Mermaids and Men [mlm]

8. Progress!

It was the next day at school, Friday, and Nicki had already filled the group in about his progress with Elijah. Yesterday, Nicki cleaned the whole locker room all by himself, mostly to let out a bit of his frustrations for having said too much to Elijah. When detention was over, Principal Wilkins was really surprised at how nice the gym and locker rooms looked... Well, it looked as good as it was going to get, but he was still pretty impressed that a bunch of delinquents actually listened to him and hauled ass when it came to making this gym look perfect.

That whole time, Elijah didn't once look at Nicki, and he even said nothing to his friends the rest of the time they were there. He completely shut down. Guess Elijah wasn't used to people calling him out at all. Colin, though, was very determined to make this work, really buying the whole "crush" thing. He even approached Nicki and hugged him tight, promising him that it would work out in the end and that love always wins. Nicki couldn't help but want to throw up at how overly positive and affectionate Colin was, but he still thought it was kind of nice to see someone who wouldn't let anything get them down no matter what. It was a nice change of pace. Rose and Nicki even went as far as exchanging numbers with the two and following each other on all their social medias. They seemed to have connected well with the duo.

When Nicki got home that day, he looked through Colin and Logan's accounts on Instagram. The two apparently gamed a lot, Logan's page either being filled with stuff about video games or some edgy modeling photos he put up of himself. There were also a few pictures of him and Colin together, videos of them doing stupid stuff or raging at each other in video games. Even taking some edgy modeling photos together as well. Those photos were a side of Colin he hadn't seen in person, but even in the photos, he could still tell that Colin was acting goofy and joking around with it.

Colin's page was pretty different though-- it was fueled with crackhead energy. There were pictures of Colin doing weird and stupid stuff, or taking weird and stupid photos. His page had a lot of Logan on it, either always catching the guy off guard in photos or taking very silly ones with him. In Colin's most recent post, Logan must have also thought the boy was some sort of happy, golden retriever because there was a video he had taken of Colin where he was clipping a dog tail onto the back of his pants and then putting dog ears on him. The whole time they were laughing at each other in the video and making funny jokes. Logan even went as far as to talk to Colin as if he were a dog, Colin responding as such very jokingly. At the end of the video, Logan looked at Colin and reached out, patting his head and saying, "Good boy," which immediately made the two freeze after registering those words that came out. Quickly, they both played it off and laughed together before the video stopped and that was it. It was actually very sweet, Nicki thought. It was clear the two were very close with each other.

Logan was apparently an asshole in school, according to a lot of people, but he didn't see that or feel that type of vibe when looking at his page or Colin's page. Hell, he didn't even feel that type of vibe when with him in person. Logan got into a lot of fights at school, and it seemed to be very easy for him to blow a fuse, but Nicki didn't think it was for the reasons others would think. He didn't think Logan was just like Richie, picking on those below them because they felt like it. Logan must have been fighting with people for good reasons; maybe he was just overly protective of himself and others, so when a person says one bad thing about him or his friends, he snaps.

Currently, at school, the group of Mermaids and Men were sitting at lunch, eating together. Nicki was munching on his chips, grumbling to himself about how he fucked up the plan on his first try. "Okay... So you fucked up... But that's okay! You can still try again," Rose reassured him, grinning as she took a bite out of one of her chicken tenders. "I know; I'm not going to give up. This is just going to be a lot harder than I expected," Nicki replied with a sigh. "Rose said you two became friends with Logan and Colin, right? I can expect Colin, but Logan? I've always just seen him getting into fights and being pretty explosive," Aveline spoke, tilting her head and frowning a bit. "He's actually really cool. He and Colin both, and you know I don't just say that about anyone," Nicki told her, causing her to smile a bit. "They must have made quite an impression," said Natalie.