#and i was like invite me to ur party again and make it a dress up party again and he was like absolutely its gonna be euphoria themed

[lianaloverr]

I Wanna Be More Than A Friend/Drunken Confessions

Pairing: Colby Brock x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Colby have always had some tension between your friendship, but one night and a party, a drunken Colby confesses his desires.

Warnings: fluff, drinking, smoking, kissing

Word Count: 1.2k

My gif!

—————————————————

Hiiiii! I’m so sorry i haven’t posted a fiction in a while! I hope y’all still with me! Anyways sit back and enjoy!

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Hey girl you almost ready?” your friend Alexia said from down the hallway. “Yea! I just gotta put on my earrings.” you say.

•

You and your friend Alexia are getting ready to go to a party set up by your best friends Sam and Colby. You’ve known those since you guys were 16 and still are stuck together till this day. However, you and Colby have chemistry together. Everybody knew had a crush on each other but just never wanted to admit it. Honestly you couldn’t deny you had feelings for him, but u never thought he liked you. You liked him very much, but you didn’t want to ruin the seemingly perfect you guys had if you got rejected.

•

A tap on your shoulder knocked you out of your thoughts and it was Alexia asking you if you were ready to go. “Girl, you ready to go?” she said. “Mhm yea.”

•

Colby’s POV

“Hey Sam! What time does the party start again?” I yelled out. “9!” he yelled back. “oh crap I only have 20 minutes to get myself ready.” I say. As i’m getting ready, Sam walks in the room. “Ooo getting a little fancy i see?” Sam says as i’m putting on my rings. “umm i guess so.” i say kinda confusing knowing damn well what i was doing. “Yea.. I know and i’m pretty sure everyone else knows who you’re getting all dressed up for.” Sam says in a suggestive tone. “Uhh who?” i ask. Sam just looks at me like i’m stupid, then he walks out.

•

I acted clueless but i knew exactly who he was talking about. Y/n has been my best friend and Sam’s since we were 16. We always stuck with each other through thick and thin, she was by our side when Sam had his car crash, she was by our side when I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and made my first song, she was there for most of ur heartbreaks and basically everything. Of course we were there for her too, but we wouldn’t trade her for the world.

•

She’s amazing. She’s beautiful. She’s helpful. She is quite literally the most perfect girl i’ve ever met. I can’t lie, i’ve had a crush on her for a while, but never expressed it due to fear of rejection, then our friendship be ruined. “Hey Colby, party’s about to start.” i hear Sam say but he walks out of the room before I can look at him. I guess I should start heading downstairs.

•

Y/n ’s POV

•

You and Alexia start pulling up into the house’s driveway. Just looking at it for the 1000th time makes you even more proud of your two best friends for how much they worked for it over the years. You see your friend Clara sitting outside smoking a cigarette. Once you get out the car you go over to her and ask her how she’s doing. “Not so great, my boyfriend just broke up with me.” she says. “Oh really? I’m so sorry to hear that girl.” you responded. “Yea, i’m glad I was invited to this party so i can keep my mind off of it. Thanks for bringing it up again.” she looked at you. “Sorry girl.” you say as you walk into the house.

•

As you step into the house you see a bunch of strobing lights and loud music playing. “Hey girl i’m gonna go find some cute boys, wanna come with?” Alexia says to you as she passes by. “Mm nah. I’m gonna go look for Sam and Colby.” you tell her. “Mkay babe, i’ll be on the dance floor if you need me.” She says as she walks away.

•

As you walk through the hallways that are drowned in red solo cups and burnt cigarette ash, a guy walks up to you. “Hey, your really pretty, wanna dance?” since you had been looking for Sam and Colby for a while, you thought it would be nice to take a break. “Uh yea, sure!” you say to the boy. He walks you out to the dance floor and you start dancing. “So, what’s your name?” you ask. “Leo, you?” he says. “Y/n.” you respond. “Pretty name.” he comments. As you and the boy are dancing, you can’t help but feel a little bit guilty. You had your eyes on one boy only but it felt like you were giving it up so easily with this dance. Even though you doubted he liked you back, you swore up and down you could see Colby from the corner of your eye, and he looked… jealous? “Hey, i’ll be right back.” you tell Leo. “Oh, okay.” he says.

•

As you start looking for Colby since he disappeared, you bump into sam. “Have you seen colby?” you ask the blond haired boy. “Oh i think he went upstairs, and hi to you too.” he says. “Sorry, hey sam.” you say as you hug him, he had the smell of alcohol all over him. “see you’ve been having fun.” you tell him. “Oh yea” he laughs. “Well i’m gonna go find Colby, see ya later.” you say. “Adios!” Sam says and you chuckle.

•

As you walk upstairs, you hear the music dying down as you head further. Upstairs, you check every room to find Colby, but he wasn’t there. The last room you didn’t check was the game room. When you walk in, you see a Colby downing bottle after bottle. “Hey Colby! Are you trying to kill yourself?!” you say as you take the bottles away, including the one he was drinking. “Why do you care?” Colby says slurring his words. “Of course i’m gonna care, you’re my best friend.” you tell him. “I wish i was more.” he says. “….. What?” you ask. “You heard me.” he says. “Colby, you’re just drunk.” you say, not believing him. “No, I know exactly what i’m saying. Y/n, i’ve been in love with you since.. forever. You so perfect and much too good for me. You’ve just always been there and it makes me fall even harder.” he confesses. “.. Colby.” you whisper. “What i’m trying to say is, I wanna be more than a friend.”

•

You flutter your eyes open as you see sunlight flooding into the room. as you yawn and think about what happened, you turn to the other side of the bed and see a passed out Colby shirtless and hair ruffled up. As you sit there admiring him, he wakes up and looks at you. “What happened last night?” he asks in a deep, sleepy voice. “Drunken confessions.” you respond. “What?” he says. “Colby, i like you. Scratch that, I think I love you. you everything I need in life and i think we would be the perfect coup-“ before you could finish, you feel a soft pair of lips land on yours. It feels like heaven, but the heaven doesn’t last long when he pulls away. “Y/n?” he says. “Hmm?” you ask. “Will you be my girlfriend?” he asks you. “Of course Colby.” you respond. When you say that, he grabs your hips and pulls you to spoon him. you lay like that until you both drift back off to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hiii! I hoped you liked my story! I’m sorry it took so long for it to come out, didn’t know what to write about a love story lol. Thank y’all for sticking with me. Byeeeee!!!

Masterlist

[freemansgirl]

idk if ur requests are open but i just thought of something…birthday sex with Amber but it’s the reader’s bday🫣

OH MY GOD OFC YES??? i been thinking abt bday sex amber fic FOREVER cause my bday will come up soon!! ur truly a godsend <33 bless ur heart for this

nasty (birthday sex fic <3)

pairing: amber freeman x fem reader

words: 2.1k

warnings: teasing amber, amber grabs ur ass, oral sex, top! dom!amber, reader gets her boobs sucked, g!p! amber (amber has a dick, if u don’t like it, just scroll), begging, praise, degradation, cunnalingus

today was a very special day for you, it was your birthday. it was spent in a way that you couldn’t even imagine your birthday being spent. after coming back from a lovely date with your girlfriend amber, she had thrown a surprise birthday party for you, inviting your mutual friends. the birthday party was so fun and had so many memories you knew you could cherish in a couple of years. the fact that everyone showed up, sung you happy birthday, gave you hugs, gifts, and wishes, and danced with you was making you feel emotional and happy.

you started to take the knife when you saw that your (favorite cake flavor) cake was already put on the table for you, but you were stopped by footsteps approaching from behind you and a firm touch on the left side of your hips. this threw a look of confusion on your face for a split second but you knew that touchy feeling approach anywhere, causing you to let out a loving sigh. “came to come join me for a slice of cake, i see?” you questioned amber playfully, looking to see the girl you loved. amber was assisting you in slicing the cake when she lightly ran her pale hands over yours when the knife touched the portion you desired. she finished helping you cutting the slice that you want, before speaking to you again.

“yes, but not the cake that you’re thinking about.” she seductively whispered in your ear so only the two of you could hear it while her free hand was sneaking its way down to your ass. you let out the smallest, cutest gasp while a flustered expression crept its way right onto your face at the sex joke amber had made towards you. she had produced a ton of sex jokes tonight just to make you laugh and tease you, but she most definitely meant those "jokes" as well. the whole night she couldn’t stop checking you out in the birthday dress you decided to wear tonight, you were just so damn attractive to her and she was so lucky to even have someone like you. the way your dress fitted your curves so nicely, it was like it was meant for you. the fact that she bought the dress made it even better because she’s making you look so good, so good that it was so hard for her to keep her eyes off of you. the perfume that she bought you had her in a trance too, each whiff that she got of you drew her into your aroma more.

the black pantyhose that you were wearing right underneath your dress was so attractive to her. then, the sexy slit in your lacy dress showing off just how beautiful your thighs are. the bust showing off how nice your breasts are sitting in the dress, it was drawing so much attention to how amazing they looked. lastly, your ass just looked so great and that just was getting her so weak in the knees like damn, she couldn’t even believe the sight that she was looking at. her dark brown eyes were scanning over you from across the room the whole time you had to get up to go walk or when you went to speak with one of your mutual friends.

when she had you sit on her lap in the circle around the couch of the living room with your friend group, she could feel herself getting hard underneath her dress. everytime she stared at you, her eyes were looking you down from head to toe, they were growing with lust and hunger. there were so many instances that she whispered sweet nothings in your ear, while drawing circles on your thighs, absolutely no shame. she loved seeing your cute expressions and gasps, it was making her more turned on by the second. she found it really hard to focus on the conversation with the friend group or whenever you spoke to her because her head was clouded with so much sexual thoughts.

you could feel just how horny she was because of the amount of sex “jokes” she made, the constant whispering in your ear when you were by yourself, her stares, and her touches (esp when she would press her dick from behind you). honestly, you could feel yourself getting in the mood and you felt like your body had something to say to her. the way your panties were soaking from all the sexual feelings you were experiencing made you want to say something, and at this point, you just needed some one-on-one time with her. you were ready for everyone to go home so you guys can just have sex, just like she was so ready to get you out of the dress.

you turned to your girlfriend, staring into her eyes with the most neediest yet horniest eyes because you are tired of waiting on the sex and you know she was too. you didn’t even have to say anything to her, your look was already enough. “what do you want, baby?” she said, caressing your chin looking at you, clearly playing dumb because she knows that you want her. “can we just get to it, baby? enough with the sex jokes, i want you. can you get everyone to bounce?” you replied, looking at all of your friends laughing and having a really good time then back to amber.

“you don’t have to even ask, babe. i’ll meet you upstairs in my room for tonight’s final present. throw on something cute.” she smiled, pulling your chin closer to her so she can land a soft, gentle kiss on your cheek. after that, the two of you parted ways for a couple of minutes. you begin to go upstairs to open the door to amber’s room, there was a bunch of pretty red rose petals spread out on the bed and candle lights filling up the room. the scent of lavender flowing freely, setting that romantic, sexy mood. an adorable yet sexy lace, satin pajama set in your favorite color was waiting for you on the bed.

amber is such a wonderful girlfriend, she got you a birthday dress, perfume, your birthstone ring, now this? oh, she is truly the best. you begin to strip out of everything that you were currently wearing to put on the satin pajama set she gave you. at the sound of the door creaking, you could see the black haired girl standing at the doorframe making her way right over to you. “you look perfect, just how i imagined you to be in this set.”

“thank you, amber. couldn’t have looked perfect without you.” you speak as you smiled so happily at the words, appreciating the compliments she threw out. you realizing that it was the two of you, no one else could ruin the moment. you wrapped your arms around her neck, bringing her into a kiss while her body pushed you right into the bed covers, the soft, comfortable sheets taking you in.

she started to leave small, sweet kisses right above your collarbone then pulled your top right above your head; revealing your bare breasts right on display. “you have the most perfect set of breasts ever. you’re amazing, gorgeous.” she praised, before her tongue started to leave swirls around your nipples. she began to suck on them gentle but also roughly, loving all of the cute noises you made for her while she rubbed her hands on your body. amber pulled back off of your nipples to quickly take off her dress, so now it was just her bra and her boxers. she approached you to slip off your shorts and underwear, both clothing items hitting the carpet on the ground of the room. amber carefully started to remove her boxers, exposing her hard dick.

she started to rub the tip of her dick up and down your slick, wet folds of your vagina, causing her skin to feel moist from the texture of your lips. when she realized how wet you are, she had the biggest smirk on her face as she began to laugh. she loved when she saw you this wet because it made her feel like you knew you belonged to her. “i haven’t even fucked you yet, and you’re already this wet? i always knew you were a slut for my dick, but not THIS much of one….” she snickered, before gesturing her tip right into your hole causing your gasp sound like a moan slightly, pushing her back slightly which causing her to stop to look at you. there was an irritated look on her face, while she grabbed both of your wrists above your head so you can’t touch her.

“stop whining, you wanted this. you’re the one who wanted me to kick our friends out because your whore ass wanted birthday dick.” amber reprimanded you while firmly grasping your wrist with one hand and tightening her hold on the right side of your waist with the other. the tight grip she had on you could make you wake up the next day with a bruise from tonight. “so if you don’t want birthday sex, fine, it’s your loss. if you do… then beg for it, before i change my mind.” your girlfriend's hold on your wrist has grown even tighter as her dark smile and sly eye twinkle with mischief.

“i’m sorry, please, please, please! fuck me, baby!” you start pleading with her, hoping that she will just fuck you and end the conversation. it’s not fair of her to be such a tease towards you from the restaurant date to the party just for you to not get dicked down. she was definitely getting off to this, pleased with what you were saying to her. when she stuck her dick right inside of your vagina, the beginning thrust was slow and very sensual when she put it inside of you. the two of you let out some groans from this. your bodies were definitely touching now, her figure was hovering right over yours as she stared at you with a lot of sexual excitement. as each of you made noises as amber moved in and out with her thrusts, she began to take her sweet time with you.

the feeling of amber’s touches felt incredibly amazing as her pink lips started to leave little trails of kisses all over your body, from your collarbone to your breasts. she started to shower you in compliments because she loved seeing how well you were starting to take her. “you look so pretty, taking my dick so nicely like my good girl instead of a whore.” she breathed out, grabbing your hips onto her dick, each thrust feeling like a slam. you start to moan a lot from the pleasure that she was giving you, everything was just perfect. “faster, baby… please.” you let out a shaky pant, wanting your girlfriend to go even faster than the speed she was already going at. the black haired girl stopped kisses all of your body to just look at you so she can speak. “your wish is my command, birthday girl.” she smiled at you, now her dick started to move even faster inside of you, the speed was now starting to stimulate you.

“now, tell me, before i pull out to let you cum, remind me who’s my beautiful birthday girl?” she instructed, her hand now taking her hands off of your wrists, allowing you to touch her now. you take both of your hands and place them side by side on her face, about to speak to her. “me, all yours, always yours!” you exclaim, your moans getting louder and louder which leads amber to pull out so you can start to release from the orgasm. amber is also pretty close her own self, cumming right on your pussy, adding to the orgasm you just had.

now, she began to lean down to your vagina that had cum decorated all over it. she took both of your legs and spread then wide open, her head getting buried inside of the your legs. as she grabbed your trembling legs from the orgasm you just had, she began to eat you out. the flavor of both of your cum combined got her going. “you taste so sweet, baby…. i could you eat you out all night like this.”

you were moaning so much from all of the constant licks against your clit. you ran a hand in her hair, soothing her and pulling her into your pussy some more. then, amber realized that everything was gone and you seemed pretty clean. she pulled away, satisfied with everything that just happened, she enjoyed you and the sex (ofc). the sex was so good that she would treat you to aftercare soon, but right now, she just wanted to lay with her favorite birthday girl in the world.

she pulled you into her chest, wrapping her arms right around you, her left hand rubbing over your hand soothingly.

“happy birthday, princess. eating you out was the sweetest thing i had tonight.”

[s-4pphics]

rip, halloweekend! (e.w.)

hi😳 it’s my last week as a student and i felt sad so i wrote fratadjacent!ellie lol. literally just wanted to reminisce on party hookups since they’re over for me </3 

wc;cw: 3.4k mmm, MDNI!!, NOT PROOFREAD AT ALL IM VERY BUSY LOL, all ocs r black coded y’all see it, mentions of (faux)blood and vomit like once, alcohol weed it’s a party duh, 21 and tee grizzley promo like pay me, girls kissing🤭, dubcon(every1 is faded af lol), ellie’s sleazy, mentions of orgies and anal? uh oh, ellie’s so cocky <3, dirty talk, fingering, eating out no mcdonalds, spanking ass and tits lol, okie yeah dassit <3 

everyone say thank u to the loml @fandomshitpostingqueen 4 the title :3

Your school always turned up and out for Halloween. 

You and your friends had been complaining about how trash the parties have been for months, but now the streets are littered with people dressed as bare as possible in the freezing cold. They were all shotgunning beers in the middle of the street, blasting trap music through their portable speakers, throwing up everywhere. 

And you were so excited! This was going to be fun. 

You never particularly liked going to frat parties: their houses were never clean, it was always boiling hot in the basement, and the cops almost always showed up to shut the entire place down (only for another party to blow up in the early hours in the morning, and they shut them down, too! Fuckers!). But after your first ever mind-numbing, toe-curling, drunken fuck with… her at the Alpha Sigma Phi house in September last year, you hardly ever stepped foot in clubs again. 

You two weren’t super close even though you fucked on and off, but you were friends with her housemate, Riley, so whenever she invited you over, you would discreetly watch Ellie silently making cereal—high out of her mind—in only her sports bra and gray sweats. You hadn’t seen her since the start of the semester, when she’d dropped off your wobbly, highly intoxicated roommate with after she’d snapped you a hey. ur roomie drank alooottt and is really fucked up rn imma drop her off leave the door unlocked pls lol. 

It was a mystery how they got past your building's security since your roommate could barely hold up her I.D. according to Ellie, but you didn’t press since she seemed in a rush to get back to the party she was at. She quickly laid your friend in her bed before throwing you a quick see ya! before fleeing out the door. You didn’t even have a chance to properly look at her before your own door slammed in your face. 

And now here you are, standing in the frat entry line freezing your ass off in your slutty, glittery angel costume with a cheap, but feathered halo atop your head. Your dress barely passed your thighs, and your white, lace-up heels were getting scuffed on the concrete. You didn’t even want to be an angel, but your friends forced you to match with them with their demands of Were gonna be Charlie’s Angels, bitch I’m not playing!, to which you’d argue, they weren’t actually angels, clown! But after three days of consistent glares and pleading from your googly-eyed group, you gave in. 

“Bro, I’m so fuckin’ excited. I need more shots, I need more shots! —“

“Can you shut the fuck up, you sound crazy,” your good friend, Cleo said to your… feening friend, Evelyn. A gust of Fall wind blew past all of you, and you shivered in unison. 

“It’s too fucking cold for this shit! If y’all would’ve let me down that Svedka bottle, I would be warm as fuck right now!” Evelyn pressed at both of you between chattering teeth. 

“Bitch, you almost peed in these people's kitchen sink the last time you did some stupid shit like that! In front of everyone!” Cleo scolded with a glare, and Evelyn scoffed before turning away to look at the moving line. Your friend then turned her attention to you. 

“You tryna see your girlfriend?” Cleo said to you with a smirk while she hit her dab, and you rolled your eyes so hard, they almost fell out. 

“She’s not my fuckin’ girlfriend, shut up,” you tried to say as convincingly as possible. They both snorted at your attempts, clearly in denial. 

Your friends always made it sound like you were in love with Ellie when she was brought up. You could admit to having a crush on her, sure, but you weren’t always craving her attention. You let her come and go as she pleased, and you did the same. 

Your thoughts were cut off by some drunk, obnoxious asshole screaming at the two of you to pull out your school I.Ds. You all did, and the door immediately pulled open, and you were hit in the face with the bass from the speakers. You all entered, hand in hand, and watched people dance in masks, people making out, people twerking on the counter. And you all were finally warm. 

You moved through the packed, LED lit house to where everyone was dancing, and you and your friends made a small circle in the middle of the crowded floor. Evelyn managed to snag an unopened bottle of Tito’s from the counter and you, and Cleo stared in shock as she downed three large gulps like it was water. You snatched the bottle from her before she could get any more down, only to take three large sips of your own, before turning to Cleo, ushering her to lean her head back so you could pour some in her mouth. 

You felt lighter. 

Thirty minutes passed, and Cleo was throwing it back on you, and you were throwing it back on Evelyn as she clumsily thrusted her hips into your ass, bottle in hand. Your halo was tipping, you were sweating out your press, and your glittery liner was smudging, but you couldn’t give a fuck. 21 was on, and nothing else mattered. 

Until Evelyn stopped, pulling you up to her chest and sloppily whispered that she had to pee. You shook your head as you giggled, pulling a very high Cleo up to guide her to the bathroom by her iced-out wrist.

The line for the bathroom was so fucking long. What the fuck. 

But you and your friends were finally next. Evelyn was leaning back against the wall as she squeezed her legs together, whining out quiet dontpeedontpeedontpee’s to herself with her eyes shut. You shook your head at her. 

However, you all immediately stiffened when you heard a desired squeal of fuck yes, like that! coming from the bathroom. That’s why y’all were standing here for so fucking long?! So somebody could get their nut?! 

Cleo shook her head with a I know you fuckin’ lying before banging her fist on the door. “Bro, hurry the fuck up! We don’t have time for this shit!”

“Hold the fuck on, damn!” and your back straightened at the voice, eyebrows furrowing. Ohh, shit oh fuck! —

And the door swung open, revealing a very flushed Ellie, lips glistening and eyes tinted pink with a black cloak on, Scream mask in hand. She even had fake blood smeared on her face. And a girl in a devil costume hopping off the counter, adjusting the horns on her head. 

You made eye contact with Ellie, and she froze, only to quirk her slit brow at you, slowly gazing at your attire from top to bottom before reconnecting your eyes. You shivered, and she smirked. 

The demon girl snatched Ellie’s wrist to lead her out of the bathroom as Evelyn rushed in, barely shutting the door behind her. You held Ellie’s searing contact as she trailed behind the girl, nodding her head in greeting as she brushed past you, leaving the hallway. You turned towards Cleo, who’d been barricading the door for Evelyn, shaking her head at you with a knowing grin. You let out a quiet fuck you as she busted out laughing. 

Sometime in the night, you all scurried back to the dance for when First Day Out blasted through the speakers. You have zero recollection of what happened after you ran towards the packed dance floor(all your liquor body-slammed you at once!), but your tongue was shoved in Cleo’s mouth as she grinded on Evelyn, holding her by her thigh to pull her closer. She pulled away, licking your bottom lip as you both smiled before your hazy gaze traveled behind Evelyn, locking with the ones you were conflicted about seeing tonight. 

Ellie was smoking by herself, just watching you. You held her stare as you wrapped your arms around Cleo, drunkenly waving your hand to lure her over. She smirked around her blunt before shrugging, shaking her head no. You sent her a pout. 

“Ellie’s over there,” you bent down to talk in Cleo’s ear. 

She hummed in acknowledgment against your neck, “We’ll be alright. Go see her.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah, I got her,” She said in reference to a very drunk Evelyn screaming out YOU KNOW I BROUGHT MY KNIFE!

“Text me if anything happens, okay?” You demanded, and she nodded before encouragingly patting your ass. 

You unwrapped yourself from your friend, squeezing through the crowd until you reached a very… calm Ellie. She was leaning back with her head propped up against the wall, doing tricks with every exhale of smoke. You leaned up next to her, shoulder to shoulder. 

Neither of you said anything, but she held her blunt up to your face. You accepted, parting your lips to inhale the smoke as you watched the lit tip shine orange. You pulled away, leaving the remnants of your gloss behind, and breathed in before exhaling away from her. 

You watched as she pulled her phone out, slowly typing something out with one hand as she ripped from the blunt again. 

You felt your phone vibrate in your bra. 

You looked at her suspiciously before pulling it out, unlocking it to open the snap from Ellie.

e: cum upstairs? 

y: 😐

You turned to her and watched her smile before typing. You looked back down at your phone. 

e: lemme give u some imsorry head :(

y: 😐

e: pleek 

y: where

e: upstairs duh 

e: jesses gone 4 the weekend so ye

e: fuckin u in his room lol 

… Who the fuck is Jesse?

You didn’t get an opportunity to respond before you felt her grab your wrist, pulling you into the crowd. You couldn’t help but look up at her frame, loose strands of her ponytail falling out, her dangly earrings, her fucking shoulders, her neck moving every time she looked back to check on you. She looked so fucking good, fuck—

You felt a smack on your ass, and before you could turn to beat the fuck out of whoever it was, you caught your friends giggling at you. Cleo suddenly made her O-face as Evelyn pretended to hit it from the back before they started laughing at you again. You stared blankly at them. 

“Okay?” You heard Ellie say in your ear, lips brushing against yours. You only nodded before turning back to face her. 

You watched as she looked behind you before smiling and looking back down at you with a headshake. She turned and led you towards the staircase. 

She pulled open a door—Jesse’s, you guess— at the end of the hall. It was a bit messy, but you ignored it as she closed the door behind you. 

“Where’s Riley? I haven’t seen her at all,” you said as she looked at you. 

“Dunno.” She replied simply, ripping from her roach. 

“…You got bored quick,” You hoped she knew what you meant. 

“Mhm,” she said as she exhaled before stubbing it out on the dresser. 

And then silence. 

This is awkward. You hoped she would be ripping your halo off by now.  

“You look cute.” 

“You don’t,” you replied sharply. Fuck, yes she does, she always does. 

She snickered at you before kicking her chucks off, “That girl thought I did.” 

You’re going to strangle her. 

“Fuck you.” 

“You’re gonna,” she said as she stepped closer. 

“You’re a slut.” 

“I am,” Another step. She said with a slimy grin. “The dirtiest.” 

You hated how wet that made you. 

“Your friends are funny,” She said with another step, finally in your space as she spoke quietly. “And they’re hot.” 

“I know they are.” 

“Orgy?” She asked with a bright smile.

“Ellie, are we fucking or not? M’feet hurt,” you slurred out, rolling your eyes. 

“You look so good right now,” she said more to herself than to you, it seemed. She’d been so quiet, tone filled with awe. Your face ran hot. 

“Wanna kiss,” She said as she leaned forward. 

You placed a hand on her chest. “‘M not about to kiss you, you were just giving somebody head, like, an hour ago.” 

“So?” She said, grinning wider. 

“The fuck d’you mean so? That’s gross, Ellie.” you said with an agitated tone. 

“Wanna bend you over his dresser,” She said silkily, and it made you clench tight. “Missed you, y’know?” 

You didn’t reply as you looked at her skeptically. She didn’t care, grabbing you by your hips to pull you closer, bodies now flush against each other. She bent down to plant soft kisses on your neck. You would’ve complained, but her mouth felt so good, fuck.

“You wet enough?” She whispered out against your throat before sucking on the wet spot. You threw your arms around her neck, your knees buckling. 

“Gettin’ there, keep kissing me like that,” you breathed out in a shaky whisper. You felt her smile against you before licking over where she sucked. 

You felt her hands travel down to your ass, as she grabbed both cheeks tightly in both hands. You let out a breathy moan at her grip before you felt her slap a cheek, and then the other. 

“Take this shit off,” she whispered out as she hiked your dress over your hips. You pulled it over your head, tossing it near the bed along with your halo. 

“Fuck you, I spent time making this,” you said with a pout as she laughed softly. She grabbed your bare tits in her hands before sucking a nipple into her mouth. You moaned as you peered down to watch her flick it. 

She switched sides, sucking the hardened bud into her mouth while she hummed quietly. Your hips pressed against her.

“Prettiest fuckin’ tits,” She whispered against your breast. “Gonna fuck ‘em one day, I swear to god.” 

You moaned at her promise as you felt her slap your ass again before whispering a get over there, nodding towards the dresser. You scurried over as quickly as your heeled feet could manage, tits bouncing with every step. You leaned back against it with your hands propped up behind you as you watched her pull your halo from your discarded fabric. 

“Gotta keep this on,” she said as she walked over, dangling it between two fingers. “For… affect, and whatnot.” 

“Right.” 

“Mhm,” she said as she carefully placed it on your head. “Turn around.” 

You listened without question, and you were faced with your own reflection. Your wet nipples, your rising and falling chest, your wet thong. And her darkly looming behind you closely, all bloody and grinning. Another gush of wetness in your underwear. 

“You know what I think?” She said into your ear, meeting your eyes in the mirror. 

You hummed out questioningly. 

“We’d make a sexy cam-couple,” She whispered huskily as she licked your ear and you couldn’t stop squirming, pushing back on her as she grinded forward. “I could see it now: ‘slutty Scream murders cute angelic pussy’, we’d get paid so fuckin’ good.” 

“You’re stupid,” you shakily whispered out as she reached around to pull at your nipples. Your eyes fluttered shut as you leaned back against her, one hand reaching behind you to wrap around her neck while the other dug into her jean-covered thigh. 

She slapped your tits as she messily kissed your neck, sucking more bruises into the skin as she moaned against you. You felt one of her hands disappear from your tits, and before you could move to bring it back, you felt it grab the back of your neck to push you down against the dresser, arms falling in front of you in reflex. Your eyes tore open, and you were met with your sloppy-looking reflection. Lip gloss completely gone, eye-makeup smeared, sweated-out press sticking to your forehead(dammit!), and your halo lopsidedly hanging off your head. 

“Uh huh,” she muttered out as she watched you through the mirror, slowly thrusting her hips forward like she was fucking you and fuck, you wanted to fuck so bad. You hated how you instinctively pushed back on her, propping yourself up on your elbows. “Would make a sexy little pornstar.” 

“Fuck, El, ‘m so wet, c’mon, please! —” 

“Gonna baby, just lemme look at you,” she said back, and you whined, pushing back on her again. You wish she had her dick with her! 

“Make me cum, El, pleeease,” you whined out again, and you felt her slam a hot hand on your ass. You cried out as your cheek seared. 

You felt her slowly pull your panties to the side. You lifted your head to watch her through the mirror: her brows pulled down, her lip between her teeth, and she had the audacity to release a glob of spit on your pussy. You felt a gush of wetness leave you as it trailed down your pussy. 

“You’re so nasty,” you slurred out quietly. 

She reconnected your eyes in the mirror, and she grinned cunningly. You felt her free hand come up to run slow, deep circles on your slippery clit, and you moaned out as your eyes fluttered shut. You dropped your chin on the dresser in relief. 

“Cutest fuckin’ pussy, can tell she missed me,” you clenched tighter gushed wetter at her tone, your pussy screaming missed you so much, daddy! You could tell she noticed when she snickered out a small yeah, you did.

And then you felt her slide a finger in. Your jaw dropped as you gasped wetly, and you hated how she immediately found that spot that makes you scream. Your walls were gripping her finger tight tight tight—

“Fuck, angel, gonna gimme this pussy later?” 

“Fuck yes, ‘s yours!” 

“Yeah? Say it again,” and she dug her finger in deeper. 

“‘S your pussy, daddy, make me cum!” 

She gently pushed another finger in and she grinded them into you, barely pulling out. You hadn’t even noticed that the grip she had on your neck disappeared, her other hand reaching around you to massage your clit. You stayed bent over the dresser so she could hit it deeper, and fuck, she made you feel so good!

Your eyes were glued shut as you breathed and moaned out, but you felt her press kisses all over your ass, biting the cheeks. Your eyes fluttered open as she sat up, slowing down her fucking. She met your eyes to ask, “You ever get your ass fucked?” 

You barely reacted at her bluntness due to your hazy mind, but you shook your head no. She nodded as she pouted. She went back to fingering your cunt. 

“Mmh, you can if you w-wanna, when you take me home later, shit—“

“Who said I was takin’ you home? Hm?” She said and you heard the smirk in her voice. She pressed up against that spot harder as she slid another finger in. 

“Fuuuck!—“ 

“Yeah?” 

“Yes, baby, yesyesyes!—“

You watched her drop to her knees and felt her suck your clit in her mouth and your eyes rolled back and it was about to make you cum—

The sloppy noises of her sucking your pussy and the soppy sounds of her fingers inside you made you hotter, and you felt that burning feeling pulling in your gut.

“El, fuck, baby, I’m gonna— “ 

“C’mon angel, get me wet, want it all over my fuckin’ face— “ 

You couldn’t hear all the nasty shit she was muttering on your pussy as she fucked you through your nut, her lips taking your throbbing clit back in your mouth as she massaged that spot inside you. She was eating you like you were paying her for it and fuck you would if she asked. 

“Taste so fuckin’ good, no one tastes this good, what the fuck,” she said dazed. You knew she was watching your pussy twitch as you rode out the aftershocks on your orgasm, slowly fucking her fingers into you. 

You felt her stand up, slowly rubbing your clit as you calmed down, planting gentle, wet kisses onto your back. 

“You good?” She whispered against you, and you nodded against the desk. 

She chuckled gently, massaging your ass in both her hands before pressing a kiss on a cheek, “C’mon, we’re leaving.” 

You barely could catch your breath, “W’na dance, still.” 

“No, you don’t,” she said, licking up your spine. You felt her press her lips to your ear before she whispered. “Text your friends and tell ‘em we’re leaving. ‘M dropping them off so I can fuck this ass.” 

You shuddered. 

And nodded. 

And she cheesed wide. 

see yall inna week or so lol c:

[skriblee-ksk]

“A party in Halloween Town? I’d be a fool to deny!”

Cameo of @the-rini-rush’s Carla!!

“It’s shocking I wasn’t chosen as the bride, but It’s alright. A heroine who fights for devotion seems to be my thing nowadays.”

Set to Home Screen: May the best suitor win.

Home Transition:

1: I didn’t bring an offering for the fountain. Not like I need good luck either way, I can fulfill my wishes all on my own.

2: I’m not sure how tight the security is at the Boogie Man’s Palace. I’m confident in my acting, but… Hm, I’ll scope it and then decide.

3: Yuuki looks quite dashing in their suit. Not exactly my definition of prince charming, but they could be a good candidate… I think I’d like to doll them up sometimes.

4: As much as I’d like to go into the graveyard and look for anything spooky, it’d be disrespectful to disrupt it without gifts on hand. Are flowers a little basic?

Home, after Login: Hmm, I quite like the properties of this outfit. Don’t I seem like a ghost? Be careful with your words, or I might haunt you forever…! Ha!

Tap Home:

1: The Esqueleto’s are quite considerate to invite me to their party. If I see them, I’ll be sure to thank them.

2: I seem more upbeat than usual? Well, I won’t deny it to you. A place where both the living and dead reside. Isn’t that exciting?

3: We must go to the Boutique, darling! Their dresses are quite glamorous, in a strange way.

4: Carla’s here too? Oh, and we’re rivals? Alright, let’s see who’s able to win Yuuki’s heart! Although… I’m not sure if her head’s completely in the game with Constance around…

5: Being the special girl picked from a large crowd is wholly romantic, don’t you agree? If I’m not chosen, then well… I always have other chances to get my dream anyway.

Groovification: “I have some flowery lines prepared. And if that doesn’t suit Yuuki, I have a few others.”

Tap Home Groovy: I’m not sure which attitude to put on when I’ll woo Yuuki. Probably nothing too straightforward, right? Don’t want to scare them off.

Home Transition Groovy: I wouldn’t mind living in a place like this. Dark and spooky… Oh, but what if I get bored of it because I experience it so often? It’d make me miserable!

Event by @theolivetree123!!

More under cut!!

putting my daughter kalmia up for sale for love <3333

I didn’t think i could get the groovy out before the end of the due date bc i’m pretty busy these days so it’s included this time!!

doodle of kamiyuuki:

idk like the general timeframe (book-wise) this event is in, but I think Yuuki and Kalmia would’ve met, perchance?? (She officially gets acquainted with Yuu like basically right after book 3 ends)

I don’t know how Yuuki feels about going home either, but!!! Either way!!! Kalmia would have went on that whole spiel and would’ve tried getting closer to Yuu, and then accidentally ended up becoming pretty closed due to forced (?) proximity. tragic (?)

Anyway. CONGRATS ON 150+ FOLLOWERS!!! 🎉🫶🙏🏻 Ur art is so wonderful (and so are ur characters) so it’s only natural!!! I hope I continue to see them more!! Literally so happy to be moots with u. I found you in the candy crush event and I was literally so flabbergasted when u fb. ANYWAY. Congrats once again!!! I hope u have fun w this event!!!

Taglist (ask to be added!!): @kathxrat-01 @distant-velleity @scint1llat3 @elenauaurs @boopshoops

@lumdays @venaue @jewelulu @thehollowwriter

[kenposting]

Every Night is Ghoul's Night

Summary: Ken leads the way to the Real World to join Barbie for a new holiday he doesn't quite understand. Once he arrives, he learns that most things in this place are hard to understand.

WC: 1.4k + there's a few 4th wall breaks so if that is hard for u don't read this!! ken goes to the real world for a Halloween party and people there have seen the barbie movie

AN: i'm leaving town for like 9 days on the 18th and i just wanted to write something silly before i left!!! after seeing the movie my friend and i talked about being barbie and ken for halloween and it crossed my mind that that would probably confuse him lol. ps thank u for all ur kind words omg!!! i love ken so much and u guys make me want to just keep writing about him CRYING EMOJI!!! thank u seriously wtf u guys are so nice to me wtf .

Read other Ken stories here: Masterlist

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀ ⋆｡°✩ 🕸⋆｡°✩⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

He really was trying to understand it all. This felt like Patriarchy all over again. Turns out Halloween is not about tiny black sky dogs coming to bite you to assert their dominance (allegedly called “bats” like baseball), nor is it about evil vegetables that come to life and are filled with fire. Wild, I know.

“It’s okay you guys, I know what I’m doing, I’ve done this before.” 

Ken stuck out a dismissive hand, reminding the rest of the Barbies (and the Kens and Allen) that he’s been to the Real World (and even found his way back all by himself!) as he led the way. He wanted them to feel at ease – he remembered how worried he was the first time he went to the Real World. It was not like he expected at all.

He reassured them he definitely knows what's up. Except that he doesn’t. And he didn’t last time either. 

One (very long, as the passenger Barbies and Kens and Allen well exceeded the hundreds) car-rocket-boat-rv-bike-jetski-rollerblade trip later and Ken was met with Barbie in Venice Beach, just like last time. 

“Hi Ken! Hi Barbie! Hi Ken! Hi Barbie! Hi Barbie! Hi Ken!” 

He was so happy to see her and wanted to hear all about how she’d been and what she'd been up to (as well as thank her for inviting him and everyone over), but that must wait, lest he misunderstands Halloween any longer. 

He was on a mission, that’s for sure. 

All of the crew skated alongside Barbie, following her to her sorority house. Ken didn't know what that was, but he figured it didn't have to do with Halloween, so he wasn't interested. They were throwing a giant blowout party with all the students (and planned choreography, and a bespoke song) for 'Halloween', whatever that was. 

His original costume was a vampire but he scared himself in the mirror and cried so he settled instead for a cowboy (not that that had to be a costume, he liked to look like that anyways). 

It would’ve been more fitting to dress as a detective the way he wanted so desperately to know what all of this meant. The decorations were… so dark, literally zero sparkles, all of the people at the party looked badly injured, the music had words he’s never heard before, and the fruit punch tasted horrible – like a burning kind of horrible – none of it made any sense to Ken. And the girls were scary too. 

They were all touching him and laughing. He couldn’t tell if they were laughing at his confusion or just having fun, but something about it felt weird. They were looking at him in a way he didn’t understand, and he very much sensed an undertone of violence. 

“You were soo good in the movie, Ken!” 

He couldn’t tell you how many times he’d heard that tonight because he had stopped counting after 20 (he can’t count higher than 20). All the girls saying that to him were wearing Barbie’s clothes, like they had borrowed them from her. He didn’t know why. Wasn’t tonight about dressing up? That’s just what Barbie wore everyday back home. Even the Palazzo pants! 

And what movie? The God Father? Why did everyone keep bringing up The Movie™ like he was supposed to know what they were talking about? 

He excused himself to further analyze the situation, his eyes squinting and shifting, taking in all the information. The books he read back home said a lot of stuff about magic and evil spirits, but all he knew about magic was from Magic Ken’s earring, let alone what an ‘evil spirit’ was. None of this was appealing, and if he was honest, it all sort of frightened him. Who wants to hang around waiting for Patriarchy guys to jump out and scare you all night? 

Which they did. For who knows how many times (he stopped counting at 20). He knew this time they were definitely laughing at him, so excused himself. 

The air was cold and the lull of the music and people talking from inside spilled everywhere he went. He couldn’t escape it. It hurt his ears, but at least it wasn’t as loud out here. 

Sat on the front step outside under twinkling orange lights was a girl wearing nearly the same costume as him. 

He noticed she looked like she wasn’t enjoying herself much either, her chin resting in her palms folded over her lap. The flowers embroidered on her Cowgirl shirt matched his. Even the pattern at the base of his bell-bottoms was the same on her suede skirt. 

He stood beside her hesitantly, careful to not disturb her – and also worried she would try to scare him like everyone else had. 

“Sorry, is it okay if I sit here? This isn’t going how I thought it would.” 

“Oh, parties are for sure the worst part about Halloween.” 

Ken’s head tilted to the side, curious. 

“Worse than bat?” 

You smiled at him, patting the porch next to you, gesturing for him to join. 

“You mean bats? Like fruit bats? I think they’re cute.” 

“Cute?! Bats are much more dangerous than people realize. Even I know that. You know, Zoologist is not even my job. And it is not Pumpkin Carver, which is a common misconception. Yeah – ‘cause actually my job? It’s just–” 

“Beach? And what a good job you do at it? I saw the movie.” 

You watched as his brow furrowed. 

“What movie? Everyone keeps talking about some movie, did I miss something? All we have at home is The Wizard of Oz and The God Father and neither of those have beach.” 

“Oh my gosh, you haven’t seen it? You don’t even know?” 

“Know what?” 

“Is that even legal? Can Mattel release this without, like, asking for your permission?” 

“Permission for what?!” 

You took his hand, standing up. He followed suit, proving to be much taller than you’d expected. He kind of towered over you – and you had boots on (to complete the Ken look, of course). 

“C’mon, I’ll show you, but it’s going to be really weird to watch yourself and it will probably make you have some sort of existential crisis where you realize you were created by someone in the 60s.” 

His face screamed confusion, but he followed you anyway, the two of you strolling through the damp rain-soaked streets from this afternoon’s storm. The theater was only a few blocks away so you didn't mind walking – and it was nice to see the decorations and lights through the windows from parties.

“Hey, did you notice we’re matching!” 

“Yeah, Ken, I’m dressed as you.” 

He stopped walking, his boot spurs scraping the pavement. You stopped too, turning to face him. 

Tears were welling up in his eyes. 

“You… You dressed up… as me?” 

“Yeah. So did he. And him, and her, and them too.” 

You pointed to some of the trick-or-treaters (and even their parents) that walked on the sidewalks beside you. He hadn’t noticed, but you were right. All of them… All of them were dressed as him. And even he knew choosing a costume was a very important – maybe the most important – part of Halloween. 

“You mean… I’m cool enough that people here in the Real World want to look… like me?” 

His eyes were shiny and huge like a cartoon character. He looked ridiculous, falling apart right here in the road, the glow of the streetlamps glittering around him, but it did pull at your heartstrings a little. 

“Ken… You don’t get it. You’re an icon right now.” 

“I don’t know what that word means.” 

“Like… this movie. Everyone saw it to just have fun with their friends but you really changed a lot of people’s perspectives on some really important stuff. Mojo Dojo Casa Dreamhouses were flying off the shelves – gosh, you were even the most popular tattoo! You taught people something here – showed them a part of themselves they didn't know how to put words to.” 

“What is a tattoo?” 

You remembered it too, the first time you saw it and laughing before watching your friends bawl their eyes out towards the end. Here in The Real World you had heard about Skipper (although N-SYNC was a surprise…) so you knew it was possible, but it never dawned on you that the Barbies and Kens had no idea that you were all watching. Except Allen, for some reason. 

You watched as he just got more and more confused, taking his hand once again and guiding him to the theater. 

“Hey… is that a picture of me?” 

“Yes, Ken, that’s an advertisement for the movie.” 

He really didn’t have any idea. 

“Two tickets for Barbie please!” 

The guy in the booth was dressed as a vampire, Ken’s decidedly mortal enemy as of the last 24 hours. He looked awestruck. 

“Is that Ryan Gosling?” 

The two of you replied in unison;

“Who’s Ryan Gosling?” 

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀ ⋆｡°✩ 🕸⋆｡°✩⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

[makriiii]

Wary accord (Arthur morgan × f!reader)

Summary: Invited to Angelo Bronte's garden party, you couldn't see anything fairing well. However, as the evening fades to night, and nothing goes wrong, you let yourself enjoy it more than you planned.

Word count: 3.4k

Authors notes: This is just a one-shot with heavily referenced themes from my ongoing series rn - Caught. I had to take a break from writing hardcore and unadulterated angst. ☠️ I'm also open to any suggestions, so send them in! ;)

Warnings/tags: Lots of fluff, 90% sfw, mentions of wounds, guns, some angst.

Ao3!

Pt1 to Caught!

♡

Wary Accord.

Jack ran into his fathers arms with glee, you were just as happy as he was that he was safe and okay.

You were sure this night would've ended in blood shed. Instead, you begrudgingly had to do Bronte's dirty work, handling some grave robbers with Arthur and John.

You didn't much enjoy partaking in being nothing more than a lackey, especially for someone like Angelo Bronte. This made even worse when you heard what Dutch had to say.

"Mr. Bronte has invited us to a garden party at the mayors house." He announced, still seeming unbelieving in the invite himself whilst he chuckled. "And us, just simple country folk."

This didn't delight you, fully willing to stay behind that day if you could, but you feared something might go awry and it'd be best if you were there to help. You felt much with Arthur and John there. Plus, that Dutch. He has his way with his words, and you trusted those words.

-

You'd been busy helping Pearson all day, the whispers of dusk finally upon the camp. Ready to relax, you sat up against a tree near Hosea looking forward to dinner when you were suddenly startled awake by Dutch.

"Come on!" He shrieked, "If we are gonna make it to this party, we sure as shit better clean up a little."

The party. You'd completely forgotten about the party. Your original plans for the night squandered.

"So we're doing this?" Arthur asks, disbelieving you were to actually attend.

"Oh yeah." Hosea acknowledged. "Old friend Dutch Van der linde has finally shown his true colours." He teases.

Hosea could always make you smile, if not full on laugh. "Social climbing." He states flatly.

"Old Signor Bronte, that horrendous snake has invited us to the ball, Cinderella." He addressed to Arthur. You'd be sure to tease him with that later on.

"So my suggestion is we go and get you a gown." He chuckles, Hosea laughing along with him.

While they walk by, you try not to catch attention, putting ur hat lower over your face, to which Hosea comes over and flicks it off.

"You too y/n. We don't want to insult Mr. Bronte." Hosea chimes in front of you chuckling softly.

You got up hesitantly to travel into town with them, knowing your fate long since been sealed.

-

Your mares gait matched Arthur's. It wasnt long since you had made it into town with a group of people you never saw yourself attending a ball with.

"Arthur?" You glance to your side to see if you had his attention.

His eyes met yours instantly when you asked his name oh-so-calmly. "What is it?"

"Have you been to a ball before?"

"No," he gives you an airy laugh. "Not too many people like me have."

"Well, I hope you know how to behave then." You poked fun at him, your usual goal.

"Yeah? And what would you know about behaving?"

"More than you I reckon. We'll see who gets booted out quickest."

"Deal." He jokes, nodding with a funny look on his face.

"You know, I hope it's not too costly, I don't see another occasion that I'll use a dress again." You murmured, trailing off into your thoughts, counting the money you had now in your head.

"I can see that," he coughs a laugh out, looking you up and down. "I've never seen you in somethin' so fancy."

Your brows furrow, knowing the meaning behind his tease.

"I'd like to see you run around in a thick skirt, Morgan. I don't think you'd be so tough anymore." A grin splits across your face as the image of him with a skirt on whilst chasing someone down on foot crosses your mind.

"You doubt me too much." He fights back a small smile that tugs at his lips. "I could outdo you first try."

You started giggling when the little Arthur in your head tripped over and tumbled in response to his bet.

He raises a brow, questioning your sudden fit of laughter with just a glance.

"You wanna take me up on that offer? We'll race." Then, you thought of bringing heels into the equation.

You stopped him before he went to speak in between wheezes, adding the heels into the challenge. Now he didn't look so confident.

"If you can find a pair of heels that would fit me." He couldn't help but give up on his faked seriousness, all while you couldn't contain yourself.

You looked down to his feet, wiping tears from your eyes as you observe his feet.

"Don't think there's any that'd fit your fat feet."

"Well then, You're outta' luck ain't ya."

You exhaled sharply, calming your chest after all that cackling. "But we have to find the perfect slipper for you, Cinderella."

"Oh, shut it-" He pauses mid sentence to point to a store with dresses and suits on display. "Think that's our place, y/n." Dutch, Bill and Hosea already dismounting in front of it.

You sat in awe as you turned your horse to the ties right outside. You hadn't noticed this the last time you were through here.

"Careful, don't lose yourself in there." He snickers, dismounting with you. Clearly you had made your gawking too obvious.

"Oh please," you swat at him as you both walk for the door. "I'm not that bad."

When he opens the door to the inside, the slightly cooler air relieved you, everything smelt fresh, polished wood and all. This wasn't a place for an outlaw, made all the clearer when you spotted the clerk.

The store clerk instantly looked taken aback by your groups presence. Maybe you should've considered leaving your guns outside.

He wasn't all for you in his store, but you greeted him as softly as you could, keeping your hands well away from your dangerous metal contraptions.

"What can I do for you... folk?" His voice shrill and accented with what you could only assume as french.

Dutch waves over Arthur, who gives you one last glance before they all go to a different part of the shop, leaving you awkwardly standing there alone.

The man walks up to you after sorting out Arthur and the rest of them. "I assume you're looking for an evening gown?"

You nod, "Yeah, something that isn't too costly?"

He hums his consideration, scanning you up and down. "Measurements?" He asks out of the blue.

Now your face flushed. You would have infinitely no idea, which made you feel even more dumb.

"I-" You look away for a moment trying to think if you even knew. "I couldn't tell you..."

He makes a noise as if he already knew, gesturing his hand at you to follow him.

He sped walk so fast to your surprise, you weren't sure why he was in such a rush, having you near to jogging just to keep up.

When you reached a paltry, bright room with fabrics adorning mannequins. He had you remove most of your outer clothing and equipment. Discarding it to a chair left of you.

He was rather swift with your measurements, wandering around to find a small selection of dresses that he said would fit, with some adjustment of course.

You picked the prettiest of the bunch, almost feeling like a little girl again. Getting a new dress. It excited you - mostly.

"I'll let you try these all on, and your little boyfriend can hobble over to see, whenever he's done. But- over there." Now he shoo'd you to a dressing room, he seemed like he was trying to get the lot of you out of his store swiftly.

The curtain slid aggressively behind you, leaving you stunned inside, which you shook off but not without an amount of confusion.

You groaned, forgetting just how much of a hassle getting on dresses was, it took you a good while each dress you tried on, thankfully only three.

Once you got down the last dress - your favorite - you heard Arthur chime from behind the curtain, startling you so bad you jumped to cover yourself.

(Leaving the dress desc vague so you can come up with your own.)

"Can I see?" He questions, a mere curtain being all that separates you. He'd seen you unclothed before, but now it felt different.

"No, I'm half-naked." You scolded, but your disgruntled attitude quickly washed away when your eyes widened with shock.

Your words had only seemed to rev him up. His hand grasped at the curtain, but you stopped it before it folded back any further, slapping away his hand.

"Quit that you no-good buzzard." You hissed, fearing that the rest of the gang would hear, which would be too much for you to bear.

He crows in response, but doesn't continue dragging the curtain further. "I've seen you much more indecent than that, y/n."

Your face runs hot with his words, prompting you to start swatting and punching at the curtain to get him away.

"Get outta here before the sales clerk thinks we're doing some silly business back here." You fussed, mumbling lowly enough just for him to hear.

This prompted a defeated sigh, from the other side of the curtain. "Just give me another minute." You half-consoled, not a shred of empathy for him.

He came for the dress no doubt, but he preferred no dress just as much if not more.

"Okay, okay." He laughs, his spurs clicked as he took a few steps back.

Pulling up the sleeves that rested just by your shoulders, you took a look in the mirror.

The dress revealed a hell of a lot more than what you were use to, your bullet scar on your arm prevalent, though you didn't mind as much as thought you would.

With this dress on, there was no room for guns. So you had come prepared with a small thigh holster, only allowing for a tiny pistol.

You weren't sure what you were to do with your hair. Tapping your foot, to which you realized, you didn't have heels neither. This all getting more costly than you had hoped for.

Nestling your hair up into a loose bun, you quickly gathered the rest of your clothes before you forgot them to stuff into your saddle bags.

When you finally pulled back the curtain, you glared at Arthur with a 'are you happy now?' look for a minute. He himself stood dashing, if you put it lightly. A regular tuxedo, even on him, looked way better than it should.

You only gave him a small grace period before you walked passed him to find some heels.

"Wait-" He reaches for your arm and holds you back. "Let me get a better look, Miss l/n."

You stood in front of him awkwardly, his eyes quite literally feasting upon you which made you anxious and squirmy in his grasp.

"Hmm." His initial ogle replaced by his typical sarcastic grin, which already had you ready to sock him. "Looks fine enough, I suppose."

"And you?" You made it a point to make it noticeable that you eyeballed him up and down. "They might not let you in." It was a lie, and he could tell.

"You shoulda seen your face when you first came out." Puffing his chest out, much too proud. You gave him a small slap to his bicep, shaking your head.

Meeting with Hosea, Dutch and Bill, you finished the rest of your affairs. Climbing into the back of a carriage to eventually join the party.

-

The mayors house was magnificent, and damnably large. It felt daunting as it loomed over you.

Your eyes caught onto all of the intricate wood decals that sprinkled the faultless paint job. Every thing well lit by the warm street lights.

It wasn't a place you felt you belonged in with the life you led. Especially not with the people that were attending; Corrupt politicians and crime lords.

This whole situation was brittle and you had to run it nicely - not peeve anyone off.

A man greeted Dutch, then told the lot of you, no guns. No one suspected you of your gun, delightfully. So you followed everyone inside after they unenthusiastically handed over their weapons.

when you reached the inside, you flicked your head around to catch all the details in the interior. You had really only heard talk of such extravagant places like these. Certainly an experience, you thought.

Dutch looked to you, Hosea and Bill and told you to join the party whilst him and Arthur followed the man who led them to Bronte up a flight of stairs.

Your face soured, you had only a faint idea on how to seem a natural when speaking to the high flyers. Never the less, you did.

Eventually, you spotted Arthur who finally had left the balcony where he conversed with Bronte and Dutch. You dismissed yourself from the two men you spoke with, making your way to him.

"So? Did you find anything out?" You question, hoping he found out more than you had.

"No... not really. He suggested a take at the trolley station."

Your brow strung up. A trolley station? That sounded unusual to you.

"Good money, I suppose?"

He wasn't so sure either. "So it sounds. Dutch seems to trust it."

"Very well then." Nodding your head, in acceptance. "Whats he want us to do next?"

He hooks your arm in his abruptly, feeling a blush heat your face with his sudden act of affection.

"Try to talk to the mayor, get info." He says lowly, leaning over slightly as he walks with you to a group of men.

They stood in a small circle, chattering amongst themselves, scolding a man to their right that was much too drunk.

Arthur waited a moment before releasing you and reprimanding the man himself by touring him out. Leaving you with them alone.

They greeted you, to which you introduced yourself, waiting for Arthur to return, which he did, promptly.

They exchanged pleasantries for only a second before a series of pops interrupts their speak.

A splatter of blazing colours fill the dark sky, instantly captivating you. This wasn't something you'd seen before in all your long years of life.

You automatically pulled Arthurs hand to get a better view together. The sounds of the crowd behind you gasping and awing amongst the booms that sounded from the sky.

The bright twinkling and sparkling only lasted seconds each, spirals and scatters, each their own neon colours.

Greens, reds, blues, faded into smoke that matched the parted clouds, new splashes of colour never seizing to paint the gray and black behind them.

You stood in front of Arthur, sinking your head into his chest, gazing at all of the captivating lights before you.

Maybe your feelings for Arthur held you tighter than you cared to admit. He was still the one who had committed atrocities against you, which you weren't so quick to let go of.

Spinning around, you looked up to him, the blue in his eyes would perfectly match the skies if it were day, instead reflecting all the crackling lights you missed with your back turned.

"You know how to dance, don't you?" You beam, his hand in yours.

"No?-" He questions, not anticipating just what you had in store for him.

"Perfect!" Your hand tightens around his, leading him to the gazebo that stood not far from where you gathered just a moment before.

"I don't reckon we have time to embarrass ourselves right now."

"Oh, yes, you do. Believe it not, I still recall getting taught how to dance when I was younger." Snickering as you reveal your plans to a reluctant Arthur.

Stepping inside the lit gazebo, you glance around to make sure its clear. Smiling when you confirm it is.

"Ready?" Catching his hand before he felt he could change his mind - not that he had much of a choice in the first place.

He grumbles, but that tiny little spark in his eye proving he wasn't all that terribly put out by this.

His arm slowly slid down and around your waist, drawing you in close, in turn your arm raised up to his shoulder.

"Okay, now just follow my lead." You moved one foot back, the front of his shoe found your toes faster than you had imagined.

He corrects himself, much to the relief of your foot. "Shit- sorry."

"We'll go slow." You giggle, finding it funny that you were teaching Arthur of all people how to dance.

Which each step, his foot still strayed a few times, but he got the hang of it quickly.

"See? It's not so bad. But if you're still embarrassed from stepping on me, I can understand." Feigning a look of pity and a half hearted pat on his shoulder.

"I enjoyed stepping on them more than not." He shoots back, his timing lining up with the moment your heel caught on a loose board, nearly loosing your balance but Arthurs arm around you remained firm, holding you up.

"Not so tough are we, y/n?" He chortles, your pride hurting more than your feet.

You couldn't help the sheepish laugh that left you. "I demand you respect your teacher, Mr. Morgan."

"Or what? There ain't much you can do about it."

"We'll see about that." You challenge, returning to a slow rhythm. He never released you from his tight grasp.

Your bodies never left each others for the entire time, you both relished in it more than you'd ever address.

His hand eventually found your arm, his fingers gently brushing the double sided scar that he had punished you with upon your first meeting.

Dwelling for a few moments, he runs his hand up and over your collar bone, then meeting your chin. His gaze was soft, no trace of his typical cocky expression.

"I didn't mean what I said earlier." His thumb caressing the bottom of your plush lip.

"I-" He stops you from what he already anticipated you saying. Shaking his head.

"Not another word from you." He leans down, his mouth meeting yours. The most gentle show of affection he had shown you to date.

You leaned into it for as long as it lasted, cherishing each second it dragged further.

When he pulled away, there was a look you'd never be able to place on Arthurs face. You'd never forget it, that you could count on.

"I don't like that all the other men here get to see you like this too." He confesses, glancing over to the gathering, jerking upright when he spots something he didn't expect.

"I hope I'm not being too brash as I interrupt you two love sick fools." Dutch as much himself as ever with those words.

You and Arthur finally released from your embrace, standing side by side as if you both just got caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

Dutch hollered out a hearty laugh, the ability to stay mad lost with the guilty looks you both held. "Save it for camp... now I heard mentions of Cornwall from Mr. Mayor and one of his men. Quickly both of you."

He chased you of the gazebo effectively, Arthur sighed as you strode back to complete the mission you'd been sent on.

-

"Oh good, I was starting to regret sending you both in there together." Dutch waited no time to tease you both further, making it obvious to Hosea and Bill who had a good laugh about it too.

"Yeah, yeah. We got somethin'." Arthur confirms, waving off the insult.

"Well then," Hosea chimes, excited with the news. "Think it's time to go."

That you could agree dualy on, your eye lids started to gain weight, desiring nothing more than to return to camp.

You all made for your ride back, collecting their guns on the way out, some speak of a bank heist along the way, which definitely prompted skepticism in you. As most of these takes did.

The carriage rolled up to you, not much time spent in terms of getting in. All of you wanted out of there.

Bill's voice haughty and filled with contempt as he complained about the 'high society pigeon shit.' Which plastered a drowsy smirk on your face.

Instinctively, you sat next to Arthur on the way back, dozing off on his shoulder not long after the carriage lurched shakily over the uneven cobblestone roads.

Guys I proof read this at 3 am so ignore any mistakes...

[heich0e]

BACKGROUNDER - the one that got away!kuroo

note: hello!! if you're seeing this post, you probably clicked through from this fic, and if not... well that's ur own journey <3 this is a collection of posts from my #the one that got away!kuroo universe, which offer context to the main story but aren't strictly necessary—like... further readings, i guess. i contemplated how best to direct people here, and in order for you to most easily access this info, i settled for this post!! under the cut are all of the asks/text posts that ultimately culminated in the full fic, arranged in chronological order for your viewing convenience:

original text post: not to kill the vibe but kuroo tetsuro does give me big 'guy who isn't ready for marriage but then gets married to the first girlfriend he has after the two of you break up' energy for reasons i cannot quite put my finger on

> n to rub salt into the wound, you thought for sure you and kuroo would marry

you didn't think the breakup would stick. you always thought—or hoped, maybe—that the two of you would find your way back to each other when the time was right. but not even two years later (which feels so SOON, even though it isn't really) you see that he's engaged to a girl—a perfectly nice, normal girl, that you can't even bring yourself to hate because you know all too well what it's like to be in love with tetsuro. know what it's like to want a future with him. and you can't blame her for it, even if you resent her for being the one who gets it.

> after the wedding who do you go with? are you drunk out of your mind

you aren't invited. that stings. but you think it might have been worse if you did end up getting one of those beautiful, unnecessarily elaborate invitations in the mail. 

you run into kuroo a few months before the ceremony at a mutual friend's birthday party. end up talking. the wedding comes up accidentally more than anything—maybe someone else mentions it, maybe you ask, maybe he tells you like he's repenting for a sin he didn't commit—and he stumbles through an unbearably awkward explanation (that he doesn't even owe you) as to why you weren't invited. but you know even if he says it in nicer, easier to swallow words, gilded with white lies: it would be weird. it would be wrong. it wouldn't be fair to anyone. not to him, or to you, or to her.

you get drunk the night of the wedding and hook up with the guy you've been fucking for the past few months, who you're pretty sure doesn't even know what you do for work even though you've told him multiple times. all your friends are dressed up and celebrating, and you're throwing up in the hotel bathroom by 2am while the guy sleeps in the bed a room away—completely, blissfully unaware of what's happening on the other side of the wall, let alone at a glittering venue across town.

you envy him for it.

> does kuroo still love reader? does he love her?

he does still love reader AND love his fiance too. maybe in different ways. maybe his love for reader is like guilt. maybe his love for his soon-to-be wife is more like atonement. i don't think it took kuroo very long to realize what he did to you was, well, sort of cruel. i think he regrets it deeply and thinks about it often. in a fucked up sort of way it makes him better to his new partner, because he doesn't want to hurt someone like that again because of his own immaturity. it's unfortunate, but it's like she gets to reap all the benefits of the growth he experiences at your expense.

> Will it ever get better for you after kuroos wedding

of course it will. that's the really weird thing about heartbreak: life just keeps going. you feel like your heart has been cleaved out of your chest, but then you just... go to work. you do your laundry. you read a new book that becomes an all time favourite. you spend time with your friends and family. you go on dates. you learn all the lyrics to new songs. you celebrate holidays and birthdays. and one day you realize it's been years and you're in a totally different part of your life now, and the boy you thought would one day be holding your hand on your deathbed doesn't even know what the inside of your new apartment looks like. and you don't know what his looks like, either. and it's still sad, and hard sometimes, but all you can do is keep going. keep trying to find new happiness even if it's not the one you wanted. and hope that somewhere out there he has a new favourite book too. 

> think of Kai who was secretly pining for you during your relationship with Kuroo. Yet, he still doesn't have it in him to confess his feelings. So, he does the next best thing: he becomes your booty call. But when you slip during one of your hook-ups--when you moan Kuroo's name--he realizes it would never work out between the two of you. Your heart is so full of Kuroo that there's no room for him.

kuroo is so beloved by the people around him that i don't think there's a friend in his life who would EVER betray him like that—even if they did have feelings for you. even more than that, a lot of the friends that he introduced you to during your relationship (who you got close to) seem to grow distant after the breakup. even though it was his fault, really. even though you were their friend too. they just seem to naturally gravitate back to him, like belongings that are divvied up after a divorce. and there's no hard feelings. they don't dislike you, or even do it consciously, it just... happens.

you do definitely call out tetsuro's name when you're hooking up with other people though. it never ends well.

> sorry if u’ve already answered this but how long did kuroo and reader date?

they met in high school, and always had little crushes on each other but it never went anywhere. kuroo FINALLY confessed at graduation (he tried to be rly smooth like the shoujo protag he isn't and almost botched it) and they started dating at 18. they dated for a little over 5 years. broke up at 23. kuroo stayed single for a while before he started dating his (eventual) wife, and they got married at around 26. reader moved away from Tokyo when she was 28-29. and reader and kuroo are both in their mid-to-late 30s when the fic opens!!

[justaghostingon]

Jiang Yanli does Legally Blonde

Winning in the courtroom with the power of soup!

When it began, jiang yanli was a girl with everything, a rich family, two lovinf brothers, and a beautiful finance who was going to go to college with her (she’s taken a few years off for her health, but now she’s got the chance!)

Or so there parents planned, simce the two of them are in a rather old-fashioned arranged marriage

But while they’re waiting for their acceptance letters, Jin Zixuan grows more and more distant, before angrily revealing he doesn’t want to go with her, because he “doesn’t want to be stuck in some mediocre school with miss mediocre”

And he says this to her face, in the middle of a party their parents had organized.

Jiang yanli js devistated, and even her brother punching him in the face does not make her feel better. Her engagement is annulled, and the man she loved thinks only the worst of her.

But jiang yanli has her pride. She would have let him go his own way and never crossed paths again…except…

In that one summer, everything goes wrong. Her parents die in a car crash that was obviously premeditated but no one can prove it. Her father’s buisness goes under and all of their money is left to the Wens, who havr some how became the beneficiaries over his own childern, even if jiang yanli knows there’s no way her mother would ever agree to it.

She loses jiang cheng to fostercare (he’s still 17) because apparently she “can’t provide him proper stability” and wei ying, newly turned 18, goes missing after trying to investigate their parents deaths.

Now with no way forward, and a need for a high ranking job stat, jiang yanli turns to the only option she has left: the Harvard application she had secretly applied too to surpise her then fiance

But its fine! Its not like he’d go to harvard! Its so focused and uptight! He has so many other options…

Nope. He’s here. And the first thing he does when he sees her is stand up and shout to the whole class “Are You Stalking Me?!!!!”

Jiang yanli: … (deep breath and under her breath) think about ur brothers think about ur brothers

Jin zixun: who did u bribe to get in?

Jiang yanli: i applied and got accepted, the same as everyone else.

Jin zixun, who had to bribe the dean to get in: ….

Then class begins, and its even worse. Jiang yanli is not made for this kind of harsh lifestyle. She keeps seeing the best in the clients, doesn’t approve of the dirty tricks, and is all around having a bad time

And when class ends, jin zixuan leaves with a girl on his arm, who jiang yanli is pretty sure is called mianmian, and always used to hang around jun zixuan when they were together. Was she who jun zixuan really loved?

(Mianmian is not dating jun zixuan. She would not date him if u paid her. But she is his best friend. And you can bet she’s gonna cal him out for making this all about him)

Also jiang yanli’s financial status gets leaked, and nasty rumors are spreading about how she’s chasing the riches she used to have by trying to get jin zixuan back. Now the rich students don’t want to hang out with her, and the scholarship students think she thinks she’s better than them so they don’t want to hang out with her either

Jiang yanli doesn’t realize this until she shows up to what she was told was a costume party in traditional chinese dress only to find it is not one.

But she’s not the only one in this predicament, because Meng Yao got invited too, and came in a traditional chinese costume too, albeit a cheaper made one.

Jin zixun starts making fun of meng yao, teasing him for wearing a “dress” and having no sense of porpriety, and being a bastard bottom feeder son of a whore-

And then jiang yanli shows up. Jiang yanli has had quite enough of the Jins by this point. But she has an advantage meng yao lacks, she had to grow up with them. She knows their Weakenesses.

It takes her five minutes to completely dress Jin zixun down, make him look like the unreasonable and uneducated fool for making fun her her and meng yaos costumes, and meng yao look noble in compairison

then she proceeds to link arms with meng yao and drag him around the room with her, the very image of a beautiful couple costume that every other couple should envy

Now jiang yanli doesn’t actually know who meng yao is, nor does she realize he’s not another student, but actually a grad student who’s passed the bar, but she is thrilled to meet someone so nice who is willing yo listen to her rant about how hard law is

Meng yao is hers now. He is not getting rid of her. He is small and nice and clearly needs hugs and soup. And goddamnit she misses having someone to spoil!

Meng yao doesn’t know what’s going on, he doesn’t know what this lady’s angle is, but he’s more than willing to teach her how to study in exchange for some soup and spoiling

He’s definitely thought about marrying her. It would definitely humiliate jin zixuan if his fiance chose his bastard brother over him. But she’s just so sisterly anything romantic feels incestuous (rip canon jiggy) besides, he doesn’t need to date her. Because everyone else already thinks they’re a couple

Including jin zixuan, who absolutely got an earful about losing jiang yanli to “that bastard” from his mother

Meng yao makes certain jun zixuan gets a front row seat to seeing what a wonderful and caring person jiang yanli is …and how meng yao is treating her SO MUCH better!

Cue jin zixuan seething with jealousy when he sees meng yao holding the door open for jaing yanli, who gives him that beautiful smile, did she ever smile at him like that?

Mianmian: i thought you wanted her to leave you alone? Why are you getting jealous now she’s clearly not thinking about you?

Jin zixuan: I DONT KNOW!!!

So with meng yao’s help, jiang yanli is doing so much better in the courtroom, so good that she ends up as an intern with jin zixuan and mianmian.

Jiang yanli is thrilled! Her plan to save her family is going so well!

Then she meets the client, and that becomes way more relevant

Because its wei ying

Wei ying who is suspected of the murder of wen ning, and her teacher is trying to get him to plead guilty.

Now jiang yanli has to win this case, and prove him completely innocent, even when he’s refusing to tell her what really happened

To make matters worse, her teacher gets her alone in typical legally blond fashiom, puts the moves on her, gets rejected, and subsequently fires her

Jin zixuan walks in on them before things get bad, giving jiang yanli the chance to escape, but jiang yanli can see the disgust in his eyes and knows what he thinks of her

She’s about to leave when she runs into of all people, Wen Qing, who comes with proof wei ying didn’t kill wen ning, that wen ning is alive and hiding in a hospital, and begs her to save wei ying

And jiang yanli isn’t about to abandon her brother, no matter waht anyone thinks of her

And because this is legally blonde universe, and no one needst to pass the bar to represent in court, she’s going to take her brothers case from her teacher and save the day!

Meanwhile jun zixuan realizes he has the mortifying task of telling his half-brother his girlfriend who is jin zixuan’s ex girlfriend was cheating with the teacher

Not that meng yao seems to believe him

Did she offer him soup?

No!

Then she’s not interested in him

But he was…shw was…

A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do…unless u’ve got some kind of problem with sec work?” Mwng yao glares and jin zixuan realizes who he’s talking too

Mianmian interupts their argument of womens rights to poimt out that “you left her alone with that teacher? Famed sex offender?? Did either of you even think to warn her??? WTF???”

Oh. Goes Meng yao, rolling up his sleeves. That is a very different situation

So meng yao takes on the supervisory role for jiang yanli so she can represent wei ying

Jin zixuan uses his power and influence (and nepotism) to get mianmian and jiang yanli’s case against the teacher through the school board faster

And mianmian is here with the common sense

So jiang yanli manages to save the day, by proving thst not only was wen ning still alive, but wei ying was savinf him from his uncle who had planned to kill him off for tryinf to prove he stole the jiang buisness

When the dust settles, jiang yanli has got her brother back, her fortune in the process of being restored, and finally a steady enough job to get jiang cheng’s custody transfered back to her

And also a very, very apologetic jin zixuan, who is very determined to make it up to her through very expensive gifts (like helping her get said custody of jiang cheng)

She’s willing to let him be “a friend” again, but meng yao puts him through two more years of assuming he’s a third wheel before letting him know he and jiang yanli aren’t a couple and she’s prob take him back if he begged really hard.

And in the end, jiang yanli becomes a world famous lawyer, with a rich trophy husband a buisness partner in meng yao, and two brothers who will not stop giving her trouble

[mysteriawrites]

hello it is me hi hello

anyway…you already know from the server…

hi, im hannah!, im obviously swedish! my oshis are shu, luca, koto, and kyo…some wosemi too.

I’ve been doing dance for a super long time and i LOVE LOVE LOVE physical touch! (giving and receiving)

uhhh im bad at this

i tend to be a super fast typer so my messages always come out looking like gibberish

uhhh i hate calling but if im calling my bff or my s/o i will never hang up i love it sm!!

uhh, i tend to be pretty extroverted (due to my meds LMAOO) and im described as more of a golden retriever (however, i look like a black cat aporently)

SORRY IF THATS NOT ENOUGH ITS ALL I CAN THINK OF 😭💔💔

Luca Kaneshiro!!!

Congratulations Hannah Chan you got ur oshi! In all seriousness I think you guys would make a good pair.

You’re both sweet and energetic. You care a lot about the people around you and love to make friends. You also both try to hide your own problems and worries from others, but i think since you’re so similar it’ll be easier to notice and break each other out of these habits.

You and Luca met on somewhat unconventional means. It was the boss’s birthday and so he was having a big birthday bash with lots of people invited family, friends, and famous people alike.

You were hired as some of the entertainment. You were a well known and highly respected dancer and only the best of the best was expected at this party.

You had meticulously planned and practiced your performance for weeks until it was flawless. You had been told that this show could be a huge stepping stone in your career.

You arrived at the party in your finest outfit and set the stage for your performance. You were a bit nervous since it was such a large crowd of important people, but as every good performer knows: the show must go on.

Your show enraptured Luca to his very core. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. Your moves were so graceful and delicate yet bold and dynamic. He had to know who you were!

Sadly it was hard for him to get the time to see you given all the guests wanting to talk to you. By the time he got away from them your group had already packed up and left.

After the party Luca was on a mission to see you again and tracked down where and when your next show would be. He canceled all his plans and meetings to book a flight to your next location.

Was it an impulsive decision for someone he barely met? Yes. But something inside him was telling him he had to see you again.

You were in your dressing room one night after you last show when suddenly there was a knock at the door. You opened it to receive a delivery of chocolates and flowers with a note that said “Meet me at (insert restaurant here im too lazy)”

Sure you’ve had messages and gifts from creepy stalker fans before and you knew going was a safety risk. However something in your gut told you it was worth checking out.

And so you went. When you got there you were met with a familiar man with golden hair and amethyst hair.

Luca Kaneshiro finally found you.

Fast forward to you guys becoming fast friends and even faster lovers, you and Luca are a very active and energetic couple.

You both like moving and be being active. Him with working out and you with your dancing (which arguably is a workout in an of itself he has mad respect for you he couldn’t imagine moving like that). You guys stretch and go on runs together laughing and having so much fun it doesn’t even feel like working out.

~~and when you’re both sore afterwards you take a warm bath or shower together and give each other massages. Both activities may lead to a lot of touching 👀~~

Despite being busy with his work he always makes time for you as quality time is one of his love languages. He will always clear his schedule to go see your performances and spoil you afterwards because you deserve the fucking world.

He also uses dumb puns and pick up lines on you when you guys go on dates. Dates with you guys are usually a day out having fun and unwinding from your hectic lives. Like going to the amusement park (that he rented out for your whole trip) or going for a walk.

A couple with a lot of puppy energy that only has love to give. (I was gonna put more but this is getting too long)

Runners up: Vantacrow Bringer, Doppio Dropscythe, Yu Q Wilson

[mattslolita]

update bout the boy!

sooo today we got invited to our friends, FRIENDS party and cuz i dont drink or smoke or any of that stuff (BORING ASF IK 😭😭) i said yes but i dont wanna end up being dragged into all that. and cuz he does do those things 🥲he said yes aswel (no issue w ppl who do drink/smoke cuz nearly alllll my mates do but im jus not interested 💖). its on friday (short asf notice like cmonnnn!!! ) an i need to buy a dress, and he told me that i should get smth pink bc it suits me🤭so tmrw we r going shopping after schl but it finishes earlier tmrw which is greattt! and OMGG his sister bought me a silver watch covered in rhinestones and a pink face around christmas time. its GORGEOUS im literally in love w it (and him cl🤣 ) so he said i should wear that w it aswel!

and then today after schl he came over to mine to play xbox w my younger brother an my brother loves him sm its adorable 😍 so whilst they were playing fornite or wtv my friend who invited us msgd me saying "if he don make a move on friday ima blow his fucking house up IM DEAD FUCKING SERIOUS. WATCH ME BITCH!!😘😘😘💋💋💋" LMAOO 😭😭😭😭 i responded w "ME N U BOTH HONESTLY 🤭🤭"

before he left mine he came upstairs to my room and we were talking abt the party. THENNN he said "im not going to drink by the way" and i asked him why an he said "not letting u walk home by urself and if im drunk we r both gonna end up dead on the side of the road" 🫦😋😫 then he hugged me but he put his hands around my waist (SCREAMING BC WTF) an said he loves me (again not as in a confess his love for me 😓) an he cant wait to do smth actually fun in ages and hes happy im gonna be there aswell. CRYING HES SO SWEET 🥹🥹🥹

my friends were ft me like half an hour ago and kept saying that hes itching to say smth but hes scared an maybe he'll say smth at the party. IDK Y BUT I FEEL LIKE THEYRE SETTING SMTH UP HELPPP😭😭😭 they also kept telling me to wear a vanilla perfume and copy and pasted this into the gc "Scents with aphrodisiac properties are a magnet for attracting guys. So, you'll often find it's vanilla and cinnamon perfumes that attract men the most." AND "vanilla perfumes are a bona fide aphrodisiac with a proven ability to soothe, seduct and even increase arousal." STOP LMFAO IM PISSING MYSELF 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

BABY UR NOT BORING FOR NOT DRINKING OR SMOKING, ITS BEEN A YEAR SINCE I LAST DID LMFAOOOO

OH MY FUCKING WORDDDDD HES DEFINITELY GONNA MAKE A MOVE SOON CAUSE NO WAYS HES ACTING LIKE THAT AND NOT THINKING ABOUT ITTTTT STAWP IM LITERALLY SO EXCITED AND HAPPY FOR YOU YOU HAVE NO IDEAAA

UPDATE ME ABOUT THE PARTY AND SHIT I BEGGGGG

love u alwaysss🥰🥰

[obx-imaginess]

The Christmas Eve Party~John B {Fluff}

Warnings⚠️: none

Y/N'S POV:

{A week before..}

You and your mom was planning a Christmas Eve party at your family's huge beach house. Your mom decided to invite everyone and she sent u off to go put up poster and hand people invitations. You got in ur car and headed to the first location the Cameron's... You arrived at the Cameron's estate and get out ur car knocking on the door to their house as the one and only... Rafe Cameron opens the doors and smirks at u.

"you came to hook up again?" He asked u with a very seductive voice as u roll ur eyes.

"No Rafe I came to invite u to my moms Christmas Eve party she's hosting." You say annoyed as u hand him the invitation and and get back into ur car driving to the next location.

{You had almost finished inviting everyone except the "pogues" or that's what they call themselves the lower living trashy side of outer banks...}

As you were driving into the neighborhood u seen the last place and stopped the car grabbing the invitation and walking onto the dock were u seen the classic bad boy JJ Maybank as he looked u up and down and smirked.

"Damn girl you looking good." JJ smirks at u as u roll ur eyes and scoff.

"JJ shut up" You scoffed at JJ as u look at him, "actually is John B here?" U ask as JJ's eyes widen 

"um yeah he's inside why?" He asks curious now.

"none of ur business.." u say as u slowly open the door walking inside the house as u looked around it didn't look the best but it looked okay...

"John B?" You call out as u here his bedroom door open and he comes out of it in just some shorts and no shirt as u stared at his abs for a second.

He clears his throat before speaking, "what ki- oh um do I know u?" He asks confused.

"Oh um no but my moms having a Christmas Eve party and she wanted me to invite u!" U speak as u smile handing him the invitation.

"Thx! I'll totally be there!" John B says as u nod ur head and walking back to ur car getting in it and starting it. The rest of the day all u thought about was the shirtless John b. You tried everything to get him out ur head but u just couldn't...

{The day of the party...}

You had woke up and it was 1:23pm and u got up taking a quick shower before getting ur hair and makeup done. You were wearing a pretty red long dress and it had pretty white crystal flowers stitched into it. You had curled ur long brown hair and did more of a simple makeup look. You walked downstairs and everything was decorated in Christmas decor and u saw ur mom smiling as she was making cocktails and some other treats.

{Fast forward to the beginning of the party..}

You mom had u stand at the door and hand out cocktails to the guest as she started the music. The Cameron family was the first ones to arrive as u hand them all cocktails and welcome them in. It had been about 34 minutes since the party started and things were packed full and suddenly John B came in with JJ and Pope. You welcome them and hand them cocktails as the boys thank you for inviting them. Later into the party u were sitting down in a chair as John B comes up to u.

"Hey u wanna dance?" John B asks as he offers his hand as u gladly except it holding his hand as u walk onto the dance floor and he started slow dancing with you. 

"You're really pretty you know that?" John b looks at u as he says that and ur face glows a bright red and u giggle smiling at him.

"Thank you." You say still smiling in as he tucks a piece of ur hair behind ur ear as u get butterflies in ur stomach when suddenly he leans in and kisses u...

You were stunned but u kissed back. His lips were soft and he was gentle with u not like Rafe who was rough and harsh. Then suddenly Rafe comes up to u and John b.

"The fuck u doing with my girlfriend pogue?!" Rafe yells at John b clearly drunk and John B looks at u in shock can't believing he kissed rafe's girlfriend only u weren't 

"Is he serious y/n?!" John b says starting to get pissed

"No John B I swear he's just drunk!" U frantically say as both the boys look at u in shock as security grabs Rafe and takes him out side as u grab John b's arm and taking him up to ur bedroom. You close the door behind u and look at him.

"look I know u probably won't believe me but Rafe and me aren't dating we use to hook up during the summer and won't leave me alone ever since I don't like him John b! I like u.." you say as u panic realizing the last the words u had said.

"wha-?" He cuts himself off as he kisses u passionately. U kiss him back as he smiles against ur lips.

"y/n would u do the honor of being my girlfriend?" He stops kissing u and smiles at u.

"yes John b yeah I will.." you guys laugh and kiss eachother once again...

You're we're dating John B.... A pogue dating a kook never happens but it certainly happened with u and John B. It was love....

❤️Authors Note💚: This is my second Christmas Imagine! What do u guys think? Let me know whether u have some tips or ideas! Love you guys and Merry Christmas Eve!❤️🎄

❤️Decorating the tree or Wrapping the presents?💚

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

❤️Christmas Music or Christmas Movies?💚

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

❤️Eggnog or Apple Cider?💚

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

❤️Elves or Snowman?💚

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

❤️Staying in or going out?💚

[thatoneandlonelyemo2005]

gimme ur javey headcanons or i’ll make your kneecaps into soup <333

-🦡

do it you wont-

jk anyways

uuhhhh, so werid thing but not bc there the same people (kinda) I mostly ship Javid bc 1992sies is my life rn, and ONES JUST AN ARTIST AND THE OTHER IS A COWBOY

so if everything seems weird or anything, stab me

1992sies-

David finds Jack extra cute with his cowboy hat on

Their first kiss happened on David's fire escape while Jack was walking him home

Sarah saw it happen while she was looking for David to see if he was close to home

Sarah is so happy for them and gossip to Blink and Spot about this they lowkey girlboss and have tea parties

David is a blushing mess when coming in and Sarah smiles at him

Les asked if David was alright and all David could do was blush harder

When they have birthdays Jack always gets David a book or a new shirt (BECAUSE THIS BITCH WILL SAVE EVERY PENNY)

David would get him more dime novels and even a well-illustrated poster of cowboys (Sarah and Les chipped in even if David didn't want them too)

On a snowy day in New York everyone is playing but David is there looking at each Newsie UNTIL JACK CHUCKS A SNOWBALL AT DAVID and they have a snowball fight

Tumbler looks to Skittery and says " Skits, mom and dad are fighting again"

It's now like a playful civil war, UNTIL SPOT COLON COMES IN AND HELPS RACE WHO IS ON DAVIDS SIDE, JACK TEAM DIES

Jack learns about Hanukkah and ask questions

David's mom and Sarah all make the Newsies quilts each with something resembling the newsie its given too

All the newsies try to find something for them, they all pitch in to get Sarah and Ester a new dress, Myer a new razor, and Les a stuffed dog

Jack and David stay up all night talking while the windows open, either in the lodge or at David's house

On thanksgiving the whole Jacobs family makes a meal for all them AND the Newsies

David sometimes has to stay at home while his parents take Les to see their grandparents so he invites Jack over while Sarah goes spend time with Katherine

If his parents are out more than 1 day Sarah and him each get a day for the house all to themselves with their partners

OK NOW FOR JAVEY BC IDK WHAT IM DOING

Jack ofc draws Davey all the time

He even drew the whole family once

Sometimes they skip an hour or two to walk in the park

Once Jack dared Davey to climb a tree and he did,,,but he fell after word

Jack wouldn't stop apologizing Davey just kissed him to shut him up

Jack would invite Davey to see Medda and drink tea with her

Davey would discuss different scenes that Jack could paint while at this

They first kissed up on Jacks penthouse

Crutchie walked/climbed in on them the first time and called to Race who owed him a quarter because he was right to bet that Davey would kiss first

Jack found out how to make flower crowns

Davey was taught by Sarah how to press them in a notebook

He looks at said notebook when he misses Jack (mostly at night when he can't sleep)

Davey tries to teach Jack how to dance

He fails a lot but at least he can dip Davey and kiss him

He also tries to teach Jack how to read better

Well he dose to most of the Newsies but like Albert and Elmer they need extra time to learn

Jack has many issues so dose Davey so they both help each other

And they have new ways to help each other all the time

[eldritchships]

this is ur invitation to talk abt gravesly !!

THANK YOU I love you /p

So basic rundown on Gravesly, he's a Chain Chomp knight who works for Bowser. He's very dedicated, stoic*, and spends a lot of his time either working or training, because being a knight has been his life's dream. I've spoken about him a lot but I figure it's good to cover the basics in case anyone hasn't heard about him yet.

*Gravesly's a humanoid, so all of his Chain Chomp traits came from a magical spell gone awry. So even though he is stoic, if put under enough strain, his temper can get the best of him and he starts baring fangs and barking and acts more erratically. Kind of a werewolf situation, I guess, but with a Mario Bros coat of paint over it. The visor comes up on his helmet and all you can see is sharp, pointy teeth, face completely disappeared. I think it'd be a running gag that most of his outfits (E.g. for the sports spinoffs or even just casualwear) have a hood or something, if not still wearing the helmet even with normal clothes, so the Chomp teeth are still able to appear the same way.

Gravesly has probably met most of the important characters by now, Mario, Luigi, Peach etc. Gravesly's relationship with Peach is complicated. He is originally from the Mushroom Kingdom, so he was on the path to one day become a knight for her. When Gravesly got back following the accident (the aforementioned magical mishap), Peach never visited him, and he left the next day before she could do so. Which is of course Gravesly's perspective of how things went, a bit of an unreliable narrator. There's also the whole thing about, y'know, Bowser continuously trying to kidnap and/or marry her, which does cause Gravesly to feel some doubt about his own feelings for Bowser. At some point I think I'd like to write Gravesly and Peach having a proper conversation, after everything that's happened.

Here's everything I had figured out ages ago for a Gravesly boss fight. I don't have a good pick for his boss theme yet but I've described it as 'DOOM soundtrack if it were made for a Mario game'

Also I forgot I had this gif saved but I imagine if Gravesly did get aggro without his helmet on it'd look something like this ⬇️

Alright, going into Mario movie stuff so under the cut in case anyone's avoiding spoilers

I think Movie!Gravesly is just about the same, everything still works within the little changes they made in the movie's canon. There's three scenes from the movie I can specifically see Gravesly being featured in:

The party with all of Bowser's troops. He's off to the side, not really partying. He's not much of a party or music guy, which is way funnier with "Jam with me" movie Bowser.

I don't usually super-impose my OCs over other characters in a scene, just because I prefer making them work on their own within the plot, but what if. What if Gravesly's the one Bowser practices his proposal on instead of Kamek. Yes he is wearing the dress and wig over the suit of armour. (This might also be when Gravesly starts realising some things about himself and his feelings towards his boss 👀)

Then of course Gravesly's at the wedding. Once again keeping to himself, possibly still dealing with whatever emotions he felt earlier. Because he is very combat trained, he is likely one of the first to get frozen, if only so there doesn't have to be a drawn-out fight scene.

[ashecampos]

As my bestie @bookaddict05 said “write me a modern Cinderella story but marvel” okay so yes she’s dragging me out of my writers block by my hair, so what imma try it.

Female Reader x

So anywho here’s ur modern Cinderella story.

Slipping on my baby blue converse I finally finish my outfit for the day, I look out of the window and it was quite sunny for New York, I shrug it off and grab my denim jacket which if I do say myself goes perfectly with the white dress I am wearing. I look in my mirror once more, fixing my golden hair once again before grabbing my keys and phone, stuffing both in my pockets.

Todays the day, I finally get to get out and go to the market. Finally.

“Y/NN!!” My stepmother shouts from the other room, I open the door to the room and smoke flows out of the clouded room. Wafting it away with one hand I squint to see my stepmother. “you called?” I say with a sweet smile “make yourself useful and grab me a pack of cigarettes while you are out” she shouts back a little too loud, i nod and close the door leaving her to engulf the room in smoke once more, once more am i glad we are broke, there is no fire alarm in this apartment complex. Meaning the wicked witch of Brooklyn, my step mother can stay in her room and be antisocial as she wants. As long as she doesn’t come and make my life more of a living hell. Enough of that, I grab my purse and head out of the apartment.

Walking the streets of NewYork is scary enough with the catcalling however now we have superhero’s, which of course comes hand in hand with the villains. Luckily enough the walk to the market didn’t hold any attacks so far, in the market I grab some fruits and a few packs of cigarettes as requested, I buy a few more things. As I walk out of the market I see a shoe stall, my eyes flicker over the shoes, one pair caught my eyes. I glittery pair of heels. $20. Goddamn it, so expensive. I sigh but as it seems the universe likes me today. “Hey you girl” someone says as I turn to walk away. I slowly turn around seeing red and blue, I look up a little and groan a bit, as I said earlier hero’s. And as it seems, the vigilante Spider-Man is stood in front of me.

“Can I help you?” I say looking at his mask finding it a bit weird to be talking to someone’s mask as due to being an actual human I am used to looking into peoples eyes to have a conversation not their lenses.. “did your see anyone in a purple and green outfit? old dude, kinda creepy looking fella.” He asks, as if I’m his last hope in finding whoever he is looking for. “Uh yeah, he went that way” i point down the rows of stalls, obviously lying to get this hero off of my back. The masked man does what I’d say to be a relieved sigh, he reaches into his pockets and hands me a $20 note then he says “get those shoes, they suit a damsel like you” just before he runs off the way I pointed. Just my luck, I shrug and buy the shoes, his treat.

I tumble into the apartment with those stupid paper bags in my arms, I dump the bags on the table in the kitchen, i then grab the packs of cigarettes and go to give them to my stepmother. I open the door and she is looking through her wardrobe, dresses are scattered on her bed. “I got you your cancer sticks..what’s the occasion?” I say curiously, as she never goes out.

“Get ready we have been invited to the tower for a party. Do you remember my friend Doctor Osborn? he scored us tickets to get in” she points at me as she takes the boxes of cigarettes and closes her door. I guess I should dress up then.

first though I put the shopping away, grabbing the heels and walking to my room. I flick through my clothes I own and find the perfect dress, a light blue satin dress, to go with this I choose my best jewellery. Gold of course, I put on the new heels and do my makeup and hair. An hour later I’m ready to do.

“Y/n hurry the fuck up our ride is here” my stepmom shouts from the other side of my door. I step out of the room and she huffs “you look like a slut” she mutters before walking to the door, I walk behind her as we go to the car, we then drive to the avengers complex.

-

Upon entering, we had no problem, we walk into the complex, there was like five bars in one room. That’s cool I guess “right now piss off and meet out front at 11:50 or I’m leaving you here, understood?” She says to me with a hint of hatred toward me. “Okay have fun” I say as she walks away.

-

I look around, grabbing a drink, while waiting I see a boy with brown hair. Cute. I keep looking around seeing all of the avengers in their party attire. The bartender slides the drink along the counter and just as I go to pay someone slides their card onto the scanner, I look over and it’s the same brunette I saw earlier, he smirks at me as he looks over to the bartender “put it on my tab Nat” he says with a wink to the girl.

-

I take the drink, knowing it’s not been spiked, of course I took it, a hot man just paid for it. “Thankyou” I say blushing a little “my pleasure damsel, nice shoes by the way” he smiles as he bites his lip a little, I smile at the boy while he orders his own drink, in this time I take the opportunity to look over the man. A dark blue suit and tie is contrasting against his white polo shirt, fancy.

-

Time flies, me and the man dance.A .Lot. we never ask any questions about one another, we didn’t exactly need to.

It only seemed like an hours dance but unknowingly to me it was already 11:55, I saw my stepmother from across the room, she looked pissed off, I excuse myself from the man and go over.

-

That was the last thing I remember, I am now locked in my room, the same outfit from the previous night on, my stepmother smoking in her room, there’s then a knock on the door, followed by “excuse me can whoever lives here open the door please” a deep familiar voice says. I can hear clattering and curse words outside my door. I crack the door open a little to see. Yes I picked the lock, can you blame me i am a curious creature.

And there he is. Spider-Man in my living room.

“We have received an anonymous tip that Doctor Norman Osborn is in this apartment. We have a warrant to search the place” he says sternly.

-

I keep quiet as the house is searched, I sit on my bed as he bursts through the door of my room. He freezes before closing the door and taking his mask off. “It’s you” he says in shock “it’s me” I smile a little “you can’t live here anymore, your mom is hiding a criminal in here, come to the avengers compound and live with us” he pleas holding a hand out for me to take.

[anxiouswritingbitch]

heyyy!! it would mean a lot if you could write some hcs on how nick furcillo would be during halloween 😭😭 tysm again i love ur blog ❤️

Hi ! Of course ! I hope you like it ! I wrote some stuff about Americans and Halloween but I'm European, so forgive me if I got things wrong lmaoo

Remember, requests are open in my inbox <3

ɴɪᴄᴋ ꜰᴜʀᴄɪʟʟᴏ ᴀᴛ ʜᴀʟʟᴏᴡᴇᴇɴ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ (ft. Jacob and the counselors)

First of all, Nick is Australian. He probably grew up there, so even if every country know what is Halloween and some people celebrate, nobody does it like America.

So yeah, when he got to the states, he was a bit confused. He felt like Halloween was like a religion there. Sure, he got trick or treating with a few of his friends when they asked, but he never lived the full experience.

Enters Number #1 Himbo : Jacob Custos. He is DETERMINED to make Nick love Halloween as much as he does. It's his life goal since summer.

Nick won't admit it, because he feels like saying "I want to go trick or treating" makes him sound like a child, but he's really excited.

Jacob has this idea to throw a party at his house and to invite all the counselors, Laura and Max included. We all know how the last party went, so it took a lot of convincing they're still traumatized lmao but they all say yes.

Nick stayed closest to Jacob after the events of the summer. They kept in touch and texted frequently, hence how Jacob learned that he had never had a proper Halloween.

SO. Party at Jacob's ! As we know, Nick was the cook at camp, so of course he was the one who baked all the sweets and made the candies. It's insane how much work he put to make them scary. He looked at recipes for orange food and even asked Abi for scary cupcake icing ideas. He stays the day at Jacob's, who spent it decorating the house.

He even makes punch Jacob adds most of the alcohol, because he saw American teens drink it at parties.

The costumes. Oh boy the costumes. That's probably what he is the most excited about. He chose to go with Dracula. He isn't white but who cares, not all vampires are pale. The clothes look very classy on him.

Speaking of costume, everyone got a vibe check by Jacob when entering the house.

Abi is dressed as a witch, Emma as cat-woman. Jacob went full nasty and dressed as a Hot Nurse. Laura came as Frankenstein and Max as Shaggy from Scooby Doo it fits his vibe sm, fight me. Kaitlyn is a gremlin, Dylan is Mr. Spock and Ryan is a zombie. Before you ask, yes they are all hot.

Dylan wanted Nick to be Crocodile Dundee, Jacob wanted him to be a kangaroo. Nick said they were being racist. Jokingly ofc.

Whenever the door rings, Emma or Abi go to open the door. Nick always takes a sneak peek at the kids' reactions to his candies. They love it. He's very happy.

Finally, it's trick or treat time. Of course, Jacob, Dylan, Kaitlyn, Laura and Nick go. The other are either too happy or afraid to go. Max stays mostly to watch over them. He has that mom energy.

Jacob is ON FIRE. He drags Nick everywhere with him, and Nick is living. his. best. life. It's definitely way funnier than when he was a kid.

Then something happens. They ring a house's bell, and an old lady gives them fucking Peanut Butter Butterpops. One bag. Kaitlyn and Dylan burst out laughing, Laura is lost.

The contest is ON. Whoever has the fullest candy bag gets to keep the treasure.

They stay out until way too late. And maybe are too drunk.

Nick ends up again winning the contest. But because he's a kind boy and that the whole thing was Jacob's idea, they share the bag.

Pretends that his bag is so full of candies because he wanted to give them to Abi. It's a lie it was for the butterpops, but a man gotta keep a face.

Nick really enjoyed the night, his tummy will probably burst from the candies and the expired butterpops (pop pop pop 'em in your mouth !) and he can't wait for next year to do it all again.

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter One

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen*

*I say it's an OC, it's just a name and third person POV. I use minor character descriptions because I don’t get on with writing vague reader inserts/YN for long-form, story heavy fics, but I will generally try to avoid including race and body type or really any physical descriptors. I’m always open to feedback on my writing, or how to be more inclusive.

WC: 14k

Chapter Warnings: angst, miscommunication, drinking, some fluff!! a cute flashback and a happy ending, references to poor relationships with parents/bad parenting (including minor mentions of maternally-encouraged disordered eating but not an ed), instagram stalking, allusions to cultural appropriation and problematic tweets, depictions of anxiety, a lot more words than necessary because it was like 23 words away from the next thousand and I'm nothing if not a yapper

Summary: Poppy Jensen’s job with the New Jersey Devils was supposed to be her first big step into adulthood - a way to prove to herself and her overbearing parents that she could make her own way in life. She was never supposed to become involved with any of the players. Becoming best friends with their captain was stupid. Getting her heart broken by him was tragic. Getting knocked up with his child was just plain messy.

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Prologue)

A/N: thank you thank you thank you for all your kind messages and feedback around the first part it really means a lot to me!! taglist included at the end, if you want to be added pop me a message :)

when I first started writing and mapping this series out I never intended to have split pov chapters cos that's !a lot! but I ended up writing so much more from Nico's perspective I literally never write male pov cos who wants to be in the mind of a man?? not me. but Nico comes easy to me what a man what a man what a mighty good man. he's a bit dumb in this series but who isn't. don't shame him. he is very precious to me.

Poppy

How Poppy ever thought she would have been able to get away with tricking Jack Hughes into forgetting she said she would come to his party by just waiting out his drunkenness, she does not know.

The guy is a nuisance.

Her phone has been blowing up since she and Nia started getting ready for their evening festivities, sharing a bottle of rosé between the two of them as they both sit in Poppy’s bedroom doing their hair and makeup.

Jack: What time do u think u’ll get here? 😬

Poppy: idk

She’d tried being somewhat aloof in the hopes he would move on from bothering her and she could let the wine do it’s intended purpose of blurring her mild irritation from the day, but she’s starting to think mild irritation is Jack’s middle name.

Jack: rough estimate?

Poppy: roughly? 🤔

Poppy: idk 🙂

Jack: cool

Jack: ur uninvited

Poppy: cool 

Poppy: see ya next year

Jack: ur reinvented

Jack: invited*

Jack: attendance is mandarin

Jack: mandatory* ffs

“Is that Hughes?” Nia questions the continuous buzz of Poppy’s phone. She’s sat on the floor in front of the mirror with a curling wand in hand, her hair 90% done and curls pinned up to set them. Nia has borrowed some of Poppy’s pyjamas, and is sat wearing a silk robe she didn’t even know she owned. “Dude needs a hobby.”

“Annoying me is his hobby, I think.” Poppy locks her phone and puts it face down on her dresser as she skims through her closet. She did have an outfit picked out already for her usual New Years celebrations, but bar hopping around New Jersey and attending a fancy private party with a bunch of rich athletes and their drop dead gorgeous partners are two different ballgames entirely. 

Poppy knows all too well what it feels like to turn up to an organisation event underdressed, and she won’t be making the same mistake ever again - even if this is a party held in a player’s own residence, she knows that people will be dressed up.

It’s New Years Eve, for sake - everyone will be primed for a photo opportunity for the instagram dumps, her usual trusty top, skirt and boots combo won’t cut it.

“Blazer dress?” She holds up her latest suggestion so that her best friend can see it. She’s worn this one a couple times before, knows it makes her legs look incredible when she pairs it with some pantyhose so she doesn’t have to worry about getting too cold on the way there, but it limits her shoe options if she is going to cover her legs.

“Boring,” Nia throws back, and Poppy isn’t even sure she’s looked, but she knew the second she pulled it out her friend would decline - it’s what she’s been doing at everything Poppy owns for the past half an hour.

Poppy’s thankful she hadn’t started by trying on the options, knowing that if she was in and out of all the dresses she’d suggested, she would be a hot, flustered mess by now.

“Surely you’re running out of excuses by now, Ni,” Poppy sighs, stepping away from her closet so she could stare down Nia’s reflection in the mirror she was sat before. “You’re being absolutely no help.”

Nothing has been right.

The red strapless dress that flared out at the waist? Too Christmassy. The navy blue one shoulder body con dress? Too millennial. The rhinestone silver slip dress? Too much. The black off-the-shoulder mini dress? Too plain.

There is nothing in Poppy’s closet that is going to appease her best friend’s tastes, so she doesn’t know why she’s bothering.

“Just give me 2 minutes and I’ll find the one, trust me.”

“Why have you let me stress about this for so long if you’re just gonna come over here and pluck out something random like you’ve had it in mind this whole time?”

“Because I like winding you up and watching you go, Pop.” Nia winks at her from the mirror, holding up her near empty glass. “Top us both up, babe, you still have your cranky pants on from earlier.”

“I’m not cranky.” She mutters to herself, picking her phone back up from where she had just discarded it, and collecting both their glasses to take back through her apartment into her kitchen. 

The device buzzes as soon as she sets it on the counter, but she ignores it in favour of pouring herself a drink, taking gulps of the rosé she’s just poured before topping both of the wine glasses back up with equal measures. She needs the extra pick-me-up to calm her nerves, and debates swigging down her second glass when she turns her phone back over.

Jack: ur grumpiness is contagious btw

Jack: u have broken my captain

Below Jack’s messages, he has sent through a picture. It’s a setting Poppy knows all too well, having only left a few hours ago after helping finish set up the party. In the midst of everything - decorations, attendees with drinks in hand chatting away and mingling with each other - Nico stands alone. He has his arms crossed, the sleeves of his sweater rolled up to his elbows, and he looks deep in thought. The people around him have turned into their own conversations, but he shows no interest in joining them, not in the picture at least. 

It’s not the way she remembers him to be - not the way the pictures that still litter the front of her refrigerator portray him to be. Front and centre in most of them, tongue sticking out or mouth open in a face consuming grin in all, drink in hand in a few. Her free hand lifts until her fingers graze over one of the pictures - taken when the Devils had thrown a party after they had clinched the playoffs at the end of last season. Nico and Poppy stood together, his arm slung around her, cheeks smushed together as the rest of the boys and a couple other friends from within the team pressed themselves into the frame, smiles so big she can barely see their eyes. 

She doesn’t know why the pictures are still up. She should have taken them down, by now. Made way for new memories. Pictures of her with Nia or any of her other friends, pictures of her with family, but she struggles to recall a memory as happy as the ones magnetised to her fridge door - none from the past few months, anyway. 

Her eyes dart back to the picture on her phone. Nico doesn’t seem himself, but, then again, he hadn’t seemed entirely himself earlier, either. The few smiles he had offered hadn’t quite reached his eyes, she had noticed, and he constantly broke out into nervous ticks - chewing at the inside of his cheek, scratching at the skin of his elbow when he folded his arms across himself, rocking on the heels of his feet. 

Sure, she hadn’t been the nicest to him, but that was the first time they had spent any longer than a minute in each other’s company since the summer, and she’d noticed him being off before that interaction.

He’d been similar when she’d seen him throughout the last week at work. Zoning out sometimes, eyes focusing on some far off spot until someone spoke directly to him and shook him out of it.

Whatever is going on with him isn’t her fault.

Her grumpiness is not contagious.

She isn’t even grumpy.

Poppy: not grumpy

Jack: he’s watching the door

Jack: has been since he got here

Jack: clearly waiting for someone 👀 

Poppy: maybe you should talk to him instead of texting me

Poppy: be a good host

Jack: he’s waiting for u 🙂

Poppy: not friends, remember? 🙂

Jack: popstar

Poppy: 🙄

Jack: pls hurry

Jack: he’s depressing me

“This one.” Poppy hadn’t even heard her best friend approaching, her lack of shoes and her featherlight step making her the perfect creeper. Nia is stood on the other side of the kitchen island, holding a dress between both of her hands. Poppy puts her phone back down on the counter and leans over it to properly assess what is being shown to her.

The dress is asymmetric, she thinks - she can’t entirely tell by the way Nia is holding it and she knows she hasn’t worn it before, can still see the tags attached to the label inside - one of the shorter ones in her closet, but not in the way she will worry about flashing her co-workers all night, and a boat neck so she doesn’t have to worry about it being too revealing up top. It ticks most of her boxes. Not too bright, not too showy. She’s pretty certain she’d shown it as one of her earlier options, but Nia had turned her nose up at so many things she can’t remember. She only wishes she had saved herself 30 minutes of irritation by not asking in the first place.

She reaches out to where Nia is holding it, feeling the fabric between her fingers, testing to see if she can see them through the material and breathing a sigh of relief when she can’t. She takes the garment out of her friend’s reach entirely and holds it up in front of her body.

“Are you sure? It’s not too dressy?” Poppy mocks, trying to catch her reflection in the glass parts of her kitchen cabinets. 

“It’s perfect,” Nia says, eyes pulled down by the flash of a new message on Poppy’s phone. Too distracted by trying to get a good look at herself, Poppy doesn’t notice her best friend pick up the device and start looking through.

She wouldn’t usually mind, but Nia has been dropping comments ever since she had arrived at Jack’s place earlier, and Poppy has only just been able to shrug off her commentary. 

“Why is Jack sending you weird, sad pictures of Captain Sexy?”

“Could you stop calling him that?” Poppy frowns, reaching back out for her phone only for Nia to pull it out of her reach.

“Oh my God, Pop, he’s waiting for you!” She pouts, flipping the screen to show Poppy the newest picture of Nico sat checking his watch.

He’s doing her no favours right now.

“Don’t you start with that, too. I don’t know why everyone’s so intent on blaming me for how sad he looks.” she scoffs, “He’ll be waiting for his girlfriend, Ni,”

“About that,” Nia taps away at the phone before turning it again towards Poppy’s glare. “There’s no trace of a girlfriend on his insta,”

“You’re probably checking the wrong one.”

“Nope. Checked both while you were in the shower before. Not even a sneaky hand shot or a corny Christmas stocking with her name on.”

“Give me that,” Poppy finally manages to snatch the cell back, crease forming between her brows as she frowns down at the device, scrolling through Nico’s private instagram where she knows for a fact there had been pictures of him and Talia earlier in the month.

It isn’t that she checks frequently, she just hasn’t unfollowed him yet - wasn’t ready to put the final nail in the coffin wherein lied their friendship, so to speak - and so she’d seen them as he posted them. And she had maybe tried not to throw up in her mouth and had cast her phone beneath a stack of cushions and throws on her couch to avoid it for a few hours after the fact.

The pictures of them in New York City have disappeared. As have the ones from early December, where they were looking at Christmas trees together, wrapped up in matching hats and scarves with sickly sweet loving gazes cast toward each other. Nothing in November, when Talia had started coming to games and he had posted something with a corny caption along the lines of her being his biggest fan. No carousels, no story highlights, and when she checks his following list, Talia is nowhere to be found. 

“Huh,” she mutters, going into the search function and trying to hide from her best friend that Talia is already one of the options there. She really needs to clear her history before that lands her in trouble. 

Her latest post is a photo dump from Christmas, Talia with her family, as well as a few other pictures of her in New York throughout December, no sign of Nico in any of them, and he hasn’t liked it. Hasn’t commented his usual red heart. She has no qualms about checking her story - she and Talia were never introduced, she’ll have no idea who she is or care that she’s viewing her story, and she’s a model with thousands of followers, Poppy isn’t sticking out to her at all - and squints to read the text over a video of fireworks before realising it’s written in German. She isn’t in New Jersey. She’s already in 2024 in a whole other timezone, and has left Nico behind.

No wonder he’s grumpy.

Not her fault, after all.

When Poppy snaps herself out of sleuth mode, she looks up to meet Nia’s knowing gaze. She looks smug. Like she’s caught her out - and Poppy can’t even deny that she has. “Stalker."

“You started it.” She huffs, pointlessly locking her phone knowing Nia knows the password and throwing it onto the side. 

“I was doing my due diligence as your best friend,” Nia shrugs, picking up the wine glasses as the pair make their way back toward Poppy’s room to finish getting ready. “If we’re heading into a New Year, we are doing so as new and improved women, Poppy. 2024 is the year of reconciliation!”

“I thought 2024 was the year of saying yes.” She mockingly references the mantra her best friend has been spouting since the start of December every time she made a somewhat irrational decision.

“That too, obviously.” Nia smiles big, waiting until Poppy has laid her dress out on the bed to hand her her drink over, holding her own glass out for a toast. “To saying yes to reconciliation!”

“You’re an idiot.” Poppy says, but clinks her glass, anyway. 

“No, you are, Pop.”

Poppy can’t shake the buzz of anticipation as the two girls finish getting ready, the previous pool of trepidation in her gut swirling into something a little more optimistic. 

It means nothing, she tries to tell herself as she fastens her earrings and fans her hair out down her back so it doesn’t get all tangled up in the hoops. Instagram isn’t a reflection of reality, Poppy, you know this.

There are several reasons the pictures could be gone. 

There is a high possibility he has archived the posts because someone leaked the photos of him and Talia. They were on his private account for a reason, and Poppy knows the guys have all had trouble with this kind of thing before - photos from private events being posted all across fan socials because someone had taken screenshots from a hacked account. And she also knows there had been some kind of discourse around Talia online - about some tweets she’d put out years ago or a photo fans had found from a halloween party where her costume wasn’t entirely appropriate - but Poppy had tried not to get lost in it. She didn’t want to form an opinion on the girl without having properly met her, considering they still technically operated in the same circles despite Nico’s insistence that he and Poppy no longer did.

Nico is a protective person by nature - she’s been on the receiving end of it before, so she knows how quickly he can shut things down when intrusive fans become a little too much - and having his privacy violated like that would definitely cause him to be grumpy. 

But with the looming possibility that she is looking too much into such an easily misinterpreted detail, the memory of their earlier interaction floods back to the forefront of her mind.

He had spoken to her. In clear, full sentences. As much as she had let him, at least. Had tried to initiate actual conversation, wanting a back and forth that she hadn’t been prepared to reciprocate. He had wanted to help her, wanted to be around, and for as long as he had been with Talia, he hadn’t wanted any of those things. 

Something has to have happened, another voice chimes in within her. He’s been off all week, remember?

Shut up, shut up, shut up. 

Poppy can’t let herself fall down the rabbit hole of what ifs and hypotheticals. Not anymore. She’s spent the last 4 months in her head about the whole thing, and if she’s going to enter the next year a new and improved woman, she needs to learn to let things go.

Saying yes to reconciliation is one thing, letting delusion take over is another. 

She casts a final look over herself in the mirror, fingertips flitting over each of the touch points she wants to check before she leaves. Hair still feels smooth, free of knots and frizz so far, earrings are secure, necklace clasped and positioned right, heels buckled, a couple of rings on odd fingers.

When her right hand brushes her left wrist, her eyes dart over to the jewellery box on her nightstand, where all her favourite pieces are discarded at the end of each day. She knows what is sat in the bottom, has had to ignore its presence every day when she reaches in there to put on her other bits. 

On her right wrist sits a welded bracelet, identical to the one currently wrapped around Nia and her other friend Kelsey’s wrists. The trio had gotten the matching permanent jewellery at a random pop-up one weekend in SoHo, figuring it was the more responsible thing to do than get tattoos to symbolise their friendship, and it has lasted well for being 3 years old. Still shiny, still pristine, still as gold as the day it was fixed to her arm. Still never cut off for the sake of an MRI like her mother keeps threatening she will need. Sometimes she wears a watch, usually one gifted to her by Nia after one of her trips to Japan - gold banded with a mother of pearl watch face, classic and goes with everything - but she likes it more for every day, and doesn’t trust herself not to lose it or break the dial if she’s out somewhere at night with a few drinks in her.

Her left wrist has been bare since September, around the time she stopped reaching out to Nico. Before that, since she had received it on her birthday a couple years ago, it had been adorned with her favourite piece of jewellery she had ever been given. 

Most people gift Poppy silver, and not that she’s ever ungrateful to receive any present, she can’t bring herself to wear it outside of seeing whoever gave it to her. Silver just never looks right. Mixed metals aren’t her thing, either.

But Nico had gotten it right. A gemstone bracelet, pink tourmaline and opal stones dotted along a fine gold Figaro chain, similar to the one permanently enclosed around her other side. She had worn it every day, wouldn’t even take it off to sleep, and had only stopped when she started to feel the true weight of it.

A constant reminder of a once formidable, now broken link.

“Look, I know you said no gifts,” Nico turned to face Poppy as she unbuckled herself from his passenger seat, turning the engine off so he could focus on her for a minute without the sound of the car running in the background. He usually does the same thing when he drops her home, parks up on the street and leaves the car off until she’s safe inside.

“The flowers from the team are very pretty, so you’re forgiven for going against your word,” She gestured towards the bouquet sitting on his back seat, craning her neck to look back and admire them. She had never seen a red arrangement quite as beautiful as this one - the use of tulips instead of roses a nice touch. “They’ll be dead in a week, but I’ll cherish them for as long as I have them.”

When she looks back toward Nico, he’s wearing a shy smile, and when her gaze drops to his shuffling hands, she notices the elongated black box within them.

“What’s that?” She asked, on too much of a high from such a good day to give him a hard time about it, a playful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as her eyes look back up to meet his. 

“We don’t have to call it a gift if you don’t want to,” he extended his hand out towards her, the box clutched between his fingers. “It can be payback for all the snacks you’ve given me in the last year.”

“The snacks you’ve stolen.” She corrected. 

“Well, when you keep your office stocked with the stuff only I like, is it really stealing? That sounds like a trap to me.”

“I’ve been collecting evidence against you for your crimes. What I do with it depends entirely on what’s in here.” She had tried to shake the box by her ear to gauge the contents. 

“You’ll like it.”

“You sound very sure of yourself.”

“Open the box, Mohn.” Nico’s voice was lower, commanding, and he leaned forward over the console, so close she could probably count his eyelashes if he gave her the time to do so.

The box itself was fancy, bound in black velvet and magnetised like a sunglasses case, so she knew it had to be something nice in there - knew he wasn’t pranking her with team merchandise or a bobblehead version of him for her desk like Jack had tried to give her. 

She tried to shrug off the heat of his gaze as she pried it open, never enjoying opening gifts in front of the giver, but her mind went blank as she looked down at what he had gotten her.  

The stones in the bracelet matched that of one of the rings she already owned and wore every day, an ornate opal ring passed down from her late grandmother. There were pink gems in there too, and she knew as soon as she saw them what they were. 

“It’s your birthstones, right?”

She nods, unable to form any words yet, passing the box back over and holding out her left hand. Most other people she knows don’t pay enough attention to notice she wears gold everyday, and Nico knows her birthstones. “Could you put it on for me, please?”

Nico clasped the chain around her wrist, taking her hand in his and angling it a few ways to make sure it was the perfect fit - loose enough to move around and reposition with ease but not enough to fall past the base of her thumb. “Is it okay?”

“It’s beautiful, Nico.” She smiled softly up at him, watching his eyes reflect the dim ambient light in the car. “I’m never taking it off.”

“You probably should around water,” he had chuckled, bashfully, looking down and breaking their gaze, “I found it in a market back home, I’m not sure how durable it is.”

Poppy knew real gold when she saw it - knew the shimmer of natural gemstones and the shine of genuine opal, the stone on the bracelet mirroring that on her ring that she knew was antique and valuable. And although she didn’t care if it was expensive or not, she understood what he was trying to do. 

He hadn’t just stumbled across this on some street market.

Poppy reached over to grab either side of his face, leaning across the console and planting a firm, loud kiss on his forehead, chuckling slightly to herself when she pulls away and he wipes at where her lips had just been in faux disgust. “I’ll look after it, I promise.”

“Happy Birthday, Mohn.”

“Thank you, Nico.”

She had found herself admiring the bracelet every time it caught the light, and when she had met up with her mother days later to celebrate her birthday with her family, the authenticity of it was confirmed when she had heard her shocked gasp - her mom, an expert in fine jewellery, spending the entire evening fawning over it as if she was jealous it wasn’t clasped around her own wrist - and had spent the evening fighting off questions about who had gifted it to her. 

She shouldn’t wear it tonight, she thinks. That would be a bad omen - an assumption that one conversation between the two of them was going to immediately put them on the straight and narrow path back to being friends again. 

But it’s just a bracelet - a gorgeous one, at that, and Poppy has it in her head that she’s one beautiful accessory short of perfection. She marches over to the jewellery box, opening it up and picking the bracelet up from where it has its own compartment. No one will even notice she tells herself as she manages to clasp the metal around her wrist with one hand, it doesn’t mean anything.

She is about to enter the year of saying yes, after all.

“You good to go?” Nia asks from the doorway of Poppy’s bedroom, Poppy’s phone stretched out for her to take.

“Let’s go.”

Poppy: omw stresshead

Jack: finally!!!!!! 

Poppy and Nia arrive to a party that is well and truly in full swing. It’s crowded, Jack having invited all the team and a quite lot of the staff, and everyone has brought a plus one, so Poppy is glad she overcompensated for him when she ordered all the drinks and food. She's also glad Jack and Luke had overcompensated for space when picking out an apartment meant only for the two of them.

The girls had ubered over from Poppy’s apartment despite it being so close, partly due to the almost freezing temperatures in the midst of winter in New Jersey and partly due to the amount of wine they had consumed when they were getting ready.

Poppy is tipsy enough that her previous anxiety around coming has quelled for the most part, but not so much that she is unsteady on her feet. 

She’s has a sociable kind of buzz - not that she isn’t usually sociable - that makes her slip into conversations with ease and without much thought about what she needs to say.

She has introduced Nia to whoever she has talked to so far, her best friend holding her own in conversations too, and, attached at the hip, they have immersed themselves into random discussions with the guys, flitting between the different groups that had formed before they got here.

They joke with Luke about Jack torpedoing through the apartment checking in that everyone is having a good time.

John Marino cracks a joke about how on earth Jack has managed to lure Poppy out of whatever hole she’s been crawling into after work, and Nia joins in, affectionately jibing that 2024 is the year Poppy renounces her life as a recluse. She doesn’t usually take well to being the butt of the joke, but she’s happy her friend is getting on with the guys, and the rosé has now managed to fog up the part of her brain that takes offence to little things.

She chats with Holtzy and Jesper about their Christmas spent in each other’s company, not having the opportunity to do so in the week when she had been working. She talks to Dawson about his brief trip back home, to Curtis about his sons and coos at all the pictures he shows her of them in their cute little Christmas get-ups.

She reaches a point where she doesn’t even remember why she hadn’t wanted to be here.

She has built such great relationships with the guys on the team over the years she has worked with the Devils - those friendships extending to their significant others, too.

And it’s only a matter of time before she is pulled into a group of the girls. It’s been a while since she’s been able to catch up with them, having not spent too much time with any of the team outside of work for so long. She is introduced to the new faces, is flashed the sparkling new engagement rings she had only seen on instagram, and is practically given a play-by-play for all the things she’s missed since she truly had dropped off the grid to them.

It is Jesper’s partner, Nicole, who has the guts to open the gossip floodgates. It starts off innocent on her end, telling Poppy about how she and Jesper had hosted Christmas at their place for some of the European bunch, which she already knew after her conversation with Alex and Jesper, and how she had been stressing about how many people she was going to have to entertain. She mentions the amount of food she had to cook, especially considering the amount of hungry athletes in attendance, and then says, “I am thankful Nico turned up alone, after all, though. We ran out of chairs, I almost had to have people standing to eat.”

“Nico went to Christmas alone?” Nia’s ears have clearly perked up at the information, along with the few of the other girls, who all lean into the circle - a telltale sign, if any, that they have stumbled into a juicy topic of conversation.

“Yeah, him and Talia are done.” 

“I knew it!” Nia yells in triumph, pointing at Poppy with a too loud, “I told you so!”

Poppy pinches her best friends finger until she drops it, the other girls giggling at her outburst. Thankfully, not too many eyes have been cast their way, the steady thump of the music overpowering their conversation. 

“You didn’t know anything,” Poppy rolls her eyes. “She just stalked his instagram.”

“Yeah, sure, I stalked his instagram,” Nia scoffs, “His instagram which his girlfriend has mysteriously disappeared from, Pop, doesn’t take a genius to put 2 and 2 together!”

Poppy really doesn’t want to be having this conversation again. “He probably archived the posts, Ni.”

“Nope. They’re done. Deleted.” Nicole shrugs, “No chance we’ll be seeing her again.”

“Why?” For someone who doesn’t want to engage in a gossip session about the object of her own problems, Poppy sure has had her interest piqued there.

“She dumped him like 2 weeks ago.”

They had literally just been on a romantic trip together, Poppy remembers, why would she dump him?

“Over text.” One of the other girls adds.

“What?!”

“Nia!”

“Sorry!” Nia grimaces at her previous volume, this time definitely attracting attention. “Over text?” She whispers to the circle of girls, who nod in response. “What a bitch.”

Poppy’s stomach feels tight, like her insides are cringing at the realisation of what she’s engaging in. The girls continue to talk around her, but she can’t focus enough to make out words, guilt clouding her senses. 

She doesn’t want to talk about Nico - not like this, at least.

She doesn’t want to dissect the breakdown of a relationship he clearly cherished - enough to squash their own. Doesn’t want to pick apart what went wrong, or map out a timeline of how and when things fell apart. 

She doesn’t think she could even if she did want to, because all she can do is think about those pictures Jack had sent her earlier, and about how she’d shut Nico down before when he had maybe tried to talk to her - potentially wanting to open up to someone.

As much as she hasn’t been that person for him in a while, she has always wanted to be, and so she can’t help the shame that gnaws at her. Wondering that maybe if she’d had the nerve to take a proper look at him when she’d seen him earlier, or at any point when she’d been in his vicinity and ducked around corners or hung her head to avoid him in the past couple of weeks - if she’d taken notice of him, just once - she’d have been able to see through him. 

She’s been so wrapped up in the way she’s been feeling, the way she has been hurting, that it hasn’t occurred to her that he could be hurting, too.

Maybe not for the same reasons, but hurting, all the same.

“I’m gonna get another drink.” She mutters out quietly, excusing herself from the group and ambling through everyone to get to the kitchen. 

“Why do you look like that?” She hears as she’s looking through the different bottles littered atop Jack’s countertop. “Please tell me you’re having a good time.”

“It’s not quite the depression session I was promised,” Poppy pouts mockingly over at her jittery friend, trying to fix whatever Jack had seen on her face to question her. “Are you having a good time, Jack?”

“I am if you are.” He reaches out for one of the bottles in front of her, twisting off the cap and taking a swig straight from the bottle of Jim Beam. Poppy grimaces at even the thought of how that tastes. The poor kid is wasting his night away stressing when he should be enjoying himself, she thinks.

“You’re sweating.” She observes.

“Yeah, well, I think I’ve hit 10k steps checking in on everyone.”

“Everyone’s having fun, you should relax.”

“Not everyone,” Jack sings, clearly having found some liquid courage in his gulp of hard liquor. 

“99.999% of your guests are having a great time.”

“You know me, Poppet, I’m nothing if not a perfectionist.” He swings his arm around her, guiding her away from the counter until he can point towards the far side of his apartment.

Nico is stood with a few of the other guys - Curtis, Dougie and Timo. He’s listening to their conversation, nursing a bottle of beer in hand, looking between them as they speak, but he’s not engaging in it. Not talking back, only just smiling when the rest of them laugh. 

“If I’d have known you’d break him, I never would have sent him to help you earlier.”

“Yeah, I never thanked you for the ambush,” she shrugs out from under his arm, walking back to pour herself a drink, mixing herself a makeshift Paloma with what’s on the counter - tequila and grapefruit juice with a wedge of lime to try and jazz up the plastic cup. “You ever thought that maybe his bad mood has nothing to do with me?”

“No.”

“Jack, we’re-,”

“Not friends. Right. And the Pope’s not really a Catholic, and the Earth is flat.” Jack mocks.

“You know, I’ve always had my suspicions Luke would be the Flat-Earther in your family.”

“He is. He also thinks the world is run by lizard people.”

“Weirdo.”

“Total weirdo.” Jack chuckles, almost losing himself. “Stop trying to dodge the real issues, here, Poppy.” The lack of any childish moniker is Jack’s way of attempting to be stern, he doesn’t resort to it often, but when he does, Poppy tends to fold.

She’d tried her best to avoid broaching the topic of Nico at length with Jack. He’s his captain, his teammate, his friend, too, and it hadn’t felt fair to vent her feelings about the whole situation to someone he was equally, if not more, close to. 

There was also the minor detail regarding the voice inside her telling her Nico never cared about her in the same way that stopped her from opening up about her disappointment and hurt out of sheer embarrassment. The potential that she was mourning a friendship that never meant as much to him, and doing so to other people who saw all along what she was too naive to notice. 

But that hadn’t stopped Jack from trying to eke out information from her the whole time there had been a noticeable tension between the two of them.

He’d try and initiate conversation between them in group settings, often getting one or two word responses before one of them excused themselves. He’d invite either of them to plans he had with the other person, and there was even a stupid group chat he’d tried to form that Poppy quickly archived and ignored after Nico never responded to Jack’s clear attempt to reel them both in.

“You should talk to him,” Jack pushes, sticking to his guns and rooting for the revival of their relationship. “He’s had a rough couple of weeks, could really use a friend.”

If Poppy Jensen is motivated by anything in life, it is the crippling guilt that Jack knows just how to spark up.

“So I’ve heard. Maybe you should go check on him,”

“Don’t be annoying.” Jack frowns. “I know it sucked that he dropped you before, he’s an idiot and I won’t back him up for it, but you can either mope about it forever and both suffer, or suck it up and move on.”

“Go check on him, Jack.” Poppy speaks through almost gritted teeth.

“Poppy,"

“Don’t be a dumbass.” She sighs. “Be a good host, maybe see if he needs to get another drink,” she enunciates her words as much as she can, and her eyes widen suggestively, waiting for him to catch on. 

“Oh!” Jack exclaims, shooting back with a slacked jaw as realisation washes over him. “Yeah, he looks thirsty! Great idea, Poppy!”

He dashes off, bumping straight into someone and getting mildly distracted as their drink spills down his front.

Poppy mutters a profanity to herself, not able to watch the absolute train wreck of a man in front of her.

This is where making spur of the moment decisions gets you, she thinks, but her own thoughts are drowned out by another voice inside her head - one that sounds a little too much like her annoying, inebriated and loud best friend. This is going to be the year of saying yes. Yes to growing up, yes to moving on, and yes to olive branches offered to her from pouty Swiss hockey players who are clearly going through it right now and don’t need her to be stubborn about her forgiveness. 

She tries to busy herself in Jack’s kitchen, making quick work of straightening out all the drinks and throwing away some of the discarded cups - anything to avoid looking over to where she knows Jack is being his obnoxious self.

She can practically hear him from where she stands, not knowing lowkey if it smacked him in the teeth. Poppy’s asked me to lure you to the kitchen or Poppy’s absolutely desperate to speak to you, Cap.

Annoying.

“Hi.”

Unlike earlier in the day, Poppy allows herself to truly take Nico in when he stands in front of her, this time. 

He’s dressed in all black, a dark sweater and dark jeans, no hat for once though - his hair has grown out enough that it’s at the length he usually gets frustrated with it and hides it under a beanie or a backwards cap, but tonight he hasn’t, unless he’s taken one off and discarded it somewhere. It is a little unruly, but more in the way he might have been running his hands through it all night. And he hasn’t shaven in a few days, she can tell - the darkened formation of a shadowy stubble frames his jawline and runs in a slightly jagged line below his cheek.

“Hey,” she attempts a warm smile when she notices him chewing at the inside corner of his mouth, nervously anticipating a response. Her own heart is thumping so hard in her chest it almost feels like it’s echoing. “You want a beer?”

“Yeah,” he nods, stepping further into the kitchen so he’s on the same side of the counter as her. “Jack just stole mine straight out of my hand. Thanks.”

Of course he did. “He’s a strange boy.” She says, wanting to distance herself from his behaviour. If she’s being fair to herself, she hadn’t asked him to be a freak in his endeavour to send Nico over here - he chose that path, himself. 

“Very.” Nico affirms, taking the bottle out of her hands by the neck to avoid touching her. “He’s asked me seven times already if I’m enjoying myself.”

“Yeah, I don’t think we should let him throw another party for a while, it makes him go weird.” She watches him smile as he takes a sip from his drink. “Are you, though? Enjoying yourself, I mean.”

She doesn’t remember talking to Nico ever making her feel like this before. Like an uphill climb to figure out what to say and still only coming out with unfamiliar small talk. But she can give it time, she thinks. Maybe it just needs time. They just need to warm up to each other, again.

“Yeah, but I want to make him sweat a little, so don’t tell him I told you that.”

“I won’t.” The smiles they share are familiar. Knowing. Like they’re the only two people in on a joke. “He said you’ve been off all night.”

She only realises once she’d said it that it’s almost word for word what Nico had said when she saw him earlier in the day. She wonders if he remembers the same thing, wonders if Jack had said something similar to Nico to prompt their run-in. If he had been worried about her in the same way she was starting to worry about him.

“Is that why he sent me over here? For you to scope out the reason for my bad mood?” He tries to keep his tone lighthearted, as Poppy’s has been, but she can tell it’s an effort not to sound bitter. There’s a disappointment that presses obviously on his posture, shoulders dropping.

“Cute how you think I’m at his beck and call like that,” she leans against the counter behind her, wanting to send a message through her body language that she’s settling in for a conversation, instead of avoiding one like before. “He’s worried about you, I think.”

“And you’re speaking to me now for his benefit?”

“No.” She tries not to frown at the accusation. Maybe his back is up after their earlier interaction. All she can do is own up to her actions. Growing up. Moving on. Accepting olive branches from pouty Swiss hockey players. Maybe even offering one of her own. “I feel bad for being a bitch to you before. You were trying to talk to me and I was shutting you down.”

“I didn’t think you were being a bitch, Poppy.” He leans against the counter that is perpendicular to her. 

“Oh, I’ll try harder next time, then.” She makes an attempt at a joke, and relief washes over her when he breathes out a chuckle. “I was for sure trying to blow you off.”

“Yeah, I got that from your two word responses.” He jokes back. 

It starts to feel like progress. A silence falls between them, and it isn’t uncomfortable, per se, but she doesn’t quite bask in it like she used to. Her muscles don’t relax the same and her worries don’t entirely ease up.

She glances over at him, able to take a good look as he stands with his arms crossed, looking down at the floor as if in deep thought. And, not for the first time in her life, Poppy wishes she could read Nico’s mind.

Nico

Nico is cursing every day he has spent in the cold, away from the warmth of Poppy Jensen. How he’s survived this long, he doesn’t have a clue, but he wishes more than anything he’d worked to fix things so much earlier than now.

It’s not the looming deadline of midnight that’s making him feel like this - he knows deep down that he’s placing an unnecessary time limit upon a reunion - but the instantaneous relief he feels whenever Poppy’s eyes meet his, and she keeps them there, looking straight through the privacy film he’s wrapped himself in for so long. He’d forgotten how good she was at that - making him feel deeply seen with one glance.

It’s the relief he felt when she’d smiled at him - fully, properly smiled; eyes crinkling slightly in the corners, soft, balmy lips stretching and cheeks rounding - or when she’d casually fallen back against the counter, feet crossing over each other at the ankles, showing him she had no intention of running away from him anymore. She’s even facing away from everyone else, not actively looking for a way out. It’s like a flashed out version of the Poppy he had only managed to catch a glimpse of earlier. 

He wishes he could have felt this sooner, the absence of the consternation that has clouded his every thought lately brings a welcome comfort. He feels like he’s taken his first deep breath in months, and he’s greedy with it, filling his lungs with everything she can offer. Snark - albeit with less bite than before - sarcasm, jokes, even the littlest offering of pity she seemed to give. He doesn’t have much time for anyone else’s attempts at empathy, but with her he doesn’t care, he’ll take it. With Poppy comes genuine concern, and that means she still cares.

That had been a little hard to gauge before, her avoidance and indifference blurring together, and her lack of emotion had stung, but he sees it better now. Sees it clearer - how she is consciously making an effort to make him feel better.

He doesn’t entirely know why, doesn’t think he deserves it.

“Did you have a nice Christmas?” He asks in an attempt to shift the conversation, not quite ready to attempt to tackle the behemoth elephant in the room - not with everyone around, at least. Although as soon as the words leave his mouth, his toes curl at how he’s now engaging in small talk with her.

Poppy scrunches her nose in a wordless answer, and he feels himself smile before he realises he’s doing it. “It was pretty boring,” she shrugs, “I had dinner with Nia and her dad and then came home, watched some football and snacked myself into a coma.”

Nico frowns, thick eyebrows pushing together as something akin to a fiery guilt bites away at the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t like the idea of Poppy being on her own for the holidays - she’s usually so tied into a routine around this time of the year that it doesn’t seem right. “You spent Christmas alone?”

“My parents went to California to see Oli and his family.”

“And you weren’t dragged along, kicking and screaming?” He asks. She shakes her head and gives him one of those smiles again - and pride swells in his chest at how well he knows her. 

Nico finds it strange how much comes flooding back to him when he gives himself the opportunity to think about her. To think about all the parts of their lives they had shared with each other, and all the little details about her that were ingrained within his memory as much as details about himself. Recalling tidbits of information about her comes to him as effortlessly as breathing.

“I’m a big girl, now, I can make my own decisions about where I spend my holidays, thank you very much.”

“I hope that’s not what you said to your mother.”

Nico can’t recall a single person in the world who intimidates him as much as Priscilla Jensen, and he has constant face-offs with amped up, aggressive, mostly 6 foot-whatever hockey players on a regular basis.

That woman is scary, but no one can handle her better than her daughter - he’s witnessed it first hand.

The first time he had ever met Poppy’s mom had been an unfortunate, unplanned accident. He’d been returning from a roadie, and Poppy had loaned him her headphones after his AirPods had given up on him mid-workout the week before. He could have just bought a new paid, but he’d run into her on her way out of work before the team were about to leave, and when he’d mentioned he was about to fly cross-country with no music, she had taken pity on him. She’d placed her headphones around his neck, telling him they had a full charge and should last him until he was home.

And they had. He’d gone straight from the team bus to her place after they’d gotten back from the airport - not much of a detour, her apartment not out of the way on his usual journey home - and when he knocked on the door, he was a little shell-shocked when her mother answered. 

A lot of things about the woman before him immediately intimidated him to the nth degree.

The way she somehow seemed to look down upon him, even from a stature that was inches shorter than his own. The way she was dressed, prim and proper, not a wrinkle in her fancy dress, somewhat out of place in the doorway of a Jersey City apartment. The way she so easily made her distaste of him obvious from the second she laid eyes upon him. Dread had consumed him, like he’d stumbled into a lion’s den and the only exit was immediately blocked behind him. 

“Who are you?” She had asked. No hello or can I help you? Just pure distain and an eyre of being inconvenienced by his mere presence.

“Oh, I’m Nico,” he stuttered. “Is Poppy here? Poppy Jensen?” He was starting to think he had to have the wrong place, and had seriously just ruined this woman’s day by knocking on her door and interrupting whatever sacrifice she was making to the gods behind closed doors to keep her youth. She was going to sacrifice him, next. But, there was no mistaking the relation when he took a proper look. The slope of her nose, the curve of her lips, the unique shade of her eyes, he was definitely in the right place. “This is Poppy’s apartment, right?”

“What do you want with her?” Her glare was just as accusatory as her tone, like he could ever be worth a second of her or her daughter’s time.

Nico’s throat was closing up. As captain of the Devils, he had faced some hard press in his time Having to deal with media after back to back losses, organisation restructures, poor performances, and dancing around admitting to injuries for himself and his teammates - but he hadn’t had to answer to anyone like this in a long time, and he was seconds away from apologising, forgetting how to speak English, and bolting back down the stairs before he heard Poppy’s voice. 

“Jesus, Mom, cool off,” she had sighed, coming into his field of vision behind the scary woman before him. “This is Nico, he’s here to whisk me away into the sunset and elope so I don’t have to answer to you guys anymore.”

Nico’s eyes widened. If she didn’t have a reason to hate him before, she sure did now. Thanks, Poppy.

“That isn’t even remotely funny, Poppy,” her mom snarled, disgust evident in her tone. “You have 5 minutes before we’re leaving.”

She had stormed off then, the echo of her heels clicking against the hard wood floors of Poppy’s apartment echoing until they eventually dulled when Poppy came out into the hallway and closed the door behind her. 

“Hi,” Poppy gave a bright smile, as if Nico hadn’t almost just been traumatised.

“I just came to drop these off,” he had gulped, with an alarmed look to make sure she had definitely closed the door and he was safe. He handed over the headphones, as well as a cookie he’d got her from the airport. “Did I do something? Has she gone to put some sort of generational hex on my family back there?”

“You didn’t give her your last name, did you?” Poppy asked, her eyes widening in mocking horror. 

“Not funny.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Poppy scoffed, “She wouldn’t waste her evil energy on such petty curses. She’s already forgotten you exist, bud.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” He shuddered, “I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody that so outwardly hates me within seconds of meeting, before.”

“She’s like that with everyone, I wouldn’t take it personally.” Poppy tears open the wrapper to the cookie before bringing it up to her mouth and taking a bite. She hums in appreciation.

“What, even you?”

“Especially me.” She covers her lips as she speaks around the mouthful of gingerbread. When she’s finished, she gives a gentle smile, reaching out to pat his arm, thankfully. “Thanks for the cookie, I’ll let her know who’s to blame next time she’s over and I’m like half a pound heavier.”

“Maybe I should take that back,” he frowned, reaching forward only for her to pull her arm back, out of his reach. 

“Nope. This is my only sustenance for the evening. Who knows if she’ll let me even look at the hors d’oeuvres.” She shudders. “I’m resigned to a night of sparkling water and biting my own tongue.”

“If you need me to make up some emergency for you to leave whatever hell it is you’re being taken to, I could call you. I’m really good at fake crying.”

“I bet,” Her eyes shone with mischief, biting back a grin. “Unfortunately I don’t think she’d care enough about your wellbeing to let me leave, but I appreciate the effort, thanks, Cap.”

It was only the rush of blood to his cheeks and the need to divert his gaze from the teasing glimmer in her eyes that brought his attention to Poppy’s attire. An ankle length, satin cocktail dress fit like a glove to Poppy’s figure, the bright magenta colour not something he was used to seeing her in, but complimented her skin tone perfectly, nonetheless. Her hair fell in loose waves, one side tucked behind her ear, and her makeup was soft - cheeks flushed, lips balmy and a small spattering of barely-there shimmer in the corners of her eyes, making them sparkle even more than usual. “You look nice, Mohn” He hadn’t tried to make his voice sound any kind of way, but it had come out lower, breathier than normal, and he couldn’t quite pinpoint the new feeling that began to brew in the pit of his stomach. 

“Thank you,” she had given a bashful smile, reaching her left hand up to tuck her hair behind her other ear, too. The bracelet on her wrist had caught the light, the same one he had gifted her on her birthday a few months before, the same one he hasn’t seen her without, since. The beat of the peaceful silence that fell between them was harshly interrupted by the shrill call of Poppy’s name from within her apartment, accompanied by a banging on the other side of the door. Instead of shouting back, Poppy just banged back on her side with her elbow. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Only if you can figure out how to break the curse she’s for sure put on me back there.” He pouts, “Otherwise, it might be too late.”

She smiles big, and his lips automatically mirror the curve of hers, arms instinctively opening for her to shuffle into his embrace. “I’ll see what I can do to save the fate of all future Hischier children.” She promised as her arms wound around his back. “Bye, Nico.”

“Bye, Mohn.” He’d pressed his lips to the top of her head before backing away, making sure she was somewhat safe inside before making his way back down the stairs.

Nico had left her that night to whatever her unspoken, fancy plans with her mother were. He’d driven back to his apartment, unpacked from his roadie, and had spent the evening alone, watching soccer and eating meal prep. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed at the fact he had ended up viewing Poppy’s instagram story a mere 40 seconds after she had posted it. 

She had been with Nia, still dressed up, both of them wearing goofy smiles as they fed each other greasy pizza outside one of the hole-in-the-wall vendors in the city across the river.

That had been maybe 18 months ago, and it concerns him only slightly how little has changed in that time.

He’d done the same thing tonight, before Poppy got here. Sat on his own, busying himself by doing nothing on his phone, refreshing instagram in the hopes she or Nia might have posted a story and he could tell where she was outside of checking the door every couple of minutes for her arrival. 

He wonders, as he remembers back on how easily Poppy had handled her terrifying mother, if things are still the same with them, but refrains from delving too deep into that whirlpool, and instead asks, “She didn’t blow up on you, then?”

“Worse, she gave me the cold shoulder for a week.”

“Sounds like the dream.”

“You’d think so, but my mother’s version of the silent treatment is surprisingly loud.”

He doesn’t know how he hasn’t noticed it before now. He’s had his eyes on Poppy from the second she came in. He’s watched her hug everyone she speaks to, has watched her hands gesture around whatever story she’s telling, watched her cover her mouth when she laughs a little too hard at someone else’s joke. But it’s only as she lifts the plastic cup she’s holding to her mouth and takes a sip that he catches the glimmer of the gemstones adorning her wrist. 

She wasn’t wearing it, earlier today. 

Hasn’t worn it in some time, he doesn’t think.

But she’s wearing it now - the bracelet he had given her for her birthday 2 years ago - as pristine as they day he had bought it. She’d worn it so much before that he had thought she’d permanently fixed it to herself, but she’s always taken good care of it. Always cherished it, despite him selling her short on its value.

And he knows he shouldn’t read too much into it. It’s just a piece of jewellery. But it isn’t. It never has been. Not to him, and certainly not to Poppy. So he can’t stop himself before the words tumble out from between his lips. “I think I need some air."

He looks up from her wrist to meet her eyes, now widened in confusion. “Oh,” her lips form a pout around the exclamation, her feet uncrossing and her back straightening until it’s no longer resting against the side. “Okay.” 

She seems disappointed, and he immediately realises that she thinks he means without her. “Would you come with me?”

“I, uh,” she cranes her neck to seemingly look back for something in the crowd of their teammates. “I didn’t bring a jacket.” She’s frowning when she faces him again, and he knows not to take it as another attempt to avoid spending time alone with him. She’s genuinely disheartened at the thought of missing out.

“You can borrow mine?” He suggests.

“Are you sure? It’s barely 30 degrees out,”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, like he even understands Fahrenheit, anyway. 30 degrees sounds decent. Where he wants to go, there won’t be much need for a jacket, but that would involve divulging more information to Poppy than he needs to share, right now. He just needs to get her to come with him. “I run hot, remember?” He swears he sees her blush - tries not to give into the quiver of his lip that’s fighting to curve into a smirk. He feels giddy, almost. “I also live upstairs.”

“Oh yeah,” she chuckles, nervously. “Let me just find Nia?”

“Of course.” He straightens up, “I’ll grab my jacket and meet you by the door.”

Nico had shrugged his jacket off somewhere in the corner when he had come in, and when he goes over to retrieve it, digging it out from a pile of coats that had formed since he got here, Jack rushes over.

“Are you-,”

“I’m having a great time, Jack.” He chuckles, and this time he thinks he means it. “Me and Poppy are gonna go out for some fresh air, so don’t go blowing up her phone when you can’t find her.”

“I would literally never do that,” he snorts in denial, backing away and acquiescing immediately, giving up whatever he had come over to bother Nico with. “You kids have fun!”

Nico finds Poppy waiting by the entrance to Jack’s apartment, hands busying themselves by playing with the rings on her fingers. She looks up as he approaches and smiles, accepting the jacket he hands over to her and immediately shrugs it on. 

The jacket is only slightly shorter than her dress, and so her bare legs come straight out from the bottom, but he hopes it’s enough to keep her warm for the time being. It has a fleeced collar, a thick overall lining, and he knows that if she puts her hands in the pockets, the soft sherpa interior will melt her icicle fingers in no time. And if her legs do get cold, he’s almost desperate enough for her approval that he will shuck off his pants and give them straight over to her.

He holds the door open for her, and when they get over to the elevator, he presses the button. They wait side by side in a comfortable silence, arms bumping each other as she sways very slightly on the spot. He tries not to get into his head about how she doesn’t move away. They stand similarly when they get into the elevator - he reaches forward to press the button at the top, and falls back into place beside her, her shoulder brushing his bicep.

“We’re going up?” She asks. “I didn’t think you could get on your rooftop.”

“They opened it up back in September,” he tells her, “It’s nice, there’s seating and tables up there and everything.”

“Oh wow, you’re gonna get hypothermia.”

“I’ll be alright,” he breathes out a laugh as the doors open, and he gestures for her to step out before him. He buries a hand into his pocket for his keys, pulls them out, and reaches around her to unlock the entrance to the roof - only accessible to a few people in the building if they have paid for the privilege. There’s a single flight of stairs before they make it up there, and they climb them side by side before he pushes the door open. He’s grateful for the lack of wind, tonight, but she’s right. It’s cold. And as much as he’s used to temperatures like this, he’s thankful he had the foresight to prepare for this earlier.

Nico guides Poppy with a hand on her back to the far corner of the rooftop, toward the pergola that surrounds the outdoor seating area. 

The city provides a decent glow at this time of night, but the pergola is lit up with ambient lighting strips, and it looks cosy. The couches have plush cushions, and the weather hadn’t been too bad the past couple of days, so it’s all dry. 

“Wow,” Poppy steps away from Nico, toward the side, hands reaching out to grasp the railings as she looks over what she can of the edge of the building. There’s a safety perimeter that stops her from being able to see to far if she wants to look down. “This is a lot higher than my roof.”

“It’s a great view, huh?”

“It’s incredible.” Nico had been on her rooftop with Poppy a couple times, and she has a great view, herself, but hers is blocked by some of the taller buildings to either side of hers on the waterfront. “You can see my apartment from here.” She points, and Nico’s eyes follow the direction of her finger. “We’ll have to get binoculars and test if you can see me through all my windows.”

As ridiculous as that suggestion is, Nico’s heart beats erratically at the idea of it. He can picture the scenario in his mind, clear as day. She’d get him to call her to test the theory, ask him if he could see how many fingers she was holding up, and flip him off from the window in her bedroom.

He laughs out loud at the thought.

“Do you come up here a lot?” Poppy burrows into his jacket, stepping away from the side and toward the seats.

“Not really,” he denies. He’d only gotten a key from the building manager today. He’d put in an urgent request after he’d seen Poppy and Nia, and realised Poppy wasn’t going to get to fulfil her New Years tradition. He’d wanted to do something nice, and as he takes in the wonder and amazement she exudes, he’s happy he did. There had been a few scenarios of how he’d get her up here, and he’d actually settled on a plan to give Nia the key and tell her to take Poppy up before midnight, but he much prefers how this is playing out. “Hasn’t been the weather for it.”

“Right,” she sighs, sinking down onto one of the couches, sitting with her knees tucked beneath her and her feet hanging over the edge so her shoes don’t touch the cushions. “Because the weather now is ideal for a rooftop gathering,”

Nico lifts the top of the storage trunk that sits beside the couch, reaches in and retrieves the blankets he’d stashed in there earlier when he’d scoped the place out. He throws one over to her and chuckles at the surprise that spreads across her face when she catches it. 

“I take it back,” she bites back a smile as she unravels the blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders and making sure it spreads to cover her legs. Nico waits until he’s sat before he wraps his around himself. He sits beside her, inclining his body towards hers, one leg under himself and elbow leaning on the back of the couch. When he drapes the blanket over himself, he does a quick check to make sure there isn’t any bare skin of Poppy’s he can see that he’d need to extend his cover over. “I never asked about your Christmas.”

Nico thinks that maybe he doesn’t hate small talk as much - talking about anything with Poppy is good enough. “It was pretty boring,” he echoes her earlier sentiment, smiling down at her when she glances over and rolls her eyes.

“C’mon, I know what you European guys are like when you all get together, Holtzy said a few of you were over at Jesper and Nic’s place.”

He lets himself wonder for a second if she’d asked about him, specifically, when she was talking to the other guys about how they spent their holidays. If she had still cared enough to consider where he had spent his Christmas, and wasn’t just asking now to fill in any potentially awkward silence or reroute the conversation from anything else.

“It was good,” he offers, vaguely, “I do think I was bringing the vibe down, though, wasn’t really in the Christmas spirit.”

Christmas at Jesper’s hadn’t been as bad as he’d made it out to be in his head in the build up to the day - he’d had a good time in the end, but he had left just after dinner; told everyone he was still tired and aching from their game the few days before. He’d paid no mind to the pitiful glances cast to him from throughout the group, and he would never in a million years admit to any of them that even in a room full of people that he did genuinely care about and love being around, he couldn’t shake the feeling of loneliness that crept up every time he glanced around and saw his friends all loved up with their partners and having the time of their lives.

He realises that he and Poppy had both been alone on Christmas, and maybe if he hadn’t have been such a royal idiot about things, he could have invited her along and had a chance to truly engage in all the festivities and joy.

“Never had you down as a party pooper, Nico.”

“You sound like Jack.”

“I take great offence to that.”

“I got dumped.” He may as well get this part of conversation over with, he’s going to struggle to skirt around it much longer. He almost expects surprise on her end, shock or disbelief, but Poppy just nods in understanding.

“I heard.” She purses her lips, shuffling until her elbow is against the back of the couch, a mirror of his own position, and she can listen with intent. “I’m sorry, I know how much you liked her. It seemed like you two were perfect for each other.”

Nico can’t hide the frown that takes over. He doesn’t feel like they were perfect for each other. Doesn’t remember trying to make it seem that way, or remember telling anybody in any kind of detail how much he liked being with Talia. He doesn’t quite understand how she had come to that conclusion. 

When she takes in his expression, her shoulders tense. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry or anything.”

“No, you’re fine, I don’t mind talking about it.” With you, goes unspoken, but lingers quite obviously between them, he hopes. He nudges her elbow with his, narrowing the space between them in the process. Pry away, he thinks. He’d much rather have Poppy poke around at the inner workings of his brain than anyone else. She’d be able to make much more sense of it. But she needs to do so with the right assumptions. “It’s just that it wasn’t really like that, I don’t think.”

“Oh.” She sounds almost disappointed, he thinks - disheartened, maybe. It almost seems like she wanted them to be good, wanted him to be happy, and seemed unsettled by the idea she had the wrong perception of it all. The idea brings back a constricting feeling in his chest. “Breaking up around Christmas must be like torture, either way,”

“The returns policies aren’t too bad this time of year actually.” He shrugs. He feels like enough air has cleared between them that he can attempt a joke to pick the mood back up. He doesn’t really want to talk at length about his break up - he’s processed it, he thinks, despite the short passing of time since it’s happened. He wants to talk about Nico and Poppy - he’s finally ready to now.

That doesn’t change the swell of pride he feels with the way she looks at him, like she hadn’t expected him to make light of the situation, and doesn’t know whether it’s okay to laugh until his own cheeks dimple and his eyes crinkle with mirth.

She scoffs out a genuine chuckle, and he can no longer feel the cold seeping into his bones; the blanket covering him is just a mere coincidence, it’s the warmth that radiates from Poppy that does the trick.

“That’s bleak,” she shakes her head, biting back a full smile. 

“I thought it was funny.”

“You can’t joke your way through heartbreak, Nico, trust me,” She gives a familiar sigh, and he wants to tell her his heart hasn’t been broken, but that’s a partial lie. It just hasn’t been broken for the reason she thinks. “My dad always says that’s like patching up a boat hole with a bandaid.”

“You Americans have such a way with words.” He smiles, fondly. “I think it’s easier to see the situation for what it was now that I’m out of it.”

He notices that pang of disappointment make another quick appearance before she has the chance to check herself. She seems to let his words stew for a second in her brain before forming her next question. “If you aren’t cut up about the breakup, why have you been so down these past couple weeks?”

Nico tries to remember all the times he had seen her in that period. The time she was speaking to Jack in her office, a couple times on the plane to and from away games, he’d maybe caught a couple of glimpses of her around the Prudential Center when she’d been working - but all those times, he had never managed to catch her eye.

Had she been looking out for him, too?

His lips part to form a response, but words fail him for the time being, and all he can do is tilt his head and try to properly decipher that look about her that she reserves just for him.

Poppy’s eyes glow in the subdued light, reflecting the faint beams that line the structure around them, and they narrow only slightly as he stares at her for a prolonged moment. 

He’d been a little harsh earlier when she’d tried to measure the scale of his mood - thinking it was only because she was pushed by someone else to do so - and she had said  that Jack was worried about him, but maybe she was worried, too.

He doesn’t want to worry her. 

He wants to explain things, but a sudden barrage of emotions seems to hit him at the concern etched upon her soft features. Months worth of inner, suppressed turmoil wreaking havoc within him like a tornado of grief, stress and longing. He had maintained an unwavering calm about himself for the last two weeks - or, so he had thought.

Whenever anyone had directly asked about the breakup, he’d given short, unattached answers, never showing his hand, never revealing his true feelings, and now he can feel it all climbing its way out from the depths of his chest. Feelings from before then, even, when he had been struggling in the months leading up to that God-forsaken text from Talia, and he’d had no one to talk to, clawing their way up, scratching his throat and burning the back of his mouth like acid that he needs to spit out before it has the chance to poison him. 

He wants to tell her none of it had been purposeful. How he’d slipped straight into routine, at first - pre season had been rough in comparison to his somewhat slack summer training schedule, and he and Poppy never used to hang out much at that point in the season anyway. In the beginning, it hadn’t felt like he was doing anything wrong by not reaching out.

He wants to tell her about the first time he’d seen her after he came back from Switzerland, at the end of summer get together the team had thrown for the whole organisation in the Prudential Lounge, and he’d seen her slink in through the side doors with one of her colleagues from the foundation to sneak some food from the buffet. He remembers the nerves creeping in, and how something had kept him rooted to his side of the room where he would have normally gone straight over to greet her. He’d introduced Talia to the team as his girlfriend that afternoon, and had tried to focus more on making her feel welcome than tracking where Poppy had ended up.

He wants to tell her about the pages he’s formed on his Notes app - wherein sits a bunch of drafted messages to her from the past week. Even stupid stuff that his mind has lingered on - mundane questions he wants to ask in order to catch up with everything in her life. Does she still have a weird food fixation for Caesar salad and French fries? Is she still trying to force herself to like matcha? Is she still thinking about getting a cat? Did her super fix that cracked tile in her bathroom that she keeps cutting her foot open on and complaining about it every time she has to walk more than usual?

He wants to tell her about how he was so focused on being the best player, the best captain, the best teammate, the best boyfriend, that’d he’d forgotten how to be a good friend. He knows that if anyone had no expectations of him to be the best, it would be Poppy, and so the excuse seems a bit pathetic when he reflects on it.

Instead, through a lump in his throat and the welling of tears in his eyes, he tells her, “I’ve missed you,” and hopes it’s enough to answer her question, and for her to understand the insurmountable weight of those 3 words.

Nico anticipates from the quiver of her bottom lip and the rounding of her eyes that she gets it.

Poppy offers him a kindness he knows he doesn’t deserve when she sits up straight and takes the weight off of where she’s leaning on her elbow. She shrugs the blanket from over her shoulders and throws her arms around him - barely giving him a millisecond to even fear a negative reaction.

Her grip around his shoulders is tight, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck, and he tries to match her fervour with his own embrace, arms looping around her ribcage and cradling her back. They both seem to squeeze, his hands stroking soothingly up and down her back, and he’s not sure if the erratic thumping he feels in his chest is his own heartbeat, or that of hers pressed against him. 

They stay together like that for a good minute, maybe more, her body relaxing a little more into his until she’s practically in his lap, knees overlapping his. 

Nico can’t remember the last time he felt this calm.

It’s only when he hears the hitch in her breath that he pulls away. 

He feels like he’s taken a hit to the gut when he gets a good look at her face - eyes glassy with unshed tears, her lips pursed as she bites at the inner corner of them. 

“I’m so sorry, Mohn,” he mutters softly, thumb raising to swipe at her cheek when a tear falls free. “Please don’t cry.”

“I don’t understand what happened,” she laments, “You just shut me out. It’s like you went home for the summer and decided you didn’t want to be friends, anymore.”

“That’s not,” he begins to rationalise it before realising he can’t. He barely has an explanation he can voice, not one he has been able to bring himself to understand, yet, anyway. “I wanted to come over and speak to you after like a week of being back, but I just-,” his throat starts to feel tight again, but if he doesn’t get this out now, he might not get it out at all. “Every day that passed that we didn’t talk, that I didn’t reply to your texts or come find you, things just got worse. And then, after a while, no matter how much I needed to reach out, it felt like I’d left it too long.”

He knows it’s a cop out of an answer, and that she deserves more, but she also deserves for him to be at peace with what he wants to say, and he isn’t quite there yet.

“You could have just come to me and told me you were being an idiot.” 

“That doesn’t feel like it’s enough.”

“It can be for now.” For now. She gets it. “I missed you too much to hold a grudge.”

“Really?” Nico can’t fully comprehend why she would go easy on him. She’s well within her rights to cause a scene - kick and scream and never speak to him again - but instead, she gives a remorseful shrug, glassy eyes casting down to her lap.

“I don’t want to lose you for the sake of my pride, Nico.” She admits. “And I could have fought harder, too.”

He knows he’s long lost the right to ask such a selfish question of her, but he can’t help himself. “Why didn’t you?”

“You seemed happy.”

The thud of his heartbeat rattling around his brain turns into an incessant ring, like the kind that people use to measure the frequency in which they stop hearing noise. His bones feel like they’re buzzing, and his lungs feel like they’re plummeting somewhat throughout his body, his breath stuttering in his chest.

Maybe this is her way of dishing out some unintentional cruelty - he can’t argue that he doesn’t deserve it - implying she would have, in any way, suffered herself, just because he seemed content in shutting her out. It hurts to acknowledge that he had let her hurt for so long.

“I wasn’t.” He feels slightly better having said that. It almost makes up for what he’d chickened out of saying before, hopefully saying more than the 2 words might suggest.

Maybe if they’d been speaking all along she’d have seen right through him - got a glimpse behind the curtain of the charade he’d been putting on since the summer. Maybe it would have eased the weight of whatever was sitting on his chest for the past 4 months, would have made everything just that little bit easier to have shared his true feelings with someone who had no expectations of him other than to be there.

He has missed having someone he can be honest with. Has missed not having to keep up appearances, or make himself bigger or smaller to fit someone else’s needs. 

And when Poppy’s fingers wrap around his, looping through them when they open up at her touch, and the bracelet she wears tickles softly at his own wrist, it washes over him just how much he truly had missed her. He’d said it before, but there aren’t enough ways to to say it and accurately convey the depth in which he feels it. Having her here, now, makes him feel whole in a way he hasn’t for a long time, and he hadn’t realised all the time he’d known her just how much she calms the storm within him.

He pulls her hand back over his shoulder and circles an arm around her waist, tugging her body back into his embrace until she’s cuddled into him and he’s leaning into the back corner of the couch. There’s no point in which she fights the movement into the position, and when his muscles settle into the cushions, she follows suit, her head resting on his chest and her legs thrown over his. 

The hold they have on each other now feels a lot more secure, and he manages to wrangle the blankets back over the two of them, covering her legs so they can stay like this for a little longer.

“Thank you for letting me back in.”

“Thank you for coming back to me.”

Neither of them make any effort to move, content in each other’s arms, not caring about the time - even when the distant calls of a countdown stagger in the air, stirring a pulse of anticipation, and muffled cheers erupt from the surrounding buildings, a symphony of joy washing over the city like a tide. Not even when the sky ignites into a breathtaking explosion of colours, the fireworks painting their world in vibrant hues, do they break free from their tranquil embrace.

“Happy new year, Mohn,” he whispers into the crown of her head, placing a soft kiss into her hair.

“Happy new year, Nico.” She whispers back, looking up at him to give him a heart-stopping smile that had his chest aching in an entirely new, almost welcome way.

taglist: @alwaysclassyeagle @bunbunbl0gs @idgaf-if-youre-here @youflowerr-youfeast @thearchersstuff @bellsdi0r @wonderheartz @jjgsunflower @butterflies35 (sorry if your tag hasn't worked btw)

> Chapter Two