Title: Stop Being So Nice

Rating: M (light M, though, more like L)

Warnings: Lots of swearing, a little bit of sexiness. More fluffy than angsty, this time. Just a little something I whipped out :)

Spoilers: Nothing super specific, but there are oblique mentions of things that have happened in more or less every episode thus far.

"Nick! Have you seen my feeling stick? I could have sworn that I left it on the counter last night after my talk with Schmidt!"

Nick sighs. It's a little ridiculous how much he wants to be annoyed by that question. Somehow, he can't quite muster the feeling. He warily watches her flounce away to check behind the couch pillows. When did this start? More importantly, when would it end?

Unfortunately, he doesn't have answers to either question. He likes to think it started -these terrible, horrible, unpleasant feelings – because of Cece. She wouldn't stop giving him these critical looks whenever she came over, which, by the way, was all the fucking time. She obviously thought he wouldn't notice. Oh, he noticed all right, it just took him a while to understand what the looks meant.

Okay, so, maybe he also overheard her saying something once. He's not a fucking mind reader, you know.

Ironically, it was Jess' whispered "shhhh!" and furtive glances that had alerted him of the conversation in the first place. It's not like he was trying to eavesdrop, but whatever Cece was saying was causing Jess to turn an alarmingly attractive shade of red.

"It's in his feet, Jess – it obviously means something."

Cece's declaration, somewhat muffled by Jess' fingers over her mouth, had rung in his head for days afterwards. It obviously means something. What? Why? How dare she suggest that anything he did had any meaning at all! He had been purposefully doing as little as possible for as long as he could remember, and he'd be damned if some leggy brunette would try to ruin this for him!

Just when he's prepared to blame Cece for all of his problems, Nick's traitorous brain reminds him that Cece had only started giving him the appraising looks, and later, most gallingly, the pitying glances, because of the way he'd been acting. An unacceptable way, if he could bring himself to admit it in the first place.

He's been acting nice. He's been asking about her day, and making extra stops at the drugstore on the way home from the bar, and doing the dishes in the sink that don't even belong to him.

Once he realizes what's happening to him, he suddenly can't stop thinking about it. He's self-conscious all the time, and his morning routine is completely fucked because now he feels some small compunction not to wear the same hoodie and pair of jeans four days in a row. He wonders more than once if he's coming down with something, because he's never felt this fucking terrible before.

It obviously means something. On some level, Nick reasons that it's entirely possible that they weren't even talking about him. Realistically, they were probably talking about Paul, or Spenser, or even Schmidt, damn him and his cardigans. On an even deeper level, Nick knows he's full of shit, because of course they were talking about him, since Jess looked about ready to have a nervous breakdown and had been practically weeping when she dragged Cece out the door.

He had endured the forced pleasantness following this episode stoically, and took great pains to make sure that Jess wouldn't be able to corner him alone, in case she felt the need to discuss her feelings, or worse yet, his. Eventually things went back to normal, or as normal as could be expected when a grown man in his thirties lived in a house with an unemployed basketball player, a frat boy who was inordinately fond of taking off his shirt, and an elementary school teacher who frequently burst into song.

It was fucking awful, Nick had decided one afternoon, after accidentally leaning too close and getting a whiff of her hair. God, how anyone managed to smell like freshly baked goods all the time was completely beyond him. He mentioned it to Winston, in a manner that he had hoped was offhanded, to see whether or not he had noticed it too. While Nick didn't appreciate the knowing smirk on Winston's face, he was half inclined to believe that Jess did, in fact, use cupcake scented perfume. He would have to remember to ask Schmidt if such a thing existed.

To make matters worse, she's always around, being cheerful and friendly and warm and doing things like baking trays of bran-muffins and putting potted plants on the windowsills and making sure to swiffer behind and under things. She's just so fucking nice all the time, and Nick kind of can't stand it, especially because he's the exact opposite sort of person. Or at least he used to be.

He's taken to imagining what she'd look like, looking up at him through her dark eyelashes, her hair spread prettily over his pillows, her mouth a pretty O of happy surprise. He imagines unwrapping the bows and ribbons she likes to wear, and kissing her dimples while pulling down her little white underpants, and her tiny hands wrapped around him, hard and hot, and if he's feeling particularly suicidal, imagines how her lips would look stretched around his cock.

He was fucking irritated when he realized that he's no longer jerking off to a faceless brunette fantasy. It obviously means something.

Just for that he'd gone out and got drunk and ended up making out with a redhead in a dirty bar bathroom. That night he'd had a particularly vivid dream in which every time he tried to sit on the couch it got smaller and smaller until it was only big enough for one person, and he couldn't get up because then he wouldn't have anywhere to sit. In his dream Jess had viewed the anomaly as a perfectly sound reason to sit on his lap and neither Schmidt nor Winston would help him.

Nick refused to go anywhere near the couch for the next week, and none of his roommates had the slightest idea why.

Watching her now, tearing apart their apartment looking for her stupid crap, is small consolation for the emotional torment she's been putting him through.

She's back, and giving him an expectant look. "What?"

She doesn't react to his mildly petulant tone. "Are you sure you didn't see my feeling stick when you came in here? I thought I left it on the counter." Her eyes sweep over the room again, as though somehow she could have missed the feather and bead monstrosity during her first search.

"No, Jess," he replies evenly, although he had, in fact, not only seen it, but been the one to hide it behind the toaster oven. Nick calmly sips his coffee and turns his attention back to the newspaper laid out in front of him. It's time to admit it, even if only to himself. Nick has a thing for Jess.