niko novak ⟢ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oneirophrenic) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
veilbreak2026-02-08 02:15 pm
oneirophrenic) wrote in veilbreak2026-02-08 02:15 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
CHARACTERS: Adrían & Niko.
WHAT: Once again at odds, Adri stops by Niko's office after a tense argument.
WHEN: The evening of 2/6.
WHERE: Niko's office.
WARNINGS: 🌶️ at the end.
WHAT: Once again at odds, Adri stops by Niko's office after a tense argument.
WHEN: The evening of 2/6.
WHERE: Niko's office.
WARNINGS: 🌶️ at the end.
Adrían Aldona and Nikola Novak — best friends, roommates, occasional lovers — bickered often. Their spats were a familiar feature of life aboard the Mnemosyne, so routine you could practically set a clock by them. However, proper fights — real ones, with distance and bruised feelings — were not terribly common, which made two in a single week feel well beyond the pale. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Niko was dimly aware that he preferred being the angry one this time. He was far too invested in being well-regarded to tolerate other people’s anger with any grace. But that small mercy did nothing to make the argument — and his fears — easier to swallow.
And while his office across the Memory Cradle could hardly be called spacious, that didn’t stop him from pacing behind his desk as his thoughts spiraled through every possible outcome of Adrían going to the surface: capture, torture, death, forcible chipping. He even entertained, briefly and with surprising clarity, the notion that things might be simpler if he beat Adrían to death with his cane before he ever had the chance to leave the ship.
What pulled him from that line of thought wasn’t a knock — Adri was never that considerate with his space — but the rattle of his locked doorknob. Niko straightened, irritation snapping neatly back into place.
“I’m afraid I’m unavailable at the moment,” he called out crisply, “unless this is an emergency.”
There was no sigh, no response, simply silence. Then: a click, turn, and the door opened, revealing one Adrían Aldona, irritation clear to see. A key dangled in his left hand for a moment before being neatly pocketed.
“You’re not the only sweet talker here, Novak,” he growled, door closing behind him and lock sliding neatly back into place. He surveyed the space, everything neat and in its place, as orderly as the man currently wearing a path into the floor behind his desk. Guilt clawed at him, knowing the mood was a result of Adri himself, of Nikola’s worry and care manifesting into deliberate distance.
Unfortunately for his roommate, the scientist had always preferred to deal with things head on, and his respect for Nikola’s space had always been non-existent.
“Talk to me.”
Niko’s spluttering outrage at Adrían’s audacity persisted even as he crowded into his space. His reaction to the physical proximity was to straighten to his full height — to loom (and loom he very much does) in an attempt to reclaim some measure of control. Though Adrían had already made it painfully clear that Niko had exactly none. (A key! The nerve of him.)
“And what, exactly, is the point of that?” he snapped, waspish. “You’ve already made up your mind. No consideration whatsoever has been given to anyone else’s feelings.”
The beginning of a headache nestled between his eyes, pinpricks of pain that rise and fall with Nikola’s voice. They had just done this: the anger and the hurt and talking, and he hated that they were here again. Hated that, this time, it was his own fault and that it simply could have been avoided if he hadn’t listened to Domingo.
Gently, he cupped Niko’s cheek. “Of course I considered your fucking feelings, Nikola.” Because he had, but the need for that research, to tie up loose ends with Alba, simply outweighed them.
Despite himself, Niko leaned into the touch — just a fraction — though his eyes remained stubbornly fixed on a point on the wall above Adrían’s head, his jaw tight. “For all of five seconds, I take it?” came his icy reply. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be doing something quite this stupid.”
There was a beat, then a thought landed that made him step back out of reach, the temperature of his mood plummeting even further. “And did you even discuss this with Philip, or were you planning on informing him after the fact as well?”
The loss of his closeness stung more than the words, air cooling his fingers where warmth had once been. “No, I haven't,” Adri snapped, the guilt climbing and lodging in his ribs. “And I haven't discussed it with Jackson, either.” They both knew that was different, that his relationship with Philip and his dalliance with Jax weren't comparable, and yet he threw it at him.
Niko’s eyebrows shot up in incredulous unison, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a deeply aggrieved sigh. Maybe he really did need to beat Adrían with his cane. “Allow me to offer you some free relationship advice,” he said dryly. “This is the sort of thing one typically discusses with the great love of their life — not a unilateral decision.”
“Nikola.” Frustration turned his name into a growl, heated and pleading at the same time. “I'm not here to talk about Philip. I am here because of you.” He stepped forward, chasing down the distance between them, needing to touch him, to make him understand and if words were failing him, there were other ways of communicating.
“I am not doing this out of stubbornness.” His hands pressed into Niko’s chest, warm and solid and achingly familiar. Fingers toyed with the top button of his shirt. “I am doing this out of necessity. Why are you worried?”
Niko was, unfortunately, acutely aware of his body’s betrayal before he was aware of anything else — the way his breath caught, the way he didn’t immediately pull away when Adrían’s hands connected with his chest. His shoulders softened by instinct, relaxing into the warmth of the touch even as irritation coiled tighter in his gut. The ease of this was infuriating, and, worst of all, he knew exactly what Adrían was doing. Perhaps not intentionally — almost certainly not intentionally — but it was still a calculated appeal to muscle memory and lust rather than reason.
Did he think him that stupid? That easy? (Was he that easy?)
“Why am I worried?” he echoed, eyes wide with cold astonishment. “You never go to the surface, and for good reason. It’s spectacularly unsafe for you, and you know that.” His voice sharpened, honed by fear. “Unless you’ve recently suffered a traumatic brain injury and forgotten everything about the beginning of this war, then you know why.”
The truth of Nikola’s words slashed through him; few people knew about his involvement in things prior to the Fall. Fewer still knew about how he’d lashed out, anger and grief mixed into a cocktail so potent that the fallout had been spectacular. He knew that Niko (and Domingo) was speaking sense, and had he been anyone other than who he was, and someone in his position had suggested this, he would easily be on his friend’s side.
But this was different. At least, that’s what the litany of phrases circling his thought kept telling him.
Different.
Because, almost more than the research, this was about Alba and finally severing the last tie that he had sentimentally held on to.
“I know,” he bit out, hands smoothing down Nikola’s chest to rest lightly at his hips. In his own way, Nikola Novak had been his rock for nearly as long as they’d known each other. Had always been a grounding presence, a sounding board and a mirror that bounced and reflected back the arrogance and stupidity of his ideas. And he had served as the same for him. “I am aware this is extraordinarily dangerous, cari.”
Infuriatingly, Niko’s resolve thinned under Adrían’s touch, the anger slowly crowded out by what the other man meant to him — all the steady comfort of someone who had been there through everything since his arrival aboard the Mnemo. His fingers rose of their own accord, catching at Adrían’s wrist, thumb brushing lightly over warm skin in an attempt to quietly ground himself.
For all his height, he folded down almost unconsciously, gathering Adrían close and tucking him beneath his chin as if that were where he belonged.
“Imagine, if you will, what I would be like if anything happened to you,” he murmured, because the admission was easier to make if it was wrapped up in a joke. “They would toss me off the ship. I would be insufferable.”
He allowed himself to be gathered against him, feeling his heartbeat slow in his chest as his cheek rested against the crisp fabric of Niko's shirt. “You're already insufferable, and we haven't tossed you out yet,” he pointed out quietly. “But nothing will happen to me. Will it calm you if I allow you and Dom to create a plan?”
“Yes,” Niko replied without hesitation. Domingo he trusted more than anyone to come up with a quasi-sensible approach. Then, more gently, “But I do need you to tell Philip. He’ll want to know, and I don’t want to keep this from him.”
Adrían frowned, a half dozen excuses at the ready. While he's been able to predict Niko’s response perfectly, Philip had never been easy — even less so now that they had agreed to be less restrained with one another — but, much like he only agreed to tell Niko to keep Domingo from having to carry this alone, he knew he would agree to this request, too.
It didn't mean he was happy about it. “Fine.”
Niko exhaled the biggest sigh of relief and nodded, grateful. “Thank you.”
One heartbeat later, though, and irritation laced his voice again, threaded through with fondness. “That said, I still think this is a deeply idiotic plan. You really are the most infuriating and foolish person I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing.”
As he spoke, he was already moving, steering Adrían back until he was pressed solidly against one of the bookshelves lined up against the wall behind his desk. It was all too easy to pin him in place, one hand braced against the shelf, his body refusing to yield — for now, at least.
“I mean, I’ve never hated anyone quite as much as I despise you,” Niko declared, and then he closed the distance, mouth finding Adrían’s with sudden heat. And whatever control he took at first softened almost immediately as he gave himself over to him, all the pent up tension of the past week finally given somewhere to go.
In another life, Nikola Novak may very well have been the great love of Adrían’s life. In some ways, he very well might have been with the way he pressed even closer to him, one hand cupping the back of his neck to keep him close, the other pressing against the front of his trousers, anticipatory and presumptuous. The stress and hurt of the past week melted instantly as Adri bit at Niko’s mouth, a soft, possessive growl in his throat.
With a sharp hitch of breath, one knee buckled, and Niko experienced — well, a sudden loss of structural integrity that forced him to lean more of his weight on Adrían. An impatient sound escaped from the back of his throat, his body vibrating with a want that was much physical as it was for the mental quiet that came whenever Adrían took the lead.
“Show me how much you hate me, Nikola.” Each word was another kiss, teeth nipping at his lower lip, tip of his tongue tracing against the seam of his mouth. The heel of his hand dragged down and nails scraped at the back of Niko’s neck.
A jagged current of electricity seemed to snap through Niko’s skin under the pressure of Adrían’s hands. For a man who spent every waking hour performing for approval, there was a profound — almost addictive — relief in being made to submit. Sometimes, he wanted nothing more than to be moved like a piece on a board, and now, with his fingers tangling in Adrían’s hair as he nodded in wordless agreement, was absolutely one of those times.
He felt a brief flicker of guilt over Domingo — Domingo, who seemed reluctant to fall back into old habits, who clearly harbored some reservations about him — but the thought was filed away to the back of his mind, sacrificed to the immediate rush of the moment.
“With pleasure,” he promised, the words a feverish vow against Adrían’s mouth.
And while his office across the Memory Cradle could hardly be called spacious, that didn’t stop him from pacing behind his desk as his thoughts spiraled through every possible outcome of Adrían going to the surface: capture, torture, death, forcible chipping. He even entertained, briefly and with surprising clarity, the notion that things might be simpler if he beat Adrían to death with his cane before he ever had the chance to leave the ship.
What pulled him from that line of thought wasn’t a knock — Adri was never that considerate with his space — but the rattle of his locked doorknob. Niko straightened, irritation snapping neatly back into place.
“I’m afraid I’m unavailable at the moment,” he called out crisply, “unless this is an emergency.”
There was no sigh, no response, simply silence. Then: a click, turn, and the door opened, revealing one Adrían Aldona, irritation clear to see. A key dangled in his left hand for a moment before being neatly pocketed.
“You’re not the only sweet talker here, Novak,” he growled, door closing behind him and lock sliding neatly back into place. He surveyed the space, everything neat and in its place, as orderly as the man currently wearing a path into the floor behind his desk. Guilt clawed at him, knowing the mood was a result of Adri himself, of Nikola’s worry and care manifesting into deliberate distance.
Unfortunately for his roommate, the scientist had always preferred to deal with things head on, and his respect for Nikola’s space had always been non-existent.
“Talk to me.”
Niko’s spluttering outrage at Adrían’s audacity persisted even as he crowded into his space. His reaction to the physical proximity was to straighten to his full height — to loom (and loom he very much does) in an attempt to reclaim some measure of control. Though Adrían had already made it painfully clear that Niko had exactly none. (A key! The nerve of him.)
“And what, exactly, is the point of that?” he snapped, waspish. “You’ve already made up your mind. No consideration whatsoever has been given to anyone else’s feelings.”
The beginning of a headache nestled between his eyes, pinpricks of pain that rise and fall with Nikola’s voice. They had just done this: the anger and the hurt and talking, and he hated that they were here again. Hated that, this time, it was his own fault and that it simply could have been avoided if he hadn’t listened to Domingo.
Gently, he cupped Niko’s cheek. “Of course I considered your fucking feelings, Nikola.” Because he had, but the need for that research, to tie up loose ends with Alba, simply outweighed them.
Despite himself, Niko leaned into the touch — just a fraction — though his eyes remained stubbornly fixed on a point on the wall above Adrían’s head, his jaw tight. “For all of five seconds, I take it?” came his icy reply. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be doing something quite this stupid.”
There was a beat, then a thought landed that made him step back out of reach, the temperature of his mood plummeting even further. “And did you even discuss this with Philip, or were you planning on informing him after the fact as well?”
The loss of his closeness stung more than the words, air cooling his fingers where warmth had once been. “No, I haven't,” Adri snapped, the guilt climbing and lodging in his ribs. “And I haven't discussed it with Jackson, either.” They both knew that was different, that his relationship with Philip and his dalliance with Jax weren't comparable, and yet he threw it at him.
Niko’s eyebrows shot up in incredulous unison, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a deeply aggrieved sigh. Maybe he really did need to beat Adrían with his cane. “Allow me to offer you some free relationship advice,” he said dryly. “This is the sort of thing one typically discusses with the great love of their life — not a unilateral decision.”
“Nikola.” Frustration turned his name into a growl, heated and pleading at the same time. “I'm not here to talk about Philip. I am here because of you.” He stepped forward, chasing down the distance between them, needing to touch him, to make him understand and if words were failing him, there were other ways of communicating.
“I am not doing this out of stubbornness.” His hands pressed into Niko’s chest, warm and solid and achingly familiar. Fingers toyed with the top button of his shirt. “I am doing this out of necessity. Why are you worried?”
Niko was, unfortunately, acutely aware of his body’s betrayal before he was aware of anything else — the way his breath caught, the way he didn’t immediately pull away when Adrían’s hands connected with his chest. His shoulders softened by instinct, relaxing into the warmth of the touch even as irritation coiled tighter in his gut. The ease of this was infuriating, and, worst of all, he knew exactly what Adrían was doing. Perhaps not intentionally — almost certainly not intentionally — but it was still a calculated appeal to muscle memory and lust rather than reason.
Did he think him that stupid? That easy? (Was he that easy?)
“Why am I worried?” he echoed, eyes wide with cold astonishment. “You never go to the surface, and for good reason. It’s spectacularly unsafe for you, and you know that.” His voice sharpened, honed by fear. “Unless you’ve recently suffered a traumatic brain injury and forgotten everything about the beginning of this war, then you know why.”
The truth of Nikola’s words slashed through him; few people knew about his involvement in things prior to the Fall. Fewer still knew about how he’d lashed out, anger and grief mixed into a cocktail so potent that the fallout had been spectacular. He knew that Niko (and Domingo) was speaking sense, and had he been anyone other than who he was, and someone in his position had suggested this, he would easily be on his friend’s side.
But this was different. At least, that’s what the litany of phrases circling his thought kept telling him.
Different.
Because, almost more than the research, this was about Alba and finally severing the last tie that he had sentimentally held on to.
“I know,” he bit out, hands smoothing down Nikola’s chest to rest lightly at his hips. In his own way, Nikola Novak had been his rock for nearly as long as they’d known each other. Had always been a grounding presence, a sounding board and a mirror that bounced and reflected back the arrogance and stupidity of his ideas. And he had served as the same for him. “I am aware this is extraordinarily dangerous, cari.”
Infuriatingly, Niko’s resolve thinned under Adrían’s touch, the anger slowly crowded out by what the other man meant to him — all the steady comfort of someone who had been there through everything since his arrival aboard the Mnemo. His fingers rose of their own accord, catching at Adrían’s wrist, thumb brushing lightly over warm skin in an attempt to quietly ground himself.
For all his height, he folded down almost unconsciously, gathering Adrían close and tucking him beneath his chin as if that were where he belonged.
“Imagine, if you will, what I would be like if anything happened to you,” he murmured, because the admission was easier to make if it was wrapped up in a joke. “They would toss me off the ship. I would be insufferable.”
He allowed himself to be gathered against him, feeling his heartbeat slow in his chest as his cheek rested against the crisp fabric of Niko's shirt. “You're already insufferable, and we haven't tossed you out yet,” he pointed out quietly. “But nothing will happen to me. Will it calm you if I allow you and Dom to create a plan?”
“Yes,” Niko replied without hesitation. Domingo he trusted more than anyone to come up with a quasi-sensible approach. Then, more gently, “But I do need you to tell Philip. He’ll want to know, and I don’t want to keep this from him.”
Adrían frowned, a half dozen excuses at the ready. While he's been able to predict Niko’s response perfectly, Philip had never been easy — even less so now that they had agreed to be less restrained with one another — but, much like he only agreed to tell Niko to keep Domingo from having to carry this alone, he knew he would agree to this request, too.
It didn't mean he was happy about it. “Fine.”
Niko exhaled the biggest sigh of relief and nodded, grateful. “Thank you.”
One heartbeat later, though, and irritation laced his voice again, threaded through with fondness. “That said, I still think this is a deeply idiotic plan. You really are the most infuriating and foolish person I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing.”
As he spoke, he was already moving, steering Adrían back until he was pressed solidly against one of the bookshelves lined up against the wall behind his desk. It was all too easy to pin him in place, one hand braced against the shelf, his body refusing to yield — for now, at least.
“I mean, I’ve never hated anyone quite as much as I despise you,” Niko declared, and then he closed the distance, mouth finding Adrían’s with sudden heat. And whatever control he took at first softened almost immediately as he gave himself over to him, all the pent up tension of the past week finally given somewhere to go.
In another life, Nikola Novak may very well have been the great love of Adrían’s life. In some ways, he very well might have been with the way he pressed even closer to him, one hand cupping the back of his neck to keep him close, the other pressing against the front of his trousers, anticipatory and presumptuous. The stress and hurt of the past week melted instantly as Adri bit at Niko’s mouth, a soft, possessive growl in his throat.
With a sharp hitch of breath, one knee buckled, and Niko experienced — well, a sudden loss of structural integrity that forced him to lean more of his weight on Adrían. An impatient sound escaped from the back of his throat, his body vibrating with a want that was much physical as it was for the mental quiet that came whenever Adrían took the lead.
“Show me how much you hate me, Nikola.” Each word was another kiss, teeth nipping at his lower lip, tip of his tongue tracing against the seam of his mouth. The heel of his hand dragged down and nails scraped at the back of Niko’s neck.
A jagged current of electricity seemed to snap through Niko’s skin under the pressure of Adrían’s hands. For a man who spent every waking hour performing for approval, there was a profound — almost addictive — relief in being made to submit. Sometimes, he wanted nothing more than to be moved like a piece on a board, and now, with his fingers tangling in Adrían’s hair as he nodded in wordless agreement, was absolutely one of those times.
He felt a brief flicker of guilt over Domingo — Domingo, who seemed reluctant to fall back into old habits, who clearly harbored some reservations about him — but the thought was filed away to the back of his mind, sacrificed to the immediate rush of the moment.
“With pleasure,” he promised, the words a feverish vow against Adrían’s mouth.