Nicholas had never gotten so much side-eye as he had when Abby's memo delivered chocolate box had shown up at his desk[1], and that was saying something.  Not that he minded.  And the sight had made his day better.  But a box of chocolates definitely deserved more than a thanks-by-memo.  Nicholas also thought it best to vacate his desk for a little bit.  It didn't hurt that he still had the list of what was missing to drop off.  And probably a statement to give.

He snuck a look into the outer office of the DMLE head to make sure it was empty before entering.  He wasn't about to get Abby in trouble.  Or himself.  "I didn't know you could get memo's to carry something that big.  I think the...ah...crankier obliviators were trying to figure out if I was breaking a rule.  Thanks by the way.  You're not busy are you?"  The longer he put off talking to the MLE, the longer his surprise good mood would last.

1.

Porridge?

Abby's desk was as pristine as could be, all evidence of chocolate (and love potions) swiped clean. She sat and swiveled her chair, thumbing through Carstairs' schedule, which he'd packed full of appointments for Monday. Why he'd want to make Monday worse than it already was, she'd never know. As the door opened, she straightened, not expecting her boss back for another half hour at least.

Was Fauna hoping to hide out here again - no, it was Nicholas!

She smiled in surprise, setting her calendar down. "No worries!" Abby waved him in, enjoying the feeling that this was her domain to host guests. Solomon's waiting area? Nah, it had become Abby's.

"They're all in meetings trying to make up for the time they lost on Friday," she said with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Nicholas seemed to be alright - he looked better than he had this morning.

"It took me a while to finagle the memos just right," she admitted. "I've been told to stop using the owls for frivolous purposes, you know how it is! They said nothing about using a bunch of auto-fly memos. I'm really the only one who uses them."

Oh the few joys of being a squib.

"How are you?" Her question carried more weight to it than it usually did.

She had seen the burglary report before sending him that memo. Abby had read it, filed it, and worried about her new friends, especially Nicholas, who'd faced the brunt of it.

It would have been a huge breach of professionalism to send him a note saying that she already knew, and to go about prying in his business that way. So she took the slightly less intrusive route, admitting that she'd noticed his demeanor and hoping that he'd tell her what was wrong on his own.

He actually had! And now he was here, thanking her in person. Who ever said Nicholas Bevans lacked manners?

Nicholas smiled as Abby waved him into the waiting area.  He took the seat nearest her desk and plopped down into it.  He hadn't had a good night sleep since the break-in.  He also hadn't been back to the flat yet.  It had just been happenstance that he'd arrived at the Ministry with Virgil.  He nodded along as she explained why everyone was in meetings. He'd missed out on all the fun thankfully.  "That's good, I'd hate to get you in trouble with the boss."

He'd hate to have a run-in with his own department head.  Or work directly for Som.  That would be way too much pressure.  So far he'd only had meetings with the Senior Obliviators and that was bad enough.  Not that he could imagine any reason for Quill Som to even know trainee's name.

"Chocolate is never frivolous and the memos are so much cleaner.  And they don't nip."  Nicholas chuckled before Abby asked how he was and his mood sobered.  He really wanted to go six months without being knocked out.  Dueling club sessions at Hogwarts, kidnappings, break-ins.  What was next?  Being bashed on the head by a troll.  He'd probably just end up braining himself the next time he had a drink.

"I've been better."  He sighed and rubbed at his eyes.  "I just..." He shuddered.  The burglary was bad.  It had felt like....it had been a violation.  Especially waking up to someone in his room.  But it was being thrown back into the familiar nightmare that had shaken him so much.  If the thief had just hexed him...  "It was hard to sleep last night." He hadn't been trapped in the nightmare, which just meant his sleep had come in fits and starts.

"I get myself into trouble," she winked. The chocolates were bound to come back and haunt her one of these days.

Abby moved from her seat behind the desk to sit in one of the chairs next to Nick. She nodded in understanding, letting her smile fall. He could make jokes about the hazards of owls just like she did during tense times, but really, she could see he'd been better. When he admitted it, Abby rubbed at the side of her face, rubbing her own sleepiness away.

"I'm sorry," she offered with a sympathetic look. "Good on you for showing up to the office in a zombie state," she teased gently, but meant it. If it were her, she wouldn't be at work come Monday. A thing like that would send her spiraling into anxiety and fear.

"Is it weird, back at your flat? Or are you staying somewhere else?"

M for Language

"Zombie?  Nah," Nicholas said with a hint of a smile, "I'm more in need of coffee than brains."  Unless said brains were attached to someone on this level who gave a damn.  Sure he hadn't been in the best state of mind when the auror had checked out the flat, but he was still less than pleased with the actions taken that night. 

Well other than Abby.  He was enjoying getting to know the woman, but she wasn't exactly in a position to do more than she was doing right now.  Which was no small thing.  He'd learned that he needed to talk through things. But he didn't want to burden Peyton with it.  Again.  And Virgil was ... Virgil.  Abby was providing an ear at the right time and frankly Nicholas couldn't chance dealing with it the way he had that night.  Not at work.

"I didn't really have a choice,"  He said quietly. "I'm pretty sure I'm nearing the end of training.  I can't-won't fuck that up."  He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling, "I haven't been back yet.  I stayed at my mum's." 

He let out a long sigh and put his arm over his face.  "I'm going back tonight. Hopefully."  Otherwise his mum would catch on that something was really wrong.  Besides being robbed and assaulted in his own bed.

Abby tilted her head, listening, and put a hand to her mouth, biting on the edge of a ragged nail. She couldn't help but worry that a break-in might happen someday at the flat she and Raine shared. Raine was an Auror trainee but she wasn't indestructible. She couldn't always be there to hex someone in the balls.

She tasted nail polish, and glanced disgustedly at her hand and set it down. When had she started that habit?

It was good that his mum was there for him. Merlin, it was weird to think of Nicholas with family, and Nicholas caring about his job! She was used to his party-hard, carefree demeanor.

"I would be panicking big time, but I'm a special case," she smiled wryly.

"No one can blame you for feeling freaked out about it," Abby added. "The Ministry isn't totally heartless. Neither are your friends! Or flatmates. Possibly," Abby let out a giggle. Virgil was never heartless to her!

Nicholas did panic though.  Well not so much when the guy was robbing them.  But once he woke up.  Or at least he lost his shit.  And Nicholas wasn't sure he liked this facet of himself.  He was used to losing his temper sure.  But the rest.  He wasn't sure he liked knowing that nightmares were all it took to keep him from thinking straight.

Or at least certain nightmares that were able to undo whatever normalcy he'd gotten back to.

"I'm sure you'd handle yourself fine,"  he said turning to look at Abby.  "The people here may not be heartless," he smiled obviously at Abby, "but the Ministry is. And our friends..."  He couldn't very well say they were all heartless cause obviously they weren't.  But he didn't think most of them would understand.  Frankly, he considered himself lucky that he'd gotten more than lucky with Peyton.  "I don't want to bother them with something that they wouldn't understand."

His flatmates on the other hand.  Ariadne might at least listen.  Virgil though.  "Virgil might as well be heartless.  I'd have better luck having a heart-to-heart with a troll."

"I get that," Abby nodded. Keeping things to herself because she wasn't sure if anyone would understand, or because she was embarrassed, or because just talking about it made her That Girl, the person bad things happened to, and she'd much rather be seen as Just Abby. And really, who could understand being trapped in a house with sadistic, soul-sucking serial killers? Only someone who had been through it. Calix would understand, but he was gone. Dead.

Nicholas claimed she would be just fine if a burglar broke into her flat. She smiled. He saw her as Just Abby.

A troll would listen better than Virgil? Abby raised her eyebrows, her smile turning bemused, then twisting into a smirk that was not her own. She shook her head, pushing the pentral's thoughts away.

"Careful! A troll might choose to eat your heart. Is Virgil seriously being awful?" She pursed her mouth, for a moment resembling her sister.

"He's usually more," she hesitated a fraction of a second. "Perceptive. He usually," Abby pointed a finger in the air. "Uses his perception For Good."

Did Nicholas know about his flatmate's legilimency? She wondered just how close Nicholas and Virgil were. Tweedle dee, Tweedle doo dum, Fauna had called the pair of them once, and Abby had laughed too hard to correct her on the 'doo'.

Nicholas sighed when she asked if Virgil was being awful.  He wasn't sure he could say Virgil was being awful.  He was just being Virgil about it all.  He wasn't under any illusions that moving into the same flat would change anyone.  It wasn't like they'd spent the last seven years living alone.  He just would have liked a little bit more from Virgil.

Perceptive, Nicholas snorted.  "Yeah that's a word for it."  If Virgil was just perceptive, it wouldn't be so bad.  But the bastard knew what was going on in his head.  Especially when he was messed up about something.  Hadn't Virgil even said that he couldn't help it when he was upset?  Which just made it worse when he was an ass. Nicholas was pretty sure he'd find it impossible to be anything but sympathetic if he always knew exactly what was upsetting people.

"As far as I can tell he uses his perception for himself."  Did Abby know?  Or did she just think Virgil was understanding?  Part of him was still bitter about the revelation, even if the robbery had pushed some of that to the side.  But Abby bringing it up, made him want to tell her.  And everyone else they knew.

"He's not being any more awful than normal, really.  He's just never not completely not awful."

Abby raised her eyebrows as Nicholas scoffed, surprised to hear him echo what she'd heard Virgil say about himself - he was never not completely not awful. That was one way to put it!

Sounds accurate, the pentral sniped, remembering that time Virgil had built a mental wall against her.

She rested an arm over the back of her chair and tilted her head, torn. Normally Abby would prioritize someone's feelings over her urge to pry, but she hadn't talked about Virgil's legilimency to anyone, and she really wanted to know. Did Nicholas know?

"Huh. I'm sorry," Abby offered. "He's helped me," she admitted slowly. "But maybe I was just so miserable he couldn't stand it. Who knows!"

Someone must know. Nicholas might know!

"If I were that 'perceptive'," Abby made air quotes and pursed her mouth to keep from laughing. "I'd probably try to ignore it sometimes so I could like, get through the day without crying into my porridge as I feel all the feelings from my flatmates - I don't know what it is with me and porridge references - but maybe he has to do that, living with friends."

She shifted her arm on the back of the chair and draped her hand over her mouth, eyes dancing with restrained amusement. Merlin help her, she was being so obvious!

Nicholas turned in his chair to really look at Abby.  Was she hinting that she knew?  Or was she just saying that Virgil had been understanding with her?  He was pretty sure Virgil didn't want people to know.  And a part of Nicholas didn't care. But that was the part that could stay over at Peyton's; not the part that had to share the flat with Virgil.  If Abby already knew though? Well then he wouldn't have spilled the beans.

"The problem is he doesn't ignore it.  He knows way more than he should."  And shares even less.  Nicholas wouldn't have liked it had he been told earlier.  But he'd lived with Virgil for months before he'd said anything to Nicholas.  And that was probably only because he'd caught him with the fish in the lift. 

"If you were that 'perceptive'," he added the same air quotes she had, "you'd care."  And you'd be a witch.  Though he definitely kept the last bit to himself

"But now I know what to serve for breakfast if you are ever at the flat in the morning.  Don't even need to read your mind." Too obvious? Probably.

Abby straightened in her seat as Nicholas did, studying him as he studied her. Virgil knew more than he should. Another way to put it!

Oh, but actually, she was that perceptive, and she did care. It was just an entirely different situation. Instead of reading other people's thoughts, other living people who existed in the world, she read and felt the thoughts of a dead girl living in her head. She cared, but sometimes she'd give anything to feel completely like herself again. As she'd told Virgil on Friday, it was getting harder to recognize who was doing the feeling and thinking.

Abby widened her eyes, then burst out laughing.

"You can try to read my mind, but you'd have to get his look right first. The," she leaned forward in her chair, tilting her head down to emphasize any shadows under her eyes, and gave him a serious stare, her mouth curling into a smirk.

Forgive her, Virgil!  "That one."

Abby sank bank in her chair, smirk turning into a grin.

"I'm so glad you know! I've been dying to tell someone. You have no idea!" If she had something lightweight to throw at him in celebration, she would have, but she'd left her bobble-head pens on her desk.

"I keep almost spilling the beans to Sasha, because I tell him everything, because I'm a big sap. Like, he would geek out over it. But this just means we can geek out together. Sorry, that's what's going to happen now."

She lifted her hands and shrugged in an apology-not-apology.

Nicholas laughed as Abby imitated Virgil's look. "I hate that look.  I'm never sure if I want to hex it off his face or make it so he always look that way."  Knowing what was going on in Virgil's head or knowing that Virgil knew what was going on in Nicholas's head just made him hate that look even more.  He still wasn't okay with any of it by any stretch of the imagination.  But he was trying not to dwell too much on how he wanted to punch Virgil right in his smirking face.  Or the robber.  Or both of them.

"I don't understand how you are okay with it."  He said when Abby finished.  "I want to tell everyone so that they know to protect themselves.  Can..."  Could Abby even protect herself from a legilimens?  His expression darkened as he continued, "It's a violation.  Not like kidnapping.  But its still a violation."

He ran his hand over his face and through his hair.  "We've been sharing a flat for months and he just told me last week."

They both laughed over Virgil's expressions, but Abby's mirth quickly faded as Nicholas took it much more seriously than she'd expected. Once she got over her surprise, her face turned pensive, and she curled her knees up on the armchair, letting her feet dangle off the edge.

She felt okay with it because it was a part of who Virgil was. He hadn't asked for it. As far as she knew he used it with care.

Abby's mouth opened, then closed, drawing back in her seat. Did he have to throw the kidnapping in her face?

Oh. Virgil had only recently told him. Abby sighed, glancing away. On the one hand it was understandable that Virgil would want to keep his gift private, on the other hand his very gift invaded others' privacy.

"Isn't it good that he told you eventually?" Abby tried for a light tone, imagining that Virgil had sat him down and explained it with care, not devil may care.

"How is it a violation?" She tilted her head. Deep down she understood what he meant.

Nicholas probably shouldn't have said how he actually felt.  He should have just laughed about the constipated look Virgil got and then said nothing else about it.  But no, he'd taken the conversation back to serious territory.  Instead of keeping it light and about chocolate.  Wasn't that why he'd visited?  To thank Abby for the chocolate.  Not to bitch about Virgil being a dick and reading their minds.

"He only told me when I walked into the lift when he triggered a fishy mind trap thing."  In for a penny, in for a pound.  They'd either end up friends or not.  "How is it not?  My thoughts are mine.  Reading them without permission isn't any different than being robbed.  Or kidnapped." 

He sighed and looked at a spot on the wall, unconsciously avoiding eye contact  with Abby.  "I mean I don't think he's done it to do that.  It's not like he's kept me knocked out and run experiments on me or anything.  He's not Gamp even if he did go work in that damned department.  It's just not right.  And he should have told me sooner."