Hey! I'm alive. And!, I have a Tumblr (so stop bugging me about it!). I think that should be suitable explanation as to why this chapter took me so long to write when I've been on summer break for five days.

Also, be prepared, because I feel like the two chapters after this are going to be INTENSE. So get excited. On another, random, note: I go to camp on the tenth, so when I drop off the face of the planet then…you know why.

So, without further ado, enjoy ;)

"Hey Nikolai, if I found Chesh and you agreed to keep him, does that make us both his parents?" Adrian asked as he waved a string of yarn in front of Chesh's face.

Nikolai paused and turned around towards Adrian, not believing those words had just left his mouth.

"Of course not, are you insane? That's.. weird." Nikolai objected, blushing furiously as he turned around to speak to Adrian.

Nikolai didn't necessarily want to be there at the moment, in Adrian's back yard working on his garden while Adrian played with Chesh behind him. Well, Nikolai did want to be there, but it was who he was here with that was the problem. It had been three hours since Nikolai had started on the new garden, and he was pretty sure Adrian still had yet to stay silent for a full minute, whether it was him cooing at Chesh or firing random questions at Nikolai. The only thing actually keeping the Bulgarian sane at the moment was the methodical planting of flowers. The pattern of dig, plant, cover with dirt was somewhat mesmerizing to him. But even that didn't stop his embarrassment over the question Adrian asked.

'Who the hell asks that kind of thing? Doesn't he know that's awkward?' Nikolai thought.

"How's it weird? Chesh needs a good parent to make up for his traumatic abandonment." Adrian protested, cuddling Chesh to him protectively.

Nikolai watched the small cat meow pititufully while looking up at him.

'God, this thing was worse than Adrian.' Nikolai thought bitterly, referring to how many times he had or been tempted to give into crazy things Adrian asked because of Adrian's adorablenesss.

'Adorableness…?'

"Fine, but you're the mother." Nikolai sighed.

Adrian's entire face lit up after that, and then he began gushing about how awesome of parents they were going to be together and how great of a childhood Chesh would have now that he had new parents that wouldn't leave him.

Nikolai turned back to his gardening because he couldn't help the small smile that spread across his face as he listened to the absurd things Adrian was saying right now.

"…and then, when you graduate from Kitty college you can't become a world renowned musician or something. A meow-sician! Or you could be the purr-esident of the U-meow-ted States of A-Meow-ica! Everyone will love you Chesh, and Nikolai and I will be there to cheer you on the entire way. Or, you could choose an alternate path to college and go into apprenticeship. I don't really know what you would do there. Oh, I know! You could become a meow-gician!…"

Adrian just kept going and going.

Nikolai couldn't help but think for the briefest of moments that it was nice to hear Adrian like this. When Nikolai didn't really have to pay attention to what he was saying in effort to respond appropriately, but could simply just listen to the happiness in his voice. It was strange to him, Nikolai had never admired someone's voice that way before. But he just found himself doing that with Adrian.

Thinking of Adrian's happiness led him to think of last night where Adrian's mood could only be classified as frightened or worried. He'd still managed to stand up for Nikolai, probably digging himself even deeper into a hole in Ivan's opinion, even though it was obvious he too was scared of the unnaturally tall Russian. The ride home after the encounter with Ivan had been quiet. Before they'd left the parking lot, Alfred and Arthur gave them both of their numbers, saying that they needed to hang out more and if Ivan happened to bother them again, to not hesitate to call them. Nikolai thought about that piece of paper with Alfred and Arthur's phone numbers sitting on his dresser. Somehow, it made him feel all the more safer. As a parting goodbye, Alfred promised both the high school students that now that they were on Ivan's bad list, they were his friends. And that meant that he would protect them no matter what.

Nikolai felt calmer after that. He had no idea why, Alfred and Arthur weren't the ideal image of heros. Arthur was thin and stout while Alfred was tall and anything but big, but the way Alfred spoke to them, the infliction in his voice, was enough to make Nikolai sleep comfortably at night. And if Adrian's mood was anything to go off of, he didn't have trouble sleeping last night either.

Nikolai went home after he finished the garden, not thinking too much about what Adrain had told him.

Planting so many flowers had done wonders for his nerves, he felt brilliant. He even found himself whistling in the shower as he washed off all the sweat and dirt he'd gotten on himself while gardening.

Alesander was home, but asleep. He'd stayed out quite late last night with Katyusha. The only reason Nikolai knew he was in the house was because of the car in their garage. Nikolai had thought to tell Alesander about what had happened last night, but found that he couldn't. Alfred and Arthur had made it abundantly clear that everything about last night should stay on the down low. Nikolai didn't know what the college students had to do with Ivan, or why they knew him in the first place, but Nikolai wasn't about to argue with Arthur when he said this.

Besides, even if he did tell Alesander, he knew his brother wouldn't do anything, but that still left the matter of Katyusha. Nikolai trusted his brother with all his heart, but Alesander could be daft at times and something could slip and that could put all of them in an odd situation. And knowing Kat, she'd be so lost on what to do she'd probably start crying.

So Nikolai just kept quiet, deciding this was just something he was going to have to shoulder himself.

The next day went by indolently, Nikolai found himself asleep in random places throughout his house for half the day, and the other half was spent reading outside, surrounded by the plants that were in his garden. He was a little hesitant to go outside at first, he wasn't sure if he could handle three days straight of Adrian, but in the end he just decided to risk it. He stayed outside until it started getting dark and the mosquitoes started biting. As he was leaving, Nikolai couldn't help but wonder where Adrain was. From past experiences he was hardly able to be outside for ten minutes without Adrian appearing out of nowhere.

Nikolai actually didn't see Adrain until the next day at school. He was early to his first hour class since he didn't have to worry about Milica for once and his new locker had been moved so it was right outside of his home room.

Adrian was sleeping when Nikolai came into the classroom, his arms were folded under his head and his hair was in a disarray. He looked utterly exhausted.

'He must've worn himself out with all the excitement he's had for the past few days. I'd be tired to if I've done nothing but smile for the last three days.' Nikolai thought, setting his bag down by his desk before sitting down and getting his book and notebook out. Looking at his notebook reminded Nikolai of the last day of class when Adrian had fervently been taking notes. He had forgotten to ask the blonde about it since it was odd for anyone to take notes in this class unless the teacher demanded it.

Nikolai looked over until he caught sight of the notebook Adrian had been using Friday, it was open, but Adrian's arms and head were resting on top of it.

Never before in Nikolai's life had he been curious about something enough that he considered stealing. All he really wanted to know is why Adrian was taking so many notes, that's all. Nikolai was at a loss as to why it mattered so much to him.

There was a small sigh from Adrian and Nikolai found himself turning his attention away from his notebook to the text book in front of him as Adrian woke up and sat up straight in his seat. The bell rang then, and the teacher came into the classroom shortly afterwards so Adrian had little time to address Nikolai's presence or engage in any type of conversation with him. Thank god.

The rest of the class and the morning went by remarkably quickly, aside from a literature test he'd forgotten about over the weekend. Just as Nikolai was wondering what to do for lunch, (now that Milica had broken up with him he didn't really know where to sit) Adrian caught up with him and pulled him off to a table in the corner of the cafeteria- despite his protests.

The table Adrian led him to had six people sitting around it, two of which Nikolai recognized, Toris and his boyfriend. Six other boys also sat there, one with short blonde hair and glasses who was typing on a keyboard, and one short kid with blonde hair who appeared to be shaking.

An extremely tall man whom Nikolai recognized as the Swedish foreign exchange student sat next to the shaking boy looking straight ahead with a blank expression sat next to a merry looking blonde who was chatting it up with another blonde with wild spikey hair. There was one last person who sat on the other side of the spiky haired kid, he looked bored out of his mind and irritated at the same time. Nikolai liked him the most.

"Nikolai, this is my friend Tino, we met in English. He invited us to sit with him and his friends at lunch." Adrian said, taking a seat next to Tino as he spoke and smiling at Nikolai as he sat down next to the silent and bored looking man.

The merry looking boy whom Nikolai guessed was Tino- guessed because Adrian didn't exactly point him out when he introduced him...idiot- turned towards Nikolai when he heard his name and waved.

"Moi moi, Adrian's told me all about you. You guys are welcome to sit with us for the rest of the year." Tino said happily.

"Yeah, it's kind of like the foreign kids' table." the spiky haired guy said, leaning back in his chair to talk to Nikolai so the bored looking man wasn't in the way. "I'm Mathias by the way, totally king of the table." he added, holding out his hand to Nikolai.

Nikolai shook it awkwardly before the bored looking guy turned towards him.

"He's full of shit, don't listen to a word he says. My name is Lukas."

Lukas didn't offer a hand shake or anything, he just said his name and turned away.

"This is Berwald," Tino explained, gesturing towards the Swede sitting next to him, "he doesn't talk a lot because his accent is hard to understand, but he's pretty great in the end." Tino said.

Mathias scrunched up his nose and made a disgusted noise "Eww, stop flirting with him in public, people are trying to eat." he whined.

If Nikolai had blinked he would have missed Lukas's hand reach up and smack the back of Mathias's head hard enough to send the others face into his jell-o.

"Anyway," Tino said, giving a pathetic excuse for a glare to Mathias and blushing a bit on top of that before continuing, " this is Eduardo, Ravias, Toris and Felicks."

Eduardo waved without even looking up from his computer, Ravias offered a small smile as did Toris while Felicks just stared at Nikolai and Adrian for a few seconds before looking back at Tino with a look that almost appeared accusing.

"Relax Felicks." Toris said to his boyfriend, noticing his look.

Nikolai must have looked worried because Tino offered an explanation a little later.

"Felicks just doesn't like new people, but it's something he's going to have to get over." Tino sighed, showing this wasn't the first time they'd encountered Felicks' reluctance towards new people.

Nikolai just nodded.

"I wonder where Feli and Ludwig went, they did just go to get lunch right?" Mathias asked, looking up from where he had begun building towers out of salt packets.

"I dunno, the two disappear every so often to the janitors room, people are going to start thinking they live in there." Ravias said. He sounded almost nervous to be speaking. Nikolai wondered what the hell was wrong with him.

"Ludwig stayed behind last hour to talk with Feli and his teacher about dissecting frogs tomorrow. It seems that Feli broke down in tears just watching the tutorial." Lukas explained boredly before going back to his staring contest with the napkin holder.

There was a silence then that fell over the table then, apparently complete silence was normal because no one broke it for a good five minutes.

"What are we going to do tomorrow? I wanna go out, can we go to the Francis' club again?" Felicks asked the table in general.

Nikolai had completely forgotten about the day off they had on Tuesday, which meant tonight wasn't a school night.

"Sure. Feli already said he wanted to go. I'll call Francis after school." Tino said with a nod.

"Adrian, Nikolai, you guys want to come?" Toris asked, leaning forward so he could see past Felicks to speak.

"Sure, I'll come." Adrian said cheerfully, his face looked utterly ecstatic.

Nikolai paused before answering. Was he supposed to say yes? But he didn't really want to go. This sounded like a club, what if there was alcohol. Was he being a wimp? This was probably his only chance to get an actual group of friends...but what if he ruined his chances tonight by doing something stupid?

Nikolai glanced over at Adrian, who was sitting with his head resting against the back of his head, propping it up.

'He still looks tired.' Nikolai noted off handedly. A second later Adrian's eyes snapped up and met his, reminding Nikolai the entire table, with the exception of Eduardo, was waiting for his answer.

"Ah, yeah, sure I'll go too." Nikolai said, dropping Adrian's gaze and looking at the table. It took him a moment, but he realized that the growing heat in the room wasn't because it was hot but because he was beginning to blush. Why was he blushing?

'Shit, I must be getting sick.' Nikolai thought, refusing to put further thought into the situation.

"Great! We could always use more people. I'll text you guys the address." Tino replied, flashing a friendly smile at Nikolai .

Lunch went by quickly after that. Nikolai never got to meet Ludwig of Feliciano. The way people were talking about them at the table though kind of made Nikolai wonder if he really was missing out on that much.

Nikolai found out that Mathias and him actually had biology together and Tino had history with him. It was odd in the end, not having a feeling of utter lonlieness and misery being in a class and being forced to pay attention to a lecture out of sheer amount of nothing else to do and no one to talk to. In the end, Nikolai realized while talking to Tino in history about the good restaurants around the area, that he didn't mind talking to people all that much as long as they weren't over the top and excited about everything 'cough cough Adrian cough cough.' Nikolai realized that for the first time in a long time he was developing a group of friends.

Okay, Woot! Sorry it's short but… Nikolai has friends! I wonder where this will take him. And sorry for the entirely uncreative name for the club…but you can expect some Grandpa Rome next chapter :3

In case you didn't know:

Eduardo- Estonia

Mathias- Denmark

Tino-Finland

Berwald-Sweden

Lukas-Norway

Ludwig- Germany

Feli-Italy

Ravias-Latvia

Toris-Lithuania

Felicks-Poland

Alfred-America

Arthur- England (and I stress England because Britan implies that it is Scotland and Wales and when you say USXUK it implies America is sleeping not only with Englad but with Scotland,Ireland, Wales, North Ireland and all of the other things that make up the United Kingdom.)

Find me on Tumblr…its under the same name as mine here; Saerus2665 J