs his hand over his face with that groan he makes whenever he was struggling to understand me.

“Will you at least tell him about this Mate Awareness shit?”

I shake my head.

Another groan.

“Mate Awareness comes with pairs who need a push,” Damon explains carefully, as if I wasn’t aware, “hiding it from him might just set you back more.”

“I don’t want him to hurt, and I will not force him to be with me to alleviate it,” I reply simply.

Goddess is giving us a way to be together! – Neo whines miserably – why won’t you take it?!??!

Because Hagen wouldn’t like it.

That was a fact.

We were taking things at his pace, and I was okay to do just that until he felt eager to be with me.

“Well, you have to tell him something, Nik,” Damon presses as he pushes his blonde hair back, “strained bonds are never good, and you’ve already dealt with more than enough of that to last a lifetime. You’re hurting both you and him by doing nothing.”

“I am doing everything I can,” I grind out as I flick my gaze to him. “It’s worse than before. I can’t trust myself around him right now.”

“I know, that’s not what I meant,” Damon corrects with a raised hand, “I mean, you have to find a way to tell him precisely that.”

I scoff, “You want me to tell Hagen that I am literally jailing myself because all I want to do is claim him. That if I’m near him right now, I’ll try to fu-”

“Ahhhhhh!” Damon shouts, his hands quickly finding his ears. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

My eyes roll, “You’re being dramatic.”

“You’re being disgusting!” Damon shoots back while he wrinkles his nose with a deepening frown, “I know he’s your mate and shit, but he’s still my little brother.”

“I’m aware,” I deadpan before I redirect us to the topic at hand. “If I tell Hagen, he’ll run away.”

I wasn’t going to give him that chance. I’d promised him that I’d be better and I would not go back on my promise.

“I’m not saying to share all the gory details that you’re clearly trying to scar me with,” Damon mutters, still shuddering, “I’m saying, you need to give him some piece of the truth until you learn to trust him with more, or else he’s going to think of the worse.”

Neo whines at the prospect, trying to fight his way to the front so he could take over and ‘fix it’. While I didn’t doubt that Neo was better at explaining things than me, I knew that with one whiff of Hagen’s scent, he’d lose all sense.

“How is he?”

I’d stopped myself from asking the question for as long as I could manage, but with so much focus on my linker, I couldn’t stop the words from coming out.

Damon grimace says more than words could, and it guts me.

“You just have to talk to him,”

I spear a look at Damon that says enough.

Just getting ready for the date had taken countless hours of planning and preparation on my end. I’d cultivated endless scenarios and carefully worked out the most appropriate response for each, and I’d still been a disturbingly anxious force throughout the majority of the night.

“Okay, you’re not good with your words, so show him. Use that highly overrated magic and figure out a way to show him what you can’t put into words. I’m sure once you do, Hagen will understand.”

“If it’s not too late by that point,” I counter tasting bile on my tongue.

Two days had already passed since Hagen came to see me, to give me the gift I hadn’t parted from since I opened it.

I never understood self-inflicted torture until now.

“Now you’re being stupid,” Damon chides, “you needed to maintain space, which I understand and commend you for doing. But you have to figure out the next step. What are you going to do once you do get a handle on things?”

It was like talking to a chimpanzee, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t do well without having your shit laid out,”

“I know that,”

“So,” Damon stretches, “let’s try thinking back to when we first started talking. What was the first thing we did?”

The answer came easily, “We made a plan.”

“Yes, because you like them, and you always follow them to the fucking letter,” Damon says in a slight grimace as if that were a problem.

It wasn’t my fault he was so incompetent with structure.

“You’re not going to get anywhere with Hagen at this rate,” he continues with a shrug, “you’ll be running in circles forever, and trust doesn’t come without effort. So do what you do best, and make a fucking plan.”

I frown as I watch Damon stand up, stretching from side to side as if the conversation was concluded.

When he finds me staring at him, he drops his arms and makes a big show of pretending to be tired.

“Goddess, do I have to do everything for you? Aren’t you supposed to be some smart and powerful hybrid?

I scowl, and he grins.

“Start by setting out some immovable goals for your relationship like telling Hagen about your autism, and I don’t know,” he thinks, “your first kiss or something. When you got those, put some adjustable steps in there,” Damon lists before he gestures to my half built penguin. “think of it like building blocks to lead you to the end product, which should be a stable, happy bond.”

My body tenses as my mind grows blissfully quiet for the first time since Thursday.

It just blanks out for a moment before a spark ignites and burns brightly within. Like a new path flourishing etched into a previously granite road, my mind starts layering new ideas to formulate a plan.

Damon grins, reading me with ease, “You are welcome.”

“Thank you,” I reply, filling the words with my gratitude.

I watch the light behind Damon’s blue eyes brighten, the joyous flame immediately brightening the pack bond.

Damon was an alpha in every sense of the word; taller than most wolves with muscles that testified to his strength, that everpresent aura of strength. But that wasn’t what made Damon a good alpha – a real one. It was the way caring for those in his pack genuinely made him happy.

We might’ve been closer than most, but I knew, like everyone else in the pack, that Damon just wanted the best for us.

“You going to be okay?” He questions as he glances at the door, “Or do you want me to stay and see the end product of this penguin.”

I shake my head, not wanting him here any longer so that I can get to work.

“Then I’m going to fuck off,” he says, gesturing his thumb over his shoulder, “try not to burn down my pack until our next meeting.”

I ignore Damon’s teasing, knowing that he just liked getting reactions out of me.

Besides, I had a plan to make.

———————

Damon and Nikola is a pair I didn’t know I loved until I got it.

Thoughts?????

Thoughts on the gift? On Nikola’s shutdown and the chat with Damon?

I really wanted to get into Nikola’s thoughts in this chapter. I imagined with everything he was dealing with, it must’ve been crazy stressful and I didn’t want to just gloss over that. He’s really trying his best, and that just makes me love him even more.

I’m beyond excited for you guys to see what happens next, but hopefully you guys enjoyed this chapter even if it was sad to start with.

Vote and comment if you did! I always love hearing your thoughts!

Until next time,
Byeeeeee Humanssssssssssss