A broken hand followed by a fairly stunning chest cold, and this year was not off to a great start. It was good to finally get back to work. Familiar faces and smells. Nick was almost able to really not think about Sam for a few long hours at a time.

Good god, but it was like being a teenager again. How do you go and get a crush on someone at the ripe age of thirty? He was too old to feel this stupid.

So he pretended he didn't know Sam for a few hours. He did a fairly good job of acting like a normally functioning adult who didn't keep having chronic panic attacks every time he remembered he had a fake boyfriend just a few miles away, who wanted nothing to do with him.

He happily occupied himself with shading a very nice set of red poppies on a twenty-something's very nice shoulder. They'd been making small talk for nearly two hours. He knew all about the classes she was taking at college, her adorable blue nosed pitbull named Constantine, how she felt that she didn't call her mom often enough, and that her boyfriend was taking her to go see that new scary movie this weekend- yeah, the one with the little boy and the demon, he knew the one.

And it was all normal stuff that he'd been good at talking about for years, it didn't require much input from him, just a nod and a short answer from time to time. He wasn't great at conversations, but he was good at getting people to talk about themselves which put them at ease and kept them mentally occupied while he dug small needles into their skin.

But she wasn't satisfied with telling him all her little stories- she had to go and notice the mess of photos that he had pinned above his cluttered desk.

"That looks like a guy who was in my ECON class last term…"'

Nick didn't want to turn and look. "The ugly little blonde man?" There were too many pictures of Gabriel up there. Tons of family photos, and most people commented on them at some point while they were stuck there getting a tattoo. Nick was unfortunate enough to have a rather attractive gene pool.

"No, the hot brunet you're kissing in the photo booth." She sighed longingly. "He looks like this hotty that used to sit in the back row of one of my classes. The guy had to be like seven feet tall and had the ass of a Greek god."

Nick really should take down those pictures from San Francisco.

"Is he your… boyfriend?" She peered at him from the corner of her eye in a coy manner- like there could be any other good reason for him to be grinning and smooching a man in glorious techno color if they weren't in some kind of relationship.

"You could say that." Nick offered carefully.

"He's cute."

"Yes. Yes he is." He cleaned off his needle and dipped it into a darker red. "We've been dating for a few months now, and it still surprises me every time I see him. I don't think the shock's ever going to wear off."

The woman giggled softly, looking up at him with a wide smile. "That's so sweet."

Nick might have started blushing. His face definitely felt warm.

"You guys look good together."

It was such an off handed comment, but Nick found himself hesitating and looking over at the little cut out set of pictures. Of him and Sam smiling for the camera, at the pretend kiss and the stricken look of panic that Sam got to wear afterwards.

Months had passed and they had come full circle.

Nothing had really changed.