it's just too hard

you say you miss him and you go crawlin' back

𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔤𝔤𝔢𝔯 𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔦𝔫 𝔬𝔭𝔢𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔞𝔲𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔯'𝔰 𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢

☆

"cal, i'm off to see your parents, do you want to come?" holly asks from the doorway to the lounge, raising an eyebrow at her nephew.

the brunette scoffs, amused, and looks back at his phone.

"yeah, didn't think so," holly laughs, nose scrunching ever so slightly. "i don't know how long it'll be but you kids can order pizza or something in case it takes a while."

"why are you going?" alyssa asks, looking over at her mom from across the lounge.

"guardianship stuff," the older woman says, dramatically rolling her eyes. "i don't want to, don't get me wrong. cal, if i could kidnap you and call it a day i would but unfortunately there's a lot of paperwork," she says, holding up a folder of said documents.

"i reckon kidnapping would get you put in prison for even longer than arson, you know," callahan points out with an amused smile, glancing up from his phone again. "then where would i go? nans?"

"not longer than murder though," punz points out.

"true," callahan nods.

"surely it's not kidnapping if you like, consent to getting taken," alyssa says, her statement worded more like a question.

"no, lys, it's still kidnapping," their mom says with a laugh. "stop talking about it anyway, i'm not kidnapping anyone unless it's absolutely necessary. now order some food, i'll be back asap."

"bye mom," punz and alyssa speak in unison.

"creepy twins," the brunette mumbles in response, shaking her head in pretend discomfort before turning to leave.

the door clicks shut upon her exit and alyssa looks over at the two boys on the other couch to ask, "is pizza okay?" they both simply nod and the blond girl gets to work opening up a delivery app to find someone cheap that wouldn't take too long to get to them.

punz listens as alyssa starts to list out their options, replying every now and then and letting them know what he does and doesn't want to eat whilst he taps through people's instagram highlights.

"okay, i've ordered it," alyssa announces, "do you guys wanna watch something?"

punz replies with a simple, "sure," and callahan nods along in agreement.

the blonde's attention flicks to the top of the screen when he receives a snapchat message, smiling at the sight of sapnap's bitmoji.

he taps on the notification and it opens his snapchat messages. he sees that sapnap's name has a timer next to it, their 521-day streak running out and clicks on the photo even quicker so that he can send a speedy response.

he freezes.

he feels his jaw drop but he doesn't process it until alyssa says, "what?"