#the end was kind of rushed but..

[captainpriceslilwife]

little thing with John Price that goes from angst to smut to angst again and then fluff and back to smut....pretty much checked all the boxes here i think. okay yay <3 also ill be honest...idk if i like how this turned out, but.....here it is *serves up half-eaten charcuterie board made from lunchables*

Basically Price is using your daddy kink as a trojan horse to rewrite your neural pathways <3 but like...with love Shoutout @coco-killed-the-angels for implanting these worms (insecure girl x price) into my brain <333 CW: deep insecurities (bc i'm the one writing it, so...it's a given), daddy kink, crying, praise kink (?) - does it count if he's just praising you in a sexual setting and its not necessarily a kink idk, if you're allergic to true, deep love and you just want smut this is not the work for you, not DDLG but like...the cousin of it. Or sibling. DDLG adjacent.

Your day had started off rough.

Well, the whole week, really. With deadlines and headaches looming over your head, it's no wonder that you ended up in such a state this morning.

You were just barely fighting the childish urge to just whack the brush over your head, so you tried to move on to putting your makeup. Which only ended in you crying in frustration when it started to cake up, and then you began crying even harder when your tears started making the rest of it slide off of your face.

"So fucking stupid." You had whispered under your breath as your shaky hands wiped at your face in a sorry attempt to fix everything - only to make it worse.

That's how John found you in the bathroom, furiously scrubbing at your face with a towel to wipe everything off as you sobbed quietly to yourself.

"Woah, woah, woah...sweetheart." His hands are quick to wrap around yours to halt your movements, and you try to bow your head to avoid his gaze, but he tilts his head right alongside you. "What's all this, huh? What's wrong, sweet girl?"

And he tries his hardest to comfort you, he really does, but you're just so lost in your anguish that you blow up in his face the moment he suggests you be gentle with yourself.

"No! I have to wear makeup today because my face is breaking out and I look ugly, b-but I keep ruining it because I'm crying! God, I can't do anything without ruining it!"

Maybe you were just hormonal or about to get your period, but it didn't matter. Your insecurities sound the same no matter what chemical is bouncing around in your brain to cause it.

Which is how you ended up here - on your hands and knees on the bed, facing the mirror on the dresser with John's cock nestled deep inside of you.

He had already been working you up for hours, teasing and licking and fingering you until you could barely hold yourself up - which explains why he's got one hand curled at the base of your skull to hold your head up by your hair to force you to watch as he fucks you.

But he's not even fucking you. He's just...sitting inside of you. Not moving. Making you whine and whimper as he stares at you through the smudged reflection of the mirror. You plead with him quietly, fresh tears blooming to wash away the dried tracks from your earlier malaise, but he just shakes his head and pulls your hair back a bit more.

"I already told you what to do, sweetheart. Go on." But you just blink at him dumbly with those teary eyes, too far gone to remember how you got here, let alone what he just said five seconds ago. But that's alright - if war taught him anything, it was how to be patient. Especially with a soft thing like you.

"Daddy's not moving until you say something you like about yourself."

Oh, right. That.

You had kind of been hoping he would just fuck your brains out so you could ignore your little meltdown earlier and forget it ever happened - but clearly John had different plans.

"I don't want to."

Brat.

Even when you were trembling beneath him and begging him to fuck you, you still had the nerve to talk back to him. But John knows you well enough to know that you aren't acting out just for the fun of it. So, he isn't going to punish you now. You're upset, and insecure, and you just want him to take it all away so you don't have to think about it.

Which is exactly what he's doing - even if you can't see it from where you are mentally. He's just playing the long game.

"One thing, baby." He murmurs in your ear, locking eyes with you in the mirror as he curls himself over your back to press his hairy chest into you, making you mewl softly. "Just say one little thing you like about yourself, and Daddy will fuck you, just like you want. I promise."

And you poor thing - you're just so desperate. You're cunt is leaking around his cock and no matter how much you try to rock your hips back to get some kind of friction, he's holding you too tight to make any real progress.

So you give up. Or give in. Either way, you decide to just let go and think of something - if only just to get him to pound you into the mattress the way you wanted.

But when you looked at yourself in the mirror - all puffy eyes, splotchy cheeks, and tangled hair - all you could see is what you didn't like.

Every bump, every scar, every part that's too much, and every part that's not enough. Suddenly every mean voice in your head has a stage - telling you about all the times you failed and how you aren't worthy of anything good in this world. Ugly, stupid, worthless, annoying-

There's nothing you can think of, even to just throw out meaninglessly to get him to hop off your case. Nothing.

And all you can do is choke out a pathetic sob - lower lip trembling violently as you squeeze your eyes shut to block out the mean voices circling around in your head. "Daddy, I can't...I c-can't think of anything."

He had expected a bit of resistance from you, but the way your face crumpled so sadly at the prospect of complimenting yourself made his heart ache in his chest. Clearly your insecurities were running deeper than surface-level, and he'd have his fair share of work cut out for him if he wanted to make you feel better.

"Shh, hey, hey, hey. It's okay." He coos softly, removing his hand from your hair to curl it around you to rest it against your sternum. He sits back against the bed and takes you right along with him, planting you on his lap with your back pressed against his chest - with his cock still inside of you. You're grateful for it, since you know you'd just spiral even more if he took it out and left you feeling empty and cold while you were already on the verge of a complete breakdown. "Daddy can help. I'll help you out, sweetheart."

"We can think of things together, my love. It's okay." He murmurs quietly as he wraps his arms around you, rocking you back and forth slightly as he gently hushes your tears. His thumb comes up to wipe away the fresh tears that slip down your cheeks, and he can feel his heart cracking in two at every little heartbroken whimper and sob that manages to escape your lips.

"What about your pretty eyes, hm? The ones that help you read all of those books, even when it's a little dark? The same eyes Daddy loves to wake up to every morning?"

You blink owlishly through your tears, your hiccups coming to a halt for just a second as you begin to process his words. He's not talking about the color of your eyes or what shape they are, but what they can do. You've been so caught up on how every part of you looked...not what they were actually meant for.

Your eyes aren't supposed to be the prettiest color or the 'perfect' shape. They're job is to help you see. And you can read, and admire the sunset, and cry, and watch TV - and none of it has to do with how your eyes look. They're the same eyes that lock onto John's from across the room and tell him 'it's too much. can we go home?' without ever having to say a word. And he always knows how you're feeling, just from taking one look at your eyes.

"And what about your hair? Don't you like braiding it and putting it up in all those pretty hairstyles? Don't you like how Daddy can play with it when you get all sleepy?" You turn your head around to look at him through your tears, and you take in a shaky breath as you nod your head silently in agreement. "Yeah...I know I like it, sweet girl."

You let out a restrained whimper as his words settle over you, your heart cracking in a way that it never has before - like its rearranging itself to fit the beautiful image of his perception of you. You can feel his hand gently squeeze your arm to silently urge you to continue on your own, and it takes you a minute to think of something before you let out a trembling whisper.

"M-My nose..." You sound uncertain, blinking up at him for validation only to be met with a loving smile and an encouraging nod. "I like my nose."

Your nose was never meant to look like everyone else's. It's just there to help you breathe. To bring oxygen to your blood to keep you alive and healthy. And it helps you smell everything - the bread at the farmers market, John's cologne bottle whenever you missed him too much in his missions, even the gross candles at the store that you force John to smell too just so you can both suffer together. It even crinkles up whenever John presses a kiss to it when you aren't expecting it, which always makes him laugh and makes him press just one more to it to get you to giggle and swat him away.

"Yes...good girl." He praises softly as he presses a line of kisses along your shoulder, reverent in both his touch and stare as he tilts your chin back towards the mirror. "Keep looking at yourself, darling."

"And Daddy loves your beautiful smile...you know, that's the first thing I miss when I go away. I keep a little picture of you in my vest just so I can see it even when I'm on my missions. I love seeing my gorgeous girl look so happy." His words coax another watery sob from you, which he quickly soothes by running his hands gently up and down your arms. Eventually he trails them down and circles his hands around yours, using his thumbs to massage gentle circles into your palms as you cast your gaze down to watch. "And your hands...didn't you bake me those cookies last week with these hands?"

"Yes, Daddy." You nod once again, and he brings both of your hands up to wipe at the tears that are dripping off of your cheeks and down to your torso.

Your body let you express your love for him in all the ways you wanted - hugging, kissing, cuddling, crying, laughing, talking, listening, touching - you could go on forever now that you're really thinking about it.

Your body was a vessel for love - a home that could fit all the adoration and affection that John could possibly give you and you could give him - and instead you were using it to house all of the shame everyone else had burdened you with over the years. But John had all the patience in the world, and if he had to pick that shame out piece-by-piece in order to burrow his love inside of you, then that's what he'd do. Happily.

"Pretty, pretty, pretty...such a pretty little girl you are." He punctuates every one of his words with a kiss to your shoulder, your neck, your cheek, your hair...all until he reaches your ear when he finally whispers, "I'm so lucky to have you, baby."

And you poor thing - now your blubbering in his lap as your brain tries to comprehend the sheer amount of love he's pouring into you, and he just continues to hold you patiently as you work through it. It's only when you finally calm down a bit that he speaks up.

"I think you're so beautiful, my love. Inside and out. But if you look in the mirror and you don't like what you're seeing, for whatever silly reason, I want you to remember that your worth comes from a lot more than how you look. Do you understand, baby?" He waits until you nod your head before he plants a kiss right to the crown of your hair. You can feel his hand settle on your thigh, thumbing the sensitive inner skin as he locks eyes with you in the mirror.

"Do you want to keep going?" And then you see it - settled underneath his love and admiration for you is a spark of concern. He doesn't want to push you too hard, especially in a delicate setting like this. His cock is still hard and nestled deep inside of you, but you know if you said the word right now he'd end this all in a heartbeat to make sure you were comfortable and taken care of.

But you don't want him to stop. It feels different this time around - like it's not just sex. It's something more ritualistic than that. So you nod your head once more, making sure to keep your eyes on him in the mirror so he can see how earnest you are.

And slowly, carefully, he readjusts you back into the position you were in before - on your hands and knees facing the mirror. And you can see him watching you closely for any sign of discomfort or regret, but all he's met with is trust in those teary eyes of yours.

"Keep telling me what you like, sweetheart."

And so you do. Clumsy compliments stumbling out of your mouth as he finally starts to rock his hips, granting you the relief you've been craving from him for what feels like forever now. And the more you praise yourself, the more intense his thrusts get - but he never turns rough. Not even for a second. He keeps his eyes locked on yours as he whispers his own devotions into your ears, pushing himself as deep as he can as if he's trying to plant the words directly inside of you.

You're so overwhelmed by the love and the pleasure he's giving you that you barely even realize how fast your orgasm is sneaking up on you, but he notices. He can feel you clenching around him as your thighs begin to shake, and he doesn't waste a second in gently guiding your gaze to look at yourself in the mirror once more.

"Are you a pretty girl, baby?" He grunts softly, barely staving off his own release long enough to drive his message home. You begin to nod your head frantically, too caught up in your impending climax to form any coherent sentences as you begin to flutter around him - but he's not having any of it.

"Yeah? Go on, then. Daddy wants to hear you say it."

"I-I'm a..." Your stuttered words are cut off by a deep moan, and your eyes squeeze shut tightly as you clamp down around him. "I'm a p-pretty girl!"

And then you're sent into the most mind-shattering orgasm you've ever had in your life. You can feel yourself gush around him and you hear his restrained curses as you collapse into the bed, but even your own voice sounds muffled as you call out his name with a quivering cry. He fucks you right through it, leaving you trembling and crying from the intensity as he finally spills inside of you with a few tears of his own.

He just barely catches himself before he collapses on top of you, and it takes him a minute to catch his breath before he readjusts to, very carefully, pull himself out of your squelching cunt. He coos gently as you whine at the loss of contact, and he scoops you up like you're a porcelain doll that'll shatter if he's not careful.

You're still so fuzzy from the intensity of it all, but he places you in his lap to let you bury your face in his neck, and his arms quickly wrap around you the second that your trembling form curls up to him like a kitten in a storm.

"There she is." He whispers softly as he kisses your forehead, one hand trailing up and down your back as the other one circles tightly around your shoulders to ground you with his presence. "There you go, sweet girl. Take a deep breath, my love."

He can feel the little puffs of air hitting his neck as he continues to hold you, and it brings him back down to earth as well as he works you through your comedown. Soft whispers of praise graze your ear as he moves to clean you up, keeping his movements soft and careful when he sees your eyes begin to flutter shut.

And you look up at him with so much love and trust when he finally pulls you down to lay back against the pillows, he can't stop himself from taking a moment to brush at the soft skin of your cheek before he presses his lips against yours. It's not hungry or lustful - just pure love being poured into you as he pulls the covers up to cover your bare form.

He pulls back just enough to murmur quietly against your lips, eyes looking down at you with so much reverance it makes your head spin.

"I love you so much, baby."

And you can't help the little wobble in your lips or the glassiness in your eyes as you rest your head against the pillow, pulling him closer with your shaky hands as you plant a little kiss on his lips.

"I love you, too, Daddy."

[myokk]

💘

[stargirlo]

zip your lips. rafe c. x fem!reader

rafe fingering you silently while you watch a movie with him and the rest of his family . . . :>

you comfortably laying your back down against his chest as your cute bum rests on his crotch, his calloused hand parting your thighs wider before he casually slips a finger under your cotton panties, having a feel of your velvety walls fluttering around his thick digit. you swallowed a gasp or any sort of noise that dared to spill from your lips, his finger slowly and teasingly pumping in and out of your already soaked pussy before nuzzling his fingers knuckles deep into your pussy.

the movie continued to play on the screen, the crunchy sounds of popcorns being eaten up was heard around the room, covering the squelching noises that erupted under the thick blanket from you and rafe.

" 'm feeling a bit thirsty, does anyone want anything to drink?" and that's when sarah got up.

fucking hell.

you tried to stay calm and collected, but not when rafe was abusing your sopping cunt with just his fingers, the pad of his fingertips brushing against your sweet spot, making you writhe against him.

"y/n, do you need anything? coke? water? juice?" sarah asked, oblivious by the fact that you're getting finger fucked by her brother right now. a roll of sweat dampens your forehead, struggling to even speak properly. you squeezed and clawed at rafe's forearm, implying him to stop what he's doing and to finally let you speak. but he wasn't stopping, and he wasn't planning on stopping.

"y/n?" sarah called out again, but her tone in voice shifted to concern, wondering why you aren't answering properly. you cleared your throat all of a sudden, turning your head to meet sarah's gaze, a dopey smile curling up at your lips. "s-sorry, i uh- don't need anything... i'm- i'm good, t-thank you..." and just at that moment, rafe decided to slip another finger in, causing you to stammer at your sentence and sounding completely stupid at the moment.

the blond softly hummed, receiving a simple nod from her as she headed out to the kitchen to get herself her own beverage. a string of whispered curses leave your lips, closing your eyes tightly shut, manicured nails digging deep crescent shapes on his tanned skin that could probably leave marks, and frustratingly moving around his lap as a way to just ease the overwhelming pleasure that coursed in your veins.

"fuck you- fuck you rafe, ohmygod, stop stop stop stop." you whimpered quietly at him, raising your chin up and arching your back upwards. "shh, you're missing the best part of the movie." rafe murmurs against your ear, knowing damn well he isn't paying attention to the movie himself. a parting grin curl up at his lips, deciding to bring you to the edge and making you cum right on the spot by curling his fingers on your pussy.

a short shriek elicits from your glossy lips, body jolting that a faint little squeak from the couch was heard, gaining a bit of attention from ward. "is everything okay there?" his slightly gruff voice echoed around the living room area, eyebrows knitting together in suspicion. "e-everything is fine sir i jus'-" you were cut off when rafe suddenly spoke. "she just got a cramp on her leg from stretching, should be good in a few minutes." he spoke casually, his thick digits still buried inside your cunt as your slimy juices drip down to your ass, some of it landing on the plush couch cushions.

ward didn't think much of it, so he bought back his attention to the scene of the movie. not until a few minutes later, wheezie then exclaimed. "something smells in here and it's definitely not popcorn."

shut uppppppppppppppp!!!!!!!!!

[stratopshere]

ignore how the corners look crusty i started using nightshade. anyway happy birthday alexis ness i hope you get to punch kaiser in the balls this year

timelapse

[abrcmswrld]

The Getaway

Edward Nashton x Coworker! Reader

Word Count: 9,282

Warnings: smut (18+ only MDNI), murder, blood, the typical ya know, angst, so much angst, reader is a giant angst ball

Summary: You should've turned him away that night. Instead you let him in your home and into your mind and into your heart, and now he's burrowed himself so deep it feels like cutting out a vital organ to send him away.

Authors Note: ugh i missed TTS's second birthday by two days! this has been a long time coming, i know, and i'm sorry for that. i am still not 100% happy with this version of the fic but i cannot leave this trilogy unfinished any longer so with that being said, i hope you enjoy <3 -abram

Ao3 Link

It's been a little over a month since the flood and Edward's arrest. You never went back to Gotham. Although you thought about it, but that was before you got the call from KTMJ. They had urged you to come back, stating that they'd operate through difficult times.

You had sighed and given them a brief answer, "Um, yeah, I'll let you know by the end of the week. Thanks."

You hesitated, "Before I go, has the Forensic Accountant position been filled?"

The woman on the phone takes a moment to rustle through paperwork before giving you a short "It has."

You never went back to KTMJ. You began renting an apartment two cities over. You want to get as far away from Gotham as possible, but you'd have to settle for now because of your budget. 

The days are long. Work at a restaurant downtown doesn't do much to ease your troubles. The customers are obnoxious and the hours are long, but you're lucky enough to find a mutual toleration between your coworkers.

Of course, none of them really know you. They don't know the things you've been through, or the city you came from. Nor did they know the place you had previously worked, or the people you once knew. And honestly you doubt they'd even care, but it's lonely. So incredibly lonely without anyone to find solace in. Nobody who really sees you.

So instead you take solace in the strangers you take home for a short time. Their arms are warm with pumping blood and their hands are deliciously rough as they push up your thighs.

But they aren't gentle with you the way that he was. They don't hold you like they want to keep you safe like Edward had. You can't help but feel a pain in your chest as you squeeze your eyes shut and try to imagine it's Edward's hands pushing up your thighs to your chest and pushing into you without care.

You stop letting your one night stands stay the night after a week or so. After you realized the night terrors weren't going to stop. It was easier to kick them out than to scramble up an excuse that doesn't involve the phrase:

I think I'm in love with a serial killer.

It was easier to spare them the experience of waking up to your screams and cries and your shaking shoulders. The vivid nightmares are never the same. But you always remember them. You always remember the vivid red stain of Edward's blood on your hands as you hold his bleeding form to your chest.

Maybe it's the thought of never being able to see him again that is bringing on the idea of his death in your dreams. And truthfully you had thought about attempting to visit him in Arkham, but the flood made that nearly impossible.

But you crave to see him. You often wonder if they are truly trying to help him, or if they've simply thrown him behind bars to rot. Maybe they'd drugged him up so much he couldn't even form coherent thoughts. Were they feeding him enough? Did he see a therapist?

You have to splash cold water on your face to break the cycling questions bouncing around in your head. Were you even really in love with him? Or were you just looking for that rush that he had given you that night?

No, you can't visit him. You had just gotten The Bat off of your case. You decided it was probably in your best interest to keep your distance.

━

The Bat had visited your apartment about three weeks after the flood.

The knock on the door of your new apartment startles you. You don't know many people in the city. You've made friends with coworkers but it ended there. But the knocking is persistent.

You're shocked to see him. The elusive figure who you'd spoken to only weeks prior, just after the flood. You blink up at his looming figure, looking for something to say but he beats you to it,

"Can I talk to you?"

You find yourself simply nodding quickly and opening the door wider for him to enter. You pour him a glass of water and wait for what he had to say. It feels silly sitting in your tiny kitchen, listening intently to the man in this costume. But his voice and his attitude show a sense of dominance that's just enough to make you feel obligated to listen.

He's not the cops, you remind yourself.

"You moved quickly."

You swallow a sip of water and glance up at him. "Yeah... Well Gotham was kind of impossible to live in after the flood so."

He simply stares as you answer before another question, "You didn't attempt to go back to KTMJ?" You shake your head in response. "It's a little hard to go back after an event like that, don't you think?"

"I talked to your coworkers."

You raise an eyebrow at him, unsure of where he's going with his statement. "You were close to him. To The Riddler." He hisses out Edward's alias as if it disgusts him to even say it, and it immediately sours your mood. You scoff, "What did Zach tell you that?"

He doesn't answer your question, but continues to speak. "He's not just a coworker. You knew him better than that, didn't you?" You furrow your brows at his words.

"What are you trying to assume?"

"What did he tell you? Did you know about what he was planning? You could've saved lives!" He's raising his voice and you can't help but pinch the bridge of your nose before the frustration finally peaks.

"I knew Edward! Edward. Not The Riddler. Okay? I didn't know anything!"

You stare with a stern, straight face as you stand from the table to tower over him to give yourself any bit of confidence over him that you could. And you did what Edward might have hated, and lied right through your teeth. 

"I slept with him. One time. It was one time after a single date."

He tilts his head as he listens.

"I don't think I'm responsible for the actions of a man that I fucked one time, and I'd hope that my coworkers wouldn't think so either."

It left a bitter taste in your mouth, because Edward was more than just a man you had fucked. You cared about him. You cared what happened to him.

"I liked him. It's true. He came over for dinner one time, we had sex, and a week later I see him on the news. So, tell me, what am I meant to do about that?"

You lie so easily. It shocks you how easily the words flow from your lips. He stares before standing up and starting to speak, but you're so worked up. You could cry. You want him out of your apartment. "You're not a cop. If you want to question me more you can call one of your buddies and have them get here. Otherwise, please, get the hell out of my apartment.

He complies without a fight and you slam the door shut as soon ask his feet cross the threshold into the hallway. 

And you had thought about it nearly every single day since. You can only imagine it- your old coworkers huddled around in a circle the minute they return to KTMJ with yours and Edward's names on their tongues. You imagine they are making their own scenarios by now. Hell, Zach is probably leading the pack of slut shaming insults that are floating around that office building and into the ears of this costumed vigilante.

You can't rightfully be angry. You did know what Edward was doing. In fact you had known it nearly a week before the flood even happened, and you chose to do nothing. You've accepted the fact that you aren't a good person, but it would make it easier to move on if Edward wasn't constantly taking up space in your mind. 

Innocent people died and you still want him. You're a monster.

Nausea bubbles in your stomach. 

━

It's weeks later when you see the headline. Staring down at your phone on the subway ride home, your body turns to ice.

'Multiple Patients Escape Arkham State Hospital'

Your eyes are wide and your hands shakes as you scroll through the article, skimming until you see his name and face. It's an old mugshot, one you've seen before.

Your mind is racing, and you practically sprint home from your subway stop. You can only think of his words before he had turned himself in, the last time you had seen him.

"I promise if I ever get out, I'll find you."

But he wouldn't be there that night. Or the next night. Or even the next month. And by that point you had given up any hope that he would show. Perhaps he had regretted what happened between the two of you. Perhaps there was another person. Another reason.

You fill your days the best you can with unimportant tasks. You start going out more, recklessly. Drinking by yourself. You know you shouldn't. It could lead to trouble. Trouble that you couldn't get yourself out of like you had previously. But you can't help yourself. You almost don't remember him or the flood when you drink. It's peaceful.

You start to wonder, did you even want him here? Would his presence fill a void that you had within you for so long now? Or would it just make you feel worse? Would it fuck up your life more than it already had?

You try to stop asking yourself the questions as you toss back a shot. The bar is loud. Not as loud as the Iceberg Lounge had been back in Gotham, but loud enough to now allow anymore vicious thoughts to enter your mind. It's bliss, if only for a short while.

But you won't let yourself get too far. You've never been here. You don't know the people here. You need to be decently sober minded. You hoped that this city wouldn't reflect the cruelty that plagued Gotham. You'd never think of entering a bar on your own in Gotham.

You gather your coat from the back of the chair you've sat and thrown it on as you walk from the bar. You can feel a pair of eyes watching you as you do. Because you know that feeling. It makes you shiver and think of all the times he had watched you through your window. Secretly you entertain the idea that it might be him again.

But it's not, and you spot the dark haired man right away. He's older, wrinkled, dressed decently. You can tell the way he attempts to appear unassuming as he slithers around the corner you had just passed.

You clench your fist in your pocket. You had walked to the bar. You have no keys. You have no form of self defense, besides your own hands and feet. And you can hear his footsteps so clearly as you attempt to escape from him into the alley. And then he speaks, calling out to you.

"Hey!"

You attempt to ignore him, understanding that this might be the wrong move. People get murdered everyday for saying 'no.' His steps become quicker as he is starting to close the distance between you. 

"Sweetheart!"

You continue to ignore, picking up your pace. But he's so close, too close to ignore as you feel your body jolt to a stop as his hand catches your arm. You let out a small yelp as he pulls your body around to face him.

"Where are you headed? It's a little early to call it quits, huh?"

You stay quiet and avoid his eye contact, never looking at his face. It only pisses him off as he harshly grabs your chin to force your eyes in his direction. "Look at me, yeah? How about you come back with me? Have some fun, sweetheart." You look into his eyes, attempting to calm the situation. And suddenly you're a small child again. Authority is looking you right in the eye and you can't help but start to break down. Your voice is shaking like the rest of you.

"Please...I- I don't think- I can give you money, just-"

Pathetic, you think. You were a fool to think this city would be different.

The monster's hands are all over your body. "It's okay, sweetheart, what you have is worth so much more than money." You've gone numb, your body preparing to accept the pain that is about to hit you as he presses your back against the brick wall. 

But instead of pain, it's a seething warmth splashing up onto your face and down your neck. His weight is falling on top of you as you slide yourself down the wall until you hit the ground.

Hot. Red. Hot. Red.

It's all you can think before you meet the familiar figure above you. Green vinyl. A blood stained knife in one hand. The figure kicks the man's lifeless and twitching corpse off of your body. You finally draw in a breath.

"I couldn't stay away."

You're on the wet asphalt of the dark alley, covered from your face to your chest in the monster's blood. You're unable to say anything. You open your mouth, but no sound comes out. Your ears are ringing. You can only stare up at the familiar shade of green with wide eyes.

"Come on. Let's get you home."

It's unclear if he's talking to you or himself. He holds out a hand to help you off the ground. He is desperately wiping at your face to smear most of the drying blood from your cheeks, and takes his overcoat off to wrap it around your bloodied torso. His hands linger a little longer on your shoulders and suddenly the reality of your situation hits. The shock and adrenaline are wearing off and you're suddenly shaking and hot tears are falling down your cheeks.

"Edward..."

He pushes a small piece of your hair from your eyes. For the first time you aren't crying in fear at the sight of him, but rather relief. 

He follows you home and into your apartment. As soon as he crosses the threshold, you find your fingers ripping the mask from his face. He looks just like you remember him- soft, fair, cherubic. His hair is longer. His frame is slightly thinner than you remember. You run your thumb over a scar that's formed on his cheekbone, furrowing your brows as you take in his features.

His lips feel the same as you remember- chapped, plush, warm. His bloodied and gloved hand on the small of your back is the only thing keeping you grounded in the moment. Blood has transferred in flakes from your lips to his and you're suddenly itching to wash it from you. You want nothing of that monster on your skin, or Edward's. 

He's obedient and quiet. He lets you pull him into your bathroom and strip him down as if it was the most normal and mundane task you'd ever done. He clings to you in the shower, like he never wants you more than an inch from him. You're okay with it, you think as you press a cheek to his bare chest. 

You realize you've not said a word to him since you spoke his name in the alley.

"I never thought I'd see you again."

It's an honest confession. Not that you didn't think he was strong enough to survive after an escape, just that you'd accepted he had no desire to see you any further.

"Yeah...Me neither."

His hands rub gently at your face, washing away the flakes of caked blood.You close your eyes and lean into it.

The water around the two of you is finally beginning to run clear instead of red. You pull your cheek from his chest and glance over his entire figure. "I've never seen you like this."

He had seen you like this. You know he has. Maybe that's why it felt so satisfying to finally have him this vulnerable. He cocks his head and you finish, "Bare, ya know. That last night it was dark and quick and I didn't see you like this."

His face flattens like he's nervous. "I like it." He stares down at you like he can't believe you'd said it. Like he can't believe you'd like him without the facade of The Riddler, just Edward. He only stares for a moment longer before his lips are back on yours.

The intimacy of his hands in your hair, washing the tiny bits of coagulated blood from the strands is surreal. It's some fucked up version of all of the romance books you had read as a teenager.

You let yourself lean into it anyway.

━

You don't even bother dressing yourself after the shower. You urge him to do the same. You want that closeness. The comfort of his skin on yours in a way that is intimate without the added sexual intention.

Your body clings to his in your bed. He's laid down with you, brushing your hair and tangling his limbs with yours under the blankets. His presence soothes you quicker than anything. You almost forget the actions that had transpired, the way you were almost taken from in the most vile way. The way he had killed for you.

Rain patters outside your window. It's so peaceful. It almost feels domestic. Once again you're thinking about what could've been. Maybe if you had met Edward on the playground instead of the office things would've been different. Maybe he would've had a crush on you. Maybe you would've denied it until you were older. Maybe you would've snuck out into the night together and kissed in cars. Maybe he wouldn't have felt like he had to do the things he's done. 

You miss him. Even with his warm body pressed up against yours you miss him. You miss his glances from across the room. You miss looking over his shoulder at his crossword puzzles. You miss his presence within your life. For the past year it's been missing, and there was no clean cut. His page had been messily ripped from your book.

The thoughts of casually dating like normal do plagues your mind. You imagine coming home to the same apartment every night after work. The feeling of his hand on the small of your back while you cook dinner. His scent permanently seeped into your sheets.

You mourn a life you've never even lived.

But he looks perfect next to you in this moment. His eyes are soft, and that same striking green color you remember. He looks so tired, but still he just looks at you like he never wants to close his eyes. His hand brushes your cheek.

"I wanted to stay away, but I couldn't."

You furrow your brows. You can't help but feel a slight sting at the idea that he may not have wanted to see you again. "Why?"

"It's not just me. There's other people involved now and I didn't want you getting wrapped up in it." He strokes a gentle thumb over your bottom lip. "I don't trust them to know about you yet. So I stayed away."

You frown as he continues speaking, "You'd moved away from it all. I thought for sure you'd move on. But that fucker'shands on you changed my mind."

He lowers his voice to a whisper,

"I'll never let anyone touch you like that."

His words make you feel something between a flame and a flutter in your stomach. He had rescued you, like some hero in the night. No longer just a dark figure in a window, but the man you loved there to rescue you.

You can feel tears welling in your eyes.

"I want to leave with you. I wanna go so far away that nobody ever sees us again."

He smiles a sad smile in response, but you need him to know you mean what you said.

"I'm serious. I don't want you to go again."

"I'm not sure I have a choice."

And that's the moment you snap back to reality. He's not a hero. He had hurt many people. The flood undoubtedly hurt innocent people. And the GCPD would never stop looking for him. Your face drops. 

"Right."

You kiss his forehead before turning onto your other side. You can't look at him anymore. And you don't want him to see your tears. So instead you relax into him as he wraps an arm around you.

━

The next morning he's gone from the bed. You feel panic fall over you for a second before you see the note on your tiny nightstand. 

I'll be back. -E.

You sigh. Yeah, when?

His bloodied belongings are gone and he's cleaned the mess of the bathroom. It's almost as if he'd never been there at all. And you think you could convince yourself of that if it weren't for his scrawled handwriting on the paper beside your bed.

You attempt to enjoy a day off, but quickly find yourself wishing that you had been called in to take a shift. It's quiet. Normally you'd find it pleasant, but you find it hard to bear after the events of the night before.

You rip up the piece of paper he'd had left and flush the remaining evidence down the toilet. As soon as your bare feet hit the cold tile you hear a knock at the door. Through the peephole, you're met with a familiar figure. The Bat.

You pause for a moment to gather your thoughts. Shit. It's time to be serious, you think as you open the door slowly. He says your name in that familiar deep voice. One that shrills out almost like a harsh whisper.

You stand, feigning confidence. You glance around, halfway expecting a police officer to be accompanying him. But he's alone.

"I thought I told you last time that if you want to talk to me you can bring your cop buddy."

He doesn't budge. You'd be lying if you said the armor didn't make him intimidating. "Where is he?"

You stand still, unmoving in the doorway. "Aren't you supposed to be the one figuring that out? I don't know where he is."

It's not a total lie. You need to make him believe you. You open the door, allowing him in as you continue to speak. "I saw the news. It's impossible to avoid. I almost expected him to show up here, but he never did."

Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie.

You shut the door behind him. "You expect me to believe that?" You push down the irritation you feel at his words. "You can look everywhere here. I don't care. As long as you leave me alone after this."

You hope Edward had been smart. You pray that he had cleaned up the way you thought he had. As if he was never here.

The Bat makes his way around the apartment. You sit at your dining table and pour yourself a glass of wine. You'd rather not hover, it'd only make you look nervous. 

And by the time he makes his way back to you, your heart is beating fast. You wait for him to speak.

"A man was murdered in an alley downtown. Stabbed to death."

You sigh. "I don't know what you expect me to say to that. People die every day." You stand to show him the door. "If you searched what you want to search I'd love it if you would-" Before you can reach for the doorknob, his hand catches your arm. It takes you back to the previous night in the alley, and you find yourself flinching back.

"If he shows up here, don't be stupid. He's a murderer. Don't put yourself in that situation."

You nod quickly before opening the door and gesturing for him to leave. He lightens up slightly, clearly noticing the way way you had flinched away from him. He steps out of the apartment.

"Be safe."

You shut the door.

━

You continue to sip the wine all day. Your nerves are shot. And there's still no sign of Edward. You run a bath and sink into it. The water is hot, hotter than you'd usually like, but the sting feels good tonight. You close your eyes, sighing out a breath until you hear the click of the lock. You startle a bit, snapping your eyes open quickly and turning to face the open bathroom doorway that faces your bedroom.

"Edward?"

Whoever it is doesn't respond but you can hear the footsteps slowly approaching. Your heart beats faster and faster and you can hear the blood rushing in your ears. But as the footsteps reach the bedroom you can see him in the dark, familiar build and glasses glinting in the light that seeps in from the bathroom.

You let out a sharp exhale as he walks into the bathroom. "You scared the shit out of me."

You rest your forehead on one of your palms. He kneels down next to the tub and smoothes a hand down the side of your head. "I'm sorry. I took the spare key."

"You could've told me."

You hate how mean you sound, but you're tense. And the stress is building. You sigh again. "I'm sorry. I just- The Bat...he showed up today. Looking for you."

He furrows his brows and you can see him thinking. "He did?" He looks like he expects the worst. Like he expects that you sold him out or planned to.. "What did you tell him?"

You look into his eyes and scoff a little. "I told him you weren't here. I told him I knew you were missing, but that you never showed." You pause for a moment. "I wouldn't sell you out. You know that right? I- I wouldn't do that." The wine has you slightly buzzed and slightly overemotional. You can recognize that.

He doesn't speak, just places a hand on the back of your head and pulls you into a kiss. It's deep and passionate. Almost like he's been waiting to kiss you like this. It stuns you for a moment, but it doesn't take long before you're reaching wet hands around the fabric on his back and pulling him in deeper.

He hovers over you. His lips are attaching themselves to the wet expanse of your neck and you can't help but throw your head back to give him room. You've missed his touch. Nobody else's including your own would do. You let out a quiet moan and that's all it takes for him to pull the plug on the bath, drenching his sleeve in the process, and pulling you up and out of the tub so that he can dry your wet body.

The moment he pushes your nude body to fall onto the bed, he's already on his knees. He's ready to devour you, and it has you thinking back to the way his tongue had felt as it dove inside of you. You had craved that feeling for almost a year now. But you still find yourself pushing him back with a foot to his chest.

He gives a questioning look to you, and for a moment you're overcome with a sudden shyness that prevents you from speaking. You collect your thoughts.

"Take off your pants."

He hesitates for a moment, before complying. His hands shake as they unbuckle his belt and push his pants down his legs, discarding them to the side. You hope he's shaking with anticipation, just as you are.

You don't even speak before you scramble to your knees. With two fingers under the waistband of his boxers you look up to meet his eyes. There's a fire in them, and you can't get enough of it.

You drag the fabric of his underwear down until he is freed from the confines of fabric. You relish in the gasp that falls from his lips as he softly rubs at your hair. He's noisy as you put your mouth on him. His moans are whiney and pathetic, and you want to eat them up.

Slow and steady, you think.

You want to pick him apart slowly- piece by piece. Just as he had slowly chipped away at your reserve all those months ago.

"Has anyone ever done this for you, Edward?"

He shakes his head, face contorted into a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. His hands on the back of your head are shaking, and you can tell he's slowly losing his self control as he pushes light pressure forward. Your eyes are watering, and you're trying your best to keep up until-

He takes a step back.

"S'gonna cum if you kept doing that."

It's drawled out into a slight whine, and you've caught your breath enough to reply,

"I want that, Edward."

He stares at you as if he can't believe you're saying such things to him. And honestly you can't believe it either. You think back to his stolen glances at the office- back when things were normal. The days when you would come home, tired and stiff, with only him on your mind.

Desperate, longing, pathetic.

You think back to the days that neither one of you had the guts to say anything, watching each other get off through a barrier- until he broke the barrier. And just as quickly as he had broken it, he had disappeared.

You kiss him. So hard it almost knocks him over. When you separate, neither of you speak for a moment. You listen to the sound of each other's beating hearts and heavy breathing. You trail your fingers up his hoodie, the only thing left blocking his skin from yours, and urge him to pull it up and off. He does so without hesitation.

"You should lay down."

For some reason his words stun you. You open your mouth to speak, hands resting on his bare chest, but nothing comes out. You simply nod and let yourself lay back against the soft mattress.

It also stuns you how swiftly he makes his way to hover over your body, spreading your thighs to fit himself between them. Any ounce of confidence has left you in this moment. You trail a hand lightly down his spine as he leans down towards your lips, just barely touching.

His forehead rests on yours and you can feel his breath on your face. It makes you shake more as his hand trails down your body until his cold fingers reach your core. You let out a shaky whisper,

"I want you..."

The smile he cracks makes your heart soar. You let your hand rest on the side of his face, slightly cupping his jaw. "Please..."

It's perfect, just as you remember. The burning stretch of him is a feeling that you've been chasing for months on end. You can't help but let your head fall back onto the mattress as you cry out.

You can feel his warm hands cradling the small of your back, pulling you in closer as he begins to thrust into you. His brows are furrowed in concentration, but you can see the way his features are fighting to break into a look of bliss. And you love it like this. You love how clearly you can see him like this. All skin on skin, unlike the last time you had him.

"You're everything."

Something in your heart flutters as he speaks. You feel him in ways that you forgot were possible. You can't help the babble of words that start to fall from your mouth.

"Nobody is like you, Edward. Nobody."

You let your hands loop around the back of his neck, holding his gaze. "I've had so many strangers in this bed while you were gone." You take note of the way his brows furrow and he twitches inside of you. "But none of them do it like you."

You know you've worked him up when he's suddenly gripping your thigh with one. hand and driving into you at a pace that teeters on the line of too much and just enough. Uneven. Ferocious. Inexperienced. And yet it makes you want to come all over him in an instant.

It's been too long. You're too pent up. His hands lead your face towards his until you're locked into a kiss once again.Your nails are digging into the meat of his arms as he holds your face, and you can only hope that you aren't hurting him too badly.

His face contorts into a look of pleasure as choked off whines escape his lips. You can feel tears running from the corners of your eyes as you cry out in pleasure. You never want this moment to end. You shouldn't even be doing this.

The thought that this moment is fleeting, much like your time with him, makes you tense. Wrapping your arms around his back and pulling him as close as you can to your body, you whisper out and into his ear,

"I love you, Edward."

He lets his head hang low until your foreheads meet. "I- I love you too- Ah-" His thrusts are sloppy and familiar. You can recognize the way his legs shake. He's so close to finishing and you want to give him that release more than anything. You should be pushing him out the door.

You drag your nails down the skin of his back. "Please..." It's the only word you can force out as you look into his eyes, bottomless green pits, and he nods at you. You revel in the sounds of his broken off whines and sloppy thrusts and you hold him close as he reaches the edge.

The warmth of him as he finishes pushes you closer and closer to edge until you're a goner.

You're a monster.

━

When it's all over, you're clinging onto him as those waves of pleasure crash over you and you shake in his grasp. He's stopped his movements but leaves himself buried inside. He leans his face against your neck, heavy breaths puffing against your skin.

You stay like this for a while. It's so quiet. You can faintly hear the ticking of the clock on the wall. You stroke a hand through his hair as he finally pulls away and falls onto his back. 

His eyes are closed, and his breathing is relaxed. He reaches a hand over to rub tiny circles onto your exposed hip with his fingers.

"I'm sorry for being so mean earlier."

His fingers stop for a moment as if he's taking in your statement. "I'm just feeling really uneasy here."

"You have nothing to worry about. I'm taking care of it all."

You sigh. Despite the bliss of physical intimacy and the love you feel for him, a nerve within you is struck. You let out a shaky breath.

"Why did you flood the city?"

There's a pause of thick silence in the air. "I did what was necessary." You furrow your brows and face him as he continues,

"Gotham needed real renewal."

"There were children. There were innocent people that died Edward." You can tell your words bother him. He avoids meeting your eye and his hands have a nervous twitch. "It was a small price to pay."

You blink over at him. His eyes still won't meet yours.

"I hope you don't actually feel that way."

You let yourself roll over, unable to speak any further. He lays unmoving for a moment, deep sighs rolling out of his mouth, before you feel him stand from his side of the bed and hear him gather his clothes before he walks out.

You squeeze your eyes shut and force the urge to sleep to take over.

━

His words plague your mind for weeks to come. It's eerily silent with no word or surprise visits from The Bat, and you can feel the suspense building inside of you.

Edward's warmth on your side each passing night brings a sense of comfort and belonging, but you find that the hours he is gone doing god knows what long and dreadful.

The implications that could come with Edward being caught out on the streets makes you sick at your stomach. Your name in the news and life down the drain. But you more so find yourself worrying what would happen to Edward in that situation.

You imagine they'd throw him into solitary confinement, and slowly drain any ounce of sanity that he had left. Punishment. It threatens to make you vomit as you contemplate the possibilities.

What had you done?

And soon you begin thinking of ways to give Edward a chance, even if slim. You run your fingers through tussled hair at night when you watch him sleep. You never want that peaceful look to leave his face.

But it's helpless. You know this. You're prolonging both of your sufferings by allowing him to stay as long as he has. There's no happy endings or escaping into an orange lit sunset. He was right when he had told you how he felt. You were too late and he had chosen his fate.

You eat dinner night after night, leaving him the leftover rice and chicken from a nearby takeout place. He comes home later and later every night. And occasionally you can't help yourself. You wait up for him until he comes home and you find comfort in the burn of his skin against yours.

The touch of his rough hands on your hips is electric as he thrusts messily into you. It feels good, but only leaves you feeling slightly sick after the fact.

Especially when he closes his eyes like it hurts to look at you. You let your hands caress his cheeks as you will him to open his eyes. "Look at me, Edward." It's a soft whisper. He doesn't relent.

"I love you."

You shouldn't.

And finally he opens his eyes. He's crying. It's unmistakable. He wilts in on himself like the petals of a flower as the tears begin to fall down his cheeks. "I'm sorry for everything I've done." His body still shivers from the feeling of you around him. You notice as you gently guide him out of you and onto his back against the bed. You wipe the tears with your fingers and kiss him deeply.

"I forgive you." 

Do you?

He sobs into your chest until the sleep overcomes him that night. You stay awake, staring at the ceiling. You forgive him, you think. You wouldn't lie to him. 

But the sinking feeling remains. This thing that the two of you have built is doomed, and you begin to wonder if you've started lying to yourself.

Even after his apologies, he stays out. You stop waiting for him to return at night. Even after his apologies, he is wrapped up so tightly in the work of The Riddler. Even after his apologies, you are left with a sick feeling in your gut.

You fall deeper and deeper into your paranoia.

It's getting harder and harder to sleep at night. This city is too much like Gotham. This job is just as miserable as KTMJ. And somehow after everything, Edward has maintained his spot in your miserable life. You want, no, need to hate him. You need to push him out of the door and tell him to never come back. 

You've allowed him to stay for too long.

You want him here.

You cannot take the sight of him anymore.

You never want to look away.

You bury your face into your pillow and let out a scream that shreds your throat.

━

It's one of the few nights he has decided come home early enough to catch the dinner you'd carefully crafted for the two of you. It's almost strange sitting across from him at the dinner table. He had been coming to you like some sort of creature of the night, carefully picking the lock on your door and sliding into bed with you when you were already asleep.

"I'm really glad you're here. I was proud of this one."

You pull your mouth into the best smile you could muster up and he smiles back. "It's good." 

You let out a huff of a laugh as you push around a remaining piece of cream sauce covered broccoli on your plate. "You mean it?"

His eyes meet yours, "I don't lie." 

It's silent for a few more moments, with only the sounds of your forks hitting the ceramic plates and the faint hum of your A/C unit. You barely even realize you've been bouncing your legs with nerves since the moment you sat down. You really shouldn't push it you think. You should just enjoy this moment. He had come home early enough to eat dinner with you.

Oh. Home. There's that word again. 

Could you really even consider this place his home. 

Would he consider it his home?

You should be happy. Instead, you feel like you could burst into tears at any moment. 

"I really wish we could do this more often."

He stands from his seat and walks his plate over to the sink to rinse the mess of it. "Hm?" 

You join him by the sink, letting a hand rest on his back. 

"I just- I like having you here. Actually here, not just in bed at night." 

It's a plea. You hope he sees it as that. You want nothing more than for him to recognize how much you're suffering in your current situation. Instead, he smiles and turns to pull you into an embrace. His lips are close to your ears, pressing light kisses to your head. You can hear his steady breathing. He hesitates to reply.

"You know I would be here all the time if I could."

You pull away softly, eyes meeting his. "The Riddler demands attention." 

It comes out just as snarky and drained as you feel in the moment. The Riddler had people outside waiting on him, people you don't even know. The Riddler had business so important it keeps him out all day and nearly all night. The Riddler had amassed followers in amounts you couldn't fathom.

Edward had a lone lover waiting at home and living in delusion. 

He furrows his brows, "You're angry." You laugh, fingers pinching the bridge of your nose. 

"I've been waiting all night for you nearly every single night. You're barely here. I feel like some animal having the one thing they want dangled in front of but just out of reach."

There's a silence, like you've caught him off guard. And you've caught yourself off guard too. There's tears flowing down your cheeks and you can barely catch your breath. You've held it in too long now. You're afraid you might tear everything apart.

"God forbid I want to sit down and eat a normal meal like normal people." 

You look stupid. You probably seem like you've gone nuts. But he keeps his tone mellow.

"Things are never gonna be normal for you. Not as long as I am around."

You really shouldn't be pissed off, he's telling nothing but the harsh truth. It was you who was in denial, clinging to the idea of what could've been your life. At the same time, it was him to had shown back up after months of insisted no contact.

"Then why did you come back?!" 

You can see his hands shaking at his sides. You've hurt his feelings, but you can't bring yourself to stop the overflowing words.

"Why did you come back? Just to rub it in my face that I can never really have you? You should've just left it at rejecting me at KTMJ."

He's quiet, eerily so as he seems to absorb what you've just thrown at him. Until he speaks,

"That night I showed back up- Do you really think I'd let something like that happen to you? Do you think I could livewith myself?"

You're turned away from him now. You can't stand to look at him, a position you've found yourself in more and more lately. 

"You've done much worse."

He opens his mouth to respond, but no words come out. He takes a step forward, inching closer to you. He's so close that you can faintly hear his beating heart. You're looking up at him with bloodshot eyes. "I came back because I care about you,"

"I can live with the things I've done. If you can't, say the word."

There's a seething tone on the end of his sentence. You don't get a chance to reply before he walks out the door, slamming it shut.

━

You've taken to wine more than you'd like to in his daily absence. It doesn't burn going down the way that liquor does, and it's a much easier purchase to justify than a bottle of vodka. And it doesn't leave you completely out of your mind, not like the shots had the night that Edward had shown back up.

You're suffering internally. You should've turned him away that night.

Instead you let him in your home and into your mind and into your heart, and now he's burrowed himself so deep it feels like cutting out a vital organ to send him away.

He's barely been home since your argument, and you almost wish he would've just never shown back up after he left. It'd make it easier on you. Only for a fleeting moment. The times he is home, he smells like smoke and iron, and has that same dull look in his eyes. He crashes before you even have a moment to make small talk. 

You've reached your breaking point when he finds you sitting at the dining table later into the night when he returns, gloves still on, overcoat shed. He stops in his tracks. "Hey. It's late." You can see the worry in his face as he simply stares at you. The opened bottle of wine is visible on the table in front of you.

"I have to leave, Edward."

Please, don't let me go.

He stands and stares at you with his hands tucked together in front of him. He looks so small. Almost childlike, as if he's listening to a parent speak to him about their issues with his behavior.

"I have to move on from- this. You should too."

Dear God, follow me forever.

You told yourself you wouldn't cry, but you can already feel your eyes stinging. You're so defeated. So broken. So sad. He breaks the silence and the look on his face makes you want to fall to your knees and beg for forgiveness, and for a moment you think you might.

"Okay. I can leave tonight."

You shake your head. "No. Don't, not yet." He furrows his brows, confused. "Please, let me be the one to leave this time." He nods slowly. He moves a step forward as if he wants to touch you but instead just continues to keep his hand pressed to his body. It's almost as if he's scared to touch you, so you take the initiative and curl your arms around him, burying your face into his chest.

You take in the way that he smells. So familiar, so comforting. You try to push down the thoughts that inevitably a day is going to come where you won't even be able to recall the way he smelled. You don't want to let go, ever. In the back of your mind there's no doubt that he's the one for you, but there's also no doubt that this affair will destroy you. It already is. You have to make this choice- for the both of you. So you do.

You eat dinner together late into the night, and it feels like a last meal before an all too soon death. Not much is said between the two of you. But as soon as you finish your dinners you're heading to bed. He doesn't come with you at first. He stays glued to his spot on the couch, and for a second you think he might opt to sleep there for the night. That is until you feel his side of the bed dip.

Warm arms wrap around you and he's pulling you into him. Your bodies are firmly pressed together and he's so so warm. His lips are pressed to your neck, placing gentle and sleepy kisses to the skin. You feel tears slip from your eyes and onto the pillow beneath your face.

"I really wish things were different."

You feel him sigh against you. You continue, "I wish this was possible." You turn to face him, although you hate to. You want to take in his features. You want to burn them into the back of your eyelids forever. You want to forget he even existed. He looks at you with a straight face. 

"You'll find someone else, and you'll forget about me."

And your heart breaks the second the words leave his mouth. You shake your head as you start to cry. It feels like he's reached into your ribcage and pulled your heart out of your chest. "The life I am living is not fair to you." And it's still beating in his bloodied hand.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to forget about you."

It wouldn’t matter how hard you tried.

His hand brushes the side of your head. "I wish you would." You furrow your brows as he continues, "You deserve someone who can be there for you."

He looks at your face as you weep. He looks as if he's trying to stop himself from feeling any emotion, possibly for your sake. You wipe your tears and speak again.

"I'm gonna try to find a new place. I can’t be here anymore. You can stay here until I leave and then-"

He looks at you for a moment before nodding. You brush a hand through his hair, pushing away strands that have fallen into his face.

"I love you, Edward."

He whispers back,

"I love you too."

You let yourself fall asleep, comfortably wrapped in his embrace. You can almost convince yourself it’s a normal night, that tomorrow will be the same routine. Edward will be gone when you wake up, and you will inevitably wait up for him in the night.

But when you wake up, you find that the warmth of his arms is gone and his side of the bed is empty and cold. You slowly raise from your bed.

"Eddie?"

Something in your gut feels wrong, and your instinct is right as you find the tiny slip of paper where he always left it. It's different this time, not a promise to be back or an indicator that you might meet again. 

I love you, always. Be safe. -E.

━

He was here and then he wasn’t. He left just as suddenly as he had appeared. 

You had pushed him away and yet you still felt the pain of how easily he had agreed. Although you suppose you shouldn't be too offended. He had respected your boundaries easier than any other person you had allowed into your life, aside from the unhinged behavior he carried around behind the mask and coat.

Edward Nashton had always been one to accept that things weren’t laid out in his favor. He’d been arrogant in the time that you knew him, but you’d seen how easily he accepted consequences of his own actions.

And this was a consequence, no matter how much it hurt your feelings. 

In his absence, you’d kicked your feet on the process of getting the hell out of this town, and instead let your mundane routine continue. You go to work. You come home. You eat dinner. You try not to stare at the latched door, almost expecting it to open. 

You tried to do as he had wished. To move on and find someone to fill that void in your life. You had joined a dating app, praying and hoping that the perfect person would show up and take you away from it all.

And you do find a nice man. A man who is willing to take you out and get to know you. A man who is probably stable and would take good care of you. You let yourself enjoy dinner, you laugh, you joke, but as he walks you home and grabs your hand, you feel the ache growing in your chest.

He kisses you before you head into your apartment, and it throws you into a frenzy. You can only think of familiar soft lips and your vision is blurring the man's face with the image of shaggy hair and clear framed glasses. You stumble back and let out a quick "I- I can't." before frantically running into your apartment.

You let your body slide down the front door until you're sat on the ground in front of it. You tuck your head into your knees and sob. 

It’s time to accept the fact that your life may never be normal as long as you stay here. With Gotham so horribly close. With the ghosts of your past following you around this miserable town. 

You pack everything and leave within the next week. You head to the coast, hoping the warmer weather will cure the ache in your bones.

━

You find the coast to be the most stable you've ever lived. You've managed yourself another office job with better management than you could've ever imagined at KTMJ. You've made some decent friends with coworkers. 

You like to think it's the warm weather and the rays of sun that have turned your life around. The frigid cold always had a way of putting you down.

Your therapist always laughs at this sentiment. 

You've found cute little corner diners to sip coffee and take a breath in. The grumpy old women that work there are just enough to make you feel right at home.

"You're from Jersey?"

You nod as you take a sip from the mug the waitress had handed you. She hums, "My family is from Jersey."

"How'd you end up here?"

She shrugs. "Married some guy, followed him here, got a divorce, but I never wanted to leave." She meets your amused look with a slight chuckle. She's got just the right energy to make you feel comfortable and it's nice opening up to someone, even if it's only for a moment. 

"Well, I'm happy to find someone else from Jersey. You don't meet a lot here."

She shakes her head and the bell on the front door jingles, "No you don't- Sir, I'll be right with you." She walks from the bar that you're sat at and makes her way to the table in the back corner. The booth is facing away from you, but you can make out the side of the man's head as he faces the waitress to order. You're able to make out the tiny glint of the glasses on his face and the pale scar on his cheek.

You turn back towards the mug sitting in front of you.

You smile.

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Chapter Eleven

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen

WC: 17k (I've literally been calling this a short filler hahahahaha)

18+ MDNI!!

Chapter Warnings: unbearable amounts of fluff like you're gonna think is this girl okay??? the answer, as you should already know, is no. I honestly think it's just fluff.... and bad smut. oral (fem receiving, very briefly) and p in v. mentions of jealousy I think. cheeto gets a name finally but honestly.... she's cheeto forever let's not forget. discussions around marriage and more babies. yeah - fluffy fluff.

Series Masterlist

Previous Part (Chapter Ten)

A/N: remember the good old days when I uploaded a chapter like every 10 days??? remember me trying to beat the week-ish allegations??? I can’t tell if me struggling to finish this fic is bc I’m worried it’s getting samey and boring or bc I don’t want to let them go but i need to get over myself!!! sorry for the wait on this one!!! I kind of veered off the path that I planned out for the end of this story, I was really adamant I didn’t want something to happen, but it doesn’t really make sense for the relationship and characters I’ve written for it NOT to happen, so pls bear with me while I figure these last couple of chapters out!! I know a few people have discovered this fic recently so thank you for reading!! I promise I do love these two as much as I haven't acted like it the last couple of months!!

BUT ANYWAY!!! MORE IMPORTANTLY!!!!! this chapter is dedicated to my bestie Rory!! it was her birthday on Monday and if I'm honest I don't know if I would have made it this far without her!! she sends me full chapter breakdowns every time I post and she loves Poppy and Nico as much as I do - literally if I perish, she will take the reins!!! she knows everything!!! I accidentally spoiled the gender to her forever ago, and she helped me figure out Cheeto's name (as well as the name cheeto lmao) and we compared lists and literally had the same number one and the same reason we are that connected!! @h1sch13r I love you so much I couldn't possibly put into words how much I appreciate you!! happy belated birthday capricorn queen!!

Nico

Ever since he moved to the states, summers in Switzerland have always been the best part of Nico’s year. 

Spending much needed time with his family - staying with his parents for days at a time, back in his childhood home, eating his mother’s cooking and hanging out with his dad, and annual trips with his siblings, where the three of them got to spend a week together pretending like their lives hadn’t taken them away from each other. 

Despite the chaos that came as hockey season came to a close, he always looked forward to coming home.

And last year, when he had done so after one of the most heartbreaking moments of his career, he had endured what he now considers the worst summer of his life.

And it was all because of Poppy.

He can see it so much clearer with hindsight, how he had taken himself so far off the beaten path just to avoid his feelings for her, and experiencing a summer with her only makes him regret it more.

Last year, he had come home in a slump, and he had thought, at the time, it was the noise of being knocked out of the playoffs and a brief appearance at the world championships that was lingering. He thought he was exhausted, and remorseful, and that it was the failure of carrying his teams any further that was making him feel so down.

And so he had tried his best to do things that made him feel the opposite. 

He bought an apartment, not too far from his family that he felt distant, but enough so that he could be independent when he came back. And he had tried to make it feel like home - furnished nice, with personal belongings from his parent’s house that made the place feel like his, and not some rental he had no place making feel like forever.

He went on more trips with his friends, weekends away, music festivals, sporting events, and made a point of saying yes to things he might usually have turned down.

And that had been what led him to Talia - to being blinded by what probably should have stayed a summer fling, in lieu of sparing a thought to adoring eyes looking back at him from booths in bar corners, and a girl that, in the back of his mind, he had always wanted to be forever, too.

He had missed Poppy more than he ever could have realised at the time - and had fallen victim to abiding by their usual routine of radio silence in the summer, without realising that they had grown way too much since the year before to seriously keep that up.

He wishes he’d have texted her or something, back then. Commented on an instagram post, responded to a story, or called her, even. Her voice might have deterred him from ever trying to move on, and it could have saved the two of them so much time and heartache from what came as a result of that.

But maybe then she wouldn’t be here now, belly round with his child, sat out on the terrace in the back yard of his childhood home, schooling his big brother at Uno. Maybe he wouldn’t come down the stairs in the morning to the sounds of her laughing with his dad, helping him prepare breakfast for the family and asking him questions about what constitutes being offside in soccer when he’d sit down to watch Switzerland play their international games and she’d join him to try get into it, herself. 

Maybe she wouldn’t go on shopping trips with his sister, and come back with bagfuls of baby clothes that she holds up to her front as she shows them all to Nico in their room, and make comments about how she can’t believe that something so big can grow from her belly. 

Maybe she would still be someone he always wants to keep to himself, instead of sharing her with the people he loves the most in this world, only to have his love grow for her even more - and maybe that’s not how he ever wanted things to be. 

So maybe he had to suffer through the facade he put on last summer to get to where he is now, content in every possible aspect of his life, wrapped up under the bedsheets, muttering random stories to Poppy’s belly as she sleeps, the side of his finger caressing the soft skin as he anticipates whatever movement happens inside her that is going to rouse her from whatever sweet dreams he hopes she’s having. 

“What are you doing?”

There’s a brief flash of light before Poppy joins him under the covers, pulling the sheet over her head to shield them from the morning sun’s intrusion before she looks down at where he’s resting beside her belly. 

Her eyes are narrowed like they’re trying to fight consciousness, and her face is swollen in that adorable way it gets in the mornings, puffy and plump, and he wants to kiss it all over. 

She’s so beautiful, and she’s his, and it warms his heart every time he gets to wake up to her. 

“Having a private conversation with my daughter, if you don’t mind,” he smiles up to her, soft and teasing, before she kicks him gently and shuffles her way out from under the covers.

“You made her make me want to pee,” she huffs, feet padding across the room to the en suite, where she leaves the door open as she empties her bladder, and he re-situates himself back against the pillows at the top of the bed, one arm behind his head, so he can watch her when she makes her way back.

Her bump is big enough now that she almost waddles, 6 weeks of eating his mother’s cooking, and all the incredible food they have tried in  restaurants he has told her about over the years, and she had really popped in no time - and it’s the sexiest Nico thinks she’s ever been. Nose and lips constantly swollen with water retention, her voice changing, Nico witnessing the ever-growing struggle that she refuses to acknowledge - but she does everything so effortlessly, and without much complaint, that he finds it all endearing. 

His eyes are drawn to her belly every time he sees her, chest puffing with pride when he takes notice of the speedy growth of it, and he fixates on it for as long as she’ll let him - usually swatting at his chest and telling him to knock it off with a telltale flush to her cheeks whenever they’re around others.

Sharing his part of the world with her these last six weeks have been pure bliss, and as she ambles her way back over to where he lays, he can’t help but be grateful for whatever led him to this - to her crawling back into bed and straight into his arms. 

“I want you to teach me your language.” She mumbles into his chest, her body curved into his, legs tangling immediately as his arms circle around her.

“The language of love?” He asks with a wiggle of his brows, leaning in to kiss her lips, laughing against them as he feels them frown, 

“Don’t be gross you know what I mean,” she sighs, lips fighting a smile, and he kisses her again, helping her hook her leg properly over his so she can straddle him, her bump settling between the two of them as she relaxes over his hips. “Swiss-German isn’t on Duolingo, I checked. And I can’t have you and Cheeto conspiring against me in words I don’t understand, that’s not fair.”

She looks so cute, all pouty and pleading, and as the gravity of what she’s asking weighs down on him, he breaks out into a dreamy smile, himself. 

He can’t think of any other person who had wanted to speak his language. Too complicated for most, with too many dialects to grasp properly, he has always adapted to what the people around him need. English, back in the states, which he likes to think he has mastered by now, but he still trips up on the odd word, here and there.

Some Italian, some French. Odd bits of Czech and Swedish.

And German - he and Talia always spoke in plain German. 

It had never really bothered him, until now - until he has a girl on his lap, willing to learn something for him, and so their daughter can learn it too - passing his culture down another generation and sharing it with the love of his life. 

“What do you want to know?” He asks, hands on her hips as she runs hers along the broad expanse of his chest, fingers trailing on the little patch of hair on his chest that she’s always drawn too, holding him in place so she can lean in and kiss him, herself. 

“Everything,” she whispers against his skin, lips pressing back to the corner of his mouth. “You can teach me, right?”

“Yeah,” he shuffles his hips beneath her so she rests a little more comfortably, “I can teach you.”

He reaches up to move her hair behind her neck, leaning to press a kiss on the bare skin there, edging the strap of her bra down so that he can mutter the word for shoulder against the curve of hers, and she repeats it back to him, breathy and distant. 

He does the same along her collarbone, against her neck, nipping at her jaw and her cheek.

He distracts her with his teachings, and she relays each word back almost perfectly as he slowly repositions the two of them, laying her up against the pillows so she isn’t flat on her back, and pressing kisses down her body. 

With fingers grasped firmly around her calf, he lifts her leg slowly so that he can perch it over his shoulder, pecking at the side of her knee and barely just making eye contact over the curve of her bump. “You’re a fast learner, Mohn,” he praises, fingers tickling up and down her leg as she straightens her back to try and watch him as his face moves upward. “Can you remember what shoulder was?”

“Not with you between my legs like that,” she huffs, her voice just above a whisper - too used to keeping her responses low whenever the two of them have been staying at his parent’s house instead of his apartment, too used to holding back and releasing frustrated groans into the broad expanse of his chest. 

The two of them had gotten creative, most of their time spent around Nico’s friends and family, only a few days here and there alone in his apartment. 

Quickies in the car, fumbling hands under tables, rushed kisses whenever they get a second to themselves. There had even been a time where Poppy sought him out in the sauna.

“Should you be in here?” He had asked, straightening on the bench and running a hand through his hair as she came in and shut the door behind her, eyes on his glistening chest as she slowly made her way forward.

“Google says I’m good for 10 minutes,” she shrugged, reaching back to untie the straps of her bikini top. “Figured you’re so riled up you’ll only need 2 anyway.”

He had been training with Luca most of the day, leaving Poppy to hang with his sister, and the two of them had spent the entire time they were apart texting each other teasing messages about how much they missed each other - but were staying with his family again, and so the outdoor sauna he and his brother had built in the garden a couple of years ago was probably their best bet for privacy at that point.

Nico’s eyes flickered to the clock above the door, making a mental note of the time so he could make sure she was out in 8 minutes max, before helping her guide herself onto his lap, giving into both of their frustrations for as long as Poppy’s Googling would allow them. 

“You might have to teach me again when you get back from your trip.” She tells him, spreading her legs as much as she can to accommodate his figure. He’d feel guilty for leaving her behind with his family if she hadn’t been the one to push him to go away training for a week - him and Luca accepting after her insistence that she’d be fine in the company of his parents and his sister.

“We can do that,” he chuckles, his voice low, too. “And again the day after,” he kisses a little further up, twisting at her calf to reveal the inside of her thigh, “And the day after that,” and again, even further. 

“Nico,” she sighs, face scrunching, eyes fluttering shut as he glances up at her one more time, his face concealed now by the curve of her belly and relying on her subdued sounds to gauge her pleasure. 

Poppy’s back arches about as much as it can as Nico closes in on the apex of her thighs, a finger hooked through the bottom of her panties, pulling them to the side as he nips at the top of her thigh, anticipation building until her hand finds purchase on the back of his head.

He lays his tongue flat against her glistening folds, bringing it up to get a taste of the heaven between Poppy’s legs, and relies on her breathy gasps and the buck of her hips to guide him to pleasure her just how she likes, lips around the bundle of nerves that makes her jolt when he sucks a little too hard, moving slowly, teasingly at first before hunger takes over.

He can’t relent until he feels her legs trembling at either side of his head, Poppy’s body slithering beneath him as his tongue works between her folds, and he can taste nothing but her sweet arousal.

He almost loses himself in her before he distantly hears a whisper of his name, ears perking at the tone in her voice - not like the usual pleasured gasp or moan, just slightly off.

“Babe, stop,” Poppy whines, fingers clutched in his hair as he withdraws from her heat, pulling back enough to check on her over her belly.

“You okay?” He frowns, hand gripping her thigh, thumb rubbing soothingly as he takes in her frustrated expression.

“No,” she pouts, “I can’t see you. I don’t like not seeing you.”

Nico pokes his tongue to the side of his cheek to stop himself laughing, feeling her fingers loosen their grip on the strands of hair in their hold enough that he can sit up a little. “Do we need to get a little creative with mirrors, or something?”

“No, I need you to come up here.”

“But I like it down here.” He sighs in faux-protest, leaning his cheek against her knee as their gazes meet.

Poppy narrows her beautiful eyes at him, and there’s no stopping the smile after that. “My back hurts like this,” she huffs, “And I don’t want your mouth right now.”

“Well if you were patient, I would have used my fingers, too,” he chuckles, retreating entirely so he can crawl up the bed. 

“Don’t want your fingers either.” She starts making grabby hands when he gets closer, until he follows her guidance, holding himself up to the side of her and letting her pull him in to press their lips together. 

“Greedy,” he teases into her mouth, just as one of her hands drops to tug at the waistband of his boxers. He can’t blame her for wanting more, though - not with the way they’ve both been chasing every little pleasure where they can over the past 6 weeks, and not with how he’s set to spend a week away for training with his friends. 

Poppy’s hormones are yet to dissipate, and all he wants is to please her, so he lets her pull at his underwear with ease, distracting him with the swipe of her tongue against his, and the soft little moans she lets into his mouth as he works at her underwear, himself.

“You wanna go on your side?” He mumbles between her lips, remembering the position they had ended up the last time, Poppy unable to lay on her back too long, and her bump now getting in the way if she wanted to straddle him. He was too nervous for her to get on all fours, despite her protests that she could handle not collapsing onto her front, and they had ended up spooning. He had enjoyed it way more than he ever thought he would if anyone had told him months ago that being behind her on his side would have become their default position.

“Mmhm,” she hums, nodding frantically as they position themselves, his hands guiding her to comfort as she lays on her side, hair tucked behind her ear so he can press his lips to the curve of her neck before sinking into her from behind, her back arched just right to make it easy for him. 

“Fuck,” he groans under his breath as he pushes himself in to the hilt, Poppy squeaking, her arm bent back and nails digging into his shoulder, “You feel so good, baby.”

She feels tight and warm around him, in a way that makes him feel like his head might explode in pure bliss, and he presses his chest straight to her back. Their skin sticks together with perspiration, clamminess building as he starts to move, and her head falls back, baring the elongated slope of her neck for him to bury his nose into.

She smells so good, even after a full night tossing and turning in his arms, and the ever-present scent of his body wash lingers in the depths of her skin, Nico inhaling fully as her hips press back onto his, a slow rhythm building.

He holds himself up with an elbow against the mattress, his other arm curling over her waist, hand reaching between her legs to rub at her clit, slick with arousal and swollen from his previous attention to it, causing her legs to tremble again. 

Her arm tangles with his, nails scraping at his skin, pushing to apply more pressure where she needs it the most, and he grunts lowly into her neck, nipping at her skin and lifting his chin every now and then to gauge her response to his ministrations.

He can see her jaw slack, head craned back, lashes fluttering in blissed-out euphoria as she grows closer to her peak - and Nico is so in tune with her now that he feels like he’s there with her. A night pressed against her, and his previous stint between her legs already adding to his pleasure, and he can feel the tell-tale tension in the pit of his stomach, muscles in his thighs growing taut as he kicks up his pace a little, Poppy quietly moaning like music to his ears.

“You gonna come, huh?” He asks in a breathy growl, lips moving against the sensitive skin of her neck, “Can feel you getting close, baby, you’re so good for me.”

Nico can never forget the way such praise had made her cheeks flush all those months ago, the first time they had ever slept together - the night their baby girl had been conceived, and their lives had been set to change forever. He’s always seeking that same reaction, that glint in her eye and the stutter of her hips - and she always gives him just what he wants, walls tightening around him in a mind-numbing pressure, thighs shivering, spine curving, all muscles tensing as she falls apart. And he soon follows, coming inside of her like he’s all too used to now, teeth pressed into her shoulder and chest panting against her back.

The arm she had intertwined with his soon untangles itself to reach back and stroke through his hair as he comes down, scratching at his scalp as she gets her own breath back.

He brings his hand up to his mouth to clean his fingers of her arousal before he goes back to rest his hands against her belly, still inside her until he softens, pressing soft kisses to her skin until she giggles a little when it tickles, and the vibrations of her laughter force him to pull out before he starts to grow hard again.

He does so with a grunt and a hand on her hip, rolling out of the bed and toward the bathroom to get a cloth to clean her up, returning to her blissed out form splayed out on the mattress.

He bites back a smile as their eyes meet, edging her legs apart so he can wipe between them, swiping softly at her sensitive folds and watching her smile sleepily back at him as her chest rises and falls in laboured breaths. 

“Thank you,” she sighs, blinking slowly, and he feels his cheeks push into a dimpled grin as he watches her - completely lost in the afterglow.

“You don’t have to thank me, baby,” he throws the cloth over to the nightstand, crawling up Poppy’s body to press his lips to hers.

“You make me really happy.”

He smiles, slow but big, eyes tracing the way hers crinkle a little in the corners. “You make me happy too.”

“I said really happy.”

“You make me the happiest man in the world.”

“That’s better.” She bumps her nose against his before kissing him again. “You’re a quick learner, too.”

He chuckles against the corner of her mouth, pressing one more sweet kiss there before pushing himself up, looking around the floor for his pants. “Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll bring you some breakfast? Make you really really happy,”

“Or we could eat together and you could shower with me? We could have some more fun-,”

“I’m not falling for that again, babe, you don’t want to have fun, you want me to wash your hair because your arms ache.”

He’s been lured into the shower one too many times over the past 6 weeks with the promise of a good time, only for Poppy to claim they couldn’t get too frisky and risk slipping, so he may as well put his hands to good use and shampoo her hair - guiding him on where she liked him to apply pressure until he was pretty much giving her a scalp massage.

Poppy pouts, sinking back against the pillows as she watches him hop into his underwear, pulling the briefs until the waistband snaps against his hips, her eyes following them all the way up his legs. “I thought you loved me.”

His laughter bubbles all the way up from the pit of his stomach, swirling with adoration and amusement. 

“And now you’re laughing. Unbelievable.” She scoffs, feigning irritation with a telltale quiver at the corner of her lips. “Do I need to remind you that you’re going away for a whole week tomorrow? Living it up with your buddies and leaving me in the dust. I’m owed like 2 more orgasms at least before then.”

“I’ll give you three tonight, I promise.” He leans in again, thinking he’ll never make it out of the room at this point, Poppy having the most kissable lips in the entire universe. “We’ll figure out the mirror thing, so you can see me better between your legs.”

She hums against his mouth as she kisses him once more before asking, “Can you make me avocado toast please?”

“And a smoothie?” He asks, stepping away so that he isn’t drawn back in until mid-day.

She nods, a pretty smile stretching out across her swollen lips, watching as he walks backward towards the door. He keeps his eyes on her until he closes the door behind him, making his way through his family home with a smile that won’t give, feeling confident in his previous sentiment uttered to her. 

Nico Hischier might just be the happiest man in the world.

Nico had thought being away from Poppy for a whole week would have been torturous - that he would be counting down the hours until he could get back to her, distant from his friends and hating every second apart - but it had almost been the opposite of that, and he only had her to thank.

He thinks that maybe 6 weeks of living out the dream life with her, and knowing that would be exactly what he was returning to, allowed him to enjoy his week away - even though it wasn’t exactly a break. 

His off-season training had kicked up a gear while he was away, and he was thankful that he didn’t have to mope around missing her all the time and could concentrate a little on his gruelling routine.

They FaceTimed every morning, and every night before she went to sleep. Texted throughout the day, sending pictures back and forth of what each other got up to - Poppy spending her days with his parents and his sister, being doted on by his entire family in his absence, in ways that made his heart grow ten-fold, and his days spent training, lifting, running, hiking, doing all sorts of activities that he would send her several videos of and she would respond with some crazy comment that made him laugh out loud. 

She never made him feel guilty for being away from her - never made it seem like she felt like second best to his schedule, or his career, or the season looming in the background of their relationship. She never complained about him not being around, only ever gushed about who was back home with her - telling him how much she loved hanging around with Nina, who was back in Switzerland taking her on spa trips and exploring the city with her, teaching her about their hometown and filling in all the blanks that Nico had yet to clue her in on. 

And he was getting chirped like hell for walking around with a constant dopey smile on his face - something he should know better by now than to do on a boys trip, but he was long past caring.

He had the girl of his dreams blending in with the family he loved more than anything, and a little girl on the way - his best friend and brother rallying the boys to poke fun at him at the dinner table could do nothing to diminish the flame that was fuelled within him.

“I’m on my own when we get back to Jersey, even Nico’s wifed off, now,” Timo jokes as they sit around a large restaurant table on their last night of their trip, his big arm resting on the back of his chair as he sips on his beer. 

“You’re getting married, too?” Their friend Leo asks, brows raised as the influx of new information hits him all at once. “You guys don’t tell me anything!”

“It’s just a saying,” Nico scoffs, his bottle pressed to his lips before he takes a swig, “We’re not engaged.”

“Yet.” Luca adds, “I give him a month before he asks her, though. You should see him around her, he’s obsessed.”

“It won’t be a month,” he denies, ignoring the second half of the sentence, completely - there’s really no point denying that anymore, “I’d have to get her dad’s permission or whatever, and her parents sort of hate me.”

Timo barks out a laugh from across the table, “Oh yeah, he yelled at her dad!”

“You yelled at someone?”

“I didn’t yell,” he frowns, the word starting to lose all meaning with its overuse. “I just called him out over something. And, to be honest, I think he might have liked me more after that.”

Nico doesn’t really like looking back on that first night at the Jensen house - there was probably no preparing him for what he was walking into, and, entirely overwhelmed by the grandeur of it all, he had lost his head. But their family dynamic was difficult.

He had witnessed it only in short bursts, before - had seen Poppy around her mom a few times, had met her dad once before that in passing - and being immersed in it, being looked down on by her mother all day, overshadowed by her brother, ignored by her father, watching the whole conversation around their pregnancy unfold at the dinner table, tensions high and emotions rampant, he had let his frustrations build to the point of boiling over.

When Poppy’s brother had first started berating her, he had tried to write it off in his head as sibling banter of sorts. He and his siblings were never quite as cruel, but he knows sometimes brothers and sisters bicker like Poppy and Oli had - biting remarks and words intended to hurt. Then, it had spiralled.

He’s seen Poppy stick up for herself, before, but he’s never experienced her blow up like that. And he had understood it completely, considering he was reaching the brink of eruption, himself - and that’s not taking into account her heightened pregnancy hormones.

He had felt protective, and even upset, himself, that this thing his family had embraced with open arms, had celebrated at time where he and Poppy needed it the most, that was turning his life around in all the best possible ways, was being rained on by the rest of them, and when Poppy had stormed off, and her mom had followed, he couldn’t sit there in silence and not say something.

What kind of partner would that have made him?

“I think you underestimate her.” He had said, quiet but firm, as silence settled over the table in Poppy’s absence. 

The reactions had been slow, a gradual raise of Oli’s head, matching that of his wife, beside him, who pressed her lips together to hide what Nico hoped was a smile, and the prolonged lowering of cutlery from her father. 

“Excuse me?” Philip asked, leaning onto his elbows. “What did you say?”

“Poppy,” Nico clarified, “I don’t think that any of you really understand what she’s capable of.”

“That’s my daughter you’re talking about, I think I of all people understand-,”

“She’s really smart,” Nico had interjected before he lost the courage to do so, ignoring the twinge in his gut that told him to calm down, that he shouldn’t be risking his relationship with the future grandfather of his baby like this. “And really independent, and she somehow always knows what to do if you drop her into the middle of a really tough situation. If you could see her at work, you’d get it, people go to Poppy to fix things and for her to help them, and support them, and she always does it because that’s the kind of person she is.”

Neither of them had seemed to react, but had been so far into hyping himself up to let all of his thoughts out that he doesn’t think he would have noticed if they had. 

“You guys might not see it because you only see her as your daughter, or your little sister, but she is the strongest person I know. She’s an incredible woman, and she’s going to be an even better mother, and she deserves, more than anybody else, for her family to have her back right now.”

“It was just a joke, man,” Oli had scoffed, “It’s not that serious.”

“It is to her. She spent the entire ride here talking about you guys, about your family and everything you’ve built for yourself in California,” Nico had nodded to her brother, remembering all the ways Poppy had hidden her admiration for him behind sarcastic comments - even before the drive from Jersey City, over the years where she had opened up to him about her family, he had always seen a small dash of affection for her older brother - before turning to her dad, “And everything you’ve achieved, sir, everything you’ve built for yourself, and for your kids. She just wants to be seen as an equal, and I think if either of you actually noticed her, you’d see just what she’s capable of, and you wouldn’t make digs at her,” he had narrowed his eyes at Oli, “Or sit in silence while others make her feel like crap.” He hadn’t quite been able to meet Mr Jensen’s eye, but he felt a little relieved that he had managed to say what he needed. “You’re both supposed to have her back.”

Neither of them had come back to him after that, tensions rising once more in the growing silence, the hammering of his heart and the rush of blood to his head the only thing he could hear before he had excused himself, and had ascended through the house to find Poppy in her room. 

He hadn’t told Poppy at the time what he had said - he felt no need to do so, it wouldn’t have changed anything, and might have made her upset or even more stressed, which he never wanted to do. But Philip had changed after - had made more efforts to be there for Poppy, to get to know Nico, and the two of them had even gotten onto texting terms. 

So he doesn’t necessarily think that her parents hate him, but it’s definitely too soon to be asking for their daughter’s hand in marriage, even if it feels like the right thing to do.

Even if the thought of it has started to keep him awake at night, as Poppy tosses and turns to get comfortable beside him. Even if he finds himself stroking at the bare surface of her ring finger when they hold hands, and introducing her to others as his wife in a language she doesn’t fully grasp - pretending it’s a joke she isn’t clued in on, when really it feels more like a manifestation.

He twirls the ring she had gifted him on his own ring finger, the weight of it especially present in the midst of this conversation, frowning as Timo levels him with a stern look.

“You know that getting her dad’s permission isn’t like the law or anything right?”

He does know that. If he’s honest, he knows he’s using it as an excuse, too - but admitting to that at dinner with the boys feels like he’s setting himself up for an entire night of chirps.

He and Poppy have only technically been together for a couple months, and most of that time had already been spent apart. When he had asked her to move in, she had taken offence at him only asking due to the convenience of it all, and he half expects the same if he gets down on one knee.

He can hear her already, some muttering of, you only want to marry me because I’m having your baby, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

When Nico pictures his future, he pictures Poppy. 

Everything revolves around Poppy.

And yeah, their baby girl plays a big factor in that - seeing Poppy as a mother, raising their daughter together, providing a happy, stable home for her to thrive in. But it’s so much more than that, too.

It’s her being his partner. Waking up to her, tracing over the soft curve of her lips as she rouses from sleep, and knowing, as sure of anything in his heart, that no day can ever be bad if it starts out like that. 

Feeling secure in his job, despite all the times in his life he has felt anything but, and knowing that he can succumb to the pressure of it all without having to worry about her bailing. She has his back in ways no body ever has before. She understands the demand of his career, the fact that he isn’t available at all hours of the day to her every need - but she can take care of herself. She would rather do so, and she doesn’t make him feel guilty for the fact that sometimes his schedule takes priority - because the times that he can prioritise her are valued in ways that he never thought he could provide - not if anybody asked any of his exes, at least.

She understands his role as a captain, how he has to be there for the guys, understands his love for doing so, and has never in their entire relationship, made him feel like it’s a burden, or that she feels neglected because of it.

Even before they crossed the boundaries of something more. When they were just friends - as if they were ever just anything - and he could vent all of his worries and stresses to her, and she’d talk him out of ever seeing the negatives.

She has some sort of superpower, he thinks, for turning things around like that, and he wants to bask in the glory of it for the rest of his life.

He wants that warm feeling that floods his chest at the thought of going home to her after a long day to never go away.

And he knows that it isn’t a chunk of metal around her finger, or signatures on paper, that solidifies that.

But he wants it, all the same.

“I don’t know, we haven’t been together that long.”

Timo barks out a laugh, and a couple other guys at the table raise their brows. 

“Do you know when I first got to Jersey, Siegs was the one who introduced me to Poppy? You know what he said?”

Nico shakes his head, a crease forming between his brows as he frowns at his friend. 

“He points at her from across the room, we were at a bar, the one near his place, he says that’s Poppy, and I look over and I think, whoa, she’s gorgeous, maybe I will like it here,” Nico narrows his eyes as Timo recalls the story, his hands unintentionally balling into fists below the table, “And before I can even get a word out, he goes, Nico’s Poppy. He told me not to even think about it.”

“We weren’t in a relationship, though.” He argues, despite the way his lips twist into an almost-smile, one trying to hide itself from prying eyes. He does quite like the ring of that. Nico’s Poppy.

It reflects that base level possessiveness he feels when he looks at her - the way he’s probably felt since the day they met, sharing a bond he had never really shared with anyone else. Feeling jealous when any of the other guys would talk to her alone, as petty as it might have been, and only ever wanting her attention on him. 

“You’ve always been in something with her,” Timo shrugs, “There’s no point delaying the inevitable if it means you get to make sure she’s your Poppy forever.”

“We don’t have to be married for her to be mine.”

He does feel comfortable knowing that - feels sure and safe in their dynamic, now - knowing the life they share, the home they share, the baby they’re so close to bringing into this world together. Knowing how much she loves him, how much she’s willing to be there for him, even when he feels like he isn’t enough for her. 

He’s never felt so secure in a relationship in his life, and he doesn’t need to force either of them into marriage when they’ve never really had that conversation - even if the few times he’s attempted to joke about it, she has been receptive.

“I don’t know why you’re trying to talk yourself out of it.” Luca chimes in from the side of Nico, “You’re never gonna find anybody more perfect for you. I think our parents like her more than they even like us at this point,” he tells the rest of the table, swatting at his little brother’s shoulder, before reaching for his beer. 

“Yeah,” Nico sighs with a smile, knowing already there’s no one more perfect for him - he’s only been cursing himself all summer for not coming to that conclusion much sooner. “Mom will probably already have asked her for me while she’s been with her this week.”

He knows he’s delaying the inevitable, trying to pretend that marriage isn’t what he wants right now with Poppy - he had pictured it the second she told him she was pregnant, his life flashing before his eyes in home-movie-esque glimpses, babies, and white dresses, and a big house with a nice plot of land in the back for him to build a tree house like in the movies.

He knows, too, deep down, that there is the slimmest possible chance of rejection. She loves him. She shows him every day just how much - and she’s been so willing, so far, to fit herself into his life in whatever way is easiest. 

He knows when he sees her, tomorrow, that the thought of dropping to one knee as soon as his eyes lock on her will cross his mind.

And he thinks when he does get back, after a week of chirps about being wifed off, he might just test the waters.

Nico doesn’t think he’s ever had a quicker flight than the one he and Luca took back from Tenerife. From check-in, to boarding, to the plane ride, itself, he felt like he had blinked and landed back on home soil, heart beating that little bit quicker in anticipation of seeing Poppy - of his eyes laying on that perfect bump for the first time in a week and catching the slightest difference, making up for lost time while they can in the privacy of their apartment before they spend the week with his brother and sister.

The train ride from the airport flies by too - Nico feeling excitement akin to when he was younger, and his dad would take him and Luca to go practice at their local rink, and he was at a point in his life that he loved nothing more than hockey, wanted nothing more than to don his skates and play to his heart’s content.

He feels that way about Poppy, now, he thinks. 

Like she’s something he can dream toward - push and strive to keep her in his life for as long as he possibly can. 

It feels like the blink of an eye before he’s putting his key in the door of the apartment, pushing in with his case following behind him, discarded in the entryway as he steps though the hall in search of her. 

“Baby, are you home?” He calls, his heart thumping as he waits to catch his first proper glimpse of her in a week.

“In the kitchen!” She calls back, voice like his favourite song, and when he steps into the room he sees her by the oven, prepping for dinner. When she had first offered to pick him up from the train station, he had joked that he didn’t trust her driving alone on European roads, but the truth of it was that he felt better coming home to her - where she was safe, and he wasn’t putting her out just so that he could selfishly see her sooner. 

And seeing her there, in the heart of the apartment he had bought last summer, when the idea of her ever being in it was nothing but a dream, swollen and round and growing their baby, he thinks that reality is more than worth the wait.

“Hey,” he sidles up behind her, arms placed on either side of her body on the counter as she chops at some peppers. Poppy angles her head so that he can press his usual kiss to her cheek, and Nico feels it puff up with a smile. 

She smells clean and fresh, like home, like a mixture of the detergent she uses on their sheets, and his body wash that she still likes to steal, and he swipes his nose at her flesh as he takes a prolonged inhale of her skin, filling his lungs with the familiarity of it and making up for the days he spent away. 

“Hi,” she turns back enough that he can press a kiss to her swollen lips, slow and sweet, “I figured you’d be beat when you got home so I ran you a bath, I only just shut it off like 2 minutes ago.”

He kind of likes how there isn’t a big fuss about him coming home - likes that she’s welcoming him back like it hasn’t been almost a week, and it diminishes the guilt he had been feeling for leaving her behind at all. It reinforces the thoughts he’s always had - that Poppy makes everything easy. 

She puts the knife down and turns in his arms when he kisses her again, and his hand swipes from the curve of her belly to the small of her back, keeping her stomach pressed to his.

“You’re too good to me,” he mumbles before his lips touch hers again, nose bumping teasingly at hers when she starts to chase him for more. “There’s room in that tub for 3, you know.”

“It’s supposed to be for you to relax,” she tells him as her hands travel the broad expanse of his chest, sweeping to his shoulders and down the width of his arms that are circled around her. “And I’ll have dinner ready for when you get out.”

“Trust me, Mohn,” he hums, his hands travelling slowly down her sides, “That is my idea of relaxing.” And then he leans down to hook an arm behind her knees, lifting her before she has a chance to protest, all too prepared after a week of training to carry her down the hall toward the bathroom, making sure she isn’t too curled up that it’s uncomfortable with her bump. “Dinner can wait.”

“You missed me that much, huh?” She giggles as he sends a gentle kick to the door, letting it swing open before he steps into the room. “You gonna have me sit on your lap while we eat, too?”

“Yeah, you can feed me if you want,” he laughs as he places her on the counter in the bathroom, her legs parting immediately for him to slot himself between them. “And I missed you more than it might be healthy to admit.”

“I missed you too,” Poppy smiles softly, hands reaching up to tuck the grown out flicks of hair behind his ears as his own hands place themselves on either side of her hips, “Appreciated all those sweaty workout videos you sent me though, definitely made up for you being gone.”

“Thought they might,” Nico chuckles as he starts working at undressing her, sliding her shorts down her legs and throwing them into the hamper. “Appreciated that video you sent me of your belly moving like something out of Alien.”

“She’ll probably start up soon, she likes to move while I’m eating now, she keeps getting the hiccups, it’s quite cute.”

Nico leans down once he’s lifted the big t-shirt that covers Poppy’s torso, and while she works it off, he presses a soft kiss to her bare belly, nudging the curve of it with his nose before he stands to his usual height and starts to work his own clothes off. He can feel the heat of her gaze as he steps out of his underwear, and it prickles at his skin like a lingering longing, like the way his own feelings have lingered over the past week.

A week where he had pushed forward on the sheer thought of Poppy, and now that she’s in front of him, those thoughts swirl into something overwhelming. 

He offers her a hand to help her down from the counter, and guides her toward the tub, the water still hot, but not scolding, on it’s way to tepid as he steps in and positions himself toward the back. He holds her steady as she steps over the edge, and sinks down as she lowers herself, her bump making it difficult to do so with ease, but he spreads his legs for her to sink back into him, and he soon feels her relax with her back to his front.

“Does it hurt,” he mutters with his limbs curved around hers, “When she moves a lot?”

He had noticed before he left that things had become a little more difficult for Poppy - sleeping, staying on her feet for extended periods - and when she had sent him a video of movements she could see through her belly, he had thought it seemed uncomfortable, but she just shrugs against him.

“It’s just weird, I guess,” she sighs, muscles seeming to melt against him. “Depends how she’s positioned, she was playing my ribs like a xylophone the other day, that wasn’t fun.”

Nico smiles, hand coming around her front to caress her belly, rubbing gentle circles into her soft skin. “Where is she now?”

“I think her butt is at the front,” her hand rests on top of his, moving it up a little, and a bit more to the side, “She’s gonna give me hell later, I can feel it.”

“Maybe she’ll behave now that her daddy’s home,” he mutters, his lips falling by instinct to kiss at Poppy’s bare shoulder before he hooks his chin over it, “Maybe she missed me too.”

“She definitely missed you. She practically did somersaults every time you came up in conversation.”

“My girl,” he smiles into Poppy’s neck, “Did she kick for Nina yet?”

“Oh yeah,” she laughs, her hand moving to trail up and down Nico’s leg beside her, “She jumped around so much in there that I learned a new word while you were gone.”

“From Nina?”

“Häsli,” she says with perfect, practiced pronunciation. 

“Little bunny,” Nico chuckles, both hands patting at the bump where his daughter rests. “I like it.”

“Good, ‘cause your parents have started calling her it, too. No respect for Cheeto around here.”

Nico finds himself melting in ways he didn’t think he needed to - an ache so present in his bones he hadn’t even realised it was there, all of a sudden fading to nothing as he sits in the tepid, soapy water with his girls in front of him. Poppy absentmindedly uses her fingers to trickle droplets down his calves, and makes space for him to rest his head in the space where her neck and shoulder meets. 

“Who’s the better teacher?” He asks, looking up and watching as the width of her cheeks puff out into a close-lipped smile. 

“Well, you have an automatic advantage, considering I can’t ask your sister to teach me all the dirty stuff.”

“Is that all I’m good for, the dirty stuff?”

“I’m yet to be able to hold a conversation that has nothing to do with body parts, so you tell me.”

“Yeah, well the more you learn, the less I get away with, so we might have to put a pause on the lessons.”

“And what is it you think you’ve been getting away with?” Poppy asks, twisting a little so she can look back at him, and it’s when her eyes meet his that Nico feels some warped sense of security wash over him. He hadn’t planned on bringing this up, especially not so soon after coming back from his trip, but it just feels right.

And it’s better to get it out of the way sooner - where better to test the waters than in the bathtub?

“Whenever we meet someone, I’ve been introducing you as my wife,” he admits, cheek pressed to her shoulder blade as he looks up at her through thick lashes. 

Her lips twist in amusement, eyes shimmering in the warm light of the bathroom, and it seems like she’s biting back a smile at the revelation. His heartbeat steadies just a little. “Oh really? How have you been getting around the distinct lack of a ring on my finger?”

“I tell them your hands are too swollen to wear it,” he admits, taking a hand from her belly to pick up her left one. 

Her smile fades slowly as she glances down, his fingers squeezing a little at the one closest to her pinky. “Wait, you’re serious?”

“Very.”

“What about-,” she starts, and before she can glance back, Nico lifts his own left hand in anticipation of what she’s about to ask, the signet ring she had gifted him when she first came overseas, that she hasn’t even noticed for as long as they’ve been together out here, sitting comfortably on his own ring finger. “Oh.”

“I can get you your own, if you want,” he tries, trying not to hold his breath as he makes the suggestion - makes light of it, even, just to test her reaction. Her face is angled forward as she looks down at his finger, and her own hand twists to fiddle with the ring that sits there, so he can’t exactly see what she’s thinking. “I know you said you already had one, but-,”

“Just to sell the story better?” She asks, still looking at his hand. 

“Or because I’m in love with you,” he pouts, his lips moving against her skin as he speaks, anticipating a rejection of sorts - although he still feels the lax press of her spine to his chest. She hasn’t gone rigid, hasn’t recoiled from his touch - their bodies are still merged together in the tight space, and a part of him feels better for it. 

She turns, finally, levelling him with a look that has her gaze flickering between his eyes, like she’s trying to read his mind.

“You better not be proposing to me in the bathtub,” she frowns, “You can’t ask someone for their hand in marriage within 6 feet of a toilet, Nico, that’s definitely an unwritten rule.”

He feels something dissolve in his chest as it bubbles with affection, spreading through his bloodstream and directing itself to every corner of his body - joyous laughter rippling up his throat and spilling out into her neck. 

“Why are you laughing?” She giggles, her body shaking against his in the most delightful way, “I’m dead serious, anywhere but the bathroom, please.”

“Okay,” he chuckles, wanting nothing more than to lean up and press his lips to her beautiful smile. “I’ll bare that in mind.”

“You do that.”

I will, he thinks, taking that as her confirmation.

Not in the bathtub is a far cry from not ever.

Maybe Timo was right - as much as it pains Nico to think - maybe she has always been his Poppy, and maybe, if he can find the right time and place to ask, she always will be. 

Poppy

Last year, Poppy’s summer had felt like the longest of her life.

She had worked all the way through to Mid-July - choosing to work around the summer programmes that were run through the Foundation had taken up most of her time, and she would rather have taken the extra pay than mope around thinking about how everyone else was spending their time off.

Ever since college, she and Nia would spend their weekends together in the summer - and that worked the same last year, with both of them still working in Jersey and having their family nearby. It worked for their other friends too - until their lives away from the group started to take priority, and their group became whittled down to just the two best friends.

Friend group outings had become a rare occurrence, and so when they did happen, they were quite the spectacle - weekend trips down to Atlantic City, or bagging invites to parties the girls really had no business being - like rooftop bars in Manhattan, where a player from the Giants was throwing a party, and their friend Kelsey’s boyfriend, Liam, had somehow secured their names on the list. 

Poppy and Nia always got ready together - reminiscent of their teenage years, blasting music through the speakers in Poppy’s bedroom and letting Nia raid her closet while she did her makeup.

“We’re gonna need to prep Els on how to be cool, she can’t be asking for players to sign her napkin so she can frame it for Jensen.” Nia called as she came out of Poppy’s closet, shrugging into the strappy sleeves of a mini dress she had borrowed, pulling her hair from getting tangled beneath the arms. 

“Elsie’s not coming,” Poppy replied absentmindedly, a small, soft brush sweeping pigment across her eyelid, “It’s just me, you and Kels,”

“What? Why?” Nia had whined, zipping her dress up behind her back. “Did her sitter bail?”

“This stays between me and you, but she’s pregnant again,” Poppy told her, relaying the cliff-notes version of the hour-long conversation she had had with her cousin earlier that day. “So no more girls nights with her for a while.”

“Poor girl,” Nia huffed, falling back onto Poppy’s bed so that she could put her heels on, “I can’t think of anything worse than being pregnant right now, I’m in my prime, I’m not letting anyone dislodge my organs. Nothing is worth that kind of damage.”

“Gross” Poppy shuddered, the thought of having a baby and her age sending literal shivers down her spine. “But same. I’m so far off of being ready to be a parent, it isn’t even funny.”

She had weirdly enough been thinking a lot about what her life was turning out to be around that time - spearing straight for her 25th birthday and feeling the daunting pressure of a looming quarter-life crisis, she had put some thought at least into the traditional stuff.

But babies hadn’t been at the forefront of her mind. 

“Plus, it’s hard enough to find a remotely decent guy to go on one singular date with, never mind raise a child. Elsie got lucky with Jared.”

“Right,” Nia had scoffed half-heartedly, ambling up behind Poppy and finishing off the curls in her hair. There had been a look in her eyes - dismissive and evasive - that had caught Poppy’s attention.

“What’s the look for?”

“Nothing,” Nia shrugged, lips turned down in denial and continuing to work at her best friend’s hair. “Just think that for you of all people, it’s not that hard to find somebody decent.”

Poppy frowned, watching Nia behind her, trying to think of a single guy she had ever dated or spoken to that had garnered her approval.

She had always been supportive of Poppy, knowing that if she were to start something up with a guy, it would be after a lot of thought and meticulous research - Poppy rarely dated, and if she did, it mostly didn’t work because she wasn’t that good at it. She was always so focused on work, and her friends, that trying to make time for anybody outside of all that just felt exhausting. 

Guys usually ended up breaking things off with her, telling her they could tell her heart wasn’t in it, and Nia would always curse them whenever Poppy relayed it back to her, but there was always that look - like she knew something Poppy didn’t.

“You’ve literally watched my every attempt at a relationship crash and burn, Ni,” she narrowed her eyes, “I don’t get what part of my dating life seems easy to you.”

“The part where you have a ready made relationship just waiting for you to press the start button.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nico,” Nia said, like it had been the most obvious answer in the world. 

The last thing Poppy had wanted to think about - again - was Nico.

She had been trying to think of anything but since he had left Jersey, but everything unfortunately was starting to remind her of him, just as they did every other summer.

Walks in the sun, passing places they would always go together - snapping a picture of a coffee from her favourite shop and thinking of who she could send it to instead of him. Running their shared route, soft breeze running through her hair as she jogged through the park, playing music in her headphones that he had once recommended.

It had been hard to shake him off - but she had grown to be good at it over the years.

Nia bringing him up had been new - unexpected - and wasn’t contributing to the routine of forgetting he existed until he would come back to New Jersey in September. 

“The second that one of you makes a move, you’re literally ready to go with the perfect man.”

“I’m not gonna be in a relationship with Nico,” Poppy snickered, trying to find humour in what nonsense her best friend was coming up with. 

She didn’t have a ready to go relationship with Nico Hischier. They were friends. That was all they would ever be.

And not only had she told Nia that a hundred times before, she also knew that Nico had said the same - shrugging off jokes made in front of the two of them and smiling awkwardly at Poppy whenever anyone had dared to make a comment on their friendship being anything other than just that. 

“We don’t even talk for like 4 months out of the year,” Poppy frowned, referring to the routine Nico had adopted over the years, of returning home to Switzerland for the summers, and leaving his friendship with Poppy behind - only communicating through social media likes and odd messages in the same conversation thread within a wider group chat.

She had never really minded it - not to the point of moping - but she had always wished things could be just a little different on that front.

“I don’t get why you guys don’t just text each other,” Nia rolled her eyes as she ran the barrel of the curling iron down the lengths of Poppy’s hair, eyes meeting hers in the reflection of the mirror. “You act like you’re not allowed to cross his mind all summer, it’s stupid, no offence.”

“He deserves a break, Ni,” Poppy had shrugged, “From everything, especially after how the season ended, I’m just a reminder of his life here, and he probably wants to escape that.”

“I don’t think he means you when he says those sorts of things, babe,” she responded, letting the curl drop into her free hand and scrunching it until it cooled down. 

“How did we even get onto this?”

“Because I’ve been looking for an opportunity to bring it up, duh,” Nia jested, “C’mon, just reach out. It doesn’t have to be a text, what was the last thing he posted on his instagram stories? Just reply to that.”

Poppy’s lips twisted, her phone feeling increasingly heavy in her grip as she weighed her options up. 

For as long as she had known him, her and Nico would never really talk over the summer. She lived her life, and he lived his, away from the Devils, away from The Rock, and it had worked well, for the most part.

Sure, a part of her always missed him. A part of her would watch his stories over, would think about what his life in Switzerland looked like, and if she could ever possibly fit into it - but another part, a larger part, would suppress all that. Push her feelings back down until they were nothing - shut away behind some barricaded door in the back of her mind.

It was weird, she thought, how much they flourished in his absence - thoughts she wouldn’t usually spare dedicated to him. Especially now that Nia was bringing it up out of nowhere.

Her perceptive best friend suggesting there could ever have been something more was sparking a flame within her she had long tried to put out. But it wasn’t entirely Nia’s doing - there had been embers floating around her subconscious for a while, now.

She blamed that night in Finnegan’s Bar, not long before he had left.

Cuddled up to him in that booth, comfortable in the lingering silence, the steady beat of his heart below her hand. She had thought, at the end of that night, that something might have been different - and she realised that had probably been why she was thinking about him more that summer.

Poppy unlocked her phone and brought up her Instagram, scrolling through the stories on the home page until she saw his picture. 

“It’ll probably be some workout video, I can’t reply to that, he’s gonna think I’m thirsty.”

“You are,” Nia had jibed, “Pop, honey, you either gotta put up or shut up. If you’re not gonna reach out, I don’t wanna hear any more of your whining about him for the rest of the month.”

“You brought him up,” Poppy frowned, “Please be kinder to me when you have hot tools in your hands, you’re giving me anxiety.”

“Whatever, I’m gonna get another drink before we go, do you want one?”

“I’m good,” Poppy smiled, watching her best friend put the curling iron down safely on the heat-proof mat on her dresser and make her way out of the bedroom and through to the kitchen. 

Her thumb had hovered on her screen for a good minute before she pressed down, biting the bullet and viewing his most recent story with bated breath. 

There were a few of them - it seemed like he was out with friends - probably-drunken selfies and videos of a DJ at some club - but the last photo was the one that caught her attention, properly. 

Nico with his arms around a girl - a gorgeous girl, sharp features, perfect hair, piercing eyes, a killer smile - and his lips pressed to her temple. 

She had let the photo time out before it shrunk away into his private profile, and she had felt like time had stopped in place after that - until the sound of Nia’s heels clicking back down the hallway caught her attention.

“I know you said no but I made mine too strong so I had to pour it out a little and make two,” she had said as she entered the room, Poppy locking her phone and turning it face down before she could see.

“Thanks,” she had accepted the drink with a smile, gulping it down in the hopes that the liquor might have burned through some of the growing ache in her chest. 

“Damn girl,” Nia had scoffed, “Thought you were good?”

“I realised I should drink for two, considering Elsie can’t anymore.”

“Good point! We should both do that, show our solidarity for the cause.”

“Exactly. Getting shit-faced is what she’d want us to do in her honour.”

Nia glanced down at Poppy’s downturned phone - a look Poppy wouldn’t have caught if she wasn’t nervously watching her best friend in the hopes that she, for once in her life, wouldn’t be so perceptive. 

“I’ll have a baby with you.”

Poppy laughed, right from the depths of her chest, tension easing from her shoulders as she shook her head.

“I don’t want a baby,” she declined, rolling her eyes and standing up, “I want to get drunk on rooftop bars with my friends and NFL players and eat as much deli meat and cheese as my body can handle for as long as it can handle it.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

Poppy didn’t know at the time why that picture on Nico's story had felt like a kick to the gut, but she had swallowed down her hurt and smiled, tight lipped, at her best friend.

Getting wasted and forgetting about Nico for the rest of the summer - that had sounded like a plan. 

Looking back on last summer, Poppy barely recognises her old life. Rooftop parties with endless cocktails, tiny dresses and high heels and hair that didn’t fall flat and frizzy the second she blinked too hard at it in the mirror. 

She can barely remember being able to look down at her thighs without being sat down.

The only thing that remains the same is finding time to lounge around on the beach. Growing up, spending her time on Jersey beaches - her family renting a house in Mantoloking most years, or making the trip down to Ocean City and Cape May with her girls when she was old enough - had become a staple for her, and she has been so thankful that it’s something her and Nico share a love of.

She’s adored her summer in Switzerland, so far - as far away from expectations as it might yet have been. 

She hadn’t expected to get such little one-on-one time with Nico, but she can hardly complain - not when his family and friends have all welcomed her with such open arms. It’s something so new to her too, getting to do everything in a group, bonding with more than just Nico, sharing parts of herself and her life beyond what she has only ever shared with him before, and she’s never really felt so at home with such a close-knit family.

She watches sports on the couch with his dad, goes to the grocery store with his mom, plays cards out on the deck with his brother, spends as much time with his sister as she would with Nia back home in Jersey, and she gets Nico to herself at night, or on the rare couple of days in a row they’ll stay in his apartment closer to the city.

But she loves this - being so close with everyone. Loves it so much that she doesn’t really care that it isn’t just her and Nico, she doesn’t really want it to be.

Katja helps her through the rough stages of her pregnancy - sometimes anticipating symptoms before they even come on, sharing tips on how to lessen the constant ache in her stomach, how to sleep easier, what supplements she can take that don’t make her feel nauseous again or bloated and heavy. 

Rino helps too, recalling what he can of his wife’s pregnancies, remembering how Katja could get her back pain to go away by relaxing in a rocking chair with a cushion wedged into her arch, and he had dug the exact one chair the depths of the garage, making sure it was safe after years of misuse and placing it out on the deck in the backyard, right beside what had always been Nico’s chair.

Luca is probably the best language teacher of them all, not that she’d tell Nico that - he’s the only one with the nerve to correct her, doing so with an amused glint in her eye until she gets it perfect and offering her a proud nod when she can finally speak a full sentence - a useful one at that, instead of random words and nicknames.

Nina allows Poppy to keep an essence of her independence - of the girl she was before she was pregnant, or had come back to Switzerland as Nico’s girlfriend. She makes sure Poppy keeps doing things for herself - accompanies her to the salon, to the local mall, gives her valued opinion on different outfits Poppy tried, and what makes her look like a frumpy mom and not her usual self. The two of them trade books between each other, get ready with each other when the group all go out, and it fills a gap that Poppy never even realised she had until she met her - this desire for a big sister, a want for something she never even knew had been ripped away from her before she was ever even born. 

And Nico.

She has all of this, now, because of him.

He’s given her a life so sweet, and so wonderful, and it’s barely even started yet.

Their little girl is still sat comfortably in her stomach, kicking and moving and causing aches all over, but she’s contributed to a world so beautiful that Poppy doesn’t want to remember life before it. 

And he gave it all to her.

He gave her their baby, his family, summer sun in a foreign country, rocking chairs and card games and trips to the mall. 

Trips to the beach with his siblings, who don’t let him forget his status as the youngest, doting on Poppy while teasing him the whole time, breaking off from the group in search of gelato for her, and none for him, because he has two hands and two feet and a wallet bigger than anyone’s to go and get his own.

And that leaves her with just him, wading in the gloriously warm shallow sea, the sun glistening against soft waves, and his hands around her, large and safe, happy and secure - and so in love she hasn’t stopped smiling in weeks.

So infatuated by the man in front of her, that she’d let him do anything, take her anywhere he wants.

“It’s a shame it’s not just the two of us, today,” Nico hums, a large hand stroking up Poppy’s back, sliding under the straps of her bikini top and tugging, teasingly, “Bet I could have convinced you to take this off.”

“We’re in public, perv,” she scoffs, her own palms flat against his chest, “Also, you can’t accuse your own family of cockblocking you.”

“I can when they won’t leave you alone,” he pouts, “My brother and sister never waited on me hand and foot, if I want gelato I have to go get it myself.” He mimics his sisters voice, face scrunching adorably. 

“My heart bleeds for you,” she groans in feigned pity, “I’m carrying precious cargo, and there’s some serious name stakes up for grabs right now.”

“So you’re pitting them against each other for your own benefit?”

“Exactly, you Hischiers love a little healthy competition,” Poppy smiles, back arching as his hand travels down her spine, the curve of her belly pressing right into his below the water. His skin smooth and hot, making her want to press even harder. “You need to up your game, I’ve got a godparent thing going on with some of the boys, too, you wouldn’t believe how much they’re willing to do for you when they think it puts them ahead in the rankings.”

“We’re not leaving our baby girl in the hands of any of those idiots in the unfortunate event of our deaths, Poppy.” Nico chuckles, lifting her with hands lowered to the backs of her thighs so that he can carry her deeper into the water. 

“I know that, and you know that,” she presses a finger to the tip of his nose before her arms curl around his broad shoulders, “But if it means that Timo always brings me madeleines when he’s around, and Jesper and Nic always buy cute baby clothes for us and send me pictures, then who are we to rain on their parade?”

The smile that stretches across Nico’s lips is fond as he asks, “Who’s the front runner?”

“Well, Timo for now, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he agrees in good humour.

“But I’ve managed to convince Jonas he’s in with a good chance after we went to visit him, he kept bringing cut up fruit out to me while I was around the pool.”

“Baby, I cut up that fruit for you, don’t let him take the credit.”

“Oh, well then he’s disqualified for being a liar.”

“Why’s Timo the obvious choice?” He asks, now at a point in the water that if he let Poppy go, she would only just be able to keep her chin above the water, and she clutches on a little tighter.

“He’s an October baby, like me.” The hands around the back of his neck start playing with the ends of his hair, scratching softly at the skin as she presses herself entirely against him. “If anyone’s gonna raise our daughter, it’s going to be a Libra, we’re fair people.”

“Makes complete sense,” he jokes, “Written in the stars.”

“You get it,” she smiles, ignoring his sarcasm entirely. “But I’m waiting for the penny to drop when they realise all the boys back home are gonna want to be in the running. I have big plans for when we get back to Jersey, they’ve all got a lot of catching up to do, Luke’s in with a pretty good chance, you know.”

“You and that kid, I swear,” 

“He’s very precious to me, Nico.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it.”

“Jack on the other hand has dropped way out of contention. We were talking on the phone the other day while you were training and called me Pop-belly. That’s out of line.”

Nico knows that laughing in any way at that is going to earn him some sort of reaction, but he really can’t help the way his lips quiver of their own volition. 

“Yeah, laugh it up,” Poppy scoffs, swatting lightly at his shoulder, “I’ll be the only one laughing when he turns into my own personal smoothie butler when we go back. He has no chance of getting back in my good graces, but I won’t be telling him that.”

“You’re an evil genius.”

“It’s your devil spawn communicating through the womb,” Poppy hums, leaning in to press a proud kiss firmly to the dimple that forms in his cheek when he smiles at her. “I was a good girl before you corrupted me.”

“You were never a good girl,” he smirks, with his voice low, one hand travelling up the back of her thigh until he can pinch at her ass. 

“Watch it, Hischier,” she warns, feeling steady enough in his hold to take an arm from around his neck and stroke the side of her finger along his slightly stubbled jaw. “You’re on thin ice with me already after shaving again, you don’t want to start being mean.”

“Oh, I’m being mean?” He asks, the hand that had pinched at her flesh now slipping beneath the fabric at the top of the back of her thighs. “You’re the one walking around in this bikini and not letting me touch you.”

“We’re in public, people get arrested for doing the things you want to do to me in places like this.”

“Could be worth it,” he shrugs, “You’re forgetting I’m kind of a national treasure, baby, they’d probably let me go with a warning.”

“Yeah, well, can’t risk it. I kind of need you. Plus, I think you’ve already done enough touching, you’ve literally impregnated me.”

“Way to make it sound romantic.” Nico mumbles, leaning to press a kiss to her bare shoulder, nose nudging once more at the thin straps of her bikini that curve around her slender neck. “Could never touch you enough.”

“You’re touching me right now, aren’t you?”

“Not where I want to.” He repositions where her legs are curled around his hips, just to emphasise his point, pulling her tighter around his torso until he can buck up into her and feel her shudder against him. 

“You can touch me wherever you want later,” she promises, her eyes meeting his, speckles of sunlight glistening off the surface of the water and straight into his irises, warming them in a way that shoots heat all the way down her spine.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“You better.” She presses a sweet kiss straight to his lips, one hand holding him close as they part, and she kisses him quick again, before saying, “Thank you for cutting up my fruit.”

He smiles, eyes squinting against the sunlight and crinkling in the corners, deep dimples forming in each cheek.

“Thank you for having my baby.”

She giggles, kissing him again, unable to resist muttering, “Thank you for putting a baby in me,” against his lips before he nips at her mouth, moving along her face in a targeted attack as his hands grip firmer at her hips, tickling her until the sound of laughter fills the air around them.

—

Poppy and Nico had made their way out of the water and onto their towels in the shade by the time Nina and Luca had returned with 3 cones of gelato in hand. Luca had already eaten half of his, coffee-flavoured, and Nina had strawberry, handing a cone with a white scoop over to Poppy.

“Fior di latte,” she had smiled sweetly, “Like milk ice, you said that was your favourite.”

“Thank you,” Poppy had blushed, the smallest gesture of her remembering that sending a buzz down her spine. Nico’s putting beside her, and mutterings of how they could have gotten him one, too, soon forgotten when she started to share.

The two of them had gone for a walk to find a bar on the beach front where they could watch soccer, leaving Poppy and Nico cuddled up on their towel, lost in their own world as they shared the cone between them.

She was resting between Nico’s legs, absentmindedly licking at the dessert when a screaming blur had zoomed past them, kicking sand up in their wake as three young children chased each other down to the water.

Poppy thinks that a year ago, she might have pouted about the sand being thrown onto her legs, but she finds herself smiling softly as she reaches back with the cone, waiting for Nico to have a turn taking a bite.

“Do you ever think about having more?” She can tell without looking back at him that he’s speaking around a mouthful of gelato, and even the thought of it makes her chest warm with the rumbles of laughter. 

“Kids?” Poppy asks, and he hums affirmatively in response, “We don’t even have this one yet, babe,”

“I know,” he mutters, and she can hear the smile in his tone as his thumb swipes at the curve of the top her bump, “But do you ever think about what our family might look like in a few years?”

Our family still makes her heart skip a beat, and she finds herself relaxing even further into his embrace - melting, almost, into his chest, warmed by the rays of sun he has been bathing under.

“We probably need to see how difficult this one ends up being before I think about having any more.” She licks quickly at the drip travelling down her thumb before offering the cone back to Nico, who shakes his head as he lowers it to her shoulder, nose nudging against her skin.

“Should have put two in you while I had the chance,” he mumbles, lips pressed into the side of her neck, trailing soft, but purposeful kisses.

“Not how that works, babe,” Poppy chuckles, lifting her chin to give him more space for his ministrations. “Although they do run in my family, my dad’s a twin.”

“There’s two of him?”

“Yeah, him and my uncle Peter. That’s where the whole name thing started in my family.”

“Name thing?” He juts his chin when she looks back, asking for another taste. 

“We’re all P’s,” she frowns as she focuses on directing the cone back toward his mouth, making sure she doesn’t smush it in his face.

“Oli isn’t a P.” The gelato lines his lips messily as he speaks, and her eyes start to crinkle in the corners as she takes him in. How can he be so stupidly pretty with mint choc chip smearing his upper lip?

“Oli’s a fraud,” Poppy chuckles, swiping a thumb against the soft flesh of his mouth, bringing it to her own to clear it of the cold, sticky substance. “His name’s Philip Jr, but people started calling him Lil Phil and it gave him a complex.”

“Poppy, baby, did you start calling him that?”

“No comment.” 

“You get all grumpy when Jack gives you dumb nicknames, and here you are calling your own flesh and blood Lil Phil.”

“I don’t get grumpy,” she pouts, recoiling her hand from his reach when he tries to lean back in for another taste of gelato. 

“You threatened to block him the other day.”

“That’s ‘cause he called me Pop-belly,” she grumbles, “That’s not funny, it’s mean.”

“Not funny at all,” Nico concurs, lips twisting in the corner as he bites back a smile, eyes gleaming as he watches Poppy sit up and face him, fully. Her eyes narrow, gaze zeroing in on where he’s trying not to laugh, again, at the horrific moniker, and her own lips twist with mirth as she shuffles, resting back on her heels, limbs half on the towel and half on the warm sand. 

“We should stick to your thing, when we’re picking a name for Cheeto,” she hums, meeting his eye as her tongue swipes against the cone, watching his eyelids grow heavier as he focuses on the movement of her lips. “4 letters, no chance of funny nicknames, no chance of people spelling it wrong on birthday cards,” she reaches out for him to get the taste he had been chasing before, and just as his lips press to the frozen substance, she adds, “You all have such pretty names, too. Like Luca.”

Poppy shouldn’t like the darkness that flashes across his eyes when his jealousy flares up, shouldn’t want to push his buttons to make it happen, but she can’t help herself - her favourite pastime all summer has been making Nico think she has a crush on his brother.

It’s so stupid, so childish but so so fun.

It had started off lighthearted enough - her first time meeting Luca, she had been a little knocked back by his presence - ruggedly handsome where she might usually have considered Nico softer, but there were definite similarities. And she wasn’t exactly attracted to him, but she had been flustered - obviously so - and it’s Nico’s own fault for making his notice of that fact so obvious - brows furrowed, his grip on her hand tightening, and a persistent urge to be present whenever Poppy hung around his brother.

She blames the fact that she misses that teasing aspect of their relationship - when their conversations were based off of sarcasm and inescapable charm - for how she continued to press his buttons over the summer. It’s hard to maintain their old snark when her hormones are all out whack, and all she wants is for him to get his clothes off and press her to the nearest surface at any given moment. He constantly has the upper hand, and she’s not exactly used to that being a part of their dynamic.

Teasing him about Luca kills two birds with one stone - she gets her fun, and she elicits that possessive part of him that he somehow locks away every time he gets eyes on her belly, that she can see him restraining in order to handle her with care.

“You’re not funny,” he huffs, swiping the melting gelato from her grip and taking an exasperated lick of the sides, not realising how adorable he looks making little swipes with his tongue when he’s trying to look annoyed.

“I’m dead serious, your brother’s a hunk.”

“Mohn,” he sighs, “I’ll dump this in the sand right now, and I know how much you want to eat this cone.”

“Fine, fine, fine,” she relents as she giggles, reaching to grasp at his arm where he’s holding it away from her, fingertips stroking teasingly to make him give in. “I don’t think your brother is hot.”

“Thank you,” he smiles, offering the gelato back to her.

“Your dad on the other hand.”

“Poppy,” he warns.

“Kidding! I’m kidding,” she laughs, shuffling forward and back between his parted legs, “You’re the only man for me, baby, I swear.”

“I better be,” he pouts, guiding her back into the space he leaves, where she had been cuddled up before, where he misses the press of her body between his thighs. “I booked a table at that Italian place you liked the other week for tonight,” he tells her, voice lowered as one hand falls to her waist, and the other reaches up to push her hair behind her ear and cup at her cheek, “And it’s under my name, so you can’t ditch me for my brother or you get no tiramisu for dessert.”

Her mouth drops at the threat, spare hand reaching up to grip at his shoulder. “I promise I’ll never love another man in my life.”

She says it with a tone so serious that he can’t help but laugh, and her lips tremble too as she watches him, rolling his eyes with affection and looking away so that he doesn’t entirely give him.

She doesn’t really think it’s much of a joke, though.

There isn’t a single person on the planet who could make her feel like this - so happy, so warm, so content. 

She might never love anyone like she loves Nico.

Except for maybe their daughter. And whatever other family he wants to give her in a few years. 

Poppy can’t quite figure out why the thought of going out for dinner alone with Nico is making her nervous.

They’re in a relationship, have been for around 3 months now, and she’s literally carrying his child, but as he stands behind her in the apartment, hands sliding torturously slow up her spine as he zips up her dress and making eye contact with her in the mirror’s reflection, she starts to feel her heart race. 

She’s trying not to be quieter than usual as they walk hand in hand in the warm summer evening air, Nico guiding her down the streets that are comfortingly familiar to him, and that are starting to feel more like home every day to her, too. 

It doesn’t help that he looks so good too, hair grown out and pushed back out of his face, a clean shave - as much as she had grumbled about that, she can’t deny how gorgeous he looks - a loose black shirt and baggy linen trousers, fancy watch clutched around his wrist.

And he makes her feel good about how she looks, too, despite flashes of insecurity hitting her over the past few weeks. Their afternoon spent between the sheets when they had returned from the beach, Nico not being able to get enough of her, and whispering sweet nothings and sexy mutterings into her skin as they finally took advantage of some much needed privacy.

He had chosen her dress for her, had strapped her slightly heeled sandals onto her feet with kisses pressed to her calves, and she thinks it’s all the attention he’s given her over the past 24 hours that has her feeling what she can only describe as high.

It’s what has her stopping him at the corner before the restaurant, seeing the perfect place to prop her phone up on a nearby wall so that she can capture the moment - the two of them looking so perfect that she wants her daughter to see, wants to print it out and tape it into her memory book to show her just how in love and happy her mommy and daddy are.

“Can we take a photo?” 

“You want me to take one of you?” He asks, stopping as she starts to adjust her camera settings on her phone, adding the timer so she can leave her phone perched at a good angle. 

“No, I want one together. So we can show Cheeto how hot her parents were.”

Nico chuckles as she places her phone on the side and pulls him to a good distance, holding her in his arms and smiling down at her as she holds back onto him - the two of them repeating a couple times with different poses before Poppy has a nice little collection of photos, and they can carry on toward the restaurant.

She swipes through and shows them to him as they walk together, and she sends them straight to him so he can have them for himself. 

“Is that hard launch material for your instagram?” He asks as she zooms in on one of them, Poppy’s arms circled around his waist, the biggest, toothiest grin on her face and her eyes scrunched shut.

“I’m gonna put them in Cheeto’s pregnancy book,” Poppy hums, not answering him directly. “Remind me to keep a card or something from the restaurant, she loves their pasta. We can come back when she’s older.”

Her nerves have increased tenfold at the mere mention of that godforsaken app.

Her instagram had never been a big deal before - private since the day she started her account, she only really ever had friends from school and work on there. She never posted in search of likes or validation, just to share little updates on her life, but she had to delete it at the start of summer once the requests to follow her started flooding in.

The first barrage had been easy to ignore, but once the zeros started adding up, and the requests went over 10,000, she figured that just getting rid of it would do her a world of good.

Anybody that needed to be updated, she could just text anyway. It wasn’t a big deal, which is why she hasn’t told Nico yet.

She doesn’t want to worry him with the fact that her whole feed had ended up on Twitter somehow anyway - that the thought of posting anything new, and it ending up shared by one of her existing followers to an intrusive gossip account freaks her out. She doesn’t have the energy to whittle down who might be leaking her stuff, so deleting the app entirely and counting the rest of her privacy as a loss had felt like the safest option.

And it’s not like she misses it.

It’s also not like she cares that much about people knowing about her and Nico - she’d scream from the rooftops about him if she could - but the lack of control scares her a little.

It’s all so invasive - seeing herself cropped out of group pictures, with threads of discourse about her, her life, her relationship with Nico and the rest of the team. Everything twisted so far out of context she starts to question her own reality. 

She had sought advice from Nina about the whole thing, and the two of them had agreed that between themselves, they could figure things out - documenting their summer just for them, without stressing Nico out about what was happening behind the scenes. And she’s grateful, at least, that she has someone like Nina in her corner - who understands what it feels like, to an extent.

Telling Nico would just make him feel guilty, or, even worse, apologise for something that isn’t his fault, and so all she can really do is avoid it altogether. 

She hardly posted on there anyway.

“We should probably figure out her name, soon, you know,” 

Poppy snaps out of her thoughts to look up at him, twisting his lips nervously as he checks on her.

“We can’t call her Cheeto forever.”

“We can. That’s her name.”

Nico chuckles as he guides are across the street with a hand on her back, the restaurant now in sight - a small, family business, not too fancy, the kind with the most delicious recipes past down generations and made to perfection.

She loves places like this - much prefers it to fancier joints - where they can sit side by side at a small table and bask in the intimacy of it all.

An older gentleman smiles warmly at the two of them when they walk in hand in hand, and guides them to a table in the outdoor section at the back, a lit candle and a single rose in the middle of the set-up, and the starry night sky twinkling above them.

She knows exactly why she’s nervous.

It’s the first date she’s been on in a long time - her first official date with Nico, period, and it takes her back to being a little younger, when she first started going on dates, first started opening up to the idea of sharing herself with anybody else. It’s daunting, even if he is already the love of her life. Even if she’s pregnant with his child, integrated into his family, and returning to Jersey in a matter of weeks to the apartment they now share.

He helps her into her seat, pulling his around from the opposite side of the table so they can sit together how she likes, his hand immediately finding where her legs cross beneath the table and stroking at her bare skin. The waiter hands the two of them menus, and Nico asks if he can bring water with ice for the table before he nods and departs, leaving them alone.

“This is really nice, baby,” she smiles, gratefully, eyes roaming over how soft his features look out in the dimmed light, chocolate irises twinkling as they reflect the flickering flame in the centre of the table. 

“Only the best for my girls,” he says lowly, and the two of them sit and smile dopily at one another and making light conversation until the waiter returns. Nico says something that Poppy hasn’t quite learned yet in his language, only just about making out the word pen before Nico takes one from the man with an appreciative thank you before he leaves again. He reaches across the table for the napkins that sit beneath their cutlery, sliding one in front of her before writing on the one in front of himself behind his other hand, hiding whatever he’s doing until he folds the paper.

“I want you to write down the name that’s on the top of your list. Then we’re gonna close our eyes and shuffle them up and pick one.”

“How do you know I have a list?” She frowns, taking the pen when he offers it over to her.

“Because you make a list for the pros and cons of what takeout we’re ordering, Poppy. Of course you have a list to name our daughter.”

She rolls her eyes, covering her napkin as she pauses with a hovered pen. 

She does have a list. And she has a definitive number one.

It hadn’t even been an option before the summer, but she’s found herself imagining the name more and more over the past few weeks. Embroidered on blankets, written into birthday cards for the boys, etched into a personalised wooden bookcase like the kind she had as a little girl.

Nico is right. She isn’t going to be Cheeto forever.

“You know,” Poppy leans back to hide her paper as she writes her name down, her legs angled toward his as his hand strokes softly again up her calf, his napkin clutched tight in his other hand. “Most people don’t pick out baby names on their first date.”

“This isn’t our first date,” he scoffs, eyes narrowing at her as she folds her own. “We’ve been on dates before.”

“Name one.” Her head tilts as she challenges him, eyes meeting his as she waits for him to come up with something. 

“All those times we grabbed dinner together back in Jersey,”

“Not dates.”

“There were several candles lit, Poppy.” Nico frowns, and Poppy’s lips twist as the crease between his eyebrows deepens as he thinks back on it. “All those times we got food before or after your scans, and movie nights at your place with takeout-,”

“Not dates. You have to specifically ask for those to have been dates, they were more like hang-outs.” She repeats, a hand reaching out to place itself on his knee, thumb rubbing against the linen of his pants, countering before he can bite back, “But that’s okay, I like this being our first. We’re making our own order.”

“What like getting pregnant before we’re in a relationship?”

“Exactly. Structure is boring. I like the idea of waking up and you deciding today’s the day to put me in your will and tomorrow’s the day to learn my middle name.”

“I thought you didn’t have a middle name.”

Poppy smiles, close-lipped and big, like she’s holding in laughter as she reaches up to caress his face. She kind of doesn’t want to burst his bubble - sweet, naive but well-intentioned Nico, who thinks he knows her like the back of his hand - but she wants to prove her point, more. “Giselle. After my Nanna Gigi.” 

“Poppy Giselle Jensen?” He asks, mouth agape as she nods. “You’re telling me I knocked you up before I even knew your full name?”

“Way to make it sound romantic,” she mocks, just as he had, earlier on the beach, tucking his hair behind his ear and shuffling a little in her seat, legs tangling even more with his under the table. “I think it’s cool that we get to learn new things about each other all the time.” 

“What have you learned about me?” His voice drops an octave, thumb stroking at her skin in an attempt to distract, but she isn’t giving in to him.

“I spent a week with your mom and sister while you were training out in Tenerife, babe, I know all your secrets from all the photo albums we went through.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yeah,” she smirks, “Little blonde baby Nico with his big, pretty brown eyes and his bowl cut. I saw everything.”

“That’s not fair,” he pouts, grasping at her ankle, “You have the upper hand.”

“You saw me with my head in a toilet bowl for like 3 months straight, I think we’re even.”

“Speaking of,” he places his folded napkin down onto the table and slides it beside hers, “Close your eyes, I’ll mix them up.”

Poppy closes her eyes, but pouts a little as she hears him shuffle the napkins around. There was no speaking of - she was talking about puking. That wasn’t necessarily speaking of their daughter. He’s just deflecting attention from his bowl cut, she thinks, but she has extensive plans for revisiting that one. Preferably with backup, when their daughter is old enough to join in.

“Alright, now I’m gonna close my eyes, and you mix them up.”

She peeks her eyes open to see his scrunched closed, and smiles to herself as she mixes the two identically folded napkins on the table, nudging him with her knee to let him know when she’s finished.

Her heart starts to pound all of a sudden when his eyes flutter open, those perfect brown eyes darting straight to hers, and she holds her breath in anticipation.

“You pick.” He tells her, sliding the two napkins toward her.

She does so without looking, unfolding it in her lap and holding it against her palm so that he can’t see.

Her lips twist as she eyes the familiar name, a sense of victory swirling in her gut until the reality of it crashes down on her, her eyebrows scrunching in confusion.

That isn’t her handwriting.

“It means ray of sunlight in Persian,” Nico tells her, peeking down at the name written in the palm of her hands, already knowing from her reaction which napkin she had chosen. “Or beautiful girl.”

“Like you know anything in Persian,” she scoffs, “It’s just your brother and sister’s names combined.”

Nico frowns, “What?” He whines in denial, a poor attempt at lying that automatically makes Poppy’s lips turn at the corners, “How would you even think of that? I’ll let you know, I did extensive research, okay, I-,”

Poppy opens the other napkin up where it sits on the surface of the table, the exact same name scrawled in the centre in her handwriting.

Lina.

Nico smiles, slow but big, cheeks dimpling and eyes crinkling, and Poppy feels those nerves in her stomach swirl into something else, entirely. Her hands start to shake and her eyes start to water as soon as his gaze meets hers, pride shining through every pore of his features.

“That’s fate, Mohn,” he breathes, leaning closer, his chair shuffling against the floor as he reaches out to caress her face softly, palms pressed at either side of her jaw. “We wrote the same name.”

“I know,” she whispers, feeling a tear slip out that he catches immediately with the pad of his thumb. 

“You wanna name her after my brother and sister?”

“I do.” She nods. Of course she does.

Not only has she seen how much they mean to Nico over the last couple of months, but they’ve started to mean as much to her, too - providing her with a sibling bond she’s never really experienced with Oli, one of unconditional love and support, admiration and affection.

She wants her daughter to embody that too.

To be a beacon of love.

A ray of sunlight.

“Lina Cheeto Hischier.”

Nico’s dimpled smile turns into laughter that erupts from the depths of his belly, and fills Poppy with elation, her body turning to jelly as he pulls her in until their lips press together, giggling against each others mouths until Nico feels the need to part, his head leaning down toward Poppy’s bump, where their daughter lays once again, butt to the front, ready to cause her mother a night of grief. 

“Don’t worry Lina-bug,” he whispers, eyes drifting up to meet Poppy’s, her heart soaring at the sweet, definitely pre-meditated nickname. “We’ll work on the middle name.”

“Maybe something Persian,” Poppy scoffs, her own neck craning to speak toward her stomach, her hand falling to stroke it at the side, “Considering your daddy’s such an expert, all of a sudden.”

“I thought you might need convincing,” he chuckles, “I promise I looked it up.”

He leans in to kiss her again.

“I love you,” she whispers against his lips, “So much.”

“I love you more.”

Next Chapter

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

[ayatheav]

Last Bows

[deoidesign]

when your main characters start dating after years of writing so they finally get to be like this

[meliohy]

Day 7: Storybook/cinderella

[toomanyideasandfandoms]

Physically Unable To Love

Jiyan x Reader

Notes: Reader based off of oc (written with reader inserts), gn reader, they/them used, gnc Rover (uses any pronoun), Chixia being the worst wingwoman, extreme romantic pining, unresolved feelings, possible ooc Chixia (I'm going off of vibes from what I've played)

Yet again this man has invaded my head and so I shall write more. Also title is more dramatic then what's actually written lmao.

-

"Come on! It can't be that hard to just ask him on a date!" Chixia exclaimed, frustration evident on her features as she stared at the person across from her. "The worst he can say is no, [Y/n]!"

"And that's the problem! I can't handle a no!" They yelled back, keeping their hands gripping their hair. "I'm self aware enough to know that! It's better if I just get over-"

"Oh hey there he is." Rover casually announced, looking over in the direction of where the general was. [Y/n] was quick to slam their head into the table, cursing as the pain flooded their system.

"Now's your chance!"

"Chixia no-"

"Hey General!! Over here!! We have room if you need a table to sit at!" The redhead called out excitedly, gaining the attention of the man. He carefully walks over, studying [Y/n] who refused to put their head up in greeting.

"Sorry if I'm barging in."

"Not at all." Rover quickly replied, nudging his elbow into [Y/n]'s side. They hissed, glaring at them before sighing as they lifted their head to meet Jiyan's eyes.

"You're fine, General."

"You alright? Are you having one of those moments again?" He asked, sitting down across from them. His eyes studied their tense muscles, brows furrowed in concern. "If you want I can-"

"I'm fine!" [Y/n] interrupted, raising their voice a bit. They flinched once they felt eyes of the other patrons on them, gently resting their head on the table again. "You don't need to do that thing again."

"That thing again?" Both Chixia and Rover asked, their eyes moving back and forth between the two. [Y/n]'s cheeks burned at the memory, practically being cuddled by the general when they grew overwhelmed one evening. They didn't want to remember it, for it only made their heartbeat even more rapid around the man.

"Anyway!" They quickly said, moving the conversation along. "It's a rarity to see you in the city Jiyan! Means times are a bit more peaceful huh?"

"Yes, there's not as many Tacet Discords showing up lately. It's good for the soldiers morale too, since many weren't able to see their families during the threat of the Threnodian's rewakening." The conversation then drifted off, with [Y/n] barely interacting with Jiyan. Chixia and Rover both tried to make them join, but it was to no avail. After some time the general said his farewells and left the group.

"What was that?!" Chixia yelled. "You literally only talked to him like once!"

"Well sorry! Once the food got brought in I suddenly grew overwhelmed!"

"What she means," Rover began, placing her hand on the redhead's. "Is that we just want to help with you-"

"Look I just can't!" They screamed, slamming their hands on tbe table. They flinched once everyone around them grew quiet, sitting back down. "It's not that simple guys. I just...I'm not ready to hear a rejection okay?"

"And what makes you so sure it will be a rejection?" The dark haired person asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Because why wouldn't it be? Even if it's not because he doesn't see me in that way, which he totally doesn't by the way, it's because he's too busy with being a general. I know he would just see himself as a burden like I do with myself and think a rejection is better than a potentially dead partner!"

The two look at them in silence, digesting their words.

"You really thought about it that much?" Chixia asked softly, narrowing her eyes in concern. "I mean I'm sure-"

"I know you're trying to help, but please. Just let me...get over it. It's better than experiencing heartbreak. Besides I have my own as to why I can't be in a relationship." [Y/n] smiled sadly. "I have to find some way back home to my world after all."

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt 58 Part 7

The long dining room that held the ornate old dining table that seated way too many people already held  most of the family. Bruce was missing and Damian informed them he was at work, the only other person missing was Jason but it was typical for him to skip out as he didn’t live there and didn’t have the best track record with the rest of the family. That left Damian, Tim, Cass, Duke, and Dick seated.

Damian sat next to the chair that Bruce normally sat in at the head of the table. Tim sat across from Damian followed by Dick, Duke, and Cass. Danny sat next to Damian and Jazz sat next to Danny. 

“So, how was school?” Dick asked his elbows on the table with his head on his hands and a smile. He was the only adult in their life besides Bruce that actually cared about their schooling. 

Danny had actually forgotten that all of this had happened in just one day. The thought was a little jarring if Danny was being honest with himself. He wasn’t sure what to tell Dick, on one hand he was just asking about school on the other… no he wasn’t going to think about what happened right now. Just the thought caused phantom volts to go through his body like he was reliving the accident. He felt a nudge to his foot from the right and looked up to see Damian giving him a quizzical look. He cleared his throat and looked back over to Dick who was giving him the same kind of look. 

“I-I’m, uh… school was fine, didn’t learn much since school just started,” He eventually decided to say after stumbling on his words a little. 

“Dash isn’t picking on you again this year is he?” Dick asked with a concerned look on his face. 

Danny wished it was just Dash, the pain he felt from the portal was a thousand times worse than anything the bullying blond could pull. If it was just Dash, Danny could have just laughed it off and forgotten it probably, but it wasn’t just Dash and Danny couldn’t help but take a deep breath trying to gather his thoughts and calm himself.

He startled as he felt a hand on his knee, he looked to his left to see Jazz giving him a look of sympathy as she rubs her thumb comfortingly on his knee. She then spoke, “Danny you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Okay?”

Danny gave her a small nod, a small smile on his face. 

Before a new topic could be discussed Alfred arrived with their food and began serving them. Danny loved the food the old butler cooked especially since he was able to do so in a kitchen that wasn’t contaminated. Alfred did his best to make sure everyone was served food to their liking, as long as it was a balanced meal at the end of the day the elderly butler would serve just about anything you’d request.

Danny picked up his fork to begin on his salad, however when he tried to push the fork into the lettuce his hand felt a cooling sensation with pins and needles and his fork went through his hand. He stared at his hand for a moment wondering what just happened. He then picked up his fork to try again and was able to get a mouth full, but when he went for a second bite it happened again, his fork clanging against the bowl again.

“Something wrong Danny? You're staring at your hand weird,” Danny heard Dick speaking and looked up to see Dick staring at him giving him an odd look. 

Danny couldn’t help but rub his neck nervously with his other hand, he hoped to get ahold of whatever this was so no one noticed. Though knowing his luck everyone probably did notice, over the years he and Jazz both noticed that the Wayne family was much more observant than their media persona’s showed. 

Dinner continued and Danny struggled to eat anything as anything he tried to hold fell through his hand frustratingly and Danny couldn’t help but get agitated. 

Eventually his glass he was holding slipped through his hand and tumbled onto the floor shattering into a thousand pieces. Danny let out a frustrated sigh as he stared at the mess he made. 

Before he could stand to clean up Alfred appeared by his side with a dustpan and broom and began cleaning it up, “are you still feeling unwell Master Daniel? Perhaps you should retire for the evening, I will attend to this mess.” Danny begrudgingly nodded his head and made his way out of the room.

He wasn’t alone for long as Damian and Jazz tailed him out of the room. 

“What was that? It looked like your spoon was going through your hand,” Jazz asked after they were a ways from the dinning room.

“Jazz, honestly I don’t know, it felt cold and then anything I tried holding fell through my hand.” Danny brushed his bangs away from his forehead and they dropped back into his face as he dropped his hands back down to his side.

The walk went silent after that, although it didn’t stay for long as Danny felt the cooling sensation again but this time through his whole body, he let out a yelp as he felt his body sink into the floor.

Damian and Jazz looked at him with panic but as they grabbed at his arms or his hands to pull him back up they went through him just as the spoon and apparently the ground now. 

He let out a panicked yell as the floor swallowed him whole, so now he was sinking further down further into the earth. What was going to happen to him? Would he ever find his way back up?

Thankfully he didn’t have to wait long as the cooling sensation left and as gravity took hold of him again he fell. Apparently there was a cave under the manor and he was able to turn back into solid as he felt air again. There was no way he was surviving this, even with new weird powers now was when he’d get impaled by spikes right?

The cave was too dark to make out much but Danny thought he might have seen a computer with several monitors. That didn’t matter now as he finally landed, and he grunted as he landed on a person who also grunted as having a teen land on you couldn’t be the most comfortable.

He knew he was in big trouble when he realized who he landed on, “Batman??”

[moonsglare]

kpop demon hunters was peak and although as a hobbyist writer i did find some parts and choices strange overall it was truly a breath of fresh air in animation’s current climate and i’d highly recommend it! will also be thinking abt kpop aus now btw.

[caelanthe]

Fanfiction is so goated actually

No monetary incentive, just writing in one's free time. Some incentive for like kudos and comments, because who doesn't want to hear that someone else enjoyed what they wrote. Just writing a story that is good and/or enjoyable, no real-life pressure to keep it going because god forbid you and other people are depending on it financially.

Writing a story because you want to write a good story, so you can write what they want the way you want, at a pace that is realistic for you, with exactly the plot pacing you want there to be.

[bitemevanitas]

aaaaa hihihi!! choosing to submit this cause I’ve been THE BIGGEST fan of your works for a while now!! You’ve inspired me a lot with your writing aaa it’s super detailed and your expertise is something I hope to achieve in the near future <33 feel free to ignore this if your requests aren’t open or if you aren’t taking them, but could I request a vanitas x childhood friend! reader? Like reader grew up beside Vanitas in Moreau’s lab and escaped with him and mikhail, but after Luna’s death kinda vanished off the face of the earth and then randomly popped into Vanitas’ life again midway only to reveal they’d be leaving (again). TTwTT feel free to ignore this if it’s too specific aaa >^<

Aaaa hiiii!! 😭💖 This message absolutely made my day- Thank you SO much for taking the time to send it!!

I’m genuinely honored and so touched that my writing has inspired you, my love 🥹💗 Hearing that really means the world to me. I’m cheering you on with all my heart, keep going - you’ve got this!! 💪✨💕

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡

Fandom: Vanitas No Carte

Pairing: Vanitas x GN!Platonic!Reader

Contents: childhood friends, platonic relationship, sibling undertones (i feel like they turned out more like siblings than friends, though...)

TW: gore, explicit gore, detailed descriptions of harming people, implied major character death, possibly ooc characterization in terms of emotional matters (i tried my best)

CW: 3.69K

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They had called you No. 62 down here.

In the lab beneath the earth, far from the outside world, names were entirely irrelevant. You were just a number, a test subject at best.

You were taken when you were but ten. Old enough to remember the smell of petrichor after a heavy rain in Paris, the sound of birds and crowds, the taste of apricots.

You remembered your father’s violin, your mother’s voice humming a lullaby at dusk.

And you remembered the screaming, too—the crying and begging when Moreau snatched you from the cot where the Chasseurs had left you to rest after taking you in.

You never regained the memory of your real name.

But you remembered No. 69.

When you met him, he was twelve. Thin. Gaunt. Bruises bloomed over his wrists and collarbones like ink stains that never washed out. His eyes were the strangest thing you'd ever seen—blue like gunmetal, something forged to survive.

You were fourteen then, two years older and far too aware of how this place chewed children down to marrow. Where the smell of antiseptic clung to the air like a fog—sharp and acrid.

Beneath it lurked the scent of coppery blood, burnt bone, old sweat. Somewhere down the corridor, a child was screaming again.

No. 69 didn’t speak. Not for days after he arrived.

They kept him sedated, so unresponsive he looked more dead than alive. It was awful.

You’d been there longer. Long enough to learn how to move through pain. Long enough to know which needles burned and which ones felt like ice in your veins. Long enough to understand that Dr. Moreau smiled widest when someone screamed.

At first, you protected No. 69 because no one else would. That pathetic little half-pint.

When the lights dimmed that night and the observers retreated, the boy slumped beside the wall, curled inward like he wanted to disappear into the shadows.

“Hey,” you said through the divider between your cells. You were still weak from the last round of injections. “Don’t cry. They’ll hear it.”

His head snapped up. He hadn’t realized you were watching. He blinked and wiped his face on the hem of his shirt. His eyes were hollow.

“I’m not crying.”

“Good,” you said. “Because if you cry, they’ll think they’ve won.”

He turned his head slowly. Just once, to see a face that didn’t seem as frightening as the others.

A single blink.

Then, a silent nod.

Weeks later, when Mikhail arrived—small, wide-eyed, clueless—he clung to you like a shadow. He was only eight.

At first, No. 69 glared at him. Then tolerated him. Then, you saw it—that flicker of protective fire you’d been trying to coax out of him.

“If you want to live,” you told him one night, when the guards were out of earshot, “then stand up. Speak up. Yell and fight back. Because I might not be around much longer to protect you both.”

He didn’t respond.

But two nights later, when a lab tech tried to restrain Mikhail for another blood draw, Vanitas bit him. Drew blood. Got beaten for it, but he didn’t flinch.

Mikhail started calling Vanitas big brother. He still didn’t call you anything, perhaps intimidated, but he never left your side. That boy was too young to understand what was being done to him. Too young to know what pseudo kin meant, or whatever kind of other nonsense Moreau told them.

But he understood that you held his hand after injections. That you sat with Vanitas during night terrors. That you told stories about what the sky looked like before it was taken from you.

You only cried once, unaware that Vanitas was awake. But he was. Pretending to sleep, as he often did.

“I had a little brother once,” you whispered to Misha, voice brittle as frost. He looked up at you, half his face hidden behind the pillow that he clutched to his chest. “They mistook him for a vampire. A Chasseur found him before I could even call for help.”

You shook, trying to hold in the sob.

“They didn’t even check. Just saw his eyes. Said they ‘glowed funny.’ That was enough.”

You looked at your trembling hands.

“That’s why I won’t let you die. Either of you. I couldn’t save him. But I can save you.”

Vanitas didn’t speak up, but the next time Moreau attempted to lay a hand on you—Vanitas stepped between you. Didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared him down.

Moreau laughed. “How loyal,” he said. “A defective pup guarding its litter.”

You weren’t the strongest, by any means. You weren’t the fastest, either. But you were the oldest. That made you dangerous.

Once, you kicked the guards when they restrained Mikhail too roughly. Bit the tech who tried to gag Vanitas. Tried to strangle Moreau when he called Misha it instead of he.

You failed. You always did. They held you down and cut something. Punishment was swift. But that was the point.

Better you than them.

You taught the boys how to fake seizures when the test schedules got too punishing. Taught them to resist, not just survive. You fought the workers so often they stopped trying to discipline you. Sedation turned to chains. Isolation. A cell further away, reinforced. But you still found ways to burn.

There was the time you bit a handler hard enough to sever a vein. The time you gouged out a researcher’s eye with a surgical pick. And then—the gun. When the door slammed open, and there you were, ready to kill for Misha.

He would never forget how you looked.

Your face streaked with blood that wasn’t yours. The revolver trembling in your hands. But your eyes, steady and burning, locked on Moreau like a cat on a mouse.

“Step away,” you said.

Moreau didn’t blink. “Now, now. Where did you get that, my little creature?”

“I’ll kill you,” you said. “I swear I will. I’m not bluffing.”

“You’re injured. Hysterical!”

Then you raised the gun. Fired point-blank. Missed. The bullet struck the wall.

You didn’t scream when they swarmed you. Not even when they beat you down. Even when they pumped enough sedative into your spine to drop a grown man and dragged you across the floor like an animal.

Vanitas watched through the crack in the door. You looked back—eyes glassy, red-rimmed, but still defiant. Not broken. Never broken.

He’d never seen someone refuse to break that hard.

So why?

Why did you, of all people, and after everything you had done, vanish when he needed you most?

It wasn’t snowing the night Luna had died, but Vanitas remembered it that way.

Maybe because the air had turned so cold. Maybe because Misha screamed like he was the one dying. Maybe because the firelight flickered like snowfall in his vision as Vanitas raised the blade and—

Vanitas pressed a hand to his chest.

He had stopped bleeding, but the wound had never healed.

The last time Vanitas saw you was the night Luna lost herself. The sanctuary they had found after the escape had erupted into violence. The Vampire of the Blue Moon had clawed at their own face, fighting an enemy no one else could see—an invader who had stolen their name, their sense, their soul.

You didn’t stay long after he ended her.

He remembered turning to find you, only to see your shadow.

You didn’t take a grimoire. You didn’t say goodbye.

Vanitas never forgave you.

He never forgave himself, either.

Tonight, the city below glowed like a dying ember, too.

From the bell tower of Saint-Michel Notre-Dame, rooftops stretched in uneven silhouettes. The Seine caught the light of the setting sun and held it in trembling hands, like the water itself mourned something forgotten.

Vanitas sat with one knee drawn up, fingers loosely around his shin, coat curled behind him like a discarded crow’s wing. The cold stone pressed against him. He didn’t feel it anymore.

He hadn’t spoken to Noé in two days. Another argument. Not unusual. Vanitas didn’t want kindness. Not from someone who couldn’t understand. He preferred silence.

He was alone.

Just how he liked it.

Until he wasn’t.

When he heard footsteps, Vanitas didn’t move. Didn’t turn. Didn’t reach for a weapon.

He just said, low and sharp, “Noé, if this is you, I swear to all that’s holy, I’ll kill you.”

A pause.

Then:

“Still as dramatic as ever.”

The voice froze him. A breath left his lungs. He closed his eyes. It couldn’t be. Not again.

He turned. And there you were.

Older, naturally. Hair longer, wind-tousled, tucked into a hooded overcoat. Travel-worn boots. A scar along your collarbone where your shirt hung open.

But you were there.

Vanitas stood up too fast.

The Book of Vanitas clinked against the stone as he shoved it aside. His fists trembled with something deeper than words.

“Why are you here?” he snapped. “You vanish for three years without a word, and now you just show up?!”

Your eyes softened. “I wasn’t planning to stay long.”

“Oh, of course not. That would imply you care.”

“I do care,” you said flatly, flicking his forehead.

He laughed. It was bitter, bright, cracked. “You’re three years too late for that.”

Your face didn’t flinch.

“I came to Paris because I felt like I’d left something behind,” you said quietly. “I didn’t expect to find you here. But now that I have—”

You stepped closer.

Vanitas didn’t move.

“I wanted to tell you something.”

“Save it.”

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

“You already did.”

Silence stretched between you, taut as wire. Then, gently, you placed a hand on his arm.

Vanitas froze. His breath hitched. Not in fear, but in recognition.

“I’m proud of you.”

His gaze broke. The words hit like ash in his lungs. He didn’t want to need them. But he did. You stepped in, arms folding around him in a quiet embrace. He didn’t return it. But he didn’t pull away either. Vanitas just stood there, caught between sunset and the scent of someone who once bled beside him.

Slowly, he let his forehead rest against your shoulder.

Your arms tightened.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered. “I should’ve stayed. But I didn’t know how.”

The wind passed through the ribs of the bell tower. Below, the world kept turning.

“I thought if I stayed, I’d hold you back. But maybe I was wrong.”

Vanitas exhaled.

“No. You were right.”

You huffed softly.

“I would’ve chased you. If you asked, I would’ve followed.”

Your arms tightened briefly, “I’m leaving again. Tomorrow, maybe. I don’t know if I’ll come back.”

He said nothing.

“But I need you to hear this. I’m proud of you. I know the name you carry isn’t yours. But the choices are. And you’ve made the right ones.”

His shoulders shuddered.

“Even when I’ve become a monster?” he rasped.

“You’re not a monster,” you said gently. “You’d be a lousy one. Your heart is too big for that.”

The bells rang once, deep and low.

Vanitas stepped back, just enough to meet your gaze.

“I should hate you,” he said.

“You’d have every right.”

“But I don’t.”

You smiled. Just a little, “I’m glad.”

Your hand dipped to your coat pocket. Distance again

“So,” you said, teasing, “you’ve got someone making sure you don’t get yourself killed now?”

Vanitas stiffened. “What—?”

“Tall. White hair. Gets a little lost sometimes.”

He blinked. “You know about Noé?”

“I keep an eye on you. From a distance.”

He muttered something. His ears were red.

“I like him,” you said.

He glared. “Of course you do.”

“Means I don’t have to worry about you as much.”

Silence.

“…He’s an idiot.”

You laughed. Vanitas didn’t smile. Not quite. But the corner of his mouth twitched. You let the silence settle. As the sun dipped below the rooftops, you moved toward the edge.

“I should go,” you said. “I’m going back to Austria.”

He said nothing.

“I don’t think I’ll come back this time.”

Still silence. You looked at him one last time. Older now. Still beautiful in the way fire is—radiant, but capable of leaving scars. His eyes were different now. Blue like fractured glass, brighter and more eerie.

He had his wounds from the past, but he was surviving. That was enough.

You turned.

But just before descending into the dark, Vanitas said softly:

“Don't forget my name.”

You paused, then smiled.

“Yours I'll remember for a lifetime.”

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A/N: dear anon, thank you again for submitting your request <3 I hope this oneshot comes close to what you had in mind.

[emero0]

*Insert that one teacup spinning trend*

Ref

like- like?????

(read tags lol)

[bancaishi]

a miscellaneous collection of art deco architecture from manhattan, drawn for class. text transcription below the cut

1. Empire State Building (20 West 34th Street)

2. Fuller Building (595 Madison Avenue)

3. Midtown Theater (2626 Broadway)

4. Graybar Building (420 Lexington Avenue)

5. New York Telephone Company Building (140 West Street)

6. Horn & Hardart Automat Cafeteria Building (2702-2704 Broadway)

7. 30 Rockefeller Plaza (30 Rockefeller Plaza)

8. 275 Madison Avenue Building (275 Madison Avenue)

9. AT&T Long Lines Building (33 Thomas Street)

10. Radio City Music Hall (1260 6th Avenue)

11. 369th Regiment Armory (2366 Fifth Avenue)