#and this is the first time i wrote for one of my ocs

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Seven

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: 18k (mad)

Chapter Warnings: ok so me and @h1sch13r were having a conversation about the girl with the list (iykyk and if you don't, don't go looking) and I had to put it in here because it was too funny of an opportunity not to (s/o to Rory for the inspo and the trauma where she told me a woman's brain shrinks in pregnancy who knew!!!) so there's some pretty gross things in here about pregnancy and babies lmao, also poppy has well and truly lost the plot tbh but this is why we love her she is nothing if not delusional, mentions of judgemental parents and weak family relationships, talk of pregnancy, babies and thoughts/feelings around the two topics, talk of childbirth kind of but not in depth, sort of angsty but not like ANGSTY!!!!! do you know what I mean? very much moreso on the fluffy side though. a bit of hurt/comfort. poppy is an anxious mess, nico is... nico (I say with love and affection this time I promise)

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Six)

A/N: I feel like the speed in which I wrote this is a testament to how much I love writing these two and this story and I LOVE YOU GUYS AND THE WAY YOU LOVE THIS FIC SO MUCH IT MELTS MY WEE HEART I just wanna spend my days reading all the nice things you send me I HOPE YOU ENJOY!!! 💖 the ending is a little bit rushed but I can't keep going back and forth on it or I'll lose my mind

Poppy

Despite having the invitation stuck to her fridge for 6 weeks, and knowing about the event even further in advance, Poppy’s cousin, Elsie’s, baby shower could not have come at a more ridiculous time for her. 

She knows she can’t expect everyone else’s world to stop turning just because her own life is spiralling way out of control, but a baby shower is just downright cruel.

Especially when she hasn’t even taken a test yet.

It's been 3 days since she had spoken to Katja Hischier at the signing event. 

She had gone straight to the pharmacy once she had finished work, had picked up every single brand of pregnancy test she could find and had swallowed down the embarrassment when the girl behind the counter had looked at her like she was insane.

And she had spent that whole evening sat staring at the bag in which she had stashed them, not even daring to get one out.

The next day, she had gone to work, and had gone straight back to pretending like nothing else was going on in her life - only this time, she had a little trashcan beneath her desk dedicated to the nausea that rippled through her all day like some sort of sick constant reminder of her situation. It was a gross counter measure, but it stopped her having to take constant trips to the bathroom and rousing any sort of suspicion. 

If anyone else were to come to the same conclusion Nico’s mom had, and confront her about it, she would have burst into tears on the spot.

The day after that was Saturday, and of all the things she could have done to distract herself from what was going on, she had gone shopping for a gift for her cousin in Manhattan. With her mother.

She had spent the day looking at cribs, and changing tables, little tiny wardrobes to keep little tiny clothes, and God all the little tiny clothes were so small it made her tense up.

On the upside, it was like her body knew better than to get sick in front of her mother - she’d never hear the end of it.

She was getting enough of a backhanded lecture about her cousin’s pregnancy, never mind the potential of her own.

“I can’t believe she’s having another baby out of wedlock,” Priscilla had scoffed as she and Poppy were first checking through the gift registry in Macy’s, “Your father and your Uncle Peter think she’s an absolute disgrace.”

“They’ve been together like 7 years, Mom, that’s stronger than a few marriages I know of. She’ll be fine.”

“It isn’t about how long they’ve been together, Poppy,” her mom swats at her hand as she scrolls a little too fast down the list, “It’s about securing the best future for those children. The man is a glorified construction worker, she could have chosen better in life.”

Elsie’s partner Jared is an architect, but she couldn’t find any use in arguing that point with her mother in the middle of a department store. 

If she found out Poppy could maybe be carrying the baby of a hockey player, who she would never marry and wasn’t even in a relationship with, she would have a cardiac episode right in the middle of the shop floor.

“Is it not about her being happy?” She had asked, and the look her mother threw her way was all the answer she needed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. She can’t possibly be happy in that little bungalow with no college education and no ring on her finger. Believe me.”

Elsie’s bungalow had been designed by Jared when she was pregnant with their first son. They owned everything outright from the 4 acres of land it sat on to the final tile Jared had laid in the roof, himself. The house is a labour of love, and every time Poppy visits, Elsie has a smile on her face like she has the whole world at her fingertips.

It has always been something she has envied. 

And she thinks it’s envy that creeps up on her in the third day, when she and Nia arrive at the bungalow with their gift bags in tow, and Elsie and Jared answer the door like the picture of once in a lifetime love.

She’s absolutely glowing, mostly through her third trimester now, her bump round and low, her cheeks puffy and her eyes gleaming with unadulterated joy. And Jared looks at her like she’s the only woman in the world.

Yeah, it’s definitely envy.

And maybe a touch of pride at her cousin for sticking it to their family.

“I can’t believe Elsie’s onto her second kid and me and you are glorified spinsters,” Nia comments as she picks up a handful of finger sandwiches.

“I don’t think you can be a spinster at 25, Ni, that’s a little overdramatic.” Poppy responds, swallowing down the arising queasiness at just the sight of devilled eggs on the table set up for food. Elsie is pregnant, for God’s sake, she thinks, she shouldn’t want to be around any kind of eggs.

“Maybe we should just suck it up and marry each other, we’d make cute babies.”

“Again, not how that works.”

“Well obviously you’d carry it. There isn’t a chance in hell I’m ever pushing a little cantaloupe sized head out of my lady parts, I hurt just thinking about it.”

Poppy wants to say tell me about it. It’s all she’s been thinking about herself the last few days, and the last thing she needs as she’s trying to avoid thinking about it is to be surrounded by constant reminders.

Like the little tiny plastic baby clinging to the straw in her lemonade that it takes everything in her to resist launching across the room, or the giant stack of diapers shaped into a four tier cake that sits on the end of the table that she wants to tear apart.

She usually loves babies. 

She loves fawning over little boopy noses and squealing at all the cute slogans on their little onesies - like I’m berry cute with a little embroidered strawberry beside it or a little printed dinosaur that says, I’m a-roar-able!

She loves when they get the hiccups, and their wide eyes go round like they don’t know what the hell is happening to their bodies. 

She loves when they have those little self-satisfied smiles in their sleep, and everyone argues over whether it’s gas or not.

But as much as she loves all those things usually, right now they are terrifying her.

Every single thing she tries to lay her eyes on to take her mind off of everything is baby themed. Pink floating balloons with teddy bears weighing them down, a message board with a bunch of baby grow shaped cards pinned to it, a bowl of lollipops that are shaped like pacifiers. 

She can’t escape it no matter where she goes or who she speaks to, and so all she can do is hover round Nia like a wordless zombie and wait until there’s a group event where hopefully some normal conversation gets flowing.

Only, expecting any kind of normal conversation at a baby shower is delusional at best.

“Oh my god, a snot sucker! I was just telling Jared how much we need one of these!” Elsie exclaims as she pulls the little box out of a gift bag covered in little rainbows.

“A what-now?” Nia’s face is the picture of disgust, leaning into the circle to get a better look at the present Elsie had just unwrapped.

“Babies can’t clear their own noses when they get congested,” Elsie’s friend, Gina, who had gifted the device, pipes up from across the room, “So you put the little tube up there and suck on the other end. The snot gets stuck in the middle and you just wash it out. It saves you having to suck it out with your own mouth.”

“Oh God, I’m gonna be sick,” Poppy chokes out, bringing her hand to her mouth in what the rest of the group assume is mock disgust, but she can literally feel her stomach turning.

“Me too,” Nia mimics her, “Does the girl with the list know about this? That you have to suck the snot out of your baby’s nose?! Who would even think of doing that in the first place?!”

Poppy jabs her elbow into her side, wincing at the thought and trying to fight the urge to vomit. The last thing she needs is to be reminded of the girl with the damn list. The last time that had come across her feed, she’d added on there that being pregnant can cause your sweat to turn blue. What if she can never wear white again?

“It’s one of those wonderful motherly instincts, you don’t even think about it being gross when it comes to relieving your baby, like sniffing their diapers or fishing their crap out of the bathtub!”

Poppy pushes herself up from her place on the couch, and makes a dash for the nearest bathroom, hearing Nia excuse her with, “She probably shouldn’t have come, she’s been sick all week. Tell me more about the bathtub thing though, is that like a regular occurrence? You just live in constant fear like that?” 

When she’s safely inside, she presses her back to the other side of the door, her shaking body calming as she takes deep breaths and fights past the nausea until she no longer feels the need to throw up.

She tries to think of other things. Clean things. No bodily fluids involved. Fresh laundry and Coconut Breeze candles. 

It takes a good couple minutes before she feels okay again.

When she finally opens her clenched eyes, she realises the bathroom she had stumbled into is not in fact the guest bathroom, but the one Elsie and Jared had assigned specifically to their son - and Poppy’s god-son - Jensen, who was given his mother’s maiden name, but Poppy has always told him he was named after her.

There is sailboat wallpaper, rubber ducks with different costumes lining the bathtub, a little plastic step up to the sink with Paw Patrol characters on the side, and a cabinet covered in stickers.

God bless her cousin for not raising a beige baby, she thinks.

When she gets a closer look, she realises the stickers are little cartoon versions of Harry Potter characters, and she can’t help the little smile that tugs at the corners of her mouth as she smooths her fingers over one of them, making sure the edges stick back down and don’t start to peel. 

Nico would give his kids Harry Potter stickers. He’d let them leave them all over the house, would probably let them stick them to his practice gear and his old sticks. He’d play rubber duckies in the bathtub, give each one a little unique voice and would ingrain each character to his memory for every bath time, and blow bubbles at them until they erupted into little dimpled giggles. He’d stand in front of the sink and brush his teeth beside them, singing a 2 minute song he made up in his head so they’d learn to brush them for longer.

It would all come so easy to him.

Oh God.

She should not be thinking about this. Not in her godson’s bathroom, at least, in the middle of her cousin’s baby shower.

There’s a door off to the side, hooks on the back with a couple hooded bath towels - one that looks like a frog and another that looks like a dinosaur - and she finds herself reaching for the handle before she can think too much of it, pushing the door until it opens into Jensen’s room.

He’s sitting on the floor beside his bed, surrounded by little plastic pieces and trying to make sense of the booklet in his lap, and when he hears the door creak open, he looks up in surprise.

“Hey, Auntie Poppy.”

He would usually shoot up when he sees her - would run and jump into her arms and squeeze until he gets bored, would ask her, is that enough? And she would always tell him no so that he would squeeze her again.

It’s their thing.

But he stays sat, this time, his attention diverting immediately back to the Lego bricks in front of him. 

“Hey, bud, you okay in here? What are you doing on your own?”

“I’m just playing.”

Jensen never plays on his own. He usually has the attention span of a gnat, and jumps between every activity he can think of, all while clutching the nearest adult’s hand and dragging them along for the ride.

Poppy lowers herself onto her knees beside him, careful not to push down into any of the bricks, and leans onto the palm of her hand. “You mind if I play, too?”

“Sure! I’m building Ron’s car from Harry Potter!” 

He shows her the box, that reads Flying Ford Anglia, and she gives a reminiscent smile as she says, “I’ve never seen it.”

“It’s my favourite! Mommy says if I can do this one she’ll get me the train for my birthday.” She doesn’t even let her mind go where it wants. She’s putting a temporary ban on thinking about him until she’s in the safety of her own home, where her mind can’t wander at the sight of tiny pairs of sneakers sat beside matching big ones and baby grows that are no bigger than her forearm. “I’m gonna be 6.”

She knows that. She remembers the Thanksgiving dinner 6 years ago where his mom had announced to their family that she was foregoing college because she was pregnant at 18. She had never been prouder of anyone in her life, if not for taking centre stage at Jensen Thanksgiving, then for the way she had so casually gone back to eating Turkey legs like it was no big deal while both of their parents argued amongst themselves.

“That’s awesome, how can I help?”

“Could you read it to me? I can read, but I can’t read and put it together at the same time. I’m not an octopus.”

Poppy chuckles, taking the little instruction booklet from him and biting her tongue to save from telling him he wouldn’t need more hands to do both things, he’d just have to put the booklet down.

She observes him mostly as he puts the figure together, blue bricks stacking up until they eventually resemble the car in the picture, and he attaches them with a tiny tongue poking out the side of his mouth that reminds her of his mom. She does the same thing when she’s baking, following instructions left in a book by their grandmother and trying to measure things out to the gram. 

He isn’t as chatty as he usually is, and she takes a stab in the dark as to what might be the matter. 

“Hey, how cool, you’re gonna get to teach your baby sister all about Harry Potter, too!”

Jensen shrugs, a pensive frown on his face as he stays focused on the Lego. “Mommy says she won’t be able to watch movies with me.”

“Not for a little while. Babies just eat, sleep and poop for the first couple of months, I think,”

“Gross,” he turns his nose up, but his eyes flicker up to Poppy’s in amusement. She may not be a mother, but she knows the surefire way to a kid’s good graces - mentioning poop. It works every time.

“Super gross. But eventually, you’re gonna get to teach her about all the cool stuff you like, and she’ll probably love things just ‘cause you do. When I was a kid, I wanted to do everything my big brother did. We went as Ash and Pikachu for Halloween 3 years running, and I’d spend all my allowance on Pokemon cards for his collection.”

“You were a baby sister?” He asks, and she swallows down the hurt at the fact he doesn’t really know his uncle Oliver. Or his first cousin removed, whatever it is that they are. Oli’s eldest, James, is only a year older than Jensen, and they barely know of each other’s existence, just another name in a Christmas card they’re too young to read.

Their family is a minefield of hidden feuds and bad communication skills, but she’d like to think Elsie is attempting to break the generational patterns.

Maybe she could do that.

“Yeah,” Poppy chuckles, clicking the tiny brick into another and checking it against the picture in the booklet. She hasn’t felt like a little sister in a long time. “We’re not all that bad, as long as you’re nice to us.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty cool.” Jensen nods, and he smiles so big that Poppy notices for the first time that he’s finally missing a tooth. 

“Your sister will be pretty cool too,” she tells him, resisting the urge to tell him about a few other guys missing teeth that she knows. 

“Yeah, when she stops pooping all the time.” He giggles.

“Definitely.”

He continues building his car for a second, until he asks, “Hey, Auntie Poppy?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“How is she coming out?”

“How is she-,” her mouth flops open in shock. Of all the things in the world he wants to come to her about, he has to be joking with this. Talk about timing. “Your mom hasn’t handled that one?”

“Nope. And she won’t tell me how she got in there.”

“Yeah, that’s not really my area of expertise, kid.” If only he was old enough to understand irony. “How do you think she’s gonna come out?”

“I think they’re gonna have to crack mommy like an egg.”

“Oh, that-,” Sounds like something the girl with the list might be interested in, Poppy thinks, her mind going places she hadn’t yet dared to let it go. “That actually makes sense.”

“I knew it.”

Poppy hadn’t realised she had spent the better part of 90 minutes on Jensen’s bedroom floor with him, but it was the only place that felt safe - building Lego cars and skirting around the question of, if my mommy is my mom cause I grew in her belly, then how is my daddy, my dad?

That had genuinely stumped her.

How do you explain genetics to a 5 year old without getting too graphic about it?

She hadn’t been able to argue with the validity of the question - the kid is curious, God help his parents, and she thinks she might have to turn her phone off later to avoid angry calls from Elsie and Jared about why their son is asking them about DMA and Jeans.

She tried to tell him that he was made up of parts of each of them. That he had his mom’s eyes, and her mouth and chin, but he had his dad’s curly hair and his pointed nose. But that had just caused a whole other slew of questions.

And a whole other bunch of thoughts that she was actively trying to fight.

Thoughts of a baby with chocolate brown eyes and hair that goes a little lighter in the sun. Little pudgy arms that cling around broad shoulders, and soft, tiny lips that press wet kisses into a stubbled jaw and giggle at the way it tickles them.

Thoughts of little clumsy legs that will learn to run before they learn to walk, and, when given the chance, will always run straight into muscled arms and a tattooed bicep curling around their tiny frame, a deep laugh ringing in the air between them and dark eyes meeting hers over a mop of fluffy hair.

Thoughts of 6-foot-something someone sitting on the floor with an almost 6 year old, building Harry Potter Lego trains and patiently directing them on what goes where.

For most of those 90 minutes, she hadn’t felt sick. She hadn’t felt nauseous, or panicky or anxious.

She had felt longing, and hopeful, and full.

And as soon as she had left that room, those feelings had swirled into dread again. 

At least Nia had herself a good time. 

She had won the game of Baby Bump Balloon Pop, which Poppy is glad she had missed - if she had to watch a bunch of exploding baby bumps, she might have had a heart attack - and had used her almighty eavesdropping skills to thrash everyone at Don’t Say Baby - ending up with 16 clothes pegs and winning herself the esteemed prize of a bottle No-secco, which she has been ranting about the whole drive back to Poppy’s apartment.

“I get that it’s a baby shower, but come on, the rest of us can still drink! When did Elsie become such a bore,” she whines as the two of them make it through the front door, Nia throwing her jacket onto the coat rack and Poppy making her way straight over to sit down. “Hey, I thought you said you were feeling better,”

“I am,” Poppy feels okay to know that it’s only a half-lie. She does think she caught some kind of food poisoning initially, and the sweats and shivers had subsided since last week, but she can’t find anything to subdue the queasiness at every strong smell or icky thought that crosses her mind. 

“Then why did you flake on me at the party?”

“I didn’t flake, I told you, I was hanging out with Jensen. He was a little down. Also that conversation about snot was too much.”

“Okay, but you were being weird before that. And you’ve hardly spoken the whole way back here.”

“I’m fine.”

“C’mon, Pop, out with it,” Nia sighs as she throws herself into the couch beside Poppy.

“Out with what?” She huffs in response as she works at unzipping her boots.

“Whatever’s got you wound up tighter than a drum, you’ve been acting super weird all day.”

“I haven’t been super weird.” Poppy frowns, throwing the boot she’s just shucked off with a little more passion than is probably warranted, doing little to disprove her best friend’s point.

“You didn’t crack a single joke about how Elsie’s giving her kid a pornstar name. Mia Moore. She’ll be getting bullied for life, Poppy. Even Jared says it with that stupid Italian hand gesture.”

“Maybe I’ve matured,” she shrugs, pushing herself up from the couch and making her way over to the refrigerator, hoping that sticking her head in there for a second might disguise the fact that she is still turning green from waves of nausea. 

“Not likely,” Nia obviously follows, slamming the door shut before Poppy can even adjust her eyes to the light. “You’re being weird.”

“Am not, you are.”

“Oh yeah, real mature,” Nia rolls her eyes before narrowing them at her best friend. “You’re being quiet, and you’re clearly freaking out about something, so why don’t we cut out your very obvious internal meltdown and you just tell me what’s going on?”

Poppy swerves around her, reaching out to where a grocery bag sits on top of her counter, and empties the contents until they scatter across the surface in gentle, staggered thuds. 

“Holy shit.” Nia breathes out, carding through each box as if she’s taking stock. “You know you only need one of these, right?”

“I didn’t know which one was the best, so I got all of them.”

“I think pregnancy tests are pretty universally reliable, Poppy.”

“Yeah, well, they’re non-refundable, so I’ve decided I’m doing every single one and working out the average.”

“Oh my god, the vomiting,” Nia gasps, as if the situation is only just dawning on her - never mind the multiple boxes of tests Poppy has just unveiled on her kitchen counter. “And you had to change your dress earlier, ‘cause it was making your boobs hurt!”

“I didn’t buy these for a fun evening experiment,” she quips, sarcastically, “My period should have been last week, too.”

“Oh my God!”

“But I also can’t be pregnant,”

“Why not?”

“Maybe because then I’d be carrying the baby of a man who wants nothing to do with me?” 

“Okay, calm down, Mrs Theatrical.”

“My karma can’t be that bad. I recycle, I adopt a whole pride of lions in Kenya and my $5 a month contributes to them being safe from poachers! Poachers, Nia! I donate to charity, I don’t steal, I don’t lie, I love thy neighbour,”

“I think you loved thy neighbour a little too much,” Nia cracks, swiftly catching the box that Poppy throws straight at her. “What? You laid that one straight out for me!”

“This is not the time for jokes.”

“You’re right, it’s the time for you to put on your big girl pants and go pee on some sticks.” She holds out the box that had just been launched at her, and Poppy swipes it with a levelling glare. “You’re being ridiculous, Poppy.”

“Fine,” she grunts in displeasure, “But I’m gonna remember how unserious you were about this when it’s your turn for a scare.”

“I have an IUD babe, some of us practice caution when we take hunky men into our beds!” She calls out after her, and Poppy hates how she can still hear her laugh when she slams the door of her bathroom.

“Oh, thank God,” Poppy lets out a sigh of relief once the line forms clearly, the lack of a second allowing her heart rate to slow to a bearable speed and the device in her hands feeling a whole lot lighter than it had a minute ago. “It’s negative!”

“Poppy,” Nia yanks the test from her grip, beyond caring at this point where the piece of plastic has been, and throws it into the pile on the table, “Delusion isn’t going to work for this, that’s one out of fourteen. You know damn well you’re pregnant.”

“But all the boxes say they’re 98% accurate! What if this is the only right one?”

Nia swats at her boob, and Poppy clutches at her chest as the pain merges into the ever-present ache she has felt there for the past week-or-so. 

“Ow, don’t do that, I told you they’re sensitive right now!”

“Oh, I wonder why!” She contends, “Poppy, you’ve taken like $100 worth of tests here, how many more do you need to do until you come to terms with the fact that you have a baby growing in there?”

“I don’t know! Maybe you should try one!”

“Pop, come on-,”

“No, seriously, because what if I bought a bunch of bad ones? Like placebos or something? And if you get a false positive, then we would know!”

“Why would they make placebo pregnancy tests?”

“Duh, for money! Big pharma, Ni! It’s a real thing!”

“You have to be joking,” Nia throws her arms up in exasperation, “Poppy, you’re vomiting,” she holds up her thumb, “Your boobs ache,” she adds a finger, “You should have had your period by now,” and another, “and I don’t even have enough fingers to take into account how many pregnancy tests have told you so, you’re pregnant! The sooner you accept that, the sooner we can be serious and figure this out!”

Poppy picks out a fresh test from the last packet and pushes it into Nia’s chest, a stern look on her otherwise panicked features, “Go pee.” She demands, and when Nia levels her with a look back, she adds a desperate, “Please?”

“Fine,” she grumbles, before wagging an authoritative finger at her friend, “But this is the last one either of us are doing, okay? And because you’re being ridiculous, I get to gloat when it’s negative.”

“Yeah, fine,” Poppy shrugs with feigned nonchalance, and as soon as Nia disappears into the bathroom, Poppy starts refilling her bladder for the last test in the packet.

“You are unbelievable,” Nia sighs when she returns a minute later to find her chugging at a bottle of water. She snatches the last unopened test away, stashing it down her bra where Poppy won’t be able to get it.

“What? I drink when I’m nervous!”

“Yeah, tequila. You’re stressing me out. We’re gonna set the timer on this and while it’s going down we’re gonna talk about it.” Nia throws her own test onto the empty side of the coffee table before she gets her phone out and starts a timer for three minutes. “Sit down, and for the love of God, give me that bottle.”

Poppy sits, surrendering the drink to Nia with a frown and throwing herself down onto the couch in child-like stubbornness. 

“You’re pregnant. We can sit here all night and take a thousand tests, and they’re all gonna tell you the same thing,”

“Not all of them-,”

“Shut up. Do you want to have a baby, yes or no?”

“Nia,” Poppy whines, “It’s not that-,”

“Yes or no, Poppy?”

“Fine, yes!” It almost shocks her how easy the answer comes out.

“Do you want to have this baby?”

“Yeah,” she pouts, tears pricking at her eyes as she accepts her reality for the first time since the thought had so innocently been forced into her mind by Nico’s mom. 

She wants the pudgy armed, brown eyed, giggling ball of joy she had conjured up in her brain earlier.

She wants to wrap it up in fluffy animal themed bath towels, pull the hood up just above its eyes and take a million pictures, and tickle at the back of it’s chunky little legs until dimples form in it’s puffy cheeks and her apartment is filled with the sounds of squeaky little laughter.

And she knows that it isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. She knows she’ll never sleep a full night again, knows she’ll never have free time to do what she wants or that she might lose every ounce of sanity she has left, but she feels like the good stuff outweighs the bad.

“Then why the hell are you going crazy, Pop?” Nia sits right beside her, arm wrapping around her to console what could potentially be a weeping, hysterical shit-show.

“Because it’s a gigantic mess, Ni!” She whines, “My hormones are going apeshit, and all I want is to go to Nico, and to tell him what’s going on, but he doesn’t want me, and this is gonna ruin everything! He’s gonna hate me, he’s gonna want nothing to do with me, and I’m gonna have to quit my job, and then I won’t be able to afford living here and raising a baby on my own, so I’ll have to move back home, and that means this poor innocent clump of cells inside me is gonna grow up in a house with my mother because it’s own mom is hopeless and then the baby will resent me because I can’t do this on my own!”

“Poppy, slow down, breathe,”

She knows she’s hyperventilating, but she can’t stop. Can’t slow down until she gets it all out.

“Nico’s gonna hate me. He’s gonna think I’m trapping him, and he’s gonna think I’m crazy and obsessed with him and maybe I am, you know, maybe this is all my fault and deep down a part of me wanted this to happen because who in their right mind doesn’t even stop to think hey, you probably shouldn’t be coming inside me when we haven’t even talked about it,” she sees Nia wince somewhere out of the corner of her eye, “and he’s gonna blame me for getting in the way of his perfect life with his pretty girlfriend and she’s gonna hate me-,”

Nia squirts her with the bottle, underestimating the spout and pretty much covering Poppy’s entire face with water until it’s dripping from her eyelashes and she has to huff it out of her nose.

“Nia, what the fuck?!” Poppy frowns, looking down at the mess of water that covers her legs and is dripping onto her couch.

“You’re going insane! I didn’t know how else to get you to stop aside from slapping you, and I can’t hit a pregnant lady!”

“But you can waterboard her?!”

“Oh my God, how dramatic can you be?”

“Uh, I think I get a pass right now!” Poppy scoffs, swiping at the droplets running down her face and splashing them over at Nia in retaliation. “You’re not being very helpful.”

“That’s because you’re being stupid.” Nia levels, “You’re not hopeless, Poppy, you’re the smartest, strongest person I know. If that idiot can’t see that, then it’s his own loss, and if he wants nothing to do with you then you’ll be fine. You don’t need him. We can figure this out, you and me together. We can find a place and we can live together again, I’ll be the dad, I’ll take care of you.”

“Ni, I can’t ask you to do that,”

“You’re not asking. I’m telling you.” She asserts, taking Poppy’s still wet hands in her own, “And I’m also telling you that as mad as I am at him right now, Nico isn’t the type of guy that would let you do this on your own, Poppy. You know for a fact that I won’t let a man make a fool out of either of us more than once, so I know I’m not wrong when I say that he is not going to hate you, he isn’t going to blame you.”

“He still doesn’t want me.”

“You don’t know that, Poppy.” Nia tries to reason with her, “You didn’t let him tell you what he wanted.”

The shrill sound of Nia’s alarm interrupts the moment, and Poppy sniffles as her best friend reaches for her phone and picks the test up while she’s there.

She hands the test to Poppy, who sighs as she looks over the result, and rolls her eyes before huffing out a jeering, “You win. Congratulations, you’re not pregnant.”

Nia is too busy typing away at her phone to respond, and after a minute of Poppy glaring at her - annoyed that her focus has diverted elsewhere and more annoyed that she has to be right all the time - her face breaks out in a celebratory grin.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” she huffs out a breathy chuckle, the grin widening with every passing second. 

“What? What could possibly be funny about this?”

Nia turns the device in her hand so Poppy can see the screen - a picture of a small dusting of what looks like crushed black pepper. It's one of those websites that compares the size of a baby in the womb to different foods.

“Your baby is the size of a Poppy seed,” Nia’s face settles into a soft, loving smile, her eyes rounding in awe as she awaits Poppy’s reaction.

Poppy reads the description below.

At four weeks, the foetus is about 2mm or 0.3 inches long, and weighs less than a gram but is growing rapidly in your womb!

“Holy shit.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come up with you?”

The inside of Nia’s car is warm and comforting, the heat cranked so high that Poppy doesn’t want to leave into the cold, even if it’s just for the few seconds between the vehicle and the entrance to Nico’s building.

It’s nothing to do with the nerve-wracking conversation she is about to have.

Nothing at all.

“I’ve got to put on my big girl pants, remember? Let him tell me what he wants before I decide it in my head.”

“I’ll be here if you need me,” she pats Poppy’s thigh in consolation, “And if I need to come up there and kick his ass, just give me a call.”

“I will.”

“Good luck!”

Poppy shuffles out of the car and holds her jacket tighter around her as she makes her way over to the doors of the apartment building, harsh winds whipping at her face and causing her to grimace before she makes it to safety, the doors pressing closed behind her in a gentle thud. 

She’s surprised to see Lionel still sat at his desk, a little later than he normally works, but the familiar face gives her a little bit of reprieve, and the friendly smile he flashes her way calms her rampant heart.

“Hi, Poppy,” he stands to greet her, “You here to see the boys?”

“Nico, actually,” she responds, and watches as he presses his button for the elevator without question, typing something else while he waits for the notification it’s on its way down. “You’re here late.”

“So are you.” He gives a knowing smile back, looking at her over the top of his glasses and causing her skin to turn warm. “Our night guy, Evan, just had a baby, I stick around until he can do bedtime with his wife.”

“That’s sweet of you.” She ignores the lump in her throat at the mention of babies. “I bet it’s nice of him to still get that time in the routine.”

She wonders if that’s something Nico would do - fight to make it home for every bedtime, getting one of the guys to pick up his media responsibilities after a game so he could give their baby an evening bottle and a kiss goodnight.

“He makes sure I have coffee and a donut waiting for me on the desk when my shift starts in the morning, so I can’t complain.”

“Oh, wins all around then,” she chuckles, and thanks him as he walks with her to the elevator.

“It sure is, you have a nice evening, Poppy, I’ve sent Mr Hischier a message that you’re on your way up.”

“Thanks, Lionel,” she hums, appreciative that she isn’t springing a visit on him entirely out of nowhere, now. “Get home safe!”

Lionel presses the buttons for her, and gives her a cheerful wave as the doors close between them, leaving her to her own anxiety for company. 

The elevator ride up is torturously slow, the numbers rising at a mocking pace, and she can feel her heart hammering with every second that passes. When the doors open, she doesn’t immediately step out, and has to reach a shaking hand to stop them closing again and going back down.

As much as she is dreading this, she needs to get it over with.

Once she has told him, it’s done.

He can tell her what he wants and she can just live with it.

No more running through every nightmarish scenario in her head, no more imagining the other side of conversations and mentally booking flights to faraway countries to get away from her problems.

She will tell him she’s pregnant, and then the ball is in his court. Or the puck is in his rink. Whatever.

Her feet feel heavy as she moves toward his apartment, and when she’s stood in front of his door, she raps her knuckles harshly against the wood before she can convince herself not to.

And then she waits.

And waits.

And continues to wait until it starts to frustrate her, knocking again with the side of her fist in jerky movements that rattle the surface.

He’s definitely home, she thinks - she’d shamelessly stalked him on Find My Friends. Lionel had sent the message she was coming up. He has to be home.

Unless he’s down at Jack and Luke’s place.

She isn’t telling him there. God knows what those two would have to say about it.

What if she’s there?

Oh God, she hadn’t even thought about that. 

What if he isn’t answering because he doesn’t want Talia to see her there.

Shit.

Before she can duck and run, before her brain can even send out the direction to get the hell out of there, the door swings open, and she clumsily stumbles back with a surprised gasp.

Nico stands on the other side, skin dripping wet, steam coming off him like something out of a movie, and a towel clutched with a tight fist around his waist that also has a grasp on his phone. His hair is soaked, slicked back out of his face and her eyes are drawn to a droplet of water that trails down from his jaw, beneath a gap where the gold chain he is still wearing doesn’t quite sit flush against the base of his neck, and she watches it disappear into the tuft of dark hair that has grown in the centre of his chest.

“Poppy,” he’s breathless, like he’s just booked it down the hall to get to her, no doubt leaving a trail of soggy footprints in his path, “Hi.”

“S-sorry,” she stutters, making a serious mental effort to keep her eyes on his face. “Is this a bad time?”

“No!” He exclaims, eyebrows shooting up in panic, “No, you’re fine, come in.”

“Are you sure? I can come back,”

Nico steps back, giving her space to come in and tilting his head in a silent invitation. “Positive,” he watches as she takes a cautious step into his apartment, and he closes the door softly behind her. “Let me just,” he gestures to his body as if she isn’t actively trying to avoid looking at it, and she presses her lips together to save herself from audibly gulping. “I’ll get dressed. Make yourself comfortable, I’ll just be a second.”

Jesus Christ.

If Poppy’s heart wasn’t about to beat into oblivion before, it sure is now.

He rushes off down the hall toward his bedroom, and she steps a little further into the open plan of his apartment, casting her eyes in a quick glance across the room.

She can’t help herself - one of the few traits inherited from her mother - if she’s invited into someone else’s home, she’s going to be nosey.

She hasn’t spent much time in Nico’s apartment, before. Back before Summer last year, most of their time together was either spent out or round at her place. He had always said it was for convenience - he would rather be the one that had to drive home, and her place was closer to everything else so it just made sense - but she still thinks in the few times she had seen it, it looks different.

He’s rearranged the furniture, he has a new couch, his kitchen has a new coffee machine. He used to have a couple pictures of his family around, but she can’t see them from where she is.

In fact, she can’t really see anything personal.

If she compares it to her own cluttered space, his apartment looks fresh out of a catalogue. Stone walls, grey fabrics, brown leathers, random red pieces like the odd book and some candles, like he’d picked a page out of Bachelor Pad Weekly and handed it over to a designer with the sole instruction to copy and paste.

There’s a floor to ceiling shelving unit that seems to act as a separator, and it has random sculptures and trinkets she can’t see him picking out for himself. 

She tries not to think too much about how his place differs from her own. How she still has pictures of the two of them scattered in every room.

Guys don’t put as much thought into stuff like that.

She tells herself as much as she’s reading the spines of some of the books that line the shelves - hardbacks that look more like decoration than anything he would actually read - and she finds herself fiddling with the bunch of plastic in her pocket to ground herself.

There isn’t a single feminine thing about the place - almost like he’s scrubbed clean any trace of a woman ever living with him, which shouldn’t ease the tension in her shoulders as much as it does.

She isn’t here to worry about his choice of decor, or who may or may not have had a say in it. 

She isn’t here to question why she sees him in every corner of her home and she is nowhere in his.

She’s here to talk. 

“Sorry,” Nico returns, and she swivels where she’s stood to take him in. Sweatpants slung low on his hips, a slight gap between those and the hem of the t-shirt that sticks to his every muscle like second skin. A towel held up to his head to try and drain out the excess moisture. “I wasn’t expecting company so I hopped in the shower, I was ignoring the knocking until I saw the text to say it was you.”

“Yeah, I,” her tongue swipes at her parched lips, and she blinks away the daze he always seems to cast upon her. “I figured we need to talk.”

He takes an eager step forward, gesturing over to his couch and waiting for her to perch down uncomfortably on the edge before he sits on the cushion beside her - keeping a respectable distance between the two of them.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he seems nervous, and it makes her chest feel tight. “I wanted to apologise for the other day. I pretty much cornered you when you asked me for space and I didn’t mean to push you. Especially when you weren’t feeling great. If it helps, my mom laid into me when I drove her back to her hotel.”

“It’s alright,” she squeaks out, meekly, thinking that maybe if she lets him off the hook for that, he’ll let her off the hook for this.

“It’s not. I’ve dealt with this whole thing so wrong, I need you to know I didn’t mean what I said that night in your apartment. Y’know, about-,” he shakes his head as if trying to gather his thoughts, “About what we did. I don’t think we made a mistake. I made one, with how I handled everything after, I-,” she knows she shouldn’t let him ramble on, shouldn’t let him think she needs him to beg for her forgiveness before he knows the full extent of what he’s asking, but she’s spent 4 weeks imagining what he might want to say to her, and she wants to hear it. “You were right the other day, I haven’t been a good friend to you, Poppy, I was selfish and you deserve better. You deserve to make your own decisions and I’m sorry I took that from you.”

Poppy is usually better at catching herself before she cries in front of anyone else - the warning signs of an ache at the back of her throat and the corner of her eyes stinging coming up in advance - but this time, her lip starts to tremble before she’s able to get a grasp on her emotions, and a sob racks through her before she throws her head into her hands.

“Whoa, hey,” she feels a large, warm hand stroking at her back, and feels the couch dip as Nico shuffles closer to her, their knees knocking and his arm swinging around her shaking body. “Please don’t cry,”

“I’m so sorry,”

“No, Poppy, you have nothing to be sorry for-“

“I don’t want you to be mad at me.” She cries, her voice strained as if she’s choking back another sob as she looks up at him, arms cradling herself for a slight reprieve of comfort.

“Why would I be mad?” He questions, his arm still rubbing soothingly at hers as she unravels in front of him. “What’s going on, Poppy? I’m worried about you,”

“Do you promise me you won’t hate me?”

“Mohn,” Nico sighs, running his spare hand through his still-damp hair and making sure it stays slicked back. 

“Please?”

“I could never hate you,” He assures her, and, as resolute as he sounds, she tilts her head, urging him to say what she wants to hear. “I promise.”

She takes a second to even out her breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, until she no longer feels like she’s about to implode, and Nico waits, watching with his own bated breath.

“I uhm,” she takes a shaky inhale, trying to build the courage to come out and just say it, but her mouth just bops open like a fish, the words refusing to come out. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the handful of tests she had haphazardly stashed in there, before reaching forward and dropping them carelessly onto the coffee table - the plastic scattering across the surface and making a clattering sound against the solid wood.

Nico’s eyes drop to the sticks that are splayed out in front of him, his own words failing him as if he daren’t speak them into existence. His eyes close a few times in forced, hard blinks, as if he’s trying to determine the reality of the situation, and he reaches out to take one of them in his hand before she presses her shaky fingers to his arm in an attempt to stop him.

“I peed on those, I wouldn’t touch ‘em.”

He ignores the warning, picking up another, bringing them up to his face so he can read what he must already know they all say. The dim light of his living room does little to mask the shock on his face.

“You’re-,” his words drift off, and his eyes flicker back to the two tests left.

“I’m pregnant.” Her voice cracks as she says it, holding back a choking sob that strains her throat. She can no longer stomach the thought of not saying it out loud.

Silence lingers between them like a rubber band, ready to snap. She can feel every liquid ounce of blood rushing through her body, can probably hear the whoosh of it, too, if she focuses hard enough, and she thinks she can see a vein pop in his neck.

“Please say something.”

“It’s mine?”

Their eyes meet, his round and concerned, her’s glassy and afraid, and all she can do is nod.

She doesn’t take offence to the question, knowing he has every right to ask what he needs to. She’s spent the last hour trying to prep herself for the possibility of what he might ask, for an onslaught of potential accusations and finger-pointing.

Even if she only took the tests today, she’s had days to think about this. To ask her own questions, fathom her own feelings, she owes him the leniency to do the same. 

She and Nia had gone through some pretty serious breathing exercises before she drove Poppy out here just to calm her down in preparation for it all. 

“I haven’t been with anybody else.”

“I didn’t use protection,” he stares blankly ahead as he speaks, as if he’s running through the events of that night in his head, the tests still clutched between his thumb and fingers. She shakes her head, and hopes he can see the action in his peripheral, because her tongue currently feels like a paperweight in the dead centre of her mouth, and she probably couldn’t speak if she tried. “And you’re not-,” he seems just as much at a loss, “Protecting yourself?”

If it were anyone else asking her that kind of question, she thinks she’d be a little more on edge, but she knows he isn’t asking to shame her. 

Still, she can’t help the guilt that racks through her entire body. “I was trying a new birth control last year, and it uhm-,” she exhales a shuddered breath, “It didn’t really work for me, so I stopped. I was due back to see my doctor around Christmas, but I pushed it back, and then I- I forgot.” Tears line her eyes again, glossing them over completely until a fat droplet falls straight down her cheek and drips down onto her leg.

“Holy shit.”

She can’t exactly blame him for that response, either. She had said the exact same thing. Nia had even reacted the same way.

“I’m so, so sorry, Nico,” she tries to suppress a sob, but can’t stop the onset of tears, now, her head falling into her hands as her body begins to tremble.

Nico pulls Poppy into him immediately, his arms wrapping around her shaking frame, and he presses his head into the top of hers. Large hands stroke comfortingly up and down her back, trying to hold her as tight as is comfortable so she knows he’s there for her, shushing her and taking slow, measured breaths in the hopes her body instinctively copies him. 

Her body melts into his, soaking up his warmth until it eases all the tension in her muscles, and all she tries to focus on is the rhythmic motion of his touch on her spine.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Mohn,” he mutters into her temple, pressing his lips in a gentle kiss to the skin there. “It’s gonna be okay, please don’t cry.”

He sways her gently, lifting a hand to stroke her hair and keeps her in his hold until she starts to properly calm down - sobs becoming sniffles, tremors becoming the occasional shake, and her breaths evening out so she no longer seems like she’s hyperventilating.

Somewhere in her panic, she had taken to clutching at his shirt, the fabric bundled up so tight between her fingers that they start to ache, and she can feel the sharp press of her own nails in her palms. She lays them flat against his chest, ignoring the growing sting she feels when she applies pressure to the crescent-shaped indents, and uses him for leverage to push herself back a little - only going far enough that she can still feel his arms around her, even if they’ve loosened up a little.

She must look a complete mess - lips swollen, nose snotty, eyes red-raw - but he looks at her only with concern rather than any kind of disgust. He brings a hand forward to swipe at the remaining dampness on her cheek, and keeps it there to cup the side of her jaw, stroking tenderly at her face just as he had done the other day, when she had felt like she was floating out of her body and he had grounded her.

“You took those today?” He gestures towards the sticks that are still on the table, the others that had been in his grasp before discarded somewhere into the cushions of the couch when he had taken her into his arms. She nods, meeting his dark eyes and watching as they flicker between the features of her own face. “You didn’t know when we spoke the other day?”

She shakes her head, vehemently. “I wouldn’t have tried to push you away if I’d have even thought I could be pregnant Nico, I swear. I thought I was just sick.”

“You would have had every right to push me away, Poppy.” 

“I came here as soon as I knew for sure.” She places her hand over his, her thumb swiping over the knuckles on his hand and her fingers curling around his own digits. “I mean, I was kind of losing my mind so it took me 13 positives to know, but-,”

“You took 13 tests?” When she takes note of his face, he seems like he’s trying to fight a smile. She hadn’t even realised before. 

13 positives to finally convince her, and a baby the size of a Poppy seed, it was always meant to be.

“14 technically, but one was negative,” her lips twist then in slight embarrassment. “I even made Nia take one.”

“Nia knows?”

The would-be smile drops immediately, and the frown that forms on his face almost stops her heart in its tracks. 

“I needed somebody to hold my hand, Nico.” She reasons, head tilting and trying to meet his eyes again, his hand drops from her face, hers falling limply with it, and the look he gives her back is one of resigned acceptance. 

“It should have been me,” he mutters, and when she parts her lips to respond, he shakes his head, “I know I’m the one who hurt you and pushed you away, Poppy, I just-,” he sighs, he isn’t trying to blame her, he’s trying blame himself. “I’m glad you weren’t alone.”

She threads her fingers through his again, bringing their hands between them and holding his firmly in her lap. “I would have come to you, Nico, I just didn’t want to stress you out if it turned out to be negative.”

“Even after what I did?” His voice is the one that’s strained, now, and the sound plucks straight at her heart strings. 

He had hurt her - she knows he understands that - but she doesn’t want him to hurt. She’s never wanted that for him. And with the regret in his eyes and the conflict in his tone, she sees that they’ve both been hurting regardless of what she wanted, so she nods. 

If she had been left to her own devices, earlier - if the baby shower hadn’t conjured up so much anxiety that she erupted on her best friend - she would have ended up in this exact spot. Poppy knows that with everything in her. She would always have come to him.

When she had had her not-so-mini meltdown with Nia earlier, it was his reassurance she craved. 

“You wouldn’t have stressed me out.” He tells her, squeezing back at her hand, and she knows he isn’t putting on a brave face just to make her feel better. “In fact, I feel weirdly calm right now.”

“Yeah, I think you might have calmed me down, too.”

His constant touch, his serene demeanour, he’s done everything in him to make her feel relaxed.

He hasn’t raised his voice, hasn’t pushed her away, hasn’t blamed her or shamed her or made her feel like she is a burden in any way.

He’s just held her in his arms and told her it will be okay, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to show him how much she appreciates it.

She had made herself entirely hysterical with an abundance of what ifs and hypotheticals that she knew in her heart he would never live up to. 

If she had been thinking rationally at all, earlier, she’d have known he wouldn’t get mad, wouldn’t hate her, wouldn’t react in any way other than the way he has. With tender-hearted acceptance and love born from empathy and the long-withstanding trust they share for each other.  

Her mind had spiralled so far beyond the realm of possibility that it had created a version of him in her head that he would never be. One that would have shut her out, left her to deal with her emotions alone. Even when he’d pushed her away the last time, she had been the one to shut the door.

“I-,” he starts to say something, but is interrupted by the buzz of his phone on the coffee table. “Why is Nia calling me?”

“Shit,” Poppy curses, shooting up and dropping his hand in the process, “She’s waiting downstairs for me, she was gonna drive me home.” She pats around her pockets before realising her phone isn’t in them, and it dawns on her she must have left it in the passenger seat of Nia’s car - a really useful spot for it to be.

“It’s alright,” Nico focuses more on consoling her than answering the call, and it rings out before he remembers he should probably have picked it up. “She’s parked on the street?”

“Yeah, right out front.”

“Wait here,” he commands with gentle authority, a hand on her shoulder pushing her softly back down onto the couch. “We need to talk about this, I don’t want you to be home alone, you can stay here tonight,”

“Maybe I sh-,”

“I’ll go down and tell her,” he says with finality, leaving the living area in search of a hoodie he can shrug on. 

“Nico, she isn’t exactly your biggest fan right now,” Poppy warns, following him toward the door to his apartment with a slight bout of panic.

If he goes out there, there’s no telling what Nia might say to him. She’s been on one for weeks about how disappointed she has been in him, and he could be marching straight into the firing line without a clue as to what is waiting for him out there. And he might return with his defences raised.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be back in a few minutes, just make yourself comfortable, okay?”

He doesn’t really give Poppy much of a choice before he’s dashing out of his apartment, and she doesn’t exactly have the energy to chase him.

She steps back around the couch, feeling a little out of place again as he has, for the second time in one night, left her to her own devices in his space.

She starts to pace, feet padding softly around the pattern of the rug, focused entirely on matching up her steps to the patches within the fabric until she starts to get dizzy.

Then, she finds herself looking around again. Snooping around shelves, eyeing up the cabinet where he keeps odd bits of Devils memorabilia, newspaper cut outs of his biggest games and even a patch of a Switzerland jersey framed in dark wood. 

The rest of the space is minimal, as she had taken notice of before. A couple generic pieces of artwork, nothing too personal anywhere other than that cabinet. A large mirror hung on the wall, that she doesn’t really want to look in, through fear of catching sight of her ghastly reflection, but something else captures her attention in it, entirely.

She turns quicker than she probably should, and her lips part as she steps closer to the wall that had been behind her.

She’d been too focused on her thoughts before - hadn’t noticed it in her initial snooping.

A landscape canvas, framed in the same dark wood as everything else he had in the room that had been a personal touch, large enough to be the only artwork on that wall - a focal piece in the heart of his apartment.

A patch of dainty red flowers seemingly waving in the breeze beside a picturesque coastal view, peaceful waters and some tiny sailboats in the background.

And beneath it, a small plaque just above the base of the frame that reads; Childe Hassam. Poppies, Isles of Shoals, 1891. 

Nico

Nico has never really given much thought to having children, before.

He doesn’t have any problem with kids - he enjoys his mentoring sessions, loves meeting the kids who come to games donning his name on their back and looking at him like he’s their hero, and will always go out of his way to meet fans if he hears there’s a bunch of kids excited to meet him.

But being a part of one of the youngest teams in the leagues means he doesn’t exactly have a lot of dad friends. Sure, a couple of the guys have kids - they bring them to games, to team events and he’s met his fair share of them at family skates, but he isn’t that actively involved in any of their lives.

Whenever he pictures his future, it’s really just hockey. It’s captaining his team all the way to lifting the cup, it’s winning gold in the Worlds or the Olympics, representing his beloved home country and succeeding at the top level with his friends.

And if he’s ever thought about anything outside of that, it’s just been experiencing as many new things as he can before he doesn’t have those kinds of opportunities anymore. Travelling, flitting around Europe with his friends back home, climbing mountains, going to festivals, trying his hand at whatever sport he can. 

He’s never had any inclination for that to change.

Until the thought of having children with Poppy fell into his lap. Or onto his coffee table in the form of a handful of positive pregnancy tests.

And once the initial shock had subsided, once his brain had comprehended the switch between missing her and screaming not to let her go, he had found comfort in the concept of knowing that something about his future was now an almost-certain.

Poppy will be a part of it.

And he will be a part of hers.

It’s with the conviction of those facts that he finds himself jogging across the street to Nia’s Mazda with misplaced confidence. 

Poppy had tried to warn him that she wouldn’t be welcoming and he had shrugged it off, knowing already how pissed her best friend was going to be with him.

A couple nights after she had kicked him out of her apartment, in the depths of his despair and on a lonely evening in a hotel room in Tampa, all he could think of doing to make himself feel better after a loss was to check up on her. Every time he had tried to see her at the Rock the first few days that week before they had gone on the road, she had practically ran the other way, and so as he lay in his hotel bed, muscles aching, mind racing, heart hurting, he had taken to stalking her instagram to see what she had been up to while he had been away.

Her story had been of Nia, the two of them had gone together to get their nails done, and when Nico had clicked on where Nia was tagged in the hope that maybe she had posted a picture of Poppy, it had taken him to a private account he no longer had the privilege of following. 

She had removed him. 

And as he raps his knuckles against her car window, he can see why. 

She’s angry.

“I didn’t call you so that you’d come down here, I called to check on my best friend.” She snaps, the brisk winter air invading her car and making the annoyed huff she gives come out in a misty cloud.

“She’s fine, she’s gonna stay over-,”

“Like hell she is,” she goes to unbuckle her belt, and when she reaches for the handle of the door to open it, Nico promptly pushes it back shut. “Let me out.”

“Come on, Nia,” Nico sighs, “Poppy’s okay, I got her to calm down and we need to talk about things, I don’t want you having to wait out here all night until we do.”

“Right, ‘cause the last time you two had a sleepover, it turned out so well for her.”

Nico finds himself clenching his jaw, not in anger but in shame. Yet another reminder from another person just how much he has messed this all up. 

“I’m gonna wait here until I know this is what she wants to do,” Nia holds out Poppy’s phone, and Nico takes it, immediately thrusting it into the warmth of his pocket. “You make sure she texts me so I know you’re not holding her hostage up there. We have a code. If she doesn’t send it to me in the next five minutes, I’ll literally scale your building to find you and make you hurt in ways you can’t even comprehend.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

He misses the way Luke had subtly threatened him back in the locker room. That was a lot less violent, and while he had taken it seriously at the time, he was a lot less scary than Nia.

She narrows her eyes at him, and he tries to morph his face into one that reflects the gravity of the situation.

He has no intentions of ever making her sad again. He knows that. Hell, Nia probably knows that deep down.

“Thank you for being there for her.” He knows it’s a risky thing to say - Nia and Poppy have been friends since their childhood, there would never be a question over her being there for Poppy - but he’s hoping that she understands what he’s trying to get at. “With the tests and all, holding her hand. I’m glad she has you.”

“You won’t be glad if you don’t get back upstairs in time,” she shoos him away with the flick of her hand, and before he can fully jog back across the street, she calls back out to him. “Hey Nico,” he turns and watches as she leans out of her window a little, voice shouting out as if she has no worries about the repercussions of threatening him so brazenly, “If you ever make my best friend cry again, there isn’t a corner of this Earth that you’ll be safe in, do you understand?”

“I understand.” He nods, before he dashes back into the safety of his building. 

Despite the visceral way in which his life has just been threatened, he finds himself walking with a newfound spring in his step, bounding through the lobby and sending Lionel a friendly salute as he passes him, the old man shaking his head fondly in return.

The elevator flies straight up to his floor, and he’s back inside the warmth of his apartment in no time - all that much warmer now that he has his favourite girl back inside.

“Have you ever seen the movie Taken?” He huffs as he pulls off his hoodie, his head popping out of the neck of the garment in a way that makes his hair fluff out. “I’m telling you, Nia could give Liam Neeson a run for his money. She’s scary.”

He finds Poppy stood in his living room, staring at the wall - not exactly where he had left her but she’s never been one to sit still for too long.

“Poppy?”

“I like your painting.” Her voice is much softer than it had been, before. A little deeper, less strained, like she’s found comfort and isn’t as anxious to speak anymore, which delights him just a little. The energy in the room has shifted since he had left, and what he has returned to is comfortable and serene.

He steps in line beside her, eyes cast upon the canvas she is admiring, and he feels his lips twitch upward. “My mom got it for me,” he chuckles, stepping just the slightest bit closer. “She said my place lacked character.”

She had said some other things, too, about how she’d seen the painting and it had immediately reminded her of him and how it would bring some much needed colour to his apartment, and make it feel more like home but saying those things feels like overkill, and he thinks he’s shared enough for now.

Plus, Poppy knows what the painting means, she doesn’t need him to spell it out for her.

He needs to keep some of his dignity in tact.

“Sounds about right,” Poppy mutters with an astute smile.

The silence that falls between the two of them is one of familiarity and understanding, and he nudges playfully at her side before stepping away.

“I told Nia you’d be staying here. She says you need to text her your code before she murders me.”

“How long did she give you?”

“Five minutes,”

“Dang,” she checks the time quickly on the screen, “I think I might have forgotten it.”

“You’re not funny, Poppy.” He responds, but he’s sure the fond shake of his head and the way he battles the oncoming smile gives him away. “You have a minute left before I’m snatching that back and assuming your code is please don’t kill my baby daddy.”

“That’s a good one.” The smile she gives this time is tired, and for the first time all night, he takes in just how exhausted she looks. Shoulders slumped, shadows under her eyes, slow blinks every time she looks up at him. 

He watches as she types her message to Nia, a feeling of contentment settling in the pit of his stomach despite the intensity of the situation.

She’s here. She’s making jokes. She’s looking him in the eye and smiling like he never hurt her.

She’s carrying his baby.

However small it might be, a part of him is growing within her, and she doesn’t seem all that perturbed by the idea.

He knows that there’s a lot more to talk about, for him to think about even, but he’s content for now just knowing that.

“I think you should get some sleep,” he suggests, his tone comforting and his cadence smooth, “We can talk more tomorrow, but you look beat, Poppy.”

“Yeah, I haven’t really been sleeping right lately.”

“You can take my bed,” he offers, “My mattress is like sleeping on a cloud,”

“No, I can’t kick you out of your bed,”

“I’ll sleep in the spare, it’s fine,”

“No, I’ll sleep in there, I don’t mind!”

“I shoved a kit bag in there before we broke up for All-Stars, before I got the chance to get it washed, I don’t think you’ll get on too well with how that room smells, Poppy.”

“Oh,” she pouts, an adorable frown forming on her face as Nico finds himself almost blushing at the sight of it. “Gross.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “Do you want me to make you anything before you go to sleep?”

“Were you gonna eat?”

“No, I was gonna head to bed early, I have an early morning training session with a couple of the guys. But I don’t mind cooking for you if you’re hungry,”

“No, that’s fine,” she shakes her head, looking up at him with a soft smile, “Nia and I ate before she brought me here. Are you sure you want me to stay if you have plans?”

“Yeah,” he answers with shameless urgency, “I’ll be back early, I can bring you breakfast.”

She bites at the corner of her mouth like she usually does when she’s thinking too much, and he reaches out to swipe his thumb at the side of her chin to pull her lip from the clutches of her teeth.

“I want you here, Poppy. I want to talk about this properly, after you’ve had a good night’s rest and you’re not upset.”

“Okay.” She breathes, “I’ll stay.”

“C’mon, I’ll find you something to wear to bed.”

He holds out his hand, expecting her to swerve it and grasp at his arm instead, but she slides her fingers between his and lets him guide her through his apartment to his bedroom. 

When they’re both inside, he manoeuvres her to sit on the edge of his bed while he looks through his closet, and comes back out with some boxers and an old t-shirt. Poppy always wears shorts when she’s at home, and he figures she’ll be more comfortable in these than any sweatpants he could find. “Here you go, I promise they’re clean.”

“I trust you,” she snorts as she takes the garments from his clutches and stands to change in his en-suite. 

Nico follows her in, and when she turns to question him, he opens up the medicine cabinet above his sink. “I don’t have a toothbrush for you but I have spare heads for mine,” he offers one out to her from the pack, one that has a blue band at the bottom so she’ll be able to tell the difference when she takes the head he uses off.  “There’s soap in there too, and clean washcloths if you wanna take a shower. But if you need anything just let me know and I can pick it up for you on my way home in the morning.”

Before he can step back to head out, Poppy throws her arms around him, discarding the clothes he had given her to the floor and pressing her body firmly into his. 

His own arms circle around her waist, tightening around her frame as his large hands press into her back to keep her close. She’s raised up on her tip toes, her face is shoved into his neck, and he presses his lips to the side of her head, closing his eyes to bask in how good it feels and taking a deep breath of the faint smell of her coconut shampoo.

She pulls away after a minute or two with a quiet sniffle, but only puts a little distance between them before she looks up at him with tears brimming her eyes again.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Poppy,” he reaches a hand to wipe at a stray tear, “I’m here for you, whatever you need.”

“I was really scared earlier,” she hiccups out, “I was driving myself crazy, I was driving Nia crazy, and I-,” her lip trembles, and she shakes her head as if to rid herself of the onslaught of emotions, “I should have just come straight to you. I’m sorry you weren’t the first to know.”

“Hey, no,” he gently grabs either side of her face, stroking at her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs, “You have nothing to be sorry for, I mean it.”

“But I-,”

“I like how you told me.” He affirms to her - and as much as he had wanted to be the first person who knew, earlier, he knows he means it. Nia is Poppy’s person, if there was one other person in the world he would be okay with knowing over him, it would be her. As much as he likes to think he would have been able to make her feel better in the moment if she was panicking, he doesn’t entirely know if he wouldn’t have panicked himself if things weren’t already confirmed. If he would have slipped up and made her feel worse or said something stupid. “You throwing your little pee sticks down onto my coffee table like some kind of performance art and telling me not to touch them after I already had. It’s kind of funny.”

She giggles, glassy eyes crinkling in the corners until they push a tear that runs into his thumb.

She places her own hands on top of his. “You still haven’t washed your hands, by the way.”

“Shit, sorry,” he grimaces, immediately taking them off of her skin. “I’ll let you get ready, I’m across the hall if you need anything, and I should be back before 11. I’ll bring you whatever you’re hungry for.”

“Okay, I’ll try not to vomit everywhere in the morning while I wait for you to come home.”

Come home. His feels like his heart does a somersault in his chest, bouncing off of each rib that protects it in its place, and the feeling reverberates throughout his entire body.

“I appreciate that.”

He takes a hold of her face again, his fingers tucked behind her ears as he pulls her head to his lips, pressing a firm and affectionate kiss to her crown, just like he used to whenever they said goodbye.

And in a way that melts his thumping heart, she does the same, bringing his face down to her lips to press them into the warm skin of his forehead. 

“Goodnight, Nico,” she hums, her eyes sparkling and her lips spread into a fond smile.

“Sweet dreams, Mohn,” he replies, feeling the press of the dimples in his cheeks and the rush of blood to his head.

When he retreats to his spare bedroom, and collapses onto the firmer-than-he-would-like mattress, he can’t stop the surprising curve of his lips, a soft smile etching itself into his features that feels like it could be a permanent fixture.

He should be terrified. His heart should be beating out of his chest, he should have broken out in a cold sweat and not been able to form words. He should be panicked out of his mind and sick to his stomach.

But there’s a girl he loves more than anything laying in his bed in the room beside his, she’s wearing his clothes, her head is on his pillow, she is wrapped up in his sheets, and she is carrying his baby.

And despite never picturing much of this part of it before, he can see a glimpse of his future ahead of him. 

A future where Poppy’s belly grows round and presses into his whenever she’s close enough that he can pull her into him. A future where tiny sticky hands press into one side of the plexiglass while he’s out warming up on the ice, and his  large, gloved hand presses to the other. A future where he comes home to find her battling sleep with a snoring baby held to her chest, highlights playing with lowered volume on the TV, and they’d snuggle up together until they both pass out, and he gets up to do the middle of the night feed-and-change so that Poppy gets her rest.

And all those worries he had before about never being enough for her fade to nothing, because now he has no choice. 

If Poppy can grow a little human with a tiny beating heart, who is half of him, and half of her, then he can step up for her. 

Whatever she needs him to be, whatever she wants him to be, he’ll be it - and he’ll be it with this same lovesick smile that he now can’t shift. 

So with a content sigh, and a deep longing for the girl laying not even 20 feet away from him, he falls asleep for the first time in 4 weeks at peace with his actions.

—

Over the last four weeks, Nico has spent way too much time retracing his steps to the point where he had so royally screwed things up with Poppy that she had wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. So when he wakes up the next morning before the sun shows any signs of rising - when he quickly gets himself ready to head off to practice, sneaking through his room to go brush his teeth, planting a minty kiss to the sleeping girl’s forehead and making sure she has something to drink for when she wakes up - he places a note beside the glass of water on his nightstand, in preparation for when she wakes up.

This time, he won’t leave her to wake up without him without some sort of explanation. Without an assurance that he’ll be back as promised, and that he can’t wait to see her, and that she should text him when she wakes up and let him know what isn’t going to turn her stomach and he’ll get it for her.

Which is why, when he checks his phone after his training session at the arena gym finishes at 9:30, his heart drops to the pit of his stomach when nothing is there.

It’s still early, he tells himself after a quick shower. She might still be asleep, he thinks as he packs up his toiletries, sets his things aside to be washed and tries to act like his thoughts aren’t eating him alive. She might not have seen the note, he convinces himself as he does a quick round of the grocery store - grabbing her some essentials and replenishing some of the basics he knows he is low on anyway. She wouldn’t have left, he thinks as he watches the numbers go up in the elevator, his feet tapping against the floor nervously as he awaits his stop. 

And when he makes it into his apartment, and she isn’t on his couch, isn’t in the kitchen, isn’t in the bed where he had left her that morning, he starts to panic - until he hears something through the closed door of his bathroom. 

“Poppy?” He asks softly before pushing the door open to see her sat on her knees on the floor beside his toilet, sticky hair matted to her paled skin, and bleary eyes looking weakly up at him. He sinks down beside her, perches himself on his knees and pushes the strands of hair off her forehead and out of her face. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“My phone died,” her voice is strained, and he doesn’t need to look into the toilet bowl to know why. “I tried to find a charger but I couldn’t get up without feeling sick.”

He hadn’t even thought to get her one when he had left her in here last night. “I’ll get you one,” but when he goes to push himself off the ground, she wraps her shaking fingers around his wrist.

“Could you just sit with me for a little?” She asks, “I know I’m gross but I just need you to hold my hair if it happens again, I didn’t bring a hair tie.”

“Of course,” he lowers himself back to the ground beside her, “C’mere,” he swings an arm over her shoulders, pulling her body into his until her head falls weakly into the crook of his neck. He strokes at her hair gently, tucking it behind her ears where she can and trying to soothe her into some sort of comfort. “Have you been here all morning?”

She nods, and he lowers his other arm to tuck his hand under her legs, unbending them as best as he can and stretching them out over his own so that she won’t loose the feeling in them. 

They stay like that for a while, her taking deep breaths to alleviate the nausea and him stroking tranquilly at whatever parts of her he can reach. The soft skin of her thighs and the outsides of her knees with one hand, the slope of her neck and the curve of her shoulder with the other. One of her arms stays bent between them, but the other stretches out in an attempt to touch him back, languidly resting on his torso and occasionally her fingers dance lightly across the fabric of his t-shirt with just enough pressure to make his stomach clench in anticipation.

“You should take a shower,” he suggests after peeking down at her to make sure she hasn’t fallen asleep. “You might feel better.”

“Am I that bad?”

“Doesn’t feel right to chirp a pregnant woman, Poppy.”

The laugh she gives him in return feels like a cherished gift, and his chest swells with pride when she looks up at him and her eyes glimmer under the overhead lights. 

“I got you some things from the store.”

He had spent almost 5 minutes trying to find coconut scented shampoo and conditioner, unscrewing several bottles and trying not to get caught, but he won’t be telling her that.

“And here I was counting my lucky stars you have such an extensive hair wash routine all morning.” She jibes, pointing over to the toiletries inside Nico’s shower. “If you were a 5-in-1 guy I would have seriously reconsidered our friendship.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to worry about that, wait here.”

He goes to retrieve one of the bags he had discarded when he got in, and takes it back to Poppy in his bathroom before emptying it out onto the counter beside the sink.

Shampoo, conditioner, a hairbrush, a new toothbrush, deodorant, some face wipes, an unscented body wash, and a packet of anti-nausea medication he had specifically asked the pharmacist for with the assurance it was okay for pregnant women. 

“Oh wow, I must be that bad.”

“Not at all, I just wanted you to feel more comfortable.” He reassures her, and opens a drawer below the sink to get her a washcloth and a fresh bar of soap. “There’s clean towels in the cupboard behind you. And if you want to raise the pressure of the shower, it’s the dial at the top, temperature at the bottom.”

“Got it. Thank you, Nico,” she smiles, and Nico smiles back at the sincerity in her eyes.

“I’m gonna put together something to eat while you’re in there. You don’t have to eat if you don’t feel like it, but is there anything you think you can stomach?”

“Something cold,” she requests, swiping at the packet of medication and curiously reading the label, “That doesn’t have any kind of smell.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he chuckles, “I’ll put some fresh clothes on my bed, just call out if you need me, yeah?”

Poppy nods, and gives him a little salute with a pill packet between her fingers. 

Something cold that doesn’t have any smell.

He had got her fruit from the store - strawberries and pre-cut watermelon, Pink Lady apples because he knows they’re the only kind she will eat - as well as yoghurt, some cereal, some bagels and some eggs and bacon. The eggs and bacon are out of the question, as much as he’d want to make himself a decent breakfast bagel after his training session, but the rest of it seems pretty safe.

He cuts up the fruit anyway, even if she won’t eat it now, he can always send it home with her later. He puts the yoghurt in the fridge so it will stay as cold as possible - he had gotten her coconut flavour, remembering how she had once said it was her favourite, but only the greek type that has the taste of coconut but not the texture. He leaves the bagels to the side, thinking that toasting them and potentially burning them is a little too risky without asking her first, and lays the boxes of cereal in a row on his counter so that she has her choice of the bunch if she wants some.

The pharmacist had recommended ginger shots to help with the sickness, but Nico has tried one too many of those on their own before, and they would make even the healthiest person gag, so he had bought some pre-made smoothies to mix them into. He decides he’ll leave her to pick, and blend it over some ice when she isn’t looking.

And as he flits around his kitchen without giving any of these things a second thought, he feels for the first time in a long time like he has thing figured out.

He can so do this. He can look after her like it’s just second nature to him. He can pick up whatever she needs from the store without panicking down every aisle and googling what is or isn’t okay for her. He can sit and hold her hair while she pukes her guts up and not get freaked out by it even in the slightest. He can go to practice, go to training, go to games, and come home and care for her like how she deserves.

He can do it with his hands tied behind his back, he feels.

He’s full of bravado, and hope, and excitement, and it’s a tornado of feelings that plough straight through whatever he had been feeling before - doubt and anxiety and insecurity.

The only thing that remains is regret.

Regret for what he had done to her, what he had said, the way he had ended things. All of it seems so stupid now. It seems so impulsive and he feels like he had been so blind. 

Blinded by uncertainty, blinded by self-doubt, blinded by the poison spewed by Talia that he wasn’t good enough for anyone.

He should have listened to that tiny voice within him that had told him he could have been good enough for Poppy. Then he would never have hurt her. Would never have spent 4 weeks longing for her and hoping things could be different. 

“You’re gonna have to get me a key cut,” her voice rings down the hall before she appears on the other side of his kitchen island, donning sweatpants that she has had to fold at the waist and a sweatshirt where the arms hang beyond the tips of her fingers. Her hair is damp, her feet are bare, and she looks like she belongs. “I don’t ever want to use another shower in my life.”

“It’s nice, huh?” He chuckles as he leans down onto the countertop, watching her as her feet pad closer, “I sometimes just stand in there for a good five minutes when I’m done, the pressures nice when I’m all achey after a game.”

“I bet, if I didn’t feel hungry for the first time in 2 weeks, I would have stayed in there for like an hour.”

“You feel better?”

“So much better.” She smiles up at him, leaning over the counter and cupping his face with both hands. “You, Nico Hischier, are a gift from God for those pills.” 

She pulls him further over the island and plants a big, wet, somewhat minty kiss on his head, and he finds himself closing his eyes and breathing her in while she’s so close.

Where he expects to smell the coconut shampoo he had searched high and low for, he breathes in something different. Something familiar for an entirely different reason.

She smells fresh, like citrus-bergamot, and a little woody like cedar and musk.

She smells like him.

“The girl at the pharmacy said they should help short term until you can get in to see a doctor.” He tells her as he shakes himself out of whatever spell she had just cast on him.

“Thank you, Nico, you didn’t have to do all of this.”

“I wanted to,” he shrugs, straightening up and moving some of the fruit he had prepared to the counter between them. “I technically caused all of your problems.”

Her lips twist, and he watches as she lifts herself onto one of the stools, swivelling until she’s facing him properly and reaching out to take some of the watermelon. He makes his way over to the refrigerator while she chews on a piece.

“Did you get any-,” and before she can finish her sentence, he brings out the pot of coconut yoghurt and puts it down in front of her. “You’re good.”

“I know, it’s weird.” He leans back down and watches in amusement as she dips her watermelon into the yoghurt. “I was stressing a little on the way to the store about what I could get you, and then as soon as I got there it was like my legs just knew where to go.”

“Maybe you’re gonna be one of those sympathy-pregnancy kind of dads,” she smirks, and his knees start to feel a little like jelly at her use of the word, “Like your boobs will start to hurt and you’ll get all hormonal and cry at everything.”

“I don’t have boobs, Poppy.” He chuckles, reaching out to try watermelon dipped in yoghurt for himself. 

“You know what I mean.”

Poppy works her way through quite a bit of the fruit before she hangs in the towel, and he decides not to subject her to the ginger shot quite yet - her nausea having subsided enough already that it’s probably an unwarranted form of torture at this point.

She helps him put everything away, and the two of them work around each other in the kitchen like a well oiled machine. It feels completely normal to have her in his space. He doesn’t feel the need to busy himself with mundane tasks to occupy his hands or his mind, and she makes everything seem so easy - cracking jokes and making conversation like nothing else is happening in their world.

He could have had it this good this whole time, he thinks.

He could have it this good forever.

The reality of it dawns on him when they eventually make their way over to the couch, the pregnancy tests still discarded where they had left them the night before, two sticking out from the couch cushions and two remaining on his coffee table. He plucks one out from between the seams of his couch, still not caring much for where it has been before, and stares down at the two lines with the kind of smile that makes his cheeks hurt.

“Have you ever thought about it before?” Poppy asks, and as he watches her lean into the back of the couch, he gets the sense she’s starting to build her guard up in anticipation of a blow. “Having kids, I mean?”

“No,” he replies, honestly. “Not properly. Not beyond thinking, like, it might be nice.”

“Do you still think that?” She chews at the corner of her lip, “Is it something that you want?”

“It is now.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.” He gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “I think it’s that I could never picture it happening, before. I’ve never really had anyone I could see myself doing it with.”

“Not even Talia?”

He cringes inwardly at even the mention of her name. “God, no.”

“Really?” She seems as if she doesn’t believe him entirely.

“She’s not-,” he starts, “We weren’t-,” he tries again, and his mind races with a hundred ways to say what he wants to say without Poppy thinking he’s an asshole. “I don’t know.”

“Nico, I really need you to be straight with me here.” She sighs, sitting up straight and shuffling a little closer to him.

“I’m always straight with you.”

“No offence, but I don’t think you are,” she says, and before he can even give a rebuttal, she adds, “It’s not that I think you keep things from me maliciously, but you don’t always give me the full picture, and I,” she takes a deep breath, rolling her shoulders to prepare herself, “I jump to conclusions super easily, and I end up hurting myself when you don’t say whatever it is that you mean. And I think we can avoid all that if we’re just honest with each other. I don’t want us to get into dumb fights and it get in the way of us being friends again.”

He feels his heart come to a thunderous stop. Friends.

“If we’re gonna do this co-parent thing, we need to be honest about what we think and how we feel.”

Co-parents?

“Okay,” he responds, and it comes out like he’s on auto-pilot.

Okay? 

“I know she’s back in the picture, you don’t have to keep pretending.”

“Back in the-“ He shakes his head, his thoughts racing at a million miles an hour. “What?”

“I heard you talking to her, before you left my apartment after we-,” Poppy gestures to her belly, where both nothing and everything has changed all at once, and Nico’s eyes get stuck there as she carries on. “Y’know, and then you broke things off, it hardly takes a genius to add it up.”

“Poppy, no.” He doesn’t remember ever being so direct with her. “No, no, no, that wasn’t-“ She had heard him? “I’m not-,” he takes a deep breath to alleviate the swirl of panic. He needs to be straight with her. “She got herself into some stupid mess, and she thought it was my fault but it wasn’t. I had to help her out, but she’s gone, she isn’t back in the picture, Poppy, I promise. I don’t even know if she was ever in the picture, I-.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

His eyes dart up to meet hers, and where he holds his breath in the anticipation of seeing how much she has been hurting, has been assuming the worst of him and thinking the littlest of herself, he sees everything he loves about her shining back at him. Patience, generosity, forgiveness. 

“After I left you without a word, and came back and ended things before they even began, would it have mattered?”

“Nico, this whole time I thought you shut things down because you wanted to be with her but you just-,” she shakes her head like she can’t bring herself to say the rest, and his throat starts to feel drier by the second.

How could he have ever been so stupid? He had thought he’d been miserable the past 4 weeks, second guessing his choices and wanting nothing more than to just talk to her, and she’s spent that whole time thinking he had discarded her like a used toy and gone back to someone else. Someone who could never compare to her in any universe.

“I really fucked this up, huh?”

“Yeah,” she nods, her lips twitching as the silence settles between them for a second.

He watches as she thinks for a second. Watches her brows furrow and relax, her eyes dart around to different spots between the, her bottom lip get tugged between her teeth, and released into a pensive pout, all before she says, “You can make it up to me,” and she gives a gentle and reassuring smile, reaches out for his hand and presses the soft pads of her fingers to his knuckles before pushing them through the spaces in between. 

Although it pains him to say it, he tells her, “You have to stop letting me off so easy, Poppy.”

“Trust me,” she says, “I won’t be letting you off easy. Us Jensen women are super scary when we’re hormonal. Super demanding and bratty.”

“I’ll take it.” He promises. “And I’ll give you whatever you want, whatever you need.”

“Right now I just need to know that you’re in this with me,” she requests, so vulnerable in her tone that is makes his chest ache.

He reaches up with his free hand and cups his palm around her soft cheek. “I’m in this,” he whispers, leaning into her and pressing his forehead to hers. “I can't begin to tell you how much I want it, Mohn.”

“Okay.” She whispers back, and when her eyes flutter closed at the proximity, and she surrenders to his touch, Nico gives in to his instincts.

Entirely caught up in the intimacy of the moment, he leans in, and when his mouth presses to hers, he feels the culmination of 4 weeks of longing, of missing her, of regretting everything, of anticipating seeing her, of worrying, of needing of wanting, explode into something vibrant and loud and inevitable.

It’s like a fireworks show, sparks of anxiety, of excitement, of hope and doubt and insecurity clashing together in pops and bangs and fizzes, raining down on him in a mixture of colour and sound. 

“Mmph-,” she squeaks out a protest as his lips meet hers, and despite his primal instinct to persevere, to give her a second to adjust to the kiss and to eagerly accept his advances, to bask in the beauty of it all like he is, he pulls straight away with a furrowed brow, eyes meeting hers in concern as he creates an inch of space between them. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think we should do that,” her eyes dart down, lashes fluttering as she avoids his gaze chasing hers back.

“Do what, kiss?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?” He doesn’t even feel ashamed at the way he practically whines when asking.

“Would you want to kiss me if I wasn’t pregnant?”

How could she possibly even doubt that? He thinks.

“I always want to kiss you, Poppy.” Again, it’s pointless to second guess those feelings. He’d told her something similar after the first time he had done it, and he had meant it as much back then as he does, now.

“Would you want to be with me?”

That isn’t a matter of want, but this time, he hesitates.

He’ll always want to be with her. 

He’s wanted nothing else the last four weeks they haven’t been talking. For the last few years he has known her. He wants to be with her when he’s alone in his apartment, when he’s away with the team, when he’s back home with his family, he has always wanted that.

And especially now that she’s carrying his baby, as minuscule as it currently may be, it’s going to grow in her belly with eyes that sparkle when it smiles and a brain that thinks exclusively in razor-sharp wit and biting sarcasm. 

“Poppy, I,” he sighs, knowing he can’t undo the damage he had caused that night in her apartment all those weeks ago. Even after clearing up her misconceptions on what was behind it, it doesn’t change what he said. That was never about not wanting her. It was about not wanting to hurt her. But every time he tries to explain it - to her, to Luke, to himself, even - he just sounds like an idiot. “I don’t know.”

He does now. Of course he knows, but something within him tells him that she won’t believe him this time when he tells her. There’s only so many excuses he can give for what he did.

“We can’t just be together because I’m going to have your baby, Nico, that’s not-,” she takes a shuddered breath. “I don’t want you to want to be with me because it’s convenient.”

“That isn’t what this is.”

“I don’t think you even know what you want,” she says, her tone light and comforting despite the harsh reality check being served, “And that’s okay, but I’m not gonna be a guinea pig for you to figure it out. That isn’t fair to me.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that sometimes you make decisions in the heat of the moment when you might not mean or want them.”

Nico lets her words dawn on them for a second.

If only she knew how much that were true.

“I don’t say that to be an asshole, either, I just,” her tongue darts out to wet her lips, the ones he had pressed his own to barely a minute ago and hadn’t savoured enough while he was there. “Rushing into things is what got us into this, and I don’t want to,” her eyes meet his again and he holds his breath in anticipation. “I don’t wanna get hurt again. Especially not now.”

He wants to say he would never hurt her, but he can’t make promises like that when those are the thoughts that caused such a mess in the first place. 

He had hurt her before whether he intended to, or not, and what’s to say he isn’t going to fuck this up again along the way.

“I want this, too. I want it so much it drives me a little crazy, but it feels right. And I think there’s a way that we can do this where it might hurt a little now but it stops us hurting later down the line, where it has the potential to do some serious damage. Does that make sense?”

Maybe she’s right.

Maybe they can do this another way. A way where neither of them are left disappointed.

He gets his friend back, and she gets hers.

And they both get a baby.

A baby that has two parents who love each other more than anything in the world still. Who share so much of their lives together, but might never take that final leap into something more.

He nods, wordlessly. 

“I’m not saying that we can’t go back to how we were before, but we both let things get too intense, and I know I’m probably at fault for that, but I think we’ll be better off if we just take things slow.”

“Slow.” He repeats, like he’s trying to get a taste for the word. He doesn’t entirely like it, but he doesn’t hate it like he thought he would.

“Yeah, like being a little more cautious of how far we take things. We start as friends and see how we get on with that.”

“Like baby steps,” he mutters.

Poppy smiles. It’s the slow kind, that builds from something soft to something beaming, something beautiful, and turns into joyous laughter like music to his ears. It’s vibrant and wonderful, and it makes his heart ache all the more. “Yeah,” she lets out a breathy chuckle, “Exactly like baby steps.”

Next Chapter

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

[creatingblackcharacters]

Question: how do you feel about Black writers with Black OCs with traits that may fit certain stereotypes at first glance? For example, one of my OCs is a psychologist. She's intelligent enough to have 2 doctorates, and a gentle hearted therapist.

I'm worried because she might fall into the Mammy trope. Giving too much of herself to build others up. Part of the reason I made her with that specific profession is because I never see Black women in mental health. Definitely not in fiction and honestly? Barely IRL. We are nurses but never doctors. I'm not sure if my intent outweighs what may be on the surface.

What do you think?

[I love your blog and your work. I have had to look at my own OCs harder and I thank you for giving me the tools to question and better myself. ]

To your example: My good sis, I'm going to give you the same answer I give everyone else!

There's nothing wrong with your character off rip. I'm glad that you're writing that representation you want to see! You've already done some of the footwork here- recognizing that she gives too much of herself to lift others up! How do you as the writer treat that? Do you recognize that? Is it your intention that your readers say "hey, she sure does this a lot, is she going to care for herself?" Does your plot intend to address this within her and allow her to grow, which may mean letting others care for her, or putting some of that weight down on her own? Or do you treat her as though that's just Her Role and everyone else (usually white characters) benefits from that?

As for your first question, it honestly depends. I usually have more grace for the intentions of Black writers, mainly bc I expect that we are more aware of what we're writing about ourselves. For example, I can watch Menace II Society and go "ah! Okay. Yeah there are gang bangers here, but they are there to tell a specific story. This is not what the author thinks we all are, this is them telling about the world around them". Unfortunately I can't have that much grace off rip with nonblack writers.

That said, if something is a stereotype, it's gone be a stereotype regardless of who wrote it. Antiblackness is very often perpetuated by Black people who may have certain destructive beliefs about themselves. I think Soul Food is the most misogynoiristic films I've ever seen, and it's written and directed by a Black man 😅 So yeah, we can always take time to step back and look at how we can improve our own work.

[justrainandcoffee]

Never is too late (Tommy Shelby x male!oc)

Summary: Never is too late to heal a broken heart. The first time didn't work? Maybe this time it's the perfect time. Even if the healing has the form of an annoying Irishman, who's ready to put Tommy's world upside down.

Warnings: Some homophobic slurs. || MxM || I wrote this in like an hour because invaded my mind early today. || I'm ready to piss off the homophobes this fandom have. Come to me. I don't bite 😌.

Words: 1k.

If Polly knew she didn't say it. But Polly always knew. As subtle as Tommy believed he was, the signs where there.

"Business with the Irish," he said, lighting a cigarette.

"Arthur and John are coming with you?"

"No. I sent them to deal with the Americans. They're easier to convince than the Irish."

"If you think that," Polly said, "then you're a fool. Arthur can't manage his own life and John can't even manage Esme, and she's tall as a teacup. And you sent them with the Americans?"

"You can go too, if you want, Pol. The boys didn't leave yet."

"Yes. Maybe I should go with them. Good luck with the Irish, Thomas. Which one of them are you planning to fuck with? Figuratively speaking." A little smirk appeared in her face, but his aunt kept staring at him.

"The Walsh clan."

"The Walshs" Polly shook her head. "The fucking Walsh. Well, people comment things about them. And not good things, Tommy."

"People comment things about us, too, Polly. Some people have enough free time in their lives to talk about other people."

"And what about Alfie Solomons?"

"What about him, Pol? He's in London with his wife, why do you ask?"

"Curiosity. Your frequent travels to London are over now?"

"Maybe. If I need to visit him, then I will. But not now."

"Okay, then. Better go with your brothers before they mess up with the Americans."

"Good. See you later."

.

Jared Fionn Walsh was the leader of the Irish mafia dominant in the south of Dublin. Raised as a Catholic man, Jared Walsh knew very well what being a sinner meant. Hell was waiting for you even if you dare to sneeze in a Church. His mother was a submissive woman who allowed being hit by her husband. Mr. Walsh was a powerful man who loved cocaine more than his family. Jared was the older of his sons and the one who put a bullet in his head the day he celebrated his 18th birthday. So, that day he celebrated his birthday, the death of his father and his ascension as the leader of The Walshs.

His mother never forgive him, despite Jared was sure that she was going to die for internal bleeding soon because his father loved to punch her in her stomach. But Maureen Walsh was convinced that God put Jared Walsh Sr. in her way because he had plans for her. Even if her husband was a violent man it was God's divine intervention and decision. And her own son dared to interfere with God's power and she couldn't forgive that. Jared jr, never saw her mother after his 18th birthday until she died when he was 25. He went to the funeral, left flowers and never visited her again.

It was wise, his mother couldn't accept him anyway. Jared loved men and he was proud of it. He never denied that he was homosexual and it was frequent to see him kissing and even fucking men.

His brothers didn't dare to mention his condition because they could end like their father. Besides, Jared never forced them to be part of his other business and was his problem. South Dublin had two nocturnal pubs known for receiving homosexual men and lesbians. Irish police tried to close and arrest them, only to end drowning in their own blood.

Nothing that money couldn't buy. Silence had a price and Jared Walsh had half of the politician class quiet. The other half was terrified of him.

He heard the Shelby name before but never had the chance to meet any of them in person. Walsh knew that the business the Peaky Blinders had reached even London, territory of the Italians and the Jews. He wondered if Shelby wanted to expand his business in Dublin as well or just was testing what kind of men he and his people were.

If Thomas Shelby expected a bunch of pussies like Sabini and his men were, then he was going to know in the worst way what the Irish were made off.

Jared Walsh was known to fuck with men and not just sexually speaking, but in other darkest ways. Maybe he was homosexual but he wasn't a pussy.

.

Dark hair and blue eyes as he had, was the first thing that Tommy Shelby noticed about Walsh when he entered the Garrison, opening the door with the confidence of someone who owned the place. And the city.

Jared Walsh, far from being intimidated, smiled and shook hands with him when he approached the table he was at.

"That man fucked another man before," was something that he thought when he looked at Tommy in the eyes.

He wasn't wrong.

"Mr. Shelby," he said.

"Mr. Walsh."

"It's nice to see you, Mr. Shelby at last. In our little world, it was amazing that we didn't see each other before. But it's never late."

"Never is too late to do business," Tommy said.

"Or to fuck, but we can see that later."

"Prostitutes are for dozen, but not here."

"I'm not interested in women, Mr. Shelby. I guess you know that. If you are the smart man people say you are, I need to believe that you investigated me. Otherwise, I don't think you want to make business with someone you don't know. And I'm a very open man. There's no secrets about me. Sodomite, homosexual, faggot, call me whatever you want, and I'm not going to deny it."

"I don't care what you do with your cock, Mr. Walsh."

"Yet, Mr. Shelby… yet."

[heshemejoshi]

more toto and chimichang.. to put it bluntly they have bewitched my entire mind and soul

[kalolasfantasyworld]

The birdies at the wedding 🕊️

A little one shot posted for 3000 hits!

Summary:

Helena, Nozel, Heinry, Noureen and Natalia attend the wedding of Asta and Noelle.

Just lots of fluff, pretty descriptions, spanglish and some silly jokes 💕

Yes, there is an illustration 🩵

Type: One shot

Word count: 2800

Author's note:

I mention other people's OCs. (Literally mentions, but I couldn't stop myself 😁.) They belong to @lyranova @thoughtfullyrainynightmare and @loosesodamarble.

The ceremony at Asta and Noelle’s wedding was simply beautiful. Helena could come up with multiple astounding adjectives to describe it, but she was sure that even all of them complied could not reflect on how she was feeling. She bawled her eyes out and was loudly sobbing, while using a handkerchief to wipe away her never ending tears of joy. 

Her children two nine year old boys Heinry and Noureen, and Natalia a three year old little girl would point out her emotional state. 

“Mama, why are you crying?” Heinry pulled on her dress. “Papa do something!” He would then bother Nozel, who just smiled softly and stayed quiet as all of them should have done through out the ceremony. 

After Asta and Noelle spoke their vows and finally said the long awaited ‘Yes’, the party was moved from the great chapel to the Silva Estate ballroom. As the Lady of the house it was Helena’s job to have it meticulously prepared. She obviously poured her heart out and countless hours at that, towards reaching her goal. The grand hall was lavishly decorated with white, pink, purple and blue flower bouquets, garlands, lights and all possible accessories. However it was not too much, just the perfect amount to not let anyone feel overwhelmed, but allow them to appreciate the interior. Helena cared for the good name of House Silva and she continued to fulfil that playful promise she had made to Nozel years ago, about pouring her dignified strength and giving her best for the prosperity and reputation of their House. Theirs. And now Asta joined the Silva family too. 

The newlyweds sat at a rectangular table, which was specially raised on a platform, so that everyone could see them. Kahono as Noelle’s bride’s maid and Yuno as Asta’s best man, sat on both of their sides. Next to Yuno there was one additional seat prepared for his fiancé Neva, but she disappeared somewhere within the crowd and had yet to join them. 

Helena and her familia were seated at the table to the right from the newlyweds. Next to them sat Solara and Fuegoleon with their own three cubs. They were engaged in some pleasant conversations and Fuego was completely drowning in the mesmerising green eyes of his wife. Helena watched them fondly, happy that everything seemed to have fallen in its right place. 

She turned towards her three birdies, whose sight filled her with joy and pride only a mother could understand and smiled. Noureen was fidgeting with the high neck of the white jabot that he was wearing. It contrasted with his pastel red, sleeveless blazer and chocolate brown strands of hair, that fell onto his shoulders. Under the blazer he wore a white shirt with golden bands gripping it at his wrists. Matching pants were straight pleat and golden sandals finished of his look. The red cross flory fitchy earring in his right ear proudly stated, which house he belonged to. Although everybody could probably guess it anyway, because his hair was styled almost exactly as Nozel’s. And those eyes of his, they were lilac, just like nana Acier’s and his papa’s. 

Heinry wore the exact same outfit, just that the accents were baby blue and the earring was on his left ear. He looked like a miniature copy of Nozel with his silver hair styled in an eagle like manner. However only looked, because when it came to his behaviour, nothing could scream louder the energetic atmosphere of the Drazels. 

Natalia sat on the other side of the table in a raised seat specially prepared for a three year old. Her silver hair was getting longer and it was neatly styled in soft waves. The dark brown eyes of the girl were excited as she tried manoeuvring towards her mouth a piece of duck using a small fork. Helena worried that she would drop it on her soft lilac dress and then they would need to leave the party to get her changed. Thankfully Nozel was there to save the day. With a flick of his fingers he created some mercury protecting the fabric. 

Classical ballroom music was being played by the band and Kahono, now a kingdom wide star, sang a love song for the newlyweds. Helena was immersed into the sound. She felt excitement rise in her chest and she knew, she wanted to join the dance. 

Helena turned towards her husband and a her lips formed a beautiful smile. 

“Would you like to dance mi amor?” She asked in a sweet tone. 

“I’m good,” Nozel answered flatly and focused on the roast duck, that was in front of him, completely not noticing an annoyed expression on his wife’s face. He had to not realise, that she was just asking out of courtesy. 

Helena furrowed her brows and huffed. 

“Are you suuure?” She elongated the word and made Nozel look up. His eyebrows raised and lilac eyes were questioning. 

“I want to finish this dish,” he said. “You know it’s my favorite.”

Yes Helena was aware, but she wished to be selfish and dance now.

“Papa helps me eat,” Natalia crinkled her tiny nose and now that it was two against one Helena knew she lost. Daddy’s girl was taking his side, since her youngest years. 

“I would like to dance with you mama,” Heinry jumped of his seat and approached her. He respectfully bowed down and then reached his hand towards her. The little prince, that he was, knew all the required etiquette and was pristine with his manners. Lilac eyes flashed confidently and Helena chuckled softly reaching out to her son. 

“At least someone knows how to be a gentleman,” she grinned at her husband, who just rolled his eyes affectionately, before once again swooping in to save Natalia’s dress. “What if you just feed her?” Helena added. 

“I can… myself,” Natalia found the right word and furrowed her brows, while gripping harder onto the fork, that she was holding. She was a smart three year old and certainly a feisty one. Wonder where she got that from?

“You heard our hija,” Nozel proudly gazed at his daughter.

Helena could not help the fond expression, that appeared on her face. Nozel was a great dad, despite his countless worries, that he was going to be an awful one, like his own father was. However both of them pushed through, they made mistakes, they learned from them and they did all of this together, supporting one another. Now the three little birdies were growing up in a warm and happy environment, something Nozel’s childhood was lacking after his own mother had passed away. 

Helena was pulled out of her thoughts by Heinry, not so sophistically dragging her towards the dance floor. He was very excited. When the next song began to play, she let her son lead her and even though he would make tiny mistakes, and slip from time to time, Helena knew that he was doing his best and it was all that mattered. 

When Kahono finished singing they moved slightly to the side, but did not leave the dance floor yet. Helena smiled at Heinry and he responded in the same way, flashing his white teeth. ‘That’s my niño,’ she thought.

Suddenly somebody ran up to them and grabbed Helena’s dress hiding behind her. 

“Woah, Noureen!” Helena exclaimed startled. “What are you doing hijo?” 

He poked out his nose, so only the upper part of his face and frantically searching lilac eyes were visible. 

“Tia Noelle wants to dance with me,” he whispered determined. “I’m running away.”

“Yhm,” Helena nodded and furrowed her brows at him. “And you think you will find shelter, while grabbing my dress?”

“Yeees?” Noureen raised his brow and Heinry chuckled, which earned him a poked out tongue from his exactly twenty four minutes younger brother. 

“Hijo,” Helena smiled and pulled his small hands off her dress. She then turned around to face him and knelt down so they would be levelled. Helena reached out her palm and pressed it to her son’s cheek. Noureen nuzzled into it and she smiled, noticing right away how similarly to Nozel he behaved. “It is tia Noelle’s wedding day. She doesn’t want to dance with you to make you miserable, but to share her joy with her nephew,” Helena’s voice was tender. “Consider it a little gift you can give to her. I know you want tia to be happy.”

“I do,” he nodded motivated, “but what if I trip and then ruin her dress?” Noureen asked. “She looks very beautiful, tio Asta just can’t take his eyes of her.”

“My sweet hijo,” Helena looked at him lovingly. “It will be alright. You know how to dance and if you trip, that’s simply it. It will be just fine.”

“Tia won’t get angry?” Noureen blinked his lilac eyes. 

“I don’t think there’s anything, that could ruin her mood today,” Helena winked and tapped his pointy nose. Her son softly giggled. “So go on now. Ask tia Noelle to dance.”

Noureen nodded determined and ran off towards the woman of the night. Helena and Heinry watched them for a minute, before deciding to head back to their table. 

How surprised they were when the only ones present were Cyraleona and Eleonora Vermillon. Their parents and their brother were gone mingling, or dancing, while Nozel and Natalia were nowhere to be found. 

Helena furrowed her brows. Where could these two had gone off to? 

“Maybe papa did not manage to save Natalia’s dress and they went to change?” Heinry said out loud.

“Probably,” Helena nodded and looked at him. “Since they’re not here would you like to dance again?”

“Mama,” he groaned annoyed. “You know I have to ask you that. I’m practicing being a gentleman.”

“You already are one,” Helena chuckled, but let Heinry ask her again. Court etiquette practice was always welcomed, while being raised in a Royal family. 

However as they moved towards the dance floor and then began swaying to yet another waltz, something drew Helena’s attention. Between the swirling dresses and moving legs, Helena noticed a familiar glint of silver. She guided Heinry towards it, walking past a pair, who Helena recognised as Josele and Nacht Faust, and then abruptly stopped, because her heart could not take the emotion, that it was experiencing. 

Helena smiled and watched the view in front of her, while the warm feeling inside of her chest bubbled joyfully. 

Just a few meters away Nozel and Natalia were dancing. However since their daughter was so small he had to lean down towards her in order to support her. Natalia’s movements were clumsy and she did not know the steps, so Nozel let her step on his feet, and with each move of his, she had no other choice but follow. Two dark orbs were staring and trying to analyse the dance, while brows furrowed determined. Silver hair beautifully framed her plump cheeks as she pouted. Her lilac dress, surprisingly without any stains on it, fluttered behind her. 

Nozel was smiling, softly, because this was his way and Helena knew, that it was the most genuine expression, that he could have. His gaze was filled with love as he guided his little girl and lilac eyes were watching, taking in her view. Nozel looked amazing himself and Helena could proudly admit, that to her taste, he was the most handsome man at the party. He wore a blue, long sleeved blazer with sophisticated golden accents and a white jabot, but it started lower on his neck, beneath the part, where his golden collar used to be. A Silva cross was attached to the jabot at the centre beneath the soft feathery neckline. The vest underneath the blazer was white and his pants were pressed pleat, like those his sons wore. Silver hair was styled in the eagle like pushed back and up hairstyle and the strands at the front were braided. However it was just this official occasion. Everyday he would have them loose, because he no longer needed the reminder of his past. He would clasp the blue Silva pendant only on occasions, such as this one, which required the ‘Nozel Silva’ look. 

He had to feel her stare, because Nozel looked up at her and Helena’s heart beat faster. She smiled genuinely and felt a soft blush spread over her cheeks. How she loved him and the family they had created. 

“Natalia really can’t dance,” Heinry commented and pulled Helena out of her thoughts. 

“Oh shush. They’re doing amazing,” she quieted him, but her tone was fond. 

They came back to the dance themselves, but then Heinry grinned at her. 

“What if we do a switch?” He asked. “I can teach Natalia a little bit and you would dance with papa?”

“Heinry,” Helena chuckled. “Do you think I need a wingman to dance with my own husband?” 

“Well mama,” he shrugged. “You kind of failed earlier.”

“I won’t this time,” she deflected.

When the song ended they approached Nozel and Natalia. Helena smiled fondly and swept her gaze over them. Just as she was about to speak up and ask her husband to dance, Natalia reached out her little arm and grabbed onto his palm, pulling him down towards herself. Her fingers looked so small compared to his. She leaned in and whispered something to his ear. 

Nozel slowly closed his eyes and then delicately nodded, before ruffling her hair. Natalia squeaked excited and let him stand up. 

“May I have this dance Helena?” Nozel reached out his hand toward her.

She gracefully took it and let him lead her just few steps away from their children. They did not want to loose sight of them, especially the three year old in this filled with people ballroom. So only when Heinry and Natalia began to dance, the gazes of their parents went towards one another. 

“Keeping secrets from me again mi amor?” Helena playfully quirked her brow as Nozel pulled her closer and began leading her to the music. 

“Would you like me to spill them?” He asked flatly and when Helena nodded, he shook his head. “I can’t violate the sacred father-daughter trust.”

Helena pouted. 

“So I’m going to be left in the dark, when it comes to your whispers?” She fluttered her lashes. 

“Maybe,” Nozel stated. “Although I suppose you will get it out of Natalia after making her surrender in a tickle war.”

“I am the best at tickle wars,” Helena laughed. 

“I am aware,” he deadpanned and just to tease him Helena moved forwards. “Don’t you dare,” he furrowed his brows and it made her chuckle even more. 

“Oh you know I wouldn’t do anything, while we’re in public. Nobody will know the tricks that señora Silva has up her sleeve,” Helena winked.

“They don’t acknowledge how much of a devil you are with these,” Nozel stated in a serious tone. 

“No captain,” she corrected him and her tone changed to seductive. “I’m a devil in some other settings, only known to you,” she purred. 

“Helena,” he hissed, but could not hide the gentle, fond expression on his face. 

“I love you,” Helena grinned and Nozel just rolled his eyes. 

“I love you too,” he gazed at her deeply, “but you are annoying.”

“And I will gladly annoy you for the rest of our days,” she said. 

“Keep your promise.”

The song ended and Helena very reluctantly pulled away from Nozel. Two of their kids were nearby and she noticed further away Noureen bowing to Noelle, before she took her new husband’s hand. Asta’s green eyes were focused on her this entire time and seemed very excited to dance with his gorgeous bride.

“After the next song you should ask Noelle to dance with you,” Helena inquired. 

“I will,” Nozel nodded and looked at his sister proudly. “She’s come so far and became very strong. I am happy for her.”

“Oi watch out,” Helena grinned and he quirked his silver brows at her. “Your caring side is showing so much today, that some may even think the real Nozel Silva has been kidnapped.”

He narrowed his eyes. 

“You actually think you’re funny?” Nozel asked irritated. 

“And that’s how I know you’re my husband,” she giggled. 

Soon the song ended and Nozel was about to go ask Noelle to dance, while Helena and their children would head to the table. However at the last second Nozel stopped her and looked her in the eyes. 

“I love you Helena and you look beautiful this evening, just like you do everyday,” he said and it caught her by surprise how out of the blue it was. Despite being married for years, she flushed and her heart picked up its pace. “Save me the next dance, because I want to show off to everyone my amazing wife.”

[cboffshore]

okay. update on the shiny new mysterious insane post-Skybound fic idea I told y'all about this morning:

They grow up so fast, don't they?

[corvid-gremlin-official]

i just realized something.

as a kid, i was always obsessed with stories about undercover spies, agents, and the like

not because i liked the institution, but because i just liked the idea of secretly observing and blending in with everyone else

I JUST HAD AN EPIPHANY.

the reason i wanted to be a spy, and loved secret agent books so much, was BECAUSE they were about secretly observing the actions and cues of others, and adopting them to blend in with the crowd. which is a lot like trying unconsciously to blend in with neurotypicals by watching their patterns and trying to imitate them - without even realizing my subconscious was pulled towards that kind of story because of it.

woah

[ihathbenobiwankenobied]

night shift

Summary:

"What were they doing together in Cody’s quarters, of all places, at 0100 in the morning?"

Or the one where Skull, the lead medic for the 212th, gets a call from Cody when Obi-Wan has a late night allergic reaction. He finds an unexpected scene.

Word Count: 2,390

Skull liked the night shift when it was assigned to him; it was peaceful. 

It was quiet in the Negotiator’s medbay at night; it was a respite from bloody Generals and many of his irate brothers insisting they not be relegated to his care for a fucking paper cut that was usually a near-fatal stab wound.

Skull liked when he could take a seat and run through his weekly reports and shoot the shit with Oxy without having to pause.

Mostly, an empty medbay meant hours in his laboratory, a place where he could focus on preventative care instead. Skull’s eyes wandered over the notes he had written on a loose piece of flimsi. He peered back through his microscope at the bacta powder solution he had been studying for days. 

He had just settled in minutes early, his shift starting at 0100 hours, when he heard the familiar piercing beep of his comlink. He tried not to sigh. 

It blinked incessantly from across the lab, and Skull lifted his glasses from his face, curiosity peaked. Glancing briefly at the name on his comlink, Skull was surprised to see it wasn’t Oxy passive aggressively trying to get his attention from outside the locked laboratory door. 

Rather, it was Commander Cody.

Skull raised an eyebrow; as the 212th’s lead medic, he was presented with tentative schedules for all of the men, even that of his commanding officer. He had noted that Cody was off duty for a day and he was scheduled to be on the Negotiator to report virtually to the Jedi Council. In fact, Skull had even seen him in the mess hall at dinner .

Suppressing his concern and suspicion, Skull answered the com.

“Commander? Is everything alright? I saw you were scheduled for off-duty–” Skull wasn’t able to finish his sentence.

“It’s Ob– the General. He’s– I think he’s having some sort of reaction– he can barely breath–” Skull’s heart skipped a beat. Allergies. Anaphylaxis. 

Skull thought Obi-Wan’s lengthy list of allergies was under control . He had spent hours curating a list of approved dishes for the mess hall to cook for him, and even longer crafting a customized adrenaline shot tailored to Obi-Wan’s overactive immune system. 

Between Skull and the General, they had been so careful to pinpoint what he could and could not eat, so diligent to prevent any possible scenario that could occur on the battlefield?

What could he have possibly eaten, or been in contract with on the Negotiator?

“Short of breath, nausea…?” Skull asked as he shut off his lab lights and shoved his loose flimsi into a manilla folder. 

“Yes– his shots aren’t here. Says he forgot them– I–” Skull’s heart skipped a beat and he cut off Cody before more time could be wasted. 

“I’ll bring one. Just– stay on the line Commander.” Skull tried to keep his panic from worrying the Commander even more. Instead, he kept his tone flat and stood hastily from his rolling chair. 

Skull didn’t waste time and unlocked his lab door in haste. Oxy stared at him with a peculiar look of smugness and confusion mixed together. “Oi, Skully, you finally decided to do something useful?” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and leaned back, arms crossed against the medical bed behind him. 

Skull ignored him momentarily, and hurried to the medical supply closet. He headed straight for the prepacked case labeled with the General’s name and ripped it from the shelf. 

“If you call saving the General’s arse again useful, then yes.” Skull shot Oxy a pointed look and brought his comlink back towards his face as he pushed through the swinging doors of the medbay. 

“Commander, are you still on the line?” He asked as he walked briskly down the hallway in the direction of the barracks. 

“Yes. He’s not looking so good, Skull…” Cody’s voice leaked with panic; Skull could almost hear the Commander’s voice trembling. 

“Commander– I need you to focus for a moment. Where are you located?” Skull figured the General’s quarters was a likely answer.

“My quarters. 2224-01D.” Cody answered after a pause. “Please hurry.” 

“Give me one minute.” Skull stopped walking and began to run, barely caring about the write-up he would likely get if anyone in authority saw him. It hardly mattered when the General’s life was on the line. 

Skull steered himself towards the ranking clone barracks just next to those of the Jedi. For a moment, his focus faltered as he considered what Cody had told him. What were they doing together in Cody’s quarters, of all places, at 0100 in the morning? Skull could hardly believe that a General, much less a Jedi, would agree to meet in the quarters of their subordinate . It surely did explain why the General inadvertently had lost access to his adrenaline shots.

Skull shook the thoughts from his head and prepared himself for quick thinking as he approached Cody’s quarters. 

01B, 02A, 01C….

01D. 

He didn’t bother to knock, instead placing his fingertip on the pad just outside the door to force his own entry.

The door slid away to reveal an empty room save for a small chair in the corner holding some beige clothes and a set of glasses. Skull stepped inside, momentarily confused before he heard a soft voice emerge from the left. 

“Keep breathing, please . Skull will be here any second. You will be fine, everything will be fine.”

Skull swiveled to find Cody sitting in just his briefs by Obi-Wan’s side. His face, usually perfectly shaved, was covered in a layer of stubble. He had an iron grip on Obi-Wan’s arm and panic laced his voice as he spoke softly. 

Obi-Wan sat propped against the edge of Cody’s bunk, shirtless , with one hand curled over his neck and another on his chest. A loose pair of linen pants protected his legs from the metal floor and he heaved in wheezing breaths. “Don’t–” He sucked in another breath and abandoned whatever he was going to say as Skull approached and dropped his bag heavily onto the floor beside the pair. 

“I’m here.” Skull said, mildly breathless himself, still struggling to figure out what in the absolute fuck was going on. He pulled open the medical case and plucked out one of the several adrenaline shots along with an alcohol pad. “General, you know the drill, keep those breaths even.” Skull kept his tone low and schooled his face into an unpanicked look. He hoped it was reassuring, especially given the wild look in the General’s wide eyes.

It had been a long time since the General had experienced anaphylaxis, and even longer since he had gone such a long period of time without his shot made available. Even out in the field it was rare for a reaction to be left untreated. 

Skull made quick work of flicking the outside of the syringe. “Commander, pull down his pants.” Cody looked at him, mouth ajar, before Skull swore under his breath and pulled at the elastic band of the General’s pants himself. 

He wiped the alcohol pad across his thigh before warning the General, “Alright, here we go.” Obi-Wan nodded urgently in response as he wheezed even louder. 

Without hesitation, Skull stabbed the syringe into his thigh. Obi-Wan didn’t make a sound for a second, his breath still caught in his throat. Skull held his own breath and counted to ten, hoping to see Obi-Wan’s purpling cheeks turn into a less alarming shade of red. 

“Deep breaths, General.” He reminded the General as he pulled Obi-Wan’s hand away from where it rested across his neck. Obi-Wan’s eyes remained wide, but he sucked in a deep breath that sounded marginally better than before. “That’s it, keep going.”

Skull watched him breath for a minute until, though he was still mildly wheezing, it looked like he was able to bring in a breath with little resistance. 

Kriffing close call, that was. 

Skull briefly looked over at Cody as he collected the sterilization wrapper from the shot. Cody’s lips were pulled into a hard line, like usual, but something in his eyes made him seem far less calm than he appeared. 

If Skull didn’t know any better, he might have thought the Commander looked… teary .

“I’m afraid–” Skull averted his eyes when Obi-Wan spoke up hoarsely, his gaze on  Cody’s form, “I’m not feeling…” He took a moment to suck in a breath and seemed to be shifting around like he wanted to stand up. Skull pressed him back against the side of the bunk gently.

“Please, stay sitting General!”

Obi-Wan fought against his hold weakly, “Not feeling so good, Cody–”

Cody’s eyes flew open wide and he rushed to the corner of the room where he emptied a waste basket. Moments later, he deposited it in Obi-Wan’s arms just in time. Cody looked away as Obi-Wan heaved into the can, a small amount of liquidy brown bile coming out before he set it aside. 

“Well… that was pleasant.” Obi-Wan murmured after he paused to suck in another deep breath. Skull noted that the exposed skin of his chest and face had mostly returned to its normal color, outside of the vague redness of his cheeks and little mark on his neck…

Skull almost let his eyes widen, but looked away before he had a chance to let his thoughts get the best of him.

Medical help now, questions about the severe lack of clothing in this force-forsaken room later. 

“Not really a great time for jokes, Sir.” Skull said instead, clearing his throat.

“Agreed.” Cody said firmly and stood in his place. He assumed his resting position, arms crossed over his chest and back held straight and tall. Yet, he hardly looked as menacing and serious as usual in just a pair of tight, black, underwear. “You can breath now?” The Commander asked Obi-Wan, the fright in his eyes fading just slightly as Obi-Wan offered him a hint of a smile and breathed in deeply once or twice.

“Yes, it works like a charm.” Obi-Wan said while pointing to the emptied syringe and offering Cody a strangely familiar smile. “Thank you Skull– I shouldn’t have left my quarters without my med pack. I extend my deepest gratitude to you for coming in such a hurry.” Skull was also offered a warm smile as he extended a hand to Obi-Wan and helped him onto the bunk where he could sit more comfortably.

“Not a problem, General. It’s my job.” He said the words teasingly. “And because it’s my job, I need to know what exactly happened here?” 

There was a long, awkward pause as Cody looked nervously in Obi-Wan’s direction. Suddenly, the Commander seemed much more aware of the fact he was stripped down to his underwear, eyes blowing wide before he cleared his throat and reached for the set of blacks neatly folded on top of the dresser next to his bunk. “It was my fault. I bought some biscuits from the lower levels of Coruscant last time I was there. I thought I read the ingredients list, but I guess I must have missed something.”

Cody reached for the package – one biscuit missing – and handed it sheepishly to Skull. 

While he tried to look over the ingredients list for a moment, Skull could hardly keep a straight face considering the idea that the Commander and General were sharing a package of fancy Coruscantian biscuits together, at 0100 in the morning, while half-naked in Cody’s quarters. 

Things were starting to appear very obvious, and Cody seemed to realize Skull knew something was amiss.

“I’ll analyze these in my lab, see if maybe the ingredients list was missing something. No sense in wasting your time any further boys, it looks like you were enjoying your night.” Skull offered up a smile and crouched down to pull out an extra bottle of Obi-Wan’s emergency medication, and a few adrenaline shots. 

General Kenobi’s face was colored a dark red as Skull sat down next to Obi-Wan and placed the next adrenaline shot in his hand. “Alright General, I know it’s been a while, but remember to repeat this shot in twenty minutes. If the symptoms don’t go away after three more, send me a com and we’ll get you set up in the medbay for observation.” 

“Thank you, Skull. I will remember of course.” Obi-Wan took a deep breath and looked away before any prolonged eye-contact could happen. Skull nearly snorted.

“Would you like me to teach Cody how to do it?” He asked, glancing over at the Commander just as he was readjusting the shirt of his blacks. 

“Oh!” Obi-Wan explained, “That certainly won’t be necessary–”

“Well I’m sure you can teach him yourself anyway, General. I am leaving two of these here… just in case.” Skull stood from the bed and forced himself to hold back the urge to wink in the Commander’s direction. 

“That is ah– appreciated Skull,” Obi-Wan said, a half-hearted smile gracing his lips as he shifted into a more comfortable position on the bed. 

Skull nodded and collected the remaining contents of Obi-Wan’s medkit before heading towards the door.

“Listen–” Cody started, likely seeing the hint of an amused smile on Skull’s lips, “It’s not what you are thinking.”

“I’m sure it’s not, Commander.” Skull tapped at Obi-Wan’s medical case with a few of his fingers and pressed the button to open the door. “It looks like you and the General were having quite the late night tactical planning session, complete with fancy biscuits and a lack of clothes .”

Cody looked vaguely exasperated before schooling his expression. “Don’t tell anyone.” He whispered, seriousness enveloping his form as he took a step closer to Skull. “We can discuss.. later.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it Commander. All I ask is in the future, you reference his list more carefully before feeding him anything. I’d really rather not interrupt your… intimacy, again.” Cody let out a sigh, “And please, keep a few shots here.”

With that, Skull nodded his goodbye to the blushing Commander, and shuffled into the hallway where he finally allowed himself a low chuckle.

There would be lots to discuss at Obi-Wan’s next medbay visit, that was certain. 

But for now, Oxy and Skull would be having a rather entertaining night shift.

[replacement-pasta]

Like a venty picture of my OC Jinkgo I drew to calm myself down.

I must have been having some kind of episode before making this. I remember being pissed off about saying something wrong, then I just sort of snapped, then I blacked out, then made this.

[tvrningout]

i’ll have y’all know that i was ready to pass out before i saw this silly lil video which made me wanna make a silly lil guy and now we got a backstory and personality and brain rot over a new oc 💜

[foxclcves]

𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒓𝒚𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒆 (𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 01)

The white night sky blinded her. It seeped through her eyes and shot to the back of her skull, the nape of her neck, and it was cold, so cold, before a crack shuttered through her body. The distressed cries of horses, their stomping hooves and the groans of their restraints faded from her ears, as though her head was being pulled underwater, deeper and deeper still. Oh, how they rung, and how she longed to writhe—to disperse her pain somehow from a body that could no longer move, her neck, the splitting agony in her stomach. It felt so wrong, the absoluteness her newfound misery. Oh, how she feared and oh, how she prayed. How she wanted to cry and sob and scream. Oh, God, please. Oh, God… please.

Her eyes opened. The sky was still white, less blinding. The silence, unnerving as delicate snowflakes fell onto her face, her eyes fluttering when they landed on her eyelashes. As though dipping into a warm bath, or drinking from a fresh cup of tea, warmth spread through her, from her fingertips and through her torso and head, and the rest of her soon followed. She almost sighed, the sudden feeling of ease and comfort seeping over her, the sensation of being comforted, even most dearly. It was only then she realized someone was holding her hand.

For the first time in Lord knows how long, she moved, but only turned her head with caution in mind of the rest of her body, whatever state she was currently in. She felt she could gasp, as she would at any other time, but she did not. An odd almost familiarity flickered in her mind as she stared up at a young man kneeling at her side. He was dressed in all black, his eyes and hair seeming to glow with the snow around him, both dignified silver. His hand—both of them were bare, a peculiar choice for early winter, but they were… not cold, but not warm, either. Despite her acknowledgment of his presence he said nothing, and she said nothing, but the cold was forgotten, unfelt. He had a half smile, a little crooked but genuine, and she got the impression that this expression was natural for him. He did not look concerned for her, did not look smug or unfeeling. She considered him to be patient, having no reservations at observing her own expressions openly.

And then, he gave her hand a small squeeze, so subtle she could have missed it if she were not so focused. Something compelled her to sit up, more fluidly than she expected. She gasped at her impulsive move, bracing herself for pain, but there was none. Stunned, she was, as she gazed upon him again, her eyes widened. But she wasn’t compelled to act or rejoice. There was confusion in her, and a surfacing understanding trying to break, but she could not peg it. It was gradual, but insistent; she felt it was important. She could also tell that it was something that would put a weight in anyone’s stomach or a lump in anyone’s throat, though.

The young man looked away from her, and she soon realized that he was watching something. She turned to follow his gaze, her apprehension about wounds forgotten unwittingly. At first, she regarded the carriage with numbness. A significant part of it was decimated, the quality wood it was crafted from smashed and broken, lying in shards and planks across the icy earth. The two horses had been removed from the carriage, the battered driver a pitiful sight. He held his arm, so cruelly twisted, and his head was bleeding, his face skewed with despair, and almost bleary to her. He was within earshot and clear sight, but she could not make sense of the shape of his nose or the height of his forehead, none of it. The driver looked back and forth between the carriage and the horses that were mute to her. Finally, she noticed the blood, leaking from one of the carriage’s passenger doors. Out of its window hung a limp arm, its hand pale and the long sleeve and coat that followed undeniably familiar.

She knew, then. But then she had known immediately, somehow. That underlying feeling broke the surface, and she remembered. She recalled the sadness of her departure; an older woman’s tired, smiling eyes, and an unloved man’s scorn. She remembered her new velvet gloves forgotten at home, how she sulked at her loss and having nothing new to show off at her boarding school, her exile, her reluctance and remorse to a man and every man like him who weeded their way into her life. The ride had brought solace, the winter landscape taking her breath away, the driver singing to the horses as though they were his children. The same often somber, yet still joyful man who stood before her now, looking torn and in woe of his wounds and everything around him and not seeming to notice her. The hapless arm, wrapped in the sleeve to a dress she had gotten last Christmas from one with eyes which never stopped smiling, one with hands who never stopped creating in earnest. The warmth of her hands still lingered in her mind and in her palms, a feeling so different to the one who cradled her hand now.

Everything was too quiet, a welcomed change sometime prior when she was in pain but bearing down on her now. The crash was sudden, its aftermath immediate. Splintered and jagged wood still intact to the carriage’s skeleton pointed to the bleached sky where snow continued its descent, flurrying downward to earth more soundlessly than an owl’s wings, than its tolling call and its calculated foreboding. There was peace in what was most definitely a tragedy, but she felt a nothing that was not entirely apathy; perhaps it was acceptance.

“Am I dead, sir?” she asked at last, her voice quavered but once.

He did not answer, but continued to gaze upon the carriage. Its cargo was splayed across the ground, gowns dashed with powered snow, jewelry sinking into the whiteness. She touched her throat with her free hand, where her pendant still nestled below her collarbone. The slightest feeling of relief spread through her chest; she felt not so alone. The velvet gloves were novelty compared to what this meant to her; she would take it with her, wherever she might go.

The young man looked at her again, and wordlessly they both stood. She moved to her feet with a grace she had never possessed nor had been able to acquire, and her legs did not wobble from her awkward sitting on the ground for so long. Had it been long? It felt as much. Whenever he looked her in the eyes it was as though he could motivate her to do things through thought alone, which was oddly comforting as she doubted she could move on her own otherwise, at this point. He continued to hold her hand, not firmly but securely. Their fingers were not linked, and she opted against such a move, afraid of shifting whatever they had now.

Her eyes were on the carriage again, and she sighed. Any wariness she may have felt was dulling, as though her ability to express emotions of any dread were slipping from her memory and instinct. “Are… you a ghost, sir?”

Still he was silent, his half smile and patient eyes never wavering or shifting. “I am not,” he answered, and his voice was hard to describe. Not deep or high, not brash or soft spoken. So many things about him became increasingly indescribable. It felt as though if she were to look away from him for too long, she’d forget what he looked like entirely.

She glanced down at their hands, a wave like encouragement blossoming in her temples. “Are you… are you here for me… sir?”

“Yes, miss,” he said, after a well-timed pause. His voice was again hard to pin, but she could identify, again, a kind patience. “Yes, I am.”

She didn’t know what to say. By the minute, she felt she was fading. That whatever she was, it was, perhaps, completing. “I think I am sad.”

“For you?”

“For my mother, sir.”

A thicker silence fell over them, like the sort when you’ve gone and said something bold, or perhaps stupid. The urge to look up at him became too much, and so she did. He was smiling softer now, a smile that did not humor or pity her, but a smile that was anything but hard. His other hand, covering the top of hers, squeezed in a way again almost unnoticeable, and the chill of the night faded away entirely.

“We must go now,” he said. “Are you ready?”

She considered this, the vagueness of his words causing her even more pause. “Did I make it to November, sir? Is that the month?”

The driver kneeled before the passenger window. His arm now secured in a makeshift sling made from his coat, his hand reached for the body’s hand. He cradled it in his palm with care, and wept. Her own eyes swelled with tears, and she wished she could remember him. Had she known him well? She had a growing feeling that she would never know.

“Miss.”

She turned back to the young man, trembling and unable to tell if her tears chilled her cheeks. She did not check, as she feared how it would impact her resolve, earnest but still unsure. She longed to be comforted, and felt a sensation almost like warmth spreading through her again and relaxed, albeit a little.

“It is November, miss,” he continued. He leaned his head toward her in an almost confidential way, and she found the nearness soothed her further. “You have made it. You have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about any longer.” He weighed her hand in his, all three limbs swaying slowly up and down in the slightest. “I will go with you, when you are ready. And I must caution you, miss; no matter how tempting it is, the deceased who linger are rarely ever happy, and I would hate to see you as anything but strong, as you are now.”

“I am strong?”

“You are.”

She smiled, eyes lowering to their hands again. She nodded to herself. “You are an angel. You’re… you’re going to take me to heaven.”

“I am an angel?”

“I want to believe that you are.” He had no wings, but her determination became a vice.

“Then I am.”

She dared another glimpse of the carriage, and averted her eyes quickly. When the young man removed his hand from the top of hers, she whispered, “Don’t leave me. Even if I am strong, I don’t think I can do this alone.”

He pulled her hand towards him, looping her arm through his and flattening her palm against it. He covered her hand with his again, giving her a nod and a widened smile. “That’s why I am here. So you won’t get lost. It’s my job; I don’t leave anyone lost, when I can help it.”

Absently her arm adjusted in his, and they stood side by side, their conversation coming to a halt. The driver had collected himself enough to return to his horses, mounting one and attaching the other. He turned them back down the road, from which they had both came together on that carriage, and rode off as fast as he was able, mindful of the ice, even more mindful now. And now, there was nothing left for her here, nothing but a body drained of life in a way she could not see and did not want to see. And yet she lingered, longing to return to it, wanting to feel the cold and see her breath turn to vapor. She could feel herself leaning toward that arm, as though she could will it and all connected back to life. How strange it was to gaze upon your own physical form and not be able to touch it, to move and flex your limbs and crane your neck. How disconnected she felt knowing she felt nothing perhaps as the body felt nothing, though she was still there, witnessing it, thinking about it and every detail in her flesh. Did she still have scars, freckles, and moles? She did not feel compelled to check on anything but that body. Were bodies really shells, then, after all? And upon leaving it, was she pure? She felt the same, she could not tell. Was she free? Was this true freedom, despite that lingering here was ill advised by this mysterious man, this angel if he was one?

And was this angel waiting for her to make a decision? If she wanted to stay, could she stay? And what life would that lead to, if it was even one at all? She felt nothing and yet everything.

No, she thought to herself. I can’t stay here, I can’t go back. There’s no going back. I will not be a ghost. This exhaustion, this dissociation and sadness, it would be all that I have. And perhaps, everyone else would die and leave me alone. Truly alone.

She looked up to the snow covered pines of the woods, which seemed to be curving downward in a gradual, dizzying way. Trying to block out the sky, trying to keep her where she stood. There were whispers, a white noise like the cacophony of insects, and her body seemed to drift closer and closer to her without moving. It felt as though her flesh hand could lash out to her at any moment. She was terrified.

A tight squeeze of her hand sent a jolt through her. The trees straightened, and the carriage was where it had always been, the arm as it had lied since the driver left. She looked to the young man, who loosened his grip and stared up at the trees, his gaze a warning one. She knew then that whatever evil was closing in was thwarted by him, and squared her shoulders.

Was this what it was like when the dead lingered, her longing and sorrow transforming into terror and entrapment? Was this her true test of character and strength, not lying in her physical form but her spiritual one? And was this what it came down to: to stay behind in a life gone, or to move on into the unknown?

“I am ready to leave,” she said, her voice ringing out firm and with no trace left of hesitation. “I will not be a ghost.” I will not embody my loss and suffering any longer. One way or another, I will be free. This terror and confusion will pass. I will be free.

The young man cut his gaze to her once more, and a soft smile returned to his face. They trekked through the snow, their pace not obstructed by its bulk. They paused in unison once they stood in center of the road, their backs to the direction from whence she came. The storm progressed, the wind picking up but as silent as the rest of her surroundings, and the end of the road becoming more obscured. Trees were fading from her line of sight, and she could no longer make out the carriage. Her grip tightened on the young man’s arm, and he looked to her. He waited for her first step. She took it, and he followed.

[sysig]

Working on some designs for one of my oldest OCs, “Cure” (Patreon)

I also managed to track down some of her initial concept sketches from 2018 - why 2018 considering I called her one of my oldest OCs?

Well, her design has always been rather elusive, even more so since she spent so much time in my head without being brought to paper - even these sketches make mention of it!

Pretty sure she got “Cure” in 2018 too - starting to take form!

[arklay]

seeing stars.

pairing: diana x albert wesker words: 7.0k warnings: migraine, nausea and vertigo, brief mentions of food and alcohol, internalised ableism [read on ao3] — [part one]

A long exhale sounded from the en suite bathroom. It wasn’t one of relief. No, it was strained, wavering as it left parted lips – the evidence of a day riddled with nothing but stress.

Wesker slowly opened his eyes and looked up at the mirror from how he had hung his head, his hands resting on either side of the basin. The figure behind his reflection caught his eye instantly – dark hair a stark contrast to the white doorframe its lovely owner was leaning against. She was simply watching him with this faint, barely-there frown strewn about her features.

Despite being rather annoyed at Diana for sneaking up on him, or more so at himself for not noticing she had done so, he was glad she had kicked off her heels under the dining table. The last thing he needed right now was the shrill clicking of those awful things on the tile floor.

His head already felt like it had been put in a vise and someone was turning the handle; he didn’t need more noise to aggravate it.

“Where are your glasses?” Diana asked, and Wesker could only wonder if he’d imagined the worry clinging to the edge of her voice.

Could she tell he was in pain? That his sunglasses weren’t just some fashion statement people liked to tease him for? Had she put two and two together so easily when most were too dense to?

Wesker’s eyes darted up to lock on to hers in the mirror, though for only a split second, before he looked down again with a small huff. “I don’t know.”

He’d truly had a shocking day. It had been one thing after another, and at some point he had taken his glasses off to rub his eyes then forgot to put them back on. It wasn’t like him to misplace his belongings, and certainly not his shades, of all things, but the stressors piling up ensured the whereabouts of where he’d set them down slipped his mind faster than he thought possible.

It had all started with that pig, Brian Irons. The initial cause of his foul mood. That poor excuse of a man had proven himself to be a thorn in Wesker’s side time and time again; the police chief thought he could undermine those ensuring his unsavoury past was kept under wraps, but Wesker wasn’t going to stand for such insolent behaviour. He made sure to discuss the issue with William during his visit to the NEST around lunchtime, calling for a shorter leash.

However, the day only seemed to continue to go downhill once he’d returned to the station.

The problem wasn’t simply the piles of reports taking up space on his desk; the image of Diana wouldn’t leave his mind. He shouldn’t have stopped by her lab with coffee and spoken to her at all. He needed his focus to be solely on his work. The way she could capture his attention was quite bothersome, really. And that prompted a rather foolish decision on his part – a phone call with plans for dinner.

It didn’t end there. The newest S.T.A.R.S. recruits were a headache in and of themselves, yet getting a call from Sherry’s school the moment he left work had been the icing on the cake. She hadn’t been picked up hours beforehand, and being the next emergency contact, Wesker was informed of such incompetence.

William’s obsession with the G-Virus was getting out of hand. He’d always been more preoccupied with his work than the people around him, but forgetting to pick Sherry up from school was something else. Something Wesker didn’t quite like.

Not to mention it completely ruined his plans for the night.

With a suppressed clearing of her throat, Diana pulled him back to the present. She pushed herself off of the doorframe and made her way closer towards him. “Would you like me to look for them?”

Wesker shook his head and immediately regretted it; the sudden movement made him wince as a short wave of splitting pain made itself known right behind his left eye, causing him to grip the edge of the counter until his knuckles went white. The pain wasn’t unbearable yet, and he was glad his typical nausea seemed to be at bay, but he had no clue how long that would last. Not long, if he had to guess, given his luck with the rest of the day’s events.

Taking a deep breath through his nose and out through his mouth, he steadied himself. With each count, he found it easier to tolerate the ache, though it didn’t subside in the slightest. It would have to do though; he needed to get through his nighttime routine.

He reached over and slowly pulled his toothbrush out of its holder, making sure to not move more than what was necessary.

“No.”

Wesker glanced up at the mirror again with one of his brows quirked in genuine confusion, and he watched as Diana’s reflection inched closer. Then her hands were covering his. Why he found himself frozen at her touch was beyond him, but her soft fingers pressing against his skin was a welcome sensation.

She only pried the toothbrush and paste out of his grasp, far more gently than she needed to, then she placed them back to where they belonged.

“You are obviously unwell. You don’t need to brush your teeth when you feel like this,” she said, voice soft and oddly soothing, as opposed to the hammering against his skull.

Diana took Wesker’s hands in her own again, and her thumbs brushed along the raised veins on the backs of them in slow circles. It wasn’t just comforting to him, it was familiar, intimate, and the point at which he’d begun to embrace her touch rather than shun his craving for it was lost on him.

Her eyes finally landed on his own and she directed a small nod towards the door, making him aware of what she was about to do next. Then she took a step back. Then another. And she carefully pulled him along with her, guiding him towards his bedroom without so much as a word from him. Wesker couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. He didn’t know what to say, what to do, and with how tired he was, he could only let her take the lead. She seemed to have her mind set on making sure he would rest, and that made his chest feel much too tight.

It was almost as if she cared.

The trip to the foot of his bed felt much longer than usual. Diana’s cautious approach made sure of that. He was not intoxicated; she didn’t need to hold his hands and ensure he put one foot in front of the other. And yet she did. He felt like an absolute fool, but he still let her pull him along, regardless.

Once there, Diana sat him down on the edge before she quickly knelt down in front of him, tucking her legs beneath herself as she did so. Her attention went straight towards his boots and deft hands worked to untie their laces.

Wesker couldn’t quite wrap his head around her behaviour. He wasn't sure what to think. On any other day, he would’ve thought her kneeling between his legs quite amusing, especially with how she kept roughly pushing her stubborn tresses that kept falling in front of her face back behind her ears. But his head hurt far too much, and there was just this horrible warmth searing through his chest and up his neck, settling across his cheeks and threatening to join the burning at his temple.

The question in her eyes whenever she’d glance up at him certainly wasn’t helping either. It was almost wary, as though looking for permission to continue. Or perhaps assurance.

Her fingers wrapped around his ankle, carefully grasping it as she pulled off his boot. That made him feel far too odd, but she only repeated the action with its counterpart. He was thankful for the way she placed them next to one another by his bed though, all nice and neat, instead of simply tossing them to the side like anyone else would.

Diana pushed herself up off of the floor using her palms and moved to stand between his legs. Soft hands reached forward to cradle his face, the cool pads of her thumbs brushing along the high points of his cheeks. But she was only looking into his eyes, searching for… something.

He wasn’t quite sure what she was doing, to be completely honest. However, the repetitive movement along his cheekbones was calming, almost strangely so, and he hated that his eyes threatened to flutter shut and his hands itched to reach out and hold onto her sides – perhaps even pull her closer, if he dared.

How could she draw such a reaction from him? Especially given the circumstances.

The last thing Wesker needed was for her to look at him like he was some injured animal; he didn’t want her pity. It was enough that he let her drag him out of the bathroom when he was in the middle of carrying out his routines, as though he was caught in some sort of trance. But to look at him in such a way, to help him undress… It was ridiculous. He didn’t need to be fussed over.

Wesker reached up and closed his hands around her wrists. His grip was tight, though not enough to hurt her – merely cautionary, much like the glare he sent her way. Astute as she was, he had no doubt she would get the message.

Diana’s fingers fell away from his cheeks, curling in on themselves, but she didn’t move to break the distance between them. She only continued to hold his gaze, eyes still scanning his own in search of some answers, even as he loosened his hold on her wrists.

It had been wishful thinking, anyhow; he should’ve known she’d remain defiant.

Wesker pulled her hands further away from his face while he slowly rose to his feet. Then he let go, making them drop to her sides in a rather lifeless fashion. He didn’t miss the question in her eyes, or the way a crease formed between her brows, but he simply focused on manoeuvring around her towards his dresser – unsuccessfully at that, as his side brushed against hers with how he staggered.

Movement made the pain behind his eye considerably worse. The familiar sensation of tiny knives stabbing, leaving puncture wounds in their wake to obscure his vision, made it incredibly hard to keep his eyes open any longer. Wesker took a deep breath to try and steady himself, keeping as still as could be so as to not cause himself more pain. If only for a moment of relief.

One of his hands settled on the surface of the dresser while the other moved to open a drawer. He hoped Diana didn’t see how he fumbled with the pull handle. He wasn’t even sure why that bothered him. But he moved to correct his error far too quickly, causing him to lose balance slightly.

The sight of plain black, white and grey t-shirts folded up and sorted by tone brought some level of structure back to the chaos that had been Wesker’s day, and it pleased him more than it probably should have. The shirts were simply for when he was too cold to sleep shirtless – he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing them casually, otherwise – and he removed one from its designated place for himself, and one for Diana.

The next drawer he opened contained his pyjama pants, all monochromatic and devoid of patterns, akin to his shirts. Just the way he liked. There were a couple of blue pairs though. Not like that mattered; he chose black, as usual.

A tired sigh left him then.

“Diana.” The sound of her footsteps crossing the distance between them seemed to reach him later than when they’d occurred, because she was already standing at his side. Wesker simply handed her the t-shirt he’d chosen for her, then he spoke again without looking her way, “Would you like pants?”

Diana chuckled at that, and the corner of his lips twitched. He treasured that sound. Well and truly treasured it.

“I doubt anything will fit me,” she whispered, the smile in her voice telling him she was trying to subdue her laugh.

“You have long legs.”

She let out a low, sweet hum at his dry response and positioned herself behind him, lifting her chin to rest it on his shoulder as she watched his hands comb through the pairs of pants in the drawer below. It was clear to Diana that he wouldn’t find anything that would fit her, considering she was barely two thirds the width of him, but she let him figure that out for himself. Instead, her hands ran down his sides and towards his hips. She stood on tiptoe to press a lingering kiss to his cheek while one of her hands travelled between them.

“Doesn’t change that you have more hips than I do,” Diana said between another kiss, tone playful, while her hand squeezed a handful of his firm backside.

Wesker reached behind himself and swatted her hand away, but he couldn’t stop the slight chuckle that bubbled up in his throat before it escaped him – one that mirrored her own. Her arms changing position, wrapping around his waist with her chin settling against his shoulder once more, was not what he expected in response, however. The feeling that brought up inside of him was not something he wished to confront tonight.

He needed to place more distance between them.

“Drawstrings.” Wesker held up a pair of pants that could be tightened at the waist, negating her claims that there couldn’t possibly be anything of his that may stay up for her.

Diana held back another sigh as she loosened her arms and plucked the pants from his grasp. Their short moment of joking around certainly didn’t last long, but she wasn’t sure why she even expected it to. It wasn’t the time or place, but she simply didn’t know how to deal with the situation at hand; it was always difficult for her to navigate when someone wasn’t feeling well.

On the other hand, Wesker was none the wiser to Diana’s inner turmoil. He only withdrew from her slack embrace and returned to where he’d been sitting at the end of the bed earlier, entirely focused on ridding himself of the rest of his work clothes. Without her interference.

Nothing seemed to be in his favour today though, because the moment his hips met the bed the entire room began to spin. It wasn’t like he had sat down too fast – or maybe he had finally lost his bearings – but the way the room was warping around him with stars dancing across his vision caused him to squeeze his eyes shut. His teeth ground together of their own accord and he cursed himself for it as that only amplified the pain at his temple.

All Wesker could do was turn his attention towards the buttons of his shirt, trying to ground himself as best he could by focusing on the feeling of one beneath his fingertips. The way the edges pressed against his skin as he pushed the button through its assigned opening felt so much sharper than usual. And it didn’t help that he fumbled on the first go.

“Let me help you.”

The almost desperate plea from the voice across the room couldn’t have come from Diana. Surely. Not even the distinct accent and low, gravelly quality of it could convince him; she had never done such a thing, never sounded like that, even when he’d reduced her to ruins in bed.

The Diana he knew wasn’t so willing to offer assistance.

Wesker scoffed, perhaps a bit too harsh judging by the frown he received, and only roughly unfastened the next button on his shirt. “I do not need your help.”

Oh, how he wished that were true.

The bile burning the back of his throat begged to differ. And it was getting increasingly difficult to just keep his eyes open, like his lids were being weighed down by some invisible force.

The soft sound of a zipper made Wesker glance over to where Diana stood, only to watch as her skirt pooled around her feet. His hands paused what they were doing as his eyes lazily wandered over her, mesmerised by the way she was carefully rolling her tights down her long legs. It wasn’t until she moved on to her shirt and made quick work of the overpriced garment that he shook himself free of her spell. To say she was stunning was frustratingly accurate.

She stripped down to nothing but her panties before pulling his massive t-shirt over her tiny frame, adjusting her hair the minute it was over her head. That shouldn’t have made him smile to himself. The thought that she was cute shouldn’t have even crossed his mind in the first place.

It wasn’t that long ago when he’d considered her vain for constantly worrying about her appearance, and the first time she had worn one of his shirts he had thought she looked absolutely ridiculous – comical, even. It was only endearing now. He chose not to look too close into that change, convincing himself that the pain he was in was simply making him delirious.

Fuck, he just wanted to go to sleep. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to close this day and reset in the morning.

Despite struggling with each one, Wesker managed to finish undoing the buttons of his shirt and he weakly shrugged it off of his shoulders. It went no further than that, however, even with another attempt. The motion only made his stomach lurch, like waves roiling at sea.

A defeated sigh left him at that, but he was too tired to fight it. He must have made for a pathetic sight, one he wished there was no one present to witness.

That would’ve been grand, if he was so fortunate. Diana was standing in front of him again after dropping the pants in her grasp and crossing the distance in only a few quick strides. Before he could protest once more, she reached forward and laid her hands flat against his shoulders; cold fingers dipped beneath material, causing a shiver to run through his entire body, before she gently pushed the sleeves down his arms. It was unnecessary, but Diana held his forearm as she pulled the sleeve off by grasping the cuff, making sure to not turn his shirt inside-out.

He’d kiss her for that if his head didn’t feel like it was going to explode at any minute.

As soon as she freed him of his undershirt with the same meticulous care, Diana returned to what she had started earlier, before Wesker had stopped her. This time around he wasn’t nearly as tense when she took his face in her hands. In fact, it was the most at ease he had felt all day.

The chill of her palms provided some relief to the burning beneath his skin and the stabbing behind his eye. Even if it was only for a moment – until his cheeks warmed her hands and ripped that pleasant sensation away from him.

The only difference from when they’d found themselves in this position earlier was that Diana now leaned down to place a brief kiss on his lips. Wesker expected some level of warmth in her gaze once she pulled away, but he was only met with the look someone would have when scolding a child who had just hurt themselves on the playground.

If she was insinuating that he was being childish, they’d have a whole other problem on their hands.

Diana readjusted her hold to cradle his face in a more secure manner, fingers pressing firm against his skin. “I know you don’t want my help, but I will not see you make yourself sick because you are too stubborn to let someone look after you.”

Wesker glared up at her. Well, he hoped it was a glare, because whatever left him was all that he could muster in his state. From the way one of Diana’s brows raised, he sure did something, even if he had no idea if it was what he had intended.

They simply looked into one another’s eyes, holding the steady gaze for far too long – a familiar occurrence that usually took place when she challenged him. He supposed it was the other way around this time. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her help, it was that he didn’t want anyone’s. He thought himself above that, and he had managed being in this position countless times before. Even if on some of those days he had gone to sleep without being able to change his clothes.

Perhaps he needed some help.

“Fine.” Wesker relented with a long blink, and allowed himself to settle against her touch and relax some more.

That earned him a faint smile from Diana before she leaned in again. His eyes fluttered shut out of habit, but her lips didn’t connect with his own. Instead, they landed on his forehead, and his moment of ease faded away instantly, his hands balling into fists at his sides the longer she lingered there.

The pit in his stomach seemed to lessen when she withdrew and dropped to her knees again. But his head felt absurdly heavy without her hands holding it up. There was too much running through his mind, it was getting overwhelming. And it wasn’t just the hammering at the side of his skull. He wanted her but he tensed up at her touch, he needed her but he hated her assistance, he… He shouldn’t have invited her over tonight.

What had he been thinking?

Slender fingers curling into the waistband of his pants pulled Wesker from his thoughts, and he looked down at Diana, who had glanced up at the same time with that question in her eyes once more, asking if it was alright to continue. He simply nodded and she focused her attention back to what she was doing; he even lifted his hips to allow her to pull his pants off. Whenever she had dealt with the button and zipper eluded him.

He despised that – the feeling that he was no longer in control, losing his vigilance as the pain distracted him too much. It wasn’t just that though, the woman before him also played a part in causing his dazed state.

It was strange. Wesker couldn’t recall ever having a lover treat him like this. She wasn’t telling him that he was going to be okay, that she was there for him, or any of that superficial nonsense. She was just assisting him, doing whatever needed to be done so that he would be comfortable enough to hopefully get some sleep. It brought about another dreadful sensation to the mix already pestering him.

He lifted a hand and placed it over Diana’s when she reached for the t-shirt he had haphazardly dropped on the bed when the vertigo had hit him. She only looked down at his large hand enveloping hers for a moment, seeming to be the one stunned now. Then her eyes finally darted up to his face, and the steely determination in them from before melted away into that look that unsettled him far more.

“I’m being overbearing, aren’t I?” she asked, a slight trace of a chuckle clinging to the edge of it, as though she was almost embarrassed by her behaviour.

Wesker let out what was probably supposed to be a laugh in response, but little more than an exhale came out. “No.”

He paused as his next words died on his tongue. Or more accurately, they didn’t seem to want to leave his throat and even get that far. Diana was none the wiser and just rose to her feet, hand slipping free of his own and taking the t-shirt with it. Wesker chewed on the inside of his cheek for but a fraction of a second before he swallowed his pride.

A sharp inhale, then he lifted his head to look up at her. “Thank you.”

The genuine smile that crossed Diana’s face made him feel far too warm, like the sun was bearing down on his skin and reaching the deepest parts of him; it wasn’t quite a grin, teeth staying hidden, but the corners of her eyes crinkled and the indents on her cheeks deepened somewhat. She didn’t give him much of a chance to admire it though, too preoccupied with making sure she didn’t move him around too much as she carefully pulled the shirt over his head and helped each of his arms into the sleeves.

“I take it you have photophobia,” she said matter-of-factly. It was almost too clinical-sounding for Wesker’s liking, odd as that may seem. The term alone just left a bad taste in his mouth.

It was sort of his own fault, which he didn’t like owning up to. He’d always had trouble with his sensitivity to bright lights, but he was only meant to wear the tinted glasses Umbrella prescribed him when in the lab or outside. It had been the relief he felt without a migraine clawing at his senses that made him forget he was wearing them at all, and in turn, that developed into a habit of leaving them on for nearly all waking hours. His eyes adjusted to the conditions and it only worsened his sensitivity when he was without his sunglasses.

What he wouldn’t give to have his youthful eyes back.

When Wesker didn’t respond to her, Diana gently cupped his cheek. He tried to meet her gaze, but her eyes were focused just below, where her thumb was brushing across the dark circle marring his skin. Another thing he wished he could reverse time to prevent.

As useful as her help was, Wesker couldn’t understand why she was doing this, why she was being so… kind. So tender. She wasn’t a nurturer, or the type to worry about others. Maybe she did actually care for him, more than she let on. That didn’t feel right though – it just left him profoundly uncomfortable. His mind had to be playing tricks on him with how exhausted he was. That was the only reasonable explanation.

Diana’s thumb paused its repetitive motion and she simply held her hand in place. It was just for another second or two, but her touch lingered well after she departed, leaving a pleasant tingle across his skin.

The last obstacle in the way of Wesker being able to just collapse into bed and hope that his migraine was gone by the morning was the pair of pyjama pants Diana was bunching up so she could help him change into them easily. His tired limbs seemed to move on their own, slipping into each pant leg with little input from him, but the moment he lifted his hips as she tugged the fabric over them, another surge of intense pain hit him, causing him to keel over.

It felt as though his head was being split in two, torn apart from the inside out. He could have sworn the eye taking the brunt of the pressure was going to pop out of its socket at any minute. The only thing he could do was rest his head in his hands and endure it, pressing his thumbs down on the innermost part of his brows in hopes to alleviate some of the pain.

Diana shuffled closer and reached forward to place her hands on his thighs. They only ran up and down the sides of them in a gentle, reassuring motion while her mind scrambled to recall the locations of where she’d seen every thing that could possibly aid him in his house.

Her brain was being just as helpful as his was, because she drew a blank, too taken aback by the sight in front of her. The intimidating Albert Wesker slumped over in pain – that was something she thought she’d never see. He always seemed so… invincible. Nothing could tear down his powerful image and break through his composed demeanour this easily, and she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.

“Albert?” Diana’s voice was so soft he almost didn’t hear it, but his name always sounded so much nicer spilling from her lips compared to anyone else’s. “Do you need a bucket? Or…” She paused for a second then let out a frustrated huff. “Where do you keep your painkillers?”

“They don’t work,” Wesker grumbled.

Of course they don’t, she thought. That would’ve been too easy.

Or he was being overdramatic. So, she pressed on. “Not even a little bit?”

The crease between his brows only deepened, and he squeezed his eyes shut. So, that was a definitive no.

Diana pursed her lips as she tried to think of what else she could do for him. She wasn’t familiar with actually dealing with a migraine, even if she knew all of the treatments on paper; she was fortunate enough to never get them, and she couldn’t remember the last time someone around her had. She could list off every over-the-counter painkiller and triptan that was used to specifically target a migraine, but that would do her no good. She didn’t know what worked for him.

There had to be something though. Diana moved to stand and go take a look at what was in the medicine cabinet in his bathroom, but Wesker fumbled to take her hand in his own.

That made her freeze on the spot.

She had no doubt he was cursing himself for doing such a thing, for how it almost seemed to be a reflex more than a conscious decision. Or perhaps he just needed something solid to hold on to. Whichever it was, Diana didn’t care, so long as it helped. Even if the way he was gripping her hand hurt like hell; she’d been through far worse, so the possibility of a broken bone was something she would simply bear.

“Here,” she whispered while carefully pulling Wesker up to stand a moment after she did so herself. He stumbled on his feet when upright, but Diana was there – the pillar to hold him up and save him from toppling over.

The arm not reaching for his – right hand clasping his own – was wrapped around his back. It served to keep him stable as she slowly guided him over to what she had long since been acquainted with as his preferred side of the bed. This whole ordeal would’ve been much easier if he wasn’t leaning his entire body weight against her, but at least the trip wasn’t too lengthy.

Their hands only parted when Diana let go to lean forward and pull back the covers for him. Wesker really hoped she didn’t see how his fingers extended on instinct, as if to chase her touch. It was utterly pathetic. The urge to hold her was getting increasingly annoying, and he wished his body would just try to not embarrass him for once.

He couldn’t exactly exert much control over his innate reactions in his condition, but if Diana noticed, she didn’t say anything. That was one positive, he supposed.

And the fact that he managed to sit on the bed on his own without dragging her down with him. That probably would’ve earned him a bony shoulder digging into his chest, and that would just make matters worse.

Diana didn’t have to, but she went so far as to help him lie down as well. In a way that wouldn’t make his head feel as though someone had taken a hammer to it, that is. All slow movements and firm but gentle touches, manipulating his limbs for him as they felt too heavy for him to move on his own. And when she was done, one of her hands reached up to smooth back his hair.

That brought about that dreadful flutter in the pit of Wesker’s stomach. Or maybe that was the nausea. He couldn’t tell at this point.

Weary eyes tried their hardest to stay trained on the figure lingering in front of them. But they were unsuccessful. Wesker couldn’t keep them open any longer, not when everything was spinning around like this. He couldn’t even make out what the expression strewn about Diana’s features was.

It didn’t even matter, because her comforting touch left him before the sound of her feet padding across the floor reached his ears – quickly, like she was in some rush. Unnecessary, Wesker thought. He wasn’t exactly going anywhere, lying there in agony.

He didn’t think it would get this bad. It had been so long since he’d had a migraine like this. The nausea, visual disturbances, and all of that nonsense was typical for him, but the vertigo would come and go. Every time it showed itself he was caught off guard; there was no getting used to the feeling of his body swaying back and forth when he was lying perfectly still.

That wasn’t even the worst of his problems.

His mind decided it wanted to be louder than the rhythmic pulse behind his eye, yelling at him to the point where his thoughts felt like they were what was causing his pain by bouncing around and colliding with his skull.

Weak. Pitiful. Unacceptable. Over and over again.

How could he let someone see him like this?

Not just someone, but her, of all people. The woman who would roll her eyes when one of the researchers called off work, the one who boasted about never getting sick, the one who carried herself like nothing could strike her down. Just like he did. And yet here he was, reduced to rubble by a bit of pain.

That’s what was confusing Wesker. Why was Diana being so considerate of his plight? He had no doubt she’d rather be at the lab, or really anywhere else, doing something worthwhile instead of this. She should just leave, honestly. There was no reason for her to stick around; it wasn’t like she felt anything more for him beyond fellowship. Sherry was wrong in her assumption; Diana wasn’t his partner.

She may have been his, but he certainly wasn’t hers. No, she just enjoyed toying with him.

Now was not the time to fall into thinking about that rubbish again. He should’ve never asked her if she wished to stay the night. Or invited her over for dinner in the first place, for that matter.

“Alright.”

That pulled Wesker out of his head. It may have only been low, simply a hurried mumble under one’s breath, but that entrancing voice was unmistakable to him. His little pity party hadn’t lasted long – privacy breached once more as Diana returned from whatever she had been doing. He really did despise that she was witnessing him in this state; this wasn’t how he wished for her to find out he suffered from migraines.

With her hands full, Diana crossed his room with the stride of someone on a mission – full of purpose. First, she placed a glass of water down on his nightstand, then she used her now free hand to pull the bucket she’d found in the laundry out from under her other arm, where it was sitting awkwardly and digging into her side. 

Once she set it down beside the bed, she crouched in front of Wesker and placed the ice pack she’d wrapped in a tea towel in one of his hands, which he lifted to his forehead immediately. Diana had no idea if that would help him or not, actually. She preferred heat for pain relief; being sensitive to the cold always made her recovery with injuries from ballet growing up a horrid experience. Maybe she should have looked to see if he had a heat pack instead. That would help alleviate the tension in his neck and shoulders.

No. She had what she needed, she wasn’t going to run around and make an even bigger fuss. It would probably make him feel worse, anyhow.

The only thing left to do was close the curtains and block out any light that threatened to seep into his room, whether that be from the street lamps illuminating the suburb or the bright moon itself. The significance of his blackout curtains now made much more sense to her.

When she stood to round the bed, Diana had no idea why she took the hand by his hip in her own and gave it a gentle squeeze. Her thumb even brushed across the back of it for a second. There was just this odd need to show him that she was there, that she wasn’t going anywhere.

Even as she pulled the curtains shut, the thought didn’t leave her mind.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

Taking care to not make the mattress dip too much, Diana climbed into bed next to Wesker. The last thing she wished was for her getting comfortable to cause him any undue pain because it jostled him about. It was only then, when the covers brushed across her bare legs, that she realised she was only wearing his shirt – the pyjama pants he’d chosen for her long forgotten somewhere to the darkness.

Wesker decided to be rather ungrateful for her cautious approach, as he moved on his own. Diana couldn’t help how her eyes wandered over him, taking in every detail she could as he began to slowly roll over; his brows were knit together, deepening the lines between them, his lips were pulled down in a frown, and his eyes were screwed shut. It was rather obvious to her that he was trying to not bring up all of his dinner, and that sent her heart plummeting down into her stomach. What he was going through really sunk in then.

She wished she could just take the pain away, make it all disappear and guarantee it would never return.

It was an awful feeling, watching the man who had only ever given her these tiny glimpses of vulnerability do what looked to be such a practised motion, as though he had a tried-and-true method for dealing with his nausea for so long.

She felt helpless. But why did she even care? Countless lovers had come and gone, not ever leaving an imprint on her heart, but he seemed to tug at every string.

A loud thump, immediately followed by a rather feeble sound, pulled Diana from her thoughts. It wasn’t quite a groan, but not nearly a whimper either, and she never thought she’d hear such a sound come from Wesker.

While turning, the ice pack had fallen free of his weak grasp and landed on the floor, causing the disturbance. Diana opened her mouth to speak, to ask him if he wanted her to pick it up for him, but she didn’t get a chance; he curled up against her side all of a sudden, resting his head on her chest. That was something she wasn’t prepared for. He had never done that before, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he heard the way her heart sped up at the act.

Diana kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling, not daring to look down at him while her arm hesitated to wrap around his back. What was she even supposed to do? This was all new territory for her, for them, and… it was overwhelming. She didn’t know what to think; there was just this massive weight that had been dropped onto her chest. And it wasn’t Wesker, or the way he slung his arm over her waist.

It was that somehow, despite everything, he had managed to worm his way past all of her defences and make her actually care for him.

But friends do care for one another, yes? That is a fact. And it’s not like their dates meant anything; she had gone on many with casual partners in the past, and they were merely a formality. The longing she felt for him was nothing beyond physical.

The arm around her tightened its hold on her side, pulling her closer, and Diana looked down just in time to see a grimace twist Wesker’s features before he turned his head to rest his brow against her breastbone. Whatever he grumbled as he did so, Diana couldn’t quite make out what it was.

She chewed on her lip while bringing a hand up to the back of his head, gently cradling it and holding him close. She found herself hesitating again, unsure of the implications of her touch – how it could be perceived. But the urge grew too strong soon enough. Whatever was going on between them was just that, and she wasn’t going to complicate matters by overanalysing it.

Her fingers ran through his hair, pressing firm against his scalp in somewhat of a massage. Diana absolutely hated the feeling of pomade residue on her fingers, but seeing the way his shoulders relaxed eased her disgust, if only slightly. She’d just have to deal with the waxy feeling on her skin, she supposed. It was a selfish thought but she wished he’d at least managed to rinse out his hair. She knew he hated it as well, though; his routines were always so important to him.

Wesker let out a long exhale and Diana paused the motion, unsure if what she was doing was actually making matters worse. He didn’t say anything, but the way he held her closer while his legs tangled with her own made her stomach flip, as though she was the one who was going to be sick.

The arm around his back held him firm as she leaned in to press a kiss to the top of his head. She never wanted him to go through this again, and she would find a way to ensure that.

For now though, she made a note to have a look for his glasses first thing tomorrow, before he woke.

[ehlnofay]

The travellers arrive at the lake earlier than they expected, a good few hours before sundown.

“I think we have time to find an inn after all,” Veezara says, his shifting feet treading boot-prints into the pebbly sand. “There’s certain to be one somewhere on the shore.” Or not too far from it, at least; Lake Ilinalta may be bad luck, or said to be, but travellers still need rooms and innkeepers still need coin.

Torr, who is already leaning his knapsack against the trunk of a tree, shrugs. “Eh. I like it here just fine.”

He sits down in the dirt to punctuate the statement.

Veezara remarks, “You have managed to avoid going to inns for a remarkable amount of this journey. You know you can afford it, yes? You have the money?”

Torr scrunches up their face. “Don’t use observations you made while shadowing me across the country against me,” they complain. “And yeah, I know. But I’d rather send it back to Windhelm.”

“Of course you would,” Veezara mutters, half-fondly; Torr sticks his tongue out.

“’Sides,” he says, after a moment’s silence, “it’s nice out here. I’m learning so much about the land, Veezara, about nature. You wouldn’t deprive a poor city kid the chance to learn about nature, would you?”

Veezara laughs at him; but he acquiesces, so Torr counts it as a win. They start undoing the ties of their knapsack. They’ve both been walking for ages now, and Torr’s hungry. (He’s not as good at dealing with hunger as he used to be, either – which is probably a good thing, but also means the food in his pack is disappearing at an alarming rate.)

His friend does not have the same idea.

“If we’re going to spend the afternoon resting,” he says cheerfully, “then we should at least make the most of it. Let’s go swimming. The water is beautiful.”

Torr digs a half-stale hunk of bread out of the pocket of the knapsack. “You go,” they reply. (Do they still have that crock of jam they nicked from the wedding in Solitude? The bread looks a bit too tough to eat on its own.) “I can’t swim.”

When they glance up, rock-hard bread in one hand and the other feeling for a jam jar in the bag, Veezara is staring as though they have two heads. “What?”

“You can’t swim?” he asks, incredulous, and Torr snorts.

“Veezara,” they say patiently, “I grew up in Windhelm. Where would I have learned to swim?”

“There’s a harbour, isn’t there?”

Torr cackles. “You’d get battered by one of the boats in five minutes flat, if you managed to last the cold that long. Not even the Argonians down the docks ever swam in there. Nah, never learned. You have fun, though! It does look nice.”

It really does, the sun slowly beginning its descent into the mountains and valleys to the west, glittering bright and merry off the water. The Lake Ilinalta itself is almost luridly colourful, reflecting the blue of the sky with picturebook vehemence. Torr hadn’t known water could look so bright – back home the harbour was always just grey.

Veezara nudges their leg with his toe and they look up. “What?”

“Unacceptable,” he says firmly. “Do you have a clean change of clothes?”

Torr’s been switching between the same three outfits since they started this job (‘cept the duds they stole to blend in at the wedding.) “Clean enough.”

“Good,” Veezara says, and leans down, grabbing Torr’s arm and hauling him up. “I am teaching you to swim.”

 By the time the sun touches the distant mountaintops, Veezara seems well on his way to making good on his promise.

They’re standing in the not-quite-shallows but not far from the shore, Torr in his undertunic (which he figured could use the wash) and Veezara in his grey linen trousers, and after ages of gruelling work Torr seems to have at last got the hang of kicking.

Gruelling is a bit exaggerated; Torr can think of many things worse than spending an afternoon splashing ineptly around under the warm sun. Even if they’re not sure that water activity is quite to their taste – the first ten minutes were spent inching into the lake and yelping at the mushy squelch of the dirt between their toes. Then when Veezara coaxed them into dunking their head in the water (most important part of swimming is holding your breath, apparently) it went right up their nose and then the next five minutes were spent trying to get their dripping hair out of their eyes and refusing to go get a hair tie out of principle. Veezara laughed at them again, and said they looked like a half-drowned skeever; but that’s easy for him to say, he’s been swimming long as he can remember and he doesn’t even have hair.

But Torr’s mostly got the hang of it now, he thinks; even if it took him a long time to get used to the odd sensation of water lapping against his chest, and even if he was worrying about slaughterfish for so long and bringing it up so much that Veezara stopped finding it funny. (Excuse him for being worried about stories of fish that can take a chunk out of you afore you catch a glimpse of them! Torr’s heard they like more temperate waters like the ones down Falkreath, and as a human that can’t swim he’ll be at a disadvantage if any do show up. This is their home turf.) He’s actually kicking now, instead of just slapping his feet noisily on the surface of the water, and he’s able to stick his head underwater without immediately choking down half the lake, which Veezara says is about as much as can be hoped for in a few hours.

“You’re doing wonderfully,” he keeps saying, which Torr is pretty sure is a load of shit but appreciates anyway. “Try to roll your head to the side, you look like you’ll snap your neck in half bending it backwards like that – there you go.”

Torr sucks in a breath and douses their head underwater again.

“This sucks,” they complain when they shift their head to get air again. “I’ve been doing this for ages and I’m not even moving.”

Veezara says placidly, “You’re more than welcome to let go of my hands if you want to try a few strokes on your own.”

Torr only tightens his grip. “No thanks,” he replies. Water gets a bit in his mouth. Veezara grins.

(It really does suck. But Veezara is so enthusiastic about the whole thing, and they don’t want to disappoint.)

(Besides, it’s nice, in a terrible sort of way.)

“Actually,” Veezara says, and he doesn’t finish the sentence.

The thing about the lake is that it moves, the waters ever gently pushing and pulling, and Torr’s pretty focused on trying to manage the kicking and the moving to breathe and the not getting muddy lake water in his eyes at once – so it isn’t until Torr notices Veezara’s knees gently knocking against his chest that he realises he’s tipped onto his back and is moving them slowly and steadily away from the shore.

Torr startles, takes in a mouthful of lake water, chokes. It dribbles unpleasantly down their chin as they gasp, “Veezara!”

Unruffled, he says, “Now we’re moving.”

Torr swallows some more water and starts coughing. (It’s foul-tasting stuff.)

Veezara looks concerned, then. He tries to reach down to brush the wet hair out of Torr’s eyes, murmuring, “Hey, hey,” like they’re an agitated animal, but their grip on his hands clamps in a way that implies they’d rather rip off his fingers than be detached from them.

“I’ve got you,” he tries. “You’re fine, yes? I’m not letting go.”

Torr spits out a mouthful of water. “Can’t just start swimming me across the bloody lake with no warning!”

“I recognise that.” He’s still swimming unceasingly backwards while Torr coughs and kicks. “I’ll keep it in mind for next time.”

“No next time,” Torr says. “Never getting in the water with you again, you’re a menace.”

Veezara laughs at that. “Nonsense. It’s an important skill to have. You never know when you may need it.”

Torr manages to catch enough breath to blow a raspberry.

They keep moving – Torr keeping up his steady if ineffectual kicking, Veezara effortlessly swimming for the both of them – for a while, until Torr is soothed enough to stop coughing and gagging and to just barely loosen their grip on their friend’s hands. Not enough to stop worrying about whatever could be lurking in the depths (mostly slaughterfish, maybe one of the huge crabs, although the lake is supposed to be haunted so he thinks a bit about ghosts too) but at least enough to stop vocalising those worries.

It really is nice if he calms down a bit. Nice colours. The movement of the water is unnerving but nice once you get used to it. The fact that Veezara’s going to the trouble is nice, too. Torr honestly never gave swimming a thought before today (he was in Windhelm, after all, what kind of madman would think about swimming there) but it’s clearly something that Veezara values, that he wants to share with him. Torr’s never quite gotten used to this in all the time he’s been in the Brotherhood; other people being the ones to go to the bother. Other people teaching and showing and explaining things. Weird – but nice.

“Keep kicking,” Veezara prompts, and Torr does.

They reach a rock jutting from the lake, its surface warm from the sun, and grainy. It’s too smooth at the sides to climb but Veezara gives Torr a boost. Torr turns to help him up – and sees how far they are from the banks, and feels a little sick. (They could maybe swim a stroke or two, if they were lucky, and the bank is… definitely further than that.)

Veezara denies the offered hand. “I’d rather get a proper swim in while you’re getting some shut-eye,” he says teasingly, and Torr thinks about falling asleep on the rounded top of the rock surrounded by water who knows how deep and feels sicker.

“Suit yourself,” he replies, and curls up a bit, because he is cold in his still-dirty now-dripping undertunic, and the sun is nice. (Falkreath and its ridiculously mild weather.)

The rock is actually quite nice too. Not too cold. No jagged edges. In a nice quiet place, where the water laps gently against the stone. As far as places to sleep go, Torr definitely could do worse – no, tell a lie, they have done worse. Under a posh house’s porch comes first to mind, though in their defence, they’re pretty sure they had mild hypothermia at the time. Weren’t thinking quite straight. At least no owners of the rock would likely burst onto the scene and start screaming bloody murder to get off the property while they’re trying to have a kip.

“Hey Veezara,” Torr calls, the movement of his jaw feeling funny against the coarse stone, “you’d haul me out if I fell into the water, right?”

“No, I’d let you drown,” he says. His voice, floating on the water from somewhere past Torr’s head, is flat enough to indicate exactly what he thinks of that query. “Of course I would, Torr, what kind of question is that?”

“The kind of question asked by someone who’s tired. Thinking of taking you up on your suggestion.” (He isn’t really. He’s not actually going to sleep on the rock. But he is tired – been walking all bloody day, and almost every day before that since Solitude.)

Veezara’s voice comes again, fainter. “Scream if you need me.”

“Will do.”

Torr tilts his head back, face to the dimming watery-blue sky, and shuts his eyes.

He likes times like this – slow-paced, no fuss. He’s never quite sure how to manage in them, but he likes them. (That’s why it’s best when they coincide with travelling like this – he gets to relax while also having a distinct spot to work towards. Still something to do, there’s just no drastic rush.) It’s luxury to get to lie down on a silly rock in the fading warmth of an afternoon on the lake.

Would be nice if the others could be here, too – though that’s an image which makes Torr laugh as soon as they conjure it. They can practically see it – Gabriella sitting cross-legged and stately on the banks, Arnbjorn grumbling about the weather and the water and the pointless break in routine, Festus huddled up under a tree with a notebook. Astrid and Babette at least would probably be good sports about it – and Cicero might like it, if he could be persuaded to leave the coffin.

But Torr’s never actually seen Arnbjorn and Cicero in a room together except for meals, and not even then half the time. So maybe a lake day would not be nice. Torr can see it going sour quickly.

Oh well. Still a funny image. (Maybe one day – after the stress and the glory of this job is over in full, and everyone’s had time and space to get used to each other – it would be possible.)

“Veezara?” Torr calls. “What are the odds we could do something like this with everyone?”

The lake is silent. Torr opens his eyes. “Veezara?”

The lake is silent.

They sit up.

Maybe he’s playing a joke on them, they think uneasily. Maybe he’s hiding somewhere to get a rise out of them. But that’s not his way, and anyway, there’s nowhere to hide; the water all around the rock is smooth and undisturbed, and there’s nothing else to hide behind.

“Veezara,” they shout again. There’s no ripples, nothing.

He’s a good swimmer, right? He said. Surely a strong swimmer can’t drown in a calm lake.

(Except with outside influence. Veezara never denied that there were slaughterfish in the lake, and Torr’s heard they can drag you down.)

(That’s probably not happening.)

(Veezara’s been under the water, presumably, for an awfully long time now…)

“Veezara,” Torr says again, though he highly doubts there’s much use.

He’s crouching on the little rounded rock, trying not to think about how much of it is submerged in the depths, how deep the water here might be, how far below his friend might be. There’s a ripple to the side of it, suddenly, and he leans over to try to see what it is (Friend? Fish?) except –

Except he dripped water all over the stone and made it slippery, and he pitches over the edge and into the water.

Torr’s not ready when he goes under, hasn’t taken a breath. He scrabbles at the side of the rock for purchase, scraping his hip and knee painfully, but it’s too smooth and too steep and his hands won’t grip. He can’t tell how deep he’s fallen – tries to look up, reaching as though there’s something to grasp – but he can only murkily see how the sunlight breaks on the surface and he doesn’t know how far he is. Shit.

Shit shit shit. This is why Veezara shouldn’t have dragged him out onto the rock!

They hadn’t had time to take a breath, so now they really need to – only that’s an absolutely awful idea, so they’re just floundering, trying to break the surface and grab onto the rock all at once. Their lungs are aching, and they’re scraping their whole body against the stone in their efforts to climb it, and it’s really, really not working, and shit. This is so stupid. They’re a bloody assassin, on their way home after killing the Emperor’s cousin at her own wedding, having spent years on the streets in Windhelm where getting caught outside in the wrong weather could freeze your fucking face off, and they’re going to die because they fell off a rock.

Torr can’t help but exhale, now. He manages to clamp his lips shut before he breathes in again, but his chest is burning and he can’t breathe in and he can’t get a grip on anything and he really needs air and he gasps and it hurts like hell and there’s nothing but the weak sunlight to hold onto –

And then there is something to hold onto. Torr clutches at it, his hands scraping and grasping, and then he’s rising, and then he’s above the surface and he’s trying to exhale and inhale at once and it doesn’t work and he’s coughing and retching over the water, still scrambling for height, and they’re moving.

It feels like Torr’s coughing up a lung. But eventually it soothes enough that they can shift their head to look – and it’s Veezara, dragging them towards shore with a set look on his face.

It turns out he can swim a lot faster when he’s not catering to Torr’s fear. Even when he’s practically carrying their spasming dead weight, he’s still going at a speed that would leave any may-or-may-not-be-there slaughterfish nowhere.

He hauls them out of the lake, onto the bank, and lets them cling limpet-like to his arm as they continue to cough and splutter and generally have a bad time. There’s air enough to breathe – but their chest still aches, exhausted, and they think they might have bashed most of their body against the rock in their efforts to climb it. They can see blood beading, thin and watery, thin and watery, on their grazed wrist. There’s a little blood on Veezara’s head too, in the creases between the scales. Torr hopes they didn’t do that.

Veezara lowers him onto the dirt of the bank. Torr spits something – lake-water and phlegm, maybe – onto the ground and rasps, “Sorry.”

“What? No.” Veezara flicks hair out of their face. “Don’t apologise, you almost drowned. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“Thought –” But Torr’s chest aches as soon as he starts talking, so he presses a fist to his chest and quiets. Veezara goes to their packs and finds a threadbare blanket in Torr’s knapsack. It’s a sweet gesture (even though Torr fruitlessly tries to stop him draping it around his shoulders – now his sopping hair will drip water all over it!)

“What happened?” Veezara asks, after a time. “I was only out swimming for a few minutes – I shouldn’t have left you when you can’t swim, but how did you even manage it?”

Torr pulls the drenched blanket tighter round their shoulders. “Couldn’t see you. I was looking and then I fell in.” They look up at him accusingly, then. “Thought you drowned! Where were you?”

Veezara stares at them incredulously.

“What?”

“Torr,” he says, and gestures at the side of his neck –

To the shape of the gills, standing out against the scales. Torr blushes painfully red. “Forgot,” he mumbles, and tips his head back. “Nine, I’m such a dope.”

Veezara laughs.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” he says, much too sweet and earnest for such a stupid mistake. “Really, I shouldn’t have left you alone when I knew you can’t swim. It’s entirely my fault.”

“At least partly my fault for being an oaf,” Torr argues. He snuggles further into the sodden blanket. “Least you kept your promise.”

Veezara looks blank a moment – then he smiles. “I did say I’d get you out of the water, didn’t I? I seem to be making quite the habit of rescuing you.”

“Oi. I could have managed Solitude on my own.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

Torr balls up the dripping blanket and throws it at him; he laughs.

[skautism]

>"sculpt a mixed media piece representing a safe space!"

>has never felt safe

[gummiix]

I’m almost done with my biiig ol comic page :3333 can’t wait for you guys to see it. I’ll prolly show it in pencil and not pen though because I’m not too confident in my inking skills (and don’t know if it’ll be ruined)