a waste of a beautiful dress - n. hischier
summary: an unhappy valentine's day date doesn't always end up with you watching lord of the rings alone with a glass of wine...at least, not when a certain captain can help it
warnings: talks of sex/bad date, mention of alcohol consumption, descriptions of the above facial injury, swearing, cutesy 2.1k thing
a/n: this is a short imagine-thing i wrote on valentine's day that i kind of forgot about (i was gonna write more but i just couldn't think of what to do, so if the ending's weird, that's why!) and i didn't want to not publish this for you guys, so...enjoy!
“Is everything okay?”
You blinked, the elevator coming back to focus around you, the walls distorting the reflection of someone that, rather against your will, you’d found growing increasingly familiar with each week. The bottle of wine in your grasp felt suddenly heavier under his careful scrutiny, and you felt your fist tighten around it, almost protectively.
You could only imagine what you looked like: nice clothes – maybe a little too nice for an evening stroll or a walk around the block, and a tarnished, almost numb expression on your face, even despite the conflicted tornado swirling inside your mind. There was no doubt he’d deciphered your distracted look and the dejection written so plainly on your face. Yet, though you knew what he saw, you refused to feel pity for yourself.
You inhaled, plastering a tight smile on your face as you looked towards him, his beloved beanie on his head and a backpack on his shoulders. His head was dipped a little, a slight furrow between his brows, ever telling of his caring tendencies, and you suddenly felt a little better, even despite the previous events.
“I’m fine.” You tried, slyly moving the bottle further out of his sight. It didn’t work: his eyes seemed to catch the slight motion before meeting yours, a look of disbelief on his face, “You?” You asked, desperate to turn his attention away from you.
Nico Hischier wasn’t someone you’d have found yourself chatting to casually mere months ago, at least not past the usual pleasantries. Though, it seemed the mutual friends and the many parties had oiled that creaking joint somewhere along the way, and – hesitantly – you were friends to some degree. So much so that every so often the two of you may find yourselves in the other’s apartment with a mug of coffee or a glass of wine in hand with something playing on the TV.
Of course, no one else knew about that.
He sighed, leaning back against the mirror opposite you. There was a cut under his eye you hadn’t seen immediately, but when he leant back the light seemed to catch the green skin and the scratch. He seemed to notice your concerned wince before you could point it out, his hand flying up to lightly press underneath it, “It’s fine, I just caught a puck yesterday.”
Before he could say anything else, and you knew he would because he started to frown again, you interrupted, a slight laugh of mirth passing your lips, “No big deal.”
He froze a little, but still a smile replaced the apprehension as he shook his head, "Better my cheek than my teeth.”
“That’s true.” You grinned in agreement, attention immediately turning to the opening doors as they dinged, your floor appearing before you.
“After you.” Nico gestured, following closely behind as you both wandered to the end of the hall, your eyes glued to the patterned tiles beneath your feet, before a thought suddenly struck you, and with some urgency.
“Do you have Arnica?” You turned to Nico, your hand hovering under your own eye when he blinked in confusion, shaking his head, “For your eye? It helps with pain and bruising.”
“Uh…”
“Unless you want to keep your battle scar?” You teased lightly, unzipping your bag to pull out your keys, only to notice his still-close presence by your shoulder, even despite being outside your door.
You looked up, only to be met with a sheepish smile, one that you knew meant you’d caught him, but he shrugged, “The Arnica seems sensible.”
“Sensible?” You pushed your key through the door, turning the lock.
“It’s not much of a battle scar when a rubber disc wins.” He rationalised, walking through your doorway when you held it open for him and immediately gravitating towards the cat bed towards the far end of your apartment.
By the time you’d locked the door, shed your coat and placed your bag and the wine on the counter, he’d returned, still in his coat, beanie and backpack with a fond look on his face, your cat snuggled in his arms with no complaints of the attention except a rumbling, contented purr.
His eyes seemed to drop to your dress, and widen a little, and you knew there was absolutely no dodging his questions, not when he seemed to grow a little wary and dart his gaze to the bottle of wine on the counter.
“Did you have any Valentine’s plans today?” he asked lightly, briefly turning his attention back to the cat in his arms, most likely to give you a moment to steel yourself.
You hesitated, adjusting the straps on your dress. Nico was lovely, you knew that; he’d never once said or done anything to make you feel uncomfortable, but there was something more serious and vulnerable as to what you were about to say – lying wasn’t really in the cards, mostly because you knew he knew whatever had happened already hadn’t particularly ended well.
He’d caught you on the verge of tears in an elevator by yourself, clutching a bottle of wine, for fuck’s sake. You didn’t do that on Valentine’s day unless something had gone wrong.
“I did.” You breathed, quickly wiping down the counter surface and avoiding looking at him, trying to fight the embarrassment clawing its way up your throat, threatening to spill colour onto your cheeks.
You had nothing to be embarrassed about whatsoever.
He said nothing, just watched you carefully, keeping his distance. If you didn’t want to talk about it, you knew he wouldn’t even press the subject.
“I had a date earlier–” out of the corner of your eye, you saw his gaze cut to the clock on the wall: half-past six. “It didn’t go well.”
He nodded, treading carefully with his words, “How come?”
“He made some comments that I couldn’t really ignore, and when I asked him about it, y’know, to just clarify some things, he kicked off, I corrected him, he sulked, and then left halfway through when I went to the toilet.” You said in one breath, feeling your skin prickle with the reminder of the entire ordeal, scrubbing at a spot on the counter – sometimes grease just didn't budge.
There was the dull thud of paws against your floor, and you looked up to see Nico standing at the opposite side of the counter, an unreadable expression on his face. His brows were pulled together, but there was no telltale crease; his mouth was parted, but in a way that suggested he was a bit more hesitant at finding out what you had to say than a mortified scowl.
“What did he say?” His tone of voice was unwavering, but the slight edge to it sent your heart pounding a little harder nonetheless.
He had a sister, he was probably thinking of all the worst possible scenarios.
You felt your voice get caught in your throat, and you found yourself wishing you’d never even been this honest with him in the first place, because you felt…embarrassed, almost, to admit it fully, “He made a ‘my place or yours after this’ comment and I told him I didn’t want to sleep with him, so he left the first chance he got.” You said quietly, still making yourself busy with tidying the kitchen.
You inhaled deeply, spinning on your heel and fiddling with some of the utensils before you could gain the courage to even look in his direction. You didn’t want to see him pity you.
Except, when you did look up, you saw none of the pity you’d been expecting. In fact, his mouth was pressed firmly shut, and when he caught you looking at him, he – very insistently – muttered, “Well, he’s a fucking dick.”
You felt the corners of your mouth twitch up in some hint of a smile, “Thanks.”
Then, almost like it did in the elevator, the light seemed to catch the shiner under his eye, reminding you of the very reason he’d walked through your threshold in the first place, and you began to wander through the hallway, “I’ll go get the Arnica.”
He nodded in response, shucking his coat and draping it across the back of one of the stools, before bending down to stroke the cat nuzzling at his shins. You rounded the corner into your bathroom, rifling through the cupboard for the tube of cream, before making your way back into the living area, the tube outstretched in your hand.
He took it from you gently, leaning his elbows across the countertop as he read the information on the back of it silently.
“What about you?” You asked, and he looked up, “Any Valentine’s Day plans?”
He blinked, sighing, “I laid in bed for an hour longer than usual.” He said simply, “Then I went to a late morning skate, came home, watched some TV, went to the gym, and now I’m here. So, no, not really.” He inhaled, and you felt yourself grow a little uneasy when he started poking the swelling under his eye, looking into his phone to apply the cream, “You got any more plans?”
Your eyes darted to the bottle of wine, “I was gonna drink wine and watch Lord of the Rings.”
He breathed a startled laugh, “Sounds like a good plan.”
“It is.” You agreed, pausing to consider something, before taking a breath, “Do you wanna join me?”
It wasn’t something you’d never done with each other before; in fact, the two of you seemed to get along better without a cacophony of people interrupting (though that wasn’t much of a surprise), however there was something more delicate and meaningful in the knowledge of the day: Valentine’s Day was undoubtedly something that was weighing on both your minds. It was impossible not to – the posts on social media, the love hearts plastered in shop windows and the flowers everywhere didn’t let you forget it.
It just felt different, somehow.
Nico’s fingers faltered under his eye, and he looked up, brown eyes a little wider than usual, with his mouth parted in surprise. Evidently, he’d been thinking along similar lines to you, but Valentine’s Day wasn’t just about romance and love and whatnot: it was also just another day.
He blinked, eyes searching your face for regret in asking, or for some sign that he should turn down your offer, no matter how tantalising it was.
“It’s not gonna drink itself.” You joked lamely, watching as he slowly nodded, ducking his head down to mask the smile you knew was now on his face.
“Are you sure?” He mumbled, placing his phone on the counter and screwing the top back onto the cream. His eye was now shining a little, but it gave you inexplicable comfort to know that it was at least taken care of temporarily.
Even looking at it seemed to send a dull ache thrumming across your cheekbone.
“I’m sure.”
Then: “Did you eat on that date?” He asked, raising a brow.
“No.”
He frowned, but showed nothing to say he was particularly shocked by that answer, and stood up from the stool very quickly – quick enough to startled the cat, and quick enough to have to catch the stool from falling over in his haste, “Do you maybe want to get something to eat, first? I know a good place a couple of blocks away.”
You stuttered, not entirely expecting such a spontaneous proposal, “Sure, I just—I should change first, though.”
His eyes dragged down your figure, and for the first time ever, you found yourself trying to regain control of the sudden blush that threatened to stain your cheeks, before he tutted, met your eyes, smiled and shook his head, dimples as clear as they’d ever been. There was something bright in his eye, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d assume there was some mischief lingering there – as though he knew exactly what you were refraining from doing under his gaze.
“Personally,” he started off slowly, “I think it’d be a waste of a beautiful dress.”
You sucked the inside of your cheek, looking down at your dress. It was beautiful, though arguably it had already been wasted on the day considering the hellish date experience, but maybe eating out with Nico would change that?
“In that case…” You trailed off, grabbing your coat and slipping your shoes back on, “But–” You whirled around, Nico’s hand going suspiciously fast to cover his mouth, though the crinkles by his eyes certainly told you everything you needed to know, and arched an accusing brow in his direction, “I’m changing when we get back.”
“Fine by me.” He held up his hands in surrender, mouth pressed tightly together to prevent himself from laughing, and you rolled your eyes at his innocent act, but said nothing.
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👾 How to Turn Off Algorithm on Your Dashboard 👾
So this post is for the people who've been using Tumblr, following people/blogs you like, hoping that every time they post you can see the stuffs they post/reblog! But there seems to be one problem... every time they post, their posts just doesn't show up on the top of your dashboard! You only saw them only hours or days later or you don't see them all, missing your mutual's post! 🫨
Is there an algorithm on Tumblr? Yes. But you can turn it OFF. Unlike Instagram which doesn't allow us to turn off its algorithm and only sees posts with high engagements, Tumblr has the option to turn OFF its algorithm - and ultimately makes your dashboard chronological/timeline-based ☝️🤓
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🔮 Turning OFF 'Best Stuff First' 🔮
So, to do this, go to your settings, and go to 'Dashboard Preferences', and TURN OFF the 'Best Stuff First'.
'Best Stuff First' is the algorithm in Tumblr where it'll present you with the stuffs they'd think you'd like based on your likes and reblogs. This is usually turned on automatically by the site itself for new-comers/users to give the new users some time as we look for blogs we like and follow.
Usually after you follow lots of blogs, you'd like to see your mutual's latest posts. So here is how you turn the algorithm off!
(For Mobile)
(For Website)
Et voila! Just like that, your dashboard is now timeline-based and chronological. No more seeing posts from days, weeks, or months ago.
(I myself like to see what's new from my mutuals. But if you have your own preference to see the most popular stuff on the top of your dashboard, feel free to turn the algorithm on.)
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⌚ Turning on Time Stamps ⌚
To make it more clear, let's turn on the time stamps. Yes, you can know when a post is posted on Tumblr.
So you'd usually see posts on your dashboard like this image below. As you can see, there are only the usernames, but no time indicator.
To see when this post was posted, you can go to the dashboard settings and turn ON the 'Show timestamps on posts, reblogs, and notes'
(For Mobile)
(For Website)
After turning this on, you can see that underneath the usernames, there's a timestamp! Now you know when the posts shown on your dashboard was posted!
There's even posts from seconds ago! Pretty neat and convenient isn't it ( •̀ .̫ •́ )✧ OR again, if you don't like to see the times, feel free to turn it off too!
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Anyway, have a good chronological/algorithm-free Tumblr experience!
Reblog is appreciated since a few of my friends have a hard time to see their mutuals' posts and unfortunately missed them. Don't forget you can also turn on notifications for when your beloved mutuals post! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
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