Chapter Text
Pain never seems to come in waves. It settles in. Becomes permanent. An unwanted resident that takes over every corner of your mind. For Gabriel, the past seven days had been more about surviving than actually living.
The first night was the worst. Gabriel drove from the shop to his apartment in such a deep state of shock that later he couldn’t remember a single traffic light, a single turn. His body ran on autopilot while his mind replayed, on an endless loop, the image of the little blonde girl with blue eyes, the ex-wife, and the guilt and panic on Nico’s face.
When he stepped into his apartment, the silence wrapped around him. Everything was in place, the symmetrical furniture, neatly aligned books, the soft hum of the AC. The only thing that felt broken was him.
He didn’t take his shoes off. He just stood in the middle of the living room staring at the white walls, and then the shaking started. First his hands. Then his knees. Until his entire body was wracked with uncontrollable tremors, like it was trying to physically expel the memory poisoning him.
He collapsed onto the couch, the same couch Nico had mocked, the same one where they’d had sex, slept, made plans. Now, the idea felt pathetic.
Then the crying came. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud. It was slow and constant, like an internal bleed finally finding a way out. Hot, silent tears slid down his face, soaking into the expensive fabric of the couch. He didn’t make a sound. He just shook and cried, curled in on himself like a child, holding his own body together as if it might fall apart.
That’s how the night passed. He didn’t go to bed. He didn’t eat. Didn’t even drink water. He stayed there until physical exhaustion finally overpowered the emotional pain, and he drifted into a restless, shallow sleep, fully dressed, still dirty.
The 7 a.m. alarm on his phone was a rough slap of reality. It was Monday. There were classes. There was his internship. There was a life he had to pretend still mattered.
Gabriel got up, his body heavy and sore. In the bathroom mirror, he barely recognized himself. Deep purple circles under his eyes, pale skin, red and dull eyes. He looked like he’d aged ten years overnight.
He took a shower so hot his skin turned red, scrubbing hard, trying to erase the smell of the workshop, the smell of Nico he still imagined clinging to him. He got dressed in clean clothes — mechanical, joyless — and went to campus.
Pretending to be normal was torture. He sat next to Oliver in class but didn’t hear a single word the professor said. He stared at the board and saw that child’s calm face instead. Oliver tried to chat, cracked a joke about weekend hangovers, but Gabriel only nodded, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"Man, you look like a zombie," Oliver whispered, worried. "Was the night with Nico really that good?"
The name was a trigger. Gabriel’s stomach flipped. He stood up abruptly, muttered something about feeling sick, and rushed to the bathroom. He dropped to his knees in front of the toilet, but nothing came up. He just gasped for air, cold sweat breaking out, trembling hands pressed to the cold porcelain.
Oliver found him ten minutes later.
"Gabriel, what the hell is going on?" Oliver asked, his voice echoing in the empty bathroom. He closed the stall door and knelt beside him. "Talk to me!"
And Gabriel, broken, exhausted, unable to keep the façade up, did.
Sitting on the cold tile floor, the smell of disinfectant in the air, Gabriel told him everything. The unexpected arrival. The woman. The child. The identical blue eyes. Nico’s face. The escape. Every word felt like lifting weight off his chest, only to have it replaced by a sharper, hollower pain.
Oliver listened in silence. His expression shifted from concern to disbelief, then to a slow, simmering rage. When Gabriel finished, quietly sobbing with his face buried in his hands, Oliver looked livid.
"He has a daughter," Oliver repeated flatly. Dangerously calm. "A baby. And an ex-wife. And he never told you."
"He said he didn’t know how," Gabriel murmured, a weak, automatic defense he didn’t even believe himself.
"Oh, sure! Poor guy! How do you tell your lover you’ve got a whole secret family? Tough one!" Oliver’s sarcasm lashed out. He stood up and paced the cramped space. "I always knew that guy was trash, Gabriel. Always. I warned you! He’s a predator. Saw a pretty, rich, impressionable boy and decided to have some fun. You were a pastime. A shiny new toy in his workshop."
"Stop, Ollie! It wasn’t just that—" Gabriel tried, but the words died. How do you defend the indefensible?
"That’s exactly what it was!" Oliver snapped. "He lied to you every single day! He touched you, kissed you, made you believe you were special— while... while he had a kid at home who probably doesn’t even know her dad likes messing around with students! It’s disgusting!"
The words hammered nails into the coffin of that story. They hurt, but they hurt even more coming from Oliver, who had always tried to protect him, even when he didn’t fully understand.
"What are you gonna do?" Oliver asked more gently, seeing him crumble.
"I don’t know. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to talk to him."
"Block his number. Change the locks if he has a key. Disappear from his life," Oliver said, taking control. "You don’t owe him anything. That debt was paid, remember?"
Words were easier than actions, but it was what Gabriel tried to do.
The days that followed were a waking nightmare. He went to class but absorbed nothing. At his internship, he made basic mistakes —mistakes he never would’ve made — and got worried looks from his supervisor. At night, he stood by the window of his apartment, staring at the city, wondering if Nico was at the shop, if he was with his daughter, if he even thought about him at all.
His phone was torture. In the first 24 hours, there were dozens of notifications.
Nico (10 p.m): Gabriel, please talk to me.
Nico (11 p.m): I know I hurt you. I never wanted this. Let me explain.
Nico (1 a.m): I’m losing my mind. I just need to know you’re ok.
Gabriel read every single one. The pain was a living thing, chewing him up from the inside. He typed long, furious, heartbreaking replies, then deleted them all. He couldn’t. Any opening would be surrender. Forgiveness he wasn’t ready to give. Maybe never would be.
On the third day, the calls started. Nico called in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day. His name on the screen made Gabriel’s heart leap with pure panic and longing, a sick mix that made him nauseous. He never answered. Let it ring until voicemail.
One night, around 3 a.m., desperate, he listened to one of the voice messages. Nico’s voice was unrecognizable, hoarse, slurred, soaked in something that sounded like alcohol and despair.
"Gabriel… fuck, boy, pick up the phone. I can’t do this. I need to hear your voice. I… I fucked up. I know I did. I’m a coward. I always have been. But what I feel for you… that’s real. Noemi… she’s my life, but you… you’re part of that. Do you get it? I can’t breathe without knowing you’re fine. Call me. Please. Just… call me."
The message ended in a rough sound, like a swallowed sob. Gabriel deleted it immediately, hands shaking. Hearing that was like having his chest split open. It was the rawest confession Nico had ever made and it was too late.
Oliver stayed on guard. Slept at Gabriel’s place. Cooked food he didn’t eat. Forced him to drink water. He became a furious sentry, hating Nico Hülkenberg with an intensity that replaced Gabriel’s pain with anger, an easier fuel to digest.
"He’s manipulating you, Gabi," Oliver said, watching him stare at his phone. "Those messages are meant to make you feel guilty. To pull you back in. Don’t fall for it."
Gabriel knew Oliver was being protective. But deep down, he also knew Nico’s pain was real. The problem was that his was real too. And his came first. It came in the form of a betrayal so fundamental it felt like the ground had cracked beneath his feet.
On Friday, a week after the disaster, Gabriel left his last class feeling lighter. Not because the pain was gone — it wasn’t — but because the numbness of exhaustion and routine was kicking in. He could pretend, for a few hours, that he was okay.
The sky was gray, threatening rain. The university parking lot was half-full, cars slowly leaving. Gabriel walked toward his sedan, backpack heavy on his shoulders, his mind already on the report he’d have to write that night.
That’s when he saw it.
Parked next to a delivery truck, away from the other cars — like an oil stain of rebellion in the clean campus setting — was Nico’s black Harley. And leaning against it, arms crossed, eyes locked onto him like a laser, was Nico Hülkenberg.
The world slowed down. The sound of cars, voices, wind, everything vanished. Gabriel stopped mid step, fingers tightening around his backpack straps.
Nico looked terrible. Worse than Gabriel. He wore the same leather jacket, wrinkled now. His beard was unshaven, growing wild, and there were deep, dark circles under those blue eyes, now dull, stripped of their usual shine. He was pale, and his posture — normally relaxed and dominant — was tense, almost hesitant.
They stared at each other from twenty meters away. Nico didn’t move closer. He just looked at him, like he was trying to memorize every detail.
A violent wave of conflicting emotions hit Gabriel, making him dizzy. Anger. Pain. Longing. Disgust. A stupid, desperate urge to run into those arms, and an even stronger fear that he’d never be able to trust them again.
He looked away, heart racing, and kept walking toward his car, speeding up.
"Gabriel."
Nico’s voice cut through the air. Hoarse, tired, but carrying an authority that made Gabriel stop again, just steps from the driver’s door.
"No," Gabriel said without turning around, his voice weaker than he wanted. "There’s nothing to talk about."
"Five minutes," Nico asked. Not a command this time. A plea. Something Gabriel had never heard from him before. "Please…"
Gabriel turned slowly. The pain on Nico’s face was obvious, real, and that somehow made everything worse. It made the betrayal human. Complicated. Harder to hate completely.
"Why are you here, Nico?" Gabriel asked, exhaustion weighing down every word. "You already said everything. You lied. I found out. End of story."
"It’s not the end," Nico said, dropping his arms. He took a step forward but stopped when Gabriel instinctively stepped back. The hurt on Nico’s face was quick but clear. "It can’t be. I… I can’t live with it."
"You should’ve thought about that before hiding a daughter from me!" The anger Gabriel had been holding back for days exploded, making a few passing students glance over. "You slept with me, called me yours, made me believe I mattered— and the whole time you had a secret that changes everything! How am I supposed to trust you? How do I believe anything you say now?"
Nico closed his eyes for a second, like the words were punches. When he opened them, they were wet.
"I know," he said, voice breaking. "I know I ruined everything. I’m an asshole. I owed you the truth from the start and I didn’t give it. I was scared. Scared of losing you before I even really had you." He swallowed hard. "But what I feel for you… that’s not a lie, Gabriel. It never was."
Tears burned behind Gabriel’s eyes. He was so tired of crying.
"It doesn’t matter anymore," he whispered. "Trust matters. Truth matters. And you broke both."
Nico took another step and this time, Gabriel didn’t move away. The closeness was agonizing. He could feel Nico’s heat, smell smoke and leather, and his traitorous body ached for it, even while his mind screamed to run.
"I won’t hurt you again," Nico said, staring straight into his eyes. His voice was a thin thread of hope in a sea of despair. "I swear. I just… I need to talk. Look at me and tell me you feel nothing. Tell me you can walk away and never think about me again. And I’ll leave. I’ll disappear from your life. I promise."
It was a trap. And Gabriel fell into it. Because he couldn’t say that. Even with all the pain, the memory of Nico’s hands on his skin, his voice in the dark, the feeling of being truly alive beside him… it was still there. Burning like embers beneath the ashes of disappointment.
He said nothing. Just stared, mouth slightly open, breathing uneven.
"Come with me," Nico said softly. "Let’s get a coffee. That’s it. A public place. Full of people. You can leave whenever you want. I won’t touch you. I won’t trap you. Just… give me a chance to explain. Just so you can understand. So I can sleep at night knowing I at least tried."
Rain began to fall — light, thin — dampening Gabriel’s hair and the shoulders of Nico’s jacket.
Gabriel looked at the bike. At the man who rode it like an extension of himself. Looked at his own safe, clean, empty car. The choice between the familiar pain of loneliness and the uncertain pain of truth. With a sigh pulled from deep in his soul, Gabriel grabbed his car keys.
"Not on your bike," he said flatly. "I’ll take my car. You follow me. And it’s just coffee."
The relief that flooded Nico’s face was so intense it almost hurt to see. He nodded quickly.
"Anywhere you want."
"There’s a place near here," Gabriel said, thinking of the hipster café Oliver used to drag him to study. It was safe. Part of his world.
"I’ll follow you," Nico agreed.
Gabriel got into the car, hands trembling on the wheel. In the rearview mirror, he saw Nico mount the bike, start the engine, his broad, familiar silhouette a shadow against the gray sky.
He grabbed his phone quickly. There was a message from Oliver.
Oliver: Did you go home? Come over, I ordered sushi.
Gabriel typed fast, heart tight.
Gabriel: Can’t. I ran into Nico. We’re gonna talk at a café. Don’t worry.
Oliver: ARE YOU INSANE? DON’T GO!!! CALL ME RIGHT NOW!!!
Gabriel turned the phone off and tossed it onto the passenger seat. Maybe it was madness, but he was tired of living in the dark. He needed to hear it. Needed to understand how deep the hole really was.
He pulled out of the parking lot, feeling — more than seeing — the motorcycle headlights in the mirror behind him. They were heading for a coffee. For a conversation. For the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning—he didn’t know anymore.
He only knew that, for the first time in a week, he was making a choice instead of just suffering the consequences of someone else’s.
The coffee shop they went to was exactly the kind of place Nico Hülkenberg would have avoided for the rest of his life, if it weren’t for the person sitting across from him.
Warm lights, exposed brick walls, reclaimed wood tables, and the ever-present smell of roasted beans and steamed milk. Young people with laptops took up most of the space, headphones on, fingers dancing over keyboards. It was a temple of soft productivity and digital self-expression. Nico looked like a lion loose in a crystal shop.
Gabriel chose a table in the back, near a bookshelf filled with colorful covered books no one ever read. He sat upright, hands wrapped around a large glass of sparkling water with lemon he hadn’t touched.
Nico sat across from him, the wooden chair creaking under his weight. He ordered a black coffee. Just that. Now the thick ceramic mug rested between his large hands, more like a thermal anchor than an actual drink.
The silence between them was different from the silence on the bike or in the garage. Gabriel was the one who broke it, because Nico seemed to be struggling to find a beginning.
"So," Gabriel said, his voice neutral, almost professional, like he was opening an unpleasant business meeting. "You wanted to explain."
Nico took a deep breath, his eyes fixed on Gabriel’s face, as if searching the lines of exhaustion and hurt for an opening.
"Noemi is four," Nico began, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. He cleared his throat. "Her mom, Helena, was with me for about a year. It was… a mess. She wanted a life I couldn’t give her. Stability. Predictability. I was a mechanic living job to job, who liked noise and cheap beer."
He paused, turning the coffee cup slowly.
"When she got pregnant, I tried. I swear to God I did. I got a better apartment, tried to be… domesticated. But it didn’t work. We fought all the time. She called me irresponsible, I called her controlling. When Noemi was born… she was beautiful. Perfect." Nico’s voice faltered for the first time since Gabriel had ever known him. He looked down at the table, swallowing hard. "But Helena and I… we were destroying each other. And that wasn’t good for the baby. We decided to split before she was old enough to remember us fighting."
Gabriel listened without moving. His expression was unreadable.
"She moved to her mother’s city, two hours from here. We made an arrangement. I pay child support— more than agreed, always on time. I get her one weekend a month and half the holidays." Nico lifted his eyes, blue and intense. "She’s the most important thing in my life, Gabriel. Watching her grow. And I fail at it all the time. I’m a shitty, distant dad who doesn’t know how to play dolls and swears in front of her. But I try."
"Why didn’t you tell me?" Gabriel asked. The question came out flat, emotionless, like a blade.
Nico shrugged, defeated.
"At first… because you were just an old friend’s son. A guy with a broken car. It wasn’t your business. Then…" He rubbed his face, exhausted. "Then you started to matter. And I knew it was a problem. I’m not a catch, Gabriel. I’m a forty year old guy, divorced, with a kid, a failing garage, and a rock record collection as my biggest emotional asset. You’re twenty one. A bright future. A whole life ahead of you. What was I supposed to say? 'Oh, by the way, I have a daughter, hope you don’t mind'?"
"That was the bare minimum!" Gabriel snapped, the crack in his composure letting the wounded anger spill out. "That was the truth! You let me fall in love with a version of you that didn’t exist! The lonely, mysterious mechanic. The untamed wolf. But you’re not lonely, Nico! You’re a father! You have responsibilities, ties, a whole life that didn’t start with me! You made me feel special, made me think I was the first good thing in your life in years— and all along you had the most important thing hidden far away from me!"
The words poured out, loud enough to draw looks from nearby tables. Gabriel lowered his voice, breathing hard, eyes shining.
"You made a fool out of me, Nico."
"Never!" Nico leaned forward, elbows on the table, his voice a low, heated growl. "You were never a fool. You are the first good thing in my life in years. Noemi… she’s my blood. My responsibility. My joy too, but it’s different. That kind of love is born with you. But you… you fell out of the sky in the middle of a storm and turned everything upside down. You’re the choice. The thing I chose to want every day, even knowing it was wrong, complicated, that I didn’t deserve it."
He reached out across the table, stopping his hand inches from Gabriel’s, not touching.
"I’m a asshole. I admit it. I was scared that if you knew the whole mess, you’d leave. And I wasn’t ready to watch you walk away. So I hid it. And I know that’s unforgivable. I’m not here asking for forgiveness. I’m asking for… understanding. A chance to show you that the man you met— that man is me. Noemi's father is also me. Same person. One is just messier than the other."
Gabriel stared at the large, calloused hand so close to his. He remembered that hand on his skin, the safety it gave him, the sense of being claimed. Now it was just a hand. A hand that had brushed the hair of a child he didn’t know.
"And Helena?" Gabriel asked, the ex-wife’s name bitter on his tongue. "She has a key to your house."
Nico sighed, pulling his hand back and lifting the cold coffee.
"She doesn’t. She knows where I keep the spare key under the pot. Always has. For emergencies with Noemi. She showed up unannounced because she’s desperate. She got a job interview in another city and needed to leave Noemi with me outside our scheduled time. It was wrong. An invasion. And it exposed you in the worst possible way. I never… never wanted you to find out like that."
"How did you want me to find out?" Gabriel shot back. "In what scenario would this ever be okay, Nico? You introducing her as your daughter after months together? Making me a step parent overnight?"
The idea was so absurd Gabriel almost laughed, a humorless sound.
"I don’t know!" Nico admitted, frustration clear on his face. "I didn’t plan it! I was just… living one day at a time with you. And every day was so good I pushed the problem to the next day. And the next day never came. Until it did."
He looked at Gabriel, and all the gruffness, the impenetrable shell, was gone. What remained was a scared, regretful, desperately in-love man.
"I’m not asking you to accept her now. I’m not asking you to be part of her life. I’m asking for a chance to stay part of yours. With everything on the table. No more secrets. I’ll tell you everything— my debts, the garage problems, my fights with Helena, my visits with Noemi. All of it. And then you decide if you still want a man as broken as me."
Gabriel felt his heart race. It was exactly what part of him — the wounded but still alive part — wanted to hear. Transparency. Humility. Nico’s vulnerability, something rare and precious. But the other part of him, the one that had cried all week, that felt betrayed and stupid, screamed caution.
"And if I don’t?" Gabriel asked quietly. "If I say the trust is broken beyond repair? That I can’t look at you without seeing the lie?"
The pain on Nico’s face was physical. He closed his eyes for a second, like he’d been punched.
"Then… then you walk away," Nico said, his voice barely there. "And I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering how I could be stupid enough to lose the one person who made everything worth it again."
The silence that followed was heavy. A barista called out a name that wasn’t theirs. The espresso machine hissed.
"I need time," Gabriel said finally, exhausted. "I can’t give you an answer right now. A lot of what I felt for you… it’s still here. And that scares me. Because I also feel betrayed. And confused."
Nico nodded quickly, a flicker of hope lighting his eyes.
"Whatever you want. Time. Space. Anything. I’ll wait. I won’t move. Just… don’t disappear again. Don’t shut me out. Let me at least know you’re fine."
Gabriel looked at him, at this strong man who now seemed fragile, hanging by a thread he’d almost cut himself.
"I’m not promising anything," Gabriel said honestly. "But… I won’t ignore you. And if I need to talk, I will."
It was little. Almost nothing. But to Nico, it was an oasis after a week in the desert. He nodded, lips pressed into a thin line, holding back a flood of emotion.
"Thank you," Nico whispered.
Gabriel stood up. The conversation was over. He had listened. Now he had to process a storm of information and feelings.
"I’m gotta go," Gabriel said.
Nico stood too, instinctively, like he might follow him, but stopped. Respecting the space.
"Gabriel," Nico called as the boy turned away.
Gabriel paused, glancing back over his shoulder. Nico looked like he wanted to say a thousand things. His hands opened and closed at his sides.
"Take care, baby."
Gabriel just nodded, turned, and walked out of the café, blending into the gray light of the rainy afternoon outside.
Nico stayed behind, staring at the empty table, at the two cups, one untouched glass of water, one cold coffee. Christ. He’d opened the cage. The bird had flown. Now all he could do was hope that one day, it might decide to come back.