#if you let john fall asleep while high then he'll take a seven hour nap

[laswells-ashtray]

KATE LASWELL AND CO BOARDGAME NIGHT. POSSIBLY DRINKING. MAYBE MARIJUANNA.

I'm saying Kate, her wife, John and Nik because Kate and John would never let the lads see them high.

Sarah insists that they play Game of Life because no one is getting through Monopoly if her stash is involved. They don't go your typical route and share a joint. No, Sarah likes baking so they have brownies.

It starts off fine, they're still a bit stiff around the shoulders. A little too professional for a board game. Nikolai and Sarah use their critical thinking skills and bring out a selection of various snacks before ordering pizza.

And then Kate starts smiling when she's reading out a card, she's flashing her pearly white teeth and Nikolai is half sure she doesn't know she's doing it. "Your pet goat wins a ribbon. Collect 120K from the bank."

It's a ridiculously unfunny card but the way John snickers makes Nikolai laugh and in the back of his mind Nikolai quickly realises that the brownies are kicking in. Sarah is still content and happy, no change in her.

"Pet goat?" John asks with far too much glee for something so simple.

"What kind of lesbian doesn't have a pet goat?" Sarah remarks, feigning offence.

Nikolai rolls his eyes and points to the board on the table. "She isn't a lesbian, she started off as a blue figure."

John had immediately claimed the blue car, Nik had taken the pink while no one was looking and it'd left the women to fight over who got the green car. Kate had won and coincidentally, Nikolai had pretended not to see how Sarah had offered her chest a feel.

"Lesbians can be blue, John. You English bigot." Kate retorts, barely biting back a laugh. The relaxed, almost giggly aura looks good on her. Nikolai has seen her during the hardest days of her career and he thinks she deserves as much happiness as she's feeling now. John might be his partner but Kate is one of his closest friends and he'd be lying if he said it didn't warm his heart to see the both of them so happy. Even if they're high as shit.

John only lets out a loud bark of laughter in response, sinking back into the couch cushions.

He watches as Sarah leans over and snatches a pack of Chips Ahoy from the table, tearing it open carelessly and shoving one in her mouth with a quite frankly pornographic moan that is hysterically funny to him. He briefly considers stealing one but John is slumped against his side and there's no way in Hell he can escape out from under him.

Kate looks back to her wife and then at the arrangement of snacks on the table before looking back to Sarah. "Hand me the Doritos."

Sarah does not have the grace to swallow the cookie before answering and it makes Nikolai chuckle. "Get them yourself."

"Give me the Doritos or I'll pinch you."

Sarah grabs the bag with a dramatic look of irritation. "Only because you'd pinch my tit."

Nikolai thinks John is half asleep with how quiet the other man is until someone knocks on the Laswell's front door, the undeniable joy on John's face is something he wishes he could photograph if he could remember where he sat his fucking phone.

The other man drags himself off of the couch and towards the front door with a pep in his step that Nikolai swears he's never seen before.

"Even walks like a gayboy." He hears Sarah mutter between cookies.

Kate breaks into a fit of giggles in response, pointing at John with a Dorito in hand as she tries to form words that just can't quite break through her laughter.

Nikolai would laugh if he wasn't too busy trying to kick off his boots without having to reach down and untie them.

The pizza boxes hit the table with a loud thud and before any of the three have a chance to react, John has already pinched the top one. "Dig in, arseholes."