#i made a version without the blood bc ik not everyone likes that

[inkymaws]

lookit,, it enderboy,,, ranboo my beloved

i see so many ranboo designs that r practically human so i decided it was enderwalker time. let the boy unhinge his jaw like a snake! its what he deserves!

(this def isnt a criticism of u guys! all love :] i adore every bit of ranboo art i see. all of us who draw ranboo r inherently sexy and awesome and super cool and sexy and awesome)

[sortagaysortahigh]

Time Bomb | Pope Heyward

Hiiii guys, I might do a part 2 to this because idk I feel like it’s missing something. But it’s kinda based on this req! I changed the readers home life a tad bit bc ik i have a lot of fics with the same type of scenarios, but idk how it turned out.

Warnings: Underage drinking, mentions of alcoholism, cussing, mentions of drug use, violence, mentions of blood if you squint, abandonment, spelling & grammar errors

Word count: 4.2k

Fem!Reader x Pope Heyward

A ticking time bomb. 

That’s what people called you, never giving you a chance to prove them wrong. It started when everyone found out about your mom leaving. Then your dad sold his business and lost his interest in everything-well except for drinking-which left you. His only daughter, the one that used to be his pride and joy, alone. You two barely spoke, he was never home and when he was he was too drunk to hold a conversation-or really hold himself together.

He wasn’t always like that, when your mother left it ruined him, and in turn it ruined you. You were a straight A student, excelling in anything you put your mind to, your parents always told you they were proud of you and that you were their pride and joy. You never expected your mother to leave, no one did, and with a business as successful as your fathers they thought she would stick to him like a leech. But she did.

She left a few days after your thirteenth birthday, not a single goodbye, no one knew the reason, and word spread fast on the island, starting at figure eight and making its way to the cut. When your father sold his business he claimed that the two of you would be ‘set for life’ and that it was ‘a new beginning’, but then he started leaving, taking trips to other countries to do God knows what, and that's when the drinking started. Every time he would come back he would drink more, and more, which is what led him to become what he was now.

The drunk man that you barely recognized. Of course when word spread the Kooks all tried to shame you, bringing it up at any chance, shunning you. Throwing the fact that your mother left you in your face over and over again, reminding you of the pain she put you and your father through, until one day you couldn’t handle it. You threw the first punch, and that first fight seemed like nothing during your freshman year at the Kook academy, but one fight turned into ten, and ten turned into twenty, and it was like you couldn’t go a day without a verbal or physical fight with someone. 

You hated school, you hated everyone, and everyone hated you. The only real escape you had was going to the Cut to see Heyward-the only real male role model in your life, but even then people still brought up your mother and your father everyday. Saying how sad it was, or how horrible you must feel, or how much of a disappointment that was for you. Then there were the people that said your mother made a good choice, leaving a man like your father-except your father wasn’t always the way he was now, that was your mother's fault. 

Not to mention the people who said it was a good thing your mother left, because they’d only known this version of you-the violent, aggressive, and defiant version. They didn’t know you before she left, they didn’t remember the straight A student that wouldn’t hurt a fly and always had the same goofy smile plastered on her face. They only knew the numb version of you, the one that thought there was no hope left for herself. The one that watched her father turn into an incoherent drunk, and the one that was probably going to end up just like him, living off of trust fund money and hating everything about being alive.

Everyday you woke up and checked to see if your father was home, today was no different, he wasn’t in his room and he wasn’t passed out anywhere in the house. A few half-empty bottles littered the living room, kitchen, and his bedroom so you knew he had left, traveling somewhere to get away from the house that reminded him too much of your mother, to get away from you. 

You remembered the first time he told you he didn’t want to look at you-that he couldn’t look at you. He told you that you were the spitting image of her and it disgusted him to see you, that he hated looking at you because it reminded him of the woman that left him, leaving him to shatter into a million pieces. Sure it hurt the first time, but now everytime he was too drunk he’d remind you that you looked like her, that she was a piece of shit-that you were a piece of shit. 

It was three in the afternoon, you had a late night, well more like you stayed up until five am crying, then throwing things and wrecking your bedroom while screaming, only to clean everything up and go to sleep after. Your breakdowns were normal, you were hurting, but you didn’t have a healthy way to deal with the pain, and you didn’t want to rely on alcohol for the pain-it was what your father did-and it disgusted you. Some days you’d get so high that you forgot your first name, but you hated that version of yourself more than the sober version of yourself.

Things were difficult for you, you hardly had any friends, half of the island looked down on you, and the other half always felt the need to bring up your trauma. Things weren’t exactly easy for you, but still you managed to wake up everyday. Just like today, looking for your father, taking a shower, throwing on a random shirt and spandex, throwing on a random pair of shoes, eating a lackluster breakfast, finding your keys then making your way to Heywards. Throughout the summer it was the only place you felt-almost-normal.

Usually Heyward stopped people mid-sentence when they brought up your parents, or your fights, or your attitude. He forced people to stop speaking about you in a negative manner, he remembered you as a kid, he worked for your father, and he would always bring his son to work with him so you had a friend to spend time with.

Pope Heyward was something else, he was a character, he was intelligent, he was kind, he was compassionate, he was a weirdo at times, but overall he was Pope, and he’d been your childhood best friend. The two of you would spend hours chasing each other through your backyard, or being irresponsible and sneaking around onto boats, or have movie marathons, or just sit and talk about life-even as kids the both of you would go on for hours about what you wanted to do when you grew up, how you wanted to travel the world, and go to college, and climb mountains.

Pope was your friend before anything, hell he was your first friend, and even after your downward spiral started he was still there, to hold you while you cried, to remind you that you weren't a bad person, to let you rant, to help you clean up the aftermath of one of your breakdowns, to clean up your cuts and bruises from a fight, to drive you home when you started crying while driving somewhere. He was always there for you. People had even told him that you were a lost cause, but he knew it wasn’t true. He remembered you as a kid, he remembered your crooked smile, and your rambunctious personality, he remembered it all. And he knew it was still there, but you had walls built up, you wanted to protect yourself. 

He knew you were fragile. He knew that no matter how hard you tried to act tough, things always hit home for you. That’s why you were so reactive. He’d seen you get in countless fights, he’d stopped you from fighting people, he’d dragged you out of fights, hell he even had to punch some guy in the face once for trying to hit you. 

Pope was your friend. He was one of your only friends. You needed him in your life, he reminded you of when things were still okay, when your father still loved you, when your mother was still around to hug you and kiss the top of your forehead, telling you that you were her baby and she would always be there for you. She was a liar, but Pope reminded you of the times when she wasn’t a liar, the times when your life was normal.

He introduced you to his friends after your mother left, saying that you needed to meet more people-people that wouldn’t treat you like shit for something you had no control over. He said that you’d love John B Routledge and JJ Maybank. Saying that they were down to earth and that they didn’t care where you were from as long as you were genuine, not some stuck up asshole like the ones that littered figure eight.

He was right, you instantly clicked with the boys, some days you thought about how your life would be if Pope had never introduced you to them. You knew that if he hadn’t you would’ve fallen faster into your spiral, and that the two of you probably wouldn't be friends because you knew you weren’t just destructive-you were self destructive. You were the kind of person to push people away, forcing them to hate you, but the thing about the pogues was that they didn’t care.

They gave you your space when you needed it, but other than that, they made it known that you couldn’t get rid of them, no matter how hard you tried. They knew what it was like to lose people that they loved, especially losing their mother, whether it was because she chose not to be in their life, or if she died. They knew that you were hurting, and they were always there for you, Pope dragging them to your house and using the spare key to make sure that you were okay.

The three of them helped to bring you out of your destructive and depressive state, helping you clean-hell they didn’t even clean up after themselves half the time-but for you? They’d clean the entire house. You loved them.

When Kiara started hanging around you all you were mad, she was a kook, you thought she was just like everyone else-the ones that treated you like shit. But she wasn’t. Pope convinced you that she wasn’t, he made you give her a chance, and you were glad he did. She helped to level the guys out, but she also gave you a shoulder to cry on, never asking questions, never bringing up anything that she’d heard around the kook academy about you, never making assumptions about you.

You parked your father’s suburban and walked into Heywards, hearing the shopkeepers bell ring and searching through the crowd of people for a few familiar faces. When you spotted a familiar head of blonde hair next to a head of black curls you smiled, walking towards them, leaning against the counter and raising your brows.

“Hi boys” the two of them looked at you, at first they smiled at your cheery tone-then their eyes scanned over your face, noticing the bags under your eyes, seeing how your hair was messier than usual, your lips were slightly chapped, and you had bruises on your knuckles. You watched their faces drop and you knew they knew about your episode.

“Are you alright?” you shrugged at the blonde looking down at your bruised and calloused hands. “I’m better than I was last night” he sighed, walking around the counter and pulling you into a hug. He smelled like saltwater, a dash of irish spring, and a hint of weed-the classic JJ Maybank scent. You let out a breath of air, letting him hold you, making you relax. 

“Y’know you’re supposed to call us to talk you down from things” you shrugged against him. “I forgot” he rubbed small circles into your back comforting you, you leaned your head against his shoulder, knowing that he knew you were lying, you never forgot-you just always thought that you’d be okay, that you didn’t need to bother them. 

“Hey no hugging on the job, get back to work Maybank” you laughed hearing Heyward’s voice, JJ scoffed and mocked Heyward under his breath while going back behind the counter. Heyward took notice of your current state and replaced JJ, he held you the same way your father used to hold you before everything happened, he was the only real role model you had left. When he felt you sniffle he sighed, rubbing the back of your head and letting you cry. 

“Shhh, it’s okay sweetheart, I know things get hard sometimes, just know you always have a place at our dinner table, and you’ll always have a place in my shop-the free labors appreciated” you laughed against him and smiled pulling back to wipe the tears from your cheeks and smiled at him. “Thank you Heyward” he pat both of your shoulders and smiled at you “No problem, now make sure my lazy ass son and his ungrateful friend do their jobs” you laughed at him, watching him walk towards the back, then shifting your gaze to Pope-who had been staring at you since you walked in.

“You want some gum?” he pulled out a pack of your favorite gum from his pocket making you smile and laugh at him, nodding your head and walking back behind the counter, taking the gum from him. You leaned your head against his shoulder while he went over the delivery receipts from the morning. Absentmindedly chewing the gum while listening to him repeat the order totals to himself, making sure his math was right. “You’re off by twenty-two” he looked at you then back over the numbers.

“What are you talking about” you looked down at the sheet, pointing to the total that caused his slight error. “That brings you up twenty-two” he looked back down, repeating all of the numbers, doing the mental math and let out an ‘ohh’ leading you to giggle. Pope smiled, he knew you were smart-hell sometimes he thought you were smarter than him, but the sound of a genuine giggle coming from you reassured him that you were okay for the time being.

He always worried about you, he was a natural worrier but something about you only intensified it. You were his childhood best friend, he was there with you through everything, he was the first person you called when your mother left, when you woke up that morning and realized that she was gone-for good. He’d always put himself on the line for you, he didn’t care. You were his everything.

He realized he had feelings for during your sophomore year of highschool, and now going into your senior year things hadn’t really changed, if anything they only intensified. He remembered sitting on your roof with you, looking at you under the moonlight, listening to you tell him how much it hurt to see your father slipping into an abyss of nothing-ness, and the way that your mom leaving fucked him up to the point of no return. When you laid your head in his lap, looking up at the stars, he realized he had feelings for you, seeing you in one of your most vulnerable forms, it made his heart skip multiple beats. 

It’s the reason that he was always there whenever you called, dropping everything he was doing to make sure that you’d make it through the night without hurting yourself, or doing too much damage to your environment. He went with you to your first therapy session last month, he held your hand on the ferry ride and waited for you in the waiting room of the office. He listened to you tell him everything she told you, nodding his head and telling you that you’d feel better one day-that these current circumstances weren’t a forever thing.

But sometimes he saw you slip, after knowing you for years he recognized your small ticks, when you’d start biting at your cuticle beds, or when you would tap your left foot for too long, or when your hand wouldn't stop tucking and untucking the same piece of hair behind your ear, he knew when you weren’t okay, and he made it one of his priorities to make sure you would be okay. Hell he kept your favorite type of gum on him just so you’d have something small to cheer you up.

Some days it was hard to see you so broken, today was one of those days. He was somewhat jealous seeing JJ hold you, but he knew that it was innocent, JJ was the one that told him to make a move on you, multiple times. But he didn’t want to, he didn’t want you to think that he was just comforting you because he wanted to get in your pants. He’d seen guys do that to you in the past, and it disgusted him. 

“Kegger at the boneyard tonight?” You nodded your head at JJ’s question and Pope shrugged mumbling an ‘alright’ “Okay, I’ll call John B and Kie” you nodded and went back to leaning against Pope watching him run numbers and figure out what the past weeks totals had been. As much as he liked to act like his father was a hard ass, you knew that Pope loved his father, and you were always the first person to appreciate Heyward more because he was the father you wished you had. Sure he got on Pope sometimes, but he cared about Pope, and he worked his ass off to support Pope’s dreams.

Four hours passed and it felt like half an hour at most, the entire four hours you were there the three of you were throwing pens at each other and being childish, laughing and pretending to be doing actual work when Heyward would walk into the building. JJ had even gone as far as to say ‘Ay Ay Cap’n a hard day on the job’ and give Heyward a military salute which made him respond with ‘boy what the hell is wrong with you’.

You drove to the boneyard, picking up the keg on the way, Pope in the passenger seat and JJ in the back middle seat. Stating that ‘he had to be visible to both of you because he was the center of attention’. You always called JJ an attention whore, the two of you would laugh at it and he’d try to roast you, which would lead to you roasting him until he would say ‘okay okay I get it shit woman’. Your relationship with him was sacred to you because he always knew how to make you laugh, it was his thing. 

When the three of you arrived Kie hugged you and you gave a salute to John B, watching the boys grab the keg from your trunk and carry it onto the beach. Once everything was set up people made their way to the kegger, a few people starting up a bonfire, someone brought out a speaker this time-which was kind of odd but you shrugged, and people were getting drunk, trying to have a good day after a long day of doing who-knows-what. 

The Kooks always came late, they’d pull up in their expensive sports cars that made you all roll your eyes, then they’d make a beeline for the keg, lining up and waiting to be served without saying a word until a staring contest started. Then they’d usually scoff and ask for a cup. 

You stood next to John B at the keg, handing people drinks, ignoring their comments about you, and telling them to fuck off when they asked too many questions. But of course, someone always had to press things. That someone just happened to be the new bitch on Topper Thornton’s arm. You rolled your eyes at the two of them, trying to fight the urge to throw drinks at them. 

“Ah look if it isn’t y/n, how's your mother doing these days? She talk to you yet?” you ignored her and the grip on your cup tightened. “Topper get your bitch” the blonde scoffed at you making you roll your eyes. John B gave you a reassuring look and said something to Topper but you were too focused on not punching the fake-blonde across from you in the face.

“John B, I don’t know why you constantly stick up for her? She let you in her pants too? I heard she just sleeps around with all of the pogues” you didn’t know what went faster, the drink you threw or the first punch, but before you could process what was going on you were on top of her, repeatedly hitting her-until you felt two other bodies join the fight.

Before you could process that you were literally getting jumped, your body hit the ground, and you tried your best to block the hits to your face, feeling the hits to your ribs, trying to throw a few punches here and there. Then you heard John B’s voice, feeling one of the bodies get pulled away from you, then you noticed Kiara jump into the fight, dragging one of the other girls away from you, and finally you felt a very familiar grip on your waist, pulling you up and away from the fight. 

When you were far away enough you spat a mouthful of blood out onto the ground, looking back up at Pope in front of you, you raised a brow and flashed a somewhat sadistic smile. His eyes scanned over your figure, taking note of the sand in your hair, the blood drops on your shirt, your busted lip and your bloody teeth, then looking down at your arms, seeing a few scratches, and he knew you had a few forming bruises on your ribs after being kicked. 

“I look cute don’t I” your sarcastic tone made him run a hand over his face, he shook his head and started pacing back and forth. Making you groan, leaning back against-what you now realized-was Kie’s suburban. 

“Do you not realize how fucking seriously hurt you could’ve gotten?! Like did you not think about that at all? You’re always the first one to throw the first punch y/n, you never take the time to think, you literally just got jumped, by a girl that’s been waiting for that fight. You’re such a fucking hot head sometimes you stop thinking-” 

“Pope I-” he scoffed “-Don’t Pope I me, No, you need to listen, I’ve heard that Pope I speech way too many times. You don’t ever take time to think things through, I understand that people say some fucked up shit to you, but that doesn’t mean you should lose your shit every single time. Especially at a boneyard kegger, where everyone is drunk or high and the amount of bad scenarios that that shit could have resulted in? They’re endless!” you watched him pace back and forth while talking and nodded your head, spitting out more of your own blood, then he paused handing you his beer making you swish your mouth out.

“You think that no one fucking cares about you, so you’re always doing shit like this.” you scoffed this time, cutting him off and raising your voice slightly.

“I don’t think that no one cares about me, I know it, I’m a fucking time bomb, no one gives a shit about a time bomb. People always stop caring, Pope these fucking relationships have all proven that they don’t fucking last. I don’t know when you guys are gonna get sick of me but eventually everyone does-Hell-my own mother did” your voice cracked “and my father-he fucking hates looking at me-so im so fucking sorry that i know no one cares about me”

He stopped pacing to turn and face you, walking closer to you, staring at you like you just said something impossible. “You’re so dense sometimes, How the hell are you so smart and act so dumb, I swear y/n. You’re wrong, you’ve never been more wrong about anything in your goddamn life. I care about you, I’ve always cared about you, I fucking love you. I wouldn’t be this fucking mad if I didn’t care about you. I love you. I’m in fucking love with you regardless of what you deem to be a flaw-it’s not-I love everything about you. I know you’re more than what everyone sees. I know the real you, I love you, with or without your fucking hard-up facade.” 

Your mouth was opening and closing, you had no words. He caught you off guard. You were so afraid of letting people get close to you that you made the effort to shut them out, but Pope never left, He never would. You stared at your hands, picking at your chewed up cuticles.

“Pope you know I’m not ready, I-I have to work on my-I-I don’t know how to, I-” he placed a hand on your chin, lifting it up so you looked at him. 

“I’ve loved you for years, and I’ll wait until you’re ready and I’ll show you what being loved is, Hell I’ll teach you how to love” 

When you felt his lips touch your forehead you felt at peace. For the first time in years you were genuinely okay.

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