[attr="class","ollieollie"] with the sway of the music and crowd, it's easy to ignore the distant look on willow's expression as she stands between them. it's easy not to think about it too much — what it means.

[break][break] he smiles instead at bo, flashing a gummy grin as the two clink their glasses together. "woah! eight feet tall! i'm gonna have to get lifts to compete." he chuckles.

[break][break] ollie has always been pretty fit and good at holding his posture, though he's sure he could do better about it. he's also pretty bad at keeping up with his doctor appointments, so he supposes that he can relate.

[break][break] "mmm," he says with a hum, swaying as he leans this time on boruta maher . "i guess my resolution is probably to make more friends!" was that a stupid one? he laughs again. "or .. " his eyes glance towards willow atkins . "being honest with myself is a good one too. can i steal yours, wils?"

[break][break] he pops over across the table next to bo, stealing an olive from an empty glass.

[break][break] "maybe i should think about it more. let's help you with yours now, though, wils! let's tell each other a secret."

[attr="class","ooc"] howling at the moon (bar crawl) [break]
boruta maher willow atkins

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[attr="class","icon"]

”thas right.” ollie was going to need lifts.[break][break]
his joke didn’t seem to land, but that was fine. bo was still happy he hadn’t gone with his real resolution, which was to stop being so sad all the time.[break][break]
”hohkay, don’t worry, i believe you.” he didn’t make eye contact with willow, muttering quickly into his drink, ”secret’s safe with me.”[break][break]
then ollie reached for the olive in some random cup, and bo caught it with a tickled grin. ”you’re wild for that, dude!” he looked over to willow, reiterating, ”he’s wild for that. somebody stop this man.”[break][break]
giggling, he downed another couple gulps of his beverage before belching.[break][break]
”yeah, tell us a secret, wils.”

willow is very quickly realizing that she by far has the most functioning brain cells between the three of them. on any other occasion, it would have been funny, but all she wants to do is curl up in her bed and go to sleep. to stop thinking and feeling for a few hours. 

ollie grabs an olive from a discarded martini glass and willow's nose crinkles. she nods to bo's exclamation that ollie's 'wild for that one' and opts not to pluck the olive from his hand, as previously intended. she's not going to stand in the way of bo's drunken praise. 

"resolutions aren't supposed to be easy," she argues to ollie because making friends is his forte. literally all he has to do is talk to someone for all of five minutes before they think you're the nicest person i've ever met and i want to be your friend. 

"ollie, that's not -" she starts and then bo cuts in, doubling down on ollie's request. telling secrets is not the same as being honest.

before she can let herself get sucked into a rabbit hole of all the secrets she's kept from bo, she says:

"i secretly wish i could beat bo and roman in call of duty."

boruta maher ollie morales

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[attr="class","ollieollie"] "huh?"

[break][break] his brows pinch together in drunken stupor as both boruta maher and willow atkins call him wild. it's only a second later that he realizes that he's stolen from some empty glass, and not either of theirs.

[break][break] "oh whoops!" he giggles, dropping the olive onto the floor.

[break][break] looking back at willow, he pouts. "why not? why do resolutions have to be hard?" it made them all that more complicated to finish. as far as ollie was concerned, the easier they were the better. that way at the end of the year, you had nothing to be disappointed over.

[break][break] "see! that's an easy one!"

[break][break] ollie flashes a grin at his best friend.

[break][break] "it's been a minute since i picked up a controller, but i bet i could beat you bo. wait. waaait a sec. can you even beat someone in that game?" he laughs, perhaps a little too loud.

[break][break] "didja mean like... csgo?"

[attr="class","ooc"] howling at the moon (bar crawl) [break]
boruta maher willow atkins

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[attr="class","icon"]

he put a hand on willow’s shoulder, not meaning to lean onto it as much as he did for a moment before stabilizing himself again.[break][break]

”that’s not a secret.” of course she wanted to beat them at call of duty. he could see it in her eyes. the competitive spirit. the frustration at being a loser. his tone got an octave higher as he muttered into his drink again, as he had before, ”and it’s not gonna happen.”[break][break]

i bet i could beat you bo. ”pshh!” it was an obnoxious interruption, hissing over ollie as he continued. a flick of bo’s hand dismissed it. couldn’t win, his ass. they had family rules. ollie wouldn’t understand.[break][break]

at the mention of csgo, he pointed back in realization. ”oh! i remember csgo.” he then tilted his chin up challengingly.[break][break] ”i’d beat you at that one.”

willow sends a silent apology to the unlucky person who ends up with the squished olive on the bottom of their shoe. and the person at the end of the night who has to clean up the remnants of said squished olive. she looks piteously after it until it rolls out of sight, which isn't very long, as the place is getting crowded by the minute. 

seems the last call echoing from the bar is drawing them in like moth to a flame. just what they need - half of these drunk folks out on the road while they're trying to get home.

bo and ollie have taken the conversation and run with it, which is no surprise. she stands there outside of their drunken babble, calculating the best way they can maneuver out of there. 

"no, roman and bo play just the two of them, i think? there's a mode or something? or is that the zombie one?" 

csgo completely loses her, but it's very clear bo's competitive spirit is coming out. 

"ollie, did you already pay out your tab...? they're doing last call. i can take care of it for you though. you stay and talk to bo." she pats his arm before moving off to head towards the crowded bar. 

ollie morales boruta maher

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[attr="class","ollieollie"] by this point, ollie is far too drunk to argue the intricoes of video games with someone else. that doesn't stop him from trying, though.

[break][break] "like hell! try me maher," he says, with a chuckle. "we can make it a bet."

[break][break] ollie wasn't typically a competitive person, but for some reason, hanging out with boruta maher brought it out in him. maybe it was the comraderie he felt with the other ranger, or the fact that they'd both grown up with brothers.

[break][break] so invested in his conversation, he barely notices willow atkins go leave to pay his bill.

[break][break] "winner gets wills —" he hiccups. "pie."

[attr="class","ooc"] howling at the moon (bar crawl) [break]
boruta maher willow atkins

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[attr="class","icon"]

“yeah, that’s the zombie one.”[break][break]

at lost call, he turned his head, clearly thinking about it before muttering something and ultimately refraining as willow walked off ahead.[break][break]

”okay.”[break][break]

he got a little closer to ollie, a roguish smirk on his face. as if whatever had held him back from acknowledging what had happened before was gone maybe, or no longer mattered. perhaps it had been punched out of his mind by LANCE VOLLANS .[break][break]

”you’re on. for will’s pie.”

it is not easy getting to the bar. for one, most everyone around her has a height advantage on her and she's not the type to just shove drunks aside to get her way. so she slips through the crowd at a painstaking crawl, nose wrinkled at the smell of booze and sweat surrounding her. 

finally, finally, she clutches an island. her hands come away sticky from the bar top and she has to shout MORALES half a dozen times before the bartender hears her. and then, after he finally finds ollie's bill, she makes a snap decision. grabs his hand and yells, only once, MAHER. 

and, miraculously, he finds it. she was only going to give it the one go. one sign. maybe he'd just gotten good at reading her lips.

drinks aren't cheap, it turns out, and she has to empty her pockets of cash to cover the tip. 

she fists her copies of the receipts in her back pocket and then works her way back through the crowd around the bar, which has thankfully thinned at this point. a decent amount had settled their tabs or grabbed their last drinks while she'd been paying.

blue-green eyes rest on the men stooping over the cocktail table. a woman walks out of the bathroom beside her and, in a sudden wave of nervousness, she darts inside (much to the chagrin of the ten other women waiting in line). 

she kicks over a half-full bottle of beer and swears neatly, but is relieved to find none of it spilled. and then she stands before the mirror, stares, splashes some water on her face. after scrubbing and running her fingers through her hair, she drops her hands in exasperation. 

"what am i doing?"

glares bore holes in her back when she exits. she bows her head and, feeling small, slides neatly back into bo and ollie's conversation. 

waits for the right moment to pipe up and say, "i settled your tab. yours too, bo. and i'm driving both of you home." before the latter can protest, she stares intensely up at him and says sternly, "i'm not letting you fly back on your aerodactyl."

boruta maher ollie morales

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[attr="class","ollieollie"] maybe it's the atmosphere of this dimly-lit bar that they're in, the alcohol in his system, or the roguish smirk boruta maher gives him but ollie finds himself grinning right back.

[break][break] "you're going down."

[break][break] the moment breaks when wils comes back,

[break][break] "thanks wils!"

[break][break] he glances at the other, pouting.

[break][break] "aww, that sounds fun! but what if we both ride on that aerodactyl, bo?"

[attr="class","ooc"] howling at the moon (bar crawl) [break]
boruta maher willow atkins

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[attr="class","icon"]

the room was motion and lights and colors, a blur of sounds and dissonant smells that only existed in this 3 am cocktail of city turnout. at the center of the chaos was ollie. that foggy memory only surfaced in nebulous visits on occasion, and now, it was all the more intoxicating.[break][break]

his smirk grew, and then willow was there again. though his gaze was heavy where it was, his attention pivoted.[break][break]

”whaat? you didn’t have to do that. thanks will.”[break][break]

it was a little disappointing to realize the night was coming to an end. he grinned at her and shrugged. ”i’m good flyin’ but sure, whatever.”[break][break]

at ollie, bo shook his head. ”nah, will says we can’t. let’s just have a foot race.” he looked down long-leggedly at his ex. ”if you think you can keep up.”

whatever furtive glances they'd been giving each other go entirely over will's head. i'm never doing this again, she thinks, but that's a lie in itself as well. if ollie needed a dd, or bo for that matter, she'd drop most things to make sure they get home safe. next time, though, she might complain a little more. 

"'kay, but if either of you fall and bust your noses, i'm not cleaning you up," she says with a roll of her eyes. 

"first one down to the car gets shotgun. and if i beat both of you, you both have to sit in the back." it'll make for an easier time to drive anyway. 

and besides, she plans on winning, because as soon as ollie and bo traipse off, she heads for the back exit and walks the short distance to the parking lot from there. 

boruta maher ollie morales

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[attr="class","ollieollie"] "hey," he says, with a laugh. "will's faster than she looks!"

[break][break] he would know - he saw her running around the farm once, after he'd accidentally upset a beedrill's nest. the way she'd run at him in sheer shock and then - later - anger was terrifying.

[break][break] ollie catches bo's eye just as they set-up for the race. for once, his attention is not on will but on boruta maher, as he prepared to run him into the ground. he was definitely going to win!

[break][break] "let'ssssss go!"

[break][break] and with that, ollie takes off in a sprint. or at least, as much as he can, with the crowd that's there.

[attr="class","ooc"] howling at the moon (bar crawl) [break]
boruta maher willow atkins

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