#18 in TeenFic
•••
❝Don't,❞ he pleaded softly, offering her a tiny smile, ❝please don't make me a promise you will never be able to keep.❞ He released a quiet but deep breath, leaning forward even more, tilting his body towards her, until thei...
NICK had his brows furrowed together as he knelt, bent over the grandfather clock lying on the floor of the living room in a sleeping position.
He couldn't figure out what was wrong with it or why it'd stopped working. But at the same time, he marvelled at the interior. All those tiny, miniscule devices working in sync and following a designed routine on a daily basis to work.
He loved picking apart things and discovering for himself how they functioned.
Teachers, professors, lecturers... Nick didn't believe that they could do an equally wonderful job of explaining to an audience how something functioned.
It wasn't the same as the thrill of finding out for himself.
His observant eyes zeroed in on a lever that seemed to be stuck in between two chime hammers. He also noticed the suspension spring was rusted, which was probably why the pendulum was stiff and had trouble moving.
Okay, he thought to himself, okay, I know how to fix this. Just carefully, gingerly hold on to the lever and try--
"I'M HOME!" Dale yelled and slammed the front door as he bounced in. Nick's fingers slipped, the abrupt arrival of his relative-of-sorts startling him and the lever fell from his grasp, now back between the chime hammers -- stuck.
Dale couldn't even walk quietly; Nick could hear his footsteps as loud as all hell.
He clenched his eyes shut for a few seconds before opening them, his annoyance resurfacing.
He wanted to throttle Dale till his face turned purple right now.
"Hey, where's mum?" the devil himself asked as he strolled in leisurely before dropping down lazily on the couch, that ever-present stupid grin on his face.
Nick cussed in his head. "Why do people keep asking me for other people's whereabouts?" he snapped. "Like hell do I know."
Dale's eyebrows rose up. "What crawled up your--" he stopped mid-question when Nick sent him a death glare. And then Dale's facial expression changed, as if something clicked inside his mind.
"You're in a rotten mood," he stated more to himself than to Nick.
Nick ignored him.
"Oh God, you're in a rotten mood. What did you do, Nick?"
