Drunken cheers hollered throughout the bar, over the indistinct chatter. The laughter that masked the radio playing throughout the bar pounded at his ears like a hollow drum.

It was supposed to be nothing. What the both of you had behind everyone’s backs. Fleeting touches, gentle kisses, a simple reprieve from the world in one another’s arms. It was supposed to be nothing, he reminded himself. This wasn’t what nothing felt like. The way his lungs burned, his teeth clenched. Nothing didn’t describe the ache in his chest, as he watched you spin around with Vash across the room. Nothing didn’t feel like everything.

Jealousy wasn’t a good look, he knew that. You weren’t his, there was nothing more between the both of you besides simply stress relief. He smashed his cigarette butt into the ash tray on the bar’s countertop, watching, observing. He was simmering.

Nicholas was burning.

The pseudo-priest didn’t realize how good it felt to have you, how his mind seemed to calm when he was around you. The scars of his past, the storm of it all seemed to soothe when you were around. His throat tightened as he drank the last of the whiskey in his glass, grimacing at the burn of it down his throat. He wouldn’t admit he was jealous, he couldn’t beinf himself to.

He simmered though, watching as you and Vash danced to whatever the radio played in the middle of the dance floor, weaving around drunken patrons.

Whatever ‘nothing’ was, it sure as hell wasn’t this.