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The Party Crashers were having a blast playing Mario Party Superstars, Brent was in the lead, with Nick close behind in second, only one star away.
That drove the Toxic-Carried Nicolas mad, doing his absolute best to overtake Brent’s position but to no avail.
Vernias and Sophist watched as they argued over a pixelated game, and it was humorous. Vernias did his best to calm down Nick, going as far as to sit in between the two so Nick didn’t throw hands.
“Nicolas, quit it,” Vernias demanded, staring into Nick’s eyes as Nick gripped his controller tightly.
Nick loosened his grip to watch Sophist’s turn, who stared at the television blank-faced before rolling the dice.
He looked at Vernias, who seemed quite serious when he was usually cheerful. Then Nick decided to tease him, which eventually led into harmless bickering.
Sophist didn’t go very far, so it was now the leader’s turn. While all of this chaos was happening, Sophist’s phone kept getting notifications to the point that it drove him crazy.
He grabbed his phone with a dissatisfied expression and was about to click the do not disturb button when he noticed who it was from.
The DM was from Magic the Noah, a YouTuber most commonly known for his “low-budget” game shows. He immediately opened it to find a collaboration invitation for him and the other Party Crashers.
“Guys,” Sophist said, waiting for them to settle down and listen. Nick and Vern were still bickering as usual, but he needed their attention.
“Guys!” he repeated, but louder this time. Nobody seemed to listen to him until he shouted at the top of his lungs again.
The entire room went quiet, all eyes were on Sophist.
“Noah asked us to join his game show tomorrow. Do we wanna do it?” he asked, observing the reactions of his friends as they nodded in agreement.
“Dang, Eevee. Didn’t realize that you had such vocal cords.” Nick taunted, side-eyeing Vernias, who was still beside him. Nick couldn’t help but smile seeing him there, yet nobody noticed.
“Oh fuck you,” Sophist snapped, looking back down at his screen, finally responding to the request with four thumbs up emojis.
Nick brushed the response off and continued to play the game, allowing Vernias to have his turn. There was something about seeing Vernias full of joy that made him smile too.
The game finally finished, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, Brent won with a whopping six stars. Nick ended up in second with the same amount of stars, but he had fewer coins which pissed him off.
Vernias grabbed Nick by the shoulder, sending a jolt in him, Nick jolted but couldn’t help but secretly wished that he’d do it again.
“Nick, I know you're mad, but please don’t do anything stupid.” Vernias asked, giving Nick his infamous “puppy dog eyes”
So under the guidance of Vernias, Nick stayed cool and collected. Why could Vernias “tame” Nick better than the rest of the Crashers? Something changed in Nick, but nobody knew what.
————————————————————————————
It was the day of their new collaboration, the four Party Crashers had to go in blind to the odd game that Noah made.
So they went into their separate rooms in the house they share, and all joined the VC where Noah was waiting patiently for their arrival.
One by one, they were there and Noah greeted them warmly before starting his typical intro.
“Most board games are boring and dumb, this game is not! It’s just even dumber, so what is the point of this game? When you gain strength and level up, you get higher rewards! But that’s boring! “ He went on, while the Party Crashers listened, confused on where this was going.
“So I stripped their levels down and made them useless! Then I threw four YouTubers to save the princess. But there's another twist, they have to team up with their mortal enemy.”
Each Party Crasher opened up Noah’s screenshare to find a somewhat nicely designed board game formed on Google slides; it seemed almost “too high-budget” for Noah, who complains about not having enough budget to do simple tasks.
Brent was the first person to point that out, and Noah responded by saying he cut the budget off other things for this.
“Alright so Brent, you are paired up with Sophist,” Noah revealed, “And Nick is paired with Vernias!”
“Broo” - Brent whined. “Eevee, if you mess this up with your thunder spell I see there, I will kill you.”
Sophist wasn’t too intimidated by Brent’s threats, but he agreed.
Noah went back to the slide with the main board game, their objective was to save the princess by completing a board game without dying.
Seems easy right?
Nick and Vernias went first, Nick asked to see his team’s gold then went to a neon green, good space on his left, Vernias followed and did the same.
Noah opened the good wheel, spinning an extra two gold for Nick and Vernias, making the other team spin the bad wheel early on.
Sophist, with his chaotic self went over to the gamble space to his right despite Brent begging him not to. Brent ended up following Nick and Vern, securing three more gold after Sophist gambled away half of it.
“Alright, here’s another twist” Noah smirked, placing a few of his signature red dragons, each with a health of ten.
The Party Crashers screamed for him to stop after the first dragon, but Noah kept adding more until he was satisfied.
“If you defeat the dragons, you will gain seven gold for your team,” - He chuckled, still hearing the Crashers talk over each other.
Unfortunately, Noah spawned a dragon right by Vern, Nick and Brent… Then it went directly on their space, attacking Vernias.
“Nah that’s not attacking Vern, FIGHT ME!” - Nick declared, begging Noah to let him be the hero and fight the dragon.
Noah let it happen, and Nick ended up defeating the dragon, securing a bag of 7 gold, putting them in the lead with fourteen gold.
Brent and Sophist are far, far behind thanks to Sophist’s passion for gambling.
The next round, Sophist decided to land on a challenge space, having to battle Nick in an emotional damage contest that Nick ended up winning.
“AWW YEAH BABYYY” - Nick cheered, keeping their lead secure for now.
As the rounds went on, so did their scores. Eventually, Sophist’s excessive gambling made their twelve coins turn into thirty six, but Nick and Vern caught up within no time.
Sophist even gained another five gold for casting a thunder spell on a little girl, to which Vernias, despite being on the other team screamed at him for, causing a bunch of commotion.
Some people have noticed how different Nick has been acting, not even saying much when Sophist failed gambling several times.
Not even Nick.
.
.
.
It’s been around eight rounds so far, The two teams are somehow tied. That’s when Vernias landed on a challenge space for the first time.
“So Vern has landed on a challenge space” - Noah said while switching to the challenge slide. Then Noah dropped something that made Nick want to win.
“Alright guys, this game will be worth ten more coins!”
Nick wanted this badly, but he wasn’t the one who was up, it was Vernias vs Brent, an improv challenge.
Now Nick would say that he could improv quite well, and maybe there was a chance that Vernias was even better, but seeing how Brent was doing good, he had to say something.
Anything to motivate Vern.
Yet all Nick could think about was how he wanted Vern- I mean to win!
“Hey Vern, win this and I’ll fucking make out with you.” - Nick blurted out with a straight expression, nonchalantly playing off what he just said.
The silence that followed those words made Nick realize his admiration was just aired out to them. Everyone there knew he would say what’s on his mind, they could be questioning why Nick thought about that.
And that scared Nick.
Could he play off what he said as a joke, surely his charm would work, right?
.
.
.
“Uh Nicolas?”
.
.
.
Nick woke up again, now fully understanding what he said and immediately hung up the Discord call in a panic of confrontation.
The call stayed silent for a few more seconds until Vernias explained that he would ask for him to join back over DMs, if that was alright with them.
One by one, they all agreed.
Vernias turned off the stream for a minute, Noah stopped filming for a bit, confused about what just happened.
He goes into Nick’s DMs, catching him before he went offline and straight up asking if he’s alright.
Nick responded slowly, stating for Vernias to not talk with him right now, mentioning something about him not wanting to ruin what they already had.
Vernias was stunned and more confused than Noah, he tried to get more out of Nick but he went offline fast.
Vernias hated pushing for answers, but his gut told him to. So Vernias told them that he’s going to check on Nick in person and he may take a while.
Everybody understood and Vernias ended the VC just like that, Noah told him that the game would take a pause until everybody returned safely.
Vernias took careful steps as he stepped out of his room, into the hallway where Nick’s bedroom was. It didn’t take him long to find the door.
At first, Vern did gentle knocks, but he didn’t hear a single thing, not even a breath. That’s when the knocking became more and more frantic.
“Nick, please let me in, I-” Vernias was cut off by the sound of muffled crying in there.
“No! Just… Go away.” Nick sobbed, this wasn’t going to be easy.
“Nicolas, please..” Vern begged, just wishing that Nick would let him in to comfort him on whatever was going on.
The air was silent for a few seconds, then he heard footsteps and the door unlocking. Vernias took a deep breath before entering the room cautiously.
The door creaked open, sounding like a window wiper the more it moved, Vernias saw Nick hunched into a ball, head between his knees.
“Oh my gosh, he’s crying, and I don’t even know how to comfort him, I feel so bad I-” Vern thought over and over, trying to figure out what to do next.
Vern rushed over, staying in front of him until Nick slowly looked up at him. The door was wide open, yet nobody dared to check.
My oh my, Nick looked like a mess, his face turned into several shades of pink and red, soaked by the tears he shed.
“Nick..” Vern mumbled, not wanting to disturb him an awful lot.
Vernias went to give Nick a hug but was suddenly pushed back onto his butt, despite being much stronger than Nick.
“I can’t,”
“Can’t what, are you alright?” Vernias asked, he couldn’t bear to see his best friend on the floor, curled up crying.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Nick replied with a face filled with shame and guilt.
“Nick, what’s going on?” Vern was genuinely so confused, blinded by the sadness in Nick’s eyes, face all flushed.
Nick couldn’t even respond to Vern, doing his best to muster up the courage to properly confess yet couldn’t until he finally pushed.
“Ifuckingloveyou,” Nick whispered under his breath. Vernias couldn’t hear him and asked Nick to repeat it louder this time.
“I fucking love you, there I finally said it! Happy?” - Nick whined, tears streaming down his cheeks more as he looked up at Vernias, who was sitting there dumb-founded.
The tension grew heavier with each moment of silence, until Nick kept mumbling more:
“I’m sorry okay, you probably don’t even like me back and I just ruined the friendship! That’s just fucking great, you probably hate me now. I wish I neve-”
Vernias caressed Nick’s face gently with a soft smile, then grabbing his collar tightly, pulling Nick closer to him, landing a kiss on his soft lips.
Fireworks exploded in Nick’s heart immediately, was this really happening while he was drenched in tears?
He let his hands wander until they reached Vern’s hips, adjusting his position while doing so. He leaned into the kiss, tilting his head slightly to use his other hand and hold the back of Vernias’s head.
When the two finally broke apart, Vernias finally admitted the truth.
“Nick, I would never hate you over this.” He started, “I fucking love you too you bozo, you were just a bit late to realize it.”
Nick looked at Vernias, really looked at him… His soft smile that comforted Nick just by staring at it, gentle eyes that drew him in even more.
He really fell for this idiot, and there was no way out now, and he didn’t want one.
But internally, he was panicking, the look on Nick’s face gave it away to Vernias.
“Nick? Are you alright?” Vern questioned, quite concerned for him.
“What about the people around us, will they even approve?” - Nick panics, he kept on rambling until Vern shuts him up with another peck, lasting shorter than the previous one.
“I’m unsure, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll kick their ass if they don’t, or they can just go fuck off.” - Vernias assured.
Nick stopped tearing up and hugged Vernias, cuddling up on the hardwood floors. Vernias stroked Nick’s head, running his fingers through Nick’s messy hair.
Now it wasn’t the full make-out Nick was “joking” about, but seeing that the one he loved actually liked him back was all he wanted.
Was he scared for their future?
Yes.
But was he also ready to face it together?
Also yes.
Vernias wished he could stay in that spot longer, Nick’s body resting in between his thighs, but reality hit him too.
“Nick, as much as I want to stay here with you, we do need to finish what we started with the others.” - Vernias pointed out, not wanting to ruin the moment over content, but Nick agreed.
“We still gotta kick their asses… Babe?” - Nick felt uncertain using that word ‘babe” now, but his heart guided him to do it, he didn’t want to make Vern uncomfortable.
“Yeah, let’s do that!” - Vernias bubbled, giving one last hug before helping Nick clean up and set up the call again, then walking back to his room full of glee.
Vernias heard Nick’s voice over the call and couldn’t help but smile, listening to him be his usual toxic-self towards the losing Brent and Sophist. He was cackling at their every horrible move, something that made Vern swoon over it.
Nick and Vern ended up saving the princess first, but not before subtly flirting a tad during the process.
After all, they were the same people, just now with a secret relationship formed.