Nico threw the rock in his hand at the lake with as much force as he could muster. It dropped into the water creating ripples on the mirror like surface.
He had spent a lot of time in this area of the woods by the lake. It was peaceful and there didn't seem to be any houses nearby.
It had been one hell of a week.
Actually it had been a week of hell.
"Dad, can I talk to you, alone?" Nico asked. His dad shook his head. "No can do. All discussions happen with both your parents in the room. It'll have to wait until the little ones go to sleep." Fletcher said simply.
"Nicole isn't my parent. I haven't even known her for 48 hours." The boy protested, "And its a bit more urgent than that.". Fletcher just shook his head, looking into the fridge. He pulled out a plastic jug with pink lemonade inside. The sort of thing they never had around the house.
"I'm gonna take these out to the kids." The man said, ignoring the protests.
"Dad, this is important. I've been getting all the information I can about the snap and the blip from the news and the internet but I need to talk to you. You're whole life changed just 5 months after the blip. There's so much I don't know. Like how are our family friends doing? All that stuff." Nicholas said.
"I know its important to you, but Nico and I are a team. You need to talk to both of us at times like these. It'll help you get to know her." His dad said, pouring the lemonade into two Disney themed sippy cups.
The boy was confused. "I'm Nico." He said. His dad suddenly looked very uncomfortable.
"No, you're Nicholas, Nico is the nickname I use for Nicole." He said. Nico's brow furrowed.
"That was my nickname for my entire life. That was what everyone-you included-called me." The teen said, "You let her take my name?".
"You can't own a name." Fletcher said. Nico gave him a look that said 'are you being serious?'.
"Its just wrong. You can't let your new wife use my nickname. That's gross." The teen said, physically cringing at the idea of him calling them both Nico.
"I'm not discussing this right now. I named you Nicholas so that is your name. Not Nico." The man said, handing the boy one of the Disney cups. He started walking to the back door and Nico followed after him.
"What did you do with my stuff?" The kid asked instead. "I asked Nicole and she said she didn't know what happened to it.". Fletched gave him a confused look.
"We threw most of your things out during the move." He said, like it meant nothing to him, "A couple of the things you kept from when you were younger went to the kids. Nico wanted to make sure they had some stuff to connect them to you. I kept your trophies.".
"Oh course you did." Nicholas said angrily. "Can I at least have my baby stuff back from them? Most of that was stuff from mom and its really personal." He was a little embarrassed to admit that. He had a rocky relationship with his move when he came to live with his dad at 13. She had a lot of regrets about how they adopted him and their subsequent divorce.
It seemed he was everyone's biggest regret.
"Do you honestly want to steal toys from babies? They didn't do anything to hurt you and they didn't replace you. Stop acting like they did." Fletcher said angrily.
Nico gave him a confused look. "I didn't say that. I never said that." He responded. He didn't think that. "You're being really defensive.".
"I'm not being defensive." His dad snapped. That was the least convincing statement Nico had ever heard.
"Dad, I just want my things back. My bedroom is practically empty and I want to make it feel like mine. This is all really sudden and new to me." The teen explained.
"They're not your things anymore. Nicole gave them to Paisley and Greyson so they belong to them. I'll buy you some new things." He said absentmindedly.
"Nicole doesn't get to give my things away, they aren't hers! I didn't leave them to her in a will so they're not hers." The boy snapped.
"Watch how you speak about my wife." Fletcher all but growled. He took the cup of lemonade from Nico's hand and opened the door, shutting it on the boy's face with his foot.
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That wasn't even the worst of it. They had other great conversations like 'did you actually try to replace me with a whole new family?', 'why is your wife over 10 years younger than you?' and the infamous 'I don't want anyone on instagram to know my husband has a son. You're just a little old for our aesthetic'.
Yeah, turns out Nicole was one of those 'I must document everything' mommy bloggers. She did not take it well when he retorted that he didn't suit her 'aesthetic' because he was from a previous marriage or that he wasn't white. No, he didn't think they were racist, but Nicole mentioned that he was adopted pretty much every time she mentioned him.
The kids were weird. They seemed nice enough but they had been told so many stories about him from his dad and Nicole, who never even met him and told them all wrong, so they thought he was some sort of strange entity. Something that wasn't supposed to exist in their life.
The worst part of the past week had to be his dad's parenting. Fletcher wasn't doing a bad job, he was doing a great job.
And he hadn't done that for Nico. Neither of Nico's parents had ever brought him pink lemonade or let him pick the movie or bought him the clothes he wanted or played with him or read him bedtime stories or hugged him on nonholidays or anything.
The longer he sat in a room and watched his dad fawn over his two new kids the more he realized that maybe his parents were bad at their job. Or maybe they didn't care enough to be good at it.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when the kids had gotten into Nicole's makeup. She had gone psycho on them for a little bit then she had laughed it off and taken pictures for instagram. She made sure that Nicholas wasn't in them of course.
Paisley ran up to his dad and asked 'am I pretty' and batted her eyelashes. Fletcher had smiled and said she was the prettiest girl in the whole wide world. They Greyson had run up to him and asked the same question. Fletcher had responded that he was the prettiest boy in the whole wide world, which made the boy smile.
Nicholas seemed to remember a similar encounter going very differently for him. An encounter that fucked him for the rest of his life.
When the kids were out of ear shot on the other side of the massive living room, Nico walked over to his dad. "Aren't you going to tell him to wipe that shit off his face?" The boy said, parroting what had been said to him. "You're just going to raise him to be a faggo-"
Fletcher's hand came up to cover Nico's mouth faster than even Nico could react to. He grabbed the boy's wrist painfully tightly, hauled him to the back mudroom and shoved him down onto the weird trendy wooden bench.
"You will not use that sort of language in my house around my children." He said angrily.
"You used it around me!" Nico retorted, "You said those to me! Am I not your child? Was that not your house?!".
"You don't even remember that." Fletcher said, "You were a toddler.".
"I remember it because it never stopped!" Nico shouted. "It wasn't just when I got into mom's makeup! It was my Halloween costumes, my friends, what activities I did in school, it was all of that!".
"I've changed. Can't you accept that?!" Fletcher practically roared. "Why couldn't you change for me?!" Nico replied, "What's so special about him? We're both your sons, why do you love him more?".
"I'm not having this conversation right now." His dad said, "Calm down and watch your mouth.".
Nico saw red and reached for the back door handle. He grabbed a pair of flip flops and within 10 seconds he was running across the lawn towards the trees.
"Nicholas!" Fletcher shouted after him. Still, he didn't chase after him, just let him run.
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So yeah, that's how Nico ended up at the lake, throwing rocks into the water and trying to vent his frustration.
He didn't really want Greyson to end up with the same internalized homophobia he had, but it stung that he had to go through all that when obviously his dad is capable of not being a homophobic dickhead.
The teen just kept picking up larger and larger rocks until his eyes landed on a rock sitting just a few feet out in the lake. He held his hands up and focused on the water around the rock.
He raised it about 4 feet above the water's surface and dropped it. The water splashed his clothes but it was worth it to see the waves that came from it roll off onto the lake. There was something cathartic about the waves.
Suddenly he heard something behind him. The snap of a twig in a tree. Nico spun around and immediately made eye contact with a boy who was hanging upside down in a tree.
The boy had brown curly hair and wide brown eyes. He wasn't holding onto anything, only his feet were touching the tree. In his hand was a toy arrow.
Nico panicked. No one was supposed to know. God why did he have to let his frustration get the best of him?
"Ah don't worry I wont tell anyone!" The boy said, jumping down from the tree. Despite starting off upside down he landed perfectly on his feet. "I'm just like you. But I guess you could see that.".
"I could yeah." Nico mumbled shyly. "So um-you-I....we should...." He trailed off, not really knowing what to say. They fell into an awkward silence.
"We're just two enhanced teenagers in the forest." The brown haired boy said with an easy smile, walking over to Nico. "We don't have to complicate anything.". Nicholas nodded and smiled back.
"I'm Nico." He said. The boy smiled. "Peter." He replied, "Do you live here?".
"No I'm from Brooklyn-" He answered instinctively but caught himself. "Well I guess I live here now. My dad moved after the snap.". Peter nodded understandingly.
"I'm here visiting my..." He stopped for a second but not so long it was suspicious. "uncle. He has a cabin around here. I'm from Queens.".
The two boys ended up taking off their shoes (or flip flops in Nico's case) and put their feet in the cool lake water.
"So you were dusted?" Peter asked. Nico nodded. "I was too. I'm 15 or 20 I guess. I don't even know.".
"However old you we're the same age." Nico responded with a smile.
They kept talking like that. Animatedly, excitedly. The first genuine connection Nico had made since coming back.
-- -- --
I don't like writing about horrible step parents, most step parents are lovely people, but this story's concept kind of revolves around it 😅
Now you guys know what Nico's powers are! Well sort of. There are a few more elements that are gonna be added in, but basically the water manipulation is the gist of it.
He was originally gonna have super strength but that was too close to another OC I have so I changed it. I think his current powers suit him much better.
Stay tuned for the next chapter I guess?