#but bc Monday is a short day I get to cook it myself. and it be. WARM 🙌🙌🙌

[warden-anders]

when I get the opportunity to genuinely cook lunch you can bet your ass that I'm gonna chop myself an onion

[rhythmic-idealist]

Hi, everyone in the apartment is extremely beat.

[gross warning, skip the next paragraph if you’d rather not see it]

Here is some filler okay I threw up in the first hour of my shift today and had to finish the shift bc I’m full up on attendance strike “points.” Definitely not well enough to snag the OT I was gonna snag this weekend, but I’ll be good by Monday.

My laptop is broken because it fell off a table (completely my doing). This is livable, but making me sad because I was otherwise going to have an AMV finished by now, and I’m without my favorite low-stress hobby.

We have groceries but we’re all sometimes too goddamn tired to cook and occasionally ordering in, everyone else in this house is chronically ill and/or physically disabled, we’re all spoonies. I have to register my car so the cops don’t pull me over for being a year overdue. I’ve gotta get my control arm bushings replaced, and I haven’t done suspension work before so I don’t trust myself to do it myself. And, due to the age of Kitkat’s CRV despite the attentive care she took maintaining it, we’re down to my car as the only car.

I’m due for some doctors’ appointments— did something to my knee at work that is probably nothing (and yet I’d like to check in now instead of signing up for knee problems for the rest of my life). Chronic headaches that I’ve had all my life need to be addressed bc of how much harder they’re making the rest of my life.

So, this is an e-begging post, if you’re able. We Will Be Fine. My and my polycule’s parents won’t let us go homeless or hungry. This is…. if you like me and would like to make life nicer?

I’d like my hobby back (via laptop repair), and I’d like to be less sick at work which probably means less time cooking and more time to sleep & make some overdue doctors’ appointments abt my headaches and whether I messed up my knee.

My parents did send us some money recently & bought my plane tickets to visit home. They’ve got three kids to work out for and themselves as they get older— I’m not in any place to start putting aside money to help them out yet, though I am working hard to one day.

They would give me money for doctors’ appointments if I told them I needed it. I do however think they would not actually have the money to do that and be alright themselves, and so I don’t intend to ask unless shit gets very fucked.

And finally, I’m paycheck to paycheck and really, really want a medical emergency fund. But yknow. This post isn’t gonna make THAT happen. This is some short term “is anyone able to help me unfuck the next two weeks?” and then I’ll be healthier and more on target.

Thank you so much — and seriously, We Will Be Okay. We will be fine. This is a little (huge, it means very very much to me) treat to me.

Maybe I’ll spend this on the laptop, maybe something more essential! But it all helps.

PayPal

ko-fi (which takes a cut, but is still very appreciated)

Okay thank you for the help. Basically the main thing this post will probably determine is whether I get laptop repair done within the next two months 💗 but you know. Will also determine how few cooking spoons I have to spend and how soon I can get my life in order

Thanks love you all

[noodlemethis]

The depression chronicles continues #2 (part 1 in my new green notebook)

21 Jun 2024 - Friday

Man there's so much to document all the time. Today felt low and painful - very low energy, a dread flowing through my brain-body, and a lump in my gut all day. I have so many theories as to why but I don't want to write all of it down now.

I'm judging where I'm at, why I have these feelings. I'm speaking to myself of anxieties of leaving Melbourne and going back to sg in two weeks, and of not being good enough for Ronnie's wedding emcee because I'm so slow and behind and not invested, and of having to answer my parents about my time here, about my continued failure, about not having much time left of my year abroad.

It occurs to me these judgements and anxieties are just adding and adding and adding to my woes. Of course my body feels low and defeated. I'm judging myself for my inactivity rather than sitting with it and understanding it. I'm not genuinely proud of my accomplishments today (cooking lunch, managing to eat dinner, starting on my RSA, grieving / learning to stop talking to Hemant, making tea in the morning, showering, putting away my laundry).

I'm feeling my heart ectopics again for the first time since I left sg. I guess the fear is real, the dread is eating me up. Maybe. Could be a correlation though.

Perhaps what I need is to really spend quality time with myself every other day. To sit and be, and soothe. Bc that helped a little bit on Monday and Wed(with reis) , and definitely last Tuesday at the docklands.

I think a lot of it is that I'm not happy with how slow progress is towards my short and long term career goals. There are multiple goals though and I'm working towards both. Maybe tomorrow I write down what those goals are and be more smart goals about them. Focus on the bigger picture rather than the small. Yeah. That's what I'll do.

Plan:

10am wake up

1.5h to flick through phone, brush teeth out on clothes, make breakfast and eat breakfast

1130am grab a pen and book and start writing in simple terms the short term and the longer term goals for career. Then pen down in bullet points what the sub goals have been

12pm take break, maybe call my mom and dad?

1:30pm eat kichidi for lunch

3pm start getting ready, go to Roslyn and get cakes for Victoria house

4pm reach Vic house and remember to ask abt the migration person contact

[lukehughes]

On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Eleven

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen

WC: 17k (I've literally been calling this a short filler hahahahaha)

18+ MDNI!!

Chapter Warnings: unbearable amounts of fluff like you're gonna think is this girl okay??? the answer, as you should already know, is no. I honestly think it's just fluff.... and bad smut. oral (fem receiving, very briefly) and p in v. mentions of jealousy I think. cheeto gets a name finally but honestly.... she's cheeto forever let's not forget. discussions around marriage and more babies. yeah - fluffy fluff.

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Ten)

A/N: remember the good old days when I uploaded a chapter like every 10 days??? remember me trying to beat the week-ish allegations??? I can’t tell if me struggling to finish this fic is bc I’m worried it’s getting samey and boring or bc I don’t want to let them go but i need to get over myself!!! sorry for the wait on this one!!! I kind of veered off the path that I planned out for the end of this story, I was really adamant I didn’t want something to happen, but it doesn’t really make sense for the relationship and characters I’ve written for it NOT to happen, so pls bear with me while I figure these last couple of chapters out!! I know a few people have discovered this fic recently so thank you for reading!! I promise I do love these two as much as I haven't acted like it the last couple of months!!

BUT ANYWAY!!! MORE IMPORTANTLY!!!!! this chapter is dedicated to my bestie Rory!! it was her birthday on Monday and if I'm honest I don't know if I would have made it this far without her!! she sends me full chapter breakdowns every time I post and she loves Poppy and Nico as much as I do - literally if I perish, she will take the reins!!! she knows everything!!! I accidentally spoiled the gender to her forever ago, and she helped me figure out Cheeto's name (as well as the name cheeto lmao) and we compared lists and literally had the same number one and the same reason we are that connected!! @h1sch13r I love you so much I couldn't possibly put into words how much I appreciate you!! happy belated birthday capricorn queen!!

Nico

Ever since he moved to the states, summers in Switzerland have always been the best part of Nico’s year. 

Spending much needed time with his family - staying with his parents for days at a time, back in his childhood home, eating his mother’s cooking and hanging out with his dad, and annual trips with his siblings, where the three of them got to spend a week together pretending like their lives hadn’t taken them away from each other. 

Despite the chaos that came as hockey season came to a close, he always looked forward to coming home.

And last year, when he had done so after one of the most heartbreaking moments of his career, he had endured what he now considers the worst summer of his life.

And it was all because of Poppy.

He can see it so much clearer with hindsight, how he had taken himself so far off the beaten path just to avoid his feelings for her, and experiencing a summer with her only makes him regret it more.

Last year, he had come home in a slump, and he had thought, at the time, it was the noise of being knocked out of the playoffs and a brief appearance at the world championships that was lingering. He thought he was exhausted, and remorseful, and that it was the failure of carrying his teams any further that was making him feel so down.

And so he had tried his best to do things that made him feel the opposite. 

He bought an apartment, not too far from his family that he felt distant, but enough so that he could be independent when he came back. And he had tried to make it feel like home - furnished nice, with personal belongings from his parent’s house that made the place feel like his, and not some rental he had no place making feel like forever.

He went on more trips with his friends, weekends away, music festivals, sporting events, and made a point of saying yes to things he might usually have turned down.

And that had been what led him to Talia - to being blinded by what probably should have stayed a summer fling, in lieu of sparing a thought to adoring eyes looking back at him from booths in bar corners, and a girl that, in the back of his mind, he had always wanted to be forever, too.

He had missed Poppy more than he ever could have realised at the time - and had fallen victim to abiding by their usual routine of radio silence in the summer, without realising that they had grown way too much since the year before to seriously keep that up.

He wishes he’d have texted her or something, back then. Commented on an instagram post, responded to a story, or called her, even. Her voice might have deterred him from ever trying to move on, and it could have saved the two of them so much time and heartache from what came as a result of that.

But maybe then she wouldn’t be here now, belly round with his child, sat out on the terrace in the back yard of his childhood home, schooling his big brother at Uno. Maybe he wouldn’t come down the stairs in the morning to the sounds of her laughing with his dad, helping him prepare breakfast for the family and asking him questions about what constitutes being offside in soccer when he’d sit down to watch Switzerland play their international games and she’d join him to try get into it, herself. 

Maybe she wouldn’t go on shopping trips with his sister, and come back with bagfuls of baby clothes that she holds up to her front as she shows them all to Nico in their room, and make comments about how she can’t believe that something so big can grow from her belly. 

Maybe she would still be someone he always wants to keep to himself, instead of sharing her with the people he loves the most in this world, only to have his love grow for her even more - and maybe that’s not how he ever wanted things to be. 

So maybe he had to suffer through the facade he put on last summer to get to where he is now, content in every possible aspect of his life, wrapped up under the bedsheets, muttering random stories to Poppy’s belly as she sleeps, the side of his finger caressing the soft skin as he anticipates whatever movement happens inside her that is going to rouse her from whatever sweet dreams he hopes she’s having. 

“What are you doing?”

There’s a brief flash of light before Poppy joins him under the covers, pulling the sheet over her head to shield them from the morning sun’s intrusion before she looks down at where he’s resting beside her belly. 

Her eyes are narrowed like they’re trying to fight consciousness, and her face is swollen in that adorable way it gets in the mornings, puffy and plump, and he wants to kiss it all over. 

She’s so beautiful, and she’s his, and it warms his heart every time he gets to wake up to her. 

“Having a private conversation with my daughter, if you don’t mind,” he smiles up to her, soft and teasing, before she kicks him gently and shuffles her way out from under the covers.

“You made her make me want to pee,” she huffs, feet padding across the room to the en suite, where she leaves the door open as she empties her bladder, and he re-situates himself back against the pillows at the top of the bed, one arm behind his head, so he can watch her when she makes her way back.

Her bump is big enough now that she almost waddles, 6 weeks of eating his mother’s cooking, and all the incredible food they have tried in  restaurants he has told her about over the years, and she had really popped in no time - and it’s the sexiest Nico thinks she’s ever been. Nose and lips constantly swollen with water retention, her voice changing, Nico witnessing the ever-growing struggle that she refuses to acknowledge - but she does everything so effortlessly, and without much complaint, that he finds it all endearing. 

His eyes are drawn to her belly every time he sees her, chest puffing with pride when he takes notice of the speedy growth of it, and he fixates on it for as long as she’ll let him - usually swatting at his chest and telling him to knock it off with a telltale flush to her cheeks whenever they’re around others.

Sharing his part of the world with her these last six weeks have been pure bliss, and as she ambles her way back over to where he lays, he can’t help but be grateful for whatever led him to this - to her crawling back into bed and straight into his arms. 

“I want you to teach me your language.” She mumbles into his chest, her body curved into his, legs tangling immediately as his arms circle around her.

“The language of love?” He asks with a wiggle of his brows, leaning in to kiss her lips, laughing against them as he feels them frown, 

“Don’t be gross you know what I mean,” she sighs, lips fighting a smile, and he kisses her again, helping her hook her leg properly over his so she can straddle him, her bump settling between the two of them as she relaxes over his hips. “Swiss-German isn’t on Duolingo, I checked. And I can’t have you and Cheeto conspiring against me in words I don’t understand, that’s not fair.”

She looks so cute, all pouty and pleading, and as the gravity of what she’s asking weighs down on him, he breaks out into a dreamy smile, himself. 

He can’t think of any other person who had wanted to speak his language. Too complicated for most, with too many dialects to grasp properly, he has always adapted to what the people around him need. English, back in the states, which he likes to think he has mastered by now, but he still trips up on the odd word, here and there.

Some Italian, some French. Odd bits of Czech and Swedish.

And German - he and Talia always spoke in plain German. 

It had never really bothered him, until now - until he has a girl on his lap, willing to learn something for him, and so their daughter can learn it too - passing his culture down another generation and sharing it with the love of his life. 

“What do you want to know?” He asks, hands on her hips as she runs hers along the broad expanse of his chest, fingers trailing on the little patch of hair on his chest that she’s always drawn too, holding him in place so she can lean in and kiss him, herself. 

“Everything,” she whispers against his skin, lips pressing back to the corner of his mouth. “You can teach me, right?”

“Yeah,” he shuffles his hips beneath her so she rests a little more comfortably, “I can teach you.”

He reaches up to move her hair behind her neck, leaning to press a kiss on the bare skin there, edging the strap of her bra down so that he can mutter the word for shoulder against the curve of hers, and she repeats it back to him, breathy and distant. 

He does the same along her collarbone, against her neck, nipping at her jaw and her cheek.

He distracts her with his teachings, and she relays each word back almost perfectly as he slowly repositions the two of them, laying her up against the pillows so she isn’t flat on her back, and pressing kisses down her body. 

With fingers grasped firmly around her calf, he lifts her leg slowly so that he can perch it over his shoulder, pecking at the side of her knee and barely just making eye contact over the curve of her bump. “You’re a fast learner, Mohn,” he praises, fingers tickling up and down her leg as she straightens her back to try and watch him as his face moves upward. “Can you remember what shoulder was?”

“Not with you between my legs like that,” she huffs, her voice just above a whisper - too used to keeping her responses low whenever the two of them have been staying at his parent’s house instead of his apartment, too used to holding back and releasing frustrated groans into the broad expanse of his chest. 

The two of them had gotten creative, most of their time spent around Nico’s friends and family, only a few days here and there alone in his apartment. 

Quickies in the car, fumbling hands under tables, rushed kisses whenever they get a second to themselves. There had even been a time where Poppy sought him out in the sauna.

“Should you be in here?” He had asked, straightening on the bench and running a hand through his hair as she came in and shut the door behind her, eyes on his glistening chest as she slowly made her way forward.

“Google says I’m good for 10 minutes,” she shrugged, reaching back to untie the straps of her bikini top. “Figured you’re so riled up you’ll only need 2 anyway.”

He had been training with Luca most of the day, leaving Poppy to hang with his sister, and the two of them had spent the entire time they were apart texting each other teasing messages about how much they missed each other - but were staying with his family again, and so the outdoor sauna he and his brother had built in the garden a couple of years ago was probably their best bet for privacy at that point.

Nico’s eyes flickered to the clock above the door, making a mental note of the time so he could make sure she was out in 8 minutes max, before helping her guide herself onto his lap, giving into both of their frustrations for as long as Poppy’s Googling would allow them. 

“You might have to teach me again when you get back from your trip.” She tells him, spreading her legs as much as she can to accommodate his figure. He’d feel guilty for leaving her behind with his family if she hadn’t been the one to push him to go away training for a week - him and Luca accepting after her insistence that she’d be fine in the company of his parents and his sister.

“We can do that,” he chuckles, his voice low, too. “And again the day after,” he kisses a little further up, twisting at her calf to reveal the inside of her thigh, “And the day after that,” and again, even further. 

“Nico,” she sighs, face scrunching, eyes fluttering shut as he glances up at her one more time, his face concealed now by the curve of her belly and relying on her subdued sounds to gauge her pleasure. 

Poppy’s back arches about as much as it can as Nico closes in on the apex of her thighs, a finger hooked through the bottom of her panties, pulling them to the side as he nips at the top of her thigh, anticipation building until her hand finds purchase on the back of his head.

He lays his tongue flat against her glistening folds, bringing it up to get a taste of the heaven between Poppy’s legs, and relies on her breathy gasps and the buck of her hips to guide him to pleasure her just how she likes, lips around the bundle of nerves that makes her jolt when he sucks a little too hard, moving slowly, teasingly at first before hunger takes over.

He can’t relent until he feels her legs trembling at either side of his head, Poppy’s body slithering beneath him as his tongue works between her folds, and he can taste nothing but her sweet arousal.

He almost loses himself in her before he distantly hears a whisper of his name, ears perking at the tone in her voice - not like the usual pleasured gasp or moan, just slightly off.

“Babe, stop,” Poppy whines, fingers clutched in his hair as he withdraws from her heat, pulling back enough to check on her over her belly.

“You okay?” He frowns, hand gripping her thigh, thumb rubbing soothingly as he takes in her frustrated expression.

“No,” she pouts, “I can’t see you. I don’t like not seeing you.”

Nico pokes his tongue to the side of his cheek to stop himself laughing, feeling her fingers loosen their grip on the strands of hair in their hold enough that he can sit up a little. “Do we need to get a little creative with mirrors, or something?”

“No, I need you to come up here.”

“But I like it down here.” He sighs in faux-protest, leaning his cheek against her knee as their gazes meet.

Poppy narrows her beautiful eyes at him, and there’s no stopping the smile after that. “My back hurts like this,” she huffs, “And I don’t want your mouth right now.”

“Well if you were patient, I would have used my fingers, too,” he chuckles, retreating entirely so he can crawl up the bed. 

“Don’t want your fingers either.” She starts making grabby hands when he gets closer, until he follows her guidance, holding himself up to the side of her and letting her pull him in to press their lips together. 

“Greedy,” he teases into her mouth, just as one of her hands drops to tug at the waistband of his boxers. He can’t blame her for wanting more, though - not with the way they’ve both been chasing every little pleasure where they can over the past 6 weeks, and not with how he’s set to spend a week away for training with his friends. 

Poppy’s hormones are yet to dissipate, and all he wants is to please her, so he lets her pull at his underwear with ease, distracting him with the swipe of her tongue against his, and the soft little moans she lets into his mouth as he works at her underwear, himself.

“You wanna go on your side?” He mumbles between her lips, remembering the position they had ended up the last time, Poppy unable to lay on her back too long, and her bump now getting in the way if she wanted to straddle him. He was too nervous for her to get on all fours, despite her protests that she could handle not collapsing onto her front, and they had ended up spooning. He had enjoyed it way more than he ever thought he would if anyone had told him months ago that being behind her on his side would have become their default position.

“Mmhm,” she hums, nodding frantically as they position themselves, his hands guiding her to comfort as she lays on her side, hair tucked behind her ear so he can press his lips to the curve of her neck before sinking into her from behind, her back arched just right to make it easy for him. 

“Fuck,” he groans under his breath as he pushes himself in to the hilt, Poppy squeaking, her arm bent back and nails digging into his shoulder, “You feel so good, baby.”

She feels tight and warm around him, in a way that makes him feel like his head might explode in pure bliss, and he presses his chest straight to her back. Their skin sticks together with perspiration, clamminess building as he starts to move, and her head falls back, baring the elongated slope of her neck for him to bury his nose into.

She smells so good, even after a full night tossing and turning in his arms, and the ever-present scent of his body wash lingers in the depths of her skin, Nico inhaling fully as her hips press back onto his, a slow rhythm building.

He holds himself up with an elbow against the mattress, his other arm curling over her waist, hand reaching between her legs to rub at her clit, slick with arousal and swollen from his previous attention to it, causing her legs to tremble again. 

Her arm tangles with his, nails scraping at his skin, pushing to apply more pressure where she needs it the most, and he grunts lowly into her neck, nipping at her skin and lifting his chin every now and then to gauge her response to his ministrations.

He can see her jaw slack, head craned back, lashes fluttering in blissed-out euphoria as she grows closer to her peak - and Nico is so in tune with her now that he feels like he’s there with her. A night pressed against her, and his previous stint between her legs already adding to his pleasure, and he can feel the tell-tale tension in the pit of his stomach, muscles in his thighs growing taut as he kicks up his pace a little, Poppy quietly moaning like music to his ears.

“You gonna come, huh?” He asks in a breathy growl, lips moving against the sensitive skin of her neck, “Can feel you getting close, baby, you’re so good for me.”

Nico can never forget the way such praise had made her cheeks flush all those months ago, the first time they had ever slept together - the night their baby girl had been conceived, and their lives had been set to change forever. He’s always seeking that same reaction, that glint in her eye and the stutter of her hips - and she always gives him just what he wants, walls tightening around him in a mind-numbing pressure, thighs shivering, spine curving, all muscles tensing as she falls apart. And he soon follows, coming inside of her like he’s all too used to now, teeth pressed into her shoulder and chest panting against her back.

The arm she had intertwined with his soon untangles itself to reach back and stroke through his hair as he comes down, scratching at his scalp as she gets her own breath back.

He brings his hand up to his mouth to clean his fingers of her arousal before he goes back to rest his hands against her belly, still inside her until he softens, pressing soft kisses to her skin until she giggles a little when it tickles, and the vibrations of her laughter force him to pull out before he starts to grow hard again.

He does so with a grunt and a hand on her hip, rolling out of the bed and toward the bathroom to get a cloth to clean her up, returning to her blissed out form splayed out on the mattress.

He bites back a smile as their eyes meet, edging her legs apart so he can wipe between them, swiping softly at her sensitive folds and watching her smile sleepily back at him as her chest rises and falls in laboured breaths. 

“Thank you,” she sighs, blinking slowly, and he feels his cheeks push into a dimpled grin as he watches her - completely lost in the afterglow.

“You don’t have to thank me, baby,” he throws the cloth over to the nightstand, crawling up Poppy’s body to press his lips to hers.

“You make me really happy.”

He smiles, slow but big, eyes tracing the way hers crinkle a little in the corners. “You make me happy too.”

“I said really happy.”

“You make me the happiest man in the world.”

“That’s better.” She bumps her nose against his before kissing him again. “You’re a quick learner, too.”

He chuckles against the corner of her mouth, pressing one more sweet kiss there before pushing himself up, looking around the floor for his pants. “Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll bring you some breakfast? Make you really really happy,”

“Or we could eat together and you could shower with me? We could have some more fun-,”

“I’m not falling for that again, babe, you don’t want to have fun, you want me to wash your hair because your arms ache.”

He’s been lured into the shower one too many times over the past 6 weeks with the promise of a good time, only for Poppy to claim they couldn’t get too frisky and risk slipping, so he may as well put his hands to good use and shampoo her hair - guiding him on where she liked him to apply pressure until he was pretty much giving her a scalp massage.

Poppy pouts, sinking back against the pillows as she watches him hop into his underwear, pulling the briefs until the waistband snaps against his hips, her eyes following them all the way up his legs. “I thought you loved me.”

His laughter bubbles all the way up from the pit of his stomach, swirling with adoration and amusement. 

“And now you’re laughing. Unbelievable.” She scoffs, feigning irritation with a telltale quiver at the corner of her lips. “Do I need to remind you that you’re going away for a whole week tomorrow? Living it up with your buddies and leaving me in the dust. I’m owed like 2 more orgasms at least before then.”

“I’ll give you three tonight, I promise.” He leans in again, thinking he’ll never make it out of the room at this point, Poppy having the most kissable lips in the entire universe. “We’ll figure out the mirror thing, so you can see me better between your legs.”

She hums against his mouth as she kisses him once more before asking, “Can you make me avocado toast please?”

“And a smoothie?” He asks, stepping away so that he isn’t drawn back in until mid-day.

She nods, a pretty smile stretching out across her swollen lips, watching as he walks backward towards the door. He keeps his eyes on her until he closes the door behind him, making his way through his family home with a smile that won’t give, feeling confident in his previous sentiment uttered to her. 

Nico Hischier might just be the happiest man in the world.

Nico had thought being away from Poppy for a whole week would have been torturous - that he would be counting down the hours until he could get back to her, distant from his friends and hating every second apart - but it had almost been the opposite of that, and he only had her to thank.

He thinks that maybe 6 weeks of living out the dream life with her, and knowing that would be exactly what he was returning to, allowed him to enjoy his week away - even though it wasn’t exactly a break. 

His off-season training had kicked up a gear while he was away, and he was thankful that he didn’t have to mope around missing her all the time and could concentrate a little on his gruelling routine.

They FaceTimed every morning, and every night before she went to sleep. Texted throughout the day, sending pictures back and forth of what each other got up to - Poppy spending her days with his parents and his sister, being doted on by his entire family in his absence, in ways that made his heart grow ten-fold, and his days spent training, lifting, running, hiking, doing all sorts of activities that he would send her several videos of and she would respond with some crazy comment that made him laugh out loud. 

She never made him feel guilty for being away from her - never made it seem like she felt like second best to his schedule, or his career, or the season looming in the background of their relationship. She never complained about him not being around, only ever gushed about who was back home with her - telling him how much she loved hanging around with Nina, who was back in Switzerland taking her on spa trips and exploring the city with her, teaching her about their hometown and filling in all the blanks that Nico had yet to clue her in on. 

And he was getting chirped like hell for walking around with a constant dopey smile on his face - something he should know better by now than to do on a boys trip, but he was long past caring.

He had the girl of his dreams blending in with the family he loved more than anything, and a little girl on the way - his best friend and brother rallying the boys to poke fun at him at the dinner table could do nothing to diminish the flame that was fuelled within him.

“I’m on my own when we get back to Jersey, even Nico’s wifed off, now,” Timo jokes as they sit around a large restaurant table on their last night of their trip, his big arm resting on the back of his chair as he sips on his beer. 

“You’re getting married, too?” Their friend Leo asks, brows raised as the influx of new information hits him all at once. “You guys don’t tell me anything!”

“It’s just a saying,” Nico scoffs, his bottle pressed to his lips before he takes a swig, “We’re not engaged.”

“Yet.” Luca adds, “I give him a month before he asks her, though. You should see him around her, he’s obsessed.”

“It won’t be a month,” he denies, ignoring the second half of the sentence, completely - there’s really no point denying that anymore, “I’d have to get her dad’s permission or whatever, and her parents sort of hate me.”

Timo barks out a laugh from across the table, “Oh yeah, he yelled at her dad!”

“You yelled at someone?”

“I didn’t yell,” he frowns, the word starting to lose all meaning with its overuse. “I just called him out over something. And, to be honest, I think he might have liked me more after that.”

Nico doesn’t really like looking back on that first night at the Jensen house - there was probably no preparing him for what he was walking into, and, entirely overwhelmed by the grandeur of it all, he had lost his head. But their family dynamic was difficult.

He had witnessed it only in short bursts, before - had seen Poppy around her mom a few times, had met her dad once before that in passing - and being immersed in it, being looked down on by her mother all day, overshadowed by her brother, ignored by her father, watching the whole conversation around their pregnancy unfold at the dinner table, tensions high and emotions rampant, he had let his frustrations build to the point of boiling over.

When Poppy’s brother had first started berating her, he had tried to write it off in his head as sibling banter of sorts. He and his siblings were never quite as cruel, but he knows sometimes brothers and sisters bicker like Poppy and Oli had - biting remarks and words intended to hurt. Then, it had spiralled.

He’s seen Poppy stick up for herself, before, but he’s never experienced her blow up like that. And he had understood it completely, considering he was reaching the brink of eruption, himself - and that’s not taking into account her heightened pregnancy hormones.

He had felt protective, and even upset, himself, that this thing his family had embraced with open arms, had celebrated at time where he and Poppy needed it the most, that was turning his life around in all the best possible ways, was being rained on by the rest of them, and when Poppy had stormed off, and her mom had followed, he couldn’t sit there in silence and not say something.

What kind of partner would that have made him?

“I think you underestimate her.” He had said, quiet but firm, as silence settled over the table in Poppy’s absence. 

The reactions had been slow, a gradual raise of Oli’s head, matching that of his wife, beside him, who pressed her lips together to hide what Nico hoped was a smile, and the prolonged lowering of cutlery from her father. 

“Excuse me?” Philip asked, leaning onto his elbows. “What did you say?”

“Poppy,” Nico clarified, “I don’t think that any of you really understand what she’s capable of.”

“That’s my daughter you’re talking about, I think I of all people understand-,”

“She’s really smart,” Nico had interjected before he lost the courage to do so, ignoring the twinge in his gut that told him to calm down, that he shouldn’t be risking his relationship with the future grandfather of his baby like this. “And really independent, and she somehow always knows what to do if you drop her into the middle of a really tough situation. If you could see her at work, you’d get it, people go to Poppy to fix things and for her to help them, and support them, and she always does it because that’s the kind of person she is.”

Neither of them had seemed to react, but had been so far into hyping himself up to let all of his thoughts out that he doesn’t think he would have noticed if they had. 

“You guys might not see it because you only see her as your daughter, or your little sister, but she is the strongest person I know. She’s an incredible woman, and she’s going to be an even better mother, and she deserves, more than anybody else, for her family to have her back right now.”

“It was just a joke, man,” Oli had scoffed, “It’s not that serious.”

“It is to her. She spent the entire ride here talking about you guys, about your family and everything you’ve built for yourself in California,” Nico had nodded to her brother, remembering all the ways Poppy had hidden her admiration for him behind sarcastic comments - even before the drive from Jersey City, over the years where she had opened up to him about her family, he had always seen a small dash of affection for her older brother - before turning to her dad, “And everything you’ve achieved, sir, everything you’ve built for yourself, and for your kids. She just wants to be seen as an equal, and I think if either of you actually noticed her, you’d see just what she’s capable of, and you wouldn’t make digs at her,” he had narrowed his eyes at Oli, “Or sit in silence while others make her feel like crap.” He hadn’t quite been able to meet Mr Jensen’s eye, but he felt a little relieved that he had managed to say what he needed. “You’re both supposed to have her back.”

Neither of them had come back to him after that, tensions rising once more in the growing silence, the hammering of his heart and the rush of blood to his head the only thing he could hear before he had excused himself, and had ascended through the house to find Poppy in her room. 

He hadn’t told Poppy at the time what he had said - he felt no need to do so, it wouldn’t have changed anything, and might have made her upset or even more stressed, which he never wanted to do. But Philip had changed after - had made more efforts to be there for Poppy, to get to know Nico, and the two of them had even gotten onto texting terms. 

So he doesn’t necessarily think that her parents hate him, but it’s definitely too soon to be asking for their daughter’s hand in marriage, even if it feels like the right thing to do.

Even if the thought of it has started to keep him awake at night, as Poppy tosses and turns to get comfortable beside him. Even if he finds himself stroking at the bare surface of her ring finger when they hold hands, and introducing her to others as his wife in a language she doesn’t fully grasp - pretending it’s a joke she isn’t clued in on, when really it feels more like a manifestation.

He twirls the ring she had gifted him on his own ring finger, the weight of it especially present in the midst of this conversation, frowning as Timo levels him with a stern look.

“You know that getting her dad’s permission isn’t like the law or anything right?”

He does know that. If he’s honest, he knows he’s using it as an excuse, too - but admitting to that at dinner with the boys feels like he’s setting himself up for an entire night of chirps.

He and Poppy have only technically been together for a couple months, and most of that time had already been spent apart. When he had asked her to move in, she had taken offence at him only asking due to the convenience of it all, and he half expects the same if he gets down on one knee.

He can hear her already, some muttering of, you only want to marry me because I’m having your baby, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

When Nico pictures his future, he pictures Poppy. 

Everything revolves around Poppy.

And yeah, their baby girl plays a big factor in that - seeing Poppy as a mother, raising their daughter together, providing a happy, stable home for her to thrive in. But it’s so much more than that, too.

It’s her being his partner. Waking up to her, tracing over the soft curve of her lips as she rouses from sleep, and knowing, as sure of anything in his heart, that no day can ever be bad if it starts out like that. 

Feeling secure in his job, despite all the times in his life he has felt anything but, and knowing that he can succumb to the pressure of it all without having to worry about her bailing. She has his back in ways no body ever has before. She understands the demand of his career, the fact that he isn’t available at all hours of the day to her every need - but she can take care of herself. She would rather do so, and she doesn’t make him feel guilty for the fact that sometimes his schedule takes priority - because the times that he can prioritise her are valued in ways that he never thought he could provide - not if anybody asked any of his exes, at least.

She understands his role as a captain, how he has to be there for the guys, understands his love for doing so, and has never in their entire relationship, made him feel like it’s a burden, or that she feels neglected because of it.

Even before they crossed the boundaries of something more. When they were just friends - as if they were ever just anything - and he could vent all of his worries and stresses to her, and she’d talk him out of ever seeing the negatives.

She has some sort of superpower, he thinks, for turning things around like that, and he wants to bask in the glory of it for the rest of his life.

He wants that warm feeling that floods his chest at the thought of going home to her after a long day to never go away.

And he knows that it isn’t a chunk of metal around her finger, or signatures on paper, that solidifies that.

But he wants it, all the same.

“I don’t know, we haven’t been together that long.”

Timo barks out a laugh, and a couple other guys at the table raise their brows. 

“Do you know when I first got to Jersey, Siegs was the one who introduced me to Poppy? You know what he said?”

Nico shakes his head, a crease forming between his brows as he frowns at his friend. 

“He points at her from across the room, we were at a bar, the one near his place, he says that’s Poppy, and I look over and I think, whoa, she’s gorgeous, maybe I will like it here,” Nico narrows his eyes as Timo recalls the story, his hands unintentionally balling into fists below the table, “And before I can even get a word out, he goes, Nico’s Poppy. He told me not to even think about it.”

“We weren’t in a relationship, though.” He argues, despite the way his lips twist into an almost-smile, one trying to hide itself from prying eyes. He does quite like the ring of that. Nico’s Poppy.

It reflects that base level possessiveness he feels when he looks at her - the way he’s probably felt since the day they met, sharing a bond he had never really shared with anyone else. Feeling jealous when any of the other guys would talk to her alone, as petty as it might have been, and only ever wanting her attention on him. 

“You’ve always been in something with her,” Timo shrugs, “There’s no point delaying the inevitable if it means you get to make sure she’s your Poppy forever.”

“We don’t have to be married for her to be mine.”

He does feel comfortable knowing that - feels sure and safe in their dynamic, now - knowing the life they share, the home they share, the baby they’re so close to bringing into this world together. Knowing how much she loves him, how much she’s willing to be there for him, even when he feels like he isn’t enough for her. 

He’s never felt so secure in a relationship in his life, and he doesn’t need to force either of them into marriage when they’ve never really had that conversation - even if the few times he’s attempted to joke about it, she has been receptive.

“I don’t know why you’re trying to talk yourself out of it.” Luca chimes in from the side of Nico, “You’re never gonna find anybody more perfect for you. I think our parents like her more than they even like us at this point,” he tells the rest of the table, swatting at his little brother’s shoulder, before reaching for his beer. 

“Yeah,” Nico sighs with a smile, knowing already there’s no one more perfect for him - he’s only been cursing himself all summer for not coming to that conclusion much sooner. “Mom will probably already have asked her for me while she’s been with her this week.”

He knows he’s delaying the inevitable, trying to pretend that marriage isn’t what he wants right now with Poppy - he had pictured it the second she told him she was pregnant, his life flashing before his eyes in home-movie-esque glimpses, babies, and white dresses, and a big house with a nice plot of land in the back for him to build a tree house like in the movies.

He knows, too, deep down, that there is the slimmest possible chance of rejection. She loves him. She shows him every day just how much - and she’s been so willing, so far, to fit herself into his life in whatever way is easiest. 

He knows when he sees her, tomorrow, that the thought of dropping to one knee as soon as his eyes lock on her will cross his mind.

And he thinks when he does get back, after a week of chirps about being wifed off, he might just test the waters.

Nico doesn’t think he’s ever had a quicker flight than the one he and Luca took back from Tenerife. From check-in, to boarding, to the plane ride, itself, he felt like he had blinked and landed back on home soil, heart beating that little bit quicker in anticipation of seeing Poppy - of his eyes laying on that perfect bump for the first time in a week and catching the slightest difference, making up for lost time while they can in the privacy of their apartment before they spend the week with his brother and sister.

The train ride from the airport flies by too - Nico feeling excitement akin to when he was younger, and his dad would take him and Luca to go practice at their local rink, and he was at a point in his life that he loved nothing more than hockey, wanted nothing more than to don his skates and play to his heart’s content.

He feels that way about Poppy, now, he thinks. 

Like she’s something he can dream toward - push and strive to keep her in his life for as long as he possibly can. 

It feels like the blink of an eye before he’s putting his key in the door of the apartment, pushing in with his case following behind him, discarded in the entryway as he steps though the hall in search of her. 

“Baby, are you home?” He calls, his heart thumping as he waits to catch his first proper glimpse of her in a week.

“In the kitchen!” She calls back, voice like his favourite song, and when he steps into the room he sees her by the oven, prepping for dinner. When she had first offered to pick him up from the train station, he had joked that he didn’t trust her driving alone on European roads, but the truth of it was that he felt better coming home to her - where she was safe, and he wasn’t putting her out just so that he could selfishly see her sooner. 

And seeing her there, in the heart of the apartment he had bought last summer, when the idea of her ever being in it was nothing but a dream, swollen and round and growing their baby, he thinks that reality is more than worth the wait.

“Hey,” he sidles up behind her, arms placed on either side of her body on the counter as she chops at some peppers. Poppy angles her head so that he can press his usual kiss to her cheek, and Nico feels it puff up with a smile. 

She smells clean and fresh, like home, like a mixture of the detergent she uses on their sheets, and his body wash that she still likes to steal, and he swipes his nose at her flesh as he takes a prolonged inhale of her skin, filling his lungs with the familiarity of it and making up for the days he spent away. 

“Hi,” she turns back enough that he can press a kiss to her swollen lips, slow and sweet, “I figured you’d be beat when you got home so I ran you a bath, I only just shut it off like 2 minutes ago.”

He kind of likes how there isn’t a big fuss about him coming home - likes that she’s welcoming him back like it hasn’t been almost a week, and it diminishes the guilt he had been feeling for leaving her behind at all. It reinforces the thoughts he’s always had - that Poppy makes everything easy. 

She puts the knife down and turns in his arms when he kisses her again, and his hand swipes from the curve of her belly to the small of her back, keeping her stomach pressed to his.

“You’re too good to me,” he mumbles before his lips touch hers again, nose bumping teasingly at hers when she starts to chase him for more. “There’s room in that tub for 3, you know.”

“It’s supposed to be for you to relax,” she tells him as her hands travel the broad expanse of his chest, sweeping to his shoulders and down the width of his arms that are circled around her. “And I’ll have dinner ready for when you get out.”

“Trust me, Mohn,” he hums, his hands travelling slowly down her sides, “That is my idea of relaxing.” And then he leans down to hook an arm behind her knees, lifting her before she has a chance to protest, all too prepared after a week of training to carry her down the hall toward the bathroom, making sure she isn’t too curled up that it’s uncomfortable with her bump. “Dinner can wait.”

“You missed me that much, huh?” She giggles as he sends a gentle kick to the door, letting it swing open before he steps into the room. “You gonna have me sit on your lap while we eat, too?”

“Yeah, you can feed me if you want,” he laughs as he places her on the counter in the bathroom, her legs parting immediately for him to slot himself between them. “And I missed you more than it might be healthy to admit.”

“I missed you too,” Poppy smiles softly, hands reaching up to tuck the grown out flicks of hair behind his ears as his own hands place themselves on either side of her hips, “Appreciated all those sweaty workout videos you sent me though, definitely made up for you being gone.”

“Thought they might,” Nico chuckles as he starts working at undressing her, sliding her shorts down her legs and throwing them into the hamper. “Appreciated that video you sent me of your belly moving like something out of Alien.”

“She’ll probably start up soon, she likes to move while I’m eating now, she keeps getting the hiccups, it’s quite cute.”

Nico leans down once he’s lifted the big t-shirt that covers Poppy’s torso, and while she works it off, he presses a soft kiss to her bare belly, nudging the curve of it with his nose before he stands to his usual height and starts to work his own clothes off. He can feel the heat of her gaze as he steps out of his underwear, and it prickles at his skin like a lingering longing, like the way his own feelings have lingered over the past week.

A week where he had pushed forward on the sheer thought of Poppy, and now that she’s in front of him, those thoughts swirl into something overwhelming. 

He offers her a hand to help her down from the counter, and guides her toward the tub, the water still hot, but not scolding, on it’s way to tepid as he steps in and positions himself toward the back. He holds her steady as she steps over the edge, and sinks down as she lowers herself, her bump making it difficult to do so with ease, but he spreads his legs for her to sink back into him, and he soon feels her relax with her back to his front.

“Does it hurt,” he mutters with his limbs curved around hers, “When she moves a lot?”

He had noticed before he left that things had become a little more difficult for Poppy - sleeping, staying on her feet for extended periods - and when she had sent him a video of movements she could see through her belly, he had thought it seemed uncomfortable, but she just shrugs against him.

“It’s just weird, I guess,” she sighs, muscles seeming to melt against him. “Depends how she’s positioned, she was playing my ribs like a xylophone the other day, that wasn’t fun.”

Nico smiles, hand coming around her front to caress her belly, rubbing gentle circles into her soft skin. “Where is she now?”

“I think her butt is at the front,” her hand rests on top of his, moving it up a little, and a bit more to the side, “She’s gonna give me hell later, I can feel it.”

“Maybe she’ll behave now that her daddy’s home,” he mutters, his lips falling by instinct to kiss at Poppy’s bare shoulder before he hooks his chin over it, “Maybe she missed me too.”

“She definitely missed you. She practically did somersaults every time you came up in conversation.”

“My girl,” he smiles into Poppy’s neck, “Did she kick for Nina yet?”

“Oh yeah,” she laughs, her hand moving to trail up and down Nico’s leg beside her, “She jumped around so much in there that I learned a new word while you were gone.”

“From Nina?”

“Häsli,” she says with perfect, practiced pronunciation. 

“Little bunny,” Nico chuckles, both hands patting at the bump where his daughter rests. “I like it.”

“Good, ‘cause your parents have started calling her it, too. No respect for Cheeto around here.”

Nico finds himself melting in ways he didn’t think he needed to - an ache so present in his bones he hadn’t even realised it was there, all of a sudden fading to nothing as he sits in the tepid, soapy water with his girls in front of him. Poppy absentmindedly uses her fingers to trickle droplets down his calves, and makes space for him to rest his head in the space where her neck and shoulder meets. 

“Who’s the better teacher?” He asks, looking up and watching as the width of her cheeks puff out into a close-lipped smile. 

“Well, you have an automatic advantage, considering I can’t ask your sister to teach me all the dirty stuff.”

“Is that all I’m good for, the dirty stuff?”

“I’m yet to be able to hold a conversation that has nothing to do with body parts, so you tell me.”

“Yeah, well the more you learn, the less I get away with, so we might have to put a pause on the lessons.”

“And what is it you think you’ve been getting away with?” Poppy asks, twisting a little so she can look back at him, and it’s when her eyes meet his that Nico feels some warped sense of security wash over him. He hadn’t planned on bringing this up, especially not so soon after coming back from his trip, but it just feels right.

And it’s better to get it out of the way sooner - where better to test the waters than in the bathtub?

“Whenever we meet someone, I’ve been introducing you as my wife,” he admits, cheek pressed to her shoulder blade as he looks up at her through thick lashes. 

Her lips twist in amusement, eyes shimmering in the warm light of the bathroom, and it seems like she’s biting back a smile at the revelation. His heartbeat steadies just a little. “Oh really? How have you been getting around the distinct lack of a ring on my finger?”

“I tell them your hands are too swollen to wear it,” he admits, taking a hand from her belly to pick up her left one. 

Her smile fades slowly as she glances down, his fingers squeezing a little at the one closest to her pinky. “Wait, you’re serious?”

“Very.”

“What about-,” she starts, and before she can glance back, Nico lifts his own left hand in anticipation of what she’s about to ask, the signet ring she had gifted him when she first came overseas, that she hasn’t even noticed for as long as they’ve been together out here, sitting comfortably on his own ring finger. “Oh.”

“I can get you your own, if you want,” he tries, trying not to hold his breath as he makes the suggestion - makes light of it, even, just to test her reaction. Her face is angled forward as she looks down at his finger, and her own hand twists to fiddle with the ring that sits there, so he can’t exactly see what she’s thinking. “I know you said you already had one, but-,”

“Just to sell the story better?” She asks, still looking at his hand. 

“Or because I’m in love with you,” he pouts, his lips moving against her skin as he speaks, anticipating a rejection of sorts - although he still feels the lax press of her spine to his chest. She hasn’t gone rigid, hasn’t recoiled from his touch - their bodies are still merged together in the tight space, and a part of him feels better for it. 

She turns, finally, levelling him with a look that has her gaze flickering between his eyes, like she’s trying to read his mind.

“You better not be proposing to me in the bathtub,” she frowns, “You can’t ask someone for their hand in marriage within 6 feet of a toilet, Nico, that’s definitely an unwritten rule.”

He feels something dissolve in his chest as it bubbles with affection, spreading through his bloodstream and directing itself to every corner of his body - joyous laughter rippling up his throat and spilling out into her neck. 

“Why are you laughing?” She giggles, her body shaking against his in the most delightful way, “I’m dead serious, anywhere but the bathroom, please.”

“Okay,” he chuckles, wanting nothing more than to lean up and press his lips to her beautiful smile. “I’ll bare that in mind.”

“You do that.”

I will, he thinks, taking that as her confirmation.

Not in the bathtub is a far cry from not ever.

Maybe Timo was right - as much as it pains Nico to think - maybe she has always been his Poppy, and maybe, if he can find the right time and place to ask, she always will be. 

Poppy

Last year, Poppy’s summer had felt like the longest of her life.

She had worked all the way through to Mid-July - choosing to work around the summer programmes that were run through the Foundation had taken up most of her time, and she would rather have taken the extra pay than mope around thinking about how everyone else was spending their time off.

Ever since college, she and Nia would spend their weekends together in the summer - and that worked the same last year, with both of them still working in Jersey and having their family nearby. It worked for their other friends too - until their lives away from the group started to take priority, and their group became whittled down to just the two best friends.

Friend group outings had become a rare occurrence, and so when they did happen, they were quite the spectacle - weekend trips down to Atlantic City, or bagging invites to parties the girls really had no business being - like rooftop bars in Manhattan, where a player from the Giants was throwing a party, and their friend Kelsey’s boyfriend, Liam, had somehow secured their names on the list. 

Poppy and Nia always got ready together - reminiscent of their teenage years, blasting music through the speakers in Poppy’s bedroom and letting Nia raid her closet while she did her makeup.

“We’re gonna need to prep Els on how to be cool, she can’t be asking for players to sign her napkin so she can frame it for Jensen.” Nia called as she came out of Poppy’s closet, shrugging into the strappy sleeves of a mini dress she had borrowed, pulling her hair from getting tangled beneath the arms. 

“Elsie’s not coming,” Poppy replied absentmindedly, a small, soft brush sweeping pigment across her eyelid, “It’s just me, you and Kels,”

“What? Why?” Nia had whined, zipping her dress up behind her back. “Did her sitter bail?”

“This stays between me and you, but she’s pregnant again,” Poppy told her, relaying the cliff-notes version of the hour-long conversation she had had with her cousin earlier that day. “So no more girls nights with her for a while.”

“Poor girl,” Nia huffed, falling back onto Poppy’s bed so that she could put her heels on, “I can’t think of anything worse than being pregnant right now, I’m in my prime, I’m not letting anyone dislodge my organs. Nothing is worth that kind of damage.”

“Gross” Poppy shuddered, the thought of having a baby and her age sending literal shivers down her spine. “But same. I’m so far off of being ready to be a parent, it isn’t even funny.”

She had weirdly enough been thinking a lot about what her life was turning out to be around that time - spearing straight for her 25th birthday and feeling the daunting pressure of a looming quarter-life crisis, she had put some thought at least into the traditional stuff.

But babies hadn’t been at the forefront of her mind. 

“Plus, it’s hard enough to find a remotely decent guy to go on one singular date with, never mind raise a child. Elsie got lucky with Jared.”

“Right,” Nia had scoffed half-heartedly, ambling up behind Poppy and finishing off the curls in her hair. There had been a look in her eyes - dismissive and evasive - that had caught Poppy’s attention.

“What’s the look for?”

“Nothing,” Nia shrugged, lips turned down in denial and continuing to work at her best friend’s hair. “Just think that for you of all people, it’s not that hard to find somebody decent.”

Poppy frowned, watching Nia behind her, trying to think of a single guy she had ever dated or spoken to that had garnered her approval.

She had always been supportive of Poppy, knowing that if she were to start something up with a guy, it would be after a lot of thought and meticulous research - Poppy rarely dated, and if she did, it mostly didn’t work because she wasn’t that good at it. She was always so focused on work, and her friends, that trying to make time for anybody outside of all that just felt exhausting. 

Guys usually ended up breaking things off with her, telling her they could tell her heart wasn’t in it, and Nia would always curse them whenever Poppy relayed it back to her, but there was always that look - like she knew something Poppy didn’t.

“You’ve literally watched my every attempt at a relationship crash and burn, Ni,” she narrowed her eyes, “I don’t get what part of my dating life seems easy to you.”

“The part where you have a ready made relationship just waiting for you to press the start button.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nico,” Nia said, like it had been the most obvious answer in the world. 

The last thing Poppy had wanted to think about - again - was Nico.

She had been trying to think of anything but since he had left Jersey, but everything unfortunately was starting to remind her of him, just as they did every other summer.

Walks in the sun, passing places they would always go together - snapping a picture of a coffee from her favourite shop and thinking of who she could send it to instead of him. Running their shared route, soft breeze running through her hair as she jogged through the park, playing music in her headphones that he had once recommended.

It had been hard to shake him off - but she had grown to be good at it over the years.

Nia bringing him up had been new - unexpected - and wasn’t contributing to the routine of forgetting he existed until he would come back to New Jersey in September. 

“The second that one of you makes a move, you’re literally ready to go with the perfect man.”

“I’m not gonna be in a relationship with Nico,” Poppy snickered, trying to find humour in what nonsense her best friend was coming up with. 

She didn’t have a ready to go relationship with Nico Hischier. They were friends. That was all they would ever be.

And not only had she told Nia that a hundred times before, she also knew that Nico had said the same - shrugging off jokes made in front of the two of them and smiling awkwardly at Poppy whenever anyone had dared to make a comment on their friendship being anything other than just that. 

“We don’t even talk for like 4 months out of the year,” Poppy frowned, referring to the routine Nico had adopted over the years, of returning home to Switzerland for the summers, and leaving his friendship with Poppy behind - only communicating through social media likes and odd messages in the same conversation thread within a wider group chat.

She had never really minded it - not to the point of moping - but she had always wished things could be just a little different on that front.

“I don’t get why you guys don’t just text each other,” Nia rolled her eyes as she ran the barrel of the curling iron down the lengths of Poppy’s hair, eyes meeting hers in the reflection of the mirror. “You act like you’re not allowed to cross his mind all summer, it’s stupid, no offence.”

“He deserves a break, Ni,” Poppy had shrugged, “From everything, especially after how the season ended, I’m just a reminder of his life here, and he probably wants to escape that.”

“I don’t think he means you when he says those sorts of things, babe,” she responded, letting the curl drop into her free hand and scrunching it until it cooled down. 

“How did we even get onto this?”

“Because I’ve been looking for an opportunity to bring it up, duh,” Nia jested, “C’mon, just reach out. It doesn’t have to be a text, what was the last thing he posted on his instagram stories? Just reply to that.”

Poppy’s lips twisted, her phone feeling increasingly heavy in her grip as she weighed her options up. 

For as long as she had known him, her and Nico would never really talk over the summer. She lived her life, and he lived his, away from the Devils, away from The Rock, and it had worked well, for the most part.

Sure, a part of her always missed him. A part of her would watch his stories over, would think about what his life in Switzerland looked like, and if she could ever possibly fit into it - but another part, a larger part, would suppress all that. Push her feelings back down until they were nothing - shut away behind some barricaded door in the back of her mind.

It was weird, she thought, how much they flourished in his absence - thoughts she wouldn’t usually spare dedicated to him. Especially now that Nia was bringing it up out of nowhere.

Her perceptive best friend suggesting there could ever have been something more was sparking a flame within her she had long tried to put out. But it wasn’t entirely Nia’s doing - there had been embers floating around her subconscious for a while, now.

She blamed that night in Finnegan’s Bar, not long before he had left.

Cuddled up to him in that booth, comfortable in the lingering silence, the steady beat of his heart below her hand. She had thought, at the end of that night, that something might have been different - and she realised that had probably been why she was thinking about him more that summer.

Poppy unlocked her phone and brought up her Instagram, scrolling through the stories on the home page until she saw his picture. 

“It’ll probably be some workout video, I can’t reply to that, he’s gonna think I’m thirsty.”

“You are,” Nia had jibed, “Pop, honey, you either gotta put up or shut up. If you’re not gonna reach out, I don’t wanna hear any more of your whining about him for the rest of the month.”

“You brought him up,” Poppy frowned, “Please be kinder to me when you have hot tools in your hands, you’re giving me anxiety.”

“Whatever, I’m gonna get another drink before we go, do you want one?”

“I’m good,” Poppy smiled, watching her best friend put the curling iron down safely on the heat-proof mat on her dresser and make her way out of the bedroom and through to the kitchen. 

Her thumb had hovered on her screen for a good minute before she pressed down, biting the bullet and viewing his most recent story with bated breath. 

There were a few of them - it seemed like he was out with friends - probably-drunken selfies and videos of a DJ at some club - but the last photo was the one that caught her attention, properly. 

Nico with his arms around a girl - a gorgeous girl, sharp features, perfect hair, piercing eyes, a killer smile - and his lips pressed to her temple. 

She had let the photo time out before it shrunk away into his private profile, and she had felt like time had stopped in place after that - until the sound of Nia’s heels clicking back down the hallway caught her attention.

“I know you said no but I made mine too strong so I had to pour it out a little and make two,” she had said as she entered the room, Poppy locking her phone and turning it face down before she could see.

“Thanks,” she had accepted the drink with a smile, gulping it down in the hopes that the liquor might have burned through some of the growing ache in her chest. 

“Damn girl,” Nia had scoffed, “Thought you were good?”

“I realised I should drink for two, considering Elsie can’t anymore.”

“Good point! We should both do that, show our solidarity for the cause.”

“Exactly. Getting shit-faced is what she’d want us to do in her honour.”

Nia glanced down at Poppy’s downturned phone - a look Poppy wouldn’t have caught if she wasn’t nervously watching her best friend in the hopes that she, for once in her life, wouldn’t be so perceptive. 

“I’ll have a baby with you.”

Poppy laughed, right from the depths of her chest, tension easing from her shoulders as she shook her head.

“I don’t want a baby,” she declined, rolling her eyes and standing up, “I want to get drunk on rooftop bars with my friends and NFL players and eat as much deli meat and cheese as my body can handle for as long as it can handle it.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

Poppy didn’t know at the time why that picture on Nico's story had felt like a kick to the gut, but she had swallowed down her hurt and smiled, tight lipped, at her best friend.

Getting wasted and forgetting about Nico for the rest of the summer - that had sounded like a plan. 

Looking back on last summer, Poppy barely recognises her old life. Rooftop parties with endless cocktails, tiny dresses and high heels and hair that didn’t fall flat and frizzy the second she blinked too hard at it in the mirror. 

She can barely remember being able to look down at her thighs without being sat down.

The only thing that remains the same is finding time to lounge around on the beach. Growing up, spending her time on Jersey beaches - her family renting a house in Mantoloking most years, or making the trip down to Ocean City and Cape May with her girls when she was old enough - had become a staple for her, and she has been so thankful that it’s something her and Nico share a love of.

She’s adored her summer in Switzerland, so far - as far away from expectations as it might yet have been. 

She hadn’t expected to get such little one-on-one time with Nico, but she can hardly complain - not when his family and friends have all welcomed her with such open arms. It’s something so new to her too, getting to do everything in a group, bonding with more than just Nico, sharing parts of herself and her life beyond what she has only ever shared with him before, and she’s never really felt so at home with such a close-knit family.

She watches sports on the couch with his dad, goes to the grocery store with his mom, plays cards out on the deck with his brother, spends as much time with his sister as she would with Nia back home in Jersey, and she gets Nico to herself at night, or on the rare couple of days in a row they’ll stay in his apartment closer to the city.

But she loves this - being so close with everyone. Loves it so much that she doesn’t really care that it isn’t just her and Nico, she doesn’t really want it to be.

Katja helps her through the rough stages of her pregnancy - sometimes anticipating symptoms before they even come on, sharing tips on how to lessen the constant ache in her stomach, how to sleep easier, what supplements she can take that don’t make her feel nauseous again or bloated and heavy. 

Rino helps too, recalling what he can of his wife’s pregnancies, remembering how Katja could get her back pain to go away by relaxing in a rocking chair with a cushion wedged into her arch, and he had dug the exact one chair the depths of the garage, making sure it was safe after years of misuse and placing it out on the deck in the backyard, right beside what had always been Nico’s chair.

Luca is probably the best language teacher of them all, not that she’d tell Nico that - he’s the only one with the nerve to correct her, doing so with an amused glint in her eye until she gets it perfect and offering her a proud nod when she can finally speak a full sentence - a useful one at that, instead of random words and nicknames.

Nina allows Poppy to keep an essence of her independence - of the girl she was before she was pregnant, or had come back to Switzerland as Nico’s girlfriend. She makes sure Poppy keeps doing things for herself - accompanies her to the salon, to the local mall, gives her valued opinion on different outfits Poppy tried, and what makes her look like a frumpy mom and not her usual self. The two of them trade books between each other, get ready with each other when the group all go out, and it fills a gap that Poppy never even realised she had until she met her - this desire for a big sister, a want for something she never even knew had been ripped away from her before she was ever even born. 

And Nico.

She has all of this, now, because of him.

He’s given her a life so sweet, and so wonderful, and it’s barely even started yet.

Their little girl is still sat comfortably in her stomach, kicking and moving and causing aches all over, but she’s contributed to a world so beautiful that Poppy doesn’t want to remember life before it. 

And he gave it all to her.

He gave her their baby, his family, summer sun in a foreign country, rocking chairs and card games and trips to the mall. 

Trips to the beach with his siblings, who don’t let him forget his status as the youngest, doting on Poppy while teasing him the whole time, breaking off from the group in search of gelato for her, and none for him, because he has two hands and two feet and a wallet bigger than anyone’s to go and get his own.

And that leaves her with just him, wading in the gloriously warm shallow sea, the sun glistening against soft waves, and his hands around her, large and safe, happy and secure - and so in love she hasn’t stopped smiling in weeks.

So infatuated by the man in front of her, that she’d let him do anything, take her anywhere he wants.

“It’s a shame it’s not just the two of us, today,” Nico hums, a large hand stroking up Poppy’s back, sliding under the straps of her bikini top and tugging, teasingly, “Bet I could have convinced you to take this off.”

“We’re in public, perv,” she scoffs, her own palms flat against his chest, “Also, you can’t accuse your own family of cockblocking you.”

“I can when they won’t leave you alone,” he pouts, “My brother and sister never waited on me hand and foot, if I want gelato I have to go get it myself.” He mimics his sisters voice, face scrunching adorably. 

“My heart bleeds for you,” she groans in feigned pity, “I’m carrying precious cargo, and there’s some serious name stakes up for grabs right now.”

“So you’re pitting them against each other for your own benefit?”

“Exactly, you Hischiers love a little healthy competition,” Poppy smiles, back arching as his hand travels down her spine, the curve of her belly pressing right into his below the water. His skin smooth and hot, making her want to press even harder. “You need to up your game, I’ve got a godparent thing going on with some of the boys, too, you wouldn’t believe how much they’re willing to do for you when they think it puts them ahead in the rankings.”

“We’re not leaving our baby girl in the hands of any of those idiots in the unfortunate event of our deaths, Poppy.” Nico chuckles, lifting her with hands lowered to the backs of her thighs so that he can carry her deeper into the water. 

“I know that, and you know that,” she presses a finger to the tip of his nose before her arms curl around his broad shoulders, “But if it means that Timo always brings me madeleines when he’s around, and Jesper and Nic always buy cute baby clothes for us and send me pictures, then who are we to rain on their parade?”

The smile that stretches across Nico’s lips is fond as he asks, “Who’s the front runner?”

“Well, Timo for now, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he agrees in good humour.

“But I’ve managed to convince Jonas he’s in with a good chance after we went to visit him, he kept bringing cut up fruit out to me while I was around the pool.”

“Baby, I cut up that fruit for you, don’t let him take the credit.”

“Oh, well then he’s disqualified for being a liar.”

“Why’s Timo the obvious choice?” He asks, now at a point in the water that if he let Poppy go, she would only just be able to keep her chin above the water, and she clutches on a little tighter.

“He’s an October baby, like me.” The hands around the back of his neck start playing with the ends of his hair, scratching softly at the skin as she presses herself entirely against him. “If anyone’s gonna raise our daughter, it’s going to be a Libra, we’re fair people.”

“Makes complete sense,” he jokes, “Written in the stars.”

“You get it,” she smiles, ignoring his sarcasm entirely. “But I’m waiting for the penny to drop when they realise all the boys back home are gonna want to be in the running. I have big plans for when we get back to Jersey, they’ve all got a lot of catching up to do, Luke’s in with a pretty good chance, you know.”

“You and that kid, I swear,” 

“He’s very precious to me, Nico.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it.”

“Jack on the other hand has dropped way out of contention. We were talking on the phone the other day while you were training and called me Pop-belly. That’s out of line.”

Nico knows that laughing in any way at that is going to earn him some sort of reaction, but he really can’t help the way his lips quiver of their own volition. 

“Yeah, laugh it up,” Poppy scoffs, swatting lightly at his shoulder, “I’ll be the only one laughing when he turns into my own personal smoothie butler when we go back. He has no chance of getting back in my good graces, but I won’t be telling him that.”

“You’re an evil genius.”

“It’s your devil spawn communicating through the womb,” Poppy hums, leaning in to press a proud kiss firmly to the dimple that forms in his cheek when he smiles at her. “I was a good girl before you corrupted me.”

“You were never a good girl,” he smirks, with his voice low, one hand travelling up the back of her thigh until he can pinch at her ass. 

“Watch it, Hischier,” she warns, feeling steady enough in his hold to take an arm from around his neck and stroke the side of her finger along his slightly stubbled jaw. “You’re on thin ice with me already after shaving again, you don’t want to start being mean.”

“Oh, I’m being mean?” He asks, the hand that had pinched at her flesh now slipping beneath the fabric at the top of the back of her thighs. “You’re the one walking around in this bikini and not letting me touch you.”

“We’re in public, people get arrested for doing the things you want to do to me in places like this.”

“Could be worth it,” he shrugs, “You’re forgetting I’m kind of a national treasure, baby, they’d probably let me go with a warning.”

“Yeah, well, can’t risk it. I kind of need you. Plus, I think you’ve already done enough touching, you’ve literally impregnated me.”

“Way to make it sound romantic.” Nico mumbles, leaning to press a kiss to her bare shoulder, nose nudging once more at the thin straps of her bikini that curve around her slender neck. “Could never touch you enough.”

“You’re touching me right now, aren’t you?”

“Not where I want to.” He repositions where her legs are curled around his hips, just to emphasise his point, pulling her tighter around his torso until he can buck up into her and feel her shudder against him. 

“You can touch me wherever you want later,” she promises, her eyes meeting his, speckles of sunlight glistening off the surface of the water and straight into his irises, warming them in a way that shoots heat all the way down her spine.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“You better.” She presses a sweet kiss straight to his lips, one hand holding him close as they part, and she kisses him quick again, before saying, “Thank you for cutting up my fruit.”

He smiles, eyes squinting against the sunlight and crinkling in the corners, deep dimples forming in each cheek.

“Thank you for having my baby.”

She giggles, kissing him again, unable to resist muttering, “Thank you for putting a baby in me,” against his lips before he nips at her mouth, moving along her face in a targeted attack as his hands grip firmer at her hips, tickling her until the sound of laughter fills the air around them.

—

Poppy and Nico had made their way out of the water and onto their towels in the shade by the time Nina and Luca had returned with 3 cones of gelato in hand. Luca had already eaten half of his, coffee-flavoured, and Nina had strawberry, handing a cone with a white scoop over to Poppy.

“Fior di latte,” she had smiled sweetly, “Like milk ice, you said that was your favourite.”

“Thank you,” Poppy had blushed, the smallest gesture of her remembering that sending a buzz down her spine. Nico’s putting beside her, and mutterings of how they could have gotten him one, too, soon forgotten when she started to share.

The two of them had gone for a walk to find a bar on the beach front where they could watch soccer, leaving Poppy and Nico cuddled up on their towel, lost in their own world as they shared the cone between them.

She was resting between Nico’s legs, absentmindedly licking at the dessert when a screaming blur had zoomed past them, kicking sand up in their wake as three young children chased each other down to the water.

Poppy thinks that a year ago, she might have pouted about the sand being thrown onto her legs, but she finds herself smiling softly as she reaches back with the cone, waiting for Nico to have a turn taking a bite.

“Do you ever think about having more?” She can tell without looking back at him that he’s speaking around a mouthful of gelato, and even the thought of it makes her chest warm with the rumbles of laughter. 

“Kids?” Poppy asks, and he hums affirmatively in response, “We don’t even have this one yet, babe,”

“I know,” he mutters, and she can hear the smile in his tone as his thumb swipes at the curve of the top her bump, “But do you ever think about what our family might look like in a few years?”

Our family still makes her heart skip a beat, and she finds herself relaxing even further into his embrace - melting, almost, into his chest, warmed by the rays of sun he has been bathing under.

“We probably need to see how difficult this one ends up being before I think about having any more.” She licks quickly at the drip travelling down her thumb before offering the cone back to Nico, who shakes his head as he lowers it to her shoulder, nose nudging against her skin.

“Should have put two in you while I had the chance,” he mumbles, lips pressed into the side of her neck, trailing soft, but purposeful kisses.

“Not how that works, babe,” Poppy chuckles, lifting her chin to give him more space for his ministrations. “Although they do run in my family, my dad’s a twin.”

“There’s two of him?”

“Yeah, him and my uncle Peter. That’s where the whole name thing started in my family.”

“Name thing?” He juts his chin when she looks back, asking for another taste. 

“We’re all P’s,” she frowns as she focuses on directing the cone back toward his mouth, making sure she doesn’t smush it in his face.

“Oli isn’t a P.” The gelato lines his lips messily as he speaks, and her eyes start to crinkle in the corners as she takes him in. How can he be so stupidly pretty with mint choc chip smearing his upper lip?

“Oli’s a fraud,” Poppy chuckles, swiping a thumb against the soft flesh of his mouth, bringing it to her own to clear it of the cold, sticky substance. “His name’s Philip Jr, but people started calling him Lil Phil and it gave him a complex.”

“Poppy, baby, did you start calling him that?”

“No comment.” 

“You get all grumpy when Jack gives you dumb nicknames, and here you are calling your own flesh and blood Lil Phil.”

“I don’t get grumpy,” she pouts, recoiling her hand from his reach when he tries to lean back in for another taste of gelato. 

“You threatened to block him the other day.”

“That’s ‘cause he called me Pop-belly,” she grumbles, “That’s not funny, it’s mean.”

“Not funny at all,” Nico concurs, lips twisting in the corner as he bites back a smile, eyes gleaming as he watches Poppy sit up and face him, fully. Her eyes narrow, gaze zeroing in on where he’s trying not to laugh, again, at the horrific moniker, and her own lips twist with mirth as she shuffles, resting back on her heels, limbs half on the towel and half on the warm sand. 

“We should stick to your thing, when we’re picking a name for Cheeto,” she hums, meeting his eye as her tongue swipes against the cone, watching his eyelids grow heavier as he focuses on the movement of her lips. “4 letters, no chance of funny nicknames, no chance of people spelling it wrong on birthday cards,” she reaches out for him to get the taste he had been chasing before, and just as his lips press to the frozen substance, she adds, “You all have such pretty names, too. Like Luca.”

Poppy shouldn’t like the darkness that flashes across his eyes when his jealousy flares up, shouldn’t want to push his buttons to make it happen, but she can’t help herself - her favourite pastime all summer has been making Nico think she has a crush on his brother.

It’s so stupid, so childish but so so fun.

It had started off lighthearted enough - her first time meeting Luca, she had been a little knocked back by his presence - ruggedly handsome where she might usually have considered Nico softer, but there were definite similarities. And she wasn’t exactly attracted to him, but she had been flustered - obviously so - and it’s Nico’s own fault for making his notice of that fact so obvious - brows furrowed, his grip on her hand tightening, and a persistent urge to be present whenever Poppy hung around his brother.

She blames the fact that she misses that teasing aspect of their relationship - when their conversations were based off of sarcasm and inescapable charm - for how she continued to press his buttons over the summer. It’s hard to maintain their old snark when her hormones are all out whack, and all she wants is for him to get his clothes off and press her to the nearest surface at any given moment. He constantly has the upper hand, and she’s not exactly used to that being a part of their dynamic.

Teasing him about Luca kills two birds with one stone - she gets her fun, and she elicits that possessive part of him that he somehow locks away every time he gets eyes on her belly, that she can see him restraining in order to handle her with care.

“You’re not funny,” he huffs, swiping the melting gelato from her grip and taking an exasperated lick of the sides, not realising how adorable he looks making little swipes with his tongue when he’s trying to look annoyed.

“I’m dead serious, your brother’s a hunk.”

“Mohn,” he sighs, “I’ll dump this in the sand right now, and I know how much you want to eat this cone.”

“Fine, fine, fine,” she relents as she giggles, reaching to grasp at his arm where he’s holding it away from her, fingertips stroking teasingly to make him give in. “I don’t think your brother is hot.”

“Thank you,” he smiles, offering the gelato back to her.

“Your dad on the other hand.”

“Poppy,” he warns.

“Kidding! I’m kidding,” she laughs, shuffling forward and back between his parted legs, “You’re the only man for me, baby, I swear.”

“I better be,” he pouts, guiding her back into the space he leaves, where she had been cuddled up before, where he misses the press of her body between his thighs. “I booked a table at that Italian place you liked the other week for tonight,” he tells her, voice lowered as one hand falls to her waist, and the other reaches up to push her hair behind her ear and cup at her cheek, “And it’s under my name, so you can’t ditch me for my brother or you get no tiramisu for dessert.”

Her mouth drops at the threat, spare hand reaching up to grip at his shoulder. “I promise I’ll never love another man in my life.”

She says it with a tone so serious that he can’t help but laugh, and her lips tremble too as she watches him, rolling his eyes with affection and looking away so that he doesn’t entirely give him.

She doesn’t really think it’s much of a joke, though.

There isn’t a single person on the planet who could make her feel like this - so happy, so warm, so content. 

She might never love anyone like she loves Nico.

Except for maybe their daughter. And whatever other family he wants to give her in a few years. 

Poppy can’t quite figure out why the thought of going out for dinner alone with Nico is making her nervous.

They’re in a relationship, have been for around 3 months now, and she’s literally carrying his child, but as he stands behind her in the apartment, hands sliding torturously slow up her spine as he zips up her dress and making eye contact with her in the mirror’s reflection, she starts to feel her heart race. 

She’s trying not to be quieter than usual as they walk hand in hand in the warm summer evening air, Nico guiding her down the streets that are comfortingly familiar to him, and that are starting to feel more like home every day to her, too. 

It doesn’t help that he looks so good too, hair grown out and pushed back out of his face, a clean shave - as much as she had grumbled about that, she can’t deny how gorgeous he looks - a loose black shirt and baggy linen trousers, fancy watch clutched around his wrist.

And he makes her feel good about how she looks, too, despite flashes of insecurity hitting her over the past few weeks. Their afternoon spent between the sheets when they had returned from the beach, Nico not being able to get enough of her, and whispering sweet nothings and sexy mutterings into her skin as they finally took advantage of some much needed privacy.

He had chosen her dress for her, had strapped her slightly heeled sandals onto her feet with kisses pressed to her calves, and she thinks it’s all the attention he’s given her over the past 24 hours that has her feeling what she can only describe as high.

It’s what has her stopping him at the corner before the restaurant, seeing the perfect place to prop her phone up on a nearby wall so that she can capture the moment - the two of them looking so perfect that she wants her daughter to see, wants to print it out and tape it into her memory book to show her just how in love and happy her mommy and daddy are.

“Can we take a photo?” 

“You want me to take one of you?” He asks, stopping as she starts to adjust her camera settings on her phone, adding the timer so she can leave her phone perched at a good angle. 

“No, I want one together. So we can show Cheeto how hot her parents were.”

Nico chuckles as she places her phone on the side and pulls him to a good distance, holding her in his arms and smiling down at her as she holds back onto him - the two of them repeating a couple times with different poses before Poppy has a nice little collection of photos, and they can carry on toward the restaurant.

She swipes through and shows them to him as they walk together, and she sends them straight to him so he can have them for himself. 

“Is that hard launch material for your instagram?” He asks as she zooms in on one of them, Poppy’s arms circled around his waist, the biggest, toothiest grin on her face and her eyes scrunched shut.

“I’m gonna put them in Cheeto’s pregnancy book,” Poppy hums, not answering him directly. “Remind me to keep a card or something from the restaurant, she loves their pasta. We can come back when she’s older.”

Her nerves have increased tenfold at the mere mention of that godforsaken app.

Her instagram had never been a big deal before - private since the day she started her account, she only really ever had friends from school and work on there. She never posted in search of likes or validation, just to share little updates on her life, but she had to delete it at the start of summer once the requests to follow her started flooding in.

The first barrage had been easy to ignore, but once the zeros started adding up, and the requests went over 10,000, she figured that just getting rid of it would do her a world of good.

Anybody that needed to be updated, she could just text anyway. It wasn’t a big deal, which is why she hasn’t told Nico yet.

She doesn’t want to worry him with the fact that her whole feed had ended up on Twitter somehow anyway - that the thought of posting anything new, and it ending up shared by one of her existing followers to an intrusive gossip account freaks her out. She doesn’t have the energy to whittle down who might be leaking her stuff, so deleting the app entirely and counting the rest of her privacy as a loss had felt like the safest option.

And it’s not like she misses it.

It’s also not like she cares that much about people knowing about her and Nico - she’d scream from the rooftops about him if she could - but the lack of control scares her a little.

It’s all so invasive - seeing herself cropped out of group pictures, with threads of discourse about her, her life, her relationship with Nico and the rest of the team. Everything twisted so far out of context she starts to question her own reality. 

She had sought advice from Nina about the whole thing, and the two of them had agreed that between themselves, they could figure things out - documenting their summer just for them, without stressing Nico out about what was happening behind the scenes. And she’s grateful, at least, that she has someone like Nina in her corner - who understands what it feels like, to an extent.

Telling Nico would just make him feel guilty, or, even worse, apologise for something that isn’t his fault, and so all she can really do is avoid it altogether. 

She hardly posted on there anyway.

“We should probably figure out her name, soon, you know,” 

Poppy snaps out of her thoughts to look up at him, twisting his lips nervously as he checks on her.

“We can’t call her Cheeto forever.”

“We can. That’s her name.”

Nico chuckles as he guides are across the street with a hand on her back, the restaurant now in sight - a small, family business, not too fancy, the kind with the most delicious recipes past down generations and made to perfection.

She loves places like this - much prefers it to fancier joints - where they can sit side by side at a small table and bask in the intimacy of it all.

An older gentleman smiles warmly at the two of them when they walk in hand in hand, and guides them to a table in the outdoor section at the back, a lit candle and a single rose in the middle of the set-up, and the starry night sky twinkling above them.

She knows exactly why she’s nervous.

It’s the first date she’s been on in a long time - her first official date with Nico, period, and it takes her back to being a little younger, when she first started going on dates, first started opening up to the idea of sharing herself with anybody else. It’s daunting, even if he is already the love of her life. Even if she’s pregnant with his child, integrated into his family, and returning to Jersey in a matter of weeks to the apartment they now share.

He helps her into her seat, pulling his around from the opposite side of the table so they can sit together how she likes, his hand immediately finding where her legs cross beneath the table and stroking at her bare skin. The waiter hands the two of them menus, and Nico asks if he can bring water with ice for the table before he nods and departs, leaving them alone.

“This is really nice, baby,” she smiles, gratefully, eyes roaming over how soft his features look out in the dimmed light, chocolate irises twinkling as they reflect the flickering flame in the centre of the table. 

“Only the best for my girls,” he says lowly, and the two of them sit and smile dopily at one another and making light conversation until the waiter returns. Nico says something that Poppy hasn’t quite learned yet in his language, only just about making out the word pen before Nico takes one from the man with an appreciative thank you before he leaves again. He reaches across the table for the napkins that sit beneath their cutlery, sliding one in front of her before writing on the one in front of himself behind his other hand, hiding whatever he’s doing until he folds the paper.

“I want you to write down the name that’s on the top of your list. Then we’re gonna close our eyes and shuffle them up and pick one.”

“How do you know I have a list?” She frowns, taking the pen when he offers it over to her.

“Because you make a list for the pros and cons of what takeout we’re ordering, Poppy. Of course you have a list to name our daughter.”

She rolls her eyes, covering her napkin as she pauses with a hovered pen. 

She does have a list. And she has a definitive number one.

It hadn’t even been an option before the summer, but she’s found herself imagining the name more and more over the past few weeks. Embroidered on blankets, written into birthday cards for the boys, etched into a personalised wooden bookcase like the kind she had as a little girl.

Nico is right. She isn’t going to be Cheeto forever.

“You know,” Poppy leans back to hide her paper as she writes her name down, her legs angled toward his as his hand strokes softly again up her calf, his napkin clutched tight in his other hand. “Most people don’t pick out baby names on their first date.”

“This isn’t our first date,” he scoffs, eyes narrowing at her as she folds her own. “We’ve been on dates before.”

“Name one.” Her head tilts as she challenges him, eyes meeting his as she waits for him to come up with something. 

“All those times we grabbed dinner together back in Jersey,”

“Not dates.”

“There were several candles lit, Poppy.” Nico frowns, and Poppy’s lips twist as the crease between his eyebrows deepens as he thinks back on it. “All those times we got food before or after your scans, and movie nights at your place with takeout-,”

“Not dates. You have to specifically ask for those to have been dates, they were more like hang-outs.” She repeats, a hand reaching out to place itself on his knee, thumb rubbing against the linen of his pants, countering before he can bite back, “But that’s okay, I like this being our first. We’re making our own order.”

“What like getting pregnant before we’re in a relationship?”

“Exactly. Structure is boring. I like the idea of waking up and you deciding today’s the day to put me in your will and tomorrow’s the day to learn my middle name.”

“I thought you didn’t have a middle name.”

Poppy smiles, close-lipped and big, like she’s holding in laughter as she reaches up to caress his face. She kind of doesn’t want to burst his bubble - sweet, naive but well-intentioned Nico, who thinks he knows her like the back of his hand - but she wants to prove her point, more. “Giselle. After my Nanna Gigi.” 

“Poppy Giselle Jensen?” He asks, mouth agape as she nods. “You’re telling me I knocked you up before I even knew your full name?”

“Way to make it sound romantic,” she mocks, just as he had, earlier on the beach, tucking his hair behind his ear and shuffling a little in her seat, legs tangling even more with his under the table. “I think it’s cool that we get to learn new things about each other all the time.” 

“What have you learned about me?” His voice drops an octave, thumb stroking at her skin in an attempt to distract, but she isn’t giving in to him.

“I spent a week with your mom and sister while you were training out in Tenerife, babe, I know all your secrets from all the photo albums we went through.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yeah,” she smirks, “Little blonde baby Nico with his big, pretty brown eyes and his bowl cut. I saw everything.”

“That’s not fair,” he pouts, grasping at her ankle, “You have the upper hand.”

“You saw me with my head in a toilet bowl for like 3 months straight, I think we’re even.”

“Speaking of,” he places his folded napkin down onto the table and slides it beside hers, “Close your eyes, I’ll mix them up.”

Poppy closes her eyes, but pouts a little as she hears him shuffle the napkins around. There was no speaking of - she was talking about puking. That wasn’t necessarily speaking of their daughter. He’s just deflecting attention from his bowl cut, she thinks, but she has extensive plans for revisiting that one. Preferably with backup, when their daughter is old enough to join in.

“Alright, now I’m gonna close my eyes, and you mix them up.”

She peeks her eyes open to see his scrunched closed, and smiles to herself as she mixes the two identically folded napkins on the table, nudging him with her knee to let him know when she’s finished.

Her heart starts to pound all of a sudden when his eyes flutter open, those perfect brown eyes darting straight to hers, and she holds her breath in anticipation.

“You pick.” He tells her, sliding the two napkins toward her.

She does so without looking, unfolding it in her lap and holding it against her palm so that he can’t see.

Her lips twist as she eyes the familiar name, a sense of victory swirling in her gut until the reality of it crashes down on her, her eyebrows scrunching in confusion.

That isn’t her handwriting.

“It means ray of sunlight in Persian,” Nico tells her, peeking down at the name written in the palm of her hands, already knowing from her reaction which napkin she had chosen. “Or beautiful girl.”

“Like you know anything in Persian,” she scoffs, “It’s just your brother and sister’s names combined.”

Nico frowns, “What?” He whines in denial, a poor attempt at lying that automatically makes Poppy’s lips turn at the corners, “How would you even think of that? I’ll let you know, I did extensive research, okay, I-,”

Poppy opens the other napkin up where it sits on the surface of the table, the exact same name scrawled in the centre in her handwriting.

Lina.

Nico smiles, slow but big, cheeks dimpling and eyes crinkling, and Poppy feels those nerves in her stomach swirl into something else, entirely. Her hands start to shake and her eyes start to water as soon as his gaze meets hers, pride shining through every pore of his features.

“That’s fate, Mohn,” he breathes, leaning closer, his chair shuffling against the floor as he reaches out to caress her face softly, palms pressed at either side of her jaw. “We wrote the same name.”

“I know,” she whispers, feeling a tear slip out that he catches immediately with the pad of his thumb. 

“You wanna name her after my brother and sister?”

“I do.” She nods. Of course she does.

Not only has she seen how much they mean to Nico over the last couple of months, but they’ve started to mean as much to her, too - providing her with a sibling bond she’s never really experienced with Oli, one of unconditional love and support, admiration and affection.

She wants her daughter to embody that too.

To be a beacon of love.

A ray of sunlight.

“Lina Cheeto Hischier.”

Nico’s dimpled smile turns into laughter that erupts from the depths of his belly, and fills Poppy with elation, her body turning to jelly as he pulls her in until their lips press together, giggling against each others mouths until Nico feels the need to part, his head leaning down toward Poppy’s bump, where their daughter lays once again, butt to the front, ready to cause her mother a night of grief. 

“Don’t worry Lina-bug,” he whispers, eyes drifting up to meet Poppy’s, her heart soaring at the sweet, definitely pre-meditated nickname. “We’ll work on the middle name.”

“Maybe something Persian,” Poppy scoffs, her own neck craning to speak toward her stomach, her hand falling to stroke it at the side, “Considering your daddy’s such an expert, all of a sudden.”

“I thought you might need convincing,” he chuckles, “I promise I looked it up.”

He leans in to kiss her again.

“I love you,” she whispers against his lips, “So much.”

“I love you more.”

Next Chapter

Taglist: @alwaysclassyeagle @bunbunbl0gs @idgaf-if-youre-here @youflowerr-youfeast @thearchersstuff @bellsdi0r @wonderheartz @jjgsunflower @butterflies35 @kenziepickle @josierosie @laheyxlover @mrsmattytkachuk @dasiysthings @belladawnidk (sorry if your tag hasn't worked btw)

[nathank77]

11/29/24

4:14 p.m

I went to the gym and did the back/bicep combo machines, the chest/tricep machines, and I did 3 dumbbell shoulder workouts. It felt like a really effective workout tbh. I enjoyed it. I hope I can do that same workout with small variations in it Monday and Friday, so I can work my chest and back twice a week bc i can't work my chest on the dumbbells with more than one exercise atm... and my back well I could with dumbbells but idk if I'm confident enough with my form for most of them tbh. The machines really help with that. Same with the chest dumbbell exercises. I am only confident with one.

I'm going to do some serious edits to dumbbell day which i hope can be wednesdays.....maybe 3 triceps, 3 biceps and 3 shoulders and then if one exercise works say biceps and triceps then I'll count it towards one of the three for both. I'd really like to do my back and chest Monday and Friday and a light dumbbell session for my arms on Wednesday. It's absolutely the goal. I don't feel sore mostly. Funny enough my forearm wasn't really sore but only sometimes and working out seemed to stop it. Hopefully it stays that way. It's kinda like if you have a hang over and drink. Then you're not hung over anymore. It wasnt really painful just sore very occasionally but it gives me anxiety.... it was only ever sore on extension sometimes. I did arm circles and arm stretching before starting my workout today.

I also did abs hardcore today. Seated knee tucks (i feel it in my legs the most,) bicycle crunches (i fucking love them,) and two machines which i increased weight slightly. My shoulder is a little sore but this workout felt great.

I really hope the Monday, Friday thing works so I can keep up on my chest and also have nice back muscles..

I got home and my mother has been a bitch constantly about everything she doesnt even know this next part. The rescue is trying to make it work (all our limitations) but I doubt it... also I'm pretty sure if they come through skye will evict me.... so yea... I have anxiety about that... but yea she's been cunting out at me since I got home for cooking, for showering, for existing.

I'm giving up on fruits and vegetables, I went to buy cucumbers and I went to scan them and they had mold right on the side of them. I just can't. I get obsessive with checking them and washing them and they cost so much, have a very short shelf life. I can afford the calories eating other things. I found some other healthy-ish snack food. It'll save me money and go a lot further..

You can say my dad has high chlorestoral so it runs in the family but I mean lifestyle matters... he used to work at a desk and build stuff in his spare time. Idk what he eats. He could be getting dunkin everyday for all I know. So as stupid as it sounds to change my lifestyle and see what happens first and ignore my dad's high chlorestoral, idk if he is doing all the right things to control his chlorestoral and I mean maybe he isn't. Maybe his lifestyle doesn't cater to having low chlorestoral. Idk.

I got to give lifestyle changes a chance......

I'm planning on doing leg day tomorrow and altering my workout a little from machines. I'm planning on doing abs if I didn't push myself too hard today... it'll be better to do leg day tomorrow than to get bitched at all day tomorrow and listen to stupid Riley barking and whining while I try to game. No matter what I'm not really celebrating my testosterone day...

I might have a red bull day but idk.. I might do leg day, it depends on how I feel. I want to go to the gym 5 days a week and since I can't go Sunday it's Saturday or no gym until Monday. I always got to play my arms by year but my legs can handle every 2 or 3 days... the more fat i burn and muscles I gain the happier I get with my body.

If I go tomorrow I'll have hit the gym 5 days this week. Saturday to Saturday... 4 is good too but i mean I'll see how I feel and what i want to do tomorrow.

If I don't go tomorrow. I'll go Monday for chest and back machines ideally, Tuesday for legs, Wednesday for dumbbell day, Friday for upper body machines and Saturday for leg day. I don't really care about my leg muscle progress. I'm just trying to stay active and burn fat and gain muscle. So leg day helps with that. I'll see what I want to do. I hope my arms permit me to workout on Monday.

Sleep was god awful. Absolutely awful. Terrible. I laid there with my eyes closed for 2 hours before I just took a tiny baby piece of xanax... and a benadryl. I finally fell asleep around 1 a.m... I didn't get a full 7 hours but I got close.

I hope tonight goes better cause i got to take a full Xanax Saturday night, red bull day or not so I can sleep the night before my dad's house cause of the anxiety...

Idk what i did wrong and why I couldn't sleep. I didn't have caffeine late. I went out. I had my lights bright early. Had them mostly all off like normal at night before bed. I did everything right. Maybe it's my thyriod idk. I did poop 4 times yesterday...

I'm anxious about it though, I can't take more tonight bc I have to Saturday night otherwise I'll have to cancel going to my dad's and doing the Christmas tree.

Anyways here is my sexy af body, what are those lines????? I think my obliques. I fucking love the bicycle crunches. My reps are getting higher and higher and they hurt. They hurt so good.

[rottiens]

RIGHT it’s so frustrating 😭 it’s a horrible feeling. people look at me like i’m mad when i tell them i don’t like the heat/summer 😵‍💫 it’s just such and overwhelming feeling, that’s the best way i can describe it.

yes! i agree, it’s lovely to watch it from my window, but when i have to be out in it for ages, and my hands get sore bcs they are cold, i just wanna come back home 😭

it is! everything is just so fuzzy, when i watch a show or movie, for example. i really struggle to read the subtitles bcs they are just so blurry 😭 so i’m hoping i can get something sorted out soon!

and thank you sm ! i’ll make sure to be careful<3 i can read close up, but it has to be quite close. it’s when it’s a little further away i start to struggle 🤔 oh yeah i’ve heard of those! i’ve never tried audiobook, but i’ve heard lots of good things about it, so i’ll have to take a look. thank you!

aww thank you! me too 🤍 i went on the swings with her and i can’t stay on them as long as i used too, i get dizzy and tired within like 10 minutes now 😭

ah, so i’m not alone with the caramel, huh? it’s deff not as easy as i thought it was gonna be, and i too haven’t touched it since, but i will deff try again! :3 and thank you! you’re so right, it’s a lot of trial and error, we’ll never learn if we don’t make mistakes 🤝 i’m glad to hear that, thank you, and hopefully i will get better too! i bet you make absolutely delicious dishes 😋

aww thank you sm! i gladly take the hug and send you one back<3 on nooo, i’m so sorry to hear that, it’s really frustrating when that happens 😭 i’m glad you managed to get it going and back on again though!

good luck, good luck! i hope everything goes smoothly, and exactly! having a positive outlook on life attracts positive things:) i hope you’ve had a wonderful day, and i hope tomorrow will be just as lovely for you too! 🤍

i think calling it overwhelming is the more correct word :( it puts me in such a bad mood, i just hate it. at least you can cover yourself from the cold with coats, scarves etc but tell me what do i do about the heat if i can't stand to be in comfortable clothes/shorts etc. no thank you

today it started raining and i got terribly wet (now i'm sneezing) and all i could think about was this conversation >:( i love the rain but it's so annoying when you're outside and it starts raining

and audiobooks >> are very good, I hope you give them a try because I am not exaggerating when I tell you they have changed my life. Plus I feel like I can be more productive, I just listen to them when I'm cooking or doing something else that doesn't require so much attention

and speaking of dishes 🤭 yesterday i made chipotle style burritos and ngl they were not as good as i thought lskd the sauce was so so good, but it's like i told you, it's all about failing and trying again, so even though i was a little disappointed i plan to try again. I cooked shrimp today and they are one of my favorites, I made them in garlic and cream and chefs kiss, I still have a few left over that I plan to make later in the week.

thank you so much for all the nice wishes <3 💋 now I'm just looking forward to read this weekend and relax and enjoy myself on my brother's birthday, the rest of responsibilities I'll be piling up for Monday lol I hope you can enjoy your weekend too my dear.

[fallingsunflower]

BESTIES I'm so sorry - I hit my post limit waaaay earlier than expected! Some of y'all joined me on my backup account, (which I also hit the limit on lmao), but I'm back now.

I had over 400 asks to go through and I'll give you a warning that not all of them will appear (either because they were old or because they were topics we already answered). But here is a giant list of asks I compiled for you from when I wasn't allowed to post lol they don't really require my response but I found them entertaining to read. Hope you don't mind I've just put them all together in one post. It's also to save me from using up my 250 posts lol

"this is all so embarrassing like my god imagine when the promotion of the movie starts how horrible it will be for other people who made the movie too"

"SELL UR TICKETS TODAY WATCH THE MOVIE ILLEGALLY, next article we’ll be talking about these two assholes filing for bankruptcy. cheap harlots. don’t mess with your meal ticket."

"hate to say it but i defs think they‘ve got a sliver of the gp’s attention for five minutes"

"I am scanning through all these photos looking for just ONE where he looks like he's smiling and enjoying this. It's so crazy."

"I guess those are all the pics we’re getting right now. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they finish the Italy trip off with one more major Backgrid photo shoot."

"Olivia’s trending on Twitter but not Harry. Like it’s obvious who’s getting the PR gains here!"

"If they dont give us a 6 month or more break after this im gonna need them to pay for my therapy bills from now on bc of this damage no joke let me crawl back into my shit hole now 😑"

"The palce they at is referred to as “tuscanys best-kept secret”. Everyone point and laugh."

"she looks like she’s enjoying all of this. he looks like he wants to push her into the water."

"a few people said he’s keeping his shorts pulled up or covered in all the shots because of the Nike branding which they ask to not get photographed. What a setup."

"Man I knew the second those Tomdaya pics came out of them kissing and how they were trending so fast that HO were going to do something to 'top' them. Its pathetic /// FRRR. she probably hoped for the positive reactions that people gave tom & zendaya but unfortunately, miss girl got the opposite. when will they realize that nobody, but his fans, find them cute lmao can they just stop, it’s so embarrassing 😭😭😭"

"He really out here doing this with someone who almost old enough to be his mother, shiiiiiiiit. Sickening. Sick of these 2 for real now, i was fine with the good old blurry back content and whatnot but this? Crossing a line here nobody wanna see that shit and knowing how people feel goooooood damn."

"I aboslutely despise kendall for obvious reason but this one is actually worse than the hendall one bc you couldnt really see as much as now dis gos tang."

"She’s also wearing the cross necklace again. I feel like if that was so meaningful to her she wouldn’t risk loosing it in the ocean 🙄"

"guys have eyes on tmz. I Do not have tw now. they were so aggressive towards them"

"I'm sorry for Harry because you lost your damn mind bro"

"Now why the hendall pics are better ?? NO SHADE BUTT"

"I’m genuine confused like do they actually want dwd to flop or what? I just threw up in my mouth I sure as hell ain’t gonna watch their sorry ass movie. Is it supposed to flop? I’m so confused!"

"The match was not interesting enough so they cooked up something different especially since people were pointing out how they staged the PDA. And the page 6 article is out already!!!"

"Who the fuck thought this was a good idea"

"Is it just me or does harry's face looks really blank for someone out on a Romantic date with his alleged girlfriend.?"

"if thats it, harry hasn’t no game🤣🤣🤣🤣"

"so this is why the tabloids weren’t talking about the match pics! they didn’t have any value on their own. now with the yacht pics? my oh my they’re gonna get the clicks of their lives. her team was prob like “wait a sec we got something for y’all”"

"If they were models hired to act like a couple they wouldn't get the job......"

"Not them starring right at the camera in some of them help make it less obvious will you"

"HENDALL🤣🤣🤣is that uuuu"

"Harry’s ass crack thought it should make an appearance too."

"What a great day for team PR, happy Monday you guys! Let's pop the champagne 🍾🍾🍾🍾 P. S. They both need acting lessons, tbh"

"It’s quite interesting how everything that’s happened before I’ve seen predicted weeks/and in advance on blogs or fan accounts. Like his life has always been so predictable but damn"

"He was hiding the Nike check. That’s why his swim trucks are rolled up to an absurd degree even for him. He knew he was gonna get photographed."

"What I’m noticing is wether people like them together or not, everyone’s saying they’re aren’t a hot couple…there was more chemistry in the Kendall pics by far"

"i also find it weird that he’s not smiling in any of the pictures and it would be one thing if there were five pics from ten minutes of time but there are like 70 from an obvious extended period of time"

"It's interesting everyone involved is being Team Try Hard. Yet the universe says no. The last set of pics, Tom and Zendaya overshadowed. People even paid more attention to Angelina and the Weekend (even if business possibly). Fast forward to today and all this fakery only for Gwen/Blake to tie the knot. His team needs to get a clue. She needs to go. Harry needs to clean this up fast."

"Ok i looked at one hugging pic and one kidding pic and they could not look more stagged. It looks unatural ,strange and weird from all angles. You can clearly see from their body posture they are posing for a photographer from backgrid."

"Like I said in my ask a couple days ago the day we get kissing pics is the day that I believe this is all a stunt and I was right. They took a page out of hendall 2016 and it’s looks so forced and awkward. Hendall did it better cause at prater they had chemistry. They must be scared this movie is going to tank because they are pushing this way too hard"

"Real, PR, or whatever relationship it is, they’re fucking boring. You are on a yacht in Italy, can’t you have a little bit of fun? I can’t believe how boring they are, I just can’t. Even if it is just PR, can’t you make a fucking dumb joke so you can laugh or something? Do they have anything in common like to talk about or discuss or make fun of? I’d literally killed myself if I looked like that in a relationship. They are not communicating in any photos we’ve got. They are just walking, or sitting. Even when they hold hands or kiss or hug, they never communicate."

"okay but did ya’ll see the pic of her diving in?? i can’t stop laughing 😭😭😭😭"

"they look horrifically awkward i cannot believe what harry is doing"

"“HEY PAPS COME GET A PIC OF US KISSING TO MAKE OUR RELATIONSHIP MORE BELIEVABLE!!!!!”"

"his ass is hanging out and her bra is almost off what in the hell"

"Hqs on a yacht like that? Mhmhmhm hmmmmm / I bloody well hope that’s not the extend of their acting. That’s dire! 🤦‍♀️"

"this is literally the most predictable “couple” to exist. first, people talked about them showing up the game, and they did. second, people were just talking about kissing pics... AND THEY JUST CAME OUT LMAOOOOOO"

"annnnnnnnnnnnnd there it is. YOU KNOW THEY KNEW THERE WAS A CAMERA."

"ok but where’s the pda or did that get made up? cause these have to be the most awkward pics i’ve ever seen which makes me feel better 😂 also i can feel the meme’s coming with the one of her diving off the boat"

"I call it how I see it they are both assholes and full of shit. Like do your fake kiss somewhere else I do not want to see it!"

"Can they at least act like they’re having a good time?"

"hahahaha I can't stop laughing with that photo of O it's literally her knowing she's being photographed and diving into a professional swimmer style😭"

"the pics are so organic that Olivia is looking straight at the pap before kissing Harry."

"he looked a lot happier with kendall in their yacht pics compared to today’s. i know that was PR too, but he was very smiley and seemed talkative. with this girl it’s like the complete opposite lmao."

[seunqs]

[ a long get to know me tag ]

tagged by: losers @woosohn @yeonjuins

what day is your birthday?

27th june! it’ll be on a monday next year

what’s your favourite colour?

blue! a rather specific shade of light sky blue but i also like dark blue! might be misleading because everyone would think beige/black since that’s the aesthetic i like + almost everything i own is black...

what’s your lucky number?

i don’t have one i think but i tend to say 7 if i’m asked?

do you have any pets?

sadly no >:( will get one in the future idc idc

how tall are you?

158cm tiny i wna be abit taller

how many pairs of shoes do you own?

off my head i think 3 pairs...? just 2 black and 1 white that i rotate depending on the outfit i’m wearing

favorite song?

asdjekw i don’t think i have one specific one but recently i’ve been listening to maniac by nct doyoung & haechan!

other honourable mentions: a book of love by ha hyunsang, wide eyed blind by saint raymond, irreplaceable by nct dream, lmly by jackson wang. that’s all i have off my head

favorite movie?

surprisingly i’m not big on movies... but i’ll always answer parent trap when someone asks! why do i sound like i always have prepared answers in my head for various questions... okay that’s bc i do.

what would be your ideal partner?

@june look away i already know you’re gna say this sounds a lot like someone..

shy... is the main characteristics lmao idky it’s not even like i’m outgoing but i tend to find myself liking shy-er boys over the outgoing ones! aaa those with very obvious leadership qualities and quietly cares and looks out for those around them :’) tsundere! i think shy may appear cold sometimes but i’m rly :’) when the shy ones become very affectionate in private or when you get to know them better :’) or shy with strangers but very goofy and silly with their closer social circle heh those that are more cat-like than dog-like, only approaches you when they’re comfy. okay also shy but willing to speak up when necessary! doesn’t let themselves get bullied for being quiet and also pls speak up for me i hate ordering food pls do it for me HAHAHHA also if they’re passionate about something they like/are good at! good listeners too heh doesn’t need to always have the best advice, just if they would sit with me silently and listen to me and give me a hug afterwards :’’’’’) i think i’m on the touchier side too so if they don’t dislike that it’ll be nice! OH someone who’s good at cooking too bc i hate cooking and the kitchen in general.. i’ll do the dishes though HAHAHAH ok that is all there is a certain idol in my head that is the embodiment of my ideal type and i hate him >:(

do you want children?

no... not so much bc i don’t find them cute or i can’t handle them but i think it’s a commitment that scares me! bringing up the child well with the right character and values ajksdbwkje i don’t know if i’m up to that HAHAHAH

have you gotten in trouble with the law?

nope @woosohn @yeonjuins pls be proud of my direct no why are the two of you......... 

bath or shower?

shower! i don’t know if i’ve actually taken a bath before... probably when i was younger HAHAH i think i’ll get bored in the bath and i much rather be relaxing in bed than in the tub

what color socks are you wearing?

barefoot at the moment! the socks i own are mostly solid colour socks / simple cartoon or animal patterns but all ankle socks that can’t be seen with my shoes

favorite type of music?

i listen to pop, r&b and indie! that’s about all and favourite depends on the mood!

how many pillows do you sleep with?

just 1! and a bolster too

what position do you sleep in?

either on my back with hand over my head lmao or turned to either sides while hugging my bolster and face buried into the bolster

what you don’t like when you’re sleeping?

when it’s too hot! canNOT sleep if the weather is too hot. also if i get woken up rudely, by screaming or someone smacking me awake LMAO just tell me nicely to get up and i’ll be out of bed in 10mins pls give me awhile my brain is turning on HAHAHA

what do you have for breakfast?

recently i haven’t woken up early enough for bfast or my family is just about to go out to buy lunch by the time i’m up hahaha but on the days that i’m alive for bfast, iced coffee and any pastry sitting in the fridge! my family is big on pastries like croissants and cakes like banana and carrot cakes! so one of those but the iced coffee is a constant in my first meal of the day

have you ever tried archery?

nope and idt i’ll be good at it tbh....

favorite fruit?

strawberries, apples, peaches! there are some seasonal favs where i rly like them for a period of time and then suddenly not anymore but these 3 are the constants

favorite swear word?

hahahaha i dont think i have a favourite one..... but i say tf a lot and mf for kpop boys who make me more flustered than they should

do you have any scars?

i don’t think so! i have a few stretch marks around my waist and tummy tho 

are you a good liar?

yes... HAHAH i used to get scolded so much for lying as a kid lmfao

what’s your personality type?

isfj-t has probably only dipped to isfp-t once but if not constant isfj!

what’s your favorite type of girl?

HAHAHAH uh.... okay with all kinds i think? except people in general who try too hard

innie or outie?

innie. was this question necessary tho AHHAHAHA

left or right-handed?

right-handed

favorite food?

ramen! but i like lots of food lmfao tiramisu, pork belly, lots of noodles, also lots of rice, beef, cakes, ice cream, i think i’m more salty > sweet!

favorite foreign food?

japanese ramen, korean cuisine!, lasagne

are you clean or messy?

clean

most used phrase?

i think alot of keyboard smashes, lmao, wtf, HAHAHAHHAHA, sigh, i’m tired LOL

how long does it take for you to get ready?

depends! fastest i think i can get out of the house 20mins after i’ve woken up. longest probably an hour where outfit is taking a while and accessories needs to be chosen

do you talk to yourself?

in my head yes.

do you sing to yourself?

not often but i sing out loud for the family to hear LOL in my head very often a song is playing up there

are you a good singer?

nop. i don’t think i’m a BAD singer but wouldn’t classify as good either HAHHAHA

biggest fear?

wow so many things but i think biggest is complete darkness, i need to see and know what is going on around me. i sleep with a night light on heh 

are you a gossip?

with closer friends yes def HAHAH my school culture tends to have lots of tea that my friends and i don’t like to get too involved in but we do talk about the gossips that goes around hahaha have also been in the center of gossip way too often

do you like long or short hair?

long! can’t imagine myself with short hair.. used to have reallllyyy long hair that goes beyond my waist and cried when i cut it to slightly below shoulder length. that’s the shortest i’ll ever go

favourite school subject?

wow nothing i don’t like school lmfao but humanities and language are way more bearable than math and sciences

extrovert or introvert?

introverted

what makes you nervous?

unpredictable situations, being alone in public (contradictory because in private i would strongly prefer to be alone but i don’t enjoy being alone in public i feel judged HAHAHA), also currently waiting on a reply for something and that’s been keeping me anxious the past 2 days :’)

who was your first real crush?

when i was 13/14, tablemate in school that was kinda shy and had very limited social circle but talked to me endlessly in class lmfao he apparently liked me too but we never dated and went to different schools at 16 y/o. we’re still kinda in touch though! we talked quite a fair bit last month just catching up but he’s more of an acquaintance now

how many piercings do you have?

2! just one normal lobe piercing on either ears, don’t think i’ll get anymore

how fast can you run?

back in school i used to be one of the fastest girls in my class LMFAO i could clock 12.5 minutes for a 2.4km run. stamina came from dancing since i had to run laps before dance class 2 times a week. but that is long in the past and now i get tired from climbing more than 4 flights of stairs pls spare me

what color is your hair?

naturally black but dyed brown! my hair has grown quite abit since i dyed it though now its black at the top and brown from above my ears onwards

what color are your eyes?

a very dark brown lmfao almost black

what makes you angry?

irresponsible people. just pushing responsibility to others or avoiding their responsibilities. don’t need you to do a good job with your responsibilities, just don’t make your issues my issues. and if its a shared responsibility like group projects, then do your part to contribute and don’t expect others to cover you

selfish people, in many ways. just being self-centred, not caring about how others feel, doing things for personal gain at the expense of others

speaking in a passive-aggressive/sarcastic manner. i say this even though i’m afraid of confrontation but i much rather someone outright tells me they’re unhappy about something or wants to get a point across. i hate when they talk about it sarcastically or tries to sugar-coat their words to make themselves look less aggressive about their words. tell me straight as it is, if you’re already gonna talk about something bad don’t piss me off with your attitude at the same time

do you like your own name?

rae is nice! has a very nice ring to it and looks pretty!

do you want a boy or a girl as a child?

i don’t.. want one.. but both have their good and bad i can’t decide.. i want a puppy

what are your strengths?

is this an interview question i have had a few interviews over the past weeks i am well-prepared for this HAHAHA

i think i’m pretty resilient! i bounce back from bad times pretty quickly or i psycho myself to see the situation positively. but it is ofc coupled with a lot of complaining to the people around me first

although i hate unpredictable situations and having to quickly adapt to new settings, i think i adapt pretty quickly too. flexible? easy-going? idk what’s the right way to call it but yeah something along those lines. good at it but i still enjoy my stability and calm don’t want to have to quickly adapt to new situations.

what are your weaknesses?

very emotional HAHAH used to be much worse but i often let my emotions rule my head. i think i’ve improved A LOT though i used to be so bad but i think i’m now able to make rational decisions even if im bawling LMFAO

this sounds like a compliment but i’ve been told this too often as well. i tend to be way too nice to people who don’t deserve it. even if the person doesn’t deserve it or they’ve pushed all my buttons in the wrong way possible, i would still try to be as nice and polite as i can. really helps with me working in the f&b industry lmfao.

what’s the colour of your bedspread?

dark blue / grey! 

colour(s) of your room?

white & wood (throughout my house actually + green from the plants in the living room) @yeonjuins says i live in a muji showroom

[capysimulator]

i’m doing a six week summer school thing in seoul and i just finished my first week! 

i think what’s most exciting to me is just getting to live by myself. even when i live away from home during the school year i live in a building where i have to share a bathroom and/or kitchen n things with a bunch of other people... and next year as a senior i’m still sharing a house with people! (though they’re people i chose, which makes it slightly better.)

this time im in a tiny tiny apartment with a FRIDGE and a LIL KITCHEN and a WASHING MACHINE and a BATHROOM, and they are all NICE. so this past weekend i’ve been cooking for myself and it’s been going? great??? i’ve never cooked really besides once or twice this past semester so this has been really fun for me, playing grown up. 

it’s also nice to be in a city where i’m in charge of my comings and goings and don’t need to get someone to drive me somewhere bc it’s unsafe or bc i... cannot drive lmao.

my classes are always at the same time, from 11-3 monday to thursday, which has been letting me set up a routine in the time outside of that. i think with all my traveling back and forth, knowing that everything i do at home or at school is dependent on the time i have until i have to back to the other place, i really seek out times when i can feel some sense of stability! not that this trip is any different, and in fact it’s even more constrained by time than my semesters/vacations, but it helps that i don’t get invited out for spontaneous lunches that ruin my plan for the day, or have too many things to do.

of course this is a fantasy space that i think is so great probably precisely because it’s destined to be short lived, and i’ll probably be lonely if i live in a city with absolutely no close friends around for a long period of time, but im enjoying it while it’s the way it is now :”)

[thelastspeecher]

Mission: White Picket Fence - Welcome to Suburbia

I’m taking a short break from grading assignments to post some more Spy AU nonsense.  Bc I clearly cannot control myself.  I can’t stop thinking about this ridiculous AU and premise, and when I can’t stop thinking about something, that’s usually a sign that I’ll just keep writing.  Anyways, here, have Stan, Ford, and Fiddleford meeting some of their neighbors while undercover as part of Mission: White Picket Fence.

              Ford climbed onto his bed and laid down, staring up at the ceiling.  It had been a while since he was so thoroughly dwarfed by a twin bed.  He could see glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling, fitting in with the “space” theme of Nicholas’ bedroom.  Everything that could be patterned was, with stars, planets, astronauts, comets, and nebulae.  This was the room of a young boy with a profound interest in astronomy.  There was a knock on the door.

              “Come in,” Ford said.  He winced, still getting used to high pitch of his voice.  The door opened and Fiddleford peered into the room.  Ford sat up.  “Hello, Fiddleford.”

              “Howdy, Ford.”  Fiddleford padded over to Ford’s bed.  “Space, huh?”

              “Yeah.”  Ford looked around his room.  “Apparently Nicholas wants to be an astronomer.  Or an astronaut.  He hasn’t decided yet.”  Fiddleford joined Ford on the bed, climbing up with clear difficulty.  “What about Ryan?  What’s he like?”

              “Ryan likes dinosaurs,” Fiddleford answered.  “His room is covered in them.  Apparently, he wants to be a ‘dinosaur scientist’.”

              “You mean a paleontologist, correct?”

              “Well, yes.  But Ryan doesn’t know that term.”  Fiddleford idly kicked his short legs against the side of the bed.  “Bein’ a six-year-old is goin’ to be rough.”

              “Being nine won’t be a walk in the park, either.  Luckily, Nicholas and Ryan are very precocious and will be attending a school with similarly intelligent children.”  Fiddleford nodded.  “We start school on Monday.  Two days. Are you ready for that?”

              “Pfft, no,” Fiddleford said derisively.  Ford chuckled.

              “Fidds, Ford!” Stan shouted from downstairs.  “Get down here!”

              “Great, what does he want?” Ford muttered, sliding off the bed.  On his way to the door, he heard a small thump.  He turned around.  Fiddleford was sitting on the ground.

              “Son of a-” Fiddleford muttered.

              “What’s wrong?”

              “I tried to get down, but I misjudged the distance a bit ‘n fell,” Fiddleford mumbled.  He rubbed his eyes.  “Got to get used to bein’ so small.”  He got up. “Let’s go see what Stan is yellin’ at us fer.”  Ford and Fiddleford exited Ford’s room, walked past the small empty room Conner and Laura were reserving for a nursery for their planned third child, and went downstairs.  Stan was sitting on the couch in the living room, watching the National Geographic Channel.

              “Yes, Stanley?” Ford asked tiredly.  Stan looked at Ford and Fiddleford.

              “Angie’s gonna make dinner.  We thought that while she did that, you two might wanna join me on a walk around the neighborhood.  Y’know, familiarize ourselves with the area.”  

              “You said that Angie’s cooking dinner?” Ford said.  Stan nodded.  “I should probably stay, then.  Nicholas helps Laura with dinner each night.”  Stan grinned.

              “That was a test to see if you read the file.  Good work.”  Ford shrugged.  “What about you, Fidds?”

              “Ryan’s too young to be trusted around knives and hot surfaces,” Fiddleford said.  “So, I s’ppose I’ll come with.”

              “Great!”  Stan got up from the couch.  “Ford, you don’t have to help Angie cook, but it might be nice if you sit in the kitchen and read a book or somethin’.  That way you can act like you were helping, if any neighbors drop by unannounced.” Ford nodded and wandered over to the kitchen.

              “Howdy, Stanford.  Plannin’ on helpin’ me?” Angie asked.  

              “I haven’t decided yet.”

              “Either way, it’s just nice to have the company.”  Stan and Fiddleford made their way to the front door.  

              “All right, Fidds and I will be back in half an hour, at the latest,” Stan called.

              “See ya then, hon!” Angie said.  Stan opened the door.  He and Fiddleford exited the house.  Fiddleford looked up at Stan.  Stan’s demeanor had changed immediately upon stepping outside.  His back was straighter, he had a relaxed, warm smile on his face, and there was an air of excitement about him.  Stan caught him staring.

              “What is it, Ryan?” Stan asked.  Fiddleford was again startled by the change from Stan’s voice to Conner’s.  Fiddleford opened and closed his mouth silently.  “Do you want a piggyback ride?”  Fiddleford paled.  He thought back to Ryan’s biography.  Ryan Young loved piggyback rides from his dad.

              “Y-yes,” Fiddleford said reluctantly.  Stan crouched down.

              “Hop on board, then.”  Fiddleford climbed onto Stan’s shoulders and wrapped his arms around Stan’s neck. Stan gripped Fiddleford’s legs firmly. “Let’s go check out the new place, eh?” Stan stood up.  “Which way do you want to go first?”

              “That way,” Fiddleford said, pointing down the street.

              “All right!”  Stan took off, whistling a jaunty tune.  Fiddleford surveyed the houses they passed.  It was a nice, upper middle class neighborhood.  The lawns were well-kept, he could smell someone grilling, and there were children playing outside, enjoying the nice weather.

              “Hang on,” a voice called after them.  Stan stopped.  “Sir, I haven’t seen you around here before.”  Stan turned around.  The person speaking to them was a woman supervising her two children as they colored their driveway with chalk.

              “Just moved,” Stan said.  The woman’s eyes lit up.

              “Oh!  Into that nice house at the end of the block?”

              “That’s the one.”

              “We were wondering when you’d show up.”               “Who’s ‘we’?”

              “The rest of the neighborhood, of course.”  The woman approached them.  She held out her hand.  “I’m Lisa Bachman.  My husband Rich is grilling up some turkey burgers in the backyard right now, otherwise he’d like to meet you, too.”  Stan shook the offered hand.

              “Dr. Conner Young.  This here’s my youngest son, Ryan.  We thought we’d take a walk and get to know the area a bit while my wife and oldest son work on dinner.  Can’t stay inside watching National Geographic in this weather.  Right, son?”

              “Mm-hmm,” Fiddleford said, nodding.  Lisa beamed at him.

              “Ryan, how old are you?”

              “Six,” Fiddleford said quietly.

              “My daughter, Itasca, is six, too.  I bet the two of you would get along great.  Maybe we should set up a playdate.”  Fiddleford froze.  Stan rubbed Fiddleford’s leg in a comforting manner.

              “Eventually, sure.  But right now, Laura and I are focused on making sure our boys get settled in. They’ve never lived in the US before. It’s a pretty big change for them, especially since they both can be a bit shy.”

              “You don’t look like a foreigner,” Lisa said warily.  Stan chuckled.

              “I’m not.  I was born in Monmouth, Illinois, and my wife’s from Boston.  But we met in El Salvador, where we were both doing postdoctoral work.”

              “Your wife has a doctorate, too?”

              “Yep.  In entomology.”

              “So you’ve lived in El Salvador since then?”

              “Nah.  We bounced around Central America a lot.  Ryan here was born in Costa Rica, and his big brother Nicholas was born in Panama.  But Laura and I decided it was about time we went back to the States and settled down so our boys could have a steady home.”

              “Ryan, what do you think of America so far?” Lisa asked Fiddleford. Fiddleford buried his face in Stan’s hair, acting the part of a shy child.

              “It’s okay, buddy,” Stan cajoled.

              “It’s nice,” Fiddleford mumbled.  “I like the house.”

              “And you were telling us something else on the way here,” Stan said.  “About school?”

              “I’m excited to go to school.”

              “We homeschooled our boys, ‘cause we didn’t stay in one place for long,” Stan explained to Lisa.  Lisa nodded. “Ryan and his brother are excited to experience an American school.  Even if it’s a private one, not a public one.”

              “Your sons got accepted into a private school?  Which one?”

              “St. Luke’s.”

              “Well, isn’t that a lovely coincidence!” Lisa enthused.  “Itasca goes there, too!  Maybe she and Ryan will be classmates.”

              “Hear that, buddy?  You might be in class with one of the neighbor kids,” Stan said to Fiddleford. Fiddleford nodded.  “The wife and I were so proud of them when we got the acceptance letter.”

              “Makes sense!  St. Luke’s is a tough school to get into.  We’ve been sending in applications for Huron since he was five, but he hasn’t gotten in yet.”

              “And how old is he now?”

              “Ten.”

              “Ah, well, it’s not the worst thing to not get into St. Luke’s,” Stan said.  “There are plenty of public schools around that are great.  What matters is that kids enjoy learning.”  Lisa shrugged.

              “We won’t stop trying to get Huron into St. Luke’s.  But, I suppose you’re right.  He’s still getting good grades at the public school.  That’s what’s important,” Lisa said.  Stan’s expression became carefully guarded.

              “Uh-huh.”

              “Dad!”  Stan turned around.  Ford walked up to him.

              “Hey, Nicky.  Is dinner ready?”

              “Yep.  Mom sent me out to go find you and Ryan,” Ford said.

              “Nicky, this is Mrs. Bachman, one of our neighbors,” Stan said.  Ford nodded.

              “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Bachman.”

              “It’s nice to meet you too, Nicky,” Lisa said with a smile.

              “She’s got a daughter that’s Ryan’s age, and a son that’s about your age,” Stan continued.

              “Oh, how old are you, Nicky?”

              “Nine.”

              “Your dad’s right.  My son, Huron, is ten.”  Lisa beamed at Ford.  “I bet you’d be a good influence on him.  Your dad tells me you’re a world traveler.”

              “I dunno if some countries in Central America count as the world,” Ford mumbled.

              “It’s more countries than Huron’s been to.”  Lisa tapped her chin.  “Hmm, maybe we should go somewhere over the summer.  Some experience outside the country might finally persuade St. Luke’s to accept him.”

              “It was nice meeting you, Lisa,” Stan said.  “But the boys and I should get going.”

              “Of course.  It was nice meeting you, too.  All three of you.  We’ll have to have you come over sometime.”

              “We’ll take you up on that offer,” Stan said.  “Say goodbye, boys.”

              “Bye, Mrs. Bachman,” Ford said.  Fiddleford waved at Lisa.  She waved back and returned to the chair she had been watching her children from. Stan, Ford, and Fiddleford began to head back to the house.  “She was…” Ford started.

              “What I expected, to be honest,” Fiddleford said softly.  Stan scowled.

              “I didn’t like her,” Stan said firmly.

              “You hid those feelin’s well,” Fiddleford said.

              “Thanks.”

              “Why didn’t you like her?” Ford asked.

              “First off, she named her kids after lakes.  What kinda person does that?”

              “Well-off white suburban parents,” Ford mumbled.

              “…Whatever.  Second, the way she kept talking about her son not getting into some snobby rich kid private school.  Like it was the end of the world!  That kid’s gonna grow up thinking school is the only thing that matters.  His priorities are gonna be all screwed.”

              “You’re fired up about this,” Ford remarked.  “Why do you care so much?  I’ve never seen you get this worked up over that kind of parent before.” Stan sighed.

              “Ever since Angie and I started talking about having a kid, I’ve been thinking about what good parents do.  Mostly I just think about what Pops did.  I figure the opposite of that is the right thing.  And what Lisa was talking about, saying that the only thing that mattered was that her son got good grades, that’s closer what Pops would say than…well, the opposite of what Pops would say.”

              “You’ll be a good dad,” Fiddleford said quietly.

              “I agree,” Ford said.  Stan froze.

              “Do- do you mean that?” Stan asked.

              “You’re thinking about how to be a good father before Angie’s even pregnant,” Ford said.  “That’s the hallmark of someone who cares deeply.”

              “He’s right, Stan,” Fiddleford said.

              “Thanks,” Stan said softly.  A grin fought its way onto his face as he started walking again.  “And now I’m getting some practice, too.  With pretending to be your dad.”  Stan ruffled Ford’s hair.  Ford shoved Stan’s hand away.

              “‘Pretending’ is the key word there, Stan,” Ford said.

              “Pretending is the key word, Dad.”

[thechampagnecircus]

Fire is a Force

Earth, Air, Fire, Water; all natural elements that are beautiful and essential in their own rights.  But when out of control can wreak havoc on our world.  I am aware that wildfires have a place in the natural cycle, and promote the growth of new forests, but if run amok can destroy all in it’s path.  I feel as though people don’t consider them a normal natural disaster, but they are. Although they can -and are- sometimes started by careless humans, it’s just like a hurricane or tidal wave and we are at it’s mercy.  On this note, it is obvious that our trip to the lake this year was a bit different than the norm.  With the heat wave and drought the summer brought, there was no denying the plethora of wildfires scattered throughout most of British Columbia.  The entire province was a tinderbox and the inevitability of wildfires quickly came to fruition.  

I did not grow up with wildfires as a threat, or annual fixture like those on the West Coast.  There were the obligatory Smokey the Bear signs plastered in every small Maine town.  With a fire risk meter -usually on low- and the famous line “Only YOU can prevent forest fires” shaking it’s finger at you.  I learned from a young age to practice safe camping and summer behavior but I never experienced the fear of an actual fire that was spiralling out of control. Having said that, we were not short of other bullying weather entities. We had the rogue hurricane.  Bob, Irene and Sandy all made appearances throughout the years. Hurricane Matthew crashed my cousin Sara’s wedding a few years ago. The uninvited guest who made quite the splash. I also witnessed a small tornado once in the car with my Mum when I was young.  There were infinite thunderstorms married with hail and torrential downpours.  Power outages caused by massive blizzards, and even the famous ice storm of ‘99 which any Mainer will undoubtedly remember.  I mean, shit, Stephen King wrote a made-for-TV movie about it.  But no fires.  

I always heard crazy stories in California and Western North America, especially within the last ten years.  I am sure there are implications of global warming and climate change that could be made, but I won’t fall down that rabbit hole.  It is one thing to hear of devastating fires; as if they are some distant reality. But another to be in their path. Two years ago my first taste of this reality came to life.  A wall of heavy smoke rolled into Calgary.  It was a Friday and everything turned gray.  But not just gray, it was purplish yellow, thick and blocked the sun with an infamous red glare.  When I stepped outside, I could feel the weight of the air and the faintest smell of char.  However, it passed in time for work on Monday and it was back to business as usual.  

That same year, we had our first trip to the lake booked with friends.  We were so excited to show them the waterfront we rave about every summer.  As the plane landed in Kelowna we quickly realized that our dreams of a weekend filled with boating in the sunshine were not coming to pass.  The air quality was at an all time high.  We arrived in the afternoon but it looked like nighttime as the entire valley was shrouded in smoke.  We stuck it out for our four days, staying inside most of the time, playing games and drinking way too much booze to drown our dashed expectations.  

Fast forward to this year.  As I mentioned before, this summer has been filled with record breaking heat and rainfall decided to take a hiatus.  It was the perfect storm of dry conditions and intense temperatures that set the stage for a flash mob of fires to appear.  As we were driving to the lake ten days ago, we drove through varying degrees of smoke levels.  There were road closures, alerts and so many fires it was hard to keep track.  The Sunday before we left, one fire by White Rock Lake had begun, and that was the one we were most worried about due to its location.  It was still small and about 35 km away so we trudged on.  We knew we wanted to make the most of our trip regardless.  We arrived and within one day the air quality was at a 10++.  The air hardly felt like air anymore, thick with particulates and the deep smell of cinder.  The whole family was tentative and staying inside for the most part.  But after a couple days, we began to spend time outside anyways.  You know, YOLO.  It was our vacation and hell, high water, or smoke wasn’t going to ruin our holiday.  We were weary, and aware but still were able to boat, swim, drink pina coladas on the deck and seize the day.  It’s funny how quickly you can become accustomed to something and your threshold for certain things begins to ascend.  After about a week, the smoke had begun to wane and hope felt a bit restored, despite the fire to the North that was not letting up. We kept our heads up but were watching it like a flock of hawks.  

My uncertainty was building with everyday and every update. I have never been good at waiting for the other shoe to drop.  My anxiety and perhaps need for control cannot handle it.  I like to know.  Once I can make a decision and attack it, I feel comfortable. But limbo is not a place I like to be.  Everyone else seemed to have an easier time going with the flow.  Just relax and enjoy ourselves until we get news that we need to evacuate.  I envy that in others.  I truly do.  I had a hard time fully immersing in the moment the last couple days. We were checking perimeter maps and articles, Twitter posts and updates every couple hours.  Once we were under alert and the winds were unrelenting I knew it was only a matter of time.  I felt it in my gut.  My anxiety would run away with itself every once in a while, visualizing flames coming over the hill and us abandoning all belongings to dramatically escape in the nick of time by speed boat.  But then I would quickly bring myself back with reassurance and remember that the fire department would order our evacuation long before that situation was coming to life.  

Our plan for the last few days of our trip were to slowly clean, pack up and ease into a Saturday departure.  Truthfully, it took some convincing from my husband as I was feeling antsy to leave as the rumours of evacuation were swirling and the fire was creeping closer and closer by Thursday night.  But ironically Friday morning the smoke that had shadowed almost our whole trip had completely disappeared.  The sun was out, cumulus clouds were floating in stereotypical perfection as if plucked out of a Bob Ross painting.  The wind was blowing and if you breathed deeply for a second you forgot that just a few kilometers away the meanest, most out-of-control fire in BC was tip-toeing closer and closer.  Just as we got settled to soak up our last day of vacation, the evacuation order came in.  We took an hour or so to pack up and we were out by 1 pm yesterday.  Due to road closures, construction, two car accidents and general traffic, it took us about 9 hours to get home to Calgary.  

It felt wonderful to wake up in our own bed this morning, but our minds are still thinking about what is going on the Okanagan.  The whole of Vernon is now on alert. They fear embers from the fire could create new fires by jumping the lake. We saw a video showing parts of Westside road, the road we take to get to our place, ablaze in rampant flames.  Our hearts are sinking a bit in pessimism that it might reach our doorstep.  I can’t help but feel selfish, here worrying about a vacation home.  There are those who are displaced, in an evacuation center, praying their homes don’t burn to the ground.  And I feel for them.  Wholeheartedly.  I can’t imagine the torment and anxiety of such a situation.  But also, the lake house on Beachwood Road is our little slice of paradise.  It harbors countless family memories, photos, the kid’s heights on a hallway ruler, meals cooked over wine and laughter, projects started and finished, a safe haven during quarantine.  Aaron’s dad has put endless blood, sweat and tears into getting the cottage just right for every family visit.  Putting in stone patios, a brilliant deck built from scratch, his peach tree he desperately tries to save from the deer, bedroom renovations to accommodate the entire gaggle of us so everyone has a place to sleep.  Our kids have gone out a number of times to help their Bumpa hammer nails, dig window wells, drywall and install shiplap for their Amma.  I am sad to think all that will be lost and what it means moving forward.  At the end of the day, there is insurance and all materials can be replaced and structures rebuilt.  We are all safe and my fingers are crossed in hopes that the brave people fighting this fire start to get it under control.  May our piece of heaven be spared, but most importantly mother nature run it’s course with forgiveness.

Copyright © 2021 Carly Eddy.

[mariamuses]

Tumblr Friends

Chapter 6 ~ New Names

The next few weeks were hectic. I had two projects, three assignments and a test. My days were spent working on them or studying for them or drawing for Tumblr between breaks. Also, hanging out once a week at home with my sisters and their respective boyfriends. Only once we went out with them, and only to go to McDonald’s and pick up our food.

Stormblessed-radiant answered me the next day and everything had gone fairly smoothly between us since then. Actually, he was one of the main reasons I was still alive with all the overload in my life lately. And it seemed, I was his reason too.

When I was alone at home and doing homework, I always kept a Chrome tab with Tumblr on it, just in case I needed cheering up or he did. It was almost like a constant presence, always there if I needed, like reassurance. We usually didn’t really talk in those moments because we both had things to do, but when study time finished, and we were both alone, we weren’t able to stop. One would think we’d run out of topics, but every day new things came up. And I started falling hard for him.

You are in such deep, unending shit, Feyre.

We just had so much in common: we loved books more than people usually did, we had hard stuff happening to us but were pushing through (his mom and dad died, just like ours, and all he had left was his brothers, like I had my sisters), we were the same age... 

Another real important thing was that his brothers were older and working and both had girlfriends, so they didn’t spend much time at home (like my sisters), which was fundamental in order for us to have endless conversation.

Another highpoint of my month was seeing my sisters so happy. It had taken a while to reconcile ourselves with what had happened.

You see, my mom and dad weren’t the greatest parents in the world, they had issues, but they were there, which was what counted. The thing is, my dad had had some trauma when he was in the military and he took on drinking as a solution. He didn’t treat my mom like she deserved (or us, for that matter) but he never hit, so we hid our problems as much as we could. But one day, when my mom was on her office’s Christmas party, he went to pick her up and he had had a little too much to drink and on the way back they swerved out of the road and hit a tree, which instantly killed them.

We were devastated. My sisters and I felt so many things at once that we almost collapsed. Each one of us felt guilty for not seeing he was drunk, each felt glad our dad was not there to mentally beat us up anymore, felt sad because of our loss... The feelings were so contradictory and over the place that we hid ourselves in our rooms, at school, trying to not think about all the mess we were at the moment. My sister Nesta was on her last year of college, so when she finished she started working and supporting us. Elain also took a shift at some local flower store and I babysat kids. 

That is until my school psychologist saw me crying my eyes out on lunchbreak, two months after everything had happened.

She talked to Nesta, who was my legal guardian, and suggested the three of us went to therapy together, which worked surprisingly well. We all discovered that our feelings were the same, and most of all, normal.

That had prompted my sister Elain to study psychology, which she loves.

And just like that, our bond grew stronger.

On Monday evening, in one of my usual convos with SR (stormblessed-radiant, I was just tired of not knowing what to call him, so I made that up) the meeting topic came up again, and this time I was ready.

C’mon Feyre Archeron, you can do this. You’ve been talking to him for a month and a half and know him better than you ever knew Tamlin. He’s NOT Tamlin, and he could NEVER be like him.

I cracked my knuckles, pushed my glasses up and started typing an answer.

fey-oathbringer: Okay, so I about that. I’ve finished my crazy month, so we can really meet, like IRL meet. If you want. Any suggestions to where?

stormblessed-radiant: Oh yeah, I want to meet alright, darling. And do you know Velaris Cafe? In Night Court Street 5? Is that far from your house?

fey-oathbringer: OMG, yes!!!! I love that little cafe <3 And it’s walking distance from home (which is good, cause I don’t have a car) so afterwards I won’t have to take a cab. Is Friday okay for you? Say, kinda like a lunch date? It’ll have to be after 14:30, bc I have classes...

stormblessed-radiant: Are you asking me out on a date *wink, wink*?? And yeah, 15:00 for me, bc I’ve got classes too.

fey-oathbringer: I said “kinda like a lunch date”, ‘kinda’ being the key word there. Oh, and it’s on my calendar, so no chickening out now

stormblessed-radiant: I think ‘date’ is actually the key word ;) And I’m not a chicken-out kinda guy, darling.

Just like that, the date was set. And I couldn’t wait.

Closing up my laptop, I went downstairs. I heard voices, deep male voices.

Surprise, surprise. The boyfriends are here.

Not really a surprise though. I can’t tell if you can tell it was sarcasm.

As always, I popped my head into the living room to say hi.

“Hey guys! Nes, I’m going to take my dinner upstairs, is that alright? I don’t really want to interrupt you...”

“What? You’re not interrupting Fey, never think that.” said Elain. “And actually, we wanted to talk to you.”

“The four of you?” I inquired, raising my eyebrow and slowly and cautiously stepping into the room…

Nesta intervened.

“Yeah, we know you’ve finished your projects and assignments, so we wanted to propose to you that, maybe, if you want, this Friday you can meet Cass and Az’s little brother?”

At that, I panicked a little bit and started wiping my hands on my jeans, pushing my glasses up and twirling a piece of my hair. Of course, she noticed it.

“Fey, it’s okay, you can say no. No one is going to get mad at you. Come here.”

I dragged myself to the couch and fell into her arms, right beside her, in the spot Cassian had made for me.

“It’s not that. I want to meet him. But... I just...” I sighed.

“You’re shy and scared?” contributed Cassian.

“Yeah. And he’s your brother and I don’t wanna mess everything you guys have up, just because I’m a little bit dysfunctional.”

“Hey, no! You’re NOT dysfunctional and we love you just the way you are, like Bruno Mars” objected Elain.

At last, Azriel quietly spoke:

“Besides, he’s going to love you, just like we do, and if he doesn’t we’ll kick his ass until he does.”

I stared at all of them, and wondered how I had gotten so lucky, because every single one was looking at me with nothing but love in their eyes. I casted my eyes down.

Then, looking up from my lap, I cleared my throat.

“Okay, but it has to be for dinner. I actually have something to do at lunch.”

“Yeah, he can’t do lunch either and neither can we, so dinner?” suggested Cassian.

“Sure. Oh, and what’s his name?”

Let me tell you something, I never got it.

They started teasing, tickling me, throwing me to the ground, having a pillow fight... And it resolved on his brother having to tell me on Friday.

So, I guess I’ll just learn some new names on Friday.

When my alarm went off it dawned on me: Friday was her. My heart started beating as if it wanted to get out of my ribcage.

Shit, Feyre, relax. You still have classes before you even see them.

Yeah, that’s right. Me, an antisocial person, meeting not one, but two new people on the same day.

I turned off the alarm and got ready for the day, throwing on my jeans, a flowy blouse and some red chucks. After that, I went to the bathroom and for the first time in months, I took out my contact lenses and put them on, grabbing my mascara on the way out and stuffing it in my backpack.

As I went downstairs I realized that I hadn’t done my hair, but also hadn’t had breakfast, and didn’t have enough time for both.

Crap! Whatever, I’ll braid my hair in class.

Going into the kitchen, I smelled bacon and eggs, which made me suspicious immediately. Guys, we never, and I mean it, never cook breakfast. None of us. We pour ourselves coffee or chocolate milk and skedaddle out the door with a few cookies on our hands.

I spotted a plate and a glass where the delicious scent was coming from, and next to it a note that read:

“Power up little sis, big day ahead. Please don’t bail and get back from your ~mysterious~ date on time to meet your future brother in law. We love you. E+N”

As I said, suspicious. But, who can say no to bacon and eggs? So I ate them and scribbled a not on the back of theirs before running out the door.

“I love you too, weirdos. Be back by 6 pm <3″

Of course, my teacher would pull me apart on the last minute of class. And of course, that made me miss the bus, which led to me being late to the little cafe.

15:09 Feyre, not that late.

I looked through the window and everyone seemed to be minding their own business, except for one guy. He had midnight black hair, short but not too short.

Enough to grab the back of it when kissing.

Okay, that was weird. Anyway. His eyes were trained on the door, but he kept checking his watch, which reminded me that I was late, so I quickly stepped through the door and headed for his table. Right as I entered I looked at him, and a smile brushed his mouth.

OMG Feyre, look at those lips! And those eyes!

Seriously though, his eyes were from another universe, a blue so unique that appeared almost purple. 

I took a very deep breath and flung my hand out in greeting.

“Hi! Are you...?”

“SR, nice meeting you darling” he said, laughter filling his eyes.

“I’m NOT your darling.” 

Great, go for the knife already... C’mon, deep breath Feyre.

“And I- ah... I’m Feyre. It’s nice to meet you, too”

“Oh, yeah! I forgot. My name is Rhysand, but please call me Rhys, all my friends do.”

“And I suppose you have many of those?” I inquired.

Ups.

If it bothered him, he didn’t show it, but instead started laughing.

“You, darling, have a bite. Thank God I already knew, or I would have been forced to leave you.” he got out, eyes shining with mischief. “So Feyre, darling, you hungry?”

Oh, he knows how to get to me. Food is always welcomed.

“Starving”.

And so it began.

We ordered two burgers with fries and while we ate, we talked. Endlessly. At first it was a little weird, but then... I was surprised that he really seemed to be the same as on Tumblr, except for that wicked gleam in his eyes every time I snapped a retort at him. Those I hadn’t seen before, but I was in love with them.

Even after we finished our food, we kept going on. We discussed every topic possible, yet still more came up. Conversation flowed easily, with no effort. It went from books, to movies, back to books, then families, photography, art...

When the clock of the little shop marked 17:30, I told him I had to go. Good thing I did it earlier than necessary, because we ended up talking on the street for another twenty minutes.

Then I really needed to leave, or my sisters would have my head. He offered me a ride home, but I declined, because I needed to air my head anyway and it was only like 5 minutes away. We agreed on meeting again, exchanged phone numbers and hugged goodbye.

Disappointment Feyre, you should’ve gone all in for the kiss.

Yeah, right. As if I could’ve done it all in one day.

But it wasn’t ALL in one day, you’ve been talking for more than a month.

With that inner monologue going on in my head, I arrived home just in time to fulfill my sisters thirst for my blood.

“I’m hooome!” I screamed as I got in.

Not two seconds later, Nesta and Elain appeared on the stairs, running down.

“Fey!”

“How was it? “

“Did you kiss?” 

“Wait, no. Was he pretty?”

“Oh my God, let me breathe.” I fumbled. “It was nice, we didn’t and yes, he is pretty.”

“Ohhhhh Feyre’s got a new boyfriend!” sang Elain.

“I do not!” I hissed.

“You sooooo do. When can we meet him?” Nesta objected.

“Tell us about him” pleaded Elain.

“Okay, okay. Jeez... He is tall, black hair, very blue eyes and he’s really good. Like, a really really good person. Also, he’s kinda ripped too. And handsome... Okay, I’m SO deep into him.” I breathed out.

“We know” they said in unison.

“What do I do? I don’t wanna mess this up?”

“You won’t Fey, we won’t let you” promised Nesta.

I snorted. Hard. 

“Well that’s a relief.”

And the three of us bursted out laughing.

After the little heart to heart with my sisters I went upstairs, took my contacts off because they were killing me, wiped my make up off and changed my blouse for a Ravenclaw t-shirt.

What? I like Ravenclaw, okay? Also, I’m a nerd and I’m entitled to have everything I want if it belongs to my house yeah?

I put my glasses on, and looked in the mirror, deciding to put my hair in a messy bun.

I don’t want their brother to like me too much or else I’d have to let him down.

Because Rhysand felt like he was in my life to stay, and I wouldn’t compromise that for anything in the world. Not even my sisters’ boyfriends’ brother.

Wow, that’s complicated.

A bell rang, breaking me from my thoughts, and I raced downstairs to open the door just in time as Nesta was screaming for me to do it. Repeatedly.

“Omg, Nesta, chill. I’m coming! No need to bite my head off.” I yelled back at her.

I could hear laughing on the other side of the door, so I grabbed the door knob and opened it, seeing Azriel and Cassian immediately. Behind them I could see a figure, but they were covering him, so I sighed and hugged them first. I looked down to my feet.

“Oh, get it over with.” I mumbled

“Okay, Fey” said Cassian, pulling the person behind him to the front and continuing. “This is Rhysand, our little brother. But you can call him Rhys.”

At that, my head snapped up right on time to see stormblessed-radiant, Rhys, open his eyes in shock, and step a little bit forward, mouth agape.

And then I fainted.

Okay, so I’m not sorry for the cliffhanger. But guys, they met!!!!! And this is a long chapter, so BONUS.

As always, than you everyone for reading and leave me any comments if you want.

I’m tagging  @songbirdsbooks @kaliejane26 @personpersonper @turtlesnook @highladyfxyre​ @the-bookish-soul @court-0f-dreamers and also @queen-archeron who’s on reading only mode. Also, are the tags working? 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

P.S: I don’t know when the next chapter will be up because Christmas and craziness but I’ll try to be consistent.

Read on AO3

[cookinguptales]

under a cut bc honestly I’m not super proud of this post lol

with the caveat that I’m super sick and hormonal

This is exactly the kind of post that I’d put under a cut on lj — personal, kind of dumb, mostly a vent post. I know I’m being bratty and I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade?? But man!! I haven’t really had the time or stamina to watch the new Osomatsu-san episode, but boy have I gotten the gist of it from friends!! And I get why people are happy about the whole ~chibita got laid~ (and by a dude!) thing, but I just!! It’s been a bad week and I’m a hardcore monoshipper and so I’ve just taken the news with distress!

And like karamatsu/chibita has really become my comfort/vent ship in the past year or so (which…I should probably work on, honestly, not sure it’s healthy to put so much emotional energy into such a stupid pairing) so I’d usually just write some k/c to get my mind off of stressful things, but considering that it’s one of the things that’s causing me stress... It was a bad week to have one half of my OTP hook up with another character! (Especially a character whose shippers have harassed me in the past, like why.)

All this means that I’ve retreated to my usual way of dealing with stressful times (see: taking pills for back spasms, vomiting up said pills, repeat, trying to be a good daughter to both of my parents while feeling like shit), which is making up like 1000 stories in my head! But I can’t just do my usual k/c formula bc that’s all been mixed up, which means like all of these stories are just ways of handwaving the events of this episode so my ship still works!! And that makes me feel like an annoying fan who can’t handle having her ship messed up!

like only a few of the stories my painkiller-addled mind has been cooking up:

Karamatsu learns that Chibita fucked Hatabou, he becomes very sullen and jealous bc he’s secretly been into Chibita, fighting ensues, they eventually kiss and make up.

Karamatsu learns that Chibita has actually had quite a bit of casual sex during the gap between seasons (look, he had to be doing something. or someone. or someones.) and so he somehow gets it into his head that if he fucks Chibita REALLY WELL, like better than anyone, he’ll woo him and he’ll be the one guy Chibita stays with. This all comes crashing down the first time they make out and Karamatsu comes in his pants. Chibita can’t figure out why Karamatsu’s so upset until he finally pries out of him that he thinks he’s wrecked his One True Chance to make Chibita fall for him. Chibita has to patiently explain that look, the other people were just sex, he actually has feelings for Karamatsu and isn’t going to dump him just because Chibita has to train him a little. (Note: I also thought a lot about Chibita training Karamatsu so I mean I’m sorry I’m just really hormonal right now.)

This was actually Chibita’s first time and he feels really, really conflicted. Like on one hand, he always secretly kind of wanted his first time to be romantic. He wanted it to be with someone he really loved. On the other hand… doesn’t matter, had sex. (Like I like love potion dubcon as much as the next person, but it’s still dubcon. Might result in some mixed feelings.)

Like honestly, a whole lot of scenarios that involve “okay but that sex was just physical release and didn’t actually mean anything to me???” bc I am apparently a petty bitch who can’t handle her fave having actual feelings for a living person other than the person I ship him with.

I even briefly considered stuff where Hatabou actually tries courting Chibita but it doesn’t work out. And Chibita’s like “he’s nice, he’s rich, he’s got a big dick?? why don’t I love him??” And then Chibita just has to come to terms with the fact that, like me, he has terrible taste and really wants Karamatsu. (Who again, has been drowning in woe.)

AND LOOK, I know that I can’t actually write any of this stuff without being a dick!! But it makes me feel better, okay? Maybe I’ll even just. Write it and keep it on my hard drive… God knows I have mentally written enough scenarios where like. The flower fairy comes back and Karamatsu is desolate because he’s sure Chibita’s going to dump him but then Chibita chooses to stay with him instead, shocking everybody.

I never said I was a good fan! I am a bad fan who was only watching this show for the ship I have mostly fabricated in my mind and hundreds of thousands of words of melodramatic fanfic! I hate it when I know my feelings are dumb and don’t even make sense. I knew something like this was going to happen and it’s why I was initially going to peace out of the fandom before the second season started. It’s why I hate writing for open canons. So I know I brought all this on myself!!

And yet. It’s been an emotional week, okay, let me have this one vent post.

(PS: I swear to fucking god Hatabou was already the murder victim in my noir AU, you can ask ANYONE, I showed my outline to people MONTHS ago and discussed writing it for NaNo WEEKS ago. lmao. I just killed him off in the noir fic because the rich dude always gets it in the back!! I had like zero feelings about Hatabou before this Monday, but how the tides have turned!!)

...anyway, long story short, that’s why I’ve been refusing to give Hatabou food in shimamatsu for the past day. You’re fucking rich, Hatabou, get your own milk! Ya goddamn homewrecker.

[noheroes-allowed]

11/2

literally did nothing all day. watched wwyd for three hours straight. didn’t even cook and had ramen for dinner with a shit load of dessert after. opened a hackerrank and realized how unqualified I am. just like the previous two earlier this week. the test I did last weekend that I spent more than double the expected time on rejected me. don’t have the motivation to spend another 10 hours for another one just to be rejected again so I’ve given up on that. don’t wanna do my rescheduled interview on monday that bailed on me thursday. friday was really shitty and I couldn’t answer their technical questions bc I don’t know anything about financial services. in conclusion, feeling quite dejected. I thought I would have the motivation to learn sql and python earlier this semester but I really don’t.

applied to a place I’ve been eyeing since the spring back when I thought I would take the next fall semester off to try a data science internship to see if I liked it over econ. hopefully they’ll be nice.

gonna take the short course in python finally bc every semester I say I will learn it on my own and I don’t. taking the boring econ class that satisfies my two history requirements and not taking behavioral like I wanted since high school which sad. taking the really hard cs class and hoping I won’t die. taking the econ class that also satisfies my stats methods requirement. taking financial bc I feel like I need to know. really really really sad my planned schedule evolved to four days of 8:40s and 22 credits.

really mad at myself from april when I didn’t choose to preenroll in the better econ class that satisfied history. bc it was open and is always popular and always fills up. I had the chance and didn’t take it so now I have to take the boring and harder one. I’m a big dumb dumb and should’ve taken the short course last spring. or taken 1110 last last spring dumbass.

literally spent another 5 hours on trying to figure out this shit.

bright side. I will finally not have classes on friday after the short course is done. I always go in trying to not have classes friday but it’s never been possible.

wish I could take time series and bayesian. though I may be able to next next spring. wish I could take behavioral. wish I had taken databases this sem. wish I could take financial engineering next fall. wish I could take simulation modeling next fall. wish I knew sql and tableau and sas and python and how to query and how to code.

wish I knew if the mps is worth it. it’ll give me an official degree in applied statistics - data science. but there are other useful classes I won’t be able to take bc of the theory requirements.

started an ab workout yesterday bc I hate my stomach. it was a good burn. hope I have the motivation to keep going for at least 2 weeks. will do workout after this. really cold and unmotivated to change though. my feet are literally freezing with socks on. really really bad circulation.

bright side. my brother is going to save zombie skittles for me. last time I went home I noticed he grew a little. it’s weird I don’t get to see him grow.

my mom texted me about shoes. my tennis shoes have holes in them and I’m mad bc they didn’t last long. my mom said we’ll buy new ones when I get home. going to see my cousin tomorrow. picking up 汤圆 and 包子 from her. will bring her a donut and brownie I took from the dining hall.

I will do the three hour coding challenge that I’ve been pushing off for a month. it will be good practice for me. I will look up potential paper topics for my econ seminar tomorrow. I will study for chinese tomorrow. I will cook tomorrow. I will stop thinking about my schedule.

literally just writing that list stressed me the fuck out. I thought it would motivate me but not really. bright side. extra hour from daylight savings tomorrow.

I think I worked too much last week. ie I didn’t do enough school work or interview prep or applying. which is stupid since I literally spent all day doing nothing. I could literally be stress free if I didn’t have all this internship stuff bogging me down. can’t relate to rochelle only taking four classes and only taking two econ each semester and then taking two classes she’s semi interested in just bc she can. also don’t think she realizes that the technical coding interviews are so hard for me. I think she thinks I’m only doing behavioral ones. also I don’t think she realizes how many I’ve applied to. when she asked if I’d done interview prep and I said no I feel like she was judging me like obviously it won’t work out if you don’t practice. but like it’s different when it’s technical.

only 2 more months in this decade. crazy wild. I’m going to be a full adult for the entirety of the next. that’s insane. also like so disconnected for youth mainstream culture already. but also in a way always has been oops.

mom said yesterday I need to get married so I’m not so lonely when she passes. not in such words but also kinda in such words. said people shouldn’t think about it bc it’s inevitable. sooner or later. I said I want it later for her. she said I need to take care of myself if I wanna live longer. I said I don’t care about myself I just worry about her. she said that’s stupid to say and I shouldn’t sleep so late.

[facelessdreamer]

My two week holiday

1st day, Monday: slept in and did things under the definition of “doing nothing” for the remaining hours of the day [overall calm day, it was just the beginning, I deserved to have spent it doing nothing]

2nd day: absolute fucking shit. Mum and dad were fucking rude and I really disliked everything about them that day. So fucking annoying. Really more just my mother. Dad was just a part of it. She annoyed the fuck out of me. I even talked back. Outfit was shit, going out with them was a mistake, for what? Two seconds in a shop then straight home hearing a bitch complain the whole time and be in a bad mood like she always is and then with you too then it having you in a fucked up angry pissy mood toward her and the whole goddamn world? [overall was a shitty shit fucking day]

3rd day: I went and watched toy story 4. I was late for that even and missed the first 12-13 minutes. Got a free ticket bc a friend works there so there’s that. Some guys took my seat but wasn’t a bother. I was hungry and wanted to eat my meal deal pasta from my bag but there was too much light and not enough darkness in the room I didn’t wanna have eyes on me. I looked cute af but carrying my jacket and bag bothered the outfit. Came in handy later when I left ofc bc it was cold. Gonna wear it again bc I looked cute and need some pictures to post in it. On the way out of the shopping centre I wanted someone with me for the whole day and any days I spend like this. And for a bigger matter to have them just to have made all my days better. If I had someone who came onto my do nothing adventures and days out I’d be so happy to have them. I wanted a lover but even a sloppy not a care in the world type of person would do. Just need someone I can inside out get on with and be my absolute self with every second I am with them. Like the way I am alone by myslef is how I’d absolutely be but with someone just beside me doing them also and me being beside them. That’s all I want. Someone to get me and for me to get them and just be one altogether bc we both the same type of people. Doing nothing together and being happy bc we’re just hanging out in the company of one another. I’m cute and an interesting bubbly go to stylish small huggable laidback old soul and nice occasionally or sometimes funny person who cares and loves deep, where’s my person? I’m ready for you. [overall was a fine day, slept in, woke up got ready and left by 5:42, got home no later than half ten]

Completelyyyy going of task there but if that’s where it lead to than that’s where it went. I’m just not gonna fight that habit of mine lol.

Day 4: Thursday. The day that just went. I woke up midday again. I really haven’t been wanting to these past few days bc I have shit to do like clean up my room and go out to spend days by myself and catch films in the dark. And even do some journal work. Set an alarm to wake up around 1:30 even but I slept in after it and had no clue about it much when I turned it off. Had a fucked up movie based dream I wrote about someplace else. Got up and watched some dead tv. The whole fucking day man nothing was on. It’s a fucking Thursday where are all the mad movies and things to watch please. I barely watch tv and today just wasted my time wanting there to be something good to watch but there was nothing at all for every time I checked throughout the day. Absolute piss take mate. Nothing to eat. I seriously have no hunger for whatever my mum cooks anymore. Need food how they serve it in restaurants or other family homes with sides and new dishes everyday. Like I ain’t even being horrible. My appetite goes the moment I think to go eat food in my own kitchen. I starve bc my body has no motive to get up and go eat what’s in my own house. I don’t want it to be like this but it is. I eat it ofc but I yearn for different dishes and not this for awhile at least. Anyways spent the day again doing nish. I was pissed of many times. My sandals went missing three times and before the third I told the perpetrator not to ever again move or touch them and the third time they had done it and I just lose my shit with little things like that. Like I told you not to, again and again with a mean voice and you got it yet you did it again. I have in the past tried to let things like this go but people take the piss and I don’t care I am happy to lose to my shit bc I’m so mad I can’t not. It’ll hurt more to not express it bc something has to be done about this, I can’t let it slide no more. I absolutely hate people touching my shit. Even later on found out my scarf drawer in my old room wasn’t my scarf drawer anymore. I go there to put something in and it’s overtaken by my sisters clothes. She shoved all my scarves in a box under the bed. I wasn’t mad about the move just immensely annoyed after the day of being pissed number of times I wasn’t consulted about this trade. If I had known about it I wouldn’t have gotten mad but it’s like a smack in the face when your belongings in a drawer it’s always been in isn’t there when you go to it. Like tf mf? There could have been something else in there to which I faintly remember was a folded up piece of paper maybe. She said nothing of it when I asked her but I’m sure there was as I remember something like that for sure. As it was a drawer I barely ever needed to open. Mum pissed me off just bc she was around at one point bc as we know on here we don’t hang at all. We hugged the other day and it was alright I guess. She wanted it and was in a good ass mood and I didn’t mind it she’s my loving mother. She usually bugs me sometimes just being around idky there’s more to it but I don’t wanna get into that rn. All that needs to be said is I’ll cry my eyes out if anything ever happens to her bc I love that woman as much as it is never brought to my attention inside of me I’ll realise just how much if anything ever happens to her. For now I just wanna be pissy at her bc of the way she is with me being her daughter. Like fuck just let me be who I fucking wanna be fuck sake. Comfortablly day in the living room watching an ep of a new show whilst munching some chewits but then interrupted by mother needing to pray. Up I went vaguely listening to her telling me to go pray alongside other views of religion she’s advising me to follow like always. Nothing more ruins us than her telling me things of Islam and me not taking it in anymore or wanting to hear it to getting up and just leaving the scene so she also gets the message. Watched another episode anyway upstairs and finally folded the 3 day old laundry she’d been wanting/nagging me to do. The whole time I was mad pissed off at her that I just cursed out loud doing it

If anything dropped on the floor I’d get more pissed and curse more. Just many many times I’d been pissed today. I even had my own feelings bother me about how shitty my life is and how fast the day is going bc I keep sleeping in. That’s why it’s a bother. I feel the day last shorter than how short it originally already is. So that’s been a subliminal bother sometimes a forefront one too. I attempted to begin cleaning my room after but with the light on in my room and it being late like 10-11 I didn’t like the vibe of anything at all. My phone was red zone 20%. The fact that I’ve been thinking A LoT this week off about how much I’ve been glued to my phone everyday almost every second. Fuck sake it’s easy to not be on it but hard same too bc I don’t wanna do nothing else but mindlessly be on my phone. Mindlessly you hear. Anyways I ended up taking pictures of my mess inside my wardrobe of my mini belongings. Kid sister went and fell asleep elsewhere. Seriously bugs me I can’t tend to her needs or give her attention like i can without a problem but I just don’t. It’s either the thing I wanna do or give her the time. I choose my whatever more than her and I know this, feel it and think of this. I suck and everything sucks. Just more shit that adds onto my conscience and moods of severe sadness in me. I been knowing this for time and had intentions to chnage uo for her and I barely met them. I can still make it right so I hope I do after today. I hope I hope. I really hope. Gosh emotions aren’t far away. Anyway it was mostly that off vibe I got and didn’t wanna clean my room anymore so left it went downstairs or whatever.

I’ve been meaning to clean my room for 2 months straight now. Every day off I was tired or going out when deep down I just wanted a lay in. Never would have had the energy and mindset to clean my room if I did stay in tho. It was top of my list to do so in this holiday and I attempted but didn’t succeed. Will do next day or so for sure! Friday also come, be good. Wake up early bitch.

Popcorn chicken

[happyhippystuff]

CB Day 39:

a part of me thinks that it is already day 40........? idk, my days are just bleeding into each other. but anyway, i am starting to enjoy just sitting down and planning for/ reflecting on my day :-) 

morning:  didn’t wake up on the right side of bed - woke up feeling meh and also missing the bf more than usual :( no idea what i did in the morning except that i decided to do a 45mins flow with thirdspace, which was lovely. then proceeded to make avocado toast for lunch and broke my fast at 12:20pm. did i say, i am going to attempt IF again HAHAHA 

afternoon:  after lunch, i made an impromptu decision to make boba for shuang & debo bc !! shuang graduated ytd. also, ordered a bouquet from N, which tbh..... i didn’t like it very much, just not my style but i guess, we were trying to get a same day delivery so not much options hahaha. boba took up a lot of time, and i did a les mills workout while waiting for the boba to cook. then it was a mad rush of putting the bbt tgt and collecting the flowers before 4.30pm. delivered the flowers + bbt and came home and saw the brother going out for a jog so i decided that i will too. did a short and slow 4.5km, which honestly felt tougher than usual - maybe its the period idk. 

but anyway, after the run, i still felt meh. sigh its like, i do so many things trying to occupy myself so i don’t have to face the feeling, but it still haunts me sobbles. aiya, maybe that’s just life, some days are better than others and i just need to get used to it. 

night: just had dinner and had a surprise delivery from G (!!!) she’s so sweet. she mailed the bf’s share over too, so i guess now it belongs to me :-) as much as i am not a gift person, but i am thankful for little surprises and people who care and remember things i like :”) i may not have the best life, but my life IS blessed :-) 

haven’t tuned in to my daily podcast today, and a part of me doesn’t really or feel like, but SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE so i will. also, i was supposed to prepare for my interview on monday, but i have not so i’ll also do that. maybe i will wind down by reading this is going to hurt, it is expiring in one day but i barely halfway through sob. 

i am so whiny but i miss the boyfriend :(((((((