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bratbarzal · 3 months ago

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On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Three

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: 13k

Chapter Warnings: angst obviously what would this story be without it, poppy and nico having an overdue conversation, nico moping again with his big sad brown eyes, nico being jealous again, drinking, cursing, meddling friends, being stood up, mentions of controlling parents as always, a little touching maybe a little more kissing too and even more meddling friends

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

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Two)

A/N: I have nothing to say honestly just hope you enjoy I really don't know why I struggled writing most of this despite knowing what I wanted to do with it I think just figuring out how I want certain conversations to go and how to get from a to b is pure stresssss I'm not entirely in love with it but what can you do also proofread her? I hardly know her

but if you have anything to say pls send it my way lmao I'd really like to hear any thoughts or opinions 💓

Poppy

Poppy was once told by her good friend, Kelsey, that she would be able to tell everything she needed to know about a guy by the way they answered one very simple question.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

She thinks about it more often than she really should, if she’s honest with herself, but Kelsey’s rationale behind each potential answer is actually a stroke of rare genius - and Poppy often finds herself applying the logic to most people that she encounters.

Guys who say super speed are the ultimate red flag. No one wants a quick finisher, no matter how fast they may be in any other aspect of life. Some things specifically require time and patience. Sacrificing your partner’s satisfaction all to say you can run the world record fastest 5k is the ultimate ick.

There’s an argument to be made for the endurance choosers, it sure has its perks, but Poppy thinks it’s a boring pick. To be given the option of any superpower, and to choose perseverance, of all things? Get a life.

Anyone who chooses x-ray vision is a certified pervert, obviously. The same could be said for those wanting to read minds, although most of the guys Poppy has seen in her life struggle to comprehend the things she says in plain words, never mind whatever nonsense is circling through her inner thoughts.

Those who choose flying are one dimensional, rarely able to see beyond what’s right in front of them, because, if they could, they’d choose the much better option of teleportation.

Who chooses flying when you could just think about somewhere and instantaneously arrive? With your hair in tact and no risk of bumping into any territorial birds.

Teleportation is what Poppy would have picked if anyone would have asked her a week ago, for the mere fact that commuting anywhere is the bane of her entire existence, and if she thinks too hard about it or looks to much into it, it always has been.

She associates it with sitting in the back of her dad’s Bentley as a child, a tangible, frosty silence lingering in the air between her parents after one of their many even-toned arguments disguised as discussions, the fresh pine scent making her car sick and the leather seats making the back of her thighs sticky.

Or the fragile bones of her hand being crushed by her mother’s tight grip as they rode the Amtrak over to Manhattan, Priscilla sneering at anyone who dared step too close on the crowded carriage, Poppy being dragged throughout department stores in the name of mother-daughter bonding time, and clutching to a tiny consolation Macy’s bag housing a sparkly lip gloss like her life depended on it the whole way home.

She thinks of all the hours of her life she’s wasted on the Palisades Parkway, no longer able to enjoy the scenic route whenever she has to drive back to her parent’s house in Alpine after having watched one too many crime shows where a broken down car leads to a girl’s face plastered all over the news.

Even driving to work can feel like hell when the traffic is bad, what should be a 30 minute drive sometimes turning into an hour, Poppy’s fingers cramping around the wheel and her feet itching to touch solid ground after too long.

Teleportation sounds perfect.

And, there’s even a romance element to it. Being whisked away to Paris in the blink of an eye, suddenly sitting outside a boulangerie, decadent, rich hot chocolate on a table in front of her and a plate full of pastries, all because she mentioned a slight craving for a pain au chocolat.

Teleportation has always been the only correct, green-flag answer to the question.

Until Poppy properly considered time travel, that is.

The concept of it has always been a little too much or her to handle - too many strange loopholes, too many bad examples from the sci-fi movies her brother had loved as a kid. Travelling back in time to when her parents were her age and accidentally capturing her adolescent father’s attention à la Marty McFly? Sounds like hell and horror to Poppy.

But that was before she screwed everything up.

If she could have any superpower right now, currently weighed down with the burden of hindsight - which people have always told her is a funny thing, but she thinks is actually somewhat diabolical - she would pick time travel a thousand times over.

Because if human beings have a specific part of their brain that is dedicated to forcing them to sit and stew on their every poor decision for days on end - lets them rethink and regret everything until they’re blue in the face, and can’t think of anything other than how idiotic they have been - it should also offer the kindness of being able to go back and change what they so royally fucked up.

That’s what Poppy thinks, at least, as she throws herself down onto her bed, her back hitting the duvet in a whoosh and all she can do is stare at the ceiling and wonder how and when she became such a certified moron.

There’s a part of her that suspects it’s in her genes. Inevitable. Unavoidable. Nature and nurture, she was born and raised to be a full blown fool.

Poppy comes from a long line of privilege, and while it does take a certain element of intelligence to amass the wealth her family has, it also tends to go hand in hand with ignorance in its many forms.

Behind every fortuitous business move her father makes are a million other mistakes - failed ventures, bad investments, shoddy pieces of advice accepted from the untrustworthy snakes he surrounds himself with. Hidden beneath every rung of the social ladders her mother has managed to climb, there are the ugly faux-pas’ slipping through the cracks of a former, more unsavoury life she can never run too far from. And her brother - well, she suspects he’s just an idiot, there are no two ways about it.

She knows that she needs to stop blaming her family, though. This time, it’s all her.

She can’t blame her father for the way she overthinks, the man who makes every decision in life with the littlest regard for how anyone else feels about it. She can’t blame her mother for the way she places such little value on herself, the woman who walks into every room like she owns it and refuses to let anyone make her think otherwise.

Except maybe she can.

If she had the nerve to talk to a therapist, they might disagree - might say her overthinking comes from her dad’s lack of communication skills, a part of her brain always filling in the gaps of a half-assed, other side of any conversation with him. Or they might say her insecurities come from her mom constantly putting Poppy down while telling her to be more sure of herself - stop slouching, Poppy, no one will take you seriously with the posture of a candy cane.

She’d love to know where her need to repress her feelings so deep that she becomes an impenetrable, cold, dark fortress comes from. The need to push and shove when someone tries to get too close, because God forbid anything is ever easy when it comes to her affections.

It would have made the past 4 days since Nico had walked into her apartment and kissed the life out of her a whole lot easier.

4 days spent reminiscing, rethinking and regretting every single thing she had said and done since their lips parted, since he had put his heart on the line and she’d whacked it away, full swing, as if too desperate for the victory of a last-bat home run.

If she could time travel, she’d do the whole thing over.

“Don’t go on that date, Mohn.”

She had read the words on his lips before they registered through her ears, the sound of her blood rushing throughout her body occupying every sense for a brief moment.

What the hell is going on?

Nico had kissed her. He’d grabbed her, pulled her into him, and she’s pretty sure he had made her heart stop for a good second - there’s no other justifiable reason for the way it had been reverberating against her ribcage ever since.

And then he stood before her, a desperate, pleading projection playing in his dark irises, lips still slick from where her own had just been, cheeks flushed, shoulders rising with subtle panting breaths, waiting for a response to a question she couldn’t even remember hearing.

“W-what?” She’d stuttered, blinking hard and shaking her head as if to rattle her brain into whatever semblance of cognisance she could muster.

Nico had kissed her, and then wanted to talk? As if she had the brain power left for any kind of discussion after that?

He seemed proud of the mess he had made of her, lips lifting at one side, drawing her gaze immediately to every movement they made, so focused on the memory of how pillowy-soft they had felt against hers that she didn’t notice him stepping a little closer, raising a large hand to tuck her hair behind her ear until she flinched at the contact.

“Sunday, Poppy,” he had uttered, unfazed by her skittishness, “Your date, don’t go.”

She had blinked again, completely overwhelmed on every front. She could still taste him on her tongue, he was so close she could smell his cologne, tunnel vision only seeing him in front of her and the hand that cupped the side of her face in her peripheral, her heartbeat echoing through her skull and every nerve, every slight hair on her body, standing as if trying to close the distance between his body and hers.

It was the sensory overload that made her go against all other instincts.

“I can’t.” Her voice had sounded like it hadn’t been used in weeks, croaky and unsure, her next words stammered, “I can’t not go, I mean. I have to go.”

“You don’t have to go, Poppy,”

“No, I do.” That had sounded a little surer, the fog in her brain slowly clearing only for something more tumultuous to pass through in it’s place. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Nico blinked once, then again, frustration clear in the furrow of his thick brows as he seemed to stew on his next words, desperate to say the right thing. There was a prolonged, tense beat, before he had asked, “Have you ever thought we could be more?”

“More?”

“More than friends.”

If her heart hadn’t stopped when he had kissed her, it must have stopped then.

His back straight, eyes looking directly into hers, a hopeful, inquisitive gleam shining from within them - he had never seemed so sure of something for as long as she had known him.

Poppy couldn’t stop the little voice in her head questioning, where the hell has this come from?

“Have you?” She had asked with a eyre of disbelief.

Not once in the years she had known him had he ever made it seem like they could be more. There had always been an unspeakable, undeniable barrier between them. They were friends. They’d always been friends. Just friends.

Friends who spent most of their free, personal time together, friends who bought each other sentimental gifts they’d never get for anyone else, who shared intimate details about their lives and their pasts, and kissed each others heads like a goodbye ritual. Friends who broke each other’s hearts, seemingly beyond repair, without explanation.

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

“I mean,” He had paused, breaking eye contact for a second as if wracking his brain for the right answer, sensing a teetering tension between the two of them. “Yeah. Yes. I have.”

She had narrowed her eyes at him, weighing up the possibility in her mind that she wouldn’t have liked any response he gave to her, every prospective answer causing a flood of doubt and uncertainty to crash in rushing, destructive waves through her mind. “Since when?” She’d asked, trying to level her bite.

If he’d ever thought they could be more, what the hell have they been doing all this time?

“Since I met you, I think,” he had shrugged.

Wrong answer, again.

“And you only bring it up when I have a date with someone else?”

She watched a series of antithetical emotions pass through his features, understanding, confusion, acceptance, denial, resilience, cowardice. He had seemed to find the small margins between all of them, when he had come back with, “It’s not because of your date, Poppy.”

“Then why?” She tilted her head as she continued to analyse him, again not sure what she was looking for, or what she wanted to find. That something tumultuous was already whirling within her, too late to be stopped, and Nico could seemingly see the warning signs.

“Why are you getting mad at me, right now?”

“I’m not mad,” she had denied, not even knowing if she was lying or not, “I’m confused. 2 weeks ago, we weren’t even talking, Nico-,”

“You said you forgave me for that.”

“I didn’t-.” She’d cut herself off before she could say something that would upset him, the conversation spiralling so far out of control from the momentary bliss he had provided only minutes ago - but she was too far up shit’s creek without a paddle, there was no turning back. She’d been wanting to have a proper conversation with Nico all week, what better time than the middle of the night on what was now his birthday? “That’s not exactly what I said.”

He had taken a step back, lips parting with an unreleased gasp, the once-hopeful glint in his eyes transforming into hurt. “You don’t forgive me?”

“I didn’t say that either,” she sighed, wanting answers, not to cause him anguish. “Please don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Then tell me what the hell is wrong? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t understand where this has come from, Nico! You come in here and kiss me out of nowhere and tell me not to date other people and I’m just supposed to blindly follow along when I don’t get what the hell is happening with you!”

“I think me kissing you makes it pretty obvious what I want to happen, Mohn.” He had tried to ease the tension, his voice level and steady, stepping forward with his hands raised in an attempt to calm her, but she had taken a slight step back, clearly unaffected.

“It doesn’t.” She’d stopped looking at him at that point, keeping an eye on his feet to watch his encroaching steps. “Nothing about you is obvious. You don’t tell me anything and all I can think about is what I did wrong.”

If he couldn’t see the tears pooling at her lashes, he had to have heard the break in her voice - a sure indicator that she was close to crying - but his steps had stopped, feet seemingly stuck to their place on the hardwood flooring of Poppy’s apartment, and she could feel her heart shatter knowing he wasn’t persisting again.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” He tries to reassure her, but it’s no use.

Maybe she would have believed him if he’d held her while he said it, transferred the meaning through touch to her skin, gripping her with every word until she truly understood the weight of them.

“It had to have been something. You don’t just stop wanting to know a person for no reason, Nico, so what was it?” She made her way to her couch, perching on the edge of the seat with her knees pressed together, and looked over to where he remained standing.

She could feel her temper flaring again.

How could he have the nerve to do this to her - to turn her world upside down in a matter of minutes - and not have the answers she needed to accept it?

“Poppy-,”

“I need to know. I can’t drop it and forget about it, and I’m sorry that I made it seem like I could, but if you want us to move on from this, if you want to come here and kiss me like that, and tell me you don’t want me seeing other people, I need to know what happened.”

“I-,” Nico sighed heavily, shoulders drooping, any confidence and bravado he had displayed after their kiss now a distant memory. “I don’t know.”

She had an immediate, striking thought, that maybe if she asked closed questions, he could give her an answer, and so, with misplaced courage, she asked, “Was it her?”

“What?”

“Your girlfriend. Did she ask you to stop talking to me?”

It was a thought that had been plaguing her for longer than she’d like to admit - unable to shake the idea that maybe Talia had seen one of the texts she had sent, had gone through Nico’s phone and seen any of their older messages, any photos he might have kept on his phone, maybe a memory had come up from snapchat, maybe someone had mentioned Poppy and her curiosity had been piqued.

Poppy had always thought if she was dating someone, and they had a Poppy, she might feel some type of way about it.

But her and Nico were just friends.

Nico rounded the couch, sitting on the cushion beside Poppy, their knees knocking as he reached into her lap and took her shaking hands in his.

“Do you really think I’d stop talking to you just because someone asked me to?” Their eyes had met again, sadness brewing in the dark coffee colour surrounding his dilated pupils, and a glassy film coating her own. “Poppy, I would never.”

“I don’t know what to think, Nico, because you won’t tell me.”

“Because it doesn’t make sense! I try wrapping my head around it, try coming up with some kind of explanation, but nothing I say is going to change what I did to you, Poppy.”

Her question before had gotten her an honest response, had elicited something real and undeniable within him - he’d never stop talking to her because someone asked him to. So it was his own decision, subconscious or not. Maybe she could help dig further, she thought.

“Why did you kiss me?” She asked after a beat.

“I,” Nico pondered over it before rushing his answer, a wave of emotion flashing across his face before his eyes locked on hers, ready to let her in. “Because I wanted to.”

That was a start - a simple question, a straightforward answer.

“Was that the first time that you wanted to?”

“No.”

Poppy could feel some semblance of confidence coming back. Closed questions, concrete answers, she could keep this up.

“When was the last time you wanted to kiss me?”

She could have asked the first - she sure as hell wanted to know it, but if he’d thought of being more the entire time they’d known each other, there was a lingering possibility there were many times - and they would be there until sunrise if they started from the beginning.

“Finnegan’s.”

“The bar?”

“We went there when we came back after we crashed out of the playoffs, do you remember?”

She remembered.

It had only been a couple of days before Nico had left for his summer back home in Switzerland.

Their loss in Carolina had been devastating, the boys came back broken and defeated, and all just wanted to drown their sorrows before they broke for their off-season. Poppy had been out with Nia and Kelsey and a few other friends at another bar when Jack had responded to her instagram story, saying they’d be at the Irish pub that was a staple within the team, and she should come over and join them.

She had made her way over pretty late, wanting to make sure her friends were okay without her, and arrived when most of the boys were completely shit-faced, past the point of tears and moping and deep into a mass state of hysteria and loud jubilation for the successes along the way.

She had found Nico in a booth in the far corner of the bar, head slumped over the back, eyes seemingly tracing the cracks in the ceiling until she crawled into the bench behind him, leaned over with her elbows resting on either side of his head, and took up his entire view.

“What’cha doin’?” She’d asked, lips twisting at the sight of his dizzy eyes trying to correct themselves to focus on her.

He’d quickly given up, pressing his eyes closed to shut out the risk of nausea taking over, the outer corners crinkling, the sides of his nose scrunching and his eyelashes fanning a shadow over his cheekbones - her own eyes were level with his lips, so he couldn’t really hide the way they curved at the quick glimpse of her.

“Suffering,” he had muttered, squinting one eye open to catch a brief, upside down glance of her. Nico was never this down after a few drinks. He was giggly, he was loud, he was touchy and clumsy - he was never the hide away in the corner sad type. “Wanna join me?”

“Always.” She affirmed, making her way around to his side of the booth and sliding in beside him until her bare thigh pressed against the somewhat scratchy linen of the pants he wore.

“I’m probably not the best company tonight,” He remained in the same position, neck craning so the base of his head could rest atop the back of the seat, and his eyes closed - giving Poppy the perfect opportunity to properly look him over.

The few moments they’d had together, alone, over the past few weeks, he’d been pent up, stressed, overworked and on the brink of eruption, so this was the first time in a long time she’d managed to catch him without the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Only, that weight wasn’t so easy to shift.

She saw it in the bags under his eyes, in the unkempt playoff beard he was yet to shave off, in the stuttered way his chest rose and fell with his attempts at deep, calming breaths.

As she watched him, the corner of her lip tucked between her teeth in contemplation, she knew there was nothing she could say to make him feel better about this. He just had to feel it out, process it in his own way without her interference - but she wanted to be there, at least.

And as much as she wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that he did the best he could, and led his team through one of their strongest seasons in recent franchise history, she wanted to provide him comfort in the quiet, too.

“I don’t mind.”

And so, with little trepidation, she placed a hand on his chest, over his heart, and rested her head next to it, glancing up to see the push of a dimple forming on his cheek as his arm stretched around her and welcomed her into his warm embrace.

“You wanted to kiss me then?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “Didn’t seem like the right time, though,” he followed up with an answer to a question she hadn’t even asked, yet. “I was leaving too soon and I didn’t want you to think I’d just kissed you because I was drunk and upset.”

Her eyes moved to his lips, a question for herself whirling around in her head. Would she have wanted him to kiss her then? What would have happened in the aftermath? Where would they be now? Would she have thought that? Would she have spent her summer stewing over what it meant, and how his lips had felt against hers?

Before she had much time to think it over, Nico continued, being spurred on by such a distinct memory that he was rolling towards the answer she had been waiting for, and she wasn’t going to stop him to try and decipher her own feelings.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you when I went home, thinking about wanting to kiss you, or not kissing you, and what it all would mean, and I kept trying to distract myself thinking I could just figure it all out when I came back here but then I met Talia, and I felt wrong for thinking about you when I had her.”

That had made sense. Nico was always a guy that would do the right thing. If he had a girlfriend, he wouldn’t think of the prospect of something with someone else, even if that someone was Poppy, and that something was a culmination of years of pent up feelings finally coming together to form something potentially wonderful.

She didn’t quite need or want to hear the rest. Didn’t want to hear how he’d gone looking for a distraction, and found just that.

Nico was loyal, and for him to maintain that essence of himself, he had to ignore the possibility of Poppy. Some subconscious part within him saw her as a threat to the stability he had with the perfect girl from back home, and he boxed her away to make room for what could be with Talia.

It stung, but he was right. Neither of them could change what had already happened.

“Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

She’d nodded after only a second, barely even thinking about it.

Jack’s words from New Years Eve rang through her, suck it up and move on.

Nico had his reasons, she had her answers. He wasn’t bored of her, wasn’t tired of her or annoyed by her. He’d been so caught up by his unspoken, untranslated feelings for her that he twisted himself into untangle-able knots that were only just starting to loosen up enough to be picked apart.

“Could you maybe say it?”

“Yeah, I could.” she had said through trembling lips, the hurt in his voice burrowing through her eardrums, lodging itself in her own throat, and dripping slowly but surely into the depths of her chest. “I will.” She had to be more sure, needing to erase any doubt she had planted within him. “I do.”

“You do?”

He still held her hands in his from when he had sat down, palms warm and slightly perspirant from his tight grip around her knuckles.

“I forgive you.”

His mouth twitched into a shaky smile, his eyes catching the soft light and twinkling with emotion, and she definitely wanted to kiss him, then.

She had wondered if this is what he felt when he’d kissed her before, this burning need. Her fingers twitched in his hold, her heart thudded in her chest, and her lips parted in anticipation, until she could finally slam the breaks on her torpedoing thoughts.

“It’s just a lot to process, and I don’t really know how I feel.”

She had wished she could take it back as soon as the words left her mouth, and Nico’s features had folded as he took them in. He broke eye contact almost immediately, head dropping to look down at their hands until he released hers back into her lap.

“I get it.” He uttered, forcing a smile as he glanced back up at her, briefly. “I sprung this on you out of nowhere, I’m s-,”

“Please don’t apologise,” she interrupted before he could go there, knowing it would send her brain into overdrive if he let even the thought of regret fester between them, “I’m glad you did. I don’t want you to be sorry about it.”

Relief washed over the both of them in a warm, steady stream as he nodded, leaning into the back of the couch, legs spreading as an elongated sigh wracked through his torso.

He ran a hand through his hair, and Poppy’s eyes flickered to the flex of his fingers, the strain of his wrist, the flash of protruding veins where his sleeve had pulled up with the stretch of his movements.

His eyes closed, and she took him in just like she had that night in Finnegan’s bar.

She’d had an urge then, a desire even, to provide comfort - to share his burdens, make him forget the pain he had just endured, wash it all away with encouraging words, gentle touches. A shoulder to cry on, two ears to listen, and, albeit she didn’t entirely know it at the time, a whole heart that was his for the taking.

And take it, he did, held it all summer, bent it all sorts of ways out of shape up until New Years Eve, and it was still in his hands. Smushed, dented, squeezed to within an inch of his life, her heart was his.

It was up to her now to figure out what she wanted him to do with it.

“I made a promise to my mom about the date, Nico, I have to go.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, seemingly resigned to the fact he had maybe been a little too lost in the moment to make such a crazy demand of her.

“And I think maybe we both need a little time to properly think about what is happening here.”

“Time?” He practically shot up, alarm in his eyes.

“We’ve barely been apart all week, Nico, I think that might be why we’re both so,” she struggled for the right word - pent up, emotional, strung out, “Intense.”

She had known she was emotional, overthinking to the point of ruin, but maybe he was too. Maybe that’s what had led to the kiss, to the outburst of sentiment. They were both in the depths of a pressure cooker of emotions, and some space might do them good to gain a little clarity.

Maybe with a little more time to think on it, to consider what he was admitting to, have a little breathing room, and act more on something concrete than a fleeting in-the-moment feeling, he might change his mind. He deserved the opportunity to do so, she wouldn’t hold it against him.

“How much time do you think you would need?”

“I’m driving up to my parent’s house on Friday, so I would have been away for most of the weekend anyway, maybe we check back in on Monday and see where our heads are at?”

“4 days,” he muttered as if he’d just counted them in his head. “I can do that.”

“Yeah?” He had nodded in response, and there was something like hope that lingered between them, sharing small smiles and gazing through glassy eyes. “You’ll be so busy you won’t even get the chance to miss me.”

She believed it to be true - Nico had his family over, would be spending the latter end of the day with them, and had 2 big home games in a row to worry about. Poppy would be the last thing on his mind.

If she had blinked in the moment, she might have missed the way his observation slipped to her lips, lingered there for a brief second, and glanced back up to flicker between her eyes again. “Not possible.”

“Poppy, have you suffered some kind of brain injury I don’t know about?” Nia’s voice rings through the speaker of the phone pressed to her ear, already supposedly-styled hair fanned out around her as she lays staring at the ceiling, willing herself to get up and go before she’s late.

No matter how much she doesn’t want to go on this date, her mother will kill her if she hears anything other than a glowing review. On time, preened to perfection, polite and sociable.

“Maybe I hit my head in my sleep at some point,” she thinks out loud, glancing back to the sharp edges of her bedside table and wondering if she could have thudded into it in the night.

Surely she would have a scar or a bruise.

“You must have,” Nia agrees, “That’s the only logical explanation why you’d ever consider telling the guy you’ve been hung up on since you first met him that you need time to think about how you feel,”

“Ni,” Poppy groans, “I called you for advice, not a lecture.”

“If you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes, and you my friend, are a dumbass.”

“In my defence-,”

“Nope!” Poppy doesn’t know what Nia is doing on the other end, but she hears something clatter as if being slammed down on a table in protest, “There is no defence, you’re an idiot.”

“I didn’t know how I felt about it, Ni,” Poppy sighs, sitting up and catching sight of herself in the mirror. She doesn’t know why so much of her time tonight has been wasted trying to look so good when she doesn’t even want to. When she’d gone to visit her parents, her mother had practically given her a full blown rundown of the guy she was meeting.

Tucker Lyon, she can’t help to instinctively roll her eyes at just his name, works in investment grade finance for one of the Big 4 - she hadn’t cared enough to ask which one. His family are property people, her mom had said, and own enough Manhattan real estate to hold some serious power. Priscilla had met his mother years ago at some luncheon in the city, and apparently the two had been in cahoots since then to set their children up.

Poppy doesn’t want to be set up with some walking red flag, biting her tongue over a plate of food too small to satisfy her hunger while he mansplains stocks and shares to her.

She wants to be in whatever bar the guys are holed up in, tucked under Nico’s arm, side practically glued to his, sipping cocktails and celebrating him like he deserves to be celebrated.

But instead, she can admit, she has been a royal idiot.

“I still don’t know, it’s all come at me full force and I don’t understand my feelings.”

“Bullshit!” Nia scoffs, “You knew you were into him the second he first flashed those dimples your way.”

She isn’t entirely wrong.

Poppy had once harboured a slight crush on him. In the very early stages of their friendship. One small enough that when she realised it was completely one-sided - and she was being delusional to ever think his cute nickname for her and his insistence on spending time only with her was anything more than his attempt to make a friend - she could swallow it down until it was barely anything.

She trained her heart not to stutter when he approached her, told her brain to shut up when he flashed her one of those perfect, all consuming smiles, and could cross her arms to restrain her hands from wanting to hold his whenever they walked side by side.

She’d become so good at suppressing her feelings, she’d forgotten she had them.

She had forgotten all the times they had hung out alone over the years, never second guessing all the looks and the touches, the times he’d let her stay over if it got too late to go home alone, and the times he’d waltz into hers like he owned the place.

She’d forgotten when she had seen him with Talia, always claiming the feeling in her gut was one of loss and reminiscence, not envy and bitterness.

She’d forgotten when the Hughes brothers had helped her move a couple months ago, and Luke had questioned the amount of Nico he was helping to scatter throughout her apartment. Pictures on her bookshelf, pictures stuck to her fridge with souvenir magnets from Swiss gift shops, a couple hoodies, Devils branded shorts and big t-shirts of his he’d come across in the boxes.

“I didn’t realise you and Cap were so close,” Luke had picked a frame out of one of the boxes, the picture of Nico and Poppy at the Halloween party inside, and waved it in her direction as she stood with her hands on her hips, figuring out if she wanted to alphabetise or colour code the books she was displaying.

“Huh?” Poppy tilted her head towards the tall boy, watching as he shook his curls back into place and ran a hand through them. He’d worked up a bit of a sweat lugging her boxes upstairs, and now that everything was finally moved, Jack had gone to get them food, and Poppy and Luke were getting started on unpacking the easy stuff. She looked to the picture in hand, reaching over and taking it to get a closer look. “I guess we were, I don’t really know.” She wasn't a good enough actress to properly pull off the nonchalance she was aiming for.

“You don’t know?” Luke scoffed, rifling through other pictures in the box - all framed, mostly of her and Nico, some just the two of them, some of them in groups, but always side by side. Always grinning ear to ear. “You’ve got like a shrine in here, PJ,”

“It’s not a shrine,” she had argued, “You don’t keep pictures of your friends? Sounds kind of cold, if you ask me, Moosey.”

“I keep pictures on instagram and my phone like a normal person.” He chuckled.

“Generational gap, you kids are done for when the cloud goes down, you know. Physical media is forever.”

“You sound like my mom.” Luke jibed, and true to his nature, unable to stop himself before he inadvertently crossed a line, he asked with a weird wiggle of his eyebrows, “So, you wanna keep Nico forever, huh?”

“Shut up, Luke.” If Poppy had something soft enough, she would have thrown it at his head. The photo frame in hand seemed like overkill, and she didn’t want to hurt the kid, just make him stop. She didn’t much like talking about him, what they once had, what they once were. Even if he did have the wrong impression of what they were. It was upsetting, and she didn’t want to get upset - not in front of Luke. “You can keep those in the box.”

Luke had reached out for the frame in Poppy’s grasp, had watched as she hesitated giving it back, as she looked down and took in the huge smiles on her and Nico’s faces, and as she made the decision not to put this one back. Maybe she could phase it out, wait until she took a nicer, more meaningful picture with someone else before she replaced that one.

“I’ll keep this one out. I look cute.”

"Sure." His sarcasm was not entirely appreciated.

She had heard him chuckle to himself as she stood the frame on one of the shelves, placing it between a scented candle she had no intention of ever lighting and a small faux lavender plant. Not shrine-like at all.

She’d forgotten about any suppressed feelings until Nico kissed her.

Until he opened up Pandora’s box, releasing all her pent up emotions to roam freely, creating chaos and causing havoc through every corner of her entire existence.

For the past 3 days, she’s thought about him with everything she has done.

On Thursday afternoon, sat alone in her office, going over emails and wondering what he would be up to with his family. Was he happy, were they having fun, did he think about her for a second?

On Friday evening, driving alone on the long winding roads to her parent’s house and listening to the commentary for the game on the radio. Making it to the house in time for the 3rd period, and seeing the team celebrate. Was he well rested, excited for his family to watch him play at home, did he look up into the staff suite at the Rock and wish she was there cheering him on?

On Saturday, retreating to her childhood bedroom after another tense family dinner, snuggling up with the dogs on her bed as she watched the game. Was he beating himself up, had he gone straight home on his own after the loss, did he have the same urge to call her as much as she wanted to call him?

Did he, on any of those nights, lay awake thinking about that kiss?

About how right it had felt? How he had exerted his subtle dominance over her with such ease, large hands encompassing her face and holding her to his lips like his life depended on it?

Did he think about where it could have gone if she hadn’t shut him down? Where they could be if he’d made a move before?

She’s been thinking about it. Non-stop thinking about it.

Thinking about that kiss, and the possibility of others - the moment in the bar, all the other potential moments he had wanted to kiss her and hadn’t. The fact that maybe her feelings had never been one sided, and she’s wasted years pushing them down for nothing.

“Do you think I made a mistake not cancelling this date?” She asks her friend in a moment of vulnerability, her mind reeling with the possibility that she has already fucked up what could be.

“No.” Nia assures her, surprisingly. She’s been calling her an idiot all night, what does she mean, ‘no’? “I think he needs to sweat a little, let him think about you out tonight with another guy, and come tomorrow, his mind will be made up.”

“You don’t think we might be overestimating how much it bothers him?”

“Don’t make me call you a dumbass again, Pop.” Poppy can hear the rolling of her best friend’s eyes through the phone. “And send me a picture of your outfit before you leave.”

Nico

Nico has never been so physically uncomfortable in his life.

For a man who plays contact sport for a living - has played it for a good chunk of his existence, and has suffered countless knocks and injuries, slept in one too many uncomfortable positions in planes, buses, trains and even hotel beds, and who’s face has had more than enough encounters with the wrong end of a pair of skates - that is saying a lot.

But every inch of him, every fibre of his entire being, feels irritated in some way.

It’s a feeling like unforeseen static shocks passing over every surface of his skin. Like little bugs crawling all over him and he can’t swat them away. Like random strands of fine hairs that can’t be seen by the naked eye but God, can he feel them. He feels them everywhere.

From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, he feels something prickling, stinging, burning.

Itchy.

Like a scratch he can’t reach in the very middle of his back.

And it’s not like he doesn’t know what it is.

He’s felt it ever since he left Poppy’s apartment in the early hours of Thursday morning. He had hardly slept, getting maybe 3 or 4 hours in before his alarm shrilled from where it charged on his nightstand.

He has tried to use the same coping mechanisms that get him through his bouts of homesickness - where he closes his eyes and tries to provoke a memory for each sense.

He pictures the views from one of his many hikes, endless fields of green grass, crystal clear lakes, winding footpaths and mountains that stretch as far as the eye can see. He imagines gathering around a fondue table back in his favourite restaurant, and can smell the freshly baked bread, can taste the melt-in-the-mouth flavour once it’s been dipped in oozing, melted cheese. He can feel the softness of the freshly washed sheets back in his childhood bedroom and can hear the chorused chirps of the birds outside his window in the early mornings.

It’s a technique that has helped ground him in the past, and he had thought that maybe if he applies the same logic, it will dull the ache in his fingertips that yearn to reach for his phone and text the girl who has asked him for space.

If he thinks hard enough, he can still taste the sweet but subtle vanilla of Poppy’s lip balm. He can smell the fresh-cotton essence of her laundry detergent, can hear the melodic sounds she had hummed into his lips, can feel the softness of her skin on the pads of his fingers, can see, clear as day, the dazed expression etched into her features like she had gotten caught up in the fantasy too.

If it wasn’t so easy for him to mentally transport himself back, he wouldn’t have been able to make it 4 days without seeing her.

He had known it would be hard, but, thankfully, he thinks he got himself enough of a fix to make it to Monday.

He’d taken all he could with just one press of his lips to hers, had taken more of Poppy than he had ever dared to take before, and his subconscious was clinging onto it for dear life, hoping with everything in him she could decide to give him more.

4 days.

He has never known time to be so cruel. For it to drag out every minute like it was an hour.

If his life had a remote control, best believe he would be jamming the hell out of the fast forward button. 4x speed, skip to the next chapter, not wanting or needing to know what happened in the in-between.

He’s always thought himself to have patience - good things come to those who wait, after all - but this had become the ultimate test.

He had tried to immerse himself in whatever was going on each day, hoping they would pass quicker, less painfully, but it had been no use.

His birthday had passed by in a dizzying blur. He’d had a late morning skate, had come home to his family waiting for him, had gone to dinner with them, caught up over Italian food in one of his favourite spots by his apartment, and had driven his parents, his sister and her boyfriend back to their hotel with the promise of dedicating some time to them before the game on Friday.

Every single thing had reminded him of her.

Being at the Rock and wondering where in the building she might be, and if she was reminded of him with the littlest things. If she was thinking about him, what she was thinking about him. Seeing his family, imagining her place at the table as they all exchanged laughter and stories over pasta and wine. Thinking about what she might contribute to the conversation, how she would get along with his sister, how they’d gang up on him and poke fun, but she’d hold his hand under the table and squeeze to let him know it was all in good humour.

In the locker room after the win against the Blackhawks, trying his best to get involved in the celebrations but just wanting to call her, to hear that she had watched, and was proud of him and the team. And even after the loss against the Canucks, he wanted to hear the same. He wanted to go straight to her place, the passenger seat of his car painfully empty as he drove himself home in complete silence.

And he had tried his best not to get too into his head about the whole space thing.

Poppy was right, after all. Things had gotten intense.

He had been intense - marching over to her place and kissing her out of nowhere. As right as it had felt, it was stupid. It was hotheaded and impulsive and it wasn’t considerate of her feelings.

But, God, he was so caught up on her he couldn’t help himself. He should have seen in the days they had spent together prior that they needed to speak more about everything before he threw himself at her like a neanderthal.

He’d only considered what conclusion he had reached, and as much as his conversation with the guys on the plane gave him an idea of Poppy’s mindset, some words needed to be exchanged before he planted one straight on her. The whole thing could have gone so much better if he just knew how to communicate everything with her properly.

Even before the kiss. Before New Years, before Talia, before Summer - if he knew how to speak about his developing feelings for her, this whole mess could have been avoided.

He wouldn’t be sat alone in a bar, yet again, as his friends surround him, partaking in the celebrations that are supposed to revolve around him, wallowing in self pity.

He wouldn’t be thinking about Poppy, out in some fancy restaurant somewhere else in the city, with some stick-up-his-ass loser who doesn’t deserve a second of her time, and imagining her giving him one of those earth shattering smiles - the one where her the outside of her eyes crinkle in the corners, and every time he sees it he imagines the lines settling there as she ages, and it’s always a version of the two of them, old and grey, side by side, smiling together.

He imagines her taking him back to her apartment, curling up with him on the couch Nico helped her haul up the stairs after she had found it for crazy cheap off of some sketchy ad on Facebook marketplace. He sees her slowly replacing all those pictures she has of her and Nico with pictures of her and him, phasing him out of her space like she would eventually phase him out of his life.

He thinks about her taking him to her bedroom - the one he had yet to see in her new apartment, but imagines it’s just like her old one; way too many pillows and throws, a thick, plush duvet that looks like she’s climbing into a cloud, and a beat up stuffed toy her grandmother had given her when she was young.

He doesn’t want to wish that Poppy is currently welcoming someone into her life that doesn’t suit her, but he can’t help himself.

He hopes this guy is late - and doesn’t even apologise for it. He hopes he orders off the menu for her, or criticises her choice of wine for not pairing with her choice of food like a complete snob. He hopes he’s awful to wait-staff. He hopes he’s type of guy who writes a suggestion on the tip line of his receipt instead of leaving a minimum of 20%. He hopes he chews with his mouth open, spits when he talks and scrapes his knife along the ceramic of his plate as he cuts his food, causing that toe curling sound that makes Poppy want to scream.

He hopes he doesn’t offer her his jacket, because she always refuses to take one out. He hopes he doesn’t think to give her a piggy back, because she always wears shoes out she knows she doesn’t want to walk in, but always wants to walk home if it’s nice out. He hopes he walks on the inside of the sidewalk, leaving her to the dangers of walking roadside, and walks too quick for her to keep up with little regard for how she likes to take her time on a night and stretch the evening out.

He even hopes he smokes. Poppy hates smokers. And if, God forbid, they kiss, he’ll have smoker’s breath, and she won’t want to do it again.

She won’t stand in front of him, eyes glazed over, lashes fluttering, brows furrowing, lips still pouting and fingers twitching to reach back out, yearning for more.

She won’t even kiss him back.

Not like she had kissed Nico. Not like she had clutched at his shirt like she wanted to hold him close to her forever. He wouldn’t get to hear that sweet, subdued sound she had made when his tongue had swiped tentatively at hers, or feel that slight pressure of when her lips had closed around it, sucking almost at the muscle before opening back up to allow for more of a taste.

No one else can get that.

No one else will savour it like Nico has, thinking about is for days on end, replaying the moment over and over until he has perfect recall of every small detail.

It’s probably a good thing she hasn’t shared much detail about this date, Nico thinks as he swirls the ice around his empty drink, sat right at the bar away from the sectioned-off area that Timo had rented out for the party.

If he knew more about it - about the who, about the where - he probably would be in a cab by now, knowing he was crossing a line but unable to do anything about it, his will outweighing any common courtesy just as it had a few nights ago. Or he would have spent the last few days in a google deep-dive, trying to figure out the kind of man her mother would approve of. Enough to set her up, at least - he doubts Priscilla Jensen entirely approves of anyone.

Nico finally makes eye contact with the bartender, and as she starts to make her way over, he feels like a divine intervention occurs - an arm falling onto the bar top beside his, a glimmer of metal flashing into his dark eyes - the reflection bouncing from a bracelet that is welded around the base of a slender hand.

“I’ll take another of these,” he lifts his glass when the bartender arrives, gesturing to the old fashioned he’d somehow landed on over beer tonight, “And whatever she’s having, please.”

“Vodka diet coke, please,” a voice rings out from beside him, and once the bartender busies herself with the order, she asks, “Shouldn’t I be the one getting you a drink? I heard it’s your birthday,”

“Why should either of us pay when it’s going on a tab?” He chuckles, angling his body better to face her.

“Ooh la-la, a tab,” Nia mocks, “Now I feel like I’m a part of an elite club!”

“I find it hard to believe you’ve never had your drinks put on someone else’s tab before.”

“Not the New Jersey Devils captain himself, it’s such an honour!” She raises a manicured hand and presses it to her chest, a playful smile etched into her features.

“Did you come over here just to poke fun at me?” Nico asks, touching on the dynamic that has long been between the two of them. She mocks him, mostly all bark and no bite, he takes it on the chest, knowing she’s doing it from of her warped version of almost sibling-like love, and Poppy usually acts as the mostly-unnecessary mediator, dividing her attention between them both.

“Of course I did,” she affirms, “You looked all mopey and miserable, how could I not?”

“How is me waiting for a drink ‘mopey’?”

“Uh, let me think,” she taps her finger to her chin, before lifting it to point at each feature she references, “The huge pout on your lips, your giant caterpillar eyebrows all slanted and frowny-,”

“Forget I asked,” he mutters, lifting his lips into a quick smile and thanking the girl behind the bar as she brings them their drinks. “Didn’t know you’d be out tonight,”

“I’ll be sure to send you an e-vite to my google calendar when I get home later.”

Nico’s throat tightens slightly at how similar Nia and Poppy are - always quick with a response, most of the time sarcastic, most of the time able to elicit a genuine laugh to rumble from the depths of his chest. “I see why you and Poppy are so close.”

“Hm,” she hums, making a show of checking her phone, “You barely made it two minutes, but it could be a new record.”

“A new record?”

“For how long you can go in conversation without mentioning her.”

“She’s your best friend, the one person we have in common, it’s normal for me to bring her up, Nia.” He reaches for his drink to take a gulp, hoping the ice might make his throat feel a little better.

He doesn’t even know why he’s denying his lack of willpower when it comes to Poppy - 2 minutes actually seems like quite the achievement when he thinks about how long he’s restrained himself from reaching out over the past 4 days. Nia approaching him like this has been the perfect excuse to think about her - to talk about her without feeling like he’s overstepping or assuming.

He could use this to his advantage.

“Is she a good kisser?”

Or not.

He chokes on his drink, thankful the liquid isn’t coming out of his nose with how much he hadn’t been expecting that question.

“She looks like she would be. I’ve always thought about it but there’s never been a right time to try it out. Maybe I should take a leaf outta your book and lay it on thick and fast when she least expects it.”

How he even thought he could gain advantage in this conversation is beyond belief. He’s out of his depth with Nia, as usual. She isn’t afraid to call him out - she never has been - and she’s the one person in the world Poppy would confide in. Of course she knows about the kiss.

“Is that what she said, I laid it on thick and fast,”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, lover boy.” She chuckles, picking up her cocktail and stepping away from him, “Thanks for the drink, Nico, try to enjoy the rest of your birthday party.”

“Wait!” He reaches out to stop her, not wanting to let a golden opportunity slip from his hands so easily. “You would have bought me a drink before, for my birthday?”

“I think you earn about 5 times my annual salary in a month, so probably not.”

“How about you answer a question for me?” He proposes, “As a gift.”

“I could,” she sighs, sitting down in the stool beside him, “But I heard you get touchy after gifts.”

He immediately regrets asking, but not enough to let her go. He’s come this far, and he has 4 days worth of questions he desperately needs answers to.

“Funny,” he gives a condescending smile, which clearly pleases her as she gives a genuine one back, lifting her spare hand to gesture for him to carry on. As if it’s that easy to narrow down all the things he wants to ask her.

One question.

What did she say about the kiss? Did she like it? Would she do it again?

What did she say about him? About how she feels? About what she wants?

Where is she right now? What did she tell Nia about the date? About the who?

“The guy she’s out with,” he can’t even bring himself to say the D word, “Is he nice?”

The look she gives him is almost pitiful. In fact, there is no almost about it. She clearly thinks he’s pathetic, but it’s too late to retract the question now that it’s out there.

“I don’t think so.”

He doesn’t like the way his stomach turns at her answer.

He had wanted this, right? For him to be a gratuity-withholding, uncouth slob with bad breath.

But the thought of her being out with someone that has the potential to hurt her, hurts him. His chest feels tight, his head feels muddled, and that everlasting itch returns to the tips of his fingers - the weight of his cellphone becoming that much heavier in his back pocket.

“I mean,” she carries on with a shrug and reaches for her own phone, “He was a no-show, so we’ll never actually know for sure.” She swipes at her phone until she brings up her message thread with Poppy, turning up the brightness to show Nico the picture she had asked her to send earlier.

It’s a selfie taken in the overly tall mirror she had once made him pick up from Ikea, claiming it wouldn’t fit in her car and his was much bigger, and he doesn’t know why his first instinct is to scan the background just to confirm his earlier intuitions about her bedroom. Too many pillows, cloud-like duvet. He can’t see the stuffed toy, but he assumes it’s somewhere in there.

Poppy looks unbelievable.

Her dress is short, like the one she had worn on New Years, fits snug around her waist and emphasises her curves in all the best ways. Her legs seem to go on for miles, adorned in knee high boots no doubt to provide some semblance of warmth. Her hair is pulled back, and she wears gold jewellery - rings, some small hoop earrings, and he’s only just able to stop his fingers reaching out to pinch at the screen because he can see the gemstone bracelet without the need to zoom in.

“Can’t be that nice if you’re standing up a girl that gorgeous, huh?” Nia asks, suggestively, leaning her chin into the palm of her spare hand as she looks up at Nico. “Some guys just don’t know how good they’ve got it.”

He figures he actually should be embarrassed about the relief that floods through him - washes over his entire demeanour, expression changing from defeated to victorious in a matter of mere seconds.

The crease that seems to have permanently formed between his brows smooths out, posture corrects itself, and his lips even almost turn up into a smile.

There’s a childish, territorial voice within him that wants to exclaim, Thank God! But he’s grateful that he’s able to mute it.

And, despite being privy to Nia’s games - despite knowing exactly what trap he is being lured into, what he’s about to fall for - he can’t help but suggest, “You should tell her to come out.” Because, despite knowing he had taken the bait, he can’t find it within himself to care. “I think I asked her one too many times to ask again.”

The one thing he had twisted himself into knots over since first hearing her utter the word date, hadn’t actually come to fruition.

There is no date. There is no uncouth slob.

There is Poppy, dressed as pretty as she is, practically waiting for someone to show her a good time.

He can do that. He wants to do it - to be the someone that’s good to her.

“Oh, should I?” Nia asks, a knowing smirk causing her lips to twitch mischievously. She’s been playing him this whole time, and once again, he doesn’t care. “I don’t know, she seems resigned to spending the evening on her couch watching New Girl,” she sighs dramatically, clearly looking for incentive - once again, reminding him too much of the girl he longs for. “I don’t know if there’s much convincing to be done.”

“I’ll add you to the tab for the night.”

Rookie mistake, offering something up so quick.

“Is that all my efforts are worth to you, Nico, a few measly drinks?”

“What do you want?”

“I’m actually out with a client tonight,” she looks back somewhere toward the other side of the bar, Nico can’t even bring himself to follow her gaze. “Been trying to sign them to my agency for a while, and if I can fix this deal, I’m up for a promotion.”

“Nia,” he warns, not liking how long this story is becoming. Forget good things come to those who wait. He’s waited long enough. “What do you want?”

“They’re big Devils fans, I think a night with the team could really open them up to the benefits of working with me.”

“Bring them into our section.”

“And maybe some tickets, too.”

“Fine.”

Nia gives him a triumphant smile, “Great, I’ll let them know.” She salutes him as she stands back up, gathering her drink and phone between the fingers of one hand before backing away. “Nice doing business with you, Captain.”

“Aren’t you gonna text her?”

“Oh, Nico,” she jeers, using her free hand to grasp him by the chin. “Dear, sweet, naive Nico,” she gives his head a subtle shake before patting at his shoulder condescendingly, “She’s already on her way.”

If anyone asks, Nico isn’t admitting to keeping an eye on the door since Nia had made her way back over to her side of the bar, but he knows as soon as Poppy has arrived. He watches her make her way over to her friend, watches the two of them embrace and talk between themselves for a good minute. He watches and waits until her eyes meet his from across the crowded room, and it’s like everything else stops.

He’d somehow managed to immerse himself in the party spirit since he had found out she was coming, fitting back into the group, toasting along with them, engaging in conversations with his teammates, his mood vastly improved in comparison to earlier in the night - of which he’s sure Timo is relieved after his short-lived exile from Nico’s good graces — but everything fades to black when he sees her lips curve upwards from afar.

Someone is talking beside him - hopefully not to him, he thinks, he doesn’t remember being mid-discussion with anyone - but it’s just drowned out mumbling right now, and all he can do is tilt his head toward the doors that lead to the bathrooms, and wait for her to respond. When she nods and separates herself from Nia, he excuses himself from the group, edging out of their section and following her path, losing her a little in the thick crowd of people - the bar still packed from where they had played the Giants game earlier.

When he gets through the doors, he’s thankful no one else is lingering back there - no rowdy queue for the bathroom, no staff, no one but him and the girl who seems to be holding his heart like a hot potato, not knowing the best way to carry it without getting burned.

“Hi.” It’s a weak starter for a heavy conversation, but if he’s honest with himself, she’s taken his breath away.

The picture from before hadn’t done her justice. She’s a little worn into her look for the evening now, hair not so neat, skin a little shiny, lipstick faded - but this is exactly how he likes her, especially when he takes in the way her eyes gleam and her cheeks puff out with her smile.

He makes a conscious effort not to let his eyes drift directly to the smile - to her lips, which even the thought of them elicits such a vivid memory.

“Surprise!” she sings quietly, arms outstretched and hands shaking theatrically.

He steps toward her with his hands behind his back, fingers clasped together until he’s confident that his knuckles turn white, fighting the urge to curl his arm around her waist and pull her into him, needing to be closer. He watches intently as her eyes flick down to where his hands should be.

She backs into the wall behind her, not to escape his approach, but more to prepare herself for it - like she’s settling in and embracing it.

She isn’t running. She isn’t pushing.

She’s waiting.

“I’ve missed you.” Nico wastes no time in telling her the truth - telling her what she’s refused to believe every other time he’s said it, but he can tell with the tilting of her head and the rounding of her eyes that understanding has settled within her. She has no comeback, no it’s only been a few days, and he thinks she must have felt the drag of them in the same way.

“I’ve missed you, too.”

Whatever anxiety has rooted itself deep inside him for the past 4 days dissipates almost immediately.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you.” He admits, without shame or reluctance. After Poppy had helped him overcome whatever had been censoring him before, there is no point now in holding back or beating around the bush. “You look so good, Mohn.”

A rush of confidence allows for him to close the gap, standing right before her as she leans against the wall, neck craning ever so slightly to look up at him. He still won’t touch, hands laying against the stone at either side of her hips, not daring yet to let even a sliver of his finger graze at her flesh.

“You look good, too.” She breathes, eyes glancing down to do an appreciative once over of his outfit, and he doesn’t miss the glint of pride cross through her eyes when she catches the glimpse of the gold that peaks out from the neck of his sweatshirt.

“I’m sorry about your date.”

“Are you?” Her lips twist into a knowing smile. It’s an example of one of her many traits that he loves - she can detect his bullshit a mile off.

“Mmhm,” he nods, “I’m sorry a world exists where any man is stupid enough to stand you up, Poppy.”

“I’m the stupid one,” she argues, and he misses her gaze as soon as she takes it away, eyes darting to the floor in embarrassment. “I should have listened to you and cancelled in the first place.”

“I was stupid to ask that.”

“Maybe we’re both stupid.”

“Definitely.” He probably shouldn’t be agreeing to her calling herself stupid, but it comes out before he can think too much on it. They’ve both wasted too much time.

“Did you have a good birthday?” She asks, and a slight movement between them catches his eye, her fingers twisting together as if she’s withholding her touch, too.

“It’s better now.” He smiles fondly as she rolls her eyes.

“How are your family?”

“They’re good.” He doesn’t want to go into too much detail about how shamefully miserable he has been over the past few days - doesn’t want to tell her how his mom had called him out on his lack of contribution to conversations, and he’d managed to pin it on the stress of the season. She still raises a brow at his insufficient answer, and he expands before she can tell him off. “Everyone but Luca made it out, my sister had to go back already for work, but my parents booked a trip to Halifax to visit the Phillips’, I lived with them when I played up there, they have a few friends to visit in Canada but they’ll drop back to see me again before they fly home.”

He feels the tickle of soft fingertips at the inside of his arm, slowly grazing down as he speaks, and as he watches Poppy, he thinks she must not realise she’s doing it - letting intuition take over as she’s distracted by the conversation. He lets her take the lead on initiating any touching, and it takes all the restraint he has left not to barge through the door she’s attempting to slowly eke open. She’s the only person in the world who could make him audibly hear the metaphorical creaking.

“Did they get to watch you win?”

He doesn’t even know why he finds himself grinning at the question, but the tone in which she asks it bears a hint of pride. She had watched the game on Friday.

“My dad was pretty much in the stands in full gear, everything but the pads and skates, and my mom was repping Foundation merch, she’s run off across the border with my beanie.” He likes the way her face lights up.

“I’ll get you another.” She raises her other hand to card her fingers through his hair, and, for once, he’s thankful not to be wearing any sort of hat. The soft scratch of her nails is soothing, and he just about manages to stop himself leaning into her touch and purring like a cat.

That would be embarrassing.

He feels outnumbered, both of her hands on him, and it feels unfair not to be touching her - so when his thumb extends itself on the wall just beside her hip and strokes at the soft fabric of her dress until it’s softly digging in, he watches intently for any hesitation before he lays a palm flat against her side.

It feels like things are progressing both torturously slow and overwhelmingly fast at the same time. His heart feels like it’s slamming into either side of his ribcage, and like nothing else occupies his chest, the sound of it echoing as if banging on the walls of a deep, empty cavern.

“Did I already tell you how much I missed you?” He honestly can’t remember, but he’ll tell her again if he needs to.

The hand that had run through his hair rests now on the side of his head, her thumb swiping softly at his cheek as she cups the side of his face, and before he can even make sense of what is happening, he’s being pulled forward.

He bends to her advances with quick reflexes to avoid clashing, and their noses bump just before their lips meet.

Her chest rolls forward until it presses into his, and both his hands grab at her sides to pull her flush against him, legs tangling, hips pushing together, bodies touching everywhere possible all the way up to their mouths.

He gives her all the control otherwise, allows her to determine the pace, responding to her every move and every touch with fervour and heat. She pulls at him, one hand grasping at his sweatshirt and the other cradling the side of his neck, and he quickly lifts one to stifle the blow to her head as she collides back with the wall, barely noticing the pain where his knuckles meet the stone.

Their tongues press together at the same time, and Nico doesn’t even realise his lack of patience got the better of him until their battle for dominance kicks off between their lips.

He can taste the same vanilla lip balm, can smell her signature coconut scent, can hear soft, subtle moans, can only see the back of his eyelids, not daring to open them, just wanting to feel. And he can feel everything.

He feels the softness of her hair beneath the hand that is protecting her head from the discomfort of resting against the hard surface behind her, can feel the skirt of her dress bunching up in his grip, can feel her touch, fingertips dancing at the the base of his skull, thumb pressing into his jaw, her other hand making that same grabby gesture at the thick fabric covering his torso, squished between his heart and her chest, and he thinks he can feel the thump of her own heart on the other side.

He can feel her thigh pressed between his, the friction causing a heat to build deep in the pit of his stomach, swirling and whirling down, down, down until it culminates into the hard press of his hips into hers, and a rushed gasp combined with a guttural groan causes their lips to part.

They take deep breaths in unison, their chests bumping with every inhale, and he tries otherwise not to move.

He opens his eyes to find hers still closed, scrunched shut, even, and he tries not to be selfish - ignores the need to get a good look at her, to have this version of her ingrained to his memory too - and attempts to coax her back to him.

“Poppy,” he sounds just about as breathless as he feels. “Are you good?”

She hums in response, a subtle nod given, but he needs to hear her say it, and he tells her as much with a quick squeeze to her hip. Her eyes flutter open, gleaming and bright, framed by thick lashes and crinkling slightly at the outer corners as her lips turn up into a mischievous grin. “Better now.”

His chest feels like it’s about to burst open, like there’s a bear within him that is going to break out and pull her into its clutches, dragging her back safe to her home in his heart.

��Do you want to get out of here?” He asks, because he has to - he doesn’t care if it’s rude to leave his own birthday party, doesn’t care that he’s been the most ungrateful person in the world all night.

He’ll make it up to Timo, get him something big the next birthday of his that rolls around. Throw him a party. Or he’ll take care of the tab the next time they’re out. Maybe even let him have the window seat the next time they’re on the same plane home.

Except, he won’t be doing any of that. He’ll be taking the reins on booking flights and putting Timo straight into economy, smack-bang in the middle of a row surrounded by a family of 5, screaming kids, arguing parents, the back of his seat being kicked the whole 8 hours to Zurich.

Because, just as Poppy’s swollen lips part to accept his advances - as her chin lifts, about to drop with a big affirmative nod, and he’s about to get everything he’s wanted the past 4 days and beyond - the doors to the back swing open, and his 6 foot teammate stumbles through, arms outstretched as he notices the two of them practically intertwined.

“Here you are!” He exclaims, voice booming in comparison to the soft breathy tones he and Poppy had been previously speaking in. “Poppy, you made it!”

“Hi Timo,” Nico feels her retreat, feels her legs brush past his and back to her own space, her hand on his chest now the only part of her that touches him, and he follows her lead, taking his hands back and trying not to clench his jaw or his fists as she converses with the man who was once his friend. “How are you doing?”

“I’m alright, should be back on the ice in a couple weeks.” Timo had suffered an injury in one of their games at the back end of December, and hasn’t been fit to travel, and Nico finds an unspeakably bitter part of himself wishing it was something to do with Timo’s legs that were injured so he couldn’t have interrupted their moment. “Glad you’re here, this one has been miserable all night.”

He can’t be this oblivious, Nico thinks. Why is he still here? Why isn’t he retreating back to the bar and leaving the two of them to whatever he had clearly barged in on.

And when Nico looks back to his teammate, his long time friend, he sees the oh-so-evident glint of mischief and disobedience in his grey-blue eyes.

He is getting his own back.

Nico knows he was petulant to blame Timo for Poppy not being invited, knows there was nothing he could have done to change her going out on a date, or them not speaking for months while he was with Talia.

He doesn’t need him to enact his revenge to see he was wrong to ignore his texts, or to mope around at the party he had put so much effort into.

He tries to give him a pleading look to stop whatever he is trying to do, but it’s no use.

“The guys will want to see you, Poppy, Jack’s beating himself up about his shoulder, could use a friendly face.”

“Oh,” Poppy casts a glance back to Nico, and he gives her a nod, implying that she go see to her friend. “I’ll go find him.”

He can wait. He’s waited 4 days. He’s waited years, in fact.

And, after that kiss, he knows he won’t have to wait much longer.

“You’re a real dick, you know that?” Nico mutters in their shared native language once he’s watched Poppy disappear through the doors to the bar, with a quick glance back and an apologetic smile before they closed.

“Just saving my brooding captain from being arrested for public indecency,” Timo shrugs with a shit-eating grin as he passes Nico and heads toward the bathrooms further down the hall. “You’re welcome!” He calls back in English, raising his hands and giving a patronising thumbs up.

Nico runs a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face and wishing it was Poppy’s in its place.

It’s just an hour, maybe two, in the presence of his friends. Drinks, music, everyone in a good mood for the most part. It’s hardly like he’s walking out into a press conference after a 5 game losing streak and about to have all the blame placed upon his shoulders.

It’s a party.

Poppy’s here.

He can do this.

He can wait.

Next Chapter

taglist: @alwaysclassyeagle @bunbunbl0gs @idgaf-if-youre-here @youflowerr-youfeast @thearchersstuff @bellsdi0r @wonderheartz @jjgsunflower @butterflies35 @kenziepickle @josierosie @laheyxlover @mrsmattytkachuk (sorry if your tag hasn't worked btw or if I forgot you I'm a muppet tbh)

#nico hischier #nico hischier x oc #nico hischier fanfiction #nhl fanfiction #*writing #*oys #anywayyyy!!!!!!#sorry for the wait on this one I had poppy's half written really quick and then I couldn't figure out where to go with Nico's part #which is why the beginning is sort of rushed #and also the middle #and the end #I have a big chunk of the next chapter written so hopefully I can get that up soon #I keep trying not to say specific timeframes because do I ever meet them no #like I said Thursday night for this it's currently 2:30 Friday afternoon #so not !!that!! late but what a weird time to post I just want it out lmao #anyway if you ever read this far into my tags I say this not to spoil anything but to prepare you #the next chapter will be smut (potentially poorly written I will leave that up to you to decide)#omg I just remembered and have to include this because my manifestation powers are out of control #I wrote that little random fondue line before I left for my holiday last week and then within days the pics came out of him eating fondue #what should I write next who wants more workout vids I'll make it happen

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starry-bi-sky · 1 year ago

Text

Childhood Friends Au: Danny's in Gotham Again

when the wool is off your eyes you'll stop counting sheep at night cause you'll eat your fill of them during the daytime

A few weeks after Danny’s visit to Gotham, he buys an apartment in the city. It’s this little thing, a studio apartment on the same street he grew up in. In Crime Alley. When he tells his parents, they protest heavily. They don’t think it's safe. They think he should reconsider. There were plenty of apartments and places to live somewhere else. And what about college?

Danny doesn’t think he’ll go to college. He isn’t sure what he wants to do, now that being an astronaut is off the table. It’d be a waste of money to go without a goal in mind, he thinks. He says he’ll take a gap year and apply at one of the community colleges funded by the Wayne Corporation, possibly. It just wasn’t in the cards right now.

“If things get tough,” He says at dinner that night, “then I can talk to the Waynes. I’m friends with the family, remember?” He ended up getting Bruce’s number in his phone again before he left, and in the process got Tim’s as well. They don’t talk much, Danny isn’t sure what to say. But he sends Tim memes whenever he comes across one and thinks he’ll like. Tim sends memes back in return.

His parents do remember. They remember. They also remember the horrified shriek that echoed through the house when Danny learned of Jason’s passing. They remember running up the stairs and bursting into their son’s room and finding him sobbing into his bed, curled up like a little kid, like he was in pain. He lost his voice that day, stuck between screaming out his grief and sobbing it.

They’re still not sure if they should let him go.

In the end, Danny wins them out, and he lets them help him search for an apartment. They take a break from their lab work to help search for cheap furniture to buy. They may have more money than when they were in Gotham, but that frugal part of you never fully goes away. They all agree that they don’t want Danny to be seen carrying in nice-looking furniture when he moves in.

He ends up with a basic furniture set, all mismatched, and in the warm summer of June, his parents rent out a u-haul and drive him down to Gotham to move in. They meet the landlord when they arrive, a skinny and frail old man with wispy white hair and a wrinkled face. He gives Danny the keys and tells him what apartment number he is, and then he leaves.

His parents help him move in. They help him carry his heavy furniture up to the second floor, where his apartment is. Danny isn’t sure if he wants them to help. His mom and dad are strong, but they are getting old, closer to their fifties now that their children are grown. His dad’s hair is slowly beginning to thin, and rather than the white eating at the sides of his head, it now streaks through his hair like salt-and-pepper. His mom’s hair is graying out too, and there are more lines in their faces than he remembers there being.

When he voices his concerns, his mom laughs spiritedly and says that they may be getting old, but they are still as spry as when they were in their twenties. Danny isn’t sure if he believes them or not. He can see his dad struggle a bit when they return to get his bed frame, and they have to take a break before they go back down for the rest of their things.

Five years ago, his dad could do this without breaking a sweat. It forces a heavy thing in the back of Danny’s throat. (He is less afraid of his own death than he is of his loved ones, and while he has always felt rocky with his parents, he still loves them more than anything else.)

Danny’s apartment is exactly as he would have expected it to be: shabby and worn through. The entire room smells like stale cigarette smoke and weed, nicotine stains the wall with poorly covered bullet holes, and stains in the carpet that are a color he can’t discern. The fridge has a broken light and when he tries to turn on the gas stove, it click-click-clicks before lighting, fire fwooshing out while the smell of gas fills the air. There’s rat droppings in the cupboards and the closet-like bathroom is just as bad.

The ghostly part of him can sense the heavy stench of death in the room; people have died in this room. People have died in every room of this building, he thinks. They have died on the streets outside and in the alleys squeezed between them. He can feel it like a heavy fog in the air.

It is painfully nostalgic, a bittersweet feeling in his chest that he grimaces to.

When the last box is placed in his apartment, his parents offer to help unpack. They are hesitant to leave and Danny knows it, although he doesn’t know if it’s from empty nest syndrome or because it's Gotham. He thinks it might be both. He is their youngest child finally leaving home to a city known for its danger.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay behind, sweetie?” His mother asks, a frown she tries to hide settled in the creases of her face. She fiddles with her hands, a nervous habit Danny has since noticed when she feels truly unsure and doesn’t need to hide it. Hesitancy looms over her like a heavy cloud.

His dad jumps in hastily, splaying his hands and smiling painfully wide to hide the glistening in his eyes. “You’re mother’s right! We can help you get everything set up, champ. I could probably do something with that stove of yours to make it faster!” He says, his voice still booming like it always does even if there’s a stumble in his words.

It makes his heart squeeze, knowing just how much they care. It was hard last summer, telling him that he was the Phantom. Terrifying, actually. They couldn’t comprehend it. He hadn’t felt his heart beat that fast in years when he stood in front of them at the kitchen table and told them he was a halfa, begging them to believe that ghosts weren’t inherently evil.

His parents were people of science, however, and after much, much shock, they slowly came to terms with it. How could they not? The evidence was right in front of them. Their son was dead-alive, alive-dead. Somewhere stuck in the between. The tears they shed that night could fill a river, moving from the kitchen to the living room as Danny explains how he died.

(When Danny tells them that he died after a week Jason did, his mom and dad look horrified. His mom covers her mouth when he adds that it was his idea to go inside it, his dad looks ashy pale, gripping his pant legs so tight that his knuckles turn white. There is a conclusion coming to their minds that he can tell they don’t like.)

(“You’ve always hated our inventions, Danny.” Mom says in a hushed voice, and Danny winces at the wording, sinking into the back of the cushions in shame. He never thought that his parents noticed. Mom quickly grabs his arm, “No, no, there’s nothing to be ashamed of Danny. We were… perhaps too careless with our inventions, too enthusiastic. You had every right to hate the things we made when they had a tendency to… to malfunction.”)

(Malfunction is a delicate way of putting it, when Danny remembers every time they had to evacuate their old apartment complex because whatever half-baked creation his parents made inevitably blew up into ash and smoke. There were soot marks permanently stained into the ceiling.)

(Her hand slides down and grabs his, and she cups it in both of her hands, squeezing tightly. He forces himself to look up, and there is a look like her heart breaking when he looks into his mother’s eyes. “You’ve always avoided the lab after we moved, Danny. And you had every right to, so why on Earth did you ever think about going into the portal?”)

(Danny struggles to come up with an adequate answer, a way to verbalize what came over him that day five years ago. The answer is there, hanging in the air like a knot in a noose. He opens his mouth, and then closes it.)

(Finally, with a tongue made of lead, he shrugs lamely and looks away. “I didn’t know there was an on button inside it.” He mumbles, and despite being the truth it feels like a lie. But that is the truth. He didn’t know there was an on button inside it. So he didn’t care what happened.)

(Something dulls in mom’s eyes, like she thought of something else that Danny hadn’t said. Her eyes shimmer, and she squeezes them shut, breathing in so deep that it shakes. And then she pulls him into a hug, a hand burying into his hair and pressing him close. “It must have hurt so much, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”)

(It is something that Danny doesn’t expect her to say, like missing the last step of the stairs. It startles him so much he laughs this short, bark of a thing. He feels his dad press against his back and wrap his big arms around them, his nose pushed into his hair.)

(Because yeah. Yeah, it did hurt. It hurt more than anything else he’s ever felt before. It had torn him apart and sewn him back together again, only to rinse and repeat. The pain was nothing he ever spoke to Sam or Tucker about, and it was something they never brought up. No, that’s not true. If they ever brought it up, Tucker would call it a zap. As if Danny only experienced a mild static shock. Like it was painless. It’s a pretty lie that Danny lets him and Sam believe.)

(His eyes sting and water immediately wobbles into his vision, coming up with such a force that he doesn’t even need to blink before it spills over. “Yeah.” He forces out, voice unexpectedly rough and cracking. “Yeah, it- it hurt. A lot.”)

He tells them about fighting the Lunch Lady a month later. He tells them about finding Jason. It comes spilling out like a waterfall. “I found him, mom.” He says, holding onto her tight while she keeps him tucked under his chin like a little kid. The secret of Jason being Robin stays hidden under his tongue, it is not his secret to tell. Not his identity to expose. He grips her tighter. “I found him, mom. Right there in the Ghost Zone, and he was my Jason. He wasn’t an echo or a— an imprint of him.”

Mom is silent; quiet and attentive, and so is dad, who rubs his large hands up and down Danny’s spine in an attempt to soothe him. It only works a little. Danny breathes in like a gasp as the urge to cry overcomes him again. He always avoids talking about Jason, his grief is like a never-healing scab that can be picked off at any time. It is ingrained into his core.

“And then I lost him.” He forces out, a sob layering under his words that he chokes on and swallows. The hand on his back stills, and he can feel mom and dad breathe in like a question. He turns his head and pushes it into mom’s shoulder. “He disappeared, mom. Just— just gone.”

“And he didn’t move on.” He says, voice snarling like teeth biting before his mom can ask, because he knows that’s what she was going to ask. It’s what Sam and Tucker asked when he came to them in tears hours after he found Jason gone. It’s what Jazz said when he finally told her about it. It’s what every one of his ghosts asked when he told them about it and begged for their help.

Danny grits his teeth and tries not to dig his nails into mom’s clothes as a fresh wave of tears run down his face. “His haunt is still there. If Jason really moved on it would have disappeared with him. That’s how it works. But it’s still in the zone, so Jason’s out there I just don’t know where.”

(Sam once asks him why Danny didn’t just move on from it a year after Jason’s disappearance. She asked him why he didn’t give it up. Danny nearly saw red, and nearly bit her head off for it. It was incomprehensible to him to just stop looking for Jason, to give up. Not when he was out in the zone somewhere. Because he had to be in the zone.)

(Danny once tried to take Jason through the portal with him, and much like what happened to Kitty, it didn’t work. Jason was too tied to the ghost zone to leave.)

(Some bonds are just unbreakable, he thinks. Bonds forged through blood and time and trust, and when you’re on the streets of Gotham, you hoard what little trust you have in someone like a dragon with its gold. It is scarcely given and fiercely kept.)

“I’ve been looking for him.” Danny whispers when talking becomes too hard for him, when it runs the risk of him crying. “When- when I’m not fighting ghosts or, or in school or with my friends, I’ve been looking for him.” He has explored the Ghost Zone in every reach he can. He has met so many people. He’s met the ghosts of aliens from planets in every corner of the galaxy. He has met gods or god-like beings and their disciples.

He’s met famous scholars and writers (he’s gotten the autographs of all of Jason’s favorite writers). He has found entire cities that have so much life in it that it's been permanently etched into the ghost zone, like a mirror version of itself.

He’s visited the ghostly vision of Gotham so many times, and he avoids the imprint of Wayne Manor like the plague. There are ghostly newspapers that he reads. There are the ghosts of Martha and Thomas Wayne in many of them.

Jason’s haunt connects to Wayne Manor, but it is also the street they grew up in. It is a small brick building with a door that leads to Jason’s room. A ghost knows when someone enters their haunt, it alerts them like a doorbell in the back of their mind. A foreign ecto-signature in a place drenched in your own.

Danny visits it every time he goes into the Ghost Zone. It’s always his first stop.

He tells his parents all of it. He tells them of the ghosts he’s met, of the places he’s seen. And when he feels brave, he tells them about Rath and the terror that his future self brings him. He keeps some details hidden, the ones that he can afford to keep without muddling up the story.

(Rath is a tall, spindly thing, like a funhouse mirror version of Danny himself. He has arms that are much too long and legs that are much too tall, with skinny fingers that extend into claws.He wears his suit the same as Danny does, with it partially undone and the sleeves wrapped around his waist.)

(There is a black hole in his chest that is much bigger than Danny’s own. It takes up his chest cavity and drips the same, viscous black liquid as the tears falling from his eyes. Danny never forgets his voice; a scraping, quiet thing like he’s screamed himself hoarse. Rath has a voice like goosebumps, and it haunts Danny like a bump in the night.)

Danny speaks and speaks and speaks until he can’t think of anything else to speak of. He is tired and sad, and it feels like his heart has been ripped out and rubbed raw again. And yet, he also feels so much better. Like a long heavy weight has been taken off his chest.

Yeah, last summer was hard. His parents walked on eggshells around him, and they forced themselves to unlearn their bias of ghosts. It was more than Danny could have ever dreamed of, and when they felt ready for it, they asked him more about the ghost zone.

He smiles sadly at his dad, “I think fixing the stove can be a priority another time, dad.” He says, watching him wilt and his smile fall. Jack Fenton was always so good at making himself look like a kicked puppy. “I can handle unpacking by myself, I promise.”

His parents still look so unsure, like they want to argue. Danny watches his mom purse her lips tightly, confliction running across her face like a datastream. She takes dad’s hand, squeezing their fingers together despite the droop in her shoulders.

“Oh, alright then, I suppose.” She relents, her hand placing on Jack’s arm. “I guess we could go, we’re just going to miss you so much, Danny.”

Tears seem to have won over his dad, and Jack Fenton sniffs back before he can cry properly. “Our little boy, all grown up.” He says, voice wobbling. It makes Danny laugh, and it makes his heart pang. His smile grows impossibly wider and so much fonder. “You’ve become such a kind, wonderful young man, Danno. We’re so proud of you.”

Danny laughs again, and it cracks. “You’re gonna make me cry, dad.” (He feels a welling of guilt in his gut that he ignores — he doesn’t feel like a kind man. He doesn’t feel like a good one either. Not with what he plans to do.)

His father holds out his arms in hopefulness, “One last hug for your old man before we head out?” He asks, mustering up a smile on his face.

Danny barrels into him, nearly knocking his dad over with an oomph. He’s as tall as him now, but he still feels little in his bear hugs. With arms wrapping around his middle, Danny hugs his father tight and breathes him in one last time.

“Careful there, Danno.” He laughs, patting Danny’s back roughly. “You’ll break my ribs with that ghostly strength of yours!” But he holds on just as tight.

Out of spite, Danny bends back and lifts him off his feet, laughing when Jack tenses up and nearly scrambles out of surprise. His mom laughs with him, stepping back to give them room for the few seconds that dad is in the air.

When it’s his mom’s turn, Danny has to hunch to hug her. Something bittersweet to him as she plants a kiss on his forehead and says that he’ll always be her baby. “Even if you do have that horrid smoking habit.” She adds on with a disapproving eyebrow raise.

Danny turns red in embarrassment, and walks them back to the GAV. Gothamites of all kinds slow to stop and boggle at the monstrous, road-illegal thing that is parallel-parked next to the curbside. In the past, Danny would have died with mortification to be seen with it. Now it just makes him laugh. Before he goes back into the apartment building, he buys a newspaper from a nearby convenience store.

The first thing he does when he gets back up to his room is one: make a mental note to buy a bicycle chain lock for the door. The locks jiggle and there are splinters along the side that show signs of it being broken into in the past. The second thing he does is pull his cigarettes out of his pocket and light one.

Danny starts to unpack with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, placing the newspaper he bought onto the counter. He has a cheap loveseat that he pushes off to the side, and he moves the boxes into the kitchen. It’s a matter of organization that Danny has to think about before he does anything.

It’s as he’s pushing the sofa up against the wall facing the windows that his phone rings a familiar tune: Sam. The phone is fished out before he can think about it and when he stares down at the screen, he realizes it's a facetime call.

He presses answer and walks over to prop his phone up onto the counter. The smiling faces of Sam and Tucker greet him, rather than just Sam. Immediately, Danny grins. “Hey Danny.” Sam greets, smiling a dark-painted lazy thing. From the background it looks like they’re in Tucker’s room. Sam is in Tucker’s desk chair, and Tucker is behind her, leaning against it. “Have you moved in yet?”

Danny pulls the cigarette from his mouth and huffs, a cloud of smoke following his breath. “Yeah! It’s a shithole.” He grins lopsidedly, and his feet carry him off to the side to allow Sam and Tucker view of his apartment. He lets thirty seconds pass, allowing the both of them to really see the rest of the room. And then he steps back into frame.

Sam and Tucker both look like they’re trying not to look judgemental, like they’re trying to hide a grimace that Danny sees anyway with the small turns at the corner of their mouths. He grins wider, mirth filling his lungs. “I know, it looks awful doesn’t it?”

“It’s— it’s not so bad.” Sam says with a strain in her voice, a forced smile on her face that tries to be reassuring. Tucker nods along readily, and he looks just as unsure as Sam does. Danny stifles laughter behind his teeth.

“No, no, it looks bad,” He takes a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head. “You can say it, I won’t get offended. It’s a fucking apartment in crime alley. Of course it looks bad.”

Sam remains silent, a rearing of her stubbornness showing itself. Tucker takes a different approach, and heaves a dramatic sigh of relief, slumping like a weight. “Okay, you’re right. It looks bad.” He frowns, “Sorry, man.”

While Danny snorts, Sam sighs. “Yeah, it looks bad. What even are those stains?” She asks, and both she and Tucker lean closer in tandem to the screen, eyes squinting at the floor behind him. Danny glances at the floor, and shrugs.

“Blood, probably.” He says, and while years in Amity Park have accustomed him to a clean environment, the desensitization of Gotham still remains. Tucker and Sam both make faces and lean away, as if the stain itself was capable of passing through to them. “Yeah, there are bullet holes in the walls.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to be there?” Tucker asks, a furrow appearing between his brows. He adjusts his glasses and leans against the chair. Sam is frowning heavily, and Danny can already see her thinking up of a new way to fix the problem.

“Oh, I never said this place was safe.” Danny tells him cheerily, taking a last hit of his cigarette before placing the dead stick onto the counter. He itches for another one. Instead he walks over to the shelf his parents brought in and starts moving it. “It’s Crime Alley, Tuck. Safe isn’t even in its vocabulary.”

Tucker and Sam look like they’ve both swallowed a lemon.

“But it’s where I want to be right now.” He says, grunting quietly when the shelf is against the wall he wants it to be, near the short hallway leading to the front door. He can push it in front of it if someone tries to break in. “And Crime Alley’s apartments are the only ones I can really afford right now without mooching off my parents, and I’d rather not depend on them.”

He can hear the disapproving hesitance from where he stands. And he ignores it.

Danny walks back into frame, lifting up a box onto the counter. He hums lightly, fingers run over the tape keeping it shut. “Why do you even want to be in Gotham, Danny?” Sam asks, and she sounds genuinely perplexed. Danny stills. “I thought this place only had bad memories for you.”

His blood turns cold, and like a dime being flipped his slow heartbeat fills his ears. “It does.” He replies automatically, before he can think. Shit, shit. He knows that Sam or Tucker would ask that question, and yet he still feels unprepared for it. His heart pulses quickly against his ribcage, knocking, asking him what he’s going to tell them that isn’t the truth.

Danny stammers, “I mean— I just— I guess I felt nostalgic.” He says, and it sounds like a weak defense. He looks away, finding himself instinctively scratching his jaw. A new tick of his when he’s nervous. From the corner of his eye, he sees Sam and Tucker both narrow their eyes at him.

He cannot tell them the real reason why he’s moved back to Gotham. He can’t tell them of the little secret and vow he told himself five years ago, the one that’s been left to fester and burn like an open wound close to his core. The one that, if he thinks too much about it, sends a searing hot electricity through him, filling him from crown to toe top-full of direst wrath.

(Danny was always the angrier one in the duo of Jason and Danny. He was always the one with glass in his mouth, cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world around them. His knuckles had more blood and bruises on it than skin, once upon a time. All because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He has grown from it, that fury has turned to a small simmering candle.) (But sometimes, sometimes it rears its head, and electricity will buzz under Danny’s skin. There is lightning before the thunder, the second before a fist pulled to punch lands, the spark before it becomes a blaze.)

He stumbles over his words, and then sighs long and low, drooping his head. “I… was thinking that I can’t avoid this place forever.” He says, and the best lies always have the truth in it. Because it’s not a lie, not completely. But it’s not close enough to the truth either. “And that maybe if I came back, I’d be able to do something about those bad memories. Make them better or make it hurt less.”

Like wool over their eyes, it fools Sam and Tucker. Their narrowed eyes soften, and Danny feels like a snake is in his lungs as they both adopt their own versions of gentleness on their faces. “Oh, Danny.” Sam breathes out, and the snake squeezes, “Of course, we understand.”

Tucker nods, smiling at him. “Yeah, bro, that’s really brave of you. I know it can’t be easy coming back.” He says, “Maybe you can reconnect with the Waynes again, you always thought well of Mister Wayne whenever you came back from visiting.”

Danny smiles weakly, the gesture cutting into his cheeks like a knife. Perhaps he could. He was still upset with Bruce for hiding Jason’s killer from him. But he doesn’t hate him. Maybe five years ago, he did, when the death of Jason was still fresh in his mind and freshly bleeding in his heart. Now he just doesn’t know what to think of him. He was Batman. Jason was Robin, and the Joker killed Robin.

It would need to be something he’d have to speak to Bruce about in person, he thinks, in order to resolve it. To hear his judgment on it and make an opinion from there. Danny has learned in the last five years, much to Jazz’s smug delight, that talking to people about something he was upset about did make him feel better.

The conversation slips on from there into something more light, more breathable. And while they talk, Danny unpacks. He sets up his bed in the corner of the room, adjacent to the windows, and unpacks his cheap TV and table stand. It’s directly across from the couch, in front of the windows. He puts up knicks and knacks he’s collected over the years on the shelves.

When he puts up the curtains, he notices that more than one frame jiggles loosely. Sam makes a comment on the musty stains permanently dyed into the glass, and Danny talks about getting something to fix the cracks. Gotham winters can get brutal, and even if he can withstand the cold, doesn’t mean everything else in his apartment can.

“Oh, watch this.” He says halfway through unpacking, and pulls out a stick of thick white chalk from a box. “This is something I learned from Clockwork a while back; I think he knew I was going to move to Gotham.” He grins sillily, popping into the camera frame to show them. “I wonder how?”

Sam rolls her eyes, smiling while Tucker huffs. “It’s not like he’s the Master of Time and can see all past, present, and future.” Tucker snarks.

Danny hums lightly, curt like he isn’t sure he believes Tucker, and walks to a piece of bare wall not yet blocked by furniture. He starts to draw on it. The chalk shimmers with faint ectoplasm on the wall.

“Uhh…” Tucker’s voice cuts through, “Are you sure you should be doing that? Won’t you get in trouble for that?”

“There are bullet holes in the plaster, Tucker.” Danny retorts dryly, arching his hand to make a big circle. “I don’t think the landlord is gonna care if I get washable chalk on his walls.” Inside the circle, he inscribes the symbols of the Infinite Realms. “I don’t think he’d be able to see it anyways, he was really old.”

When he is done, Danny steps back to admire his work. It’s not bad, he thinks, for a lack of practice. He tosses the chalk off to the side, it lands on the couch and rolls back into the cushions. Ectoplasm heats under his hand, slowly glowing from his fingertips before stretching down the rest of his palm.

Danny’s fingers press against the wall, into the center of the circle. The result is immediate, ectoplasm is siphoned off his hand and into the circle. It glows, and then swirls. He steps off to the side for Sam and Tucker to watch its transformation. The circle fills with a swirling pool of ectoplasm, like a smaller version of the basement portal, and then it warps and stretches.

It fills out a rectangular shape, shifting like taffy being pulled this way and that, before settling into a solid shape. It solidifies, and instead of a wall there is a glowing purple door, warped in nature and seemingly shifting like a trick of the eyes. He can hear the gentle hum of the zone standing next to it, and can see the carving of the circle in the wood.

He gestures dramatically, grinning from ear to ear. “Ta-da~” He sings, “A door to my haunt! For whenever I feel like visiting it.” He pats the wood, making a strange thunk-thunk sound. “And then watch this.”

Danny touches the circle again, and the door twists and recedes like water going down a drain. The circle flashes bright green, and then fades into nothing on the wall, invisible to the naked eye. “I can hide it whenever I want! So if I ever invite someone over—” which he doubts, “—I won’t have to worry about them asking, ‘Hey Danny? Why is there a creepy fucking door in your studio apartment?’”

He gets a pair of laughs for his efforts, and Danny grins wider.

Sam and Tucker have to end the call when Danny is nearly done unpacking, leaving him alone with only his thoughts and the Gotham ambience outside. There were only a few boxes left, and they promise to call him tomorrow. He tells them that they better keep that promise.

The silence that follows after they leave feels somberly, as if the reality of moving in has finally set in and filled the air with its loneliness. With its change. Finally, Danny lets the strangeness of moving back to Gotham hit him when he reaches the last box, and he stops to take another smoke break to let it settle.

It feels so strange to be back in Gotham, he thinks. He’s all grown up, or almost grown up. He can vote and pay taxes, but he doesn’t feel much older than he was at fourteen. There’s a disconnect that makes him feel sad.

There are cars running outside, driving by. He can only catch glimpses of them, his apartment faces an alleyway. There are dogs barking in the distance, strays he bets. It’s already dark out, and he wonders if he looks out the window he would see the bat-signal shining through the night and staining the permanent cloud that hangs over Gotham.

Bruce would be so disappointed if he learned the reason for Danny’s return to Gotham. But Danny’s not here for him. He’s here for someone far more important. And like that, the simmering anger that has tucked itself into the furthest corners of his heart starts slipping through. His heart has teeth, ready to strike and snarl and bite.

He crushes the cigarette in his hand and throws it away. When he opens the last box, it is with hands that tremble and with a face of stone. With a delicateness he does not feel, he reaches in and pulls a corkboard from the box. On the corner frame is a small, near inconspicuous carving of another ghost rune.

Danny hangs it up on an empty space on the wall, out of sight from the window. It’s plain, and he has nothing to pin to it. He presses the small rune on the corner, pushing ectoplasm into it. Unlike the door, it does not twist and warp and shape itself into something new. Instead it bursts into green flame, eating away at the board and revealing the same thing underneath it, just in dark blue-black-purple.

Now this board, this board Danny has something to pin to it. The newspaper he bought earlier sits abandoned on the counter, and Danny unrolls it with something like viciousness in his chest. On the front page is an image of a damaged street, and above it is titled: “JOKER STRIKES AGAIN, 3 DEAD AND 27 INJURED”

Danny rips out the first page, he rips out every mention of him. His hands shake and threaten to crumple the paper as he turns back to the board, there is hot blood pounding in his ears. There is an impending sense of finally in his chest, like a setting sun giving the stage to a starless night. There is a stern set in his jaw, five years of festering rage rushing forth like a tidal wave, threatening to make his vision swim.

It would be so easy, he thinks, to go out as Phantom right now and hunt the clown down. It would only take a night. All it would take is a night, and then he could sink his hands into the Joker’s chest and rip out his heart where he stood. It would be so easy.

The thought alone forces Danny to stop as he is hit with another rush of fury, really making his head and vision swim. Thorny vines wrap around his throat, making it hard to breathe. He stares at a spot on the wall until the shaking passes.

If he wants to be discreet about this, then he can’t do it now. Even if he wants to. He doesn’t want witnesses. He doesn’t want an audience. He made a mistake, telling Red Hood about his plan. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking at all. But he can only hope that the Hood hasn’t mentioned it to Bruce. He knows it hasn’t been long since they started working together. He hopes that the Hood has already forgotten about it.

He pins the newspaper clippings onto the black-blue-board, and stands back. It’s bare now, but it won’t be forever.

He presses the circle again, and the pinboard reverts back to its original blank state.

-----

Was I expecting to make a third part?? No. No I was not. I was also not expecting to make an entire google doc filled with summaries for short story ideas about this au that all tie into each other so that way if i DO continue this i have a skeleton pathway to follow rather than making everything up from scratch and potentially cornering myself

you can find this on ao3 or on tumblr 1 2 :)

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dpxdc crossover #childhood friends au #cw swearing #cw smoking #im calling them short stories bc if i call them chapters i might intimidate myself #fun fact every single chapter will have a crane wives lyric on it i am DETERMINED #i hope yall are subscribed to this on ao3 bc i almost didnt post this on tumblr #the fentons being good parents were a surprise to me too but also i never really planned on them being BAD parents #okay so they appear as negligent in the first post but we'll just call that a plothole #i had the idea that danny was the angrier one out of the duo earlier today and it felt like an epiphany #there's no guarantee of a next part but yk immm kinda hoping there is #on the docs the ending bullet point for this chapter was #'make it feel like a tv show where the seemingly inconspicuous and friendly character has something sinister up their sleeve'#WE know that danny's not inconspicuous in the least he's been thinking of this murder for the last five years. but nobody but red hood know #i had to come up with a in-story reason why danny doesnt kill the joker NOW but my out-of-story excuse is: there'd be no tension otherwise #its about the BUILD UP. Its about the RISING TENSION. Its about KNOWING that danny is planning to kill the Joker but you dont know WHEN #its about knowing that something is going to explode but never knowing when #i made the doc yesterday and spent my entire pluralism for educators class going thru the crane wives albums and looking up the lyrics and #matching them to the *checks doc* 18 short story prompts i have prepared #i am still missing one :((#its the tim and danny story and i have NOTHING PLANNED FOR THEM. i cant think of a thing for them to bond over :(( so i cant match a CW son #even DICK has a story and that was also a surprise #my favorite lines: He was always the one with glass in his mouth cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world #aND danny slapping his door like a used car salesman and going 'now people wont ask why i have a creepy fucking door in my studio aptm :)'

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filmnoirsbian · 9 months ago

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What Comes From Picking Flowers Part 10 (part one)

#what comes from picking flowers #previously known as #misery's wife #id in alt text #my writing #patreon #ahhh penultimate part!! on account of the last chapter being so long.#the final part will be posted at the beginning of next month :') such a bittersweet moment for a story i initially thought would #be like 10 pages and take me two days to write.....#tcp

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celestie0 · 7 months ago

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im really sorry w the delay on kickoff u guys :(( this is the longest break i've had between chapters n i feel so bad ab it but honestlyyy i'm just. idk. i got really insecure w my writing all of a sudden out of nowhere n it's like i'm fighting an uphill battle trying to write this chapter SDKFHSDJKF but. i'm working on it here n there :''') SORRY IVE GOT ANXIETY MY MIND IS A PRISON but i'd reaallyyy like to get it out next week

anyways ty guys sm for patiently waiting n continuing to engage w the story even though it's been so long w an update 😭😭 u guys r too sweet to me

#idk i keep thinking that the next chapter is kinda boring lmfao #but last chapter was pretty eventful so it's okay if it's a little boring yknow??#is what i'm trying to tell myself #like...there will be more eventful chapters and some less eventful ones #and that's okay #that's a part of life dare i say #lol im having a therapy session w myself in tags rn #kickoff #ch11 will probs be more exciting #and ch12 will be pretty exciting #and ch13 is UGGHHH i just wanna get to chapter 13 alr i've been so excited to write it 😭😭 i just wanna skip to it LOL

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fallowfrog · 2 years ago

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aww yeah jojo time

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo part 9 #jojolands #the jojolands #jodio joestar #jojo fanart #the jojolands fanart #jojolands fanart #i read the first chapter last night and he is SUCH a 15 yr old #araki definitely studied my little brothers for inspiration LMAO #i'm super excited for the next chapter even tho it comes out next month #gives me time to shitpost KNASJKAH

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clockwork-ashes · 2 months ago

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Something Lonesome - Part I (a few times more)

Read also on Ao3 :)

Summary: Elain dies when she’s thrown into the cauldron, but she doesn’t stay dead for long. Over and over, again and again, something brings her back, and every time she finds her way to Lucien.

Note: This is a romance, but it’s also just a story about Elain. There will be a happy ending <3 Also, completely dedicated to the lovely @nocasdatsgay because I have so many ideas and every time I yell them into the tumblr void (the tags) she has something nice to say <3

Elain watched as Feyre’s blood flowed between the grooves of the stone tiles. Steady like a lazy river, just as mesmerising as the waters that danced in the Cauldron.

She heard the strangled moan Nesta made in response, a tortured, animalistic sound. The gag in her own mouth was soaked through with tears, damp as it cut into her cheeks.

Rhysand howled in pain, almost as if the King of Hybern had taken a knife to his heart instead. Elain wished he had.

Just as the soldiers hauled her into the air, she locked a terrified gaze onto the warrior whose eyes were made of sunlight. She felt as if she had seen them before, known them as surely as her reflection when she looked in the mirror.

He took a measured step, purposeful. His broad hand was on the jewelled sword at his side, and Elain knew he would have been a sight to behold wielding the weapon. She was thrown into the whirling waves suddenly, pulled under by a force so strong, fighting against it would have been impossible. Darkness clouded her vision, but the map of a vicious scar lingered bright as day for the briefest of moments, lovely.

* * *

“Put the prettier one in first,” the king said, his voice ringing from where he sat on his throne. Elain wanted to rip out his dark eyes, wished to feel skin and blood and tears beneath the crescent moons of her nails.

Nesta hadn’t stopped fighting, and Elain hadn’t stopped shaking in fear. There was a part of her that knew there was an inevitability to it all, a sixth sense warning her not to even try. It felt deeply rooted, connected to her like a tree was to the ground it grew from.

The red haired man spoke, tilting the world on its axis. His voice was as rich as melted gold, bright as the arrow of light Elain swore she saw arching towards her. “Stop this,” he said roughly, the demand echoing when no one listened.

Elain could still hear the two simple words as she was shoved into the Cauldron, tripping over the edge of the ancient object, sinking until all she could see was darkness.

* * *

Moonlight always looked like sunshine on the darkest nights, Elain knew. Each bright ray cutting across the sky, forcing all the stars to fade away. She liked how a path sometimes appeared over water, endless, not even stopping when it reached the horizon. When Elain had been a girl, she’d often wonder if there was a way to walk across the phantom bridge, could close her eyes and imagine it clear as glass.

* * *

Elain went into the darkness willingly, knowing it like an old friend.

Darling.

Cold waters hugged her like welcoming hands, gentle.

Stay.

Only once, Elain wanted to know what might happen if she asked the darkness to wait.

#acotar #acomaf #a court of thorns and roses #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #elucien #mentions of feyre and rhysand and nesta #elain archeron x lucien vanserra #ashes writes sometimes #something lonesome #thank you for reading <3 #next chapter is the last time we see part i lol

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ssreeder · 5 months ago

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Chapters: 20/? Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), others to be tagged later - Relationship Characters: Sokka (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar), Aang (Avatar), Katara (Avatar), Toph Beifong, Jet (Avatar), Suki (Avatar), Kyoshi Warriors (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar), Jee (Avatar), Hakoda (Avatar), Bato (Avatar), A bunch of OCs, Long Feng, Joo Dee (Avatar), Azula (Avatar), Mai (Avatar), Ty Lee (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar), General Fong (Avatar) Additional Tags: Violence, Blood and Injury, War, Minor Character Death, Rape/Non-con Elements, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Attempted Sexual Assault, Major Character Injury, Amputation, Implied/Referenced Suicide, possible major character death, themes similar to the first two books, Sexism, Racism (like has already been written in first two books), dark themes, Human Trafficking, Slavery, Just a lot of dark war-like themes, there will be a battle, Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Injury Recovery, Healing, Underage Sex, Underage Drinking, Animal Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Warnings each chapter, Hopefully some healing for Zuko finally, no promises, but that’s the goal, Reunions, hopefully a happy ending, Sokka gets some healing too, Non-Consensual Drug Use Series: Part 3 of Leaving It All Behind Summary:

-This is the last book of the series LIAB, please go read the other two books before this, or you will be very confused-

Zuko has been taken by the Earth Kingdom army to who-knows-where, and Sokka is determined to get him back.

But he can’t do it alone.

With Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors by his side, Sokka is headed to Ba Sing Se to find Katara and Aang so they can go rescue his fire bender.

Things aren’t as easy as he had hoped. Corruption, lies, and unknown horrors await them inside the city’s walls. None of this is helping Sokka’s mental well-being.

Hakoda and his men face a problem of their own as Azula approaches with the intentions of making it rain fire.

Sokka and Zuko will both find themselves having to reintegrate back into a life they thought they left behind, with people they hardly remember. It isn’t easy for anyone, especially when they don’t recognize the person standing in front of them.

#UGHHHH posting chapters makes me nervous #but here it is!! Part two of last chapter a month later #hehehe oops #but anyway I hope you enjoy #There is a lot going on haha #so… good luck #it should still be a fun and light chapter before uhhh next one #If You’re angry about the cliff hanger #it’s not my fault #blame someone else :):):):)#like zuko #it’s super easy to blame him!!#as always heed the tags #zukka #leaving it all behind #into the fire #ITF

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lunarharp · 1 year ago

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thingies

#witch hat tag #orufrey #nother small post (it's not small..) meek post. mild post #sensei QRTed the last one with a sweet message and made my week <3 #drawn bc she randomly announced that originally qif & eas were going to be more openly hostile with each other #but she decided after feedback that qifrey would. Restrain himself now he has children in his life.#like pikachu with togepi in pikachu's vacation. She didn't say that part #just love that since i always say i see them as having this kind of autistic warfare expressed in ways other than actual fighting #since their youths. but i guess we don't know how much they had to interact as kids #i just know they're both opposite ends of Autistic Kids: one do-gooder kid who gets REALLY irked when others dont follow The Rules #and the non-verbal autistic kid who IS one push away from actually biting people #Sometimes autistic people shouldnt be friends.#anyway why did she randomly state this now of all times. Are they interacting in the next chapter. But why.#the next chapter scares me. a teaser piece of art she posted is like.....What is actually going to happen here.#What is going to happen .#anyway hope all fans of my silly drawings are doing well out there

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ofmdee · 2 months ago

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💙🔹💙

#mine #ts4 #sims 4 #the sims 4 #simblr #sims #ofmd #gentlebeard #ofmd sims #happy friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#i am almost finished putting together the next chapter of my fic i think??? wild #work was rly slow this week so i had a lot of down time and i actually wrote??????#and ive been taking pics too so like #just gotta do a lot of editing and wrapping stuff up #oh its been exactly a month since i posted the last part huh #for some reason it does not feel that long lmfao

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shou-jpeg · 1 year ago

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-Back on the Beat-

Part 4. 05

November 26th, 11:49am

Kim feels like his heart is in his throat.

He and Chay arrived at the gardens a few minutes ago, Chay leading the way across the road towards the North entrance.

Kim may lack confidence when it comes to this thing between them, but he isn’t a complete idiot. He’s pretty sure that he knows why Chay wanted to bring him here, and the anticipation is torture.

He wishes Chay would just ask him out already.

Or kiss him.

Or hold his hand.

Or flip the script and tell him to fuck off forever.

Something.

Instead, Chay heads over the bridge at Marigold Gate and picks a flower from the garden.

Kim follows a few steps behind.

They walk along the path together, heading towards the Japanese gardens. Kim isn’t sure if Chay has a destination in mind, so he just follows where Chay leads them.

It feels like an eternity waiting for Chay to start talking. They pass flower beds, trees and little lakes with toros and bridges. Chay spins his flower around and fiddles with the leaves. He looks like he has a lot on his mind.

Kim wonders if maybe he's supposed to start the conversation... but Chay is the one who asked him here, so Chay should he the one to begin talking, right?

They're entering into the English garden and Kim is becoming more and more unsure if Chay is waiting for him to say something when Chay finally looks over at him.

“I’ve been thinking a lot, p’Kim.” Chay starts. “I feel trapped where I am right now; with the compound, and the guards and always being watched by someone and the casual talk of violence and illegal things all the time. But… I feel like I’m becoming more and more used to how things are now... and it doesn’t make me as uncomfortable as it used to. I can’t imagine my life going back to how it was anymore, and I don’t think I would want it to if I had the choice. I used to want it to, but I don’t anymore.”

Chay looks back down at the flower in his hands, spinning it gently.

“What changed?” Kim asks. He knew Chay was feeling uncomfortable and a little displaced, but he thought it was mostly about what happened between them, and Chay trying to figure out what he wanted for his future and Porsche being so busy and less available. It never really occurred to him that Chay might also be feeling uncomfortable with his sudden proximity to the mafia. Kim is used to this world, he forgot how scary it can be for people who aren’t.

“Honestly? It was a bit of everything, but it was largely p’Kinn.”

Kim looked at him incredulously. “Kinn?”

“Yeah. We don’t talk much and I still find him a little intimidating... but hia is so happy with him that it’s hard to wish for things to be different. It was recognising that I didn’t want that to change for him that helped me feel more comfortable where I am right now. Then p’Khun’s fun and kindness, Arm and Pol, Nok and the other guards who are nice to me… and my relationship with you… And as much as I miss how things were, hia and I didn’t have it easy and he sacrificed a lot trying to provide for us and to keep us safe.” Porchay frowned down at his flower. “Maybe what I want for the future is to also help keep people safe, not just help them… but… I don’t know… what sort of career keeps people safe that doesn’t risk my own safety? I don’t want to put myself in danger if I can help it.”

Porchay seems to be going along a mental journey as much as they’re going along a physical one. They make their way along the path past the geodesic dome as Porchay rips one of the leaves off his stolen marigold, the water of the lake reflecting the midday sunlight and the pavilion in the distance.

Kim hums, encouraging Chay to continue.

“Mmm I don’t know. But maybe you can help me brainstorm and figure it out, p’Kim? I could use someone to bounce ideas off of.”

Kim nods. “Yeah, of course.”

Chay smiles at him before continuing. “I still don’t know what I want to do with university yet, but I do know some things I want.” Chay walks along the lake to a bushy area with a gazebo, stopping to lean against the side of it. Kim follows him, unsure where to stand and ending up placing himself awkwardly in front of where Chay leans.

“I want to keep making music, even if it’s not what I want to pursue professionally anymore. I want you to come to the family dinners more often. Your brothers miss you, and it’s nice having you there.

"I want to get to know p'Kinn more and build a relationship with the person who's so important to my brother.

“I want to figure out a way to move out of the compound. If that means I have to learn how to fight and take a couple guards with me then okay, but I hate living there so much…” Chay looks away and mumbles a low ‘sorry.’ Kim doesn’t mind. Chay is right: the compound is a fucking nightmare. Kim doesn’t miss it when he’s not there.

Chay takes a deep breath. He stands up straight and raises his hand, bringing it up to tuck the marigold behind Kim’s ear. Kim’s breath catches, heart stuttering along with Chay’s movements. “I want you to be a part of my future too, p’Kim, if you still want to be.” He moves his hand back down, catching Kim’s on his way and holding his hand gently. “Maybe we could try going on a proper date? I’ll let you buy me boba tea.” He smiles, shy and playful. Kim’s heart feels like it’s about to hop right out of his chest and drown itself in the lake. Or join Chay’s in his chest. “And then maybe, afterwards, we can decide if we want to put a label to this?”

Kim swallows, looking out at the lake so he doesn’t have to keep looking into Chay’s sparkling eyes.

Fuck. This is everything he wants... and this is what he'd been expecting from this outing... and yet he can’t seem to get his words working.

He looks back at Chay, still gently holding his hand and smiling at him fondly. He reaches up to touch the flower behind his ear, words still escaping him.

Chay doesn’t seem to mind, though. Reading the answer on his face. His smile grows slowly, then he giggles lightly and tugs on Kim’s hand to get him to move, leading him a few steps back towards the path. “You’re so cute, p’Kim.”

Kim frowns. How is he cute?

Chay tugs him along further, insistently, grinning at him with a light blush on his cheeks.

“Com’on, com’on,” he laughs. “You can think about how to tell me 'yes' while we go look at the cacti.”

Kim touches the flower in his hair again. "Porchay… I.. "

"Mm?"

"Uh... I... Chay..." Kim takes a breath, "I think this flower might actually be a peony." Kim doesn't know what he's saying.

Chay stops in his tracks.

Kim laughs.

< Prev - Epilogue >

First

Playlist

#kinnporsche #kimchay #kim theerapanyakul #porchay kittisawasd #porchay pachara #back on the beat #i want you bach au #i want you bach au part 4 #CAN YOU BELIEVE NEXT WEEK IS THE LAST CHAPTER???#because next week is the last chapter #)':#i think ive looked at this garden so much i could navigate it irl with my eyes closed #porchay wondering when marigolds and peonies and kim are going to stop bullying him

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tennessoui · 5 months ago

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PLEEASSEEE I know the council is TIRED OF THEM LMAOOOO. You find out your personal friend and fellow council member is DYING from LOVE for his former PADAWAN and his former padawan is like chewing on cables. You had no idea any of this was happening. Your friend and colleague could’ve died and you had zero clues. You were looking at spreadsheets.

Jedi council finds out because they send obi-wan get well soon flowers when they hear he’s in recovery from some sort of illness and then anakin Falls lmao

#asks #hanahaki au #no no I also know the Jedi council is a tag on the characters line of the fic still #they were supposed to have a bigger part #but they will be coming in on the last chapter #wait not last the next one lmao #I’m incoherent befor coffee obviously

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shady-tavern · 2 years ago

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Vampire’s Lullaby Part 2

Part One

Warnings for implied harm and death that happen off-screen. Otherwise, this chapter turned out to be rather soft.

***

The morning came, pale and peaceful and nothing was amiss. If anything, when she passed by the other hunters of their street on her way to work, they were in good spirits. They wished Dion a speedy recovery and told her to talk to them if she or her family needed anything.

She did not walk too fast, as she did all mornings now since saving the monster boy, making sure the shop was bathed in pale light by the time she arrived. It was almost strange, how normal everything was. She set the shop up as usual and greeted Mr. Bell when he arrived.

She had half expected things to go wrong, for some kind of punishment to come down upon her head for mingling with night creatures. Or that the vampire herself was going to do anything. But nothing.

The day passed like any other and that night the vampire was back once more, sitting on the roof and keeping watch. They spoke with each other for a moment and the vampire was polite and even friendly. Annabelle once again fell asleep to soft singing and woke to pale morning light, everyone she knew safe and sound.

A week passed in this manner and Annabelle started to look forward to the nights a little. To how quiet it had become and to the soft bit of conversation she shared with the vampire.

Right up until Mr. Bell sharply called her name during work, startling her out of her focused work.

Hurrying out of the back, she drew to a stop when she saw the man standing on the other side of the counter. Dressed in expensive, embroidered brocade, a necklace heavy with emeralds hanging about his throat and buttons gleaming golden. He must be one of the nobles and he looked very impatient.

His attitude did not improve as they took his order. The baron, as he introduced himself, was less than eager to be here, but apparently he needed to get something done fast and they had been recommended to him. He promised a pay hefty enough that Annabelle nearly gasped out loud and left them with a handful of gems he wanted to be part of the front cover.

"You're a true treasure," Mr. Bell whispered as soon as the baron had left, getting into an equally gleaming and elegant carriage, drawn by two snow-white horses. "You worked so hard even the upper crust heard of us."

Annabelle felt a small, hysterical giggle escape before she bit back the rest. Mr. Bell and she stared at each other, before they both started grinning and bustled into the back, chattering back and forth as they rapidly got to work.

If this man was satisfied or even happy with his order, they might get more expensive clientele. Mr. Bell was singing a cheerful song that usually was usually heard in taverns over an ale and Annabelle joined in, neither of them caring that they were not great singers in the least.

The day passed far too fast and even though Mr. Bell stayed until the final bell of the evening, they weren't quite done with the baron's order yet. The baron wanted to retrieve his book first thing in the morning and while such an order would have been nearly impossible for anyone else, they really wanted to get it done.

"We best get going," Mr. Bell said with great reluctance. "I'm sure we can finish it at dawn."

Annabelle glanced down at the book, then outside, gauging the position of the sun. "I'll finish up and run home," she said. "It should be done in just a few more minutes, right? Half an hour at most, it will still be bright enough that not many night creatures are out and about."

Mr. Bell hesitated, then sighed, "If you are sure?" At her nod he grabbed his things. "Alright, but don't come in first thing in the morning, understood? You deserve to sleep in after all this. And no matter what, your life is more important than money, understood? If you get worried or scared, go home right away."

She couldn't help but smile and nodded, focusing back on the book as he left. It was going to be a beautiful piece, made of dark green, thin leather, embossed with gold letters and decorated with the gems the baron had left them with.

When she was finally done, feeling satisfied and her back cracking as she straightened, she looked up and felt her heart drop into her stomach. It was pitch-dark outside.

How? How had she gotten so lost in her work that she had missed the way light had disappeared, only replaced by the lanterns and candles Mr. Bell had left on. Her mouth turned dust dry.

There was no way she'd get home safe. Maybe, if she was really, really quiet, managed to extinguish all light and hid under her desk, no night creature noticed her in here. Maybe she could hide here and hold out until morning.

The tinkle of the bell of the front door made her flinch and startle onto her feet. Had Mr. Bell not looked the door? Had he left the lights on out in the shop as well?

"Hello?" a woman's voice called out, curious and a little befuddled. "I saw the lights on, are you still in?"

It took her a second to recognize the voice over her panic and pounding heart. It was the vampire she had asked for help. What was she doing here?

"You didn't return home," the vampire continued and Annabelle heard the muffled sound of steps, as though the night creature was walking slowly up and down the shop. "If you are done for the day, I will wait outside for you. Unless you'd like to walk home alone?"

And be eaten? Surely not. "Thank you," she found herself saying, her pounding heart finally easing a bit.

"I told you I'd look after you and yours," the vampire said and Annabelle heard the tinkle of bells. "Those books are beautiful, by the way."

Then the vampire was gone and she exhaled in a rush, sagging a bit as tension drained out of her. Her hands shook a little when she rubbed them over her face, before she reached for her shawl.

She was scared to go outside, but she couldn't stay here. If she stayed, so did the vampire and then who would look after her family? Extinguishing all the lights, she wrapped the shawl tightly around herself and stepped outside.

Nerves made her hands a bit clumsy as she locked the door, glancing around. It was quiet and no street lights were lit in the crossroads, since no one lived here and the city had considered it a waste of resources. It took her a moment to notice the large shadow in the dark, wings half unfolded for balance as the vampire crouched on the ledge of a roof.

"I'm ready," she whispered, shoulders tense and heart still pitter-pattering nervously. She tried to calm down, taking a few deep breaths until she felt less like she was going to scream in fright at the next thing that moved too fast and too unexpectedly.

When she started walking, the vampire followed easily above her. It was surprisingly calm all around and she neither heard nor saw anything. The vampire didn't have to snarl or hiss, just paused once and tensed, clacking her claws warningly against shingles, then moved on like nothing had happened.

It made her wonder how powerful the vampire must be, to so easily command the space she walked through. By the time Annabelle hurried down the main road towards home, she felt...safe. Unexpectedly so, considering she was outside in the dark.

The other hunters of their street were worried and glad to see her, escorting her to the front door of her home and reprimanding her for staying out so long.

"You were very lucky," a rough looking woman said, the one Dion always chatted with while waiting for the sun to disappear. "What would I have said your brother if you got yourself killed while he's not there?"

"It won't happen again," she promised, before the door swung open and her ashen faced mother dragged her inside and into a hug.

Annabelle endured the scolding and worrying of her family and after a quick dinner, she excused herself. She hesitated, then opened the window.

"Miss Vampire?" she whisper-called, leaning forward a bit.

When the vampire appeared, upside down, between one moment and the next, she bit back a startled scream by the skin of her teeth. Instead she inhaled sharply and flinched back a step, pressing her heart over her chest.

"Was that necessary?" she found herself gasping out, glaring at the vampire who tilted her head, mouth opening into an impish grin and wings twitching. "You're impossible." She took a calming, deep breath. "But, thank you, for bringing me home safe."

The vampire chittered at her almost softly, then waved a hand towards her bed in a shooing motion.

But Annabelle was a bit too awake now to consider sleeping. Instead she lit a candle and glanced between the clothes she had to mend and the book she had intended to read. With a soft sigh she reached for thread and needle first. Work before pleasure, her parents had always said.

A tap of claws against iron made her glance over and the vampire was gesturing at the book. Did she wish to read it? Annabelle hesitated, then picked it up.

"Return it to me before you leave," she said as she walked to the window. "Treat it well, please. Books mean a great deal to me."

The vampire took the book with visible care and disappeared. Annabelle turned back to her sewing, when she heard the vampire's voice, clear and close enough that she must be right above the window on the roof. Reading the book out loud.

Annabelle sat still for a long minute, then she found herself smiling a little and started to sew. Two chapters in however, the vampire had clear opinions on the book.

"Is this considered romantic?" her voice was full of disbelief and offense. She pitched her voice, re-reading a sentence she had just read out loud, "'Not to say you aren't beautiful, however this hair style simply does not match you.' Who asked for this fool's opinion?"

Annabelle had to bite back a startled laugh and she couldn't help but agree. The book was dreadful. However, as the vampire continued reading it genuinely got better from there. Not because the book got better, but because those affronted comments were quite funny and very amusing.

The vampire got increasingly more offended at the contents of the book and Annabelle found herself laughing at last, quickly clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound.

"I'll bring you one of my books," the vampire groused, audibly thumbing through the book at rapid pace. "Three hundred pages of this nonsense? How are you still sane?"

"I haven't read it yet," Annabelle answered, mirth bright in her voice and that was when she realized that she had stopped being afraid.

Somewhere between being guarded for a week, being brought home safe and being read to in an increasingly incredulous, pained manner, she had stopped fearing for herself. "I have another one you could read instead," she offered.

Instead of answering, a pale hand appeared at the top of the window, still holding the book with care. The vampire wore a delicate gold ring and a golden bracelet studded with topaz. The long sleeve that fell down to nearly her wrist was black with pale, shimmering embroidery.

Annabelle took hold of the book and traded it with one Mr. Bell had given her a couple of days ago. She settled down again as the vampire began to read and she seemed far happier with this book. In all honesty, Annabelle enjoyed this tale far more as well.

She listened to the story of a young boy who found a lost star and their journey to bring the star back home. It was the first time in far too long that an evening truly felt peaceful.

It was quiet outside, no monsters to be heard and the breeze drifting inside was cool and brought with it a refreshing scent.

Had the world been like this once upon a time? Before the dark had to be feared like it was feared today? Had there been a time when people sat together to read and chat beneath the starry sky? She had only heard about such things in stories and in this moment, she couldn't help but dream of a world so different to her own.

Something gentler, something almost peaceful. She wasn't foolish or naive enough to believe danger would disappear forever just because she wished it, but there had to be a way to make the world better than it was now.

"May I have your name?" she asked when she finished mending and the vampire paused, having read the last sentence of the book. "I would like to call you something."

The vampire hummed softly, thoughtful, but answered, "I'm Charlette, and who are you, sweet human that I guard?"

Feeling a little surprised and quietly flattered at those unexpected words, Annabelle hurriedly put away her needle and thread. "I'm Annabelle and I can honestly say that it is nice to get to know you."

Charlette chuckled. "You're the first human to say so." Annabelle heard her close the book. "Are those the sort of stories you enjoy reading?"

"Among others." Annabelle leaned back, her chair creaking softly. "I mostly love stories with happy endings."

Charlette hummed thoughtfully. "I see. I think I can find some of those." Her arm appeared at the top of the window again. "Here, I quite enjoyed this one."

Annabelle accepted her book and her breath caught in her chest when her fingertips brushed Charlette's accidentally. She was cool, but no colder than Annabelle's hands would be if she were outside right now.

"Why do you night creatures hate us so much?" The question slipped out unbidden in a soft whisper.

"I don't hate you," the vampire answered without a moment's hesitation. Then she added, "I've never had much of a problem with humans."

"Then what have we done to earn such wrath from the others? So much bloodshed and death?"

Charlette was quiet for a long moment. "I've heard rumors," she answered at last. "That humans killed the Night King."

That was the first time Annabelle heard of such a thing. "Who was the Night King?"

"A powerful and old night walker," Charlette answered. "You wouldn't find them anywhere anymore, he was the last one. I don't really know what he was like, but I know that the night folk felt safe under his protection. I don't really know much else, I haven't been long in the city and I lived in a remote, rather isolated place before that."

Annabelle frowned to herself in thought, absentmindedly tracing the letters of the storybook. "Is there a way to find out what happened? Or how to change what's happening?"

Charlette hummed, a strange, inhuman note underlying the noise. "I could look into it, if you'd like," she offered and Annabelle heard the faint tink of claws tapping thoughtfully on shingles.

"You would?" Annabelle couldn't stop the hope from singing through her voice.

There was a soft, near chirping kind of noise. "I find I'm...I quite like you, Annabelle. It won't be much trouble to bug some acquaintances or to poke around."

Relief made her feel lighter than she had in years. She peered out the window, though she saw nothing of the vampire. There wasn't even a shadow to watch tonight, not with clouds gathering in the sky and quiet disappointment shadowed the relief. She would have liked to see her face right now. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Charlette shifted on the roof and a moment later, Annabelle saw half of an elegant, black shoe dangling into view, along with the hem of a black dress, studded in clear crystals.

"Would you like anything in exchange?" Annabelle asked, finding herself leaning forward a bit and peering up, as though she could finally spot a glimpse of the vampire's face. "I would owe you a great deal if you could uncover this mystery."

And possibly bring an end to all the death and pain and horror.

Charlotte chuckled, low and darkly amused. "That's a dangerous promise to make to my kind. What if I'd like a sip of your blood? All your good dreams for a year? An invitation to your house so I can feed on you and your family while you sleep?"

Annabelle frowned, head tipping to the side. She didn't feel worried, not when Charlette had never done anything to her or threatened such a thing.

"I don't think you would." She swallowed and stood up straighter, even if there was no one to see her posture. "Not if I asked you not to."

This time the chuckle sounded less dark. "You seem to have me figured out. Then I'll think about what I'll ask for," Charlette answered, then her voice turned mock-dry and she sighed theatrically, "Since eating you is so evidently off the table."

Annabelle had no idea why that made her laugh, the sound quickly muffled by the hand she lifted to her mouth, half horrified at herself for liking such a macabre joke. It seemed Dion wasn't the only one in the family to enjoy such humor.

"I'd be pleased to find them all alive in the morning, thank you very much," she answered.

"Then you shall." Charlette sounded both amused and unexpectedly sincere. "I would hate to never hear your laugh again."

Annabelle felt surprised and touched at those words and found herself biting back a smile, lifting the book as though to hide her face from prying eyes. She hadn't known that night creatures, no, the night folk, could be so...sweet. Strange and frightening, yes, but also sweeter than she had thought. And kinder.

She didn't know what to say to that, lightly clearing her throat. "Well, if you keep doing what you're doing I guess I'll be laughing more in no time."

"Oh, consider it done," Charlette answered in a near purring tone that made heat gentle rise to her cheeks. "I don't think I could spend my nights any better than I currently do."

Flustered and flattered and having no idea what to do with any of those feelings, Annabelle shuffled away from the window.

"Speaking of night, it's, um, it's pretty late. I think I'll head to bed now," she said, pressing wind-cool fingertips against her heated face. "Good night."

She hurried to get ready for bed, accompanied by Charlette's quiet, throaty laugh.

"Good night," Charlette said as she slid beneath the sheets. "I'll keep watch until sunrise."

Curling up beneath the blankets, Annabelle kept watching the window. "Thank you." Ever since the vampire was there, Annabelle had felt safer than ever. Had slept better than ever.

When Charlette started to sing, the song was quiet and soft and Annabelle fell asleep, silently wishing the vampire could stay forever. Could be here every night, even once Dion was all healed up.

.*.*.*.

Annabelle visited Dion the next morning, using Mr. Bell's order to show up late to drop by the clinic first.

"Is everyone well?" her brother asked in a heavy voice, while looking as though he was going to fall asleep again at any moment. "Mama and Papa don't seem to be very alright."

Their parents looked worn and tired and Annabelle worried they weren't sleeping well. Her other brothers were quiet and withdrawn, faces tense and marred with deep frowns. It made her wish she could tell them that she had a deal, a promise, of safety from a vampire. At least until Dion was fully healed.

They would not react well to that at all, however. She'd be dragged to the priests right away, to make sure she hadn't been thralled or otherwise influenced. Someone would then stake out in her room to try and kill Charlette. The very thought made her stomach clench and her heart ache.

"They're fine," she reassured Dion, offering a calming smile.

She quickly distracted him by telling him about everything that had happened yesterday. She had visited him on her free day last, her parents and older brothers dropping by more often, since they were a bit more flexible with their time.

Halfway through her tale about the baron's visit, his eyes fell closed and his breathing deepened into slumber. Annabelle exhaled quietly and smoothed an edge of the blanket down. Sunlight shone through the windows, the bars casting thin shadows across his sickbed.

Her mind kept snagging at what Charlette had told her last night. The hope that had been ignited within her that this horror could end. That Dion could heal and go home and never again would he or anyone else be forced to pick up cold, hard iron in order to keep their loved ones alive.

She got up after another minute. Dion was fast asleep and he would remain like this for a while. He needed his rest. She left with a polite, grateful goodbye to Dr. Under, who waved her off with a vague noise, taking care of another injured hunter.

Mr. Bell was bustling around the shop when she arrived, in high spirits and praising her for how beautiful the book had turned out. The baron showed up an hour later, turning his ordered book this way and that, sniffing in acceptance, somehow simultaneously looking satisfied and not happy at all. He handed over more money than Annabelle had ever seen at once.

"It will do," the baron said in parting, sweeping outside as he added, "I think I shall be back."

Mr. Bell and she watched him leave with wide eyes, before they looked down at the money, at each other and then they were giggling like children, excited and almost speechless.

"Look at this!" Mr. Bell exclaimed, immediately starting to divide up the money. When he handed her what he said he owed her, she felt her breath catch. That was more than they had agreed upon first.

"You'll be able to hire a hunter now, while your brother heals," Mr. Bell said with a smile, waving off her sputtering protests. "We can always buy another printing press later, don't you worry. Besides, I'm sure we'll see that sour fellow again sooner or later."

She felt her eyes sting a little and couldn't help but pull Mr. Bell into a hug, who laughed and gave her a grandfatherly pat on the shoulder.

"Now, none of that, you hear me? There is no need for tears. Besides, we have more than enough work to take care of."

She nodded, sniffling once and pulled back, quickly pocketing the money before she took a deep breath and got to work with renewed determination. Mr. Bell chuckled and sat down at his desk, humming a soft, happy tune under his breath.

It was a good day and they kept working in high spirits, the other clients who dropped by to pick up their orders remarking on the good atmosphere. Mr. Bell left as he always did, a spring in his step and he told her not to stay too long, that she deserved to go home early as well.

Annabelle sang to herself as she finished up the last work of the day, the bell of the clock tower warning her about the setting sun. But for once she didn't feel scared, didn't startle into a flurry of hurried motions in order to get home in time.

She cleaned up and locked the door and went home with a smile on her face, nodding at people along the way and wishing neighbors a good night. The hunters on their street waved at her and she waved back.

Her family looked exhausted when she arrived, but they were glad to see her happy.

"We're safe," she tried to reassure them. "Everyone says they'll keep an eye out until Dion's back."

Guilt ate at her like sharp teeth when she kept the money she had made a secret. She wanted to save it, for when Dion was healthy again and Charlette wouldn't watch their house anymore. She wanted to buy her brother some more restful time if possible.

Charlette didn't show up that night, to her surprise. Instead, Annabelle heard a rumbly sort of growl and looked up, inhaling sharply in startled surprise.

"It's alright, you're safe," the large werewolf across from her on the other roof said quickly. "Charlette asked me to keep watch tonight."

Then the werewolf straightened, ears perked and placed a hand on its chest. "Thank you," it said with utter sincerity. "For saving my son."

Oh, this was the boy's mother. Now that she took a closer look, her heart calming back down from it's frightened beat, she did recognize the werewolf.

"You're both well?" she couldn't help but ask, remembering the limp, whimpering and bleeding lump the werewolf had been in Charlette's arm.

Those ears flicked once and the werewolf grinned, making her look even more frightening and fearsome, but her yellow eyes held a spark of warmth. "We are. He's been talking about you, you know. Says he forgot to ask you if you liked his picture."

"I did," Annabelle slowly, cautiously approached the window. Just because Charlette hadn't hurt her didn't mean other night folk wouldn't take the chance when they got it. "He seems to be a sweet kid."

"He is." The werewolf preened in pride, then settled down, looking relaxed. "And don't worry," she said, a growl slipping into her voice. "I'll keep you lot safe." She snorted, amused. "Not that I'm necessarily needed here, considering Charlette thoroughly claimed this area. But she said you'd feel safer if I was there."

Annabelle felt her heart warm at those words, a smile tugging at her mouth. "That's sweet of her."

"She can be," the werewolf agreed, elbow on her thigh and chin resting in her palm. "But only if she likes someone. My son and I were the only ones she cared for for a long time, so I'm glad to see she's found someone else whose company she enjoys."

Annabelle's smile grew. "Well, the feeling is mutual. Tell her I'll miss her and that I hope she's safe. And thank you, for being here."

The werewolf grinned again and this time it looked a little less frightening. "She'll be very happy to hear that. And of course, after you saved my son and made Charlette's nights better, it's the least I could do. But don't let me keep you up if you're tired."

It was probably for the best to get some rest. "Good night. Oh, if any of the hunters notice you, just leave, they won't abandon the houses they protect."

The werewolf nodded. "I'll be careful not to be spotted, but they don't have to fear me either way. I never hurt people who don't try to kill my family first."

Fair enough, Annabelle would not act very kindly or sweetly if someone tried to harm those she loved in front of her eyes. She got ready for bed and decided to leave the window open, in case the werewolf needed to get her attention for something.

When she laid in bed, she found she struggled to fall asleep. It was simultaneously too quiet and not quiet enough. There was no pleasant singing, no vampire on her roof and somehow that absence was loud in the gentle, calm of the night.

She fell asleep after long minutes of staring up at the dark ceiling, trusting in a promise being kept and a fierce werewolf guarding the house.

.*.*.*.

It took three nights before Charlette came back. By then Annabelle had gotten to know the werewolf, whose name was Ophelia.

Since Charlette had apparently claimed this part of the city as hers, Ophelia pretty much had nothing to do. They had ended up talking quite a bit with each other as a result and Annabelle had put books on her windowsill for Ophelia to read.

Still, Annabelle had missed the vampire, had missed her company and singing and the steady, calm and unshakeable safety she brought with her presence alone.

It had been a bit of a shock at first, to realize just how fond she had grown of Charlette. How there was a quiet sting of disappointment every night she saw Ophelia instead of her, even if she liked the werewolf.

"Welcome back," Annabelle said when she saw the large bat land quietly, a glad smile appearing on her face before she knew it.

"Finally," Ophelia said with good humor, leaning closer to Annabelle since she was sitting right across from her on the edge of the roof. The werewolf lifted a hand in front of her face to mock-whisper, "This one's pinning had gotten bad."

Pinning? Annabelle barely had a moment to properly process that, before Charlette tackled the werewolf straight off the roof and into the alley. There was growly laughter and hissing and startled shouts from a nearby hunter.

The two night folk quickly fell quiet after the hunter's warning yells and a few moments later, Ophelia hopped back onto the roof, while Charlette appeared suddenly in front of Annabelle, hanging upside-down in front of her window.

Annabelle smiled again, not even startling a little. Others probably considered this to be the height of foolishness, but she didn't fear Charlette. She didn't even find her nightmarish bat-form terrifying anymore. Oh, she knew Charlette was still frightening, that she could rip any human apart like wet paper, but Annabelle didn't think it was going to happen. Not to her, at any rate.

"I hope you're well?" she asked and Charlette swiftly ducked out of sight again, her voice answering a moment later.

"I am. I hope my friend took good care of you?"

"I'll take offense to that," Ophelia answered dryly. "But I'll forgive you this once. Now, please excuse me you two, you can make moon-eyes at each other without me having to bear witness."

With a jovial wave, the werewolf left, easily hopping across roofs and Annabelle heard a soft, aggrieved grumble from Charlette.

"Meddling friends," the vampire muttered.

"I wouldn't know," Annabelle found herself saying, Charlette falling silent. "I haven't really had a friend in years."

Not since their old neighbors had moved away when she had been twelve. After that it had been hard to connect with others and nowadays she spent all day at work and was locked up at home afterwards. It didn't leave much time for socializing and the few times people had flirted with her at work hadn't really led to anything.

"We could be friends," Charlette offered. "And Ophelia likes you as well, she said as much every time she came back at dawn. I'm pretty sure she already considers you her friend."

"Are other humans and night folk friends as well?" Annabelle asked, genuinely curious. Charlette and Ophelia couldn't be the only nice night folk in the world, after all. "I've never heard of such a thing."

Charlette huffed, amused and wry all at once. "Of course not. From what I could gather, you humans don't take well to such connections. But there are a couple of friendships and relationships across the city."

There were? So she wasn't strange or alone in not hating or fearing the night folk? Or rather, Charlette and Ophelia. She still feared the others and what they could do.

"Speaking of which," Charlette continued before Annabelle could answer. "I think I found out what happened to the Night King and why there is such carnage now."

Annabelle stepped forward, fingertips brushing the windowsill. "Please tell me."

"It's not pretty," Charlette warned, then continued, "The night folk demand revenge for the murder of their king. Until the price is paid in blood, there will be no peace."

Annabelle knotted her fingers together in worry. "I understand that, but it isn't fair to punish all of us for the transgression of a few." Then she frowned heavily. "And it's been so long already since the attacks started, the ones who did it are most likely already dead."

A moment of heavy silence followed. "I forgot," Charlette murmured, an unhappy note to her voice. "You humans don't live all that long."

"We live plenty long enough," Annabelle answered, feeling a little affronted. "It's you lot who live a ridiculous amount of time."

Charlette huffed a gentle, amused noise. "I guess you're not wrong."

Annabelle felt her lips twitch into a small smile, before it fell again. "Is there something that can be done?" she asked softly. "To make the night folk stop?"

Charlette exhaled heavily, almost sighing. "Someone strong enough could." She sounded reluctant now. "Once someone seizes control and calms the frenzy, things could change."

"Why won't anyone do that?" Annabelle found herself staring up, as though she could will Charlette into view to look straight at her. "Hasn't this gone on long enough?"

"It doesn't feel that long to them," Charlette answered. "Many night folk have fallen into mindless bloodlust and they cannot regain their senses by themselves anymore. There are only a small handful left who could take control, but they like to eat and drink as much as they please. They like terrifying humans too much to stop."

Annabelle was silent for a long moment, arms wrapped around herself in a imitation of a hug. "So this is it?" she found herself whispering. "We just have to endure this until one of the strong night folk decide they've enjoyed themselves enough? Or until they've killed us all?"

A low snarl curled through the air. "I would not let them," Charlette answered, voice hard. "Nothing will happen to you."

"I believe you." She really did. "But...this is no way to live, Charlette. To cower and hide and...and just endure until I'm old and frail and at last my bones return to the earth."

She felt exhausted and bitterness wrapped around her like a too-heavy cloak. Annabelle closed her eyes, trying to fight back the burn of tears. Weeping wouldn't change anything, no matter how much she wanted to cry.

Shattered hope was a horrible feeling, she realized as she stared down at her hands, cold and ink stained. She had only realized how fiercely she had hoped for an end for all of this now that there was nothing to be done. All she could do now was endure and that...that was no way to live, was it?

Charlette was silent for so long that Annabelle started to get ready for bed, her heart a heavy weight in her chest and her mood dreary and dark. She just wanted to lie down and not get up for a long while. She blew out the candle, casting the room in darkness when the vampire spoke up.

"You're right." Charlette's voice was soft. "I want more for you. And better."

Annabelle swallowed past her dry mouth as Charlette added, "That is really no life worth living."

Annabelle made a quiet, slightly rough sound in agreement. She couldn't keep living like this for the rest of her days. Frightened, small, scurrying. Scraping together what coin she could, working herself to the bone during the day, only to be terrified of all that came at night. Worrying she'd bury her brother, then her parents, then her other older brothers, until she was all that was left.

Even if Charlette would guard them all her days, something could always happen. Besides, other people still died. She would see the blood in her way to work, would see the haunted faces of hunters who stared at the sun like it was pure salvation.

"I'd do anything for things to change," Annabelle found herself saying, voice hollow and tinged in bitter sadness.

"A dangerous promise." Charlette's voice was soft and utterly devoid of teasing. "Don't give that promise to someone else, they'll ask for things you won't wish to give."

"Like what? My blood? My beating heart?" She'd give both if it meant the night folk stopped their rampage.

"No." Charlette sounded grim. She was quiet for a second, then asked, "Would you invite me in, Annabelle?"

"I think the bars are in the way." She wouldn't go and unlock the door, not when Gerard was still awake and weaving and Charlette could be seen entering the house by one of the hunters.

Charlette huffed, darkly amused. "Those are child's play. They don't keep me out, but I cannot enter a home I'm not invited to. No vampire can."

She hadn't known that, but it explained all the warnings to never answer any luring, sweet calls. And why one should never get thralled. Did she want Charlette in the house? In her room?

She did, she realized. She felt so cold and hopeless, she wished to at least finally see Charlette's face. Annabelle turned towards the window.

"Charlette, I invite you into my home, please enter," she said, soft but clear. A moment later that elegant hand came into view and slowly, steadily, pried the bars out of the brickwork.

Charlette was careful enough to avoid making a noticeable amount of noise, taking the time to wriggle the bars out bit by bit, until she could pull them away entirely. Annabelle found her heart beating a little faster. She had never invited anyone into her room since she had been twelve and her friend had left.

A moment later, a tall shape dropped onto the windowsill. For as much as Charlette looked like a human now, she did not move like one. There was a predator's grace as she smoothly stepped inside, feet utterly silent on the floor. Only her long dress made a soft sound as the fabric fell down to her ankles.

Charlette stood with a confidence Annabelle had rarely seen, something unshakeable and true. The vampire knew she was powerful and dangerous and saw no need in proving either by needlessly puffing herself up. For everyone else would know she was dangerous by simply looking at her.

"You don't look at me anymore as though I'm frightening," Charlette said, voice soft and clear and she took slow steps closer, bridging the distance between them.

There was just enough light cast by the moon outside for her to see her face. She was beautiful, her red hair long and her eyes the color of blood.

Annabelle looked up at the vampire, who stopped in front of her. "I don't fear you."

"I'm glad." Charlette's voice softened further, gentling into a near whisper. "I like seeing you happy."

Annabelle found herself smiling a little, almost shyly. "I think I owe you a favor," she said softly. "For finding out what you could about the Night King."

Charlette was quiet for a moment and Annabelle saw the the humorless smile appear on her face. "There is one thing I would ask, but not now. I think I need to earn a bit more of a favor for that."

Surprised, Annabelle tipped her head a little, trying to see her face better in the dark. "What do you mean?"

Charlette didn't answer and instead reached out, hand hovering near Annabelle's face without touching her. "May I?"

Annabelle felt her heart beat a little faster now, realizing it did so in the best of ways. "Yes." Her voice was quiet but clear in the silence of her room and the quiet of the calm night outside.

Gently, almost reverently, Charlette's cool hand settled on her cheek. "I don't think you know how much you captivated me," the vampire said softly, red eyes warm where her skin was not. "Your bravery, your laugh, your sweetness. How fearless you are and how much I enjoy speaking with you."

A cool thumb brushed along her cheekbone ever so gently. "I want to ask for something very brazen," Charlette continued in a near whisper. "Once I earn more of your good graces."

"You could ask now," Annabelle answered just as quietly, eyes caught by that blood-red gaze and she tipped her head a little, turning her cheek into that sweet touch. "Because I don't think you realize how much I enjoy your company, how fond I've grown of you."

This time, when Charlette smiled, it revealed a hint of fangs that would have looked frightening to Annabelle in the past. Now she was merely curious, knowing she had nothing to fear.

"What if I asked for a kiss?" Charlette said. "One you want to give me because you like me, not because you feel indebted."

"Then I'd say you should kiss me," Annabelle whispered back, her heart beating faster in excited anticipation. "If you like me as much as I like you."

"Oh, of that there is no doubt," Charlette breathed the words more than she said them, leaning in and Annabelle rose up on her toes. Long, soft hair brushed her cheek before lips ghosted across hers for just a moment. She smelled like fresh air and something soft and sweet, like flowers.

Before Charlette could pull back, Annabelle rose to her very tiptoes, pressing their lips together gently. Her hands came up, one lightly touching Charlette's arm and the other reaching up to cup her face, fingertips lightly tangling into silk-soft hair.

"Will you let me court you?" Annabelle asked in a soft whisper, opening her eyes. Charlette looked almost unbearably soft and it squeezed her heart in the best of ways.

Charlette laughed, quiet and brief and achingly fond. "I think I'm meant to ask you that. If you allow me to court you as well, I will gladly say yes."

Annabelle found herself grinning, the previous heaviness of her mood gentled and lightened, even if it wasn't gone entirely.

Charlette brushed a feather light kiss against the corner of her mouth, as though tasting her smile, before pressing another one to her forehead. She then gently rested their foreheads together, free hand rising to take Annabelle's, tangling their fingers together.

"I think I know what to gift you," Charlette said. "If you're willing to accept something intangible."

Now that made her curious. "Of course." She gave Charlette's fingers a little squeeze. "I think I have an idea for a gift as well."

They smiled at each other for a long moment, until Annabelle had to pull back, hiding a yawn behind her hand. Charlette smiled softly, brushing fingertips over her hair.

"Rest, my love," she said. "I will stay until dawn."

"Can you sing for me?" Annabelle asked. "I find I sleep better if you do."

Charlette's eyes seemed brighter, now a liquid red. "Of course."

And sing she did and when Annabelle woke in the morning, she found a red rose lying on her desk, on top of a letter.

A letter that held the promise to change everything.

.*.*.

Part Three.

#my writing #short story #chapter two #vampires #lesbians #can you tell that I squished all the soft into this chapter?#it's rather less dark than part one #but we still got part three ahead of us #which will be the last part for these two #they be lesbians Harold #I'll be honest with you I suck at writing flirting scenes #these two made me despair #hope this part turned out well!#and that I didn't overlook too many spelling errors #part three should be up either at the end of this week or early next week #dark fantasy

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