#in which i just fucking lose my mind and go fucking apeshit

[kissitbttr]

i love the frat boys so imagine them taking care of muñeca whenever mig isn’t there (which is like never but let’s imagine)

“y/n !! what do you want for breakfast?”

“that’s not her name! it’s muñeca, glen!”

“do you want o’hara to kill you, man?!”

“yeah, well?! he isn’t here!”

dear lord it’s only 8 in the morning and she swears her head is about to explode,

miguel had to clock in at work early than usual, leaving his girlfriend at the house. as much as he hates the idea of it, he’s got no choice. not just the fact that he didn’t get the chance to have a lazy morning with her but also the fact that he’s leaving her with the boys, too.

he loves them but they could be a real pain in the ass and a major flirt, except for beck.

“just call me if one of them tries to do something with you, cariño— i love you”

it’s what he said before leaving,

not even an hour after he’s gone that his frat brothers are making her lose her mind with all the noise,

she sighs as she massages her temple, sitting on the counter with a cup of coffee between hands. one that is made by glen, surprisingly tasting a bit better that what her boyfriend usually makes,

“guys! i’ll eat anything i swear—just please shut. up” she groans softly, pulling the hems of miguel’s thick knitted sweater that clings onto her body, protecting her from chilly morning air,

carlos shakes his head, arms crossed. “that is not an answer! what. do you. want. to. eat!”

“carlos! i swear to fucking—“

“banana bread maybe, or muffins? what does miguel usually get for you anyway? ah! matcha, isn’t it!” glen interrupts with a smile,

“oooh, how about a nice BLT? you know there’s a rookie here who knows how to make a mean BLT sandwich and you could hire him for the rest of your day to be your slave! just until miguel comes back” carlos suggests, ready to call whoever his name is

“oh my god, don’t say that word” she responds, taking another sip. “you are banned from using that”

“what, ‘hire’?” carlos looks genuinely confused,

she heaves out a heavy sigh, it’s like talking with children. “no. the S word” her eyes dart between the other guys who are looking like they’re ready to serve her with whatever it is she desires.

did miguel put them up to this?

“guys guys come on, she’s big enough to handle shit on her own” beck tells them, popping himself a canned of black coffee and she secretly thanks him for being the most logical one. “but just in case you want a croissant or something just let me know”

“i’ll pick something up from the bakery, just let me borrow your keys” she replies and getting ready to stand up, earning a collective of no’s and hands holding out to stop her. “you all realize that i’m not five?!” she’s getting a tad bit irritated,

“gotcha but!” carlos holds his point finger up, “we’re all instructed to take care of you—“

“no we didn’t?”

“chang, you’re ruining it, shut the fuck up” carlos glares at his asian frat brother who’s hands are up as if to show defense. “anyways—we are instructed to take care of you and if miguel finds out that we’re doing a terrible job at it, all of us are dead. literally”

“i think you’re just exaggerating, carlos” she tries to smile despite wanting to kill him. “he’s not capable of killing anyone”

“didn’t he get into a fight with two guys for staring at your ass and talking about how they’d use you at the same time?” glen chimes in, leaning forward on the kitchen table,

“that doesn’t count, it was not a fight, it was a slaughter. o’hara went apeshit” beck chuckles, taking a seat beside her,

“okay well that happened nearly months ago” she points out at the specific memory, one where she had to stop miguel from going overboard. she’d hate it if her boyfriend went to jail for what happened, “it’s all in the past”

“yeah well those two men are still on his black list” beck shrugs, “you know how serious he gets when it comes to you, kid”

she sighs for what it feels like a hundredth time that morning. “okay you know what, if it gets you all to be quiet, especially you carlos” she throws a soft glare at the man who’s wearing an innocent smile, standing tippy toes. “then just—can i please have that BLT sandwich? i am starving”

carlos claps his hands, “absolutely, you gorgeous human being! oi, rookie! get down here! muñeca needs breakfast!” he calls out the boy from downstairs,

“holy—carlos! why did i just tell you?!” beck snaps, narrowing his eyes at his frat brother,

“oh, my bad—i mean, mrs. o’hara needs breakfast!”

[wordy-little-witch]

Imagine how absolutely feral the Roger's would get if Buggy came out as transfem or nonbinary or just preferred "feminine" clothes.

They're pirates, why the fuck would they comply to stupid gender roles when they can FIGHT and DRINK and be FREE?

Buggy goes "hey I think I might be kind of a girl" and the crew would just go "omg queen!" Admittedly, many would probably try bullying (affection attempted), but Buggy would take it the wrong way which sends Shanks into a frenzy which then sends Roger into a Frenzy² bc now BOTH of his kids are sad.

Someone (enemy pirate/marine/whatever) makes a snide remark about Buggy? Roger's going apeshit. And then he goes out, buys the gaudiest, ugliest dress known to man, and wears it to go kick that person's ass again just to prove a point. He's dumb but he has the spirit.

Rayleigh would just roll with the punches there. Oh, you're a girl? Maybe? Cool. Need your own room, or are you okay still sharing with Shanks? Keep sharing? Ah, alright. No, I don't mind. What? No, why would I care, Bug, I helped you learn how to tie your shoes, why would I care if you learn to tie a skirt- oh my god are you crying-

Buggy and gender have a weird relationship. It feels performative, but the more commonly considered feminine performances just feel better on her skin. So yeah. She slips gender on like a comfy jacket and rolls with it.

Shanks, depending on your preferred Shuggy interpretation, is going absolutely feral.

Platonic: he already was ready to throw hands to protect his little brother, only now it's a little SISTER and that Awakens Something In Him. Not much has changed, admittedly, he's just dumb and losing his marbles because that's his best friend, his partner in crime, she's always been pretty even before he knew she was a she, but now the crew is mentioning "fighting off the suitors" for her, and Shanks is overthinking everything. ((It doesn't help that he's pretty sure one of Whitebeard's youngest sons has been hitting on her, so now he has to plot a murder....))

Romantic: he already loved her, already thought her smile was the sweetest, brightest hing on the Seas, and now she's freer than he's ever seen her, her smiles easier, her face just GLOWING, and he is down so freaking bad. Shanks is not naturally prone to jealousy, but for Buggy? He loses all sense of calm and collected. He always has. But this new side of her, this vulnerable and authentic angle he sees now, he's just- by the Seas, he loves her. That's his person, his friend, his better half. Buggy is everything to him, and he's fighting against the curling, bubbling heat in his tummy whenever boys or girls look at her, whenever she flushes under someone's attention. He's frothing and struggling, but he's happy, too, so happy she's free and herself. He just wishes she was hos - or at least that he was hers.

[grimalkinmessor]

Hi! This is your dn secret santa. Reading through your list, I'm looking to make Terraito or Birthdaymassacre for your gift~ Do you have anything specific you wanna see for either one of those pairs?

!!!! Hello!! :D

And I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure what you'd be comfortable making 🤔

With Birthdaymassacre I like it because they fit really well together, but in a way that canon tells you to shoot dead in your backyard, you know? Beyond being obsessed with Naomi because she's so headstrong, so committed, such a good detective (wonder where that complex came from)—someone he can clash against on equal ground. He spent so long chasing L's shadow and trying to pull A up out of the ground, both too obsessed and too far ahead of everyone else at Wammy's to relate to them and too far behind L to ever catch up, and spending his "rivalry" with A falling in love with her and trying to keep her from spiraling out completely; he's never had a true, honest rival to go against and I think it's something that Wammy's has always made him crave. He also wants to kiss her really bad but as his experience with A taught him that doesn't have to be a bad thing ;3

I prefer a BB that doesn't look exactly like L—tons of makeup instead of plastic surgery or spontaneous twins I suppose—because despite Beyond's complex I like it to be really clear that he's his own person. Him and Naomi both actually; her separation from Raye is very important to me! Through violent means (B) if necessary ^w^ Naomi discovering her penchant for darkness and domination through Beyond when before she kept trying to fit into the mold of Perfect Submissive Housewife is something that can be so so special 🙏

For Terraito I'm partial to human(ish) Ryuk, but that's not a requirement. I like it when he and Light are so tangled up with each other that it's difficult to separate them even if neither of them are particularly sappy or romantic about it. Ryuk being Light's malotype is my favorite thing in the world 🥰 Everything wrong with Light that he hides away comes out shamelessly in Ryuk, and Light both resents and clings to him for it, while Ryuk is so so obsessed with Light, so fascinated and intrigued by him, and he very much wants to make him worse. Don't You Just Wanna Go Apeshit?™ Anything where Ryuk is egging Light on, turning him into a deviant but only through Light's own unearthed desires—THAT'S the shit. And Ryuk becoming like a second limb, a symbiotic parasite, clinging to Light because he's such a good source of entertainment, because Ryuk is shameless in how much he wants Light but is also so laissez-faire about it that it's not romantic at all, that's also really really nice ❤️‍🔥

I have some more concrete ideas, but if this is enough for you to come up with some of your own, go for it! I'll put these under the cut bc they're a bit long and have some troublesome subject matters ✨

I really like the idea of an L-wins AU with L not wanting to kill Light if he wins because they've become friends, so he tries to go the route of just erasing Light's memories of the Death Note again, but there's a few problems with that. Light's seen the Death Note now when he wasn't the owner of it or using it, and he also was very involved in the Kira case and knows or suspects that he was Kira at some point, both of which are dangerous points of information to leave him with. So he asks Ryuk if there's a way to erase everything, as in everything of the past year or so, and Ryuk says that only the King can do something like that.

When Ryuk refuses to go talk to the King for him, even when L tries to convince and bribe him, L goes above his head and does it anyway. Light loses a huge chunk of his memories, and Ryuk is sent back to the Shinigami realm. L goes on about his life without looking back—but he's left one very mind-fucked college kid and a pissed off Shinigami behind.

Ryuk breaks a fuckton of rules, gets himself a human body, gets a bounty put on his head by the other Shinigami, and immediately goes to find Light—who at this point is now just drifting aimlessly through life, wildly bemused as to why he feels like he's lost all hope in both himself and humanity, why his father won't look him in the eye anymore, why he's being forced to change majors and shoved away from police work, why he has so many nightmares of things he's never seen and people he's never met, why it feels like he achieved his dreams and found fulfillment only to have them ripped away from him, why he feels so different now—the boy is going through it fr. His character hasn't changed, he's just got a big gaping hole in his mind now that's eating away at him slowly, driving him to purposelessness and apathy (not helped by the people around him acting weird as fuck). He's on the verge of almost Committing™ when Ryuk finds him and swoops in like a fucked-up, corruptive punk savior.

Cue Ryuk showing Light all the things he used to love doing, i.e. drawing blood and being a terrible terrible egoistic human being >:3 Ryuk's both pleased and irritated to have to be drawing Light back out of his shell again, especially when he's so damaged now (Siri play Damaged by In This Moment—), but now that he's in a human body he can feel much, much stronger affection so he doesn't truly mind 💕 He has to be cryptic with it, but he tells Light what happened to him and now they're BOTH pissed at L. Light finds himself again through murder, and essentially runs off to be evil with Ryuk because his life is "ruined" now anyway. It isn't, but that's the tragedy of it, isn't it? You don't really come back from being a killer, even if you don't remember doing it :') It'd include a lot of L-bashing just because he'd be the antagonist here, with the nature of it being him lobotomizing Light and then leaving him to rot (even if he did it with somewhat good intentions), so if that's not your thing you don't have to go for this 🫶

My Bdaymass idea is a little more controversial, so again to reiterate these are NOT my MUST HAVE requests and you can pretend you never saw these if you'd like. But I enjoy the headcanon that BB is younger than Naomi, if not by a significant margin, but I like the idea of exacerbating it a little so I can have a freshly married Naomi and Raye foster him out of Wammy's :D Chaos ensues.

Naomi's on the fence about kids—she hasn't quit her job yet but now she's tied down to Raye and he really, really is pushing her to be a stay at home mom, so they compromise and agree to foster a kid first to see if Naomi will change her mind about having kids. (Spoiler, she will not).

Wammy's fosters every kid out at least once, so they can get a feel for the real world, and some of the ones not involved in the L program end up enjoying it and don't come back. Beyond's never been fostered out because he's so high in the rankings, but with A freshly dead they think he might need a "break" so they ship him off with the first couple that comes in, which happens to be Naomi and Raye! A little fifteen/sixteen year old angsty, angry Beyond is now trapped in a house with Naomi and Raye, Raye of which whom irritates him because he keeps trying to use his Authority™ with Beyond and Naomi of which he begins to adore because while she's awkward with him and avoids him at first, she's also very gentle with him and can relate him a lot more than either of them expected. You see where this is going.

Raye has an "accident" and is violently shunted out of the picture. Whoops. Bee's not sorry. Also he kissed your wife and she likes him better than you.

Beyond, when his time is up, decides he doesn't wanna go back in the orphan mill and fights tooth and nail kicking and screaming to be left with Naomi, but of course, it doesn't work. Naomi also tries to fight for custody of him, but again. It's Wammy's. She gets crushed, and Beyond gets yoinked back into the orphan mill—but not for very long ;3 A few months later, when she's moved back to the states, she finds Beyond knocking on her window. Covered in blood 😘

These are more fic prompts than anything, but then again I don't remember what I clicked on the form so that may be all I asked for 😅 Either way, go nuts. Whatever you make will be lovely, even if you don't use either of these! I'm very excited to see what you come up with!!!

[project-sekai-facts]

I wanted to share my thoughts on what the next focus events could be for arc enders, while also asking you what you think is going to happen if you haven’t already

L/n: I’m honestly at a loss as to what the next event has in store for us. I definitely think it’s an Ichika focus (though I’ve seen people speculate it’s Shiho), but I’m not sure what they could do. Maybe enter a recording label to increase their audience? (Haven’t read Get Over It. yet so maybe I’m missing a part of the puzzle)

VBS: most likely a Toya event, I want to see him get mad. Like full blown anger from him. He was absolutely livid in Light Up the Fire as seen from his card, so I just want him to absolutely go apeshit. Worst part is that he doesn’t have the best relationship with adult figures so the parallels with his father are there. Maybe they’ll also try to reunite with Kotaro etc? VBS has a lot on its plate after the truth bomb regarding Nagi, that’s for sure

WxS: I mean. I’m pretty sure we all know it’s indirectly confirmed to be a Rui event. And this one is most definitely addressing the disbanding of the unit. Since he’s the one most worried about it, I think it makes sense he started the arc with Farewell at the Curtain Call and now gets to end it with a conclusion that will affect the group one way or another

N25: also somewhat obvious we’re getting a Mafuyu event from the teaser, this one is surely going to address what’s on all of our minds: is she going to run away? Our Escape for Survival has definitely set me on edge so I can’t wait to see how the story plays out

Oh yeah I’ve been thinking so hard about the arc enders the past few weeks so here goes nothing

L/n: They actually got signed at the end of Get Over It. It was right at the end of chapter 8 though, so I reckon the event will be taking the first steps as pros, especially considering this was their main goal up until this point. Like how at the end of Re-tie Friendship MMJ decided to change course, and then STEP by STEP was about them actually leaving.

VBS: Toya definitely. You can work it out by MV distribution. I think this will be a getting the band back together sort of story, considering that all the side characters left in LUTF and BAD DOGS interact with the side characters more. In his last event, Toya became good friends with Souma, and considering how Taiga crushed Arata’s ambition using Souma, I wouldn’t be surprised if those two were in it a lot. I hope Kotaro gets a good resolution too after his breakdown in LUTF.

WxS: Okay I have actually spoken about this one but I’ll do it again because I’m very invested in the current WxS arc. I originally thought this would be an Emu event mainly because WxS really needs to shuffle their event order but considering we now know it will be an arc ender no way it’s not Rui. At the end of Canary in a Quagmire he says that he thinks he’s worked out a way for them to all pursue their dreams together, which. The fact that Tsukasa and Nene want to go abroad and Emu wants to stay home already kinda messes with that concept sorry Rui. WxS is very special to him because he’s never had close friends before and doesn’t want to lose it (he literally refers to it as his home in Island Panic) and I think this event will be a bittersweet slaps in the face of reality that they can’t just stay together forever. 👍 also I really want him to spill that Asahi invited him to join ArcLand (aw yeah conflict)

N25: The fucking puppet from her first event man. The puppet triggered Mafuyu in Captive Marionette because she saw herself in it - everything in her life was puppeteered by her mother. And the curtain closing? I’m not sure if she’ll actually run away, but I think she’s going to confront her mother herself. I think Mafuyu is finally more ready to confront that her mother is the problem and is controlling her every move and I want to see her at least try to break free of it.

[formulatrash]

for the 30s ask meme: 8, 13, 28, 48, 50 pls!

ty anon!!!

What cleaning product do you swear by?

hmm. tricky. I don't actually, uhm, clean very much? like not in a particularly bad way just I don't have much TO clean oh wait hang on no it's stuff for the kitchen; the basic Dettol antibacterial spray and washing up liquid. almost everything can be cleaned with hot water and washing up liquid a lot easier than anything else and it's the tool you use that matters more than the chemicals. yes you DO need a wire scrubber and a green scrubber and a soft sponge and a microfibre cloth and you need to keep them clean and dry when you're not using them because they all have different roles!!!! I will one day lose my marbles seeing my flatmate scrub at everything with the same squeegee thing.

Which filter are you most likely to go "eh, it's probably fine" when you find out you need to change it?

technically it's one at work that costs £150 to replace so I just dismiss the alert every time it comes up but at home it's probably something stupid I can't even think of. I was always meticulous about car filters because car girl and also you can avoid so many repair costs with this one weird trick. everything else tho fuck knows eh it probably still works.

Be honest, do you like all of the pictures of their babies that your friends send you?

none of my friends actually have babies currently because I'm the end of your 30s where people have either done it or given up but I didn't use to mind the baby updates. I get that having made an entire new human is quite exciting, like I send a lot of photos of my cat and I definitely didn't spend nine months cooking him up inside me.

If you could build your home from scratch, what outrageous feature would you want to build into it?

Fizzy water tap. if I was rich it'd be the first thing I installed. maybe a full soda stream so I could drink pepsi cherry max at home as well as work. legitimately nothing more aspirational I'd go apeshit if I had one.

Pro or anti throw pillows?

generally I am a bit of a bloke so I don't object to them but I also wouldn't ever think to buy them. the cat has a yellow fluffy pillow he likes that we fight over because it's good to prop my back on when we're watching the F1. yes I am aware I am one pet Instagram account away from being certifiable millennial cringe.

[spinjitsuburst]

How Many seasons Evil Jay theories we have to create to any writer to make it happend for real

We have

Snake Evil (cause why not)

Nindroid (cyborg) Jay

Chen recruit

Pirate with family issues

Overlord-Jay

Ice emperor minion

Purple Lightning corr

Jay was Unagami

Or mister i lost my wife so i’ll lost my self LMAO

But only received twice a Brain washed magic that corrupted the rest of the Team as well, for them not even represent a menace in the plot.

OMG YES TO A L L OF THIS

Snake Jay but Evil is such a vibe tbh

CYBORG JAY I LOVE ROBOTS I LOVE NINDROIDS I LOVE CYBORGS AAAAAAAAAA please i love this so much

Chen recruit verrrrrry interesting :D normally I see Kai in this position but a Jay one would be fun (esp since he's always so tied to snakes)

PIRATE WITH FAMILY ISSEUSEUGSG YEAH that's just season 6 canon /j

Overlord Jay ooooh :O tbh the Overlord is an under-utilized villain by the fandom i think more people should have fucked up Overlord possession AUs

ICE EMPEROR MINION YES tbh the fic Ice Emperor and Earth Dragon kinda ruined my brain chemistry if I don't consume a new form of "Ice Emperor corrupts one of the ninja" concepts like every month I lose my mind, I love the Ice Emperor

Funny story about the purple lightning thing, I wanna storyboard that section of Seabound where Jay goes apeshit on Kalmaar but he gets struck by the purple lightning and gets extremely OP and proceeds to KICK KALMAAR'S ASS. Having it CORRUPT Jay tho hmmm,,,,,,,

JAY AS UNAGAMI CORRECT NO COMMENTARY NEEDED

literally i - okay okay okay okay i fully. before we got any crystalized info at all before we got the name and the poster and all that. i FULLY thought season 16 was gonna be jay being desperate and heartbroken and going to nadakhan to wish nya back and that would be the plot i was SO SURE. they set up the teapot for so long and i was like THIS IS IT THIS IS WHERE IT'S GONNA COME INTO PLAY. and then. that did not happen HGJKFDSHJGHDFHGDFSKJGF

as for the last one i'm assuming that happens in crystalized which i've only seen half of LMAOOOOO i'm too scared to watch the rest of it

[crowscrafts707]

I don't make a lot of posts on here but can I just say-what in the fresh mother of fuck happened to fandoms lately??? Like I mind my business and it's in one ear and out the other, but it seems like people are going absolutely apeshit these days,,, what happened to headcanons? Tf happened to people seeing something they don't like and simply just "huh well ill move on with my life cuz I don't like this character/that person's version and not interact"

Now if you share smth about a character it's like kids freak out and send a witchhunt after you. What happened to fun??? Does anyone remember that?? Having 100s of AUs for everything because if it didn't happen in canon you could just...write/draw whatever you wanted???

I keep seeing people getting attacked over LGBTQIA+ headcanons and people threatening them cuz "tHaTs nOt cAnOn FuCk yOu" and it's atrocious. Yall know the block button is there for a reason??

The internet is your Oyster and yall keep eating the buffet food that yall actively DONT LIKE. curate it how you want. The more hate comments that you send the more you're gonna see that content broski, just choose the not interested option, block, and move on, it's truly not that serious

Also don't freak out over someone else's opinion on a character? Let people enjoy themselves.

Idk maybe I'm just old school and frankly don't care that much about character takes, but making posts about how a character can ONLY be this way and then they lose their mind and start threatening and sending hate when someone else thinks differently.

Like they're fictional bro, they can be anything. Turn them into fucking Shrek if you want to, you have the power, and it's not that serious. So long as it's not an ethnic stereotype, some type of erasure, or that line of shit, who cares.

Make your headcanons, do your fanfics and fanart. And if you see something you don't like-just don't interact???

I wonder if people actually enjoy media sometimes or if they're just using it as an excuse to troll and spread hate. Like do you ever take the stick from out of your man or are you chronically online sitting in your desk chair. Is it fused with your asscrack, have you never felt joy since you shoved the stick up there? Were you born a bitter bitch or did someone else's headcanon character come into your house and hold you hostage?

Long winded rant thing but yeah people need to chill. Another note I'd like to add, cuz this is sort of related to posts I've seen-i saw someone say that 1 character can be trans because he's like...macho masc and shit, but then character 2 can't because character 2 doesn't make masculinity his whole personality and is "too soft" basically. They make character 2 cis, agender, transfem, literally everything else but oh no don't ever make character 2 trans because hEs nOt mAn eNoUgH basically.

which is WILD to me, that's some serious deep rooted gender roles you're projecting brother, but sure. Thing is tho, I blocked and moved on and now it's in one ear and out the other, which I think is smth a lot of people need to do now instead of sending hate threats over FICTIONAL THINGS

Anyways thanks for coming to my tedtalk have a great day

[get-out-of-there-mcginnis]

If I say offhandedly “I’m stupid” it’s not a giant issue (it’s not like I only say bad things about myself); but if my dad overhears it, he’ll make a whole issue about it and give me a thirty-minute pep talk (mostly venting about his life and saying “you’re just like me and if I can do it, you can do it”), which ends up actually triggering me (when I wasn’t even mad before) because how dare HE make assumptions about me and tell me what to do, when he did [x], [y], and [z]; I’m going to do the polar OPPOSITE of what he wants (one can imagine what that is). So lo and behold, here I am with the task completed. Actually I’m kind of proud of myself because it’s not life-threatening this time.

I’m convinced I do it solely for the purpose of triggering myself at this point… also because I don’t like him and want to get a reaction. Maybe it’s because of all the positivity at work, too… I even hate saying the words “trigger” and “coping mechanism” because they reek of positivity and I hate it. I feel like if you say something even remotely bad about yourself, people dogpile you to try to censor what you said, when you may not have even meant it in the first place.

Or I just want a knockdown-dragout fight… I constantly crave a justifiable reason to go apeshit on someone. Not that I want bad things to happen in the world (nor am I dangerously bloodthirsty); but I would really like some of the chaos already happening to happen around ME so I can fucking do something. Like when the neighbor’s dog got out and I helped get her back home by using my raw wits. I liked that. I would also like to beat the shit out of a kidnapper. Run full speed. Hit and kick. Save a baby. You know? I need some violent (but wholesome) physical action or I will lose my mind.

[softschofield]

i’m so perpetually frustrated with the audience members who criticise 1917 for having “no backstory or development for the characters”

like, yes, it’s subtle. because they’re friends and friends don’t talk to each other like “oh, yes, remember all these details of my life i’m conveniently and clearly reiterating for an omniscient third party?” but fuck dude, if you pay attention and know basic facts about war or do your goddam research, there is SO MUCH DETAIL TO THEIR BACKSTORIES

like, just from one TINY DETAIL, you get so much: schofield’s wounded stripe on the left sleeve of his uniform. to get a wounded stripe in world war 1, you had to be officially listed in dispatches as being a CASUALTY, not just having been in a field hospital, meaning the wound was BAD. but, wait, what kind of wound could be so well-hidden and subtle? it could be a gunshot wound or trenchfoot, but there were also two categories that could earn a soldier the wounded stripe: gas, or shellshock. it’s therefore entirely possible that he was suffering from trauma rather than a physical wound before he met blake. given that 60,000 rounds of field artillery and 45,000 rounds of heavy artillery were fired in the first DAY of fighting, and one german described the experience of the shelling as “the earth shook, the sky seemed like a boiling cauldron [...] the ability to think logically, and the feeling of gravity, both seemed to have been removed”, shellshock is a very plausible diagnosis.

so, we know he fought in the somme, and we know which battle he fought, meaning he had been at the front for at the very LEAST 7 months. SEVEN MONTHS. that is a LONG time to be in the trenches, and it is a STAGGERING amount of time to have withstood the horror and still come out of it soft, gentle, and compassionate - think on THAT when y��all say schofield is a flat character. think about what kind of a person could kill and see people killed and live in the constant, crushing, claustrophobic terror and boredom and nothing of the trenches for most likely LONGER than that and stay kind and quiet. NEED i say any the fuck more, NEXT

just from that, we then know that blake did NOT fight in the somme, meaning he arrived at the front some time after november 1916. and, judging by his excited and fearful reaction to the front line trench before a predicted push, there’s the distinct possibility he had never seen a battle, meaning his arrival can be placed after the 18th of december 1916 and that he was still deeply innocent.

if he arrived in december and the film begins on the 6th of april, that ALSO means that they had known each other at the most for just over 3 months, very possibly less, and that they had formed a very close bond in that time.

which brings me to my next point: where are their other friends? all the other soldiers are shown to have close-knit groups, so where are theirs? why is it only them? why are they even friends in the first place? why is blake, a new recruit who had only just arrived, already the same rank as a veteran who had been there for very possibly up to or more than a year? why is a veteran hanging around with a chattery, bushy-tailed, never-seen-battle replacement? why isn’t he hanging out with his own cohort of soldiers who has been there the same amount of time as him and could much more easily relate to his trauma and exhaustion? WHY is a middle-class-sounding guy even hanging around with a lower-class farmboy in the first place?

the most plausible answer? all of schofield’s friends he went through training with are dead - probably in the somme - and he’s purposefully isolated himself to grieve with his survivor’s guilt. he was most likely wounded, lonely, and agonisingly depressed for months until a cheerful replacement arrived at the front and befriended him. and THAT’S where schofield’s fanatic devotion to him comes from, and THAT’S what “he saved my life” means, more than in the literal sense - he was lost, and broken, and numb, and blake saved him.

furthermore, because boy have i got more, blake’s backstory, in case someone out there has seen this film and still wants to hit me with that fucking “we know nothing about these characters”: we know he has an older brother, we know he has a female dog called myrtle, we know they live with their mum in a farm in the countryside with a cherry orchard, and we know his father isn’t in the picture and that he most likely hasn’t been for a long, long time, judging by blake’s lack of bitterness and daddy issues, his closeness with his mother, and the fact he isn’t in blake’s family photo. we know, from interviews, that he enlisted as soon as he came of age because his brother was an officer and he idolised him, and we know he was barely this side of 18.

another thing? the story about wilko. blake knows stories about men schofield has almost certainly known for far longer - but he didn’t interact and wasn’t told, and blake did, and he was more familiar with all of them and had stories to tell that schofield would have known if he’d been sitting in the same circle when the gossip was told. how’s THAT for subtle characterisation, chumps.

and if you just think about it, there’s so much depth to blake’s overly trusting nature - because he’s still naive, he’s still innocent, he’s still young. schofield tucks the things most special or necessary away in his inside pocket, where’s it most safe, because he’s learned lessons the hard way; blake puts them carelessly in his trouser pockets where they could fall out. schofield keeps his rifle with him even as he’s going to fetch water for the german pilot; blake discards his rifle and leaves himself vulnerable. if you just LOOK, it’s all there!

FURTHERMORE, we know schofield is in his early 20s and older than blake. we know he has a much more refined accent, and we know from interviews that he’s from cookham, berkshire. we know he has two daughters and a wife (or a sister and nieces, it’s open to interpretation, go to town), we know he suffers from shellshock, we know he most likely couldn’t face going home on his last leave and instead stayed in france and gave his medal away to a french captain, we know the subject of home is deeply triggering for him, we know he refuses to talk about his daughters, we know that his family haunts him as much as he longs for it, and we know that he didn’t receive any mail from his wife - interesting, considering blake received a letter just telling him his dog was having puppies.

and don’t even get me started on the “lack of character development”. watch me scream here about that.

also, some more backstory because now i’m on a fucking roll: lance corporals were typically the second-in-commands or heads of sections, of which there were 4 within each platoon, each comprising 12 soldiers, it's likely blake and schofield were in command of different sections in the same platoon. where does that come into play? well, scho seemed to slip very easily into a position of authority when the convoy got stuck in the mud, didn’t he? MOVING ON.

more? i have more. another little tidbit: lieutenant leslie asks schofield and blake if they are his relief, and then asks when the fuck they’re getting there when they say they aren’t. he and his men are exhausted and it was said by another soldier that “they had been blown to hell a few nights ago” - they’ve clearly been at the front a long time, which, again, is interesting, considering front line soldiers were typically rotated back into reserve after 8 days. clearly, it’s been a lot longer than that, meaning order and routine have completely broken down and a new type of despair, hopelessness, and mess has taken root. there, more backstory again. 

“oh, it’s just a shitty saving private ryan” “oh, it’s definitely no all quiet on the western front”. FIRST OF ALL, it fucking IS all quiet on the western front, have you literally even read it? baumer goes to such lengths to hardly ever use the word enemy because he doesn’t view the soldiers in the other trenches as bad, just as other innocents swept up in a war that no one should be fighting. he spends a whole chapter sobbing over the only man he’s ever killed in close combat. it’s a hundred times slower than 1917 and it hasn’t even GOT a plot. what the FUCK are you talking about?

oh, and it’s just saving private ryan? show me WHERE. a bunch of soldiers have to go into enemy territory to rescue a soldier because all his brothers have been killed in action and his family wants him home. two soldiers are sent into enemy territory with a letter to stop an attack. i am LITERALLY struggling to think of any more similarities than that and even THOSE are fucking reaching.

also, it’s literally a different war. who are you and why are you saying these things to me i am BEGGING you to please use your fucking head for just a few seconds and actually THINK

“it was so convenient that the river just happened to take him to the devons” ??? “the river. it goes there” did you just entirely miss everything lauri told him? the river quite literally flows exactly past where he is supposed to go, that’s the entire POINT, that’s WHY he jumped into it, because he KNEW it would take him there, oh my GOD

“if the convoy was going exactly where he needed to go, why didn’t erinmore tell him to meet it?” i know it might be a shocking concept, but even a general may not have known exactly the route a convoy of trucks was going to take, especially in the confused wasteland the germans had left behind in their retreat. in fact, he might not have known about the convoy at all if they were coming from a different sector of the front - WHICH, guess what, THEY WERE. captain smith mentioned they crossed no man’s land just outside bapaume, which was much further south, in the old somme battlefields. scho and blake’s trench was somewhere near boyelles, 11km north of bapaume. 

“it’s unbelievable that scho would just sit quietly and relax in the convoy truck, and then get out to give orders and take command, after what he’d just been through - and, plus, he would have gotten to écoust quicker if he’d just walked” there’s this thing called trauma. shock. dissociating. compartmentalisation. just shutting down in the face of too much grief when you don’t have the time nor capacity to let yourself feel it, acknowledge it, register it. in the script, scho is said to “almost disappear into the noise of the men.” and, honestly, the emotional illusion of regaining a scrap of control over a situation he was utterly out of control of would have been enough to prompt him to get out and give orders - but as it is that wasn’t the only thing driving him: he was desperate, and an NCO, and he needed to go. AND “he would have gotten there quicker if he’d walked”?? ???????? first of all, he didn’t know that? second of all, scho said it would take them nine hours AT THE MOST to get there and, given the fact they weren’t attacking until dawn and it was most likely morning when he and blake set off, he wasn’t in a TERRIBLE rush. THIRD of all, it was a direct order from a captain. FOURTH OF ALL, do you really think he felt like walking all that way when a truck was RIGHT THERE?

“there are too many coincidences” films are built on coincidences. they are conveniently put with a character who will end up being their soulmate at the end of it all. they conveniently uncover information that would take people in real life months to find. coincidences drive stories - one of the greatest tools of screenwriting? “don’t write what would happen, write what could happen.” what could happen is that scho finds a teenage girl and an orphaned baby sheltering in a ruined town - in a war. what could happen is that a convoy of trucks heading north towards the battle of arras logically uses the road running alongside a farmhouse. what could happen is that scho jumps into a river that he knows runs east. i just don’t understand what you’re trying to say

“oooohh for soldiers on a life-or-death mission to save one of their brothers, they sure do take their time to sight-see” they’ve seen absolutely fucking nothing but the walls of a trench and the reserve camp for months. also, it’s pretty much just common sense to clear out a building before you turn your back on it and keep walking. also, they had 8 hours, scho ended up getting there in under two hours, and blake is allowed to feel more than one emotion at a time and to be excited about exploring new places, ESPECIALLY when it’s almost certain that neither he nor schofield had ever even been out of england. war or not, the french countryside was still beautiful and blake is allowed to appreciate that. next question 

“how was there a milk pail full of milk if there was no one around to milk the cow” german soldiers were stationed in the farmhouse before they got the order to move out. “they’re not long gone.” they left an hour before hand, someone probably milked the cow before they knew they were leaving. you don’t have to read the script to have a functioning braincell 

“unbelievable that they weren’t killed by the tripwire explosion” it detonated in the tunnels, not in the bunker. they wanted to collapse the escape routes first and foremost. please, i am begging you, use your head

“why did they pull an enemy out of the plane” basic human decency. i cannot believe i have to explain this concept. soldiers in the first world war were especially conscious of the humanity of the men in the other trench. you say blake had no character and then get mad when he’s shown to be so kind and selfless that he’ll burn himself rescuing a german. i don’t know what you want from me, get out of my kitchen 

“schofield was an idiot for stopping to interact with lauri and the baby” he was concussed. he knew there was somewhere he had to be but he didn’t remember what or where until he heard the church bells. also, for people who criticise the “lack of character development and backstory”, ya hate to see character building moments. it clearly wasn’t the first time he’s recited that poem to a baby. make the connection dipshits 

“the germans shot like fucking stormtroopers, how did they not hit him?” point one: one of them was blind drunk. when muller is ranting while scho is strangling baumer, he says that maybe they should head back and that maybe they won’t realise they’ve been missing. the implication? either they’ve gone AWOL, or they’re stragglers from the retreat back to the new line. either way, at least one, and very possibly all of them are off their fucking faces, considering the one by the burning church tripped over his own goddamn feet chasing scho. point two: not in a thousand years would they have expected a lone english soldier to just pop up out of nowhere in ecoust. it was so unexpected that you really can’t blame them for being flustered and confused.

“how the FUCK did the letter survive the river in one piece?” he put it in his tin. there’s literally an entire 30 seconds of the convoy scene just devoted to showing scho tucking it in there. i don’t understand how i have to say this

“it’s too gruesome” aside from the hand in the corpse and the dead horses, where? where? also, it’s the first world war. i can’t believe what i’m hearing. who are you people

“it’s not exciting enough, it’s slow, it’s dull” IT’S SUPPOSED TO SHOW THE CONSEQUENCES AND AFTERMATH OF WAR INSTED OF THE SHALLOW EXCITEMENT OF IT YOU DUNCE

in conclusion, suck my ASS anyone who says they didn’t have backstory or development or that there are ~raging plot holes~. FUCK

anyone who doesn’t want the actual soft and only good person in the world William Schofield to live a happy life in peace just isn’t valid and that’s all i’ll ever say on the matter you fucking degenerate scum rotten tomato reviewers

[leatherbookmarking]

the problem with hikago and sg simply Not talking to his high school friends anymore is that on one hand i want to say bullshit and have pleasant thoughts about kids trying to keep in touch against busy schedules and shitty phones. the texts! the calls! e-mails! maybe even letters! that’s a whole bunch of GOOD STUFF esp with the written things because obviously you can say more when you’re not actually saying it,

on the other, there’s something painfully realistic about friendships -- even those that inspire episode titles -- just... falling apart. for stupid reasons. for lack of time. simply because. “drifted apart”. the other day i read a fic about jiang xueming going through boxes with all her old stuff, childhood treasures and little letters to sg and just, realizing that she’s not the closest person to him anymore, that those times ended and won’t come back, and i just? this is so sad. this is so real. augh.

no honestly watch hikago it’s gooddddddd

[spywitch]

we all laugh at those “one day I’m just gonna go apeshit” posts but I’m deadass

[inkytsuki]

I played new Vegas for a few hours with the tritanopia color correction on (cause tritanomoly is big afterthought) and I don't have a headache????????? Like did I see the color yellow?? No!!! But girl....everything was so soft and not harsh on my eyes. I COULD SEE SHIT IN THE DARK AREAS WITHOUT HAVING TO PUT ON A RESHADE PRESET. There are so many colors of blue I've never seen???????? And SO MANY COOL TONED GREENS!!!!!! like I'm actually crying a Lil bit rn about this.

Tomorrow???? I'm gonna look at blue greens which I can only see one color of in varying values.

[matan4il]

Kinnporsche 107 sex scene meta

Me: I am not going to fall down yet another hyperfixation rabbit hole, I am not.

My brain: Yes, but have you considered Kinnporsche’s bathroom sex scene at the end of ep 107?

(Below: going feral over why this is one of the best sex scenes ever)

This sex scene as a turning point

This scene tells a whole story, which is why it’s so emotionally evocative. It’s Kinn and Porsche’s turning point. Before it, they’ve done so many things together, they’ve felt attracted to the other man, they’ve felt anger, they’ve kissed, they’ve argued, they’ve fucked, and so often, they’ve pretended with each other. It isn’t easy for them to openly show what they feel and be vulnerable like that. Even after Kinn took a bullet for Porsche (!) at the end of 106, they still have moments when they pretend. Porsche tries to walk out of Kinn’s hospitalization room in the side story as if he didn’t nearly lose his damn mind at Khun making a joke about his brother’s condition, while Kinn in 107 tells Vegas he can do whatever he wants to with Porsche as if he won’t go apeshit crazy when he’ll think that’s happening... And this pretending takes place even after it’s already become so clear that they matter a lot to each other (for example, Porsche is staying as Kinn’s bodyguard despite them both knowing how much he hates certain inevitable parts of mafia life, and Kinn’s wishing for the first time in his life for the minor family’s success just so Porsche would return safely to him). They both have trust issues, and being that vulnerable with someone through honesty about their feelings and wants, it’s still just too damn much for them.

But not after this sex scene. They’ll still have their trials and issues, but this scene is what marks the end of them pretending to care less about each other than they do. Everything that will follow, even when there will be stuff that they keep from the other one, will still be so much more honest in terms of how they feel about each other and wanting to be together.

Which is why this scene is built as an emotional journey, signalling the change from the primal phase they were in during the first part of the season, to a new, deeper relationship in the second part. It’s why the scene starts with conflicted sex (which they’ve had before) and transitions into sweet, even joyful lovemaking (which they will have again afterwards). This scene encompasses a summary of their journey, while also being one of the most pivotal points in it. It is a mini reflection of the whole play. It’s brilliance.

That transition is why it has to start with anger, with a sense of betrayal (Kinn’s when he sees Porsche with Vegas, Porsche’s when he realizes Kinn blames him for Vegas’ unwanted advances), then passes through regret to reach the point where they both choose each other, not because they’re unaware of their points of conflict, but with a new understanding that they care enough about each other to be able to surpass them.

Defiant anger is built into what allowed them to happen in the first place. A part of why Kinn falls for Porsche to begin with is the fact that this man does NOT accept any of Kinn’s bullshit. We see it in 101 already. Porsche has the audacity to insist on getting paid for his help to the point of deciding he’s taking Kinn’s watch, the one right next to Kinn’s infamous mafia family ring (we have a clear shot of both in the same frame), and even as Kinn shows interest, Porsche doesn’t want to give him a phone number, and barely even gives him a first name (which Kinn will quickly discover is not the real one anyway). To truly emphasize how completely out of the ordinary this experience is for Kinn, right after Porsche rides away, we see a car pulling up next to Kinn and a stream of bodyguards pours out of it and bows in perfect sync to our mafia prince. This serves to highlight right away just how unique Porsche is and why Kinn HAS to take note of him.

So it’s no wonder that Porsche’s first time confessing his love to Kinn plays out along these lines. It’s not a sweet and docile confession. It’s a storm powered by Porsche’s anger. Which may not sound very romantic, except consider Kinn for a second. At the point where Porsche first meets him, he trusts no one. He’s guarded and closed, and surrounded by people who bow to his every wish. And he’s been deeply wounded by a man he did have feelings for. IDK if he was in love with Tawan, but Kinn felt enough for him that even after Tawan’s betrayal,  Kinn kept Tawan’s picture in his bedroom. We only get a small glimpse at what Kinn and Tawan’s relationship was like, whether it was fake from the start or if at first Tawan did feel something for Kinn, but the lying and manipulating had to have started back then, and in the present we see Tawan doing that by being extra available and seemingly very sweet and docile for Kinn. It must have been a very convincing act at the time, yet Kinn managed to realize that it was a lie, that while Tawan claimed to love him, his ex never did. 

So imagine how meaningful it was to Kinn that Porsche is nothing like Tawan. That he doesn’t try to appease and be subservient. That he stands up to Kinn, and gets angry, and shouts, and pushes Kinn away. The manipulative Tawan probably never did any of those things, he surely didn’t want to risk what he had with Kinn. Which is why it matters so much that Porsche’s first love confession is so angry and ready to call it quits. Because the tragedy of what Tawan did is that Kinn has trouble believing in soft love confessions. But Porsche getting angry, Porsche calling Kinn shitty in the very same sentence in which he admits his love? That’s honest. That Kinn can believe. And all of the softness we’re going to see between them after 107 is made possible because of that very HONEST anger. In that moment, Kinn can feel that Porsche is telling him the truth, which is why Kinn himself can apologize, because he really does grasp in that moment that he was wrong, that Porsche wouldn’t play with and manipulate him the way Tawan did.

And the second Kinn realizes his mistake, he apologizes right away. I wanna point out how this also connects to 101. We don’t know why Porsche is so insistent on getting 50,000 baht from Kinn until later on, when we meet Uncle Thee and realize Porsche needs the money to cover up this man’s debts. Despite everything that Thee puts Porsche and Porchay through, he never truly apologizes, he never sees how deeply his actions hurt these two orphaned brothers, or feels any genuine remorse for that, never mind attempt to compensate the two for what they’d gone through because of him. Worse, at first he actually spins things around in such a way that Porsche actually ends up apologizing himself to Thee, even though Porsche did nothing wrong. He just wanted to see to his brother’s education, which is valid and right, and a much better use of the money than covering Thee’s debts. Even when he does eventually apologize, it’s clear that his apology is of the “I’m sorry I got caught, still need you to bail me out of this” variety.

So once again, just think about how different it is for Porsche, seeing Kinn realize that he had mistaken Porsche’s intents with Vegas, that he had spoken too harshly, and witnessing how Kinn actually cares enough that he's ready and willing to do whatever it takes to fix things. He sincerely apologizes and then proceeds to show Porsche that he knows he got it wrong, that unlike the hurtful things he said, he actually adores Porsche, and that Kinn will expresses that by physically worshipping him. By taking the time and making Porsche feel good and profoundly appreciated. There is no evasion of responsibility or manipulation on Kinn’s side. And for a man as proud and stubborn as him (characteristics Porsche is already aware of by 107), admitting he was wrong and apologizing is no small thing. Porsche must know this because at the end of the day, he chooses not to walk away from Kinn.

We all know he could. Sure, Kinn’s strong, can fight and has a gun, but we’ve seen Porsche able to fight off even people with guns who seem stronger than him. We’ve even seen him and Kinn face off in 101, and Porsche being completely undaunted by the gun Kinn was carrying, being ferocious enough that he managed to get himself out of there despite Kinn’s skills, his gun, or his bodyguards’ weapons all pointed at Porsche. So if he managed to get out of that one, he could def get out of that bathroom if he wanted to.

But he doesn’t get out. He doesn’t want to, because on some level, he can feel the change in Kinn, the realization he was wrong, the regret, the willingness to make it up to Porsche. It’s their turning point. And maybe my most fave part about an entire scene full of beauty and emotion perfectly captured, is the way Porsche physically turns around towards Kinn. It’s their turning point, literally.

This isn’t just some bathroom quickie. This is the beginning of Kinn and Porsche being on the same page, trusting each other, because they finally grasp that there is real love there. The foundation for everything we’re going to see them building together in the second half of the season.

At the end of the day, this trust is going to be so crucial for them. It’s what they both are missing at the start of the show. Kinn, as a mafia prince, trusts no one, especially not after Tawan’s betrayal. But Porsche is really suspicious of people as well. Like Kinn he has a small circle of people around him that he cares about and trusts, mostly family, but not a lot beyond that. When he meets women at Yuk’s bar, he’s not interested in anything other than sex. That requires too much of him, including trust. And when Kinn wants his phone number and his name, Porsche doesn’t trust him with either. As much as we can understand Kinn’s lack of trust in terms of the mafia world he was born into, Porsche has a somewhat similar experience in terms of the world being an untrustworthy place. He lost both his parents at a young age, the people who should be there to protect him most of all. And then he had one parental figure in his life, Thee. But that man kept amassing debts, which Porsche had to regularly pay off, risking him, his brother, Porchay’s education, their house... In 103, Porsche explicitly talks about the violence and brutality he has experienced at the hands of debt collectors, even Porchay was used to it enough that we saw him in 101 taking care of Thee’s bruises without batting an eye. Add to this that Porsche has also been involved in street fighting, a world in which we saw the “ring master” cheating Porsche out of some of the money he was owed. So trust is a crucial element that neither of them get to have beyond a very small circle of immediate family and a couple of lifelong friends. 

That’s why the real test for their love is trust. Where love confessions and the realization those feelings are mutual, those are often the climax of a love story, for Kinnporsche that happens to a great degree in the 107 sex scene. Porsche admits to loving Kinn, while Kinn shows his love through his apology, and the sex being so consensual and equal-footed, that’s in a sense them coming together and realizing they’re on the same page. But that’s not enough, because the real question is, is what they feel for each other enough to build the trust they both lack and desperately need?

In the second half of the season, they’re going to come across two huge tests of trust. And not just any tests, these are going to be grounded in a shift in reality, the kind that makes people doubt themselves, let alone others.

Kinn’s test is gonna come first, when Tawan shows up, “back from the dead”. Just think about how mind boggling that had to be for Kinn. Porsche didn’t know Tawan, he wasn’t there when Tawan was shot, and he was so certain the guy was dead that he was convinced he was being haunted by his boyfriend’s dead ex. So just imagine how much Kinn’s sense of reality must have been challenged when he was there and convinced he killed Tawan himself... It’s not simple to still have faith in yourself or in your new boyfriend after being so deeply betrayed by your ex and when things you thought you knew for a fact get challenged. And yet, we’ll come to find out Kinn did, that he never lost his trust in Porsche, not even when it looked like he did. Kinn’s real challenge wasn’t in whether or not to believe Porsche over the “resurrected” Tawan. It was in trusting him enough to let him go when Porsche escaped imprisonment in 110.

Yes, we’ve seen Kinn letting Porsche go at the end of 106, which was an incredibly important step for him. But it’s one thing to do that when they never got to be together as a couple, when Kinn never got to experience how happy they could be sharing their lives, and when he thought he was letting Porsche go in favor of pursuing his dream of opening a bar on the beach, getting away from the darkness of the mafia world. It’s a different thing to know how happy they can both be if Porsche doesn’t go, and that if he does, they may never get that. Because by now, Porsche is tangled too deeply in the webs of this dark world, if he leaves, it’s not in order to pursue freedom and lifelong dreams. It’s to get away from Kinn. And all along, Kinn knows it can all be resolved so easily if Porsche just stays and hears the explanation regarding Tawan. But Kinn understands that if he insists, if when Porsche is asking for Kinn’s trust he won’t get it, it may be over in any case. Letting him go at this point must have been hard enough considering how at the end of 105 we saw Kinn still being that man who insists on getting everything and everyone he wants. He had to really struggle not to express himself in that way. So just imagine how hard it had to be, how much trust it actually took for Kinn to let Porsche go at that moment, especially when he probably knew Vegas, the man Kinn already suspected of being behind Tawan’s betrayal, was most likely the guy behind breaking Porsche out of that prison cell. 

Then it’s Porsche’s turn to have his trust tested. And if Kinn experienced a revelation that would put a dent in his sense of reality, this is even more true for Porsche. His parents dying in an accident is one of the most forming experiences of his life, and then he first discovers that’s not how they were killed, then later he finds out his mom is still alive, though in a sense she’s still out of his reach. Everything he knew collapses. His own memories turn out to be untrustworthy. We see him physically experience discomfort as he struggles with that. Thee was supposedly his uncle, the man who raised him and Porchay since they were little and orphaned, but he turns out to be some stranger inserted into their lives, while a man Porsche thought was a stranger turns out to be his uncle through adoption. All of that together, it’s so destabilizing, but remember Porsche had trust issues to begin with. So to now find out all of this, to know he can’t even trust his own mind... How does one even handle something like that? It could make anyone fall apart. Yet, before the end of 114, we get the answer. Porsche isn’t okay, his trust in Korn has been shaken up seemingly for good, yet there he is, choosing to put his trust in Kinn. Eventually even pledging Porsche’s own life to him.

Kinn himself, in a sense, is tested during that final battle, too. He has been raised his whole life to believe that only those who are loyal to Korn can be trusted. Even after all of the lies and manipulations, Kinn is still extremely loyal to his father, we never even see him getting to express any upset over Korn faking his death and all the turmoil, death and destruction that brought about. Kinn's whole identity has always revolved around being his father’s son, to the degree that he still asks for Porsche to declare his loyalty to the main family, meaning to Korn, at the big battle. And he doesn’t get what he’s asking for. Porsche refuses to pledge his allegiance to this mafia family. Yet despite that, he states he is loyal to Kinn. And that is maybe the first thing Kinn has ever had that is truly his, not something he got thanks to being a mafia prince. Porsche’s love and trust is actually something Kinn has earned despite his family. That’s not something Kinn is supposed to want or accept. Yet Kinn trusts Porsche, so that Porsche is loyal to him, despite not being loyal to the family or Korn? That’s good enough. That’s another small trust test they pass.

I can’t say enough about how powerful I think that is, which is why I also believe no matter what’s gonna come their way if we ever see a season 2, Kinnporsche can overcome it. Korn is still a very dubious figure, these love birds are still deep within the brutal mafia world, so challenges are bound to rise sooner or later. But they love and trust each other, so I feel no doubt they will come out on the other side of such challenges stronger than ever.

Yeah, basically the epicness of Kinnporsche’s love story is their trust and the way it manages to hold on and help them win even in the face of a reality bent out of shape. No matter what, by the end of 114, they know they can trust each other. And the moment when we first really see them committing to this trust, when they’re in sync for the first time and choose this trust (choose to trust the other man’s love confession and apologetic expression of love) is during this brilliant sex scene. There’s a reason I’m never gonna be over that scene, and it’s not just how hot it is. Which, for the record, is VERY.

This sex scene as a dance

It’s not just the idea behind the scene that’s powerful, or the meaning of it, its power is also in the way it was filmed. It is a dance. We can feel its rhythm. Half a step forward, one step back, sideways glide, turn and coming back together for the big, climactic jump.

When Kinn barges in there and kicks Vegas out, you can see Porsche is happy about it. Not only did Kinn just stop Vegas from continuing with those unwanted sexual advances, he was also damn sexy while doing it. Porsche is smiling at Kinn (the same hooded smile he had when they were on the balcony earlier in the ep, flirtingly discussing using Kinn’s “other gun”). 

You can tell that Kinn’s anger takes Porsche by surprise, see the joy draining out of him. In fact, this is so not what he expected that at first he doesn’t even know how to react to it, he just searches Kinn’s face for answers. Porsche knows he did nothing wrong, so how is he even in a situation to have to defend himself? It’s only when Kinn keeps pushing and even gives him a small slap that Porsche is moved into action. He gives Kinn a shove that mirrors the slap. It’s an expression of Porsche’s anger, but also puts them back on equal ground. He’s making it clear he will not be pushed around.

Porsche protests that he didn’t do anything, to which Kinn responds with a bitter, cynical smile, a physical sign of his hardship in believing this. And then trust comes up explicitly. That’s what was truly jarring for Porsche, not the slap, but realizing that Kinn still doesn’t trust him. “Shoot me already,” he says, because in this very ep he heard (from Vegas, who omitted Tawan’s betrayal) that Kinn’s paranoia led to him killing ex. That’s a freaking scary thought, to know the guy you’re into might kill you, because he’s done it before. But Porsche didn’t run away, instead he was still smiling when Kinn first leaned over him after getting Vegas out of that bathroom. He doesn’t run away now either. No, instead he challenges Kinn to shoot him. For a second, it’s as if he demands, “You will love me, and with that trust me for real, or I will die right here.”

But then he adds, “Just like how you shot your ex.” There. If the shove balanced off Kinn’s slap, it’s these words that balance his hurtful accusation. This is exactly when we see Kinn’s bitter smile slips off, just as Porsche’s genuine one disappeared earlier. These words hurt him so much, Kinn leans in closer, ready to hand out the real blow with deliberation. But it’s not a physical one, it’s the accusation that Porsche is sluttier than he thought.

And it lands. That was crossing the line. Which is ironic, because before Kinn came along, based on everything we see in 101 and hear Porsche tell Yuk in 108, Porsche was a bit of a slut (affectionate). He flirted with the women at the bar, if they were interested he slept with them right there at his work place, he never went on dates, we saw him going from zero to hot and heavy sex in no time, he showed no interest in seeing these women again, and had zero attachment to anyone. He was perfectly happy that way. Obviously, he had every right to be. But Kinn is clearly different for Porsche. Kinn was someone he was attracted to and grew emotionally attached to even before they first kissed. He felt enough that after they had sex, despite the murky circumstances, Porsche couldn’t get Kinn out of his head, he couldn’t sleep with someone else despite trying to, instead he kept flashing back to the way Kinn touched him, evidently wanting that over anything else he’s ever experienced with any of those other women. Kinn ruined Porsche by getting under his skin. Which is why this accusation is so deeply devastating. It completely erases Porsche’s love and how it affected him. If Kinn can’t see that, how can he possibly be convinced that he’s wrong?

So Porsche slaps Kinn, bigger this time, and angrily states he should have never loved such a shitty guy. This is his angry love confession and it comes from a wound, from a place of hopelessness. It’s so hurt and so raw, Kinn doesn’t doubt it. He can’t. But in that very moment, Porsche already turns to leave. He’s had it. This is their dance, perfect synched opposite movements. Porsche is ready to walk out precisely when Kinn realizes that he really does have this man’s love. That he can trust it. He’s ready to fight for it by making amends exactly when Porsche is ready to give up on it.

So Kinn has to stop him from leaving, but Porsche is in no place to hear him out. The result is they’re backed up against the wall. Kinn is so desperate to apologize and make things right. Porsche is physically surrounded by him. But something shifts in that moment. It doesn’t change completely, Porsche is still angry and hurt. But he’s also looking into Kinn’s eyes, and he sees there something that’s enough to stop from Porsche from fully trying to walk out. Like I mentioned, he could have fought Kinn, he could have gotten out of that bathroom. He chooses to let Kinn back him into the wall. Porsche is still upset, he turns his own back and raises his shoulders like another wall between them, but he’s not completely closed off. He doesn’t talk, but he’s there. He can hear whatever Kinn has to say.

What does he say? He just experienced sincere anger, indicating sincere love, and now he’s awash with sincere guilt. He’s searching for the right words, he’s straining, you can see it in the way the vein in his temple stands out, he’s hovering his lips, his breath, over Porsche’s skin. Then he finally settles for something that isn’t an explanation, and it isn’t some grand speech. It’s an honest apology. And he echoes it with every following adoring gesture ghosting over the nape of the man he loves.

And Porsche? He knows it doesn’t have to be some grand speech. He’s familiar with the actual rarity of an honest apology and a willingness to work to make things right. He lets Kinn kiss his nape. Just think about how vulnerable that area is. How sensitive. How many physical sensations can be evoked there. Porsche chooses to allow it. His head started out down, in a self-protective angle, but now it’s rising slightly. We still can’t quite see him, but the expression on his face is more visible than a moment ago. 

All along, the camera dances with them too, moving from a greater focus on Kinn (he was the center of the frame in the moment when he backed Porsche into the wall), to both of them, to them with their reflections in the mirror, then backing away from the reflections to being once more just them.

This is so important. Reflections in art are where people meet themselves, where they can reflect back on who they are, what they want, where their true self or happiness lies and how they can get there. Kinn has to look all of his doubts and shed them for his apology to be real. Porsche has to make a decision on whether he can trust Kinn enough to forgive him. But while reflections are an opening for insight and self-inspection, they’re also dangerous in art. Those who look at their reflections and fail to find the right insight, to act on it, to find their way from that reflection to their true self, might get caught in the unreal reflection. The horror genre is especially notorious for this (mirrors, doppelgangers, etc). So it matters that the camera pans over to the mirror, to give them that ability to form their insights, but then withdraws from their reflections back to Kinn and Porsche. And when does the camera start its movement back? Precisely when Kinn says he’s sorry. Precisely when the camera’s angle does lower, catches a better glimpse of Porsche’s eyes. They’re being honest. They could make it.

It’s then that Porsche begins to turn towards Kinn. Hesitantly. But this is a part of their dance. Porsche turns as the camera moves back from the mirror, turns as Kinn moves with him and backs away a bit to give him space, turns as there’s now just enough space for the background light to flood in from behind, take up the space between them and break into a thin, faint rainbow at the edge.

They just look at each other. This is so fragile. Kinn is apologizing, Porsche is willing to give it a chance, but this is still so uncertain. They clearly have the power to hurt each other deeply. That’s a reason to walk away. But they have that power because they love each other so much. That’s a reason to stay. They look at one another, and they see all that. They have to decide whether they want this with all of the risks attached.

And Kinn does. He raises his hand to grasp the hair at the back of Porsche’s neck, like a signal of what he’s about to do. That’s time for Porsche to stop this if he doesn’t want it to happen. He doesn’t. Kinn’s got implicit permission, and he dives into it, into making things better by worshipping Porsche, by making him feel good. It’s still hesitant and cautious. He doesn’t dare kiss Porsche on the lips. He’s not worthy yet. He knows what that kind of kissing means, it’s why he avoided it with everyone else after Tawan. Everyone but Porsche. Yet now, Kinn is denying himself that, and instead he starts kissing Porsche everywhere else. Who doesn’t stop it. So Kinn keeps going, and going, and eventually he circles back, works his way up, physically, to kissing Porsche on the mouth. Once again, he’s allowed to. Porsche had closed his eyes when Kinn started kissing him, starting his surrender to how it made him feel. And now, he actively joins the kiss, opens his mouth for it. And Kinn practically devours Porsche at this point. This is where you can really feel the desperation he’s been reigning in since the second Porsche was ready to walk away from them.

But the kiss is stopped. Porsche pushes Kinn away, holds him by his neck at a small distance, and examines him. They’ve kissed and had sex and flirted in no uncertain terms before, but this will be the first time Porsche really chooses this. He looks at Kinn with the full understanding of what it means if he doesn’t stop them now. Kinn gives him a small nod, and Porsche’s hands are letting go of his throat, allowing the distance between them to dissipate, rising up to cup Kinn’s face, while his own go down to undo Porsche’s pants. It’s a dance. Synchronized timing, opposite motions, one final direction they’re both moving in. They’re finally moving with each other in perfect harmony.

Kinn pulls down Porsche’s pants like a revelatory act, feeling up his hips with so much reverie. The camera travels up and down their bodies to show us all that, in a similar manner to how Kinn’s hands were roaming over Porsche’s skin. There’s so much adoration in the gaze, as much as there is in the touch, and that’s amplified when the camera focuses back on their faces, intently focused on each other.

Kinn starts jerking Porsche off. They start moaning loudly, their bodies tense and stretch, and Porsche’s hand joins Kinn down there. The intensity on their faces makes way for something more. Porsche’s delight. He’s relishing this. This sex and this man that he chose. Their hands start stroking at exactly the same time, and Kinn grabs Porsche’s hair tightly while repeating his name. It’s the first time we see this mafia prince, whose lives and the lives of his men have always depended on him being fully in control, start to unravel. After Tawan, Kinn didn’t intend on ever loving again, and now he gets to, and this time, it’s the real thing, with someone who’s honest with him, and loves him right back. That’s so intense, no wonder he’s not quite in control.

Which is exactly when Porsche steps up, takes charge as they both start smiling at each other, basking in how good this is. Porsche even stops for a second, licks his hand, and brings it back down to bring them both to completion.

Because this is their dance: the sex in this scene, just like their relationship overall, starts out with Kinn being the active one, the initiator, the one in control, but soon Porsche joins him, at first with trepidation, but then with more and more enthusiasm, with more commitment and passion poured into it, eventually matching Kinn, and even taking control himself, bringing them back to an equal footing. The initial choice is Kinn’s and the final one is Porsche’s, just like in the show overall. It matters so much that the sex itself is implied to be an act of mutual masturbation, it’s maybe the most “egalitarian” of sex acts that two men can have.

And when it’s over, they don’t let go of each other. Skin against clothes, we see them holding on and kissing. Hugging, and burying their faces in the crook of each other’s neck. That must have been the first time they felt that this is truly theirs. That they can have this. A joy and togetherness and love and fulfilment neither one of them was even hoping for. This was the big jump, the real leap of faith, and they took it together, completely in sync. All of the trust we’ll see later that will get them through everything, that will get them to the moment where they have their symbolic “wedding,” letting us know their commitment to each other doesn’t fall short of any heteronormative marriage, we’d have none of that if it weren’t for this perfect moment.

Thank you so much to the wonderful @nattaphum​​ for her permission to add the beauty of her gifs (which everyone should check out) to this post, and help put this meta together. Cris, you’re a gift to your fandom, so this is kind of a belated bday gift to you. Buon compleanno! xoxox

[kaunisbaby]

🔥BLIND CHANNEL+LOST SOCIETY GIG REPORT SOMEONE ACTUALLY ASKED FOR🔥

(please bear in mind that i was running on 1.30 hours of sleep and a full week of extremely severe anxiety before this damn night)

my friend and i took the train at 8 in the morning but since we're in italy we arrived two hours behind schedule 👍🏻 we got to the venue at around four i think?? where we met the lovely @maryonacross-mp3 and @braindeadfern hiii babes i love you 😭😭💕💕💕💕💕💕

so. the meet and greet. i was very nervous about it. i didn't have any questions prepared and no gifts because i had been so sure i couldn't have uttered a single word. turns out the guys are not intimidating at all, i felt so at ease during the whole thing! a girl asked joonas what he had for lunch (no we italians will never not be outraged by the fact they had sushi the last time they were here. we're a food based culture im sorry) and he said pasta with tomato so i guess he's forgiven 🙄🙄 some other questions were if they knew some italian musicians apart from måneskin and they said eros ramazzotti (🤨 unexpected) and laura pausini (joel said the first and aleksi the latter, which is vital information if you ask me). also a girl asked olli to sign her bass and i think it was super cool, i wonder where she put it during the show though 😅

the most fun part was where some fans made them play a game they prepared. basically the band (we were tight on time so only joonas, aleksi and olli participated) had to pick a card with an italian tongue twister written on it and the one who read it correctly would win a prize (the prize being the cake in santeri's stories!). olli won with the best pronunciation 😅 aleksi had the longest one and for some reason he thought we read double L like in spanish 😂😂 this part was exhilarating honestly

during the group photo i asked aleksi for a hug 🥺🥺 he's so damn sweet, even the way he says "sure" when you ask him for a picture or a hug is super soft. the hug felt amazing 🥺 god im in love

i would've asked joel for one too but he was far away from me and i felt like i was taking too much time, since many other fans were still in line!

now on to showtime: i ended up first row in the center. i tend to try and not go apeshit with support bands generally (my body is starting to rebel against my reckless singing/dancing/headbanging/jumping) but lost society were just so fucking good i couldn't restrain myself. samy was standing right opposite of me and we locked eyes often. i was singing at the top of my lungs and he seemed pleased with it, so much so that at some point he held his microphone to my face as if to make me sing but i was like DUDE WHAT 😂😂

blind channel were fuckin amazing, but if you're reading this then you probably already know 😌 i had the time of my life!! let myself lose all control!! some highlights would be locking eyes with joel and him widening his eyes at how enthusiastically i was singing 🥰 and getting to hold both joel's and niko's hands during/after dark side!!

(also very personal but autopsy felt just as cathartic as i thought it would)

then!! my friends and i decided to stay at the venue to eat and drink something (the venue had a bar outside) just minding our own business (i was telling them about the m&g 👀) and then we saw the band get out 👀👀👀

we and some other fans gathered around them by the bus, joel was talking to fans with a glass of white wine in hand 😂 i asked him for a picture and he was extremely sweet 🥺 then i turn around and suddenly niko is opposite of me like 😳😳 hi hello, and we took a picture together as well 🥰 then my friend drags me over to aleksi and she tells him "here she is, im sure you remember her" (she meant the hug from the m&g i had been screaming about 😅) and like it was only slightly embarrassing because he was actually so cute about it, and we got another picture 🥰🥰🥰

and this is it i guess 😅 it was an amazing experience and i loved every second i spent in the proximity of/inside the venue. im extremely happy about how everything went, the guys were amazing in every sense of the word and im still vibrating 💕💕💕

[dear-ao3]

the lore of dear-ao3

yes. my ao3 blog has lore. no i did not do this on purpose. i just work here.

who am i? you might be asking. a very good question. i am saph, your mod. the one and only mod. i run this blog in all of my tired college triple major glory, and by run i mean that i usually forget this blog exists until i click on my inbox. its the middle child of my blogs.

but that is besides the point. this is a post about the lore.

all was peaceful up until the night of february 4th, 2021. i was minding my own business, going through my inbox after i had let the tags stack up for a few days when i came across this lovely tag:

and i said haha, that passes vibe check, it can get posted. so i slapped on these tags:

and posted it. said post is here if you would like to look at it

and then the asks started rolling on. people agreeing with me that montana wasnt real. people began asking me my opinions on other states. in a fit of why the fuck not i posted as many as possible before i hit my post limit for the day (a feat that i had never and will not ever reach again). after the monstrosity of a night, people decided that i should keep posting state discourse at a one per day rate on account of the fact that i still had so much of it in my ask box. i agreed. we all found a new normal.

and then. less than two weeks later. disaster struck.

the morning of february 12 was just like any other. i dragged myself out of bed at 7:30 after a sad 5 hours of sleep, at some watery oatmeal, threw my hair in a ponytail and logged into my west african technique class because it was still covid times and i was taking classes from my bedroom. i finished class 2 hours later and flopped down on the floor with my 32 ounce hydroflask and my laptop to scroll through my tumblr inbox and find a good state discourse for that day. this was the ask i chose to answer on that fateful day:

no one, not even the writers of the gods of november 5 could not predicted what would happen next. people went apeshit, they couldn't fucking even. isn't delaware that thing that holds food? isn't delaware that song by the plain white tees? isn't delaware that ship that exploded the internet?

my poor head nearly exploded.

within 24 hours the post had over 70k notes. a week later it was featured on the hellsite hall of fame blog. someone made a delaware post blog. we still truly haven't recovered from the ripples that are still emanating from this monstrosity of an infinity stone that is the delaware post.

surely saph, you might be saying, surely that is all? surely that is all you have had to endure?? to which i say nay nay!! there is more, my dear reader!!

i was getting tired of my ask box being flooded with state discourse so i asked people to send in their favorite fanfic stories. they were all pretty standard as far as fanfic stories go, writing smut in the back of religion class, turning in johnlock fanfic to a professor, even writing fanfic about professors....the usual. and then. i got this ask:

which is, yes, a little unique but i have definitely seen weirder.

and oh, the weirder definitely came my friends. it came in the form of this anon a few hours later:

people were losing their minds over the gosh darned telletubbie saga!! people started asking people they knew names owen if they had this elusive crumpled fanfic sitting in their backpacks, but alas owen was never found and after that night, anon was never heard from again. i fear tinkie winkie may have gotten to them first.

and thus, all went back to normal, or, as normal as normal can ever be on this unholy blog that is dear-ao3. until. dc.

people did not know that dc is not a state!! you might be thinking, saph!! how on earth is that possible? to which i say, i have no idea!! dc literally stands for district of columbia, and a district is not a state!!

so what started out as good natured memery eventually accumulated into me explaining to my thousands of followers that dc is 1. not a state and 2. that it should be. oh and sam wilson. he was in there too. i don't quite remember why.

but avast!! this sudden explanation of the fact that dc was not a state resulted in someone coining the term professor saph. which someone else pointed out was just me getting upset that people didnt know how to use google to learn basic geography. that may in fact be true.

seriously. please learn how to use google. its right there.

and no!! that was not the end either! then people started getting adventurous. coming into my askbox and asking me about birds and hats and cheesecake. trying to ruin the small semblance of order that this blog has!!

but i would like the record to show that the cheesecake anon was very polite about the misunderstanding and is welcome back at any time. we are actually engaged (after i turned down all of the people who proposed to me in my inbox). although no one knows when the wedding might be. but they have a blog, @cheesecakeanon

the same kindness, my dear tumblr users of the court, is not extended to the bee movie anon who decided to inbox me the entire gosh darn bee movie.

but then someone thought that it would be nice to create the states of ao3 (i don't know either okay, like i said at the top, i just work here. and im not even paid). the states, which would be led by none other than angstexas:

and people thought this was the funniest thing ever grace their dash boards. they began sending in other states like flufforida and no nut new jersey and many others that i haven't posted yet because they make my eyes bleed!!

it was at this point that i decided that i had had enough state discourse. i was going to solve it and i was going to solve it once and for all!! but which states would be the only ones that exist? who would get the honor?

well the answer was simple. it lay in the only people that this blog stans: shane madej, hailing from the corn state of illinois; sam wilson, representing the bayou state of louisiana, and b dylan hollis of the who-the-fuck-even-knows-whats-out-there state of wyoming. these would be the only three states to exist.

and so i made a map.

now certainly, certainly this must be where the lore ends! but no!! there was one more key piece!! and for that we needed to return to professor saph.

as the beginning of may rolled around along with it came the tears of high school students salty enough to be the sole supplier of the morton salt company. thats right, ap season. and i, a war torn ap test veteran myself, decided to give them my resources. and thus the state discourse went from memes to genuine knowledge once again as i handed out dbq pointers and study videos left and right.

and then i moved on from professor saph because chaos is my truest form. one fateful evening i received this ask:

and naturally, i had to try it. but i had no tictacs or orange juice. so i had to call in the big guns, @thewitcherbog discord server. and @geraltrogerericduhautebellegarde (with the help of their husband) was more than happy to offer their services. according to them, it did taste like worm orange juice. the more you know.

and then at some point i called ben barnes basic and forgettable. so forgettable that i even forgot that i made that post. but aparently i did.

it was just after the fourth of july and i was feeling chaotic. so i opened my chaos cookbook and consulted the things that i could cook up. state discourse? been there done that. telletubbie fanfiction? no thank you. oh! what about tomato soup cake?

thats right. i harnessed the power of b dylan hollis himself and made a tomato soup cake.

people were impressed. they were shocked. they wanted more. but alas. saph the chef has been retired ever since. legend has it that she may return one day.

oh and its probably worth stating that exactly on the 6 month anniversary of the delaware post it became a world heritage post. seriously its highly unfortunate that all this tumblr clout gets me nothing in life cause it would be fun to put on a resume.

all was quiet on the western front of my blog as i returned to college in person. well except for that one time when i was accused of being homophobic because im not gay. i was swamped once again with work and my triple major duties once again, barely paying this blog so much as a glance during my insufferable journalism class.

once arriving at school i had hinted several times about a designer axe story at the beginning of the school year. however, the statute of limitations for this story expires in may of 2023 so all you greedy buggers will have to wait.

but in lieu of me sharing that story you all started wanting other stories. and so i shared the great black wallpaper story from junior year of high school.

does it make sense? no. did it have a point? also no. did it need to be included in the lore? definitely not. but now i have made all of you think about it again, so youre welcome.

hey its my blog lore and i can do with it what i want

and then. on the morning of september 25th 2021 i was reminded of the utter fury and rage that i hold for the absolute monstrosity of a title that is high school musical the musical the series.

because honestly. the mouse has made some absolutely batshit stupid decisions in its genetically altered, entirely too long life, but the decision to title a show high school musical the musical the series definitely tops that list so much so that its on a whole different list. and thankfully you all agreed with me otherwise i would have been throwing more than hands.

despicable titles were not the only thing that i wanted to throw hands with at college. one fateful night during my history class i decided to eat a bag of jellybeans. and low and behold the bag had no less than NINE BLACK LICORICE JELLY BEANS. it was outrageous. true blasphemy. a heresy at its finest. half of tumblr was outraged on my behalf. half of tumblr was outraged that i hated black licorice jelly beans. i still have yet to forgive that half.

and then i told the wide world of tumblr that i have a boyfriend. a himbo if you will. named brad. my loyal followers acted like very concerned and protective parents at first, but soon the himbo passed the test and people quickly became very invested in him and his taylor swift listening journey. i think a few of them plotted to steal him from me, but alas he is my himbo. not theirs. he would give me his kidney, not them.

and yes, the tags are still here, but does anyone read them anymore? the world may never know. the state discourse is to dear-ao3 as the hot daga is to buzzfeed unsolved. one day, it will become too powerful for its own good.

until the next update, your tired mod,

saph

[ultimatelytired]

Siblings pt. 2

word count: 28,395

Fandom: Stranger Things Pairing: Robin Buckley + Steve Harrington x Female!Harrington!Reader Pronouns: She/Her Relationship: Romantic/Familial Occupation: University Student Ability: N/A

Keys:

[F/N]: Female Name [L/N]: Last Name [N/N]: Nickname [H/C]: Hair Color [E/C]: Eye Color

Warnings: flayed reader, angst, violence, blood, vulgar language, murder, character death

“Siblings” pt.1, pt.3

@eddiemunsonsmiddlefingers​ has a map of hawkins and I’m constantly using that to reference where shit is. it’s awfully helpful.

I wasn’t planning on making a part two to this story but I suddenly got an idea from a line I kept repeating in my head and thought “why the hell not” to the point I might make this a story.

so I was going to write the scene where el saw billy’s happiest memory but chose against it, since we all know what it is, I’m not going to bother and just write [f/n]’s.

might eventually make this a story on my wattpad account because I dove too deep into this.

I rushed the ending, it sucks but I needed to finish this to settle my mind.

that is all.

“You know? I’d probably find that downright hilarious if not for the fact that you’re dating my brother, Billy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Plus, that bitch is weird. There’s actually a word in the dictionary for what she’s doing.”

“And what might that be?”

“Grooming.”

[F/N] and Billy were having one of their late night hangouts at the Hideout, sitting at the bar drinking alcohol, not really shit faced yet but they were slowly getting there. Billy was in the midst of telling [F/N] the reoccurring times Karen Wheeler, mother of Nancy and Mike Wheeler, has been opening flirting with Billy. She remembered the first time Billy had told her about this, of course she was weirded out about it but she laughed that this grown ass married woman was flirting with a guy that was about two decades younger than her, basically the same age as her eldest daughter! She would’ve laughed again when he flirted back with her, just to get her off his ass, but now he and her brother were in a relationship. The four of them would never make their relationship public, never. They’ve simply stuck to being friends on the outside, but when they’re alone, they do all things a couple would do. Sometimes when they’re on a double date, people would always mistake Billy and [F/N] as a couple as well as Steve and Robin, mostly because each duo were always seen together. They took advantage of that, so whenever either Billy or Robin came over to the Harrington household, there was never bad air lingering around. So sometimes it would fuck [F/N] off when middle aged women would flirt with a minor, knowing that he was in a committed relationship with her! The people of Hawkins were so fucked in the head.

“Doesn’t she make you uncomfortable, Billy?” she asked out of concern, reaching forward to place a hand on his knee and squeezing it lightly “I won’t bring this up with Steve, but you know in this town, word travels fast. Besides, I don’t want him getting worried and getting the wrong idea.” Billy softly nods his head.

“I know. That pretty boy would probably lose his shit on me first, then go after that Wheeler.” they both look up in thought, trying to imagine the thought of Steve going apeshit on Nancy’s mother, they were almost tempted to tell him just to see it happen to the point that burst out into laughter “He is your brother, so if he’s anything like you, he’ll probably beat the shit out of her!” she throws her head back with a laugh.

“Hah! As much as I agree with that, he respects women now. He’d probably ask me to drag her out by her hair, to which I will gladly do it!” they laugh again before grabbing their drinks and raising it up “To Steve potentially losing his shit on Wheeler’s mum!” they clink drinks before proceeding to down it, when they finish their drinks Billy raised his empty bottle to the bartender.

“Two more, please!” since the two of them drove to the Hideout, and the fact they had things to do early in the morning, they couldn’t get totally hammered so after a few drinks they later stuck to drinking water to sober themselves up then continued chatting or peacefully listening to the music that the Hideout had or the few indie bands that performed that night. After a couple hours of having fun they finally decided to drag themselves out and back to their cars, however, they were both leaning on each other to help each other walk whilst laughing and giggling to themselves. Billy’s laughter echoed throughout the car park as he watched [F/N] collapse to the ground and nearly face plant into the side of her front bumper but managed to catch herself before she gave herself a bleeding nose and possibly a concussion “Will you be alright, Harrington?” she waves her hand to brush him off.

“Please, you’re just as shit faced as I am.” they start laughing again before settling in their cars, [F/N] rolls down her window to let the wind blow through her car after starting her car before briefly pausing when Billy flashed his lights at her, she raised a brow at him then narrowed her eyes when she saw him smirk at her “The fuck are you looking at me like that Hargrove?” his smirk only widens when he revved the engine of his Camaro.

“How’s about a little race? I wanna give my pretty boy a little smooch before going home.” she scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Gross, I don’t need to know that.” she hummed in thought before raising her finger “I’ll race yah after seeing Robin, alright? We’re passing her house, and I wanna see her if you’re gonna see my brother.” Billy shrugs his shoulder with a laugh, brushing his hair out of his face. 

“Alright, might wanna tell your girlie that you’re gonna lose after I smoke your ass back to your place.” she scoffed.

“Whatever.” they both laugh and finally pull out of the parking lot. Robin was currently laying on her back, head bobbing softly as she listened to the music coming from her headphones playing through her cassette player. [F/N] graciously made her a mixtape of songs that they both liked, she smiled as she remembered that memory fondly. Because of the wealth the Harrington name held, [F/N] would always buy her expensive gifts after hearing the type of lifestyle she had grown up in. As lovely as each gift was, Robin asked her for something sentimental instead of jewellery like necklaces and earrings and rings (though she does appreciate them and wears them on special occasions), Steve told her that [F/N] had been hauled up in her room ever since then and when she came to pick her up, [F/N] presented her the mixtape. She’s probably listened to the entire playlist on repeats so many times that she can remembered ever song in order, but she just can’t help it, she was so in love. 

*TAP*

*TAP*

“Hmm?” she hums out in confusion, just briefly hearing the sound of tapping when the song faded out. She pulled the headphones off her head and looked around in confusion, she got a little angry when she thought that it was her siblings fucking with her but stopped when the tapping was coming from her window. She pushed herself upright and a big smile appeared on her face when she saw [F/N], who was currently looking down and talking to someone before raising her head to look at Robin once more, wobbling back and forward “[F/N]?” she muttered softly in question before stumbling to her feet and rushing to the window, throwing it open to greet her girlfriend, only to wince at the stench of alcohol and cigarettes coming from her breath.

“Robin~” she cooed out with a shout, only to shush herself when Robin raised a finger to her lips while shaking her head so she in turn covered her mouth with her hands “Sorry, sorry, I just missed you.” Robin rolled her eyes.

“We saw each other a couple hours ago.” she giggled to herself when she saw a flash of confusion come across her face before she nodded her head.

“Oh, you’re right… but I wanted to see you again.” Robin shook her head once more with a soft smile, she then realised that there was quite a distance from the ground and her window so she leaned forward whilst looking down and had to slap a hand over her mouth to quiet herself when she saw that [F/N] perched herself on Billy’s shoulders, to which he was just as equally drunk and could barely stand straight “Oh yeah, and Billy is here as well.” he looks up and gives a grin, saluting Robin, to which she returns to gesture.

“Howdy.”  “Hi?” she chuckles and looks back at [F/N], to which she was grinning ear to ear as she leaned forward, closing the small gap between them and pressing a small peck on her lips “What’s with the kiss, [F/N]? Not that I don’t like it.” the slightly drunk girl smiled at her, winking softly.

“Thought I’d drop by and give you a goodnight kiss, why? Don’t want any?” Robin scoffed before reaching forward, grabbing [F/N] by her cheeks and pulling her into a kiss. Robin couldn’t help but let out a groan when she could taste the alcohol and cigarettes against her tongue, she briefly pulled away but was only brought into another kiss when [F/N] grabbed her by the back of her neck to keep her still. By the time they separate [F/N] was grinning ear to ear, Robin flustered up a little when she saw the left over lipstick from her lips smudge across [F/N]’s neck “I’ll see you in the morning, sweets?” Robin giggled, wrapping a strand of her hair around her finger and twirling it around.

“Mm hmm.” Robin and [F/N] were giggling at each other before [F/N] started falling backwards, she let out a startled yelp and looked down at Billy and saw he lost his footing and couldn’t hold her up anymore and was starting to fall backwards, to which she tried to grab Robin’s windowsill to save herself but it slipped right under her grasp and the two of them fell to the ground with a loud thud. Robin gasped and stuck her head out of the window to see if they were alright, shaking her head slightly with a tired smile on her face when she saw the two of them slightly dazed and groaning.

“Nice one, Billy…” she murmured under her breath, grunting softly when he slapped her leg.

“You’re fat.”

“You’re weak.” he scoffs at her before proceeding throw her legs off of him, they then pull themselves to their feet and start retreating back to their cars, [F/N] sparing Robin one last glance followed by a kiss then finally scurried into her car. Robin sighed dreamily when [F/N] waved her goodbye as she and Billy drove off, she closed her eyes then pushed herself back into her room where she collapsed into her bed, smiling like a dork when all she could think of was how lucky she was to finally have someone that loves her. Speaking of which, [F/N] and Billy were gunning it down the streets, they were going to have to deal with the police and Hopper later but they didn’t give a shit as they sped down the empty streets of Hawkins, laughing wildly. They took a slight detour just so their moment of fun could last a little longer, that’s where they found themselves side by side, the both of them trying their best to get ahead of the other.

“We should’ve made a bet, Harrington!” he shouts at her, she scoffs and looks back at him.

“Oh, yeah? Then how about the first one back to my house has to buy us both gas for our cars for three weeks!” he smirks at that.

“Then I hope your wallet can handle the expenses of gas because you’re on!” he lets out a laugh as he shifts gears while putting more pressure on the gas, she grimaced when she saw him get a head of her and was creating some distance. She knew his Camaro was significantly faster in comparison to her Mustang, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a few tricks up her sleeves to keep up with him. Billy looked into his rear view mirror and saw [F/N] hot on his tail, he licked his lips with a laugh as he turned his attention back to the road ahead of him, he had this in the ba— he lets out a shout when something flew into the windscreen. [F/N] let out a confused noise when she saw Billy swerving around but when she saw that she was still speeding towards him, evidently going to crash into him, she lets out a shout and slammed on the breaks and quickly swerved out of the way before she could hit Billy. She managed to get control of her car as it comes to a halt, she was breathing heavily at what happened before remembering about Billy.

“Oh my god, Billy!” she shouts, jumping out of her car and running over to see if he was alright “Billy! Shit!” she runs over to his car and winced at the state of it, she moves over to the drivers side and opened the door.

“Piece of shit…” she heard him groan out.

“Are you okay, Billy?” he sucked in a breath, pushing himself back into his seat then raised a hand to press against his forehead, wincing when his hand touched his bleeding forehead “Shit, you’re bleeding.” he scoffs at her.

“No shit.” she frowns at him, reaching forward to cup his face and make him look at her. 

“God, I hope you don’t have a concussion.” he smacks her hands off of him then gestures for her to move, she does so but ultimately helps him out of the car.

“Just great, this is just fucking great.” he mutters to himself as he looks at the state of his Camaro, she in turn approached the front of his car and saw the cracked windscreen, she furrowed her brows in confusion and mild disgust when she saw some sort of slime on the windscreen where it was cracked. She reached forward and gently touched it, only to regret it as she shudder at the feeling, she wiped it off against her pants “Fuck, this is going to cost a fucking fortune to repair.” Billy threads his fingers through his hair, at the verge of yanking them out of his scalp but calmed down slightly when [F/N] placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it, Hargrove. I’ll help pay for it… with my parents money.” he scoffs, shoving her back softly to sit on the hood of his car.

“I don’t think they’ll appreciate the loss of money in their account.” she scoffs right back at him, sitting down beside him and offering him a cigarette, to which he graciously took and let her light it, enjoying the feeling of the nicotine filling his lungs then letting it all out.

“Please, I’ll be lucky if they notice a couple grand is missing.” the two of them start smoking away, she sniffles a little as she let the cigarette hang loosely by her lips “Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea on our part. We’re drunk, possibly high and extremely tired.” Billy rolls his eyes, taking the cigarette from his lips and held it in between his fingers.

“Yeah, but we’re both competitive and like to win.” she pursed her lips.

“True.” they fist bump each other “Anyways, what hit your car? A bird?” he shrugs his shoulders.

“Not sure, was going way too fast to get a glimpse of what it was.” she looked back at where they were previously then looked around at their surroundings, she suddenly felt a chill run down her back as the abandoned steel works factory loomed over them, she swallows thickly then turned back to Billy and gestured to her car.

“How’s about we get the fuck out of here? This place is giving me the heebie jeebies. I’ll be even more generous as to let you stay at our place while someone looks over your car, I personally know a good mechanic that can get your baby whipped back up into shape in no time.” he looked liked he was considering that option, he then winces when she cupped his face once more and looked at his bleeding forehead “But after we take care of this, I don’t want Stevie getting worried about this.” he nods his head.

“Agreed… we’re not telling him about this, right?”

“Are you crazy? Fuck no.” they both stand up but whipped their heads in the direction they heard something shuffle.

“Who’s there?!” Billy shouts, neither get a reply “I said who’s there?!” [F/N] shook her head, noticing that Billy was getting paranoid. Before she could say anything Billy’s feet were suddenly swept out from under him, he all but dropped to the ground before he was being dragged away. He desperately clawed at the ground to stop himself but there just wasn’t anything to cling onto, this continued as he was dragged through the factory and as he was going to be pulled down into the lower level of the factory he managed to grab a hold of the railing of the stairs. He clung onto it desperately, panic coursing throughout his body when he could feel his grip slowly slipping and when it did he expected to be dragged down the staircase but [F/N] caught him.

“I… got you!” she strains out, her grip on him deathly tight as she tried to pull him back but her feet where being dragged forward. She tries to dig the heels of her feet into the ground to keep herself from moving any further, their sweaty hands weren’t helping their predicament because she did lose her hold on his left hand but she quickly grabbed the railing. All this was for naught when something slithered around her ankle and yanked her, she fell to the ground with a thud with Billy on top of her before they were both dragged down the stairs into basement. The moment the two of them came face to face with this weird goopy looking thing they couldn’t help but scream at the top of their lungs as it roared at them, holding each other right as it loomed over them. The next few moments were silent, just the sound of chains swaying in the soft wind followed by quiet rumbling, this moment was interrupted when both Billy and [F/N] managed to pull themselves out of the basement. [F/N] starts pushing Billy and herself away but they both stumble to the ground, pushing themselves back as they spare a glance back at the entrance to the basement and shudder when they hear a roar come from that thing. Billy pulls himself onto his feet first and grabs [F/N] by the back of her jacket to yank her to her feet, she’s holding onto his arm as they’re scrambling out of the factory and rushing to their respective cars. They don’t waste a second to drive the fuck out of there, Billy driving ahead of [F/N] but he pulls to the side when he saw a phone booth, neither of them turn their cars off as they jump out but Billy makes it into the phone booth to make the call while [F/N] stood outside, breathing heavily as she kept looking back towards the direction they came from.

”911, what’s your emergency?” Billy goes to speak but the words got caught in his throat, I mean, how could it not? What the fuck was he supposed to say? Hey, my friend and I got in a car accident because we were drunk then we found this weird fucking monster, send help right away please! The two of them started to panic when the light in the phone booth started flickering as their surroundings changed ”Is someone there? Hello—” the voice cut off when the light completely turned off, Billy hangs up the phone as he walks out of the phone booth. He hears a noise and starts walking towards it, flinching slightly when he felt something so he glanced down and saw [F/N] just as equally terrified as he was holding onto his arm and hand. He places his free hand on her shoulder then the two of them walked towards the fog where they heard footsteps coming towards them.

“What do you want?” Billy manages to croak out, voice shaky and not sounding like his usual self “Hey, I said what do you want?!” he was desperate for an answer but the two of them started to panic again when they saw a group of people coming towards them. Red lightning struck as the group of people came to a halt, instead two people from the crowd came walking towards them and they both equally froze when their vision cleared up and they were staring right back at themselves.

[time skip: the next day]

Steve stood in front of his full body mirror as he does his hair up, something he always does in the morning though it was usually done for naught because of that stupid little hat he has to wear that was apart of the uniform that was just as stupid. He sets his hairspray on his desk, looking at his iconic hair and touching it up for the nth time of that morning before nodding his head when he was satisfied with how it looked. With everything ready he picked up his keys and tucked them into his pocket then walked out of his bedroom with an extra skip on his step in his step, things were finally looking up for him that he couldn’t not be happy. His sister was home for the summer break, he’s actually enjoying work (kind of), he’s made friends with the girl at said work, his sister is dating said girl while he himself has gotten himself into a relationship that first started off rocky but evidently he fell in love with him. He wasn’t expecting to see his sister as he walked past her room, she was always gone in the morning to go pick up Robin, but he halted at her door when he saw the state she was in.

“[F/N]…?” he muttered softly, pushing open her door that was left open just a bit and his eyes widened when he saw her. She was sitting hunched over at the edge of her bed, elbows planted on her knees as her head rested on her interlocked fingers. She was panting heavily while sweating profusely, she looked downright horrible “Oh my god, [F/N]! Are you okay?” he exclaims as he rushed over to her side, kneeling down to try and get a look at her face and saw her face was pale while her [E/C] eyes were dull from their usual shine.

“Steve…” she weakly breathed out, he moved his hands to gently place a hand on her forehead and quickly withdrew it when he felt a burning sensation under his fingertips.

“You’re burning up, [F/N]!” he shouts then proceeds to push her onto her back so that she was lying on her bed but she shook her head, weakly pushing him back so she could get up.

“No, no… I need to get Robin, I promised to get her.” she weakly hits at his chest, letting out a whine when he grabbed her by her wrists to stop her futile attempts to get him off and gently lays her down on the bed.

“I’ll get her, okay? I think she’ll understand why you couldn’t get her if I tell her that you’re sick, alright? You’ll only worry her if you show up as the mess you are right now, besides, I don’t think you can drive in the state you’re in.” she lets out a groan, slapping her hands onto her face and dragging them down “I’ll open the window so it can help you can cool down, if there isn’t anything in the cabinets I’ll grab some shit from the pharmacy on my way back from work. Don’t do anything that’ll make you feel any worse than you already are.” she chuckles weakly, placing a hand on her chest and looking over at Steve.

“Since when were you the one… to look after me?” he just shook his head, he walks into her bathroom then later came out with a wet cloth to wipe away the sweat on her forehead then placed another wet and cold cloth on her forehead to help cool her down.

“Since my sister was the one that got fucked up in my stead.” she scoffed then hummed when she felt Steve cup her cheek, she leaned into his touch but winced when it got too hot for her liking and jerked away, he sighed sadly and retracted his hand from her “I’ll try and get off early so I can take care of you, alright? Don’t do anything to drastic while I’m gone.” she waves her hand.

“No promises…” she pants out as her hand dropped back down onto her chest, he sighs softly then knelt down to press a kiss to her temple then retreated out of her room to leave for work. Hours go by but not a single thing changed, she only felt worse and worse as she tried to calm her breathing down, tried to stop herself from sweating so much, but the summer heat was just becoming to unbearable. She closed her eyes as she tried breathing through her nose, a horrible mistake on her part when the memory of the night before came flooding back. Her fingers dug into her shirt when the flashing images of those rats scattering along the floor reappeared, being held down by some fucking monster as it forced something into her body. Her eyes snapped opened as she let out a scream, shooting up straight as she continued to pant, she takes the cloth off her head and throws it to the ground as she weakly makes her way to her bathroom. She leans her weight into the sink, her hands gripping onto the sink as her head hung loosely in front of her. She managed to lift her head to stare at her reflection, her vision slowly clearing up so she can get a good look at her reflection but then another flashback from last night appeared before her.

”What do you want…?” she managed to whimper out, her usual personality nowhere to be seen as she leaned closer into Billy’s side, who held onto her tightly but neither one of them could tear their eyes away from their doppelgängers.

”To build.” both doppelgängers said in unison, they even sound like them but their voices were slightly disoriented with a deep, echoing feeling to it. Billy and [F/N] manage to tear their eyes away from them to look at each other, nothing but confusion were seen on their faces ”I want you to build.”

“To build what?” Billy asks.

”What you see.” [F/N] shakes her head.

“I-I… I don’t understand.” they both flinch backwards when that same lightning struck and they were suddenly back on the side of the road, [F/N] all but collapses to her knees as she threads her fingers through her hair, her shoulders trembling at the terror the two of them witnessed. Billy was still standing as he looked around for wherever they could have gone, shaking his head.

“I don’t understand!”

“Ah!” she screamed at her reflection before proceeding to punch it, not bothering to remove her fist when the shattered glass fell into the sink and cut her hand. When her breathing calmed down she pulled her fist and let her trembling hand hang by her side, she took deep breaths through her nose before turning her head to the side “I need to talk to Billy…” she muttered softly then quickly left the bathroom, putting on her shoes and grabbing a jacket that had her keys in her pockets. The drive to the Hawkins community pool felt like a nightmare, her windows were all the way down and her AC was blasting to cool down her overheating body, but what freaked her out was when she was stopped at a red light. She perched her arm on the open window as her finger nervously tapped against the stirring wheel, she hissed in pain when she felt like she was being burn so she glanced down at her hand and furrowed her brows when she saw a burn mark forming on the back of her hand, she immediately pulls her arm back into the car. She pulls up to the pool and quickly hops out of her car, not bothering to lock it up and just simply slams the door shut and rushes into the pool. She spots Billy just as disoriented as she is, she didn’t waste any time to whistle to catch his attention, when his head shot up and looked for her, he managed to spot her waving her hand.

“[F/N]…?” he mumbles in confusion, he pushes himself up when he saw her waving him over, mouthing that they needed to talk. He all but jumps out of his seat and rushes over to her as fast as he could, stumbling with his footing but he managed to reach her in the end, grabbing her by her wrist and dragging her into the changing rooms, the showers specifically “What are you doing here?” she takes a shaky breath, holding her arms and digging her fingers into her jacket.

“Are we not going to talk about last night?” she asked, she inhales sharply as she runs her hands over her face “Have you been seeing things? Hearing things? I feel like I’m losing my mind…” she croaks out, she lets out a yelp when he grabbed her wrist again to look at the burn on her hand.

“What happened here?” her eyes trailed down his arm and noticed a similar looking burn on his elbow, they both started feeling hot again, [F/N] tears her jacket off but that isn’t enough and so Billy shoves her into the shower and turns on the cold water. They both silently soak in the water but start to get distracted when the pain in their burns starts aching, they’re both reaching for their wounds and grimace when they could hear something moving beneath their skin, the moment their hands grazed against the wound a flash of a monster appeared in their heads followed by high pitched screeching. They both fall to the ground, clutching their heads in agonising pain, pressing their heads into the tiled walls to try and lessen the pain but nothing was working, they were yelling in pain but it soon came to a halt when they heard a voice.

“Billy…?” [F/N] couldn’t recognise it, the two of them managed to push themselves back to lean against the wall behind them as they watched the girl kneel down in front of them “Billy. Take me to him.” they both stare at her in confusion.

“What?” they mutter.

“I said are you hurt?” she then looked in between the both of them as they continued to stare at her “What’s going on? I heard screaming. Should I call an ambulance?” she asked out of genuine concern, she then slowly backed away when she noticed the look of pain and confusion disappear and was replaced with one of malice. She lets out a scream when [F/N] shoots towards her, her hand slamming against her mouth to muffle her screams of terror whilst her other hand held both her wrists in an iron grip.

“I’m so sorry about this.” she whispers, she then pulls her up then slammed the back of her head against the ground to knock her unconscious. Both herself and Billy stand up and stare down at the unconscious girl then looked at each other and nodded.

[time skip: starcourt mall, scoops ahoy]

Robin felt a little deflated that entire day, first she wasn’t able to see [F/N] and Steve was the one to pick her up in her stead. She was confused when the younger Harrington pulled up to her house and so she obviously asked where her girlfriend was, the answer she got was a worried looking Steve telling her how awful [F/N] was and that she was very sick to the point she could barely move. Sure, she was worried for her girlfriend and completely understood why she couldn’t come get her, but she just couldn’t understand how she got sick. Last night she looked completely fine, only being a little tipsy but other than that, she was fine. Robin now found herself serving free samples to some little girl that was slowly getting on her last nerve, ready to pop a nerve, but then the sight of [H/C] hair her eyes.

“[F/N]?” she mumbled under her breath, wasn’t she supposed to be lying down in her bed at home? She shook her head and turned towards the window into the back room, throwing it open to get Steve and his little friend Dustin’s attention “Hey, Harrington! Man the counter, will you? I need to go check something out!” she shouts, choosing to ignore his shouts of protest as she abandons the counter and rushes out of the store, pushing past people to check if who she saw was actually her girlfriend. Her face lights up when she heard her familiar laughter so she turned the corner and was going to greet her but froze up at what she saw, there she saw [F/N] talking with some guy as he openly flirted and joked with and she was laughing at it.

“That is the dumbest pick up line I’ve ever heard, you dork.” he scoffs, bumping his shoulder against hers.

“But it made you smile, didn’t it?” she then shoved him back, not being able to hide the big smile on her face.

“Barely.” her heart dropped into her stomach when she saw [F/N] grab the guy by the collar of his jacket and pull him back, the two of them stumbling out of view. Robin grits her teeth and rushes over to where the two disappeared, she rounded the corner but was left flabbergasted when she saw neither of them, they just simply vanished. Maybe she was just seeing things, maybe she was just desperate to see [F/N] that she conjured her up, but why the hell was she shamelessly flirting with some random fucker? The end of the night came sooner than later, from seeing her girlfriend with some guy to helping her brother and some random child with a Russian translation, she was currently sitting in Steve’s passenger seat as he drove them to his house.

“Is she really sick?” Steve let out a dramatic sigh, rolling his eyes.

“Yes! How many times do I have to tell you, Robin? What you saw was definitely not [F/N]. For one, she’d never flirt with a guy. Two, she’d never let a guy flirt with her, because she’d either fight them or throw up.” that option made her chuckle, that sounded like her “My sister isn’t the type of person to cheat, okay? She actually beat that into me, so I highly doubt she would ever do something so frivolous.” Robin sighed, the back of her head hitting the car seat.

“I know… I think I’m just getting paranoid.” she jolts in her seat when Steve placed his hand on her shoulder, she looked at him and saw him giving her a reassuring look.

“Robin, if my sister does anything and says anything hurtful to you, you’ll tell me right?” he inhales through his nose and looks back towards the road “She doesn’t do or say things without meaning it. When she said she was in love with you, she meant it. When she said she wanted to be with me, she meant it. So if she somehow says she doesn’t want to be with you anymore… she’ll say it to you straight and she won’t do it behind your back, she isn’t like that. She isn’t one for hiding her feelings and she isn’t afraid to voice her opinions, rarely have I ever seen her bottle up her emotions. I don’t see any reason why she would ever go behind your back, but if she does anything to you that just doesn’t seem right, tell me. I’ll make sure to talk to her, so don’t worry about anything, alright?” she couldn’t help but get a little teary eyed, Steve smiled softly when Robin tearfully nodded her head.

“Alright, thank you.”

“No problem.” Steve then lets out a laugh when he pulled up to their house, gesturing to the driveway “Look at that, Robin! Her car is here.” Robin shrugs, sure, but it doesn’t cross out the possibility that she still left the house. Entering the Harrington household, Steve flips on the hallway lights and shuffles out of his shoes, letting out a slight grunt when Robin shoved past him to rush up the stairs to get to [F/N]. Steve told her that her condition was horrible, that she was sweating profusely and couldn’t stop her body from trembling, going so far as she couldn’t control her breathing. She needed to see this for herself, she needed to see how sick her girlfriend was to calm her mind of the image of her perfectly healthy girlfriend that she saw at the mall with some gu—

“S-Stevie…? Is that you?” Robin jerked backwards a little shocked after throwing the door open, there in the dark room with the hallway light to illuminate the room, was her girlfriend laying on her back whilst clutching her chest, looking just as terrible as Steve described “Stevie…?” she called out once more, she nearly tripped over her feet when she finally managed to move.

“N-No, [F/N], it’s me.” she saw [F/N] perk up at the sound of her voice and so turned her head towards her, smiling weakly when her eyes set on girlfriend.

“Robin…” she cooed, Robin smiled softly and knelt down, placing a hand on her forehead and let her thumb caress her skin “You’re here… why?” they hear Steve clear his throat, he decides not to turn on the light as he took a spot on the other side of Robin, standing over his sick sister who smiled at him.

“She wanted to see you, asking me after our shift to bring her here to check up on you.” Steve decided it would be for the best to keep Robin’s actual intentions a secret from his sister, it was the better option because that reason made [F/N] smile at the both of them.

“Y’all are saps…” she mumbled out, she then reached for Robin and gently tapped her shoulder “I’m sorry I couldn’t pick you up this morning, I feel so awful for leaving you hanging like that.” Robin shook her head, taking her hand into here and squeezing.

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m just glad that your brother came and got me, would have sucked if I have to bike instead.” they both giggle at that, Steve smiled at his sister and her girlfriend, not understanding where Robin ever got the misunderstanding of [F/N] ever betraying her in the worst way. He then pulled a face when he realised why and swore in his head to never voice that stupid thought of his, he reached forward and placed his hand on [F/N]’s cheek and she leaned into his subtle touch.

“Your fever seems to have calmed down a little, did you take some tylenol?” she nods softly.

“Mm, I found some in my cabinet.”

“Alright, that’s good.” Steve has Robin help him with taking care of [F/N] to the best of their abilities, staying with her until she was drifting off to sleep, and when she finally did he pulled her out of the room and closed the door behind them “See? What did I tell you? She never left the house, Robin.” she nods her head, holding her arms.

“I know, I know. I just can’t help but feel insecure, you know? She’s totally out of my league, and yet she wants to be in a relationship with me! A nobody, a weirdo that’s apart of band and is employed in an ice cream shop.” Steve scoffs at that, placing his hands on his hips.

“That’s exactly what she likes about you, Robin. She finds it cool that you can play instruments.” she rolled her eyes bashfully, spinning one of her rings around with her thumb.

“Stop it.” Robin takes on last peek at [F/N] before finally leaving with Steve so he can take her home, it didn’t take long for the younger Harrington to return home nor did it take long for him to fall into a deep sleep. The moment silence fell upon the Harrington household [F/N] eyes shot open and she no longer looked sick anymore, she sat up and threw the covers off her body to reveal the clothes she was wearing were never changed. She shuffles out of her bed and walks over to her locked bathroom, pushing the door open to find the same boy Robin saw her with submerged in cold icy water. [F/N] did indeed see Robin in the corner of her eye when she was at the Starcourt Mall, that was the reason why she pulled that boy into empty hallway but she pulled him into an empty room before Robin could see them and proceeded to choke him out with little to no effort. 

She now found herself back at the abandoned steel works factory, exiting her car, she lifted her head to see Billy was there as well. Neither said a word to the other, just silently moving to the trunks of their cars and opening them up, finding their tied up victims unconscious, Billy lifts Heather into his arms while [F/N] throws the guy over her shoulder and the two of them walk side by side back down into the basement where it all started. Settling the two down, they hover over their unconscious bodies that slowly started regaining consciousness. Of course the two of them were unaware of the situation they were, blinking their eyes as they looked around in confusion, their eyes met and they were both confused when they saw their mouths were duck taped shut while their hands and feet were bound. Panic started to arise as they tried to free themselves, Heather letting out whimpers as she tried to shake free while the guy was screaming under the tape, they were both silenced when Billy grabbed Heather by her shoulders while [F/N] grabbed the other guy by his face and held his jaw in a tight hold.

“Don’t be afraid.” they said in an emotionless tone, both victims ceased their muffled cries and movements “It’ll all be over soon. Just stay very still.” they then remove the tape from their mouths before finally pulling away and stepping back, standing together as the same monster that did something to them crawled out of the shadows towards its latest victims, snarling at them as they screamed in terror. 

Billy and [F/N] could do nothing but watch.

[time skip: two days later]

The two of them continued to collect more and more victims for the monster to turn into mindless zombies, sometimes almost getting caught by their respective siblings, but they always managed to play it off. [F/N] remembered bringing a girl home she met in the middle of town, she recognised her as an old classmate friend and said how she wanted to reconnect. The girl was helpless against the mind controlled girl, struggling under her iron grip as she ties her hands up but was interrupted when the front door to the house was opened and in came walking Steve. He enters the kitchen and there he found his now healthy sister by the counter with an innocent smile on her face, waving her hand to greet him on his return home.  “Anything interesting happen today, [F/N]?” she only shrugged her shoulders.

“Same old, same old.” he was satisfied with the answer and ventures upstairs to his room, unaware of the whimpering girl under the counter wanting to cry out for him to save her from his crazy sister but could only whimper silently when [F/N]’s fingers dug into the meat of her face whenever she felt her struggle. She was now hauling her down into the basement of the factory, she hummed softly when she saw Billy and Heather already down there with two victims of their own “You’ve been busy, huh?” she mused, Billy glanced up at her and saw the girl over her shoulder.

“So have you.” 

[F/N] now found herself sane and sitting in her car, inhaling and exhaling softly as she watched the unknowing people walk by her, not knowing that she was picking out her latest few victims to bring to the monster. A pinch of her sanity was clinging to the back of her mind, she was already losing her mind because she could do nothing but watch her body go around kidnapping people and offering them up to this monster to do who knows what. She takes a deep breath, running her fingers through her hair before her eyes settled on a group of girls, she remembered one of them as a girl she hooked up with a few times while they were still in high school, this could be an easy catch because the other girl still had some lingering feelings for her. She rolls her neck, ready to do what she’s been doing for the past few days but her body suddenly fought against it. There were two fights going on in her mind right now, one was sweet talking this one time fling into bringing her and her friends back home to have some fun, possibly get them wasted out of their minds then bring them back to the factory, but the other was against it. This last piece of her sanity was fighting against that, she didn’t want to flirt with this girl, she didn’t want to tell her words that were rightfully reserved for her girlfriend. She lets out a groan, aching pain throbbing in her head as she tried taking control of her mind but ultimately lost when the pain became to unbearable.

“Don’t make this harder for you than it already is…” she muttered to herself, her voice not sounding like her own. Flicking down her sunglasses, she pulls at the collar of her jacket before finally opening the door to her car just as the girls were walking past her car. This obviously caught their attention, they were already checking out the ridiculously nice car but the moment [F/N] stepped out of the car the girl she hooked up with couldn’t help but freeze up when she saw her long time crush. [F/N] pretended to pay them no mind, throwing her car door shut and locked it, walking past the group of girls and as she walked further away, she stopped when the girl called out to her.

“H-Hey, [F/N]!” her friends snickered at how shaky her voice was as she stuttered over her words, she cursed at them but straightened up when [F/N] turned her head over her shoulder to look at the group.

“Yes?” she swallowed thickly, taking a step forward as she clutched onto the straps of her hand bag.

“D-Do you— do you remember me, by any chance?” her face flushed up when she tilted her head down, her sunglasses slipping down the bridge of her nose so she could see past the tinted lenses and at the girl in question “We were in the same chemistry class? We sat together and did a few projects together?” she was really hoping that [F/N] would remember, she took a step forward as she turned around fully, raising her hand to grab the frames of her glasses and pulled them down as she looked her up and down.

“Chemistry…?” she muttered to herself, looking up in thought then smirked down at her “Right, you’re— you’re Veronica, right? Veronica Gibbons?” her face lights up immensely because [F/N] Harrington remembered her, she actually remembered her! She enthusiastically nodded her head, reaching forward to grab her hand.

“Yes! I’m so happy you remember me.” her friends were giggling from behind her, knowing just how big of a crush she had on the female Harrington, also remembering how much she cried when she left Hawkins to study in a different state, but now she’s back as she has a chance to be with her. She then tilted her head when [F/N] pouted softly, taking off her glasses then biting the end of one of the frames.

“Actually, I’m still having a little trouble remembering, think you can help jog my memory up?” the group of girls giggled at the suggestion, Veronica turned back towards them and saw them gushing at her and giving her the thumbs up, gesturing for her to shoot her shot with [F/N].

“S-Sure.” 

Robin felt like she accomplished a mission. You could really do a lot with just twenty bucks, she exits the post office and stuffed the entire layout of the Starcourt Mall into her bag and jogs over to where she parked her bike, only slowing in pace when she heard soft giggling. Turning to see what the laughter was all about, she saw a group of girls gushing about how lucky their friend was, she thought nothing of it until the name “Harrington” left their lips. She then glanced over at the parked Mustang and immediately recognised it as [F/N]’s car, she then noticed that they kept glancing back towards the little alleyway and her insecurities started getting the best of her again. The name “Veronica Gibbons” left their loose lips and more thoughts started circulating in her head, she remembered that girl. She was definitely one of the best looking students during her year at Hawkins High School, she was that iconic popular girl that did cheerleading, was beautiful, smart and was wanted by the entirety of the male population. But there was a rumour that she was into girls, that she was into the particular Harrington that was untouchable, a heartbreaker who’s heart would never beat for anyone but her brother.

She didn’t hesitate to drop her bag on the ground and rush over to the alleyway, turning the corner and her heart stopped when she saw it. Veronica was pushing [F/N] back against the wall, her hands tightly gripping onto [F/N]’s biceps as she pressed her lips against her own. [F/N] didn’t bother reciprocating the loveless kiss, just let the shorter one of the two take the lead as she desperately kissed her. She tried not to think about it, she tried so hard not to think how awful she feels for playing with this girls feelings just because she couldn’t control her own body, she didn’t want to think about how much this was going to hurt Robin, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Veronica pulled away and gave [F/N] a sheepish smile, flushing up when she noticed that her lipstick smeared onto her lips, she turns away to avoid her intense gaze but a gasp left her lips when she noticed a figure at the end of the alleyway.

“[F/N]…?” her heart dropped into her stomach, visible fear in her eyes that were hidden under the tinted lenses of her sunglasses. Robin gritted her teeth when she saw Veronica pushed herself off of [F/N], clearing her throat and fixing herself up, excusing herself from the heartbroken Robin as she tearfully gazed at [F/N], who had yet to acknowledge her existence “[F/N], please… tell me that what I saw didn’t really happen.” [F/N] just let out a sigh, crossing her arms and leaned against the brick wall behind her, finally sparing Robin a glance that just wasn’t kind.

“What’s there to talk about?” Robin’s hand clenched into a tight fist, whoever this person was, it wasn’t her [F/N]. Her loving and sweet [F/N] who’d give her the world, who would fight the world just to see her happy, whoever this imposter was, she hated their guts for what they’ve done with her girlfriend. She marches over to her and stood in front of her, glaring up at her with a tearful gaze and saw that [F/N] had an indifferent expression on her face, like she didn’t care that she just got caught “You seem upset, little birdie.” she cooed out, Robin nearly keened at the nickname, any other time she would turn red, but right now she was filled with anger and anguish.

“Is this just a joke, [F/N]? Are you not going to acknowledge the fact that I just caught you kissing another girl, or the fact that you let that girl kiss you despite already being in a relationship with me?! Is she another relative of yours you and Steve forgot to bring up? If that’s the case, that’s really fucking weird.” Robin turns away, running a hand through her hair than back at her “I thought you loved me, [F/N]. I thought you said you wanted to be with me, but as of lately, I feel like you’ve become an entirely different person. Ever since that night, I haven’t seen a trace of the girl that said she was in love with me. What the fuck has happened to you, [F/N]!” Robin continued to rant and rave at the betrayal and [F/N] just took it, because another war was raging on in her head.

Take her.

Not her.

Bring her.

Ignore her.

Kill her. 

Spare her.

[F/N]’s fingers clawed at the wall behind her, her nails digging into the bricks to the point they were being crushed under her hold. Her teeth were biting down so hard on her lips to the point they were bleeding, she was trying to distract herself from the grotesque thought of bringing one of the few people that she loves to that fucking thing. She was trying so hard the past two days to avoid Steve and Robin, she was trying so hard to limit her time with those two because if she was with them for more than a couple minutes then she would lose all control of her body and she would hurt them. That was the last thing that she wanted, she didn’t want to hurt them, she didn’t want them to die all because she made one stupid decision. She said nothing as Robin continued to question what their relationship has come to after two days of her acting off, she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around Robin and tell her everything, tell her that everything is going to be okay and that kiss with Veronica whatever meant nothing to her. But she knew the moment her arms were around her, there was no letting go of her, and not for a good reason either. She wanted to do something to keep Robin away, give her a reason to avoid her, to never see her again.

“You’re making me think that everything about our relationship was for nothing!” she shouts, tears now running down her face, oh how she wanted to wipe those tears away but she didn’t want to touch her with the hands that have been the cause of people losing their minds and possibly their lives “Was there absolutely nothing, nothing special about our relationship?” Robin stood their panting in front of [F/N], the girl silently looking down at her.

“… are you done?” she flinched back at the harsh words.

“Wha—”

“Was anything in our relationship special? Wow, you were really deep in that delusional fantasy of yours, huh? Well, let me tell you something, Buckley.” she harshly jabs her finger into Robin’s chest, causing her to stagger backwards as each jab got harsher and harsher at each step she took “Your love for me was nice, it was, but it’s gotten boring. There’s nothing about you that excites me anymore, so yeah, maybe our relationship was for nothing.”

“[F-F/N]…” she lets out a whimper when her back was no pressed against the opposite wall, [F/N] looming over her with a dark look on her face.

“There is no us, not anymore. I don’t need you.” [F/N] makes sure to grab her by the jaw, lifting her up off the ground as she glared down at her “You mean nothing to me.” Robin lets out a whimper when she felt her nails digging into her skin, she spares her a glance through her teary eyes and when she looked into [F/N]’s eyes, there was no warmth but dull and empty eyes staring right back at her. She let out a gasp when [F/N] dropped her, letting her collapse to the ground and grovel at her feet. She turned on her heel and started walking away, ignoring how much she wanted to stop and apologise to Robin, how this isn’t what she wanted but this was the hill she was going to die on if it meant that Robin was safe from her ”And Buckley, don’t even think about telling Stevie about this, not that he’ll even be on your side in the first place. I’m his sister, he loves me, and you? You’re nothing but a coworker he has to put up with.” she didn’t even bother looking back at Robin when she finally left the alleyway, leaving Robin to wallow up with a broken heart as she cried out in anguish.

“[F/N]?” she let out a hum, turning towards Veronica who now sat in her passenger seat while her friends were excitingly sitting in the back “Are you alright?”  “Why wouldn’t I be, sweetheart?” she flushed at the pet name, she points at her face.

“You’re crying…” her eyes widened softly at that, glancing down at her face to see a single tear running down her cheek, she chuckles softly at that and wipes it away with her thumb.

“Just a little dust that got in my eye, nothing to worry about.”

Hours go by and night has enveloped Hawkins, to which [F/N] was currently loading the drunk, unconscious and tied up girls into her car once more. Getting them completely intoxicated took no trouble whatsoever, they were more than happy to get wasted with the more popular Harrington. [F/N] herself was drinking away her sorrows after breaking up with Robin, wanting nothing more then to numb the pain and forget that look of pain and betrayal on Robin’s face, but it’ll forever be burned into the back of her mind. She lets out an exhausted sigh after loading the last of the girls into the backseat, rolling her shoulders after walking back and forward from the house and her car repeatedly. Steve had yet to return from Scoops Ahoy despite how late into the night it was becoming so she was taking his absence as an opportunity to get everything done. Driving to the factory wasn’t as eventful, driving legally to avoid unwanted attention so she doesn’t get pulled over, when she reached the basement she was quite surprised to see the state Billy was in.

“Fuck happened to you?” she questions, quietly offering up the girls to the monster then returned to his side with a rag and some water “You look like you got the shit beaten out of you.” he looked up at her, letting her clean up the blood and sweat “That girl, was it her?” he nods.

“Yeah. It was her.” she nods softly, taking his hand and wiping away the blood on his knuckles “She knows now. She knows about me. She could’ve killed me.” she nods again, she puts the rag down and gently pats his hand.

“Yes, but not us. Not us.” they then glance at the crowd of people they’ve either managed to kidnap altogether or were infected by the rats that were controlled by the monster “There’s no way she’ll know that there are more of us. She could barely handle you, so what makes her think she can handle all of us?”

“You’re right.”  “I know. Our time is nearly upon us, so we needn’t worry until then.”

[the next day, with the party]

The party along with Jonathan and Nancy were all hunkered down in the Wheeler household in the basement, each discussing what had happened the following night and their latest discoveries. The children told the two young adults how the Mind Flayer had returned and that Billy Hargrove was under its control, in return they told the party how an old woman, Mrs Driscoll, was found eating fertiliser and was acting crazy. Nancy then deducted how that since the attack last night along with their sauna test happened at the same time, the possibility of the Mind Flayer flaying more than just Billy.

“Billy was doing something to her, but there was someone else as well.” they all look at El when she spoke up, she looks at Max “There was another girl, but she looked more worried for him.” she closed her eyes to remember seeing Billy, she remembered seeing that girl who looked terrified as she called out for Billy.

“Another girl? What did she look like?” Max urged, maybe if they find this girl she could help them find Billy and maybe even the Mind Flayer.

“Um, she was tall, maybe about Billy’s height. She had [H/C] hair, [E/C] eyes and a few beauty marks on her neck and face.” she closed her eyes to remember any other features that stood out to her “Her eyes, though, her eyes reminded me a lot of Steve’s.” this subtle feature caught Nancy’s attention, her face lighting up in remembrance, this caused the others to look at her when she started snapping her fingers.

“W-Wait— Wait right there.” the others watch as Nancy rushed out of the basement, questioning what she was planning on grabbing, and when she returned she had a handful of polaroids and a few articles “El, is the girl you’re describing… her?” El leans forward to see Nancy was looking through the photos before pushing a certain article towards her, she ignores the headline as her eyes zone in on the picture. They she saw the girl she saw through her vision but this time she had a giant grin on her face, a bit of a crazed expression on her face as she stuck her tongue out while one of her hands was doing the rock on devil horns.

“Y-Yes, yes! That’s who I saw,” Nancy and Jonathan share a look of disbelief “W-Who is she?”  “That’s Steve’s sister! That’s [F/N] Harrington!” this caused the lot of them to lurch forward and look all the pictures of said Harrington “I remember her being back in town, but to think that she and Billy were actually friends.” she muttered under her breath, Max was looking at a picture had in his hands and her eyes widened when she too recognised her face.

“Holy shit.” Max says, now they look at her when they saw her pick up a different photo, this time it was of a polaroid of the girl at a party, sitting on a couch with her legs over the arm rest as she was chugging down an entire bottle of vodka “That’s Billy’s girlfriend.” now Nancy and Jonathan were in even more shock.

“Fucking, what?!” Max nods her head.

“I’ve seen her around the house a couple times, and whenever she’s around he’s a lot more happier. I remember hearing a girls laughter from his room and when I came in to see what it was…” she shudders at the memory, shaking her head “It wasn’t particularly a fun sight.” the certain memory she’s remembering back to was when she, Steve and Robin snuck into Billy’s room through his window with some weed and alcohol they were planning on sharing with each other. None of them had realised Max was home until they heard her calling Billy’s name followed by her footsteps, Robin and Steve were quick to hide away and when [F/N] attempted to jump out the window, she instead tripped over her own feet and landed on top to Billy, that was when Max walked into the room and misunderstood the entire situation. All the residents of the Hargrove/Mayfield household are one hundred percent convinced that the two are in a relationship, this fact was rather beneficial for the both of them.

“I heard rumours going around that Billy was dating [F/N], but I never believed them.” Jonathan admits “But it makes it all the more believable that the two of them were together.”  “Then do you think she’s flayed? Like Billy?” Nancy takes a breath.

“There’s only one way to find out.” they now find themselves driving to the Harrington household, all feeling concerned and anxious. Nancy was the most worried because she’s witnessed firsthand what the older Harrington was capable of, she was already crazy as is and would only tone it down when her younger brother was in the picture. She loved her brother to bits that the moment someone looked at him wrong she didn’t hesitate to beat their asses with a chair, she remembered how she got arrested for nearly beating a kid near death because they threatened to kill her brother. They reap what they sow, no? Pulling up to the house, Jonathan and Nancy recognise the car that’s in the driveway, it was [F/N]’s infamous Mustang that could rival Billy’s Camaro when it came down to public disturbance.

“Is there anything about her that we should be careful about?” Jonathan looks up in thought as they approach the front door.

“Um, if you thought Billy was bad… I’d say she’s worse.” they pale at that, she’s worse than Billy? “But if you get on her good side, she’s actually a pretty decent person, nice even.” Nancy nods her head, agreeing with what he’s saying. The two now stood in front of the two, both equally hesitating to knock because they share an equal fear of the female Harrington, Nancy was the one to take a deep breath and knock on the door. They waited for a while for the door to open, awkwardly looking around to pass the time, they hear stumbling footsteps and a few things getting knocked over before the door was open. Nancy and Jonathan reel backwards when the smell of alcohol hit their faces, there in front of them was the sight of a depressed and intoxicated [F/N] that was leaning against the doorframe to keep herself from falling to the ground while in one of her hands was a bottle of tequila. 

This is not what the party were expecting.

“Who the fff… phuck are you?” [F/N] slurred out, clearly not in the right state of mind and very much drunk.

“Is that you… [F/N]?” Nancy asked, very much unsure that the girl in front of her was the Harrington that she knew. [F/N] was one to get drunk at the oddest times of the day, but it looked like she had been crying, and she does not shed tears for anything or just about anyone. [F/N] giggled drunkenly, swaying softly before lifting the bottle of tequila and taking a long swig from it, letting out a satisfied breath as the alcohol burned her throat.

“Yeah? What’s it to you?” [F/N] was going to ignore the bothersome people who came knocking at her door while she was trying to wallow up in sadness, ready to just outright slam the door in their faces but paused when in her drunken eyes she could just make out who exactly the girl is “W-Who are you?” she stuttered out, Nancy swallows thickly, patting her dress to smooth it out.

“Um, it’s me, Nancy Wheeler?” [F/N]’s blood starts to run cold, sobering up just at the mention of the name “I dated your brother a while ago, and we’ve met a couple times when we weren’t dating?” the silence scared them, maybe it was because [F/N]’s drunken state disappeared as she stared Nancy dead in the eyes and wouldn’t break eye contact no matter how many times Nancy looked away or turned her head away, [F/N] just continued to stare at her. Soon, a soft smile appeared on her face as she chuckled softly, she then leaned down to put the bottle of tequila on the ground then reached forward to grab Nancy by the sides of her head. The others watch in confusion as [F/N] gently caressed her face but it changed when she leaned her head back then slammed her forehead right into the bridge of Nancy’s nose hard enough to break it. She let go of her head and let her fall back onto the ground, not really caring as the girl cried out in pain and clutched onto her nose, she then leans back down to pick up her tequila as the children and Jonathan surround Nancy.

“Oh my god, Nancy!” Mike shouts as he falls to his knees, comforting his sister as she tried to stop her bleeding nose “What is wrong with you?!” he shouts up at [F/N], who once again threw her head back as she downed another swig from her bottle, completely ignoring him.

“I don’t like you, Wheeler.” she sneers out, taking a step forward and glaring down at the girl “I know what my brother did to you and Byers over there back in 83′, as his older sister I apologise, but what you did to him last year? He told me everything, how the girl he wanted to be with said everything between them was bullshit, then went and ran straight into the arms of the guy she told him not to worry about. You should’ve thought twice before showing your face to me, Wheeler, because now you’re on my number one hit list.” she makes the “I’m watching you” gesture with her fingers then turned around to go back into her house, only stopping when Jonathan used his foot to keep the door from closing properly.

“Wait, [F/N]!” she glared at him “We really need to talk to you.” she scoffs, throwing her head back.

“About what?”

“About Billy.” she was in the middle of taking another long swig from her bottle but froze up at the mention of Billy, slowly lowering the bottle to look at the older Byers “We really need to talk about him, and we’d appreciate it if you could tell us everything you know about him that’s happened in the past couple of days.” she stared at the lot of them being letting out a sigh, that’s where they found themselves in [F/N]’s kitchen as her drunken rage turned into a sob fest.

“You know?! I feel like he’s been acting different as of lately, and— and that he’s been distancing himself! I feel like he’s become a completely different person!” she cried from where she was seated, the others all sat across from her as her body moved dramatically “Then he broke up with me, saying how it was for the best! What the fuck does that mean?! Why does breaking up with me the best for us?! I still wanted to be friends, but I couldn’t even have that either! So here I am, drinking myself into a stupor!” she shouts and goes to drink again but let out a whine when nothing came out, pulling it away from her lips and tipping the bottle only for a few droplets to come pouring out. The others all glance at each other and watch as she moved to a wine cabinet to grab a bottle of expensive looking wine.

“She’s totally not flayed, right?” Lucas questioned, Mike shook his head.

“Not a chance.” they all wince when she trips into the wine cabinet, no chance.

“Hey, where can I get some ice?” Jonathan asked, [F/N] looked back towards him before shakily pointing at the fridge.

“Should be some in the freezer, Byers. Help yourself out.” Jonathan nods and goes to get some but Mike was already on his feet to grab it himself, wanting to soothe his sister’s pain, at least Max and El stopped the bleeding. He’s in front of the fridge and about to open the freezer but stopped when he saw a picture hanging on the fridge, taking a closer look, his eyes widened at what he saw. There he saw [F/N], Steve, Billy and that cashier that works with Steve, Robin Buckley if he remembered correctly, standing together with wide smiles and looking happy “Mike, the ice!”

“Oh, right, sorry!” he opens the freezer and grabbed the ice tray, handing it to Jonathan, and closed the freezer door but continued to look at the picture just as [F/N] came over “When did you take this?” she let out a confused noise and leaned forward to see what he was looking at, they all watch as she froze up once again, her hand lifting up from her side to look at the photo. It was during the time when they were at the fair, Steve wanted to take a photo and there was no saying no to Steve. [F/N], Robin, Steve and Billy, in that order, stood together and took a round of different photos and each kept one, right below it with the caption “night of 85′ where it started”. She closed her eyes as a bitter look crossed her face, nothing will be the same ever again and that memory of the four of them happy together will be one of her fondest memories.

“It… doesn’t matter.” she lets out, grabbing the corner of the picture she yanks it off the fridge and tucks it into her pocket “A-Anyways, what’s this about Billy? What’s he done that’s caused you lot to come to me?” El was the one to speak, reaching forward to hold [F/N]’s hand.

“We would like to know if… if you’ve been with him in the past few days, if by chance you’ve been feeling strange.” she stares down at her hand in confusion, she doesn’t pull her hand back though and just simply squeezes it.

“Well, if drinking before five counts as weird, then not particularly, no.” they all sigh at that, she pulls her hand away and crossed her arms, humming to herself whilst looking up in thought “Um, he and that Heather Holloway have been acting weird together. He doesn’t usually hang out with that girl, but the way he talked about her was weird. He even dressed modestly when planning on having dinner with her parents, and that man usually dresses like a complete whore.” they look at her weirdly as she snaps her fingers, she lets out a grunt as she popped the cork off the wine bottle and proceeded to pour herself glass.

“Heather Holloway?” [F/N] nods her head, head falling backwards as she brings the glass to her lips and drinks the wine “Alright, anything else?” she begrudgingly looked off to the side, thinking of anything else that came to mind.

“Uh, he told me he had been planning on visiting this old lady in the hospital? Does that mean anything to you?” she noticed them all visibly flinch, sharing knowing looks with each other “Telling by the looks on your faces, I guess that was helpful?” she questioned, her face scrunched up when Nancy nodded her head in her direction.

“Very!” she bit her tongue and shrunk back when [F/N] glared at her, El grabbed [F/N]’s hand once more and shook it lightly.

“Billy is in trouble, and what you’ve told us has helped our chances on finding him and helping him.” El’s face lifted up when she noticed the way [F/N]’s face softened up at that, she pursed her lips as she averted her eyes from the girl.

“I hope he hasn’t gotten himself into anything too dangerous.” they all hated how that wasn’t the case, with everything they got out of the drunk yet slightly sobering up Harrington, they left just as quickly as they arrived. Will was the last out the door but he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, his hand immediately slaps onto his neck and he turned around to see [F/N] following them out so she can shut the door behind them. She felt his gaze so she looked down at him to see what he wanted, the chill went away when her drunken eyes looked him up and down “What?” he nervously shook his head.

“N-Nothing.” she narrowed her eyes on him but evidently shrugged her shoulders, the moment they were at their car she slammed the door shut, not waiting for them to pull out of the driveway.

“Will, are you alright?” Mike asked, his hand reaching over to gently grab his hand, Will looked up at Mike and gave him a nervous smile as he nodded his head.

“Y-Yeah, I’m good.” [F/N] stood in her empty kitchen, wine glass in her hand as she tapped her finger against the marble countertop. If she played her roll well enough, the group will probably go and investigate the Holloway household then make their way to the hospital to check on poor old Mrs Driscoll, she was now rolling her fingers against the counter.

“Well, why not give them a surprise for snooping in things they shouldn’t go poking their heads in?” she laughs to herself, downing the rest of wine in her glass before proceeding to round a few other flayed people to come help her.

[later at night]

The party arrive at the hospital when the sun was down and it was late into the night, they quickly rush out of the car and towards the hospitals entrance, completely unaware of the Ford Mustang that was parked not to far away from where they were. Per hospital visits, only two people were allowed to visit a patient at a time so Nancy and Jonathan went ahead while the others lingered around the waiting room. The two walk down the hallway to get to Dorris Driscoll’s room in silence, but to be honest, it was a little too quire despite it being a hospital. They hadn’t seen a single nurse or doctor since they arrived at the floor, it was rather unusual but they shrugged it off with that it wasn’t that busy of a night. Entering the room, they were met with the sight of Mrs Driscoll nowhere to be seen while the flowers Nancy brought and placed into a vase were knocked over.

“Where is she?” Jonathan asks as they scan the room, Nancy shakes her head.

“I don’t know.” she answers as she rushes towards the fallen vase, Jonathan following right behind her.

“Are you sure this is the right room?”

“Yeah.” they both then look up when the lights started flicking on and off, footsteps were heard from the hallway until a figure appeared at the door, the two turned around just as the figure spoke.

“She’s gone home.” there they see Tom Holloway, appearance looking disheveled as his hands and end of his button up were covered in blood “We were hoping you might come back.” the two start backing away when Tom enters the room and starts approaching them slowly, Jonathan raises his arm in front of Nancy to keep her behind him as they inched further and further away from Tom.

“Who’s blood is that?” Tom doesn’t answer him as he gets closer to them.

“Tom, whatever you’ve done, it’s not you. He’s making you do this.” now that they were practically within arms length from Tom, Jonathan didn’t take any chances and grabbed the vase, smashing it into the side of Tom’s head. The older man fell into the wall giving Jonathan and Nancy a chance to flee out of the room, they didn’t get far when another flayed appeared down the hall with a wound exactly where Jonathan hit Tom with the vase.

“Owie.” he feigns the pain as he caressed where his temple was bleeding but it healed, black veins bulging out from his temple as he started walking towards them.

“Go, go, go!” Jonathan shouts, pushing Nancy towards the staircase in an attempt to escape the two flayed men. The two of them are racing down the stairs, they aren’t really aware what floor they’re on but they don’t want to take any chances as they’re running down the hall, going further and further they see the dead bodies of the hospital workers, at least they now knew whose blood that was “This way, this way!” he shouts as he pulls Nancy down a part of the hospital that had construction being done, the two men that were chasing them weren’t even running and were just simply walking at a steady pace.

“You haven’t got them yet?” Bruce glanced over to see [F/N] on a chair, body hunched over with her elbows resting on her knees. Beneath her foot was a nurse whimpering, crying silently as [F/N] pressed the heel of her shoe into her head and slowly applied more pressure as the nurse squirmed to get free “How hard is it to grab those two idiots?” she questioned.

“Just playing a little game of cat and mouse, that’s all.” she chuckled cruelly, shaking her head.

“Get them before they cause us more trouble. That girl isn’t here to assist them, so one of you should be enough to handle them both, alright?” he nods his head and rushed off to go find Nancy and Jonathan, not like that would be hard. She finally turned her attention to the crying nurse who looked up at her, eyes pleading with her to let her go “It’s a shame that you weren’t able to see the world he was going to create, but I guess it’s better for you not to stay and find out.” [F/N] then reached over to the axe that was resting against the wall, both her hands and the blade drenched in blood of the various victims that were claimed that night. She now aimlessly walked the hospital halls, whistling a random tune as she felt the flayed Bruce find the two and so she made her way over to where they were, Bruce was chasing after Nancy as she screamed for help while Tom was making his way over to where Jonathan was.

Find them.

Kill them.

Erase them.

Annihilate them.

“They’re working on it.” she murmurs under her breath, getting closer and closer to where Tom was with Jonathan, he was playing with his food. She shook her head, maybe it was wrong to bring those two along with her and she probably should have brought two other peo— she suddenly let out a grunt, her head being thrown back as she stumbled into the wall. She brought a hand to her mouth and saw black blood bleeding from her mouth, she drops the axe when she felt another impact smash her across the face and she finally fell to the ground. She was growling under her breath, panting as she starts pushing herself up but fell back when another smash to the head was delivered to Bruce while Jonathan stabbed Tom in the neck. The shared pain they felt sucked and had [F/N] grovelling on the floor, both hands slapped around her neck as black bleed bled from her face and neck, her veins then started bumping black as they started turning visible “You worthless… imbeciles!” she roared out, the Mind Flayer gifted her and Billy more power since they were the first to turn into his mindless zombies, so their regenerative abilities were superb in comparison to the rest. While Bruce and Tom lay motionless on the floor she picked herself back up, rolling her neck and hearing it crack under the pressure, she leans down to pick the fallen axe up and dragged it behind her to find the two causing them so many problems. 

She was greatly irritated, gripping onto the axe with so much force that the wood started to crack under her hold. Those two had one simple job to do and they failed horrendously to the point that their bodies turned into goop, she heard the sound of panting so she looked over and saw a doctor she thought she had killed, dragging himself along the floor to get to safety. The moment he heard footsteps he thought he was saved so he turned to see his saviour but his face fell at the sight of an enraged [F/N], dragging her axe behind her and leaving a trail of blood behind her. The doctor let out a cry as he tried crawling away again but was stopped when she stomped on his back, she brings the axe above her head and swing it down, landing a clean hit into the back of his skull and killing him. Blood splattered onto her face as she didn’t bother wiping it off, just simply yanked the axe out of his head and continued on with her journey. She was walking down the hall when she saw the goop of what was Tom and Bruce form into the monster, a miniature version of the Mind Flayer.

“Now look what you’ve done with yourself.” she speaks, walking out from the hallway as her body was drenched in a mixture of black and red blood, she then turned her head and a wicked smile spread across her face at the sight of Jonathan “There you are~” she cooed, now standing beside the Mind Flayer as she stared Jonathan down while the monster stared at Nancy.

“[F-F/N]…?” they both stutter out, she giggled to herself, throwing the axe over her shoulder and bounced it lightly.

“The one and only.” she winks at Jonathan then turns towards the monster, lifting the axe up to point at it “You had one job, right? One! And you failed it, immensely. All you had to do was kill them, and you couldn’t even do something so simple to the point you’ve gone and turn yourself into that. Good job, really, good job.” she shook her head in disappointment as the monster lets out a whine, knowing that the original Mind Flayer favours her and Billy over the rest.

“[F/N], w-what have you done?” Nancy whispers out as she looked the older Harrington up and down seeing she was covered in blood that just wasn’t hers as her veins were pumping with black blood “You were flayed? For how long?!” she cries out, she just shrugs.

“Does it matter? You’ll be dead anyways.” she looks back up at the monster and whistles, pointing with her thumb towards Nancy “Get her, I’ll deal with the other one. You won’t have trouble with this, will you?” she chuckles when it lets out a roar and starts charging towards her, she in turn starts marching over to where Jonathan is.

“Shit.”

“Nancy! Run!” she immediately backs into the door to the staircase but let out a panicked cry when sandbags were keeping the door from opening fully, Jonathan starts to panic as well because the monster was quickly closing the distance between the two of them and [F/N] was also getting closer to him. When Nancy manages to break through the door and run away he felt a sense of relief but it didn’t last when [F/N] was on him, he grabs one of the IV poles to defend himself but lets out a grunt when she kicked him in the chest, he evidently falls to the ground because of this.

“I’m really going to enjoy this, I never really liked you anyway, creep.” she lets out a grunt as she tries slamming the axe down on him but he managed to roll away just in time. He’s pushing himself back to get away from [F/N] as she leisurely strides after him, dragging the bloodied axe behind her in an almost taunting way “I don’t even need to do much to influence this body into wanting to kill you, it’s already rather homicidal and her hatred for you and that other girl is pretty deep.” Jonathan manages to push himself onto his feet and starts running away from her but in a way that he was chasing after the monster and Nancy.

“Is this because I beat her brother up and Nancy broke up with him?!” she only shrugs, easily matching his pace as she chased after him.

“Probably, but she was already crazy even before that, I’ve just pushed aside her rationality.” she swings at him again but he ducks out of the way, wincing when the axe made contact with the wall and a crack formed under the impact “Her love for her brother is both her weakness and her strength. She’d do anything for him; anything.” she’s swinging at him left and right, him narrowly dodging out of the way when he’s finally at the hallway where he sees the miniature Mind Flayer at a door that he believes Nancy has locked herself in.

“No, Nancy!” this was his shortcoming when he froze up, watching as the monster lost its physical form to turn back into a state of goop so it could slip under the cracks of the door. He was kicked in the back and fell onto his stomach, he pushes himself onto his back but let out a grunt of pain when she hit him with the butt of the axe, causing him to fall limp onto his back and daze him.

“No more running, little Jonathan. You’re making my job harder than it needs to be, so just sit still,” she starts, raising the axe over her head and smiling crazily down at him “and let me kill you.” she laughs wickedly and finally swings the axe down, having a clean shot to kill Jonathan but the axe is stopped inches away from his face. He gasped, eyes widen in shock as he stared up at the blade while [F/N] in turn was confused, letting out a strained grunt as she tried pushing it down but it wasn’t budging.

“Jonathan!” the two of them whip their heads around and see the party down the hall, El’s hand stretched out a stopping the blade from meeting Jonathan’s face. They all flinch back at the vicious look in [F/N]’s eyes, god, she looked exactly like Billy during the sauna test. El didn’t waste any time as she raised her hand, this motion caused the axe in her hands to move away from Jonathan, and because she was still holding the axe in her hands, El used it to send [F/N] flying back and pin her to the wall with it pressed against her throat, just like Billy.

“Holy shit, she was flayed the whole time!” Lucas shouts as they all rush towards Jonathan to help him up, they all spare [F/N] a glance and saw she was growling at them, letting out a animalistic roar as she pushes against the axe that was keeping her at bay, El in turn was putting more power into keeping [F/N] still “Does that mean she lured us here?!”

“It doesn’t matter now!” Mike shouts, they all shudder when [F/N] starts giggling maniacally “Why the hell are you laughing?!”

“You dumbasses a-are… are exactly where I want you.” Mike shakes his head.

“Really? But aren’t you the one being pinned to the wall right now?” she continues to laugh, her head rolling backwards and resting against the wall behind her. The dark blood pumping through her veins become more visible as she lets out another roar, finally managing to push El’s hold off of her and throw the axe towards them, they all duck out as the way just as she lands on the ground with a heavy thud.

“Jeez, way to go dickwad.” Max sneers at him, [F/N] wipes away the blood dripping down her nose as she leaned down to pick up the fallen axe. She throws her head back, running a hand through her hair as she laughs again, El is panting as she ignores the blood running down her nose.

“What’s so funny?” blood is running down her face and she can’t tell whether it’s hers or not, but she doesn’t care as she looks down at the children, she throws her axe over her shoulders and motions with her eyes to the room behind them.

“Aren’t you forgetting about someone?” at the mention of that they heard a scream, they all turn their heads towards the door and [F/N] laughs once more “I know a fight I can’t win when I see one, so here’s how this is going to go. You lot have two options. Option one, I run away and you lot are given the chance to save Nancy from meeting her inevitable end because you choose to save her instead of chase after me. Or option two, you give up on little Miss Nancy to chase after little ol’ me, this gives you the chance to learn things about where the monster is and what he’s planning on doing, but this also means that Wheeler meets her end. So what’s it gonna be? Are you going to be the hero that saves the damsel in distress, or the hero that sacrifices her to save the world?” she doesn’t wait for them to answer as she’s already running in the opposite direction, El raises her arm to stop her but flinched when she heard Nancy’s cry for help.

“El, leave her! Please, you’ve got to save Nancy! You’ve got to save my sister!” Mike cries out, tears swelling in his eyes when Nancy’s screams got louder, he then desperately tugs on her arm “Please, El! Please!” El’s eyes were still on [F/N]’s retreating figure, growling softly under her breath when she saw the light smirk on her face before she turned the corner and disappeared. [F/N] was pouting softly as she exits the hospital, spinning the axe around her wrists, and was slightly disappointed she couldn’t kill Jonathan or that Nancy. Oh well, there was still plenty of time to get them next ti— she jumped up in surprise when the monster was thrown out of the room and landed right beside her, she looked up from where it fell and saw the lot peering outside the window, she then gives them a two fingered salute before rushing over to her car and driving away as the monster turns itself into goop once more to escape through the sewers.

“… so which one of us is telling Steve?” Lucas murmurs, they all pale at that. Back with [F/N], she finally reaches the factory, letting out a groan as she walks down the stairs to the basement, hand on her neck while rolling her neck as the axe rested on her shoulder.

“You look like hell.” she scoffs at Billy, wiping the blood on her face with the back of her hand.

“I feel like hell. I couldn’t get shit done because the two idiots I brought with me were of no help whatsoever.” the goop that escaped from the hospital the appears, slithering towards the original to merge with it, it grows in size as the two stare up at it.

“It’s time.”

[time skip: the next day]

El sat in front of the TV that was playing nothing but static, a blindfold over her eyes to help her focus on finding where the Mind Flayer could possibly be while the others sat back and watched her overexert herself. She was panting as she tried so hard to keep pushing herself but in the end she couldn’t anymore and ripped the blindfold off her eyes, she now found herself in the kitchen getting a glass of water, gulping it down until the glass was completely empty. The others were discussing what they should do, they could possibly go and find [F/N] but they didn’t want to take the chance on fighting the newly psychopath and she probably wasn’t going to be home, the other option was Billy who definitely was home but him being there was just a trap waiting for them. El set her empty glass on the kitchen counter and let her eyes wander under until they landed on a box of lucky charms, staring at the rainbow, she got bitter flashbacks of her mother but then an idea struck in her head that she went back to the ground.

“It’s too risky.”

“Yeah, and unnecessary. Killing the flayed won’t stop the Mind Flayer. We have to find out where it’s spreading from. We have to find the source.”

“Billy and [F/N] know it.” they all turn to El when she entered the room “They’ve both been there, to the source. She even said that if we went after her and caught her, we could’ve learned where the Mind Flayer was.” Mike shook his head.

“Yeah, but—”

“It’s a trap, I know. We can’t go to Billy or [F/N], but I think there’s another way. A way for me to see where they’ve been.” she’s sat in front of the TV once more with a blindfold over her eyes, concentrating on the static noise coming from the TV. She takes a deep breath and concentrates until she finds herself in the void and in the distance she can see something. As she gets closer she finds herself staring down at Billy and [F/N] sitting beside each other on what she assumes is Billy’s bed, [F/N] had her eyes closed as she rested her head on his shoulder and Billy himself was sitting up straight while staring into nothing. The one thing the two of them were doing was holding each other’s hand, occasionally squeezing, as her other arm was wrapped around her waist as his other hand rested on his knee. El now stood in front of the two, who weren’t completely unaware that she was there, but they both had a feeling that someone was there. El lets out a shaky breath as she reaches down, grabbing both of their free hands “Billy… [F/N]. I want to see. I want to see what happened.” Billy raises his head and [F/N] opens her eyes, El could see the tears in their eyes as they stared up at her, she lets out a gasp when the hands she was holding let go of hers and instead held a tight grip on her forearm. She tries to break free but neither one of them were letting go, their hold on her only tightened as she fought against them but when they did let go of her, she falls back but their memories of everything they’ve done flashed in her head. From [F/N] and Billy killing people, from them kidnapping people, from them hurting people, from the Mind Flayer infecting the two of them, from the very beginning when Billy crashed and [F/N] rushing to come to his aid.

El let out a grunt when she fell onto the concrete sidewalk, she groans as she rubs the back of her head and slowly pushed herself up so her hands were holding her up, she looked around and saw that she was on some random street that she couldn’t recognise but the sun was up and there weren’t many people around, it was practically empty. She finally pulls herself onto her feet and starts walking around, maybe trying to find someone or something she can recognise. She lets out a gasp when she heard laughter so she goes to turn around and see what it was but paused when a young child, a little girl, ran past her laughing to her hearts content. Looking her up and down, she wore a [F/C] sweater and shorts while her hair was tied up with a hair tie that had small little ladybugs on it, the girl laughed again before turning around and waving her hand in the direction El was standing in.

“Stevie, come on! You’re so slow.” El gasps softly and when she turns around she sees the child version of Steve Harrington, he looked to be about ten years of age, pushing a bike where the girl was standing “Didn’t you ask me to teach you how to ride a bike?” Steve pants as he walks past El and towards his older sister.

“You’re not the one pushing the bike [F/N].” he complains, she just rolls her eyes.

“Stop being such a big baby, dingus.” he pouts, El follows them and finds that they’re in some neighbourhood in Hawkins that has smooth terrain for Steve to ride his bike. El smiled softly seeing [F/N] tease Steve while he in turn was crying at her to stop, she did eventually stop when she saw his eyes start getting misty and started pushing his bike. It was quite sweet watching the older Harrington treated her brother rather delicately, he seemed like such a crybaby when he was a kid.

“I-I’m having second thoughts, [F/N].” Steve said to her, his voice barely above a whisper. He was currently on the bike, his hands clutching onto the handles as his feet rested on the pedals, [F/N] stood beside him while holding the back because she knew that he didn’t have the balance to hold himself. She exhaled through her nose, looking him up and down.

“Well, we can always do this another time, not everybody can get it on their first try.” she tries reassuring him but noticed that he still looked upset over the matter, her eyes looked down in thought before she reached over and placed her hand on top of his “Hey, Steve, I’ll be right beside you, alright? I’ll always be with you every step of the way, I promise you that.” Steve sniffles at that, looking down at his sister with teary eyes.

“R-Really?” she nods, a big smile on her face.

“Really, I’ll always be there for you.” seeing her smile made one just as big spread across his lips, he then nods as he looked ahead of them.

“Okay, I can do this.” and as [F/N] promised, she was right beside him to help keep him balanced as he pedalled down the sidewalk, but the moment she noticed that he was doing on his own was when she pulled her arms back and instead ran beside him.

“You’re doing it, Stevie! Look at you go!” she cheered, he took a quick glance at her and saw that he really was doing it on his own, a big smile broke onto his face as he went on. When [F/N] could no longer keep up with him, she stopped running at his pace and let out an exhausted breath as she hunched forward to catch her breath. El approached the young [F/N], looking at her face and there she saw the look of pure love as she watched her brother go, she saw that she completely adored her brother to no ends. El remembered Nancy mentioning how [F/N] would do about anything for her younger brother, it didn’t what it was, it’s just that she would go to great lengths for him. [F/N] gasped and this caused El to stop looking at her and instead back at Steve, who winced when she saw the wheel get caught in something, causing him to fly off the bike “Steve!” she shouts out and immediately rushes to his side, to which he was bawling his eyes out as his knees were bleeding and hands were scrapped.

“It hurts, [F/N]! It hurts so much!” he cries out, [F/N] drops to her knees as she looked him up and down, trying to figure out what to do as he continued sobbing. She then tries to calm him down but it just doesn’t seem to work, nothing she was doing was working and he only seemed to be getting worse, so she starts to cry with Steve. El found it a little funny that the two siblings were crying, Steve because he was hurt and [F/N] because Steve was crying. She never would have imagined that the drunk, depressed and psychotic [F/N] she met the day prior was the same caring little girl she watched before her. When [F/N] did manage to calm down, not enough to stop crying, she picked Steve up and carried him on his back and ran to the closets house, abandoning the bike in favor of someone helping her brother. The person she chose was quite startled to find two crying children at her door step, awkwardly question what was wrong but managed to understand what happened through all the snot and tears [F/N] blubbered out.

[you can skip past this, this is basically her past that I accidentally started to write and I couldn’t fucking stop]

[F/N]’s happiest memory was anything that involved Steve, she was the eldest Harrington child of the Harrington couple. The two of them never wanted a daughter and expected their first child to be a son, but when they got [F/N] instead they didn’t hesitate to have sex again just to conceive another child in hopes of getting a son, and their hopes came true when Steve was born. [F/N] noticed at a young age how her parents favoured Steve over her every time, it didn’t matter what it was, it was always him before her, but she never did care about that, because her parents were just assholes and her baby brother didn’t do anything to deserve the anger she had for their parents to be directed at him. There was just something different between the two of them when they started getting older, they were joined at the hip when they were children but the moment they were in middle school, it was a different story. [F/N] naturally entered middle school before him and she already earned herself a title, the up and rising star of Hawkins Middle School that would surely become the Queen of Hawkins High when she graduates middle school. She was beautiful, a Harrington genetic gift, naturally smart and athletic, very kind and charismatic that she was the person everyone wanted to be with.

So her achievements greatly overshadowed Steve’s to the point that their parents attention moved from him to her, at first she was happy that she got their validation, but noticing how her and Steve were drifting apart and his admiration towards her turned green with envy, she started second guessing all the popularity she gained. It got worse for Steve when he started middle school, he was known as the “other Harrington” that just couldn’t match up to his sister, he was just constantly in her shadow no matter where he went. Constantly being compared to her was like a nightmare to him, he was struggling to finish an English essay? [F/N] would have easily gotten it done in half the time it took him to write a single sentence. He managed to score a three pointer in basketball during P.E? How about winning against Hawkins Middle School’s rivalling team with the most points they’ve seen in years. He didn’t want to be known as the younger brother of [F/N] Harrington, he wanted people to know him as Steve Harrington, but that was never going to happen as long as people knew that he was her brother. [F/N] obviously noticed the treatment her sweet little brother was going through, she tried so hard to talk to him or get people to stop with their bullshit, but that made Steve angrier, he didn’t want her pity.

“Steve, why won’t you talk to me anymore? Please, I just want to make things between us better, like what it used to be when we were children!” she pleads out to him, she flinched back when he slammed his hands down on his desk, whipping his head around to glare at her.

“You want to make things right? Alright, maybe stop being better at everything! Maybe stop being the topic of every conversation people have when they come to talk to me! Maybe just stop being the reason my life is ruined!” he pushes his chair back with his legs as he approaches her “Stop being smart! Stop being pretty! Stop people the centre of attention!” she lets out a grunt when he shoved her back, her stumbling out his room as he reached for the door “Maybe just stop being my sister altogether!” he finished and slammed the door in her face, she continued to stand where he left her as she stared at his door, she let out choked up noises as tears glistened in her eyes before finally sniffling and walking away.  That was definitely the last time the two of them properly spoke with each other and no matter how many times she tried to work things out, how hard she tried to make things better, he just never gave her the time of day to hear her out. Her graduation from middle school to high school was probably her worst day because Steve didn’t even want to be there and only came because their parents would be more disappointed in him if he didn’t come to support his sister, and for him it was probably a great day because it meant that he didn’t have to see his sister the following year at all. If she didn’t do anything soon she was possibly going to lose Steve, so staring at her reflection she stared at herself and couldn’t help but hate she was looking at. She never felt like she was looking at herself, just looking at the person her parents made her out to be without her ever being able to properly find herself. She wanted to change, she wanted to be different from the person she saw in the reflection, and there was just one person that could possibly help her.

“Eddie Munson!” she screamed at the top of lungs at the trailer park, she knew the bastard was home, telling how the lights in his trailer were on. Eddie “the Freak” Munson was her polar opposite in middle school and a boy who was in the same year as she was. She remembered first seeing him during their middle school’s talent show with how him and his band “Corroded Coffin” performed heavy metal, it was very loud and a little disorganised, but it was pretty good in her opinion. She met Eddie on a few occasions but each time weren’t really pleasant, mostly because he spoke to her as if she didn’t know how the world worked since she was a privileged little girl that got everything she wanted. She didn’t know what hurt more, the fact that he isn’t entirely wrong or that it was him that woke her up. Eddie opened the door to the trailer and was surprised to see [F/N] standing there, so with his usual cocky attitude, he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

“Well what do we have here? What can this jester do for her majesty, [F/N] “the Queen” Harrington?” he cooed, [F/N] didn’t bother to say anything and just went straight to the point.

“I need your help.”

“And what can little ol’ me do for you?”

“I need you to make me look like you.” now he was a little thrown off at the request, the one and only girl that everybody loves and has everything at the palm of her hand, was asking for his help in making her… look like him? She noticed that he was confused so she raised her hand, she goes to speak but a chill ran up her spine when a burst of wind blew through her body “Can I come in? I’m fucking freezing.” her swearing was even more startling, [F/N] was prim and proper and wasn’t know for using such vulgar language, and yet here she was.

“O-Oh, yeah, of course.” and that’s where Eddie found himself holding a box of tissues for [F/N] as she told him everything that happened during her year in middle school, bawling her eyes out as she told him that her worst fear was possibly coming true “So, let me get this straight… you want me, to make you look like me so that your parents and possibly others start viewing in a different way and that people will start liking your brother?” she sniffles, nodding her head.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” he sucks in a breath, running a hand through his growing hair after growing through his buzz cut.

“I don’t know if I find that endearing that you came to me for help or insulting that you came to me for help.” she gave him an apologetic look “But I see where you’re coming from, female Harrington. You don’t want people to see you in a positive light and if they hate you enough they’ll draw their attention towards the better Harrington.” she nods her head.

“That’s exactly what I want.” he lets out a startled yelp when she grabbed his hand, holding it in between her own and gave him a desperate look “I’ll do anything to drift the attention away from me and give it to him, I won’t care how people view me as long as they stop making my brother feel even worse than he already feels. I want to be there beside him instead of on the sidelines.” he inhales sharply, this really wasn’t what he was expecting to happen on a Saturday night.

“Well… alright.” she lights up, a big smile on her face “But I want no complaining from you, alright? The moment you start doubting anything I do, I’m gonna give up on you,” she nods her head at the terns he set.

“Of course, totally!” she stands up, still holding his hand, and shakes it rather vigorously “If this works, I owe you big time, Munson.”

And being a man of his word, on the first day of her high school year, the soft and kind [F/N] was nowhere to be seen. Instead Hawkins High was met with the new and improved Harrington that wore leather or denim and had several piercings that were definitely not done by a professional, she even wore dark make up instead of the light or natural one. To say everyone was shocked would be an understatement, everyone was in disbelief when she pulled up to school in such attire but it was the fact that she was with Eddie Munson of all people! They were laughing about and talking as if they have been best friends since they were children, even his group of friends were in on the deal of making her less popular so she wasn’t seen without being with Eddie and his group of freaks. Her entire personality was a total flip as well, from the well spoken and polite young lady turned to a rude and vulgar woman who’s attitude was the worst that people couldn’t stand being with her. The teachers couldn’t believe what they were seeing either, she was once a straight A student but now she was barely passing with D+ and C-’s.

She learnt everything from Eddie, and she was always grateful for him because she actually felt free. Being with him and his group of friends was so relaxing because she didn’t have to worry about how she looked and how she acted anymore, she could actually properly be herself. Listening to heavy metal and screaming at the top of her lungs, smoking weed and laying on the floor of his trailer, letting him ramble on and on about some fantasy game called D&D, she didn’t care, it felt nice to actually have real friends instead of those people leeching off of her. But that didn’t matter, well it did, but what really mattered was the fact that it was working. People didn’t want to be associated with the former Queen who now hung around with the freaks and because she was barely pulling her weight in school and was constantly failing, her parents were absolutely livid with her.

“What has gotten into you, [F/N]? You were never like this leading up to this year! It’s all because you’ve been hanging around that Munson boy! He’s not a good influence on you!” she just rolled his eyes as her mother shouts all sorts of nonsense at her, both her mother and father have cornered her and sat her down to have a proper talk with her.

“Not only that, but you’re failing every single one of your classes! You’re barely getting marks above F’s, and at this rate, you’re not even going to pass at the end of your senior year! You’re sullying the Harrington name, [F/N]! I thought we raised you better than this.” she scoffs this time, leaning back into the sofa as she crossed her arms.

“Well I’m sorry for not being mummy and daddy’s perfect little princess anymore, but if you’re not going to accept the me I am today, then why the fuck should I pull my weight anymore? Besides, you still have your perfect little golden child Stevie to take my place if I ever go too far.” she snickers to herself when they continued to yell at her, telling her to that this rebellious act of hers better come to an end or she will face consequences, to which she just laughed in their faces before shoving past them and out the front door where Eddie was waiting for her with his shitty van.

“Dude, we could hear the shouting all the way from out here!” Gareth exclaims, throwing open the back doors for her to jump in, to which she laughed as she took Jeff’s hand as he helped her in “They sounded really angry, you alright?” she just shrugged.

“Honestly I could give less of a shit at what they’re saying, but it’s definitely working, I can just feel them ready to disown me and label me as the family disappointment, I’m just waiting for it now.” Eddie laughs from the drivers seat, glancing back at her.

“You’re crazy.” she winks with a click of her tongue.

“I have you to thank.” they all laugh as he drives to the Quarry.

Steve was completely baffled when people started treating him differently. For some reason he was now known as the better Harrington, the one that didn’t stray from the path of righteousness, or whatever the hell that meant, but it felt good that every topic wasn’t about his sister anymore. Well, when his sister was brought up, it was to tell him how awful it was to now be related to the psycho apart of Eddie Munson’s group of friends. When Steve first saw [F/N]’s transformation and change of behaviour, he didn’t believe it until he saw the way she now argued with everything their parents said. She never used to fight back against them, she would usually just nod and agree with anything they said, but not anymore. Now their parents were looking at him again, telling him they expected great things from him, how he was the new light of the Harrington family and that he was better than his good for nothing sister. As for [F/N], she was happy to see that her brother was finally getting that popularity he deserved and it didn’t matter that she had hell to pay for such a cost, all that mattered to her was that Steve wasn’t bitter having to go to school anymore.

She didn’t care that people insulted her.

She didn’t care that her parents hated her.

If Steve was happy, that’s all that mattered.

Sitting on the hood of her car, [F/N] had blood running down her nose and a bruise forming on the side of her cheek, knuckles torn and bloodied as her clothes were a little disheveled. The bruise on her cheek was given to her during an altercation with her father once again, this time he couldn’t stand her attitude and backhanded her clean across the face hard enough to give her a nose bleed. She didn’t see an ounce of regret on his face and not even her mother did anything to stop anything from escalating, she couldn’t take staying in that house any longer and just left without another word. Her knuckles bleeding were from her brutally punching a brick wall until she physically couldn’t close her knuckles anymore and just tired herself out until she sat on the hood of her car while smoking a cigarette to calm herself down.

“… fuck.” she muttered under her breath, she was totally going to Eddie’s trailer to get high and drunk to the point she couldn’t remember who the fuck she was. When she finally decided she was done, she hopped off the hood of her car and snuffed out her cigarette, getting to ready to jump into her car but paused when she heard her name.

“[F/N]!” she was confused when she saw Steve rushing over to her, she was confused as to why he was there.

“Steve?” she called out, she really didn’t want to deal with him right now be decided to stick it out to see what he had to say “What do you want? Don’t you have basketball practice going on right now?” he scoffed, shaking his head as he looked her up and down, wincing when he saw her bloodied knuckles.

“I don’t give a shit about that.” he reaches for her hand but flinched back when pulled her hand back.

“Why are you here? Don’t you have better things to do than deal with me?” he swallows the saliva in his throat, not liking the tired look in his sisters eyes.

“I-I’m here because I’m worried about you, I just— I don’t understand why you’re acting like this, [F/N]. You’re nothing like the way you were in middle school, what happened to her? Why did you suddenly change? Why are you so different now, [F/N]? I just don’t understand.” he shakes his head as he remembered back to the year prior when his sister first changed, the once quiet house was now filled with arguing and shouting matches between her and their parents to the point that Steve couldn’t handle it “Why are you like this, [F/N]! You had everything and then suddenly you threw it all away because of what? What?! Why did you do it?! What was it?!” Steve didn’t understand why he was yelling at his sister, he usually wouldn’t raise his voice like this and especially not when his sister was bleeding because of their father, but he just needed to quell his curiosity as to why his sister would do such a thi—

“I did it for you, Steve!” she shouts, he was taken aback, what? “I threw away everything for you! The popularity! The attention! Mum and dad’s respect, everything! I gave up everything because I saw how my popularity was affecting you! I couldn’t stand the thought that my brother was feeling the way he was in middle school all because people couldn’t see past me whenever they were with you. I hated the fact that we aren’t as close as we were when we were children, so I thought, if I act differently to what people are used to, then maybe people will start liking Steve Harrington instead of his older sister. And look at that, it worked! It actually worked, because people fucking hate me now and they adore you! You’re the Harrington that isn’t a fuck up!” [F/N] hadn’t realised she started crying until she felt the tears running down her face instead of blood, she pulls back and quickly wiped away the tears, grunting out in pain when she clenched her fists.

“B-But… why? Why would you do that?” Steve stuttered out, not believing she would do something like that, she just rolled her eyes before throwing her arms open at him.

“You said it yourself, Steve! I asked what I had to do to make things right, and you listed everything off! I had to stop being better at everything, I had to stop being the topic of every conversation, I had to stop being smart, I had to stop being pretty, I had to stop being the centre of attention! I did everything! I did everything you asked! Now all that’s left is to stop being your sister!” god, the fact that she remembered everything while he didn’t had Steve start tearing up, she had to tear her eyes away from him to stop her urges to comfort him, she takes a breath and jabs her finger into his chest “I gave you what you wanted, so I hope you’re satisfied with what you’re given. I’m only waiting for mum and dad to fulfil you’re last request and maybe then you’re ruined life will be magically fixed.”

“[F-F/N], I’m sorry— I didn’t—” she raised her hands, rubbing her sleeve under her nose.

“Save it.” she sniffles as she turns her back “Go home, Steve. I’ll stay out of your life as long as you want. Wouldn’t want to ruin the perfect life you’ve accumulated since I’ve fallen from my grace.” with that she leaves Steve standing all alone, feeling even more worse when she finally saw those tears run down his face.

That… that was her worst memory that she regrets.

She regrets shouting at him.

She regrets making him cry.

She regrets that she hurt him and left him alone.

[yeah, that’s all I’ll write for her backstory. I definitely had more to write, but it’s gotten too long and I want to get back to the main plot]

El tears off the blindfold, panting heavily after finally leaving the memories of Billy and [F/N] when she found the location of where the Mind Flayer was located. She looks around to see no one in sight, she was all alone in the cabin despite hearing their voices not to long ago.

“Mike?” she calls out but got no answer, she repeatedly called out his name again but was left unanswered until another voice spoke up.

“He can’t hear you.” turning her head, she gasps when she sees Billy emerge from out of one of the rooms “You shouldn’t have looked for me. Because now I see you. We can all see you. You… let us in. And now… you are going to have to let us stay.” as the Mind Flayer speaks through Billy, he’s slowly approaching El as she backs away from him in tears, she’s gasps when someone was right behind her.

“Don’t you see?” looking over her shoulder she saw that it was [F/N] with that same psychotic grin on her face, leaning over the couch El backed herself into but quickly pushed herself off to get away from her “We’ve been building it… for you. All this time, we’ve been building it. All that work, all that pain… all of it, for you.” the two of them now stood together, eyes misty as they held each other’s hand.

“And now it’s time. Time to end it. We are going to end you. And when you are gone, we are going to end your friends. And then we are going to end… everyone.” they speak in unison and before they could do anything, El screams at the top of her lungs as she throws her hand out towards them, sending them flying back to where they came from, and so the two of them woke up exactly where El found them in Billy’s room. [F/N] had a sad look on her face as she lifted herself off of Billy’s shoulder, neither one of them said a word as they sat in silence and squeezed each other’s hand.

“This sucks.”

[starcourt mall]

It all happened so fast. One moment they’re being attacked at Hopper’s cabin, next thing they know they’re hiding out at the Starcourt Mall because Billy had somehow managed to find them and was waiting out for them in his busted up Camaro. [F/N] was nowhere in sight and they didn’t know what terrified them the most, the fact that she was just lurking around waiting for them or that Billy was ready to run them over without a second thought. Hiding in the mall didn’t go as well as they thought, because the next thing they knew was that the Mind Flayer was right on top of them and broke through the skylight, landing right where they were and was now in search for El. The group consisting of Nancy, Johnathan, Lucas and Will somehow managed to escape and were hurriedly trying to replace their stolen ignition cable, their hearts beginning to race at the sound of Billy’s engine revving.

“Shit!”

“Get the car started, go!” Nancy cocks her gun as Jonathan jumps into the drivers seat to start the car, Nancy raises the gun and aims it towards Billy. She doesn’t back down when he starts driving towards her, she narrows her eyes as she starts firing at him, the others are panicking as she’s shooting at his already shattered windscreen that’s doing little to no damage as he continues to get closer and closer to her. The moment her gun ran out of ammunition was when she started to panic, she looks between the gun and Billy before ducking down and curling up against the car despite knowing that was going to do little to nothing to suppress the pain of getting smashed against the car but was surprised when Steve, in a different car, rammed right into the side of Billy’s Camaro. Both he and Robin grunt out in pain at the impact but were both pretty much okay, Robin looked up at Steve and saw that he had a panicked look on his face due to the fact that his boyfriend almost killed his ex and in order to stop him from doing that he crashed a car into him.

“Steve, are you alright?” she asks him, he’s panting as he continued to stare at Billy’s unconscious body laying limp in his car.

“Ask me tomorrow.” their gaze then goes upwards when they heard snarling, Robin gasps in shock to see the disgusting fleshy monster dubbed as the Mind Flayer on top of the Starcourt Mall, they whip their heads around when they heard the honk of the other car pull up beside them.

“Get in!” the Mind Flayer was quick to give chase but paused when a new pair of headlights flashed on, it decided she could take care of them. Johnathan thinks they’re in the clear, the Mind Flayer isn’t in sight as they’re driving away but he wasn’t taking any chances as he continued to high tail it away from the mall. He spares a glance back at Will and saw he was gently caressing the back of his neck, he was close, and he just wasn’t showing himself.  “What the hell was that thing back there?!” Robin shouts, pointing out the car in the direction they just fled.

“I’m guessing that was the Mind Flayer, and that was the body made of the flesh of various dead people?” Steve sums up as he looks at the other four, to which they all nod their heads to confirm what he said “Great, I can’t wait to get back home and explain to my sister why I was gone and why my face is beaten up. Hopefully she doesn’t go on a murder spree upon seeing my face.” the four of them wincing didn’t go unnoticed, even Robin flinched hearing the mention of his sister.

“Um… about that, actually…” Lucas starts, rubbing the back of his neck “Your sister, uh— she’s kind of um, like…” Lucas peeks back at Steve and felt a chill run down his spine, Steve was wearing an expression that he normally never wore. His expression was a mixture of concern and slight anger, concern for the safety and well-being on his older sister and anger that something has happened to his sister while he was trapped in an elevator then tortured by Russians.

“What’s wrong with my sister?” Nancy licks her lips, not really sure where to begin on the matter of his older sister.

“Steve, your sister…” she sighs, running a hand through her hair “Your sister, kind of…” Steve was getting more irritated over the fact that they weren’t telling him, he grits his teeth as he glared at them.

“What’s wrong with my sister?!” he shouts this time in hopes it’ll get them to spit it out, Will lets out a shuddered breath when he felt a tingle in his neck, he glances backwards and saw a flash of someone’s high beams hit them. They all turn around to see what it was and the roar of a car engine slowly gaining on them made their hearts drop into their stomachs when they recognised the car, Steve and Robin look out through the back window and their eyes widened when they saw the familiar license plate “[F/N]…?” he manages to mutter out then let out a grunt when the car rear ended them.

“Shit! Jonathan!” he curses under his breath as he changes gear to create some distance between them and her but their car was nothing in comparison to her mustang because she caught up to them easily, each time she made sure to rear end them. When she noticed nothing was happening she pulled back a little just so she was now driving beside them, they all turn to look at her but Steve and Robin were the most shocked because they haven’t seen her like this. Deranged looking, eyes bloodshot and teary as her body was sweating uncontrollably while her veins were pumping black ooze throughout her entire body.

“You wanna know what’s wrong with her?!” Lucas shouts, letting out a scream when [F/N] drives the side of her car into theirs “She’s been flayed by the Mind Flayer and this entire week she’s been kidnapping people and offering them to the Mind Flayer, and not too long ago she killed a bunch of people at the hospital and nearly killed Nancy and Jonathan! There, now you know!” Will smacks Lucas for the way he said it, gesturing to Steve and saw how the boy looked confused and scared. What confused them was that Robin shared the same expression, Lucas said that she was under that things control for about a week, so does that mean…

“Wait, you’re telling me that the whole reason she’s been acting different— that she’s acting like that, is because that monster we saw before brainwashed her?!” Will nods his head, she slumps back in the back as she recalls how [F/N] was acting when she broke up with her. She knew that there was something wrong with her but she just couldn’t pin just what was wrong, her eyes had lost their usual shine and she was avoiding eye contact with her, refusing to. It felt like she was talking to someone entirely different, and all that was true, that person from before was not her girlfriend but an imposter in her body. Robin looks at Steve and saw his eyes never left [F/N], she had a crazy smile on her face as she stared Jonathan down “Steve…” she mumbles.

“What did it do to you, [F/N]?” he’s only ever seen that look on her face maybe once or twice, and that was when she was getting some sick pleasure out of beating the shit out of a few high school kids that picked on him, she was crazy like that, but she made sure not to make that face again whenever he was present because it was a little unsettling “That’s… that’s not my sister, that’s not [F/N]. Is this— is this also happening to Billy?” they nod.

“They were together when it happened.” that just made things worse, it must have happened just after they left Robin’s. Was that why [F/N] was sick that morning? Oh my god, it was happening right under their noses and neither of them noticed. Jonathan steadies the car again when [F/N] rams hers into them again but let out a confused noise when she suddenly stopped, he glances over at her and saw she was looking ahead of them. He watched in confusion when she drove ahead of them then turned around but stopped in the middle of the road, Jonathan slams on the breaks to stop them from going any further and there the two of them are staring each other down.

“Jonathan…” Nancy mutters, not a single one of them breaking eye contact with [F/N], Jonathan takes a breath as he grips the stirring wheel, swallowing thickly every time he hears [F/N] rev her engines as her car jerks forward. [F/N] was no longer in control, no matter how hard she was trying to fight the Mind Flayer for control it was no use and she was locked inside her own body as she watched it move on its on accord. A dark grin was adorn on her face, watching closely to what Jonathan was going to do next. Was he going to back up and continue this game of cat and mouse? Was he going to play a game of chicken instead? Both options sounded fun to her, but she decided it was going to be her to choose for him because she pushes the handbrake down and slams on the gas and exhilarates forward “Jonathan!”

“I know!” he fumbles with the gear but switches it to drive and starts driving towards her as well, he had a plan in his head to swerve out of the way just at the nick of them, but he failed to inform the others as he kept getting closer and closer. Steve looked between Jonathan and sister and he couldn’t calm down, he could only think of how bad the collision will have on [F/N]. He was always like this, worrying for his sister than for his own well-being, just like her worrying for Steve rather than herself. Like brother like sister. Neither one of them were slowing down to the point [F/N] was laughing hysterically, changing gears to go fast enough to kill them and quite possibly herself. Well, if she hurt herself it didn’t matter, the Mind Flayer can heal her body no matter how severely injured her body gets.

“Jonathan, what are you doing?!” Will shouts at his brother.

“Relax, I know what I’m doi—” he was cut off when Steve pulls himself out from the back, reaching past Will and Lucas for the handbrake “Steve— what are you doing?!”

“I’m sorry, Jonathan! But you’d honestly do the same.” he pulls the brake up and the car instantly starts to drift, Jonathan tries to regain control while Nancy smacks Steve’s hands off the handbrake but they were too late when [F/N]’s mustang hit the side of their car, luckily. They spin off the road while [F/N] came to a stop in the middle of the road, she didn’t expect that outcome but she was happy that it was in her favor, she guesses Steve doesn’t want to hurt her either. Such a loving little brother.

“I didn’t think things were gonna be this easy, honestly. Even Billy’s having a hard time.” she snickers softly and looks in the rear view mirror, pouting softly when she noticed a small cut on her forehead that was bleeding a little. With a shrug, she swipes her thumb over it and grins when it healed up instantly. Kicking her door open, she steps out then leaned in to grab the axe sitting in her passenger seat and doesn’t bother turning her car off as she starts approaching the other car, throwing the axe over her shoulder and continuously bounced it while whistling a song. Jonathan lets out a groan, clutching his forehead after his head took the force of the airbags that deployed, he really was going to kill Steve later for this, but he couldn’t help but understand what Steve was going through. Not too long ago it was his brother that was under the Mind Flayer’s control and now it’s Steve’s sister that didn’t even know this shit was going on in the first place, oh the irony. He whips his head around when he heard Nancy let out a scream, they all look over to see that it was [F/N] “Yoohoo~ open the door.”

“Fuck no!” Nancy promptly locks the door to emphasise her point but [F/N] just rolled her eyes, pulling her fist back then punching through the door then proceeded the tear it off. Nancy doesn’t hesitate to push herself away from [F/N] just as she leans into the car, her eyes scanning through the many occupants inside but she let out a sigh when she didn’t see the one they were after.

“She’s not here.” she muttered under her breath, probably informing the Mind Flayer that El was still at the mall and not with the others that fled. She was going to leave it at that, the Mind Flayer was calling her back, but those feelings for what Nancy fucking Wheeler did to her brother started to resurface, and that’s where she found herself grabbing Wheeler by her hair and dragging her out of the car.

“Nancy!”

“Nancy, no!” Nancy cries out in pain from the roots of her hair being violently tugged on, the pain gets worse when [F/N] slams the side of her face onto the hood of the car and holds her there.

“[F/N], please… don’t do this. You don’t want to do this.” [F/N] lets out a hum, looking up in thought before nodding her head.

“No, no, that’s where you’re wrong. You have absolutely no idea how much I want to do this; how much I really want to kill you with my own hands.” Nancy starts to tremble, tears swelling up in her eyes when [F/N] raises her free hand that was holding the axe, seeing the dried blood splatter all over the blade and some on the shaft “I’ll pay your little brother a visit after I’m done with you, I’m sure he’ll be happy seeing your decapitated head mounted on a stick.” before she could bring the axe down she’s being pulled back by Jonathan and Steve, Nancy falls to the ground as Robin goes around and tries to pry the axe out of her hands.

“[F/N], please… stop this! This isn’t like you to go this far!” Steve pleads. Steve knew his sister was strong, but right now was just plain ridiculous, it was taking both himself and Jonathan putting their entire weight to keep her from moving but even that wasn’t enough. She lets out an animalistic growl as she lets go off the axe and letting Robin stumble backwards, she throws Steve off next and hunches forward to lift Jonathan off the ground as she grabs his arms that were wrapped around her neck and proceeds to throw him over her, this also causes him to tear her jacket off but she could care less about it. She sets her sights on Robin and doesn’t hesitate to punch her across the face, Steve goes to stand up to reprimand [F/N] again but let out a grunt when she kicked him down and grabbed the axe that she managed to catch. His breath gets caught in his throat as he watched [F/N] swing the axe over her shoulder and it comes down as quickly as it was raised, he wants to raise his arms to shield his face but what can that do? With tears in his eyes, he looks up at his sister with pleading eyes and there— there he saw a flash of color return to her eyes, a flash of regret and confusion when they met his. He saw a glimpse of his sister inside those eyes that were fighting back against the Mind Flayer, but he knew she couldn’t hold it for long but he was grateful for the time given because she redirected the blade aiming for his face into the side of the car. He flinches at the impact, watching as the car rocked back and forth before finally settling down. His sister is now panting above him, staring down at him with a slightly less hostile expression, but he knew she wasn’t herself yet, her eyes were still in a dazed state while her veins were still black “[F/N]…” he whimpers out, all he wants is his sister back.

“S-Stevie…?” she croaks out, he gasps at her voice whispering out to him but soon her face twists in pain. She pulls away, pressing the heels of her hands into her forehead to fight against the aching pain the Mind Flayer was inflicting on her, fighting for dominance within her head and it managed to win because now she was fleeing the scene and back to her car. She did hesitate to leave, her eyes glancing back at the others that were slowly picking themselves off the floor, but she shook her head before driving back to the Starcourt mall.  “Welp, that hurt,..” Robin groaned out, holding her cheek as some blood pulled up in her mouth “I can’t believe she hit me.”

“She… she didn’t mean it.” Steve muttered, hand over his chest. 

“But I don’t understand.” Robin says rather bitterly “Why didn’t she kill you? She was clearly going to do it, but she stopped at the last second.” Jonathan let out a groan as he pushed himself onto his feet, his hand clutching tightly onto the jacket he tore off her body before he was thrown off.

“Back at the hospital, the Mind Flayer said… it said that Steve was both her weakness and her strength. She got more violent with Nancy and I because of what happened in 83, but once she saw Steve it settled, even if it was for a brief moment.” Steve continued to lay on the ground, his hand instinctively reached up to caress his cheek as memory flashed in his mind. He was remembering back to a time where [F/N] punched him across the face because he was basically screaming at her to punch him, he didn’t expect her to actual do it because she swore that she’d never hurt him, but she did.

“W-Why— why’d you hit me?” he whimpered out, tears being to swell in his eyes as he cradled his swelling check, to which she just sighed while rolling her eyes and placing her hands on her hips.

“You told me to, and besides, you were acting like a shit so you definitely deserved it.” his lip trembled and a small sob escaped his lips, she rolls her eyes again and smacks him in the shoulder “I hope you know that this goes for show that I’ll practically do anything for you, Stevie. But this will be the first and only time I’ll hurt you like this, mmkay? You’ve been acting a little entitled these past few weeks and you needed a little wake up call. Your arrogance will be your undoing one of these days, so don’t let it go to your head. I won’t be around to wake you up next time.” he sniffles, raising his hands to wipe away the falling tears.

“I promise, as long as you promise not to hit me like that again.” she chuckles softly, wiping away his tears.

“I promise. From today, I’ll never hurt you like that ever again, not even if you deserve it.” she starts to laugh when she ruffled his hair and he cried out in horror, screaming at her that she ruined his hair, she just continued to laugh as she ran away from him whilst he screamed bloody murder.

“[F/N]…” he starts tearing up but held them back when a hand was offered to him, he saw that it was Robin wearing [F/N]’s discarded jacket.

“Get up, Harrington. We’re gonna save your sister, and when we do, I’m gonna give her a proper ass whoppin!” driving back to the Starcourt mall they sat in silence, Jonathan breaking all the road laws as he sped down road in the car that was hanging onto its life by a thread. Steve raised his eyes from where he sat and saw Robin digging her face into the fabric of [F/N]’s jacket, he noticed that she was thinking about something because she had a look on her face that was debating whether or not she should speak or not “… she broke up with me.” this caused his body to straighten up, even the others in the car peeked back to listen in on the conversation, rude.

“What do you mean she broke up with you? W-Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she let out a sigh, blinking back the tears that were slowly swelling up in her eyes.

“I guess it was because of that Mind Flayer, or whatever the fuck that thing is. I think she was in the middle of choosing that things latest meal, because I caught her in an alleyway letting a girl kiss her. It was when I went to go look for the blueprints.” Steve gasps softly at that, so that’s why she looked so dejected when she came back “I couldn’t recognise her, she stared at me with these cold, dead eyes and the way she spoke to me… I felt so scared being there. I wish I knew, I wish I knew she was going through that and then maybe I could’ve helped her. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt so angry at her that she broke up with me, left me in that alleyway all alone— and for what? To protect me? So she wouldn’t have to hurt me ever more than she did by breaking my heart? She even threatened me if I told you, saying you wouldn’t believe me because I’m nothing but your coworker while she’s your sister.” she sniffles to herself, wiping away the tears that fell from her eyes, she spared Steve a look but flinched a little. He now wore a very livid expression, Robin became a really close friend to Steve after he and his sister got together and they became closed after their encounter with the Russian soldiers under the mall, so hearing how his flayed sister threatened and broke up with her pissed him off.

“If you don’t kick her ass, I’ll kick it for you. But first, we’ve got to find her and Billy and free them from the control of the Mind Flayer. Whether you forgive her or not, that’s up to you, but she’s still my sister.”  “What about Billy?”  “I hope he can forgive me for totalling his camaro.” they stare at each other and laugh weakly, Robin now rested her forward on his shoulder and let her hands dip into the pockets but she hummed in confusion when she felt something. Pulling it out, her breath hitched when she pulled out the photo of the four of them at the fair. Steve felt her body tremble so he looked down and he himself flinched at the photo, seeing that photo almost felt like yesterday. Steve wished he could go back to the time where the other three were clueless about the Upside Down; clueless about the true horrors of Hawkins and that he was the only one who knew the truth. Where his sister was madly in love with his friend, where his boyfriend was in the safety of his arms, where none of this was happening on the first place and that the four of them were having their weekly sleepover at the Harrington household.

Man, what a distant memory.

[starcourt mall]

[F/N] arrives right on time, finding Billy pushing himself off of El just as the Mind Flayer descends from the skylight. El was regaining her consciousness as the blur of the monster slowly registered in her mind, [F/N] wordlessly stands beside Billy and reached over to take his hand into hers. He doesn’t spare her a glance and neither does she, and though they were still under the influence of the monster in front of them, the two of them squeezed each others hand to let each other know that they were still in there. The Mind Flayer is paying the two of them no mind, slowly approaching the small child to devour her, rid the last obstacle in its way, when something blew up in its face. Billy and [F/N] cry out in pain at the blow, sharing the pain with the Mind Flayer, blow after blow Billy and [F/N] grovel to their knees in pain as the Mind Flayer roared at the intruders. [F/N] peeked through his hands and saw the lot she nearly killed had followed quickly after her, how she never noticed them was beyond her, but she was going to finish what she started.

Deal with them.

Finish the job.

Make no mistakes.

“Shut up…” she growled out, managing to push herself onto her feet and towards the escalator to where their unwanted guests were, leaving Billy to watch over El. Of course none of them were expecting to see [F/N] on them, they were all to preoccupied laying waste to the Mind Flayer to notice that she was there. Lucas was the first to suffer at her mercy, the others heard his cry for help and immediately turned to see where he was, watching in shock when they saw [F/N] turn him around and strike him across the face that he fell to the ground after spitting out blood from his mouth,

“Lucas!” next was Will, who was unfortunate to be within arms length because she did not hesitate to raise the axe and hit him with the butt if the axe and knock him unconscious “Will!” Jonathan screams out and was ready to drop everything to help his brother but was stopped when Nancy grabbed his arm, pulling him back and shaking her head.

“No, no! Jonathan, I understand what you’re going through, but no! She will kill your the moment you’re within her grasp, she’s not letting us go this time.” he shakes his head.

“I don’t care! I need to get Will!” he cries out and rips his arm free from Nancy’s hold but stopped when he saw Steve and Robin already rushing over to stop [F/N] from going any further with the children, Nancy grabs his arm again and tugs at it to get his attention.

“Steve and Robin will deal with her, we’ll keep the Mind Flayer distracted, alright? Steve won’t let anything happen to your brother.” speaking of which, the Mind Flayer’s anger was beginning to mix in with her own, anger for the previous host that managed to slip through its grasp. Placing her foot on Will’s chest, she raises the axe up to slam it down but was once again stopped when it was smacked out of her hands, she growls at the perpetrator and saw that it was Robin, who had her hands out in front of her to keep some distance between her and [F/N].

“[F/N], baby, please… it’s me, it’s Robin.” she pleads, she flinches and takes a step back when [F/N] pushed herself off of Will but kicked his unconscious body away to approach Robin “Whatever this thing has done to you; has made you do, I want you to know that this isn’t your fault, none of it is. You’re just as innocent as the next person is, and I want you to know that I… I forgive you. Everything you said in the alleyway, I know you didn’t mean any of it. I want you to know that I still love you, through everything that’s happened, I love you.” Robin felt hopeful when she saw [F/N]’s hardened gaze soften, maybe she was caught up in her delusions of freeing her mind that she reached for her hand, that was her mistake because her hand quickly grabbed a hold of Robin to keep her from moving and with her other hand sucker punched her straight in the gut so hard that she spat out saliva. She didn’t let when Robin gasped out of breath, collapsing to her knees as she hunched over and clutched her stomach.

“I care not for your words, they mean nothing to me. Didn’t I already tell you that?” Robin lets out a sob at her cold words, wishing nothing more than to feel the warmth she once had only for her, but she could only cry out in pain when [F/N] twisted her arm “You’ve lost your chance of staying away, so I hope you’re prepared for the consequences.”

“Hey!” turning her head, she was taken aback when Steve came rushing over and slammed the bottom of a fire extinguisher into her face. She let out a gasp at the sudden blow, letting Robin go as her head was thrown back after the impact, she then raised her hand to cradle her throbbing nose as Steve’s arm dropped due to the weight of the extinguisher “You need to stop this madness, [F/N], I beg of you. I need you back, I need my big sister back!” he takes a step back when she growled at him but her face screwed up in pain once more, a mixture from getting hit with a fire extinguisher, the fireworks the Mind Flayer was getting hit with, but also [F/N] fighting for dominance over her mind once more.

He’s lying to you.

He doesn’t need you.

You don’t need him.

“Please, let’s just go home. With Robin and Billy, we’ll go home and watch movies like we used to. Talk about how much we hate our parents, how much we hate Hawkins and how we’ll leave as soon as Robin and Billy graduate. We’ll be together, like we always have. Just you, and me.” [F/N) groans out in pain, shaking her head as she slapped her hands against her forehead to quell all the madness that was going on “Just come back to me, my big sister.” Steve takes a step forward, reaching for her but gasped when she punched him in the face.

“Shut up!” she screamed at him, she struggled to stay standing whilst clutching her throbbing head.

Destroy him.

Annihilate him.

Murder him.

Kill him.

Steve couldn’t remember what happened next, first he was struggling to keep himself standing, the next thing he knew he was barely clinging to consciousness as he laid on his back while he suffered continuous blows to his face. [F/N] was currently on top of him, screaming at the top of her lungs as she punched him left and right, holding nothing back as she delivered blow after blow. At this right she was definitely going to kill him, but she just couldn’t stop herself, this time not pulling her punches and putting all her strength into each one. She saw him weakly reach out to her but she merely smacked his hand away then grab him by the collars of his shirt to pull him forward, reeling her head back to slam her forehead into the bridge of his nose. Blood gurgled in his throat and he was questioning why he was still conscious, wishing nothing more then for this continuous chain of pain to end, but he knew his sister was in a lot more pain. Weakly opening his eyes, he saw the pain in her eyes as she unwillingly hurt her sweet little brother that used to cry at the drop of a hat, so he reached for her once more when she held him up by his shirt as her other hand was pulled back.

“We… we were kids.” she furrowed her brows in confusion, what nonsense was he spouting out now? “We were k-kids and you were tea— teaching me to ride my bike. I wouldn’t stop crying, and you were making f-fun of me. You promised you’d be with me every… every step of the way. You never broke that promise, [F/N]; never. Even when you were gone, you made sure to write letters. Even when I s-said I hated you, you were still there.” his trembling hand managed to reach her face, gently cupping her cheek and caressing it with his thumb, her face softened and she leaned into the touch, a single tear running down her cheek “I love you, [F/N]…” his hand finally dropped to his side just as [F/N] took a deep breath, closing her eyes to reminiscent on every good memory she had of Steve, slowly but surely the black veins disappeared and the voice that screamed in her head grew silent. She blinked her eyes a few times in confusion, leaning backwards and looking around to see where exactly she was before finally looking down, and there her eyes widened in horror.

“Steve… Steve!” she screams at the top of her lungs, the tears swelling in her eyes falling freely down her cheeks. She hurriedly jumps off of him and lifts his weakened body into her lap, cradling his body into her arms while rocking back and forward “No, no, no, no, no! I didn’t mean to hurt you, I-I’m so sorry! I tried— I tried so hard to keep myself away from you, to stop myself from hurting you, but I’ve gone and broken my promise to you! I’m sorry, I’m sorry…!” she kept apologising over and over, but she just felt sick to her stomach. She couldn’t look at herself anymore, she couldn’t even look at her hands knowing that she was beating her brother that she swore she’d never hurt anymore. It hurt even more knowing that she hurt the love of her life, breaking her heart to keep her safe but then she hurt her when she was trying to save her from the monster that plagued her mind.

“[F/N]…” she gasped, looking down at her brother and saw that he was reaching for her again, she doesn’t hesitate to take his hand into hers and caress it, nuzzling the side of her face into it “You’re back…?” she chuckles weakly, nodding her head as she smiled weakly at him.

“Yes… yes, it’s me. It’s your big sister, who loves you very much.” he smiles at her but it breaks her heart seeing him looking up at her, face beaten and bleeding as his eyes were barely able to open “Will you ever forgive me?” he chuckles, closing his eyes and feeling his body relax under hers.

“What a foolish question, I’ll always f-forgive you…” she hunches over his body, her own trembling as her tears fell onto his body. A sob leaves her lips but her attention was torn off his body when she heard a loud roar, recognising it, she turned her head towards it and it widened at the sight of the Mind Flayer, her gaze soon hardened in rage at the mere sight of it. This fucking piece of shit was the cause of it all, for her and Billy hurting people, kidnapping people, killing people… her breaking up with Robin, and her hurting both Robin and Steve. She’ll never forgive it, she’ll never forget what it’s done to her and Billy, all because they were foolish enough to not go home and stayed out longer. Steve let out a confused noise when his head was lifted off of her lap, he watched as she picked up the fallen axe and at first he was worried she was back under the control of the Mind Flayer, but her gaze was trained on the Mind Flayer instead of anyone else “[F-F/N]…?” she breaks out into a running start then proceeds to step onto the railing and over it, raising the axe over her head then swings it down on the Mind Flayer.

“[F/N]?!” Billy, who was also free from the Mind Flayer’s control, shouts in surprise. Billy was holding one of the tentacles back that was aiming to kill El, pushing it back with everything he head, when [F/N] jumped off from the upper levels screaming and swinging the axe into the Mind Flayer’s body.

“You fucking piece of shit!” she yells, ripping the blade out of its gooey flesh then swung it down again “You made me hurt my brother! You made me break up with my girlfriend! You made me hurt so many people, and all for what?! Because you couldn’t make your own body?! You rat sack son of a bitch!” [F/N] knew what she was doing was stupid, that what she was doing was going to get her killed, but she really couldn’t care at all. She wanted to pay for what she’s done, why should she get off scot free? She wanted punishment, retribution for her actions “The only ending you’ll get is with your death!” she knew her actions would lead to her downfall, that what she was doing was meaningless, because the Mind Flayer easily threw her off and she landed on the ground with a thud. The next thing she knew was that one of the many tentacles surrounding the monster pierced her body, she slowly looked down and coughed up blood seeing the many teeth sink into her chest.

“Billy!” she hears a scream, turning her head, she sees that Billy has been met with the same fate. Pain runs throughout her body when several more of that things tentacles pierce through her body until it finally let her go, her body collapsing for she had no more strength left to keep her up. This was it, she was going to die alone knowing that she hurt her brother and her girlfriend— her ex? She didn’t know, all she knew was that she was going to die without making it up to the two people she loved the most, especially now that she was leaving her little brother alone. She coughs up more blood as she turns her head, noticing that Billy was still kicking so with what little strength she still had, she pushed herself onto her stomach and started dragging herself over to where he was laying. Finally reaching him, she pushes herself up then collapsed onto him, he looked down at her and saw she was crying.

“I won’t let you… die alone.” she muttered weakly, reaching her hand to rest on his cheek “I won’t leave you alone.” in turn for this final act of gentle affection, he raises his own hand to take her hand into his and the two of them stare into each other’s eyes.

“Why didn’t you leave me…?” he asked her, questioning what sanity she had for going back and saving him. She wouldn’t have had to suffer everything if she just abandoned him, he was used to it anyways, but she just gave him the best smile she could muster.

“Because… I wanted to see yours and Stevie’s wedding.” he stared at her but it did manage to crack a smile onto his face, and that was enough for the both of them.

“You’re stupid.”

“Maybe I am.” Steve was being helped down to the lower levels by Nancy and Jonathan, Robin following closely behind as the immense pain in her stomach still hadn’t settled, and Steve couldn’t properly walk on his own after the continuous blows he took to the face and head. They finally made it to the ground level and Steve looks over to see where Max was, crying in El’s arms, he looks where she was collapsed and his heart immediately dropped into his stomach at what he saw.

“No… no, no, no!” he cries out, Robin follows his gaze and herself saw both Billy and [F/N]’s motionless bodies that continued to bleed out “[F/N]! Billy! Please, god, no!” Steve thrashed in Nancy and Jonathan’s hood until they finally let him go, he fell to his knees but he scrambled to his feet and rushed over to their bodies. His hands trembled over their bodies, the tears in his eyes falling onto them “Please, no. Not like this, please. You can’t leave me, you can’t leave me alone…! You promised to be by my side, you promised!” his trembling hands reached to cup their faces and his face fell when they felt cold under his touch, god, this was really happening. Robin fell to her knees by his side, shaking her head at the sight of [F/N]’s lifeless body, she couldn’t believe that this was actually happening. She doesn’t hesitate to throw her arms around Steve’s body, squeezing him tightly and the two of them cried together knowing that they both lost somebody they loved.

But at least the two that did die, died in each other’s arms smiling.