#THE FUCKERS JUST COME BACM

[angrylizardjacket]

its all you know

Run to Paradise & Charlotte Lee 'verse

Summary: Sometimes Nikki wonders what it would be like if their respective youths hadn't been a living hell.

A/N: @misscharlottelee said she missed my lola content and i was thinking abt a hs au for the pacl (which i still might write, i have genuine ideas for a legit hs au) so i wrote this on my phone on a whim. ft. mentions of Charlotte and Nikki and Lola's lowkey possibly joking possibly not crush on her (and TW for brief mention of suicidal ideation)

Nikki looks at Lola sometimes and wonders about how things would be if life had been kind. If her dad had been around, and her mom wasn't a bitch, and her whole life hadn't gone to shit, would she still be in his arms, telling him she loves him by telling she loves his songs, with that sincerity in her voice, in her eyes, that melts his heart's defenses without her even meaning to.

What if life had been kind to him, if his dad had stuck around, if his mom wasn't a raging cunt with a string of asshole boyfriends, that couldn't give a shit about Nikki. Would he still be here in this golden Thursday afternoon, tracing patterns on Lola's scarred back, telling her that she's beautiful with his lips against her shoulder when he can't look her in the eye for fear of her seeing his honesty.

What if they'd grown up together, white picket fences side by side, normal kids with normal lives; Nikki still plays music, there's no reality he can see himself in without it.

"Dad would have loved you," he remembers Lola once saying. She'd thought the world of him, sometimes Nikki would have liked to have met him. If he'd been around, Lola would be different, and probably more well adjusted. In this fantasy Nikki's created for himself, a childhood not stolen, her dad probably comes to Nikki's gigs; he would have liked their style, after all, if what Lola says is anything to go by.

Sometimes Nikki envies Tommy and Charlotte, who didn't have to grow up too fast, who went to prom, and on cute dates, and who got to have reasonably normal lives. Sometimes, in this fantasy world he's creating for himself, this youth that he was never allowed to have, he brings them all together, pieces out a life from the stories Charlotte and Tommy and Vince have reminisced about. He wonders about prom, about laughing at Vince in a white suit, who agreed to go with Charlotte when her first choice turned her down, and he thinks about Charlotte and Lola getting ready together, laughing and talking and smiling, still able to smile without reservation or hesitation.

In this idealised world, he thinks he might even work at Lola's dad's takeout shop; the old man takes a liking to him for his music after all. Tommy would complain that he's still unemployed, but somehow, even in this fantasy, Nikki's looking for excuses to stay out of his house. Old habits die hard.

And this Lola would be sweet, would still have a dad to idolise and teach her right from wrong, lead her on a better path than any she was destined for the moment he'd passed. But she's still Lola, a bit rough and tumble, a little bit rock and roll, but she doesn't feel the constant need to prove herself. She'd laugh at Nikki's jokes and call him an old fucker who likes dad music, but she'd be his favorite person to work with, because she'd always be the first to hype up his new music.

Nikki claims to be too cool for prom, but ends up driving the rest of the gang, and Lola stays by his side the whole night, and shares the flask of vodka she'd borrowed from her dad. He won't be too mad; he could never be mad at Lola. She rides shotgun on the way back and Nikki's got his hand on her thigh and doesn't move it, even when Charlotte, Tommy, and Vince notice and loudly tease them. He kisses her before she leaves, and it actually would give him butterflies.

But they wouldn't be the same people.

The world is unkind, even to those who don't deserve it, and if they had met bacm in high school, Lola wouldn't have looked him in the eyes, a frightened and downtrodden mouse of a girl. Nikki knows he'd only be interested in corrupting her, not caring what consequences it would wreak on her life when he got bored and tossed her aside.

"What do you think would have happened if we'd met in high school?" Nikki asks softly, and Lola shifts a little in bed in order to look at him.

"You probably would have terrified me," she tells him with a sharp smile, on her side, one arm reaching across his belly to pull herself a little closer to him, "mom wouldn't have let me think of you, let alone talk to you, and between supressing the urge to kill myself and piano lessons, I didn't exactly have a lot of time for new friends." And though her tone is light, Nikki's expression still crumples, sympathetic to her struggles, given his own rocky high school years. But Lola makes a considering noise, which brings him back to the present.

"Actually, I'm not sure," she admits, "technically we did meet in high school, at least for me." Nikki often forgets that she'd never even properly graduated middle school. "Why?" She asks, interested in his train of thought.

"Vince took Charlotte to prom once," Nikki says with a hint of a smile, and Lola pressed her laughter into his chest.

"Yeah I heard about that."

"I'm just thinking about what it would have been like if we had been normal too; what if we got to grow up together, all of us, with that whole happy families, white picket fence shit?"

"Do you think we would have slow danced?" Lola teases, poking him in the ribs, and Nikki snorts.

"I think we would have gotten drunk together -"

"Would we be a whole cliche? Take my virginity in the back seat of your beat up old car on prom night?" But she's grinning, her adoring little smile pressed soft against his skin as she looks up at him, falling more in love with him as she falls in love with the fantasy.

"But we wouldn't really talk about it, except that I'd come to your house in the week and throw rocks at your window until you snuck me in," Nikki leaned in and pressed a kiss to her hair. Lola sighs, tucks herself against him, warm and content in the moment.

"You'd be my backup date, by the way," Nikki teases, to which Lola made an indignant noise in the back of her throat, and Nikki elaborates on the verge of laughter, "I definitely would have asked Charlie, but she thought I was kind of gross and an asshole."

"You are gross and an asshole, not just kind of," Lola smirks, but continues with surprising sweetness before he can respond properly, "that's why I love you."

"How would we even know each other in this timeline? I don't know about you, but if my life had gone differently, there's no way I'd still be the same person," Lola asks, brow burrowing.

"Oh, we both work in your dad's restaurant," he tells her, like its the most obvious thing in the world, and Lola's whole being softens to something warm and fond at the mere mention of her dad.

"He really would have loved you," she confirms his suspicions with a soft chuckle.

"I don't think we'd be here," Nikki gestures to their bed, their surrounds, their life, "but we'd end up together. Somehow. In all my realities, I see you in the end," he admits.

"You've been blinded by love, you sap," but Lola's blushing, and Nikki can't help it as he pushes kt further, enjoying Lola's rare sweet and flustered state.

"Maybe I juat don't want to see a reality without you."

Lola's actually gone speechless, her fond smile and pink cheeks hidden where she's pressed her whole face against his chest. Nikki holds her just a little tighter, wearing his smuggest little smirk.

"Okay but what if Razz was in this little fantasy of yours?" Lola finally surfaces, resting her chin on his chest.

"I would make fun of his accent constantly," Nikki answers with probably too much certainty, "I am and I was an asshole," he reminds her, not that Lola's trying to correct him.

"Even if he was dating Charlie?"

"Especially if he was dating Charlie; you've seen her high school photos, Charlie was just as much of a bombshell back then. See she and Vince make sense going to prom together, both of them being hot as all hell, but that weird little English fucker landing Charlie while we're all in high school? I'm not even sure how he managed it as an adult." Nikki snorts, and Lola punches his chest and calls him an asshole.

"You're so mean to them sometimes," but she's smiling even as she rolls her eyes, "Razz is cute, you're just jealous."

"And you're not?"

"Every day, dude, obviously, but she's my friend and I told her I'd get you to be a little nicer."

"You can try," he says with his most shiteating grin before silence falls between them.

"Where would we end up, if not here?" Lola asks, so quiet her voice is barely a whisper, the hypothetical playing in her head on repeat.

"We'd be different people," Nikki muses quietly.

"Sounds like everyone around us would be different too, stable and shit, happy families."

"We'd probably end up just like them," Nikki says with a laugh that sounds a little hollow at the very thought, "you'd be a PTA mom and running your dad's shop, and I'd be teaching music, and we'd have Sunday brunch with the Lees."

"Not the Dingeys?"

"Charlie and Razz would move back to England."

Lola hums thoughtfully at the mental image, but something about the stale serenity of it all has Nikki's stomach turning at the thought.

"Is it bad that I'm glad we're in the reality where everything went wrong?" She asks softly. Nikki swallows hard, and in this moment, knows clearly, and with absolute certainty, that he is in love with her. She gets him, without even realizing, she understands him so completely.

"There's no reality I'd rather be in," he agrees.