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jikookiekosmos · 3 years ago

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Classified & Confidential || kth (Part 1)

➥Pairing: detective!taehyung/reader

➥Summary: It’s been years since your close friend passed away, case going cold due to lack of evidence. You never once believed the story the police gave you, since they classified it under an ‘unfortunate accident.’ Now that there are telltale signs of something similar at play regarding someone else you hold dear, you decide to take things into your own hands. You hire world renowned private detective, Kim Taehyung. And he goes above and beyond everything you expected.

➥Genre: strangers to lovers (kinda slow burn), detective au, mystery, angst, eventual smut, fluff

➥Rating: 18+

➥Words: ~7.1k

➥Content Warnings: detective/mystery au, (tw: mentions of death, brief mention of suicide in relation to a criminal case, implied foul play, stalking behavior, non-graphic detailing of a crime scene), slight forensic talk, mentions of nervousness and anxiety, some cursing, mentions of cops/police, unhelpful law enforcement (like they’re kinda terrible with the whole solving this case thing), feelings of unease and tension, we get bestie hoseok, tae is kinda extra but for good reason, no suggestiveness/smut in this chapter but it’s still 18+ due to it involving some of the aforementioned warnings

A/N: This will be a multi-part series that explores some darker themes, and each part will have appropriate content warnings listed; please read at your own risk. This part touches on backstory and introduces the characters, things will start getting a little more intense in the following chapters. I don’t have any kind of specific update schedule but ideally I’d like to get updates out every few weeks at the latest! I hope you look forward to this, and if you wanna be added to a taglist, please let me know~

Thank you @dntaewithluv for your constant motivation and support (and for always beta-reading for me, even when we scream at each other about our ideas); hopefully I do Tae justice for you! I love you lots ❤️

taglist: @inlovewiththemoonn @mwitsmejk @bangtanhome

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

5 Years Ago

The night sky was dark, blanketed by stars as it emitted a peaceful aura. There was no way to bask in the calmness of the night, however, with all the hustle and bustle that surrounded you outside of the apartment complex.

Crime scene tape marked off the area, and many onlookers had gathered to try and get a glimpse of what happened. You were one yourself, but you weren’t there out of sheer curiosity.

Your breathing was ragged, staggered, as you tried to hold yourself together and observed the scene in front of you unfold.

Police wouldn’t let you beyond the tape, despite knowing the person currently covered by the white tarp.

Minutes prior, one of the cops had been politely trying to hold you back as you thrashed around, mind muddled by the vision of your best friend’s face before the tarp concealed it.

“I’m sorry, we can’t let anyone unauthorized come past this tape, please stay where you are.”

“You don’t understand, that’s my best friend, please let me through, please-”

You couldn’t control the volume of your screams, prompting a few of the other bystanders to try and calm you down seeing as you were very clearly distraught.

An unknown amount of time passed before the thickest part of the crowd decided they’d had enough excitement for one night, retiring to their own homes. You stayed planted in your spot, prepared to not move until you got more of an explanation for what was going on.

You’d resigned yourself to the fact that if someone wanted you to leave, they’d have to do it by force, but you eventually complied after two cops convinced you to come down to the station and issue a statement, given your relation to the victim.

They didn’t grill you hard, which was something you appreciated at the time, since you were really in no state to handle a grueling interrogation. You knew you could be marked down as a potential suspect, but everything from their investigation pointed to them believing it had either been an accident or a possible suicide attempt, the latter of which would almost entirely exclude your involvement.

Over the next few weeks, you cooperated with the investigation and helped them with whatever leads you could provide; you were determined that foul play was involved, because you knew your best friend better than anyone, and the story the cops were feeding you wasn’t adding up.

The theory as you knew it was this: she jumped from her apartment window, which was up a significant amount of stories, more than enough to kill a person. A potential suicide note was found at the scene on the nightstand by her bed, typed on a sheet of paper, so handwriting analysis wasn’t an option. The apartment was undisturbed aside from the window having been open.

It almost seemed like a cut-and-dried case, aside from one other small factor: unknown DNA from a hair follicle was found in the apartment alongside the victim’s own.

This didn’t surprise you…at first. You knew Ky had been perusing multiple dating apps and would often invite people over to her place after successful dates. But as far as you also knew, Ky hadn’t recently been on any dates, so there wasn’t a clear reason for that DNA to show up.

Ky had told you in the weeks leading up to her death that she was afraid someone had been following her around, and it unsettled her so much so that she deleted all the dating apps on her phone until she felt safe again.

Sadly, that day never came, and this fact alone caused the nagging suspicion of foul play to burrow itself even deeper into your subconscious.

Since the DNA was unknown, tracing it would be no easy task, but that didn’t stop you. Anything you could do to shed light on what had actually occurred, you were going to do it, plain and simple.

Which is why when the police decided to close the file on the case and label it as an ‘unfortunate accident,’ you were floored.

You begged them to keep focusing on leads when there really weren’t any, offering to aid in any way you could because there was no way that there wasn’t something missing.

Their response?

“Go home, Y/N, there’s nothing else you can do.”

You left the station that day only after you had caused somewhat of a scene, arguing back and forth with one of the lead detectives until you were ‘carefully escorted’ outside. Enraged, you banged your hand against the glass of the door before you slid down the wall beside it, hugging your knees as you tried to compose yourself.

You weren’t sitting that way for long before you felt a gentle tug on your sleeve. You looked up reluctantly and were met with one of the softest pairs of eyes you’d ever seen.

The stranger offered you a kind smile, one that made your heart ache in the aftermath of everything you’d endured the last several weeks. You’d been tackling this situation all on your own, with barely any help from mutual friends or Ky’s family since she’d been estranged from them.

But now, this man stooped down in front of you and smiling at you like everything would be alright…

It almost made you want to believe it.

“Hi, I uh, couldn’t help but overhear about your situation,” he finally spoke up, sounding somewhat bashful. He had bright red hair that peeked out under a cap he wore, and he was sporting a rainbow colored sweater.

A tinge of embarrassment fluttered through you. “Oh. Sorry you had to witness that.”

So this random stranger heard you telling off the police by yelling at them in broad daylight. Way to make a first impression.

To your surprise, he simply shook his head, smile widening. “No, don’t be sorry! I was, uh – happy to be able to listen.”

You quirked an eyebrow. “Ok…may I ask why?”

“Well,” there was that bashful tone again, hand flying to the back of his neck as he looked to the side, “I’d been coming up here for a while, hoping to hear something regarding this case specifically. Usually when I stop by, there isn’t much going on and it’s not like I can just walk in and ask for classified information-”

He stopped speaking immediately once you held up your hand. You didn’t want to be rude, but you were thoroughly confused.

“Is there a reason why you’re eavesdropping for information about this case?”

He nodded eagerly. “Sure is! See, I’m working as a crime reporter, and-”

You scoffed as you pushed yourself to a standing position. “Unbelievable.”

Without sparing another glance to the gentleman, you shouldered past him, earlier hopeful mood soured by the fact that he was just another person looking for a scoop about Ky’s demise.

He was quick to follow, almost jumping down the steps to catch up to you.

“Hey, wait! Please.”

The way he begged pulled at your heartstrings because of how genuine he sounded, and for reasons beyond you, you turned around to face him and decided to hear him out.

You crossed your arms as he sighed with relief.

“Thank you. Ok, to start with, I’m a crime reporter, but I’m not trying to report on this case as everyone knows it.”

Another eyebrow raise from you. “What do you mean?”

The man smiled shyly, brushing away the red hair in his eyes. “I want to bring the injustice of the system to the public’s attention.”

That got your attention. “You do?”

“Yes. And I think your story could help with that.”

“My story?”

He nodded again, this time more eager than the last. “You’re pretty adamant that what happened to your friend was no accident, am I correct?”

Any mention of Ky caused the dull pain in your chest to come back, but at least this time, she wasn’t being mentioned in a gruesome or negative light.

“Yeah, I really don’t think it was an accident. But no one believes me.” You looked down at your shoes, scuffling one against the pavement.

You only looked up again when you felt the stranger’s hand on your shoulder.

“I believe you.”

All of the breath was knocked out of you.

“You…you believe me?”

The smile he gave you this time was bright and sincere as he dropped his hand by his side. “I do. I’ve been following everything posted online or in the newspaper about this case, and some of it just really does not seem plausible. And then after hearing you today, it made so much sense as to why.”

It still bothered you a bit that you were loud enough in the station to be heard outside, but that worry was now being overshadowed by the possibility of having someone else who could stand by you on your conviction.

“It…really means a lot to me that you would even consider my side of things. Truthfully, I think the police only tolerated me this long due to protocol.” You wrapped your arms around yourself.

The red-haired man grimaced at your remark. “Yeah, no kidding. For as long as I’ve been in this line of work, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them take things as seriously as they should.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“About a year. But trust me, I’ve seen a lot during that time.” His determined expression might have made you giggle under other circumstances because it clashed so much with the rest of his soft demeanor.

“I don’t doubt it.” You walked over to the nearby bench seated a few feet away and the stranger followed hesitantly, only sitting beside you when you didn’t give him any indication his presence was unwanted.

The both of you turned toward each other slightly before you spoke up again.

“So, how can I help you with what you’re wanting to do?”

He seemed pleased that you were on board, eyes shining. “For starters, do you think I could interview you? I’d have to ask some sensitive questions, but I feel like I could have a better understanding of the case that way…only if you’re comfortable, though.”

You swallowed as you thought it over. Your participation in the numerous interrogations during the investigation had now proved to lead nowhere, but maybe this time the outcome would be different.

“Sure, I don’t mind. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, to the best of my ability.”

The stranger beamed, looking happy enough to nearly jump out of the bench, despite the current subject matter. “Great!”

His cheerful nature was a little infectious, you had to admit, because you already started to feel a little lighter in his presence. A hand appeared in your line of vision.

“My name is Hoseok, by the way. We haven’t been properly introduced yet so that would be the next best step, I think.”

You did giggle this time at his action. “Nice to meet you, Hoseok. I’m Y/N.” You took his hand into your own to give it a small but firm shake.

“It’s my pleasure, Y/N. Now,” he regarded you with that same soft look he had in his eyes when you first saw him at the station, “what do you say we discuss some logistics over lunch? My treat, of course, since you’re agreeing to help me.”

For the first time in ages, the smile that graced your face was wholeheartedly genuine. “Sounds good.”

Thus, the beginning of a beautiful, long-lasting friendship bloomed that day outside of the one place you’d begun to loathe more than anything else. Over the next few years, Hoseok stood by your side in more ways than you could count, and he was now someone you considered to be one of the best friends you’d ever had.

One of the only best friends you’d ever had.

What you never expected was to be seated with Hoseok at the same diner that started your initial conversation about Ky’s case 5 years later, discussing something much too similar for your liking.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

Present Day

You sipped from your coffee mug, enjoying the warm beverage as you waited at the diner. The weather had been less than ideal, with rain pouring all day long and displaying little signs of stopping.

But Hoseok had been adamant about the two of you meeting up after your voicemail you left the previous night.

As you were thinking about your close friend, you heard the bell above the diner door ring, signaling his arrival. He spotted you across the room and quickly rushed over to your table, leaving rain droplets in his wake.

Hoseok shrugged out of his soaked jacket and tossed in into the booth seat beside him as he shook his head to – hopefully – rid himself of the water trying to slide down his face.

“Hey,” he finally breathed out once he was settled. His usual wild red hair was darker now thanks to the rain, stern expression plastered onto his face.

“Hey.” You responded meekly, attempting to give him a weak smile. Your stomach was churning with unease at the conversation you were about to have.

Hoseok took a deep breath before he folded his hands together and rested his elbows on the table. The coffee you’d ordered for him had been pushed to the side, momentarily forgotten.

He lowered his voice. “Are you sure the pattern of behavior is the same?”

You nodded slowly, going over all the details again in your mind. “I’m positive. The only difference is Yuri waited longer to tell me that she thinks she’s being followed than Ky did.”

Ky. Not a day went by where you didn’t think about her, seeing her smiling face when you would close your eyes at night and try to drift off to sleep.

Slumber came much easier these days than it did those first few months, but every now and then the same nightmare would plague you about the night you saw her on the sidewalk.

You shook your head to shrug the thoughts away. Now wasn’t the time.

“Shit,” Hoseok finally responded. “That doesn’t seem like good news for us.”

“My thoughts exactly. Who knows how long this has been going on. And she’s been receiving the same kind of ‘gifts’ Ky would get, too. Random text messages, voicemails from unknown numbers…she tries to brush it off, but I know this scares Yuri.”

“She doesn’t recognize who’s speaking in the voicemails?”

You shook your head solemnly. “No, they’re using some sort of voice modifier.”

Hoseok cursed again, this time under his breath. “Well, what do you want to do?”

You gulped. Truthfully, you didn’t know the answer yourself. On the one hand, everything currently happening to your friend mimicked what happened to Ky, almost exactly. But on the other hand, Yuri made it known time and time again that she thought you were too paranoid for your own good sometimes.

So, you were at a loss.

Yuri and you were close, in a sense. You’d been friends for the last 4 years, working at the same company after graduating from college and even getting transferred to a new one in the same division so as to not be separated. Outside of Hoseok, you considered her your dearest friend.

But at the same time, you knew that Yuri had those she held very dear in her own life that were there before you, and you’d never try to overstep.

Still…the events surrounding Yuri were too specific to be coincidental in your opinion, and if the hunch you had right now was correct, you needed to do something.

You wouldn’t – you couldn’t – let another person die. Not if there was some way for you to prevent it.

Something you didn’t do with Ky, and that would haunt you for the rest of your life-

Hoseok pulled you out of your thoughts by calling your name, frowning deeply once your gaze focused on him again.

“I…I don’t know. I feel like if I push too hard on this, I’ll also push Yuri away, and I don’t want that.” You worried at your bottom lip, your most infamous nervous habit.

“Be that as it may, this doesn’t seem like something you should ignore either. What’s worse: pushing her away but potentially saving her life, or not saying anything and she ends up in danger?”

A heavy sigh wracked through your body.

Your silence was enough for Hoseok to continue with his own line of thinking. “Well, we could consider going to the police-”

“Absolutely not,” you answered fiercely, with more emotion than you’d displayed the entire conversation, “not after how they handled everything with Ky and how they treated you.”

You and Hoseok had made a name for yourself throughout the town as ‘Public Enemies 1 and 2’ with the local police department. You, due to your persistent insistence that they were wrong in their deduction about Ky, and Hoseok because of the article he published that shamed their name.

The article was the first – and last – one that he published under the company that had hired him to be a reporter, seeing as the police department had enough sway to get him fired afterwards. He wasn’t able to find another reporting job anywhere within the town or those surrounding it.

There also weren’t any remaining records of the article anywhere online or in paper publication, but as a ‘fuck you’ to the department, Hoseok had a copy of it printed and hanging up on his wall for anyone and everyone to see. You had always admired how he handled the situation with grace even though it made your blood boil every time you thought about it.

Even so, some good had come from the whole ordeal. After failing to find another reporter job, Hoseok had made a somewhat notable career as a crime novel author, popular among locals because of how he came to be a novelist, and eventually rising to fame due to his own amazing writing skills.

He enjoyed his career and had a happy life, but that didn’t mean you had to forgive and forget the shitty events that happened to get him to that point.

Hoseok nodded in understanding. “Ok, so no police. Does that mean we try to tackle this whole thing by ourselves?”

“Neither of us have any legit experience with this kind of stuff, so that’s out of the question, too.”

Hoseok tapped his chin as he pondered another idea. The way his eyes lit up as it came to him made your lips curve upward.

“What if we go to someone who isn’t involved with the police but does have experience with that?”

“…not sure I’m following you.”

Hoseok huffed in an endearing way. “Have you ever heard of a private detective?”

The word ‘detective’ made you wince, considering your last encounter with one evolved into a screaming match…but it was also how you met Hoseok, so there’s a silver lining for everything.

“I’m not familiar with a private detective, but I’m open to listening to your idea.”

He grinned. “Perfect. Ok, so in my research for my latest novel, I actually ended up looking into some real-life private detectives.”

“And what did you find?” Your own curiosity was definitely piqued now, as it always was when Hoseok would talk about something so passionately.

“There’s one who’s basically world renowned, like he’s really fucking good. And his office isn’t too far from here, it’s basically in the next town over.”

You took another sip from your coffee, swirling the now lukewarm liquid around in your mouth as you contemplated.

“What else do you know about him?”

Hoseok’s shoulders slumped slightly at that. “Not much. The only information I have on him is his name and how you can contact him. From what I’ve read, he seems to be pretty selective with clients.”

“No idea what he looks like?”

Hoseok shook his head. “None. There weren’t pictures or anything like that, I’m not even sure how old he is.”

You hummed as you pictured this mystery man in your head, automatically defaulting to envisioning an older man, maybe in his 50s with already graying hair. A wise old soul who had seen so much in his long years of investigation work.

“Not like all that really matters, I guess. Do you think I should reach out to him?”

Hoseok nodded around his coffee cup before he tilted his head back to take a large sip. “That’s our best shot right now. And if it doesn’t work out, at least you tried.”

Such a simple statement but it made your stomach twist at the memory of Ky and how you weren’t able to save her because you didn’t know how. “Right.”

Hoseok pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through what looked like Google search results. When he found what he was looking for, he texted you the information.

“Kim Taehyung?” You said the name aloud, making sure you got the correct info.

“Yup, that’s him. If you do decide to contact him, let me know how it goes, ok? I’m already worried as is about you delving into something like this again.”

You patted his hand. “I know, Hobi. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful, and I’ll keep you updated as much as possible.”

He smiled brighter than the sunshine. “That’s all I can ask for, bub.”

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

You paced around your apartment, staring at the text that Hoseok had sent you earlier. The rest of your time with him at the diner had been calm and helped to quell your nerves, but now that you were alone again, you were riddled with anxiety.

You had typed in this Kim Taehyung’s number into your phone, ready to call him and just get it over with. The worst he could do is decline your ask for help, but you wouldn’t know unless you tried.

After a few more minutes of useless pacing, you finally hit ‘send’ and raised the receiver to your ear.

You were met with an answering machine almost immediately, wondering if maybe you typed it in wrong until you heard ‘you have reached the number for Kim Taehyung.’ The name had been uttered by a human voice, one that was deep and took you off guard.

You had barely enough time to ponder over the voice before you heard the tell-tale ‘beep’ signaling for you to start your message.

“Oh! Um, hello, Mr. Kim. This is Y/N- well my name is Y/N. I was referred to you by a friend of mine who said you may can help me with a situation I’m having. There’s…some suspicious behavior involving someone dear to me and I’m afraid they could be in danger, but I’m not sure who to turn to. I-If you’d like to give me a call back, you can reach me at this number…”

You finished your voicemail with your contact information before thanking him and wishing him a goodnight. Once you pulled away your phone, you checked the time.

10:36 PM. No wonder you got his answering machine.

The anxiety that had settled down while you were leaving your message started to come back, so to combat that you made the decision to go ahead and get ready for bed. There wasn’t anything else you could do right now, anyway.

You texted Yuri just to wish her a goodnight, and when you received a response almost immediately, you breathed out a sigh of relief. At least she was alright and that was one less thing to worry about for now.

You didn’t dream that night – which was a blessing in its own right – as you thought about the deep timbre of the voice from the answering machine. You’d only heard it briefly, but it left enough of an impact, that was for sure.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

You awoke around 8 AM, your typical time no matter what day it was. It was the weekend, so you could get more sleep if you wanted, but a quick check of your phone had you sitting upright at a record speed.

[Unknown] 6:28 AM: I got your voicemail. If you want to discuss your case, meet me at this address.

Your heart thumped faster as you re-read the words over again. The following message had an address attached, and when you opened it, you noticed how it was for the neighboring town.

With all of the context clues, and taking into account everything Hoseok told you yesterday, you figured that it was Mr. Kim who had texted you. Obviously it would be from an unknown number, and he wouldn’t give out any explicit personal details to lead back to him; that’s just how he did things, as Hobi had mentioned.

And if he contacted you back, that meant he was interested in helping you!

Well…he was interested in hearing you out, at least. Still, you wouldn’t pass up on this opportunity. You quickly crafted a response before you started to make yourself presentable.

[y/n] 8:03 AM: Thank you! When should I meet you?

You had just finished brushing your teeth when you heard your phone chime again.

[Unknown] 8:06 AM: Whenever is best for you. I’ll be here all day and don’t have any other clients lined up.

You clutched your phone to your chest. This was really happening.

Once you were done getting ready to head out, it was just past 9 AM. You called Hobi to let him know what you were doing, and his excitement was tangible even through the phone. He urged you to keep him posted about all the details, which you assured him that of course you would.

The drive to the address you’d been given didn’t take too long, maybe around 20 minutes or so. What surprised you when you arrived, though, was the outward appearance of the building.

It looked abandoned, for lack of a better term, and you checked the text message 3 more times to make sure this is where you were supposed to be.

[y/n] 9:28 AM: I’m here…but I’m not sure if this is the correct place?

There was an eerie feeling settling in your stomach as you waited for a response. Maybe this had been some sort of trick? Had someone set you up?

The sound of a deadbolt clicking grabbed your attention, and the door a few feet in front of you opened up to display an older woman. At first, she seemed a bit disgruntled at having an unexpected guest, but before you could apologize for intruding, her gruff expression was replaced with a warm smile.

“I take it you’re Y/N?”

You gulped and nodded, placing your phone back into your jacket pocket.

“Follow me.”

She turned on her heel to walk back into the building, not bothering to wait and see if you would obey. You quickly scurried after her, only stopping once you were a foot or so behind.

You walked through about 3 or 4 different hallways, trying to remember the directions you’d taken but failing miserably. There wasn’t much to this building…you saw what appeared to be a few offices here and there but otherwise, not much else.

“Here we are,” the woman croaked, gesturing with her arm to a much nicer looking door that had gold lettering on the window.

The etchings were bold, and it was very evident where you were as you read the words:

KIM TAEHYUNG

Private Detective

The older woman rapped on the door 3 times with her knuckles before she walked off. You were standing there, dumbfounded, until you heard a voice softly telling you to come inside.

The doorknob clicked easily under your hand, and as you entered the room, you were in awe of how different everything looked.

The office was tidy and, dare you say, extravagant compared to what surrounded it outside of this room. There were two brown leather couches that had a decent sized coffee table seated in between them; further into the office, you saw the same type of leather chairs, one in front of and one behind a large wooden desk. You also spotted a few plants that looked to be well taken care of, one sitting in a windowsill and the other on a small table next to some black filing cabinets.

Whoever had designed this room clearly had a knack for matching furniture together, because it all meshed well and you appreciated the sleek look to everything.

Your eyes ended their scan as you looked over to the far wall, almost letting out a gasp when you noticed the figure across the room whose back was turned to you.

When you softly shut the door, the other person in the room turned around. It took you a second to start thinking properly again, because he was not at all how you pictured he would be.

For starters, he looked much younger than you thought originally, closer to your own age, which you thought was admirable considering his high status as a detective. He had brown hair parted down the middle that was slightly wavy, with bangs covering his forehead. He had very handsome facial features as well, some of the most handsome you’d ever seen, if you were being honest with yourself.

He was wearing dark jeans and a shirt with black and white print that was hidden underneath a black leather jacket. Everything about this man seemed to scream fashionable and it was throwing you for a loop. You weren’t trying to stereotype him based on your own experience with detectives in the past, but he was just…so not what you expected him to be.

You were wondering again if this might be a prank, until he finally spoke up and acknowledged your presence.

“Y/N, is it?”

You nodded dumbly, scrambling to walk across the office as he motioned to the chair in front of his desk. He sat down in his own once you were close enough, and you shrugged out of your jacket before following suit.

There was a moment of silence between the two of you, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, you felt small under his scrutinizing gaze. He was leaning on one elbow, chin resting in his palm as he stared at you with intensity.

He spoke suddenly, almost making you flinch with surprise.

“So, you mentioned a friend of yours might be in danger?”

You nodded, not sure what to say or if you should say anything.

“Does this friend know you’ve come to a private detective about their situation?”

You opened your mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “Well…no.”

The man nodded, more to himself than you, it looked like. “Alright. That’s not an issue, just have to cover all the basics first.”

“What do the basics entail?”

He seemed amused by your interest as you took the initiative to ask questions now.

His fingertips drummed along the desk, a rhythmic sound that you found to be oddly soothing.

“It entails me finding out as much about your case as I’m willing to before I decide whether or not it’s something I can assist you with.”

He started twirling a pen with his unoccupied fingers, clearly waiting for you to speak first again before he continued.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything you feel is pertinent to tell me.”

You sighed. “Well, to start with, I think my friend is being followed by someone-”

“Proof?”

You frowned. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Do you have proof? Does this friend have pictures or a video of them being followed, or is it just a feeling?”

“To my knowledge…no. It’s more that they sense it than have actually seen it.”

“And you want me to find out if this is happening or not?”

“Um…yes?”

It was his turn to sigh this time. “You don’t sound very confident in your answer, Y/N.”

His tone rubbed you the wrong way. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What it means,” he broke off to look away from the pen to your face again, “is that I need to know what it is you want from me before I can agree to help you.”

You were catching onto his game now. He wanted you to very specifically lay it all out for him, instead of leaving him to figure it out by grasping at straws.

“Well, Mr. Kim-”

“Taehyung.”

“Sorry?”

“Taehyung. You can call me that, if you want. I’m not super big on formalities for myself.”

You chewed the inside of your cheek. Why was his presence so overwhelming?

“With all due respect, Mr. Kim, I’ve never done this before. All I know is something isn’t right, and I don’t trust the police to offer assistance in the way I need.”

You swore you saw something flash in his eyes.

“Why don’t you trust the police?”

You crossed your arms and leaned more into the chair. “The last time I worked with them, it didn’t end well.”

“You’ve worked on the force?” He almost sounded impressed.

“No, sorry, poor choice of wording. I tried to help them with a case before.”

“Ah,” his eyes narrowed as he busied himself with the pen again. “Were you a suspect, or?”

“I was close to the victim,” you said softly, almost a whisper.

For a moment, his expression softened. “I’m so sorry.”

You shrugged, inhaling a shaky breath as you looked at your lap. “It’s fine. Just…there’s your answer. I don’t want to work with them again, so I came to you.”

“If I’m able to take your case, I’ll make sure you don’t regret that decision.”

His tone had you picking your eyes back up. You noticed a fire within his own, one that made you feel like he meant every single word he’d just said to you.

“Thank you.”

He carded a hand through his hair, the action drawing your attention to the silver watch that adorned his wrist.

“Can I ask…could you tell me about the case you were involved with?”

A slow nod from you. “If it’ll help, I can do that.”

He motioned for you to continue. As you started telling him the details, you noticed as his eyes widened. At one point, he politely interrupted you.

“Sorry, just – I remember that case. You were involved with that?”

“Yes.” You were twisting your hands together in your lap. “Ky was my best friend.”

“And the police just let the case go cold, without considering all traces of evidence?”

“I begged them not to, but there wasn’t much I could do. They made that known several times,” you trailed off. You thought you heard some semblance of a growl coming from the detective.

“I always knew something was weird about that…every report they published made no sense, and none of the pieces of evidence seemed to corroborate their theories.” His hushed tone suggested he may have been talking more to himself, but you didn’t question it.

“There were signs of suspicious behavior leading up to her death that they never considered, and any time I tried to bring it up, I was shut down immediately.”

“Are these ‘signs’ something you’re noticing now, with your other friend?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Taehyung hummed. “I see. You want to inspect this before it gets out of hand, so you came to me because the police are a lost cause.”

You nodded feebly, voice softer than ever when you spoke again. “I don’t want to see another person die.”

“You won’t.”

His answer startled you, even if it was as quiet as your own. Your eyes met briefly before he started looking anywhere but your face.

Another hush befell the room, and this one seemed more awkward than the last, considering Taehyung cleared his throat before he rifled through one of his desk drawers.

“Before you tell me anything else, I need you to look over something first.”

“Sure, whatever I need to do, I’ll do it.”

A crooked smile tugged at Taehyung’s lips. “You know, you’re a lot more obedient than most of my other clients.”

You…weren’t sure how to take that.

“I am?”

“Yeah. Most of the time they come in with demands and don’t like to listen when I push back on something. It’s part of the reason why I’ve gotten choosier about who I decide to do business with these last few years. But you,” he fished out a piece of paper from the drawer, “are proving much easier to work with. I appreciate that.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

He chuckled, the sound low. “You’re also way more polite than most people I encounter.”

You smiled at him for the first time. “I’m grateful you’re taking the time to hear me out.”

His eyes lingered on yours for just a second before shifting down.

“First and foremost,” Taehyung slid a piece of paper across the wooden desk that separated the two of you, “if we agree to do business, you’ll need to sign this contract. It lists my stipulations and services I can provide.”

You picked up the paper, not quite sure what to expect.

“Take your time to read over all of it carefully, just so everything is clear on both our ends.” He leaned back in his chair, the sound of squeaking leather breaking your concentration for a moment.

You scanned through every line, all of the contract terms seeming straight-forward and easy to agree to-

-but the last line caught your attention.

“Could you explain this last part, please?”

Taehyung leaned over to look at which line you were pointing to before he let out a soft chuckle. “Ah, that. My #1 most important rule. Never get involved with clients’ personal lives.”

“But don’t you have to sometimes?”

“For work, yes. But this is more referring to what happens outside of that. Things can get…messy.”

“You talk like that’s happened before.”

Taehyung smirked but offered nothing more to that specific conversation.

“So, are we in business?”

You didn’t have to ponder long before you signed the contract with a flourish. When you passed it back across the desk, Taehyung smiled.

“Perfect,” he stood up to shake your hand, “I’ll be in touch with you shortly, once I’ve reviewed your case.”

You returned the shake. “Thank you, Mr. Kim.”

He squeezed your hand once before letting it go.

“The pleasure is all mine.”

You waited to see if there was anything else he might need from you, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. He leaned down and sifted through his drawer once more, this time pulling out a Manila file folder.

“I use these to get the typical information needed for me to start my research. It just asks for client’s name and contact info, as well as a summary about what you’re wanting from me and other names of those involved. In this instance, it would be your friend. You can give me as little or as much info as you think I need.”

He handed the folder to you, and upon opening it up, you saw everything he had just mentioned to you on a sheet of paper stapled to the inside.

“I’d prefer you fill it out now so you can leave it with me, but of course I can’t force you to do anything.”

His tone suggested he was teasing, but you were quick to sit on one of the couches and begin filling out the paper. It didn’t take you very long, and when you were done, you noticed he was sitting on the opposite couch, elbows resting on his knees with his hands folded.

“Finished?”

You nodded as you slid the file across the coffee table, his pen placed on top. He accepted both and smiled at you.

“Alright, if that’s all you want to discuss, you’re free to go. As I mentioned before, I’ll be in touch with you after I’ve looked over everything and have some sort of plan on how to proceed. And of course, all of this information is strictly classified. You read that in the contract, but I always reiterate it anyway, due to some problems I’ve had in the past.”

“Of course.” You agreed with no hesitation. Honestly, you couldn’t fathom just how much he’s had to endure in his line of work, how many times he’s probably had to change locations and phone numbers.

Hell, Kim Taehyung may not even be his real name, and you’d never know.

“Any questions for me?”

You mumbled some form of ��no’ as you shook your head. Taehyung walked over to the door to open it for you, and you certainly weren’t expecting the same woman from before to be out in the hallway, but there she was.

“Ms. Choi will show you out since this place is a bit of a maze,” his tone was light, a sheer contrast to the mood that had settled over the two of you from when you stepped into his office. “Don’t forget: I’ll contact you.”

“Yes, sir.” You couldn’t help the authoritative term as it slipped past your lips, and you walked through the door before you could see the look on his face. You thought you might have heard some sort of laugh from Ms. Choi as she escorted you back to the front, but your imagination liked to play tricks on you sometimes.

Besides, Taehyung said he wasn’t one for formalities, so it didn’t really matter that much, did it? He had to be older than you anyway…right?

You spent the entire walk through the building trying to justify in your head what had just happened, and Ms. Choi gave you a soft smile as she held the door open for you to leave.

When you settled back in your car, you gripped the steering wheel and took a deep breath, leaning your head back as you shut your eyes.

You still couldn’t quite believe that the last 30 minutes or so had happened. Taehyung had proven to be quite different than what you anticipated, but he was truthfully better than you could have hoped.

He seemed driven and motivated about his line of work, and the way he reassured you when you had your doubts-

-it made you feel…safe. Like this was a step in the right direction after all.

As you called Hobi to fill him in on everything during your drive home, you started to believe that maybe, just maybe, things would turn out alright.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

➥Part 2

➥Series Masterlist

➥All Works Masterlist

#bts #bts smut #bangtaninn #taehyung angst #taehyung x reader #taehyung au #taehyung scenarios #detective!au

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hellothere-generalangsty · 3 years ago

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I HAD A BRAIN WAVE MOMENT

DO YOU REMEMBER WAYYYY BACK WHEN EVERYONE HATED ASOKA? DAVE DID THAT ON PURPOSE SO HE WAS IN CONTROL OF WHAT PEOPLE HATED ABOUT HER. OK NOW THIS MIGHT BE A LONGSHOT THAT HOPEFULLY DOESN’T END UP LIKE LONGSHOT THE CLONE, BUT, IM HOPING THATS WHATS DAVE IS DOING WITH TBB. BEING IN CONTROL OF WHAT THE FANDOM HATES ABOUT IT AND THEN IMPROVING IT SLOWLY BIT BY BIT.

PLEASE IM DESPERATE FOR A EXPLANATION!

(also where’s my explanation about why the clones are white washed, dave? hmm? where is it dave?)

OMG LOOK.

It wouldnt excuse the whitewashing or the weak scenario, because he got us used to some good stuff now (tcw s7, Mandalorian, that kind of things)

But it would make sense - to a certain extent - to work that season as a "cliché team in a cliché scenario" and see how people react to be able for a second season (if there's a second season) to improve it

Disclaimer: I'm a white, abled person so I'm not trying to speak on behalf of poc/disabled people, but I think it's important to support them and listen to the critics they make about SW and it's content

Also this is quite long I got carried away but worth it it is!

I linked some of @rebekadjarin 's post here because I read a bit through her blog today and agreed with her posts; and I invite you to check out the "#whitewhashed tbb" if you want more extanded and developed information about that matter! (As my knowledge on the matter is still quite limited/ incomplete due to my privileges, and this post is more of a summary than a real analysis)

So here, we know that the fans are unhappy about:

- the whitewashing of the Bad Batch (especially since they proved they could animate dark skinned people/ more generally poc with the first seasons of tcw, Kanan in Rebels and the Separatist in the latest TBB episode)

It is a real problem and it shouldn't have happened in the first place. Even if they are different, the Batchers are still clones and it's really not that hard to show their enhancement while keeping Temuera's features and skin colour (I mean, look at all the artists who did and do it everyday on this app; no excuse here)

Star Wars has wasted a lot of potential on numerous occasions because they keep doing stuff like this; and it's quite ironic (and very sad) to see that racism, ableism and stereotypes are prevalent in a universe where people fight for equality and peace...

Here and here are two posts about it (if you're the author of these posts and want me to delete them from my post please tell me so; I took the liberty of adding them because I think they highlight quite well the issue and do a clear job at showing the whitewashing in SW/ around the clones)

- the way Crosshair is treated; both by the Batchers and the writers, he's manipulated by the chip yet no one is talking about rescuing him and we see nothing about the effect of his absence on the Batchers (they don't mention him, don't try to save him, and Hunter is more distraught by Omega's absence than by his own brother's)

And don't get me wrong, Omega is a kid and she's nice, of course they have to take care of her and protect her

But they also don't know her purpose; why is she here? She could be a bad omen (maybe she doesn't even know it! The Kaminoans probably didn't tell anyone about her real purpose and I stand by the idea that the infos they got about her are all wrong and purposefully misleading) and I have the dark feeling that she will be the end/ death of the Batchers by the end of the serie, even if she didn't wanted it that way

But Crosshair is never mentionned, except for when he's needed in the scenario. Which is a shame, because he's a Batcher too even if he's mind-controlled and (for now) working for the Empire. He's supposed to be a main character, and he's a key element to the plot; yet out of 10 episodes we saw him in only 3, and only the moments where he was acting bad (i'm excluding the lonely moment at the end of ep2 because it had a lot of potential about him fighting the chip but that was all we had and i'm still bitter about it lol)

Here is a post about it

- speaking of plot; I feel like it's always the same disk playing since episode 2-3: They have a mission given by Cid, they do it, things go wrong, Omega saves the day and they get the money.

Crosshair is doing bad guy stuff so no need to tall about him (haha right?)

Now. I'm a good public. I know when to activate the Dummie™ in me and enjoy a show about a found family doing crazy jobs for a criminal and raising a newly adopted daughter at the same time. It's fun, it's sweet, sometimes it get emotional and the animation is beautiful (the lights are amazing I am always in awe)

I can enjoy it and be in awe and see Echo sniffing food and Tech smiles and Wrecker playing with Omega and feel happy about it.

But I also expected more. I hadn't any clear idea because I didn't wanted to set expectations (how ironic) but I can't help but feel sad about the wasted potential around Empire! Crosshair and the rise of said Empire.

If you want to antagonize one of the main character, do it, but do it fully and do it well. Show us Crosshair getting really invested in a plan to catch the Batchers and suddenly making a scene for a tiny detail that could blow it up; show us Crosshair and Hunter fighting each other hand to hand after they disarmed each other, and Crosshair getting the upoer hand until something holds him back; just enough for Hunter to take control again

Show us a complex character who suffers but doesn't fully realise it, and show us brothers mourning yet hoping to get the family back again you know?

- the way Echo is treated by the Batchers. And as much as it saddens me, they do him dirty in the show.

Echo is a war veteran, an ex- prisoner and a disabled character. He went through a lot; first he lost the Domino squad, then he lost brothers on Kamino (including 99 who was close to his squad), then the Citadel happened and he lost both his legs, an arm, his freedom, his brothers and probably any hope to be saved.

Then they found him in that freezer, and he probably realised that, if Fives wasn't here to save him, it meant he lost him too.

Then he left Rex to go with a team of 4 because he probably didn't feel like he belonged with "regs" anymore; he chose strangers over brothers because he thought he couldn't find his place there. Which in itself is sad and problematic.

And now he's with the Batchers, and they don't seem to grasp the importance of his trauma. I mean; they always had the 4 of them and never lost a brother (apart from Cross; which is another wasted potential here because they could have exploited that trauma and made a parallel with Echo being so used to losing brothers and them experiencing it for the first time on such a personal level you know) and they do some crappy stuff to him.

Selling him as a droid? Not cool.

Brushing off his trauma for a mission and some credits? Not. Cool.

And Echo can't say anything because he chose them, and now he has nowhere to go anyway because Order 66 happened; and he probably doesn't want to be a burden to Rex, and he probably doesn't want to abandon his brothers especially now that Cross is gone and they have a child to take care of

But yeah there are a lot of things happening - or NOT happening - around Echo and his trauma and his disability that are wrong and people are right to talk about it

Here is a post I read and I agree with it

- Overall, the way the show and the characters are handled; they often feel very stereotyped/ cliché and the basic plot doesn't really help for character development or improvement

I read a post about it and it was really interesting; they linked the whitewashing of the characters with their abilities/enhencement

Tech and Crosshair are the smartest and the whitest in the group (which is bad)

Wrecker is portrayed as the Bid Dummie™ and he's the one with the "darker" skin and the features closest to Temuera/ Maōri features (also very bad)

Hunter is straight up a Rambo with a face tattoo, and Echo - and you guys know I love him - is whiter than a sheet of paper (all so bad)

Not only this, but there is no improvement in their personality or thinking

They don't seem to evolve, and just like their mission, they end up playing the same song over and over again

Hunter is the broody soldier and though people enjoy talking to him as a Dad (count me in) but he's not a good dad for Omega (he calls her soldier and is always acting awkward and uncomfortable around her)

Wrecker could be a better dad for her; but again they display him as a big dummie and give the impression he couldn't take well care of her

Tech is here to be the smart one, we only see him when they need someone to do the smart speaking and the complicated computer things

Echo is the grumpy reg, the "more droid than man" and sometimes the Mom™ but they never show him talking about the Empire or the trauma or how the I am not Freaking Out™ I did came back for this Shit™ he's just here to... Be here and be grumpy and bring the oldest clone wars fans to watch TBB

And Crosshair is almost non-existent.

Here is another post about it

What could it be then?

So either Dave is pulling a Ahsoka on us; but he'll still have a lot of things to correct and explanations to give because I can excuse a bad plot but I draw the line at blatant racism ans ableism (especially when they KNOW the fans and they KNOW what people want and they KNOW it would probably bring more people to enjoy and get invested in the show)

- If he's doing this, he will probably work with the animator to correct the whitewashing (because it really is the only really wrong thing in the animation, the rest of it is quite good to be honest like the light, framing and all)

- Understand that Tbb and Mandalorian are two different shows and cannot be treated the sale way; so he'll get back to the main plot and hopefully work on Crosshair's arc and hos his absence/ him being controlled by the chip affects him/ the Batchers/ their relation

- He'll probably work more on displaying the effect of their trauma; collective and personal, and see how it reflects on their relations (and give Echo the healing he deserves)

- By extension, give the characters more depth and complexity, dig their stereotypical surface and reveal their true nature (show me a ruthless yet easily overwhelmed Hunter; a smart but constantly anxious Tech, a very emotional Wrecker playing the big explosive dummie to protect himself, etc.)

Well, that's what I would do

Or he's just... Doing this and not planning any changes; in which case I'll probably do what I did with SPN s15: stop watching, scroll through tumblr to get some infos and gifs and tell everyone about how dirty they did the characters, and they did us.

But I really hope he's hearing us and taking our remarks into account; the show in itself had a lot of potential and I'm still hanging on the thin hope that the ending could "save it"; but I also have no expectations and am in fact waiting for a disappointing ending

On a brighter note, I'm glad the fandom exists because I see artists and writers and gif-makers and theorists and all kind of people creating and sharing their own content, headcanons, art, writing and they all feel right and better than the canon

Like yes, give me a in-character dark skinned clone who deals with his trauma and the sudden changes around him in a realistic way

Tell me about the real effects of the war on soldiers, and the truth behind the corrupted government taking over the galaxy, and the efforts everyone has to make to survive, exist and live together

If Dave and his team cannot do it, I know you guys can and that's why I'm glad to be here too; you give me hope when they fail to do so 💙

I hope I like... Answered this correctly? 😂 I got carried away but yeah, though I'm usually not vocal about it and try to enjoy it with my Dummie Energy™ I still see and read about what you all think, and usually I agree with you; the show deserved better and we deserved better

Now back to ignoring the canon and writing a fic about my very much alive and beloved Fives 🥰

#star wars #the bad batch #tbb #mesa shitposts #mesa answers #namesmox 💗#thank you for your ask!#it's a long rent #but I'm glad I did it #if you feel like I said something incorrect please do tell me #I am still learning #and I want to educate myself about these matters because it's important #echo #crosshair #tech #hunter #wrecker #omega #personal opinion

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tuntematonkorppi · 3 years ago

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7, 16, 22, 32 please! Take breaks babe! 💕

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

being able to share all the stories that live in my head with other people and having those people yell at me about what i'm putting my characters through

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

maybe a hairtie...?

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

i'm NOT organized. i have the story itself on a google doc, some notes on my phone, probably some post-it notes scattered everywhere when i had ideas at work, i know one of my still unwritten stories as a giant mind map on like 5 or 6 A4 sheets of paper with the structure of the story, i have no clue where the fuck those papers are btw, i have a google doc with bits of dialogues i wanna write into stories, another doc with conversations i've had with friends about stories and situations and potential ideas and literally no method to any of this.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

"the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it", a line by richard siken.

"and then go home, or make a home, or rest", a line from Instructions by neil gaiman

i feel like it's a good representation of my work in general, which is about how you can heal and live and thrive and find love and friendship despite everything that has happened to you and the trauma that you carry.

thank you!!

weird questions for writers

#replies #myletternevercame

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btsslowburnfic · 4 years ago

Text

Series Summary: For Namjoon, the moment he set his sights on being the #1 rapper, he pushed the symbol to the side and hated it. Love should be chosen, not forced on you. He didn’t believe in fate and this mark on his wrist was a big “fuck you” to all that.

AN: a loooong update where we get YN to Korea Previous Chapter here

The three of you made it safe and sound to your new brownstone across the river in New Jersey. Joe has a job lined up, but at the moment you and Xavier are unemployed. On this particular day, you are in your room job hunting when you hear a knock on your bedroom door and then see Xavier gently push it open. “Fly your ass to Korea. Now. Here,” Xavier throws a book at you. “I bought you a Korean dictionary.”

You roll your eyes. “Namjoon speaks English. And I can’t read the characters or whatever so how will a dictionary help. And, I’m not going to Korea.”

Xavier crosses his arms in front of his body. “Girl. You are still in your twenties. You have no job. There is a hot man who is also your soulmate across the ocean. GO TO KOREA.” You pick your phone back up, ignoring him. You hear him let out a frustrated sigh and leave the room. You didn’t know what you wanted. You didn’t tell them that Namjoon had passed along his schedule to you and that he would be in Korea for 6 weeks starting in two weeks and that he had offered to buy you a plane ticket. You kept going back and forth. Fine. Fuck it.

YN: Hey! I’ve been thinking and I would like to come visit. As long as it’s not too much trouble and won’t interfere with your schedule

You let out a breath and put the phone down. One thing you have learned is that he keeps very strange hours and there is no way of knowing when he will be awake, when he will be performing, or even what country he is in. You are shocked when you receive a reply instantly.

NJ: It’s no problem. I will be working a lot of the time, but there is also some free time blocked out so make sure you’re ready to do some sightseeing as well on your own. I’ll rent a noona for you.

YN: I have no idea what that means but ok. Sounds exciting.

NJ: You can rent tour guides. An “older sister” to translate and show you around on some of the days.

YN: That would be amazing! Ok. Sounds great!!

NJ: I’ll book the flight and email you the information.

YN: Awesome ^_^ Thank you so much.

You try to keep your cool. You really do. But it doesn’t last long as you sit the phone down and walk out into the hallway. “Xavier!”

“What? Brat.” You hear him call from the living room.

“I’m going to Korea!” You say with a big smile on your face.

“Holy shit. You’re doing it!?! Really? When?” He sits up straight on the couch.

“I’m not sure. He’s booking the flight.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God. IT’S HAPPENING. Come. Sit here. Let’s watch some Kdramas. We need to prepare you.”

You roll your eyes but join him on the couch anyway.

--3 weeks later--

The flight isn’t too bad. When Namjoon booked your ticket you did secretly wonder if he would spring for an upgraded seat since you know...you guessed he was rich. You did not expect that he was going to pay for a first class seat though. The comfort of the seats and the fact that food was actually delicious helped to balance out the longest flight you had ever taken in your life. You managed to get some rest on the plane, but not very much since you were so excited and nervous. You had not seen each other for a while. And the last time you saw him you were both naked.

When you arrive you don’t have any bags to collect; you just brought your carry-on. You know you are going to do a lot of shopping while you are there and had decided you would just buy a suitcase there. You walk down to departures and scan the crowd looking for your name. This was so exciting. You had been the person in the crowd holding a name placard before, but you had never had it done for you. It helped that it was one of the few names written in English. You smile and walk over to a man in a suit. After confirming each other’s identity, you follow him out to a black SUV with tinted windows. He takes your bag and you slide into the backseat.

YN: Hey! I’m on my way to the hotel. When will I get to see you?

NJ: Yeah….about that. There is no way I would be able to just be going in and out of a hotel without anyone here noticing. This isn’t LA. We can’t really go out in public much here. The driver will be taking you to my apartment complex. Once you get here, you will let security know who you are. They will provide you with a key and directions.

You weren’t expecting this at all, but it made sense.

YN: Umm ok. Sounds like a plan.

You hoped to God someone at the security office spoke English. Oh well. You typed some things into your translation app just in case and tried to enjoy the scenery. It was a city, but it seemed a lot cleaner than LA. Less sunny, and more modern. At least the parts you were driving through.

After a fifteen minute taxi ride that has brought you into a very fancy part of Seoul you try to keep your cool as your driver assures you that this is the location you are supposed to be at. It is fancy looking as fuck and has a giant ass gate around it. The driver pulls up and shows his credentials and then pulls up and rolls your window down.

The security officer stands there, looking at you. You pull out your passport and state your name. He looks over a sheet of paper and nods. Handing you an envelope that feels like it has a keyboard and some papers in it. You thank him in shitty Korean and the driver closes the window. You open the envelope.

“Hey. If you’re getting this, I wasn’t able to get off work in time to meet you. The driver knows which building to go to. Use this key to go to unit 4106. Text me when you get there. Sorry!

Namjoon”

The chauffeur drives between several of the buildings. The streets are lined with trees and there appeared to be several small gardens between the buildings. The car comes to a stop outside building 4. The driver gets out to open your door and hands you the bag. You thank him and head into the building.

The apartment building was a lot like a luxury hotel, you find yourself thinking. It was decorated similarly with gilded light fixtures and a marble floor. You scan your key card at the elevators and head up to the 10th floor.

It becomes very obvious from the minute you walk in that this is Namjoon’s actual apartment. His giant shoes are all over the foyer. You purse your lips and take out your phone.

YN: YOU DIDNT SAY IT WAS YOUR APARTMENT

NJ: Relax sweetheart, the guest bedroom is for you. I’m hardly ever there. Make yourself at home and I’ll see you later ;p

YN: THATS NOT THE POINT

NJ: You’re welcome. Stop being a brat and enjoy.

You pout a little bit. Fine. Fine. You’ve already slept with him so why does it matter if this is his apartment. Because it feels so much more intimate, you think. You enter into the space while texting Xavier.

YN: New chapter in the Kdrama series.

You knew Xavier would normally be sleeping, but he was so excited and wanted to make sure you made it safely he was wide awake.

X: Oh no, what?

YN: he didn’t arrange for me to stay in a hotel IM AT HIS APARTMENT.

X: AHAHAHAHAHA HOLY SHIT. Is it nice? Is there like a waterfall? Does it smell like rich people? Send pictures!

YN: I don’t think I should send pics since he’s famous, but there are no waterfalls that I can see. It smells normal. Actually no, it smells new, like people don’t really live here. Stay tuned for updates.

X: Has he dicked you yet?

YN: -_- he’s stuck at work. And I’ll be in the guest bedroom thankyouverymuch.

X: Yeah….ok…..suuuuuuure.

You put your phone back in your pocket and continue to wander around the apartment. It is the size of a house. There is a small terrace running along the side of the unit and three open rooms that flow together. I guess rich people need more than one living room? You wonder. They are all furnished with couches and art. The floors are a beautiful Marble. Or Granite. Some expensive imported thing. You notice several plants on the wall as well as out on the terrace. Huh. I did not think he would be into plants, you find yourself thinking.

YN: Nice plants

NJ: My pride and joy

You smile and walk into the kitchen. It looks like a showroom. You doubt much cooking goes on here. If you could afford to eat out all the time you would too. You open the fridge and as predicted, it is mostly empty. There are a few bottles of water and some random condiments. Panic strikes you as you begin to wonder if there’s a coffee maker in this apartment. This could be a deal breaker; you might have to flee to the Marriott. There isn’t one sitting out. You frantically open cabinets. You make eye contact with a very fancy looking Espresso maker. Ok. You will learn how to use this beast. You sit it out on the counter and plug it in. Crisis averted for now. You continue through the rest of the house. You quickly find the master bedroom. Big bed. That’s all you take note of before closing the door. You don’t want to be nosy. You wander to the other end of the apartment and find an extra bedroom and an office. You don’t go to the office, but do take your stuff into the guest bedroom. You are feeling tired and starting to feel hungry.

YN: When will you be back? Is there a convenience store nearby? I need coffee and/or food.

NJ: Sorry. It will still be a while. Actually there are several stores on property. The closest one is in building 2. Here, download the app. I’ll send you the login info.

YN: Thanks.

You change out of your traveling clothes into real clothing and head to the market. The apartment complex’s layout is fairly easy to understand once you look at the app. You walk over to tower 2 and ride the elevator to the market level. It looks like the atrium of a cruise ship. There is a giant crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of the lobby area as well as beautiful indoor trees, glass art bulbs, probably a peacock or two wandering around, and some light music playing in the background. Oh God. I should just starve. This is too fancy. I need to leave.

You turned to leave when you heard a voice speaking politely in Korean. You ignore it, and then hear the same voice ask in English, “Excuse me, Miss. Can I help you?” A short man in his 50’s walked over. “I’m on the concierge staff here. You must be new.”

“Ah yes. Thank you. Umm...Coffee please?”

“Of course. Take-away or beans?”

“Both please?” You ask, trying to keep it simple and very thankful for the English.

“Yes of course. If you just get me the unit number I can actually just have it sent there. Also there is an ordering and delivery app you can use next time if you would like to save yourself the walk.” The man explained while he typed some information into a tablet.

“That’s very helpful. Thank you. For today, now please.”

“Very well miss, please insert your chip or resident card here and sign,” he turned the tablet towards you. You inserted your debit card.

“Thank you. Please wait.”

You take a seat in the fancy lobby area and get out your phone. You had some messages from Namjoon.

[NJ]: Oh, there is also an app you can download and order groceries to the apartment.

[NJ]: I usually eat at work so I forget about it.

[NJ]: Sorry, you probably already hiked there.

A smirk crossed your face as you started to type a response.

[Y/N]: Sorry, I just saw these. And no worries. It’s a beautiful part of the complex. I was a little overwhelmed to be honest but the concierge was very helpful! 10/10 recommend.

You take a picture of the lobby area and send it to him.

[NJ]: wow, yeah that’s beautiful. I haven’t actually been there myself.

The concierge returns, handing you a coffee and a bag of coffee beans. You thank him profusely one more time.

“My pleasure. Take care.”

You sit the beans down and pose with your coffee cup, snapping a selfie to send to Namjoon.

[Y/N]: There, now all is right with the world ^_^

[NJ]: :) See you soon!

You travel back to the apartment and unpack your suitcase. You try your hardest to stay awake, but at this point you have been up for over 24 hours and you can feel the pull of sleep. You’ll just lay down for a nap.

---------

It is dark outside by the time Namjoon gets off work. He feels bad he couldn’t meet you in the car at the airport, and even worse that he’s kept you waiting for hours. You haven’t answered any of his texts these past few hours either. He opens the door to his apartment. The lights are off. Did you leave? He wonders. He flips on the light and sees your shoes by the door which put a smile on his face. You must be sleeping. He hasn’t actually been in his apartment for about 2 months. It was mostly the same as he left it, except most of the time when he returned the apartment had a stale smell from having been left empty. This time it smelled like coffee and girl.

He enters the main living area and finds you laying in a small blanket nest on the couch with a laptop on the table; a coffee cup resting on a coaster next to it. He smiles and goes through to his bedroom to deposit his travel bag. He washes his face and changes clothes and then proceeds to nervously pace. Should he wake you up? You were probably tired, but at the same time, to prevent jet lag you shouldn’t sleep too much, and he wanted to hang out with you. He wrestles with this issue for a while and then decides he will try to wake you up.

He gently shakes your foot, “Hey sleepy. Wake up.”

“Mmmmmmmmmmm…” you respond. What’s happening? You kick the thing bothering your foot. So annoying. You hear a deep voice laugh. Oh shit, where were you again? The shaking of your foot resumes and you crack open one of your eyes and see Namjoon sitting on the couch. “Heyyyy.”

“Hey there sweetheart. Nice seeing you in Korea.”

You feel your heart do a little flip flop at the way he’s talking to you but you want to play it cool. “Yeah. It’s good to be here.” You stretch out and move to sit up.

“How are your legs doing?” He asks.

“Good. They get stiff pretty easily and I still have to do my exercises everyday but they don’t hurt most of the time or anything. I get pretty bad headaches from time to time, but you already knew that. Sorry about that by the way.”

“It’s fine, I just carry aspirin around with me now.” He shrugs. “Did you get any food? Should I order something?”

“Yeah. Order some super Korean food.” You are fully awake now.

“Yeah? You serious? It’s not going to be like Koreatown food.” He teases

“Might as well jump in. If I don’t like it, there’s always rice, right?” You smile.

“That’s true,” he takes out his phone to order dinner.

“What did you do today?”

“Today was planning for the Festa. Even though it’s months away we have to make sure we have enough content planned just in case there are any unforeseen delays.”

“Cool.” You say. You had done your basic level ARMY research so you were somewhat familiar with their different activities.

“How was your flight? You should probably get up and stretch those legs around. Get up.” He pushes your shoulder playfully.

“Ughhh….fine. By the way. Nice apartment. Is rent like 20 grand a month?” You stand up groaning slightly like an old woman. Damn stiff legs.

“Uhh...I paid 6 million dollars for it up front so I don’t pay rent. Do you want anything to drink?”

It’s a good thing you weren’t drinking anything when he dropped that little factoid on you or you would have spit it out comic-book style. Jesus. That explained the security and Gucci grocery store. “Uh water please.” You walked over following him to the kitchen. “It’s good to see you by the way. Thanks for inviting me.” You slowly remember how to speak like a human again.

“Sure. I wish I had more free time to spend with you, but I’m glad you were able to make it.” He fills a glass with water for you. “Wait a minute! Before I forget,” he jogs out of the room and returns with a small box. “Here, this is for you. We were in Australia last month and I wanted to get something for you.”

You are surprised. It didn’t occur to you that he would think about you or buy you something. Until a few months ago you had considered yourself a nuisance. “Wow, thank you so much. You didn’t have to do that.” you say, taking the box, “I hope it’s a tiny KNOIFE or tiny koala or tiny kangaroo,” you open the box. It is an adorable mug with a Koala on it superimposed on the Australian Continent. It says in English, “Lucky Australian Koala.” You burst out laughing, cupping the mug with both your hands in front of your face. “This is perfection. Thank you so much for my authentic LUCKY AUSTRALIAN KOALA, I cannot wait to drink out of him tomorrow. Seriously. “ You sit the mug on the kitchen table. Fuck it. “Come here,” you gesture, and pull him in for a hug. His body feels solid against your and he gently wraps his arms around you. You give a firm squeeze. “Thank you for the mug and for flying me out here.” You pull away and smile at him.

He looks away almost shy, “It was nothing. I figure I still owe you a few for the pen incident.”

You take a drink of the water. “Yeah. You have had some dickish moments.”

“Speaking of dickish behavior...do you want to talk about what happened with Ben or…?”

You shrug. “There’s not a lot to say. Ben apparently met his soulmate about 4 months before the car accident. He tried to stay away since we had already agreed that we didn't care about stuff like that. But he couldn't. I don't know when he started seeing Jessie behind my back. They were apparently banging all summer in the apartment and while I was in the hospital.” You take another gulp of water. Namjoon is surprised that he isn’t feeling much anger or sadness coming off of you. “After I got all my shit out of the apartment and had a chance to calm down, I couldn't be too mad about it you know? You and I had already slept together and most people aren't as stubborn as us. So really, how could they resist? I mean I was angry and sad at the time but at this point it seems like a lifetime ago. "

Namjoon had never asked about what had happened with Ben before, assuming that if you wanted to talk about it you would have brought it up. " Wow. "

"Yeah. I mean that's waaaay oversimplified but that's the gist of it. Anyways. Everything was a mess for me for a while. You know I stayed with Xavier and Joe and then Xavier's husband got a really good job offer here so we all picked up and left LA."

“And now you’re in New York.” He finishes your thought

“Yeah. Well Jersey technically because rent is $1000 less a month. But I’m applying for jobs as assistant director at tv stations and theaters. I’m hopeful something will come up. I can’t really teach fitness classes anymore.”

Namjoon listens thoughtfully, feeling like a jackass for never asking about this stuff before. What kind of soulmate was he?

“Well, let me know if you need a job reference.”

“Ahahahaha,” You laugh awkwardly. “No way. I don’t want people thinking I only got a job because I know someone famous.”

“Sweetheart, that’s how everyone gets jobs in the industry.” He leans against the counter.

“I don’t know, I’ll think about it.” You fidget

“You know I’ll just text Xavier and he’ll tell me the companies you applied for.” Namjoon flashes his dimples at you.

You scowl. “I didn’t realize you two were so chummy.”

“Hey, we bonded a lot in the hospital.” His phone let out a chirp. “The food is at the security office. I’ll be back in a few. Make yourself at home.” He heads over to the foyer to slip his shoes on.

You decide to unpack and then wash your face and brush your teeth before returning to the main area where he has just returned. “That was fast”, you comment, meeting him near the door and taking a bag from his hands.

“I rode my bike over.” He replies, following you to the kitchen.

“They let your clumsy ass ride a bike?” You tease, pulling food out.

He lets out a laugh, “Yeah. Just remember, only one of us has got hit by a car.”

“Touche. Touche. Alright. I don’t know what any of this is, so I’m going to go wait at the table like a lazy bitch.”

“Haha, fair enough. I’ll bring it over. “

You head over and have a seat at the dining table, placing your water down. This feels so weird. So intimate. He joins a few minutes later placing a bunch of food on the table along with a spoon and chopsticks.

“I’m sure there’s a fork around here somewhere if you need one.” He says as he opens the lids on the containers.

“I lived in LA where we ate sushi almost every day, I think I’ll be ok.” You sass back, ,looking over all of the delicious food. You start to dig in. He sits waiting to see what your reaction will be. You flash him a thumbs up as you chew. It’s definitely good. He smiles and begins to eat as well.

Dinner is relatively quiet. You had no idea how hungry you were until you started to eat. Some of the foods had a texture you didn’t quite care for, but overall you liked it all.

“Wow. That was delicious. Thank you so much.” You smile

“It was. You’re welcome.” He gets up and starts to clear the table and you join him.

You continue to yawn involuntarily as the two of you straighten up the kitchen,

“Do you want some coffee or a nap?” he asks.

“I’m going to try and stay awake a little bit longer. What does the rest of the night look like?”

“Relaxing. I am exhausted from work. And you don’t look so fresh yourself. LEt’s watch a movie or something.” He says it so casually. Like this is a normal thing the two of you do. Like it hasn’t been months since the last time you saw each other and you left him naked and alone in a bed. You feel your heartbeat speed up.

“Hold on, I’m changing into some comfy clothes before I make this commitment.” you get up and head towards your room.

You come back in leggings and a shirt. Namjoon has re-positioned himself on the end of the couch. You sit next to him. “Ok, all set,” you grab your blanket.

“You take your comfort quite seriously,” Namjoon laughs as he hits the play button.

“Definitely,” you respond, yawning. After about half an hour, It’s dark outside, the night spilling into the living room. You are trying to keep your eyes open. You feel Namjoon put his large arm around you. You don’t resist, you nestle into it. You feel the warmth of his body radiating against you. It feels so nice.You try to stay awake but your eyelids grow heavy. The next thing you know, you wake up slowly, not quite oriented to where you are. Your face is sweaty. You take stock of your surroundings. You are still in the living room. You must have fallen asleep while watching the movie. You move a bit and realize you are not alone. Namjoon is asleep as well. Underneath you. Oh god. You probably trapped him. Is that your drool on his shirt? You wonder. But you know that yes, it definitely is. Jesus [Y/N].Not making a great impression here. Must sneak out so the drool will dry before he wakes up. You move as stealthy as possible off of him, which is very difficult since you found yourself laying between his legs. How did you even get like that? You had gone in for a light snuggle to see how it would be received and then apparently passed out dead. No more starting movies when you were tired. You knew it was your weakness.

The poor man probably had to pee and was stuck, forced to lay underneath you until he fell asleep. Is he snoring? Huh. Well ok. You drool and he snores. Very attractive individuals. You grab a blanket from your nest on the other side of the couch and put it on top of him. You sneak down the hallway to your bathroom, pee and sneak into your bedroom. You lay down and try to fall asleep, but your heart is beating fast as all you can think about it falling asleep on Namjoon. You feel your face grow warm. You are a mix of turned on and embarrassed. You turn off your light and wonder if he will still want to go sightseeing with your drooly-ass tomorrow. @calling-dips-on-j-hope @ghostkat23 @cuteipat @marianeamine@thisisval @almonte12 @themisunderstoodblackswan @bobbyboops @betysotelo18 @katerbees

#bts fic #bts writing #rm x reader #bts rm fanfic #namjoon scenarios #namjoon x you #namjoon x reader #bts namjoon x reader #bts soulmate au #bts rm x reader #bts rm x you #rm x y/n

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momentary-ecstasy · 5 years ago

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Digital Tabletop RPG Reference

I know the vast majority of the world is being encouraged to stay home. It can be a struggle at time to isolate yourself in such a way and I know that a lot of Tabletop RPG groups have had to call a hiatus or move online. If you’re one of these people or you’re just looking to get into tabletop RPGs at this time, I’ve created a post of all the free and cheap things I can think of to get you started.

Platforms

Roll20 - Roll20 is a platform with free and paid tier subscriptions. With the free subscription you can run games easily, import maps, create campaigns, and share sources you already have. All combat and movement views are top-down. The only drawbacks is if you would like to use the embedded resources in your games the source material can be a little pricey, but if you use it in conjunction with dndbeyond or just your paper materials it’s easy enough to accomplish

Tabletop Simulator - Tabletop Simulator is exactly how it sounds. It’s a virtual tabletop to play, not just RPGs, but generally any kind of tabletop game you can think of. There are extensive asset packs in the workshop to use with TTRPGs, as well as packs that allow you to play games like Betrayal at House on Haunted Hill and Gloomhaven which are pretty expensive irl. Tabletop Simulator is in the steam store right now for about $20. Unfortunately everyone in your group needs to have it in order to play. A workaround one of my groups found is for someone (usually the DM) to have it up and screenshare over discord.

Fantasy Grounds - Full disclosure, I haven’t used Fantasy Grounds personally. It’s just the things that usually comes up when looking for ways to play online. It does look easy to use and right now they’re having a sale. The demo version is free but only allowed 1 player and 1 GM. The standard edition is currently on sale for $9.75 for the year and the Ultimate edition for $89.40.

Astral Tabletop - Another online web app to play campaigns through. I don’t know much about it, but the important bit is that all paid features are free until April. It supports motion maps which is super nice for the GMs that want something extra.

Source Materials

Source materials are generally the most costly part of a campaign. I’ve tried to find the cheapest, quality TTRPGs materials possible.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

Wizards of the Coast has the core rules on their site for free so you can get started without all the costs of books and supplements

dndbeyond - dndbeyond offers all 5e source material as well as tools for created and running a campaign. If someone in your party has a DM tier subscription, only one person has to buy the materials on the site and create a campaign to share with everyone else. Digitally the books are fairly cheap with the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master Guide coming in at $30 each. Even if you don’t buy the materials from dndbeyond, the character sheet creator is absolutely worth the free account

Roll20 - the 5e content on roll20 is a little pricey, but if you decide to use roll20 for your campaign, this does make it easier to add loot and other equipment directly into the maps

Fate

Fate may be new to a lot of people, but it is the blankest of slates when it comes to TTRPGs. It can be adapted into any kind of established or homebrew world you can think of.

Evil Hat Productions is the publisher of Fate and has PDF versions of all of their TTRPG games. The Fate Accelerated Edition (a condensed version of Fate Core) is free in pdf form with a suggested pay-what-you-like rate of $2.50. The more in depth Fate Core System is free in pdf form with a suggested pay-what-you-like rate of $5. There are also various toolkits on the on their site to help you adapt Fate to the setting of your choice.

Roll20 does a little better with pricing when it comes to FATE with the Fate Complete Bundle coming in at $20

Monster Hearts 2

Monster Hearts is a supernatural coming-of-age RPG as seen on Critical Role. It has a very simple rule set based on the Apocalypse World engine. It is available on the creator’s website for $10 with a discount code in the description for people who can’t afford that at this time. While you’re there check out The Quiet Year, a post-apocalyptic map game that only requires a deck of cards to play, available for pay-what-you-like.

Call of Cthulhu

A horror RPG set in the 1920s based on the works of the problematic progenitor of modern horror, HP Lovecraft.

Chaosium, who publishes CoC, has the Starter Set PDF for $9.99. This includes basic rules, a solo adventure, 5 character sheets, and 2 adventures for a Keeper (the GM), and their players. I have personally played the solo adventure and highly recommend it to get you familiar with the rules if CoC is what you’re looking at. the Keeper Rulebook ($27.95) and Investiator Handbook ($22.95) are both available in PDF forms on their site.

Roll20 also has a lot of CoC content that can be integrated into character sheets and actual gameplay on Roll20

Misc Resources

Maps - You can get free RPG maps at the r/dndmaps subreddit where users post their battle and realm maps creations. 2 Minute Tabletop also has a free section.

Dice Rollers - If you don’t have dice and don’t want to risk ordering them or going to find some right now there are several online dice rollers like the Wizards of the Coast dice roller and the embedded dice roller if you google ‘dice roller’. Most virtual RPG platforms have virtual dice rolling as well.

Minis - If you go the Tabletop Simulator route, you can import your own miniatures that you can render yourself or get from sites like thingiverse and myminifactory. They do have to be converted to obj files to import to Tabletop Simulator, but that can be done with a free program like blender.

Modules - If you want pre-made or homebrew adventures, items, and classes, check out DM’s Guild for Dungeons and Dragons and DriveThruRPG for all other systems

I will probably add more systems later, but this should be enough to get you started or at least point you in the right direction to start your quarantined tabletop adventures.

#long post #rpgs #ttrpg #d&d #fate core #monster hearts #coc

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enkelimagnus · 4 years ago

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got tagged by @onyxmoonstone!

List the first lines of my last 20 stories, see if there are any patterns, pick a favourite line from among them, then tag 10 other people.

(I’m gonna go with last 20 posted)

Starting from the most recent:

1) On her first day at the Alabaster Sierras’ National Park, Vex’ahlia finds an injured cub.

2) The heels of Molly’s boots hit the cobblestones in loud noises. Louder than the feet of the drows that crossed his paths, at least. None of them seem to mind much, especially compared to the stares he would get in the Empire. Maybe some looked at him with raised eyebrows when he stomped past the reading nook they were occupying, but… nothing was aggressive.

3) With her fingers still feeling the metal of her mezuzah, the door to Ziva’s apartment slammed behind her.

4) A computer had been set up on the desk, and black, spiked clothing was laying on the bed cover. Abby made a beeline for them, grabbing them and disappearing in the bathroom. Ziva raised an eyebrow.

5) Ziva’s eyes were trained on her target.

6) The woods of the fae are a glorious labyrinth of myth and beauty, of mist and danger. Eyes watch you from every corner but they can never be seen by a mortal’s. Walking through the winding breathless paths of the woods mean knowing you are watched, but can never know the guardians that consider you alien.

7) Midge can’t really remember the times when she put so much effort into getting up. She used to run around with the determination of a goose on a vengeance against someone that passed by. She used to make sure everything was always perfect for Joel.

8) The needle slid in between threads of the sunrise orange pants Molly was embroidering. It would be simple, just lines in gold and silver thread that would create diamonds-like patterns all over the legs. Something to add a little shine to the already colorful piece of clothing.

9) The first red leaves had fallen onto the stone floor. Caleb stood in the middle of the garden of the Xhorhaus, staring, almost unseeing at the red-orange leaves. His heart beat hard, fast, overwhelming his senses. It was the only thing he could hear.

10) The library of the Xhorhaus regularly had a fire lit. That was why it often found Molly sneaking in the room in the middle of the night.

11) He shudders. The cell is damp and dark and so cold he can see his breath coming out of his chest in little clouds. He’s used to it, the cell is always cold, and he’s always cold. The only times he feels warmth are when they take him out of the cell to use him.

12) Clary Fray sat cross-legged on her bed in the Institute. She was getting used to the decor, she was getting used to the sheets. They were golden, with a black square in the middle of it. The pillowcases were golden as well, with a black band on the sides. Even the headboard had golden velvet on it.

13) He’d seen the scars before, of course he had.

14) Jonathan’s fingers wrapped around the too-hot paper coffee cup, and he swore under his breath. At this point, he didn’t think he would ever learn that touching the cup right after boiling hot coffee had been poured into it wasn’t a good idea. His love for warmth and comfort was too great to resist the urge.

15) Jace walks through the corridors of the Accords Hall in Alicante. It feels strange, still, to call this place Alec’s home, when it’s just so removed from the place they grew up in, the New York Institute. Alec is not exactly expecting him, Jace portalled in with Magnus earlier and didn’t tell his parabatai.

16) Jace watched quietly as the blonde girl at the bar knocked back a glass of whiskey that would have made most of the men in the room tumble to the ground. He smirked. None of the big and loud businessmen knew that she could hold her alcohol better than the entire rest of the crowd combined.

17) “You’re that other fightey one, aren’t you?”

18) The warm weight over Jace’s back shifts cruelly away, leaving him alone in the bed.

19) The café stood at the corner of a little square, onto one of the busiest and beautifulest avenues of Paris. The chair seats were made of braided plastic, bright, shiny white, with wooden frames supporting them. They were more comfortable than they originally appeared.

20) Jace knocked back the end of his whiskey glass. It hit the bar with an empty clink. He waved around at the bartender for another. He didn’t know how many he’d drank anymore.

As far as patterns go, I’d say that generally, the first lines give an idea of where the characters are? I’m kinda bad at figuring out patterns like that xD

My favorite would probably be 1). It came to me right before falling asleep one night, and for once, I wrote it down in my phone’s notes app before crashing. I feel like it says a bunch about the situation at hand. Location, and feeling and why the character is where she is in the first place.

Let’s tag @the-least-laddy-lad and everyone else who feels like it, I can’t think of anyone else, it’s like I have no friends

#tagged

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kaylathekittykat225 · 5 years ago

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Second Best // Steve Harrington X Reader

Warning/s: Defo Angst, or at least self-doubt and if you squint self-hate, slight abuse/violence

Word Count: 18k. You gonna scrolling for a little bit

Am I the only one who gets into fandoms by accidentally finding a post about it and then being really confused at first until you are like ten posts in and finally understand everything and then getting into the show much later? Yeah, that’s what I did with Stranger Things. Hope I did this justice, I still need to get to more recent seasons, but it’s fine. Only behind the eight balls by a couple of years.

So, I am not against any people racially, but I put the reader, you, as a white person because it adds to the character. If you wish to imagine yourself different racially cool! I just took the white person approach because I thought it would add to the character and her thought process.

Also, if anyone wants to request anything, I am open to write justa bout anything, I am better at writing some people than others, but write for most anything I will give it my best and I will write my heart out.

Here’s my Masterlist.

Enjoy.

-----

“Hey, Y/N, can you drive me over to Mike’s house? Mom doesn’t want me riding my bike with the rainstorm coming tonight.” Looking over your shoulder, you saw Lucas standing next to you with a small bag in one hand and a notebook with ‘Lucases Campagne, Top Secret!’ written in his big sloppy handwriting across the front of it on a name tag sticker.

You quirk your eyebrow at him and looked between his notebook and yours, showing the vast difference between how the two of you planned on spending your Saturday. “Please, this is the first time in two weeks we’ve been able to get together for the campaign! It’s supposed to be a big one too! Mike says he’s been planning it for a month now! Plus! Halloween is two days away and we need to double check that our costumes are all right!”

He started poking at your arm, something he picked up early on with you when you both were much younger when he wanted your attention. “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaaase.” The poking evolved into pulling, now moving from tapping and lazily pulling at your sweater to grabbing at your elbow and trying to move your hand away from your homework.

“Oh yeah?” Let’s be honest, you could never resist the puppy dog eyes of the middle Sinclair child, so keeping a straight face while trying to build up your yes was hard, especially when you knew how much he loved all these campaigns he did with his friends. “Well, I guess I can finish up that college application later.”

“Yes! Thank goodness, you were my last hope! I already asked Will’s mom and Dustin’s and then I even asked Nancy, but they were all busy or their moms were letting them ride their bikes! You are a last-minute lifesaver.” A small knife pressed its tip into your heart as you repeated the words in your mind a couple times more as you grabbed hold of your keys and backpack and headed after your brother.

Last hope? Why didn’t he just come to you first? You live across the hall from him, he knows your door is always open and you never cared about driving him anywhere. So why were you last?

Surprisingly you got to your car first, you would have thought he would be bouncing up and down at the door, begging for you to hurry up, seeing as the kid wanted to rush on over to his friend’s house so badly and get started, at 10am on a Saturday. “Hey Lucas!” You shouted into the house from the doorway, “Let’s get going! We need to make sure your knight is able to save the day!”

“Y/N?” Instead of Lucas, your mom walked into the door, pulling a struggling Erica along by her hair as she tried braiding her course black hair into place. “Are you taking Lucas over to the Wheeler’s house?” A sigh of relief followed your nod and she thanked you over and over again. “Thank you, you know how I worry about the boys biking when it’s raining. They could get sick or slide off and I just...want to sleep at night. And can you see if you can figure out how to spell the name I have to put on Lucas’s costume? I’ve asked your father, your brother, even our neighbor and I was hoping you could figure it out for me.”

Always saved for last. Even the neighbor trumped you?

“Really, it’s no problem mom, I have nothing to do besides college applications; I’m sure I’ll run into Jonathan tonight when he comes to pick Will up and make sure that we’re still on for going with the rascals next week.” You smiled and chuckled to yourself as you saw Lucas racing out the door. “I’ll make sure to get him home hopefully before midnight.”

“I trust you, Y/N, I do. Lucas, I love you!” She waved and smiled as he yelled back a ‘love you too mom‘ before kicking the door shut with her foot. “Bye, Y/N.” As the door shut, you looked through the glass door into the house, seeing the gorgeous dark-skinned woman smiling down at her baby girl who complained about her dark hair being pulled too tight.

Your eyes shifted and you were staring at your reflection...you don’t look like that. Instead of seeing a beautiful girl like Erica, whose hair your mom could twist your hair into intricate braids or buns, you had...Y/H/C, nothing like your mom’s, it was stick straight and thin, it could never hold what she was doing to your little sister’s hair.

And your eyes, they always were annoying and stood out in family pictures, too bright and...Y/E/Ced. You just didn’t like them. In fact, that’s all you did in this family, stand out. Every Christmas card, every family portrait, the four of them all looked like a family...and then you were there, a pale girl with Y/H/C hair and Y/E/C eyes who was a sore thumb, obviously taken in by a family who...maybe they don’t even want her anymore because they have their own kids now and they don’t need to keep the girl they adopted years ago anymore...

Maybe...

“Hey Y/N!” Lucas’s voice pulled you out of your own reflection and you shake your head lightly before walking over to him. “finally, what were you doing?”

Instead of actually telling him, tell him the hurt you are feeling right now, you smiled at him and gently pushed him into the car. “Just felt like I forgot something, making sure I don’t get us locked out if we stay out till midnight and mom and dad are asleep when we get home.”

The two of you made it over to the Wheeler’s house, Mrs. Wheeler let the two of you in without any question as to why the two of you were entering her house so early on a Saturday when everyone should be sleeping. “The boys are downstairs Lucas, and Nancy’s up in her room, Y/N.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler.” The two of you greeted her together before heading to the different levels of the house, each to their own respective friend groups, but one of you would be more loved and welcomed than the other.

Knowing where your best friend’s room was, you opened the door and stepped inside; “Hey Nancy, you know about the boys Ghostbuster costume right? Do you know-” Looking into the room, you were shocked to see that Nancy wasn’t alone. “Um, hey guys…” You stuttered a hello to Steve lying on the bed, a paper in his hands with red scribbles all over it; Nancy sitting up next to him, red pen in hand, obviously the one marking up the paper.

But Steve wasn’t the one you were surprised about, “Hey, Y/N.” Jonathan smiled at you from his place on the floor by the two, two stuffed animals in front of him, his camera in hand and a few polaroids were beside him, looking somewhat like test shots.

“Y/N!” Nancy happily cheered and Steve just nodded his head at you. The two of you were friendly only in terms of him always being around Nancy and inevitably snagging her from you. Not after sophomore Christmas. “Come in! Steve and I were just working out our costume for the party!”

“Plus my paper.” Steve muttered as his eyes scanned over the paper again, scratching something onto a new sheet of paper. Nancy chuckled and ran her fingers through his hair before she turned back to you, not seeing the smile he sent her as he stared at her, his eyes sparkling as he just watched her sit there, she wasn’t doing anything and yet he still looked at her like she was the only person in the room. There really was no way of explaining how he was looking at the girl you called your friend but the thing you could explain was that no one had ever looked at you that way before.

You pulled the chair out of the far end of the room and sat down, feeling a little out of place with three other people, something you had gotten used to over the years in this room. First it had been Barb before…well before what happened last year. You swallowed and looked at the ground, away from the pictures to your right on her desk; the pictures littered of Barb and Nancy mostly, with you popping up in there every once in a while.

You were there in the prom pictures from last year where there was a group of five of you, including Nancy and Barb, where all of you decided to go stag and enjoy your junior prom without dates. Another was your guys eighth grade graduation, the three of you huddled together with your cheap little hats and gowns. There were others, all of them with varying levels of one, two, or three people, but over the years you noticed that there weren’t any pictures of just you or you and Nancy, it was always you with the other two. Something that really only popped up to you recently after all that has happened.

Pausing from flipping through his pictures, Jonathan looked over at you. “Hey, Y/N, are you going to this party too?” Your head snapped up at him, a feeling of betrayal pushing that knife even farther down. You two....it had been...no.

“I...I don’t think so,” You said quietly, playing with your fingers as your stomach twisted and you felt like you were about to be sick. “I have...college apps to finish. An-and my mom wants me to...watch Erica on Halloween.” Pushing the bile back down your throat, you look back up at Jonathan, hoping he could see the hurt you were radiating from breaking a promise neither of you have ever broken, not when you had the flu two Halloweens ago, or the snow storm that left many kids stuck at home, the two of you were always by each other's side on the spookiest day of the year. The two of you were even talking last week about the new movie you wanted to see and what candy he was gonna buy, since it was always you got the movie, he buys the snacks. You hoped when you talked about walking Erica around, that he would remember what you two did, but...

Nothing.

Nothing except Nancy Wheeler.

When you looked up, Jonathan wasn’t even looking at you like he was before. Like Steve was moments ago, Jonathan was now staring at Nancy, this time with a look of longing at the couple, his hand slowly tightening around the stuffed lion in his hand. The same glow was in his eyes as with Steve’s, this time jealousy mixed into his brown eyes.

You didn’t hate the fact that Nancy was being stared at when you weren’t, but...Jonathan? Your best friend? The one who would fight off the monsters under the bed before he went home for you. Your first crush...knowing someone since childhood never ended in you going into a relationship, you two would only ever be friends, because that’s what he knew you as his whole life, his friend, never his girlfriend. So seeing him stare at her only made you hurt more. Even him...he put you second. Never seeing you as the one he could choose above all else.

“Y/N, you know your mom will never know if you don’t go with Erica, she’s old enough to be on her own for the night. I even got Jonathan to let Will go! Come on, Y/N it will be fun!” Nancy had the happiest grin on her face, but something in her eyes told you...no, this isn’t what was gonna make her happy, or...maybe that was just you reflecting yourself into her eyes.

Was she just trying to pull you along out of pity? Did she know that Jonathan would not come unless you went too? But that didn’t seem to be a problem with how he sounded like he was going anyway.

What did she have to be unhappy about she lived where she does? Not that you wanted to judge her but...she was from a happy family who loves her. How could you compare to her? Her grades were perfect, her boyfriend was perfect, her hair was perfect, her life was perfect, her boyfriend was perfect. Wait you already said that, hold on.

You looked back over at Steve and saw him staring down at what you could now assume to be a college application essay he needed to write. It was your turn to look at someone longingly; how can someone be so sweet and then...just stop?

First last summer tested your understanding, then the winter before tested you heart...what else could life test you on? Your will to want to stay here?

“Hey guys, I uh...gotta go...clean my...doghouse. Yeah it’s really dirty and I just can’t let my dog live like that so...see you guys Monday.” Stumbling over your words, you caught yourself as you tripped over the chair and felt your face go red as everyone turned to you, confusion in their eyes at your flustered state. Turning to look at them, you only made it worse by doing so, Nancy and Jonathan looking confused more than anything else, no sense of worry on your behavior. Were they that dense or were you just really good at hiding your pain? “Bye guys.”

You spun around and left the room, running into the wall on the other side as you tried leaving. Continuing your day of making a fool of yourself, you left the three friends to hear you mutter a sorry to the wall before you finally rushed down the stairs.

“I...didn’t know Y/N had a dog?” Steve asked, looking up at his girlfriend for an answer. But she only shrugged while she stood up and walked over to her closest, fanning between her clothes to see what she could use as a costume for this party the three teens would be attending soon. Looking once more at the open door, Steve saw the top of your Y/H/C haired head and heard you leave before he turned to his paper, groaning while he smashed his face into the bed cover.

You walked down the stairs into the infamous Wheeler basement and were met with the boys yelling at each other. “Why do you get to be Venkman?! What if I wanna be Venkman!”

“Dude, we agreed in these terms months ago! You would be Winston, Will is Spengler, Dustin is Stanz, and I would be Venkman!” You watched as your brother pointed to everyone and explained how they all had specific roles.

“No! I am supposed to be Venkman! Why do I get stuck being Winston? Why can’t you be Winston, you’re-” Mike cut himself off from speaking anymore and widened his eyes.

Your little brother, being ever smart as he is, picked this up. “I’m what, Mike? Is it cause I’m black?”

“Nononononononono!” Mike spluttered over his many no’s as he tried explaining himself.

“Whoa guys, calm down.” You stepped in stepping between the two boys who were arguing over their costumes. “Boys, come on, can’t you two...both be Venkman.” Oh but this suggestion set the two off.

“No!”

“Y/N! God, why would you even suggest that? There’s no way there can be two Venkman! That’s not how the story goes! Could you be any stupider?” Dustin stepped in, getting closer to you and pushing more hurtful words down on you. Why of all days is it all falling apart right now.

“I-I-I-I just wanted to help.” You slowly shrank down, tentatively stepping back toward the stairs behind you. “Lucas, I’ll pick you up at six, okay?”

“Y/N, wait, I-” You had heard this sob story from him before, complaining how eight hours wasn’t enough to play this big of a campaign, but you didn’t want to hear it. Spinning around you ran up the stairs, trying to stop the sick feeling from rising up your throat and the pain in your chest from deepening itself.

“Y/N, honey? Is that you? Leaving so soon?” Mrs. Wheeler turned the corner and looked at you with a smile that quickly morphed into one of worry when she saw your glossy eyes and slightly loss of color in your face. “Sweetie, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Mrs. Wheeler, I just feel a little under the weather and I don’t wanna spread it if it’s actually contagious, I’ll be back to grab Lucas at six.” And with that you left, not giving her anytime to check on you, offer to drive him herself, anything. As you left the house, she turned her attention to where both of her children were, feeling the urge to ask what happened to you.

All the way home, you kept quiet, the radio was off, the windows rolled down as you let your brain mull over everything that had really become apparent the past few days. Maybe...maybe you were just over exaggerating everything. Nothing really bad was going on in your life, school was good, graduation was coming up and you were hearing back from a few colleges, you had a family who cared for you.

So why, why do you feel like you were only second best in everything you did?

Stepping into your house, you kicked your shoes off and quickly rushed to the stairs, wanting only to hide in your room. “Y/N? Is that you sweetie? Karen called me and told me you were feeling sick and came home. Are you okay?” Your mom ran over to you from the kitchen, her eyes wide at seeing you stepping into the house.

She gently took your face in her hands, her eyes scanning over you, trying to notice is anything was so obviously wrong with her oldest daughter. Mrs. Sinclair muttered numerous things to herself: temperature fine, eyes not dilated, eyes are glossy though tongue is pink, skin not…

“Mom.” You whispered, you didn’t have a scratch in your throat, you just knew that if you spoke any louder than a quiet hush, you wouldn’t be able to keep yourself from crying or your voice from shaking. “I’m just tired.”

Trying to smile as best as you can, the weak smile seemed to convince your mom enough to agree with you to let you go upstairs to your room and relax. Your mom still didn’t let you go quietly though, walking you up until your room and insisting you call her up if you need anything, she would be in the kitchen.

Finally alone in your room, nothing else really mattered at you looked to your bed. Rather unceremoniously, you fell onto your bed and finally let the air out of your lungs. No screaming or cursing. No cussing, kicking, or blaming the world.

Just sobbing. You let out a sob as you tried letting the heavy feeling empty itself from your chest, the emotion being you had felt before. You gave all of yourself to someone, all of your love and care for them, hoping that if you love someone unconditionally, that perhaps, maybe, just maybe, they could return your love if you ever needed it.

No. No of course not, because second place is always where you would be, and second best never got first love.

<<<>>>

“You really think you gonna be wearing that?” Erica’s little voice sassily spoke from the entrance of the shared upstairs bathroom where you brushed a bright pink blush over your cheeks followed by you pressed one of your mom’s nude lipsticks on and smiled at yourself.

“Why not? Not loving the Star Wars rep?” You turned to her as you pushed yet another bobby pin into your hair to try and keep your hair in the iconic buns of Leia’s first Star Wars appearance. The white dress thankfully you had lying around in your closet from a homecoming or two ago, it wasn’t an exact replica, but it was close enough. With a chunky black belt and some white boots you bought with your allowance, you were able to make a pretty good-looking Princess Leia.

Erica rolled her eyes and pursed her lips in her little way before turning around. “Ain’t no way in hell am I gonna be seen with you wearing that. You look like you stapled two cinnamon rolls to the side of your head.” From the bottom of the stairs, where your brother was stuck in his mom’s photo line, you both heard her scream ‘language!’ up at the youngest Sinclair. “Yeah yeah mom, I hear you.” She turned back to you and rolled her eyes again, pulling a happy cackle out of you.

“You two better get down here or else you’ll miss the pictures!”

“Oh no, Erica, we better get down otherwise our pictures won’t be on the mantle this year.” You two chuckled down the stairs together and internally grounded at the millions of polaroids your mom took of the three of you in your “adorable” outfits.

Finally, forever later, you three were allowed to make your leave for the Wheeler house. In your stomach, you hoped so dearly that Will would already be there, and Nancy would be gone, meaning you could just go about your Halloween night without running into your friends. Or even better, Jonathan would forget about Nancy, show up in his Luke Skywalker on Tatooine and his blaster and you two could enjoy your Halloween like you did every year.

Your hands tightened as you slowly drove up Maple Lane and tried not to murder any children with your car as they ran around in excitement, thinking that just because they were in a play costume that they could not be hit by a car. “Damn idiots.” Muttering to yourself as you pull in, you were more than relieved to see the driveway empty of cars other than Mr. Wheeler’s car.

“Lucas!” The boys all call as they race towards their fourth member of their party, almost tackling him to the ground in their excitement.

A groan came from next to you as Erica came up from behind you, her My Little Pony pillowcase in hand as she rolled her eyes at her older brother. “Dorks.” And she walked over to her friend group that agreed to meet at the Wheeler mailbox, as she said, not wanting to be tainted by that nerd group.

Looking around a little bit, even though you didn’t see his car, you were hoping to see Jonathan running out of the house, having to fix his Luke Skywalker hair and be ready to ‘take them weirdos to get their candy on!’ as he would say.

But he wasn’t here. He was probably at that party at that one girl’s house, not that you really cared about who it was, since you didn’t need to go there. Who knows, maybe he’s having the time of his life kissing someone and having fun for the first time is a while for him.

“All right guys! The longer you play around, the less candy we can scrounge you guys up!” You clapped your hands together, gathering the boy’s attention, they all cheered your name as you walked over to them, lifting your skirts up to make sure you didn’t trip. They all chattered about your costume and how dope it is, cool, outta this world (nice one Will), bitchin’ (language Mike), excited to see you as their favorite alien princess.

“Guys!” You hear Dustin scream at your group, and you all turned to him, seeing he wasn’t up close to you, ogling at your outfit and he was instead glaring at the four of you, his lower lip almost poking out angrily. “Why is your sister here, Lucas? We don’t need a babysitter! Jonathan isn’t here, Nancy isn’t here, my mom isn’t here, so why! Why are you here, Y/N?”

You were blown away by his outburst, no words were coming from you, I mean, what could you say? Dustin just called you out, and for what? For wanting to spend the night with your little brother and his friends? “I...I-I just…”

“Dude! Stop being a bitch to my sister!” Lucas stepped up to Dustin and shoved him backwards. “What is your problem?! She’s like us, dude. She just wants to come and have fun on Halloween.” You felt something brush your hand followed by a squeeze, causing you to look down and seeing a hand smaller than yours holding onto you. Following the little arm, you found Will looking up to you, a small smile on his face directed at you.

Will looked up at you and saw you staring down at the ground, your face blank, but your eyes gave up everything you were feeling. The pain of this last week grew a little deeper, you couldn’t even hear Lucas’s words as you tried not to let the wetness in your eyes spill over, the hurt of the knife as it pierced deeper.

Pain, loneliness, betrayal, loss, unloved. Everything he felt over there.

Slowly and tentatively, Will looked down to your hand, seeing it hanging limply by your side, so he reached for your hand and grabbed it, squeezing it and hoping to get you out of the lull you were in while Dustin and Lucas continued to scream at each other.

“Let’s leave these losers behind, more candy for us!” Will offered with his smile and began pulling you along with him towards the road. A smile grew on your face at the younger of the Byers brothers, for his young age, he had always been super mature. Honestly, after everything that happened last year, he was forced to grow up and survive and fend for himself for a week before anyone could get to him. You felt for the kid, he had no way of enjoying his childhood without ruining it. Yeah, he could go out on a Halloween adventure filled night, but not without his mother wanting to have the entire police department of Hawkins to follow him block to block.

“Hey guys!” You and Will stopped and turned around, seeing Mike run up behind you two to catch up. “Don’t go candy hunting without me!”

“Come on then, slowpoke.” Grinning back at him you held your other hand out to him and finally walked towards the younger girl of your family, allowing yourself to smile again tonight at your little sister who was rolling her eyes, honestly the second most common thing she did besides sass was roll her eyes at the weirdness and dorkiness of her older siblings.

The night went on from there, your brother and Dustin joining the three of you shortly after you turned the corner and ran into the seemingly millions of goblins and witches and Power Rangers as they all went from house to house, screaming excitedly to their mom, their friends, anyone that would listen about which houses were the good houses and which ones were the bad houses.

One more person joined your little nightly candy raiding party, Max, you think you heard her right? She popped out of nowhere and scared the boys. No matter what Lucas said, you and Erica would laugh for the rest of your lives at hearing him screech like a little girl at the sight of the Michael Myers mask jumping out at them.

What you could tell from Max, she seemed pretty chill, she definitely had a sense of wanting to belong to the group. You couldn’t help but chuckle at seeing how Lucas acted around this girl. It was kinda how you started out with...

Shaking your head, you pushed those memories down into your brain, not really wanting to remember how that all went sophomore year. “Hey Y/N,” Pushing some stray hairs that had fallen from your buns out of your eyes, you looked over to Lucas with a raise of your eyebrows, signalling him to talk while the other kept walking ahead. Dustin was chatting it up with Max while Will and Mike were already sifting through their goodies for the night, and Erica was ahead of your group, but she knew well enough not to walk too far ahead. “No matter what Dustin says, I like having you as an older sister. You’re chill, I mean, you drive us around when our moms won’t let us bike, you’re the one who takes us out trick-or-treating while dressed up and not like some lame mom who just follows her kids around. You even played DnD with us when we needed another player. You were the DM when we all couldn’t agree who could be it next.”

Lucas took you by surprise here, honestly you weren’t expecting anything like this, an apology for Dustin, just, that’s not what you expected. You were shell shocked by your little brother, the youngest Sinclair that could not for the life of him do words, that just wasn't who he was, unless of course it was describing in great detail what was going on in a DnD campaign. “Lucas, I…” Staring down at him, seeing him in his ghostbuster outfit, he wasn’t the same little brother you remember growing up with and him coming home the first-time screaming cause he was hungry. “Good to know you’ve got my back, LuLu.”

Laughter filled the air as Lucas complained about that nickname, blaming Erica for it and not wanting his friends, especially Max, to know about this name. As the group of you all laughed along, there was a little bit of a better feeling within you as the knife was pulled up out of your heart ever so slightly. The pain was still there, but it felt better with knowing your brother was looking out for you. With the other drama in the night, you were honestly happy the group returned to its normal antics.

<<<>>>

Not to be dramatic or anything, but you were definitely going to kill Dustin when you saw him next. For the past ten minutes, all you heard was “Code red, code red, can anybody hear me? Code red, I repeat code red! Guys!” Groaning, you rolled over and looked at your clock through the wisps of your Y/H/C hair to see it was too early in the morning to be hearing the little voice of Dustin.

You’ve tried everything at this point, shutting your door, shutting Lucas’s door, putting your head under a pillow followed by you finally giving up and grabbing the walkie talkie from your brother’s bed just as Dustin was screaming about last summer and something about a dart? “Dustin, it is seven in the morning, what do you want?”

“Y/N? Where’s Lucas? It’s impertinent that you put him on for me.”

“Well sorry buddy, but Lucas is currently not here. Now what’s all this ‘Code Red’ business your harping about? And what about last summer?”

You should have known with Dustin that he wouldn’t give you a straight answer. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll just go to Mike’s house.”

“No, Dustin get back on the damn walkie! Dustin? Dustin Henderson you tell me what’s going on!” Even at seven in the morning on a Saturday you could scream loud enough, but even your screeching couldn’t be heard to Dustin’s house.

The stomping of your footsteps could be heard round the house, causing your mother to shout at you to shut up from where she was downstairs. “Some people enjoy their quiet mornings, Y/N.”

“Whatever mom,” You muttered to yourself among other hints as you threw in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and then your favorite yellow rain slicker. “I’ll be back, mom! Dustin needs a ride!”

“Just make sure you bring Lucas home!” Racing through town, you held Lucas’s walkie in one hand, calling Dustin on it every few minutes to try and hear from him? But he must have flipped to a different channel to get you to shut up. The only place you could think to Mike’s place since that’s all Dustin said to you before blocking out your help.

Why the hell were you even doing this? For the past few months he has been treating you like shit after what happened last summer. It’s not like you didn’t help, hell you were the reason they had a ride from the police when they caught up to Eleven and you guys.

“Last summer. Holy shit!” You almost take out two mailboxes as things slowly connect in your brain. One of them being the Wheelers and you slam on your breaks and not so quickly or quietly stopped in front of the house, seeing the back of Dustin’s baseball cap at the door.

“What do you mean Nancy and Mike are both not here?!” Dustin was practically screaming at Mr. Wheeler who has answered the door. “Where are they?!”

Running up behind the young boy, you pulled out your best smile and laughed quite loudly. “Dustin! Here you are. Mike told me I would find you here! Come on you’re gonna be late for game day!” Placing a hand on his shoulder, you gently, but also not so gently, squeezed it, hoping he would get the message to shut up. “Hi Mr. Wheeler, I hope you are having a fantastic day, see you soon, thanks, we gotta go bye!” You all but shouted at him as you guided the curly haired preteen away from the front door.

Turning the corner of the house, you spun around and glared at him. “What the hell is going on?” “Why the hell are you here?” The both of you asking your question at the same time, both with glowering faces and arms crossed over your chests. “Why am I here? You’re the one who was calling a ‘Code Red’ this morning, so naturally I assume you are dying and am here to help!”

“Well I don’t need your help; you would get in my way anyway.”

Your eyes squinted into slits and you intensified your glare, having perfected this with Lucas years ago when your mom left you in charge and Lucas would not believe you. “Dustin, if you don’t tell me what’s going on right now, I swear to God that I will tell the boys about your front teeth.”

At the mention of his teeth, Dustin paled significantly, almost as white as the fake teeth in his mouth. “W-what are you talking about? My teeth? What about them? There’s nothing to say.” He began running his tongue over his teeth, almost checking to see if he put them in this morning or if they were crooked and needed adjusting.

“Oh?” You smiled at him triumphantly, stepping towards him slowly, leading him back to the front of the house. “So, if I just grabbed your two front teeth, they...wouldn’t just come out?”

You see, Claudia Henderson was so upset that her little baby boy hadn’t gotten his permanent teeth that she went to the extent to get him a retainer with fake fronts to make it look like he was finally growing them in. Another thing about Mrs. Henderson, was that she was the gossip of the little mom group built around the boys and one night, you were in the kitchen when you heard her telling all of the moms about her plan and how Dustin made her promise not to say anything. But how can she not when she was so excited that ‘her little Dusty was finally becoming a big boy now’.

Dustin almost screamed in horror as you reached for his mouth, but he didn’t know that you really did not want to reach in there, only reaching towards him just to scare him enough to have him spill what he was hiding from you. “Okay, okay okay! Please just don’t say anything about my teeth!”

“As long as you tell me what is going on, I won’t say a word to the rest of the party.” You both did the official handshake, spit and all, and began walking to your car. “Okay, now what is going on that you had to call Lucas at seven am?”

Sucking in a deep breath, Dustin began talking, when the rumble of an engine pulled up next to your car. Looking over, the two of you saw none other than Steve Harrington stepping out of his BMW, pulling a bouquet of flowers with him. From what you could hear, it sounded like he was mumbling an apology to himself, almost like he was...rehearsing it? “What is the Hair doing here?” You ask out loud, shouldn’t he be the reason Nancy wasn’t home?

“Harrington!” Dustin called from next to you, pulling the long-haired brunette out of his strutting to the front door and turning to you two. “She’s not home.”

“Not-not home?” Steve came closer to you two, the flowers dropping down with some of the petals falling off their stems. “Do...do you know where she is?” Steve was solely locked on Dustin, more or less ignoring your presence beside the preteen.

“Nope, but I do know there are bigger things than your love life. Do you still have your bat?”

The two of them talked and began walking towards Steve’s car, something inside you pushed you to follow them or ask if you could come, but from how this was looking, the two looked like they had this covered and you could go back to bed and forget all of this happened.

“Hey, Y/N!” You turned back around at your name being called, seeing Dustin looking at you with a face that could only resemble one of ‘where ya going slowpoke’. “You still got that blow torch flamethrower thing?”

“You mean my lighter and hairspray?” Opening your trunk, you pulled out an old pink, almost black at this point, backpack and showed it to the two boys, a grin on your face as you walked over to them. “Never leave home without ‘em.”

Glancing over at Steve, you both looked at each other, he was staring at your face. Keeping up your smile, you looked to his bat he replaced the flowers in his hands with. “Forgot you were on the other end of the Demogorgon, Harrington. Still know how the swing that thing?”

The spiked bat was something you and Jonathan came up with and were fully prepared to use against the creature, but your mom called you out of what you two were planning and Jonathan replaces you with Nancy, the one who could use a gun and stand up for herself. Not that that didn’t hurt or anything, honestly it was just the beginning of the vicious cycle you soon noticed of Jonathan passing you up to hang out with Nancy instead of your weekly Saturday Byers-Sinclair evenings where you guys order some pizza, rent some movies and hide out on his couch while the boys were off fighting the next great monster.

But when you got home and your mother told you that somehow Lucas was being pursued by the police, you flipped out. And then he called you on your back up walkie you keep in your car for emergencies, you jumped at helping him get out of whatever trouble the group of boys put themselves in.

Learning that your little brother was facing the same monster, you were pissed that that thing was what took Will and is hunting Lucas and his friends. It wasn’t that hard to sneak into your mom’s bathroom to find her stash of Farrah Fawcett Hair Spray and the lighters kept for birthdays around your house. You remembered Mr. Clarke’s class and how pressurized items, mostly hair products if we’re being honest, are very flammable, even going so far as demonstrating with hairspray and a lighter himself.

Now, it would definitely be a lie if you said you didn’t enjoy every second of sending flames into that flowery mouth of the monster and watching him squirm in pain. Call you a pyromaniac, you don’t care because it worked and kept you and the boys safe.

“Didn’t know you became a fan of shooting fire at things, Sinclair, could have used a little help with that back at the Byers place.” He counters back, his eyes still trained on yours.

Steve doesn’t remember the last time he took time and looked at your eyes, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t remember the Y/E/C irises being so...dull wasn’t the word he would looking for, more like...sad, broken almost. The girl he remembered from sophomore year was a bubbly one who was happy to help him on his bio homework when he forgot because of basketball. How she loved to talk about her love for her little brother and telling some of the funniest stories he had ever heard. How excited she was about the Snowball.

This Y/N was not the same one he got to know three years ago, she looked the same: same Y/H/C hair, same face, well she did mature a little bit, grew another inch or two and lost more of her baby fat around her face, finally learned how to tan rather than burn and gained some darkness to her face, accentuating the freckles she had littered everywhere. But as Steve drove his car down the main road to Dustin’s house, he kept sneaking glances through his rear-view mirror to see you and felt like he didn’t recognize you compared to then.

The you in his back seat sat slouched over, eyes were still dull, or less excited to be in his car. Your arms were crossed tightly over your chest, your head leaning against the car door while you stared at the passing houses. This you was one that still leapt at any opportunity to help, but you didn’t seem to do it with as much enthusiasm. It’s almost like you helped people out so much that others expecting you to help and not because you wanted to anymore. He remembered the last time Nancy asked you for help with studying for another Physics test earlier this year, you agreed but something about how you said yes rubbed him wrong, almost like...you felt like you were forced to help because you helped her in the past.

And even though you two weren’t as close as sophomore year, he saw you with the boys more times than not; he never heard Jonathan or Nancy tell any funny stories about what the boys did at their last game night. And he knows it wasn’t because they were there babysitting. Him and Nancy were almost always on some sort of date night, either in her room or his either working in college stuff or making out, one extreme or the other. And Jonathan was...doing whatever Jonathan does. But he did notice that no one seemed to care as much as she once did, so why did she stop?

Steve didn’t know how close his assumption was to being right, this time that she was remembering, if he asked, you could recollect the memory and remember why you were closed off with helping.

Yes in the earlier years you loved helping people, allowing them to copy homework, take away from your study time to help them with a problem or concept, staying back to tutor kids in certain subject your teachers felt you had a good grasp on. But you quickly learned how naïve you were being. There were days when you didn’t get the homework done and when they asked to see yours, they didn’t bother sending help to you in return. They would talk about how you let them down and you were the reason they were failing. It took one Thanksgiving vacation to change you from the little middle schooler mindset you had to a high schooler, forgetting about how you thought that if you help others, they would help you too. You were wrong.

Shuddering in the backseat, you press yourself a little further into the fabric seats and stare out the window at the neighborhood passing by. “Cold back there?” Steve chirped up, causing you to look up front. You are surprised to see his eyes flicking to look at you through the mirror, how did he see you shuddering? Was he watching you?

You shake your head and turned back to the window, watching through the corner of your eye to see if he was watching you. But he turned back to Dustin and they continued their conversation about what was going on.

Sighing, you tried wrapping your mind around why you were here, neither of the boys really chose you, you came here to help, once again pushing yourself to stare out the window and watch the houses slide by.

Today wasn’t too bad, but the silver medal still looked like it was waiting for you at the finish line.

<<<>>>

Somehow more of the party ended up joining in on the adventure after your own little group called for backup when you saw the condition of the Henderson basement and laid a bunch of cow out for Dart to follow to the old junk yard the kids frequented before the great mouse infestation of ‘81. Lucas and Max rolled up while Mike and Will were still under radio silence. “Sorry guys! Erica said she heard you this morning but didn’t say anything and then my walkie is missing and...Y/N what are you doing here?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, doofus? I’m trying to make this pile of cow and sheep look yummy to a demodog.” You were quite unceremoniously moving raw meat around in a pile, adding bits of 3 Musketeers and Milkways to it, per Dustin’s request for some reason.

“Demodog?” Lucas asked before turning to Dustin, “You mean you kept that thing! Dustin the party agreed!”

“No, you said we agreed but I don’t remember ever saying yes to killing Dart.” The two of them went after each other while Max came over to you.

She sat down in front of your meet pile and watched. “Please tell me you don’t believe this hokey story too. I mean really, Demogorgons? Mind Flayer? It’s like they got this out of some weird fantasy story like Lord of the Rings.”

Glancing up at the Y/H/C-haired girl, you cocked your eyebrow at her. “For your sake, I hope we don’t see one, cause once you see one of those damn monsters, they…” You stop and look back at her. “Have you met my brother? He’s the biggest nerd ever, of course he’s gonna name them after animals from fantasy stories.” Your comment got Max laughing and you right alongside her, the two of you moving the meat around while talking about things besides the current situation.

Steve came bursting out of the school bus, shouting about getting inside and nighttime and such. “When did Steve Harrington find time to help us with this?” Lucas looked to you for an answer, but all you could do was shrug and mention Dustin being very persuasive.

With all of you on the school bus, Dustin took the roof and insisted on taking first watch. Lucas and Max sat talking; it was cute to watch your brother have a crush on a girl this bad. Leaning against the walls, your feet on the seat you took up, you sat and enjoyed the quiet, for now.

Someone let out a breath as they sat down in the seat to the left of you. Looking over, it was none other than Steve. “Looked like you could use the company.” He chuckled to himself, peering over to you, only getting a quirked eyebrow and a confused look directed towards him.

You mumble a thanks and look back over to your brother, just watching him try to interact with Max without flustering or making himself look stupid. “How was the Halloween party? I haven’t really seen Jonathan or Nancy since last Saturday, so I would have asked one of them, but they seem to be ignoring me.”

“You aren’t the only one they’re ignoring.” You heard Steve curse under his breath, and you allow yourself to look over at him and see him glaring at the wall. “It went. To answer that question.”

Looking at him, you saw him shoulders were tense and raised close to his head, his arms were wrapped around his legs and his eyes were fixed on the ground in front of him. You could tell that he didn’t want to talk about it, but…“Are you okay?”

He sighed, not answering right away. “Peachy.” He didn’t say much else, giving off the obvious vibes of leave me alone. You gave it a shot.

It was slowly getting darker outside, and you and Steve had spoken little since the other conversation, rather enjoying the quiet of being in each other’s presence. “How was Halloween of babysitting?”

“Hmm?” Opening your eyes up, you asked for him to repeat his question. “Oh, it was good, just watched the party and my little sister while they were trick-or-treating.”

“Sounds kinda boring.”

“They’re actually a really good group of kids, having their fun with each other and keeping me on my toes. Honestly, it’s not that bad, just...a little lonely this year.” Steve tilted his head, nonverbally asking what you meant; it was your turn to sigh before answering. “Jonathan and I always kept it a tradition to spend Halloween night together, since it’s the night that solidified our friendship as kids. We were the only ones who would watch the kids when they were younger and couldn’t go out by themselves. Now yes, they can go out now if they so please by themselves, but...Jonathan and I would still go with. Having funny costumes, scary ones, everything in between but we always were a pair that spent the scariest night of the year together.”

“But he was at the party this year.” Steve whispered, finally understanding why you reacted so strangely last week. “That’s why...you were a little weird last week.”

A blush dusted your cheeks at him calling you weird. “Um, yeah you could say that.”

Steve finally realized what he just said and wanted to punch himself in the face for it. “Wait! No I didn’t mean you were weird. I just mean that you were acting a little odd or like a little off from how I normally see you. And you just seemed off or having a bad day and I was just worried but then I just called you weird and I am making it worse. I’m sorry.” You had to press your hand to your mouth to stop yourself from laughing at how flustered he got.

“You’re fine, Steve, I guess...I didn’t know you noticed how I normally acted” He didn’t really say anything for a little while, leaving you just to glance over at him and see him playing with his fingers. “Steve...are you okay?”

He sighed and shook his head against the metal plates pressed up against the window behind his head. “But I’ll be fine, I’ll get over it.” Looking over to you, the quiet Harrington smiled as best as he could, but unlike himself this morning, you were willing to call bullshit when someone isn’t being open with their feelings. “Hey, don’t give me that look.”

“Steve, I can’t make you say anything, but I know that look, so tell me if you need an ear, okay?” You send a smile back at him before hopping your way over to the ladder that Dustin was still looking out from and shimmied your way up. “How goes the lookout for Dart?”

Dustin jumped at the sound of you sneaking up on him, not that he would ever admit that, before realizing it was you coming up here. “Um, it’s good, nothing really too interesting to see up here, it’s still pretty bright outside and I don’t think he’ll become active until nighttime, but that’s just my theory.” He told you, scooching over to give you room to sit on top of the roof next to him.

You jumped up top and sat tall and high, smiling as you shut your eyes and listened to the wind rustle through the tall grass surrounding the junkyard, the birds that still haven’t moved on for winter were still chittering away, some higher pitched ones calling out for their mothers. The silence was what you needed right now; nothing honestly could have helped you more in this time of everyone seemingly be out to get you.

“He-hey Y/N?” Your atmosphere of quiet was shattered as you opened your eyes and looked over to Dustin who kept glancing at you. Humming in response, you kept your eyes on Dustin while waiting for an answer. “I’m...sorry for calling you stupid and being an asshole to you. I treated you like shit and you never really did anything wrong. I was just...jeeeeeeeealous of Lucas.” The curly haired boy’s words slowly slipped away into a quiet whisper when he dragged out the last part of what he was saying.

“You’re jealous of the little weirdo I call my brother?” You threw your head back in laughter and let yourself enjoy the apology for a short time. “What do you have to be jealous about with Lucas? His comic books? And what does that have to do with me?” Your eyes were watering as you wiped away the happy tears.

“Well, cause he has you.” His confession pulled your breathing to a halt, your lungs forgot how to breathe for the time as you whipped around and stared at him in shock, never seeing this type of situation coming from him, wanting to talk to you. “Yeah, of course, because you are the coolest big sister, I have seen anybody have! You like hanging out with us, I mean sure you have a car and can drive us places, but we have bikes and legs, we could walk somewhere if we really wanted to do something. But you always jump whenever we say we need a movie, or candy or the arcade. Nancy and Jonathan are the other bigger versions of us, but they don’t give us the attention and...well love that you give us whenever you come over to babysit us. And we don’t even need babysitting anymore and you don’t get paid to do it, but you still come over to watch us play our stupid games that last forever and listen and rate our burping contests and you would be willing to try our weirdo drinks we made just to try and make you throw up. I can’t just say I’m sorry, but I am mad at you cause...well.”

Honestly you couldn’t comprehend what he just told you, and he was still not done, but you just sat there in shock. He just, Dustin just, he was...apologizing? What was this? In the time that you knew Dustin Henderson, he was a sweet kid yeah, but never had you ever seen him come and apologize to you without someone telling or ordering him to, which often came from Lucas or one of the moms hollering at him to say sorry. But now…

“I’m mad at you because you are a really cool big sister and really wish I had one like you and I’m jealous of Lucas because you’re really badass and you’re the shit and I can’t really think of any other words to call you besides cool because that is what you are! Lucas does love you, but this may sound weird but I like love you too like a big sister that I really wish I had and he should be happier to have a sister like you cause I would love for you to be my sister!” Dustin stopped to gasp for air, all of his words came running from his mouth as he spoke, the speed of his mouth was astounding to be honest with how much he said and almost in one breath.

The binoculars he was holding were forgotten on his lap while he kept his eyes screwed shut and his hands rung together tightly as he waited for something. Dustin was waiting for you to react to him. The kid looked like he didn’t know what to expect from you, should you scream? Run? Hug him? He didn’t even know what to expect from all this that he just poured out of him.

You sighed and got ready to speak, something in you was feeling odd, but he cut you off, his head shot up to look at you with tears tracing in his eyes. “And and and it’s so unfair that Lucas gets to have you as a big sister cause he has everything! He has a normal family with a mom who isn’t crazy, and dad and little sister who is kinda annoying but she’s here. He gets girls attention, like Max, that’s totally not cool to do that but I mean she’s not a piece of meat so we really can’t call claim to her, but I still thought she was cute and pretty and pretty badass and I’m just upset. Cause all I get is Dart and we all see how that worked out! But he also gets you! I want to have you as my older sister! It’s just not fair!” You finally reacted as he started raising his voice and the tears kept falling down his face.

Reaching out, you pulled yourself closer to him and wrapped your arms around him, bringing him in for a hug. The only way you could really do this without sliding off the top of the bus would be for you to keep Dustin where he was and move yourself to have one leg swing down the safety hatch leading back into the bus and the other folded next to you as you wrapped one arm around Dustin’s back and brought the other around his head and weaving it into his hair.

“Dustin,” Your voice was at a gentle whisper near his ear, for the sake of his emotions being on hyper alert while also keeping the conversation away from the three people below you. “It’s okay for you to be upset, especially when you are feeling upset with your friends.” You gently rubbed your fingers up and down through his hair, using your nail to add pressure to his hairline and ease the tension in his body as he was working out the tears and frustration in his system. “It’s okay for you to get angry at people, Dustin, but you also can’t get mad and lash out at your friends, that’s not fair to you or them. You don’t have to tell them that you are having problems unless you want to, but I’m gonna tell you that you can talk to someone about frustrations you have. Just because Mike is having girl problems missing El and Will having his episodes of the Upside Down and then Lucas just...well I’m gonna be honest he just is Lucas. But just because they are having problems doesn’t mean that you don’t have problems too.”

You left him with your words for a minute, still holding him tightly to you while he calmed down. You honestly had more to say but didn’t want to give him too much. Even with your eyes shut you could feel time going by; feeling it around you as the sun slowly gave less heat to the day. How the birds got quieter and no longer chirped their lungs away. Even the talking below you had stopped a while ago.

Dustin took a deep breath and brought himself away from you, bringing his hands up to rub his eyes furiously to wash away the salty tears and hopefully the redness that showed he was crying. “Feeling better, bud?” His nod was answer enough, his teeth finally shining through when you tousled his hair. You knew he was feeling back to normal when he shoved your hand out of his curls.

“Thanks, Y/N.”

“No problem Dustin. And hey,” You grinned at him as you slowly stepped down the ladder. “You all are like little brothers to me at this point. Also, if you ever need to talk, my ear and phone is always open.” And with that you shimmied down the ladder, jumping off the last two rungs with a grin on your face as you took your seat down next to Steve.

Today was slowly looking better, better than most these days lately. Cause today, you came first in Dustin’s eyes.

<<<>>>

“Max!” A voice roared outside the house; you could practically feel the house shaking at the angry voice. The kids all fell silent, the young girl whose name was just called went pale.

“He found me.” Her words barely came out as she whisper-yelled at all the kids to hide. “He can’t know I’m mean, or he’ll kill you then me then you again!” Her words were mostly directed at Lucas, while you were left to glare at you brother, wanting answers as to why Billy Hargrove looked like he had death in his eyes, and it was aiming to Lucas.

Steve steppes up next to the door, motioning for the kids I keep their heads down while he told everyone that he would take care of this. “Wasn’t he the one that got pummelled by Jonathan last year?” Max chirped up, causing the other boys to chuckle while you walked up to the door and looked through one of the small windows that always are next to the door.

You could vaguely hear what was going on, basically just throwing insults at each other. But you kept hearing your last name thrown in there. The kids in the next room over screeched, pulling you from watching Steve and Billy to see them running away from the window. “Idiots! Stay away from the window!” You yelled at them before turning back to the window, seeing Billy stalking towards the door, his face red and he was shaking his hand. Looking behind him for a split second, you could tell why: Steve was sprawled out on the ground, holding his nose and trying to roll over onto his stomach.

“Shit!” The door was kicked in next to you with a booted door slamming down on the floor, breaking the handle off and sending the piece of wood into the wall next to it, the faded gold door handle lodged itself into the wall. “Kids get in the kitchen!”

“Sinclair!” Billy’s voice roared behind you as you skid to a stop in the kitchen in front of the kids. “I knew you’d be here. I’m gonna make you pay you little shit.” Billy began stalking towards your brother while you pushed the kids further back and especially kept them behind you and away from the crazed teen.

“Keep your nasty hands off my brother.” You growled at him, keeping your voice low while reaching your arms out around you, trying to build up a wall between the kids and Billy.

When he actually looked at you, Billy’s face had a smirk on his face. “Now who is this cute thing?” His tongue ran along his lower lip and he began to walk hips pushed forward, wanting to show off that he was in fact a dude and had a crotch.

“Someone who wants you to leave my brother out of whatever shit you have between you and Harrington.” You snapped back, not liking how he slowly got closer and closer to the kids with you in front of them.

He did the stupid lip lick thing again and his smirk only grew. “Oh, so Harrington was hiding you for himself? I see how it is.” His eyes flicked between you and Lucas, whom you specifically held onto his wrist and kept pushing him and Max behind you, whose hand was in Lucas’ other one. “I see Sinclair just loves to steal everything under my nose.” He kept slowly stepping forward, pressing the group of you back and against the kitchen counter until he was nose to nose with you, his eyes dangerously flicking back and forth between your angry eyes and your lips.

The intimacy, or really lack thereof, of how close he was to you caused you to involuntarily shiver. Besides your brother and Jonathan as well as your father, you had not been in such close proximity to a guy in a long time. In other situations, you think you might relish the attention and the thought of a guy wanting to be this close to you. But not here. Not with the guy who is giving you the attention is the infamous Billy Hargrove, man with a different woman in his bed every night, Keg King, frigging chain smoker, nothing that your nose or your mind really wanting to think about.

“How about you,” You paused and pushed the kids to your right as you also kicked Billy in the knee. “Stay the fuck away from my family!” Lucas pulled the others along further from the two of you, Max’s hand in his hand while Dustin followed behind. “Get to the car!” You called after them before you felt someone grabbed hold of your arm, yanking you back from following; spinning around, you saw Billy was beyond pissed at this point.

“I’m gonna teach you a little something called respect.” His words were quiet, but the threat behind his words reverberated in you like he screamed through a megaphone into your ear. His eyes had grown dangerously dark, no longer the clear blue eyes that stared at you before, but now they looked like the sky as a storm was thundering.

“Hargrove! Not unless I teach it to you first.” Billy and you turned to the voice as it kept speaking and you felt Billy’s grip loosened as he was flung onto the floor with the swift punch to the nose from Steve. “Y/N, get outta here!” Steve didn’t even take the time to look at you before he knelt down and dealt another punch to Billy’s face.

You didn’t need to be told twice to run as you followed the kids, hearing them arguing in the hallway. “No! We need to go back to help Y/N!” Excuse me I don’t want to die because of Billy!” “But we can’t leave your sister!” “Billy is gonna kill me! I wanna live till next Halloween thank you very much!”

As you rounded the corner, more crashing came from behind you, a further point telling the kids to book it out of there. “Idiots, run!” You shouted as more crashing came and the two wrestling boys tumbled through the hallway, Billy trying to pursue while Steve worked at keeping him back.

You skid to a stop and spun around after seeing the kids finally listening, hearing the commotion. Billy’s back was turned to you as Steve had hold of Billy’s collar, shaking him back and forth, maybe trying to make him dizzy? It didn’t seem to work when you saw Billy raising his hand and rushing a fist across Steve’s face, reopening the gash on his nose and adding another to his cheek. Hargrove’s plan worked in taking Steve down and he drew back to slam him with his fist again and again. “No!”

You jumped onto Billy’s back and wrapped your arms around his neck trying to get him in some form of a choke hold while also working on getting your legs to snake around his torso and keeping his legs from moving any further. That didn’t work as well as you planned it would; while you were able to get your arms securely around his neck, he was able to keep his legs free and managed to walk his way over to the corner where the hallway met the family room. You felt his neck contract under your arm, you honestly thought he was coughing against you, trying to breath only for you to tighten your grip further.

His adam’s apple rubbed against your arm as you worked on wrapping your legs further around him, trying to place your heel into his crotch to take him down. “Re-re-res-” He gasped out, still moving towards the intersection of the hallways. His speaking threw you off, what was he trying to say? But as always, curiosity kills the cat. “Respect.”

Your arm loosened enough for you to try to hear what he had to say, but as you did so, you felt your body get slammed into a corner, you back felt like it was being stabbed as the point was driven into you. The air rushed out of you as black spots danced in your vision; your body went slack with your arms letting go of Billy’s neck while your legs lost their grip on his waist, letting your body fall to the ground in a daze.

The next few minutes left your mind completely fuzzy and you had no idea how time went.

There was an insane ringing in your ears that was louder than your thoughts and the things around you.

Your body had gone numb and you could only feel your heart pounding in your chest and the air trying to enter your lungs.

You couldn’t move anything.

Your eyes were throbbing, working their hardest to get you to see anything; you could see, but then you couldn’t.

Nothing was connecting to your brain and your body was reacting in overdrive to get the brain to respond.

At one point, you thought you saw Lucas hovering over you, shaking your shoulders maybe? Or maybe your body was having a seizure and moving itself?

Lucas’ mouth was moving; was he talking to you? Screaming? And your body was shaking again.

Lucas and Dustin were both over you now. Lucas was scared, but Dustin looked like he was about to break down crying. Why was he crying? Was he okay?

You were able to feel your arm again. With your shaking hand, you were able to reach up enough to touch Dustin’s cheek with your fingertips, they were wet. Why were they wet?

Dustin’s face was all scrunched up while he took your hand in his and held onto it for dear life. His mouth was moving too, like Lucas’s but they must have forgotten how to talk. Or maybe you forgot how to listen?

Your eyes stopped working for a second, you couldn’t see anything. Everything was fuzzy beyond recognition. Black was everywhere. Was this the Upside-Down that Will was talking about?

You were back in sophomore year. You would remember this year for the rest of your life. Memories leapt before your eyes. You walking into your first class of high school. Being in Biology with Nancy and Barb. You going to a basketball game.

You were like every other high school girl when you first saw Steve Harrington. Gawking and looking at how cute he was. There never seemed to be an awkward phase for him, he was always attractive and the star basketball player in high school. Everyone wanted to be his girlfriend, and you were no exception.

Images flashed ahead, to when the unexpected happened.

It began with Steve sitting next to you during English sophomore year. You thought nothing of it at first, because it was just another seat. Inside you were freaking out because you know, STEVE HARRINGTON IS SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU. But you kept yourself contained.

He went against what you thought would happen. That stupid pencil thing actually happened. You dropped your pencil in class and quietly groaned to yourself before stretching over the arm of your chair to try and grab the writing implement when someone else grabbed it.

You didn’t even notice that it had fallen in Steve’s direction until he picked up the pencil and extended it back to you. “Drop things here often?” He had his cutesy little grin on his face that made his eyes shine and your heart flutter. And you in your naive state just giggled at him like a child, not used to this kind of attention from a guy, especially a guy like Steve Harrington.

You saw more days pass by your eyes from the ending of summer to the beginning of Thanksgiving break. Steve had been slowly working his way into your life. The pencil was only the beginning. Any chance in English class he got, he took to talk to you, and he took the further step and began talking to you outside of English class. He would say hi to you in the hallways, wave at you from his place on the basketball court every time he got the ball through the hoop.

The final straw was when he came to your front door the first day, he could drive his car and asked to drive you to school. Your mom and dad were in shock while you were left in a melted puddle on the floor with a dark blush on your face that he would think to come to you first when he got his car. By this point, you knew this crush you had like every other girl in the high school had flittered away and you knew, well you thought, maybe you...loved him?

Was love too strong of a word to tell someone you weren’t married to or at least was dating? You didn't know. Steve was kind to you; he appreciated your help but didn’t come to you because he needed help like the other kids in your grade. He saw something in you that apparently had him wanting to be your friend and he went out of his way to be in your presence.

He got his license the Thursday before Thanksgiving Break. He drove you to school that Friday morning. He asked you to Snowball that afternoon next to his car.

For you, the stars were aligning and making it a bit obvious that Steve liked you. And you really liked Steve. What could go wrong?

Thanksgiving is what went wrong.

You didn’t expect him to pick you up on Monday, just cause you two never said anything of it, and your mother was more than happy to drive you the Monday after break. But when Steve wasn’t at your locker before first period, you were worried. ‘Maybe he just overslept, thinking it was another day of vacation and he would be here by English. He was there during English.

He came over to his normal seat next to you and you smiled up at him, but he didn’t make any sign that he noticed you. You felt hurt at first but pushed past it as the teacher began teaching. The class went unbearably slow as you kept glancing over at Steve. He was doodling in the corner of his notebook. He did that all the time, so it wasn’t much of a surprise about him using his lead on these mindless doodles. Usually it would be of a funny bird or the teacher in a small comic, but today, you saw something that completely shut you down.

A name over and over again with small hearts all around it. Then there were more, some just the name, others the name followed by Harrington. Others were preceded by ‘I love’.

Nancy.

The name you never expected to see. The name you would soon begin to associate with the dropping feeling in your stomach. The name you would begin to mull over for months.

Why Nancy? What happened? Were you not good enough? What did you do wrong? Why her? Why not you? Why him and her? Why did any of this happen?

why?

The bell rang and you sprung out of your seat, running out the door to your next class. You didn’t get to see Steve watch you leave, a frown on his face as he looked at the doodles, he had to draw on the sides of his paper, all of them ones he hated as he continued to draw them. But it had to be done.

You saw what you needed to see, you got the message and never looked in Steve’s direction again. You hung around Nancy and you began to see him flirting with her, in ways that he never did with you. But she didn’t say yes right away. Was that what you did wrong? Were you too easy?

Were you too easy for him, he got what he wanted, and he moved on?

But you two did literally nothing, the only thing he did was ask you to a dance.

Was that all he wanted? To make fun of you behind the scenes with his new buddies Carol and Tommy H.? To get a naive little girl’s hopes up about a guy liking her?

Obviously, that’s all he wanted from you.

You never spoke to Steve again after that. And he didn’t talk to you. You both respectfully ignored each other and pretended the other one wasn’t there unless Nancy or Jonathan was present, then they would just talk to someone else and they could continue ignoring each other until the end of time.

You opened your eyes again and was able to see. Dustin was gone. Where was Lucas? You reached your hand out, you were alone with the room.

Something grabbed onto your hand, something you couldn’t see right away. Lulling your head to the side, you saw what had hold of your hand.

The kids stood in the distance, Dustin’s hat standing out from the Byers wallpapered living room. Max’s red hair gave her away. Lucas was not standing there though, he was kneeling next to you, his eyes looked like they were very wide in his head and he was leaning on his hands as he tried getting closer to you.

Following your hand, you traced your arm up to your hand and saw someone’s fingers laced with your own. Their arm was covered in a denim jacket and led further up and show you a face. Their mouth was moving again, this time you could almost hear what they were saying. Going higher on their face, their brown eyes were ones that shouldn’t have worry in them.

You and Steve stared at each other for a time, things were slowly starting to come to you again; your back felt like you had been hit by a bulldozer, your head was pounding and there was now a steady poking going on in the base of your skull. You could feel Steve slowly and methodically squeezing your hand with his. You watched as he pulled your hand up to his mouth and pressed his lips to the back of it.

“Come on, Y/N, if you can hear me, I need you to squeeze my hand.” Steve whispered onto the back of your hand, keeping it close to his mouth where you could feel his breath brush across the you. Him and the kids had been trying to you to respond to them for the last five minutes, but they hadn’t been able to get you to say or do anything.

You gave them a scare a few minutes ago when your eyes rolled into the back of your head and they barely got you to breathe again. Steve pushed the kids back and took your hand, trying to talk you back into waking up again. Over and over again he spoke softly to you, telling you to just squeeze his hand.

Finally feeling like your body was back in control, your fingers tightened, it may not have felt much stronger than the tips of your fingers clenching tighter around his, but he felt it, nonetheless. “Holy shit.”

“Language.” You rasp out with a smile on your face; the kids all screamed behind him, Dustin and Max were hugging each other while grabbing onto Lucas and pulling him in too. Steve gasped out in shock; his breathing shaky but he was still able to chuckle at you telling him how to talk around the kids.

“Don’t you ever do that again.” Steve muttered as he helped you sit up before he wrapped you in a hug, you were pretty much sitting on his lap and he hid his face in the name of your neck.

Today was a roller coaster of a day and you honestly having no clue how to just...deal with it all. Your arms were awkwardly tucked around you so you couldn’t exactly hug him back. But you wanted to. Your fingers found his shirt under his denim jacket and held onto the fabric. You could feel his heart racing under his shirt, and it didn’t feel like it was anywhere near slowing down. You also rested your still throbbing head against the side of his, letting him squeeze you a little too hard for your comfort but you honestly couldn’t really complain about the situation.

You two stayed there for a little while, just...wanting a moment of peace in this day of absolute craziness. Steve having his arms holding you to him as tightly as he could, his face hadn’t moved from hiding in your neck. His rhythmic breathing ran across your skin every few seconds, causing goose bumps to prickle around your neck. You had your forehead still pressed against his temple, your own exhaling and inhaling ran across his cheek, where you couldn’t see a blush darkening on his skin. His heart rate had finally slowed down a little, your hands still holding onto his shirt and close to the left side of his chest. The serenity of this situation was one that you never would have imagined happening to you, yet here it all was. Here you were. With Steve Harrington, nonetheless.

15-year-old you would have flipped and gone all heart eyes in the situation. But now…

You wanted to push everything away. Push Steve away, push these feelings away, push the past away. But you didn’t want to. You wanted to be selfish and enjoy what was happening. Enjoy the attention you have been extra jealous of Nancy having the past few days.

Nancy.

Shit you knew that Steve was dating Nancy, he couldn’t be here hugging you like this. He had a girlfriend.

“Steve.” You shuffled yourself away from him, guilt filling your gut as you began to think about Nancy. He looked up at you with a little red in his eyes, probably from Billy punching him. “We have to go.” You whispered to him. Even if you didn’t want to end this moment, someone had to.

He nodded and stood up, not seeing how you felt or understanding why you pushed him away. “You are feeling okay?”

“As okay as I’ll ever be after I’ve been slammed into a wall.”

Steve chuckled quietly and took your hand to help you stand up; you were still wobbly on your feet and with no balance, you managed to fall straight into Steve’s embrace yet again. “Well hello again.” His smile was back on his face and the worry was gone from his eyes, but he was still in high alert and this time did notice when you pulled yet again away from him. “You sure you’re okay?”

You nodded and stepped toward the door, but the brunette hadn’t let go of your hand yet. “Steve, please let me go.” Steve’s number one give away was you not wanting to look at him, and he watched you try walking off, you definitely weren’t fine enough to be walking without help.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, Steve. I just want to go before Billy wakes up again with an even stronger vengeance.” Still wouldn’t look at him.

Harrington resorted to tugging gently at your arm that you were pulling back on, just hard enough to have to turn around and look at him. Your eyes were a matching set to his: red rimming the edges, a thick gloss all around your Y/E/C irises along with an obvious collection at the bottom, you were ready to cry. “Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.” He finally let go of your hand as he walked closer to you, stopping when you stepped back, not yet running away from him, but he saw that you didn't want him near you. “Y/N, what’s wrong?”

You didn’t answer right away, he was standing in front of you, obviously wanting to hug you, comfort you. But you couldn't. As much as you wanted to feel him hug you again, you couldn’t do that, not to Nancy. “Nancy.”

“Nan-wait what does Nancy have to do with anything?” Steve was now beyond confused.

“She’s your girlfriend. You can’t keep messing with me and making me want to date you and being nice to me and making me want to forget about sophomore year and every time I get over you, you somehow come back into my life, making me want to date you even harder than the time before and it's not fair to Nancy. But I hate you every time I see you because I like you so much. And I fucking hate what you did to me, but I still can’t help almost feeling like I might move you.” By the end of your emotional word vomit, your voice broke off into a quiet whisper. You stared at the ground with tears rolling down your face nonstop at this point, you were just letting yourself cry with all this frustration you were feeling towards him. It felt nice to get this all out, but maybe not to his face directly.

A beat of silence fell between you and you were starting to feel the awkwardness when Steve ran the tips of his fingers over your cheek. Out of instinct, you cringed away. “Y/N,” He stepped closer again, but you were frozen to where you were standing, you kept yourself there rather than running away, but you didn’t like up at him. “You weren’t kidding when you said they were ignoring you too.”

You finally looked up at him and saw him standing a hands length away from you, enough to give you space, but you could definitely see the small blue speckles in his beautiful brown eyes. “Can you please just forget I ever said any of it, I thought I made it clear two years ago how I felt, and I really don’t want to go through all that pain again.”

“Well, maybe if you tried talking to me, you won’t have to repeat anything?” His answer took you by surprise, not really what you were expecting from someone you just told you had been crushing on for three years and that they were currently unavailable to date. You watched his eyes, trying, just trying to see what was going on in his head. “You know, I really was a dick in high school.”

“You could say that again.” A laugh pushed through your crying, more or less you were just making sputtering noises as you felt Steve wrap your hands with his own, with you not pulling away from him this time.

“I would like to blame the fact that Tommy H. was an asshole but why say something everyone already knew.” You laughed at this again. “But, sophomore year I...about the Snowball. I...well…” He sighed and stared at the wall next to you two, trying to think his thoughts out before he probably said something he would definitely regret. His thumb began slowly rubbing the back of your hand, causing more shivers to run up your body and sending a warm happy feeling in your brain.

Not even during sophomore year did you ever hold hands or anything, the most you two did was hug. Maybe that should have been a sign, but as a young little sophomore, you weren’t worried about PDA or having someone hold your hand or anything like that.

“I can’t say anything except that my dad and Tommy both pressured me to do something I didn’t want to do.” He paused, again thinking. “My dad didn’t like how I was falling behind in basketball; I would skip practices to study with you, missing more points or rebounds because I was searching for you in the first quarter of a game to be sure I could wave at you when I scored. He knew who you were too, heard me on the phone with you a few times. He told me he would take my car away if I kept seeing you after break.”

He looked back to you and saw you had your head tilted towards the left a little, he thought you were too cute. “And then Tommy took me to my first party that Tuesday and he got into my head about how I needed to go after the prettiest girl in our class to him. He told me that you were too plain for the Keg King to be dating apparently. So much so that he pushed me to just ignore you otherwise he would tell the whole school about my hair.”

“Your hair?” You chuckled at him, but still had a feeling of shock. “You broke sixteen-year-old me’s heart because you didn’t want people to know you use Farrah Fawcett Hair Spray? I lost to your hair?” You were more chuckling out of pain of the situation you realized you were in during your younger years.

“Yes?” He shut his eyes in shame and waited for you to respond to this. “I had my priorities in the wrong place back then, okay? I thought having a car would make me cooler and then Tommy using my Kingship against me and then my hair on top of it, I was a mess until last year.”

You left yourself to think for a little longer, think about what he said, what apparently was happening during those days when you felt so isolated and alone because you couldn’t tell anyone what was happening without revealing what Steve was drawing in his margins. “That still doesn’t explain why you are being really nice to me while you are currently dating Nancy.”

“Nancy and I...we um...broke up like three days ago.” Everything was hitting Steve almost as hard as it was hitting you.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, it was all ‘bullshit’ to her anyway.” The venom and sadness in his voice gave away how Steve felt backstabbed inside. You look down at your locked hands and gave his a gentle but hopefully reassuring squeeze. He pulled his head back up and looked at you, brown mixing with Y/E/C while you smiled at him.

Steve stared back at you, he himself was happier seeing you smiling at him again, with this smile being one that finally reached your eyes, the familiar and much missed glitter dusted your eyes as the grin stayed on your face. He watched you smile up at him and felt the urge to just, kiss your forehead. Has he wanted to kiss you, like kiss you on the lips? Plenty of time, but he didn’t want to overstep any boundaries you two placed while sophomores, but from the first day he got you to laugh he had wanted to lean over your desk in English and kiss you.

That feeling and want hasn’t changed. Not in the two years he spent away from you, these feelings were resurfacing very quickly.

“Guys! It’s a code red! We need to get to Mike needs us to distract the Demodogs!” Dustin came running into the room with his eyes wide, not really saying much about seeing you and Steve standing so close while holding hands. “Come on! We need one of you two to drive us to the main hub thing!” Steve began to follow after Dustin when you stopped him with your still held hands.

“Yeah?” He turned around to see what you needed and was pleasantly surprised when you reached up and pressed a short and sweet kiss to his cheek. You walked past him with a grin and a blush rising up your face as you ran after the kids. He stood star struck for a few seconds before he broke out in a grin and ran after you guys, calling driving Billy’s Camaro since his car was left at Mike’s house when they regrouped a while ago.

You climbed into the shotgun passenger seat and couldn’t wipe the grin off your face as you drove to the pumpkin patch Hopper got stuck in hours ago. Even with the situation that was going on with the Upside-Down fighting back, it felt good to get gold for the first time in forever.

By the time morning slowly rolled around, the five of you had heard from Mike and Will that the Mind Flayer had been purged from Will’s body, you were all crowding around Dustin’s walkie talkie all on channel 33, waiting for confirmation from Hopper and El that the gate was closed.

Half an hour had passed between hearing that the Mind Flayer had left Will and where you were currently waiting in the middle of a field of rotten pumpkins. You all didn’t want to move for fear of losing connection in some of the denser areas of the forest leading back into Hawkins, so you voted on staying put. But the waiting was making all of you anxious, nothing was being said and Dustin kept calling through but still to no avail in hearing a response.

“What if they didn’t make it? What if they fell down the chasm and died? What if the Demodogs ate them? What if Hopper tripped and pushed El over the edge and she’s just falling endlessly, and she is just stuck in a state of endless falling?!” Lucas was getting jumpy standing next to you; he wouldn’t stop pacing and it was starting to get on your nerves.

“Lucas.” You wrapped your arms around him and got him to stop moving by hugging him tightly to you. “You need to calm down. Yes, Hopper is very clumsy, but I don’t think he would accidentally push El down a hole in the ground. They probably are on their way back up and got stuck in a touchy spot. Or hey, maybe they lost the walkie and that’s the worst thing that has happened to them.”

You held Lucas where you were for a while longer, your chin on top of his head while you let him turn himself around to be able to face the rest of the group. Your arms were around his shoulders with his hands holding onto your forearms near his neck. The two of you started to sway in place and he moved to balance his feet on top of yours. “Haven’t done this in a while.” You chuckled at him, not moving your head and you began to move the two of you around with your feet. It was much harder than you remember it being when he was younger. “I think you’ve gotten fat, Lucas. This wasn’t this hard last year.” The grin on your face gave away how ready you were to get an angry exclamation out of him for your comment.

“Y/N! I am not fat! I am just muscular!” You threw your head back and cackled as you kept him from wiggling away from you, muscular my ass.

The radio started crackling in Dustin’s hands, it sounded like someone was trying to call through. “He-anyo-earme-hell-any-Hello!” Hopper’s voice finally broke through and everyone screamed at Dustin to answer him.

“Curly Bird to Chiefy Bird, has the target been vanquished?” Dustin called into the radio.

“What? Who is this?”

“This is Curly-this is Dustin! Hopper did you close the gate?” There was a beat between answers and all of you were on the edges of your seats while waiting for an answer.

“You bet your middle school ass we did!”

Screams filled the night in joy as you all congratulated each other and cheered in victory at beating the Mind Flayer. Lucas broke free and tackled Dustin and Max in joy while Steve leapt in the air in excitement before running over to you and lifted you up in a hug while spinning you around. “We did it! We survived!”

You laughed in happiness as you wrapped your arms around his neck to keep you stable and cheered with him. “Goodbye and good riddance!” Steve put you down and grinned at you, bouncing on the heels of his feet before he was taken down by a charging Dustin. You turned around and caught Lucas as he ran over and hugged you as well.

The group of you continued to celebrate what only fifteen people in Hawkins would ever know happened, but you all deserve to be happy for once.

<<<>>>

A month has passed since what happened at Hawkins Lab and things were starting to fall into place again. All but one piece.

Returning to your normal schooling routines, you were met with a very familiar situation of hanging out with Nancy only to be left alone by her whenever Jonathan called for her. You were happy for her, to be with Jonathan, but that feeling slowly started to creep into your life again. And it wasn’t just Nancy.

Lucas was also a part of it; it began when he would skip out on driving with you to ask for Steve to drive him instead. For the party, the kids started to turn to Steve for their rides, for candy runs, for Family Movie rental runs.

Things were starting to fall back into place for everyone's lives, and that includes you falling back to second best. This time, it didn’t hurt as much, it still hurt, but it was the sad reality that you had gotten used to being here. It was good for a set of time to be closer to the top of being chosen, but you also knew deep down that that wouldn’t stay. But you had a better time taking it now, not taking everything personally. For some reason, seeing your life flash before your eyes more than once really can put things into perspective.

The only one who ever came back to you was surprisingly Dustin. It was a surprise the first time he called your guys family phone and asked you to pick him up instead of hitching a ride with Steve like your brother was doing that night. But it really was a nice surprise.

Dustin calling you and asking to hang out with you is what kept you afloat some days. Others were good even without him. It was a blessing having Dustin be a better brother than yours ever was.

Tonight was the Snowball and your mother wouldn’t stop taking pictures of poor Lucas. He obviously just wanted to go, but she had to make sure that her little precious baby boy had these memories for forever. You just smirked from the hallway in your jeans and sweatshirt, happily comfortable to not have to go to a dance like this ever again.

“Okay, have fun sweetie! I love you Lucas! Bye Y/N!” You mom called behind you as you lead your poor and scarred brother to your car to drive him to the middle school. You waved at your mother and drove off, the car being rather quiet.

“You look like you’re going to a funeral with how tensed you are.” You teased, trying to get something out of him, but he sat quietly in the passenger seat. “You okay over there, bud?”

“What if I ask Max to dance and she just says no?” He shouted the words before you even finish your sentence, this obviously been poking at his mind for a while now. “Cause like I can’t ask you about this because you’ve never been asked to a dance so you would have no experience with what I’m worried about. And I can’t ask you because you would just say something nice like why anyone would say no to you, but you have never had to worry about this because no one has ever been interested in you and…”

He continued talking, but your brain shut him out after what he said. That was a gut punch you were not at all expecting from him, that kind of an insult. I mean, it’s true that you had never been asked to a dance besides the epic fail of sophomore year, but that didn’t mean that he got to call you out on it.

You let him babble for the rest of the ride to school and told him bye before he left you alone in the car. And then it was another quiet ride home where you don't want to think about anything at all that would remind you of what he just said.

Stepping in the door, you shut it behind you and marched upstairs and shut the door quietly behind you, bidding your family a good night and locking the wood behind you. You pressed your back against the door and stared at the window in your room. It honestly could be that easy...just open the window, climb out and....

You stood up and slowly walked over to the glass pane that kept the cold Indiana winter out; opening it, you felt the cold rush over you, blood rushing to your cheeks to keep them warm. You swung one leg over the window ledge and…

Steve drove by your house and stared at it. He had been avoiding this talk for a month now and didn’t know if that was the best of ideas. Staring at the facade of the building, he looked to where your room and saw the window was wide open.

Squinting in curiosity, Steve shut his car off and got out, going over to see if you were in there and why you would want the cold to infiltrate your room so willingly. He trudged through the layer of snow that had been littering all of Hawkins and was under your window, the snow around the square had been displaced, looking like you had opened the window recently. The brunette looked around, finding a water drainage pipe leading up right by your window, he grinned as he walked over and grabbed hold of it before crawling up the side of the house, using the piping as a means of keeping himself attached to the fake wooden exterior.

After much struggling and ninjaing later, Steve finally made it to the ledge of your window and peeked inside. Huh. You weren’t there. The lights were on, but the door seemed closed and you weren’t hiding anywhere that he could see. He swiveled around as best as he could and looked for your car, yup, it was in the driveway, so you were here. Were you just not in your room?

His fingers were starting to ache from holding onto a cold pipe and it was easier to finish his climb to the roof rather than to scale back down to the ground. Upon getting to the roof, he (oh so smoothly) swung his leg up and shimmied his way up, again very ninja like, and took a seat on the shingles, his fingers and legs happy that he was not using them in this moment.

“If I had known that I would be expecting company, I would have made better arrangements, like a blanket.” A voice spoke quietly behind him; hearing someone speak behind him caused Steve to almost jump off the roof in surprise. Whipping around, Steve was surprised to see you behind him, sitting on the roof in a small circle of snow that had been cleared away to let you not sit in frozen water.

You smiled tiredly over at him with your crossed arms resting on your knees that were being hugged up to your chest. He smiled back as he stood up and walked over to you before he began to push snow out of the way like you did right next to you. “Come up here often?”

Chuckling, you turn your head to look up at him, giving him a better view of your face. “It’s not like you haven’t used that one on me before.” He noticed that you still had your smile on your face, but it hadn’t made it to your eyes yet, and that made him upset. Not again. He didn’t want to see you broke and defeated ever again.

“What are the odds that I can get you to talk?” Harrington asked as he finally took his seat next to you, sitting shoulder to shoulder with you.

“Depending on how much of a sad story you want to hear.” His eyes never left you for the next few minutes before he answered, wanting to watch you before he said anything. You weren’t even looking at him, your eyes were fixed on the sky, to which he turned as well, trying to see what you would be looking at.

“Well I have until 11 when I have to pick Dustin up from his dance, so I got a few hours to spare.” He heard you chuckle at this, but he too began to gaze at the sky, seeing stars peeking out from the clouds that were predicted to drop more snow, so says the weatherman, but when was he ever right?

He was so fixed on staring at the stars, that he almost missed your response. “Do you think the stars ever feel overshadowed by the moon?” He hummed in curiosity, wanting her to explain further. “Like, the moon is so much closer to us, and it changes all the time, going from full to new and everything in between. But the stars just stay there. I mean, they are amazing, but we get so used to them that we just let them slip by and forget about them a lot. So, do you think the stars ever feel overshadowed by the moon?”

Steve looked back over at you and saw you now looking down, your chin and mouth hiding in your knees while you just stared at your driveway. “Don’t you remember that every star is a sun to other planets. So I feel like every star has someone looking at it like it’s the sun to them.”

“But how can you be sure?” You voice had faded to a shuttering whisper, blocked by your knees and lost in the wind that blew by.

“Because I’m looking at you and you are the brightest thing in my life, and you are my star.” You looked over to Steve and you saw him staring at you. He was right though, he was looking at you like you were the center of the universe, like everything orbited you, he was looking at you with love in his eyes. He was looking at you like Jonathan looked at Nancy, but this was Steve looking at you.

Your face grew a dark shade of red, not able to look away from him while he moved closer to you. All you could do was watch him, what else could you do when he literally just said that. “No one’s ever said something like that to me. Everyone sees me as second best.”

Steve sent you a small grin before he leaned over and pressed a kiss to your forehead. You squeezed your eyes shut, feeling tears starting to prick at them; you loved this. You needed something like this, especially right now. Inadvertently, you leaned into the kiss he was giving you, until he pulled away and you laid your head on his shoulder. “Second best doesn’t mean second place; it just means you had to wait for something better than what the first placers got. And now you got me.”

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