#hollowsmoke is Ricky Pickering x Jacob Portman

[lov3-lik3-ghosts]

Does anyone else subconsciously think of the MPHFPC books and the movie as completely different worlds?

I’ve been forming a relationship between Jacob and Y/n for my Enoch O’Connor request, and this Jacob in comparison to the hollowsmoke requests I’ve written feel like completely different people.

It could definitely be because I’ve not read the whole of the first book yet and have watched the movie on repeat, and so can give Jacob more depth this way but I definitely know that the books are an entirely different trajectory despite that.

[enochoconnor-girlie]

May I ask do you have any romantic hollowsmokes hc’s if not platonic is okay

Hollowsmokes is the ship name for (Jacob x Ricky that I found on some post)

didn’t know that was a name for it but okay! Personally I like them romantically but I also love them platonically.

-I think Ricky would be weirdly good at art. On that note he has drawn Jacob before (and threw it away immediately because he was embarrassed)

-Ricky kicks at himself everyday for what he did to Jacob

-Jacob does the same.

-They watched horror movies together. All. The. Time.

-remember in AMOD a kid from Jacob’s school saw him when he ordered pizza? Well that kid then told Ricky when school was back in (cause they were friends, ya know?) and that was a difficult time.

-Jacob mentions Noor being tall all the time. Who else is tall, hm…

-One time when they were bored they did each other’s makeup

-Jacob wore one of Ricky’s jackets one time,,,,, that was fun for both of them. ( I mean this in a TOTAL fluffy way. Don’t sexualize kids, that’s gross)

I didn’t do a lot because I don’t “actively” ship them. Basically they aren’t my favorite ship. But I gave you what I got.

[doting-dov3]

Turns out I’m absolutely shit at coming up with ship names but I’m absolutely obsessed with howllowsmoke and will 100% be tagging any future Ricky x Jacob works with it (if you wouldn’t mind, of course)

Hey I was wondering if you could write something about Jacob & Ricky (mphfpc characters) hanging out and also Jacob helping Ricky dye his hair green could it be romantic??

Stained Fingers

Pairing: Jacob Portman x Ricky Pickering.

Warnings: Not beta read. Awkwardness. Unestablished but budding relationship.

Summary: Ricky’s car breaks down on his way home. He takes solace in his (not) friends home, Jacob’s, while it storms, when he decides he wants too go through with dyeing his hair. (set before Abe’s death)

Format: Drabble.

Word count: 1.5k

A/n: Hello! Please note that I hadn’t heard of Ricky before this, as I’d only watched the movie, but had luckily bought book one a few months back! Everything I know about him comes from the first few chapters. I really hope I’ve managed to do your request and their character’s justice. I apologise for the long wait. Congratulations on being my first commission! Thank you so much, it means the world to me! ♡

Request Guidelines Masterlist

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Jacob usually had the time to plan before Ricky came over but this time, Ricky had arrived unannounced and drenched and shivering under the onslaught of pelting rain and rough winds. He had no coat to burrow into and no umbrella for cover, just the clothes on his back and the bag in his hands.

Jacob had ushered him in with shock, given him a towel to dry off with and the most oversized of his clothes to change into while he explained that hadn’t had anywhere else to turn to. That his car had broken down a half hour away from his home and Jacob was the closest solace he could think of. That he hadn’t thought to stop in the rows of cafè’s or the half-deserted laundromats on his way. Jake’s heart warmed.

They’d huddled down in his room after that, where the thermostat was turned up and blankets piled atop his bed, and Jacob had forced a cup of coffee into Ricky’s hands to warm both his hands and his innards.

But Ricky and Jacob never had too much to say to the other and they’d been sitting in silence long enough for the mug to sit empty on the bedside table and for Ricky to stop tremmering. Usually, with the time to plan out something for them to do, the two of them would play whatever crappy video game they could find or Portman would tutor him in whatever he was struggling most with at the time but without it… Jacob doesn’t think they’ve ever just spent time together just to spend time together. Ever been around each other without it feeling almost like an obligation.

He couldn’t help but wonder if they were actually friends or just akin to close acquaintances. Maybe unplanned visits would further their friendship. He hoped it would.

Jake was never great at silence, and neither was Ricky it seemed, because they both opened their mouths and began to speak at the same time with a lingering awkwardness.

“Do you min-”

“Do you wan-”

They paused, looking at each other with sheepish eyes and tight-lipped smiles. Ricky waved a hand as if to say ‘you go ahead’ and Jacob shook his head and nodded at him to say what he wanted.

“I was just going to ask if you’d mind if I dyed my hair? I was going home to do it but, y’know, my car.” He cleared his throat.

“Oh- uh- no. No, go ahead,” He shook his head and gestured at the bag by the door. “Just try not to get it on anything, my mom’ll kill me.”

“‘Course.” Ricky stood from his nest of blankets and moved to the bag, taking a box of dye from inside it with a picture of a man with a head full of green hair holding up a murky bottle stained with the same shade. The box was caved in and damp from the storm outside, the rain having soaked through the fabric, Ricky sighed lowly through his teeth at the sight of it.

“You’re going green?” Jake asked, voice coated in judgemental surprise. He felt a rush of mourn at the thought of Ricky’s natural hair disappearing under a vibrant, unnatural shade.

“What, you don’t like it?” He raised a brow, looking over his shoulder.

“It’s not ba-” He stopped at Ricky’s knowing glance, relenting into telling the truth and forgoing social politeness. “It’s awful.” He frowned. “I like your hair now. It suits you, it’s yours. I don’t know why you’d choose green of all colours, but I guess if anyone would suit it, it would be you.”

“Thank you?” Ricky's face furrowed. “I just like the look of it. I can always change if it turns out shit.” Jacob hummed in response, watching as Ricky walked over to the mirror hung on his wall and began to mix the dye together.

The colour in the pot was shades darker than the man in the advertisement photo and looked more like something Jacob could get behind. He saw Ricky frown through the mirror, a downturn and pursue of his lips, before he looked up and caught eyes with Jake and smiled. His breath caught in his throat and he forced a smile back.

The first slather of dye painted the sides of his head where the hair was shorter and shallower and gave the effect that his hair was wet — which Jacob supposed it was, really. The colouring wasn’t instantaneous through the roots but the dye was green already and Jacob felt an almost physical sensation of grief at the first signs of his favourite head of hair changing.

The more Ricky applied the more he began to look as though he’d slicked it back with a thick discoloured gel but there was a large section on the back of his head that Ricky missed every time he tried to get it and Jacob felt an amusement bubble in his stomach and fester in his chest. He wasn’t sure if Ricky could tell at first, with not being able to the back of his head, but his jaw began to tick and his eyes began to narrow until eventually he reached his fingers around width and felt along the dry area with a huff.

“Need help?” He called.

Ricky sunk his teeth into his lower lip, looking away from his frustrated reflection and straight at him. His lips parted and he in-took a breath like he was going to say something before hesitating. “Please.” He swallowed and gave a curt nod.

Jake moved from his burrow of pillows and blankets, shivering at the loss of warmth, and walked the short distance to him while grinning. The pot of hair-dye was half empty and the closer he got the stronger the chemical scent stung his nose, he quite liked it. Ricky didn’t have an application brush, just the gloves on his hands that came with the dye and Jacob felt no point in having him remove them for his own hands when he would surely stain them through the process anyway.

The patch of unslathered hair was small and wouldn’t require too much of the paste so Jacob chose to just stick a couple fingers into the substance and apply it that way. Ricky made a noise of indignation, looking at Jacob incredulously. “That’ll dye your fingers green, you idiot.” He tsked.

Jacob shrugged. “So?”

“I thought you didn’t like the colour?” He reminded.

“It’s alright.” He said passively. It’s your colour now. “I was right, you pull it off.”

Ricky’s chest rose with a breath and stuttered in its fall. His eyes flashed with something that stirred Jacob’s stomach but it was gone as quick as it came, hidden underneath the closed offedness that he always masked under.

“Did you get all the other sections?” Jacob asked. Ricky nodded with the flesh of his cheek sucked between his molars. “Then you’re all done.”

Pickering turned to face him, looking down at him as he removed the clear gloves in a way that turned them inside out and shoved them into the empty box. The green was smeared along his hairline and travelled down his forehead and temples and the tops of his ears in a way that Jacob found endearing. Ricky’s larger hand rose encased the width of his wrist in a cradle and the other moved to trail along his palm and up his slender fingers in a soft caress. The movement followed the outline of dye splotched wetly against his skin, stroking there with tender affection. Jacob’s face reddened in a splatter warmth.

His eyes moved from their hands and connected with Ricky’s watching ones with a spark of passion. Ricky’s eyes flickered down to his lips and back up again and Jacob thought, hoped, that he would lean down and kiss him and then never stop kissing him ever again. But instead, he stepped back and dropped his grip from Jacob’s wrist with a thick swallow.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” He breathed.

There was a moment of the same silence from before, the one where they didn’t know what to do with themselves and looked sheepish and out of place. Jacob shuffled on his feet, looking anywhere but at Ricky with vehemence. Ricky was the one to break the silence.

“Can I- uh- use the shower? To wash it out?” He cleared his throat.

Jacob’s gaze snapped to him. “Yes, there’s shampoo in there — it’s the green bottle. I just need to wash my hands first.”

He walked out to the bathroom, twisting the knob of the warm water on with a sqeach. The skin of his hands was red and smelt strongly of the vanilla hand soap he’d used by the time he’d done washing them — no matter how hard he’d scrubbed the tips of his fingers still stayed green. Ricky’s green. And Ricky had scoffed at him in a manner that sounded awfully like “I told you so” without the words when he walked in and saw.

Jacob didn’t mind. People would see Ricky’s hair and then they would see his fingers and they’d know — they’d know it was Ricky’s hair dye staining him and they’d assume, assume something more was going on between them and Jake quite like that thought. The thought that he was stained by a piece of Ricky in a way that others could see and not just in a way that marred his soul.

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Reblogs and comments are extremely appreciated and encouraging!