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bratbarzal · 7 months ago

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On Your Side (NH13) / Prologue

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen

WC: 13k

Chapter Warnings: angst, miscommunication, ghosting? maybe, some cursing, mentions of OC having nephews (gross), being broken up with over a text, allusions to anxiety, my oc being argumentative and avoidant (she's me), and nico also being avoidant and a poor communicator (he's a man) (he's also a capricorn) (sorry capricorns)

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

A/N: is a 13k prologue excessive? probably. is the mixture of tenses in this part going to grind your gears? most definitely. am I going to do anything about it? no.

I've never actually published any writing before so go easy on the girl. if I need to tag any warnings just let me know. if you like the fic let me know. if you don't like the fic I beg you I'm having a bad month spare meeeeee.

TW for british english spellings because shock horror I am unfortunately british, get used to u's and s's where you least expect them, I will change my spell check settings for no one!! nico's facebook aunt shenanigans have lit a fire within me today and I was writing a later chapter for this fic and thinking if I don't actually put this out into the world I never will so here we are hi my name is maggie I hope you enjoy

Poppy

New Years has always been Poppy Jensen’s favourite holiday. The dwindling aftermath of Christmas - lights and decorations still hung throughout the city, everyone decked in the hats, scarves and ugly sweaters gifted by distant relatives over the Christmas period, and the six days of limbo usually spent drinking and eating copious amounts of leftovers before the new year, new me resolutions kick in - and experiencing it all in her hometown surrounded by the people she loves the most, there is no other time like it.

This year, she feels like the festive period has been one, long, strung-out horror show.

Self-inflicted, of course, like all the other tragedies of her life, she does know she only has herself to blame for how pathetic it has turned out.

She had prepared herself for Christmas to be a dud. The one time of the year that she and her family put aside their differences, and this year she had opted out - or, so her mother had dramatically concluded; she actually just had work commitments. But, this would be her first spent alone due to the fact her parents had decided to go and visit her older brother, Oliver, and his family in San Francisco.

They didn’t have to fly across the country - Oliver has more than enough money to book his clan on a flight back to his home state, but obviously as the golden child, the Jensen’s must bend to his every whim. Of course, Poppy had been invited. Her relationship with her brother wasn’t mutually acrimonious, but the aforementioned work commitments got her out of that bore-fest.

She does love her brother. Sometimes. Christmas, especially - he’s a great and expensive gift-giver. And she loves his wife, Kimberley, and their two sons - her nephews, James and Lucas - but spending the holidays with them would have been a lot. Her family is hard work on the best of days, and the only reason Christmas is ever bearable is because her mother hires help, and it’s impossible for the stress train to leave the station if Priscilla Jensen is given enough wine early enough in the day to dull her usual wicked demeanour.

Kimberley, God bless her soul, maintains a sober house, and Poppy, as much as she respects this, would not go anywhere near that train wreck if you paid her a million dollars.

There’s also the fact that the holidays were invented to unwind, and Poppy somehow always gets lumped on nephew duty. She had long grown out of her boys are gross phase, but lord, do those two try everything in their power to bring it back. She has lost count of the amount of their bodily fluids she has had wiped all over her best clothes over the years. If she had agreed to fly out, she no doubt would have ended up being the one to watch the kids while everyone else had their version of a good time, and so she’d successfully managed to avoid all that with a half-assed promise of visiting at Easter, instead.

Her brother hadn’t been too upset - one less place setting at the table for him to worry about - but her mother had been livid, and there was no chance Poppy would live it down without owing her.

God forbid she, as an adult, actually got to choose how to spend her time.

She hadn’t actually been completely alone on Christmas, not all day, at least. Her best friend Nia had invited her to eat with her and her dad, but they were hardly putting her in the festive spirit with their constant snipes at each other, and so she’d given herself stomach ache stuffing herself full of corn bread and roasted carrots and dipped out to make it home for the Giants game - because there’s no better tradition than watching your team lose on Christmas Day. At least she wasn’t there to watch her dad and brother yell at the TV and get all grumpy for hours after the fact.

She’d watched Love Actually with mulled wine in hand and fallen asleep on the couch - waking up in the middle of the night to the muffled sound of her neighbours screaming at each other through the walls.

Poppy had the 26th off, and spent the day preparing her apartment for New Years, knowing she wouldn’t have any other opportunity to get her big clean done. She’d cleared out half her wardrobe - done several loads of laundry so that she could donate clean clothes to the women’s shelter a few blocks over - rid her kitchen of all the outdated tinned foods in the backs of her cupboards, dusted every surface, vacuumed every floor, colour-coded her bookshelf to look more aesthetically pleasing and then within an hour put it back in alphabetical order - all in a day’s work.

By the time the 27th rolled around, and she had to return to work, she had tired herself out completely. She had been drained, and the worst part of it all, she didn’t even actually need to be there.

Sure, December was a crazy time to work in the NHL, their schedule unrelenting when the season got into full-swing, and the holiday events that Poppy’s team had to organise seemed never ending, but she had technically been given limbo-week off. Not that her mother had to know.

The Youth Foundation team had all wrapped up work for the year on the 23rd, and if Poppy was a truly good daughter/sibling/aunt, she would have booked herself on a red-eye after the home win that evening, but the second the opportunity to accept an actual real excuse not to change her plans arose, she took it with open arms. Her guilt of lying to her family diminished, along with her will to live at the fact she had - self-inflicted, as always - put herself down to work her favourite time of the year.

Her career with the New Jersey Devils had started with an internship in her final year of college. She had worked with the digital content department for her first year, quickly being sniped by the Foundation in the middle of her second year and working her way past content creation to helping co-ordinate and run some of the community events.

When her friend Jessica had approached Poppy and begged for her to cover her spot in the department they had started out together in for limbo-week, spending it with the team at their games, she had jumped at the bit. She knew no one else would agree to work last minute after having their time off approved, and was pleased to relay to her mom that she had to prove herself as a team player if she wanted more responsibility at work. It was all in the name of bumping up her performance and getting her name out there, and definitely not avoiding her family and that whole shit-show.

Poppy loves her job, and is more than happy with her career, but she could sing about it until the cows come home and her parents could not care less. They rarely ever acknowledged her successes because her life didn’t fit the mould they had set out for her - another reason she hadn’t wanted to spend this Christmas hounded with questions of why don’t you come work for your dad? Or why didn’t you accept the interview Ollie so kindly got for you? She doesn’t want a non-sensical, nothing job made up to keep her under her family’s influence. She has forged her own path, one that many dream of in one of the biggest industries in the country, and no matter how much she disappointed her parents in comparison to her lackey brother, she is content with where she is.

She had completely forgotten, however, that the devils played away on the 29th and 30th, and if she was going to be tagging along with the bare-bones limbo week media crew, there was no way in hell she was getting out of joining the team’s New Years celebrations.

She had done her fair share of dodging team events already this year, and despite the fact she could appease most of her friends within the organisation, there was one person who would not let her off so easy.

This year is Jack Hughes’ first year hosting the big Devils New Years party - he’d, in her opinion, stupidly volunteered pretty much last minute after the venue the team had booked flooded in November and cancelled their reservation - and he would not let Poppy get out of coming, even if that meant scuppering her own annual tradition of getting shit-faced with her girls in their perfectly planned New Jersey bar crawl.

She’d done her best work to convince him - had almost sold him on the dream - she and her best friend, Nia, always start at the bar below Nia’s apartment in Hoboken, and then dot to the bars closest to their other friends apartments until they end up by Poppy’s, which has the perfect little rooftop set up where they get to watch all the fireworks across the Hudson. It’s how she’s spent the holiday every year since she and all her girls turned 21, and it was her favourite day, her favourite way to ring in a new year with her best friends in her favourite place in the world.

Jack’s argument was that he also had a great view across the Hudson from his Jersey City apartment, and that she was less likely to catch hypothermia this year because his view came through floor to ceiling windows and the luxury of central heating.

She’d tried to argue that she had all intentions of meeting her future husband on her adventures through New Jersey, and he gave the quick rebuttal that he had plenty of single friends she was yet to meet.

There was no excuse she could give that he couldn’t counteract, and so she’d eventually given up with the resolution that when he is 3 drinks deep, Jack Hughes can barely remember his own name, let alone keep tabs on where Poppy is, or if she ever showed up in the first place. She can always just say she’s running late until he stops asking.

And then she’d somehow gotten roped into helping him set up.

Jack had cornered her on their flight home from Boston, where they had just lost to the Bruins and, all of a sudden, no one was in any kind of mood to party.

“I swear,” he had said, throwing himself down into the vacant seat beside her as she attempted to clear her inbox on the short journey, swiping away messages and storing others to review when work started back up in the next week, “If I mess up this party, and my name goes down in Devils history tied to the biggest depression session this team have ever seen, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“How the hell would that be my fault?” She had scoffed, kicking at his feet when he had tried to man-spread next to her and they had quite abruptly knocked knees. The staff seats toward the front of the plane weren’t quite as spacious as the player seats further back.

“You brought some serious negative energy with you on this trip,” he shrugged, reaching for the bag of skittles she had stashed in the pocket on the seat in front of her and stealing a handful, “And I can’t blame you for us losing, so I’m gonna blame you for constantly trying to abandon my event and making me feel so insecure about it that it turned into a complete bore-fest because I didn’t have my literal professional event planner friend to help me set it all up.”

Jack Hughes had joined the New Jersey Devils at the same time Poppy had started her internship. There had been some corny ice breaker session for everyone new to the organisation that season, and they’d bonded over their shared love for country music. He’d become dependent on her as a local to the area for recommendations for everything - food, sports bars, coffee, grocery shopping, running routes - and they’d quickly developed a friendship that had lasted them thus far. No fallouts, no drama, no issues. Being friends with Jack is easy.

Poppy is older by near enough 18 months, and considers him as close to a little brother as she will ever find - annoying, teasing, loud and somewhat of a know-it-all, but he cares deeply, and he’s loyal, honest and open with her, and she loves him for it.

“I��ve done my part even helping you plan the thing,” she had to snatch the bag back from him before he finished the skittles off, needing the sugar to keep her awake for the quick drive home when they landed. Jack had been on her back about this party since he had first put his name in the hat to host, and she had been gracious, helping him arrange food, drinks, decorations and DJ equipment in the hopes it would lessen the blow that she didn’t want to attend. “I didn’t bring negative energy.”

“Do I have to kidnap you when we deplane or are you gonna come around tomorrow morning and help me?”

“Kidnap me?” she couldn’t help but laugh, casting a quick measured glance over his figure. “Real cute, Jack, you’re nothing without your stick.”

“I could take you.” He attempted to throw a skittle up into the air and catch it in his mouth, not accounting for the fact they were on a moving, somewhat turbulent plane, and he barely had enough finesse to pull that off on the ground. The candy landed and bounced off his cheekbone, and he watched it fall to the floor with a child-like pout.

“It’s fighting talk like that that would lose you another tooth, Hughesy,” she had threatened in jest.

“I’m a middle child, I don’t start fights I can’t finish, Popcorn.” He also has a track record of giving Poppy the worst nicknames she has ever heard in her entire 24 years on this Earth. “Luke’s already said he’ll help me on the kidnapping front, we have a plan.”

“Your plan is nothing without incentive, Jack. You come at me with weak threats when you could just offer me something in return.”

“Like what?” His eyes narrowed toward her, shuffling in the seat until he was facing her fully.

“I want to bring Nia.” If she was going to be subjected to this, she was bringing back up - and she had thought this would be a good trade, knowing how protective the boys were of their private events, especially those thrown in their own homes.

Poppy hadn’t liked the way his lips curved up immediately, like she had fallen straight into his trap. “Done.” She should have known better. He stood up, edging back into the aisle and sending her a wink. “I’ll text you details on when and where I need you. Your hot friend is more than welcome to offer a hand, too.”

And that is how Poppy has ended up spending the day of New Years Eve, her favourite day of the year, rushing to set up Jack Hughes’ apartment.

Her first task had been to go round to Jack’s and accept the deliveries that came while he and Luke were out picking up the decks for the DJ. Drinks arrived by the crateful, the boxes of paper plates, cups and other table wears took her several trips up and down from Jack’s apartment to the building lobby until she broke out in a sweat, and she had done her best to hang all the decorations, her last call being to pick up the bigger decoration delivery from downstairs.

Poppy, with the help of Lionel, the building’s concierge, loads the elevator full of decor, ranging from golden helium balloons that spell out ‘Happy New Year’ and ‘2024’, a large roll that should hopefully unravel to reveal a backdrop for a makeshift photo-booth, as well as a deconstructed balloon arch that gave her PTSD from the amount of events at the Rock she’d had to put them together.

Lionel offers to come up with her to help unload everything upstairs, but the thought of cramming another person in there with all the stuff makes her feel claustrophobic, so she politely declines - though, when the elevator doors open and she bumps face first into a firm chest, her nose smushing against a khaki t-shirt she wishes she had someone else with her to buffer the tension that stiffens her spine.

A large, calloused hand wraps around her upper arm to steady her, and another reaches out to keep the doors of the elevator from closing in on where she stands. She looks up into eyes swirled with the colour of warm, melted chocolate, and her throat feels just the slightest bit drier than it had 5 seconds ago.

“Hey,” Nico Hischier’s voice is deep, scratchy like he’s just woken up - he probably has given how late the team got in last night - and trickles down in static currents from her ears to the base of Poppy’s back.

She takes a short, startled step back, and gulps down the dryness in her throat before she gives a quick, “Hey,” in response. “Sorry, I’ll just take a second to unload all of this then the elevator is yours.”

“I’ll help,” Nico doesn’t phrase it as a question, as if knowing she would immediately decline. Not, let me help, or do you need help? He’ll just do it. “You get everything out and I’ll take it inside?”

She nods, despite the voice in the back of her head telling her that he’s only helping to get the job done quicker, and be able to get downstairs. She makes a conscious mental effort to drown it out while the two of them work in a silent tandem, her lifting the decorations into the hallway and him towing them down and into Jack’s apartment.

She makes another conscious effort not to watch when he lifts things, the flex of his arms, the rippling muscles of his shoulders.

“Is that the last of it?” He asks, gesturing to the rolled up backdrop leaning on the side of the elevator and propping it open.

“Yeah, but I got it,” Poppy gives a tight smile, lifting the roll but staying in place so the doors don’t close behind her and she doesn’t get stuck any longer in Nico’s presence on her own. “Thanks for helping.”

There used to be a time she couldn’t get enough of being around Nico, but those days are long gone.There is a permanent frigidity between them now - it’s been there since the summer just gone - and she’s overstimulated enough having spent her morning being Jack’s lackey while he no doubt slacks off with his brother grabbing brunch out. Her patience is beyond wearing thin, and so the last thing she needs is prolonged contact with the Devils captain where she will no doubt end up blowing up and making everything worse.

No one wants to ring in the new year with an almighty fallout.

She can’t help the frown that befalls her features when he makes no effort to occupy the elevator. He makes no effort to do anything, only looking at Poppy with a pensive pout. “Jack said I should come help you out.”

Of course he did, she thinks.

For the past four months, Jack Hughes has been acting like it’s his greater purpose in life to bring Nico and Poppy back together - like the demise of their friendship was the greatest personal inconvenience he has ever faced in his life.

He has orchestrated one too many ‘accidental’ run-ins just like this one, and Poppy isn’t going to entertain his childish games any longer.

Nico doesn’t want to be her friend - she knows this for a fact - so Jack’s schemes are becoming a waste of everyone’s time.

“I’m alright, Nia’s on her way, you don’t have to hang around.”

Nia was due at Jack’s apartment two hours ago, but is no doubt still asleep after she was out last night for her pre-New Years celebrations. She’ll come over soon enough, though, and so Poppy doesn’t feel entirely deflated to turn down help she actually might currently need.

“I don’t mind waiting until she gets here.” Nico shrugs, again not giving her a natural opportunity to say no. He nods towards the apartment, gesturing for Poppy to start making her way over. “We both know she won’t take the stairs.”

Something about the way he so casually recalls information about her best friend plucks at her nerves, just a little, reflective of the part of their lives they had once shared with each other like it was nothing, but she shrugs it off, beginning to head towards the apartment with the roll tucked under her arm.

“I thought New Years was your favourite holiday?” He asks once they’re both inside, the sound of the door clicking shut behind him and somewhat trapping her in his presence echoing throughout the room. He doesn’t allow for any kind of prolonged silence between the two of them. If Nico Hischier is good at anything, it’s getting people to talk to him.

It’s not entirely that she doesn’t want to talk to him.

She does.

She’s wanted to talk to him every day for the past 4 months that they hadn’t talked - has been craving even mundane, casual conversation about the weather or traffic on the way into work, but now, as he yet again indifferently recollects such personal details about her as if they have remained close, she begins to feel uneasy.

“It is,” she gives a half-hearted, dismissive response.

“Then why are you all grumpy?”

“I’m not.” She frowns, eyebrows furrowing and arms crossing as she turns to face him, the lie tasting bitter on her tongue.

She’s not trying to be difficult. Or maybe she is. She is in a particularly bad mood, but she had thought she’d done a good job at masking it. He’d been around her all of 2 minutes and saw right through her.

“Jack said you’ve been off all morning.”

Like he cares, she thinks, her mood souring further at the fact he doesn’t see through her or even care at all, he’s here at the request of someone else. Following up on his duties as a captain and fulfilling a favour for one of his actual friends.

Embarrassment floods the pit of her stomach, and rears its ugly head in the form of her biting tone when she replies, “Jack’s been out all morning, how would he know?”

“He left you to do all this on your own?” Nico frowns, gesturing around to the half-way set up apartment. All that’s left to do aside from put up the decorations she’s just lugged up is set up the food and drinks, and Poppy figured she could leave that task to Jack so that it all remained fresher for longer.

“I do this kind of thing for a living, remember?”

She cringes inwardly at the venom in her voice, turning away from him with a huff and missing the way his posture deflates.

“You run events, Poppy, you’re not an assistant.” She can hear his heavy footsteps follow as she moves to set up the photo-booth area. “If I’d known he had you running after him all morning, I’d have-,”

“Called someone else to come help me so you could carry on avoiding me?”

She really is wound up now. Jack bailing on her to do God-knows what while she sets up his party had been one thing - there was a rational part of her brain that would tell her there would no doubt be hiccups in trying to source a bunch of DJ equipment in New Jersey on New Years Eve and he hadn’t actually bailed - and she could write off Nia’s disappearance due to the fact Poppy had sprung the plans on her last minute when she got home and called her last night, and she was bound to show up at some point. But Nico implying she is letting Jack walk all over her and needs anyone’s help to get through setting up a basic party is downright offensive. At least, in her stressed out state, it is - and so she can’t find it within herself to bite her tongue about their situation any longer.

If it drives him away and brings back her solitude to finish setting up without him occupying any precious mind space, so be it.

She almost forgets a key fact about the man before her. He doesn’t give up so easily.

“I’m not avoiding you.” He bites back, stepping into her space and helping her lift the backdrop roll to fit into the brackets she had set up earlier when the structure for the booth had arrived. “I would have come to help you, myself, Poppy.”

She wishes he would stop saying her name.

4 months of radio silence and he’s thrown it at her like a dagger twice in the span of 30 seconds, the way his it rolls of his tongue in a low, smooth rasp scratching an itch she didn’t know she had, and now she can’t shake it.

“I’m fine,” she huffs, reaching as far as she can and pressing until she hears the brackets click into place. At the brief noise, Nico catches on to what he needs to do at his side and manages to click it into place, barely lifting his arms. She moves into the middle of the structure, pulling at the velcro tab holding the roll together until it cascades to the floor and unveils the backdrop in its entirety.

“What else needs doing?” He asks, his tone gentler this time.

“Nothing,” she mutters, winding the velcro in between her fingers to occupy them, before moving to pass him and make her way to the next task on her list. It’s only small things now. Arranging the balloons, setting up the arch, clearing table space for the equipment when Jack finally arrives home. “You can go, I’ve got it.”

“Mohn,” Nico sighs lowly, warm hand clasping around her forearm as she attempts to pass, holding her in place beside him.

She really wishes he wouldn’t call her that.

If Jack is the prince of childish monikers that make her insides curl, Nico is the king of making her melt.

The nickname takes her straight back to the days before the waves of the summer break washed their friendship away. The times where he’d give her a ride home from the Prudential Center after work, whispering a, “Goodnight, Mohn,” in her ear as they hugged goodbye over the centre console in the front of his car. The times she’d meet up with the team to celebrate a win at their favourite bar, and he’d throw a never-casual, “Looking good, Mohn,” her way with an appreciative once-over.

And it takes her even further back to when they had met, and she’d first offered her name.

“I’ll be interning with the content team, my name is Poppy,” she had offered a bright smile, reaching her hand out for him to shake, and making sure to keep a firm grip, just like her father had taught her, when he places his hand in hers. As she had done since she was a child, it was instinctual to follow up with, “Like the flower.”

“Mohnblume,” he had uttered, a smile so deep his cheeks dimpled into deep valleys.

“Huh?” She had been only a little bit caught out by the way his eyes shone, forgetting her manners as her head tilted to the side in confusion.

“Poppy flower, that’s what it is in my language.”

“Oh,” she had exclaimed, furrowed brows raising, a soft flush warming her cheeks, “Pretty!”

“Very.”

She had convinced herself for a long time that it was just his way of remembering - an aid in blurring the lines between the two languages that, especially back then, he often found himself mixed up in. And then, after a while, using it seemed to bring a protected familiarity between them - like an inside joke - and he’d use it less in front of others and more in the times it was just the two of them.

Years down the line from hearing it for the first time, and months down the line from hearing it for the last, her heart still thumps the same erratic beat at the sound.

Nico’s eyes still shine the same way when he looks down at her, and she fights every fibre of her being not to think too much about it. Or not to think about the touch of his hand on her arm, still holding her in place, the two of them closer than they have been in a long time, now.

It’s painfully easy to forget the months of distance after only seconds in his immediate company - to wipe from her memory the reason for her reticence and to push down the stubborn desire to push him away.

Her lips part to speak, and she doesn’t know if she’s about to turn him down or take him in, because another voice fills the apartment before any words get the chance to spill out.

“I come bearing gifts!” A sing-song lull breaks the silence as her best friend makes her presence known, entering the apartment with a drinks carrier in one hand, and a to-go back over the other wrist.

Poppy steps away, shaking Nico’s grip from her arm, and turns to give Nia her full attention, hoping that she is either too hungover or too focused on herself to see or care about the obvious tension between her and the captain. She manages to bite her tongue from letting a Thank God slip out, and makes her way over to retrieve a much needed drink.

“They were out of chai so I got you an iced tea,” Nia holds out the drink to Poppy, and then the to go bag, “And half a cinnamon roll.”

“Half?”

“What? I was hungry too.” Nia scoffs, turning her attention to the brooding presence on the other side of the room. “Sorry, Nico, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Would you have only eaten a third if you did?” He trials a joke, and when Poppy sneaks a peak back toward him, he looks apprehensive - scratching at the nape of his neck as if anticipating a bad reaction to his attempt at lighthearted humour.

“I’m sure Poppy doesn’t mind sharing if you’re starving,” Nia makes her way to the bar set up by the kitchen, placing her own cup down and shrugging off her purse beside it.

“I wouldn’t dream of depriving her of half a cinnamon roll.” While his words are directed to her best friend, Nico looks at Poppy with a wistful smile, and she can practically see the memory of an old shared routine wash over his eyes.

A weekly ritual of meeting by the PATH station close to both of their apartments on a free morning for a run, and then catching breakfast to go and grab a juice or a smoothie for the walk home - abandoned just like all the other little traditions they once had together.

Nico and Poppy had been close, before. Closer than she is to Jack, now - closer than she’s been to anyone else on the team, ever. So close that Nico knows her best friend enough to joke around with a familiar ease; so close that they’d even hung out as a three before, back when the girls shared an apartment in Poppy’s first year with the Devils, and he had been the only person that Nia had ever been happy to share her childhood friend with.

And now, Poppy stands between them in a silence so uncomfortable she feels like the room is shaking.

She hasn’t talked to Nico in months, and hasn’t talked about him in just as long, but she knows Nia can read her like a book.

The girls had grown up together - been through everything side by side, pinky fingers intertwined with an eternal promise of friendship and understanding. The demise of relationships, friendship group implosions, familial hardships, Nia’s goth phase, the time Poppy wrecked her hair dying it a vibrant cherry-red because her high school crush said Ariana Grande was hot - she still shudders thinking of how her hair glowed red in any direct light for years in the aftermath. Through middle school, high school, college, and all the way up until now, the pair know each other inside out.

So Poppy knows that Nia knows something happened.

Nia knows that Poppy hadn’t been able to go a day without bringing up the Swiss Captain before the summer, and then all of a sudden, she didn’t mention him at all. But she also knows her friend well enough and loves her too much not to have pressed on an open wound.

“It looks insane in here, Pop,” Nia gawks at the set up around her, every corner of the open plan layout of Jack’s large apartment decked out with decor and party amenities. “Do you guys go this hard every year?”

“Depends who’s hosting,” Nico shrugs, knowing when it had been his turn the year before, his event had been much more lowkey. Poppy had seen the pictures, had been sent an abundance of wish you were here snapchats around midnight from the Captain himself. Jack has a thing about his reputation that won’t let him even consider doing anything lowkey. “I forgot this would be your first year coming.”

“Oh, we’re not coming.” Poppy covers her mouth as she speaks around a bite of her food, unable to wait until she’d finished her mouthful due to the immediate urge to shut him down once again.

“You’re not?” He almost sounds disappointed. She doesn’t dare check for the furrow of his thick eyebrows or the pout of his lips. “Jack said he’d convinced you.”

A flash of anxiety shoots across her chest at the thought of him considering her attendance. Had he asked Jack? Had he mentioned her specifically - pushed him to convince her? Or had Jack just brought it up in an offhanded comment?

“I just agreed to get him off my back about it.” Her choice of words is only slightly intended to hurt. She and Nico were no longer friends - she hadn’t been the one to make that decision. Despite that fact, she tries to suppress the guilt clawing at the base of her throat at the wash of understanding that passes over his features. A solemn nod, gaze bouncing to the floor, lips pressed together. “We have plans with our friends.”

“Actually,” Nia’s voice captures both their attention swiftly - Poppy’s head whipping around in subtle alarm and Nico’s in anticipation. “Blake’s flight back from Arizona got cancelled, and Kelsey bailed on me last night because she got Covid of all things over Christmas.”

“What about Emma?” Poppy asks, hoping and praying their hermit friend has all of a sudden grown some stellar social skills and agreed to carry on their tradition for the sake of Poppy’s sanity.

“She double booked with her boyfriend, and he’s a huge drip I don’t really wanna hang out with those two all night.” God damn Emma and her tool of a boyfriend, Poppy thinks. “At least if we come here, we’re still close enough to your place we can make it back for fireworks on the roof.”

“We get a great view of them from this building,” Nico makes his presence known again, attempting to offer a solution. “If you didn’t want to walk back home so late.”

“See, Pop,” Nia claps her hands together with a grin, “We get to come to a cool party, don’t have to worry about creeps following us around all night, and still get to hold on to tradition. Win, win, win if you ask me!”

“Right,” Poppy sighs, knowing now that Nia has her heart set on the plan, there’s nothing she can do about it. Any persistence on her part would be too obvious. “Fine.”

“Awesome! What’s left to do?”

Poppy eyes Nico, knowing she’d told him only a few minutes ago that there was nothing left. “Just need to clear a table for the equipment Jack’s getting,”

“Which one?” Nia asks, making her way over with her iced tea in hand once Poppy points toward the table in the corner by the wall-to-wall window. “Are you helping or just standing around looking pretty?”

Nico’s cheeks flush, a subtle warmth arising to his skin, and he gives a bashful chuckle.

Poppy feels a little nauseous, and it’s not from the sickly sweet half of a pastry she’s just forced down.

Nia’s eyes flicker between the two of them like she’s at a grand slam, and her lips twist to hide a smile.

“I actually need to head out,” he says, gaze darting quickly to Poppy before turning to her best friend, “I have some things I need to do before tonight. It was good to see you, though, Nia.”

Nia hums around the straw of her drink, giving a dismissive wave. “You too, see you later!”

Nico begins towards the door to the apartment, and just before he passes Poppy, he stops. He doesn’t reach for her this time, doesn’t step too close, but she can feel his presence regardless. And every hair on her body stands to attention like she’s been shocked by static when he says, lowly, “I’ll see you tonight, Mohn.”

She can only nod in response, not trusting her voice to speak, not trusting her eyes to look into his and be able to look away.

After he departs, there are a few minutes of an ear-piercing silence. Poppy can hear every movement Nia makes, from the slurp of her drink, to the manner in which she throws things around with little care for where they end up. And louder than anything, she hears the violent thud of her heartbeat in her own ears.

“So,” Nia drags out when Poppy joins her at the almost empty table. “What the fuck was that?”

“What was what?” Poppy and Nia have known each other fifteen years, she doesn’t know why she hopelessly thought that would work.

“Don’t play dumb,” Nia scoffs, “You and Captain Sexy,”

“There is no me and Nico,”

“But you know who I’m asking about,” she scoffs like she’s caught her best friend out, and then adds, with a suggestive wiggle of her brows, “So you do think he’s sexy?”

“What are you, twelve?” Poppy rolls her eyes, “He’s the only captain we’ve been in a room with, pretty obvious who you were referring to.”

“Admit it, Poppy, I saw the two of you when I came in, you totally wanna jump his bones, you have for as long as you’ve known him.”

“We’re not having this conversation, Ni.”

“The hell we aren’t!” Nia grabs her best friend by the shoulders, “I’ve bitten my tongue for months, Pop, watching you mope around and get all glum whenever work is brought up. I couldn’t get you to shut up about the guy before, what the hell happened between you two?”

“Nothing happened!”

“It totally did!” Nia can spy the aversion Poppy is attempting from miles off. “Don’t tell me you two finally hooked up and you didn’t fill me in,”

“He has a girlfriend, Nia.”

The way Poppy says it is like a period to a sentence. End of conversation. End of speculation. It doesn’t matter what they had been before, or what they are now. It doesn’t matter what she feels. There is no her and Nico because he is someone else’s. That’s the crux of it.

“Since when?” Nia frowns.

“Since the summer just gone.”

And there it is. Understanding washes over the face of her best friend, and Poppy has to force herself to look away.

He’d maybe been with her before that, too, but Poppy doesn’t actually know the entire timeline of it.

All she does know is that he’d come back from Switzerland with a drop dead gorgeous model hanging off of his arm, and he no longer had a use for Poppy in his life.

She knows other little bits, that she’d sourced from parts of conversations with others, or potential social media sleuthing that she will never admit to even with a gun to her head.

Talia, a model from somewhere close to home back in Europe, and Nico had hit it off at some festival when he’d gone back to Switzerland for his break. He’d very quickly and very clearly become smitten with her. Poppy had seen as much with her plastered all over his private stories and even posted on his private instagram feed.

By the time he came back to New Jersey for pre-season training camp, she was tagging along to team gatherings, he’d take her on his morning runs, grabbing breakfast together, he’d pick her up every day after work so he could no longer drive Poppy home, not that he’d ever attempted to explain any of that to her. She was at every home game, was his plus one to every event, and Poppy and Nico’s friendship had fizzled out so much that she sometimes feels like the whole thing had been a fantasy, or a figment of her imagination. Something she’d misunderstood, miscalculating every interaction they had ever shared and assuming they meant the same to him as they did to her.

They didn’t.

She doesn’t think any of it would have hurt her so much if he’d have let her down easy. A sorry for bailing on you the first time she’d text him if he wanted to meet up for their weekly run and he’d left her on read would have lessened the blow. He could have been straight up with an I just want to focus on my relationship right now. That would have been the decent thing to do, but he’d just dropped her, instead. Didn’t come around her office for lunch, didn’t text her after training when one of the guys said something stupid and he thought it might make her laugh. He’d cut her off from the intimate parts of his life - ghosted her, even - and all she could find it in herself to do anymore was miss him.

She’d made attempts to bring him around, at first. Tried speaking to him at work, tried texting, but after a few weeks of staring at the delivered sign at the bottom of their message thread, she had given up. It still taunts her every time she opens it up to delete the entire thing and move on like he clearly has - erasing all the inside jokes and times they had confided in one another like they meant ever meant anything in the first place.

She can count on her hand the amount of times they had spoken since the summer. Work related, entirely. A good game here and a have you seen whoever? there. Today is the first indication in months that they had ever been anything more than two people who worked in the same organisation. Friends of friends, co-workers, barely acquaintances.

Not people who know each other’s favourite holidays and are chummy with each other’s friends.

“I’m sorry, Poppy,” Nia frowns, “I didn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she shrugs, attempting nonchalance despite the stinging in the back of her throat. “Let’s finish here so we can go get ready.”

Nico

Nico Hischier isn’t the biggest fan of New Years Eve. He isn’t really a fan of the festive period, at all. He isn’t a scrooge by any means. He can appreciate the coming together of people and the celebration of the year just gone, and the one starting fresh - but ever since he moved from Switzerland and started his career in the NHL, the holiday period has felt unnecessarily long.

His schedule is jam packed - games up until the 23rd, starting again after Christmas on the 27th, and again after New Years on the 3rd - and there aren’t enough consecutive days together to celebrate in the way others get to do this time of year.

He knows he has to make do with the fact - a small price to pay for living his dream - and his teammates help, all sharing in their sacrifices and trying to make the best out of a bad deal. But he can’t help but feel a lack. A lack of tradition, a lack of family being around, a lack of normalcy.

He remembers the holidays as a child, spending time at home with his parents and his siblings, having two weeks at home for his winter break and getting to spend his days doing whatever he pleased. As someone who moved overseas at such a young age, he looks back on those times fondly.

But now, living at least 8 hours away from the rest of his family, this time of year only serves to remind him of the isolation that creeps up on him like a bad cold.

It starts at the beginning of the month, the sniffly nose period of the bug, when chatter starts around who’s doing what for Christmas. Decorations go up, parties are planned, names are passed around in a hat for Secret Santa, and discussions begin around who is managing to go where.

Next comes the tickle in his throat - the last game before Christmas, where the team all depart and separate with temporary goodbyes as those who have family nearby all get to go home - their parents arranging home cooked extravaganza meals, reuniting with their siblings, exchanging gifts - and Nico, for the 5th year running, feels like a bit part in someone else’s festivities as he and a few of the other European guys all bustle into the dining room of whoever is willing to accommodate them for the day.

Then comes the rest, the sneezing, the coughing, the lethargy, in the period between Christmas and New Years, when everyone is reeling off the back of their celebrations and looking forward to ringing in the next year with a big party.

Nico had thought this year might have been better. He had been in a relationship, there were parts of the holidays he could tweak and adopt into his circumstances - exchanging gifts with a loved one, bringing her along to Christmas dinner at Jesper and Nicole’s place, and not having to feel like a third wheel or like he had to shrink to fit at the kiddie’s table.

He’d even tried to start his own holiday traditions with Talia, his girlfriend. He’d booked an overnight stay at a fancy hotel on the Upper East Side in the middle in the month on one of the rare occasions he’d had two consecutive days with no game or other commitments - despite how hectic his schedule had been. He’d taken her Christmas shopping down Fifth Avenue like she’d talked so much about how she’d wanted to do ever since she came out to New Jersey with him after the summer. He’d taken her ice skating, away from the Rock so that it didn’t feel like work, they had bought and decorated the tree in his apartment together, he’d brought her along to every team holiday event.

And on the day of their home game against Anaheim on the 17th, just a few days after their trip into Manhattan, in the middle of the third period, she had unceremoniously dumped him with an I’m just not feeling this anymore. Over text. As she was already at the airport preparing to fly back to Munich to spend the holidays with her family. He had slumped into his locker after their brutal 5-1 defeat and couldn’t believe what he was reading.

Nico wanted to be angry. As he read the text, he could picture any other person throwing and smashing things. Calling her up and demanding an explanation - because it was clear she hadn’t been feeling it for longer than she let on, considering she was about to board a no doubt fully booked flight across the Atlantic in the eleventh hour.

But there was too large of a part of him that just felt relieved.

Talia was great.

He had met her properly in the summer when he had gone home to Switzerland, but they’d had mutual friends long before. He’d liked a couple of her instagram pictures here, she had responded to a few of his stories there, and then they had been formally introduced at a friend’s party.

Things with her were easy, at first. Nico wasn’t looking for anything serious, and she had ticked all of the right boxes. She was good company, always down to do whatever he was doing with whoever he wanted to do it with. She recognised that summer was the only time of the year he truly had to himself, and she let him take the reins on how he wanted to spend it.

She would go on hikes with him, would lounge around in the sun if wanted, go to parties, go to festivals, join him on little weekend trips to Ibiza or Mallorca. And she was a great release when his training had picked up. She would work around his schedule. He’d invite her round to his apartment and he had enjoyed spending time doing nothing with her after a long day at the gym or at the rink.

She had slotted so perfectly into that version of his life that he gave very little thought into inviting her into the rest of it.

She was beautiful, sociable, charismatic - and then she became hard work.

When summer was over, and he invited her to spend some time back in New Jersey, she didn’t quite grasp how much things would need to change. She constantly wanted to have plans. Wanted to go to parties, wanted to go out, be around other people, take little trips - and he had tried to accommodate her the best he could, but he didn’t have the time for himself, let alone for another person, to be doing things all the time. He had tried to tell her as much, and she said she was okay with it, said as long as he was present with her, she could settle for not doing the things they had in the summer, but she expected too much from him.

She wanted Nico’s attention at all hours of the day, weaving herself into every aspect of his routine. He wanted to run? She would go with him, could really use the fresh air. He wanted to do some solo training at the gym? She had been meaning to work on her lifting. He couldn’t go to the grocery store - could barely even go to work without her wanting to be there. His phone would blow up whenever they were apart, and if he didn’t text her back straight away, she’d become cold - making him feel guilty and grovel for her forgiveness.

Talia was fun, until she wasn’t. Until she was exhausting, and Nico couldn’t keep up with her any longer.

She didn’t give him the grace to have an off day. He was tired, he was struggling, and when the season kicked into full swing, and the team’s schedule was packed, he became unable to juggle it all.

His work was suffering, his star was dimming, his body ached and his performance dipped - both in his professional and personal life.

And so, after the detonation of their relationship, a break up text felt a little like a wake up call.

Talia had contributed so much to the deterioration of normalcy in his life, that Nico was still trying to piece back together his routine 2 weeks later.

His holiday period this year had been spent in a haze - and it wasn’t for the reason everyone thought. He had caught the pitiful glances sent his way over the dinner table at Christmas, had seen the way the couples in the room tried to spare him of their PDA whenever he was around, and he could have told them it was okay. He was okay. But there was a large part of him that was trying to figure that out, still.

He had known he wasn’t heartbroken. He wasn’t shooting off texts to Talia and begging for her to come back. He’d already boxed up what little belongings she had left behind and was going to ship them internationally after the New Year had passed. He had deleted, not archived, all their photos on his private socials, and had even deleted most of them from his phone. He wasn’t in pieces over the fact she had ended things.

But he knew something still wasn’t right.

At first, he had thought it was work related. Their worst week of the season had happened just before Christmas - 3 losses at home in the span of 5 days - and he thought that could be the reason for his slump. Then, they won against Detroit and he still felt off.

Then, he thought he had been anxious about Christmas - about showing up on his own, having to explain his breakup to everyone not quite caught up on the news yet, and he would have to wallow in that same old feeling of watching everyone else enjoy the holidays. But Jesper and Nicole had thrown together a pretty nice day for the guys. The food was great, the company was great, and he’d gone back to his apartment that night with a feeling of relief - like he’d been dreading something for so long only for him to have genuinely enjoyed himself.

And finally, as if being thrust into a freezing cold ice bath, realisation had washed over him on the morning of the team’s final home game of the year against Columbus.

He had been walking through the back offices of the Prudential Centre when he had stumbled upon a conversation, and had heard Poppy Jensen’s voice for the first time in what felt like forever.

“I’m just kinda beat, to be honest, J,” she had said in response to a question Nico hadn’t caught. He had thought no one would be around, most of the Foundation staff having the week off, and hadn’t expected to come across anyone on his venture to the best vending machine in the building. The Foundation offices were often frequented by kids, and had an assortment of candies throughout their machines instead of the protein bars or rice cakes elsewhere in the staff areas. At the sound of her voice, he had come to an immediate halt, peaking around the corner where he could see into her office. She was moving some things into a box on her desk and Jack Hughes was reclining in the chair in front of it that once had been claimed by Nico as his own. “I’m all social interaction-ed out, the holidays have kinda beat me to a pulp, I don’t think I could keep up with you guys, I’m sorry.”

Nico watches as she swats at his feet when he tries to kick them up onto her desk, and can’t quite see the crease between her brows as she frowns at their mutual friend, but can remember how it used to form all the same. “You’re such a bullshitter,” Jack had scoffed, clearly pre-empting the stapler Poppy would throw at him, managing to catch it with ease.

“You can’t call me a bullshitter in my own office,” she gawked, “You don’t see me marching out onto the ice and calling you an attention whore.”

Jack had thrown the stapler straight back. She caught it all the same, and dropped it into the box.

“You haven’t hung out with us in forever!”

“We hung out at the Toy Drive like 2 weeks ago!” There had been two toy drive events organised by the Foundation in different parts of town, and, as he had long become accustomed to, Nico had been put on the one separate to the event Poppy was working. It had been fun, but when he’d checked the social posts the next day and seen the pictures posted of the other team - all smiles between them, a slightly blurry Poppy in the near background of all of Jack’s pictures to indicate how close they had been throughout the event - he had felt like he’d missed out on something.

“That was work, it doesn’t count, Popsicle.” Nico could hear the roll of Jack’s eyes.

“Yeah, well some of us don’t consider helping underprivileged children and spreading Christmas spirit ‘work’, Jack.” Poppy had used air quotes to emphasise her sarcasm, and a fond warmth had spread throughout Nico’s chest at hearing her hold her own against someone as brazenly wise as Jack Hughes. “I thought we were hanging out, having fun, improving our community together. You should really check your ego!”

“I sh-,” Jack had managed to cut himself off, no doubt realising how loud he had gotten. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding the whole team all year, ‘cause you’re hung up on-,”

The door to Poppy’s office had slammed closed before Nico had a chance to hear the end of his teammate’s sentence. Their voices had been muffled after that, and shame had started to creep up on Nico at the fact he’d been eavesdropping on a private conversation.

He’d foregone the snacks he originally snuck off in search of, and returned back to the locker room to get ready for his practice skate.

For the first time in a long time, when Jack arrived and threw himself down on the bench beside him, Nico had wanted him to bring her up.

In the months prior, he would freeze up at the mention of Poppy Jensen, not wanting to face the reality of his dwindling connection to someone who had once been such a huge part of his life. He had other focuses - namely, Talia - and reflecting on what had once been between the two of them did not serve any kind of good purpose. It opened him up to uncomfortable conversations that he wasn’t willing to have, uncomfortable realisations he couldn’t quite come to terms with, and he had been too comfortable avoiding any kind of confrontation around it.

But in the short time between witnessing the conversation between Jack and Poppy, and getting ready for the team’s morning practice, too many questions had been swirling around his mind, and he needed answers.

Why was Poppy packing up her desk?

Why was she avoiding hanging out with the team?

What was she so hung up on? Had something happened?

He’d spent so long avoiding even thinking about her, that he all of a sudden felt like he’d missed everything.

Luckily for him, Jack Hughes needed little to no prompting for his blabbermouth nature to prevail.

“You know, for someone who’s literal job it is to lead us as a Captain, you’ve done terribly at warning me just how stressful this whole New Years thing is,” Jack had huffed as he began changing into his practice gear.

“I did nothing but warn you,” Nico responded, “You called me Mr Grumpy Pants and told me I was just afraid your party was gonna be better than mine.”

“Yeah, well, you should have insisted, it’s stressing me out.”

“You’ll be fine,” Nico scoffed, running a hand through the mess of his hair and leaning back into his locker. He watched Jack’s jittery movements as he shrugged on his pads, and felt the need to reassure his friend. “Everyone’s looking forward to it. As long as there’s plenty to drink and decent music, people will have a good time.”

“Not everyone,” Jack grumbled, “I can’t even get Poppy to come and she loves parties.”

So that’s what they had been talking about.

Poppy did love parties, but Nico couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her at one.

“Poppy has a New Years ritual, she didn’t come to mine, either, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it.” Nico shrugged, despite the wave of a memory that washed over him of him doing exactly that when she hadn’t showed up last year. He’d had to restrain himself from leaving his own party - spent the night texting her updates on what everyone had been doing, snap-chatting her pictures in the hopes it would entice her the few blocks over from her apartment building. He’d only been consoled by the text he’d received just after the clock had struck midnight, settling for the pride in knowing he had been one of the first to get a Happy New Years message from her - knowing it wasn’t just a mass text she would have copy-and-pasted to everyone else, and had been personalised to him with a bunch of perfectly curated emojis and exclamation marks after his name.

Nico didn’t see Jack’s stiffened posture at the way he had so nonchalantly mentioned her for the first time in forever. Didn’t see the side eye, or the pensive twist of his mouth as he carefully considered his next words like he was about to step through a minefield.

“I’m gonna keep trying,” he had sat back down on the bench beside Nico to put on his skates, “I’m definitely her favourite, she’s been helping me organise the whole thing, I don’t think it will take much to convince her.”

Nico tried not to show any kind of reaction to Jack being Poppy’s favourite, or at the thought of how much time they must be spending together to organise such an event. A part of him knew he was only saying it to rattle him. “Cutting it a little fine, aren’t you? New Years is in a couple days, and the guys from the Foundation aren’t even around this week, are they?”

“She’s covering someone on content until January, I said I’d drive her home after the game and me and Lukey can double down on it. And if we can’t get it done tonight, she’s coming on the road with us at the end of the week. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Oh,” Nico was thankful for how Jack had leaned over to tie his skates up, because he wasn’t entirely sure he’d been able to mask whatever had flooded over him at the revelation that his teammate would be driving Poppy home.

That was his thing. He was pretty sure his passenger seat was still positioned to her liking despite how long it had been since she’d sat in it. He was still working his way through the stash of smiley face air fresheners she had stashed in his glove compartment. He still felt like he was forgetting something every time he left the parking lot and she wasn’t sat beside him, chatting his ear off about some of the kids she had worked with in the day.

“Maybe you should ask her?”

Nico’s eyes shot over to meet Jack’s in alarm. “Me?”

“Yeah, the more people that ask, the more she might feel like she’s missing out. Flash her those cute dimples, how could she possibly say no?”

“I think I’m the last person that’s gonna convince Poppy to come, Jack.” Nico had tried to be nonchalant about it, but he had come across so painfully uncomfortable that he could feel the hair on his arms stand, not liking the ache that spread through his chest at the statement.

There was once upon a time that cheering Poppy Jensen up had been a large part of his routine. Even small acts, like bringing her a coffee on a busy day, where he knew she wouldn’t take a break to go get one herself, and knew how much she disliked the stuff from the pot in her office. Sending her texts from across the room when there were big organisation meetings and he could see her chewing at her fingernails at the vast amounts of information being spewed about. Tagging her in cute animal videos he’d come across on TikTok when he was across the country on a roadie and on a different timezone - she’d wake up to them sometimes, and he’d wake up to her response.

“Right, I forgot you two aren’t friends anymore.”

“Is that what she said?” Nico had swallowed down the hurt at the thought of her coming to that conclusion - vocalising it to someone and finalising the decision before he had any chance to do anything about it.

He couldn’t really blame her, though - he’d had plenty of chances.

Nico could feel himself beginning to spiral, words swirling around his head like a tornado of realisation and guilt.

Aren’t friends anymore.

Avoiding the whole team all year.

Jack is driving her home.

He’s her favourite.

Aren’t friends anymore.

Shit.

He didn’t even take in Jack’s response to his question. As much as he wanted to know the answer, he couldn’t bear to hear it.

Nico couldn’t face up to what he had truly lost.

It wasn’t his girlfriend of five months, who had dumped him over text during the most wonderful time of the year. It wasn’t a few games, that, sure, it had sucked that they had been beat, but in retrospect, the team had had a pretty decent start to the season, and shouldn’t have had his back up that much.

Nico had lost someone who had, at one point, been the most important person in his life.

The person he would usually have gone to to help him through the other stuff - the breakups, the losses, the stress, the anxiety - the crushing weight that had been pressing down on his chest since he had left for Switzerland at the beginning of summer.

Nico and Poppy used to work around each other like a beautifully choreographed, well-rehearsed dance. She always knew when he was overwhelmed or exhausted, he always knew when she was stressed or upset, and they both knew how to pick the other back up.

They hadn’t even fallen out of sync when they’d stopped talking to each other, only this time, they were moving around each other. If Nico entered a room, Poppy would leave. If she knew he was going to be at a team party, she’d make up an excuse not to go. If someone mentioned Poppy in casual conversation, Nico would quickly change the subject. All of it had been subconscious, on his part, at least.

It had been so easy after such a prolonged distance between the two of them to move when she pushed, to watch when she ran, like he had grown into his part in their relationship akin to repelling magnets, always moving away from one another.

It had been so easy that he hadn’t even really realised what was happening - lost and handicapped by a thick fog clouding his thoughts and his judgement. He’d let their once blooming friendship wither and die, and for what?

As he had watched Jack waddle out of the locker room for their practice session, muttering a dismissive, “Whatever, I’ll figure it out,” to his Captain, it was like he had been awakened into full consciousness.

Nico had thought that his turmoil had started with the holiday period. Had thought the ache of homesickness had swirled in with the grief that came with the loss of his relationship, and the shame his poor performances on the ice had thrown upon him. But it had started long before that. He hadn’t been himself since he’d returned from his summer break. Before that, even.

Without realising that he had lost her, Nico had spent the last few months subconsciously mourning his friendship with Poppy - the crushing weight of that grief consuming him to a point that he felt lost with no way out, and had expressed it in a bunch of misguided ways.

He reached into his bag to retrieve where he had stashed his cellphone, scrolling through his Messages app until he stumbled across Poppy’s name. The last text had been sent in September, by her, and he had never responded - had never even opened it, the blue dot to the left of their message thread taunting him with chirps of how awful he had been to ignore it.

Poppy: Hey, can we talk? I miss you.

How late is too late to reply to a text like that? He could only hope she still felt the same way.

Turns out, 4 months might be too late.

Nico has drafted an embarrassing amount of messages to Poppy over the days since that conversation in the locker room.

His notes app has a whole folder dedicated to her. Bullet pointed lists, random memories that made him think of her, structured essays that laid out a timeline of their friendship, and all the mistakes he would need to beg for her forgiveness for.

He’d tried sending a message when he had got back to his apartment after the game against Columbus, feeling a rush of confidence from the adrenaline of their OT win, his high had soon dwindled when he was alone. He sat staring at all the different iterations of an apology he could offer, and had even chickened out of the final draft of a very simple but hopefully effective, ‘Hey.’

He knew he was overthinking it. A conversation starter would at the very least open the door for the apology, and all he needed to do was talk to her in some way - but that turned out to be easier said than done.

She wasn’t in her office when he’d gone to seek her out at work the next day, and when he realised she was probably in the content and media offices, he felt like he would be cornering her if he sought her out in front of anyone else. When the weight of how far removed they now were from each other’s lives dawned on him, a text felt too informal, and so the paragraphs sat untouched in his notes. The weather hadn’t been too great, so he couldn’t try and intercept her on the running route he knew all too well, and even attempting to orchestrate a seemingly random encounter outside of work seemed too creepy so stopping by the cafe around the corner from her apartment in the hopes she’d be there grabbing a latte was off the cards.

He’d seen her on the plane to Ottawa, having to pass her seat to get to the team section at the back, but he had a few people boarding behind him, and she had her eyes cast toward her cell, headphones on and typing intently to somebody, he couldn’t even offer her a friendly smile to try and warm her up to the possibility of a conversation.

Between their win against the Senators, and their loss against the Bruins the next day, there wasn’t much time, or energy, really, to seek her out, and so he’d had to press the breaks, but as they flew back to New Jersey from Boston, a panic had started to swirl within his chest.

Nico knew he couldn’t enter a new year without clearing the air, and so time was well and truly running out. He again had seen her on the plane, and when he had plucked up the courage to get up and go sit with her, Jack had beaten him to it. When the plane had landed, and the team bus had driven them all back to the Rock, the Hughes brothers had both walked her to her car to see her off for the evening.

For someone who had been not-so-subtly trying to initiate a reunion between Nico and Poppy for so long, Jack Hughes sure knew how to get in the way. But, he was easy to forgive - especially when Nico had woken up to his texts late this morning.

Jack: need ur help

Jack: urgently

Jack: wake up dude

Nico: I’m not driving anywhere for you

Jack: not asking u to

Jack: u will like this I promise 😌

Nico: what do you want?

Jack: need u to keep Poppy company

Jack: she’s in my apartment and she seemed off when she got here

Jack: been on her own for a few hours

Jack: so she’s grumpy 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 👹👹

Nico: doubt I can change the grumpy part

Nico: especially if you’ve left her alone for hours

Jack: don’t need to

Jack: ur a grump too

Jack: will cancel each other out 👍🏻👍🏻😇😇

Jack: u going down or no?

Nico: fine

Jack: I’ll be back in 1 hr :)

Jack: love u cap 😚

Nico: 🙄

And that was how Nico had found himself trudging down to Jack’s apartment, hopeful at the dream of a bridged gap between him and Poppy, and quickly disappointed by the reality.

She had been cold, rightfully so, and had made it clear as day she didn’t want anything to do with him. She had shrunk into herself, backing away from him any time he got too close, defecting to a state of avoidance - gaze dropping to the floor, declining his offers to help her, making assumptions she was in his way, as if the thought of him seeking her out had become an entirely alien concept.

He couldn’t blame her for how she was being with him. It had been his fault things had collapsed between them - he’d come to that conclusion with the vast amounts of evidence piled up in his phone storage the past couple of days, but it didn’t make it hurt any less to see her like this - or to feel an actual, tangible resistance when he had tried to insist on being around. She didn’t want him around, that much was obvious, and it was starting to feel like it was to late to fix what he had so royally screwed up between the two of them.

The once well-oiled machine that was their friendship was now clunky, clattering, dying a slow death with parts that were now obsolete.

But that didn’t change how much he wanted it to work. His parents had once told him when he was growing up that nothing was beyond repair, and if he wanted something fixed enough, he would figure out a way.

They had been talking about a model train he, his father and his brother had made when he was very young. The company that made the sets had gone bust, and they no longer sold the individual parts anymore - so when his sister had stumbled over something in the garage back home, knocked a box, and the once pristine collectable train had tumbled out and ended up cracked and chipped, he had been heartbroken. He and Nina had filled in the chips with wood filler, and touched it up with her nail polish, and it wasn’t the same but in a way it was better - a new sentiment attached with a memory of bonding with his sibling.

The same thing could apply to his friendship with Poppy. Maybe they couldn’t go back to what they were - maybe they could be better.

And, when Poppy had made one too many attempts to push him away - when he had taken a hold of her after she had tried to move past him, dismissing him and his desire to help her, once again - a fire reignited within him. A spark of hope flickered at the familiarity that had flashed across her face as he referred to her in an endearment he hadn’t let himself use in so long.

In that moment - hand wrapped around her arm, just above her elbow, the skin soft and warm, close enough to smell the all too familiar cloud of vanilla-coconut scent that followed her, and her eyes locked on his - he had seen a crack in her armour.

He had seen an element of want - wanting to reconcile, wanting to fix things, wanting him in her life in the way he had been those months ago - and in a mirror of his own emotions, he had seen trepidation.

They wanted the same things, had the same fears, had the same end goal.

And when the unforeseen interruption of her best friend arriving startled her back into her withdrawn persona, he had realised something else.

Nia’s contrasting attitude toward Nico - open, friendly, familiar - had opened his eyes to the fact that Poppy hadn’t told her best friend about the demise of her friendship with Nico.

And that, as much as it needed unpacking entirely, was Nico’s backdoor entry into the high security vault of Poppy’s good graces.

Thankfully for him, Nia’s obliviousness to their tension had worked entirely in his favour. He tried not to look too much into Poppy’s attempted avoidance of spending the evening in his presence, despite her other plans falling apart. Tried to shoulder the blows of her sly digs at them not being friends anymore. Tried to ignore the pang in his heart at Poppy’s best friend being the one to throw flirty jibes his way, and not her.

A determination had begun to brew within him - swirling, bubbling, steaming - and it was going to push him to finally bridge the gap he had forced between them.

His first success was her agreeing to come to the party, and he could easily build on that momentum.

Nico and Poppy were going to be friends again by midnight, he would figure out a way.

> Chapter One

#nico hischier #Nico Hischier x reader #Nico Hischier fanfiction #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagines #Nico Hischier imagine #anyways #if you do by happenstance read all these tags #we need to have a conversation about people as colours #I would have ranted about this in my an but honestly I think I went on enough #nico is green I won't budge on this because I am also green and he is mine #like if your fav colour is green you know what I mean it becomes your entire existence #but also every time I write him in an outfit its like khaki olive vibes #he's just an earthy toned fella #no one can change my mind #I call this phenomenon hot guy synesthesia I'm writing a thesis on it you've just read it #anyways I'm gonna publish this and run for the hills #*writing #*oys

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what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew · 1 year ago

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A Critique of Riordan's: Neurodivergency

tldr: Rick made ADHD and dyslexia superpowers in the books which fit the time he wrote the books, but it's not accepted now cause it diminishes neurodivergent struggle. At the same time he made autism coded characters the 'annoying' ones and had a very racist thing of having the only neurotypical be Frank.

He tried to fix it in the show. It worked for about 3 seconds.

TW: Ableism, Autism speaks mention, r slur, anti-schizo stuff.

This paragraph is useless so don't read if you don't want to: Sitting in my drafts are 3 different 'A critique of Riordan's' posts i made as i tried to redo my full critique of the Riordanverse with a little more positive feedback and a little less Rick Riordan is the devil spawn. I have decided to not do it in order because because i watched the show and i noticed some things which were iffy and others which were great. So yeah neurodivergency first. Enjoy and think Critically.

Books

Research and Diversity

The books were written in the early 2000s for Rick's son who has ADHD and dyslexia

As a result, it takes on a very "your ADHD and dyslexia is a superpower" message which were popular during the time, but we recognise now has delegitimised neurodivergent struggles

Also as a result, the books were very focused on his son's symptoms, and represented ADHD as a monolith which quickly turned into stereotypes (e.g jumpy, impatient and fast reflexes becoming the connecting feature of half-bloods)

It got so unresearched that at one point he said:

He also talks about coffee in a similar way, despite sugar and coffee not making us more hyperactive and instead making us sleepy. Unless all the scientists and people with ADHD are wrong i really don't know this works.

and also said this: "Leo was extremely ADHD even by demigod standards" Like what

But the worst part about the PJO books was that the neurodivergency was limited to the first book. Percy's ADHD and dyslexia magically vanish and honestly it's only really brought back up in HOO every now and then (not very well might i add)

Ways he could have improved:

He could have given other characters, like Annabeth, more diverse symptoms of ADHD. It wasn't that hard, For Annabeth recognise that she as a 'gifted kid' is more likely to have undiagnosed and so have to face the issues related to being undiagnosed and/or being both a gifted kid and having ADHD, and then also give her more symptoms common to girls like being really chatty or frequently daydreaming.

Continuing having ADHD (and dyslexia) as constant parts of the novels rather than throwaway lines. Build it into the characters actions and persona rather than add it on like an accessory

Research. Never stop researching. Always reach out to people with the disorders and ask them to help. Writing is nothing without research.

Get sensitivity readers

Grammar

This is really minor, but he keeps say ____ was ADHD, and like gramattically that's a no. I am not a disorder i am a person with a disorder . Note for autism, the prefered grammer is Autistic person (aka turn into adjective and describe, something we can't do with ADHD)

Nico and Leo

Making Leo and Nico the 2 characters who were annoying and unlikeable (to everyone else not to fans) was really weird cause these 2 characters were the autistic coded ones.

NOTE: I did see a post explaining it better in the past, and i will link it when/if i find it again.

Tyson and the R Slur

I genuinely think he tried to make the r-slur scene show that it was bad, but the way Percy reacted to it wasn't quite right. Especially for childrens books these things need to be really clear. So it was good to make a bad bully character who was hated say it, but he could have made it better by skipping Percy saying "He’s not r*tarded" and go straight to "I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan the face."

The scene was ok, it could have been better, but again these were written in the 2000s, we have to acknowledge that.

Percy and School

Now this is interesting because this is more recent. Percy tried really hard in school and was smart, it was part of his characterisation. But he never did well in school, because that's how his disability affected him (especially since it was the American school system which we all know is shit and even more shit for people with learning disabilities).

The problem stems from TSATS, where Percy is made out to skip school, and not try at all (feeds into people with ADHD do bad cause they don't try/are lazy)

credits to @aroaceleovaldez

Racism: Frank Zhang

Frank Zhang the only Asian member of the 7 has no form of neurodivergency, despite the rest of them all having. It must be a just coincidence that there's a stereotype that asians are really smart and good at maths and the fact that the rest of the Romans have dyscalculia/s.

It's not weird at all that the character instead has lactose intolerance, which is really common in East Asia unlike dyslexia, ADHD or dyscalculia, which has such a low rate of diagnosis because there is a large stigma behind the disorders and because white people don't think Asians can have learning disabilities/s. No not weird at all that the dude is described with symptoms of dyspraxia but Rick refuses to recognise he is not neurotypical/s

I'm stepping out of sarcasm speak to remind you that Asians with learning disabilities are significantly less likely to get diagnosed with anything because:

because their parents won't let them until they have no other choice (glares at my parents) because there's a massive stigma behind intellectual/learning/development disorders in these communities

When we do try to get diagnosed our claims are diminished because of racist stereotypes and the belief that booksmarts/giftedness = no learning disability. It means most psychologists and psychiatrists (who are usually white) think that all Asians are smart so they don't ever have any form of neurodivergency and we're left to struggle.

Schizo Rep

Octavian. Villain. Schizo. Again.

Do i even need to explain this?

Show

Not actually a specific disorder - Percy just has a learning disability

Interestly Percy's dyslexia is just never talked about, And even his ADHD is never mentioned by name. He's got a random learning disorder which isn't specified. At first i assumed it was still ADHD cause the books, but watching more, you realise they aren't actually focusing on what learning disorder he has and what he has to deal with as a result of that. It's just a generic learning disorder.

Which is weird because learning disorders are all different and we all face different things, even with the same disorder. So placing all learning disorders in the same group? not good. Don't know what i expected from disney, but it wasn't this.

Autism Speaks

So the show tried to acknowledge that Percy was constantly told he was special and heroic when he really wanted to have help for his issues and for people to recognise that he has problems and those are bad. It also represented less stereotypical adhd symptoms (though whether that's because the disorder is no longer adhd or whether they wanted more inattentive symptoms to be present, we'll never know)

but then it went ahead and used a broken puzzle metaphor for his neurodivergency?

Puzzle piece metaphors when talking about any form of neurodivergency are a no go because the creators of the metaphor literally want Autistic people dead.

I DON'T GIVE A SHIT THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE AUTISM, WE ARE NOT ALLIES TO THE AUTISM COMMUNITY IF WE USE THE LANGUAGE AUTISM SPEAKS CREATED

Not only that but a broken puzzle is not a good way to represent us anyways because NEURODIVERGENTS AREN'T BROKEN.

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lilislegacy · 7 months ago

Note

So a lot of people talk about Percy becoming darker and crossing lines in Tartarus but I think a less talked about moment is when Percy got Bob to “kill” Hyperion. One of the reasons this moment is so startling is not just because we don’t view it from Percy’s perspective but because of how much a similar path Percy has been taking to Luke recently.

One of the reasons I think Percy really hates Luke for most of the first series despite I think mostly agree with him is that from his perspective Luke was the type of person to use his relationships with people as leverage. Annabeth, Thalia, Silena, even Percy. He was willing to use people’s trust and affection as a tool to further his goals. And Percy who values loyalty above all else, finds that to be a evil trait of his.

I don’t think in the end Percy hated Luke but that was the aspect that he may have unconsciously drew between them.

Then in Tartarus we have Percy using his friendship with Bob to manipulate him to “killing” a relative while hiding info from him.

It’s a really dark turn that I sure wish was addressed or followed up on!

The poison control is whatever, but this is the real moral tightrope.

this is really interesting

and i agree! i’ve always thought the reason percy hates luke so much, and hates being compared to him, is because luke betrays and manipulates people who trust him. percy himself, who’s defining trait is loyalty, thought luke was the first person in the demigod world to be his true friend. and then found out luke’s generous “gift” to him was meant to drag him down to the darkest pits of hell. that’s… pretty extreme betrayal. then to find out luke willingly poisoned the entire camp - his former home, his family’s home - is beyond percy’s understanding. then not to mention everything he did to annabeth, and thalia, and grover… luke is a traitor, which is the exact opposite of percy’s moral structure. hence percy never wanting to be compared to him.

but like you said, percy is a lot like luke in many ways, whether he likes it or not. however, i will say that when luke asks others to do things for him, it’s for his own personal agenda. but percy asking bob to kill hyperion was so that way percy and annabeth could make it out alive and save the world. so i have to give credit where credit is due. percy had overall good intentions.

BUT, as much as people don’t like to admit it, percy can be a real asshole. the fandom likes to make percy into this sensitive, emotional, defenseless little girly pop who’s favorite activity is braiding hair. (they also make him dumb). and as much as i do love sensitive guys like that, it’s not canon percy at all. percy is usually a sweetheart, it’s true. he’s a gentleman; very kind, funny, and reliable. but percy is also a tough ass dude. he’s rough around the edges. that was the whole point of seeing him from other POVs in HoO: percy’s view of himself is NOT how anyone else sees him. he grew up in freaking new york city. he skateboards and gets into fights and cusses like a sailor. he has an unpredictable temper, sarcastic humor, and doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit. he’s the reckless, quick-to-anger, super powerful half-god son of poseidon, and he’s done some really harsh things. there’s a reason people find him intimidating as hell. and as loyal and kind as he is, and as much of a mama’s boy that he is, he can also be really insensitive to other people’s emotions. remember how he treated upset annabeth in BotL? remember how he treated nico… many times? remember how he was an asshole to leo? and to jason? it’s just that sometimes when others are going through hard things, percy kinda seems to have a “ok and? we all go through unfair shit” mindset, or just doesn’t even think about it. he does realize this about himself in tartarus, which is why he feels so bad for using Bob in the past, and being unappreciative of Nico. as percy grows, he becomes a better man. but he’s still not the sensitive and emotional type, and can be really damn ignorant.

so i definitely think you’re onto something when you talk about how he used bob. and while i don’t think it’s the same as luke, percy has done things - harsh and insensitive things - similar to luke. a realization that would probably send percy into a dark place.

#don’t get me wrong #percy is an absolute gentleman #the sweetest of sweethearts #but quite frankly he can be a dick #but we love him anyway #pjo #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #pjo analysis #answered

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teamrv · 2 months ago

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well, i wanted to write down something to wrap up the 2024 season. idk if anyone will be interested, but i'm so so emotional at the moment and i need to write it down so i can read it in the future.

first let me talk about the thing i'm most emotional about: franco's debut and his nine races. man!! what an unexpected gift :') as an argentinian who watched f1 previously to his debut, i'm extremely grateful for him <3 he made the races even more exciting and now, i understand how people with representation in f1 feel when watching it.

honestly, it still feels surreal - the moment i went to williams' instagram profile because an f1 argie jounalist (adrian puente <3) posted "williams will realease something in a few minutes". i was shaking the moment i saw the familiar face while everyone on the comments were "who? who?" i'm glady now everybody knows your name, you deserve it fran.

i remember everyone on twitter was trying to keep everyone's expectation very low - saying that "finishing the race is the goal". then at his first race, he gained 6 positions and ended p12 just a few seconds behind alex and i was SHOCKED honestly, but i was like well it's monza i guess. then in baku, he showed his potencial and his speed. he is a fcking machine!!! i'll never forget how hard i cheered when he got close to nico and into the points positions. the singapore "divebomb"!!! please, he is a beast. three gps and he was ready to do that ?? wtf. alex sadly dnfed for the first time during his races with him and he ended the race, and even checo complimented him during it. now i knew that what we argentinians saw on him wasn't biased by our patriotism and his charm - he is TALENTED AND FAST!! mexico was complicated for williams, but he still went out and did his best, he fought with mclarens and mercedes, he overtook lawson and he went home with a well deserved p12 (a his first penalty lmao what a joke) - austin was also made so happy and he deserved it so much.

brasil and las vegas were rough, but necessarry i guess, he is talented and he has potential, but these things should happen to lift some weight from his shoulders. i was depressed honestly, but well, it's part of the journey even if the timing was not perfect. even though, i don't want to forget the CHILLS when he overtook hamilton on brasil and the crowd went WILD :')

qatar (nico whyyyyyy?? :( ) and abu dhabi (piastri whyyy + the car was held with hopes and dreams) are just bad luck ig.

everyone knows franco deserves to stay - it's sad that he will (probably) be on the sidelines serving face at the williams garage, but he's so so talented and i genuinely think that he's made for f1, he got everything to succeed.

thanks williams for making his dreams come true <3

(gaetan you're a star over here in argentina!! we love you even if sometimes the team didn't make the right calls lmao)

also i'm so happy alex albon was his teammate during this first experience in f1 because he is one of the best teammates that he could have gotten <3333

also a big shout out to everyone on the grid who talked with him (especially you lando norris, you got himself a new ship) and everyone on the grid that complimented him (thank you checo!!) <333

franco now everybody knows your name and you've made us proud! please never stop trying to make albon drink sour mate lmao or mentioning boca juniors or bizarrap!! we love u <3

he did make us proud <3

#franco colapinto #f1 #alex albon #mine

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simplywrong · 2 months ago

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Another day of waiting and another set of articles that I found

All of them are based on rumours and speculations but I guess facts were never important in this mess. At the begining we have continuation of the 'greedy Sergio' saga with people just taking whatever new amout of money appears and take it as the reality.

In this one we have more detailed quotes from the guy who dropped the large quote over Nico's "16 milion". All of them paint Sergio as the bad guy who put the poor team in a tough position because they either let him stay or have to pay him a lot and lose the sponsors (only Slim is named and it was fun for me to see, since earlier there werre rumours that he would support RBR without Sergio in it. As if.). My personal favourite quote from this: "I think he is not leaving, he refuses to resign." said as if it was something bad and not exactly what any drivers would do in that position. But no, Checo is just stubborn and we should think about how the team might suffer. Next we have tones of people being mad about Sergio giving gifts to his team (which he does every year) and the mechanics defending him online, saying that Helmut lied about the 'no bonus' beacuse everyone will get it and about Sergio winning the action of the year (and why people would be mad about this just baffles me, it's one action in one race and it really doesn't matter all that much).

It brings up Helmut lies about the staff not getting extra money and suggests that the tequila is a way to recompensate for that (lies, lies and more lies). But the haters stay hating.

It's (aside from the nasty headline) a very weird and short article but it just mentions Sergio winning 'amids the uncertanity' byt then we also have this (and you all will tell me media doesn't search for drama under the rocks).

It's basically to rewrite some comments people made about the win (and oh boy are they butthurt about it) and start fake drama becasue *gasp* 'bad Sergio, not oly won't leave on his own now he also stole a win from another driver!' (let's not mention that this award is meaningless and Sergio had nothing to do with being chosen, let's just late the haters hate).

Then we have the whole mess with FIA entry list and people treating it like the end of the world (not even caring that this list means nothing and can be changed at any time). Here and here.

The biggest surprise: beside suggesting that Checo doesn't deserve the seat tehy aren't awful when talking about him! Those are the first ones since Abu Dhabi!

Next we have the usual recycling of Horner's words with a new title because why not.

It's the same Abu Dhabi interview with the same quotes. The only good thing about making new articles from the same material is that they are getting shorter. But if the official site can milk one interview and make it into fours separate articles about the same I doubt this will end soon.

Then we have surprise Daniel appearance becasue they need fresh meat to keep the rumour mill going and why not disturb a guy enjoying his break with dumb questions.

This just some more rumours but this time about Ricciardo's return to F1 with Cadillac even though he says he 'considers his F1 career over' and doesn't want to go back. But media gotta media I guess. Again, Sergio is pointed as the one in the seat for 2025 but the buyout is montioned too (with highlighting of how much RBR wants to get rid of him).

And last but not least we have another belittling of Yuki this time delivered by no other than Juan Pablo Montoya. It's not strictly Checo news but I found it interesting.

So he said this: "While Liam Lawson is the most deserving, Yuki Tsunoda is the “automatic” Sergio Perez replacement option for Red Bull." and I'm just gonna say how and why? No he isn't, he will probably never be but I guess Helmut's obsession with white blonde blue-eyed man stays strong so in that regard sure, he might as well be 'more deserving'. The rest of the article actually supports Sergio and his stay in RBR (only montioning that "The right amount gets anybody out" so we are back in the money field) but this treatment of Yuki is just...

#checo perez #sergio perez

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bebepac · 2 years ago

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Garden Party Photo Op

I am participating in @choicesflashfics prompt “ Say that again.... I don’t think I heard you right the first time which will appear in bold

I am also participating in @choiceschallenge-may2023 prompt for vacation.

Without further Ado and it’s been a long time coming since the last update on this series The Life of Riley Book 2: This is chapter 8 in this series.

This chapter also contains a companion chapter in Heroes and Villians called Arch Nemesis

The Book: TRR

The Pairings: Liam x Riley

Rating: PG

Warnings: Adult Language

Word Count: 2428

Mood Music Monday Submisson: "When You Believe" by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey

Summary: Riley attends a garden party with a challenge involved to see who will be crowned Cordonia’s Most Photogenic Couple, the prize a weekend vacation to Greece.

Original Post: 05/14/23 at 7:14PM EST.

A/N: As mentioned any chapter of Life of Riley carrying this callsign

will have a companion chapter in Heroes and Villains. The chapters will be similar in plot, but different subjects and perpectives will be focused on, the two chapters together tell a complete story from different vantage points.

AN2: I hadn’t planned on updating LOR yet, but I did get a request from the lovely @queenwalton as she is a fan of this story line, and it’s a late birthday gift. So happy belated birthday friend, late but I made it. LOL.

She smiled when she woke up, stretching out her body while still nestled in the soft plush covers and mattress that felt like she was sleeping on clouds. Opening her eyes, she glanced around the ornately decorated room. Waking up there every morning, always felt like she was in a dream. She jumped up, from her bed running over to the balcony, throwing open the doors, as if she expected the gardens below not to be visible.

But it was, every single morning. She had been in Cordonia a little more than three weeks; the ending of the second week at the palace where she was participating in Prince Liam’s social season. She was living her own Cinderella story thanks to the crown prince of Cordonia Liam Rys, who after spending the night with her in New York, asked her to come visit him in Cordonia for a week, and then asked her to stay. Now this was her life.

Balls and garden parties, and vying for the hand of a Prince that honestly had already made her life different, and she hadn’t even said the words “I do” yet.

Riley Brooks was not the only one living their own Cinderella story that had Liam to thank. A young Nicolas Karahalios had everything he owned packed in a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and was standing at the palace gates waiting for entry to live at the palace for the duration of his training. This was different. Previously he was only visiting the palace for training, now he would be actually staying on site.

“State your full name, and what your business is at the palace.”

“Karahalios, Nicolas A. I’m beginning level two training for the Kingsguard.”

The sentry took out a clip board and scrolled through the names. Nico sighed in relief when the guard picked up a pen and checked his name off the list.

“You're early. Head through those double doors there to take your photo for your level two identification, and from there, you’ll go to uniforms for your cadet training attire.”

“Thank you.”

“Good luck, kid.” The guard nodded to him, opening the gate.

“Thank you, Sir!” Nico slid the strap of his bag up higher on his shoulder and stood in amazement as the palace gates opened for him. He took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Nico was officially one step closer to becoming a part of the KingsGuard. Nico stood tall in front of the wall with the Cordonian Crest

to take his photograph for his badge.

“Look straight ahead.” The person instructed him. Nico smiled.

“Don’t smile in this photo.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Nico quickly made his face serious and level once more.

“Your badge will be ready in a few minutes. Since you were the first one here, it won’t be so long, you can go to uniforms and get settled in, in the cadet dorm, and don’t look so shell shocked. You made it this far.”

“Thank you sir.”

When Nico finally made it to the cadet dorms, he finally decided to call his mother.

“I made it mama! I’m the first one here.”

He panned his phone around the room. The first side of the room housed the bunks for sleeping, the other side had furniture, desks, and a huge wide screen television.

“This is nicer than where you were previously sharing an apartment.”

“And Mama, when I become a guard, I’ll have my own quarters here, in the palace.”

“You can do it Nico. I know you can. Thank you for the money you’ve been sending us. I was able to get Athena a beautiful dress for graduation.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that, Mama. It’s what I’m supposed to do. I’ll be able to take care of you someday.”

“You already do that Nico. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you Mama. I’ve got to go now , some of the other cadets are here now.”

“And you can't be on the phone with your mother, I understand.” She chuckled softly.

“It's not that. I love you mama.”

“Go make friends. I love you too, my sweet little Dianooúmenos." (Egghead)

Nico laughed,

"Goodbye Mama." disconnecting the call.

His mother didn’t realize this was serious, that no one would really be making friends. People wanted positions in the guard, and everyone had legacy advantages but him. He was considered to be the outsider that didn’t belong;

the only one who didn’t treat him that way was Demitri who preferred to be called Dima for short. Dima was the closest person to a friend he had of the cadets. Nico had already claimed a top bunk for himself. Dima decided on the one next to him. Nico worked twice as hard as the others, and Dima was at his heels.

After Nico had unpacked, he changed into his workout clothes.

“What are you about to do?”

“Take a run around the wall.” (The Palace perimeter)

“Want company?”

“Sure.”

As they walked out of the dormitory room, Dima looked at him.

“You know, you’re not the only one with something to prove, Nico.”

“Say that again... I don’t think I heard you right the first time.”

“It’s easy to ride on someone’s coattails, but making your own path is a lot more difficult. More people should try it. You and I are really more alike than we are different, you know.”

“Good to know.”

Riley

“Come in Maxwell!” Riley said when she heard his knock.

Maxwell smiled as he walked through the door.

“You know, we have to stop meeting this way.”

Maxwell laughed but the door remained open for Bertrand to walk through. Riley tried to hide her annoyance.

“Yes Bertrand, what did I do wrong now?”

He looked her over.

“Nothing that I can tell as of yet, but you did just wake up, which already means you have a late start.”

“Still getting used to the time difference.”

“That didn’t matter last night when you were at the dive bar drinking with Drake Walker acting like you’re still a college student.”

“You’re acting like Maxwell wasn’t there too.”

“Little Blossom! Way to throw me under the bus!”

“I feel like I'm the only one taking this whole arrangement seriously, keeping you two in check is like herding cats.”

“Meow.”

Maxwell chuckled.

“Do not encourage her Maxwell.”

“Don’t encourage me Maxwell. You know how that antagonizes him.” Riley imitated Bertrand’s voice. Bertrand eyed her, shaking his head.

“Today’s itinerary is simple. You will be having lunch in the garden. All suitors must wear white dresses for the suitor photo shoot.”

“Good thing I’m not surfing the crimson wave this week.”

“The crimson what? Lady Riley if you are referring to feminine concerns…”

“Or the monthly monster.”

“RAWR!!!!!!” Maxwell yelled, causing the both of them to break out into fits of giggles.

“You two!!! Stop it! I mean it.”

Maxwell cleared his throat.

“We are very sensitive to those types of things, right Bertrand? It’s a part of life women must deal with.”

“This is true Lady Riley, if there is anything you need in that department, I’m sure Maxwell can handle that for you.”

Bertrand straightened his tie taking a deep breath to continue his conversation.

“Getting back on task, the purpose of the suitor photo shoot is to upload your candid photo with Prince Liam to the Crown’s social media website so the people can be part of the voting for Most Photogenic Couple. You need to head to your appointment in the boutique.”

“It’s not needed, I have a dress for the event, Bertrand.”

Betrand laughed out loud.

“With all due respect Lady Riley, I’ve looked at your social media, and I seriously doubt anything you brought from New York with you, when you were and I quote ‘living my best life YOLO club hopping with my bae’ would hardly suffice for a upscale luncheon with His Royal Highness and the King and Queen. Maxwell, talk some sense into her.”

Once Bertrand had left, Maxwell peered at Riley.

“Little Blossom….”

“Trust me Maxwell, I have the perfect dress for the garden party. I just need to get a steamer, and I can steam it myself to remove any wrinkles it has. I promise, I will look amazing.”

“I trust you.”

Even though Liam had offered the Beaumonts funding for Riley’s social season expenses, she always felt if she could avoid spending Liam’s money, she would. She did have the perfect dress. It was snow white and ethereal, gently clung to her curves in the right places, and flowy in all the others. Once steamed and after she had straightened her hair but used her curling iron to create loose waves. Since it was almost time for her next batch of white roses from Liam to be delivered, she decided to use the current ones to make a garland of roses for her hair, making sure she saved one for something special for Liam. She wanted the whole world to know that she belonged there too.

Liam was absolutely awestruck when he saw her walking towards the party, heading in her direction, him stopping her at the garden archway.

The way he stared at her made her feel special and desired. Liam never gazed at anyone with the level of intention in his eyes.

After speaking for a few minutes, and the Prince pulling her close to him for a few moments, she continued on to the gardens, meeting up with Hana first.

“I’m so glad you’re here Lady Riley.”

“You know me, fashionably late but always in fashion.” Riley giggled. “I really like your dress.”

“Yours too! Where did you get it? There was nothing like it in the boutique.”

“It’s actually a dress I brought here from home.”

“It’s really pretty, I would have never known. You’ll have a really pretty picture with Prince Liam, with your dress and hair blowing in the wind.”

“That’s the plan!”

“Shall we go and grab a seat?”

“Lets, my dogs are barking!”

“Okay Penelope.” Hana commented with a giggle.

As they turned to take the first steps to start heading towards the suitor’s table, Olivia passed in front of Riley stepping on her foot.

Riley could not contain the curse words that tumbled from her mouth. She was afterall A New Yorker through and through. She was able to use curse words just as fragrant as a painter could make a picture on canvas come to life.

“And that’s why you should be wearing heels and not dollar store sandals.”

Riley decided not to engage the Scarlet Diva anymore at that moment, but the reckoning was coming. She had to wait a bit for the crowd to calm down and It was time for lunch, and time for a little payback.

She decided to survey the serving tables before she enacted her revenge, and let’s be for real, Olivia had it coming. Riley strategically started heaping food on her plate in a haphazard fashion. Anything soupy with a sauce made it to her plate, and to drink? The biggest glass she could find was filled to the brim with red wine.

Target acquired. Riley made her way back to her seat with her plate that was heaping with food and her larger than life glass of red wine, when she passed by Olivia, she feigned slipping dropping the glass of wine over her head.

Direct Hit!

“Whoops!” Riley exclaimed.

Olivia gasped, jumping up, grabbing her arm. Riley again slipped as if the ground where the wine had fallen off of Olivia had made the grass slippery and her plate of food somehow left her hands, landing all over Olivia’s dress.

Flawless Victory!

“My apologies, Duchess Olivia!!!! It looks like I got your whole dress there. Clumsy me!!!”

She leaned into Olivia with a smirk. “Must be those cheap dollar store sandals not providing much traction on the grass.”

The Scarlet Duchess’s face was in fact scarlet and she left the garden party humiliated.

Riley went back in line and got her actual plate of food, finally making it to her place next to Hana once more.

Hana’s eyes were wide and unblinking. “I really wasn’t expecting you to do that. But I’m glad you did. She gets away with so much, I’m glad you stand up to her and for yourself.”

“Don’t let her. All of you guys could stand up for yourselves too, and not let her get away with the things she does.”

“That’s just not how it’s done here.”

“Well, it is now.”

Riley glanced across the way, Liam was smiling, shaking his head at her. Riley smiled back, shrugging her shoulders resulting in Liam’s smile to widen even more.

Photo Op Time

As Liam posed and took pictures with the other suitors, there were some nice photos in the bunch but they all lacked something special. Riley went last, and as she walked in the Prince’s direction

his smile brightened and his eyes twinkled. His world stopped.

“Natural chemistry has finally entered the chat.”

Riley fell into a deep curtsy looking up at Liam as she held out one of the roses she had clipped.

“A matching rose for you Your Highness for your lapel, for our picture together.”

“That’s a lovely gesture Lady Riley.”

After placing the rose, Riley straightened it. “Perfect.”

Riley faced the Prince for her photo as all the suitors before had done. But once their eyes met, there was no denying the electric sexually charged energy of the two together. Neither heard the snap of the camera until Ana De Luca spoke.

“Wow, that was a great picture, but I don’t think the people are ready for a photo with this much raw heat to it.”

“I request a copy of that one Ana.”

She nodded. “You two don’t even need to face each other to create chemistry, it happens on its own.”

Before Ana could actually direct them Liam and Riley fell into a pose different from all the suitors before.

“There it is. Perfect. This picture displays " The Royal Romance.”

All the suitors' pictures with Liam were touched up and uploaded to the Crown’s social media website for voting.

Riley’s picture with Liam won by a landslide, meaning she would be going to Greece with Liam; the man she loves. The girl that had come from lowly beginnings being adopted, and losing everything she had to meeting a kind attractive stranger was now around the world getting stamps on a passport she never thought she would fill, living her best life.

Cinder - fucking - rella in the house or should we say castle?

Just Breathe....

#bebepac writes #the life of riley #riley goes to cordonia #liam x riley forever #choices fanfiction #play choices #trr liam #trr riley brooks #trr nico

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nicole-the-hololynx · 1 year ago

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please nico tell me about the chao adventure games! ive never heard of them

(also its rly a shame theres no chao transfer equivalent for the ports)

yeah it's a real shame 😔

Anyways on the Chao Adventure games!! there's two of these, Chao Adventure for Sonic Adventure and Chao Adventure 2 for Sonic Adventure 2 (simple!)

Most of my experience is with the first Chao Adventure, so that's the one I will focus on. Chao Adventure 2 is similar but I'm not familiar enough with it to comment much. Don't assume anything here applies there.

Chao Adventure is a game you can download into your VMU which lets you take one of your Chao around with you! It's kind of like a Tamagotchi. The game mostly revolves around your Chao going on a trip. You can choose what area your Chao will go to next, and at certain spots in the map you can meet up with the SA1 cast, who will give your Chao a permanent stat bonus as a gift!

A Chao walking through a Shrine... image from Chao Island

Through the game you can battle other Chao, earn rewards such as rare fruits you can't find in the base game, and mostly just raise your Chao's stats in an environment where you don't have to worry about them aging. It's very useful for getting those Chao Race Emblems more easily!

To me the main thing that sets Chao Adventure apart from its later counterpart the Tiny Chao Garden is that your Chao is a lot more involved! Chao in this game LOVE to talk to you. They're constantly making comments, asking questions, and the like. It makes me connect more to this little virtual pet!

It also helps that thanks to both SA1 having a much simpler Chao system and the VMU itself having very simplistic graphics, your Chao tends to resemble its proper 3D model closer in this one (animal parts are still gone, but you can now see the Chao change design depending on its type, and the colors can't be off since this is a 1 bit display lol)

Look at this lovely face! 😊 Sprite ripped by UltimaNumber255

It's a fun enough game and a nice time waster, which is why I sometimes take it with me on trips :P it's a bit sad that the Tiny Chao Garden doesn't have anywhere near the same scope, but I imagine trying to do a game like this on the GBA would take up a lot more resources...

Can't end this without mentioning the two major flaws it has tho. They aren't the fault of the game, but rather seem to be inherent flaws to the VMU....

The game uses up WAY too much storage!! After installing Chao Adventure, you're only BARELY left with enough storage for the SA1 save file!! And also the VMU loves to chug through batteries. I can't really afford to keep it going for too long!! Clock batteries are also very expensive in my country so I've had to start importing them in order to keep the game on.

Still a very fun experience tho, and one I very much recommend if you can get a Dreamcast! Or if you love Tamagotchi or similar stuff! (and if you can pay for batteries...)

#ess rambles #sonic adventure #thanks for the ask!!! 😊#I haven't played much CA2 in no small part bc I no longer own a TV to play SA2 in...#and unlike CA1 CA2 relies heavily on connecting the game back home fairly often #otherwise events don't get randomized and it becomes very repetitive....#sad!#maybe I should just get a CA1 Chao set up next time I can borrow a TV...#I bet that'd be fun...

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apictureofelizabethdarcy · 1 year ago

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Y'all. I might be a little emotional tonight due to the overlap of post-period blues and being very very sick, but like... I am so excited for this new wave of PJO love. Because those books meant and continue to mean so damn much to me.

When I was 10 years old, I my dad bought the boxed set of the first four for me from a Scholastic book order. The last Olympian hadn't come out yet - it came out a month later. My dad chose it for me because it had Greek mythology, and I was going through a mythology phase at the time. I didn't know what he ordered, because he filled out the forms and sealed the envelope after my brother and I went to bed, and I took them to school the next day like a dutiful kid. When they came in, I had no idea what to expect, but I ended up devouring them. Because they made me feel seen in a way I never had before.

TW: adults not being assholes about neurodiversity, brief mentions of sexual harrassment and bullying, brief vague mention of self-harm, death of a loved one

You need to understand that at this time, I was your stereotypical "gifted" kid - undiagnosed dyslexic autistic with OCD and ADHD comorbidities. We lived in a super tiny rural town (like 16 people in my graduating class tiny) with very limited internet access (I had dial-up until I was 13) and virtually no support for my needs even if I had been diagnosed. The first time I had a meltdown from sensory overload, I couldn't stop crying and went catatonic - rather than being comforting, my teacher grabbed me by the shoulders and condescendingly asked if I'd "gone off my meds or something" and told me to pull it together. I also hit puberty super early, and was being sexually harrassed daily because of it, and nobody did anything about it. Not my teachers, not the principal, no one. When I told my parents, I was accused of being "melodramatic" and "overreacting." I learned pretty early that adults couldn't be trusted.

And then came Percy Jackson. And for the first time, I had a character like me - a nerd who played trading card games, who loved being in the water, who had ADHD and dyslexia. Who talked back and defended himself against the adults who talked down to him. And the whole story was about not being like your parents, about fighting for a better and more just world. A character who was powerful and funny and tough and whose disabilities were a part of his super power, not something to be overcome. And I fell in love with the series as a whole.

Like head over heels in love. It was embarrassing, actually. When I would lie awake at night, I would pretend that my parents weren't my real parents and that I was actually a child of Hermes who hadn't been claimed. I became obsessed with Ethan Nakamura - or at least, the self-indulgent, angst-and-lore fuelled fic version of him I created in my head. I started writing my diary entries pretending that I was Nico di Angelo. One of my first eer fanfics was just Clarisse and Percy talking and bonding over having shitty families, and her apologizing. It was VERY important to me that Clarisse be forgiveable back then. I sought out PerNico fanart when I was at the local library after school, and tried to create my own myth-o-magic cards but gave up when I couldn't figure out how to draw a manticore.

And then House of Hades came out two months before I turned 14. I borrowed my friend Axel's copy because I couldn't afford it, and oh boy did that hit me. I was going through a religious phase at the time but I was also coming into my bisexuality, and that caused a major personal crisis. So the scene with Cupid hit me really, really hard in a not good way. I remember sitting in my living room with my parents and brother while they watched Big Bang Theory, and I had to close the book and go to my room. I couldn't read for three days after that. But it also solidified my obsession with these books. 😅 A lot of other bad shit happened that year, to the point I started self-harming, and the PJO fandom provided comfort and community and distraction.

I spent the summer between eighth and ninth grade writing cringey Solangelo fic in which Will was a chronically barefoot Texas boy who got his first kiss playing truth or dare with Charlie Beckendorf. He liked Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, and they had their first dance to "Thinking Out Loud" while Lee played guitar by the fire. I set the wallpaper of my first ever cell phone to Nico fanart that I had to photograph because I didn't have internet access to download it. I played Paola Bennet's "Soldatino" on loop when I was having a bad day and pulled multiple all-nighters on my worst nights drawing PJO fanart.

Sword of Summer released my freshman year of high school. I borrowed a copy from an older boy I was hanging out with - I think his name was Michael? our friendship didn't last, but I'm grateful anway, because that book did. I had only been identifying as gender fluid for 9 months when that book came out, and my coming out was far from ideal. Meeting Alex was the coolest thing that could have happened to me. AND (s)he helped me to bond with my niece, who was 12 years old and already so much more aware than I had been at her age. I called her Magnus and she called me Alex - until we got the point in the book where they started dating.

And the summer after high school was super traumatic. I spent my summer helping my grandfather take care of my grandmother while on home hospice. It was emotionally draining, because this woman had as big a hand in raising me as my mother, but as the end got closer, she got mean and then violent. I was watching her die in slow motion, and it fucked me up big time. But during our moments of quiet, when she would be asleep and my grandfather was out in the garden, I would read Trials of Apollo, and even though those books hurt so deeply, it helped break me out of my numbness, and provided some great laughs along the way.

And when I got to college, the Riordanverse was one of the first things that helped me bond with the people who would become some of my best friends! I'll never forget sitting at the Rachel Carson dining room debating the phylogeny of sandwiches and discussing Red Pyramid with Sage and Kailtyn. I even tried (unsuccessfully) to make us Camp Halfblood T-shirts for candlenights one year. 😅

I know there are parts of the books that are problematic. But I also love this fandom so, so much, and I am so glad that it was able to touch so many of us. I still lay awake dreaming of Camp Halfblood. Of capture the flag and the rock wall of death, of blue coca cola and jelly beans. I buy blue Takis whenever I see them because they remind me of Percy. I can't drive past our local dam without snickering over the "dam snackbar." I know how much this series meant to my little queer neurodivergent heart, and I am really excited for the younger generation who may be discovering this world for the first time.

#percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olympus #riordanverse

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bratbarzal · 5 months ago

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On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Five

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: 17k (holy moly)

Chapter Warnings: I tried to sprinkle some fluffy flashbacks and smutty references later in here just to lighten the mood but this is angsty!! probably cursing I honestly can't remember, and serious warnings rn mentions of hacking/gossip blogs/blackmail/cyber bullying/nudes being leaked, talia is her own warning tbh. I tried not to make a cliched ex comes in between them plot and idk how it comes across but yeah I was trying to toe the line between it being interesting/different and then going too far and not being able to write around it which is why the plot kind of fixes itself quick and is a leeeetle bit bad but there's some unresolved bitterness in that relationship for sure lmao she has a LOT 2 say!! did I mention there's angst in here? insecurity/self-doubt and miscommunication!!! in abundance!!! but!! luke is a cutey patootie in this I wrote his part with a lil smile on my face 💖 also a ridiculous conversation about huffing glue lmao

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Four)

A/N: ok so in the grand scheme of things this is both a filler chapter and also like a pivotal point in the story to set something later up, but when I was planning this entire fic out, the only directive I gave myself for this specific chapter was insert angst. you wouldn't believe the amount of times I've written and rewritten and gone back and forth on what's in here. it's the kind of instruction only a complete melon would give themselves and I clearly just hate myself in ways that are spooky and strange to submit myself to this kind of torture.

and I hear your cries of hasn’t this fic just been angst so far??? yes!! you may be correct!! but you don’t get a rainbow without a bit of rain hun!!! grab an umbrella!!! I promise good will come of this lmao

I'm sorry this one took so long, it's the only chapter I didn't have any kind of plan or direction for obviously and I tried to come up with so many different options for the talia plot before I landed on whatever this is, but the next one I do have some scenes written out in my plan so shouldn't be as long in between. my goal has always been a chapter a week but like I said the other day work has been a lot for me the past couple of weeks so I am genuinely sorry for making you wait!!

you guys were very fun and very kind to me after the last chapter so please please please lets keep the good vibes going come chat to me about your thoughts about the fic about the weather about anything!! 💓

Nico

When Nico and Talia had first started dating, there had been an element of excitement to the dynamic. Nico hadn’t properly dated anyone in a while - had casual flings here and there, and for the most part spent his time swallowing down his burgeoning feelings for his best friend - and there was a novelty to starting something with someone new.

He had all the intentions of building something serious with her. She was fun, got on with his friends, had ties close to home that meant he wouldn’t be putting a wedge between the two of them should he want to travel back in his breaks, and sinking his teeth into the challenges of a relationship was something that actually intrigued him.

He liked planning dates, liked buying gifts to see that buzz of joy and gratitude it would elicit, and he liked the companionship - liked having someone there when he came back from a long roadie or a tough string of games.

He liked it so much he never really opened his eyes to the fact that Talia didn’t.

She didn’t like the dates he planned - didn’t like the restaurants he chose, the movies he wanted to share with her, the bars him and the guys frequented. She didn’t like America, didn’t like their coffee shops, thought their pastries were packed with too much sugar, their portion sizes were too large for her ever to enjoy going for lunch, always complaining about feeling bloated and sluggish after every meal. She hated Jersey - wanted to spend all her time across the Hudson, looking down on everyone she met and everywhere they went together. She didn’t make much use of the gifts he bought her - let every bouquet of flowers die a quick, careless death, said the watch he bought her didn’t go with enough of her other jewellery and turned her nose up at every effort he made to make his apartment feel more like her home.

She wasn’t all that comforting when it came to companionship, either. Rolled her eyes when he came home aching and exhausted, went out without him on the days he was coming back from a roadie and returned home when he had long retired to his bed. She would always want to meet up with her girlfriends instead of hanging around the team, and only ever wanted to come to games if she could bring her own entourage - mostly to show off her connections and hardly ever to actually support him.

And so, despite the initial attraction, despite the excitement that first came with their blossoming relationship, Nico can only look at Talia with disinterest and frigidity now.

He barely greets her as he opens the door to his apartment, moving aside to let her in and waiting for her to trudge her small case in behind her before he closes it, leaning against the surface and watching her discard her bag and keys on the counter with familiarity.

When she turns to face him, running a hand through her hair and huffing out a big sigh, he takes in her dishevelled appearance.

Even when travelling, Talia usually takes great pride in her pristine exterior - hair blow-dried, outfit co-ordinated and steam-pressed to perfection, not a crease or stain in sight, and usually a light layer of makeup to cover the slight imperfections like the darkened under eyes and redness around her nose. This isn’t like her.

She looks like she’s been messing with her hair the whole 8 hour flight out and beyond, her eyes are rimmed-red with smudges of brown at the corners, her lips are chapped and swollen like she’s been crying, and her sweatpants don’t match her hoodie. It’s almost like she’d thrown on whatever she could find and caught the first flight out, fresh out of bed.

“What’s going on?” He cuts straight to the chase, losing all formality and courtesy. He should feel bad for his callous greeting, but she had broken up with him over text not even a month ago - she doesn’t exactly deserve outstretched arms and a warm embrace, he thinks.

“Hi Talia, how have you been, Talia? It’s nice to see you Talia.” She mocks, a frown overtaking her features immediately. “I’m absolutely amazing, thanks for caring, Nico!” Sarcasm spews from her tongue like pure venom, and his eyes practically roll into the back of his head.

Nico pushes himself off of the door, heavy footsteps leading him into his kitchen where he can make himself a coffee to get through this. His watch reads 6:05 - far too early for her antics - and rising to her nagging is only going to make things worse.

“Do you want a drink?” He asks, as he busies himself with his coffee press, unable to look at her too long without the pricks of guilt irritating him. He doesn’t even know what he has to feel guilty about.

“I’ll get it myself,” she scoffs, venturing over to the fridge and pouring out some orange juice - her movements around his space eerily natural. She slams back most of the drink as he works out how to brew his coffee - but she sees right through him. He’s hardly ever used the press before, and he’s just doing so now to avoid her in whatever capacity he can. “I need money.”

Nico’s almost positive he hasn’t heard her right - that there’s some kind of mix up between her standard German and his Swiss - and he slowly turns to properly face her, brows slanting into a deep frown as he assesses her expression.

She has a hand on her hip, her jaw set and her eyes darkened and serious.

“You have money.”

Talia comes from money - her father is some kind of film producer and her mother an artist, if Nico remembers correctly - and she makes good money, herself. She’s been a print model since she was scouted in some market in Munich since she was 15, has had her face plastered in ads in magazines and catalogues around the world. She’s hardly strapped for cash. She gets things gifted to her by whatever company she can get a hold of. What could she possibly need him to give her money for?

“Not enough.” Her tone is cold, her demeanour the same, and if Nico can still gauge her emotions correctly, there’s an element of blame that she is starting to shift towards him, and his whole body starts to feel tense.

“Not enough for what?”

He can’t quite tell what feeling washes over him - worry, at the thought she’s gotten herself into some kind of trouble, stress, at the thought this could be a recurring thing, and potentially pity, at the way she’s so clearly carrying the weight of something heavy - something she’s lugged all the way across the Atlantic on a long haul flight with her.

“Not enough to pay the guy who’s blackmailing me not to leak the videos that I sent to you.”

“What vide-“ he bites back, and the immediate arch of her brow tells him all he needs to know. “Oh.”

Shit.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?” She sneers, fury in her gaze and dismay in her tone. “You’ve ruined my life, and all I get is an oh?”

“Whoa, slow down, I’ve ruined your life?”

Nico has never been one to shame any girl for sending explicit pictures - he’d been more than willing to receive them at the time - but he hadn’t ever forced her hand. He hadn’t even asked her for them, in the first place.

She’d taken it upon herself to spice things up, as she had put it at the time, when the team had gone on the road in early December. It was just after he’d returned from his injury - a time in which he’d spent mentally distanced from her as he’d focused so much on getting back to the game, their relationship consisting mainly of not-so-passionate sex to avoid aggravating his injury and hardly of any kind of meaningful conversation - and she had thought that keeping him on his toes on a roadie would mean he’d come back more interested than ever.

If he’d been looking out for red flags at the time, he might have caught that blaring one; needing to try new things only a few months into a relationship to keep it fun and light.

He’d been in his hotel room in Seattle, freshly showered and ready to throw himself straight into bed when his phone had started to ping. It was suggestive texts at first, are you alone? And I’m thinking about you. Then it had been pictures, hands over lingerie and fingers between glossy, pouted lips.

And then videos, one after the other before he had any chance to respond - her phone set up far enough away that her whole body was in frame, touching herself while laying on his bed and calling out for him.

He had called her instead of sending anything back, and as he realises the severity of the situation, a selfish part of him is glad he did so.

“Talia, I didn’t even save those videos, and I definitely didn’t show them to anyone else.”

Nico could never. Not only for the fact that he was raised to be a decent human being, but he has a sister - if anyone ever did that to Nina, he’d tear them apart, limb from limb.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever sent anything to.” She seems to have made her mind up, and Nico feels as if his heart plummets through his torso at the realisation. She’s travelled all this way because she genuinely believes he’s the cause of this - that he’s shared intimate videos of her without her consent, to someone who would extort her for them. “And he sent me some pictures as proof, had information about me like the address of this apartment.”

“Talia, I swear on my mother’s life, I wouldn’t do that to you - to anyone, not ever.”

Tears well in her crystalline eyes, and Nico waits with bated breath as she assesses the situation in her head.

He isn’t a liar - he has never given her a reason to think he is one. In their time together, he had always been honest, always been loyal, and he hopes at the very least - despite her obvious distain for him now, and how little she ended up caring about their relationship in the end to cut it off in the way she did - she thought of him as kind.

He can do nothing but be patient, let her come to whatever conclusion on her own, and it’s only when he spots the quiver in her bottom lip that he takes an apprehensive step forward, ready to console her if needed.

She practically throws herself into his arms, wrapping her own around his waist and bawling into his chest, and all he can do is hold her and wait. He tries to rub a soothing hand up and down her back, holding the other against her head as her body wracks with sobs. All he can feel is the pounding of his own heartbeat, pulsing throughout his entire body until it’s all he can hear, too.

Nico does his best to comfort her, shushing and cooing and whispering how it’s going to be alright, but it does little to help. She’s beyond relief.

“There’s a guy who said he can track whoever is doing this to me,” she sniffles as she pulls herself away. “He’s in Jersey City Heights, he’s some sort of ethical hacker, whatever that means, I’m going to meet him and he’s gonna go through my phone.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Nico doesn’t even hesitate to ask - if not to protect her, and make sure she isn’t unknowingly getting herself into an even more dangerous situation, then to protect himself too. If someone has Talia’s pictures, and she only sent them to him, there’s a possibility his phone had been hacked, and if this guy is as ethical as he says, maybe he can check Nico’s stuff, too, just to be safe.

She gives him an appreciative smile, eyes still glassy and cheeks flushed. “I’d really appreciate that.”

“I’m gonna shower, then we can go. You can grab whatever to eat while you’re waiting.” He backs away from her completely, only just able to acknowledge the ache in his muscles once the intensity of the situation has settled a little, and he just needs to stand under the steaming spray and clear his mind before he properly immerses himself in her company.

He has a lot more than this whole mess that he needs to think about, and maybe a shower can bring him a little clarity on how exactly he’s going to explain himself to the beautiful girl whose bed he had abruptly left not even an hour ago.

“Why are you dressed?”

Nico stops in his tracks.

When he had got back to his apartment, he’d made a little effort for it to seem like he’d been there all night. He’d gone through to his bedroom, mussed up his sheets to make it seem like he had been sleeping in them - and not with the anticipation that Talia was going to be entering his bedroom, but with her, he never knows - trying to retrace the steps of his usual routine before he goes to bed, he had closed all the blinds, had moved his gym bag by the door.

But he hadn’t changed.

Still adorned in his sweatshirt and jeans from the night before, the clothing feels all that much heavier on his body as she brings attention to it, and he quickly racks his brain to come up with a valid excuse that doesn’t rouse further suspicion.

“I fell asleep in these clothes.” As easy as the lie comes out, he doesn’t feel great saying it. Doesn’t feel like erasing the night he had shared with Poppy is for the greater good, even if it is just to Talia, but avoiding another difficult conversation is a must right now - especially when he’d already lied to her on the phone. “Was out late with the guys last night, Timo threw a party for my birthday.”

“Right,” she drags out, and when he turns back around, she casts a scrutinising glance over him, top to bottom. “Sorry, I forgot.”

“No worries,” he shrugs, genuinely not offended. She has no reason to remember his birthday. Not anymore. “Like I said, help yourself to whatever, I’ll try not to be long.”

When he undresses for his shower, he’s thankful he hadn’t had the foresight to change in anticipation of Talia’s arrival. He probably would have donned a t-shirt and some shorts, oblivious to the visible indents on his thighs where Poppy had dug her nails in as she took him in her mouth.

His chest and torso are littered with scratches, some faint, some a little deeper, and he can’t get the right angle to see his back but he imagines they’re the same - the memory of her clutching at him as both of their climaxes approached is vivid enough for him to picture the marks she left behind.

He groans as the thought of her brings back that swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach, as he notices the blooming arousal pool there, and feels himself harden as he steps under the spray of his shower.

If his phone had been on do not disturb through the night, he could be in the shower with Poppy, instead.

He could have woken up to her in his arms, could have pecked at her sleep-swollen lips until it brought her out of her slumber, and spent his morning making up for lost time just like he had promised her last night. He could have made light work of the pleasure he had given her the night before - could have had her underneath him in her bed, tangled up in the mess of sheets and falling apart before they shared a morning shower, where he’d have held her up against the tiles and would’ve moved into her until they couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. He’d have made her breakfast, something sweet, so that as she sat and watched him atop the kitchen counter he had tasted her on for the first time not even 12 hours before, he’d press his tongue into her mouth after she had eaten and savour the flavour of strawberries that had settled between her lips.

Instead, he’s here, turning the temperature of his water down until any and all excitement in his body is dampened, and all he can focus on is the effect the cold has on all his other aching muscles.

Once he has showered and gotten dressed - and has come to the conclusion that any further thoughts about Poppy need to wait until the Talia problem is resolved and out of his hands, he finds his ex girlfriend sprawled across his couch, music playing from the speaker in the corner, and taking helping herself to a whole new level.

Her case is opened where she had left it by the door, and she’s set herself a little vanity up on his coffee table, fixing her appearance before they leave.

She’s changed out of her mismatched sweats, has dressed herself in jeans and a sweater, and has found an extension cable long enough for her to plug in whatever hot tool she’s currently running through her hair.

“You take the longest showers in the history of man,” she rolls her eyes, not even casting a glance his way as she focuses on her own reflection in the little mirror she must have brought with her. “I do not want to know what it is you get up to in there.”

“I was barely 30 minutes, are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, almost,” she runs the tool through her bangs until they flick out at the edges on either side of her face, and it reminds him of all the times he had watched her while waiting for her to finish getting ready. It makes him feel uneasy how familiar it all is, how she’s so quickly made herself at home again in his space.

He wants to tell her she needs to pack her stuff back up, that she won’t be staying here and needs to give his keys back, but the weight of the situation at hand dawns on him before he can open his mouth.

He’ll wait until they get back later, his decision depending on the outcome of their visit to her hacker friend.

As much as he doesn’t want her around, he isn’t going to kick her out with no place to go if her life is still shrouded in unsafe circumstances.

Talia unplugs her stuff, wraps the cord around the handle of the brush she was using, and places it on a mat she must have brought with her so it doesn’t burn through the surface of the table. “Kay, let’s go.”

She marches ahead of him, picking up her bag and keys on the way out and leaving him to lock up while she calls for the elevator. They wait together in silence, his heart thudding an anxious rhythm in his chest as he anticipates the arrival of the elevator - and thankfully, it arrives empty.

He tries to distance himself from her as they enter, him standing in one corner, and hoping she takes the other, but she doesn’t quite get the memo, standing obliviously in the centre as she types away to someone on her phone and he presses the button to go to the basement.

Nico watches the numbers go down with bated breath. His floor, the next, the next one after that, and he uses any good will he has left with the universe to hope and pray it skips the floor coming up - but, as is just his luck, the elevator comes to a stop with a soft thud, and the doors open to reveal the very situation he’s been hoping to avoid.

Jack walks straight in, eyes cast down to the phone in his hands, distractedly typing away and not even noticing the button for the parking level has been pressed before he pushes it, himself.

Luke notices straight away, halting in his movements to enter the space as his gaze flickers between the two people already occupying it.

He diverts his eyes when they meet Nico’s head dropping as he steps in and stands beside his brother, uttering a quick greeting of, “Hey, Cap.”

Jack’s attention is captured immediately, spinning at an almost dizzying speed to face his captain, phone disregarded into his back pocket. “Schao! I thought you’d be at-,”

He’s thankfully able to tune into his perception before he carries on with his train of thought, a subtle movement in his peripheral diverting his gaze to the figure stood to the side of Nico.

“Talia. Hi.”

“Hi, Jack.” Nico cringes inwardly at how disinterested she sounds. “Luke.” Talia had never really cared for Nico’s teammates - especially not the younger guys like Jack and Luke. She was quick to pass judgement, making comments on their maturity, or apparent lack-thereof, and wasn’t the biggest fan of how close Nico was with the pair. Didn’t like the time or attention he gave them considering the close quarters they lived in, and had always been resentful. She always claimed her English wasn’t good enough to hold a proper conversation with them, but he’d seen her enough around her American friends to know it wasn’t true.

“We’re just meeting up with some of the guys for breakfast.” Jack says, cautiously, in an attempt to fill the silence. The invitation remains unspoken, but Nico can tell in the way the younger boy cocks his head and meets his eye that he’s gauging his current situation for the morning.

“We have plans.” Talia must be able to tell what he was getting at, too and Nico can see Luke’s eyes narrow as soon as the word resonates in his head. Plans. Pre-meditated. Made before she had sprung all of this on him within the last hour or two. Panic stirs within him, and his throat itches to speak the truth, but it’s just not the right time to do so with Talia stood beside him. If he starts getting defensive, she’ll start asking questions, and the boys will have to bear witness to him skirting around the matter of Poppy.

It’s not a good look no matter which way he swings it. He’s stuck in a thick, dark, tarry mess of not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings but making all the wrong decisions. A minefield of not knowing how to explain himself without raising a million questions on either side, and hoping one of the brothers might toe the line of the boundaries of their relationship and just straight up ask why Talia is here.

He knows he has fucked up without the way neither of them are looking him in the eye.

He knew it the second Poppy’s door had locked behind him this morning - he doesn’t need Luke refusing to meet his gaze, doesn’t need Jack’s shifting side eye to tell him he’s made a mistake.

“I’ll text you later.” Nico says, mainly to Jack but still trying to meet his brother’s eyes with no luck. It’s an attempt to say something, without saying anything. A silent beg not to jump to conclusions about what they’ve seen - and, although he knows they wouldn’t, not to tell anyone else. Not whichever of the guys they are meeting up with, not anyone else on the team, and definitely not Poppy.

“Yeah, sure,” Jack mutters in a poor attempt to hide his discomfort, and an even worse attempt at masking his relief when the doors ping open on the parking level.

“Have fun with your plans,” Luke huffs out, his tone like a tight fist clutching at Nico’s chest despite his courteous choice of words.

“We will,” Talia forces a smile. Nico gets the feeling she isn’t as oblivious to the tension as he hopes she is.

The four of them separate into their pairs with mumbled goodbyes, Jack and Luke heading off to Luke’s car on one side of the garage, and Nico and Talia heading to his on the other, and Nico can’t even let out a sigh of pseudo-relief before Talia jumps on him.

“That was weird.”

“We broke up, they weren’t expecting to see us together.” He quickly excuses as he starts the car up, turning on the heat and hoping the soft buzz of the air will fill the silence enough that she doesn’t feel the need to talk.

“It’s been like 3 weeks, most couples get back together after their first breakup.”

Has it only been 3 weeks? He thinks, shuddering at how little time had actually passed between her sending that text and him restoring balance to his life.

“We’re not most couples,” he shrugs, shutting that train of thought immediately as he starts to make his way out of the parking garage, ascending the ramp where the doors open up to reveal the dull beam of the winter morning sun. “You dumped me over text a week before Christmas, we’re not getting back together.”

“Oh yeah, I bet you were real cut up about it,” she jibes, sarcastically. “Probably landed straight in the bed of some desperate puck bunny more than happy to take your mind off of how awful I was to you.”

His mind immediately goes to Poppy, to last night, to her bed - and despite the complete bullshit Talia has fabricated in her head, despite how much he wants to tell her she has it all wrong, he can’t bear to twist himself even further into knots to skirt around mentioning the girl who did make him better.

“We’re not having this conversation right now.” He decides, tapping at the screen in the console of his car until he brings up the navigation. “Put in the address you need, we’re not too far from The Heights.”

The location she enters into the system is for an unassuming condo in a quiet, suburban area. The neighbourhood itself is picturesque, the buildings colourful, the paths lined with trees that seemed to flourish even in the midst of winter, and when Nico pulls up across the street, he notices the amount of families around - parents walking their kids to school and couples with dogs getting their morning steps in. It’s the last place he imagines some hacker to be shacked up, but maybe that’s the point.

He still doesn’t entirely understand the ethical part.

“It’s the one with the red brick and the balcony,” Talia points to the other side of the road as she unbuckles her seatbelt, and Nico looks over at the building as if he’s going to be able to see all the secrets stored within it.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, number 414.” She shows him the messages she has exchanged with the guy, and sure enough, the address matches up. “C’mon, the sooner we get in there, the sooner we can figure this out.”

He follows her across the street, adjusting the cap he wears atop his head and making sure it conceals his identity from anyone with eyesight good enough to catch it, trying to shrug off the discomfort of the whole situation as he waits for someone to pick up the buzzer Talia relentlessly presses.

He hears a different kind of buzz, lighter, like the manual zoom of a camera, and cranes his neck to assess their surroundings as they wait, before he catches sight of the device in the top corner of the porch, facing directly onto them.

He hears the click of a lock as soon as his eyes make contact with the thing, and cautiously tries the handle on the door until it pushes all the way down, letting them into the building.

The door to the ground floor condo is open, and stood in the entrance is a guy no older than 20, dressed in all black with dark, beady eyes framed by wire-rimmed glasses. If Nico could find it in him to see the humour in the situation, he’d laugh at how he looks like Luke - a mop of curly brown hair, tall with a slim build and ever so slightly poor posture.

He straightens up as the two of them approach, Nico keeping Talia behind him as he assesses the safety of the situation. If they’re being lured into some kind of trap, he could definitely take this guy - he can’t even maintain direct eye contact, never mind manage to subdue a man of Nico’s stature.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing someone, Talia.”

He’s soft-spoken, his voice ever so nasally, and despite the fact that he’s talking to the girl behind him, his gaze has settled on Nico’s chest.

“My name’s Nico.” He introduces himself, holding out a hand to shake. He thinks he can write him off as a threat, for now, and if making him feel comfortable encourages him to help them, he wants to put him at ease. “

“I know who you are.” He doesn’t shake Nico’s hand. “I’m Myles. Come in.”

Myles doesn’t wait for the two of them, marching back into his place and leaving the door open for Talia and Nico to enter and close behind them.

Nico isn’t surprised by the space - from his brief encounter with the resident so far, it fits him to a tee; neat, impersonal, furniture that looks fresh out of a catalogue. He follows him over to the corner of his living room, a PC set up with several monitors that he can’t tell are on until they’re standing straight in front of them.

Myles throws himself down into the large swivel chair, spinning until he’s facing the two of them and crossing his arms over his torso with disinterest. “So, nudes?”

Straight to the point. Nico can’t exactly be mad at it.

Talia steps out from behind him, handing her unlocked phone to Myles. “The messages started last week, just after New Years. Straight to my number, not in DMs or anything, but the number doesn’t even come up for me to call it from another phone or anything, just says unknown.”

Myles takes her phone and plugs it into his setup without even looking at whatever she has opened on it, and Nico watches as the screens come alive with mirrors of the device and some other apps that launch as soon as it connects.

“That’s more helpful than you think, they have to use an app to be able to anonymously text you, makes it easier to identify them.”

The way Myles talks is monotonous and detached, but the way he works is anything but. His fingers move quicker than Nico’s eyes can track on his keyboard, typing away at whatever as different things flash up and leave his screen. It like something straight out of a spy movie.

“So we can find out who it is just from that?” He asks, arms folding over his chest as he watches in almost-awe.

“Not exactly. If it is a hacker, I could identify their signature. Doesn’t mean I could identify them, but we can work around it potentially.”

Talia throws herself down on the couch behind them exasperatedly, sighing loudly and making her displeasure known. “You told me you could track them down, that’s what I’m paying you to do.”

“I told you I could help you, I didn’t say I could specifically track anyone, that’s not how this works.”

“How does it work then?” Nico asks.

Myles wheels his chair to the side to make room for Nico to get closer, and starts walking him through the process, pointing through the different apps he uses and explaining how he uses them. One deciphers which app the person used to message Talia. Once that’s been deduced, he uses another to enter a backdoor into that app’s servers, perusing through them until he finds the account that sent the text, making sure the date, time and then content line up. Once he’s found the account, he can see the other texts sent from it, and a gallery spreads across two screens, with maybe hundreds of pictures, videos, messages and transactions all to or from that same account.

“You’re telling me you have the power to do all this and you don’t use it to like rob banks or something?”

“Ethical hacker, clue’s in the name.” Myles shrugs. Nico looks back to Talia, her jaw set as she picks at her nails out of boredom. It’s probably taken about fifteen minutes for this guy to work an absolute miracle, and she looks like she couldn’t care less. “We use all this information, and the access I have on the server, to shut this dude down and cut his con before he can do it to anyone else.”

“Whoa whoa,” Talia shoots up, “Won’t that make him mad? Make him just post all the photos?”

“I doubt it,” the hacker comments, bringing up a couple of the photos on the screens, some of Talia, some of another girl, making Nico divert his eyes. “They’re not even real.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Excuse me?”

Talia and Nico both question at the same time, leaning in to get a proper look to confirm what is being told to them. The other pictures Myles had brought up, the ones of other girls, are actually kind of the same. The same poses, the same backgrounds, the same outfits, or lack thereof, just different faces and different hair.

“They’re called deep fakes. Photoshop, essentially.” He has that aloof tone to his words again, and Nico can’t quite believe how simple it seems for him to say. “They put a bunch of your pictures into an AI generator and give it instruction, like put this face on a body posed like this or wearing that. I’d assume the video they have is the same.”

“How is that even possible?” Talia gasps, pushing herself forward and snatching the mouse from Myles’ grasp. She clicks into what she assumes is the video, and it starts playing before she can think better of it, thankfully without any sound.

It’s Talia - that much is obvious from the initial close up of her face - but Nico doesn’t recognise anything else about it. He doesn’t recognise the room she’s in, the bed she’s on, the things she’s doing. He’s never seen this before. It’s definitely not one of the videos she had sent him, and when he looks closer, he realises the little moles on her ribs aren’t even there.

None of it is real.

“You said he sent you the photos? You didn’t realise they weren’t the ones you took?” He can’t conceal the bite in his tone, his brows furrowing as he looks at her in disbelief. She’s flown out here, disrupted his peace, blamed him for blackmailing her, and she can’t even recognise what is or isn’t her own body.

“They looked real, I-,” Her shock disappears as quickly as it had come about, her mood shifting and a glare all of a sudden being directed at her ex boyfriend. “I wouldn’t have accused you if they didn’t look real, Nico.” She snaps, frowning at him like this is his fault. “You have no idea what it’s like to be threatened like that, I won’t have you blame me for panicking.”

Slivers of guilt seep into his subconscious, and he takes a deep breath, diverting his gaze uneasily and letting out a big sigh.

He knows he should be a little more compassionate, but there’s panicking, and then there’s this.

She had accused him of ruining her life.

“What about the rest of it?” Nico asks, “Like how did he get her number or have my address? You said he had other information?”

“He did,” Talia nods, looking over to Myles.

“The address he probably got when he got your number, and he could have got that from anywhere. Could be something as small as you ordering something online and the store having a data breach, or clicking a link that shared your IP address, and getting your phone information from that.” Myles starts his typing again, keeping a tight grip on his mouse so that it can’t be snatched again. “I could probably find out actually, they’re pretty easy to spot, do you clear your history often?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to do that,”

“Perfect,” Again, his fingertips work at lightening speed, and Nico watches as instagram opens on one of the screens. “Yeah, a DM sent to you from… Devils_tea. You opened a link to a shared drive to upload some pictures, the drive probably had malware and the pictures have location metadata.”

Nico rolls his eyes, that small ebb of pity washing almost completely away, and before Talia can stop him, Myles carries on. “Some of the pictures you sent them are the ones they used for the AI photos, look your face in this one is the exact same as this photo they threatened to leak.”

Nico recognises these photos. The ones that had been plastered all over social media when their relationship had leaked. Pictures of them back in Switzerland, on a weekend trip to Ibiza, selfies of them in his apartment, and even a picture of the two of them with his parents back at his family home in Valais.

He has been far too oblivious to Talia’s games for far too long, he realises.

Of course she had been the one to leak everything - who else would have had those photos - but he hadn’t even considered it would be her; she had faced the harshest aftermath for it, why would she subject herself to all the subsequent grief that came with people knowing about their relationship?

Thank God for this guy’s lack of social cues, Nico thinks, or he would never have known that for as long as they had been together, she had been violating his revered privacy and trust.

“Nico, that wasn’t-,” Talia’s panic is evident, wide eyes, trembling hands raised in defence, “I must have been hacked,”

“Actually, there’s no-,” Myles begins to interject, fingers working again to fact check, but Nico doesn’t need him to validate what he already knows.

“Shut up,” Talia snarls, with a finger pointed at him, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re done here.” She reaches forward to snatch her phone back, yanking out the wire that connects it to his monitors and throwing it onto the desk. “We’re leaving, and if you think I’m paying you anything, you’re deluded.”

Talia marches past them and straight out of the condo, slamming every door she possibly can behind her. Nico can only cringe as the sounds of her stomping footsteps echo until they fade out - until she’s probably outside and waiting for him back at his car.

“Doesn’t she want me to shut this thing down?”

“I’ll pay you.” Nico sighs, reaching into his pocket for his phone and trying to push down the feeling that arises when he’s met with a blank lock screen.

Poppy hasn’t messaged him.

Not that he deserves for her to make it easy, to let him off the hook and pretend he hasn’t royally fucked things up with her.

“If you stop him, does he still have all the photos? He could still release them?”

“Yeah, but they’re pretty easy to validate as fakes, especially when you have the source material. I don’t think this guy is sophisticated enough for a full blown hack into her phone for the real thing. I couldn’t find evidence of any breach of her cloud or her device.”

Nico nods, but the information does little to quell the anxiety that squeezes his chest in a vice-like grip.

This whole morning has been nothing but a giant waste of his time. From the second his eyes opened, to this moment right now, he’s made nothing but mistakes.

Not putting his phone on sleep mode before he and Poppy went to bed had been a mistake. Taking Talia’s call had been a mistake. Not waking Poppy up had been a mistake. Leaving without a note, without a text, leaving at all - it had all been one error after another, and all he has left to do is face up to the fact.

He can’t do anything to dwindle the panic rousing in every fibre of his being, the scarring marks left by torturous lashings of regret that whip at his skin.

He’s never felt so ashamed of himself, in such disbelief at his own decisions.

Why didn’t he just wake her?

She’s the most level-headed, acceptable person he knows. She would have understood. He hadn’t had a reasonable explanation at the time, and he doesn’t really have one now - but she would have accepted it, whatever he could have told her, she would have listened, waited until he could give her more.

He needs to see her, to explain, before it’s too late.

If he thinks about the feeling settling in his stomach, if he can compare it to anything, it’s like running from a blazing inferno of doubt and insecurity, licks of fire racing to catch up to him, the soles of his feet pressing into the sizzling ground - and Poppy is the cool embrace of safety.

She is light cracking through a window he just needs to break through to make it out.

If he can get to her quick enough, if he runs, and runs, maybe he’ll make it before he’s jiggling at a red hot handle that won’t move, won’t give, won’t budge.

If he can just talk to her, maybe the morning from hell will be outweighed by the days of resilience, weeks of efforts, years of loving her in whatever capacity, and the promise of something better.

He just needs to get rid of Talia.

The car journey back to his apartment is carried out in a deafening silence. She had tried to talk to him when he’d made his way out of Myles’ condo, when he had found her waiting by his Mercedes with crossed arms and a sour look on her face, but he’d told her he didn’t want to hear it, that they’d deal with it in private.

He hardly wanted a showdown with her in the middle of the street.

And so, she sat in his passenger seat, jaw set, glaring out the window and letting out the occasional huff or puff for attention that he wasn’t entertaining.

The elevator ride up to his place had been the same. Silent, filled with the type of tension you could cut with a knife, and all he could do was ignore her continued petulance and take deep breaths to calm himself down. In through his nose, out through his mouth, overlooking the way she tapped her foot in his peripheral vision, and almost audibly rolled her eyes every few seconds.

“Would it have killed you to defend me in there?” She scoffs as soon as the door closes behind them in his apartment, “You just let him accuse me of all that stuff and completely invade my privacy!”

Nico screws his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He can’t blow up, can’t stoop to her level. He won’t feel good after the fact. He knows how Talia operates, should have known she’d immediately play the victim card, and he isn’t falling into the trap of arguing to the point of being in the wrong.

He’ll say something he regrets and she’ll use it to her advantage, somehow.

“You asked him to go through your phone, Talia.” He sighs, making his way over to the kitchen and getting himself some water. Chugging at it does little to soothe the burning feeling prickling at the back of his mouth, or the itch of his tongue to spit out a scathing retort. “He’s shut down the guy behind it, he can’t message you or anyone else with any more threats, you should be happy.”

“I should be happy?” She follows him wherever he tries to get away, crowding his space and jabbing a pointed finger into his arm. “You have no idea what I’ve been going through this past week. I thought my career was over! How was I supposed to know it was fake?”

“You didn’t even look at the pictures-,”

“Because I was panicking! I was upset, you can’t expect me to be able to recognise what’s been photoshopped when I’m scared like that!”

“But you can fly straight over here and pin the blame on me for ruining your life? You weren’t too upset to point the finger, Talia,”

“Don’t be an asshole, Nico, it doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m being the asshole? You don’t even care about the trail of destruction you leave behind you, do you? You send private pictures of us, of me, of my family to random people online who you don’t even know, for what, Talia? For money?”

“I don’t need their money-,”

“So it was just for the attention? You get to parade our relationship around like it means nothing more to you than a title, and once you get your fifteen minutes and a few more instagram followers, you just jet back home and dump me over a text?”

“Oh my God,” she cries, flailing her arms dramatically, following him yet again as he makes his way into his living room, picking her stuff up after her that she had discarded here before they left and throwing it into her travel bag. “Stop playing the victim, for Christ’s sake, you’re hardly heartbroken over it. I know for a fact you’ve been hooking up with someone, one of the girls messaged me that they saw you leave a party with her on New Years!”

“So that’s what this is?” Nico snaps, pointing to her, to her stuff, “You think I’m moving on so you fly back out here and spring this bullshit on me, try to make me feel bad?”

“You have some nerve, Nico,” Talia scoffs, folding her arms across her chest and levelling him with a darkened glare.

“I have nerve? You’re the one who broke up with me out of nowhere and think that you can just march back here and make demands, Talia, blaming me for something that was entirely your own doing.” He’s getting sick of walking on egg shells around the topic. If she hadn’t have been messaging people she wasn’t supposed to, this would never have happened - it’s no one’s fault but her own, and as harsh as it may be, he wants to wash his hands of the whole thing. “Calling me in the middle of the night, telling me I ruined your life, saying I need to give you money?”

“Out of nowhere?” Of course she would only pick up on that, he thinks. “My God, you are so self-absorbed.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you think that dating you is easy?” She questions with a measured step toward him. “Do you think I want to spend my life waiting around for my boyfriend, only for him to only ever come home grumpy,” another step, “Or whiny,” and another, “Or too tired and achey to do anything? And that’s when you do come home at all and aren’t half way across the country with the communication skills of a candle. It’s a constant uphill battle trying to get even a second of your attention, Nico, so God forbid I tried to gain some kind of advantage from being with you.”

Her words are starting to cut, but he tries not to react, tries not to bite back. He can count several ways in which she gained an advantage being with him, just off the top of the head - a girl like Talia is never shy of attention. Her courting gossip blogs and sending them private information is probably just scraping the barrel of the ploys she made for exposure while she was with him.

“I didn’t break up with you out of nowhere, I put up with you and the whole circus that comes with you for months, but God, is it exhausting being with you.”

“You knew what you were getting into, Talia. You knew my job, knew my life.” They had met initially through mutual friends - hockey friends of his back home, even - and she has other friends who happen to be wives or girlfriends of athletes. She can’t say she came into the relationship completely oblivious to the downsides of dating a professional player.

“Not really,” she shrugs, “All the other guys can find some sort of balance, but not you. All the other girls get a proper boyfriend, someone who spends time doing what they want to do, who sticks up for them when their psycho fans start to turn on them, who doesn’t keep them hidden away like some dirty secret.”

“That isn’t fair, I can’t control that stuff, Talia, it’s not my fault.” He wants to point out that she was the one engaging in their gossip and riling them up, but he can’t keep harping on about something she refuses to acknowledge. He doesn’t have the time, patience or energy for it anymore.

The initial ‘leaking’ of their relationship had caused their first major fight. Fans online had somehow - although Nico can now hazard a guess as to how - found out about the two of them, had dug into Talia, her background, her family, her job, and had found some pretty toxic posts on her social media. They had been old posts, and she had told Nico that wasn’t the kind of person she was anymore - and he had no reason not to believe her, had never seen or heard her act in the ways she had online in what she called her misguided youth - but someone in the PR department at the Devils had cottoned onto the topic, and had warned Nico of speaking out in her defence when the pitchforks started to raise.

He’d told her he supported her, but he couldn’t do so publicly - not without upsetting people within the organisation he had worked so hard to gain the respect of - and she had told him she understood. They hadn’t been together that long, it would have been a little unreasonable for him to put her above his work in the ways she was expecting, but she clearly doesn’t see it that way, now.

“Maybe not, but if I’d have known that being with you meant having my life invaded, my career ruined, I never would have followed you back here, Nico.” She sounds more solemn now - regretful, even - and as deep as her words cut, she says it like a piece of advice, “I just hope whatever poor girl you’ve got tangled up in your mess this time knows what she’s getting herself into.”

“And what’s that?” His throat feels tight as he speaks all of a sudden, his resolve in defending himself fading, and he tries to gulp down whatever lump is forming there but the feeling doesn’t budge.

This is what she’s good at.

Turning the tables. Reducing him to uncertainty of himself, of his actions, of his memory of their time together.

“A one-sided relationship with a guy who will never be able to put her first.”

There’s a point in every game he has ever had the misfortune of losing, as the seconds count down in the final third, where he has to come to terms with the fact that there’s no possible way for him to win. It’s sort of comparable to the way his insides churn when he’s on a plane and it drops into descent, like his body is falling at a different speed to his surroundings, or the feeling he gets in his gut when he’s hiking, and he dares to take a peek over the edge of whatever mountainside he’s trekking up, where his body can predict the fall, and his mind has set on there being nothing he can do about it.

This feels like all those feelings.

“Whoever she is, and I know she exists, she doesn’t deserve that. It’s not fair.”

Nico’s heart pounds in his chest, echoing and thrumming in his ears until all he can hear is the beat reverberating, ricocheting around his skull.

He can put Poppy first.

So many parts of their lives are intertwined, it would be so easy to make it work. They work together, they live close, he speaks to her more than he speaks to anyone else in his circle. They’ve spent more time together as friends than he has with any other girlfriend he’s had.

He’s wanted her for years, of course he can do it.

Except, deep down, he knows he can’t. Being in a committed relationship with someone is an entirely different ball game to a friendship, no matter how close he and Poppy have been over the years.

He knows there’ll come a point soon into the season where he has to knuckle down and focus, can’t let anything or anyone distract him, and he’ll close himself off. It’s what he has always done. He gets in his head, starts to carry too much weight that he can’t shift until that final buzzer blows - and he can only hope that it happens with his team in the playoffs. Winning, thriving, succeeding. And for that to happen, he can’t prioritise anything other than the game he’s already dedicated his life to, his training, and most importantly, his team.

It isn’t about what he wants.

What have you done? He thinks, his chest aching.

Talia is right.

Poppy doesn’t deserve that.

She doesn’t deserve him only being there in the physical sense, if she even gets that at all. Doesn’t deserve him getting snappy and stressed, doesn’t deserve him not being able to give her time, or give her attention or affection like he wants to, or like she’s worthy of.

“I need to go.” He manages to choke out with a shake of his head, shouldering past her to pick up his jacket - needing to be out of this conversation and away from Talia. “Leave the keys, I don’t want you here when I get back.”

He needs to see Poppy.

He never should have left her - he wishes with everything in him that he had soaked up the time he had with her before everything came tumbling down around him. And somewhere deep within him, there is a fragile, wilting piece of hope that clings to the belief he can make things right. He just needs her to hone in on it. If anyone can reach into the deepest cracks of his insecurities, can show him he’s overthinking things and everything is not as hopeless as he has made it out to be, it will be Poppy.

Poppy

The first time Poppy had ever fallen asleep beside Nico was at a movie night in Jack’s old apartment he shared with Ty Smith. Jack had invited more people round than could reasonably fit in their living room, and so everyone was smushed in - each chair and every inch of floor space used to its full capacity.

Nico had attempted to save Poppy a space, to give him credit. He had scowled at each of his teammates who tried to throw themselves down in the tiny slot beside him - prime space, corner of the comfiest couch, facing the tv directly, a small table to the side where one could keep their drinks and snacks - only, by the time Poppy got there, he had barely gotten away with man-spreading to make room, so the small section of the couch between Nico and the arm rest had become her designated spot.

It was cosy, to put it nicely. He had to swing his arm over the back so that she wasn’t being assaulted by the hard dig of his shoulder with every laugh, and her closest leg was pretty much on top of his for most of the film.

She’d known the guys for almost a year - had been working in media, attending every game, home and away, and had integrated herself into the group pretty closely - and she felt pretty comfortable around everyone.

It wasn’t the kind of dynamic she had anticipated falling into when she first got the job with the Devils. She was supposed to start getting serious about her life - cracking down on mingling with co-workers and throwing herself into new social circles, and focusing on building a career for herself, climbing through the ranks and attaining the kind of success and happiness she could shove in her family’s disapproving faces - but the guys had charmed her.

Jack had been somewhat relentless in his pursuit of Poppy’s friendship. He rarely took no for an answer when it came to inviting her out. He was new to New Jersey - a much younger player in a slightly older team - and his rookie season had been rough, so it came naturally to Poppy to want to provide comfort. She introduced him to some of her friends, showed him her favourite spots close to his apartment, found him a decent barber, picked up extra fruit whenever she went to the farmers market near her parent’s house and took it over to his and Ty’s place when she came back home so she could mother him into having his 5-a-day as if he didn’t have access to the best nutrition coaches in the country. Despite her best efforts, Jack had weaselled his way under her skin in the way only a brother could.

Nico’s charm was entirely different.

Nico’s charm came in the form of convenience at first - in the oh I live that way, I can drive you and I have some time, I can do some media stuff for you type of way. Convenience blended into companionship - I haven’t eaten either, we should go for lunch together and I’ve been wanting to watch that movie, do you want to watch it with me?

It turned into grabbing food together, even on days neither of them were working - breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, even coffee or sometimes drinks if they could meet up with the rest of the team. It turned into him spending time at her place, whether it was helping her paint her apartment, putting up her new wardrobes, or just binging whatever crazy long series Poppy had decided to start over from the beginning - she provided him with a sense of familiarity and calm he couldn’t really find in anyone else he had met in his time in the states. She became his person, his home away from home, away from home.

And he became hers.

There wasn’t as much she had to escape; her job not as strenuous, the expectations of her not as high, but when things built up for her - when her mother became overbearing, or her latest endeavour into a relationship crashed and burned - Nico was there. He’d make sure she had a distraction, made sure she was looking after herself, and, in turn, would look after her as well. He made sure she got home safe on nights out, or when they returned from a roadie and landed late - he would always make sure to see her off into the comfort of her own home before he went back to his own.

And that first time she’d fallen asleep beside him, he’d done the same.

He’d wrapped an arm around her to make her as comfortable as possible for as long as he could, and when the movie had finished - when her face was burrowed into the side of his chest, soft snores falling from between her lips - he gently drew her back to consciousness with his hand stroking at her cheek.

She’d been a little startled, hand shooting up to wipe at her chin and thankful she hadn’t been drooling on him - although with the easy smile he was giving her, she had thought he of all people wouldn’t have minded.

“Movie’s done, do you need a ride home?” His voice had been low and soft as not to worsen her apparent disorientation, and his hand was still lingering by the side of her face.

She had nodded, blinking away her sleepiness, and working her way up from the couch and onto her feet, stretching out her muscles as Nico did the same.

The two of them bid their goodbyes to the rest of the guys, made their way together to Nico’s car, and he had driven her back to her apartment, chatting on the drive about work and training.

Poppy had been cramming to prepare for her interview for the Foundation at the time - had been getting herself seriously worked up, staying up late, getting up early, barely allowing herself any time for anything fun - and Nico had seen right through her.

He’d stopped her before she got out of the car, had held her hand, rubbing at her knuckles with his thumb, and had told her that she should get some proper rest, and that she was going to absolutely rock their world in her interview in a few days time. And, knowing she was going to ignore any instruction he gave to make herself some decent dinner and go to bed early, had ordered her favourite Japanese takeout to be delivered a good half an hour after she got inside, with a text that followed telling her to sleep straight after she had finished.

She’d never expected to drift asleep with him on Jack’s couch - had never expected to open her eyes to the sight of his looking so warmly back at her.

And she hadn’t expected the same thing this morning, because, as her eyes drifted open to the intrusive light peaking through the cracks in her curtains, it wasn’t the first time she had woken up.

The first time had been to subdued movements, a slight groan of her bed frame, and the soft pattering of footsteps leading away. It had been to a hushed voice, the creak of her bathroom door, the flush of a toilet and the uttering of a name she had hoped she would never have to worry about again.

Talia.

The rest of his words had been uttered in his own language, but that she could understand.

She had acted purely on fight or flight instinct, laying back and pretending she was asleep - although as soon as she did, she regretted it, her mind racing at the million and one other possibilities she could have gone with. Sitting up, waiting for him to come out and asking him what was going on being the most rational.

But when had she ever gone with the most rational thought?

She tried not to react as she felt his presence, felt the soft press of his lips to her skin, or the placement of her bunny in her arms. Tried not to follow him as soon as he departed her bedroom, beg him to come back and whatever was going on could wait until the proper turn of the morning. Tried not to get up and go after him when the click of the lock to her main door echoed throughout the empty apartment.

And she tried not to cry as she laid in bed, overthinking herself back to sleep, thoughts racing to the point of exhaustion, and hoping when she woke up again it had just been a god-awful dream.

But it hadn’t.

The spot beside her in bed is empty, not even a crease in the pillow to prove he was ever there - only the t-shirt of his she still adorned, the one that when she takes a deep inhale, still smells like him, and the distinct aching between her thighs.

She finds more evidence of their night together in the bathroom, where she undresses herself with sore muscles and glances in the mirror to see the spattering of purple marks forming on her chest and neck. Her fingers trace over them lightly, her fleeting touch bringing vivid images forth of his lips pressing to her skin, practically able to feel the pressure of her flesh being nipped and bitten again.

He had been so attentive to her - so in tune with what she needed and wanted, and so ready to give her whatever that may be. He’d been gentle at some points, and purposeful at others, and every little thing he did, he did it with sweet disposition.

The kind of man who treats a girl like that doesn’t just leave her in the dead of night with no good reason, right?

Her mind races despite her body going into auto-pilot throughout her morning routine. Her shower is over in the flash of an eye, she strips her bed, starts her laundry, makes herself some tea and gets herself dressed - all the while weighing out all the possibilities of what could have taken him away from her, and what she would be able to understand.

That quickly turns to her imagining the worst, and a tight, constricting feeling starts to consume her chest.

There isn’t a single part of her apartment she can get away from the thoughts buzzing around her brain - her kitchen marred with the memory of what had happened on the counter, her couch, her bedroom, her bathroom - all carrying distinct memories of Nico that she needs to bench until she knows the truth.

She mistakenly thinks her escape might lie in her phone. There might be a text there waiting, explaining everything and relieving all the anxiety that has welled up in her very core.

Nia’s warnings from the night before don’t ring quick enough in her mind as the screen comes to life, the immediate barrage of notifications flooding in.

2 missed calls from Mom

Mom: Just calling to remind you of proper table etiquette in case it has slipped your mind, I won’t have you embarrass me in front of a Lyon.

Mom: Cutlery going from the outside in, hold your wine glass by the stem and dab with your napkin, don’t swipe!

Mom: Also let the man tuck your chair in and pay the bill, this 21st century woman nonsense is very unbecoming!

Mom: And I don’t want to have to bring this up but for the love of God, Poppy, have some class. I don’t want to hear mutterings of your promiscuity at the next luncheon.

Whoever taught her mom to text deserves a prison sentence, she thinks.

Tucker Lyon standing a girl up and ghosting her attempts to contact him is what’s unbecoming, not her trying to pay her half of the meal.

She can picture her mother as she reads the texts, sipping on her Manhattan on the couch in the great room, her dad already having retreated to bed at that time, and her having nothing better to do than sit and stew on her daughter’s sex life.

If she knew what was really going down last night, her mom would probably have a conniption.

Knowing she’ll no doubt be getting a call later that evening, Poppy swipes away at her text thread with her mom, immediately checking the notifications she hasn’t long received from her best friend.

Nia: hey if you happen to release yourself from Nico’s wandering hands at all today me and Kelsey are grabbing breakfast by my work!!

Nia: if you need refuelling we’ll be at Marco’s at 9 😘

Perfect. Therein lies her escape. Breakfast with her best friends, where they can hopefully talk her down from the ledge she’s precariously placed herself on.

A catch up with her girls, and then she can distract herself with work.

Poppy: I’ll be there!!

“Hasn’t he text you or anything?” Nia asks, covering her mouth as she chews on her breakfast bagel, the three girls sat around a table inside their favourite cafe close to Nia’s office.

When Poppy and Nia had first moved in together, they rented an apartment in Hoboken, not too far, and their tradition of grabbing breakfast at Marco’s carried on despite Poppy living further down the river and working even further away in Newark.

Kelsey had lived in Manhattan at that time, but she stayed over so often with the other girls that she practically spent majority of her week there, and so Poppy and Nia’s routine became hers.

Poppy had given the two of them a brief rundown of her night with Nico, a safe-for-work version of events, all leading up to the mysterious early morning phone call and swift departure.

“Nope,” she sighs, swiping to refresh her messages as if she hasn’t put her phone on loud just to be alerted when he does reach out.

“Have you text him?”

“Nope,” she repeats, putting the phone down and leaning back in her chair, running a hand through her already messed up hair. She’s going to have to throw it up if she wants to look any sort of presentable when she gets to work later.

“Is he usually this pathetic at communicating?” Kelsey asks, manicured nails swiping at a bunch of Sweet’n Lows like she’s trying to play Tetris with the packets.

Kelsey hasn’t met Nico before, not that Poppy can remember.

Despite considering her one of her closest friends, their personal lives have never quite intertwined like that - not like hers and Nia’s.

In college, things were different. They were coming into their own together, figuring out just what they wanted their personal lives to be, and so Kelsey, Poppy and Nia would all share pretty much everything, just to have someone there to validate their feelings.

But that changed once they graduated.

Kelsey moved in with her boyfriend, Liam - who just so happens to be Poppy’s idea of hell-spawn.

The kind of guy her mother would probably love.

Liam worked on Wall Street, couldn’t go five minutes of conversation without talking about stocks or investment funds. His native language was risky money moves and belittling remarks, and he treated Kelsey like an accessory to parade around in public and discard in private.

Poppy had tried a few times to open Kelsey’s eyes to the way that it was, but it soon became apparent that she had to let her friend make her own mistakes, and some parts of their lives didn’t have to cross over.

They broke up around Thanksgiving, and Poppy had tried with all her might not to show her relief, but it has made her somewhat resentful when it comes to other relationships - like no one can be happy if she isn’t.

She knows it isn’t malicious, but she restrains from letting Kelsey all the way in, all the same.

“Not really,” Poppy lies, not wanting to clue her in on the Big Freezewhere he didn’t speak to her for months on end. It doesn’t entirely help her case. “I just don’t get why he’d sneak out to see her of all people, he told me they weren’t ever that solid, that he wasn’t happy with her.”

“Ooh, what if she’s pregnant?” Kelsey is entirely oblivious to the horrific realm of possibility she has just opened Poppy up to, evidenced by the casual chuckle and subsequent sip of her coffee. “Maybe she’s back to baby-trap him.”

Poppy thinks she would have to flee the state.

Nico is a family guy - if Talia is pregnant, he’d force himself to love her again, if he ever even stopped, for the sake of their gorgeous brown eyed, floppy haired baby, and push Poppy to the side just like he had before. And she’ll have to watch him from the sidelines, yearning for what she had just managed to touch the tips of her fingers to before it was violently yanked from her grasp.

Maybe she’d have to flee the country even - move somewhere remote where she doesn’t even have the chance of being reminded of hockey, let alone of him.

Somewhere with no coffee shops that she’d enter, and the smell of fresh pastries would remind her of all the breakfasts they had together. No railways, where she’d be reminded of his love for model trains every time she came across the tracks. No weird club music that he loves so much, or dorky wizard franchises he chastises her for never having seen.

Maybe Antarctica. They only have penguins there. No real civilisation that she knows of. No brown haired, dark eyed Swiss Gods with deep, honeyed voices that make her knees weak and dimpled smiles that do even worse.

She wouldn’t be able to cope with losing him like that, living her life in an endless mental cycle of what ifs and maybes.

“Kelsey, I beg of you to read the room,” Nia chastises, swatting the girl on her arm before taking Poppy’s hand in her own. “Don’t listen to her, she just wants us all to be single at the same time.”

“Sue me for wanting to have fun! It would be just like college, you and me full-body plunging into the dating pool. Imagine the chaos, Pop, you don’t wanna be tied down to a guy hung up on his ex right now.”

“Dating pool?” Nia scoffs, turning to glare at her, “You’re hardly dry from your last relationship.”

“I’d rather be a grape than a raisin, Ni.” Kelsey chides back, and Poppy can’t help the twitch of her lips at the horrific comparison.

“You’re really gonna listen to a girl who says that?” Nia asks, unable to mask the glint of humour in her eyes, and Kelsey bites back a smile, too.

Despite the ache in her chest at the thought of any of it - of Nico leaving her this morning, filling her up with empty words and false promises, potentially knocking up an ex girlfriend he is still secretly hung up on even though he told her otherwise - she manages to crack a full smile.

“You are terrible at analogies, Kels,” Poppy tries to hide the grin behind her cup, sipping at her tea and letting the warmth of it soothe the pain in her throat.

“I’m trying to encourage you to be a strong, independent woman here!”

“She is a strong, independent woman,” Nia defends, “She also happens to be a chronic over-thinker with a deep seated fear of confrontation.”

“I don’t fear confrontation.”

“Then why are we here chit-chatting about hypothetical scenarios when you could just text him and ask what’s up?”

“Maybe ‘cause that’s scary?” Poppy scoffs, only half joking. “What am I supposed to say, hey I just so happened to eavesdrop on your private conversation before you fled my apartment this morning, and despite me not understanding most of it, I definitely heard you mention someone, so could you just let me know if your gorgeous model ex girlfriend is pregnant with your perfect specimen baby?”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, you don’t even need us.”

Poppy rolls her eyes.

She could text him. Could be casual about it, a good morning or even an are you okay? Those don’t warrant the alarm bells she’s afraid of raising - the ones that blare out with the siren sound of run, this girl is unhealthily attached to you already!

But she doesn’t want to be the pathetic girl chasing after the guy sending her clear messages that he doesn’t want her.

It’s easier said than done not to overthink the whole thing - not to second guess everything he had said, or everything she had done last night.

She feels like she had rushed things. It was so impulsive, so charged, and after spending the majority of her week away from him, she just hadn’t been able to help herself. And that makes her feel like a hypocrite. She had told him that night he had first kissed her that things between them had gotten intense. It had been the whole reason for spending a few days outside of each other’s company, and in the first possible instance, she had thrown herself at him.

It was desperate.

And maybe that scared him.

It sure as hell scares her.

“I don’t know what to do,” She groans, throwing her head into her hands and scrunching her eyes shut to try and drown out the endless doubt.

She feels two hands rub at either sides of her back, “Listen, Pop,” Nia is the first to attempt to console her, as always, and Poppy holds her breath for the harsh reality check she’s about to throw her way. “You know I am the one person who would usually be trying to convince you to cut your losses and run when it comes to guys who are no good, but this is Nico. I’ve watched the two of you ignore your feelings for far too long to let you get in your own way, now.

“And you’re forgetting I saw him last night, before you got there, there isn’t a chance in Hell he would have left you like that without a good reason. I don’t for a second think he’s still hung up on her.” Nia casts a side eye to Kelsey.

The only problem is that Poppy isn’t sure there’s a reason good enough. Not when it comes to Talia. Not when the memory of those months of radio silence is still so fresh for her.

“I have to go to work in a building where his face is plastered everywhere, Ni, I can hardly forget his entire existence until he deems me worthy of an explanation. Who leaves after a night like that without even a note or a text?”

“An idiot,” Kelsey mutters around her drink, rolling her eyes when Nia sends her another death-glare.

“I’m not asking you to forget, I’m telling you to wait.” Nia frowns, but her tone remains consoling and warm. “You need to stop letting what this thinks,” she flicks at Poppy’s forehead, “Get in the way of what this knows.” She points to her chest on the left side. “You know him. You know how much he likes you.”

She does.

She knows Nico, she trusts him.

She can only judge him based on his actions so far - the ones that tell her that he cares. He leads with his heart, it’s his most attractive attribute. He’s gentle and loving and she needs to focus on those things over anything else.

“Ugh, corny,” Kelsey drags, and despite her repeated efforts to discourage her, Poppy knows she isn’t being entirely serious. “If he has any non-stupid hot athlete friends though, I’m first in line when the two of you kiss and make up for double dates.”

Guilt pricks slightly at Poppy’s chest - for making her recently single friend sit here and listen to her complain about something so monumentally small compared to the breakdown of the long-term relationship Kelsey had just endured. Even if it was perceivably toxic.

“You’d make such a good WAG, Kels.”

It’s a poor attempt to make up for it, but it seems to console her friend all the same, a giant grin breaking out and flashing her perfect pearly whites.

“I know.”

Poppy tries to distract herself with work. Tries to make her way through her inbox of seemingly never ending emails and her list of ever-growing tasks. She types up lengthy responses, puts together a presentation, makes a bunch of phone calls she’s been putting off for God knows how long, sorts all her invoices out - she even sends a fax. In the year 2024. It’s her most productive work day she thinks she’s ever had.

She zeroes in on the ground every time she moves through the building. Ignores the pictures that line the walls of the Rock, pushes down the memories of all the times she’s walked these very halls by Nico’s side, and she thinks she’s done just about enough to clear her mind for the time being.

She hasn’t thought up some heart wrenching scenario in at least an hour by the time she’s wrapping up for the day.

She’s making her way back to her office after dropping some files off for Elaine when she catches sight of a mop of curls over the top of the chair by her desk.

Luke is sat in her chair when she enters, swivelling around and staring at the ceiling.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick doing that, you know.”

“You’re such a mom,” he scoffs, standing up and clearly trying not to sway, “You ever tried having fun? I think I saw a glue stick on a table out there,” he points through the door into the wider office space, where there are a few, less private cubicles and a common area. “We should go sniff them, let loose a little.”

“Is that why you’re here on your day off? To huff glue?”

“Yeah, I don’t get to let loose enough. Being a rookie in the NHL is hard, Poppy,”

“Bummer for you.” She pouts, mockingly, swerving past him as he rounds her desk and sits on the other side, flicking at the bobblehead version of his older brother that stands by her computer. “If you’re chasing a high can you do it with one of the other departments, it’s not a good look for the Youth Foundation.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

When Luke had first joined the Devils, she hadn’t expected that she would warm to him the way she has - but, surprisingly enough, considering the fact they’re brothers, their relationship recently has started to mirror her and Jack’s.

Luke is funny. He’s sarcastic and a little silly, and it can be nice to have him around when work gets a little stressful. He doesn’t let the pressures of his own career outweigh those of hers, and, despite the gap in age, she actually enjoys his company.

But he never seeks her out like this.

Their interactions have always started through other people. Group conversations that dwindle to just the two of them, or he usually accompanies Jack to bug her and carries on when Jack’s ever-so-busy schedule takes him elsewhere.

She can’t think of another time he’s just shown up in her office alone.

Especially on his incredibly rare day off.

“Why are you actually here?” She asks, casting a suspicious but half-playful glare his way as she starts to pack up her things.

“Came to see if you wanted to join us for dinner.”

“Aw Lukey,” she reaches over her desk to pinch his cheek, “I’m flattered and all but I’m a little too old for you.”

“Ha ha,” he swats her hand away, “Us. Me and Jack. Maybe a couple of the others if they’re free but you can pick where we go if you make a decision quickly, we were thinking a steakhouse.”

She narrows her eyes at him, expecting him to crack a joke about her being old, but he just looks back at her awaiting a response. “Why?” She drags out the question, her movements stopping completely.

“Maybe ‘cause humans need sustenance to live? What do you mean, why?”

“Why would you want me to tag along on your bro date?”

“Don’t call it a bro date,” Luke cringes, “Just remembered you were working today and we were in the area, don’t know why you’re being weird about it.”

“You’re being weird. You guys never let me choose where we eat. Don’t you remember that time we grabbed dinner when you guys drove me home and Jack told me to stop being a pussy about my seafood allergy ‘cause he wanted sushi.”

“Don’t blame me for the crimes of my brother, Poppy, he was obviously joking.”

“I had to eat tofu, Luke, I don’t find that very funny.”

“Are you coming or not?”

“That depends, how do you have your steak?”

“Well done.”

“Oh! Then absolutely not.”

“Remind me never to try to be nice to you again.” He scowls as they make their way out of her office, and she locks up behind the two of them.

“Gladly, it’s creeping me out.” She grabs at his elbow before he can carry on, stopping him in the otherwise empty common area where she knows no one is around to listen in. “Is something going on, seriously?”

Luke rolls his eyes, but she knows him well enough that it’s only done in an attempt to avert from her gaze.

Bingo. He’s hiding something.

“I just thought you might want some company.” He shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets and twisting his lips to keep from saying much more.

“Why?”

If Poppy wanted to spend her life getting a straight answer out of people for a living, she’d have become an interrogator. What is it with these guys and their inability to answer a simple question?

“Jack said you left the party last night with Nico.”

Poppy’s eyebrows scrunch so close together that she can feel a deep crease form between them. What on earth does that have to do with asking her to dinner? Or being overly nice to her?

Unless-

“You’ve seen him?”

“This morning.”

“Oh.”

All of her efforts from throughout the day seem to have been for nothing - an immediate rush of insecurities flooding her mind.

Where did he see him? What did he say? Was he okay? Was Talia there?

She feels like she can gauge an answer from the way Luke looks. Sheepish, almost, like he doesn’t want to say something he knows will hurt her feelings.

She had to have been with him. He wouldn’t just show up to her office like this if it wasn’t something that would seriously hurt.

She wishes she wasn’t the kind of person who did this - who filled in the gaps of conversations and always came out with the worst possible outcomes - but she can’t help it. She’s been doing it all her life, and there’s rarely ever an instance where her instincts have led her astray.

She knows it’s some weird part of her mind protecting her, but she needs to do something here. Nia’s words from earlier ring like a warning. Don’t let what her brain thinks get in the way of what her heart knows.

Her heart knows Nico wanted her. Knows Nico liked her. Knows Nico wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

She needs to figure things out for herself and stop running, stop letting her mind fill in the gaps of a situation it can’t even comprehend to begin with.

She reaches her arms around Luke’s shoulders, stretching up on her tip toes to pull him into a hug before rubbing her knuckles into his curls, affectionately.

Luke Hughes is sarcastic and silly, and he cares enough about her to not want her to be alone if she’s going through something.

“Thank you for the offer, Luke, but I’ll be alright.”

“Are you sure?”

She nods, a tender smile tugging at the corners of her stubborn lips. It takes over her face, eyes glinting fondly and cheeks warming.

“Yeah, you can walk me to my car if you’re that worried about me though.” She loops her arm through his elbow as they make their way to the parking lot, and when they get there, he makes sure she’s in her car and has set off before him and Jack leave.

As if her day can’t get any worse, the elevator in her building is cordoned off with tape and a sign when she gets home, and she has never regretted moving up a floor as much as she does when she’s trudging up 6 flights of stairs.

She’s exhausted. Emotionally and physically, and she just wants to throw herself into bed and pretend the last 24 hours were a terrible dream.

Only, as she rounds the final corner to get to her door, any hopes of that go straight down the pan when her eyes land on Nico, standing in front of her door with his hands buried in his jacket pocket.

He looks tired too - hair messed where he’s no doubt been taking his cap on and off for however long he’s been stood here, running a hand through the tresses until they’re all askew.

His shoulders are slumped, and he doesn’t even greet her with that pretty smile he usually gives her.

His lips do curve up a touch - limp and half-hearted, not even enough for a dimple to form - but it doesn’t provide the comfort she had thought it would.

She feels anxious. A culmination of the day’s emotions washing over in one go. Sad, regretful, nervous, disappointed - all things she shouldn’t be used to feeling when it comes to Nico, but are all too familiar when she takes the last few months into account.

“Hi.” She gives a weak smile of her own.

“Can we talk?”

She wishes he’d have just said hi, back. That might have relieved the tightness in her chest just a little.

Nothing good ever comes of can we talk?

He steps aside as she approaches, maintaining a safe distance as she opens the door and enters her apartment.

The Nico from yesterday might have brushed past her, the graze of an arm or a lingering hand, but this Nico doesn’t. He barely even meets her eye.

He closes the door behind himself, watching as she discards her bag and keys to the console table on the side, and while she’s turned away from him, she tries to let whatever emotions need to come out cross her features where he can’t see them.

She needs to be cool about this, she thinks.

If she doesn’t get her back up, doesn’t get agitated, she won’t scare him off.

“Are you okay?” She asks once she’s turned to face him, not liking how he stands unmoving by the door. He hasn’t made any effort to settle in - his jacket still on and his hands still hidden in the pockets.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”

She realises now that she can get a good look at him that the expression he wears is one of shame. Guilt. Apprehension. She needs to be careful and toe the line before he gets consumed by it, she realises.

She steps toward him a little, and he doesn’t back up - not immediately, not obviously - but he hardly welcomes her approach, either.

She doesn’t like feeling this way when it comes to talking to him - feeling uneasy and unsure, but there’s a part of her that’s tired of having to prompt him for answers.

He had been the one to leave this morning. Why can’t he just come out and tell her why?

“I’m alright,” she shrugs, not wanting to scare him off with the truth. “Super tired, though, can we sit?”

She wonders if he thinks about the same things she does as they make their way to the couch. Wonders if he can feel the scratch of her nails on his torso, or the brush of her lips against his, as they sit in the spot where not even 24 hours ago, their bodies had been intertwined.

He doesn’t sit right beside her as he normally would, and she finds herself missing the way his thigh usually brushes against her own.

She doesn’t know where to start or what to ask, and so she basks in the silence for a little - finding comfort in the fact that, despite the mess they’re currently in, they aren’t quite at the end yet.

But a part of her feels it coming.

She’d known it this morning if she lets herself listen to the rational voice in her head. As soon as she’d heard him say her name, as soon as he’d left, a part of her knew that was it, and maybe if she’d let herself believe it at the time - hadn’t talked herself down and convinced herself she was being irrational - she could have protected herself from all the ways this is going to hurt.

“I’m sorry.” He says, and when she looks up, he’s looking down where his large hands are now clasped together in his lap.

“For what?” She manages to choke out.

“Last night, I,” she digs her nails into the palms of her own hands to stop herself filling in the gaps as he figures out what he wants to say, but it’s no use.

He’s sorry for last night.

Last night, he made a mistake.

Last night, he was drunk, he was confused, he was just looking for something or someone to keep him occupied.

“I care about you so much, Poppy.”

That sentence shouldn’t be the one that fills her with dread, but it is.

“You’re my best friend, and I love you,” he does look up as he says this, eye meeting hers in an attempt to convey his honesty, but she sees more of the truth in his glassy gaze than she hears in his words. “This morning, I panicked, and I just needed some time to figure out what I want.”

No, no, no.

She’d rather he tell her what actually happened than do this. Than pretend he left because he doesn’t want her.

“I love you-,”

“You said that, already.” She can’t help the bite in her tone as she prepares herself for the hit. The I love you, but.

“You’re so important to me. Being your friend, it’s like it’s what keeps me sane lately.”

She chews at the inside of her cheek as she feels the tears start to well at her lash line.

“Poppy, I don’t want to mess up what we have,” he shakes his head as his gaze drops, dark eyes darting to focus anywhere but on her own, pleading and watery as she watches him slip away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You don’t think this is hurting me?” She feels weak as her voice breaks, “You don’t think this is already messy?”

She reaches out to take his hands in hers, digging in to unclasp them, to try thread her fingers through, but he doesn’t make it easy.

“Nico, I love you, too, you know I do, we can figure it out, you don’t have to run away from me.”

It’s a desperate attempt and she knows it is, but she needs to know she tried. When she’s sobbing into her pillow and crying herself to sleep tonight, she needs to know she didn’t just let him go without a fight.

“I can’t give you what you want, I can’t be in a relationship, I’m no good at it.”

Regardless of what she had told herself earlier, about taking what he says at face value, and trying not to fill in the gaps like she does so often with everyone else, she can’t help herself. When he says, I can’t be in a relationship, he means with her. He can’t be with Poppy. He would be no good with Poppy.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you-,”

“No, you said before that you’ve wanted this for as long as you’ve known me, you don’t just wake up and change your mind, not after-,” Poppy starts to feel panic building within her like a flipped over sand timer. Rising and rising until she starts to feel nauseous, getting harder with each second not to jump to conclusions.

The voice inside her that tells her he got what he wanted and decided it wasn’t for him sounds caustic and bitter, and if she hadn’t wound herself up so much about this whole situation over the course of the day - the past week, even, or the months before - she might have been able to fight off the way it so easily convinces her.

“I have to put the team first, it doesn’t matter what I want, I have to focus on them, on hockey.”

She’s too caught up in her own emotions to notice how weak he sounds - glassy eyes unable to catch the glint in his. All she can hear, all she can see, is the minute hints of a cover-up - that she isn’t getting the whole story, that he’s lying to her, and that the excuse he’s giving is cowardly.

He still hasn’t mentioned the call, hasn’t mentioned Talia, hasn’t explained why he left her, why he didn’t say anything, why he didn’t come back.

“And you didn’t know that before?” She scoffs, pushing herself up off the couch and stepping away from him, “I can’t believe you would do this to me.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks as soon as they fall, but she can’t rid her skin of the feeling that they were there, her flesh damp and sore.

“I know we took things a little too far last night, but that doesn’t mean-,” She almost thinks he notices how bad that hurts her, referencing the night they shared as a mistake - an instance where they got carried away, and not where they followed through on years worth of built up tension and adoration for one another. She doesn’t even have to fill in the gaps, this time. Took things a little too far is clear enough. “We can still be friends. I want to be friends.”

“Friends?” Poppy jeers in disbelief, turning completely away from him now and missing the tears that drop from his own cheeks - missing the way his chest cracks and stretches open in a last ditch demonstration of his vulnerability, his desperation not to lose her completely. “You should go.”

“Poppy,”

“I can’t,” she tries so hard not to cry, knowing she won’t be able to stop, but the words come out in a choked sob, and her voice carries on in the whiney way she always hates. “You told me you wanted more, you said I was yours, and I’m supposed to just act like it never happened? Just accept you didn’t actually mean the things you said?”

“I meant them,” he says, defiantly, so sure of himself that it makes her head spin. “I wouldn’t-,”

“No, you didn’t. You’re a liar. You were either lying then, or you’re lying now. I don’t know which is worse. I can’t be your friend. I can’t pretend like you can that I don’t feel the way I feel.”

“Please, Mohn,” His fingertips just manage to reach out to land on her forearm before she shucks him off, wincing as if his touch has pained her.

“Don’t.” She takes an immediate step back, arms crossing over herself as a defence mechanism, body language screaming at him to go away, and she watches his pleading eyes drop to her arms just as she feels the cold of the metal there - so in tune with her every thought despite his denial of their true connection. Her arms move before her mind can make the decision, before it can remember what even sits on her skin, and her shaking fingers fumble to unclasp the jewellery adorned on her wrist. “You should take this back.”

Nico shakes his head, stepping back and away from the outstretched hand that holds her gemstone bracelet like it’s an actual danger to him. “No, that’s yours, Poppy.”

“I don’t want it.” She knows she’s the one that’s lying now. She wants the bracelet. She wants him. She doesn’t want him to leave. She wants to be his friend over being nothing.

But she doesn’t want to hurt.

Looking at him hurts.

Remembering last night, remembering their kiss, the things he has said, the things he has done, it all hurts, and she can’t keep hold of a constant reminder of the pain, can’t wear it on her person at all hours of the day just to know deep down that the man who gave it to her will never want her the same way.

“I want you to leave.”

“Please,” he begs again, head tilting as devastation floods his features, brows pushing together, tears welling at the corners of his eyes, “We need to talk about this-,”

“No, you were right, we went too far, it was a mistake.” Her voice breaks as she says things she knows she doesn’t mean, but he’s already put it out there, so she doesn’t see the harm in echoing his own opinions. “There’s nothing more to talk about.”

She can’t look at him anymore, and so she drops her gaze to his hands, stepping and reaching forward and forcing him to take the bracelet from her before she rounds the couch and heads to the door.

If he isn’t going to give her the whole truth, she isn’t going to entertain part of the story, and she needs him gone so she can give in to the way her body wants to fold in on itself.

It takes him a minute to gather himself, but she refuses to look his way, waiting by the open door to her apartment and staring at the floor in front of her until his shoes appear.

“I do love you, Poppy. I’m leaving because I don’t want to upset you any more than I already have, and I’ll give you space if that’s what you need, but I’ll be here when you want to talk about this. I mean it when I say I can’t lose you.”

She doesn’t say anything. She can’t say anything.

There’s a stabbing pain that’s building and building in the centre of her chest, and she doesn’t even think she can breathe in his presence.

He clasps a hand around her upper arm, and leans into her, his lips pressing a firm kiss into the crown of her head, and he lingers there for a moment before he retreats.

She manages to push the door closed behind him, the click of the lock louder than ever, and waits a good few minutes in silence before her body is wracked with a silent sob.

The one time she had tried to be brave and fight her own intuition, and this is where it gets her.

So much for Nico wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.

Next Chapter

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

#nico hischier #nico hischier x oc #nico hischier imagine #nico hischier fanfiction #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagine #*oys #*writing #word of warning to anyone writing anything ever don't leave yourself stupid instructions #thinking inspiration will strike when needed #surprise surprise motherfucker it won't!!!!!!#anyway that last convo very our field of dreams engulfed in fire your arson's match your somber eyes and I'll still see it until I die #you're the loss of my life coded

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witchyleehibernates-fics · 5 months ago

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Ghosts and Roses

Summary:

“Rose… Rose Zhang. Mama called my Rosie.” Percy’s heart lurched, and he took a shuddering breath. “You.. you have the same name as my mommy’s friend.” Percy’s eyes closed slightly, as he shuddered again. He should have figured that time would have been so much different once you were dead. “Was your mommy’s name Hazel?” Percy asked, and Rose nodded. Percy bit his lip as he took a deep breath. If Nico was also still alive, he would have felt Rose die, he would have felt Hazel dying. “Where were you and your mommy?” Rose moved to point in a direction, so Percy started walking. It was a much shorter walk than Percy had anticipated, and he got there seemingly just after the paramedics did. Percy held Rose carefully as she turned to look, tears running down her face again. ......... Title is from 'Ghosts and Roses' by Jeremy Renner

Content Warning's/Trigger Warnings: Dead Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson is a ghost, Mentioned Child death, hurt comfort

Characters: Percy Jackson, Original Child(ren), Nico Di Angelo, Hazel Levesque, Frank Zhang

Chapters: 1/1

Words: 1,808

Status: Complete

Fanfic Links:

|| Ao3 || Fanfiction Net ||

......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .........

Percy wondered if having memory gaps was normal when you first died. Because Percy didn’t remember the events leading up to his death. However, he did remember dying. How he’d gotten to Alaska of all places and died, Percy didn’t know. He did know that someone had searched for him and had brought his body home.

Percy only knew this because he was standing in a graveyard, staring at his own grave.

There were no other ghosts in the graveyard, or maybe Percy just couldn’t see them. Maybe they’d moved on; Percy hoped so at the very least.

He sighed, turning and looking around. He’d read almost every grave in the graveyard… Cemetery? Percy wondered what the difference was between a Graveyard and a Cemetery. It was… lonely. Percy was lonely.

He swallowed as he closed his eyes, a feeling of sadness sweeping through him as he tried to think back. Thinking of the events leading up to his death gave him such severe headaches that Percy had stopped even trying too three days prior. But sometimes, it felt like he couldn’t remember his mom, or his sister, or his friends.

He remembered that he used to bake with his mom, they would make blue cookies after really hard days. Or when they were celebrating something, which made Percy smile. Other days they would watch movies, Finding Nemo was his favorite when he was a child. His mom’s favorite was Pirates of the Caribbean. One that they could agree on was one of the Narnia movies, the one that took place on the sea, but Percy couldn’t remember the name of it.

He remembered meeting his sister for the first time, he had never known his mom was pregnant. Percy remembered having mentally cursed out Hera when he found out how stressed she’d been, and she worked nearly the entire pregnancy? Percy would probably always cherish the memory of Estelle calling out his name, or a form of it at least, for the first time two years later.

Percy could remember last Christmas, when he was with all of his friends and they were passing around gifts around a lit up tree. Most of them liked the idea of Christmas, or the tradition of it. They’d planned on creating their own traditions, and they had all planned on learning more about other religion’s holidays.

Percy opened his eyes as he looked around the graveyard once more. He wondered if maybe he had moved on, and this is what the Fields of Asphodel looked like for spirits. Maybe he’d been forgotten about. Percy turned, taking another look at his grave… Maybe he just wasn’t ready to move on yet.

“Hello?” Percy turned, finding a little girl wandering around the graveyard, tears running down her face. “Please… Please my mommy is hurt! She needs help!” Percy frowned. The little girl didn’t look hurt, but Percy knew from his attempts to leave the graveyard that there was just a several mile stretch of road.

Percy hadn’t heard a car pass by since the day before, early in the morning.

He sighed, knowing that if she had survived a crash that happened, that he wouldn’t have been able to help. He went to turn away again, already planning on seeing how far he could walk just to see if there had been a car crash, when something-someone tried to get his attention.

“Hello? Mister! Mister please!” Percy turned back, surprised that the little girl could see him. “Please! My mommy’s hurt!” The girl was crying, even as she ran towards him. Percy… Percy’s heart hurt, knowing that the little girl was dead.

And she didn’t even know it.

“You can see me?” Percy asked, shaking his head as if to shake the thought away. That wasn’t the problem here, and it was such a stupid thing to say. “Are you okay?” Percy moved forward, crouching down as the little girl, no older than maybe five, got to him. It was still a stupid question, but it was the best that Percy could think of to work with.

“I’m-I’m not hurt, by my mommy, she’s covered in red like when-when I scraped my knee when I fell off-off my bike, please mister, she needs help!” Percy knew his face had softened, but he knew that she didn’t know she was dead, it was only going to make things worse if he didn’t let this play out at least a little.

“Can I pick you up? Where is your mommy? Can you take me to her?” Percy asked. He had the feeling that, if he had been alive, his heart would have been racing. Was this something that Nico normally did? Or Hazel? Percy couldn’t fathom having to do this everyday, nevermind several times.

Percy could remember that there were times that Nico would just curl up against Will, knees to his chest and his head down as if he was hiding. Will would simply hold him, and if Percy happened to pass by, he could swear that the air was fighting with itself. Nico’s powers made everything around him cold, while Will pushed as much heat out that he could handle, or those around him could handle.

Only once had Nico had to come to Percy, but Percy tried to mimic that as much as possible. Hazel too, if Percy really tried to remember, he could remember a time or two that she’d gone to him when Hazel couldn't find Frank or Leo; her boyfriend and her best friend, both Percy knew, being the only people Hazel normally went too.

“She…” The little girl started sobbing in earnest, and Percy moved to wrap his arms around her. The little girl hid her face against Percy’s chest as she wrapped her arms around his neck, or atleast definitely tried to.

Percy moved to stand up, picking her up in the process. He started to hum, rubbing her back after she was situated comfortably in his arms. He could vaguely remember doing this with Estelle once or twice after nightmares.

“It’s okay, everything is going to be okay, I promise.” Percy assured, continuing to hum quietly as he started pacing. The little girl only continued to cry, holding tighter to Percy as he attempted to comfort her. “My name’s Percy, Percy Jackson,” Percy uttered quietly after a while, when the little girl was only sniffling and was no longer seemingly inconsolable. “What’s your name?”

“Was your mommy’s name Hazel?” Percy asked, and Rose nodded. Percy bit his lip as he took a deep breath. If Nico was also still alive, he would have felt Rose die, he would have felt Hazel dying. “Where were you and your mommy?” Rose moved to point in a direction, so Percy started walking.

It was a much shorter walk than Percy had anticipated, and he got there seemingly just after the paramedics did. Percy held Rose carefully as she turned to look, tears running down her face again.

“There’s my mommy!” Rose pointed, and Percy felt his breath catch as he saw Hazel. Definitely much older than Percy had last remembered her being. There was a little boy in the backseat too, unconscious, and there was someone already moving to get to him.

Percy felt a little overwhelmed by all the red and blue flashing lights, which made him uncomfortable. He backed up a little just as one of the paramedics pulled Rose’s body from the car.

“That… Mister Percy… Why do I see myself?” Rose asked, her voice sounding almost numb with shock.

“That’s because you’re dead.” Percy told her, feeling tears building in his eyes as he looked down towards her.

“Like my mommy’s friend?” Rose asked, looking back up at Percy with wide eyes. She looked like she was starting to panic too.

“I am your mommy’s friend,” Percy uttered quietly, moving to brush back Rose’s hair. She turned her head to watch as her mom was put in the ambulance, and Percy followed her gaze. Hazel was crying, and Percy was honestly surprised that she was awake. She was staring right… right at Percy and Rose.

“I got her.” Percy mouthed, holding Rose a little more protectively. Hazel nodded, a bit of relief as the little boy was pulled from the backseat, thankfully unharmed for the most part. Maybe a bit of whiplash, but he would make it. Percy hoped that nothing serious had broken. “I got you.” Percy held Rose as she cried, waving towards her mother.

Percy looked around and found that Frank was in another ambulance, with the doors already closing as they prepared to take off. Percy watched over the scene as Rose cried against his shoulder. Percy swallowed as he took a deep breath, a habit he would never lose, despite not needing to breathe.

He waited until all the ambulances were gone, and even some time after. He felt the urge to just stay, and Rose wasn’t asking anything, though Percy wondered if she had fallen asleep… Could ghosts sleep? He never had too, but it would make sense if Rose was going off of habit from while she was alive.

“Percy?” Percy turned, finding Nico… Nico looked older, he looked healthy, and Percy could only hope that his brother had stayed with Will. They were good for each other. “Oh, Percy, is… is that Rose?” Nico sounded horrified, eyes wide and there was a deep sadness there.

“I got her…” Percy uttered, rubbing Rose’s back as Nico took a deep breath. He nodded, laughing slightly as he shook his head. “Are you okay?”

“Just found out my niece is dead, and my dead best friend found her.”

“If it helps, she found me.” Percy told him, huffing a breath of laughter as Nico glared at him. There were tears in his eyes, and Percy understood he was grieving. “Hazel, Frank, and the little boy were taken to hospital.”

“Andrew.” Nico uttered, and Percy nodded his head. “How did she find you? Didn’t you go to Elysium?” Nico sounded confused, and Percy tilted his own head in confusion.

“I’ve been in the graveyard, just up the road, since I-... I don’t actually know how long I’ve been there.” Percy frowned, shrugging lightly. Nico looked pained.

“Of course, come on. I’m taking you both home.” Nico uttered, and Percy supposed that ‘home’ meant the Underworld. That Nico had meant that he was going to take Percy and Rose to Elysium.

Percy only nodded as he moved, taking Nico’s hand.

#ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #fanfiction #fanfic writing #fanfics #fanfic #ao3 #fanfiction net #hurt comfort #bit of angst #percy jackson #hazel levesque #frank zhang #nico di angelo #pjo hoo #Original Child(ren) Character

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starthetripledevil · 1 year ago

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Mario Legacy Challenge: 1988

Last year, the Mario siblings' father, Jumpman, died. After that, the outdoor-loving Mario picked up a new hobby, fishing.

School is continuing after the holidays, and Pauline and Luigi are talking about it as they are eating breakfast.

While the kids are at school, Lady is feeling lonely. She thinks back to all the time she spent with Jumpman... and all the things they could have done together, but now can't.

One day after school, the siblings after feeling quite happy... except Luigi, who's angry because of a particularly annoying teacher. Pauline has invited over her best friend Kayla.

(Kayla actually ages up to a teen during this visit, so I think we can assume that during this scene, Kayla has either just turned 13 or is about to turn 13 soon. She's a child in these screenshots, and at least that way, she appears to be the same age as Pauline, who's a few months younger than her.)

Being near teens in the 1980s, and especially with Pauline being a music lover, the two are naturally interested in CDs. Kayla may already have some CDs, but Pauline doesn't since the Marios don't even have a CD player... at least, not yet.

While Pauline is eating and Mario is taking a nap, Kayla gets to know Luigi better.

After returning home from work, Lady interviews Emmalyn about fashion, something which could help with her work performance in the stylist career. This is the least sad Lady has felt since her husband's death.

One night, Pauline feels determined to overcome her fear of the dark. She gains some confidence by talking to herself in the mirror, and then heads out.

And it works! Pauline might be feeling a bit scared, but her confidence is stronger than her fear.

One day, Pauline returns home from school in serious need of music. Sure, she has always been interested in music, but it seems that her want to listen to it has been even stronger than before.

It's time for Pauline's birthday party! Emmalyn is here, and so are some of Pauline's relatives.

Here we have Uncle Tony and Grandpa Nico. Nico is the only grandparent the Mario siblings have ever known, since Nico's wife died before they were born and Jumpman cut contact with his family when he moved to Brooklyn.

And, of course, Kayla is here too (with a teen makeover). It's now time for Pauline to blow out the candles.

Pauline's birthday present is a CD player. This is the best birthday present ever! Just like how her brothers got an NES a while ago, now Pauline got a music player. After the party and some renovations are done, it will be moved to Pauline's room.

For now, this music player can be used to play music for the party. Cousins Marianne and Luigeena are enjoying the music, and so is Mario.

Even Aunt Luigeena is dancing even though she is not a fan of the music.

Pauline is so happy about this gift, even her mom coming to her room to dance isn't ruining her enjoyment.

Having aged up into a teen, Pauline now has the Musical Genius aspiration and Cheerful trait.

One day while Lady is at works, Emmalyn takes the kids to the local art gallery. Mario, however, isn't that big of a fan of the stuff inside, instead preferring to be outside.

While talking to Emmalyn and each other, the Mario brothers also mention their favorite animals: Mario's is a spider and and Luigi's is a dinosaur (they are not extinct in this dimension).

Pauline spends all the time practicing her piano skills. Although her main musical interest is singing, she still wants to learn to play at least one instrument. And playing for so long, it is clear to Pauline that she likes piano.

After work, Lady goes to the art gallery to pick up her kids... and maybe look at some art first. Luigi also has some ideas for new CDs that they could buy now that they have a CD player (although it is primarily Pauline's).

Lady isn't leaving without admiring some art first.

Mario has discovered a fishing spot near the gallery so he decides to try fishing there. It's getting late now, but this could be something he can do more during subsequent visits.

A problem happens while Lady is sleeping... Pauline hates handiness but she still attempts to fix it. Maybe when her brothers are old enough, they can deal with this kind of stuff instead.

Though not as big of as a music lover as Pauline, Luigi still enjoys dancing to music. And if Pauline can play video games in the brothers' room, Luigi can also listen to music in Pauline's room.

Mario goes fishing (this time closer to home), but while there, he discovers some kind of treasure chest. Inside is an old treasure map. Will it ever turn out to be useful? I'm not sure.

Near the end of the year, Nico comes to visit the Marios for the holidays, and they all go to a park together.

Nico and Luigi play chess.

Mario, the more energetic one, spends the day playing space explorer.

For Mario's experiences in 1989, see this post.

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nicoathogwarts · 2 years ago

Text

Ancient runes was a blessing in disguise. Everyone had warned him about how hard the second term was but it was almost easier then the first.

Ancient runes was just ancient greek and latin. Nico breezed through class, not needing to rely on Hecate’s help for the first time. It felt nice.

Hermione didn’t pay him any mind most of the time, though he could see her quietly seething every time the professor praised Nico. Her attitude only got worse when they were told to write twelve inches on Hecate and her myths.

“This is absolutely ridiculous. What are old fairy tales going to teach us about ancient runes?” She looked at Nico, having decided he’d be subject to her rants as Harry and Ron didn’t share the class.

“They’re myths not fairy tales.”

“Who cares, it has nothing to do with magic or ancient runes! It’s outrageous, we’re in our owl year we should be learning important information,” she huffed.

“Maybe if you did it instead of complaining you’d understand why it’s important.”

Hermione glared at him. “It’s not about ancient runes, it’s utter nonsense.”

“Don’t you know? Purebloods are naturally better at ancient runes, Granger. If you don’t know why something’s important you shouldn’t be in the class. Go back to muggle studies and leave ancient runes for those who can understand it.” Malfoy said, smirking as Hermione turned red from fury.

Nico rolled his eyes, Malfoy wasn’t necessarily wrong, but that didn’t mean he had to be an asshole about it.

“You know more because you stay up all night working on the homework, not because you’re naturally gifted. We can work on the essay together ,Hermione. I have books on all the major gods including Hecate. There’s practically no books in the library.”

He made a sharp turn and Hermione followed. “I think Luna still has it so we’ll have to stop by the Ravenclaw common room to get it.”

They arrived at the eagle statue, it opened its eyes “the one always right but never believed who held the clearest sight but was never seen.”

“Cassandra.”

The door swung open and Nico entered as if it were his own common room.

Luna was sat by the fire on the floor talking to no one.

Nico walked over and sat next to her as if this were a normal occurrence.

Hermione wondered if it was.

“Hello Nico, Hermione. Me and Hestia were just talking about you.”

“Hey, I was just dropping by to get my book, the one on Hecate.”

Luna nodded and pulled it from her bag.

“Also Lou Ellen wants to know if she can write to you about all the questions she has about Hogwarts.”

Luna lit up “that’d be great, I’d love to answer all her questions.”

“I’ll tell her.” Nico walked back out with Hermione.

Nico was really nice to study with, it turned out. At least when he wasn’t struggling with reading a passage in any of the few books they’d managed to gather on Hecate. All of the passages were criminally short in Hermione’s opinion. Far too short for their assignment, she shuddered to think at what grade she’d get without the Slytherin’s help.

They finished both of their essays in record time. “Thank you for helping me, Nico.”

“Yeah no problem.” He rolled up his scroll and stuffed it in his bag.

“Why did you help me? I heard you don’t get along with the other Slytherins but don’t you think this is a little.. much? You’re antagonizing them. Malfoy isn’t a fun enemy to have.”

“I don’t care what they think, for one. Second, my dad told me to make more friends. Then Will agreed and doctor's orders. Plus, I know what you think of me. I know you don’t trust me and think I’m probably some kind of spy right? So I’m trying to fix that.”

Hermione nodded “well, thank you Nico.”

“Don’t mention it.”

#nico di angelo #harry potter au #Percy Jackon and the Olympians #Heroes of Olympus #pjo #hoo #hp #pjo x hp #crossover #hogwarts au #hermione granger

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whiskeynwriting · 2 years ago

Note

Omg, chapter 3 was amazingggg! When could we read the next one? Already addicted

Thank you so much my lovely! I know I planned on posting chapter four at the same time as chapter three, but I wanted to work on it more. If there's one thing about me, I will not post something if I don't think it's ready!

Birds of a Feather - Chapter Four: Enticed

Nico x Female Reader

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Word Count: 7.2k

Warnings: 18+ (minors DNI)

Some angsty times, mentions of voyeurism, mentions of masturbation, grinding/dry humping, innocence kink, age gap, size difference, vaginal fingering

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A/N: Damn, these two are kinda toxic lol. Honestly tho we love it

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Birds of a Feather Masterlist

Join My Taglist!

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“Tape twenty-three, May twenty-eighth. It’s uh… about eight ‘o five am. We have an interesting day today. A class, with my most impressive students might I add. Angela, quite gifted with the cello, her voice, as well. Jude, talented on the piano – very much so. A new collection to my shelf… Ode To a Nightingale.”

He goes on, rambling briefly about his artistic thoughts and opinions.

“However, there are more pressing things to ponder. A maid, a housekeeper, a… planner? The woman, she’s coming today. Arriving at… two in the afternoon. Yes, we’re feeling… apathetic, almost. Slightly bothered – what grown man needs another to plan? My life is my own, though business is quite a frequent occurrence.”

So you did originally bother him.

“We need a list, a set order of chores she is to perform, yes… duties… also a meeting. Six pm this afternoon. A planner would do well for me. To return. End tape.”

Next.

“Tape forty-nine, June twenty-third. It is approximately eight o’clock in the morning; I’ve quite liked this new exercise. I find myself becoming more poetic these days, smelling the roses, if you will. There’s been quite the breakthrough with my students lately, no doubt due to my own influence, I’m quite proud to say.”

You roll your eyes, remembering that particular student. Veronica.

“But… her. She is still a mystery.”

Her… me?

Next.

“Tape sixty-two, July sixth. Another fine morning; I’ve woken up early, thirty minutes before the alarm. The first thing on my mind… is helplessness. It’s taken over me, truly, my fondness for her. She’s quite intriguing, much more than I’d originally expected. She’s shrewd, too, especially so for a woman of her age. I’m eager to learn more, to explore her mind…”

Your cheeks prickle with affection.

“There’s an attraction about her; we talked for hours. How could that be?”

Snooping might as well be your middle name. You never used to do this, but when it comes to him? You can’t stop yourself. It’s like it comes naturally, your curiosity for him.

You’d been organizing his office, something he didn’t ask you to do. You thought it would be a nice gesture, though; you noticed it was becoming a mess. This is when you stumbled across his tapes. It’s not your fault they somehow made it into the tape player. You’re shocked to find out so many of them are about you, his fondness for you clearly exhibited through every single one of his morning recordings. Slowly but surely, he’s become captivated by you.

Today’s tape, though, that one throws you through a loop.

“Tape seventy-two, July fourteenth, eight thirty in the morning. I slept in today, my head filled with thoughts only of her. She was so innocent that day, she is innocent always.”

The more you listen, the more brazen he becomes. And why wouldn’t he? These are his own personal diary entries.

“She must be inexperienced, the little thing.” He chuckles. “Beautiful… and pure. A glorious thing, to be untouched, unsoiled by this world. Her innocence… it will be the death of me.”

He’s fawning over you, over how inherently kind and dainty you are. And he’s right, you are inexperienced. You haven’t had anyone take you. In the past, you’ve had two boyfriends, your latest one barely making it to second base.

The way he talks about your innocence and inexperience is not demeaning, he’s not talking down to you. If it were anyone else, you think, you’d be offended. But Nicolás… he has such a way about him. He knows how to redirect his words, how to usher them into the proper setting. And you like that about him.

“How wonderful it would be, to have that feeling again.”

His words now take on a somber note, and it makes you perk up a bit more, your thoughts changing gears.

“My bed is cold at night, she would warm it nicely.”

What a sweet thought.

“Oh, to be longed for, to have your needs met by the one you truly search for.” He sighs, almost dreamily. “This is why I dream of her. She is a song, the most beautiful melody. My little bird.”

For how cocky he comes off, you never would have thought Nico was lonely. He seemed like quite a fulfilled man, and by all other accounts, he is. He’s quite happy with his life and career. And this happiness, this drive, it’s gotten him through life. But in reality, he’s lonely. His words convey the possibility of him wanting to be comforted, reassured, maybe even held. Do you have the capability to give him what he needs?

By the way he’s speaking on these tapes, a stranger would assume the relationship between the two of you has grown to new heights. But that stranger would be wrong, terribly wrong. While these tapes come off sweet and kind, like a lover speaking of their beloved, they come off differently to you. Since that night, the night Nicolás touched you, he hasn’t spoken about the event since. When his doorbell rang, he sighed, stood up, and walked away. The next day, he acted as if nothing had changed. Was he regretful? Embarrassed by his actions? Did he want to forget the entire thing? Your thoughts made you want to curl up into a ball. But if he’s feeling this way… then why hasn’t he said something?

“Is there a reason you’re in here?”

“Oh!” You spin around, hands behind your back. Lucky for you, the last tape had just ended. You’d been putting them back in their designated space each time you played them, too. So, thank the lords, everything looks to be normal.

“I was, um… I wanted to organize your office for you.”

Nico raises an eyebrow, judging your strange act. Your nervousness is quite obvious; did he just catch you in the middle of something?

“I’d rather you didn’t go through my office. It’s not on your list of chores.” He states sternly, narrowing his eyes slightly at you. How can he come off so cold when only this morning he admitted that he yearns for you?

“Yes, sir.”

That night, he told you to call him Nicolás when in private. But you haven’t since. And he notices this. It’s built a wall between the two of you, and you haven’t noticed how badly he’s taken to this small detail. In his mind, he sees it as rejection.

“Is there anything else?” He asks impatiently, raising a single eyebrow at you.

“N… no.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence between the two of you. Desperately, you long to facilitate your communication again.

“I, I had noticed a few of your records. You keep some up here?”

“Nevermind that.”

“What?”

“You wouldn't understand.”

Nico walks around the desk to his chair, eyeing your still figure. You’re standing right beside him when he sits.

“There are many mixes here, I store them so they’re not… disheveled.”

“Have I disheveled other things, sir?” It's a genuine question.

“Well, now you have.”

“I apologize.” He's silent, and his tone is condescending. It throws you off, disturbing your attraction for him.

“Your presence is not needed here.” He finally tells you, and it makes your posture stiff. His next words though, make your blood boil.

“I have seen your room,” Nico mutters to himself, “I should do better cleaning my personal space on my own.”

At this, your jaw drops open, brows furrowing in embarrassed anger. First of all, how has he seen the inside of my room? Secondly, how dare he use something so private against me!

“The privacy of my room is none of your concern!” Slightly, you raise your voice, and it makes him look up at you. “How dare you question my work ethic off of something so irrelevant. And if the cleanliness of my personal room is something that truly worries you, then perhaps it’s time I find a new job!”

For the first time in his adult life, Nico feels as though he’s been put in his place. And if this were to ever happen, he never would have expected it to be by a woman half his age. Quietly, he sits, stunned. You immediately walked out of the room, he assumes directly to your bed. Perhaps he was too hard on you.

Tears burn in your eyes from your boss’ harsh words. You feel foolish, naive, thinking that whatever happened between the two of you could possibly mean anything. Maybe he was just… aroused, looking for some kind of release. It’s clear to you now that the situation you found yourself in weeks ago wasn’t what you thought it was after all.

While you’re stewing in your room, huddled beneath your blankets while trying to calm your breaths, Nico sits in his office with a pounding head. He’s been unfair to you, in general, but especially these past few weeks. He feels selfish and immature; how can he be this age and not understand how to navigate his feelings appropriately? So many things in his life are done of his own accord; Nico is eccentric, an artist, the judgment of others has neve been of any concern to him. So, why should his relationship with you be any different?

Although your heart feels broken and used, you still have a job to do. So, after spending about an hour holed away in your room, you decide to get up again. Smoothing your hands over your skirt and adjusting your outfit, you head downstairs to clean up the living room and kitchen. It helps too, busying yourself. It takes your mind off the emotional turmoil the men in this house have caused you. Lucky for you, Daniel isn’t scheduled to come over, so you only have to deal with one temperamental man today.

You decide you’re sick of this, he can’t just use you like some toy. For so long, Nico has had you by the throat, his influence on you extremely controlling without the least bit of aggression. And honestly, you let him, you allowed him to use you in this way. At the end of the day, you’re disappointed in yourself. But now, you see Nico for who he truly is. He’s just not capable of communicating on an emotional level like that.

It’s disappointing, really; you’d imagined so many scenarios with him. In your head, he was the perfect lover. He touched you gently, spoke to you sweetly, smiled at you like you were the light of his life and held you as if he were never letting go. You’d even imagined how it would feel to have him feel your body, those big hands on your breasts, undoing your bra to feel you skin-to-skin. A specific fantasy of yours involved him running his fingers over your panties, much like how he did in the garden. Only in your head, he’d slip them to the side, sliding in one finger then two, stretching you open pleasurably for him. You’d moan and cling to him and that’s just what he would want. He’d lean in to kiss your neck while you cried out for him, leaving marks just below your neck. In the privacy of his room he’d lick them, suck on your nipples and rub your clit until you came for him. Nico would let you indulge in him, but only if he was allowed to do the same to you.

“Fuck,” You breathe out, swiping your palm over your forehead while glancing down.

“Is something wrong?”

His voice startles you, so much so that it makes you jump. But when you realize it’s him you go rigid, standing straighter while he walks into the room.

“I’m fine.” You say flatly, almost sternly.

Nico’s face is somber, though it’s clear he’s trying to hide it. His hands are in his pockets and he nods, swallowing as his eyes find interest in the oriental rug decorating his living room floor.

The way you experience his presence is so incredibly different than before. After your encounter in the garden you found yourself feeling closer to him, you still do.

“Okay, well um…” He lifts a hand, fingers gliding across his scruff. “You’re relieved of your duties for tonight.”

“Really? Why?”

“You’re upset, little bird.”

Upon hearing that nickname, you briefly close your eyes, inhaling an irritated breath. It doesn’t mean anything.

“Thank you, sir.” Is the last thing either of you says before the doorbell rings. He’s expecting his students.

Nico turns to look back, the hand that was stroking his facial hair now rubbing the back of his neck.

“Ah…” He sighs, looking back at you. It’s almost like he’s filled with regret, like he doesn’t want to leave. Did he have something more to say? “Veronica…”

Veronica, of fucking course it’s her. For some reason, your jealousy springs to an all time high. If he were going to do anything with her, now would be the time. Because now, you’re sure he has absolutely no intimate ties to you.

“Of course,” You reply casually, though you’re gritting your teeth. “Have a good night.”

With a defeated sigh, he spins around, taking a breath as he strides toward the door. When he opens it, he sees the beauty that is his current student. There’s no doubt in his mind, in anyone’s mind, that Veronica is beautiful. Her jet black hair flows down to her waist, her signature red lip a sassy little detail to her look. She always looks professional, though her clothing is particularly tight. There have been times where he’s caught her flirting with him, and while he finds himself liking the attention, it doesn’t interest him. He finds more excitement with you, well, found.

She’s excellent at the cello, Nico’s favorite instrument. She’s even mirrored some of his own tactics, the accents he puts on the musical notes and the way he handles the instrument’s bow.

“Very good,” He praises with a nod, forcing a smile onto his face as she completes her third song. “Have you been practicing at home?”

“Yes,” She grins, eyeing him. Much like you, her attraction toward Nico began shortly after meeting him.

“It shows; you’re playing quite nicely.”

“Not as nice as you do.” She returns shyly, blushing when he looks her way.

He’s a bit surprised by her comment, but just gives her a polite smile and a quick nod. Returning to the pages in front of him, he flips through them until he finds the notes he’s searching for. They track her progress, how well she’s done since coming to him. And as he’s analyzing the comments on her talents, Veronica leaves her instrument to come sit down with him. He’d been sitting across the room at a piano bench; he hasn’t played the piano in far too long. Sitting at its bench makes him feel better about his relationship with the musical artform.

Nico is suddenly snapped out of the private world within his head, not only by Veronica’s much closer presence, but by what he now sees on the page. In the top right corner he sees a red smudge in the form of pursed lips. Ice cold shock runs through his veins; he hadn’t expected to see this at all. And Veronica now sees it too, smiling even brighter than before. Leaning over, she softly places a hand on Nico’s thigh.

“I really like it here, with you.” She says quietly, brushing some hair behind her ear. “It’s calming, and you’re so kind to me.”

“Well, that’s part of my job.” He responds plainly, trying to appear casual and unphased even though her hand hasn’t left his leg.

“That’s true…” She acknowledges, nibbling on the corner of her lip. “Would you let me see what you’re like outside of your job?”

Now, Nico turns his head, furrowing his brows. “What?”

“I really like your company.”

“You’ve never been in my true company, dear.”

“That’s what I’m asking for.” She clarifies sweetly, watching Nico gulp anxiously. “I bet you’d be sweet to me outside of our lessons, too.”

She’s confident, he’ll give her that.

“I don’t think that’d be appropriate.”

“Oh,” Finally, she feels fully rejected. Leaning back, she takes her hand from his leg. “It’s just, I um, well… you’re just… an amazing artist, and composer, and I, I thought maybe you’d be interested -”

“I’m very interested.” He cuts her off. “Music is my passion, my life, and you have a clear talent for it. This is exactly why I have been nurturing your skills.” Nico informs her of this plainly, as if he were presenting a lecture on how to read music notes.

“Outside of that, I have no interest.” And this is entirely true.

Veronica feels her face burn up, embarrassed tears starting to well in her eyes. He rejected her affections, and was honestly nicer about it with her than he ever has been with you. He wonders why that is, and releases a heavy breath at the thought of it.

“I think it’s best if we ended early.”

“Wait, really?” She asks, standing when he closes his book and rises to his feet.

“Yes.” He adjusts his glasses, looking down to make sure he has all of his necessary papers. “I will contact you about the status of your next lesson.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to come off unprofessional or, or disrespectful. I only meant to-”

“And I’ll take that into account.” He interjects, nodding sharply at her. When he interrupts her for a second time, she finally keeps her comments to herself. “I will see you out.”

Hearing the door open this early surprises you, making you perk up a bit in your seat. Tip-toeing out of the kitchen, you peer around the corner, witnessing Nico bidding goodbye to his student. But… something seems off. He’s not as warm with her as he usually is, isn’t as kind or smiley. He doesn’t touch her at all, either, not even for a hug. She looks sad, too, and a bit shaken. What happened in there?

You’re turning around just as she leaves, retreating to the kitchen before Nico can catch you looking, once again. You expect him to have his usual alone time, go up to his study or possibly sit in the living room to read. But the fancy shoes tap your way, his figure now appearing in the kitchen’s doorframe.

He’s shocked by what he sees, and you’re shocked to see him. While sitting on his kitchen counter, you’re holding a glass of red, the opened bottle sitting next to you. It’s one of his more expensive wines, and you really didn’t expect him to catch you. Besides, he thought you didn’t drink?

“¿Qué… qué haces?” (What… what are you doing?)

At first, you’re nervous, wondering if he’s mad. You did open a new bottle of wine that was no doubt expensive. But honestly, it tastes extravagant. So, you shrug, looking down into the glass.

“The devil is tempting.”

“Ah,” He raises his eyebrows solemnly, looking to the ground after you repeat his once said words. Walking into the kitchen a step or two, he’s still a few feet away, but you can feel his presence growing closer to you. “I… I know I have caused you some… distress.”

Now, it’s your turn to raise your eyebrows, nodding. But you don’t say anything. You’re not sure what to say.

“I’m sorry, Little Bird.”

“I can’t be your Little Bird one day and then no one the next.” You snap, the words coming out before you can stop them. And it surprises him.

He’s embarrassed, incredibly so. It’s about time he owns up to his actions, his mistakes.

“Es mi… inmadurez. You make me feel… uncertain.” (It is my… immaturity)

Ignoring this admission, you shake your head, looking down at your glass again. “Do you do that to every woman that comes here? Take them in your garden and… touch them like that?”

At this, his mouth opens, completely shocked. How has he allowed himself to give you this impression? How could he treat you like this for so long?

“No,” Shaking his head side to side, he takes a few more steps toward you, “No I’ve never, no…”

He’s in your space now, reaching out for you. And you let him touch you, gently holding your forearms. Looking up into those deep, brown eyes, you sigh.

“I’ve never done that with anyone… but you.” Nico’s thumbs then stroke over the backs of your hands. “I assure you, hermosa, I am not that type of man.” (Beautiful)

“You flirt with everyone.”

“I…” Jesus, he’s really not looking great here. “I know I do.”

“What is it about me? Why do you treat me like this?” You’re looking at him with sad and angry eyes, perplexed and just downright hurt at this point. “You make me feel so confused.”

“You make me feel happy.” He blurts out, looking into your eyes with genuine sensation. “It doesn’t make sense to me. I shouldn’t be attracted to someone your age.”

“Why not?”

“I… I feel it comes off… unprofessional.”

At this, you’re at a loss for words, glancing down at the glass in your hand once again. But he just grins, taking hold of your chin.

“Be that as it may…” He then whispers, tilting your head up to look at him. “I supposed I am an unprofessional man.”

The way he says it makes you feel breathless, makes your chest tighten and your hands sweaty all over again. Does he mean…

“I am attracted to you, bonita. I can’t deny that, not to you.” When you don’t respond, he speaks your name in a quiet, questioning tone. (Pretty)

“Yes, Nicolás?” You return, the words pretty and innocent.

You using his name again makes a grin pull on the corners of his lips. And although you’re having a serious conversation he can’t help but tell you, “I love how my name sounds coming from your lips.”

Grinning, you respond with, “I like saying it.”

“I want you to say it more.” Comes that low, sultry voice, moving closer between your legs.

You’re still sitting on the kitchen counter, your legs slightly spread with your knees on the edge, calves hanging over the side. And when he moves between your thighs, you let him. You like the feeling of him being close.

“I’ve been waiting for you to say it since that very day.” He admits to you, watching you set your glass down so it’s not between the two of you.

“Really?”

“I told you, hermosa, I want you to use it when we are alone.” (Beautiful)

He’s moving closer, his face mere inches away from your own. Licking his lower lip, he suddenly realizes that he’s still holding your face, and he continues to. Sweeping his thumb over your chin, he grins.

“I’m quite interested in you, sweet thing.” Warm eyes roam your face, taking in the heavenly features that make you, you. “Very much so.”

With him being so close and confessing his feelings, you feel like you can’t even breathe. But you keep your composure, because if you don’t, you’re certain you’ll never find yourself in this situation again. He’s so picky, so wishy-washy. But you don’t care. You want to make him happy.

Nicolás’ eyes meet your own, boring into them with a sense of incredible passion and need. It’s only the two of you here, you’re alone, so why does he feel like he’s being pushed to make a decision? To hurry on with his intentions? It’s because he knows if he doesn’t act soon, he’s going to lose you.

“You are a beautiful thing.” Is all he says before closing the small gap between your faces, his lips brushing over your own.

A small sound of surprise pushes its way from your throat when he kisses you, prompting him to immediately pull away. But his hand doesn’t leave. In fact, it’s joined by his other. Together, they cradle your face, those gorgeous eyes gazing down at you.

“What is it, sweet thing?” He asks, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. He’s being so sweet right now, so caring. “You don’t like?”

“No,” Shaking your head, you swallow. “I do.”

When you answer, he releases a satisfied sigh, eyes closing as he once again kisses you. This time, he fully leans in, smirking when your hands lift to the back of his neck. His lips are soft, plush, just like you’d imagined them to be. The hair above his upper lip tickles you gently, his lips sliding over your own in tender, loving swipes. And right now, his smell is the most prominent it ever has been, likely the most prominent it ever will be. Fresh and earthy, grounding.

The way he leans into you pushes you back on his countertop, one of your hands dropping from his neck to place your palm on the cool surface below. But then he pulls away, breathing heavily.

“Amor,” And you flush; he’s never called you that before. “How much have you had to drink?” (Love)

His eyes are full of worry and when he asks you this, your heart melts inside your chest. He continues, “I can taste it on you.”

“Nicolás,” You sigh out in return, the hand you have on him sliding up into his hair. “I’ve had three sips from this glass.” And as you say it, he looks down, eyeing the amount left. What you’re saying seems to be accurate. But your hands on his cheeks bring him back to the present.

“I know what I’m doing.” When you say this, he nods, eyes going soft when he feels your fingers comb through his hair. And then you ask sweetly, quietly, “Do you really want me?”

All he does is nod, his handsome face expressing a whirlwind of emotions he’s only now allowing to come to the surface. And the way he brings himself back to you is endearingly overwhelming. He allows you to bring him back in, his hands falling to your hips and taking a strong hold of them, pulling you flush against him.

The way he kisses you makes you feel like the center of the universe, like all the pieces of your life are coming together. You’ve never felt your body feel this way before, never felt yourself light up from the inside out. And when he parts your lips with his own? When he slides his tongue past them, dipping into the heat of your mouth? When his hands slide up to squeeze your waist? When you hear him moan? You utterly, wholeheartedly, and undeniably, melt into his arms.

“You sweet thing,” He gasps, forcing his lips away from you. Turning his head, he kisses your cheek, whispering sweetly, “Puedo tocarte, cariño?” (Can I touch you, sweetheart?)

All at once, you’re brought back to that evening in the garden, the excitement from that night dwarfing the sensations you’re feeling now. Lifting your hands to either side of his face, you exhale, fingertips stroking his facial hair kindly.

“What do you want to touch?” It comes out quiet, as if the bubble encasing you in this moment could pop at any second.

Grinning, Nicolás lowers himself, rubbing his nose against your neck. “Your chest, sweet thing.”

From his words alone your body is set alight, involuntarily arching into his touch. You’re so smitten with him that you find yourself at a loss for words, but he reads your signals, his left hand rising from your hip.

Your body is nearly limp, holding yourself up just enough to rest in his hold, just enough to allow him to touch you. And he does, the hand moving from your hip now sliding up your stomach, keeping contact with you until he reaches his destination.

“Oh…” Nico sighs, turning his head to look down at his hand, while still resting his temple on your shoulder.

He’s nuzzled up against you, your fingers still wandering through his luscious brown hair. His palm covers the expanse of your left breast, his fingers securing around the sweet flesh and squeezing passionately.

“May I confess something to you?” He asks, fondling you in his hand.

Nodding, you swallow anxiously. “Yes.” Inside, you’re burning bright, lungs stuttering out breaths as you work to calm yourself.

“I’ve seen what you wear underneath.” He admits freely, smiling against you. “I’ve seen your pretty, white panties. Your lacy bra…”

“Y-You have?” Pushing your body into his touch, your hips sway against his, earning a deep huff. “How?”

“The night you were gone with… Daniel. I was upstairs. Your door it was, it was open…” His words are fading out; he’s too distracted.

Lifting his chin, you bring him back to you, kissing him. “Please tell me.” You whisper over his lips, the moment feeling soft and innocent.

“I went inside.” He’s grinding against you now, shoving your skirt further up your legs as it bunches around your hips. His free hand wraps around your back, keeping you close. And then one on your breast loosens its hold, his fingers skimming over your curve to find your covered nipple. “I couldn’t help myself.”

Finding it easily, he pinches you through the fabric, choking out a quiet gasp when a small mewl leaks from your throat. “You fascinate me.”

“Really?” It comes out as a breathy stammer, your hand holding the back of his head while you roll your hips gently against him.

“Sí, por supuesto, cariño.” And then he’s kissing your face - your jawline, your cheek. (Yes, of course you do, sweetie.)

“You, you’re…” Desperately, you try to return his wonderful words, but your head is swimming with excitement and ecstasy. He pinches your nipple again, now swiping his thumb over it.

“I liked it, Little Bird.” He tells you, speaking as if he were drunk though he couldn’t be a more sober man before you. “I loved seeing your intimate things.”

“Oh,” Tipping your head back, you expose your neck, his mouth and tongue quick to worship your skin. “I love that you saw that, Nicolás.”

“I want to see it again.” It’s immediate, his words rushed and hand grabbing you fervently. “Will you let me?”

“Yes.” You’re nodding, lifting your hand from the counter so it can join the one on the back of his head.

His warm hands, the ones that already feel incredibly familiar, find the bottom edge of your top. Fingertips dipping below the edge, he sighs, making contact with your abdominal skin. It makes you shiver, his touch tickling you the slightest bit. But then they pinch the lining, lifting it off of your body. You let him do it, taking your arms away from him so he can slide it off of you completely. And just like that, you’re topless before him, the only thing keeping your naked torso from him being your bralette.

“Dios mio,” He moans, setting your top down on the space beside you. “Magnífica…” (My god, magnificent…)

You wonder how long it’s been since he’s last seen or touched a woman, and then you wonder if he’s ever laid his hands on one as young as you. It makes you smile, his reaction. Setting your hands on the counter beneath, you tilt your head, eyeing him. And after gawking at your smooth curves, he brings himself in once again.

“Nicolás…”

“Yes,” He nearly whines in response, grabbing you with both hands. “Say it, pequeña. Say my name again.” (Little one)

Unwavering is the gaze he gifts you, fingers sliding across the soft curves god has graced you with. But then he’s lowering himself, mouth kissing your skin. It forces you to drop your head back between your shoulder blades, specifically when his tongue slides out to lick them.

“Nicolás,” One hand rising, it returns to his hair, gently pulling.

He’s mouthing at your chest, tongue laying over your covered nipples and wiggling it across the barrier keeping him from your naked skin. He admires the fact that it’s pink, your feminine undergarment, the color light and girly. While obsessing over you with his mouth, he cups you, groaning when he feels you cradle the back of his head. His body is buzzing with excitement, full of energy and desire and all for you. He’s giving into every emotion he’s ever felt for you.

“Do you remember the day you went by the pool?” He asks breathily, kissing your jaw and nipping at its hinge. “The day I left? Back in the beginning of May?”

“Yes,” You’re still holding his head, fingers still curling in his hair.

Leaning further in, he lowers his voice, growling, “I saw you.”

“W-What?” Eyes widening, you’re sure he isn’t referencing what you think. “What do you mean?”

“Topless by the pool,” He then tuts, grabbing a fistful of your sweet curves in his hand. “Naughty, naughty…”

“You… you saw me?”

“I did, little one. I saw your naked chest, witnessed you touching these perky nipples.”

“Nicolás,” It comes out as a gasp, the heat in your cheeks rising.

“I loved it, sweet thing. You made me feel things…” He tells you, now mouthing at your neck. “You still do.”

You’re absolutely shocked that he saw you. It’s been weeks, and you’ve never suspected a thing. And to have him admit this to you now while kissing you, fondling you, makes the pulsations in your hips intensify through your entire being.

Lowering himself even further, he returns his mouth to you. “Hm…” Nicolás hums, closing his mouth to kiss you, sucking on the slope of one of your breasts. “Your panties…” Rising, he prompts you to lift your head, kissing you. “Are they pink, too?”

“No,” Shaking your head, you release an emotional breath. “Almost all of them are white.”

He groans, eyes rolling before they shut entirely. Such an innocent color for her to wear. His reactions continue to surprise you, watching him fall victim to your angelic form. To ease your growing grin, you nibble on the corner of your lip, gazing up at him.

“Would you like to see again?”

“Please,” Comes that deep and rumbly voice, warm eyes opening to see you. “Please let me, bonita.” (Pretty)

While looking into his eyes, you decide to be bold, taking his dominant hand away from your chest. Lowering it, he glances down, watching you guide him to your center. Already, your skirt is pushed up to your hips. All it takes is for his fingers to slide the middle of them up just a little bit, to reveal your white panties. And already, he can see the dampened spot in the center of them, the knowledge of your physical arousal making his jaw drop and eyes widen.

“Hermosa,” He breathes out, moving to cup you just like he did in the garden. (Beautiful)

“Will you do more this time?” You ask, almost desperately. “Will you touch more of me than you did in the garden?”

“I would love to.” Smiling widely, he presses his lips to your cheek, fingers rubbing over you firmly.

But you’re impatient, grabbing his face with both of your hands and bringing his mouth back to you. It covers your own, his open lips allowing his tongue to slide inside. The wet muscle explores you, distracts you, while his fingers pull your panties to the side. At first, he wonders if he’ll have to lick his fingers before putting them inside you, but he quickly finds out that won’t be the case.

“Oh, amor,” It’s expressed with passion in his tone. “You’re dripping.” (Love)

“It’s because of you,” Now, it’s your turn to move in, soft lips kissing his neck. “It’s always because of you.”

Eyes distracted by your glistening lips, he runs the tip of his pointer finger up your seam. “Always?”

“Nicolás, I’ve touched myself to the thought of you.”

“Have you?” His interest is indeed peaked, his glorious lips forming an enticing grin.

“So many times,” Using the hand on the back of his neck as leverage, you push your hips closer to him. “Please, Nicolás. Please touch me. I’ve needed it.” You feel pathetic but you don’t even care anymore, you’re deciding to fully put yourself out there. If he rejects you after this, then you’ll leave. You’ll have to. But if he doesn’t… imagine what your life could be.

Lifting his brows slightly, he’s pleased by how easily his finger is able to glide inside. And the way you release such a high moan, the way your fingers curl around his neck to pull him close, makes his heart beat for you from deep inside his chest. Agreeably, he moves closer to you, letting you pull him in.

“Nico,” You whisper, resting your forehead on him.

“Mi princesa,” It comes out of him naturally, his free hand remaining on your back to hold you against him. (My princess)

The thickness of his finger doesn’t compare to yours, it’s not even close. And there’s much more strength in his hands than you’d expected him to have, as well, evidenced by the firm drag of his digit out of your sex before he returns it to your very core.

“Yes,” You whine into his shoulder, your breathing becoming labored against him.

Turning his head, he looks down at you, finding a slow yet steady pace for his digit to pleasure you. Your eyes are closed, lips parted as your jaw hangs open, your features displaying your inner sensations.

“Look at that,” He nudges you up, the hand on your back retracting and rising to cup your face.

Lazy and lusty eyes look into his, a gasp slipping from your lips when his finger curls, rubbing against your velvety insides.

“Look at that pretty face,” Nico tells you, eyes flickering back and forth between yours. “My perfect muse.”

Collapsing into his arms, you allow him to hold you, kissing him with incredible need. He’s never made you feel so magnificent before, like a pure angel filled to the brim with beauty.

“Nicolás, yes!” Your head tilts back, knocking against the upper cabinets. Thrusting your chest out, you do your best to breathe, feeling him add a second digit.

He’s reveling in the way you’re reacting to him, watching your glorious chest rise and fall with rapture, and right before his very eyes. Already, you’re shaking, both of your dainty hands clinging to him. He’s pressing up against that squishy little spot that you yourself can barely reach, the heel of his palm rubbing against the apex of your sex. Rolling your hips onto his hand, you’re rewarded with the sound of that lovely baritone voice once again.

“Let it come,” He coos, feeling you repeatedly clench around him. “Let it wash over you.”

More than anything, he wants to experience this again with you. This and more. He’s decided how he feels, not just about you but the situation surrounding you, too. You’re his, he wants you to be his.

“Will you let me feel it, pretty thing?” He’s nudging the curve of his nose over your jaw, the action smooth and affectionate.

“Yes, Nicolás.” You promise him, hips stuttering. “Yes…”

The way his fingers rub against you is making you see stars, your mouth open and panting before him. And you’d feel incredibly vulnerable like this if he wasn’t so close to you. He’s in your space, pressing his body against yours, holding you in his arms. It’s like he’s experiencing your high with you. And just like that, the powerful waves washing through your hips and lower tummy rise to their full height, immediately crashing down on the shoreline. Your body quivers from it, hips jerking in small, rapid motions. With a firm hold, he keeps his arm wrapped around you, fingers insistent in their application of pressure on that special spot he so easily found inside you.

“Mi amor, mi bonita niña,” He’s babbling, breathing almost as harshly as you. And you’re crying out, gasping and whining as he helps you ride this out. “No te dejaré ir.” (My love, my beautiful girl. I will not let you go)

You're leaning on him just as much as he’s leaning on you, into you, your bodies finding comfort in the other’s. He’s warm and sturdy, just what you need after the emotional and physical edge he’s brought you to.

After everything you’ve gone through since meeting him, all of it leading up to this, you feel like you need him. He’s everything you’ve ever wanted, everything you yearn for in a companion. He’s artistic, divine, gentlemanly to you and doting when he needs to be. He’s refined and educated, poised in so many ways. You need him, you really do. And Nico feels the same way, breathing out his thoughts against you.

“I want you - I need you; I do.”

#Birds of a Feather #Birds of a Feather series #BoaF series #Nico #House Comes with a Bird #Nico x you #Nico x reader #Nico x female reader #Pedro Pascal #Pedro Pascal character fanfic

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