#nolan;

plot: it’s nolan’s birthday and his best friend/boyfriend/fiancee/husband decided that they should celebrate, surprising him with a dinner (?? or something lol)

possible connections: coworker, neighbor, friend, etc.

“Yeah, that’s what they said. I don’t know why we’re listening to what a random stranger told us, but it’s Beacon Hills. I stopped questioning everything a long time ago.”

“I don’t believe there’s anything to stop, you’re not dangerous, Nolan. Your past does not define you, it’s the actions you make now that matter the most. Once you start telling yourself that you’ll start to believe it.”

Kylie walked to the park, she didn't mind meeting Nolan so late. She trusted him, she liked him. Which said a lot, there weren't many people she trusted. But there was just something about him she liked.

Nolan quickly walked the three blocks from his coworkers apartment to the park, headphones firmly in his ears and his music turned up so loud you could hear it from a foot away. He didn’t like the dark, it made him uneasy - especially in Beacon Hills - but he’d found if he kept his music on and his eyes straight ahead, it was easier to deal with. Why he’d decided to actually meet Kylie in the park, he had no idea.

Well, that wasn’t true. He knew why, he just didn’t like to think about it. He was so desperate for friends - to not be alone, for someone to like him - he was willing to put aside his fears and his previous plans to sit in his room and stare at the ceiling until he fell asleep.

“Hey,” he started, pulling his headphones out of his ears and wrapping them carefully so they wouldn’t tangle in his pocket.

Kylie turned and smiled when she saw Nolan, running over she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close. "Hi, Nolan!"

“Oh-“ His eyes widened as Kylie embraced him, stiff against her and trying his best not to yank himself away. After a few seconds, he awkwardly wrapped his arms around her waist, forcing himself to let out the breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding

Noticing the clear hesitation she pulled back a bit to look at him. "It's okay, you can hug me. I won't hurt you."

“I-I know. Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting it,” he replied, the corner of his lips quirking up in a half smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Do you want to try again?”

She could tell that the smile didn't reach his eyes, not the way he probably intented it to. She reached up to stroke his face with a smile of her own. "Yes." She whispered, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him back in.

Nolan let her pulling him toward her, leaning into her touch and wrapping his arms around her with more certainty. To say it was more comfortable for him would be a lie, but he didn’t want to lose a friend - he didn’t have many to spare.

Besides, it wasn’t all bad. No one had given him a proper hug since he graduated High School and he was surprised with how much he’d missed it. Holding her tighter, his fingers trembled with a mixture of nerves and all relief and fear.

Being held like this was nice, she couldn't remember the last time someone had really held her. She smiled as tears came to her eyes, "You're good at this.." She mumbled, rubbing her face against his chest before pulling back and taking a deep breath.

She smiled at him widely, running fingers through his hair. Beginning to sway with him in a slow dance.

“Really?” He whispered back, surprised by her words and her actions. Unsure how to respond to the fond way she pressed her face into his chest let alone how having her fingers in his hair felt, he just let it happen, swaying with her to nonexistent music, his shoes scraping against the concrete of the outdoor basketball court where they’d met.

“What are you doing?”

"What do you mean?" She asked back instead of answering his question, she tilted her head at him before pulling her phone out and turning on one of her playlists and setting her phone down on a bench before turning back to Nolan and pressing back against him.

“You’re just...touching me a lot and I-I wanted to know why.” He elaborated, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to return it to its previous style. Before he knew it, Kylie was pressed back up against him and a song he didn’t recognize had begun to fill the silence around them.

"Well I am teaching you how to dance, but if you don't want me to I can stop." She murmured, pulling away again. She smiled and kept dancing by herself, twirling around in time to the song. She might have been showing off a little bit.

“Oh, no! T-that’s not what I meant, I meant you messing with my hair and stuff,” he replied, watching her twirl around in the moonlight. She looked so carefree, like the weight of the world didn’t dare touch her shoulders, and it just made him feel all the heavier in comparison. “I still want to learn.”

Kylie smiled, looking over at him. "Touch is nice isn't it? It makes you feel alive." She said, with an age to her that she shouldn't have. She had been seven when she died, had come back in a body much older. 19 years old but she felt so much older. Like she had aged years beyond her own wisdom.

She moved back to him now, leaning up and wrapping arms around him. "I think you want to feel alive, I think you're lost."

“It can be. But it can also be harsh and painful and terrifying,” Nolan replied, his arms slipping back around her waist without much thought. His brows drawn together in thought, he tried to force his mind away from the bad things that crawled their way in like spiders, trapping him in their web.

Touch. He didn’t know how to feel about it anymore. It was a powerful thing, touch, if the fact that it had caused him to spiral so far was anything to go by, and that scared him.

“Why do you say that? I mean, I don’t think I’m lost, I-I know exactly where I am.”

Kylie smiled, she knew just how painful touch could be. She could remember the touch of claws to her body. She pressed closer, laying her head on Nolan's shoulder. "Being lost doesn't have to be so literal, you're here. You know where you are, but do you know who you are?"

Nolan’s frown deepened and his shoulders tensed a fraction as Kylie leaned against him. He’d never really thought about who he was. He wasn’t even sure there was a him to think about, he was just a walking blank page for people to write on. First he’d been defined by his parents, then by Gabe, then Monroe, then his scholarship and after that? He was just waiting.

"You're lost." She whispered, reaching up to stroke his cheek. "But that's okay, I'm lost too. Maybe we can find ourselves together." She murmured, smiling at him happily. He was just a few inches taller than her, her nose could brush perfectly against his jaw if she leaned in closer.

He could feel his cheeks heat up under her touch, his heart twisting in his chest as he tried to make sense of her actions. Not just at the park, all of them. Nolan didn’t know what he’d done to make her like him so much but he was torn between being ecstatic at any ounce of affection and paranoid it was all going to collapse and leave him more of a mess than he started. “Okay.”

Kylie smiled again, she saw the way his cheeks lit up. “You’re blushing..”

“I know,” he groaned, the problem only made worse by her acknowledgement of it. “Pretend I’m not.”

“No, no. It’s cute.” She laughed, leaning up and kissing his blushed cheeks.

Nolan froze, his fingers clenching and unclenching as she kissed his cheeks. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, or how to say it. Was this a friend thing? He’d never had many friends who were girls, so it was a possibility.

“Kylie?”

“Yeah?” She asked, looking up at him. “Is something wrong?”

“No, of course not! Nevermind,” he smiled, quickly fixing his mistake before Kylie took it badly. Once more his inability to read her got the best of him and he nervously awaited her response, all the while pushing away the little voice in the back of his head that told him to just ‘mess it up, tell her she’s creepy - throw every negative thing you can think up and destroy their friendship before she could destroy him.’

At least if he ended it, it’d be his choice to be alone.

"You can talk to me you know, tell me what you're thinking." She murmured, pulling back to spin around while keeping his hand in hers. She came back, wrapping arms around his middle now, hands firmly pressed against his back. "If you're uncomfortable I can tone it down."

“Of course I do,” he replied, unconvincingly, his winding his arms around her shoulders once she’d finished her surprisingly graceful spin. To the second comment, Nolan didn’t reply, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

Kylie stopped and pulled away, "You don't have to worry about anything stupid like, hurting my feelings or something. I'm tough, I can handle it." She furrowed her brow and puffed out her chest. "I'm not fragile."

“I..” Nolan flinched at her tone, his eyes falling to the concrete below them when she made it fully clear he’d offended her. Even if he didn’t say anything, he managed to mess up - it was almost impressive. “I have to go.”

Kylie frowned, grabbing his hand and lacing their fingers together. "I don't want you to go, I'm not upset or mad. I just want you to be able to talk to me." She murmured, tugging Nolan down onto the concrete so they could just sit together.

She looked up at the moon, "I don't like full moons." She admitted, "The next ones a ways off but still."

Nolan didn’t leave, he didn’t want to be alone and if she wasn’t mad he didn’t have any reason to be. Sitting down beside her, his knees pulled up to his chest, he stared up at the sky. The moon was bright despite being only waxing, but it was enough to see the world around him in washed out greys and blues.

“I don’t either. I used to lock myself in the closest during full moons. It probably wasn’t effective, but it made me feel better.”

"I died on a full moon." She admitted, soft and vulnerable. "I don't know why I'm telling you that. Maybe I'm just tired of swallowing the truth."

"You...you died?" He asked, his voice breaking, eyes wide as he stared up at the moon. "But you're back now. H-how did you..? How is that possible? What are you?"

"I don't know, I woke up in my grave. Like it had never happened. I've been just living my life since then, I'm not anything. I'm just me." She whispered.

Nolan swallowed thickly, his shoulders hunching forward and his gaze falling from the moon. He tried to calm his heartbeat, to remind himself that there was no reason to believe Kylie was anything other than she said she was. Except there was. There was reason, she'd come back from the dead and then randomly decided she liked him even though he didn't do anything. What if this meant she was planning something? What if this meant she was planning to use him or to hurt him?

"I want to believe you. "

Kylie swallowed, rubbing the palms of her hands against her thighs. "Someone you trusted hurt you.." She said softly, moving to take his hand in hers again. She held it in her lap. "The person I loved and trusted killed me."

She knew he was vulnerable - his incredible lack of a poker face made it almost too easy - and she wanted him to trust her. The worst part was that he wanted to, he wanted to trust her, he wanted to keep her in his life so things would feel less bleak. Once again he was faced with the urge to remove himself from the situation, to take control so he never lost it, and once again he ignored it.

Tightening his fingers in her grip so he wasn't forced to hold his hand like a limp, freezing dead fish - he sighed. "Did you ever find out why?"

"No, it had to be the moon. She turned into this...this thing with fangs and claws. She attacked out mom and then me." She whispered, swallowing hard as she turned to bury her face in Nolan's neck.

"She was probably a werewolf, then. O-or a were something," he replied, flinching as her face pressed in close against his neck. "The full moon, it makes it harder to control, I guess. It makes them more animal."

"Yeah...I'm not one of them, Nolan. I'm not going to hurt you." She whispered, wrapping arms around him.

Nolan simply nodded, wrapping his arms around he shoulders after a moment's hesitation. He'd never get used to it - the feeling of someone actually wanting to hug him, to embrace him out of something other than misplaced obligation.

"I'm your friend, I trust you." She whispered, "I've never had a friend before..but I think you'll be a good one."

After Kylie texted Nolan she made her way to the movie theater, slipping inside she walked around until she found an empty concession area with Nolan on the other side. Waving she ran over and vaulted herself over the counter and onto the other side. 

She slid beneath the counter so no one could see her in case Nolan got a customer. "It'll be like I'm not even here." She grinned, holding out her arms and making grabby hands at Nolan. 

"Now where's my popcorn?"