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uzumaki-rebellion · 2 months ago

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Choose One (Chapter 5) by Uzumaki Rebellion

Characters: Elijah "Smoke" Moore and Elias "Stack" Moore (characters in the Michael B. Jordan movie "Sinners"). Lena Blackwell (OC).

Warning(s): Mentions of Hoodoo, Explicit Sex, Supernatural Elements, Romance, Some Violence, Polyamory, and Angst. Pre-Sinners movie.

Summary: Lena Blackwell works in an illegal after-hours Black & Tan club in Bronzeville where she seduces twin brothers Smoke and Stack. Each brother has qualities she likes and she embarks on an illicit affair with both. All is well until one of the twins starts catching feelings.

Word Count: 5K

Masterlist HERE.

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"See-line woman (see-line)"

Nina Simone – "See-Line Woman"

Lena froze when the Tommy Gun blasted the ceiling first.

She fought the automatic flight or fight impulse she'd learned from humans to blend in with their natural fear. Instead of ducking like the other patrons and co-workers, she covered her ears and stared the shooter in the face.

"Lena!"

Both Smoke and Stake hollered her name, the fear in their voices pushing Lena to step back. She tripped over Bobby who'd been hit in the shoulder and bled profusely. The screams and shouts of frightened people thrust her into action as the shooter aimed for the twins now that everyone else cowered on the floor or fled the premises. Bullets flew from all directions, shattering liquor bottles, glasses, and the mirror behind the counter. The ensuing melee dredged up more cries of terror. Bernice and Caroline screamed their heads off before Stack shoved them to the floor.

Smoke snatched his two guns from his double holster and plugged holes into the first assailant. Stack leaped over the counter and shielded Lena with his body.

"C'mon, baby, we gotta move!" he shouted to her.

"Bobby…"

"Don't worry about him."

Max and Frank dragged Bobby by his arms to safety beneath the counter before hustling him through the employees-only door that led to the kitchen. Stack shoved her through that door and ran back to help his brother, pulling out a gun he kept on his ankle and the new brass knuckle blade he carried.

The kitchen staff, Max, Frank, and Bobby, escaped outside through the kitchen delivery chute. Bernice, Caroline and two other servers wept and ran through the double doors, headed out after the others. Their shrieks echoed out in the chaotic street where other patrons sought safety.

Lena waited for Smoke and Stack hidden behind boxes of fresh produce. They didn't allow her to interfere with human actions. Fate and Death controlled the outcome. She could already sense Fate moving through the building, her otherworldly energy surging like winds of a hurricane gathering across Lena's arms. Chance had showed up too, his shadow sliding across the ceiling offering pathways of escape if Fate overlooked a soul by being preoccupied with another human in her midst. Lena was grateful that no envelopes appeared for her to work at that moment. She only wanted to be with the twins, not ferrying souls.

The sounds of gunfire ceased abruptly.

Lena snuck through the kitchen doors and back into the main room. Smoke and Stack peered at the men they put down. Some guards that had been hired as extra protection were killed, and sprawled about in cooling heaps of dead flesh.

Smoke glanced at Lena.

"Why the hell are you still here?" he snapped.

Stack ran over to her.

"Get outta here. The cops will arrive soon," Stack insisted, pushing her toward the kitchen.

"I'm not going without the both of you," she said, pushing Stack's hand away.

Smoke holstered his guns.

"We gotta hide out for awhile. The streets will be hot after this," Smoke told Stack.

"You can stay with me," Lena blurted.

The twins eyed each other warily.

Ernie dashed out from behind the wall drapes, his personal bodyguard by his side, gun held high. The Black godfather surveyed the carnage in the club and frowned. He glared at the twins.

"How the fuck you two survive all this?" Ernie shouted.

Lena wondered about that, too.

"Any civilians hurt?" Ernie asked.

"Just Bobby," Stack said, shoving his blade into his belt.

"Then it's gotta be hittas from O'Banion and Moran. Real pros. Y'all get outta here. Lena, you and the staff stay clear. Give me a week to deal with this," Ernie said.

Stack clasped her hand and dragged her toward the secret gambling room. An emergency exit that led into an alley would keep them covered.

"She ain't working here no more, Ernie," Stack said.

Smoke followed them into the hidden room and out the private exit. The alley's darkness provided cover, and they dashed over to the roadster. Lena jumped in the back and Smoke took the driver's side. Once Stack hopped in next to his brother, they tore off into the night. Lena gazed upward as a murder of crows flocked toward the cold, black sky without her in their ranks. The souls of the newly dead glowed like tiny specks of star-shine on their wings.

Smoke and Stack remained quiet, going up her elevator. The stooped shoulders of the older Black elevator operator faced the three of them, and Lena tamped down on the stirrings of unease hounding her. She expected an explosion from the twins in proximity with her, but thus far, they'd acted solemn for two men sharing the same woman. Not even the chaos of being shot at from all directions in the club fazed them. Smoke's left hand showed tremors, and he clasped it with his right to control the shaking. They never shook when he held guns, though. Stack paid the elevator operator a twenty and the old man knew to keep his mouth shut about seeing them with her.

She opened the apartment door, and both men headed for her private bar at the same time. That set Stack off, and he shoved his brother against the wall.

"Selfish bastard!" Stack yelled.

He stomped over to Lena and grabbed the front of her dress, ripping off several buttons.

"How long you been fucking him, huh?"

His voice cracked with rage and the warmth of his breath baptized her in the pangs of hurt embedded in the words. Smoke strode over and pulled his brother off her. She clutched at her torn clothing and resigned herself to accepting the outburst. Smoke tussled with Stack.

"Let go of me!"

Stack wrenched Smoke's hands away and stuck his finger in his older brother's face.

"You move dirty on your own blood? Letting another woman come between us again? All the bitches in this city and you mess with her?!"

"I didn't know about you and her."

Smoke's voice remained calm. He glanced over at Lena.

"It's my fault. I wanted you both," Lena offered.

Stack whirled around in attack mode.

"Two brothers…two men from the same family…?"

"Why does it matter? You take women whenever you want. I've seen you go after sisters, stringing them along, happy to get what you want from them. Why can't I do the same with the infamous Smokestack twins?"

Stack's eyes squinted, and his lips curled into a snarl.

"You're the most devious bitch I've ever met. Can't trust none of you whores—"

"But you liked me just fine when I was sucking your dick and letting you cum inside me! As long as I was taking care of Big Stack sexually, wasn't no concern about who else I was fucking."

Stack swung an arm out to grab her again. Smoke held him back. She locked eyes with the older twin and he didn't seem surprised or upset.

"I swear to god these Black bitches always plotting on a nigga," Stack spat.

"Fuck you, Stack. All those white hoes and mulattos you fuck do the same shit. You're just mad that I'm not begging for your forgiveness. I fucked you and your brother. So what? I'd fuck you both again in a heartbeat and wouldn't feel no way about it either."

"You delusional slut…I'm done with you," Stack barked.

He jerked away from Smoke, his anger diffused from his brother as a target. Just the way she knew it would.

"Are you truly done with me?" she said.

Lena put a hand on her hip, letting her torn dress fly open revealing her bra.

"You were damn near crying while eating my pussy…fix yourself a drink and sit down," she said, walking toward her bedroom.

Smoke let out an unusual laugh and placed a fist against his lips. Stack scoffed.

"Nigga, whatchu laughing for? She tricked on your ass, too."

Smoke waved his hand dismissively.

"We got more things to worry about than this."

Lena paused at the entrance of her hallway.

"You two can take the last rooms. The beds are made up already. Fresh towels and other toiletries in the bathroom are available," she said.

Smoke nodded. Stack poured himself a whiskey and cut his eyes at her.

"Beds probably got cum stains from all kinds of niggas running through here in a spot I fucking pay for," Stack grumbled.

"Only two men been in my bed or this apartment… you…and him—"

The whiskey glass Stack once held crashed and shattered on the wall next to her. Startled, Lena held her hands up to protect her face from getting cut.

"Shut your fucking whore mouth up!" Stack shouted.

Smoke pushed his brother, his eyes smoldering with fury.

"That's enough," Smoke warned. "What's done is done."

Lena touched her top lip. Blood soaked her fingertips. A shard of glass had cut her skin. Stack stared at her.

"Lena?"

He rushed to her side.

"Aw, damn, baby I'm sorry…"

He touched her mouth, and she hissed with the sharp stinging pain. Her eyes watered and she struck him with fast hands, her fury windmilling the fuck out of his face, disheveling his hair and clothes. Smoke ran over and intervened; she let him have it, too, disappointed that he didn't feel a way about her fucking someone else, regardless of it being Stack.

"Lena! Stop!" Stack yelped, drawing back from her.

He finally lifted her over his shoulder and carried her to the master bedroom. Tossing her on the bed gently, he held her arms to her sides.

"I said I'm sorry. Lemme take care of that cut," Stack said.

"Get out of my room!"

"Woman, hush. I pay for all this shit. Sitcho ass here and wait for me."

He squeezed past Smoke in the doorway who wandered in to check on her.

"It's not too bad," Smoke said, touching it.

Lena winced and Stack rushed back in with ice wrapped in a kitchen cloth. He held it against her lip.

"This will keep any swelling down. Should stop bleeding in a minute."

She pressed the cloth against her lip. Both twins peered down at her. Concern spread across their identical faces.

"Go away. I'm tired. We all got shot at and I want to forget this night ever happened."

Lena flopped on her side, keeping her lip covered.

The brothers fussed on their way out of her bedroom and she listened to their heated argument muffled down the hall for over an hour. Stack broke a few things in the living room. She didn't jump up to investigate. He had to deal with his frustration the best way he knew how, through tearing up things he bought for her. Loud cursing took over. One twin dragged past her open bedroom door, but she didn't look to see who it was before she dozed off.

At dawn, she woke up to find Stack nuzzled against her, holding her tight. Her lip was healed completely, and she knew there'd be no bruising or swelling.

She left the bed to use the bathroom. The last bedroom door was closed. Smoke snored loud enough to hear. Lena peed, brushed her teeth, and took a bath. She slipped into a pale green satin night slip back in her bedroom before crawling under the covers with Stack. He was butt naked with an early morning erection.

"Be still now…shit…tryna sleep," he mumbled.

Lena poked his face.

"I thought you were done with me," she said.

He pushed her finger away. She lifted his top lip to check his teeth. Stack had gold on the right side of his mouth. Smoke had a little bit of gold on his left. She was definitely in bed with Stack.

"Why are you in bed with me?"

"Shut up."

"Make me."

She poked at his face again.

"C'mon, now stop playin.' I'm tired and still mad at you."

"How mad?"

He frowned with his eyes still closed and turned over, curling into the fetal position. She rubbed on his arm and spooned her body around his, letting her warmth drain into his back.

"Leave me alone."

"If you wanted to be left alone, you wouldn't be balled up in my bed naked as the day you were born."

"A nigga can be pissed and—"

"And what?"

"Go to sleep."

Lena hugged him and trailed a finger across his cheek. She kissed his temple and settled in.

"Why you have to sleep with him, Lena? It could've been anyone else but him."

"I like you both. I wanted you both. It's like… I couldn't have one without the other. Stack…I don't want to hurt you or him. The both of you together are magic to me."

"That's not making me feel better. I don't like sharing nothin'. It's not right for you to come between us—"

"It doesn't have to be that way. We can all be together…whenever we want. Now I don't have to hide anything."

"You don't have any self respect for yourself? A woman ain't supposed to be whoring around with two men at the same time. Definitely not two fucking brothers either."

"What I do with you is whoring? So ain't you a whore, too? You don't see me saying shit about all the harlots you've paraded around town before we got together. The ones you fucked at the same time. I've heard about your threesomes and foursomes."

Stack turned around on the bed.

"That's different. I'm a man."

"So?"

"We got needs that a woman wouldn't understand."

"Women have needs, too. I like dick…pussy too when the right women get my attention."

Stack's face scrunched up into a look of abject horror.

"You sleep with women, too?"

"Two at a time, if I'm in the mood."

"Now that's just…well…that's just…how come you ain't never fucked other bitches with me?"

"The hypocrisy."

Lena shoved back his forehead with two fingers. The corners of his lips tugged down.

"It's not right, Lena. What you're doing to me and Smoke."

She rested her forehead against his.

"You and Smoke make me happy. Happier than I've ever been in a long, long time. I hid it from you because you wouldn't understand my feelings…my need to have you both in my life."

"I can't be with you if you keep seeing him."

"That's your choice."

"That's it? My choice? You can cut me off that easy?"

"I told you what I want."

"Maybe he don't want that either."

"He's not acting upset."

"That's because he keeps everything locked up inside. I know my brother. If he's with you, that means he wants you. He don't get with just any woman."

Lena pulled back and stroked the hair on his chin.

"Who was the woman that got in between you before?"

Stack's eyebrows shot up.

"What?"

"Last night you yelled at Smoke about another woman getting in between you before…"

He shook his head and turned away again.

"I'm not talking about that."

"She hurt you that bad?"

"She married him."

Stack shoved the blankets away and sat up on the edge of the bed.

"We came to an understanding about her. But I'm not willing to do so for you," he said.

"We don't have to do anything but just be. Why can't you trust in that?"

"You don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?"

He sighed heavily and then leaned over to kiss her lips.

"I'm going to sleep in the other room," he said.

He kissed her mouth and padded out of the bedroom with his dick swinging.

Lena dragged out of bed by noon and cooked a big breakfast.

The odor of bacon, fried eggs, grits, and toast lured the twins out of their separate rooms. Smoke walked into her kitchen first, wearing his undershirt and pants. Stack wandered in shirtless and his bottom half covered in striped boxers. They each sat at the ends of the table. She put the crispier pieces of bacon and harder fried eggs on Smoke's plate the way he liked them, and the flimsier strips and softer eggs on Stack's plate the way he preferred. After scooping out grits for them, she fixed her own plate and sat in the middle seat. They ate quietly. Stack glared at his brother a few times and Smoke looked at his twin passively, not giving any negative vibes.

"We're going to have to talk about what y'all plan to do," Lena said, breaking the silence.

She chomped on some bacon and waited for one of them to speak.

"There's nothing to do but stay off the streets. Stack will make some calls…I'll have to check in with my people, too," Smoke said.

"What people?" she asked.

Smoke glanced at Stack. Stack shrugged and tossed the last piece of his toast in his mouth.

"She's in it now, no sense hiding shit from her," Stack said.

"Maybe I can help," she said.

Smoke shook his head.

"You have to lie low, too."

"If I'm out of a job, at least give me a new one," she said.

Smoke studied her face.

"I've been working with Moran's gang," Smoke said.

"I thought you were part of Capone's organization."

"We are," Stack said, wiping his hands together.

"We're playing the Italians and Irish down the middle."

"That'll get you both killed. I thought you and Ernie were doing fine with your cut in the market. The club and the gambling room stayed packed," she said.

"We want our own shit," Stack said.

"Ernie is old school. Too cautious and too stingy with the profits. He's small time compared to what the other gangs have control over. We're going to take what we want and leave Chicago," Smoke added.

Lena placed her hands flat on the table and leaned forward.

"You're leaving? When?"

"As soon as we steal enough booze and cash from both sides," Smoke said.

"What about me? Us? Were you ever going to tell me or just disappear?"

"I wanted to take you with me, but you fucked that up by fucking my brother," Stack said.

The unspoken tension between the brothers regarding her festered in the air. She took their plates away and washed them. Didn't bother to ask any more questions at the table. The thought of them leaving gnawed at her core self. She wanted to cry. Showing weakness wouldn't do, not in the situation they were in. She mustered up willful unbotherdness to make them think their leaving wouldn't break her. The shock of it rested in her solar plexus. She couldn't leave Chicago unless Death told her to.

Stack used her phone first, then went to the bathroom to bathe. Smoke made a few calls while Lena listened to the radio, trying to catch any news about the killings at the Sunset. The only thing she gleaned from a few reports was that the death toll was five and that two suspects were on the loose.

Smoke sat on her couch after finishing his check-in. Lena parked herself next to him.

"You haven't spoken to me about our situation…you, me…Stack."

"What is there to say? You played us."

"No, I didn't. I had two separate and private relationships with each of you."

"What did you expect to happen when you got caught?"

"I wasn't going to get caught. You messed that up by grinning in public."

"So now it's my fault?"

"It is."

"Who did you sleep with first?"

"I made love to Stack first. You ignored me by acting high and mighty…untouchable. So I went for the riper, lower hanging fruit."

"Why isn't he enough for you? Why drag me into bullshit with my brother?"

She ignored his questions.

"Do you still want to be with me?" she asked.

"I do…but I can't. You made a mistake. It's best we stop and go back to being…associates. Besides, we won't be around here much longer, anyway."

"You think you can quit me cold turkey?"

"You think you're some habit I can't break? You're a woman with good pussy. I can find that anywhere. I'd rather my brother have you because he needs a good woman in his life. When he's around you, he's focused…less impulsive. I'll ask for his forgiveness, blame it all on you, and move on. You're a good-time girl, so you understand what it is."

His tone was cool and curt. Business-like.

"I see," she said.

"I've been around, Lena. Shit happens. I'll talk to him, patch things up for you, and mind my business."

The words coming out of his mouth were perfunctory. His eyes…they yearned for her with reluctance. She wouldn't push him. He had to choose her. Their connection ran deeper than sex. Just like Stack. In those moments, entwined with either man, Lena found freedom from her sacred duties. A type of liberation that they also desired from the lives they led. Free to be themselves for themselves.

She didn't want to lose that. From neither twin. But she couldn't pressure them. If they needed to break from her straight away, her gut said they would come back eventually. She had to be patient. Time was something she had plenty of.

"I have more calls to make," he said.

Lena kissed his lips.

For a second, he hesitated, and then allowed his lips to align with hers for a quick smooch.

She refused to let them go in her mind. They would not fully reciprocate her affections until they each had time to contemplate a life without her.

"I'll leave you alone to make those calls then," she said.

She headed for her master bedroom to read a book. Perhaps it would be more comfortable for everyone to stay apart in separate spaces.

That's what they did for the rest of the day. The twins used her phone or snuck out of the apartment building to use the new phone booth posted a block away. It was clear to Lena that the brothers had been working over the Italians and the Irish for a much longer time than they let on. Pitting gangs against each other in ways beneficial to them put targets on their backs from all fronts. Capone was locked up. The Italians scrambled to hold their power within the vacuum their mob boss created with his absence.

She cooked them a heavy dinner of ham and cheesy potatoes from a recipe she cut out of a magazine. The men ate without her. She lost her appetite while cooking and worrying about them sneaking out to a secret garage in the middle of the night. She caught the gist that they were pilfering liquor crates from the two different gangs and hiding the stolen goods on the south side.

Smoke approached her in the sitting room as she played records.

"We need you to do a job for us," he said.

Stack sauntered next to his brother, his eyes still sullen, but determined to keep focused on their work and not their splintered relationship.

"What do you need done?"

Smoke kept talking, and Stack listened.

"We need you to go down to the Dreamland tonight and find out if Ernie shows up there."

"Ernie?"

"We don't trust him," Stack said with some bite in his tone.

"You think Ernie set you up?"

"Just go there, ask around to see if they're hiring bartenders. Since you can sing, ask about a job doing that, too. You're a knockout, so Bottoms the owner will want to feel you out himself. See who's hanging with him."

"What if Ernie shows up and sees me?"

"His joint got shot up. Everyone needs work until he opens back up. He won't be shocked to see you there. If he's around, come right back here and let us know when we come back."

"Where will you guys be?"

"Out," Stack said.

"For how long?"

"Will you do it?"

"Yeah, I'll get dressed now."

She slipped past them and washed up. Choosing a crème and white dress appropriate for an impromptu interview, she glanced at her reflection in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. She combed out her curls into a fluffier bob. Grabbing a coat from her closet, she met the men in her front room.

"No…aw, hell no. You can't go to Dreamland dressed like that," Stack groaned.

Lena looked at her dress and sensible work shoes.

"What's wrong with this?"

Stack huffed with annoyance.

"No style vision at all. I bought you the best clothes in town and you think walking into Dreamland looking like an old schoolmarm is going to get Will Bottom's attention?"

"You said to go ask for a job. This is the outfit for that."

Stack sucked his teeth and tugged on her arm.

"I swear if you or Smoke didn't have me around to show you how to dress to finesse…tryna embarrass me out here…"

Stack dragged her back to her bedroom closet and pulled out several dresses that he tossed on the bed. He grabbed a few different heels, too. High ones. With his hands on his hips, he eyed six dresses and chose the most revealing one. A slinky red off-the-shoulder number that always had her breasts sitting pretty.

"This the one, Lena. You walk into Dreamland with this on…ooh wee, heads are gonna turn."

She pulled off the dress she had on, along with the slip. Kicking off the shoes, she kept her eyes on Stack. He bit his bottom lip, staring at her.

Unfastening her bra, she let it drop to the floor.

"You made me so mad, Lena," he said.

Stack shortened the distance between them. She lowered her head.

"I'm sorry."

"I love my brother."

"I know—"

"I love you, too."

She blinked and looked up into his eyes.

He cradled her face and the struggle behind his bold brown eyes humbled her.

"Stack…"

He let his nose touch hers.

"I don't want to let you go."

She reached up and clasped his wrists. His arms trembled.

"I know I talk a lot of shit to women. But you never fall for any of it…you never let me run game on you. Everything you say or do to me is the real you. I fucks with that. Lena…I want you to come with us when we leave."

"What about Smoke?"

"That's my blood. I can tell he loves you, too. At least the part of him that's able to allow you close to him. That ain't easy. He's got a lot of trauma…a lot of pain he carries. If you made him find his smile again…made him laugh…then I want him to have that. Want him to have you, too."

"You sure?"

"It's my choice, right?"

She nodded and hugged him tight.

"She ready?" Smoke called out.

"Almost," Stack said.

Lena pulled on the dress and Stack helped zip her up.

"Which shoes?" she asked.

"The black Moiré satin pumps."

"You know the names of my shoes?"

"I know every fine strip of clothing a woman wears from her head to her toes. When I used to pimp my stable of bitches from here to Arkansas, I had to know what the tricks liked. I always had classy lookin' hoes. Big pimpin' days."

Lena rolled her eyes and sat on the bed. Stack knelt down and helped her put on the pumps. He gazed into her eyes and pushed back a fluff of hair from her forehead.

"Perfection. Go straight there and come back. Have the cab driver circle the block twice if you think you're being followed."

Stack dug into his pocket and pulled out her transportation and club money.

"Drink a little and look over the place before you start askin' for work," he said.

"Okay."

He stood, and she placed the money in her pocketbook.

Smoke's eyes widened at the sight of her new dress.

"Better?" she asked.

"Guess he knows what he's talkin' 'bout," Smoke said.

Stack helped her put on her coat at the front door.

"You two be safe," she said.

Smoke and Stack stood side by side, looking at her. Lena leaned forward and kissed Stack on the lips. When she moved for Smoke, he jerked back.

"Let her kiss you, man. It'll make her feel better," Stack said.

Smoke gave a quizzical look at his brother.

"We just gonna roll with it for now," Stack said.

Lena kissed Smoke's soft lips. She pried his mouth open with her tongue, and he accepted it.

"Aye, you doin' a little more with him. That ain't fair," Stack blurted.

Lena grinned, pulled away, and kissed Stack again, tonguing him down slowly. His eyes were still closed when she spun around and left the apartment

Chapter 6 HERE.

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#sinners fanfiction #smoke x black oc #stack x black oc #sinners smut #smoke and stack #sinners movie #smokestack twins #Choose One #Uzumaki Rebellion

233 notes · View notes

trashytracktales · 1 month ago

Note

ok this is not really naughty but more of like soft romantic, but how do you think f1 drivers propose?

like how do you see charles / lando/ oscar/ anyone else you like propose? big romantic geasture? domestic intimate? secret engagement? eloping in vegas? 🥹🥹

ilysm

Omg I love thisss, thank you for bringing it up 💍✨

🩵 I see Charles proposing on a yacht during summer break. He’s shirtless in linen pants, sun setting over the water somewhere near Corsica or Bali. He’s so nervous, and gets emotional before you even say yes (because there’s no other answer).

💭 Lando’s would be intimate and personal, in a place that means something to both of you, because if he knows, he knows. But even though it’s spontaneous, he’s been planning it for months. He rambles, hands shaking a bit, cracks a joke mid-proposal, but ends with “I’m serious, though. I want you forever.”

🐨 Oscar is a quiet, private guy, so a secret engagement won’t surprise me. I see him doing it at home while you’re brushing your teeth or watching a movie. With him, it’s genuine and intentional. Also, he tells the family and close friends days later like “Oh yeah, by the way, we’re engaged.”

🦁 If he decides to do it, Max would be casual yet impulsive, but still deeply sincere. You’re both in sweats at home, probably playing FIFA or watching a docuseries about penguins idk. He looks over at you during a quiet moment and goes, “This is nice. Marry me?” Thing is, he doesn’t believe love needs theatrics.

🎀 I don’t know why, but the voices in my head scream that Isack would design a special helmet for it, and it would be subtle as hell. And he’d choose a night race for this.

🤍 Alex is sappy and sweet. Most likely during a getaway or on a vacation, but I won’t be surprised if he ends up involving his pets in it somehow.

🌶 Carlos would plan something traditional. I’m thinking candlelit dinner in Madrid, the best wine and view, and then he walks you to a balcony overlooking the city. His parents already know, and he has backup rings in case you want options.

🐻 Ollie would be very determined, however, extremely nervous. I’m thinking maybe on a weekend trip, when hiking or exploring a city. He brings the ring everywhere, just in case, and ends up proposing at an overlook after psyching himself up for hours, poor bear. Kisses your hand a hundred times and cries later alone.

🍰 Yuki would definitely hide the ring in a dish he cooked.

🧉 For all I know, Franco could ask you to marry him through an Instagram story.

🦒 Esteban would go for that Parisian-level romance, somewhere out on a rooftop. There’s violin music, a custom suit, and your initials engraved in a champagne glass. Nothing less.

🖤 Lewis.

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1800titz · 10 months ago

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COME TOUCH ME TOO | Best friend’s dad

age gap. 11.2K on patreon

second part to LIQUID SMOOTH

You’d catch him over the sink sometimes. Or the stove. At the dinette, shirtless. Big bear, you thought, still only half-awake (starving), staring at his skin, swathed in ink that traversed limb, to torso, to limb. You’d catch the smattering of dark hair pooling over his sternum, and the hair beneath his navel, darker, more wiry, seeping into the band of his pajama pants. And later, you’d wonder if it was the substructure— torn out from you— that you were chasing (the surfeited rift between your ages, the sage wisdom you lacked), or if it was just the shape of him, the way he fit into your life, the subtle domesticity of a morning. The pantomime of a distant daydream. (Pretending this was your life you were living, and not taking a page from someone else’s.)

preview

The bar you’re at feels congested. Sticky, shoulders brushing shoulders, feet bumping feet, and the music is loud enough that you feel it droning along the skin of your bones. Past max-capacity; something you anticipated. Accepted on a Friday night— no sort of discomfort that couldn’t be waterlogged into an unconcerned bliss with enough alcohol.

And that’s what it started as.

One shot to ease the restless hypervigilance (when you shuffled in, sliding between clusters of bodies), that burned at the back of your throat, heat flaring across your crinkling sinuses. Then, a second, that radiated warmth along your chest, under your skin, that settled as a weightless feeling beneath the soles of your feet. Loosened the arc of your shoulders.

(You never buy your own drinks.)

A third, cupped from a stranger’s fingers, with bright, powder blue eyes that lingered on your throat, the line of your jaw when you tipped your head back. Inkpools stuck to your tongue when you smeared it out across your lips, the bridge of your nose rucking. He gave you a wolfish, glimmering grin and told you what a pretty thing you are.

(And you think, staring up at him through the misting crest of intoxicant smog, he’s too young. Feels like a boy— one you can’t re-mold even in the haze of alcohol— in the absence of crows’ feet and shallow smile lines, the glinting, tawdry rhinestone stuck to his incisor. Skin speckled with ink that resembles zealous impulse rather than an aged, carefully-crafted tapestry. You doubt there’s any worthwhile story behind the dice in the nook of his elbow; RICH across the front, C and H tipped perfectly on their southern edges to show the S and K that could fill the word out, instead.)

(You can’t even pretend.)

You seldom find regret in the sea of a familiar gyre (the world spinning, and you, finally, spinning with it), but the spindrift crashes across in a misty fog of discomfort. The riptide lures you out to swallow you whole. You’re not sure when the euphoria mutates into anxiety— maybe somewhere along the fourth and the fifth— but it coagulates in your esophagus, in your stomach. Cakes in the warm, soft spot under your ribcage, until your bones feel like they’re wobbling with the pulse of your heart. Vibrating.

You showed up with a coworker. Admittedly, one you didn’t know too well, to a bar you haven’t been to before. But going out is going out, and a bar is a bar. You don’t need a babysitter, you don’t need to know her well, and you don’t need to scope the the pub, but—

Last you saw her, she was propped against the corner of the bar, and now, as you sweep your bleary gaze over the mass, she’s nowhere in sight. You’re alone. You’re alone, and the world is spinning, screaming, chattering over the pulsing base, and you feel like you can’t keep up.

When you swallow, it lodges in your throat. You feel like you can’t breathe, nearly tripping over your own feet, brushing between tangled musculature, limbs like gnarled, warm roots for you stumble over. And you feel like you’re trying to part the sea to make room for your clumsy steps. Like you’re trying to move mountains.

By the time you make it outside, your lungs are aching, and your shoulders are quaking. You don’t know where it’s coming from— what it is— but it feels like a flame licking its way up under your dermis, and you want to shed your skin off the bone. The gulp of air you take is welcome. Cold. Wet.

It’s raining.

Pouring. The gust drenches your bare legs in spittle off the sky, even under the awning. Helplessly, you pat around for your phone.

And you don’t know what possesses you. You don’t know if it’s a clumsy swipe of your thumb across the glowing screen, or a cruel form of divine intervention, when you scroll and stutter along his contact. It’s a number you should’ve deleted. Haven’t pressed in months.

You flung yourself out of orbit, and seeing his name feels like you’re a piece of star-shed that’s slipped too close— a hair from homecoming. It feels like the inevitable, crushing weight of gravity snagging you into the miserable ouroboros you’ve spent every evening running from. A tidal wave, reborn, swallowing you whole.

And you know the repercussions— the potential there. The consequences of sticking wet fingers into electrical sockets, but you tell yourself, he won’t pick up. It’s too late. You’re too late. Too—

Your finger lingers.

You don’t know what would be worse. Abandonment in another shape, or hearing his voice on the other end of the line.

You call him.

You regret it a split-second too late, staring down at the screen dialing. When you press the phone to your ear, with the rain spitting, the thrum of the bass behind the door— your heart rattling in your ears, your head spinning—

You barely hear the three rings before the line clicks. It’s quiet.

And then—

“Hello?”

You suck in a gust of air. You expected his voice to hurt. To ache— you anticipated, maybe, a lot of things, with variegated hypotheticals spelled out in misty shapes through hours spent staring at your ceiling.

But every chimera crumbles when the words stick to the back of your throat. Part of it is the slurry in your veins, the hard liquor, the way it’s all kicked in, all at once. And part of it is the realization that, despite the biramous conjectures you’ve crafted— the what if’s— it’s the heavy thought that all roads lead to this.

He sounds hoarse. Mean with sleep.

“Um. Hi.” The words sound garbled, like you’re underwater. Tinny, wet, strained.

Eager in the shape of unrequited pining; a mangled fruition of all the nights you’d spent, thumb hovering over the call button, wondering if he’d pick up on the other end of the line, stockpiling the heap of broken wishes. The ones you cradled in your hands like jagged fractures of your rib bones, cracked from how hard your heart was pounding.

(If only he could see the lovelorn tar in your marrow, leaking out in a rotting treacle and pooling in the crevice of your love-line; tragic, broken down a long gap right under the wedge between your pinky and ring finger.)

The awning does a poor job of covering your toes, and they soak in the torrent that spumes from the midnight aether, shimmering against the wet asphalt. Silly, little girl— woman, nowadays— one ear corked with your forefinger to stifle the downpour spitting from the same sky you’d crane your neck and spill orisons at, the other fisting at your phone like a lifeline. Dangling onto the thread off this unspooled hope.

You sound ditzy. Soporific. Lost. You wonder if he picks up on it on the other end of the line. “Are you, um. Are you busy?”

The speaker crackles.

Finally, he rasps from the other end of the line— a thunderclap, like a gunshot, “You’re not callin’ me at one in the morning to ask me if I’m busy.”

“I—“ the words stick to the back of your throat.

Something seals up in your lungs with the breath you try to take.

Bitter recrudesce, a reminder when it wakes back up in the slotted teeth of your heart— an ache, alleviated in his absence after time, that throbs at the sound of his voice. Your jaw quakes on what you want to confess, snarled in your throat. I love you— Please— I’ve loved you since—

Your lip wobbles. Teeth clack, staring at the wet asphalt. “Uh. Sorry.”

You settle for a middle ground— some compromise in the clouded welter of your docket— something you’ve been meaning to say for months.

(Sorry for being a silly, little girl that fell in love with you.)

You’re met with a beat of silence that eats into your marrow. Has your guts twisting, chest tight. Then, (solace) a sigh— surly— oozes across the crackling speaker.

“Where are you?”

The question reminds you why you called in the first place. That you’re sopping up dirty rainwater with your boots on the outskirts of town, outside some seedy bar you came to, to drown your demons (him) in burnt amber. A thunderbolt ripples across the pitch aether, zagging electric chalky across the swollen plumes. All at once, you…

Crumble.

“I’m, um. Ah…” your chin quivers. You nod, “I’m here. At a, um. At a bar. Outside a bar.”

“Which bar? Who are you with?”

The slew of questions nearly makes you laugh.

The concern, there, throttles you and the tension in your shoulders like you expected anything less. You did. And you would laugh if hearing his voice, for the first time in months, wasn’t a sobering maelstrom on your psyche. Despite the way your tongue feels sticky, and useless, like it's caught on the roof of your mouth, you clear your throat.

“Um. It’s called, ah— Southbound,” your eyes slip shut. The wobble at your feet clicks in your knees. “I came with a— with a coworker. But I can’t find her. And I just— sorry. Fuck. Sorry. I got, um. I’m… sorry.”

You set your teeth and stare down at the rainwater speckling the toes of your boots. Gusting against your bare legs, and you don’t realize you’ve been hanging onto the phone with both hands cupped, like a lifeline, until his voice comes through.

“Y’alright?”

He sounds a little more awake. No doubt at the quiver in your tone. The way you can’t cohesively suture the words together. You roll forward on your toes. It’s a miscalculated motion on your part, because you nearly topple forward.

“No. Yeah. M’really— um. I’m a little, um. Drunk. I think. So—“ you slur. Take a breath. “No. I don’t—“

The words come out small. Tired. There’s a crack in your voice, like you’re on the edge of keeling over the precipice. You feel it in the burn at the back of your eyes, raw in your sinuses, when you admit, softly, “…I wanna go home.”

He doesn’t say anything. You take another breath, and feel it against the enamel of your teeth. Expect the sear of ice. Your fingers feel strained on your phone. Crushing. Taut. You think about his next words before he says them. Before the surly crackle from the other end of the line hits you, imagine it— call an uber.

I’ll call you an uber, at best. At worst…

You swallow. The line crackles again.

“Send me your location. I’m coming to get you.”

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worth-the-chaos · 2 years ago

Text

Adventures in Babysitting - Steve Harrington x female!reader - Chapter 5

Chapter Summary: The situation with the demogorgons gets increasingly more dire, leading you to the Byers’ house to wrangle four kids that can’t listen to save their lives (literally) while everyone tries desperately to save Will and the world.

Content Warning: swearing, upside down scary shit, billy being an actual complete asshole, physical violence

Word Count: 8.9k

Author’s Note: This chapter was pretty fun to write! Things get pretty intense in this part, so heed the content warning. I hope you all enjoy :)

Series Masterlist | Part 4 | Next Part

***

There wasn’t a clear path through to Hawkins Lab, making it pretty damn difficult to traverse through the woods, especially in the dark. Regardless of this fact, you were hauling ass, desperate to make it to the lab so you could take these demogorgons out, and maybe, just maybe, put all of this bullshit behind you. Steve was right on your tail, a little overwhelmed between making sure the kids were keeping up and that you weren’t getting too far ahead.

You tripped on a tree root, and you would have face planted if it weren’t for Steve quickly grabbing you by the elbow, aggressively pulling you backwards to counteract your forward momentum.

“Y/n, you need to slow down,” Steve said, his voice serious. His face was twisted in annoyance, which irritated you as you scoffed and shook out of his grip.

“This is time sensitive. We’re not here to take a nice stroll through the hiking trails. We’ve got shit to do,” you grumbled as you went to turn around, but Steve grabbed your arm again, pulling you closer. The kids were still lagging behind, but he kept his voice low to make sure they didn’t hear.

“Listen to me. We’ve got three kids mixed up in all this shit with us. I get that it might be time sensitive, but if you break an ankle, then we’re stuck out here defenseless, moving three times slower. You need to be a little bit fucking cautious. I can’t do this by myself.”

You took a deep breath to calm yourself down, trying to push the anger aside as you nodded. You hated to admit it, but Steve was right. You were being impulsive and it was putting everyone’s life in jeopardy. Steve could tell you were still anxious to get there, the anticipation being all too overwhelming. His hand fell from your arm as he grabbed your trembling hand, giving it a tight squeeze.

“I’ve got you, alright? So let’s do this together like we promised, yeah?”

“Okay,” you agreed quietly. He dropped your hand as the kids caught up. He cleared his throat as the air became slightly awkward between you.

After about fifteen more minutes of hiking, the trees started to become less and less dense, until you were almost out of the tree line. Suddenly you heard a voice shout out, which made you jump as your heart stopped in your chest.

“Hello? Who’s there?!”

You all finally made it out of the thicket, finally realizing who had called out.

“Steve?!” Jonathan and Nancy asked in unison.

“Nancy?” Steve stepped forwards just as confused as they were.

“Jonathan!” Dustin chimed in with a smile on his face, relieved to see someone else that could help them.

“Y/n, Dustin, Lucas, Max,” you said, rolling your eyes as you pointed to the rest of you, “now that we’re done with introductions, what the hell is going on?”

“What are you doing here?” Nancy asked, frustration leaking into her tone.

“What are you doing here?” Steve shot back, still not happy with Nancy’s recent actions. In his mind, he didn’t owe her an explanation.

“We’re looking for Mike and Will,” Nancy answered, cutting to the chase.

“They’re not in there, are they?” You asked hesitantly.

“We’re not sure,” Nancy replied, concern flashing across her face as she picked up the seriousness in your tone.

“Why?” Jonathan asked cautiously, but before you could answer, you all heard screeching coming from the lab, finally noticing that the lights were flashing outside in an orderly fashion, indicating that some alarm system was likely enabled.

You all began arguing, attempting to figure out when the last time anyone had seen Will and Mike, when suddenly each floor of Hawkins Lab began lighting up again, one by one.

“The power’s back,” you breathed out, unsure if it was a good or a bad sign. Jonathan sprinted back to the operator’s booth, rapidly pushing the button to open the gate with no such luck.

“Let me try,” Dustin tried to push past Jonathan, but he didn’t budge, “let me try, Jonathan!”

You rolled your eyes as Dustin whined, his pushing of the button making no difference than when Jonathan had been pressing it before. “Shocker, it’s not working,” you called out, sarcasm lacing your voice.

“Son of a bitch!” The boy exclaimed as he continued to shove at the button repeatedly. After a few minutes of button pushing, the gate finally began to roll open, Dustin celebrating the fact that he had saved the day. This kid’s a fucking idiot, you thought, rolling your eyes, confident that the gate opening was the doing of someone inside the building.

Jonathan and Nancy piled into his car as they drove off towards the facility, leaving the five of you behind.

“Should we try to follow them?” Dustin suggested. You glanced back over at the lab, lights still flashing and alarm still sounding. Though you desperately wanted to help in any way you could, you weren’t going to risk the safety of the kids, knowing that if you went, they’d be close behind regardless of whether or not you told them to stay put.

“No. We’ll let them handle this part. If they don’t come back soon, we’ll follow, but until then we’re all staying right here. Understood?” You asked, swinging your flashlight to point it at each of the kids while you waited for their response. They all nodded in agreement; they knew better than to mess with you.

And so you waited, you picking at your fingernails, Steve tossing his flashlight up and down, and the kids pacing and kicking the ground.

“Guys?” Max spoke up as she paused in the middle of the road, noticing two cars quickly approaching. You recognized the first one as Jonathan’s and he laid on the horn, clearly not slowing down.

“Get out of the way!” Steve shouted, grabbing Max by the arm and pulling her to the side. You swiftly followed suit, grabbing the two boys by their collars and yanking them to safety just in time for Jonathan to fly past you. Something was clearly imminent and you didn’t want to be there when it arrived.

The second car screeched to a halt, and you were met with the face of Jim Hopper as he shouted out the window, “let’s go!”

Steve threw the door open, hurrying the kids along to get in the back of the police vehicle, placing a hand on your back to guide you into the back of the van before jumping in the passenger seat and slamming the door. “Okay! Let’s go!” He gave Hopper the all clear, patting the side of the police vehicle to signal that everyone was safely boarded in the car.

“What the fuck is going on?” You asked from the backseat, leaning forward between Steve and Hopper.

Hopper looked at you a bit annoyed, but he knew enough about you to know that you were a good kid, so he tried to stay calm. “I’m assuming you know about the demogorgons given the fact you’ve got a golf club and a baseball bat. What else do you know?”

“Other than that shit is clearly bad again, not much,” you breathed out. What more was there to know? Hopper’s words scared you, and Steve was quick to put a gentle hand on your shoulder to help you settle down.

“There are these tunnels. Under Hawkins. The demogorgons have been using them to travel around town and all this shit from the Upside Down is leaking in. All the ash and shit from last year is there and there’s rot all across town,” he started. You looked wide eyed at Steve, both of you remembering the gaping hole in Dustin’s cellar.

“I noticed a tree in the woods earlier, its trunk was rotting from the inside out. It was marked…with-with a yellow flag. That was you?” You asked to clarify.

“Yes, but that’s probably the least of our concerns. The gate is still open, and those assholes at Hawkins Lab thought it was contained but it’s clearly not. They’ve been doing controlled burns, trying to tame it back, but it’s not working,” Hopper gripped the steering wheel tighter, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him.

“What are we gonna do?” Dustin spoke up from the backseat, attempting to push around you to be a part of the conversation in the front. You shoved him back and rolled your eyes, giving him a look that told him to watch himself.

“Right now we’re going back to Joyce’s house where it’s safe. And you’re not going to do anything. We’re going to go home and wait for backup,” Hopper glanced back at the boy. You were about the protest, when Steve elbowed you and shook his head. Now was not the time. Besides, Steve wasn’t too upset about the idea. He wanted to be far away from the danger. He wanted you to be far away from the danger.

You sighed and flopped back. Shit was about to hit the fan, and you weren’t sure how prepared you were to deal with it.

***

The Byers’ house was equally as disheveled as it was the year before, but this time, instead of lights, there were crayon drawings scattered and taped all over the house. Steve watched as Nancy comforted Jonathan while Hopper yelled on the phone, his call for backup clearly not going the way he had hoped it would. Steve entered the kitchen, going to lean up against the counter with you. You could see the hurt on his face, and you gently nudged him in the side to get his attention.

“Hey, chin up,” you reminded him softly. You knew Nancy had hurt him and even though you wanted to be mad at her, you couldn’t. She was hurting too, still grappling with all this shit that life kept throwing in your direction. You couldn’t blame her for wanting different things; for realizing she needed to make changes to be happier. You still couldn’t understand how she wasn’t happy with Steve, though. He’d been your saving grace through all of this and you were envious of the ways that he had been able to be there for her that he couldn’t be for you. You pushed the thought aside and tried to take your own advice, straightening up in the face of it all.

“They didn’t believe you, did they?” Dustin asked as Hopper aggressively hung up the phone.

“We’ll see,” he shot back, not happy with the incessant questioning from these damn kids.

“‘We’ll see’? We can’t just sit here while those things are loose!” Mike yelled, frustrated with the lack of action that Hopper was suggesting.

“We stay here, and we wait for help,” Hopper slowly articulated, his tone making it clear that it wasn’t up for discussion. He exited the kitchen before anyone else could chime in. You rolled your eyes.

Mike began talking about Bob Newby, and your heart sank in your chest as you tried not to let your eyes well up with tears. All day, you’d been trying to prevent anymore deaths; to keep everyone safe. You had failed, but you were starting to find the grace to understand that this wasn’t on you. Despite that, it still hurt.

“We can’t let him die in vain,” Mike begged. You couldn’t agree more, but in more ways than one, your hands were tied.

“Well, what do you want to do, Mike? The chief’s right about this. I mean, we can’t stop those demo-dogs on our own” Dustin spat, clearly feeling just as frustrated as you had felt.

“Demo-dogs?” You asked incredulously. That might be some of the dumbest shit you’ve ever heard.

“Demogorgons. Dogs…Demo-dogs,” Dustin reiterated, and you scoffed.

“When it was just Dart, maybe, but now there’s a fucking army and we don’t have the manpower or resources to take that many fucking monsters out,” Steve spoke up. He still was partial to staying back, letting the grown ups figure this shit out.

“His army,” Mike spoke up and you could see the glint of realization in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“His army!” Mike repeated. “Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army too!” He quickly stood up from his chair moving to pick up one of Will’s drawings. You gently grabbed it and your heart ached knowing that Will had been seeing this thing in his nightmares. By the looks of it, it was huge, its crooked arms reaching out and infecting every inch of town. You shuddered.

“The shadow monster,” Dustin clarified for those of you that weren’t privy, still not quite sure what Mike was going on about.

“It got Will that day in the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him.”

“And so this virus, it’s connecting him to the tunnels?” Max chimed in.

“To the tunnels, to the monsters, to the Upside Down. Everything,” Mike emphasized.

“Woah, slow down, slow down,” Steve spoke up, clearly not following the boy’s line of reasoning.

“The shadow monster’s inside everything. And if the vines feel something, like pain, then so does Will,” Mike explained.

“And so does Dart,” you added, following.

“Yeah, it’s like what Mr. Clarke taught us about the hive mind,” Mike confirmed as he looked at Lucas and Dustin.

“Hive mind?” Steve asked. Goodness gracious this boy was stupid, you thought, taking a deep breath to avoid snapping at him.

“A collective consciousness. It’s a super-organism,” you explained. The boys looked at you in awe, impressed that you also knew about this shit. Maybe you were more of a nerd than you thought.

“And this is the thing that controls everything. It’s the brain,” Mike pointed at the picture in your hands.

“Like the mind flayer!” Dustin exclaimed. The three boys shared a knowing look, leaving you, Steve, and Max in the dark. Dustin scoured the house, locating a book and slamming it down on the table. Hopper and Nancy had joined the kitchen after all the commotion, interested in knowing what had the kids so worked up.

“The mind flayer,” Dustin repeated.

Hopper looked at him exasperated. He didn’t have time for these kids pulling some imaginary bullshit. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a monster from an unknown dimension. It’s so ancient that it doesn’t even know it’s true home. It enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers,” Dustin explained.

“None of this is real,” Hopper groaned.

“Yeah, Dustin, this is a kids’ game,” you added incredulously.

“No, it’s a manual…and it’s not for kids. And unless you know something that we don’t, this is the best metaphor for understanding whatever the hell this is,” Dustin defended himself.

“Okay, so this mind flamer thing—“ Nancy started, trying to understand.

“Flayer,” Dustin corrected.

“—flayer—what does it want?”

“To conquer us, basically. It believes it’s the master race.”

“Oh, uh, like the Germans,” Steve stammered, trying to understand via his own metaphor. You all looked at him in disbelief.

“Uh, the nazis?” Dustin corrected and Steve nodded in agreement, “if the nazis were from a different dimension, then totally. It views other races like us as inferior.”

“Yeah, and it wants to spread to other dimensions,” Mike added.

“We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it,” Lucas emphasized.

You felt the anxiety creep back up, and all of this was way too overwhelming. How the hell were you supposed to fight something that had control over an expansive and complex army?

“This is just great, this is fantastic!” Steve groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose and stepped away. You made your way out of the kitchen, connecting the dots well enough to not need any further explanation. Steve followed you, wanting to make sure you were okay.

“This is insane, Steve,” you breathed out. “We’re not talking about just one demogorgon anymore. Not even a couple. This is a whole fucking army. Imagine the carnage! We can’t fucking do this! I can’t fucking do this!” You began rambling as you quickly began to spiral. The fate of the world was in your hands and you couldn’t do anything to save it.

“Hey, hey, hey, chill out,” Steve sounded exasperated. He was just as tense and overwhelmed about the situation as you were, but ruminating over it didn’t help anything. “When you freak out about it, it just makes everything ten times harder, so just take a deep breath, think about something else, and chill the fuck out,” Steve reiterated. It was tough love, but it helped. He was right; stressing about it wasn’t going to change anything.

The conversation from the kitchen moved into the family room with you as Mike followed Hopper into the hall, “how are they supposed to stop this? You can’t just shoot this with guns!” Mike exclaimed, talking about Hopper’s military backup.

“We don’t know that! We don’t know anything!” Hopper argued.

“We know it’s already killed everyone in that lab,” Mike shot back.

“And we know the monsters are going to molt again,” Dustin added.

“And it’s only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town,” you finally spoke up, your voice even. You were more confident now after Steve’s words. You might not be able to save the world, but you could damn sure try.

“They’re right,” Joyce joined you all, making her way down the hallway. She looked distraught, and your heart broke for her. “We have to kill this thing…I want to kill this thing.”

“Me too, me too, Joyce, but how do we do it? We don’t exactly know what we’re dealing with here,” Hopper reminded her.

“No, but he does. If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it’s Will. He’s connected to it; he’ll know its weakness,” Mike spoke up.

“I thought he was a spy for the mind flayer now?” Max asked.

“Yeah, but he can’t spy if he doesn’t know where he is.”

Everyone quickly got to work attempting to disguise the Byers’ shed so that it was unrecognizable to Will. You were outside, breaking down pieces of cardboard with Jonathan, while Nancy helped Steve hang tarps to cover the walls inside.

“So, you and Nancy?” You asked, getting deja vu to when you had asked Steve a very similar question during your car ride together that fateful day last November.

“What do you mean?” Jonathan was immediately defensive. You cocked your head to the side, shooting him a knowing look and chuckling before you spoke.

“Dude, it’s so obvious.”

“Well, what about you and Steve?” Jonathan fired back, aggressively ripping more cardboard.

“That is so not the same thing,” you whispered, hoping that Nancy and Steve didn’t hear him. The last thing you needed was to be on Nancy’s bad side. She was super badass and if she knew that things had been weird between you and her boyfriend (ex boyfriend?) you were sure there’d be hell to pay.

“I mean, it seems pretty similar to me,” Jonathan replied frustrated, “it doesn’t matter anyway; they’re not together anymore.”

“I mean, I know they argued, but I didn’t know they officially ended things,” you responded, doubtful of Jonathan’s words.

“Trust me. I know,” he remarked, saying the words with such finality that you could connect the dots to confirm that something had happened between the two of them. You dropped the subject, not wanting to piss Jonathan off further. After twenty more minutes of stapling and duct taping cardboard and newspapers to the walls of the shed, it was finally done, and everyone except for Hopper, Mike, Joyce, and Jonathan retreated to the inside of the Byers’ house.

There wasn’t much else to do other than wait, so you sat on the family room couch as Steve practiced his swing with the nail bat over and over and over again. It was weird, sitting and doing nothing while all of this was going on. You finally felt how tired your legs were from walking all throughout the’ woods and you really just wanted to take a nap.

“Did you put anymore thought into that essay?” You broke the silence as you asked Steve. His concentration broke as he stopped swinging the bat to look at you. The question caught him off guard and he wasn’t really sure what to say. What could he say? This had all been such a huge distraction that he hadn’t even really had the time to think about what his college essay should be about. Every time he thought about it, his mind would just go back to you and then he would push it aside.

“Uh, no. Not really, I mean…there’s kind of been a lot going on,” he chuckled, gesturing to the papers strewn about the house, a reminder of all of the shit you’d been through.

“That’s fair, that’s fair,” you replied, a bit bummed that your question hadn’t struck up a conversation like you had hoped it would; you hoped it would provide you an opportunity to be helpful in at least some capacity while you sat and twiddled your thumbs.

“What about you? What are your post grad plans?” He asked in return.

“You know, I’m honestly not really sure anymore,” you replied, your voice shrinking down into something meek and small.

“What do you mean? You work so damn hard all the time, I thought you had everything figured out,” Steve questioned. It was a red flag to him that you were expressing such uncertainty; it just didn’t make sense.

“I guess…I don’t know, it sounds stupid,” you prefaced, trying to save yourself the embarrassment of your vulnerability before continuing, “but I guess it just feels a bit futile to make these plans for the future when I don’t even know what that’s going to look like. I mean, I was always so set on going to college, but aside from the questions about feasibility—like can I afford it, will I get scholarships, how far can I go if I don’t have a car—I’m now starting to question if it’s something I even want to do. I mean, with all of this shit going on, who even knows if I’ll even live long enough to make it to—“

Steve cut you off, “woah, woah, woah! Y/n, we’re not doomsday prepping here. And if you think there’s a chance you’re not going to get a shit ton of scholarships, well then you’re not as smart as I thought you were…which now that I’m saying it, is a bit…a bit paradoxical but that’s besides the point. The point is, you’re gonna go to some fancy school—as far away as you want to go—collect a shit ton of degrees, and then you’re gonna live until you’re so old you forget how much a pain in the ass we all are.”

You couldn’t help but smile. You were glad that someone was in your corner. Your past self would have dropped dead if she knew it was Steve that was your biggest supporter. Sometimes you felt so lost in the shuffle, not having the social status to feel like your efforts really mattered—or that they were going to be rewarded. Life had a way of very distinctively not going your way, but it was nice to know that you at least had someone who believed in you when you couldn’t believe in yourself. Before you could get too sentimental about it, the lights started flashing like crazy and you could tell that Will had woken up.

It went on like that for several minutes, as you all moved to the front of the house, ready for whatever threat would find you. You jumped when Hopper burst through the door, grabbing a scrap sheet of paper and writing out morse code.

“What happened?” You were quick to ask.

“I think he’s talking, just not with words?” Jim replied. You all watched as he wrote out a series of dots and dashes, translating it as he wrote their corresponding letters.

“What is that?” Steve asked, confused by the mess of symbols on the page.

“Morse code,” you all replied in unison. He shrugged and you wondered for a moment if you’d truly been attending the same school. You looked at the paper, “HERE” spelled out, clear as day.

“Will’s still in there. He’s talking to us,” Hopper explained. So then began the operation of translating Will’s messages. Mike, Joyce, and Jonathan in the shed sharing memories with him while Hopper clicked Will’s communication through the walkie talkie. Huddled around the kitchen table were the rest of you, cheat sheets and scrap paper in hand, as you received Will’s message, letter by letter.

When Nancy wrote down the last letter, you all leaned over to read what Will had covertly been able to communicate to you.

“Close gate,” you all read. Suddenly the phone rang, and you all froze for a second. It was a dead giveaway that Will was still at his house. Dustin quickly scrambled to hang it up, but it rang again, likely Hopper’s military backup. You ran beside him, ripping the phone from the wall and tossing it across the room.

“Do you think he heard that?” Max asked hesitantly.

“It’s just a phone. It could be anywhere, right?” Steve added, trying to quell the anxiety permeating around the room, the air thick with worry. Steve was proved wrong, when Hopper came flying through the back door with his rifle, grabbing another gun as he shouted at all of you.

“Hey! Hey, get away from the windows!” He pulled the kids away from the front of the room. “Can you use this?” He held his gun out to Jonathan. The boy stammered in response, and Him didn’t have time for this. “I said, can you use this?”

“I can,” Nancy spoke up and you felt a bit relieved that she would have the gun. You trusted her with a gun more than anyone else, glad that it was her and not you. Everyone who had weapons held them up, aiming them towards the door. You gripped your knife tightly; this was a fight you were going to finish.

Your breath hitched in your throat when you heard the familiar screeching and chattering of the demogorgons outside of the house. It kept getting closer and closer, and your jaw set as you tried to focus your energy on the task at hand. You knew that after this, you were going to fall apart, and you just hoped that someone would be there to pick up the pieces.

Suddenly, the screeching stopped and a demo-dog—as Dustin had so idiotically coined them—came crashing through the glass of the window, falling in a heap on the family room floor. Dead.

“Holy shit,” Dustin whispered and you couldn’t help but agree. Holy shit was right, this was fucking insane.

You all turned as you heard noise by the front door. You reached up and grasped the back of Steve’s shirt out of fear, as the locks were undone from outside. You almost couldn’t believe your eyes, but you had seen a lot weirder shit, so this was pretty tame in comparison. Despite how ready you had been earlier, in the face of the impending threat, your confidence started to falter, as you pressed yourself up against Steve in hopes that holding on to him would make you feel more secure.

The door slowly swung open, and in stepped a girl about the same age as the other kids, her short hair slicked back, dark makeup applied around her eyes. Everyone lowered their weapons, Steve going to put an arm around you, squeezing your arm. You realized that this must be Eleven, the girl with the telepathic abilities that Dustin had told you about. Mike swiftly stepped forward to hug her as she burst into tears. Your heart broke for her; you couldn’t imagine what it was like to be someone’s science experiment for your whole life.

Hopper stepped forward to pull the girl in for a hug and that was when you all connected the dots that he had been hiding her since she disappeared last year. You were shocked, but not as shocked as Mike.

And he was mad.

***

Hopper had calmed Mike down, leading to a very long discussion of how you were able to kill this mind flayer without hurting Will in the process. Jonathan, Nancy, and Joyce had left with Will to steam the mind flayer out of him so that Hopper could take Eleven back to Hawkins Lab to close the gate.

That left you and Steve in charge of the four remaining kids…which really just made you want to cry. Because now your babysitting consisted of Dustin throwing all of the food from the Byers’ fridge onto the floor while Steve shoved a dead monster from an unknown dimension into it. And you weren’t even getting paid for it.

“Fine, but you’re explaining this to Mrs. Byers,” Steve reluctantly agreed, holding the demogorgon like a damn baby before the boys worked together to slam the fridge closed. Good riddance, you thought as it disappeared from view. Steve put his hand on the boy’s head, jostling his hat, before turning away from the fridge. The sight would’ve been endearing if they hadn’t just bonded over a dead monster that had almost tried to kill you.

Mike began pacing back and forth, frustrated that you were all stuck at Will’s instead of helping Eleven close the gate. The kids swiftly started arguing over it and you pinched the bridge of your nose, unable to take another second of their bickering.

“Would you all just shut the fuck up? Please?” You begged, but no one listened. Steve noticed your frustration and tried to help in the best way he knew how: with a sports metaphor.

“Listen, dude, a coach calls a play in the game, bottom line, you execute it, alright?”

“First of all, this isn’t some stupid sports game. And second, we’re not even in the game, we’re on the bench,” Mike argued. You sighed at how little Steve had thought this through. He noticed you glaring at him and tried and failed to salvage what he could of his life lesson to the impressionable young children.

“So…so yeah, my point is…” he stammered, and you all watched him expectantly as he paused. “Right, yeah, we’re on the bench, so, uh, there’s nothing we can do.”

“That’s not exactly true. When we were at the bus, the demo-dogs got called away,” Dustin reminded you all.

“So if we get their attention, maybe we can draw them away from the lab,” Max continued.

“Clear a path to the gate,” you chimed in. Steve looked at you, betrayed. He needed you to back him up on this otherwise this babysitting shit wasn’t going to work.

“Uh, yeah. And then we all die!” Steve threw his hands up in exasperation.

“That’s one point of view,” Dustin argued.

“That is not a point of view, man, that is a fact.”

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a fact or a point of view, the point is, it’s still dangerous,” you added, coming to your senses. There was no way you could attract these monsters without someone getting hurt. You’d rather be on the bench than lose a teammate to a career ending injury. Fucking hell, I hate these sports metaphors. Who am I?

“I got it! This is where the chief dug his hole and it’s our way into the tunnels,” Mike explained, showing you a spot on Will’s map, “right here, this is a hub, it connects to all the other tunnels. Maybe if we set this on fire—“

“Yeah, that’s a no!” Steve yelled.

“The mind flayer would call away his army. They’d come to stop us,” Dustin continued.

“We circle back to the exit, by the time they realize we’re gone—“ Mike started.

“El would be at the gate,” Max finished his thought.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Steve clapped to draw the kids out of their batshit crazy plans. “This is not fucking happening.”

“But—“

“No, no, no, no, no. No buts. I promised I’d keep you shitheads safe, and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. We’re staying here—on the bench—and we’re waiting for the starting team to do their job. Does everybody understand that?”

“This isn’t some stupid sports game,” Mike shot back, annoyed that his sister’s now ex boyfriend was trying to tell him what he could and couldn’t do.

“I said, does everybody understand that?” Steve seemed scary, and honestly it was kind of a turn on. You didn’t mind him telling you what to do if he looked that damn hot doing it. You tried to shake the thought away, but you couldn’t help but enjoy the way he seemed so paternal. He was stepping up as a babysitter and you couldn’t be prouder.

“I need a yes,” you added when none of the children responded, trying to demonstrate to Steve that you were on his team. While Steve was scary, Dustin still thought you were a thousand times scarier, even though you’d only said four words. Before Dustin could open his mouth to speak, you were all distracted by an engine revving outside.

Max ran to the window, recognizing the car as her heart leapt to her throat. “That’s my brother. He can’t know we’re here. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill us!” Max rambled, clearly intimidated by her step brother. You went to put an arm on the girl’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down.

“Don’t worry about it Max, I’ll handle it. I promise,” you told the girl as you stepped towards the door.

“Uh uh. No way. Not happening,” Steve pulled you behind him a bit aggressively as he had recognized the plates from sunny California, connecting the dots to figure that Max had the misfortune of being related to the biggest asshole he had ever met. Before you could protest, he swiftly exited the house, slamming the door behind him.

“Am I dreaming or is that you Harrington?” Billy asked with a shit eating grin on his face, stepping out of his car.

“Yeah it’s me. Don’t cream your pants.”

“What are you doing here amigo?” Billy asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Steve replied, wanting to give him as little information as possible.

“Looking for my step sister. A little birdie told me she was here. Small? Redhead? Bit of a bitch?”

“Sorry doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I don’t know, this whole situation, Harrington, is giving me a bit of the heebie-jeebies. My thirteen year old sister goes missing all day and I find her with you at a stranger’s house, and you lie to me about it.”

“Man, were you dropped too much as a child? I told you, she’s not here,” Steve was surprised he was able to keep his voice even. He was face to face with Billy and all he wanted to do was beat the shit out of him. He had been an ass to you and clearly Max was afraid of him too, so he deserved to have the shit kicked out of him. All things considered, Steve thought he was being pretty damn civil.

“Then who is that?” Billy asked, pointing his cigarette at the window. Steve turned around and watched as all four kids ducked out of view. Where the fuck were you when all of this was happening?

“Oh shit,” he whispered before turning back around to face Billy, “Listen—“

His explanation was cut off when Billy shoved him to the ground. “I told you to plant your feet,” he seethed, kicking Steve in the stomach before entering the house.

When Billy slammed open the door, there you were, in a protective stance in front of the kids, slowly backing them towards the kitchen. “What the fuck is this, y/n?” He approached you. Your breath hitched in your throat and you were scared out of your mind. But in that moment, all that mattered was those kids, as you took a step towards Billy, chin up.

“And look who it is, Lucas Sinclair,” he added, looking past you. He turned to Max, “you disobeyed me. And you know what happens when you disobey me…I break things.” He lunged to grab Lucas but you shoved him back enough to knock him off kilter, redirecting his focus as he grabbed the collar of your windbreaker instead, forcing you into a corner of the room. Your shoulders tensed up and you froze, struggling as you attempted to pry yourself out of his grip.

“Y/n, I’ve gotta say. I’m disappointed. I’ve been nothing but nice to you and this—” he dropped your collar, hand shooting to grab your wrist to prevent you from moving away as he gestured to his sister, “—this is how you repay me?”

“Let me go!” You seethed as you kicked him where it hurt. He groaned as he backed up, but it wasn’t enough room for you to escape. He slapped you across the face, grabbing you by the shoulders and slamming you back against the wall. He threw another punch to your face and your nose began to gush blood, most likely broken.

“You bitch! You’re dead!” He shouted, pulling you towards him to slam you into the wall again, when Steve suddenly grabbed his arm.

“No. You are,” he said before throwing a solid punch at Billy. You fell to the floor, grateful you were in the kitchen as you reached for a towel to hold up to your nose. He doubled over before twisting back up to face Steve, cackling with a wide smile on his face. He was absolutely insane, as you sat horrified. You wanted to get up, help Steve, say anything, but you were struggling to keep your eyes open as you began to hyperventilate.

“Looks like you got some fire in you after all, huh? I’ve been waiting to meet this King Steve everybody’s been telling me so much about,” Billy stepped towards him again.

“Get the fuck out,” Steve warned, pushing him away. There was a moment of stillness in the kitchen before Billy swung at Steve, but he ducked at the last minute, throwing another punch back that landed at Billy’s temple. He backed up and the kitchen erupted into a chorus of cheers for Steve to fuck Billy up as Steve threw another punch.

Steve’s advantage didn’t last for long, as Billy grabbed a dinner plate, breaking it over Steve’s head. Steve moved back into the family room, clutching his head as Billy followed him, throwing a punch that knocked Steve off balance.

“No one tells me what to do,” Billy seethed, shoving Steve to the ground before getting on top of him throwing punch after punch his way. Seeing Steve hurt gave you the strength you needed to stand up. You wobbled slightly, grabbing the golf club from your backpack and heading over to the family room where Steve was getting the shit beat out of him.

You swung back, your vision blurred as you attempted to line up your swing. You didn’t want to kill the boy, but you did want to incapacitate him, and there seemed to be a very fine line between those things when you could barely see straight to swing with accuracy. Billy must have seen you in his peripheral as he swiftly stood, Steve long passed out, and grabbed the club from your hand. Your eyes fluttered as you attempted to stay standing, wanting to crumble under Billy’s wild gaze. He shoved you to the floor, your head hitting the ground hard. Your ears were ringing as he got on top of you, pinning your hands down beside your head. A tear escaped your eye as the ringing stopped and he got dangerously close to your ear to whisper in it.

“You should’ve just been a good girl and listened on Halloween.”

A small cry escaped your lips as he grabbed your shoulders and slammed you into the ground again. Your eyes were fluttering shut, but the last thing you saw was Max appear behind the boy, a needle plunging deep into Billy’s neck. He shouted out in pain as Max administered the sedative, Billy standing up to face her. You wanted to say something, anything, stand up to protect the young girl, wrapped up in fighting these monsters even though she lived with one.

You wanted to fight for her, but she disappeared as the world went dark.

***

Steve woke up in the backseat of a car, double vision making it hard to make out anything in the dark. He saw someone holding a can of gasoline and thought the features seemed familiar.

“Nancy?” He croaked out. But as his vision cleared, he was met with the confused gaze of Mike Wheeler. He felt a deep pain in his face and he went up to feel his nose, which was undoubtedly broken, when a hand pushed his away.

“No, don’t touch it,” he heard Dustin’s voice, turning to look him in the eyes “Hey, buddy. It’s okay, you put up a good fight. He kicked your ass but you put up a good fight.” At least the boy was honest, but couldn’t he at least sugarcoat it a little bit?

The rest of his body started to wake up, and that was when he noticed the weight across his chest, lifting his head which ached in such an indescribable way, to notice you, brightly covered band-aids littering your bruised and battered face, unconscious on top of him.

He heard Lucas giving the driver directions and that was when it all clicked for him and his mind finally showed up. If you were unconscious then who was driving the fucking car?!

“Oh my god!” Steve choked out causing you to stir. His hands grabbed onto you as groaned, eyes slowly fluttering open.

You came to much faster than Steve had, pretty much immediately noticing that Max was driving the car. “What the fuck!” You exclaimed, attempting to sit up, but Dustin pushed you back into Steve.

“Just relax. She’s driven before,” Dustin assured you.

“Yeah, in a parking lot,” Mike shot back, clearly not happy about this plan either.

“That counts!” Lucas chimed in from the passenger seat.

“Oh my god,” Steve repeated gripping onto you tighter.

“They were going to leave you behind. I promised that you’d be cool!” Dustin told him, trying to convince him to behave.

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, what’s going on?” He yelled out as Max accelerated. “Ohhhh, woah! No! Stop the car, slow down!” He yelled and you shrieked as you buried your face in his neck. His arm instinctively curled around your waist, holding you tight against his body.

“I told you he’d freak out!” Mike yelled, annoyed that they hadn’t just left him behind. To be honest, he knew you’d freak out too but he couldn’t in good conscience leave you there. Especially if Billy woke up.

“Stop the car!” You screamed, but it was slightly muffled as you were unwilling to leave the safe haven that was Steve’s neck, head still buried there as if your life depended on it.

“Everybody shut up! I’m trying to focus!” Max shouted.

“Make a left! Make a left!” Lucas shouted pointing at the turn Max was about to pass up. She cut it hard, the inertia throwing you all to the right of the car, as Steve squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping his other arm around you as he held onto you with all his might. Max, swerved as she attempted to regain control of the vehicle, taking out a mailbox in the process. Well, that’s a felony, you thought as she continued on. You’d faced monsters of unimaginable terror and this was how you were going to go out: in the backseat of a car with a child at the wheel.

After several more minutes that felt like hours of reckless driving, the car screeched to a halt at the opening of the tunnel Hopper had dug into. “I told you. Zoomer,” Max exclaimed confidently from the front seat.

“What the fuck does that even mean?” You cried out, done with this hellish car ride. The kids all swiftly made their way out of the car, you and Steve having a bit more trouble. Neither of you were able to gain your footing too quickly, as you stumbled into him. He caught you, allowing you to brace yourself against him as you righted yourself.

“Oh no, guys!” Steve groaned, “hey! Where do you think you’re going?” He added as Dustin made his way over to the opening of the tunnel, can of gasoline in hand. “We are not going down there! I made myself clear!”

No one was listening as the kids all moved around the two of you, grabbing supplies and preparing for their descent. “Hey! There is no chance we’re going in that hole, alright? This ends right now!” He moved away from you gripping the backpack out of the trunk before Dustin could grab it.

“Steve! You’re upset, I get it. But bottom line is a party member requires assistance, and it is our duty to provide that assistance. Now, I know you promised Nance you’d keep us safe, so keep us safe,” Dustin emphasized the end as he held out Steve’s backpack and tossed you your sheathed blade.

Donning bandanas and goggles, you and Steve descended into the tunnel before the rest of the kids.

“It’s this way!” Mike announced, following his crudely drawn map. Steve snatched it out of his hand.

“Hey, I don’t think so. If any of you shits die down here, I’m getting the blame, got it dipshit? From here on out I’m leading the way. Come on let’s go!” He yelled. You joined him at the front of the group to talk to him as the kids formed their own group in the rear to talk.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” you apologized. He turned to look at you and you wished you could see his face to determine the look on it.

“What the fuck do you mean you’re sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for,” he replied, shocked that you would even think that was necessary.

“It’s just, you stopped Billy from hitting me and then he beat the shit out of you. So I’m sorry because that should’ve been me,” you answered him, your eyes welling up with tears. You willed yourself not to cry. The last thing you needed was these dumbass swim goggles filling with water.

“I’m fucking glad it wasn’t you y/n. And I’m not gonna let him touch you ever again, okay? I promise.”

You nodded, too choked up to trust your voice as you continued down the tunnels. You pushed away the anxiety you were feeling about getting lost, trusting that the map the kids had drawn was correct. It took a while but finally the tunnels opened up and you saw countless other ones that fed to this location.

“I think we found your hub,” you exclaimed taking in the sight. It was pretty insane to look at and you couldn’t quite believe that all of this was here in Hawkins.

“Let’s drench it,” Mike replied, ready to kill the fucking thing; hit it where it hurt. You all poured gasoline all around the hub, the smell almost nauseating, making you glad you had the bandana around your face. When it was all finally said and done, you all retreated to the tunnel that you came from, facing your gasoline soaked work.

“Alright. Are you ready?” Steve asked.

“Light her up,” you replied.

“I am in such deep shit,” Steve added before sparking his lighter and tossing it into the hub. It erupted into flames and your mind flashed back to the fire Jonathan had set last year in his hallway, burning the demogorgon that had nearly killed you.

“Go, go, go!” Steve yelled, the kids running ahead of you as you and Steve took up the rear this time, wanting to make sure that if all else failed, the kids got out. You ran through the tunnels as swiftly as you could, attempting not to trip on the vines scattered haphazardly across the ground. Suddenly, Mike began screaming for help as you realized a vine had wrapped around his ankle, pulling him to the floor.

“Everybody back!” You yelled as you unsheathed your knife, slashing the vine and releasing Mike from its grip. He stood and you geared up to continue your way through the tunnels, when you came face to face with one of the demo-dogs.

“Dart?” Dustin asked. You all screamed at Dustin to get back but he didn’t listen. “Trust me. Hey it’s me. It’s your friend, Dustin. You remember me? Will you let us pass?”

The demogorgon opened its mouth to shriek at him and you were about to lunge forward to grab Dustin, but Steve stopped you.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry about the cellar. You hungry?” Dustin asked reaching into his backpack, pulling out a three musketeers. “I’ve got our favorite! Nougat,” he unwrapped the candy placing it in front of the demogorgon waving all of you to go ahead of him. You hesitated but finally listened, going against all instinct and trusting that the boy might know what he’s doing.

You all finally made your way back to the rope when the ground began to shake and you heard the shrieking of demogorgons in the distance. They were coming, and they were coming fast.

Steve lifted up each kid, boosting them up so they could climb the rope and exit the tunnels, until it was just you and him. They were gaining on you and there was no time. Steve had his bat ready to swing, and you braced for impact knowing that there was nothing the two of you could do to stop the dozens of demo-dogs that were inevitably coming. You shut your eyes, hearing the growl of the demogorgons and the cries from the kids above you, but the impact never came instead, you clutched Steve to keep your balance, as the demo-dogs sprinted past you, headed somewhere else.

You chuckled in disbelief, hugging Steve, burying your face in his chest as his hand went to the nape of your neck. You both swayed like that for a moment, holding each other in relief before the kids broke the magic of the moment.

“Hey lovebirds! We need to get out of here!” Dustin yelled down the hole.

Those damn kids.

***

Steve agreed to drive Dustin to the Snowball, and you begged to go with. Despite all of the bullshit he’d put you through, you loved the kid more than you loved most things, and you weren’t going to miss the opportunity to see him all dressed up for this school dance.

“Alright, buddy. Here we are,” Steve said as he pulled up to Hawkins Middle. “Just remember, go in there—“

“And pretend I don’t care.”

“There you go. You’re learning, my friend,” Steve smiled and you rolled your eyes from the backseat. Dustin leaned forward to check the visor mirror, but Steve slammed it back shut before he could open it.

“Hey, come on. You look great, okay? You’re gonna go in there—you look like a million bucks—and you’re gonna slay ‘em dead, okay?”

“Like a lion,” Dustin replied, rolling his r’s in a weird purr that had you cringing behind him.

“Yeah, don’t do that, okay?” Steve warned and Dustin nodded. “Good luck,” he added as he shook Dustin’s hand before Dustin exited the car, making his way into the gym.

You moved to the front seat a wide grin on your face. “That was sweet,” you told Steve and he rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, freak,” Steve grumbled.

“Hey, that’s a good thing you know,” you reminded him as he began to pull away, making his way back towards his house. “Are you sure you’re okay with me staying at yours again?” You asked. You two were beginning to blur the line between friends and something more.

“Yeah, yeah! Of course. I wouldn’t want to go home to an empty house after all of that shit either,” Steve told you, though most days he did go home to an empty house, his parents on various different business trips. Your parents just worked nights occasionally, and every once in a while they coincided. Since Eleven closed the gate, even though things were better, you still weren’t too keen on staying home alone, so you’d made it a habit to stay at Steve’s, so long as his parents were gone (which they usually were).

Steve wasn’t going to complain. And he definitely wasn’t going to tell you no. He wanted more than anything to be there for you and if company was what you needed, he made damn sure he could provide it. Plus, you still shared a bed with him when you stayed the night.

As Steve looked at you, moonlight hitting your face and making all your features look soft as you hummed and nodded along to the music on the radio, he knew he wasn’t going to write that damn college essay. College wasn’t really for him, and deep down he’d always known it.

And besides, he wasn’t quite ready to leave you yet.

***

a/n: I hope you enjoyed this part! I’m excited to start writing for season 3! Comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! I’d love to know what you think ;)

#stranger things #joe keery #steve harrington #netflix #friends to lovers #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington friends to lovers #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington stranger things #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fanfiction #stranger things x reader #steve harrington the babysitter #steve harrington x reader fanfic #steve harrington angst #steve harrington x you #stranger things fanfiction

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boileddemon69 · 6 months ago

Note

Hello original gangster I would love to hear about this Bad Ben AU of yours 🙏😼

OMG YES FINALLY HELLO!!!

Okay so basically my bad ben "au" (I'm putting It in quotes because I don't even know if this qualifies as an au or not) is mostly focused on his backstory and why he's so like...BAD.

In short, Bad Bens upcoming was pretty similar to Prime Bens except he was more of a trouble maker due to his parents being not like the best at paying attention to him LOL that's why Grandpa Max was like a safe person for him to go to and why he jumped at the chance to go on the road trip. He found the omnitrix and yadda yadda yadda, became like a small town hero. And for a moment, things actually went BETTER for him than for Prime Ben. Like him, Gwen and Kevin were inseparable, and they always helped people out no matter the reason. He actually took people's advice and started working on his temper and whatnot. But everything went downhill when Kevin went all crazy again. He eventually ended up killing people and almost killed Gwen, which is what pushed Ben to his limit. He didn't want to hurt Kevin because that was his best friend, but after what happened with Gwen it was kinda like all the effort he put into controlling his impulses kinda disappeared.

He killed Kevin, sort of expecting everyone to call him a hero for doing so, but instead, Gwen and Grandpa Max became scared of him. Ben, confused and angry, became more erratic and decided to sorta "go rogue" (emo bastard)

He goes on his own, but because he was so blindsided by the rage he felt, he ends up hurting people. When Gwen and Max find him again, they're so concerned for his safety and the safety of others that they decide it's best to take the omnitrix from him and "keep him in a safe place" aka lock him in solitary confinement basically LMAO

So ben is basically in jail for three years(so hes 18), cycling through round after round of therapists and psychologists who always give up on him. Max feels bad for him and decides to recruit a recently graduated Plumber, thinking that having someone around Bens age might help him. So that's where Rook comes into play. He didn't go to Plumber Academy to become a psychologist, but because he was the only one in his graduating class that actually took a semester on it, Max thought he was the best fit and pulled him out of the field to take this job. And Rook is a loser who wants to please anyone who is an authority figure so he accepts it.

And so he becomes Bens therapist. Ben doesn't like him, and purposefully makes his job harder. He wants to be left alone and hates the fact Max thinks there's something about him he needs to fix. But eventually after a bunch of sessions, they warm up to eachother to at least tolerate each other. A year of this goes by and Rook and Max have seen enough growth in him that they think he can maybe, PERHAPS, be let free. Ben is happy about this news but is also kinda like "yknow maybe im not READY to be let out yet"

So like a week before he's meant to be let out, Eon shows up being like "yo join this war to fight other alternate versions of you or I'll KILL you!!" And offers him another omnitrix And Ben's like "beats sitting in a cell forever" and joins him like an idiot loser. Rook and Max are angry because he was literally JUST ABOUT TO BE LET OUT and now he just randomly dissappears?? And when he comes back he tries to convince Rook to hide/help him and rooks obviously like "no fuck you" but eventually gives in because again he's a coward.

Thats..it for now IM STILL WORKING ON IT but that's basically what I have rn..uhhhh hope it's satisfactory

PEACE OUT

#ben10 #ben 10 omniverse #ben tennyson #rook blonko #gwen tennyson #kevin levin #bad ben #ben 10 au #au

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kiss-me-muchoo · 2 years ago

Text

𝐒𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐬 || 𝐌𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐎'𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

part one: hurt me, it's okay || part two

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲_Turns out that you were originally from the earth Miguel collapsed, you just replaced your body, because you were the spider woman from there. Now you have to deal with the revelation, seeing Miguel with another woman and discovering more lies from the Spider Society. 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬_MEGA canon divergence, plot twist, asshole!Miguel, angst to the max, miscommunication, happy ending. 𝐀/𝐍_do u see the reference? "So many signs?"... It's exile. Recommendations in order: Where do we go now?, Look what you made me do and exile (all in my playlist).

♪ ♫ My Miguel O'Hara playlist ✰ Index (+ fics here)

….

One morning, you questioned everything.

Why did you become a spider without the same characteristics as others?

Why did you have to be a danger to everyone?

Why couldn't Miguel trust you enough to stay?

And of course... Why did you have to fall in love with him?

You could be in any dimension, with no glitches.

You could learn to control the cosmic abilities you were developing.

But in the end, nobody had trusted you. Not even a warning sign.

Out of them all. Miguel never said anything, he always made you believe you were special. And kick you out at the last instance.

That's why it hurt so much. That's why every morning you questioned everything. That's why you had the impulse to be something.

To soothe the resentment, the sting in the heart, and the enormous amount of stubbornness you had been carrying for months.

The temporary block you made to your earth would end sooner or later, and although there was no reason for any of the spider society members to come, you weren't ready to be found vulnerable.

"Hija. I'm going to the market. Do you want something?" Your mom asked through the door.

"What do you want me to cook today?" You ask, smiling. Already changed and am ready to take the trolley to go to classes.

"You don't have to cook, mi niña" again, you smile. Grabbing your bag and shoes in your hands.

"I always cook. Grab whatever you want and I'll come up with something" She nodded, kissing your head and letting you walk away.

On the way, with a single move from your hand, you lifted your books and finally, you left home.

Every day, you felt less like a spider and more like a witch. ...

It was confusing and annoying how at the end of the summer you lounged for autumn and winter, and then in late spring you were eager to savour summer again.

Your skirt is a grey, black top with mid-length sleeves, long black boots, and a vintage bag.

The trip on the trolley was always pleasant. The line was full of students, unlike other lines that were full of violent homelessness.

Looking out the window, you see the tall palms, and freeways that cross with others, and when your phone buzzes, you turn your head only to scream.

You apologize to the other passengers with a shy smile and then turn again to the seat in front of you.

The small figure of Lyla is there. The annoying yet friendly AI.

"Hi!" She greets happily. Her silly heart-shaped glasses are pink now. Her coat is cream-coloured now, and her hair looks slightly caramelish.

You stood quiet, unable to reply to anything. Anything, it just doesn't come out. Unlike your little head, it's already burning.

Why is she here?

Did Miguel send her?

"I told you to wait till the wagon was empty" Peter came out of a portal. When you looked around, the wagon was empty.

What actually impressed you, was the baby attached to his chest.

She was the cutest baby you had ever seen.

However, beside your face showing confusion and irritation, you stood quiet again. "Hello y/n," Peter said, offering you an awkward smile as the baby cooed.

He took a seat in front of you. And Lyla floated around the baby.

"We counted the days till we could come to your earth again" Lyla noticed the shade of your eyes darker, and immediately she worried. The necessity to drag you back to the HQ to make up with Miguel growing immeasurably.

"Please say something..." Peter urged.

"You had a baby?" Was the first thing that popped into your head?

"Yes. She's Mayday Parker" You smile at the baby.

"So you fixed things with MJ..." he nods. But you think about another lie. Or maybe not a lie. But now you realize Peter hid his upcoming parenthood from you.

"And you hide that from me too" Peter sighs, holding his kid's tiny hand. "Only Miguel knew at the time..."

His name was enough to make you feel like your heart was sunk into gasoline and then thrown on fire.

"Miguel... of course" you whisper with anger. The venom is evident to everyone.

"You need to talk to him. It's important..." the AI reveals.

"I KNEW IT!" You yell, exasperated.

"You just ran without hearing what happened. It's all a misunderstanding. We are uneasy about this, we need you, and what you did just created more chaos than-"

"Am I the villain know?" You ask interrupting the man. He stands quiet. Lyla pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Tell me, Peter... Or you Lyla. Does the rest of the Spider Society know what happened?" It was causing you more anger than sadness to you. The more you caught on them, the more you discovered painful stuff.

Silence.

The gizmo of Peter beeped. He placed his wrist in front of him, the image of Miguel appearing. At the moment, you felt emotionally constipated.

He looked great. Unlike you...

"Peter, Can you hear me?" He asked. You noticed he wasn't wearing his suit. "Yeah..." your ex-friend replies.

"I don't know where you took Lyla, but I need her in my office in an hour. I'm going out with Dana..."

Dana?

While Miguel could not see you or anyone. You could see him and a little of his surroundings.

A woman with beautiful caramel hair and bright eyes called him. She seemed adorable, with a gorgeous skinny body and a lab coat covering her yellow dress.

Peter's eyes went wide. He cut the connection immediately and looked worriedly at you. "It's not what you think. She's just a lab partner in Alchemax..." Lyla started for him. "You need to talk to him. It's very important and-"

"No." You answer with a voice and face full of pride.

"No?" Peter asks goofily.

"I'm not doing this now, nor today, nor tomorrow... maybe never" Hurrying to leave, you waited for the train to stop at the doors.

"Take care, Peter. That baby suits you well..." you explain emotionally before waiting for the doors of the wagon to open.

Lyla turned to look at the man.

"Should we go and make it like Hobie said?" Mayday giggled.

"Yeah. Hobie's way will work"

As soon as the doors opened and you made your first move, you fell into a portal.

Well, you were about to fall into a portal...

Because you closed it skillfully with your hands, innocently stepping over it. You turn to look at Peter and Lyla, dead serious face.

"Slowly, I could become the villain" you simply say, and Lyla finally panicked when she saw your eyes glowing iridescent with green, blue, and silver sparkles.

Without another glance, you kept walking through the station, soon disappearing, mixing with the crowd.

"This is bad. We need to go back with Miguel" the AI said. Peter sighed, rubbing the tiny little hands of his daughter.

"Not everything is lost, Lyla..." Peter liked to believe you would agree to meet Miguel again, that he would explain everything and life would secure you two together.

"There's some new things I have to tell you," she said. Knowing it would hurt Miguel. But probably it would make him go to you.

The waters were literally changing. Unfortunately, not for the best. ...

That night, you stepped out of the shower blindly. Because of the river of tears you had made over the afternoon.

They didn't explain the situation, they let the whole HQ believe you just caused a drama. Peter hid his baby from you. And Miguel had a new lover. He seemed great, he moved on. Maybe he only wanted to talk to you because of the potent danger you were. And at least he was decent enough to send his employees and not disappoint you in person.

Nah... Why disappoint you? While a part of you wanted him to beg you on his knees. The other was full of rage and proud to make everyone believe you were fine and you didn't care.

But you did care. No wonder your chest hurt and your eyes were swollen. Your wet hair dampens the pillow along with your tears. Your body curls into a little ball that it would feel as nice as comfort.

Because for some reason, you couldn't tell your family.

You scream and weep against the wet pillow. Letting all the anger and sadness consume you.

And through the pain, you realize maybe you weren't meant to do anything. You're an accident. And there's no point in being a hero. Nor a villain.

Just the comfort to save your broken heart and shattered soul. And whatever you had to do to protect it, would be fine.

...

A figure that was once a man moved across in your closed eyes. The black void everyone sees is now invaded by a man. Every inch of his deformed figure was white as the snow, but it was disturbingly covered in black holes. The biggest and roundest black spot was what was once his face. He seemed to be elevating the spots emanating dark auras.

Suddenly the dark void behind the figure changed. Your unconscious state creates a disastrous scenario. New York. With piles of dead spider people at the feet of the deformed man. Your heart started beating faster. Finally, realize you were scared.

It was a dream. You're in your bed.

It had been four weeks since your encounter with Peter and Lyla. And his baby... The panic slowly melted. Making you overthink it all over.

The figure scared you in your sleep. You woke up gasping for air.

Your room is dark, it's a little past 3:00 a.m.

It wasn't a dream. It was a premonition. ...

You barely used your suit. You barely balanced through the city with your webs. You stopped being a hero for Los Angeles. Slowly becoming a vigilante. You cried a lot, avoided your family, and took at least an hour every night to practice your new abilities.

Miguel knew that. Miguel knew everything.

He knew he shouldn't be spying on you. He should collect the guts to open your window and explain everything to you. He should reveal once and for all that he was your canon event, that he loved you and missed you. That the only reason he thought about sending you home was because he didn't know yet. That he hated seeing you cry every day and that he never felt so attached to any woman.

But most days he followed like a ghost, far from your smart eye. He paid a visit to you on campus, at the mall, library, and at home.

When your family was present, he remembered the night you invited him to dinner. Your mother is so sweet, your father eyeing him but finally relaxing. And your grandmother, it reminded him of his family.

So he ached to have you even more.

It's not what you think. She's just a lab partner in Alchemax...Peter had said.

But Miguel looked over and over to replay how your face changed as soon as you saw him in Peter's gizmo.

Soon Miguel theorised you thought the worst. That he was dating another woman.

While Dana could have been a potential interest asset for him, the truth is that Miguel never matched her toxic traits. This is why he preferred her friendship, and now that she was moved from the station again, he re-affirmed it.

But it wasn't enough. Not when he hadn't seen you in person in months. Not when the last time you exchanged words with him didn't end well. Not when he had to tell you he was your destiny and that he genuinely loved you.

And to add to his frustration, Spider-lego had alerted him of a new anomaly. Looking at Gwen and Jess in front of him, he sighed.

"Please. I'll be quick and quiet. I just want to see him, I don't even have to say hi to him" Miguel wanted to yell at the blonde girl. But soon he remembered that she had suffered not long ago, and only thanks to Jess, she was stable.

"Miles is THE original anomaly. You had contact with him in the past. It's already dangerous enough-" he started lecturing.

"If y/n was here, she would have backed me up" Jess whistled quietly. The pregnant woman knew you were a delicate subject. She also knew you had limited time to get back with Miguel. Or else, the canon would be disturbed.

Even worse with the information only Lyla knew.

"But she's not here," Miguel concluded, making it visible how delicate you were to him.

"I propose, you can go, see your friend FAR from him, and come back with the anomaly" Jess decided to suggest something. Miguel huffed annoyed.

"Thanks, thanks, thanks, Jess!" The blonde spider was so happy and not even Miguel decided to interfere with her happiness.

"I'll be fast, I promise" With that, she left to earth 1610. Also your home... "You let her go, you keep an eye on her" Jess nodded.

Both turned around to go to the briefing room and start new missions, but like an ice bucket, surprise and shock assaulted them.

You were walking across the long hallway.

You were literally there. Wearing a black dress with red tights and heel boots. Dark purple decorated your lips and your hair was on your usual ponytail back when Miguel met you.

You looked gorgeous. Better than all the times Miguel looked at you before. "I-, y/n? What are you doing here?" Jess asked in shock.

You kept walking. Every spider you passed by, looked with shock and curiosity. But the aura you charged felt heavy.

Miguel couldn't help but blush. You were feet away from him, looking strong and certainly indifferent about him. Just by looking at your new image, the eagerness to have you back on his side grew bigger.

"The Spot is a big danger. That's why I came" you announce when you're finally in front of the pregnant woman and Miguel.

You tried avoiding looking at Jess and her round belly. Another sting pulsated when you realized how much you had missed.

And again, facing that mask again. Miguel's full suit was something that would always intimidate you. Since the first moment Gwen, Hobie, and Peter introduced you two, it had been the same.

"The Spot? How do you know him?" You huffed at the woman's question.

"I've been doing irregular stuff..." Miguel knew what you meant. Even when he was getting lost in your small height and gorgeous eyes, Miguel remembered what you'd been doing. Witchcraft...

"It's been some time since... the last time"

"I'm not here to talk about the past, Jessica." Your answer surprised her. For Miguel, he was expecting the worst to be honest. He couldn't describe what you were feeling. And it was making him anxious.

"I saw him while I was sleeping. It wasn't a regular dream. Lascarred, I've been scar- surprised by weird visions and more" Miguel worried. He supposed you were about to say scared. And he hated not being able to be there for you. It was a lot, in a short time.

"The Spot is more than a regular anomaly. He's going to make a disaster. I saw... piles of spider people dead in New York" The pair of adults exchanged looks. They believed you. But they were unsure about what to do.

"It's gonna get out of hand. And even after all... I thought both of you needed to know" Jessica blushed after remembering the embarrassment she felt when you called her and everyone else a bunch of liars. The venom in your eyes and voice was evident, making everything heavier.

"I can sense he was a normal civilian before. He has a lot of rage, regret, and hate inside. Be careful, and think twice before acting" It was a double entendre, where you wanted to give them an indirect hint about what they did to you before.

They stand quiet. The background noise never stopped, a lot of spiders talked on their way to the cafeteria. The sound of doors opening and closing as well as portals. The world keeps spinning on Earth 928, but to Miguel, time is frozen.

Until you turned around and just how you came in, you were leaving.

Miguel felt Jess nudging him. So he went straight to you. Hoping to stop you. This was his chance...

"Wait..." he called. You didn't face him, but you stopped walking.

"I'm begging you, y/n. Please let me explain everything" It caught you off guard. But you really wanted to listen to him. However, at that precise moment, more than feeling angry, you felt scared.

Probably it would be better to open up a little. For the last time.

"My feelings are changing, Miguel. I don't even know what I want or how I feel anymore..." you said over your shoulder.

And again, you're leaving.

But you won't go this time. He's making sure you listen.

"I'm sorry, y/n. But you'll listen this time..." his hands suddenly grab you by the hips. And in a second, you're thrown into his shoulder.

"Miguel. Put me down!" Jess can't help but chuckle. She highly hopes you listen.

For everyone, more than keeping canon intact, they wanted to see Miguel happy, and have you back.

"This is such a caveman act. I'm gonna harm you" he knew you wouldn't.

More looks are drawn to you and the man. You only see the floor of the HQ. And the more he walks with you on his shoulder, the more you try to ignore his grip on you.

His right hand still holds your hips, and his wide arm secures your dress to avoid being hiked and leaving you exposed. He cared, even with tiny details, he cared.

Finally, he enters his office. And closes the door.

He doesn't put you down though. Until he gently placed you on his chair.

His wide back facing you, and you crossed your arms annoyed.

"Can you start talking?" Your nervousness was so evident and it made Miguel feel more relaxed. Because that meant he wasn't the only one panicking.

"I'm in your canon events. And you're in mine..." your eyes are wide open. He finally turns around to look at you. Your silence is enough to let him know you're shocked.

"The only reason why I wanted to send you home, is because I believed that would be better for us. I thought my...I thought my love for you was dangerous" he always expects eye contact when talking. He's meticulous enough to know when he imposes respect. But for you, he pleads for you to look him in the eyes. He needs to hear you might forgive him.

"I learned about us and canon right when you left the HQ. If you had just waited a minute to leave. If I had waited to tell you. Everything... might have turned differently"

Like peace invading your body, you want to jump straight into his arms and smooch him. He wasn't lying, he was a man of word. But you also weren't ready to forgive him at all.

"You still lied to me. You and everyone I considered my friends. Everyone considered me a danger. And... You said I was special, you made me feel like..."

"I'm in love with you. Since the day you invited me to dinner with your family. That day I fell in love with you" tears form in your eyes, remembering the day you two connected like never. That night you went to bed with giant butterflies in your stomach. And knowing that day he felt that way too...

"That's the truth. And the only lie I ever said to you, is that I didn't love you, that everything was a lie" There's a pout on your face, and you don't know what to do.

“What about the woman?” Miguel frowned confused.

“The woman Peter told me about not to worry” you explain embarrassed.

“Dana. As a young adult, I saw her as a potential partner. But… it never became anything. Now… she’s not even an option. I have no other options… Just you”

"I-..." a beep. You can't say anything else. You only open your mouth to say nothing. You were about to say that you forgive him.

"Miguel. Gwen let The Spot away. Pavitr earth is colliding because of Miles, I'm already here..." Jess spoke.

Miguel sighed heavily. Pushing his hair back in place. He reaches for his gizmo to answer her.

"Bring everyone here. Now..." he remarked to everyone louder, you also sighed.

The stress, panic, anxiety, anger, and sadness were edging him.

"Miguel..." you called, barely reaching his shoulder due to the height difference. His shoulders relaxed, and he enjoyed the touch.

"Please. Tell me you won't leave this time. Tell me you'll give me a second chance" he sounded so tired. And you decided to try. You could try to forget everything and begin a new chapter with him.

"I promise you I'll try, Miguel. This time I'll try to understand" he nods, and he hopes you take the hand he's offering.

You do, you intertwine your fingers with him.

"I need you..." he says, again sounding stressed.

With his dark past and the circumstances he was in when you met him, seeing Miguel in a vulnerable state of honesty was a lot to process.

"We still need to talk about a lot of things. But I'm here, Miguel" Maybe it was your prescience that calmed him enough to not yell and lose his mind at first sight.

Something in the back of your head was whispering to you that it wasn't over. That there was more to unveil. But you believed Miguel. The fact that he was honest and open to talk about his feelings was enough to make you see how real he was at that moment.

It was the peace before the storm. ...

The eyes of Gwen, Peter, Noir, and more spiders on you were unsettling you. But you were feeling terribly bad about Miles Morales and the issue with his dad. Miguel was trying to calm him. But slowly, you could feel he was losing his temper once again.

"You've been quite a mystery to everyone here" Hobie whispered. You glanced at him. "I'm pretty sure you're the only one I've missed," he smiles briefly.

"You may still want to leave. But even destiny wants you with that beastly man"

He sure looks beastly. But he had made you feel special, he tried to push you away for your security. And now he has begged you to stay with him.

You follow Lyla when he opens the millions of webs from the Arachno-Poly-Humanoid. Miguel explains to Miles, but you start searching for your own web.

Like the red string many believed in. The red string attached two persons together. You found your web.

And it was true, your web was attached to Miguel's. The last canon event showed you and Miguel together. But as you watched closer, you started seeing your past.

You were a spider woman, but it wasn't true. You became a spider woman at a much older age. You were a scientist working on Alchemax and surprisingly, you were dating Miguel. You then found he died, and you wanted to bring him back to life. You contacted Doctor Strange from that earth, and he warned you about a collapse coming. So he made a ritual to save you. He made you take a variant of yourself. The y/n of Earth 1610 who was a witch.

"Lyla. What's this?" You ask her highly confused. Miguel stopped talking to Miles and turned to see you.

When he walked closer, he saw it. Looking as much as confused as you were. "Oh!-, uh-..."

"Lyla. What's his?" Miguel pushed further.

The AI sighed.

"Miguel...In reality, y/n was a citizen from the earth you collapsed. She was the spider woman from that earth, and she was the couple of your variant that died" The man felt like he couldn't breathe.

"She made a deal with Strange to get your variant back. But the wizard knew it was impossible due to the collapse happening. So he sent y/n to take her variant's body on Earth 1610. The real y/n from Earth 1610 died on the collapse. During the process, you must've forgotten a lot of things. The body you took, was the body of a witch. That's why you started developing some weird activities for a spider. You were not bitten between portals"

It was too much. You don't know how to feel.

"See. She's proof that canon isn't accurate. Send me home!" Miles argued.

"Kid..." Peter tried to calm him. But you weren't listening, you just started panicking more than ever.

Miguel saw you and reached you.

"I'm sorry. It's too much" you barely say to him, feeling your eyes water once again. "Calm down. It's okay, y/n"

"I can't do this. And that kid can't suffer, Miguel" you say, catching everyone's attention.

"You know I can't let him go" Without a warning, he traps Miles. And another wave of arguments explodes between your ex-friends.

"Maybe y/n is right" Gwen admits, but soon is ignored.

At the same time, you looked at Hobie telling Miles to break out. So you know what's about to happen; Miles would break the barrier.

You run behind him before anyone can notice and Jess is able to hold your forearm for some seconds. But it's not enough.

"Don't do this, y/n" Gwen yells. And it angers you.

"You know this isn't right. Don't make the kid go through what I did" Like a parallelism, Miles was told lies, and he felt betrayed like you once did.

Everyone is talking. Peter tries to calm Miles, Hobie, and Jess making comments. Miles looks scared at you and Hobie. So you point at him.

Hobie reminds the kid to use his palms. And then he smiles at you.

"Whatever happens. Do what you believe is right." Hobie changed his mind. Even if canon was supposed to want you with Miguel, you would not make anyone else suffer.

"You'll visit me?" Hobie nodded, making you smile.

But then a bright flash blinded everyone, and then the silence was killing everyone.

Miguel sees you looking at him. An apologetic and sad look, before you start running after Miles.

Not this time, not again, Miguel thinks.

"MILES!, Y/N!" He shouts, going straight to you and the kid. Because he's aware you'll try to save the kid from every spider. He knows you believe in canon changing instead of being accurate. But he won't risk anything. He won't risk losing you like it happened with his family.

He knows you're fast, but that day you surprised him.

How you easily get rid of the tons of webs shooting at you? All while you apologize because they were your workmates.

Most of the spiders go after Miles, making it easier for you to break a glass and fall to the void of the sky in Earth 928.

And when his bright web caught your waist, you were terrified. Your watered eyes collide with his. Regret invaded him. He had done a lot, but he wanted you to hold tight and listen.

But your face gave him enough to feel sad and angry. He blamed Miles if he hadn't done another canon intervention. You would stay longer to listen to him and officially forgive him.

"I'm sorry, Miguel"

So you made his web disappear with your magic. Making you fall faster, away from him. Breaking his heart.

...

"NO. MOM!. YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME LIKE THAT" You rolled your eyes, hugging the girl beside you tighter.

"So dad chased you?"

"Yeah. Have you heard Uncle Peter say someone is going Miguel mode?" Gabi giggles and nods.

"He went crazy?"

"Yes. A lot I would say. I convinced him to help Miles and slowly, we got together again"

"Not so slow, you had me within months of being back together" you blushed.

"What? Who told you that?"

"Dad. He said you loved him so much that you let me grow inside you the day he asked you out" You were gonna kick Miguel.

"Oh, yes... We decided to have you too soon. But it took longer to move in together, get married." You explain to the five-year-old girl"

"And now there's another baby inside you" Gabi points at your round belly.

You sigh, nodding. Of course, Miguel had to get you pregnant right after funding a new base for the Spider Society.

"Yes. Your baby brother will arrive soon"

"What are you talking about?" Miguel appeared in the frame of the living room.

"Mom was telling me how you chased her to tell her that you loved her" Gabi answered happily.

"I still love her, Gabi. Y mucho..." You smile at him.

When Gabriella was born and she started the toddler phase, Miguel and you realized she was the exact same copy of Gabriella he had in the earth that collapsed. Still shocked you, but she was your baby girl. Obviously a daddy's girl.

"That was a dark day, though," you added. Miguel got closer to help you stand up. Your belly poking his tight chest.

"Can we focus on the present? We got over that." He was right. "Okay. Can I have a kiss?' You ask innocently.

"Just because you're pregnant" Gabi pretended to be puking and left the living room making you laugh.

"And it's your fault!" After years of being together, you got used to Miguel and his cheeky side.

"No. It's your fault and that stupid new suit you wore at the inauguration" You smirked. Your new suit always delayed missions and patrols. Because your silly husband couldn't resist the temptation.

"I take the guilt. Now... Are you ready?" The plan was to go eating and have a little walk on the beach.

"I'm still waiting for my kiss" he rolled his eyes and grabbed you by your hips, making you giggle as he passionately kissed you.

"Te amo un montón, muñeca" you smile, kissing his nose as he chuckles.

"Yo también, corazón" In the middle of a new round of kisses, Gabi came back.

"Ugh, enserio?. You're still kissing?" Both you and your husband laughed before leaving with Gabi.

__________________________________________ Taglist: @justleavemealoneyeah @nishinoyahhh @perfectprofessorloverapricot @liz96893 @deputy-videogamer @legbouk @oxrchd @cas-planet @gabbym-dizzy @avxntxrine @karleequinn @sunshinesetsstuff @aurabambi @mymommmy @billaboon @brittney69 @liz96893 @ariparri

I’m so excited to write my Halloween and día de muertos fics 4 Miguel (u Can notice it by the way I inconsistently wrote this) so tell me if you want to be tagged🩷

#miguel o'hara x reader #atsv miguel #miguel o'hara #miguel o’hara imagine #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel spiderverse #miguel o’hara x y/n

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woah-were-halfway-there · 1 year ago

Text

The Makeup

aka, The Fight: Pt. 3

a/n: alrightyyyy here's the last part of this bit of the series. i think after this i'll go back to writing the scare when little man is born and mia becoming a big sister if y'all are still wanting to read that :)

word count: 9.3k

“You’re sure you’re ok?” Lexie asked from the other end of the phone. “Do you want me to come to Toronto this weekend? We can do something fun. Get you out of Mitch’s condo and do something other than work.”

“Lexie, I’m fine,” Carson told her best friend while nodding a quick thanks to the Starbucks barista who handed her the drink she ordered. It was nearing the end of her lunch break at work, and this was her last stop before returning to the office. “You’re in Chicago, babe. You don’t have to come all the way here for me.”

“Carson, you’re not fine, so don’t even try to lie to me about it.”

Carson sighed and tried to keep her composure because she didn’t have it in her to cry again.

“I’m trying to be fine, Lex.”

It’d been 13 days since Carson and Auston's fight after she found out he’d been charged and tried keeping it from her. That also meant Carson had been staying with Mitch and Steph for 13 days, and it’d been 13 days since she last spoke to Auston.

Following the fight with Auston, Carson missed a couple of work days as her depression about the situation made her feel like she couldn’t get out of bed. By the end of the work week, she returned to the office only briefly but decided to take an impulse trip to Vancouver to see her dad and sister, Mya and get out of Toronto for a little bit as she navigated her feelings.

After returning from Vancouver three days later, things went back to normal for Carson. Well, as normal as they could.

She went back to work, all while acting like nothing was out of the ordinary and continued staying in the spare bedroom at Mitch and Steph’s place. But she still hadn’t talked to Auston about anything because she didn’t know how.

Carson’s friends and colleagues at work noticed something was up. Gone was the friendly, bubbly girl they came to know and loved having as a new addition to the office, as she became a much quieter and mopey version of herself. To them, it was apparent something had happened, but they didn’t want to overstep if she didn’t want to talk about it.

Two people in that office knew what was happening. Max and Tara worked directly with Carson on the same projects, and in the short month and a half Carson had been working there, she immediately clicked with them. They knew all about Carson’s relationship with Auston, having even met him in a non-work setting when the three of them went out for drinks, and he chatted with them for a little bit before driving himself and Carson home. They knew how absolutely in love Carson and Auston were with each other and how this fight affected Carson.

Max and Tara were Carson’s rock in the office, and despite feeling her chest get heavy while talking on the phone with Lexie, she knew they’d help her get through the rest of the day.

“I know you are, babe,” Lexie spoke softly and sighed, bringing Carson back to reality. “I’m just worried about you. And I miss my best friend.”

“I know, and I appreciate you,” Carson told her honestly. “I miss you too, so freaking much. But I don’t want you to come here while I’m like this. I know you’ve seen me in a worse state, but I’m just trying to decide what I want to do about everything with Auston. This is fucking hard.”

“I still want to give Auston a piece of my mind, but for your sake, I won’t. At least not yet. Have you thought about reaching out to him so you can talk?”

“Of course I have. I miss him, Lex—more than I can explain. I miss him, our conversations, our routine, talking with his family, and the feeling of safety I had being with him. But whenever I think about any of that, I think about how he kept such a big thing from me, and it hurts. I almost cracked and told him I was at the game last week, but I knew he’d want to talk afterwards, and I chickened myself out.”

“I understand,” Lexie sighed again. “But Carse, I’m going to give it to you straight here, okay? If you don’t want to fix things, let Auston know. You also gotta let him know if you want to figure things out. It’s been two weeks, babe. As mad as I am at him for hurting you, I know this entire situation is killing him, too, and I really think he deserves to know where you stand.”

Carson took a moment to respond but slowly nodded her head as she entered the front doors of her office building.

“You’re right,” she agreed. “He’s given me space and been patient. I feel like I’ve been stringing him along, making him wait so long and in the dark. God, I just wish none of this happened.”

“I know, it sucks. But you’ll figure it out, babe. You always do.”

“Thanks, Lexie,” Carson responded and took a deep breath. “I plan on figuring it out soon because I’m over feeling like this. But anyway, I’m almost back in the office, so I've got to go. Love you. I’ll text you tonight.”

“Love you too, girly,” Lexie said. “Keep your head up, and I’ll talk to you later. Bye!”

“Bye!”

Just as Carson hung up her phone and slid it back into her bag, the elevator door opened, and she quickly scanned her pass so she could be taken up to her office floor.

Once she was back at work, Carson was greeted by her coworkers as she passed them and headed toward her office. After she set her bag and iced coffee on the desk, her computer lit up and showed the time. She still had 20 minutes before her lunch was officially over, so she decided that was enough time to eat the last bit of food she had in the fridge.

Max and Tara were still in the breakroom when Carson entered, and she couldn’t help but smile at how it was just the three of them there.

“Carson!” Max greeted her excitedly and waved her over. “You have good fashion taste. Tell me what you think of this sweater. Tara thinks it’s too extra.”

“Let me see,” Carson replied as she grabbed her container of strawberries and joined the other two at the table. Once she was sitting, Max handed her his phone, showing a tie-dye sweater from a website he was looking at. “I like it. Auston has a similar one-.”

Carson immediately cut herself off and shook her head, taken back by her comment. In the last two weeks, she’d only mentioned Auston when talking about what happened. She hadn’t mentioned him in general conversation like she always did before their argument, which didn’t go unnoticed by Max and Tara as they sent each other knowing glances, and Max slowly took his phone back from Carson.

“Well, I doubt something like that would look as good on me as it does on Auston,” he said. “He looks fine in just about anything.”

“Oh, would you stop talking about her man like that? Go find your own to thirst over,” Tara scolded before glancing sideways at Carson and noticing she wasn’t reacting to what they were saying. “Speaking of Auston…”

“Hmm?” Carson hummed, zoning back in on what they were saying.

“Auston, babe,” Max spoke bluntly but softened his voice when Carson looked at him sadly. “Still nothing, huh?”

“No, we haven’t talked,” Carson replied, then stared down at her strawberries, suddenly losing her appetite.

Max and Tara looked at each other again and sighed, knowing full well the toll this was taking on their friend.

“I see you put your necklace back on,” Tara said, nodding to the designer white gold chain around Carson’s neck. “That was a gift from Auston, right?”

“Yeah, it was,” Carson explained as she gently brushed her fingers against the two bands that linked together in the middle, making her love necklace. “He got it for me when I graduated in June. I’d only ever taken it off to have it cleaned before I took it off after our fight. Not having it on felt weird, so I dug it out of my bag to wear it again.”

“I need a man who gifts me, Cartier,” Max tsked, hoping to ease the mood, but regretted it when Carson remained silent. “Carson, honey, is there anything we can do to help?”

“We hate seeing you like this,” Tara added, leaning over to squeeze Carson’s hand. Max quickly joined and placed his hand on top of both of them.

Carson relaxed at their gesture and smiled.

“Sorry, guys,” she responded and took a breath. “Unfortunately, I don’t think much can make me feel better until I talk to him.”

“Understandable,” Max told her with a soft smile. “But also don’t be hard on yourself for taking the time you need to figure out what you want to do.”

“Exactly,” Tara agreed. “If Auston were remotely the type of guy he’s always seemed to be to us, he’d be okay with you taking your time regardless of how he’s feeling.”

“You two always know what to say to make me feel better,” Carson smiled and squeezed both of their hands. “Thank you.”

“We got you,” Max stated.

“Always,” said Tara, patting Carson’s hand before pulling away. “We’ll let you eat your strawberries in peace.”

“OK, guys, I’ll see you out there.”

“And you better actually eat them, or we’ll have issues,” Max threatened as he pushed in his chair and sent Carson a slight glare before following after Tara.

Carson just shook her head as she watched them go, then glanced down at her strawberries again before picking one up and popping it into her mouth.

About 10 minutes later, Carson’s lunchtime was almost over. She stood up from the table and went over to the sink to rinse out her now empty container before heading back to her desk to prep for the remainder of the work day. However, just as she was about to exit the breakroom, she almost ran right into someone.

“I’m sorry,” Carson stammered as she stepped back and looked up to make eye contact with Spencer, another of her coworkers.

“It’s quite alright,” Spencer replied and smiled charmingly. “How are you, Carson?”

“Oh, uh, I’m alright, thanks. How was your weekend?”

“It was good, pretty uneventful.”

Spencer was nice. He had been nothing but friendly toward Carson since she started working in the office, but something just put her off about him. Spencer’s condo wasn’t far from the one she shared with Auston, and for a reason, Carson didn’t understand; he drove to work almost every day and always offered her a ride. Their office was located downtown. Therefore, driving wasn’t always necessary, but Carson would’ve been lying if she didn’t appreciate those rides on days she was running late or the weather was bad.

However, something still rubbed her wrong with him. Spencer was charismatic, meaning he was very good at conversing. He had a way with words and could chat with anyone about anything. But, he also made many comments that had Carson pausing, feeling as though he was hitting on her, which she’d always responded to, making it known she was in a relationship.

Spencer knew she was in a relationship, but there were still times he tested those boundaries, and Carson hated it. She didn’t think this would be one of those times.

“That’s nice,” Carson told him with a smile and internally hoped the conversation would end there. “Anyways, I should probably get back to my desk.”

Carson nodded, and Spencer did the same back, but before she could walk around him, he spoke up again.

“Wait, Carson, before you go, I was hoping I could ask you something.”

“Oh, sure, of course. What’s up?”

“Are you free to get drinks with me today after work?” He asked, making Carson go stiff.

“As colleagues?” Carson hesitantly asked, but she knew better. She was sure Spencer’s intentions weren’t just friendly, but that was a boundary she needed to set.

“I was thinking it could be more like a date if you’re interested.”

“Spencer, no. I have a boyfriend. I’m not interested in you like that at all. I’m sorry.”

Spencer’s entire demeanour changed at that.

“I see,” he said and adjusted his posture, looking slightly more intimidating. “I thought you and the hockey player broke up.”

“I- no, we’re still in a relationship,” Carson explained, despite feeling a little unsure. She and Auston were still together, right?

“You stopped mentioning him, and I noticed you turned the pictures of the two of you on your desk around, so I figured you called it quits.”

There was something about his tone that Carson didn’t like. Maybe it was ignorance. Perhaps it was arrogance. Either way, though, it pissed her off.

“We didn’t break up,” Carson confirmed out loud, mainly to reassure herself. “Things are… rough right now. But we’re still together.”

Spencer scoffed.

“I doubt this will be the only time he hurts you, Carson. Maybe you’re just too naive to see that.”

“And maybe you’re just a dick who made an assumption and then got his ego hurt by a girl who is not and will never be interested in him.”

Spencer blinked, surprised at how she snapped at him, but didn’t say anything.

“This conversation is over,” Carson continued, seething. “But before I go, just know that if you attempt to corner me or anyone in the office like this again, I’ll ensure HR knows all about it.”

Nothing else could be said, so Carson stepped around him and wasn’t stopped.

Part of her wanted to cry as she beelined for her office. She was annoyed and frustrated with the situation, but one thought was prominent in everything she felt: her desire to talk to Auston.

The remainder of Carson’s work day went by quickly despite an anxious nagging feeling she had. Spencer kept his distance while Max and Tara promptly addressed the tension between him and Carson, but not in a way Spencer would hear it. Tara immediately messaged in the group chat with Max and Carson, asking what happened, which Carson filled them in on. She ended the conversation by admitting that the ordeal with Spencer made her want to talk to Auston because she hated not knowing where they stood.

Carson then internally admitted that although she was still hurt and upset with Auston, she still loved him and wanted to be with him. But she didn’t know how to go about it. For all she knew, Auston thought she was overreacting and didn’t want to wait for her to come back around. Of course, she didn’t want to believe that could happen, but Carson’s brain could be so damn mean to her sometimes.

But that’s what she needed to remind herself. Her brain was just mean. There was no way for Carson to know the future of her and Auston’s relationship if she didn’t talk to him. It wasn’t fair to Auston or herself to make assumptions and let that scare her away without first talking to him about it.

Her mind was scrambled, so Max and Tara convinced her to leave the office early and have time to collect her thoughts in a place that wasn’t the office. Carson was hesitant to leave early, but she had completed everything she needed to do that day before her lunch break and got a head start on some other things despite feeling all jumbled. About an hour went by, and she was still on the fence about leaving, but that changed when Spencer went to the photocopier that directly viewed Carson’s office despite a different photocopier being closer to the break room and his office.

Carson went stiff when she saw him walk by and didn’t miss the way he looked into her office as he went. He said nothing, but Carson was not up for playing any of his petty little games. So, after sending a message to her supervisor explaining all the work she’d completed that day and asking if it was alright if she went home early, Carson wasted no time packing up her things and leaving the office once told it was okay to leave. She didn’t even look in Spencer’s direction as she stormed out of her office, only stopping to say bye to Max and Tara and waving at those she passed on her way out.

When Carson arrived at Mitch and Steph’s condo, it was quiet. She knew Steph had things to do that day, meaning her friend probably wasn’t home, but she wasn’t sure about Mitchy.

The Leafs played against St. Louis that night, so it was likely that her cousin was home having a pregame nap before he had to get ready to go to the arena. Carson glanced at her watch to see it was nearing three in the afternoon. Therefore, it’d be odd if Mitch wasn’t home, so she tried her best to be quiet as she took off her heels before heading to the guest room to put her work things in there and maybe watch a show. However, she didn’t make it far when a familiar brown lab entered the hallway and rushed toward her excitedly.

“Hi, Zeusy boy,” Carson quietly greeted the dog as she crouched to his level and scratched behind his ears. “Is your dad sleeping?”

“Nah, I’m right here,” Mitch said as he entered the hallway. He was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, and his hair was dishevelled, showing that he had been lying down.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Mitchy. Did I wake you up?”

“No, you’re good. I was just scrolling on my phone. You’re home early, though. Everything alright?”

“Uh, yeah,” Carson mumbled as she stood back up and smoothed her blouse. “I finished all of my work early and have a really good start on the stuff I have to do for the rest of the week. I just have a lot of stuff on my mind. I know I’m not in the office for the rest of the week now because my boss is away, but I didn’t want to be there anymore today. ”

“I see,” Mitchy responded, then narrowed his gaze at his cousin, knowing something was bothering her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Of course, she wanted to talk to her twin about everything bugging her, but Carson didn’t want to bother Mitch with her problems.

“No, no, it’s ok. You have to start getting ready soon anyway. I think I’m just going to curl up and watch a show. Have a chill night in.”

“Carson.”

The look Mitch gave her as he crossed his arms showed that he wasn’t impressed by her answer, which made Carson sigh.

“Fine,” she huffed. “Let me change into something comfy, and then I’ll tell you.”

Mitch smirked at her triumphantly before calling for Zeus to follow him to the living room, and Carson went to the guest room. A few minutes later, she emerged in the hallway again wearing a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, then made her way to the living room and curled up on the couch next to her best friend.

Carson spent the next few minutes telling Mitch what happened with Spencer at the office, including the back story of how he’d been flirty before despite knowing she was in a relationship. She then explained what Spencer said after she turned him down and what was on her mind afterwards.

“First off, fuck that guy,” Mitch said once Carson finished her spiel.

“I know, he sucks,” Carson agreed, then took a sip of the water bottle Mitch had grabbed for her.

“I’m glad you put him in his place, but it wouldn’t hurt to report him to HR or something, Carse.”

“I know, I’m going to tomorrow. I don’t want him to make anyone else in the office feel like I did today.”

“Good,” Mitchy replied, nodding his head, then stopping and glancing at his cousin again. “And you think you want to talk to Auston again now?”

Carson sighed.

“Yeah, I do. I miss him, Mitchy, and I need to know where we stand. It’s just frustrating because I still don’t know what I feel or what to do, but I know I need to talk to him. How is he? Is he good?”

“Matts? I mean, yeah, he’s alright. Same old now that the season has started. Not much else is going on at the moment. He asks about you a lot, though. Every day I see him, actually. He misses you too, Carse. I don’t want you to think he doesn’t. But, you gotta do what you think is best for you.”

“But I don’t know if what I want is what’s best for me,” Carson stressed, pushing her hair away from her face as she inhaled. “And that’s the thing. Can I trust Auston again after keeping such a big thing from me? I may have never known if the media didn’t get their hands on the information. Although part of me wishes I was as oblivious to the fact as I was two weeks ago, I still can’t believe it even happened and knowing that it did is a lot. But this is something I’d want to know. I just- how many other significant things hasn’t he told me? Is it too naive of me to want to think he wouldn’t keep something like this from me again?”

“It was extremely dumb for him not to tell you,” Mitch started. “It was even more ridiculous for him to do what he did, whether it was a drunken mistake or not. I will say, though, Auston seems to be learning from it. He’s trying, and that’s really all anyone can ask for. Of course, it doesn’t improve the situation, but he’s being cooperative. And I know one thing he really wants to fix is his relationship with you as he navigates moving forward from this. However, if you don’t think that’s best for you, you’ve gotta listen to that. I can’t see you tearing yourself up because of a relationship again, Carse. I’ve already made Auston clear of my feelings about the situation, and we’re okay now, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to say, ‘Yes, you two should figure things out and not break up.’ I love you and Auston together and am always rooting for you guys, but I’ll always care most about your happiness. You’re my best friend. And if you think Auston is who will still make you the happiest, you can’t let anyone make you think otherwise. If you can forgive him, great. But if not, I’ll still be in your corner and we’ll figure it out.”

Carson stayed silent for a moment, processing Mitch’s words. She inhaled deeply, reached up to wipe away a tear that broke free from her watering eyes, and then sniffled before looking back at her cousin.

“I wish I knew what to do, Mitchy. I wish I could go back to him and not be afraid he’d hurt me like this again. And I know I may have overreacted when all of this happened, but it was like being slapped in the face. I was blindsided, and now I feel like I’m in a hole. I don't know how to escape.”

“I know,” Mitch told her softly. “But I think you gotta do what you told me when we started this conversation, and that’s talk to Auston. You won’t know what you want regarding your relationship with him if you don’t.”

“You’re right,” Carson agreed. “I just have to build the courage to reach out to him. It should probably be soon, though, huh?”

“Carson, let me tell you it has been so pathetic seeing him mope over you,” Mitchy stated, making Carson cover her mouth, attempting to hide her chuckle. “Like good, he should know he fucked up, but Auston is so miserable because he misses you, and I can’t even tease him about it because the nice guy in me doesn’t want to make him feel worse.”

“Wow, how considerate of you,” Carson teased while Mitch nudged her with his shoulder. Carson pushed back, but soon enough, they stopped, and Carson leaned her head onto her cousin's shoulder. “Thanks for always looking out for me, Mitchy.”

“Gotta make sure my twin is always okay,” he responded, leaning his head against hers. “Like your mom used to say, it’s the two of us against the world.”

“It is. And I’m lucky to have you as my best friend backing me up every step of the way.”

“You really are stuck with me.”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Carson chuckled, then sat up again so she could look at Mitch. “But, you need to start getting ready, or else you’ll be late.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Mitch stated, quickly getting off the couch to gather his things. “You’re coming to the game tonight, no?”

“I don’t think so, Mitchy. I’m going to watch from here with Zeus. I don’t want to be back there just yet.”

“OK, fair. You’re welcome to join us after the game, though. Steph will want you there. I can give you a heads up if Auston comes out or not, too.”

“I appreciate it, but I’m ok,” Carson insisted. “I think I’m going to watch the game from here and think about what to do.”

“Alright. Promise to update me if anything happens or you decide you do want to come out?”

“I promise. Now go get ready.”

Mitch was ready and out of the condo within half an hour. Once he was gone, Carson put on Netflix and watched an episode of her show with Zeus before Steph got home. She was in a rush, too, having to get ready since she was going to the game that night with some of the other girlfriends. She tried multiple times to convince Carson to join her, but Carson was adamant about having an evening to herself, which Steph respected.

“I know you don’t want to come, but you’re sure there’s nothing I can do before I leave?” Steph asked as she battled with zipping up one of the tall boots she decided to wear that evening.

“I’m sure, Steph. You and Mitch have done enough for me,” Carson told her. “Go have fun tonight.”

“I’d have more fun if you came with me,” the blonde pouted, making Carson roll her eyes and smile at the dramatics. “But it’s fine, I’m fine. I’m sure Zeusy will love having you to hang out with.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

Carson then began scratching behind Zeus’ ears, which earned her a content noise from the chocolate lab before Steph spoke again.

“Ok. I’m going. You know to help yourself to any food or whatever, but please text me if you need anything or change your mind about coming.”

“You know I will,” Carson told her honestly. “I’ll watch from here and see you when you’re back tonight.”

“Ok, ok, I won’t press you anymore,” Steph said as she came over to give Zeus some love before leaving. “Alright, actually going now. Love ya!”

“Love ya too, have fun!”

And with that, it was just Zeus and Carson watching another episode of her show before it was game time.

Soon enough, the game started, and Carson hated that seeing Auston on the TV screen was still enough to feel a pang in her chest, but there was no arguing, just how much she missed him. As the game went on, Carson found herself paying more attention to Auston whenever the camera showed him than she did to the actual game, and before she knew it, the game was over.

The Leafs lost to the Blues, but Carson kept the channel on as post-game media started. She watched Will and Freddie do interviews and then felt her breath hitch when Auston came on the screen again. Hearing his voice answer questions about the game really hit her. It’d been almost two weeks since she last heard it, yet it still soothed her. She watched the entire interview, noticing how, along with the silver chain Auston wore around his neck, he was also wearing the Cartier love necklace that matched the one she wore. Both pieces of jewelry peaked out from Auston’s shirt, but when reporters kept bombarding him with questions, Carson noticed how he reached up to fiddle with the love necklace, gently rubbing his thumb over the two circles that linked in the middle.

It was then Carson decided she needed to talk to him as soon as possible. She wasn’t beating around the bush anymore; she knew they needed to speak, and there was no point in pushing it back then chickening out. But, as she waited to reach out to Auston, hoping he was home, her nerves returned, and she started convincing herself it wasn’t a good idea.

Carson’s heart pounded as she glanced at her phone again from where it lay between her and Zeus on the couch and debated what to do.

It was nearing 10:30pm. It had been over an hour since the game ended, and Carson knew Mitch and Steph wouldn’t return home immediately. Instead, they had plans to go out with some of the other guys and their girlfriends since the Leafs didn’t play for another few days. Mitch and Steoh invited Carson to join again, but she declined because she felt uncomfortable being the odd one out.

Carson didn’t know if Auston went with the group. There was a good chance that he did, and that was feeding into her debate about not calling him, but she wanted to. She needed to talk to him.

So, with a deep breath to calm her heart, Carson unlocked her phone. She opened the messages app and didn’t need to scroll to find her conversation with her boyfriend.

Carson felt like the wind was knocked out of her when she saw Auston’s name with the red heart emoji beside it and the photo of them in Arizona that past summer set as his contact picture. That feeling didn’t go away as she glanced at the text thread between them.

Despite not properly talking for almost two full weeks, Auston still messaged her every one of those days since their fight, saying that he loved her, missed her, was sorry and hoped she had a good day. The day after their fight, he still tried calling in hopes that Carson would pick up, but during his talk with Mitch, he was reminded that his constant calling was a bit overwhelming for her as she navigated her feelings about the situation. So, Auston opted to send texts.

Carson didn’t read or respond to any of those texts when she received them, but she found comfort as she scrolled through and read each one at that moment. In the days following their argument, she didn’t know what to think or feel, but receiving those texts made her feel normal. They were part of her routine, and although it was hard for her not to read them or respond, Carson thought she couldn’t until she knew what she wanted to say. Auston continued to send those messages despite her ignoring them, showing that he still cared and was willing to be patient with her like he always had been for the entirety of their knowing each other.

This was why Carson decided it was her turn to be patient with him and hear him out in a calmer setting than the last conversation they had almost two weeks prior. So, with another deep breath, she tapped his name at the top of the screen and hit the call button when it popped up.

It didn’t even take two full rings for him to pick up.

“Carse?” Auston’s voice sounded through the phone, making Carson’s breath hitch again. God, she missed him so much.

“H-hey,” Carson stammered before pausing in an attempt to recollect herself. “How are you?”

“I, uhm, I’m okay,” he responded, sounding surprised and as if he was still processing that he was talking to her. “Busy with hockey stuff, same old. How are you?”

“I’ve been better, and I’m sure you are. I still can’t believe you’ve got that ‘A’ on your jersey now, Aus. You deserve it. I was so proud seeing it for the first time in person during the home opener.”

“You were at that game?”

Carson nodded, even though he couldn’t see it.

“Yeah,” she almost whispered. “Mitch and Steph were trying to convince me to go 'cause I was originally going to watch from their place, but I didn’t decide until the last minute to actually go. So, I bought a ticket and went alone.”

“I wish you had told me,” Auston told her softly, which pulled on her heartstrings. “I would’ve wanted to know that you were there.”

“I know, but I didn’t know how Auston. Just seeing you out there made me so happy but so sad at the same time.”

Auston sighed at that.

“Carson, please know how sorry I am. I’ve spent the last two weeks beating myself up so much over this, and not saying I don’t deserve it, but fuck. I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too,” Carson admitted, deciding there was no need to hide her feelings from him.

“Is that why you called?” Auston asked, his voice a mix of unsureness and hopefulness.

“It is. I, um, I know it’s late, but are you home? Maybe I could come over, and we can talk.”

“Yes, please. I just got back. Please come home er-, I mean over. Do you want me to pick you up?”

“No, it’s okay,” Carson responded quickly, not wanting to be in such close proximity to him until she was at the condo. “Thank you, though.”

“Then, at the very least, let me order an Uber over here for you,” Auston suggested, not missing a beat.

“Auston, you don’t have to do that.”

“I insist. Please let me order it. I’d feel better if I could make sure you get here safely. Would they be picking you up from Mitch’s?”

“Ok,” Carson sighed in defeat. “And yes, it’s just Zeusy and me here.”

“Ok, perfect,” Auston said. “It says they’ll be there in five minutes. Is that too soon?”

“No, that’s great. I’ll put on my shoes and head downstairs.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you soon. Love you.”

“Love y-,” Carson started but immediately cut herself off, then internally cursed herself because who was she kidding? Of course, she still loved him. “I’ll see you soon. Bye, Auston.”

Once she hung up the phone, Carson wasted no time getting off the couch and rushing to the front door to get her sneakers on.

“I’m sorry, Zeusy,” Carson muttered to the lab, who was rudely awoken from his slumber when she stood up but was still happy as he trailed after her. Zeus looked up at her expectantly, thinking he was going outside with her, and Carson felt terrible for leaving him behind, wasting no time to crouch down and pet him after her sneakers were on. “I know. I’m the worst for not taking you outside again, even though I did an hour ago. But how about I give you a treat? Will that make up for it?”

Zeus’ tail started wagging at that, so Carson quickly stood up straight again and ran into the kitchen to grab him a treat. Then, with one final pet goodbye, she rushed out the door.

As Carson waited for the elevator, she texted Mitch and Steph to tell them she was going over to Auston’s to talk because she knew they’d come back wondering where the hell she had gone otherwise. Both were quick to text back.

“Good luck, babe. Let me know how it goes,” read Steph’s message.

“Are you sure? Are you staying there? I’ll wait up so you can tell me what’s going on,” Mitch texted back, making Carson smile at the difference between the two messages. They both cared but in very different ways.

She messaged them each back, saying she’d keep them posted, then entered the elevator and went to the lobby. Upon seeing her reflection in the mirror that covered the elevator wall, Carson made an unimpressed noise. The thought of changing hadn’t even crossed her mind as she rushed out of Mitch’s condo, but she sure didn’t love that the first time she talked to Auston in person in two weeks, she’d be wearing an oversized hoodie and sweatpants. Carson quickly reached up to take her long brown hair out of the messy bun it was in and tried to make it look presentable, but then remembered Auston wouldn’t care about her looking like that. He’d seen her in similar outfits over the almost three years they’d been in a relationship.

Carson knew she didn’t need to impress him but still wished she looked a little better than she did.

Once the elevator reached ground level, Carson inhaled as she stepped off and entered the lobby. Her phone buzzed with a text, and she was half expecting it to be Mitch or Steph, but it was Auston letting her know the details about the car that was picking her up. Carson replied to his message this time and let him know she saw the car was waiting outside. Auston asked her to tell him when she was in the car and when she got to their condo so he knew everything was alright, and Carson promised she would.

When she entered the Uber waiting outside, the driver expressed his surprise after Carson confirmed they were picking up a rider named Auston.

“Not going to lie, I thought I was picking up Auston Matthews, the Leafs player, for a minute when I saw the name,” the driver explained, and Carson had to contain the smile she felt tugging at her lips.

“No, sorry, just me,” she responded, chuckling but not telling them she was indeed on her way to see the Auston Matthews.

“That’s alright, maybe another time,” the driver teased, then turned their focus back to the road as they drove.

It was a short drive. In all honesty, Carson had walked to and from the two condo buildings many times before, but with it being so late, she didn’t want to be out walking alone. She also knew that if she’d even mentioned the thought of walking, Auston would’ve shut the idea down immediately. The Uber driver didn’t ask questions about the short trip either and made small talk, ironically about the Leafs, since that was the first thing they and Carson had discussed.

A few minutes later, after thanking her driver and getting out of the car, Carson was standing outside the condo building that she began calling home a little over a month prior. Another wave of nervousness hit her, but she quickly shook it off as she entered the building.

She got into the building easily, still having her keys and fob to allow her access. The concierge at the front desk recognized her, nodding and smiling as she walked by and went straight for the elevator to take her to her and Auston’s floor.

Carson almost walked right into the condo out of force of habit once she arrived at the door. However, her nagging thoughts made her stop just before she could and opted to knock instead. It didn’t take long for Auston to open the door.

He looked good, really good. He was clad in a simple outfit, a black Raiders sweater and a pair of grey sweatpants that Carson always complimented on how good they made his butt look. His hair was a little damp still from his postgame shower, and a shadow of a beard was growing, showing it’d been some time since he last shaved. Carson stood there in silence momentarily, just taking in being in the presence of her boyfriend once again.

“Hey,” Auston spoke up, snapping Carson from her trance. She didn’t realize how tense she was until she felt herself relax just by being so close to him again.

“Hi,” Carson replied, her voice already cracking. Tears immediately pooled in her eyes, suddenly reminding her of all the emotions she’d felt since the last time she and Auston spoke.

“Oh, Carse.”

It didn’t require any thinking. The moment Auston saw those tears, he stepped towards Carson and pulled her into his embrace. The gesture felt so natural. Carson immediately melted into his touch and wrapped her arms around his middle in a tight embrace while instinctively hiding her face against his chest, letting the familiar scent of his favourite body wash surround her.

“I missed you,” she whispered after the two of them stood there holding each other for a moment.

“I’ve missed you more than I’ve ever missed anything in my life, Carson,” Auston replied, not missing a beat while tightening his squeeze around her. “I don’t want to open my eyes right now because what if I do and you’re not actually here? And this was just a fever dream?”

Carson couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped her mouth as she shook her head, still pressed against his chest, and then finally moved back and looked at him. Still, neither of them unwrapped their arms from around the other.

“I’m here. And we need to talk, Auston.”

“I know, I know,” Auston spoke softly as he finally let go of Carson, but only to reach up so he could cup her cheeks and use his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “God, I’m so happy to see you. But, you’re right. Let’s go inside so we can talk.”

Carson nodded in agreement and let her arms fall from Auston’s waist to her sides again, but Auston was quick to reach down his right hand and link it with her left hand, squeezing it after Carson intertwined their fingers, then leading her into the condo.

Once inside, Carson glanced around after she took her shoes off and walked further inside, not sure what she was expecting. Not a thing was changed. The same fluffy grey throw blanket she bought was still on the couch except instead of it being draped over the side neatly, it was bunched up and tossed to the side, indicating Auston had been using it. Her gaze then drifted to the walls and nearby bookshelf, which still had the same pictures of her and Auston and others of them with their friends and families displayed. On the bookshelf was her collection of books and trinkets she adored and the TV showed the paused episode of The Office Auston must’ve been watching when she called.

Carson felt at home again for the first time in two weeks and it was a perfect feeling.

“Uhm, can I get you water or anything?” Auston asked after a moment of observing Carson look around their living room, not missing how a small smile tugged at her lips as she did so.

“I’m alright, thank you,” Carson replied as she shook her arms so the sleeves of her sweater would fall since she’d pushed them up in the Uber. The sweater was large on her and it showed in the way the sleeves covered most of her hands. She then began to fiddle with and rub the hem of the sleeve between her fingers, something she tended to do when she felt uneasy or anxious. Auston knew that and wished she wasn’t feeling such a way, but mostly wished she didn’t feel that way because of him.

“Of course. Should, uh, should we sit?”

“Yeah, let's.”

The two of them made their way to the couch and sat down next to each other. It was a comfortable distance, but there was still a noticeable space between them which felt a thousand times bigger to Auston. He hated it. If it were up to him Carson would be right next to him with her legs over his thighs, both cuddled under the throw blanket as she told him about her day and he played with her hair while listening. He was yearning but was brought back to reality when Carson spoke again.

“I think you should start.”

“R-right,” Auston stuttered, shaking his little daydream from his head but not being able to hide how lost in his thoughts he got momentarily. However, he knew exactly what he wanted to say, he’d been thinking about it for almost two weeks. “You’re right. And I’m just going to start with how sorry I am, Carse. I’m sorry for what I did in Arizona and how it affected someone because of my ignorance and stupid drunk actions. I’m sorry that when me and you last talked, I didn’t take ownership of how I messed up. I know that what I did wasn’t ok. I wish I could take it all back. And I’m sorry that during all of this, I hurt you. I should’ve been honest with you about the charge as soon as it happened. It’s not an excuse, but I was embarrassed and didn’t want you to be ashamed of me. I told my family I would tell you, which is why they didn’t say anything, but I was a coward. It’s not that I didn’t trust you whatsoever, Carson. I trust you with everything I have, I was just stupid and thought I could ignore what happened. That it wouldn’t matter and I could move on with life normally. I should’ve known better. I made a huge mistake and I’m learning from it. I know I’m better than this, but I want to learn from it so I can move forward properly and nothing like this ever happens again. I don’t expect you to fully forgive me right away either, but you make me a better person. I know I can learn a lesson and grow from this. But, I really want you by my side as I do, if you’re still willing.”

Carson was so tired of crying, but she couldn’t stop the tears flowing as she hung on to every word Auston said to her. This conversation was already so different from the last one they had. She could tell the toll everything was taking on him and knew the weight of it all was crushing. But, he was taking full responsibility, seemingly accepting that this all happened on his own accord.

“I’m proud of you, Auston,” Carson spoke softly as she wiped her tears away with the sleeves of her sweater. “I feel like I’m having a conversation with a completely different person than I did two weeks ago.”

Auston felt good hearing that. During their fight, Carson voiced that she didn’t feel like she was talking to the man she loved. That, in that moment, he didn’t feel like home anymore to her, which hit Auston hard because Carson would always say it didn’t matter where they were as long as they were together, because he was her home. Hearing her say that was what pushed him over the edge that night truly realizing how badly he fucked up, but it was too late. Carson was already heading out the door and Auston couldn’t stop her.

“It shows me that you are learning from this and that’s really good,” she continued. “You owe that to that woman you distressed. But also the team, the fans, your family and yourself.”

“I owe it to you, too.”

“I appreciate you saying that, but this isn’t about me. However, that does lead me to talk about us.”

Carson paused to take a breath, already feeling herself get emotional again, but was soon met by Auston gently linking their hands together and stroking his thumbs over her knuckles. When she didn’t pull away, Auston gave her hands a reassuring squeeze.

“When I found out you kept something so significant away from me, I was hurt,” Carson said. “I felt betrayed, but also shocked because I never ever thought I’d feel the way I did and you being the one that caused it. I felt everything we built together, was a lie. Our castle was crumbling down because it seemed like you couldn’t trust me and I wasn’t sure I could trust you to not keep important things from me again. It was devastating feeling that way about the man I love more than anything in this world. We’re partners, Auston. And you didn’t treat me like one doing that.”

“I know, and again, I am so sorry, Carson. I never wanted you to feel that way and I feel terrible for being the reason you did. I-I can’t blame you for leaving,” Auston’s voice trailed off at the end of his sentence as he felt the words getting stuck in his throat. “Watching you walk out that door was one of the worst nights of my life. You’re my rock and suddenly that was gone and it was all my fault. I hardly slept not knowing when or if you’d come back, but I had to keep hoping, praying that you would. Part of me convinced myself Mitch was going to tell me that you weren’t coming back ever and I don’t know what I would’ve done if he did. I was a mess, I still am. These last two weeks have been hell and I deserved it. And I’m not saying this to guilt you into making a decision now, but Carse, if you did want to leave and not come back to this, us, I need to know. The not knowing is killing me. I don’t want to lose you, but I need to know if I have.”

Carson inhaled deeply again.

“The thing about these last two weeks, with how upset and angry I was at myself and you and the situation, not once did I think I no longer wanted to be with you. I love you, Auston. I knew I didn’t want to break up, but I wasn’t sure if staying in a relationship with you was what would be best for me. I fell into a depressive hole myself. I never thought I’d feel that low because of you and I wasn’t sure if I could forgive and move on or if this would have me feeling I could never trust you again. I can’t let myself get this destroyed by the person who is supposed to be my partner again, not after my ex. But, Auston, you are not him. You never will be him and that’s why, even with the space we’ve had since our fight, I knew I’d be coming back to you. I love you too fucking much to not even try to work through this and move forward together. I don’t want you to think we’re over because of this.”

Auston didn’t realize just how many tears had welled in his eyes until he let out a relieved sigh and smiled, allowing a couple of those tears to break free and stream down his face.

“You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that,” he said and squeezed her hands again.

“You have no idea how badly I needed to get that off my chest and actually tell you,” she replied and let out a small laugh at how emotional they both were. “God, we’re such messes.”

“I’ll accept being the biggest mess ever to exist if it means you’ll be by my side as I clean myself up.”

“Well, I can tell you that I’m not going anywhere. I mean it, Auston. You haven’t lost me.”

“Thank, God,” Auston sighed, feeling like so much weight had been lifted off his chest. “We’re good?”

“We’re good,” Carson confirmed, smiling as Auston let go of her hands and then held his arms out. She was quick to launch herself into his embrace and hold on for dear life while he fell back onto the couch cushion and she laid on top of him, feeling the safest and most content she had in weeks. “I’m glad to be home.”

“I’m never going to give you a reason to feel like you have to leave home again, Carse. That’s a promise.” Auston declared as he kissed the top of her head and started playing with her hair. “I love you, Carson.”

“And I love you, Auston,” Carson replied as she moved her head from Auston’s chest so she could look at him.

The two lay there for a moment looking at each other as Auston continued playing with Carson’s hair, debating his next move. He couldn’t help the way his gaze drifted to her lips, missing the way they felt against him so badly. He wanted nothing more than to cup her cheek with his hand and close the small gap between them with the kiss he craved. However, even though Auston knew he and Carson were good, he also knew they weren’t back to normal. Things being normal again would take time and Auston was ok with that. It didn’t matter how much time it may take because he had his love back and he wasn’t going to take any chances with anything that could push her away again.

Much to Auston’s pleasant surprise, though, Carson was the one to delicately place her hand under his chin and tilt it up before crashing her lips against his in a sweet, intimate kiss.

As soon as their lips met, Auston deepened the kiss as he wrapped his arm around her and rolled them over so that Carson’s back would be on the couch and he was on top. He used one arm to hold himself up and keep most of his weight off of her while his other hand cupped her cheek and jaw to prevent the kiss from breaking, finally getting what he had spent the last two weeks yearning for.

After a few moments of kissing, they pulled away to look at each other and laugh at how out of breath they both were. But that didn’t stop Auston from leaning in and stealing one more kiss.

“Will you stay over tonight?” He asked softly, not wanting her to feel pressured if she wasn't ready to come back home fully yet. “It’s an off day tomorrow and Mitch mentioned you weren’t going into the office, we could go get your work stuff from his place in the morning then come back here and have a lazy day together. Only if you want to, of course.”

“I would love that,” Carson replied, then pecked his lips again. “Let me tell Mitch and Steph I won’t be back tonight first, then can we go to bed? I’m exhausted.”

“Of course, beb.”

After they untangled themselves from each other and Carson texted Mitch and Steph to say she was staying, she and Auston turned off the lights before heading to the bedroom together. Carson felt so good after changing into a pair of her pyjamas she grabbed them from the dresser and then crawled into her bed after a long, almost two weeks. The best part, though, was being back in that bed with Auston. He felt better too having Carson in his embrace again as he fought to stay awake, wanting to make sure she fell asleep first. Once she did, Auston let his tiredness take over him too and both he and Carson had one of the best sleeps of their lives, together again.

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