Part Two / Part Three
Ao3
It's 8:45 am.
The Red Barn, which is neither red nor a barn, has been open since 7, catering to the early morning crowd with rounds of coffee and pancakes.
It was no Benny's, but given the size of Hawkins and the lack of alternatives?
No one was complaining.
They were all too happy someone had opened up another watering hole for the working class man (or lass, as Foreman Shelly will dutifully remind you) which meant the place was packed with both day and night shift regulars, passing each other in staggered waves.
It also meant Wayne was sharing the packed breakfast counter with a warehouse worker by the name of John Cheese on one side and Police Chief Jim Hopper on the other.
He doesn't mind it.
Wayne's a man on a budget thinner than his shoelace, but he's also a man who understands that small indulgences need to be made in life or you didn't truly live it.
This is how he convinces himself to get a coffee at the Barn after work everyday, reading the morning newspaper and chatting with the other regulars before he heads home.
Bonus, it gets him out of the rapid-fire franticness that is his nephew in the mornings.
(All the love in the world wouldn't change the fact that all that Eddie came with a lot of noise.
The kind of noise that was a tried and true recipe for a headache right after a long shift.)
As a trade off, Wayne went to bed early so he could wake up in time for dinner with Eddie.
It was a nice little system that worked for them.
A routine Wayne was reminiscing fondly on, when the pager on Chief Hopper started to chirp. With a sad moan, the man fished out a few crumbled bills and threw them on the counter, abandoning his coffee to trudge out to his truck.
This was not unusual.
Particularly recently, given they were but a scant few weeks past that whole mall ordeal. A fact all too easy to remember when one caught sight of the Chief’s still healing face.
What was unusual, was when he came storming through the doors a minute later, face now a furious shade of red with his hat clenched in his hand.
The energy in the room shifted, taking on something a little watchful as Hopper swept his gaze from side to side, like a dog on the hunt.
Judging by the way he stilled when he caught sight of Wayne, the latter assumed he found what he was looking for and could only pray it was the person behind him.
(He liked John, but Wayne had enough trouble this year and he wasn't looking for any more.)
"Munson." Hopper called, striding over and dashing all his hopes. There was a choked fury emitting off him, and given the way John audibly scooted his chair away, Wayne knew everyone had clocked it.
"Chief." Wayne greeted, inclining his head towards him.
Idly he wondered what the hell his nephew had done this time.
'So help me if he stole all the town's lawn flamingos and put them in that damn teachers yard again….'
Wayne didn't even get to finish his threat, the Chief was already next to him.
"Mind if I have a word outside?"
Dammit Eddie.
"Ah hell, what's he done now?" Wayne asked with a sigh, eyeing the coffee he had left morosely.
There was still almost half of it left and the pot had tasted fresh for once.
"What?" Hopper said, and then Wayne got to watch as the man ran through an entire chain of thoughts, each one punctuated by things like; "Oh," and "No. "
"This is something else." He finished, flushed and fidgeting, anger making him antsy.
Wayne stared up at him.
"Something else?" He repeated, not sure he heard.
"Yes, something else." Hopper snapped impatiently, before leaning forward, voice dropping low. "This doesn't involve your nephew, but we both know you owe me for how many times I've let that kid off, Wayne. That's a damn big favor I've been doing you and I'm calling it in."
If it were any other cop, it'd sound like a threat.
It was Hopper though. The same Hopper who Wayne had gone to school with.
They'd never been friends exactly, but they had been friendly and remained so. Even now, after Wayne had taken Eddie in, who’d gone on to be an undeniable pain in the local PD’s ass.
Hopper really did let the kid off easy.
Wayne really did owe him.
So he put down his coffee with a sigh, passed his newspaper over to John and stood up, motioning for Hopper to lead the way. Got into the Chief’s truck when he waved him in, and didn’t make a big fuss when Hopper tore out of the parking lot like hell was about to open up under them.
"Not a lot of the kids involved in the mall fire could be identified, but a few of them were." Hopper started, which felt nonsensical given the utter lack of context.
Wayne hummed to show he’d heard.
“Some of them got banged up more than others, and a lot of people wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t make it.”
A pause, Hopper white knuckling the steering wheel as he swung the truck hard around a turn.
“For certain people, those kids dying is the preferred outcome.”
A mix of fear and warning swopped low in Wayne’s gut.
"Jim." Wayne said, dropping the use of a last name because if any situation called for it, it was this one. "What exactly are you saying here?"
The Chief chewed on his split lip.
"I know you're smart, Munson. I know you, and plenty of others are aware that something's happening, been happening in this town."
Which was a hell of an understatement if you asked Wayne. Plenty of the upper classes might be able to bury their heads when it came to the military parading about and the flow of “accidents” they brought in their wake, but then, they didn't see all the other signs of trouble.
The absolute oddity that was Starcourt’s construction.
How it had been built using primarily outside crews and anyone who'd taken a singular look at the site could tell you they were building it weird.
Weird as in it looked like it would have a multi-level basement, and not what a mall should have.
Then there were the constant electrical problems. The backups upon backups that failed. The late night delivery vans headed out to the Hawkins Lab.
The things in the woods that kept spooking all the deer and the weird markings they left behind that unnerved even the hardest of hunters.
This didn’t even touch the Russian military that more than one reputable person swore was hanging around.
The very same Wayne himself had seen, on more than one occasion.
(And you couldn’t deny it; those boys were military. Past or present, it didn’t matter. They moved like a threat, and Wayne treated them like one, staying well clear.)
"Yeah." Wayne admitted. "I also know better than to stick my nose in it."
"That makes you a smarter man than me.' Hop complained under his breath, but the anger was self directed.
"The point is, there are some government types crawling around, doing shit they shouldn't be doing, and more than a few of them are in the business of making people disappear.”
This was absolutely not where Wayne had thought this was going.
Hopper took a breath. Than another.
A third.
It was starting to make Wayne nervous, in a way he hadn’t felt since a social worker had brought Eddie to him for the last time and final time. It was the feeling that things were about to shift in a way that would change the course of his life.
"Steve Harrington is sitting in my office right now, beat to absolute shit.” Hopper admitted.
Wayne gave him the floor to talk, letting him go at his own pace without interruptions.
“He's there because some of those government types finally figured out his parents are never fucking home.”
Wayne sucked in a breath.
"We both know his parents, Wayne. Harassing them to come back and take care of their kid won't work, and frankly, I’m beginning to think all the phone lines are tapped anyway.” He winced here, like voicing such a thing pained him, and Wayne understood.
It sounded a little too out there, a little like he was buying into a conspiracy.
Except he wasn’t. Wayne knew he wasn’t.
Jim Hopper might have been an alcoholic, a man living in pain and unconcerned with his own life, but if there was one thing he was solid for, it was shit like this.
He didn’t jump to conclusions. Didn’t believe the first thing people told him. Even at his worst, he did the work to see what was really happening, and made his decisions from there.
(Even if that decision was to accept the occasional bribe, or drive an intoxicated 13 year old Eddie home instead of hauling his ass into the drunk tank.)
“Harrington won’t admit it, but he’s got a hell of a concussion if not a full blown brain injury and he’s not reacting as well as he should to Suites trying to run him off the road.” Hopper continued. Angrily, he added, “Damn kid didn’t even come to me until they tried to break into his house last night.”
His fingers squeezed the wheel so hard Wayne heard the leather creak in protest.
“I’d take him, but my cabin is being renovated from…” He trailed off, heaving a sigh.
“A storm, so me and my kid are bunked with the Byers right now and we’re full up.”
Hawkins hadn't had a storm like that in years, but Wayne wasn't going to call him out on the blatant lie.
“I need a place to stash him for the next few weeks, until I can work with some of the higher ups sniffing around, and get them to call off their attack dogs.”
“And you want to stuff him with me.” Wayne finished.
“I know you don’t have the room.” Hopper admitted easily, stopping his truck at a red light and locking eyes with the other man. “But I also know you’ll be the last place anyone would look for him.”
'Ain’t that the damn truth.'
“You’re really gonna go this far for a Harrington?” Wayne asked, instead of the million of other questions leaping to the forefront of his mind.
This one, he figured, was the most important.
“He’s not his dad.” Hopper said, as firm as Wayne had ever heard him. “He’s not either of his parents, and he saved my little girl.”
Wayne hadn’t even known Hopper had another little girl, but he also knew better than to ask where the guy had found one.
It wasn’t his business, just as nothing else Jim was involved in, was his business.
Except, apparently, Steve Harrington.
“I’m gonna need my own truck if I’m takin' Harrington home.” Wayne said easily, instead of bothering to ask anything else.
If Jim said the kid was different than his daddy, then he was--because when it came to things like that, Jim didn't lie.
No point in it.
“I know. Just needed to talk to you first, without anyone overhearing.” Jim said, before swinging the police truck around and heading back to the Barn.
“I’ll stay in contact with you, and I’ll make sure Harrington pays you for the pleasure of your hospitality. Just--” Here Jim cut himself off, looking like he was struggling an awful lot with the next thing he wanted to say.
Once again, Wayne waited him out.
“Don’t let Steve fool you. He’s good at fooling people, letting them think he’s okay. Too good at it, and between the two of us, I have a real good idea of the reason why.”
A memory came to Wayne unbidden, of Richard Harrington and Chet Hagan, beating some poor kid in the highschool bathroom bloody. The grins on their faces as the poor guy wailed for them to stop.
How they almost hadn’t.
“Alright.” Wayne agreed.
Hopper swung back into the Barn's parking lot, and Wayne moved right to his own beat to shit truck, ready to follow Jim back to the police station.
He wasn’t a praying man, not anymore, but Catholisim wasn’t a thing that let you go easy.
He found himself sending up a quick prayer, fingers flicking in a kind of miniature version of the sign of the cross.
Considering his own kid’s history with Harrington, and the sheer small space of the trailer?
Wayne had a feeling it was needed.
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what annoys me about posts on the novel frankenstein in this site (besides the blatant ableism towards victor frankenstein from people who swear they "care" about disabled people) is the amount of readers that forget that the bride, had victor truly put her to life, would in fact have the same amount of autonomy & free will as the Creature does.
i talked about this in some reblog before but really it is incredibly annoying, seeing people who claim to be feminists and advocating for the rights of women saying that oh! victor should've just not given her ovaries/not given the Creature a cock and so that would fix everything! so they shan't be able to reproduce an dmake evil moster children! just in response to this one thing in that chapter:
"one of the first results of those sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror."
it is true that victor worries about them reproducing, but how did they miss these lines from the first paragraph of the chapter?:
"He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species."
it's literally longer, reader can't have somehow accidently missed it? frankenstein thinks of her free will, that is so much more important. he worries of her consent in the matter. it is in my belief by ignoring this you are ignoring the voice of mary shelly, daughter of a world known feminist, who is against arranged maariages of which this situation very closely resembles.
even if we ignore the fact that people somehow managed to not read a significant amount of the text, why do people belive the victor owes the creature a wife? do you think men are owed wives? that women, without a say in what they want to do, must become a wife to some random man just because he wants her to?
people here woobify the creature so much that they literally act extremely ableist and anti-feminist on accident. i am not saying the creatture is pure evil and victor is pure good, i am very against black and white readings, but is this not common sense?
and honestly, the way the creature speaks about the bride is gross anyways. here are two examples:
"one as deformed and horrible as myself [would not deny herself to me]" & "(…) of the same species and have the same /defects/".
is that not odd? how the creature Wants her to be miserable and ugly so she has no other choice but to be with him?
not to mention how the bride parallels elizabeth and the relationship between her and the creature would've probably parallels the relationship of alphonse and caroline frankenstein, how the creature would've (accidentally?) groomed her and how pedophillic it kind of is if you really think about it. but that's a whole different can of worms
i know you guys love adam and hes interesting but jesus fucking christ
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a list of some autumnal movies/series 🍂
i am nothing if not an organised little goblin who can not stop themself from making a good list.
this is just in case you want something with that fall vibe but can't think of any. just close your eyes and point somewhere on this little list, or even put the numbers in a generator and go with whatever the result is ♡
winter | spring | summer
🥧 ‧₊˚ ⋅ movies ⋅˚₊‧
nosferatu (1922)
sabrina (1954)
the creature from the black lagoon (1954)
psycho (1960)
rosemary’s baby (1968)
the rocky horror picture show (1975)
halloween franchise (1978-)
friday the 13th franchise (1980-)
an american werewolf in london (1981)
dark crystal (1982)
a nightmare on elm street (1984)
ghostbusters (1984-)
ronja rövardotter (1984)
clue (1985)
princess bride (1987)
the witches of eastwick (1987)
elvira mistress of the dark (1988)
dead poets society (1989)
when harry met sally (1989)
ghost (1990)
the witches (1990)
death becomes her (1992)
hocus pocus (1993)
addams family values (1993)
interview with a vampie (1994)
the craft (1996)
the first wifes club (1996)
the scream franchise (1996-)
halloweentown (1998)
practical magic (1998)
you’ve got mail (1998)
the blair witch project (1999)
sleepy hollow (1999)
chocolat (2000)
amelie (2001)
the lord of the rings franchise (2001-2003)
scooby doo (2002)
school of rock (2003)
mona lisa smile (2003)
peter pan (2003)
pirates of the caribbean franchise (2003-2017)
north & south (2004)
pride and prejudice (2005)
the descent (2005)
just like heaven (2005)
the devil wears prada (2006)
the lake house (2006)
penelope (2006)
el orfanato (2007)
juno (2007)
ratatouille (2007)
bridge to terabithia (2007)
the edge of love (2008)
twilight (2008)
the curious case of benjamin button (2008)
julie & julia (2009)
jennifer’s body (2009)
dorian gray (2009)
coraline (2009)
true grit (2010)
the cabin in the woods (2011)
jane eyre (2011)
wuthering heights (2011)
perks of being a wallflower (2012)
the odd life of timothy green (2012)
hotel transylvania (2012-)
the conjuring franchise (2013-)
what we do in the shadows (2014)
the riot club (2014)
as above so below (2014)
john wick (2014-)
the age of adaline (2015)
the witch (2015)
far from the madding crowd (2015)
the edge of seventeen (2016)
paterson (2016)
20th century woman (2016)
the love witch (2016)
mary shelly (2017)
murder on the orient express (2017)
get out (2017)
a quiet place (2018 + 2020)
the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society (2018)
on the basis of sex (2018)
knives out (2019)
ready or not (2019)
the lighthouse (2019)
little women (2019)
the gentlemen (2019)
emma (2020)
ammonite (2020)
the dig (2021)
fear street trilogy (2021)
good luck to you, leo grande (2022)
the batman (2022)
fresh (2022)
bodies bodies bodies (2022)
mr malcom's list (2022)
totally killer (2023)
slay (2024)
🧦 ‧₊˚ ⋅ series ⋅˚₊‧
moomin (1990-1992)
twin peaks (1990-1991)
x files (1993-2018)
buffy the vampire slayer (1997-2003)
gilmore girls (2000-2007)
supernatural (2005-2020)
criminal minds (2005-2020, 2022-)
vampire diaries (2009-2017) / the originals (2013-2018) / legacies (2018-2022)
downton abbey (2010-2015)
the walking dead (2010-2022)
once upon a time (2011-2018)
american horror story (2011-)
teen wolf (2011-2017)
peaky blinders (2013-2022)
outlander (2014-)
how to get away with murder (2014-2020)
the magicians (2015-2020)
izombie (2015-2019)
poldark (2015-2019)
critical role (2015-)
stranger things (2016-)
ghost files / buzzfeed unsolved (2016-)
lucifer (2016-2021)
shadowhunters (2016-2019)
anne with an e (2017-2019)
the good fight (2017-2022)
riverdale (2017-2023)
manifest (2018-2023)
killing eve (2018-2022)
succession (2018-2023)
you (2018-)
a discovery of witches (2018-2022)
the chilling adventures of sabrina (2018-2020)
dickinson (2019-2021)
virgin river (2019-)
carnival row (2019-2023)
the witcher (2019-)
the umbrella academy (2019-2024)
sanditon (2019-2023)
the haunting of bly manor (2020)
i’ll be gone in the dark (2020)
queens gambit (2020)
the great (2020-2023)
shadow and bone (2021-2023)
the nevers (2021-2023)
wednesday (2022-)
interview with the vampire (2022-)
vikings valhalla (2022-2024)
lessons in chemistry (2023)
my lady jane (2024-)
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