Title: It's not as insane as you think

Edit: July 30, 2013

"I'm fine, mom."

"You see faeries."

"And trolls."

"And trolls. But I don't see how this is related."

"Trolls are cool."

"You're in college, Nikolai."

"Your point?"

"Just… try to get a grip on reality."

"Mooooom."

"Why don't you go take your car for a spin, and we'll talk about this later."

"Moooooom."

"Why are you so whiney?" She shoved Nikolai out the door, looking extremely agitated. He barely had any time to grab his car keys before he was out of the house, the door slammed behind him. Nikolai sighed and ran his fingers through his pale blond hair, staring at the cracked staircase with distaste. When his mother got into one of those moods (a.k.a. the times when she detested Nikolai's magical, beautiful talent of seeing the supernatural), she would threaten to disown him and make him pay for his college tuition. Usually, the arguments would smooth over once Nikolai promised to do the chores around the house, but this time she had just stared at him petulantly until he shut up and listened to her rant.

Well. No point in arguing now. He went down the apartment steps, almost tripping over the tenth step. There had been an urban myth floating around in his apartment complex about a girl who cursed the tenth step of the tenth building, but he had merely dismissed it as a silly tall tale, something that his friend Arthur would most likely come up with to try and scare him. He glared at it, but the white step looked back at him innocently.

He finally reached his beat-up Toyota, the washed-out white paint chipping away at an alarming pace. It had a dent on one side because of that one time Mathias was drunk as hell, jacked his car, and ran into a telephone pole.

Needless to say, Nikolai had not been pleased.

He turned on the car and slid into his seat. He let his forehead rest on the steering wheel for a while, thinking about how horribly mistreated he was when a shuffling sound on the shotgun seat almost scared the crap out of him.

"Hey."

Nikolai turned his head to the passenger seat, almost not daring to look. His mouth fell open.

Next to him was an unnaturally silver-haired boy, like someone had dumped stardust over his head and washed it out with white gold. He looked a little younger than him, and his deceptively calm expression had a touch of amusement, if the little quirk on his lip indicated anything. His violet eyes inspected him, and he was buckled down safely with a seatbelt.

The first thing Nikolai did was jump on him.

"You…" Nikolai rasped, his face close to the other's face. The bright purple eyes widened in surprise. "How the fuck did you get in here?"

"Your window was open." He gestured to the open window at the back. Nikolai followed his gaze, and sure enough, it was open.

Except for the fact that it was a 'broken' kind of window now.

"You… broke in." This wasn't a question. It was a statement.

"Well, actually, I was hiding underneath your car." He explained in an infuriatingly calm manner, as though it was normal for some stranger to break into cars. "This crazy girl called Michelle was following me. So yeah. Also, there was a metal tube pipe thing under there, so I used it."

"To smash my car window open."

"Not exactly."

"…" Norway stared at him. He stared back. There was a very uncomfortably long staring contest afterwards before the younger boy cleared his throat, his fingers splayed across Nikolai's chest.

"Now, would you please stop straddling me, or else I'll yell rape." Nikolai blinked, and realized, with an inward groan, that he was straddling the other.

Great, Nikolai thought warily. My mother thinks I need therapy and some little kid is threatening to tell the cops that I'm a sexual offender.

"I could call the police and have you arrested." Nikolai said.

"Right back at you." The other retorted.

They came to a mutual understanding. Nikolai got off from him, glancing at him every now and then. The boy fluffed up his hair, making him resemble a makeup powder-puff.

"You… how old are you?" Nikolai asked.

"How old do I LOOK like?" He raised his eyebrow, as if challenging him to say anything deprecating.

"You act like you're 7, but I'll go with 16." Nikolai responded. He got a punch on his shoulder which actually kind of hurt.

"I'm 18." He huffed childishly. Nikolai resisted the urge to laugh. "The name's Kristian."

"Kristian." Nikolai repeated. "As in 'I'm-oh-so-religious-God-is-everything'?"

"No." Kristian replied. "As in 'I'm-going-to-kick-your-ass-if-you-ever-say-that-a gain'."

"How do you spell it?" Nikolai asked.

"With a K." Kristian replied.

"What kind of name is that?" Nikolai said. Kristian looked extremely offended, swatting Nikolai's arm with his gloved hands.

"A special kind of name. So what's your name?" Kristian asked.

Nikolai contemplated on whether or not he should give a psycho kid his real name, but after a few seconds of mulling over it, he reached the very enlightening thought of whatever. "Nikolai."

"Sounds girly." Nikolai punched his arm, albeit lightly.

"Fuck you." Nikolai said emotionlessly.

"Ooh, don't threaten me with a good time." Kristian whistled. Nikolai groaned, already regretting talking to the younger.

"Just get the fuck out of my car." Nikolai unbuckled Kristian's seatbelt. Kristian's eyes widened, and he started to protest loudly.

"No! What if the crazy bitch comes back again! I don't like it when I get my picture taken, you know!" Kristian shouted. Nikolai pushed him out from the car, and slammed the car door shut.

"Don't come back again!" Nikolai called out before backing the car out of the driveway. Kristian sent a murderous gaze (or as murderous as a flat, emotionless expression could conjure) before nervously looking around, resembling a secret agent on a mission. When he figured that it was all clear, he started to walk leisurely to... somewhere.

"KRISTIANNNNN!" A tanned looking girl, her hair in pigtails, jumped out from a bush. "I LOVE YOU! MARRY ME!" Kristian paled considerably.

"NO!" He yelled, starting to run. The girl (probably Michelle) raised her blue dress and started to chase after him. Nikolai watched this happen in amusement before cranking up the radio and going the opposite direction.

There wasn't any particular destination he had in mind. Nikolai just didn't know what to do. Apparently, seeing faeries and trolls were a bad thing. Mere hallucinations! His mother always chided him, asking why he wasn't like the other kids. God... he was perfectly fine. Gifted, of course, but misunderstood. Geniuses were always misunderstood. Like Einstein.

After circling his city about twenty times (the police had started to chase after him... they also gave him a ticket, for some reason) he decided to just go home. What else was there to do? Maybe he should just move out. Yes! Into the mountains, with all of the nisses and faes, circling around him as he went and hunted...

He parked his car in the open space, got out of the car, and bumped the door closed with his hip, swinging the car keys around his pointer finger. He walked up the steps, tripped over the tenth step (perhaps the urban myth wasn't such a myth after all?), and caught his balance right before he landed on a pile of bird shit. God, this seriously wasn't his day. He sighed, jammed the key into the door, and walked in.

"Nikolai!" His mother exclaimed. Before Nikolai could rant to his mom about how shitty his life was, his mother continued on. "I didn't know you had such a pretty friend!"

"...what?" Nikolai said, bemused.

"You know! The pretty guy! Man, he was so nice too!" She gushed on. Her hands waved wildly in the air, making her silver bangles clank against each other.

"Pretty guy?" Nikolai looked at his mother. SHE was the one going crazy, not him. "I don't have any friends... who are... pretty."

Which was true. Mathias was more of a chick-magnet-toned muscles, spiky hair, million dollar smile- which Nikolai was just stating as a fact. Tino was cute... he supposed. Looked more like a girl than a guy. He also had a scary-ass looking boyfriend called Berwald, who would beat anyone up if they hurt Tino. But Berwald was cool. He was awesome at the XBox and PS3. Or any game, seriously. Arthur was... handsome... probably. Mussed up strawberry blonde hair, who had a very sexy British accent.

Of course, he would die before he admitted that he found his fellow occult club member's accent attractive in any way.

He also had another list of friends to go through- which was weird, actually, since he wasn't exactly Mr. Popular. But he had a handful of friends who he actually enjoyed hanging out with, and his posse would differ from day-to-day depending on his schedule.

But pretty boys? He couldn't remember the last time he had found a member of his clique pretty.

"Where's this guy?" Nikolai asked, intent on cracking the mystery. His mom pointed at a vague direction, her manicured nails gleaming under the artificial light.

"Watching TV." She said cheerfully. "I can't believe you have a normal friend!" She wiped a single tear away from her face, staring off into the distance very dramatically. "My baby has grown! GROWN!"

"Uh, right." Nikolai edged towards the living room, trying to ignore his drama queen mother. "While you're crying, I'll go check up on my... friend..." She wiped her eyes daintily with a lace handkerchief and waved him off happily. Nikolai would've thought that he had been accepted into Harvard or something with the proud expression on her face.

Nikolai peered in and found -oh dear lord, please be a hallucination, please- Kristian, his legs curled underneath him, watching the television screen intently. Shouts and gun shots were heard.

"Why the FUCK are you in my house?" Nikolai said, his voice sounding flat. "How'd you even get in?"

Kristian turned around, and his eyes panicked for a second, as though he hadn't planned on a confrontation so soon. It immediately cleared up afterwards.

"Uh. Through the TV screen, of course." Kristian waved his hand towards the TV. "I mean, my TV isn't hooked up yet, and I need to watch Criminal Minds SOMEWHERE."

"Why… how'd you even find where I lived?" Nikolai asked, getting more and more suspicious. Was he a stalker or something? Should he have actually called the cops?

"Oh, I'm your neighbour." Kristian said. "I didn't know you lived in here. Your mom asked 'are you Nikolai's friend?' and since I knew your name, I said 'yes, ma'am', and she suddenly seemed starry eyed and charmed. She's very nice. Kudos to her cookies, by the way. They taste amazing." Nikolai had just noticed the plate of gingersnap-and-chocolate-chip cookies that were placed on the table, along with a mug filled with hot chocolate and whipped cream. When was the last time HE got to eat that?

"Uh…huh." There was nothing he could say. Nothing. He couldn't think of anything. Instead, he just settled on sitting on the same couch Kristian was sitting on. Mostly because there was only one couch. And he wasn't that big of a fan to sit on the floor.

"Your mom was talking about something." Kristian brought up casually.

"Mhmm?" Nikolai said, reaching for a cookie.

"Yeah. Something about you hallucinating."

Nikolai retracted his arm sharply, as though the cookie had burned him.

"I don't hallucinate." Nikolai said defensively, his tone sharp and on edge. Kristian picked up on the harsh voice immediately and turned to appraise him, his blank expression tinged with worry.

"Then…?" Kristian said, raising an eyebrow. "I don't mean to pry, but it just seems awfully weird how she would just ship you off."

Nikolai stared at him. "Forget it. You wouldn't understand." He grumbled uncharacteristically, kicking the couch in irritation.

"Aw… you can tell me, Nikkie."

"It's NIKOLAI!" Nikolai hit Kristian with a pillow, who shouted and retaliated with his own pillow-attack. They did that for a while, ignoring the TV and the gunshots before both sides conceded into a temporary truce, the boys panting and looking at each other with suppressed amusement.

"Alright, NIKOLAI. Your secret's safe with me." Kristian said, sounding rather sarcastic. He was also trying to pat down his hair, which had fluffed up due to the contact with the pillow.

"Like hell it would be." Nikolai muttered. "But sure. See, I see things-"

"See." Kristian repeated. Nikolai looked at him.

"What?" Nikolai said.

"You said it twice." Nikolai yanked his left cheek. "OW! That hurt!" He yelped.

"Nikolaiiii! Treat your friends nicely!" His mom's sing-song voice rang out. Nikolai groaned, but Kristian looked positively pleased.

"Listen to the lady." Kristian said. Nikolai gave him a glare.

"Just shut up for a second!" Nikolai said, exasperated. Kristian immediately closed his mouth and watched him intently, eyes seemingly enraptured with his words. "I can see things that no one else can. Like faeries, trolls, nisses… I can also do summoning and stuff."

Kristian gave him one long, blank stare. Nikolai messed up his hair in irritation.

"Argh, I knew you wouldn't believe-"

"It's cool." Kristian said. Nikolai looked up, and saw Kristian's large, orchid colored eyes boring down at him. "I believe you."

"…really." Nikolai said, sounding unimpressed.

"I'm serious." His tone was… well, dead serious. "That would be an awesome skill to have. Are there any right now?"

Nikolai looked at him, unsure of what to say. He took in a breath and exhaled, feeling his nerves jangle like a stack of crackers. "There's a faerie braiding your hair." He looked at the left side of Kristian. "She's also sprinkling dust over it."

"Why would she do that?" His tone sounded curious, not at all mocking. A rare thing to happen. Even that time when he explained to Tino (the only one he had ever talked to about this), Tino had just looked at him worriedly, his smile slightly forced.

"Well. To keep it in place. Although she's unraveling it now." Nikolai said. Sure enough, the green haired faerie unraveled it in record time before Kristian could turn his head to see it.

"Mmn." Kristian said softly. "I wish I could see it."

Somehow, Nikolai could believe that Kristian actually did.

"Do you have a car?" Nikolai asked, starting up the car. It beeped, honked, sputtered, and made a decent attempt at warming up the seats. Kristian stared at the ragged leather, sitting where he had sat when he met Nikolai.

"Yeah." Kristian said. "It's a pearl-white Porsche." Nikolai raised an eyebrow. "Of course I'm just kidding." Kristian rolled his eyes. "I have a bike."

"…really."

"Yes."

"You have to pay for breaking my window, you know."

A silence enveloped the car for a bit before Kristian turned around, looking grave and overly melodramatic.

"I have a proposal for you." He said sincerely. "Why don't I just strip for you? Seriously, that'll be easier."

Nikolai didn't know whether he should cry or laugh. "…You have to be kidding."

"I'm not."

"Right… keep on telling yourself that."

"What, do you want me to? Because I could do it right now." Promptly, Kristian started to undo his ribbon and popped open his buttons, revealing flashes of creamy white skin and slightly protruding bones.

"No, you retard!" Nikolai quickly reached over and re-did the ribbon, yanking it a bit too harshly. "Holy shit! Have some decency, you child!"

"Nikolai?"

Nikolai turned around, and, with an inward groan, saw the devil of annoyance reincarnated- Mathias. He leaned over and smiled dazzlingly, but Nikolai knew that it was only to hide the heart of black that was contained inside his muscular body.

"Mathias." Nikolai said, his voice hard and emotionless.

"May I ask why you're harassing a lil one?" Mathias said, his eyes dancing in amusement, as though he couldn't WAIT to tell everyone. In fact, Nikolai was about 120% sure that was what Mathias was thinking right now.

"I'm not."

"Then why are you undoing his ribbon?"

"I'm REDOING it, you jackass."

"Ah- that means you two have done the deed already?" Mathias cocked his head, his grin even wider now. "Excuse me, I'm so rude. I haven't even asked what your lady friend's name is."

"I'm male." Kristian said, his tone just as flat and emotionless as Nikolai's. "And we are not having sex." Nikolai and Mathias jerked in surprise.

"Wowza! Nikolai, where did you pick up this guy?" Mathias grinned. "He sounds like you! Hey, he could be your long-lost brother!"

"Shut the fuck up." Nikolai said, glaring at him. "He's this guy who broke into my car-"

"WOAH! He's quite feisty, then!" Mathias said, finally seeing the broken window. He let out a low whistle, as if impressed by the damage "He must be great at se-"

"GO BUG LARS." Nikolai said, almost tempted to punch him through the window. Lars was Mathias's friend from faraway Holland who was obsessed with money and was a rich young miser. He was also really good at having fun at parties he wasn't hosting- mostly because he could drink all the beer he wanted without spending a dime.

"I'll go tell the good news to everyone! Nikolai finally gets laid!" Mathias called out, causing a couple of heads to swivel in his direction. "Not that you're ugly! You just have this ice princess personality, which is actually quite a big turn on for some people-"

Nikolai stepped on the gas pedal -hard-and it immediately lurched forward, straight in Mathias's direction. Mathias yelped and ran the other way, his long legs, toned from all those years at track, propelling him forward at an inhumane pace.

"NOT FOR ME, OF COURSE, BUT SOME PEOPLE!" Mathias yelled, always wanting to have the last word. Nikolai sighed in defeat and instead turned on the radio.

"This song is for those with a cold personality, or, as some may call it, a beautiful ice princess! Lighten up and-"

He smashed it with his handy-dandy pipe, left behind by Ivan a few days ago. The radio was now broken into a million plastic-red pieces.

And Kristian just munched on his cookie, as if used to it.

"I'm not paying for that." Kristian said. Nikolai turned around and snatched the cookie away from Kristian. In one angry gulp, it was gone.

"Alright." Nikolai said, sighing. "Excuse me. That was Mathias. Most annoying guy ever. Goes to my University-"

"You're in University?" Kristian said, bemused.

"Would you stop cutting my sentences short?" Nikolai said, rolling his eyes. "Yes. I do. How old did I look like?"

"My age." Kristian said.

"I'll take that as a compliment. No, I'm 21. I major in Classics. I'm well-versed in four languages, but only because my friends are from all over the place. Actually, I don't even know why they even talk to me."

"Because you look like an ice princess?" That earned him a jab on his side. "Ow. Why do you keep on hitting me?"

"Because you have a smart mouth. Now shut up, or I'm making you pay full price for the window." Nikolai mumbled, raking his bangs back.

Kristian looked at him in surprise. "I don't have to pay full price?" He said, his voice sounding a bit hopeful.

"No. You owe me lunch, though." Nikolai said, his eyes trained on the road.

"I don't have money."

"Motherfucker."

Editing this was a pain.

Please review if you liked it!

And even if you didn't, constructive criticism is always welcome!