#really hope they look into his issues in senior year

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Fabian is like the pleasure to have in class of the party where it’s like he self contains all of his problems so much that people don’t even realize he has problems

[elvesofnoldor]

the vampire lestat in audiobook format is 24 hours long and i finished listening to it in a week, meanwhile merrick is only 8 hours long and it took me three weeks to chew through the whole fucking thing. it's not even very badly written, i just really hate it when anne rice turned the dial up to 11 on her Sympathy with the P*dophile bullshit

[underoossss]

Head over Heels - S.H

masterlist

pairing: steve harrington x grumpy!f!reader

summary: Steve falls for Robin’s grumpy friend, and he falls hard.

warnings: family problems mention, trust issues, angst, hurt/comfort, no spoilers, (there’s fluff I promise!!!)

grumpy x sunshine trope

an: I know this is the first Steve fic I’ve posted IN FOREVER and I’m sorry! my writer’s block, personal problems, work and health, have all contributed to how long it took me to finish this. But I promise to make it worth your while, this is the same length as babe baby beautiful and I hope it makes you happy. I dedicate this to all my grumpy beloveds out there, who, like me. don’t relate 100% to the sunshine tropes bc sometimes life just freaking sucks. I poured my heart out with this one so, I hope this comforts you and that you like it! Please let me know. 💘

—���-

The September breeze pushes Steve’s hair back as he makes his way to the Hawkin’s start-of-autumn fair, a new thing the town is trying out to make the citizens feel more upbeat after all the incidents they’ve experienced. His friends trail after him, Mike and Lucas arguing over something he doesn’t understand, Max listening to Dustin complain about some prank the soccer team played on the Hellfire Club and Robin walking by his side. Everyone shouts food orders over their shoulder, running towards the picnic tables in search for an empty one, and leaving Steve and Robin alone.

His friend is rambling by his side, and Steve nods along to what she’s telling him. She has a new friend this year, met her at homeroom when she was introduced as a new student. A senior like Robin, she got along with her just fine. I talk a lot and she doesn’t, it’s a good fit, I think she really needed a friend that day, Robin says, and now she’s friends with all of us. Steve hums in understanding, switching schools in senior year sounds awful, and he wonders why you chose to do that. He wouldn’t, unless it was for something serious.

“Anyway here she comes!” Robin says excitedly, waving you over. “I can’t believe she actually came, she’s not comfortable with strangers and she doesn’t know you. I thought she’d sit this one out.”

Steve follows Robin’s line of sight and spots you walking towards them in the distance. Baby blue sweater, light washed jeans and black high-top converse, make you stand out from the orange foliage around you. Your face is serious as you get closer, only breaking into a small smile when you wave at Robin and accept her hug. When you step back your face morphs back to neutrality, a slight furrow to your brow as you hide your hands in your back pockets.

Robin says your name and motions towards Steve. “This is Steve, the friend I told you about.” She explains, “He’s our chauffeur, monster-fighter and designated babysitter.”

Steve furrows his brows and looks sideways at Robin before he looks at you and grins. “Hi, nice to meet you.” He offers his hand and you give it one quick shake before pulling back and looking away. Steve wasn’t expecting that reaction, but he guesses what Robin said is true, you don’t like strangers.

“We’re going to get Apple fritters! They have massive ones here and they serve them with big scoops of ice cream.” Robin tells you, glancing down the line as it moves. There are only three people left to order, so the three of you step into line. “Let me check if they’re still doing the ice cream on top.”

With that, Steve is left to wait next to you until Robin is back. You shift from one leg to another, almost nervously and Steve glances at you. Your eyes meet his and then look away, not scared or nervous, just looking away like you can’t be bothered to make conversation with him. Is he intimidating? Steve asks himself or are you just a massive buzzkill that can’t even comment on the weather.

Steve tries again, scratching his cheek. “So, uh, you’re in senior year like Robin?”

You nod, looking down at your feet before looking at him. “Yeah, we have a lot of classes together. I know the guys over there as well.” Your hand lifts to point at Eddie, who’s just arrived at the table, and the kids talking around him.

Huh, so you do speak, Steve notes, but only when prompted. “Cool.” He nods, looking at your face and noticing the way you look away immediately. “So why did you move to Hawkins all of a sudden? I mean senior year, that’s gotta be rough.”

You press your lips together, looking uncomfortable by the question. Steve has the faint idea that he asked the wrong thing. “I should go say hi to everyone.” You say after an awkward cough. “If there’s ice cream can you tell Robin I’m good with cookie dough?”

Steve wordlessly takes the 5 bucks you hand him and sees you rush away from him. In the distance he can see everyone’s faces light up when they spot you, beckoning you over with excited waves, and your reluctant barely there smile as you greet them and sit down. Steve doesn’t get it; he is half mortified and half confused when Robin comes back. How is it that everyone is your friend when you’re so closed off and Steve doesn’t want to say it but… grumpy.

“Are you sure your friend wants to be here?” Steve asks Robin, looking over at you again. You’re sitting with your elbows leaning on the table, listening to everyone talk around you, neutral expression on your face. Bored, even.

“Of course, she does.” Robin is quick to say. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, she doesn’t look too thrilled to be talking to you.” Steve shrugs.

“You clearly don’t know her.” Robin shakes her head. “What did you do?”

“I only asked her about her move to Hawkins.” Steve holds his hands up defensively, then adds. “She said she likes cookie dough ice cream.”  

They pause their conversation to order the fritters and pay, then continue talking while they wait.

“Okay, you shouldn’t have asked that. First of all.” Robin rolls her eyes, “Second of all, she’s friends with all of us.”

Steve huffs in disbelief. “Oh so she likes you? That’s her I like you face.”

“She adores us, you… not really but that’s cause she doesn’t know you.” Robin nods with certainty, then worries her bottom lip. “The move question is just tricky for her.”

Steve moves to say something when their order is called, and she go back to the booth to take the trays laid out in front of them. There are eight apple fritters with ice cream they have to juggle back to the table but manage to fit in their hands and arms.

“Look Steve.” Robin says seriously, lowering her voice after a sigh.” She slows her pace, so they take longer to get back to the table. “She has been through a rough time; I won’t tell you what because it took her a long time to trust me enough to open up.”

“Okay…” Steve nods, going over her words and feeling a soft pang of guilt. He wouldn’t have judged you so harshly if he knew you were struggling with something. He wouldn’t have asked you about you changing towns. “You could’ve told me that before I messed up earlier. Before I was bitchy too.”

“You’re always bitchy.” Robin huffs, then hums when she looks at you sitting in the distance. “She’s wonderful Steve, in her own way, so don’t judge her by the way she presents herself. When she trusts you, you’ll see what I‘m talking about.” She gives him a pointed look.  

Robin’s words echo in his head as they reach the picnic table and hand over the food to their friends. Steve places yours in front of you with a nod to which you say thank you. Now that he knows a little more about you, Steve guesses you were both left with a bad first impression. They aren’t his forte, and it’s not his fault you weren’t the same person with him as you are with Robin. You don’t know each other, of course it was going to be awkward. Steve sees what Robin means as everyone chats and eats; he sees it in the way your eyes soften, and lips smile slightly when Max begins to tell you something. He sees it in the way you lean closer to the redhead and whisper something that has her laughing soon after; you smile as well before turning your attention back to the group. Dustin and Eddie are planning some sort of revenge on the jocks from the soccer team who messed up something in their Hellfire Room.

Steve tries to focus on what they’re saying but he’s too busy looking at you, trying to figure you out. What happened? What’s the thing that you told Robin that made you keep the gentleness you showed to Max tucked away? You feel him looking at you and meet his eyes, it’s a distrustful glance from the way you narrow your eyes at him. Okay, Steve probably stared at you too long. He looks away and hears you sigh before you do too, tuning back into the conversation between the Hellfire club sitting at the other end of the picnic table.

“That’s a horrible plan.” You say plainly, making Max snort and Eddie pause the conversation. The metalhead rolls his eyes –no annoyance, no malice in sight. Steve supposes Eddie knows you like Robin does.

“Why is that, buttercup?” Eddie asks.

“They’ll know it was you, and they’ll beat you up, Munson.” You tell him seriously with an eye roll of your own –Steve doesn’t need to know you to catch the concern in your tone. “Put some laxatives in their protein powders instead.”

Steve lets out a bark of laughter that startles the table; that would be a good prank if he’s being honest. Everyone turns to look at him, including you and Steve clears his throat. “It’s a good idea.” He mumbles rubbing his chin, then meets your eyes briefly to find something like amusement in them.

“No, no, no.” Dustin shakes his head. “It is an objectively good plan, there’s no way they’ll know it’s us.”

“Yeah, we’ll wait for them to leave and then sneak into the locker room.” Eddie adds. “We’ll seal their lockers shut, they can’t change into their gear the next day and their coach yells their ears off.”

“The perfect plan.” Dustin says proudly and looks around the take to see who agrees.

“You sure they won’t be able to trace the prank back to you? See it as immediate revenge for what they did?” Max asks nodding towards you, “She’s right.”

“We’re absolutely sure.” Eddie confirms with a nod, clapping his hands in front of him.

“Can I read the eulogy at your funeral then?” You ask Eddie and Dustin with fake enthusiasm. “I call dibs.”

Steve chuckles and next to him, Robin fakes discontent as she rolls her eyes. “Damn, I wanted to do it.”

You send a smile her way before you clear your throat. “Eddie and Dustin died as they lived.” Your words are solemn as you speak. “With bad plans and too much confidence that they’ll work.”

“They always work.” Eddie says, chuckling at your words with everyone else. You simply raise one eyebrow at him, which Steve must admit is hot, and Eddie shakes his head. “I guess they sort of work.”

“So, laxatives?” Dustin asks Eddie after a minute, a defeated hunch to his shoulders.

“Laxatives.” Eddie and the rest of Hellfire repeats before the table bursts into laughter– including Steve.

His eyes don’t leave you though. You’re not laughing like everyone else but there’s a small smile on your face. It is reserved but softens your face in the loveliest way. It shows him you are enjoying their company despite the otherwise inexpressive look on your face. Steve begins to wonder then… if he wins your trust, the one you have with Robin and Max, will you smile at him the same way you do with them? Bright and beautiful enough to blind him? He guesses it would be worth a shot, getting to know you more, because if he’s being honest, he’s intrigued.

--------

The next time Steve sees you it’s at a party. It’s mid-October and the cold weather turns it up a notch with the cold bite to the air. He wouldn’t have gone to the party in the first place, if he’s being honest, but Robin forced him to go. Everyone will be there she’d said but Steve didn’t know who everyone would be. Only when he arrived at Kevin Rotner’s house did he begin to recognize some familiar faces. Nancy, Johnathan, and Eddie arrive at the same time he does and the five of them walk up the driveway and the small path leading to the front porch. There’s loud chatter inside and a boombox playing to the loudest volume in the dinning room. There are people sitting in the staircase laughing at a joke and more loud conversation coming from the backyard. He navigates the house with his friends until Robin spots you in the kitchen, and Steve doesn’t know why he’s so nervous when he sees you. You greet Robin with a hug and shrug when she tells you something, he can hear. Your face is pretty and serious as you look over Robin’s shoulder, spotting everyone else coming to say hi. Steve sees you take a deep breath before you greet everyone — almost as if you’re preparing yourself for small talk and hugs. He greets you last, more open and approachable than last time, and he’s surprised when you wave. “Hi, Steve.”

Something inside Steve jumps, but he thinks it’s only his own surprise. He’s about to say something, when Robin and Nancy take your hand and drag you away with the promise of some new gossip, they have to tell you.

Steve talks to a few people here and there; mostly the ones he’s kept in touch with after high school. Other than that, he doesn’t know anyone else; he doesn’t know if it’s cause he’s grown up but he’s not really having fun. There are people jumping into the pool despite the weather while those who mind the cold have gathered inside the house. Steve’s mostly avoiding the crowds, where the air is too hot despite winter being near, while keeping an eye out for his friends. Nancy and Jonathan are talking to some people he doesn’t know in the kitchen, Robin is trying not to combust while she talks to her crush —her lab partner in biology— and Eddie is walking around the entire party with his lunchbox.

When Steve sees you again, you are people watching in the living room, eyes trained on a few people in the middle of the room. He moves to stand next to you, and you shift your gaze towards him but say nothing; Steve thinks it means it’s okay if you stand here. Your foot taps to the music –Tears for Fears’ Head Over Heels –and your head moves almost imperceptibly to the music. The two of you are quiet for a while, and it’s not awkward like Steve expected it to be, not after the way he messed up at the fair. He’s pleasantly surprised, and relaxes a bit more next to you, slouching slightly against the wall. One of your arms is crossed over your chest while your other elbow rests on it, a red cup in your hand. The music continues to play and your eyes are still trained on the people talking in the living room, they’re some old Hawkins High students Steve kind of recognizes. There’s Angela and Karen, Bradley and Peter and some other people he doesn’t know the names of. Steve leans his weigh on his right leg, which brings him closer to you.

You don’t move away, simply pass him your red cup. Steve moves to shake his head no and say he’s driving, but you speak up before he does. “It’s only soda.” You say and nod at the cup that Steve takes the cup from you shortly after.

“What’re you watching?” Steve asks.

“The only interesting thing that’s going to happen in this party I think.” You look at him finally and lean closer, Steve isn’t sure you’re aware of it. “I think there’s going to be a fight.”

Your eyes hold amusement in them, like you’re excited for what’s about to happen. The tiniest movement of your mouth has Steve glancing down, you’re grinning, barely; he thinks it’s cute.

Steve’s eyebrows raise, interest spiked, and is about to say something when you turn your head again. Bradley is saying something to Angela, his voice loud and slurred but incomprehensible over the music, and not a second later an equally intoxicated Peter swings a punch at him. Another girl, who Steve doesn’t know, confronts Angela they start arguing with Karen joining the fight. Bradley and Peter fall to the ground, wrestling each other while others try to break the fight.

“Wait isn’t she?” Steve’s mind catches up the everything that happened puts two and two together. He’s pretty Angela is dating Bradley, not Peter.

“Yup.” You say with a shrug, tilting your head. “It was all a matter of time before it happened.” It’s all you say, then chuckle. Steve does too, he can’t help himself at the sound of your own laughter, until the two of you are giggling at the fight in front of you.

The music changes then, to something more upbeat, and Steve’s mind can only think about asking you to dance. Would you say yes? Probably not. Before he can ask you though, you step away from the wall. More people have gathered in the living room to watch the fight, and you decide to make your way to the front door. Do crowds bother you? Steve wonders.

“Wait.” Steve goes after you and closes the door behind him. “Where are you going?”

“Home.” Your back is turned to him. The cream-coloured sweater you wear over your lilac skirt and your black boots look lovely on you, and so does your hair. Steve doesn’t know why but he thinks it frames your face perfectly. There’s also a hint of remaining lip-gloss on your lips that shines with the streetlamp’s light… and Steve, well Steve thinks You’re so pretty.

“It’s cold, don’t tell me you’re going to walk.” Steve speaks again, shaking away his previous thoughts.

You shrug, “I usually do, it’s not too far.”

Steve doesn’t know where you live but he knows Rotner lives far away from almost everyone in Hawkins. Your house is probably far away. “I’ll drive you.”  Steve offers, but you sigh and look away.

“Go back to the party Steve, you can drive Robin home.” You say simply. “I’ll see you around.”

“No, she can go with Nancy.” He follows you until he’s walking next to you. “It’s not safe for you to walk home, come on.”

You sigh again and look up at the sky, annoyed. If you’re annoyed, then he’s too, because you’re making a dumb decision for the sake of being stubborn. And you probably don’t know that he’s stubborn too, so you might have to argue all night about whether this decision is right or not. Why is it so hard for you to accept a ride home? You offered him soda and were talking to him just now; it was nice. More than nice.

“I won't stop asking.” Steve says, crossing his arms and stepping in front of you.

Your eyes meet his in an intense half-glare, and Steve can’t help but think how nice your eyeliner looks on you. It does something to him he hasn’t felt in a while. He feels like he can’t breathe while heat creeps up the back of his neck —it’s October, he shouldn’t feel hot at all. A moment later you roll your eyes, though backing down first, and giving Steve some time to breathe as you turn around.

“Alright.”

Steve can’t help smiling in triumph, knowing he just won, and follows you as you walk towards his car further down the road. Amusement paints his eyes as he looks at you; your lips are pursed, and a huff escapes you.

 “You’re pouting” Steve says, looking at your lips and the annoyed look on your face. It makes him smile. You’re pouting.

“I’m not” You look sideways at him.  

“Oh, you are.”

“Shut up, Harrington.” You say and he laughs, opening the passenger’s door for you.

-------

From then on Steve does his best to increase his charm and be a gentleman. He offers you his help as well as rides home whenever he can, especially when you’re alone. The last thing he wants is for you to think that he’s only being nice when your common friends are around. Steve sees you more often now, not as much as he’d like, he must admit, but enough to know more about you. What you’re okay with sharing, more like.  

As he suspected from the party, you don’t like crowds (they make you nervous), and when Steve asked why you’d changed the topic. You work at the Deli on Main Street, have a younger brother named Chris, and you love coffee. He always sees you drinking one in the morning when he gives both you and Robin a ride to school, and whenever he stops by at the deli for lunch during your shift. Most important of all, Steve is starting to see what Robin meant when she said not to judge a book based on its cover. Because, despite your grumpy exterior, there’s a whole personality hidden underneath.

Steve can tell. There are hints and pieces; from the way you dress, to the music you like, and comic books you read and often exchange with Max. When he takes the time to look, he sees the gentleness with which you do things, and the care with which you treat your friends. He also sees your distrust for what it is: fear. You’re afraid, to let new people in, to get hurt, and Steve doesn’t know why.  

He wishes there was something he could do to fix it, to make you see the glass half full instead of half empty, or to change your sporadic pessimism.  But then he figures, he would be changing you, and that’s not something he wants. If he’s being honest, your friend group (Steve isn’t sure if he’s your friend, officially at least) needed someone with an objective outlook on life to set their heads straight. And if he’s honest with himself, he likes all the things that make you you. He likes your confidence when you don’t care what people think about you. He likes it when you fight with Robin over who chooses the music, despite it being his car. And he's pretty much obsessed with your face; the hard set of your jaw when you get impatient, the brow you silently arch that makes him feel things he shouldn’t, and the silent way you listen to conversation, only speaking up when you think it’s necessary. Steve is more than a bit obsessed.

He had been wrong that first day. He didn’t know you and wrongly assumed you weren’t happy to be there with them, when you actually were. He reflects upon it now that he knows your facial expressions; your eyebrows had been relaxed, and your eyes didn’t have a hard edge to them. You had been at ease, only closing yourself off when Steve tried to dig into your move to Hawkins. He really started off with the wrong foot, but it all takes a turn on a Friday night.

You visit FV for a tape mid-afternoon, surprising Steve at work. The weather is more than chilly outside, and Steve notices right away how you have no jacket on, only a dark red sweater. He’d been doing some paperwork behind the counter when the bell over the door for his attention. It rewarded him with the sight of you walking in, looking around before your eyes settle on him.

“Hey, Steve.” You say voice light as you approach him and lean your elbows on the counter. “Do you have karate kid available? My brother is begging us to watch it again tomorrow.”

Steve doesn’t know why but he struggles to speak for a moment —it probably has to do with the fact that you look very pretty, and two, this interaction is so different from your first one he shortcircuits. After a long pause you raise a questioning eyebrow, “You okay?”

Steve clears his throat. “Yeah. Um, we have it, let me go get it.”

“Thank you.” You nod as he dashes away from the counter.

“Did you walk here?” Steve asks once he’s cleared his head and reaches the action movie aisle. He sees you shrug over the stands.

“I usually do, I don’t mind it.” You explain simply.

“You’re not wearing a jacket though.” Steve grabs Karate Kid and goes back to the counter. Why are you always out in the cold without a jacket? It’s a miracle you haven’t fallen sick, he thinks.

“I left school in a rush, I was gonna be late for work.” You shrug again, eyes visibly lighting up when you spot the movie. “Thank God. Chris would have been insufferable if someone beat me to it.”

Steve crouches down behind the counter and retrieves his own jacket —a grey bomber— before placing it on the counter in front of you. “Here.”

“Steve,” You tell him seriously, rolling your eyes. “I’m not taking your jacket.”

“Why not? You’re the one walking out in the cold, I only have to walk towards my car.” He dismisses your refusal with a wave of his hand.

“Hey!” Robin says, calling your name as she emerges from the back room. “Perfect timing, I was going to call you.”

“Here to rent karate kid.” You tell her, a small smile on your face.

“And choosing hypothermia over my jacket.”  Steve chimes in, sliding his jacket pointedly towards you.

“It’s not that cold Steve.” You roll your eyes at him again, “But I know you’ll annoy me until I say yes.”

Steve gives you a triumphant smile and you shake your head, Steve would even say it’s shyly, before you take the jacket and shrug it on. “The movie? Please.”

Robin speaks up while Steve rings you up. “We’re gonna hang out at Nancy’s tonight. The kids will be there too, you should come.”

Steve risks a glance at you, in his jacket; a huge mistake. He seriously underestimated his reaction to seeing you in his clothes, because it is downright adorable and something he was unprepared for. The sleeves go past your hands and the whole thing is oversized on you, his shoulders being broader than yours and his torso longer. Steve bites back a smile —he hopes you never give it back to him; this is a sight he’d love to see more often.  He turns back to the computer to hide his grin from you and silently hopes you’ll say yes.

��Will there be other people?” You ask Robin, and Steve is quick to shake his head no and reassure you. Too quick.

“Just the usual gang.” Steve tells you, clearing his throat to hide his eagerness. “No one else.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Robin insists with a smile, then moves her gaze towards Steve, who tries to ignore the way she raises a knowing eyebrow at him. He’s gonna have an earful once you leave, he can bet on it.  

“Okay, I’ll be there.” You nod, then exchange some cash for the movie Steve hands to you. “Thank you, Steve.”

Steve leans his forearms on the counter, trying to give you his most charming smile to see if he’ll get one of those you give Robin in return. “We’ll pick you up after work.” Steve says and you look into his eyes for a long second before nodding.

“Sure.” You shrug, eyes shifting away from his. “I’ll see you guys later.”

------

At Nancy’s, chaos ensues. The kids argue over what board-game to play while Eddie and Robin argue over what record to play next. Steve is listening to Nancy and Jonathan talk about a volunteering drive she’s organizing and from where he stands, he can see you leaning against the wall next to Robin. Your face is neutral as you listen to the record that’s currently playing, tuning out Eddie’s argument for the most part until you speak up.

“Or you can let me choose?” You ask calmly, glancing at them briefly before going back to looking down at your feet.

“No!” Both Eddie and Robin say at the same time, and Steve notices the corner of your mouth twitch upwards.

“You chose this one, buttercup.” Eddie says with a sigh. “You’re only gonna choose one to annoy us.”

This earns Eddie an eye roll. “How exactly do you know that?” You ask. “It could’ve been a great pick, now you’ll never know Munson.”

Steve tries to tune back into Nancy’s explanation when Max pushes the board game she wanted to play away with a huff. It clatters to the ground as she stands from her place in front of the coffee table. You spot her and call her name only a moment later.  

“Hey Max, I got the new Wonder Woman!” You say after a moment when the read-head stops glaring daggers at the boys. 

Her eyes light up, a dramatic change from the look in her eyes moments ago. “Really? Can I see it?”

“‘Course, I brought it for you.” You roll your eyes, this time full of fondness, and nod towards the kitchen. “It’s in my bag.”

 Steve can’t follow your conversation because the doorbell rings, signalling the pizza Nancy ordered arrived. The weather feels much colder than earlier as he opens the door and steps outside, he pays for the pizza, tips the delivery guy and goes back inside. Arms full of pizza boxes, he walks back to the dining table, shooting a pointed look at Dustin and Mike. “Zip it or you don’t get a single slice.”

The high schoolers move more discarded boardgames away from the table in a heartbeat, scrambling to undo their mess and opening the pizza boxes in a hurry. Steve spots you still standing in the kitchen talking to Max as everyone helps themselves to pizza and decides to let you both know the food is ready.

“So, you skate too?” Max is asking you excitedly, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter.

You chuckle — it hits Steve in the chest and Steve doesn’t know what to do with that. “I do,” You grin, “I mean I used to when I lived in Indianapolis, but I haven’t since I moved here.”

“We can go to the skate-park tomorrow.” Max proposes raising her eyebrows, “If you want.”

You nod, “Sure. I’ll look for my skateboard tonight, let’s hope I still remember how to use it.”

“Pizza’s here.” Steve says, interrupting and smiling at you both. When your eyes meet his, your lips move to smile but in a matter of seconds you stop yourself.

It makes Steve furrow his brows and walk over to you as Max leaves to grab a slice. “You okay?” Steve asks, and your eyes meet his again briefly before they dart away as you sidestep him.

You make your way to the front door in a rush, this time though you do grab your jacket—his jacket— on the way. Just like he did the night of the party, Steve follows you, worried and confused at your reaction. Robin glances at him from the dining table, an unspoken question in her eyes but Steve can only shrug. He is certain he didn’t do anything wrong just now, but somehow, he messed up because you just fled from him.

“Stop.” Steve says after calling your name. “What happened?”

“Nothing, I just need some air. You should go back inside Steve.” Your back is to him, shoulders tense and close to your ears defensively.

“No,” He shakes his head. His lips go down into a frown briefly as he looks at your back. He voices the question he always asks himself when you shut him down. “Did I do something?”

“No.” You say when you turn, eyebrows meeting in the middle as you glare at him but Steve sees the way you struggle to hold it in place. After a second it falls, and your face just crumples to exhausted look. “I want to be alone.” You whisper.

 “You think a glare and a pout are intimidating enough to drive me away?” Steve shakes his head.

“I don’t pout.” You say, lips pursed and jaw tense. Pouting.

“You do and it’s not working.”  

You change tactics then, raising an eyebrow and staring him down like the night at the party but Steve shakes his head. “That’s not working either.”

“Why are you insisting so much on this!” You finally ask, raising your voice and crossing your arms in front of you. Your jaw clenches as you look away and Steve sees your eyes squeeze shut.

He runs a hand down his face and breathes out. “Whether you like it or not there are people who want to get to know you.”

“What, like you?” Your eyes cut a suspicious look Steve’s way and he can see your walls come back up right in front of him. A tear falls down your cheek and you’re quick to wipe it away, harshly. “Why?”

Steve throws his hands up in the air, exasperated but not raising his voice, “To be your friend! Just like Robin and Eddie are your friends.” His shoulders move up and down, trying to cover up how much he likes you and looks forward to your company. “Why are you so distrustful, is it something I did?”

“It’s not about you, Steve.” Your eyebrows meet in the middle again, and you look away from him, directing your gaze to the snow-covered lawn. “If… If it bothers you so much, why do you even want to be my friend? Because you’re wrong Steve. No one else does, and I’m more than fine with that.”

Steve shakes his head, knowing you’re lying to him and trying to convince yourself. His voice softens. “Because despite it, I like you, I think you’re… cool.”

“Cool?” The way you raise your eyebrows makes Steve chuckle.

Funny, caring, fucking beautiful, Steve wants to say but he just nods his head at your question.

“Yeah, and you’re interesting, and I… want to be your friend.” Steve’s hands settle on his hips as he shifts his weigh to one leg, looking down to the ground. Glancing at you briefly, he drops his voice to whisper your name. “Don’t leave. I’m not lying… that’s what worries you right?”

Steve assumes that’s where your distrust comes from; you told him it wasn’t something he did, then it must be that you’re scared to trust him. He’s known there are many feelings behind your hard exterior, one of them being fear. Steve doesn’t want you to fear him, and he wonders who broke your trust in the past. Silence settles between the two of you; you seem to be going over his words and Steve is giving you the time to do so. He’d wait an hour if necessary and reassure you a thousand times if it would mean you believe him. Steve panics when he sees you swallow hard and shift your eyes at the sky, the last thing he wanted to do was make you cry.

But you don’t cry. Instead, you take a deep breath and look into his eyes. There’s a vulnerability there that awakens an urge in Steve to hug you. “You promise?” Your voice is a whisper, but he hears you clear as day. You’ve never spoken so softly before, and Steve wishes it could have happened under other circumstances.

Steve looks into your eyes and nods with sincerity, hoping you can see he’s being completely honest with you. “Yes.”

“I do like you, Steve. You just scare me.” You look down at the ground for a moment and nod to yourself as Steve’s eyebrows shoot hop in surprise. A moment later, your eyes drift back to Steve and there are emotions dancing around in them he’s never seen before. “I’m sorry.”

Steve nods and something inside him tightens when you offer a small smile. It’s like something shifts between the two of you despite neither of you moving. In a matter of seconds, everything feels easy, natural, like the brief moment your shared at the party in October. Steve realizes it’s because you’ve let your guard down; you stand differently in front of him, more comfortable, less apprehensive. You scare me. “You wanna tell me why?”

You press your lips together and shake your head. “Another time, maybe?”

Steve tries to hold back a smile, but he can’t, it takes over his entire face. When he sees you shiver, he offers his hand. “Let’s go back inside, or I can drive you home if you want to leave.”

“I can stay a bit longer.” You say when you grab his hand –an electric shock goes up his arm. “I really want some pizza. But if they play Monopoly I’m definitely leaving.”

Steve’s laughter follows you as he leads the two of you back to the house.

--

The coffee cup Steve places in front of you at work the next Monday lands with a soft thud on the counter. It’s black coffee with some milk and sugar; the way Steve’s learned you take it every day. The sound and his presence make you look up at him over the top of your book, a doubtful eyebrow raised and a serious look on your face. Fuck your pretty, Steve thinks. Your eyes shift from the coffee to his face a couple of times before you close your book.

“What’s this?” You ask, leaning back on your seat and tilting your head.

Steve leans his elbows on the counter in front of you and tilts his head right back. “Considering you drink around 5 of these a day, one would think you’ll know what it is.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re mistaken. I actually drink 10.” You deadpan, looking at him with fake disappointment. “I thought you knew me, now that we’re friends and all.”

Steve laughs, looks down and shakes his head. When he looks at you again, there’s a half smile on your face. “Come on.” He says. “Let’s go grab some food.”

“I literally work at a deli, Steve.” You tell Steve seriously, motioning to your surroundings. “We’re surrounded by food.”

Steve copies what you just said with a roll of his eyes and smiles again. “I mean something else, babe. Come on.”

With a sigh you stand up from your seat and round the counter, leaving your apron behind. “You’re lucky I get a break in a couple of minutes.” You tell Steve before yelling over your shoulder. “Hank I’ll be back!”

Steve’s eyes light up and he considers his visit a triumph. He’s becoming surer and surer his feelings for you go beyond friendship and fondness and lean more towards: I want to hold your hand all the time, and cuddle you while we watch movies then forget about the movie and get lost on you. He wants to put his arm around your shoulder freely, have you lean your weigh against him and steal a kiss, probably more than one. No. It won’t ever happen so Steve shouldn’t even be thinking about it. He opens the passenger’s door to his car for you and smiles when you get in, your coffee in your hand.

It becomes a routine of sorts, either you visit him at Family Video bringing sandwiches for him and Robin or he picks you up, a coffee waiting for you in his car and drives you wherever feels right that day to eat your lunch. You talk about your day, or whatever gossip you heard that day. One day you even confessed to be scared about graduation.

“Everyone is so excited to finish school, and here I am so terrified about the future I haven’t opened any of my college application letters.” You muttered, picking at a loose thread on your sweater.

“Why are you scared?” Steve asked you and you swallow hard.

You turned your body on your seat, facing him as you shrugged. “I feel lost, I don’t know what I should major in. I also don’t know where I’d like to go, and I can't even research these colleges without panic settling on my chest.” Your eyebrows furrowed and your jaw got tense and Steve knew that meant you felt angry and this time it was at yourself.

Steve took your hand without a second thought, but you let him. “You know, you don’t have to figure it all out right now.”

“It feels like it.” You whispered looking at him, frustration and embarrassment shining in your eyes.  “Everyone else has it figured out.”

Steve shook his head; you shouldn’t feel embarrassed with him. “If there’s something I’ve learned about you, is that you don’t care about what other people are doing. What do you want?”

“I ask myself that question every day.” You mirrored his head shake and looked away. “Let’s talk about something else. Please?”

Steve was happy to change the subject, anything to cheer you up. By the time you go back to the Deli to continue your shift, he realized it was the first personal thing you’ve told him. Ever. It made him happier than he cared to admit.

-----

Two months after your talk in Nancy’s driveway, you invite Robin, Nancy, Eddie, Jonathan and Steve to your house. It’s the first time you’ve let anyone other than Robin into your home, this time for movie night. Your father and brother went back to Indianapolis to pick up other stuff from your old house, you said, it’s perfect timing. Steve and Robin arrive together, and shortly afterwards Eddie’s knocking on the door.

 Your house is cozy and simply decorated with a forest green comfy looking couch, a dark brown coffee table and a TV in the living room and all the basic stuff in both the dining room and kitchen.  There’s a record playing somewhere, and Steve can’t help the smile that comes to his face when he sees the way you’re mouthing the words as you move back and for the between the kitchen and living room bringing snacks, drinks and pizza for everyone. You’re wearing a cream-coloured sweater he recognizes from the party back in October and something funny happens in his stomach when he realizes just how far your friendship’s evolved since then.

“Babe come on take a break, we can help.” Steve stops you from going back to the kitchen with a hand on your shoulder and a fond look on his face.

You open your mouth to say something when Eddie and Robin appear on either side of you, presenting the movies they –surprisingly– were in charge to pick. “The best horror movies.” They say in unison.

Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise as you take the three VHS tapes from them. “Oh. Um, great! Thank you.” Your reaction hides behind the grin you shoot both, who nod and disappear to the kitchen.

“You’re pouting.” Steve says stepping closer to you again in the living room; your eyes that were fixed on the VHS tapes drift upwards to meet his own. Steve smiles.

“I’m not pouting.” You tell him with a roll of your eyes, lips settling back into a pout as you scan the titles of the movies once more. “These are just scary.”

“You’re still pouting.” Steve whispers, like it’s a secret. His eyes drift down to your lips, a mistake that has him swallowing hard, before the doorbell rings, signalling Johnathan and Nancy arrived. He’s quick to turn and go let them in. It’s a perfectly timed distraction. He shouldn’t think about kissing you, because despite no matter how badly he wants to, you’d never let it happen, or feel the same way he does to let it happen.  “Just saying!”

Once the first movie plays, Eddie and Robin settle on one end of the couch, while Nancy and Johnathan sit on the floor in front of them. Steve shoots Robin a I know what you’re doing look before sitting next to her and feeling the couch dip under your weigh when you settle on the empty seat next to him. A sweet floral scent he now recognizes as your shampoo or your perfume reaches him and Steve actively decides to focus on the movie, not the way he wants to pull you over his lap and breathe you in. Eddie and Robin laugh every now and then and the four of you turn to look at them, there’s nothing funny about the movie. You begin covering your face with the bucket of popcorn as the movie progresses, your face grimacing as the suspenseful music picks up.

Steve leans closer to you, his voice a whisper as he speaks. “It’s just special effects don’t worry about it.” You turn to look at him, worried puppy dog eyes gazing into him and dammit you make it so hard to keep his distance. “Trust me.” Steve winks, lightening the mood only to jump and scream when he turns to the movie once more and a jump scare comes on.

It seems like the perfect medicine for your fear. For you forget about it and lean your head back laughing, a full-on belly laugh, that’s so contagious and beautiful Steve laughs with you. Nancy and Robin share a knowing look he doesn’t notice before they shush the two of you, shoving at his elbow and your knee. You cover your mouth with your hand and your shoulders shake as you lean your head on Steve’s shoulder, turning your body towards his; Steve’s never been so happy to be scared in his life.

Everyone leaves after 3 movies. Robin gets a ride with Eddie, and Nancy leaves with Jonathan as well. Steve though, stays behind insisting on helping you clean up, but it’s a weak excuse to check on you before he leaves. He noticed you getting nervous, fidgeting with your hands anxiously when everyone started to leave. The films were long done, so Steve knows something else is worrying you and it doesn’t sit well in his heart to leave you like this. Which is why he is currently picking up trash in the living room while you do the same in the kitchen.

You’re finishing placing the dirty dishes in the sink when Steve enters the room. He noticed right away the way your shoulders hunch and you take a deep breath. “Steve…”

“You okay?” Steve closes the trash bag and moves to the sink. His eyes roam your face as he looks sideways at you and washes his hands.

“I um… I wanted to apologize to you.” You tell him quietly, passing him a kitchen towel before moving away from the sink. “For how closed-off I was when you met me.”

After drying his hands quickly, Steve turns and leans on the edge of the sink. “It’s okay, it’s not easy to trust new people right away.” He reassures you –it’s something he understands now; he understands you.

You sit on the counter opposite to him and stare at the floor for a bit, polka dot sock clad feet dangling in the air. “It’s more than that. I’m just scared of getting close to people since…”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Steve shakes his head, keeping his eyes on your face.

“I trust you, Steve.”

Those four words make Steve’s chest flutter –relief, happiness, nerves– but he pushes the feeling to the back of his mind and patiently waits for you to continue. Your lips are pursed as you stare at the floor, gathering your thoughts.

“My mom…” You swallow, getting chocked up with those to words but soldiering on. With a shake of your head, you look up to the ceiling and will your tears away. “My mom left my dad, brother and I last April. She’d been cheating on dad for years… and that’s not even the worst part.”

You wipe your eyes quickly, lips pulled downwards into a deep frown when you pause again –an upside-down U Steve wishes he could smooth out with his thumb. But he stays where he stands and lets you continue.

“The other man was married too” Your eyes find Steve’s and where there’s usually a spark –like that night at the party– there’s only sadness directed at the memory. “He’s the father of a popular kid at my old high school, so you can guess what happened when everyone found out.”

Steve’s mouths opens again and this time a soft no escapes him.

You press your lips together and nod, “So not only did the news wreck our home… they made life at school unbearable for my brother and I. People who I thought were my friends just threw me away as if I was trash for something I didn’t do. Something I had no fault in.”

“Is that why you moved here?” Steve asks softly, walking closer to you. The answer to the question he asked many months ago, right in front of him and it doesn’t make him feel any satisfaction. No, it hurts him to know this. Moving away from everything you’ve known and starting over again during senior year sounds brutal.

“Yes.” You whisper and close your eyes briefly; more tears fall down your cheeks and Steve’s heart aches. Teary eyes move away from his and fix themselves on the kitchen window instead, your lips are pressed so hard against each other they’re losing colour. “She packed her bags right after school the day we found out. We saw her leave with that man, no other explanation, not even a goodbye or a note. Everyone except my dad and my brother decided to leave me that day.”

A sob escapes you then, finally breaking free and shaking your whole body; another one replaces it once it stops. Your hands move from the counter to your face, covering it as cries continue to escape you in succession. Steve wastes no time and walks to stand in front of you; he hates seeing you in so much pain. God, it must have hurt so much, just being left behind like that. His hands move to your hips and gently urge you to hop off the counter before he wraps you up in his arms. His shoulders shake with the force of your sobs as you cling to him.

“Stevie.” Your hands are bunched up in the back of his polo, holding onto him like a lifeline.

Steve can’t even relish the sound of your calling him Stevie so softly. He swallows hard as he witnesses the pain, you have felt inside of you for so long. “I’m so sorry.” He whispers.

“She left us, Steve. She just disappeared and left us grieving her despite her being alive.” You say between your tears, they soak the right side of his shirt, but Steve couldn’t care less, his arms just tighten around your waist. “She’d been pushing us away for years, treating us like garbage and now I can see it’s because we weren’t good enough for her anymore. She didn’t love any of us anymore. We… we didn’t make her happy.”

Your voice sounds hoarse from crying, and your hands tighten behind Steve’s back. When you bury your face in his chest, Steve hunches his shoulders and forms a cocoon to protect you from the past. His protective nature takes over as he holds you flush against him; his hand moves up and down your back firmly –you need to know he’s there, that he’s got you. Steve puts his cheek over your head and whispers his next words. “I’ve got you; you can cry as much as you need to, I’m not going anywhere.”

It takes a few minutes, but your sobs soon transform into soft sniffles even as you press yourself closer to him. Steve doesn’t want to upset you anymore, but he’s itching to comfort you and let you know what he wishes someone had told him years ago. “I know my own shit experience with my parents isn’t the same as what you went through.” He starts, taking a small step back so he can look at you.

His fingers take a gentle hold of your face until puffy and teary eyes meet his; Steve wipes away some stray tears. “But what your mom did to you doesn’t say anything about you alright? You’re more than good enough for anyone. If she didn’t see that, then she made the worst mistake of her life.”

You close your eyes at his words and look away, but Steve shakes his head and urges you to face him again with a whisper of your name. “You don’t have to prove your worth to anyone because your mother left. All of us see it, and we’re so lucky to have you here.”

Steve’s thumb catches more tears as your lips begins to tremble again. “I’m so fucking lucky that you trust me, and I understand why you didn’t at first, okay? I understand you.”

Your hands on his waist tighten again as your forehead drops to his right shoulder. “I didn’t used to be like this… I’m sorry that this is the me that you met.”

Steve shakes his head, sure that you feel it when he does, and pulls you flush to his chest again. Is this how you’ve felt since last summer? He wonders. Like this version of yourself is wrong or unlikable.

Sure, you’re not a smiley person, but that makes your rare smiles even more special –and they drive Steve crazy. You see the glass half-empty most times to protect yourself if things do indeed go to shit, but you also recognize genuine goodness. You don’t hesitate to encourage or celebrate everyone else’s happiness; he’s seen it firsthand, with the kids, with Robin and even himself. Steve doesn’t think he could ever get tired of your dark humour or that pretty pout that settles on your lips when you get annoyed, not to mention that making you laugh is his favorite thing in the world. Steve understands your anxiety and panic at your college decision, you don’t want another change; you don’t want to choose something you don’t like and face another disappointment again. Most of all, Steve finally understands your hesitance and the root of your gruff exterior, and he wouldn’t change a thing about it. He’s stupid in love with you; your grumpy and soft looks; your frowns and your smiles; your heart; and that tender way you’re holding onto him right now.

Steve places a kiss to the side of your head to keep himself from saying all of this out loud –it’s not the right time, not yet. Instead, he whispers above your ear, “I wouldn’t change a single thing about you.”

For a moment, stillness surrounds the two of you in the kitchen and there’s no other sound but your quiet sniffles against Steve’s shirt again. Steve doesn’t mind, he’s happy to hold you for as long as you need, which ends up being five more minutes. You take a step back and look at him with those pretty eyes of yours; they’re teary and red-rimmed but lovely all the same.

“Thank you, Steve.” You whisper, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips until your gaze drops to his shirt and embarrassment shines in your eyes. “Sorry I cried all over you.”

“I don’t mind.” Steve shrugs and looks at you softly, hands still on your waist. “I think I know what we should do.”

You look at him curiously. “About what?”

“To cheer you up.”

The head shake you give him is immediate, just as he imagined. “I don’t–”

“You deserve a happy life.” Steve states as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world and sends a wink your way hoping to amuse you. “And I think, ice cream is a good way to start. I should know, I worked at an ice cream shop remember.”

He leaves your side and walks over to the freezer to grab the ice cream he saw earlier that night when he got up mid-movie to get more ice. It’s cookie dough ice cream, which he knows to be your favourite –he’s known since that first night he met you. Knowing he’s completely serious now, your eyes stare into his eyes for a moment before you turn and grab two spoons from a kitchen drawer.

“I guess we’re having ice cream then. Considering you’re an expert.” You say with an eye roll Steve can only describe as fond when you approach him again. A moment later, you sit on the counter and Steve follows suit, sitting next to you. “Spoon?”

“Thank you.” Steve says and takes it from you after opening the ice cream tub. He offers the tub to you first, letting you scoop some ice cream with your spoon which you pop in your mouth. Your arms brush from how close you’re sitting, and Steve has to lean forward to look at you, but he doesn’t mind. He’s happy with the proximity.

A sigh escapes you and you close your eyes as you savour the ice cream. Steve feels heat creep up the back of his neck at the sound, but he shakes the feeling off; you’re only eating ice cream, to make you feel better. “You were right Harrington, this is like medicine.”

“Told you, I’m an expert.” Steve chuckles and eats his own spoonful, the creamy ice cream melting in his tongue before he laughs as you search for the cookie dough in the tub. “This is going to be just plain vanilla ice cream if you keep doing that.”

“Finders keepers.” You tell him with a shrug as you bring the cookie dough to your mouth. “It’s arguably the best part of this ice cream.”

“You’re supposed to eat the ice cream with it!” Steve argues, holding the tub away from your reach. “I want cookie dough too you know.”

You roll your eyes at him, but there’s a soft look on your face as you look at him and nod. The two of you go back to eating ice cream in silence until Steve speaks up again. There are so many things he wants to know about you still –he thinks he’ll always want to know more. “What’s something you miss from living in Indianapolis?”

You pause mid-scoop and concentrate for a few moments going over his question. A moment later a tiny smile makes its way to your lips. “There used to be a wonderful campsite my dad used to take my brother and I; we’d camp for three days and do all sort of activities.”

Steve smiles. “Like what?”

“Dad and Chris love fishing, so we’d do that. There was also hiking, swimming, s’mores. Oh! We’d all tell each other stories sitting next to the fire. They were all completely made up of course, and I think the more ridiculous they were, the more fun we had.”

Your eyes wander around the kitchen, like you’re back in the forest with your family and not next to Steve anymore. Light dances in your eyes and Steve can almost picture the three of you laughing around the fire as the catch of the day roasts on a grill nearby. He knows better than to ask about your mother, he’s got a pretty good idea what the answer would be. Besides, you’ve cried enough already, so much that Steve’s own heart feels bruised from seeing you in pain.

“You haven’t camped here in Hawkins?” Steve asks after a minute, voice quiet to avoid disturbing your memory.

You shake your head and sigh, the mirage in front of you disappearing as your eyes drift back to Steve’s. “Dad’s not the same person he was during those camping trips… he hasn’t scouted a good place for us to go. I don’t think he even wants to go camping anymore.”

Steve puts the ice cream tub on the counter and takes your hand instead. “Maybe we could go camping someday, invite everyone, have fun…”

Your head moves to rest on his shoulder, the dizzying smell of your shampoo and perfume reaching Steve’s nose at the proximity. He leans his cheek on top of your head and feels the faint nod you give him. “Maybe.”

A comfortable silence settles between the two of you, your hand still in Steve’s grasp. Until he gives it a squeeze that makes you jump, as if you forgot you were holding hands in the first place. Steve chuckles. “What?”

Your head leaves his shoulder in an instant and for a second Steve is sure you’re going to hide behind your walls again, like you did so many months ago. His fear though, is replaced with concern when you hop off the counter and check the time with a frown.

“Babe come on, what’s going on?” He hops off the counter and stands in front of you. His eyes search yours until finally your gaze meets his, your embarrassment clear in them.

“I just hate being home alone at night. It makes me anxious.” Your hands fidget in front of you, as if you’re waiting for Steve to laugh at you. Oh, so that’s why you were nervous earlier. “I can’t sleep. At all.”

He looks down at his watch and sees that it’s midnight already. “I don’t mind staying over.” Bringing his eyes back to yours, he speaks up again. “Would that make you feel better?”

You close your eyes and let out a shaky exhale before you nod. “A lot better.” When your eyes open again, they’re full of gratefulness and surprise, as if Steve wouldn’t do anything for you.

 A smile grows on Steve’s face, and he takes your hand before you can thank him, threading your fingers together as he speaks. “Come on, you’re probably tired.”

Steve, however, is everything but tired. His heart is racing at the thought of spending the night here with you. You’ve never spent so much time together in a day, he’s never seen your bedroom, and there’s something about this impromptu sleepover that makes heat creep up the back of his neck. No. He’s here to give you emotional support; you were so anxious earlier and there’s nothing he wants more than to see you happy and comfortable. If staying here, despite it sending his feelings into a frenzy, is the key for you to rest then so be it. He can stay for one night.

You don’t let go of his hand as you lead him upstairs, passing various pictures of you and your family that hang from the wall opposite the handrail. There are three bedrooms upstairs and yours is the last one down the hall, its view towards the backyard. You open the door a moment later and let go of his hand as you step inside. Now that he’s here, Steve remembers neither of you made sure the doors were locked downstairs. He should do that.

“I’m going to take a shower.” You tell him as you walk towards your dresser.

Steve nods and swallows hard, using the excuse of your safety to be downstairs while that happens. “We forgot to lock everything downstairs. I’ll go do that.”

“Oh, right.” You press your palm to your forehead; Steve can see you reprimand yourself. “Thank you, Steve.”

“No problem.” Steve is quick to shake his head as he takes a step back from the room. “I’ll be right back.”

Once Steve is back downstairs, he makes sure to check the windows and lock the front door. He fiddles with the light switches for a while before he finds the right ones and turns the lights off. The whole process takes him less than five minutes, and the shower is still running when he’s back in your room. With a deep breath he finally looks around, gazing through a metaphorical window into your world, which he surprisingly already knew a lot of. The pastel walls make him smile, and he walks along the furthermost wall where various posters have been hung –all bands and singers Robin and you have played in his car. There’s a small vanity by the closet next to the bathroom, full of tiny bottles and a couple of lip-gloss tubes. Steve also spots a purple bottle of perfume on top, and a grin makes its way to his face –that’s the one that drives him crazy, he’s sure of it. He’s about to move closer and look at the pictures you’ve pasted in the vanity’s mirror, but he’s startled to a stop when you speak.

“I left a shirt for you to sleep in, if you want it.” You say and Steve turns around.

His heart summersaults when he sees you, fresh dewy face, hair out of your face, an oversized grey t-shirt with a pink Queen logo on the front and pink cotton sleeping pants. The overhead light of the bathroom makes a small rectangle in the carpeted floor, and some steam from your shower still circles around behind you. It takes all Steve’s self-control to stay where he is and not walk up to you and pull you into his arms; no tears between you this time, just Steve holding you the way he wishes he could all the time. He looks at the t-shirt you left on your bed to distract himself and laughs when he notices the colour.

“How’d you guess I love pink?” Steve asks you, glancing your way as he walks towards the bed and holds up the t-shirt. It’s very oversized like yours, and it has a black and fuchsia print of Blondie’s lead singer on it.

“Dunno, just thought it would suit you.” you chuckle, and Steve sees you hold back a smile as you point towards the bathroom. “There’s a spare toothbrush on the sink.”

Steve nods and hurries to the bathroom, lest you notice him blushing. He finds the toothbrush instantly and proceeds to brush his teeth, and though he doesn’t know why, Steve feels extremely happy to know both of you use the same toothpaste. He glances around and looks at all the details that are entirely yours around the room. There are some facial creams on a shelf next to the mirror, a vanilla scented hand soap on the sink, and a look towards the shower shows him two purple and pink shampoo and conditioner bottles –the ones that make your hair smell like flowers. Steve rinses his mouth, then takes off his sweater and jeans before he puts on the pink t-shirt you gave him and, like a freak, smells it to find that somehow your scent still lingers in the soft cotton.

If he was panicking before, he’s panicking even more now. He’s obsessed with you, he realizes, stupidly head over the heels and all of this is making it worse; lying on a bed next to you will make it so much worse. He’s got to pull himself together. He’s doing this because of fear of being home alone, that’s all. He can sleep alongside you for a night without making a fool of himself –or worse, accidentally confess his feelings. So, pushing all bed related thoughts to the back of his mind, he walks out of the bathroom to find you already under your duvet in bed.

 Not letting himself think too much about it, Steve turns off the lamp on your nightstand and slips under the duvet too. He keeps his body still, tense more accurately, as he lies next to you. That is until you turn to face him, and he immediately does too, like a magnet naturally attracted to you.

“Do you ever fear that you’ll wake up one day and everyone you know will be gone?” you whisper in the dark; your voice is almost silent, but Steve hears you loud and clear with how close he is to you. The minty smell of your toothpaste mingles with his own breath. Is this how things are going to be between you now, deep conversations and secrets you only trust to each other? He really hopes so.

Steve shakes his head, trying to make out your face in the dark as his heart constricts in his chest. “No,” he says just as quietly, “But sometimes I’m afraid that something terrible will happen and I won’t be able to help.”

Steve closes his eyes and exhales through his nose as he voices one of his fears for the first time. He’s sure that everything that happened in the Upside Down that they managed to fix was thanks to the brains in his friend group. Steve is all physical strength, which has proved useful in the past, but against monsters or whatever the hell could come next, he’s not sure it will be enough. The thought of being useless like that and everyone suffering because of it terrifies him. Even more now that you’re a part of said friend group. He’s sure of one thing though, he’d protect you and all his friends no matter what.

Your hand slowly moves to his shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Knowing you, Steve, I’m a thousand percent sure you’d find a way to help. Your stubbornness can be a good thing.”

A breathy chuckle leaves him as your words punch the air out of him. He’s silent for a moment, scrambling for something reassuring to say back. Words aren’t his forte, not unless he’s flirting. He’d rather pull you close to him and comfort you that way, the way he did in the kitchen. “You know… if we were to disappear for whatever reason, you can bet I’d fight my way to you. You won’t be alone.”

Steve sees you nod your head in the dark, his only sign that you haven’t fallen asleep yet. Your hand goes back to your side, in front of his before you stifle a yawn. Assuming your eyes are tired from all their crying, Steve moves his hand to cup your cheek gently.

“Go to sleep, you need to rest.” He whispers; he wants to give you more comfort, pull you close and rub your back until you fall asleep. He doesn’t because he can’t, that would make things weird.

“Thank you for staying with me.” You whisper back.

Remaining silent to avoid saying something that’d give away just how deep his feelings for you run, or the fact that the opportunity to be lying here next to you is something he should be thankful for, he only rubs his thumb softly on your cheek once more before letting go. With another yawn you turn around, your back facing Steve as you whisper goodnight.

Steve doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but he knows he sleeps more peacefully than he has in a while. Not that he doesn’t sleep well often, but most days his dreamless sleep is a result of the exhaustion of the day and not peacefulness. Last night though, there were no nightmares, no tossing and turning, just a distant dream of a campfire in the woods, fireflies, and a silhouette standing peacefully by the water. At some point, early in the morning, he finds himself waking to the light sneaking into the room from a small gap in the tulle curtains. His eyes that were too sleepy to open, blink awake at the awareness that you’re in his arms. Lovely floral scent and cozy softness pressed to him.

It seems that during the night, you’d shifted to your side and burrowed yourself on his chest, an arm around his waist and leg thrown over his hip. His left arm is around you, settled between your shoulder blades, holding you to him. He lifts it and checks his watch, barely 6am but Steve knows he should go. The last thing he wants is your father getting back home and finding him in your bed. Steve doesn’t know him and that’s not the first impression he’s looking for. Besides, there’s a pressing problem in his briefs, that has appeared from being tangled up with you, that he needs to hide in his jeans before you notice. Shifting his hips way from you he looks down at your sleeping face, brushing hair away from your face before he whispers your name.

“Hmm,” You frown, eyes still closed. “What?”

“You’re a cuddler,” Steve says as he smiles; it’s something that should surprise him, but it doesn’t. Not at all.

“I’m not.” You mumble and, contradicting yourself, press closer to him.   

“Yes, you are.” He chuckles, shifting his hips backwards again. “I have to go.”

You frown but move away from him, turning and facing away. “Why?”

Steve slips from bed and puts his jeans back on, adjust himself, before pulling his sweater over his head and on top of the pink t-shirt. Call him a lovestruck fool, but he’s not giving it back. “I don’t know when your dad’s gonna be back, I don’t want him to find a boy he doesn’t know in your bed.”

You chuckle, then yawn as you shift and sit up in bed. Steve stares at you longer than he should. His eyes take in your messy hair and your still puffy eyes from all your crying the night before. He smiles widely.

“I have drool on my face, don’t I?” You sigh, moving the back of your hand to the corner of your mouth.

Steve laughs and shakes his head. “No, you don’t; you look pretty that’s all.”

His words reward him with an eyeroll and a headshake before you stand up. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

You remain silent as the two of you walk side by side all the way down to the front door. Steve takes his car keys, and you move to open the door, but pause after a moment. Steve’s eyes look into yours as he wonders if there’s something wrong but when your eyes shift up to him, a small smile settles on your lips. Next thing Steve knows, your arms go around him in a hug.

He can’t help but sigh at the feeling and leaning his cheek on top of your head. “You okay?”

You nod and look up at him. “Thank you, Steve.” You say, stepping on the tip of your toes and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“Don’t thank me.” Steve smiles, letting his arms fall to his sides as his heart skips several beats. “Wanna get a coffee later?”

Is he bribing you with caffeine just to see you again? Of course, he is. Steve is charming, and he has a lot of work to do if he wants to make a move soon.

“Only if I get to pay.” You raise an eyebrow but smile nonetheless, that rare big smile he loves.

Steve huffs and opens the door. “Sure, babe.” He says though he knows you don’t believe him.

He walks to his car when you nod –heart pounding– and smiles as he drives away. Your figure on the rear-view mirror watches him leave until he turns at the end of the driveway. Steve leans his elbow on the door, his hand settling over his mouth as he thinks about the events of last night and this morning. Hope fills his chest, and Steve feels like this is the beginning of something really good for both of you.

 ---

There’s a small shift in your dynamic after that late night conversation in your kitchen. It’s like almost as if it brought you both closer: like a barrier breaking between you and Steve. Steve knows he should take it slow, that he should better conceal his feelings to avoid scaring you off. But another part of Steve wants to throw caution to the wind because there’s been a change in you too. I trust you, Steve, you’d said, and it shows. In the way you sit closer to him, how you give away more pieces of your past and yourself when you talk. There’s less apprehension and more curiosity from both of you and Steve can’t help but fall and fall and fall. He only hopes it doesn’t end up with him crashing down painfully.

The two of you make a new habit of visiting a small the café on the weekends; you sitting sideways on the couch and Steve talking nonsense to make you laugh. It starts the day after the sleepover, and the two of you use it as time to catch up on the events of the week. It delights him; every Saturday, he wants nothing more than to lean close and kiss your smile, the one he never thought he’d be at the receiving end of. You have bad days too, days in which Steve knows you’ve been crying, days where all you want to do is sit in silence with him. Steve doesn’t mind, at all, in fact he loves all your mood equally and now that he knows the backstory of what you went through, he offers you the quiet reassurance of his presence next to you, so you know you’re not alone.

Weeks pass like this, until winter leaves and spring comes. Overnight, the breeze has no bite to it anymore, the flowers bloom again and you begin to wear the prettiest floral dresses that give Steve a whole new reason to be obsessed with you.

“You two are adorable; when are you going to tell her, dingus?”

Steve and Robin had stopped by the Deli to get something to eat during their lunch break while you were on your lunch break too. The three of you had spent the 30 minutes talking between bites of your own sandwiches until the moment Steve had to drive away and you had to go back to your shift. He hears Robins words but his eyes follow your retreating figure until you’re out of sight –his mind is begging him to find you and steal a kiss just so he doesn’t go crazy. Robin snaps her fingers in front of his face and laughs when Steve startles. He rolls his eyes and gets in the car while Robin asks him the same question again.

Steve rolls his eyes again, “Tell her what?”

“That you’re obsessed with her dummy!” Robin hits his arm, Steve sends her an annoyed look, “You love her come on, you have to tell her.”

“No, I can’t.” He’s been thinking about it more often now. Keeping it to himself has been almost impossible lately and he knows he should do it before he breaks.

“Yes, you can, and you have to.” Robin asserts, setting her converse on the dashboard. “She clearly feels the same way.”

“She doesn’t.” Steve’s answer is instant as he focuses on the road and getting back to FV, his fingers gripping the steering wheel so hard they turn white. It’s a half-lie, and they both know it.

“She does and you know it.” Out of the corner of his eye he sees Robin shake her head.  “The way she looks at you Steve… it’s unbearable to watch, coming from her.”

Steve knows it, he’s seen that change. He’s felt the pitter patter of his heart, the way his hands shake when you look at him like that, like he’s all you want. But Steve is a coward in denial, he doesn’t want to assume wrong and send you running away from him. But if Robin’s seen it… “You really think so?” He says as he parks his car and Robin nods enthusiastically.

“Duh!”

He nods to himself, “Okay... I can tell her tonight. We are hanging out at my place anyway.”

“I’ll make myself scarce, just say the word and I’ll disappear.” When Steve nods Robin cheers, opening the passenger door and stepping outside. “Don’t mess it up, Steve.”

“I’ll try.” Steve grips the steering wheel, trying to calm himself down.

Steve doesn’t get a chance to though, for that afternoon with greying clouds in the sky you show up at Family Video as soon as your shift at the Deli ends. Steve is about to go to the back and finish some inventory he has procrastinated all week when he sees you pacing in front of his car, arms crossed over your chest. His heart soars, then fills with dread –somethings wrong. He knows it right away which is why he rounds the counter and rushes outside in a heartbeat.

“Babe, what’re you doing here?” Steve says as soon as he opens the door. “It’s gonna rain come on, let’s go inside.”

But you shake your head and look at him with a look he can’t name. It’s a sad look, and it makes Steve panic; he panics even more when he sees your eyes are teary and red-rimmed. “Did something happen? At work or at home?”

“I love you.” You say, at the same time thunder cracks in the distance. Your trembling lips press together when Steve’s move to smile, and your headshake makes Steve pause. “But I don’t think we should see each other again.”

“What?” Steve’s question is a whisper, almost lost to another booming thunder. “Why would you say that? Did I do something?”

“No, Steve.” You sigh, voice shaky, looking everywhere but his eyes. Steve knows this tell though; you don’t want to be caught in a lie. “We just don’t fit–”

“No.” He says simply, shaking his head as he interrupts you. This is that night in the Wheeler’s driveway all over again, you trying to shut everyone out. His hands still shake slightly though, at your confession, your words afterwards, at the idea of losing you.

“Steve it won’t work.” You tell him, it cracks halfway with feeling, and you swallow hard before repeating yourself. “It would never work.”

“Yes it will, it’s us.” Steve tells you, shaking his head. He remembers how far you’ve come, how close the two of you have gotten. He should’ve have known it would scare you, after what happened with your family. “Of course it will! It has worked for months.”

“It won’t! It won’t work regardless of our feelings. Because I’m me! And you’re you –you’ll get sick of me and then leave. And it’ll hurt more than anything I’ve ever experienced.” You tell him, shaking your head and looking at him with reddening eyes. Both your arms are crossed over your chest, as if you’re physically protecting your heart from feeling what if feels for him. I love you, you said. Around you, the sky begins to open, bathing both of you with big droplets of water. “I told you before, you scare me because I’ve never felt this way before.”

Steve tries to take a step closer, but you take a step back; it makes him groan in frustration. “You can’t make that decision for me! How can you think I’d just leave you?”

“Because the person who I thought never would, LEFT.” You yell, eyes brimming with tears that roll down your cheeks. They mix with the raindrops that fall on both of you and Steve’s heart aches.

“Then she didn’t love you enough, not the way you deserve.” Steve places his hands on his hips, looking at the wet concrete underneath his shoes. His eyebrows meet in the middle as he swallows hard. He can’t put into words how angry it makes him that someone hurt you so much, that you’re scared of being happy again. “I thought you trusted me.”

“I do.” You tell him, hands falling to your sides. Your voice is so quiet that the rain falling around you almost drowns it out. “You know I do.”

“Then let me love you!” You’re stunned into silence by Steve’s words, confessed loudly in an outburst as he brings his hands to his hair. He meets your eyes and feels his own tear up; he really doesn’t want to lose you. “Let me prove to you that I love you like crazy, baby. Because I do, you have no idea how much.”

Your eyes squeeze shut and Steve knows you can see all of his feelings reflected on his face. “I don’t want to be heartbroken again Steve! Can’t you see you’re sunshine, and I–”

“Don’t say that.” He whispers and steps closer to you, holding both of your hands. The way you cling to them sparks a fire in his heart, keeps his hope alive. “I told you I wouldn’t change a thing about you, that I’d fight my way to you.”

You try to let go of him, but Steve only pulls you closer even as you look away from him, lip trembling. “You know my issues, especially after what happened last year.”

“I do know them, and I’m telling you now that I don’t plan on ever letting you go. This isn’t just a fling, and you know it.” His hands go to your face, holding it gently and looking into your eyes. Those beautiful eyes he’s seen tear up, the ones that crinkle in the corners when you laugh and turn steely when you’re mad. He wants to look at them forever.

You close them, bracing yourself, as the sky continues to fall all around you. Big drops of water hitting your skin and soaking your clothes every second that passes. “Even if I have bad days, or get exasperated with you, or I’m a grump?”

Steve smiles and shakes his head. If only you knew. “I love it when you’re a grump, I want to kiss your pout so badly every time.”

“I don’t pout,” You roll your eyes, but Steve can see you’re trying to hide your fear. He’s learned every little detail about you to memory, this is you trying to build a wall. Well then, Steve knows how to break them down.

“I promise,” Steve says, like he did that November night you fought outside in the cold. His nose brushes against yours as tenderly as he can, rainwater sliding down between your faces –his breath catches on his throat. “I love everything about you, everything baby, trust me. It’s you and me, that won’t change.”

You nod, trust shining in your eyes as a teary smile makes its way to your face when you let it free. It knocks the air out of Steve’s lungs. “Stevie, I love you.”

 He leans his forehead against yours, happy beyond words and because he’s not good with them he says, “I really want to kiss you.”

“Then kiss me,” You urge him.

Steve leans down, holding your face in his hands and lingering close as he braces himself for this; this moment he’s wished for so many times. He smiles, and thinks finally, before leaning in and kissing you. A noise dies in the back of his throat, his chest feels full of helium and his mind reels at the everything he’s feeling. It’s even better than he dreamed it would be. Your lips soft against his, your hands in his hair, the sigh that escapes you when one of his arms wraps around your waist and presses you flush against him. His skin is buzzing, his fingertips are tingling. So he kisses you until you’re both dizzy, brushing his tongue against yours, matching your intensity head-on. Everything is intoxicating, the sweet scent of your perfume, the softness under his hands, the way your face feels like it’s on fire as his hand remains cupping your cheek. Steve is so in love he could faint, so he breathes you in as he kisses your cheek, your jaw, your neck and just below your ear until the two of you pull back. Soaked in rain, without a care in the world.

“Does this mean you’re my boyfriend?” You ask him softly, stepping impossibly closer to him.

Steve smiles proudly, heart soaring. “Yes it does, I’m yours.”

“I want to kiss you again.” You confess after a minute, blinking away that raindrops that have gathered in your eyelashes and smiling at him. “But I’m cold.”

 Steve laughs when you frown and pulls you closer to him. “Yeah, we should probably get out of the rain.”

----

thank you for reading! reblogs are really appreciated and so is any feedback 💖

(I also wrote this tiny insight to grumpy reader’s feelings here )

[bigwishes]

Big Man on Campus

(a trade with @alphajocklover)

Trent had been going to college for almost 4 years at this point, he was 21 and steadily approaching his 22nd birthday and approaching his graduation even faster. He had spent most of his time inside, working on his computer engineering degree or gaming. He didn't really care for the college party scene, he'd much rather stay in his tidy little single all weekend until monday classes.

but when it finally sank in how close it was to being over Trent couldn't help but have a little bit of regret, should he have hit the gym with the other guys on his floor? should he have joined the casual rowing team just for some fun and exercise? was computer science really what he wanted a degree in? Senior doubt and regret flooded his mind, but there was still an upside. 4 months were left, 4 months he'd make the most of.

Trent went on the college forums looking for something to do, he thought about a few of the options but found two that he really liked. The first was a dungeons and dragons club the second was listen as an exercise club but it also seemed to be a project for two sport science students.

Transformation Experiment Ground: "Our names are Brody and Clark, we are looking for young males on campus who are out of shape looking to get in shape and help with our experiment. Come form a sense of community, get the body you desire and help us with our research!" Monday came and classes went. Normally Trent would go home and smash out a few ours gaming but it was time for his clubs to start. First he had the sport experiment thing, the only issue was he only had a few minutes to get to the dnd club across campus, but he wasn't sure how sweaty he'd get or if he'd need a shower. He just had to hope there was a shower at the campus gym.

Trent checked his phone, he thought he was going to the campus gym but the address was for a room in the athlete scholarship dorms. Trent walked passed the gym and into the building next to it. The halls had photos of previous college athletes plastered up between the doors.

Finally he arrived, right on time, room 223. Trent raised his hand to knock when the door suddenly swung open. Standing before him was a jacked guy with spiked blonde hair in a black tank and grey sweat pants and standing next to him just slightly down the hall was an equally jacked dude with shaggy brown hair in the same outfit.

"hey bro what's up I'm Brody and just over there is Clark"

Brody stuck out his hand but when Trent went to shake it he realised Brody was waiting for a fist bump not a hand shake, Trent awkwardly closed up his hand and bumped Brody's fist. Clark let out a douchey laugh that echoed out the door.

"Come in man, come in"

"You are, the only one comin" Clark sighed

"oh, was I the only one who signed up?"

Trent started to get anxious, guys who looked like this normally bullied him and now he was going to be on his own with them for an hour. Trent made his way into the room, following Brody and Clark.

The athlete dorms were so much bigger than the other rooms he'd been in. There was a large lounge space with a small kitchen, a door to a private bathroom and two bedrooms either side of the lounge.

In the corner of the lounge there was a small fold out chair and table. On the table were 5 green vials and what looked to be an oculus rift stripped down to its basic components.

"so ummm, where do we start with like a workout plan?"

"nah dude, I mean I can totally write you one but this is a bit more of a series of practice experiments" Brody said as he walked over to the small table

"get him hooked up man, I'm gonna grab my laptop with the video"

Trent followed Brody over to the small fold out chair

"its nothing too fancy but our class mates got the actual sports lab, apparently our experiment is pseudo-science"

"what exactly are you guys studying?"

"we are trying to see if active suggestion and nutrients redirection can get people to actively pursue fitness"

"oh damn, I just thought this was like, a workout class" Trent sat down as Brody began setting up the make shift visor. "if you don't mind me asking, what are you guys majoring in?"

"well I'm getting a double major in bio-chemistry and psychology"

"and I'm getting a double major in computer engineering and software development" Clark said as he walked back in carrying an open laptop

Trent's jaw almost dropped to the floor, he'd come here thinking he was going to be made to workout by two dumb jocks who were just going to scribble times on a napkin, but instead he's participating in a proper experiment designed by two people probably leagues smarter than him.

"okay man its real easy, we are gonna hook up an image display for a few minutes and you'll take a shot of this" Clark said as he handed over one of the small green vials.

"errrr, is it safe?"

Clark burst out laughing and Brody couldn't help but crack a smile.

"yeah man, its just a diet supplement you can get offline, fda approved, basically it tells your muscles they want to hold water and your fat cells to burn"

Trent downed the green liquid as Clark flicked the visor down over his eyes. There was a short beep sound before images began to flash on the visor. Flashes of guys working out, of dumbbells and the words you are a jock and you love working out and muscle.

Trent couldn't help it, he burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry guys this is so corny" He laughed.

The other two began to chuckle as well as the room filled with laughter.

"Look dude, Its the closest thing I could find on YouTube, its about the suggestions" Clark laughed

Suddenly the lights in the room began to flicker and all 3 globes in the lounge burnt out at once.

"what the-" Brody and Clark said in unison, but they were interrupted when sparks began to fly off the oculus. They rushed to try and take it off Trent but were shocked by the electricity. Sparks shout out of the power point in the wall and the two boys watched helplessly as Trent began to convulse in his seat.

Trent let out a painful and stalled out moan as the electricity travelled over the oculus and shocked his temples.

The room was dark was illuminated every few seconds by a shock or spark and the two boys could swear they could see something, something happening to Trent's body. A few more seconds passed before it finally stopped.

Brody and Clark stood there stunned, the sound of beeping could be heard from the kitchen as the oven entered safety mode, but a more concerning noise echoed in the boys ears. The sound of sizzling. Clark carefully walked over to the curtains and opened them, the room filling with light and showing them what had happened to Trent.

He sat in the chair with his head slumped forward, his chin hitting his chest as smoke was rising off the device on his head and all over his body. But what the two saw in the dark wasn't a trick of the light, Trent had indeed gotten bigger. His skinny fat body had expanded, he'd become more lean, his muscles more pronounced and most of the fat on his body had melted away.

Trent let out a moan as a string of drool fell from his mouth

"OH THANK FUCK HE'S ALIVE" Clark cried out with a sigh of relief.

The two rushed over and pulled the device off his head. Trent's eyes instantly responded as he looked up at the two of them.

"wooahh bro, huhu, that was intence" Trent mumbled

"yeah, thank god you're okay" said Brody.

Trent lifted his arm to the side and flexed his bicep and let out a dumb chuckle.

"errr, dude, real quick, what's your name?"

"Trent, duuuhuhuhu, you fuckin forgetful bro?"

Trent seemed okay but something was wrong, even with the short interaction the three of them had, Clark and Brody knew something had happened to him.

"hey Trent, what are you" Brody asked

Trent smirked as he lifted his other arm, completing a double bicep pose.

"a jock, duuuhuhuhu"

Trent stood up and effortlessly pushed passed the two as he started heading towards the door.

"well at least we know his motor functions weren't damaged"

Clark and Brody quickly followed him

"Dude, I really think you should go to the medical centre"

"Nah bro, I got dnd like NOW I gotta boost"

"wait Trent!" Clark yelled out "err, dnd thats an interesting hobbie for a jock, what else are you into"

Trent spun around on the spot with a big smirk on his face

"glad you asked dude, I love three things, gymmin, gamin, dndenin..dndin.....dndining....." Trent's voice trailed off as he tried to finish forming his catchy sentence

"and, what about your major? what are you studying?" Brody asked

"errr huhuhu, like, what's a major?" Trent said turning around to leave again

"FUCK DUDE I THINK WE ACTUALLY FRIED HIS BRAIN" Clark started to panic

"I mean, yeah, but it seems like his core interests and that jock hypno video have combined into a new personality, I dunno if we friend his brain more, re-wrote it"

"DUDE NOW IS NOT THE FUCKING TIME FOR YOUR INTEREST IN THE HUMAN BRAIN WE FUCKING CREATED GYM BRO FRANKENSTIEN"

Trent walked out the door into the crowded hallway. Students were all talking over the top of each other in front of their dorm rooms trying to work out what was going on. The two boys raced out to follow Trent.

"Trent dude wait!, errr, tell me about your dnd character" Brody called out desperately trying to stop him from leaving

Trent continued to power forward through the crowd, pushing through them like water with his new powerful body.

"well bro, I was gonna play some like, lil spell caster dude, but like, i dunno bro, numbers are hard, so like, I think I'm just gonna play, like, some sick fucking, roided out minotaur with a huge axe"

Brody was struggling to keep up with Trent, they both had already lost Clark to the sea of students. Brody grabbed onto the back of Trent's shirt which caused him to stop and turn around.

"woah lil dude, if you wanted some action all you had to do was ask, I got an 8 inch python with your na-"

"WHAT!, ha, oh, no dude, errr, that's" Brody's face turned bright red as he got flustered.

"no? damn too bad, you lil fuckin, science dudes are kinda cute"

Brody was stunned, some how all this muscle and new persona had also added a level of charm to Trent that dug right through to his core. But it was too late to grab his attention again. Trent had already pulled away and gone off out of Brody's sight...

One week had passed since the extreme power surge that had hit the Athlete Scholarship Dorms. There almost wasn't a single incident other than a few blown light bulbs and some damaged electronics....almost. The college had found out about Trent, no matter how hard Brody and Clark tried to hide it. However the two got off lucky. Both the College and the investigation into what happened deemed it was an accident that unfortunately resulted in what was being called "Personality Death". Trent had an entirely healthy body and brain with no signs of damages, but something had happen to completely re-write who and what he was.

The college couldn't let Trent graduate, he couldn't even remember what he had enrolled for, but the college still found a purpose for him. The hid the extreme and sudden body transformation from the investigation and gave Trent a 'job'. His official title was research assistant but he was too stupid for any serious work. His real job was to sit there and be injected with experimental steroids. Forced to grow like some roided out lab rat. Not that he cared, every time Trent put on even an ounce of muscle he'd spend hours in the mirror flexing. He was the biggest guy on campus.

[6 years later]

"okay babe, just hold still"

"aahhh, fuck, it feels so good when it goes in"

"you are so weird, I hate getting injections"

"well huhuhu, when you got a sexy lil piece of meat to do em, its a huge fuckin turn on dude"

Brody stood up from the kitchen table and began to clean up the injection kit, chuckling as he did it.

"Trent, that's so cheesy"

Trent stood up, the sound of wood scraping against the floor filled the room as he effortlessly and accidentally moved the entire dining table.

"will it make me look like Captain America huhuhu?"

"babe...seriously, I think we passed the Captain America stage about 150 pounds ago"

"then hit me with all 6 and make me the hulk" Trent pressed his body against Brody and the table.

Brody was no stranger to 300+ pounds pressing against him "I said no Trent" a slight grin cracked across Brody's face, 'besides, for all I know that one shot will add another 50 pounds, we gotta wait and see."

Trent stood there staring into Brody's eyes with an expression that could only be described as a computer failing to load a basic program 10 times in a row.

"Then jab me with all 6 and give me" Trent stopped to count on his fingers, "120 pounds of muscle" a large smirk crept across his face, proud he was able to do the math in his head.

Brody rolled his eyes and chuckled

"that'd be 300 pounds babe" Brody packed up the rest of the kit and left the kitchen.

Trent went to follow after him, he had hit the gym already today so no other thoughts existed in his mind other than getting attention for how big he was from Brody, but as he walked out the kitchen he caught a glimpse of himself and began flexing in the lounge room mirror, completely forgetting what he had been doing just 2 seconds again...

He was so proud of the roided lab rat he had become...

[dcxdpdabbles]

I’ve been rereading you Royal Consort au and haven’t stopped thinking about it. I just know social media during that entire au was fucking insane

Dash Baxter opened his phone one school morning in his senior year after oversleeping for an hour—he may have worked out a little too hard, or he really did have a cold, like his mother claims—and was overwhelmed with messages from his friends.

They all say the same thing.

Have you seen this!?

Is it true?!

I can't believe this is happening!

Will we go to jail? I can't go to jail!

He scrolls through them with heavy confusion until, eventually, he clicks on the link Kwan sent him since the mention of jail seemed like a higher level of importance than whatever new gossip was going about.

Someone was likely pregnant. That was always what Pauline gossip the most about.

His best friend tended to catastrophize, so he figured it was better to help him calm down first.

The link takes him to a news clip showing a crowd of people surrounding a very familiar house. It wasn't the first time the Fentons had been on the news, but they were usually covered by local stations, and it was generally due to the damage the inventors had caused.

Dash knew they were only talked about when things were slow and a fluff story needed to be thrown in. Oh, back in freshman year, when ghosts first appeared, the Fentons were much more important, but now ghosts are a part of everyday life, and sometimes Dash forgot other cities didn't have the same issue.

Nothing the Fentons did was noteworthy, especially to have the Lois Lane covering their story. Yet, here in the palm of his hands, on the morning of a regular school day, he watched as Lois Lane did just that.

"Reporting live from Amity Park outside the residence of the Royal Consort to the Infinite Realms, I'm Lois Lane. Only a few minutes ago, the Justice League members- Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman- had entered the building hoping to speak to the Consort on a diplomatic mission. The tension between humans and the Realms has been at an all-time high since the Anti-Ecto Acts were passed. Although they were overturned in the last United Nations session, there has still been no comment from King Phantom and no guarantee that a war is not on the horizon." The woman says, holding her mic close to her face while the cameraman pans over the crowd of people outside of Fenton Works.

Dash feels like someone dumped iced water on him and then slapped him with a rubber fish. He is scared, confused, and a little offended. Still, the video continues as Ms. Lane explains the Realms, the political backlash the USA put the rest of the world in, and a brief overview of the humans' chances of winning if a war did break out (not high).

She then admits that their team had gotten a tip, claiming that the Consort has been married to King Phantom for the last three years, and despite not publicly announcing his title, he had all the power of his status.

He.

There were only two "he"s in the Fenton household and Dash knew for a fact Mr. Fenton would never cheat on his wife. Which left only one.

Oh gods.

As Ms.Lane speaks, the door to the house opens behind her, and the three high heroes of Earth outstep.

Along with Danny Fenton, who is squished between Wonder Woman and Superman with a flabbergasted expression, the crowd goes wild as Ms. Lane loudly shouts, "The Royal Consort, Daniel Fenton, husband to King Phantom, is being escorted by some of the most important members of the Justice League to a secondary location for peace negotiations. There is hope for humanity yet."

The clip ends with a close-up of Fenton's wide-eyed stare, which shows him looking terrified—the same expression he used whenever Dash cornered him to vent some of his frustrations.

Dash is left sitting in utter silence and rapidly growing horror. He had been mocking a royal, physically harming a royal, and, worst of all, he had been attacking Danny Phantom's husband, the same being who had been his personal hero for the last three years.

"I'm going to jail." He whispers "I'm so going to jail. Or I'm going to be executed. That happens to people who almost start wars right? Oh, gods."

The rest of the A-listers are panicking all over the city but not nearly as Dash Baxter, who was wondering how much time Fenton would give him for a head start.

It didn't help that Wes messaged Everyone on the basketball team with a gif of a dancing cat wearing sunglasses and the words "I TOLD YOU" in bright, bold colors.

He had repeatedly told them to leave Fenton alone. If they didn't, Phantom would retaliate, but no one had taken his word for it since the boy had originally claimed Phantom and Fenton were the same person.

Dash put his phone down and stared at the wall of his room. He liked that wall. It was covered in posters, pictures of his friends, memories of his best games, and now, with the floating shelves, his teddy bear collections.

He would likely never see it again.

"Oh gods"

[mrsshabana]

𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐨𝐨 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞

ꔫ‧₊ Content Gyutaro x female!reader, age difference, angst, fluff, daddy issues, mommy issues, modern au ꔫ‧₊ Note 5k words. I want to thank everyone who was so excited for this fic, your kind words really encouraged me to write so much! I hope you enjoy it and keep an eye out for chapter two ♡ ✧:･ﾟ→ Part two ✧:･ﾟ→ Part three

This is the most exciting thing that’s happened in Gyutaro’s pathetic life since his sister was accepted into college. 

His life is nothing special really, and it never has been. Always taking care of his little sister was his number one priority so his needs and wants were always put on the back burner. Not like he had much of a choice anyway. With a face like that, how are you supposed to get anywhere in life? He’s thirty-five and has never had a romantic partner, but no surprise there. His personality is unpleasant and he doesn’t have much going for him. His job is alright and he can afford to support himself and his sister but that’s about it. 

By now he’s come to accept the fact that some things just aren’t in the cards for him. Things like a wife and maybe even kids. As he got older he found himself longing for these things more and more. Especially when he witnessed all of his friends getting married and starting families of their own. But now at his age, no woman would want to get with him, let alone start a family.

At first, he was mad at the world and everyone in it. It wasn’t fair that he was denied love just because he had a few spots on his face, crooked teeth, and was a bit rough around the edges. The jealousy and anger ate at him for many years, causing his personality to become bitter and cold. On the outside, he seems like the kind of guy who wouldn’t care about love, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Since he grew up without receiving any love from his mother, it was always something that he craved, even as an adult.

But he grew up, and he had no choice but to realize this was his reality and there was no changing it. It was hard to accept, but he’s finally come to peace with it. At least he has Ume, and honestly, he’s grateful for that. 

But now, you came into his life and things are beginning to take an interesting turn. 

You’re Ume’s friend from college, she’s a year older than you but you got to know her well in one of your math classes. Ume hates math so she waited until her senior year to take it, which she is starting to regret now. The only upside to the situation is that she met you.

Having gotten pretty close to Ume over the course of the semester, she would often invite you over to her place. You’ve heard her talk about her brother before but you had never met him since he was usually at work when you came over. But when you saw him for the first time, he wasn’t what you had expected. He looked a lot different than the image you had in your mind and he was a lot less friendly than Ume had described him. But even though most of the time he was in a bad mood, he’d be polite to you for the brief moments he was around. 

The first thing you noticed about him was how tall he was and how deep and raspy his voice sounded. It was oddly attractive, especially when paired with his messy black hair. You knew he was older than Ume but he didn’t look that old. The only thing that maybe signified his age were the dark circles around his eyes, probably from being overworked. 

Gyutaro never expected to get close to his little sister’s best friend. It’s something he never would have considered, but your actions are causing him to rethink his stance on your almost nonexistent relationship.

.˚₊┈୨♡୧┈₊˚.

One night you’re studying over at Ume’s place again. The two of you sit in the dining room, with notebooks, pens, and textbooks spread across the table. Midterms are coming up so you’re trying really hard to get some studying done. Even though Ume keeps getting distracted and scrolling through TikTok.

You’ve almost lost your sanity with this study session when you hear the front door unlocking. 

Gyutaro, looking as tired as usual, walks into the house. Kicking off his shoes and throwing his bag on the floor. He barely even acknowledges you as he walks past saying, “Girls, can you please clean the table.”

“Mm hm,” Ume hums as she continues looking at her phone screen. 

He knows she isn’t going to do as he asks, but he always asks anyway. Today has been a long day and Gyutaro just wishes he could go to sleep but he knows he has a household to take care of. So he hurriedly rushes over to the bathroom and takes a quick shower. Coming out with messy damp hair and a towel wrapped around his waist. He goes straight to his bedroom, but you manage to catch a glimpse of him through the hall. 

The way his long hair sticks to his muscled shoulders and back distracts you. And even after he’s gone from your sight, the heavenly image is still stuck in your mind. 

“Will I ever get a break?” he thinks to himself as he puts on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, “As soon as I’m done cooking I’m passing out.” It’s only 8 pm but after another overtime shift, he’s pooped. Ume’s lucky he loves her so much, or else he would just make her eat a Lean Cuisine for dinner.

He doesn’t even bother to brush his hair and just heads straight towards the kitchen. But on his way, he’s met with something that surprises him. 

“You actually cleaned the table?” he says in shock.

“No, she did,” Ume points to you without even looking up from her phone. 

Gyutaro scowls and hits Ume in the back of the head with a rolled-up newspaper, “What’s the matter with you? It’s rude to make your guest clean!”

“Hey!! Cut it out!! I didn’t tell her to, she did it on her own!” Ume whines.

“Still, you should have cleaned it yourself,” he grumbles and throws the newspaper to the side, “Y/N, I’m sorry. Please stay for dinner, that’s the least I could offer you for helping my sister since she’s too lazy to do anything on her own.”

“No no, it’s ok! I don’t want to put more work on your plate -”

“I insist,” he smiles and begins preparing the ingredients. 

Ume pays no attention to the matter, as you admire her brother while he works away in the kitchen. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he takes a sip and sighs before he begins washing some vegetables. 

You sit there and stare at his muscles, admiring the way they move along with noticing the tattoo on his upper arm. The way his hair falls in his face, and he tries to push it away with his wrist while his hands hold ingredients. 

This is something you’ve never had before. A man who takes care of you. It’s something new for you, and quite frankly you’re a bit jealous of Ume. It must be nice to have someone who takes care of her like Gyutaro does. Especially since your father was never around, it feels comforting being in this kind of atmosphere with Gyutaro and his sister. 

The loud clattering of metal hitting the floor snaps you out of the trance you were in. It seems that Gyutaro dropped a knife because he had almost fallen asleep. You can see his eyes closing slowly as he shakes his head in an attempt to wake himself up. Even though you barely know him, the sight makes you feel bad for him. He must be so exhausted, yet he’s determined to make dinner for his little sister. 

“Hey, do you need any help?” you ask as you walk into the kitchen. 

“N-no, thank you though.” He tries to brush you off and continue cooking but you stop him, grabbing his wrist and taking the utensils out of his hand. “It’s ok really, you seem exhausted. Plus I like cooking so it’s no biggie!” You smile and try to lead him away from the kitchen.

“What? No! You’re our guest it’d be rud-”

“Onii-chan just let her do it! She’s offering, stop being so stubborn!” Ume chimes in.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think you’re a bad host. You’ve been nothing but welcoming to me, I just want to help out,” you lead him over to the couch and force him to sit down, “Everyone deserves a break once in a while.”

“But I-” his sentence trails off as he watches you walk away, not giving him any say in the matter. He feels incredibly guilty for letting you cook. But his body is too tired to fight it, and you no longer hear any complaints from him.

Looking around the kitchen you scan what Gyutaro had set up. There’s a pot of boiling water on the stove, a pan with oil in it, some half-cut tomatoes, a box of pasta, and an unopened package of meat. You can only assume that he was trying to make spaghetti. Luckily for you, it’s easy enough and something you’ve made countless times before. 

After about 30 minutes you have all of the food prepared. You make a plate for yourself, Ume, and Gyutaro. 

“Thanks, Y/N!” Ume exclaims as she finally puts down her phone and takes her plate. 

Next, you walk over to Gyutaro to give him his food, but he’s already passed out on the couch. The bottle of beer still in his hand, half full. 

“Poor thing,” you whisper to yourself, “Guess it’ll just be Ume and I for now.” You take the plate to the table and eat with Ume, opting that it’s probably best to let Gyutaro sleep. 

.˚₊┈୨♡୧┈₊˚.

His stomach rumbles and his eyes are heavy as he slowly opens them, looking around at his surroundings. Confused for a moment as he forgot where he was. The living room is dark and quiet and he can’t quite remember why or how he fell asleep here. 

But then he looks over at the coffee table and remembers everything. His bottle is placed aptly beside a plate full of delicious looking pasta. Neatly wrapped in plastic wrap with a note reading, Enjoy! :)

“No way,” he mumbles as he tears off the plastic and begins to dig in. His eyes roll to the back of his head when the delicious food hits his tongue. Things taste so much better when someone else makes them. And honestly, he can’t recall how many years it’s been since someone has cooked him a meal. Five? Possibly ten? Either way, he savors the moment.

.˚₊┈୨♡୧┈₊˚.

That meal has been on Gyutaro’s mind for days now. Never forgetting the taste and the gratifying feeling of eating a meal that was carefully prepared by someone else. It was amazing. And you’ve been on his mind ever since that night.

He told Ume to thank you since he didn’t have your number, and he really hopes she actually did it and didn’t just blow him off like she usually does.

As he drives home from work he can’t help but think of how nice it would be to come home to one of your home-cooked meals. It’s become a fantasy of his to imagine this on his drives home after a long shift. The thought brings him some comfort even though he knows it will never become a reality.

And just as he was driving through downtown he saw someone familiar. It was you, standing beneath one of the street lights as a strange man loomed over you. He appeared to be talking to you, but your body language looked as if you were very uncomfortable with the situation. 

The strange man appeared to be around Gyutaro’s age and all he could think was, “C’mon man, you’re too old to be doing this shit to a young girl. You should know better.” He rolls his eyes and pulls over next to the sidewalk. 

With a deep, tired sigh, he gets out of the car and yells, “Hey Y/N! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” 

At first, the sudden voice calling out to you startles you, but as soon as you see that it’s Ume’s brother you feel like you’ve been saved. The strange man looks over at Gyutaro too, giving him a confused look.

“We’re gonna be late for that movie,” Gyutaro smiles as if everything is normal and walks up to you, “Oh, who’s this? Do I know this guy?”

“Uh n-no, I don’t think you know him,” you say nervously. 

Gyutaro nods and takes your hand, “Sorry man, but we gotta go. We’re gonna miss the premier if we don’t get going now.” 

The stranger seems convinced and walks off as Gyutaro leads you back to his car. Opening the door for you, as he watches the man walk away. Making sure he’s gone for good. 

You don’t hesitate to get into his car, a huge wave of relief washing over you once you’re safely inside. 

As soon as Gyutaro gets into the car he scolds you, “What the hell were you doing out here by yourself?” His eyes scan your form, and he notices you’re wearing a short dress.

“I was out with some friends,” you say shyly, “and I wanted to go home, but everyone else wanted to stay out…” 

He sighs and starts the car, “You can’t walk around like that, creepy guys are gonna flock towards you. It’s dangerous.”

“I know, I was so stupid for doing that… B-but thank you so much for helping me, Gyutaro! You really saved me there,” you feel tears well up in your eyes as you imagine what might have happened to you if Gyutaro never showed up. 

“Hey hey, it’s alright,” his expression softens, “You’re ok now, that’s all that matters. And from now on if you need a ride just call me, ok?”

“R-really? I don’t want to inconvenience you or anything…”

“Don’t worry about it, you’re Ume’s friend. I’d do it for Ume so I’d do it for you too. Besides, I work around here so it’s no big deal,” he smiles and hands you his phone so you can put your number in.

“Thanks. Ume’s really lucky to have a big brother like you,” you say as you finish creating your contact in his phone.

“I try my best I guess, heh if only Ume heard you say that. Anyway, where do you live?”

“Oh, right! It’s super close to here,” you type the directions into his phone navigation, “I really owe you for this, Gyutaro! What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Wh-what? No no no, you don’t have to do anything,” he gets a bit flustered as he begins driving towards your place. 

“Come on! You did so much for me, it’s the least I could do! Ooh, how about I cook something for you?” You raise your eyebrows and smile, trying to convince him. 

When he hears your plea, it’s like his prayers were answered. 

“... well, I can’t say no to that.”

.˚₊┈୨♡୧┈₊˚.

The long-awaited day has finally come. The day that you will bring over some home-cooked meals to Gyutaro’s house. He’s been anticipating this ever since you promised it to him.

You come over holding tons of containers of food, much more than he had expected. 

“Woah, let me help you,” he says as he holds the front door open and takes one of the bags out of your hand.

“Ah, thanks. I didn’t realize how much food I made until I had to pack it all up,” you laugh and walk into his home. Placing the food on the table, you neatly snack boxes of prepared meals. 

“What’s all this?” he asks, a bit confused. He was expecting you to bring over a big container full of food, not a bunch of small ones. 

“I know you work a lot and stuff. So, I thought it’d be better if I packed everything up into individual meals so you can just grab them and take them to work. Less prep work for you. I hope that’s alright…”

Gyutaro is truly left speechless, unable to believe that you not only put so much effort into this but also so much consideration as well. Still in disbelief, he takes one of the neatly packed boxes and opens it up. Inside he’s met with a delicious meal separated neatly, and even a small dessert tucked into the side. The sight is beautiful, but the smell is what really makes him salivate. 

“Wow,” he smiles, “I-I don’t know what to say. This is amazing, thank you.” 

He begins to choke up. After so many years of taking care of his sister, always worrying about her needs, caring for her, stepping up and being that guardian that she needed, never once did someone stop to ask him what he wanted. Let alone go out of their way to take care of him. And for once, just once, he gets a taste of what it feels like to be cared for. Nurtured. And it’s a feeling he wishes he never had to let go of.

All of the emotions he’s kept in for so long finally pour out of him. Your kindness and consideration force his walls to crumble. And his eyes begin to water as he pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in an attempt to stop his tears. 

“Hey, are you alright?” You ask as you immediately notice that something isn’t right.

It takes him a moment to compose himself, “I-I’m ok,” he rasps, “Just… I really appreciate you doing this. It’s been so long since someone has done something for me…”

“Well, you deserve it,” you smile and try to comfort him by rubbing his back, “I can tell you work really hard. My mom is the same way. So I understand.”

“Thanks,” he smiles and quickly composes himself, “A-Anyway, I’m going to try one right now. It smells great.” He quickly tries to change the subject partially because he’s embarrassed, but also because he genuinely cannot wait to taste your cooking again.

The food still feels warm so he rushes into the kitchen to grab a fork, and he sits at the table and digs in. Immediately as the food hits his tongue he lets out a groan of satisfaction. 

“Mmph, ooh my god,” he says right before he shoves another spoonful into his mouth, “so good!”

“I’m glad you like it,” you smile and sit beside him at the table, “These recipes are super easy and budget-friendly, so I can give them to you if you want.”

“Please! Mmph, that’d be great,” he swallows another big bite, “Where’d you learn to cook so well?”

“I just learned over time. It’s always just been my mom and I, my dad was never around,” you sigh, “So I kinda had to learn how to take care of myself since my mom always had two jobs. I would always make food for us to ease her workload. And I’ve always enjoyed cooking so I never minded.”

“Wait, for real?” he looks surprised, “My mom was never around! Man, it fucking sucks doesn’t it?”

“So you understand how I feel!” you smile despite talking about something upsetting, “So, your dad was the one that raised you?”

“Basically,” he nods as he licks his fork clean, “My mom wouldn’t let my dad come around much, even though she wasn’t around much herself. I was pretty much on my own till my mom  died and my dad took us in.”

Watching him talk about his past, you get the impression that it’s something he doesn’t often talk about. His body language alone is enough to tell you that. But the two of you feel some type of connection having shared a similar childhood experience.

“Your dad sounds like a good man,” you smile, “I think he’d be very proud of you.”

He looks up at you, his eyes shining with a mixture of sadness and appreciation. “Thanks… he really was the best. But sometimes I just wish I could have had a normal family.”

“Yeah I totally get it,” you sigh, “That’s why I always told myself I’d try to give my future kid the best life I can.  I want to give them the childhood I never had…” You trail off, thinking about the future you hope will become a reality one day. 

“Exactly!” he shouts, “That’s exactly what I told myself too! I always wanted a family so I could do things right.”

He seems excited at first but his expression quickly shifts to one of sadness. 

“But it’s too late for me to have a family,” he continues, looking down as he opens up about one of his biggest failures, “Oh well, if Ume ever has kids I’ll just try to be the best uncle I can.”

“Why would you say it’s too late?” you tilt your head to the side, confused.”

“Y/N, I’m thirty-five years old. I’m too old to start a family… Besides most women my age are done having kids. Not that any woman would want to be with me anyways.” He frowns, being reminded of how he failed to fulfill one of the only dreams he’s ever had. 

“Why not just start a family with a young girl, like me?” You ask without completely realizing what you’re saying. 

“Wh-what?” his eyes widen, completely taken aback by your statement. Could you be insinuating what he thinks you’re insinuating? He’s not sure whether you’re just naive or completely delusional. 

“W-Well um,” you blush as you begin to realize what you’ve said, “I think you’re a really great guy. Any woman would be lucky to-”

“Get out,” he cuts you off. 

“I’m sorry-”

“GET OUT!” He raises his voice, striking fear into you to the point where you feel your eyes begin to water. 

You feel utterly embarrassed and ashamed. Just when you were starting to get close to him too, you had to say something stupid to ruin it all. Honestly, you have no idea what you were thinking. You will admit you did have a crush on him, so maybe your heart just got excited and took a risky leap of faith. But unfortunately for you, it backfired. 

Without another word you rush out of his house as fast as you can, balling your eyes out. 

.˚₊┈୨♡୧┈₊˚. 

It’s been a few days, and Gyutaro has been ignoring your texts. They stopped coming after that first day, and even though he didn’t respond he still read them. Reading your apologies over and over. He couldn’t get the situation out of his head no matter how hard he tried. So he decided maybe he needed an outside opinion. 

He finds himself sitting at a bar, drinking a beer. Rubbing his rough hand across the stubble that’s grown on his face as he’s been too stressed lately to bother shaving. Honestly, he looks pretty rough. He’s caught up in his self-sabotaging thoughts when he hears a familiar voice call out to him.

“Gyutaro! How’ve you been, man?”

He turns around with a smile on his face, “Hey Kai, what’s up?” He stands and gives his best friend a side hug. 

“Gyutarooooo, do I get a hug too?” an annoying voice chimes, a voice that instantly gives Gyutaro a headache. This voice could only belong to one person. 

“I hope you don’t mind that I invited him too,” Kaigaku laughs nervously.

“Douma…” Gyutaro deadpans.

“What? Aren’t you happy to see me?” Douma smiles wide, giving Gyutaro a one-sided hug. “So, spill the details! Kai said you had some juicy gossip to talk about!” He says as he sits beside him at the bar, placing his hand under his chin and batting his long eyelashes. 

Kaigaku takes a seat on the other side of Gyutaro and mumbles, “Maybe this was a mistake.”

“It’s fine,” Gyutaro sighs and takes a drink from his bottle, “I really just wanted some advice. Just promise you won’t make it weird.”

“When do I ever make things weird?” Douma asks. 

Gyutaro just stares at him, thinking of all of the times he has indeed made things weird. 

“Come on man, just spit it out already!” Kaigaku nudges his shoulder. 

Gyutaro groans and slumps over in his seat, “Alright alright. So, there’s this girl-”

“A girl?!” Both of his friends say in unison. 

“Shut up!” Gyutaro growls, knowing exactly why his friends are so shocked. Because out of all of the years they’ve known him, he’s never once brought up a girl. 

“Anyway,” he continues, “There’s a girl I kind of like… she’s really sweet and we have a lot in common but…” he trails off, hesitant to tell them the truth, “She’s only twenty-one…”

Kaigaku chokes on his drink.

“I don’t see an issue,” Douma says, genuinely confused.

“Of course, you don’t,” Gyutaro mumbles under his breath. 

“How the hell did you get into this situation?” Kaigaku coughs.

“It wasn’t on purpose! I didn’t pursue her at all!” Gyutaro scowls, “Listen, she’s one of Ume’s friends. She comes over a lot and she’s been really nice to me. She even cooked a bunch of meals for me too…”

“And? Spill it, Shabana!” Douma pouts, getting impatient. 

“AND, we were talking about what we want for our future. I told her I wanted a family one day but I’m too old… and she said why don’t I have a family with a young girl like her. I immediately told her to leave. I’m starting to think maybe I overreacted…”

“Well, girls that age are very fertile!” Douma chimes as if his statement was completely innocent.

“STOP!” Gyutaro shouts, “That’s fucking weird, man! Don’t say it like that!” 

“Maybe I shouldn’t have invited him…” Kaigaku mumbles. 

“Hey, it’s true! I am a gynecologist after all, it’s just medical facts! And she’s right, having children with someone your age will be much more difficult and there could be complications!” Douma asserts confidently.

“The fact that you’re a gynecologist disturbs me,” Kaigaku says. 

“Me too,” Gyutaro adds. 

“Come on guys! It’s not as weird as you think. Why would it be so wrong to date her?”

“For starters, she’s fourteen fucking years younger than me! That’d be creepy right…? I don’t want people thinking I’m a weirdo or a creep,” he frowns, starting to feel like maybe he is a creep for even considering something with you. 

Kaigaku takes a sip of his drink, thinking long and hard about what advice he should give his friend. Especially since Douma is useless. 

“I mean, it’s not that bad,” he shrugs, “At the end of the day you’re both consenting adults. And since when did you care about what other people think of you anyway?”

“You have a point,” Gyutaro replies, “But she should live her life instead of wasting her time with an old guy like me.”

“First of all you aren’t even that old,” Kai rolls his eyes, “And second of all, she’s an adult who is fully capable of making her own decisions. If she wants to be with you, then she wants it for a reason. Maybe she wants a guy who is at a more stable point in his life. Who knows?”

“Exactly, Kai’s right. I see age gaps much larger than this all the time, it’s more common than you think,” Douma adds. 

“And besides, it would only be creepy if you were talking to her when she was a minor,” Kaigaku states, “Like if you’re an adult talking to a minor, then wait till they’re an adult to pursue them romantically it’s a little creepy if you ask me. But you didn’t even know her at all until now. So don’t worry man. You aren’t creepy or weird for liking this girl.”

Gyutaro feels a wave of relief wash over him as he listens to his friend’s explanation. It's the first thing he’s heard that actually made him feel a bit better about the situation. “So, you really think it’s ok for me to pursue her?”

“Hell yeah! Be happy, man. I know you’re not the kind of guy to go after a girl just because she’s young. She sounds like a really nice girl, and I’m happy someone finally sees what a great guy you are.”

“Thanks, Kai,” Gyutaro smiles, “Alright, I guess I’ll go for it.”

Gyutaro feels a newfound confidence overtake him. His friends are right, he shouldn’t be so caught up in the details when the fact of the matter is that a really amazing woman is interested in him for the first time in his life. And he cannot let this opportunity slide, as it may be the last chance he has at happiness. 

“Who knows, maybe she’s one of my patients!” Douma chimes in out of nowhere.

“Shut up, Douma! God, I can’t take you anywhere!” Kai growls. 

.˚₊┈୨♡୧┈₊˚.

That night you receive a text from Gyutaro, “Do you want to go to the botanical gardens with me this weekend?”

When you first read the text you had to pinch yourself in case you were dreaming. Why would he say that all of a sudden? Did he suddenly have a change of heart? Or maybe he’s inviting you out just so he can tell you off in person. 

You aren’t sure which one, but you’ve been so stressed over this situation that you’ll do anything to make up with him. So you hastily respond, “Yes! I’d love to :)”

Immediately you regret how eager you sound in the text, thinking that it might make Gyutaro think you're even more childish. But in reality it makes him smile knowing that someone is excited to see him for once.

“Ok. I’ll send you the details,” he responds a minute later.

Is this a date? That’s the only question that keeps replaying in your mind. A date with Gyutaro, your best friend’s older brother. The whole thing feels taboo, but you’d be lying if you said that it didn’t make you feel even more excited.

Taglist: @gyusimp @mistyychann @cherrysxuya @angelicsaiko @hoshigafuru @matsukaah @merryclaus @whisperhug97 @dawn-rays-dingo

(I tagged people who showed interest in my previous posts. If you'd like to be added or removed from the taglist just let me know. The next chapter will have smut so if you want to be tagged make sure you have your age listed on your blog ♡)

[bunnysbrainrot]

But I’m Better

Kintober prompt: Toys

Relationship: dbf!Joel Miller x fem!Reader

Content: explicit sexual scenes, praise kink, guided masturbation, dom/sub (kinda) dynamic, size kink (kinda sorta). No outbreak AU, age gap (Joel is around his mid-40’s, reader is early/mid-20’s).

Summary: When something breaks, you always know who to call. Your dresser is broken, and you’re left hopeless. But what happens when Joel finds something peculiar in your drawer?

A/N: Y’all. I am so pissed right now because i wrote so much on my drive home, and it deleted because of a bad connection. i can’t recall everything i wrote, so i did the best with what i could remember. i hope it’s up to your liking!

“Shit,” you grumble as you stare blankly at the clothes strewn across the floor. The knob of your dresser drawer sat stupidly in your hand, the mangled wood and metal mocking you. It looked completely ruined.

You thought about messaging your dad about the repairs, but chose against it. He was never exactly notorious for making these things simple - it would be a question of ‘So how did this happen?’ or ‘How did you manage to break it?’, and it really wasn’t worth the effort for you.

The knob sat in your hand, the screw that held it in the drawer was bent to the side, and incredibly dull. No surprise there, you thought.

To be fair, it was an old ass dresser, given to you by your grandmother when you were younger. It was weird to think that you’d had this dresser for over twelve years.

You bent over the pile of clothes and hoisted the hefty drawer in line with the empty space, grunting in frustration as you tried to shimmy it in. It was settled haphazardly and tilted backwards. Completely screwed up. You took your phone from your pocket and snapped a photo of your mangled dresser, sending it to Joel.

Dresser finally gave out, I guess. Knob fell clean off when I tried to open it

Almost immediately, Joel haha reacted to the image and began to type. He was unlike any other man you’d talked to before. Joel was timely and consistent, and he was always reliable. Even if he didn’t have the time to help, he would instruct you on how to solve an issue, but typically he helped you in person.

As much as you tried to deny it, your feeling for Joel had warped over the past few years. It began as a silly childhood crush - those early days where you and your friends joked about what older men were sexiest. Your friends had given you teasing looks when you mentioned Joel, and even more shocking was how long you’d liked him. It was a simple, harmless, childhood crush.

Until it wasn’t.

You were freshly eighteen and readying yourself for college when the realization hit you. After all those years having crushes on older guys, it would be considered okay. Weird and taboo, sure, but still allowed now that you were legally an adult.

Joel had come to your graduation dinner at the end of senior year. You remembered that night in vivid detail. More particularly, Joel’s presence set your skin ablaze with a new type of anxiety. At long last, you could freely crush on Joel, except that there was now a chance he could like you, too.

That night he’d passed you a small velvet box, tied neatly with gold ribbon. You opened the box to reveal a gold, oval-shaped locket with a simple clasp. Inscribed on the face of the locket were whorled spirals, breaking off as flowers scattered over the gilded surface. Gazing up at Joel, you couldn’t contain your joy as you gave him a quick hug. He briefly wrapped an arm around you, holding you close by the small of your back.

He broke away, smiling proudly at you below him.

“You did a great job, baby girl. You keep that up in college, and you’ll get by just fine.”

You were thankful dessert had arrived in time for you to turn your attention away, hiding your rouged cheeks. Joel probably didn’t remember that night, but you remembered every little thing.

—

You’d done your four years of college and after the endless nights with little to no sleep and hard work, you were finally graduated, and taking a gap year before considering anything further. You worked hard, and didn’t want to burn yourself out with more school immediately.

But now you were back home, and your sights were set on something else. It was a golden opportunity to spend time with Joel - time that you’d lost by being away for so long. Holiday visits and summer break was hardly generous enough to give you any alone time with Joel. You left for college as a timid girl, developed yourself as a whole, and came back a woman. A woman who knew herself and her wants.

And you wanted him, ached for him in a way you could neither define nor justify. He was almost twice your age, a wholly developed man with his own complex past and unsteady dating life.

Mr. Miller.

He had lived in the next neighborhood over for as long as you could remember. He and your dad met about ten years back at a ‘work thing’, as they described it.

Joel was kind and endlessly generous when it came to helping others. He was the first call when something broke, and the best person to have over when times were tough, despite his sometimes-rugged personality.

You’d gotten back in town over a week ago, and since then you’d seen Joel a few times, mostly to ‘inspect’ the furniture in your room - if anything had worn down over time and needed to be replaced, the whole nine. The both of you knew it was some bullshit excuse to see him at work, with those corded muscles flexing under his tanned skin, sending shivers down your spine.

That day, the two of you had enough bravery in you to flirt. It started out lightly, you gave more emphasis on Mr. Miller, until Joel requested you call him by his first name.

“Makin’ me feel like an old man, darlin’,” he teased. You remember how he sounded saying it, with a voice as thick and sweet as molasses.

Before he’d left he’d held you by the waist, staring a little too closely at your face, watching your eyes grow wide when he leaned toward you. He fixed your hair with a gentle hand, said your name, and trailed off, his eyes never leaving your lips.

He refused to kiss you that time. Though the time after that you’d decided to break the boundary, drinking him in like someone dying of thirst. You memorized his scent, the softness of his skin and rough, eager hands across your chest, between your thighs, your throat. You both had been greedy that night. It was a high that coursed through your senses. You needed him, more than you led on.

I’ll get my toolbox, looks like it could be some old hardware. Be over in 10.

You picked up around your room in the meantime, your heart fluttering in your ribcage with each passing second. The room had become stiflingly hot. Suffocating.

A knock at your bedroom door startled you out of your anxious stupor. You reached for the door and now faced a smug Joel Miller in the doorway.

“I could’ve met you at the front door, you know,” you chastised him playfully. Joel shifted his weight of his feet, pulling something from his pocket.

“Helps that I have a house key. Means I can help you even faster.”

You rolled your eyes at him and turned on your heels without a word, striding toward your broken dresser. Joel followed casually, craning his head to look around your room, at the decorations that covered the walls and ceiling. This was no longer the bedroom of a the kid he’d met all those years ago. No, you were fully your own woman now.

“Yup, the screw’s shot to shit,” he muttered, holding out the drawer’s knob to you. “See the end of it? Shouldn’t be that dull - gotta have it replaced every now and then.”

“Do you have the right screw for it?”

He nodded, popping open his toolbox and assessing the different screws in each compartment. His hands flexed with each movement, the veins branching across them shifted with every twitch and roll of his thick fingers. Your legs clenched while the most intrusive thoughts filled your head. Specifically those hands, and what you could imagine them doing to you.

Procuring the right screw, Joel handed it to you. You looked at him in innocent confusion.

God, those eyes. If he had the chance, Joel would look into them all day, to let himself get swallowed whole by their beauty. And when you looked at him all pretty like that, as if you had no idea what you were doing to him, it drove him wild. You knew exactly what you were doing when you’d flirt with Joel, but couldn’t gauge his reciprocation, or if he was even okay with the weird ‘relationship’ you had.

It had been confusing for long enough. Someone needed to make a move, and Joel wasn’t sure if you had it in you to do it. Neither were you.

“I wanna see you try it for yourself,” he explained.

“If it’s so easy, why can’t you do it?” you quipped with a smile, but still taking the knob in your hands. Joel gave no reply and waited patiently for you to back down and do it yourself.

It was far easier than you thought. You handed it back to Joel with a proud smile. His eyes thoughtfully scanned your face before finding home in your eyes.

“Smart girl. I knew you could do it.”

Heat rushed across your cheeks like a harsh sunburn, completely taken over by the brightness in his honeyed tone and brown eyes. Joel laughed at your reaction before he worked on the drawer knob, fiddling it into place. His hands rummaged through your drawer as he worked, and paid no mind to the clothes, though you just realized. This was your underwear drawer - full of lacy underwear, bras of all varieties, and one final item you prayed you hid well enough.

Joel’s hands pushed through your panties as you held your breath. After the drawer had fallen out you’d lazily threwn everything back in the drawer and paid no mind to its organization. Since it wasn’t on the bed or the floor, by accident, you were certain that Joel would cross paths with a toy of yours.

He struck something solid amidst the clothes. The material was solid and heavy, with a bit of give from the silicone. At that moment, he could’ve left it ignored, but there was no fun in that, he thought. Joel gripped the dildo at the base, pulling out of the tangle of clothes and handed it to you, flashing you with a smirk.

“You should find a better place for this,” he drawled. “Never know who could find it.”

You quickly grabbed it from him and scanned your room for another hiding spot, but nothing came to mind. Instead you plopped it back in the drawer, on the opposite side.

“Most people don’t get to go through my underwear, so you can’t give me shit for that,” you grumbled. Joel stood, groaning at the strain on his joints. You giggle at the noise, and gave him your usual teasing, “Old man.”

Ignoring your jab, Joel leaned against the chest of drawers, arms crossed over his chest in a stare down.

His voice was dark. It had become devious, knowing, and more stern than you’d imagined.

“You use it on yourself?”

You choked on your spit harshly, not expecting his question to be so direct. Joel placed a wide hand between your shoulder blades and gave you a pat, coaxing you back to normal.

“Joel,” you pant, catching your breath, “you can’t just- just ask me that.”

“And you wouldn’t be curious if the roles were reversed, I’m sure,” he said coolly.

The redness had returned to your cheeks while you debated on your answer, but your hesitation told Joel everything he needed to know. In the smallest way, you’d let it slip that you imagine him in your free time, not that it wasn’t the same case for him. If anything, it’d been worse. Every text you’d sent him set him ablaze; at night he thought about you in detail and palmed himself through his pants, or pumped his cock in a fervent hand as he thought of you, squeezing himself inside your tight pussy. Countless nights he’d stained himself with his own seed, wishing it was inside of you instead, where it belongs. That toy should be him, it always should’ve been.

“Do you?”

You huffed and turned away from him, striding toward the bed to adjust your pillows - any sort of casual distraction from the question.

“Why do you want to know?” you countered.

Joel’s hands brushed against your hips from behind, his feather-soft fingertips brushing across the skin above your jeans. You drew in a breath as Joel whispered next to your ear.

“Because I’m a selfish old bastard, and I’m wondering what it looks like.”

“What what looks like?” you ask softly. You knew precisely what he meant but you wanted to hear something from him anyway.

He burrowed his head at the crook of your neck, gently kissing your skin up to the soft spot below your ear. His breath flew over your skin hot and heavy, sending a new wave of heat to your core.

“I want to see your face when you’re all filled up. I gotta see what your little pussy looks like when it’s all stretched out.”

You pushed your hips back flush with his to find a growing bulge trapped in his jeans. Joel rolled his hips into your ass, groaning at the constraint of the rough denim.

“Joel,” you breathed.

He mumbled against your neck, “What is it baby girl?”

Shoving your ass against his crotch, you whined, “I need you. Please… need you so badly.”

His hum rumbled against your skin, sending goosebumps rolling across your arms. A hand wound up to your hair and tugged a good handful back toward him. You gazed up at him with those beautiful glossed over eyes he dreamed about. He pictured this look on your face for a few years now, and he finally had the joy of seeing it, of causing it himself.

“Not givin’ it to you yet, baby,” he tugged once more on your hair when you whined in protest, “Gonna try something different first.”

In one movement you were facing him, finding two dark eyes staring you down, pupils both blown in lust. Joel gripped the back of your head carefully now, cradling you like something precious, something coveted. This was exactly how he saw you. You were someone to protect and take care of, and now it’s shifted to something far more intimate. Joel vowed to himself that he would make you feel every ounce of pleasure you’d been missing out on. All those nights where his hand replaced your pussy built up a frustration only you could truly fix.

Joel crashed his mouth to yours, as he’d done twice before this, and the kiss sent the same heat through your body. You clenched your thighs in a pitiful attempt to gain pressure against your swollen clit, nestled sweetly between your soft folds, soaking your underwear with your slick.

He pressed you backward until your knees hit the edge of the bed. The kiss was no short of pure ecstasy. The way his stubble scratched against your cheeks, the way his breathing grew heavy when you bit at his lower lip, the way his tongue edged into your mouth to explore every inch.

You gasped when Joel pulled away, watching him step to your dresser and draw out the dildo you’d hidden back inside. He turned to you with the toy in hand, wobbling slightly in his grip.

“‘S a pretty big one, sweetheart, you actually use all of it?” his voice was far too casual for a man holding your dildo.

You offer him half a nod, “Kind of. I’ve been trying to get… all the way in.” Joel assessed your words before he joined you on the bed, holding the toy against your stomach, at the base of your pelvis. He let out a low whistle when he saw where the toy’s length ended at your tummy, past your bellybutton.

“All of that inside you… felt pretty daring getting one so big, huh?”

That wasn’t the case and it was the most embarrassing part. The truth is, you chose the size based on your image of Joel. You didn’t even know how endowed he was, but you let your fantasy of him take over. That, and the time your hand brushed against his erection during your last kiss.

“I wanted to see if it would feel like you,” you admitted.

Joel’s eyes crinkled with his laugh, “Darlin’, a toy don’t compare to the real thing. Not really.”

You jabbed his arm at his teasing, “Listen, I’m doing the best with what I got, okay?”

“Yeah, but it’s not the best you could get, now is it?” he purred, pushing forward to plant a kiss on your neck. You shook your head, knowing he was exactly right. The toy would never really feel like the real thing.

You glanced up at him with a nervous expression, furrowing your brows, “What did you want to do?”

Joel looked at you coolly and leaned back onto his elbows. He eyed you, then the toy in his hand, then back to you.

“You gonna make it fit - take it all the way - and I’m gonna help.”

Crimson shaded your cheeks at the thought, staring nervously at the toy. Surely you were wet enough to take it, but the action of pushing further, to get it in completely, had been a challenge. In hopes to boost your bravery, you hunched over him, kissing him harshly as your hands flew to your pants. You fumbled with the waistband and slid them off of you, until you were stark naked, laid and bare before Mr. Miller.

He simply drank you in as you sat nervously in the lamplight. Joel eyed you darkly, his eyes raking from your quivering thighs, your slightly hidden sex - masked by your censoring hands, to your perk nipples atop each soft breast, and to your face, eyes half-lidded in pleasure adjoined with your soft panting.

“Jesus.”

You ducked your head sheepishly, shaking slightly to decline the compliment. Joel looked you over fondly as his hand found your cheek, brushing a thumb over your cheekbone. You glanced down at him, still giving you that goofy smirk and a excited glint in his eye.

Joel kept eye contact as his hand traveled down your body - through the valley between your breasts, down your tummy, to just above your slit, daringly close to dipping between your wet folds. You pushed yourself into your knees and knelt at his side, your aching cunt exposed to him in the dimly lit room.

He trailed his hand up each thigh, halting just before he reached your pussy. Each touch was carefully light in a way that made your whole body shudder against him. A single finger slithered up your thigh once again, finally finding its way through your slit, nestling comfortably against your clit and drawing lazy circles.

You cried out against a hand held at your mouth. Joel’s hand smelled of metal and bourbon, mixed with pine and lemongrass. He smelled smoky and fresh and completely warm against your face. You bestowed your face into his palm as he gained a rhythm on your clit, drawing out the smallest cries against his skin.

“Nice and wet for me already, darlin’, that’s good… that’s such a good girl. Drippin’ and ready.”

Another dumb nod has him chuckling while his finger skirted lightly across your clit, teasing the bundle of nerves until your stomach grew tighter.

“Gonna cum, baby? You gonna cum for me already?” His comment draws another moan from you, falling like a melody past your bitten lips, a chorus straight from heaven, just for Joel.

“It’s okay, baby doll, go ‘head. Cum for daddy,” he said sweetly, the Southern drawl thick through his words.

You unravel around him, jolting your hips as your orgasm takes over your senses. A soft cry sounds through your gritted teeth; you gently grind your hips onto the pad of his finger to ride through the shockwaves. Joel leans up to kiss your shoulder, his lips warm and supple.

“Just as beautiful as I imagined,” whispered Joel. His tongue skirts along your skin to your neck, fully sitting beside you to bore his eyes into yours.

You glanced back at him with lust-blow pupils, steadying your breath as his hand slowed its tempo. Joel gave you a lazy smile, the lamplight catching the salt-and-pepper hairs of his scruff in a soft display of his rugged features.

“Can,” you started, “you be… inside me?”

Joel’s hands found your hips and gripped snugly. The look in his eyes was nothing short of affectionate. Even still, he shook his head.

“Not tonight darlin’,” he replies, “I want you to show me how you look using this-“ he points to the dildo on his opposite side, waiting. “Since you think a toy could be so much better than me-“

“That’s not it at all,” you protest, “I needed something, Joel.”

He holds up a hand to stop you mid-sentence, “You could’ve asked me, but ya didn’t, did ya?”

You gave him a scowl, “I didn’t think this would happen, Joel.”

Ever since you hit eighteen, he wanted you to practice calling him by his first name purely out of comfortability, and since you’d grown up, it seemed more fitting.

He doesn’t reply, but his smirk grows when he brings the dildo over to you, sitting between your thighs. It was embarrassing enough with how little of the toy you could handle this far, and to do it in front of Joel seemed doubly humiliating.

Joel gives your ass a small smack to lift you up. You rise, letting him set the toy between your thighs and beneath your throbbing entrance. He cleared his throat, daring your attention back to him.

“Go at your own pace, but get it all in, sweet girl.”

All thought had left you - your only reply being in an eager nod. You started off slowly, notching the toy in at your tight hole, and slowly bounced yourself along its length. Your legs shook with each movement as you filled yourself more and more, every gyration sent shockwaves of pleasure through every inch of your being.

It took a few moments to ease yourself fully, now bouncing on the dildo’s length until it became glossy with your slick. Joel eyed you affectionately. Your face twisted in ways he couldn’t imagine, and your cunt wrapped around the toy in ways he could only dream of.

Joel patted your thigh as you bottomed out at the hilt of the toy. He pawed at your hips, kneading at the tender flesh of your ass, and pulled you into a grinding motion, setting the dildo ever deeper into your cunt. It struck a new spot deep inside of you, pushing against your cervix. A low moan fell from you as you moved your hips absentmindedly, solely following Joel’s command.

The tightness in your stomach only grew as his praises flowed through your head.

“Such an obedient lil’ thing.”

“That’s a dirty girl, gettin’ all needy like that. Wishin’ it was me in your sweet pussy, don’t you?”

“You have no idea how badly I want to fill you right now, baby doll.”

You mewled softly as another orgasm crashed through you, your hips sputtering as you ground onto the toy. Joel’s hands caressed you through your high, though he didn’t stop tugging your hips. He beamed lazily when you cried his name once again, shuddering around the toy nestled inside of you.

“Attagirl,” whispered Joel, “so fuckin’ beautiful..”

You shook your head at him like before, but he showed no signs of backing down from his stance. Joel peppered your thighs with kisses and he lifted you off the toy, listening to your whines as you were left feeling empty. His cock twitched in his jeans, eager to play.

But not yet. He needed to see this first.

“How was that, sweet girl?”

A beat of silence said every unspoken thing you’d come up with. It was good, but not mind-boggling. Not the ‘fucked til you’re dumb’ pleasure you’d expected from tonight.

Joel patted your ass, “That’s the thing. Toys… they feel nice. But-“ He plants a kiss to your cheek, then your lips, grazing over the swollen skin.

“I’m better.”

The next few minutes consisted of cleaning after yourself and settling back into your clothes. Joel fixed your hair neatly before looking you over.

“Cant stay long tonight, darlin’, gotta get back home.”

You sighed dramatically at him, to which he scoffed away the gesture. On his way out, he gave you a far more longing look - a loving, thoughtful gaze that told you one thing.

You were his. Completely and wholly. It was clear he saw you differently now, as you did him.

Joel fucking Miller.

MDNI spacer is by cafekitsune!

hi everyone! thank you for so much incredible support on this fic!

Just FYI: Blood Flow, and Daddy’s Girl are now up as parts 2 and 3! have fun, lovelies

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

ON AN AUGUST night in 2003, a young woman who went by the name Paulina sank into the sofa of her modest, rented apartment, opened up her laptop, and began talking about sex with a man she’d recently met in a Yahoo chat group. His name was Stephen Bolen. His first communications had been terse, but he soon warmed to Paulina. It didn’t take long for both of them to begin to open up.

Paulina had told Bolen she lived in the Atlanta area, that she had a three-year-old daughter, that her daughter’s father was no longer in the picture. Soon, she was sharing more intimate details: what it was like growing up a skinny white girl in a rough neighborhood outside of D.C.; how her dad, a Marine, had died by suicide two weeks before she was born; how her mom had been emotionally and physically abusive, and had never really shown her love. How she’d had a sexual relationship with her stepfather.

Paulina would put her daughter to bed and then she and Bolen would chat throughout the night, over Yahoo and sometimes on the phone. The back-and-forth could feel like dating, but with an added element of danger and risk: Both Paulina and Bolen knew they were tiptoeing up to a line to see if they trusted each other enough to cross it. It could take a while to figure that out.

Eventually, Bolen asked Paulina to send pictures of her daughter, and she agreed to do so, though the ones she’d shared were chaste — the little girl clothed and her face turned away from the camera or obscured behind an untamable halo of blond curls. After seeing the pictures, Bolen asked to meet. While a lot of the men Paulina had encountered in chatrooms like “Sex With Younger” just wanted to trade images and videos of children, to expand their illicit collections, Bolen was a “traveler,” someone looking to act upon his obsessions.

On Sept. 17, just as they’d arranged, Paulina sat on a bench outside Perimeter Mall with a stroller parked in front of her, scanning the parking lot nervously. Part of her hoped Bolen wouldn’t show. When he did, she could see he was handsome, a preppy guy in a pink polo shirt and khakis. “Paulina?” he asked eagerly. She nodded. As he smiled and pulled back the blanket draped across the stroller, he found himself surrounded, handcuffs slipped around his wrists.

“Paulina” watched his face fall, his confusion giving way to distress as FBI agents took him into custody. It was her first undercover arrest. It would be the first of many.

[long read]

IF ONE WANTED to hide in plain sight, one could do no better than the tidy, suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of St. Louis, where FBI Special Agent Nikki Badolato now resides. The well-tended, two-story homes are so pleasantly indistinct that I could hardly tell you what hers looks like, even if it were safe for me to do so, which it is not. Suffice to say that Midwestern comfort and conformity unspool around every gently winding curve. Here Badolato has raised her two children, a daughter who is now in college and a son who is a junior at a local high school. When planning a neighborhood scavenger hunt or tending the community garden, Badolato does not often mention her many years as head of the Child Exploitation Task Force, a joint effort between the feds and local law enforcement that targets some of the country’s most heinous crimes. Open a cabinet in her kitchen, however, and a government-issued Glock 42 can be found stowed away between the vitamins and mixing bowls.

On a sunny morning this past October, Badolato sat at her dining room table, scrapbooks and albums spread out before her on the dark wood. There was the acceptance letter she’d received from the bureau the spring of her senior year of high school, after a representative had shown up to administer a test in the typewriting room. “I chose to wear a red dress and red heels,” she says of her first day as an FBI mail clerk, two weeks after her 18th birthday. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I guess maybe I was trying to go in bold?” She pauses at a picture of herself on the gun range at Quantico almost 10 years later, her shoulders squared and her caramel hair pulled back into a ponytail as she fires off rounds. By then, she’d married a man she met just after high school, had a little girl, completed college at night, and been accepted into agent training in the heady days after 9/11. She’d seen her first dead body only a few weeks into the job, after the pursuit of a bank robber ended with a shootout in a Walmart. When Badolato got to the scene, the body was still warm, and the perp’s head was resting on a bag of cookies. “It was surreal,” she says. “How many times have you been in a Walmart and walked down Aisle 4, not really expecting there to be a dead person with his head lying on a bag of Chips Ahoy?”

Badolato wasn’t deterred. She felt like the bureau saved her, plucked her out of a shitty home life, and gave her prospects and purpose. As a new agent, she was intent on proving herself worthy. “My training agent told me, ‘You know, Nikki, it’s a marathon, not a sprint,’ ” she says. “I was like, ‘That’s ridiculous. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.’ ” She turned a few pages to show a picture of the 391 kilos of cocaine and 140 pounds of meth she’d recovered on a single raid during a stint with a cartel squad, then pointed out another in which she poses with a five-year-old child she’d rescued, the little girl’s hair cut short because the kidnapper had wanted her to look like a boy. But the keepsake she really wants to find is the card that Bolen’s wife had pressed into her hand at his sentencing, the one with the picture of their children — a blond girl of about three years and a tiny baby — and the words “These are the faces of the children you protect each day.” Bolen’s wife had been the only one she’d ever encountered who had lobbied for her husband to receive the maximum sentence. Some wives accused the FBI of planting evidence inside computers. Most seemed intent on clinging to their delusions. (Attempts to reach Bolen for comment were unsuccessful.)

“Right now some little girl is being dropped off in the parking lot of a motel. There are four girls holed up in a hotel next to a McDonald’s. It is happening all the time.”

Which, Badolato has come to understand, is the way it goes with child trafficking and sexual abuse. She had invited me into her home — had agreed to speak on the record about her decades-long career working undercover — because when it comes to the crimes she’s spent her career fighting, she has had enough of the delusions people are under. She’s had enough of the way movies like Sound of Freedom both glamorize and trivialize the work she and her colleagues do, enough of the idea that swashbuckling white men burst through doors and rescue trafficked children with a Bible in one hand and a firearm in the other, enough of conspiracy theories about Hollywood and Washington that detract from the real root causes of why children are trafficked and abused. “Human trafficking is not the movie Pretty Woman — the girl doesn’t get the guy — and it’s not the movie Taken, where people are kidnapped in a foreign country and sold on the black market, or shipped in a container across the world,” one of the detectives who worked on Badolato’s task force tells me. “I’m not saying that doesn’t ever happen, but it’s not what we’re seeing.”

What they are seeing is a lot more insidious and a lot more homegrown. A report released in 2018 by the State Department ranked the U.S. as one of the worst countries in the world for human trafficking. While the Department of Justice has estimated that between 14,500 and 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into this country every year, this number pales in comparison to the number of American minors who are trafficked within it: A 2009 Department of Health and Human Services review of human trafficking into and within the United States found that roughly 199,000 American minors are sexually exploited each year, and that between 244,000 and 325,000 American youths are considered to be at risk of being trafficked specifically in the sex industry. Heartbreakingly, many of these children are victimized not by strangers who’ve abducted them from mall parking lots but rather by people they know and trust: Studies have found that as much as 44 percent of victims are trafficked by family members, most often parents (and not infrequently parents who were trafficked themselves). Between 2011 and 2020, there was an 84 percent increase in the number of people prosecuted for a federal human-trafficking offense. Of the defendants charged in 2020, 92 percent were male, 63 percent were white, 66 percent had no prior convictions, and 95 percent were U.S. citizens.

Badolato started her career as an FBI agent in some of the earliest days that children could be bought, sold, and traded online. As the internet-porn industry mushroomed, its most lucrative branch turned out to be that of child sexual-abuse materials (the term “child pornography” is no longer used by those in the field, as it implies consent). And as demand for these images increased, so did the abuse that led to their creation.

In 2003, just a few months after Badolato graduated from Quantico, a Crimes Against Children squad was formed in the Atlanta office where she’d been stationed. By then, the FBI was starting to get a handle on the extent of the problem — if not exactly what to do about it. At a weeklong training in Baltimore, Badolato was given a tour of the darkest underbelly of fetish chat groups and then instructed to figure out how to infiltrate. “Everyone was a little nervous,” she explains of the directive. “It was a process, a direction that was new.” Agents were told that they would need to come up with a “persona” and a “story,” and that they would likely have to provide images of children to “prove” they had a minor on offer. They were also told that they could use images of their own children, if they were comfortable doing so (the FBI no longer endorses this policy).

Badolato’s unit with a kidnapping victim after her recovery in 2011. A Health and Human Services review found that roughly 199,000 American minors are sexually exploited each year, and that as many as 325,000 American youths are considered to be at risk of being trafficked in the sex industry. 

Badolato developed “Paulina” based on her understanding that any persona would need to share most of her own backstory and traits. “That’s the only way you can really do undercover work,” Badolato says. “People can tell the sincerity in what you’re saying, so there has to be a level of genuineness, but then you just add this criminal element to it.” Most of the things Badolato had told Bolen were true: where she was from, her family background, the monstrousness of her mother, a woman who she says would pass out cigarettes and beers to Badolato’s 13-year-old friends in a state of manic permissiveness one minute and fly into a violent rage about a piece of lint on the floor the next. (Badolato’s mother declined to comment for this article, but a childhood friend corroborated Badolato’s account.) It was true that growing up in an unstable home with a string of stepdads, she had never really felt loved, true that she had divorced her first husband, true that she was raising their three-year-old daughter on her own. The only thing that wasn’t true was her tale of being molested, her initiation into the “lifestyle” — to use the chatroom parlance — that Paulina said she now wanted for her daughter. As Badolato had familiarized herself with the language and behaviors of the chatrooms, she’d honed that added criminal element, imagining what psychological conditions might believably lead a parent to traffic their own child and how those conditions could be grafted onto her real life story. She already had a history of abuse; it was not hard to extrapolate to a fictional stepfather who had seemed to provide a gentle counterpoint, showing her love and making her feel special when no one else had, even if others couldn’t understand. From there, it was easy to convince the chatroom participants that she shared their belief — or justification — that most people had it all wrong and that “child love” was natural, and could even be beneficial for the child.

Badolato estimates that she has arrested more than a thousand people; not one of those arrests has failed to end in a conviction. She didn’t know until she was in the thick of it that most agents refuse this sort of work, that most can’t even pretend to forge a relationship with someone looking to victimize a child. But she could. “Paulina,” she points out, is not a name she chose at random; it’s similar to her own mother’s name. Badolato says she had grown up learning to compartmentalize for the sake of her own emotional survival. She’d perfected the art of engaging with someone whose actions she couldn’t stand. Doing this work had felt like a way of taking her trauma and putting it to good use, of leveraging her past as a safeguard against her daughter’s and other children’s futures.

Of course there were moments that were hard to take — when suspects mentioned which brands of lubrication were best or whether or not a parent might hold a child down. There were times when she knew that even talking about these things was a turn-on for these men, times when the conversations made her nauseous, times when she’d lie awake all night or play back a recording and think, “Holy shit, I listened to this? I said these words?” But she kept faith in the mission. She reminded herself that the pictures she sent of her daughter — the beautiful, little girl sleeping in the next room — did not represent a real child on offer. “I was thinking, ‘If I send this obscure picture of my daughter and he acts on it, then he’s never going to harm my daughter or anybody else’s,’ ” Badolato says now. “I was presenting a fake girl to save a real one.”

KYLE PARKS SEEMED to think he could get away with anything. He seemed to think, for instance, that he could get away with running a brothel, a 1-900 sex line, and a housecleaning company out of the same Columbus, Ohio, office park and under the same oxy-moronic name, XXXREC and Hygiene Services. He seemed to think he could invite one young woman and five teenagers (four of whom he had only just met) on a road trip to Florida, but instead deposit them in two rooms of a Red Roof Inn in St. Charles, Missouri. When they piled out of the minivan — high on the drugs he’d given them — saw snow falling and asked to be taken home, he thought he could make a little money off them first. All it took was a few ads in Backpage — the Craigslist of sex advertisements — and men began showing up.

Even after things started going south for him, Parks couldn’t fathom that he wouldn’t prevail. When someone alerted law enforcement as to what was going on, Parks (who, according to legal documents, had been out getting food when the police showed up) burst into the precinct the next morning looking to bail his “friend” out. When questioned about the 88 condoms found in the back of his van, he said they had been prescribed to him by a doctor. After being taken into custody, he protested that he was being set up. Most people would have cut their losses and pleaded guilty, but not Parks. He thought he could take his case to court and win.

And it wasn’t impossible to imagine that he might. Badolato knew that even the tightest cases could go sideways when put before 12 people who would inevitably enter the courtroom with a cinematic sense of what sex trafficking was supposed to be. In fact, it wasn’t just the jury that Badolato knew she would need to convince; it was also often the victims themselves, young people who had internalized the exact same misconceptions about trafficking that the jury had — along with any number of other judgments society had thrown their way — and who were loath to submit themselves to a courtroom full of more judgment.

Of all of Parks’ underage victims, the hardest to pin down had been a 17-year-old we’ll call Sierra. Once she returned to Columbus, Sierra seemed to basically disappear. Calls to her mother’s number went unanswered. When one of the other victims managed to track her down in December 2016, a month before the case was to go to trial, Sierra agreed to meet Badolato on a blighted Columbus block with a string of dilapidated homes, climbing into the bureau’s Chevy Malibu with matted hair, dirty clothes, and a wary expression.

By this time, Badolato had remarried, had a second child, relocated to St. Louis, and taken over as head of the Child Exploitation Joint Task Force, which had become one of the most productive FBI teams in the country in terms of arrests and convictions. Meanwhile, as the internet streamlined the process of buying or selling any good or service, trafficking had become one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises, estimated by the Department of Homeland Security to bring in $150 billion globally and considered by many criminals to be a superior business model: If caught, the sentences were often lighter than those for peddling drugs; and unlike crack or heroin, the same product could be “used” again and again and again.

Badolato taught her team of 20 how to do the online undercover work she’d trailblazed in Atlanta, tracking the movements of child-abuse material through the online underworld and then prosecuting those who distributed and produced it. Her new squad also initiated her in the type of undercover work it had been doing before her arrival: covert sting operations in which a detective would pose as a john, set up a “date,” and then meet said date in a hotel room fitted out with hidden recording devices while, in the next room over, a taskforce team listened in, waiting for the code word that would let them know that enough evidence had been gathered for them to swoop in and shut the op down. This had proved a very effective technique for getting convictions, but Badolato’s arrival coincided with both a growing sentiment that consensual sex work had been over-criminalized and an increasing awareness that what looked like consensual sex work might actually be trafficking, no matter what the “date” professed in that hotel room.

Badolato has a tendency to say aloud the things she notices — about you, about others, about situations — observations that are not at all unkind but are perceptive enough that most people would keep them to themselves. She points out when someone deflects, and she has a sharp eye for defense mechanisms. She once casually mentions my tendency to mirror other people’s vocal and speech patterns. She is not shy about bringing up the emotional and physical abuse she says she experienced as a child, and she is quick to comment when someone is making excuses for someone else’s behavior. It was soon clear to her colleagues that Badolato brought a trauma-informed mentality to the work, a tendency to look beyond what someone was doing and instead try to parse why they were doing it. And she was relentless: While some squads did one or two trafficking sting ops a year, her team was doing four or five a month. In addition to the hotel rooms reserved for the john and the team, they would have a social worker set up in a third room, ready to offer services to the victims. They would have lookouts stationed to see who might be dropping the date off. If that date was found to be underage, the case was automatically classified as trafficking. But even if they weren’t, Badolato’s team was primed to get to the bottom of what was going on, to figure out whether they were being manipulated or coerced, and by whom.

“If I could put my hands on a pimp, that’s what I wanted,” says Jeff Roediger, a St. Louis county detective who was the “john” for many of Badolato’s sting ops and who makes clear that the team was not interested in policing voluntary sex work. “When I had those types of cases, and I knew they were being sincere with me, I wouldn’t book them,” he says. “It was all about talking to the girls. It’s not like in the movies where they come running to you. You know, ‘Thanks, you rescued me!’ It’s not like that. A lot of them try to bullshit you at first — ‘That’s my boyfriend, blah blah blah’— but once I talked to them for a while, they would become more forthcoming.”

Badolato’s unit was one of the first in the country to take on this “progressive and proactive” approach, as she puts it. Soon, St. Louis looked like a sex-trafficking capital — not because it was actually trafficking more victims than other cities but because the task force was so aggressively pursuing those cases, and classifying them as what they were. “I mean, I was working in vice for years,” says Roediger. “Back in the day, it was always ‘prostitution,’ ‘prostitution,’ ‘prostitution’ — until we started to figure it out a little bit, until we started digging a little deeper.”

Once they did, the task force found that roughly a third of the sex-trafficking victims they recovered were under the age of 17 — and they began to see the reach of the problem. Kids were being trafficked out of every hotel in the area, from the seediest roach motel to the fanciest Ritz-Carlton. They were being trafficked every time of day and by every socioeconomic group (“Before you go do brain surgery, you got to bust a nut real quick,” one underage victim told Badolato of her high-end clientele). Some of the victims were girls. Some were boys. Some were LGBTQ kids who’d been kicked out of their homes. Some were straight cis kids from the suburbs. “I tell people that I could probably name two or three [kids] in the school district they live in that have been trafficked,” Roediger says. “And they just can’t comprehend it.”

“If I can be perfectly honest, I truly don’t believe that the FBI realizes what they put their agents through doing that kind of work.”

There were kids who were about to age out of foster care (a particularly at-risk group, according to those who work in the field), kids who’d run away, kids who were being sold to pay their family’s rent, or to buy their family member’s drugs. There were kids who’d sit in the hotel room, backpack at their feet, dutifully working on their math homework while agents and social workers tried to figure out what to do with them. Was their home life safe enough that they could be returned to it? Would a residential program take them? Of all the imperfect options, which would make them least likely to be trafficked again?

The one common denominator was this: They all had a vulnerability that could be preyed upon. They all lacked a safety net — societal, familial, emotional, or some combination thereof — that might have broken their fall. Mostly, their stories weren’t dramatic; they were typical American tales of neglect, of abuse doled out casually, of a steady stream of letdowns by people and institutions who should have propped them up. Badolato found that she had a knack for getting them to talk about this, for getting them to open up to her. She didn’t look like an FBI agent — at least not what they’d imagined. She spoke softly, but with authority and a slight vocal fry. And she thinks that, at some level, they could probably sense that she’d once been a vulnerable kid too, that with only a few slightly different twists of fate, she could have become a trafficking victim herself — and that she knew it. “My trauma looks different than theirs, but it’s trauma nonetheless,” she says.

“And I think victims can feel that.”

AS THE TASK force learned more about the psychology of victims, they also learned more about the ways in which their vulnerability was being manipulated, and how those ways were evolving. It was known in law-enforcement circles that once a skilled trafficker set his or her sights on a vulnerable young person, they could be groomed in a matter of days: one day for an introduction, a day or two to make the victim feel special and cared for, and then the day when a “friend” comes over and he needs to be “cared for” as well. Sometimes violence was involved at that point; sometimes drug use was involved throughout. But emotional manipulation was the key element, which is why it was so easy for grooming to move online, for groomers to take advantage of the false senses of connection fostered on social media.

Of the victims who are not being trafficked by family members, the majority are being groomed in this way. “I would say that probably 75 percent of the initial grooming is happening online now,” says Cindy Malott, the director of U.S. Safe Programs at Crisis Aid International. “Recruiters used to have to work really, really hard to get access to kids, but now they’re practically sitting in a child’s bedroom. And kids put everything out there — what’s going on in their life, who they’re angry about, parents are going through a divorce, their insecurities about their body, about themselves, what they do, how they spend their time — so it’s like a gift to these predators.”

The ways to manipulate are legion: Get a kid to send a compromising photo, and she’ll do almost anything to keep you from sending it out to all her Facebook friends; find out a gay kid is still closeted, and the threat of outing him gives you incredible power. And predators aren’t just on Instagram and Snapchat; they lurk in the chat functions of Roblox, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto. “They’re everywhere,” says Malott. “People think, ‘Oh, I just got to keep my kids away from those porn sites, those horrible places.’ Well, no, predators are gonna go where the kids are.” And once there, they’re going to zero in on the kids who are most vulnerable.

That’s what got to Badolato. In her online undercover work, she’d plumbed the psychology of pedophiles, but now she wasn’t just dealing with suspects; she was spending time with victims and seeing the same vulnerabilities in them that the traffickers had seen: the instability or poverty, the addiction or mental health issues or abuse that had been normalized in their lives long before the traffickers entered them. Sometimes Badolato couldn’t help but feel that all the conspiracies and misconceptions weren’t just a distraction from the truth of trafficking but rather some sick attempt to let society off the hook for trying to solve the much more intractable problems at trafficking’s root.

“People would rather stick their head in the sand than address the real problem, because then you have to face and talk about the societal issues,” she says. “With a movie like Sound of Freedom, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is in a jungle in South America. This isn’t actually in [my neighborhood].’ You know? It’s easier for people to ignore the problem than deal with the issues on a societal level.”

BY THE TIME Badolato was sitting in that Chevy with Sierra, on that blighted Ohio block, she knew that the rate of revictimization for children who are trafficked was as high as 95 percent, according to FBI reports. She knew that 90 percent of sex-trafficking victims have a history of child sexual abuse, that more than 75 percent had lived in foster or adoptive care. She knew that she could arrest one perpetrator, and another would pop up in his place, that she could send one pimp to prison and the same victims would show up to stings some short time later, run by a different crew. She knew that testifying was a way for Sierra to psychologically push back against what had happened to her, and she was right: After the young woman took the stand on Jan. 10, 2017, Parks was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years; while testifying, Sierra had seemed to transform, to channel and embody a sort of empowerment. But Badolato also knew that once her testimony was over, Sierra would go back to that blighted block. She wondered how long that empowerment would last.

She also wondered about her own trajectory, her own ability to continue doing this work. The youngest trafficking victim she’d ever recovered from a sting op — an 11-year-old who’d been recruited through Facebook — had been returned to her family in a house that had no heat (Badolato had used an FBI slush fund to get it turned back on). One did not become immune to the human misery of such things. They compounded, became harder and harder to compartmentalize. “It’s just a combination of all of those years — and it’s all awful,” she says. “But there are particular moments that, for one reason or another, you can’t get out of your head. I just don’t think it’s in human nature to be exposed to that for so long and it not start changing who you are.”

One night, at a restaurant near where Badolato lives, I ask her whether she thinks children are being sex-trafficked right then, in that very moment, in just the mile or two radius around us. She’s quiet for a long time, her gaze fixed downward at her glass of wine. By the time she looks up, her whole body is trembling. “It’s happening right now,” she says quietly. “Right now some little girl is being dropped off in the parking lot of a motel. There are three or four girls holed up in a hotel next to a McDonald’s. It’s not only when we think about it. It is happening all the time. And if I’m just sitting here, present, having dinner, not thinking about it, that means I’m ignoring a problem that I know is real.” Tears stream down her face.

“Many images have never left my mind,” she says. “It’s really hard to have worked your entire life in law enforcement with a lot of child crime victims and be at the end of your career looking at the situation where you realize you can only do so much to make a difference.” Badolato wipes back the tears with the palm of her hand and shudders her head, as if she can shake the thoughts away. “Damn,” she says. “Fuck. I shouldn’t be the one crying. I’m not the victim of this.” The veteran agent steels herself and repeats, “I am not the victim.”

THE HOUSE WHERE Korina Ellison says she was first sex-trafficked no longer exists. It once stood on an unassuming lot in a residential suburb of Portland, Oregon, that stumbles down to the banks of the Willamette River. Now, Ellison can’t quite bring the house’s features to mind. She was so young back then, maybe four or five. There is so much she’s repressed, or only pieced together after the fact. As a child, she wouldn’t have known what she now believes to be true: that her grandmother scored her drugs by offering up her youngest daughter, Ellison’s mom. Or that, once her mom was hooked on the meth cooked by the man who’d lived in that house, she’d known just what to do to get more. But Ellison does remember being inside the house, unclothed. She does remember how the man would touch her.

Her life unspooled from there. Her father died of a heroin overdose when she was six. Her mom lost custody for good. She bounced around foster care, then various residential institutions, then whatever shelter she could find. In the story she tells of how she was sex-trafficked again in her teenage years, there’s no moment of drama, no kidnapping, no clear coercion. There was just a random, rainy afternoon when she had no place to go and was alone in the street and a car pulled up. The man inside took her home with him, fed her, introduced her to his girlfriend. They took her shopping. They let her stay. When men showed up at the home to have sex with the woman, Ellison was invited to watch, but she wasn’t expected to participate — not at first, anyway. According to a statement Ellison later made to law enforcement, she just “realized that people aren’t going to take care of [me] for free.” Soon, the woman was posting Ellison’s services on Backpage — $150 for half an hour, $200 for a full one — and the trio were traveling the Midwest. For a long time, it didn’t even occur to Ellison, then 16, to leave. “Where would I have gone?” she asks. “I’d been missing for over a year. Nobody was looking for me.” When the man told her to call him “Daddy,” she complied.

That was more than a decade ago, near the beginning of Badolato’s tenure as head of the Child Exploitation Task Force. But by 2021, leaving it had seemed a necessary form of self-preservation. One of her last cases had gone well legally: The perp, a retired police officer from California who had produced child sex-abuse materials of three sisters in Manila, had pleaded guilty to such charges when he learned that Badolato had brought the girls to the states to testify against him. But the experience had been emotionally devastating for Badolato, who had wanted the sisters, then 16, 13, and 11, to have memories of the U.S that consisted of more than reliving their trauma in a courtroom. She took them shopping and to the zoo, invited them to her home to have dinner with her own family, saw them slowly start to open up and laugh and behave like the children they were. Then she’d had to put them on a flight back to Manila, back to the aunt who had allowed the man to abuse them and who Badolato had been unable to extradite. Fortunately, she says, their estranged father ended up intervening and taking custody of the girls, but that feeling of futility in the fight lingered.

“I stayed for a little bit longer after that trial, but it really was when I should have been able to look myself in the mirror and say, ‘Nikki, you’re done,’ ” Badolato had told me in St. Louis. “It became clear that I had been doing it too long.” She’d spend the last couple of years working national security, a position without the immediacy of child-exploitation work, but also without the heartache. “If I can be perfectly honest, I truly don’t believe that the FBI realizes what they put their agents through doing that kind of work. I just don’t,” she says.

And yet, here Badolato was in Portland, leading Ellison, now 30, up to her hotel room, telling her about all the announcements she’d heard in the Atlanta airport instructing travelers to be on the lookout for sex trafficking. “It’s like white noise in the background,” she says as Ellison settles into the sofa. “It’s a false sense of doing something to help.”

“Here’s the thing: Nobody knows what to look for,” Ellison agrees.

“And what about the victims who are in that airport, who are walking around and listening?” Badolato asks.

“I wouldn’t have even heard that announcement,” Ellison replies. “Because I didn’t feel like a victim. It goes a lot, lot, lot deeper than anybody realizes.”

That’s what she and Badolato both understand. That’s why they started talking eight months ago. Of all the teenage victims Badolato’s task force recovered, Ellison is one of the few who she knows has permanently extricated herself from being prostituted, though it took years for her to get to that point, years for her to see that what happened to her was not her fault but rather a fault in the system, a fault in many systems over the course of generations. Neither she nor Badolato can fix that.

Yet they can’t help feeling like there’s something they can fix — or at least try to. Under the umbrella of an organization she’s founded called Innocent Warriors, Badolato created a program for schools, instructing educators on the signs that might indicate a student is being trafficked and teaching kids how to avoid getting groomed online, which, she believes, is not about stranger danger but rather an awareness of subtle manipulation. Ellison has been working with trafficked youth through nonprofits like Children of the Night, the residential program where Badolato’s team sent her when she was 17. Together, they’ve been talking about having Ellison help train undercovers who are learning to do trafficking sting ops. They’ve also discussed starting a mentorship program in which children who are still being sex-trafficked are paired with young adults like Ellison who once were, providing a way for victims to begin to envision a different future for themselves and a path toward it even while being prostituted. Such a program may be retroactive rather than proactive, but it would capitalize on Badolato’s and Ellison’s experience and expertise — and it could help in the healing of mentors and mentees alike.

Badolato had traveled to Portland for the two to talk face-to-face about how the program might work. “You have to understand how they’ve been traumatized because sometimes, to a child, relating doesn’t sound like you’re relating. It sounds like you’re pointing out all the bad things in them,” says Ellison from the driver’s seat of her Nissan Pathfinder as she drives Badolato around to show her certain landmarks of her past after she’d left Children of the Night: the bridge she’d slept under for over a year after a boyfriend had gotten her hooked on heroin, the blocks downtown where she’d bounced between a children’s shelter and the needle exchange. It had taken a prison sentence for her to finally break her addiction and commit to a different kind of life, though that evolution had had less to do with not having access to drugs than with seeing her own mother cycle in and out of the same facility — like looking into her own future and witnessing how bleak it would be. Maybe, she thought, she could provide the inverse of that for kids in Innocent Warriors. Maybe she could reverse engineer her own escape.

“I just want to make it very clear that if you were a victim, you are a victim, and just to not have any shame in that,” she tells Badolato as they drive through Portland’s misty streets.

“What I anticipate and hope is that then we get survivors that are like, ‘They get it,’ ” Badolato replies. “And that it opens up doors to help, for people to recognize that there are people who get what’s really going on.”

“It took a really long time for me,” Ellison says of coming to terms with her own victimhood.

“It’s like reworking your thought process about some of those things,” Badolato agrees. “And that’s hard, and it happens slowly over time, and it looks different for everybody.”

Ellison grips the wheel tightly. “The truth does matter. It does. The truth is the fucking truth. And it’s been empowering to be able to talk about it because that’s another way that I’ve realized, like, ‘Man, I was a victim,’ is re-going over all of this. Because when it happens so many times, you do blame yourself. It’s a lot easier to just continue to live in a lie than believe that you were lied to.”

Still, Ellison and Badolato agree that the impressionability that makes children vulnerable is also what makes them open to guidance and mentorship if a relationship of trust can be established. “What do you think a parent does? They groom you. I’d been waiting to be guided and groomed,” Ellison says.

It’s been instructive to see that potential from another perspective, as a mother doing the guiding. As the afternoon wears on, Ellison stops to pick up her then-15-month-old son, who was being watched by a social-worker friend. She buckles the little boy into his car seat, ruffles his hair, and passes him a bottle. He grins widely and begins removing his shoes and socks, throwing them gleefully onto the floor of the car and then kicking his tiny feet in time with the music as Ellison glances back at him and smiles. “Kids are so perfect,” she says.

The last stop of the day is the large plot of land where the drug dealer’s house once stood. Now, it’s been turned into a playground, with brightly-colored jungle gyms, a covered picnic area, and a large lawn, where a couple leisurely walks their dog. Ellison and Badolato climb down from the car and stand at the park’s edge, as Ellison’s son toddles around the grass, oblivious to what had transpired in that very spot. There is some form of poetic justice in the land being earmarked for children’s enjoyment, but neither woman voices it. Mostly, they’re quiet. Night is falling, the air growing cooler, and the gray sky fading into dusk.

“You would never think a park could hide what it used to be,” Ellison says at last. And yet it did. Driving off with Badolato at her side and her son babbling happily in the back seat, Ellison glances in the rear-view mirror, but only for a moment. Badolato keeps her eyes fixed only on the road ahead.

[quietstormxr]

You'll Survive

Garrick Tavis x Reader

Angst/Violence

Again breaking my heart here, just Garrick this time, as requested.

Summary: Garrick leaves for War Games and you are determined to forget him.

Word Count: 4.5k

A/n: Mentions of Tourture/some swearing, some Iron Flames spoilers

Should we have our angry bad ass girl give Garrick an ass kicking in a part 2?

The anger turned in to absolute despair. How could things have gotten so bad? The last words you exchanged with him were in anger and now you’d never be able to take them back. You’d never know if you really meant anything to him or not. At the same time, you couldn’t decide if you cared or not.

The anger that rotted in your core the entire time you were away was rooted farther than anything you’d ever felt before. He wouldn’t fight for you to join him, but there was Imogen, looking at you with a smug look on her face. You couldn’t help the way your face hardened, and a steely glare settled across your features.

You had seen the way she looked at him when you weren’t around and knew there had to be something there. Whether or not he still felt something, you were unsure. But the minute he turned his back to you and walked towards Imogen for War Games, you felt there was more there than he ever led on. 

You thought back to the last words that you exchanged and couldn’t help the regret that filled every part of your body. 

“So that’s it, huh?” You breathe as Garrick walks towards you. “You won’t even try to convince Xaden to take me?”

“You’re a first year, there’s no reason for you to be with the Wingleader’s headquarters squad.” He said back a calm determination on his face.

“That’s bullshit and you know it. Especially given the fact that he’s taking two other first years.” You snapped back viciously. 

“You’re to go with the rest of your squad. You’ll survive without me for a few days.” He says nonchalantly.

After that statement, you couldn’t control the raging inferno that coated your veins and made a home in your stomach. Hot and corrosive, you couldn’t help the way you wanted to punch him straight in the face.

“I see.” You say as you look past Garrick at Imogen still smirking at you smugly. “Well, I hope you enjoy your trip with your girl, because it certainly isn’t me.” You spit as you turn sharply and mount your dragon. 

‘Let’s go Diomat.’ You demand as you refuse to look back down at the infuriating man before you.

‘With pleasure, Bold One.’ Diomat confirms and immediately lifts into the air, but not before issuing a warning growl to your Section Leader.

You refuse to look back and see what emotion Garrick could possibly have on his face. Was he even hurt at what you said or was he smirking that you would ever dare to think he’d want you?

You fly for Eltuval and let the cold wind try to cool the flames that seem to lick underneath your skin. You refuse to let that man be the reason you lose your focus. You let the anger simmer in the hours it takes for you to get to your outpost. 

As soon as you feel Diomat begin her descent, you take a deep breath closing your eyes and try to let the anger filter out of your body. You walk forward to the outpost and listen to the directions of your squad leader and senior leadership. 

Everything seemed to be going according to leaderships plan, until you find yourself slightly farther from the outpost than you anticipated. You’re unsure why, but you were sent to the northwestern most part of region your squad was to be patrolling. You hear a roar that sounds like a dragon and you turn in your seat and look, only to see what appears to be a grey dragon. 

You furrow your brow in confusion as you notice it only has two legs and then watch as it spits blue fire. 

‘Diomat, is there another dragon breed we aren’t taught about?’ You ask with fear starting to lace your mental voice.

‘That is no dragon.’ Diomat replies fiercely.

‘Well, are you going to tell me what it is if it isn’t a dragon?’

‘I believe your leadership may have forced us into a situation we weren’t expecting.’ Diomat snarls. ‘Those abominations are wyvern. I believe you know the stories about them and their creators.’

Your eyes widen and dart between your dragon and the grey wyvern that is flying into the neighboring Poromish town.

‘Wh-Wha-What?’ Even your thoughts begin to stammer as you try to puzzle the pieces together. ‘Why would they send us out here if they knew about this? What are we supposed to do Diomat?’

Your thoughs are a jumble and you can’t seem to process anything. Within the few seconds that were spent hovering in the air to examine the creature, it has now set its sights on you.

“SHIT!” You say as the large grey mass starts barreling towards you at untenable speeds. 

‘Hold on.’ Diomat commands as she begins climbing above the cover of the trees.

‘Is there a way to kill this thing?’ You question in a panic, hoping beyond hope that there’s a solution to this.

‘Do you still have the dagger the Section Leader gave to you?’

You furrow your brows while you pull the runed dagger from the sheath at your calf. You pull it out and your eyes blow wide. Where there was just a normal dagger before, now the hilt is glowing a soft blue color and you can feel the magic thrum through your fingers. 

‘This can kill them?’ 

‘Yes, do you remember what venin look like? Can you transform into what you remember from the descriptions of your book? If so, you may be able to drop down and kill it.’ Diomat explains as we continue to dip, dive, and weave through heavy tree coverage.

‘You want me to get on the back of the wyvern?!?’ You ask incredulously at the plan your dragon has just drawn in your mind.

‘Yes, because you are more than capable of doing this. You are a powerful rider. My rider. And I know that you can do this.’ Diomat says with a tone of absolute conviction.

If only your mind was as certain in your abilities as Diomat’s mind is. 

‘You will need to aim for the chest that should be the weakest part.’ Diomat confirms before you notice her slowing down. 

You turn your head and watch as blue flames continue to blow directly behind your dragon gaining on you second by second. Diomat begins to dip down even further while you begin to float through the memories of the stories of the venin. 

You remember the billowing robes, the red veins, the color of their eyes reflecting their bloodlust for power and finally the veins that mar their tarnished skin. You settle on a full picture in the art gallery in your mind and take a deep breath reaching for Diomat’s power. When you look down at yourself next, your clothes are no longer riding leathers, but a purple robe that looks tattered and moth eaten. You continue to look down at your hands and can’t help the panic that flares to life in your chest when you see the red veins coating every inch of your fingers. 

‘You are still you, Bold One. I would not let you tarnish yourself.’ Diomat consoles as you feel pride radiating from your bond.

‘Okay, Diomat. Let’s take down this thing.’ You think back closing away all the insecurities plaguing your mind. 

Soon enough Diomat is slowing down but lifting you both to the clouds. As you burst through the tree line, you watch as the wyvern continues flying towards where it thought you still were. Slowly you begin to descend and rise from the seat of your dragon and walk towards her front left leg. 

‘This is why I have not been going easy on you, Bold One. I will not leave my rider unprepared, even if the Section Leader wanted to keep this from you.’

As Diomat begins to descend, you look up to the sky and pray to Zinhal that this plan will work. After that one thought, you close your eyes for just a second and let yourself free fall. 

You land with a smack onto a rough grey surface, and you lock every muscle in your body tight. 

Is this why Garrick was always disappearing for hours on end?

You shake your head trying to waft off any other thoughts of the Section Leader when you are trying to kill the beast below you. You cautiously make your way up to the neck scales, until you look up and realize, those aren’t scales, they are feather razors.

You crouch down next to the neck and plunge the dagger you have down as hard as you possibly can. Not expecting the bounce back, you end up being bucked against the razor mane on the neck of the wyvern as the beast bucks and writhes trying to dislodge your dagger. 

You pull yourself forward and wrap both hands around the blade and jump in front of its wing. 

‘Catch me Diomat.’ You think as you feel yourself falling while your dagger peels through the rough skin of the wyvern. 

Your dagger finally breaks free, and you are free falling towards the line of trees.

‘DIOMAT!’

‘Coming, Bold One!’ You hear Diomat’s voice break causing you to let fear take over as you fall faster and faster. 

Your pull on your power lessens and you watch as the robes become your leathers again. You try to bring your leg up and sheath the dagger back at your calf. The next thing you feel is your head hitting branches and your vision swims momentarily. You feel your emotions tugging at you that this is the end, and you will meet Malek today.

‘No, you are destined for great things, Y/N. You will not die today.’ Diomat says authoritatively. 

As if on command at that statement, you finally feel yourself crash into bumpy scales. It takes all the effort you can muster to grab for Diomat’s pommel to stop your own acceleration. You can feel your arms protesting the amount of strength it’s taking to say on while your back screams from the lashes of the wyverns razored feathers. 

Diomat continues to try and stop both your acceleration and keep pace back towards the outpost. You grunt in response to the effort and try to pull yourself back into the seat. Everything in your body is telling you to give in to the sweet call of sleep, but you know you need to wait until you get back to the outpost. 

As you fly closer to Eltuval, you can’t help but feel like something is wrong. You look around at the field where your squad’s dragons had been landing the last four days and see them all gone. 

‘Where did the squad go?’

‘Nokass just confirmed that all Basgiath squads have headed back to the Citadel.’

At that you perk up and your body goes rigid. Did they set you up and leave you to die? Didn’t anyone else see what had happened?

‘Did Nokass give us any orders?’

‘We are to land and debrief with the cadre here. Besides Bold One, you need to have your wounds tended to.’ Diomat says with a hint of trepidation in her voice.

‘Should I tell them about the wyvern?’

‘No. Tell them you fell off when we were accelerating while practicing flight maneuvers.’

You send your understanding back through the bond and dismount Diomat. You don’t make it far before you are escorted by two lieutenants that met you at the flight field. You enter the infirmary there and lay down. 

Soon enough your wounds are tended to, and the mender confirms you need to rest. You fall into a fitful sleep that focuses on wyvern, venin, and a certain dark-haired Section Leader that seems to have been keeping more from you than you ever realized. 

You wake in a sweat and look around confused before realizing where you are. It’s another two days before you are given clearance to leave, which luckily the senior cadre of the outpost seemed to have bought the story that Diomat told you to spin. 

You are given orders to return to Basgiath and a note confirming the reason for your absence. 

Hours later, you are flying on Diomat with the wind battering your new scars and broken thoughts. How much had he been hiding from you this entire time? What did he really know? Were you just a little plaything for him?

As you watch the sun rise, you set your jaw and take a deep breath. You know at this point there is no need in worrying. Graduation is done, and he has most likely been sent to his outpost. You try to let yourself settle at the realization that you’ll never see him again.

When you land in the flight field, you are surprised to see a green dragon seemingly just returning from a flight with their rider. You look over and realize who it is. 

Bodhi. 

As you draw closer with Diomat, you watch as he turns his head and looks back before whipping it back around with wide surprised eyes. 

‘Apparently there was miscommunication. Your squad and the Section Leader were told your name was reported for the death rolls.’ Diomat relays with irritation.

Your eyebrows fly up and eyes widen in surprise. Did none of Basgiath cadre know that you’d been in the infirmary at Eltuval? Why would you have been reported for the death rolls before confirmation would’ve been sent from the outpost? 

You clutch harder to the orders that you were given as you dismount. You trip forward slightly as your blood rushes back into your legs, your body protesting every movement as everything is still tight from your body needing additional recovery.  You slowly stand to your feet and as you look up you are met by surprised brown eyes.

“Wha – How?” You watch as Bodhi sputters. “We were told you were dead. Your name was to be read on the death rolls tomorrow.”

You look at him with a dead panned expression and say in a flat voice. “Well obviously someone got their information wrong.”

You go to turn and walk away, ready to dispel the myths about your apparent demise before you feel Bodhi’s hand on your elbow.

“You need to write to Garrick. He’s an absolute mess.” He says and you can see the sorrow reflected in his gaze for his brother.

“I don’t need to do anything.” You say back coldly, the lies and the way he didn’t fight for you taking forefront in your mind. 

“And you won’t be telling him either.” You warn. “He made his choices. Those things don’t change just because I happen to be alive.”

You watch as a grimace crosses Bodhi’s face clearly remembering the way that you departed for War Games. 

“Besides,” you whisper as you step into Bodhi’s space bringing your mouth to his ear. “I was too busy fighting off and killing a wyvern to worry about writing.”

You relish the way Bodhi’s eyes flash with realization that not only did Garrick leave you behind, but you also now know what he was trying to keep hidden. 

“How about this.” You pull back and add with a challenging tone. “How about you and the rest of your marked friends keep my secret and I’ll keep yours? Hmm.”

You watch as Bodhi seems to weigh his options before nodding in defeat, his head falling forward. 

“Good. Pleasure doing business with you Durran.” You purr venomously. 

You fully turn now and walk purposefully towards the Commandant’s office looking to clear yourself. You will not let Garrick’s feelings over your supposed death completely erase the way he left you behind and apparently never trusted you in the first place.

As you stride through the halls of the Rider’s Quadrant, you begin to relish the looks of shock from everyone around you. You briefly wonder if you’re the only person who was seemingly resurrected after War Games, but the thought is fleeting when you feel a body run straight into you, tearing the breath out of you.

“Gods. How are you alive? Where have you been?” You look up to realize that you’ve been engulfed in a hug by your best friend and squad mate and crack the first smile you’ve had in days.

“Let’s just say the front gave Diomat and I some personal surprises on our patrol. Ones that landed me in Eltuval’s Infirmary for two days after you all left.” You say while trying to evade the full answer to the question. 

“I knew it wouldn’t be that easy to kill you.” His answer causes a laugh to bubble out of you involuntarily.

“Come on, I have to go deliver this to Pancheck before everyone really thinks I’m dead.” You pull him along and head towards the Commandant’s headquarters.

Weeks pass and you get back to normal or whatever can possibly pass as your new normal. You can’t help the way you notice those that were in Resson are being targeted for what you assume is the same knowledge you now have. However, for whatever reason the cadre seems to have bought your story, at least for now. 

You’ve also been avoiding the dirty looks Imogen gives you any time you happen to be in the same room. Why the hell can’t she just leave you alone? She got what she wanted, so you can’t understand what her issue is. Though luckily for you, your deal with Bodhi makes sure you don’t have to worry about her little obsession worrying over you. 

You’ve avoided Violet like the absolute plague ever since returning and was lucky enough to be shuffled into a squad with no marked ones after the disaster that was parapet. 

You’ve heard people talking about Riorson coming back to Basgiath, but you’ve so far been lucky to avoid him. Until one day in the rotunda you’re walking to your next class and you’re unfortunate enough to see him standing not far away talking to Bodhi. 

You watch as he looks up and directly at you and then whip his heads around again towards you before blinking several times and rubbing his eyes. Fortunately for you, practicing with your signet has you ready for this unfortunate meeting. As soon as you see him, you immediately change your hair and eye color, along with angling out your features more. 

You look towards your squad mate to your right and smirk as his features slacken slightly at your change in appearance.

“Stop gawking or Riorson is going to get suspicious.” You tell him lowly. 

He shakes his head and moves his eyes to back in front of you. You both continue to walk on your way to your next class and enter the door taking a seat.

“Since when can you do that?” He asks now looking at you with open fascination.

“Since about right before we left for War Games last year. Diomat and I practiced while everyone else was too busy getting drunk before the Reunification Day party. Just haven’t had the reason to show off my skills.” You recount. 

“I can change pretty much my entire appearance.” You relay as you begin to smirk again and completely transform yourself into looking like your friend in front of you.

“Well godsdamn. I look absolutely fabulous.” He quips. 

With that you break down and start laughing uncontrollably. With that loss of fine control, you morph back into your own form. You watch as suddenly his face turns serious.

“Have you really not written or heard from Tavis?” He asks a hint of trepidation at the topic hitting his voice.

“No.” You sigh before replying. “I convinced Durran that he had to keep the secret of my existence to himself and the rest of his marked friends here in exchange for a favor to them as well. So, my secret is safe with me, which is why I didn’t want Riorson to see me. He’s unaware of his cousin’s deal.”

Your friend shakes his head in comprehension and you both face forward as the professor comes into the class. 

Weeks continue to fly by in a whir of classes and idiotic RSC challenges. At this point, you don’t even know what the class is even worth. They aren’t truly giving anyone the whole story and battle brief continues to be a joke. 

You have started training with Diomat after classes hoping to get better at flight maneuvers so that you’re truly prepared for the upcoming war. It’s after a grueling training session with her that you are taken by surprise while walking back to your room. 

Before you can react to protect yourself, you feel something blunt slam into the back of your head and your vision swims before you fall to a heap on the ground. 

As you slowly wake up, you can’t seem to stop the incessant pounding in your head. Your head rolls back and forth as you try to shake off the haze. When your eyes open, you are met with a dirt ceiling that looks like it has been carved in the underground. 

You try to move your arms and feel the sharp bite of iron around your wrists and biceps. You sit up straight just to find yourself strapped to a wooden chair. You shake your head again and look around searching for your squad mates like you would normally find for the special torture that is RSC.

Unfortunately for you, there isn’t anyone else here. You hear footsteps from outside the door and draw in a quick breath stealing yourself for whatever horror is coming your way.

As the door opens you smell the sour stench of body odor and hair oil that permeates the air. As you take in the man before you confusion knits your brow. 

Why would Varrish be here? You hadn’t done anything to draw attention to yourself since returning from War Games. Did Bodhi or one of the marked ones sell you out?

You have little more time to think about what is happening before you feel a hand connect with your cheek. You let out a grunt as your head whips to the side and pain bursts across your mouth. 

“Seems fitting after all of your lies to be sitting in this chair, doesn’t it?” He croons as he slowly walks around the chair you are strapped to. 

“I don’t know what lies you speak of Vice Commandant.” You spit. The last thing you will do is break to this disgusting husk of a man. 

“Oh, I believe you do.” He sneers. “You and Sorrengail will be instrumental in getting Riorson and Tavis to spill everything they know.”

You can’t help the sarcastic huff that leaves you. The bitter taste of anger and betrayal still whirring inside you.

“You’ll find that you are wrong about Tavis.” You protest vehemently. “His affections lie elsewhere. You are wasting your time with me.”

A sickening sneer of a smile crosses Varrish’s face and you know that nothing you will say will change his mind.

“Oh, I’m aware he may think you’re dead. But that doesn’t mean when he arrives you won’t be bait for him.” He whispers as he leans in close where the stench of him is almost enough to make you sick. 

He then rears back, and head butts you in the face and you hear a sickening crunch before the blood starts pouring from your nose. You try to hold in your scream, but it’s no use. You know he won’t stop until he gets what he wants from you. 

“Just give me some information and you can have your connection to your dragon back and you can go back to class, no one the wiser.”

You lift your chin in defiance at the vile man in front of you and let the blood from your broken nose into your mouth before spitting it right in his face. There’s no doubt in your mind that you will not risk your dragon or anyone else’s life to save your own. 

It takes a few hours before you realize that this torture will be never ending. Immediately after you think he is finished; he calls in Nolon to mend your body multiple times a day.

“Is it really worth keeping their secrets?” Nolon asks a note of sympathy and regret in his eyes as he mends your broken collarbone. 

“I will give my life for anyone’s. Secrets or no.” You spit at the man you had once seen as a kind and gentle soul. 

Nolon shakes his head and continues his work as you try to push away the pain of mending and focus on anything else. 

It’s about the eighth time that Nolon has come in to mend you before you start to feel like giving up may be the only option. 

“Can’t you just let me die already?” You viciously call back to the man healing you just so you can be broken again. 

“I’m sorry cadet, but this can all stop when you answer the Vice Commandant’s questions.” 

You turn your head away from him, not wanting to give him any more attention and let your body slip into unconsciousness. 

What seems like eternities later, you hear commotion outside the door that you’ve been holed up in. As you fade in and out from pain, you hear voices but you’re unsure of who they belong to. A strong crack in the rocks of the cell makes you jolt conscious, but you’re still unsure of what’s going on. 

“Wait.” You hear a male voice call. “Vi wasn’t the only one down here.”

“What are you talking about Aetos?” You hear a gruff voice call back. Your foggy mind wants to say it’s Garrick, but you know that must be impossible.

The next thing you know, the lock of the door is clicking open, and you turn your head to see what your next form of torture will be. 

As you look up, you meet warm brown eyes that shine with concern. 

“I didn’t realize you gave a damn about anyone but Violet, Aetos.” You rasp back, your voice disjointed from the amount of screaming you’d done and the number of times you’d been almost choked to death. 

“Luckily for you I knew that they took someone besides just Violet.” He says rushing to the chair. “Do you think you’ll be able to stand?”

You try and shrug your shoulders, but everything in your body seems to weigh ten times the amount it normally does. Aetos continues to unhook the restraints around your body and soon enough is trying to help lift you. 

Your broken tibia screams in protest, but the action of moving on your own two feet is not something you’re willing to give up. As you slowly make your way out of the cell, you both turn and look up. Staring back at you are a pair of stunned hazel eyes.

You watch as Garrick’s eyes widen to the point of concern, and he falls to his knees seeming to not believe what he’s seeing. As you stare at him, you watch as tears begin to swim in his eyes. The anger and helplessness you’ve been feeling curls around you and you close your eyes in anguish.

“You were right.” You rasp slowly with a thoughtful pause. 

“I guess I did survive.” You say before your overwhelming feelings and pain draws you under.

[pedgito]

hi! would u ever be comfortable writing about eddie's uncut cock? if not, it's totally fine. hope ur having a great day! <3

author’s note: funny you ask, because yes, absolutely. and look, i know people have varying opinions but let me be a whore in peace with my own nsfw headcanons, i don’t care what others think about eddie’s dick because this is just what sits in my brain. this was meant to be a small blurb so ignore the lack of form that i usually keep.

cw: 18+ (minors dni) obviously lots of dick talk what else do you expect, talks of self-exploration/masturbation, eddie dealing with some body issues pertaining to the topic in the ask, handjobs, oral (m receiving), i don’t apologize for any of this.

word count: 1.4k

eddie doesn't realize how uncommon it is until the reactions become the same and frequent, eventually forcing eddie to hate any kind of sexual interaction outside of himself for a while—he knows it's not a big deal, but the judgey looks and offhanded comments about how weird it was didn't make him impenetrable. it was always there in the back of his mind.

but eddie has always been about self-exploration, maybe to an unhealthy degree as he got older, interacted with girls less, buried himself into hellfire club and his side business of dealing—he usually kept interaction to a minimum, which wasn't hard when most of the school despised him.

and he can't imagine how anything could be better, his dick laying heavy against his belly as his fingers dragged up under his balls, touching delicately, almost teasing in a way before he gripped himself forcefully, tugging down until the head peeks past the skin in all of it's glistening glory, precum smeared over the slit as he slides back up, squeezing the head between his thumb and forefinger under the foreskin.

he thought being this sensitive was normal, but he was proven wrong time and time again. he's learned over time and through a lot of experience how to hold himself back, squeeze himself at the base to keep himself from coming too early or letting go completely, occasionally trying the tactic of squeezing the head until the feeling fades, it works wonders, but still, it doesn’t prepare him for the real thing—he's embarrassed when he's coming in the hands of some beautiful girl he sat next to in english class at the beginning of his first senior year, only some unrhythmic strokes of her hand and her thumb rubbing over the head of his cock before he's there, spilling over her hand without warning.

and when he’s really eager and seeking the relief, he's quick, knowing just the ways to touch himself, how sensitive the head of his cock can get under the skin and he's there before he can even process, groaning through clenched teeth.

he meets you somewhere between the beginning of his hopefully last year of school and the few weeks before then end of '85—he doesn't understand how you came into his life, telling himself how he surely manifested you, that there's no possible way you were real.

regardless, eddie's is riddled with nerves the first time you touch him, making some off-handed comment about how not pretty his dick is, hoping it isn't a total deal breaker.

you can't help but look at him, eyes wide but your gaze scewed, confused on why any of that would matter. you can't remember the last time you've found that to be a dealbreaker.

when you finally get his pants down, sneaking your fingers into the waistband of his boxers until his dick springs free, you realize just how dramatic eddie was being about the whole thing, having been fed some idea that uncut dicks weren't as acceptable as the contrary and it's a shame, because if it isn't the prettiest dick you've ever seen, arguing his earlier statement with a quick quip that has eddie laughing through his nervous blush.

"eddie—i don't say this to too many guys, none actually," you glance up at him briefly before trailing your fingers along the hard ridge of his abdomen, barely grazing him, "your dick is very pretty."

"careful," eddie warns with a grin, teeth peeking through slightly, "you'll give me an ego."

eddie watches you wearily, your eyes taking in the full sight of him as your fingers wrap around the shaft, the soft velvety texture of his skin pressing against your palm and fingertips.

his thick, not so much that it's intimidating but he fills out your hand in the best way and somewhere between seven and eight inches, the head of his cock a deep pink that slightly contrast the softer shade of his skin and you're pulling the skin back to rub your thumb over the tip, earning a hiss from eddie in response.

"sensitive?" you ask teasingly, smiling at eddie's reaction before you repeat your previous movements, circling his head with a torturous pressure that has eddie gripping the pillowcase above his head, chin tilting down slightly against his chest to look at you, his eyes squeezing shut momentarily as the feeling becomes too much.

"okay, okay," he rushes out, "maybe ease up on that unless you want—want this to be over in the next five seconds."

he's right, so you relent, continuing the slow drag of your hand as you gauge his reactions, the easy glide that the skin creates until you're leaning forward to lick a stripe along the underside of his dick, tracing along the faint vein that ran there before you’re practically drooling over him, the mix of your spit and his own precome making it more overwhelming before you're closing your mouth over him completely, keeping the same pace of your hand as your mouth hollows out around the tip.

eddie feels like he might die, but he's fully accepting it.

"oh fuck—shit, that's so much better than—" eddie rambles mindlessly, "never—never had anyone suck my dick before."

which is a shame, because it's easily becoming your favorite thing.

"can't see how," you reply as your bottom lip drags along the ridge of his blushed tip, “but i guess that makes me lucky.”

“just—girls always looked at me strange, said it was weird,” eddie comments, “like i have any control over that, guess my parents have always been destined to fuck me over, even from birth.”

you laugh along with him, his rambling thoughts slipping past his lips and filling the quiet lull of the air.

you were so thankful eddie wasn’t the type to stay quiet, because while his sounds were torture, the way his voice cracked with every few words was even better. you let him talk as much as he pleased until he physically couldn’t, his fingers slipping over the top of your head and into your hair, squeezing lightly as your shifted your hand up, skin slipping back over the head as you pressed your tongue over the small glimpse of his slit that was still visible, moaning softly as he tugged a little harsher, mumbling something under his breath you couldn’t make out.

“can’t wait to have you inside me,” you confess, his eyes lighting up as they connected with yours, “don’t ever want you thinking anything negative about yourself again, either—it’s not true.”

eddie nods slightly, “fuck—can’t say stuff like that with my dick in your mouth, sweetheart.”

you prod further, breath ghosting over his dick as you spoke, “why?”

eddie groans quietly, speaking through gritted teeth, “really need you to stop unless you’re okay with me coming in your mouth—i’d hate—hate to do that without asking.”

your teeth drag along your bottom lip, biting at the skin briefly.

“is that you asking?” you giggle softly, stopping briefly with skin pulled back to take him into your fully and fast, earning a choked gasp from eddie.

eddie nods again, more needy, “uh huh—yes, yes—god, please—“ and it’s only a few seconds later that he’s spilling into your mouth, his own hand wrapping around his shaft to pump it quickly, swatting your own hand away, salty slick pooling over your tongue in spurts, the warm liquid wouldn’t be as enticing if it wasn’t for it being from eddie—and you wouldn’t dare let a man come in your mouth like this, but eddie had earned that right.

you pull back slowly, swallowing for show as eddie squeezed at his dick, thumb rubbing over the head tenderly as his body jerked slightly with aftershocks.

“i’ve never—“ eddie sighs heavily, catching his breath, “never came that hard, holy fuck. i’ve always been sensitive but jesus—“

“i guess that’s quite the perk then,” you tease, crawling back up the slowly until your clothes cunt is pressed over his slowly soften dick, “amongst others.”

“you sure it doesn’t gross you out?” eddie asks curiously, having been programmed to always think it does, needing to hear the words for reassurance.

you grind the soft fabric cover your hips over his cock, feeling the subtle pressure it applies and watching eddie wince from the overstimulation, chucking weakly.

“positive.” you smile, leaning forward to press a sweet kiss against his lips, quickly turned dirty from eddie’s obvious impatience, his tongue slipping into your mouth to taste a mix of you and himself, the tanginess strange but welcoming as you moaned into his mouth openly.

“about being inside you—“ eddie starts, speaking softly against your lips, “can i take you up on that?”

“i thought you’d never ask.”

and it’s safe to say that eddie never doubts himself again, learning just how beautiful every piece of him is.

[vettelsvee]

HOLD ON TO HOPE SERIES | Sebastian Vettel (Spider-Man AU)

f1 masterlist | ask me anything or let's talk! great power, great responsibility (1k special)

spidey!sebastian vettel x female bff!reader | based on 2010

for more information to the reader: ❥ this series is an au (alternative universe) and it is based on the amazing spider-man movies. seb is considered peter parker and spider-man, while nico rosberg would be harry osborn (and you know who) and, y/n, gwen stacy. ❥ it contains friends to lovers trope. ❥ seb, y/n and nico are last year students of their respective degrees (seb estudies biomedical engineering, y/n studies biomedical engineering as well, and nico studies aerospacial engineering). ❥ some parts might include sensitive content. pay attention to trigger warnings at the beginning of each part.

started: AUGUST 06TH 2024 currently status: on going | last updated: august 6th masterlist under the cut !

taglist: [feel free to tell me so i can tag you and you don't miss anything!]

a/n: i'm so excited, so happy and this just came out of my head and had to post this. oh. my. god. i hope you love this short series as much as i do (it will have a second part series with retired!seb x ?!reader, any guesses?) pls tell me your thoughts, comments and fangirl as much as i do because i'm absolutely in love with spidey!seb and i fangirl about him on twitter 24/7

SEBASTIAN VETTEL KNEW THAT HAVING A DOUBLE LIFE WAS DIFFICULT, BUT HE DIDN'T KNOW IT WOULD BE THAT HARD. Since he was bitten by a radioactive spider during a school trip, his life changed completely. At first, balancing the last few months of senior year with the task of being a local hero in Heppenheim was quite difficult. However, the real problem began when he moved to Berlin to study Biomedical Engineering with his two best friends, Nico Rosberg and Y/N Y/L/N.

At first, everything was great: Seb went to his classes and, in the evenings, patrolled the city looking for loose criminals and elderly ladies in distress who had lost their kittens. The problem, much to his regret, began two months after his arrival to the German capital when what initially were minor issues of little importance turned into life-and-death situations, where the boy had to stay out on the streets until the early hours of the morning, using Hanna, a student he had met in one of his classes, and the desire of wanting to date with her, as an excuse. Except he really wanted to date Hanna.

Nico was completely fine with the idea of Sebastian living his life and even insisted that he should try something with that blonde girl who seemed to catch his attention, encouraging him to ask her out and become the most envied couple on campus. Y/N, on the other hand, was constantly worried about Seb, staying awake every night until he returned home and even trying to follow him on more than one occasion to see if her best friend was telling the truth or if he was just getting into trouble and she knew nothing about.

Knowing that all Sebastian Vettel did was lie, and seeing that those same lies were accompanied by academic results that were plummeting alongside with his increasing desperation, Y/N offered Seb help to pass his retake exams after Christmas in exchange of just one thing: whatever was going on in his life, he would tell her before he took his last exam.

With a knot in his throat, Sebastian promised her so even knowing that no one, and especially not her, could know that he was Spider-Man... at least not until Y/N started getting to know the superhero when her friend stood her up for the second time and realized that, perhaps, Spidey and Seb had more in common than they should.

© VETTELSVEE (2024). please, do not steal, copy or translate my works. thanks for reading!

HOLD ON TO HOPE MASTERLIST

part 1: y/n decides that she's had enough of seb being an idiot, and tries her best to help him (coming soon!)

[ultralightpoe]

Full House ll - Eddie Munson

Authors Note: Went from cute fluff to straight angst. Sorry?

Warnings: Domestic Violence (not Eddie and reader though), angst angst angst. A fight.

Word count: 10,009 (ohhhhhh boy)

Part l HERE

(THANK YOU FOR THE GIF @feodor-dostoevsky)

(Warning. This chapter contains hints of domestic violence and if any of my readers are going through that you deserve better. I love you all, also Motley will be showing signs of abuse this chapter. It's a long chapter that I'm really nervous about and I really hope you guys like it <3)

Enjoy!

Eddie had been in a pissy mood on Halloween morning of his second year as a senior, mostly because his friends that had graduated last year were all going out to awesome college parties and he was stuck redoing school. Embarrassed and alone. 

But he sucked it up, wearing his favorite leather jean combo as he walked into the halls of hell, keeping his head down while people passed by him in a flurry, excitement and laughter in the air. 

He had planned to just keep his head down and make it to class, no need to get into something with Harrington and his cronies. He had enough of their teasing and bullshit to get him by for the rest of the year. 

Normally it was fine since he had friends, but now he was alone. 

A body slamming into a locker pulls his attention to where someone in a rustic leather jacket was slamming one of the juniors into the wall of metal. The kid being assaulted was called Jeff, he was the only black kid in the grade and Eddie had seen him around a lot. The kid didn’t hang out with anyone and seemed lonely. 

Shit. 

The one slamming him was Billy Hargrove, a new kid that seemed to immediately become one of the cool ones. He spent most his classes not caring and any free time harassing everyone else. Eddie had his fair share of issues with him already. 

It would be a good idea to just walk away and let them handle this on their own, but Eddie could not do that. If there was one thing his dad taught him it was that he could take a punch and his Uncle Wayne always told him that you should always stand up for the weaker man. Even if Eddie wasn’t strong enough to beat Billy “steroids” Hargrove, he was strong enough to take a hit for someone else. 

A sigh falls through him as he makes his way over, tapping the shoulder of the assailant quickly, the second Billy has his eyes on him Eddie shoves him quickly. 

Billy reacts in an instant, hands clenching into his jacket, swinging Eddie around until it was his back being slammed into the lockers. A grunt passes his lips as he sends Jeff a quick look to escape while he can, the kid gives him a grateful smile as he snatches his backpack and dashes off. 

“If it isn’t the super senior!” Billy laughs bitterly, pulling Eddie forward and shoving him back into the lockers harshly. 

Don’t hit him. Don’t hit him. Don’t hit him. 

“What you doing here bud?! Trying to get your ass-“ Eddie loses some of his patience after the third hit into the lockers and hits Billy’s hands off of him, shoving him back enough that Billy nearly trips over his feet. 

Gasps fall from the crowd as Billy glares, staring wide eyed at him as he sneers. Eddie tries to play it cool, the anticipation of a fight howling beneath his skin as he preps himself. 

Before they can get into it Steve Harrington pops up, his back to Eddie as he watches Billy. “Not that I don't want to see how the freak handles business but the principal is on the way.” 

Billy casts one more glare, walking off quickly as Harrington turns to Eddie. 

“You stupid or some-“ 

“Yeah yeah. We get it Harrington. I’m a repeat senior.” Eddie snaps, rolling his shoulders to relieve some of the pain. “Why don’t you find a new joke?” 

“Sorry, I was just trying to make sure you were good.” Steve sighs, rubbing the back of his neck before moving to pick up what Eddie had dropped. 

“I don’t need help from you.” Eddie snaps, snatching the lunch box he had gotten from Uncle Wayne and walking off quickly. 

-

Eddie had spent the better part of that year dealing with Hargroves shit, the only thing that made him feel better was the fact that Steve Harrington seemed to be having his own issues with Billy. Then the summer between his second senior year and his third Billy Hargrove died. 

Eddie had avoided the pool that entire summer but he heard about it from Jeff the day the mall caught on fire. The next thing he knew Max was moving into the trailer near his and Wayne’s and everyone was bothering her and her mother about it all but they seemed like they didn’t want to talk about it. 

After he dealt with VECNA they all explained a little about what happened, and when El closed the gates and fixed the time warp she ended up bringing a couple people back. That’s how he came back. 

No one had seen Billy, so everyone assumed he didn’t come back. Even Barb had shown back up (though her memory was hazy on everything). 

Now, Billy Hargrove stood in the doorway of his home, catching Motley when she ran to him with an easy smile. “There’s my baby!” 

Eddie doesn’t know what to do, stuck between anger and shock, watching this play out before him as Ziggy grabs at his jaw. The little toddler leans to kiss his cheek, a wet open mouth kiss that normally makes Eddie laugh, but this time he just stands there. Waiting for the “just kidding!” Or someone to pinch him so he can wake up. 

“Sugar,” Billy starts, keeping Motley in his arms as he stares at Eddie. It takes him a moment to realize that when he says sugar he is talking to you. “Why is there a drug dealer holding my daughter?” 

- 

“I can explain-“ you start, watching Eddie angrily set up the crib in your shared room, jaw tensed and eyes heavy with anger. “Eds please.” 

“You don’t need to explain.” He snaps, turning quickly. “No actually. You do. What the fuck?”

“I met him a couple years back. Okay? It was a one night stand from a bar, he was new in town and I ended up getting pregnant. After that he said he wanted to stay together because of the baby and I didn’t want to parent alone so I said yes-“ 

“So you’d rather have parented with a racist jackass then?” He laughs bitterly. You draw back, eyes wide as he does so before he sees you get defensive. 

“I didn’t know about any of that. Okay? He was sweet with me for the most part-“ 

“For the most part?” 

“He had moments of anger, sometimes I got hit. But he always made up for it. And then I got pregnant again and I thought I was happy and then….” You trail off then, shaking a bit. “I left for a reason.” 

“He hit you? More than once?” Eddie bites out, hands on his hips. 

“It was fine-“ 

“No no no. It wasn’t fine. But the fact that you’re saying it was fine and you say he made up for it means that you didn’t leave because he hit you, you left for another reason.” He sees you get nervous under his gaze and he knows he’s figuring out. Anger coursed through him at the fact that Billy had ever laid a hand on you in the first place but it’s beginning to reach tenfold when he puts the pieces together. “He hit Motley?” 

“I-“

“You were okay with him hitting you, which makes me upset that you thought you deserved that, but the second he hit Motley you ran.” He fills in the blanks, watching as you crumble before his eyes with tears falling freely. 

“Ohmygod-“ you sob, covering your eyes. 

“And that’s why you’re so weird around Max because when you came out here you recognized her, right? And when we all shared the truth of what happened you recognized Billy in it? And you didn’t say anything because-“ 

“What was I supposed to say Eddie?! That I was dumb enough to fall for it?! That I slept with a racist abusive asshole one night drunk and then agreed to let him move in with me because I was scared even though I knew nothing about him?!” You snap, tears streaming down your face. “You guys would have thought the worst of me. You guys are going to think the worst of me- maybe I should just grab the girls and go get a hotel-“

“Hey hey hey.” He eases, reaching for you as you stand up to leave. His hands find your hips and he pulls you in for a hug. “No. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry-“ 

“I’m sorry. I’m over reacting and being a pain in the ass because I’m surprised is all.” He mumbles, kissing your head and keeping his nose pressed into your hair. “You are very brave for leaving him, yeah? And I’m so sorry that you had to go through that, you’re not stupid you were just played. You always think the best of people and you are so fucking brave for getting the girls out of there.” 

He lets you sob into his chest for a minute, rubbing your back in comfort as he holds you to him tightly. 

Eddie was gonna figure this out. He was gonna find a way to get Billy Hargrove out of his life for good. 

-

The morning was always filled with excitement, mostly on Motley's part. She loved getting ready for the day, for all the things she would do. She loved talking yours and Eddie’s ear off about the plans for the day. Then she would be crankier when she got home and she knew it was time for bed, but Eddie loved her in the mornings because he loved seeing her excitement. 

He wore his glasses in the morning, while he helped get them ready for the day since you both liked to tag team the morning and get the process done faster. This morning was his turn for Motley, who currently sat at the table blabbering on about how she was excited for secret santa while Eddie sat at the stove watching the pancakes bubble. 

“-and I keep thinking what if Vinny gets me? He will probably get me the dumbest thing ever and I would be so upset. But what if Troy gets me, oh I hope Troy gets my name- Daddy are you listening?” 

“I’m listening, pretty girl.” He smiles, looking over her shoulder where she sat coloring. “You hope Troy gets you. Cause you have a big ole crush on him.” 

“DO NOT!” She yells which makes him laugh and turn back to the pancakes. Before he knows it he feels a pair of arms wrap around him, with you kissing along his exposed back slowly while ge fights off the blush. 

“You cooking bacon without a shirt, handsome?” You smile and he tries not to laugh. 

“I can’t feel half the skin on my stomach anyways.” The scars made sure of that. “You want a piece of bacon?” 

“I’ll wait to eat with you and the girls. Did we get any yogurt on our last trip to the store?” You ask, moving to the fridge to check. Eddie takes a moment to admire you before looking to where Ziggy sits in her high chair, playing with a piece of paper that Motley gave her. 

“Morning metal head.” He coos, walking forward to kiss her head. She giggles and claps before Motley follows what Eddie did, kissing her sisters head. 

“Come here Daddy.” She smiles, and he bends down to let her kiss his forehead which makes her laugh. 

He sets them both up with plates, eating breakfast quickly before rushing to get a shirt on as you bring them both to the door to get them in shoes. When he gets back he finds Motley with her arms crossed and shaking her head. 

“What’s going on?” 

“She found out Steve is taking her to school.” You sigh, trying to grab her foot. 

“I want Papa to take me. He said he wanted to!” She snaps and Eddie watches you tense up, choosing to intervene here. 

“I got this, go grab her bag.” He smiles, switching spots with you. “Alright. No playing around. Metalheads put their shoes on when told.” 

“But daddy-“ 

“Ah.” He holds up a finger and she sighs before grabbing the left shoe and moving to put it on her right. “Wait. This is a good time to teach you left from right.” 

“I’ve got time.” She smiles , watching him. 

“Alright. This is left,” he holds out his left hand, the metal bracelet he always wears drawing Ziggys attention as she waddles closer. 

Motley holds out her right hand, repeating “left.” 

“No. That’s right.” 

“I’m right?” 

“No. That hand is right.” 

“Yeah daddy. I know I’m right.” She scoffs, staring at him like he’s insane. 

“No pretty girl. You’re opposite of me, like a mirror. So if this is my left hand you’re left hand would be….” He picks up her left hand, wiggling it a bit. 

“Oh. So this would be my right hand.” She mumbles, shaking her right hand. 

“Exactly. So if this is your left shoe it would go on…..” 

“MY LEFT FOOT!” She yells excitedly which makes him smile. 

“You got it! You rockstar!” He helps her tie it, letting her rest her foot on his thigh before switching the feet and tying the next shoe. 

“We ready to go?” You ask, coming around the corner and smiling. 

“Daddy taught me my left from right, Mommy!” She giggles, rushing to get her bag and holding your hand as you lead her out of the house with Eddie close behind, Ziggy in his arms trying to reach for the bandana on his head. 

“Hey Uncle Steve,” she calls, running up to him to hug him. “I know my left from right!” 

“You’re a genius kid!” He smiles. You pull her attention, kissing her forehead before kissing Steve’s cheek. Eddie follows, kissing Motley then snatching Steve and kissing his cheek which makes everyone laugh. Ziggy coos the second she sees Steve and he instantly makes grabby hands at her. 

“There she is, my pretty little angel.” He coos, bouncing her up and down as Motley climbs in his car between his two sons. Vinny glares while Jackson waves his grubby little hands. The kid was four and thought the best thing to eat was a crayon. 

“You know what gender the baby is yet?” You ask, watching Steve with Ziggy. 

“No. But Nancy is sure it’s another boy.” He sighs out. “And she wants to name one after her brother.” 

“Do we need another Mike?” Eddie laughs which makes Steve laugh as well. 

“That’s what I said!”

“Alright, I have to head off. Drop Ziggy off at daycare before work. Have a wonderful day boys.” You smile, grabbing Ziggy from Steve who sighs in disappointment, before kissing Eddie and heading off to your car. 

Steve turns to Eddie, a raised brow, he opens his mouth to start asking but Eddie holds up a hand. “Nuh uh. We don’t talk about within hearing age of Motley.”

“Why’s that?” Steve asks, squinting. “She get upset?”

“The opposite.”

“But the guys a massive dick!”

“And that’s her dad.”

“You’re her dad.”

“No, I’m the step dad.” Eddie sighs, something clenching in his gut. “I gotta get going. Thanks for dropping Motty off.”

- 

The thought that he was just the step dad stuck, it clung to him like a second skin, sticking like a shadow over the sun. He thought about it while he tucked the girls in, and when he woke them up. He worried over the thought of Billy fighting for custody and turning the girls against Eddie. 

He was just the step-dad. 

This is what he was thinking about as he changed the oil on one of the cars in the shop, a frown stuck to his face as music played in the background. It was Dylans, the other repairman that worked today, turn for the stereo and he was playing all the rock hits. Which included ‘rock you like a hurricane.’

And all Eddie could imagine was his girls having a dance party but instead of him being there it was Billy. Billy dancing with them to all the music and-

“HI DADDY!” Motley shouts, making Eddie gasp in shock, whipping his head to find her on all fours so she could see him under the car. 

“Hi pretty girl.” He smiles, using the cart to roll out from under the car and sit up, whipping the bandana off his hair as she whirls around the car to attack him, roaring like a tiger as she jumps on him. “What are you doing here?”

“School let out early today, they have their christmas party tomorrow and then winter break.” You explain, walking around the car with Ziggy on your hip, still wearing the cute diner uniform. “Motley wanted to come grab you for lunch.”

“Oh yeah?” He smiles, laughing when she slips a bit and he has to catch her before she hits the floor. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Pizza.”

“Pizza?!” He acts shocked, eyes wide as she begins laughing. “Well I don’t know about that…. I don’t really know if I like pizza.”

“You LOVE pizza.” She scoffs, jumping up and dashing to the radio to turn it down. “Does Dylan want pizza?”

“Why thank you for asking little lady.” Dylan smiles, wiping his hands on his suit. “I love pizza.”

“Hear that daddy? We have to go get pizza for Dylan.” Motley sasses, coming back over to snatch Eddie’s bigger hand between her own. “Get uppppp!”

She groans as she tries to lift him, and Eddie picks himself up so she thinks she was able to do it. “Jesus you are strong.”

“I pulled a secret santa today, and you’ll never guess who I got!”

“Troy?” 

“No.” She sighs, disappointed for just a moment before her face lights up again. “I got Samantha, she likes jump rope.”

“Yeah? Is that what we are gonna get her then?” He chuckles, moving to wash his hands as you go and put Ziggy in the car. 

“Well I don’t know. I don’t want my gift to be too basic and not surprising. But I want to make sure she actually likes it. And do you think-” Eddie lets her ramble, grabbing her hand and leading her to the car as she goes on and on about the ideas she has for gifts. 

-

The store was busy when Eddie took Motley Christmas shopping, holding her hand in his own as walked across the street and headed into the warmth. He had been more focused on making sure she wore a coat then grabbing a coat heavy enough for himself. 

The second she is in the store her eyes widen and she makes a mad dash to the kids aisle, Eddie right behind her trying to slow her down a bit. 

“Alright, take a look and see what you might like to get Samantha.” He huffs, breathing into his palms to warm up his face, ignoring the weird look he gets from a do-good mom passing by in her expensive shoes. 

He had gotten used to the looks by now, it’s not like he screamed father with his leather jacket and tattoos, but you always told him that he was a better father than any country club dad you had ever met. And he was constantly lecturing Motley that ‘it’s what’s on the inside that counts’ so how would this be different?

“How about this?” She asks, picking up a barbie car that makes Eddie’s eyes go wide. 

“Isn’t there a price limit on this thing?” He blurts, moving to check before she is completely gone and looking at something else. 

“Can I get a dollhouse?”

“For Samantha?”

“No, for me silly..” She laughs, like it was the most obvious thing.

“We are supposed to be shopping for your secret santa cheeseball.”

“Oh, right.” She sighs, moving back to the barbies. “How about for christmas?”

“Have you asked Santa?” Eddie smiles, and she shakes her head. “We’ll write a letter tonight, then.”

“Okay.” She giggles before pointing to a ken doll. “Hey daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Santa already answered my wish this year.” She mumbles which makes Eddie look at her curiously. “Last year I asked Santa to bring my dad back. And he did even better.”

Eddie’s heart practically shatters as he tries to smile at her, the vast empty feeling at her words killing him. Of course, what little girl didn’t want her dad on christmas, and she wanted Billy. 

-

Steve was suspicious of him the entire Christmas party, giving Eddie the side eye every chance he could while you sat not far off with Nancy gossiping amongst yourselves. 

Steve was room mother, and as much as Eddie made fun of him for it his friend was an amazing room mother. He had thrown the class’ holiday party at his house rather than that stuffy classroom so that the parents could come as well. His house, which was already insanely decorated for Christmas, had tons of ‘activity stations’ for the kids to do. Motley and Vinny were currently arguing over what color gumdrops they wanted to put on their gingerbread house. 

Charles, Samantha's dad as Eddie found out, had wavered off after talking to Steve and himself for the past hour and finally the two men were left alone. “Who knew parenthood would be just like highschool again?”

“You’re telling me.” Steve snickers. “I feel like-”

“King Steve again?” Eddie taunts, shaking his head. 

“Oh no no. You can’t make fun of me since you’re apart of the cool kid club this round.”

“No I’m not-”

“Oh yes you are. Please, everyone talks about you and Y/n. One, all the moms think you are attractive and so gentleman like for taking on the girls. Two. The dads are jealous of you cause you have this cool rock thing going on while still being a parent. Three, everyone loves Motley. She is the class princess. Everyone wants to play with her at christmas, if she shows up to their birthday party then their year is made. Admit it Munson, you’re raising a prom queen.”

“I don’t think I have much to do on that front, and it’s more to do with I’m your friend and you are the Room Mom.”

“Shh not so loud.” Steve mutters. “Nancy has been feeling a little guilty about being ‘less of a mom’ cause she spends all day at work. I tried telling her it was fine but she thinks it’s a bad look that her husband is room mom and not the actual mom.”

“I don’t think it’s a bad look. I think it shows that Vinny is being raised by two people who understand life a little better than other stuck up parents.” 

“Thanks pal.” Steve sighs, leading them away so Eddie can go up and check on where they put Ziggy to nap. Steve had been nice enough to set up a little crib in his room so she wouldn’t have to be dragged around the party. 

They catch up on everything, Steve complains that he think Jaxon might just be a freaky kid considering the amount of crayons and pencils he eats and how Nancy babies him. He complains that Mike is the worst uncle and never actually helps but always claims to do so. 

Eddie catches Steve up on the Billy situation, which had shocked the group to no end. 

“He’s been calling everyday, arguing that he should get visitation.” Eddie sighs, taking a swig from the beer Steve smuggled for them. 

“That’s bullshit. Tell him no.”

“Y/n is worried that he could fight and get full custody.”

“Why on earth-”

“Because she took the girls and ran. She did it for their safety but the court will never look at it like that.” Eddie sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “All they will see is Hawkins very own mall hero being abandoned as she runs to Hawkins very own freak.”

“Motley and Y/n don’t think of you as a freak.”

“Maybe not. But Motley adores Billy, and that leaves me on the sidelines.”

“That’s not fair.” Steve sighs but Eddie shrugs. 

“You know how long I hated Wayne for taking me from my dad? That man hit me and all I did for years was look up to him and try to be better. I pushed away anyone that actually cared. I know what she is going through right now, and I don’t want to be the one to ruin that love she has for her dad. Shit person or not.”

“Would you rather ruin her dad for her or have her heart broken when she is exposed to him on her own?”

“I think if he ever hurt her I would actually-”

“Kill him. I’m so in.” Steve finishes the sentence before there is a quick knock on the door. 

“Dad!” Vinny whines. “Where’s the gift?! We are doing secret santa!”

Steve sighs, moving to his dresser to grab the wrapped gift before handing it to his son. Eddie waits to follow Vinny, surprised when he turns to him rather than immediately running away. 

“Will Motley like this wrapping paper?”

“Yeah? I think she’d love it.” Eddie smiles, watching in shock as the kids dashes out. “He got Motley? Bet he hated that.”

“Nah, he was worried she might now like the barbie car.”

“Wasn’t there a price limit on this thing?” Eddie asks, raising a brow. 

“My kid is head over heels for your daughter Munson. Just be happy Troy didn’t get her. Little punk thinks he’s everything.” Steve scoffs, walking past Eddie and mumbling under his breath about Troy being a little shit. 

-

There was a new form of hell to Eddie, not having his girls under the same roof was that hell. After a very long argument it was agreed that Billy would get them for the night, they would have a fun time at the shitty motel room. 

So, after a long night of pacing back and forth, Billy finally dropped the girls off around noon, smoking easily as he carried Ziggy’s car seat in one hand. 

“Really? Right by her?” Eddie snaps, grabbing the handle carefully as Ziggy coos up at him. 

“Didn’t think you would be one to care, Munson.” Billy laughs, looking past him to where Motley stood with a grumpy look and her bag around her shoulder. “You used to make sure our class was coked out just fine.”

“Motty go inside.” Eddie sighs, moving to open the door for her, getting a little nervous when she glares and stomps in. “Has she eaten?”

Only when he turns back to ask Billy the jackass is already halfway in his car, sending a cocky smile in Eddie’s direction as he turns the speaker up loud. 

Now left alone with the two girls since you were at work Eddie shuffles inside to go find where Motley stomped off to, finding her in her room sitting on the floor and playing with a toy he didn’t recognize. 

“New barbie?” He smiles, watching her carefully. This was the first time she had ever gone with her dad and he didn't know what to expect, maybe he had been hoping for a hug or kiss. “She’s very pretty-”

“Papa got her for me.” She bites out, voice dripping with attitude. 

“Okay. You hungry? I can make you-”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” She screams, rushing to slam her door in his face, the tiffany poster she had on it staring back at him as he blinks in shock. There had been fits, a couple of screaming fits, she sometimes called him meanie head when he told her not to do something. But she had never before slammed a door in his face. 

Not really knowing what to do he decided to focus on bathing Ziggy first, making sure the smoke scent didn’t cling to her before setting her up to eat something. 

A couple hours later you came home, a nervous smile on your face as you looked at him only to realize he was upset. 

“What happened?” 

“She’s upset, won’t come out of her room.” He sighs. 

“Let me go check on her.” You mumble, kissing him before heading to her room and knocking softly. “Hey bugs? Why don’t you come out and say hi? Daddy can make something for dinner-“ 

“Eddie can fuck off!” She screams, which makes you freeze as Eddie’s heart drops and he leans his forehead on the wall. 

“Motley Marie-“

“NO!” She screams from the other side of the door and Eddie feels like he might throw up. 

“Maybe I should go to Wayne’s tonight?” He offers, shaking a bit as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “I need to help him fix the replace his fridge anyways” 

“Eds, no.” You mumble, tears welling up in your eyes as you shuffle closer. “She’ll be fine in a bit. We just need to get her to eat and-“ 

“She’s not gonna come out to eat if I’m here. I’ll come back tomorrow to see if she’s feeling better. Okay?” He tries, rubbing your arms in a comforting manner. “Just one night, maybe she will eat and calm down” 

You shake your head, crying, but you both already know the answer. And Eddie already knows this might not work out for him. 

-

After packing an overnight bag and heading off he makes it to his Uncle Wayne’s and spends the night there, hoping Motley would feel better if he wasn’t there. 

He helps Wayne sort out the kitchen, both of them planning on switching the fridges out in the morning now that his is empty. So, later in the night, Eddie lays on the couch staring at the ceiling. 

He couldn’t fall asleep without you beside him and he’s used to seeing the hall light under the door so the girls could see if they needed to get to the bathroom or your room. 

He tossed and turned, doing his best not to get too upset at all of it before he began thinking about all the ways this could go wrong. 

He never wanted to hurt the girls, and as much as he loved them and loved you there was always that thing about “if you love someone set them free.” So, as much as he hated it, he figured maybe it was time for some breathing space. Let Motley learn about her biological dad for a bit, and he would take whatever he could get even if it was just a dinner a month. Anything to make sure she didn’t hate him forever. 

So, around 6am, when he finally managed to close his eyes and get some sleep he had decided that the best plan of action was to give his girls breathing room. 

-

When he woke up Wayne was already starting on the fridge, which made Eddie realize just how much he had slept in. Jumping up quickly to start helping, he didn’t think to call you. 

They spent the next few hours moving the fridges and getting the new one set up, making sure everything was working before hauling the old one to the junkyard. By the time they were done the sun was going down and Eddie was starving so Wayne offered to order a pizza. 

The only problem was your car was at the trailer when they got back, with you sitting on the hood smiling at him as Wayne pulled his truck up to park. 

“Hi Grandpa Wayne.” You called which made the older man smile and hop out quickly to give you a kiss before moving to say hi to the girls in the back seat. 

Eddie moves to hug you, kissing you deeply before you pull back and smile. “You didn’t call, and we called this morning but no answer so I figured you boys were busy.”

“Sorry. I slept a little late and we were fighting that damn fridge all day.” He smiles. 

“We were thinking about going and getting dinner tonight, thought we’d come pick up daddy.” You offer, holding his hand. He casts a quick look to where Motley is sitting in the backseat, laughing as Wayne pretends to steal her book. 

Breathing room. 

“I actually got more stuff to help Wayne with. That okay?”  He could see you visibly deplete, trying your best to keep smiling. 

“Of course that’s okay. Just don’t forget to call okay?” 

“I won’t.” 

“You wanna say bye to the girls?” 

“I….Not tonight.” He feels like he’s stabbed himself in the gut and twisted the knife, his throat tightening up with the urge to cry. “I love you.” 

“I love you too.” You mumble. “And you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?” 

“Right.” He smiles, leaning to kiss your cheek. When you kiss him one last time you move to Wayne, tearing up a bit. 

“Enjoy your handyman Wayne. But I expect him back tomorrow by dinner, got it grandpa?” 

Wayne, to his credit, smiles politely and nods. Mumbling something about making Eddie work overtime as you laugh, he hears Ziggy blubber sadly, probably upset that she’s in her car seat. 

He spots Motley when you open your door to get in, leaning against the window already staring at him. There is a glum look on her expression and Eddie feels that stab wound tighten. She hates him, she can’t even smile when she sees him anymore. Billy must have told her what a fuckimg freak he was. 

Instead of crawling into the hole he wants to, he merely raises a hand slowly to wave, attempting to seem like everything was fine. 

She raised her own hand, and Eddie thinks he’s mistaken when she presses it to the glass of the window as you drive off. 

“You okay?” Wayne asks, rubbing his boys shoulder. 

“Not really.” 

-

True to his word Eddie calls the next morning, only to be surprised when he hears Motleys voice answer. 

“Hello?” She asks. 

“Hey Mot…ley.” Eddie panics , thinking that she might now like her nicknames now. “I called for your ma.” 

“Oh.” She mumbles, obviously disappointed that it was him. “I can go get her……” 

“Not if she’s busy, okay? I can call back later.” He hears her set the phone down and scamper off, feet hitting the hardwood of the kitchen as she rushes to find you. A couple minutes goes by and he hears both your voices trickle back into hearing distance, probably from the downstairs hallway. 

“- dy Eddie. He just wanted to talk to you.” He hears Motley mumble, and that shooting pain was back. Eddie. She called him Eddie again. 

Panic claws at him as he hears your footsteps get closer and he hangs up quickly, wiping the tears from his eyes. 

-

After helping Wayne around the trailer he returns that evening, feeling lame and tired. Kicking his shoes off in the doorway, hearing your music downstairs which tells him you had probably started reading once putting the girls to bed. 

He planned to shower and then go see you, so he makes his way to the room, shucking his jacket off and tossing it on the bed in the dark. 

“Heyyy.” Someone whines, making him stop and look to the bed to see Motley climbing out from the blankets and pillows, eyes wide. “Watch it.” 

“Sorry kid,” he smiles, moving to grab the jacket. “Didn’t see ya there.” 

She giggles softly, moving to the middle of the bed and turning on the light before going back to her spot. He gives her a soft smile before moving to grab clothes and heading to the master bathroom only for her to call out. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” He asks, turning with wide eyes. 

“I’m sorry I was mean and hurt your feelings. I’m sorry I made you mad.” Tears well in her eyes as she says it which makes his chest clench. 

“Hey hey. I’m not mad.” He says softly, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, she immediately crawls over and crawls into his lap. 

“You are! That’s why you didn’t want to come home!” She cries. “You hate me now.” 

“No no. Take a breath.” He tries to calm her down, rubbing her back in soft circles as she sucks in a deep breath. 

“I made you mad…”

“You didn’t make me mad, I just had to help Grandpa Wayne with some stuff. He’s old now. He needs help.” Eddie offers, still rubbing her back. She calms down a bit, face pressed into his chest as she slowly puts herself back to sleep. 

He carries her into her own room, making sure she’s nice and comfortable when he tucks her in before going back to the master bedroom to shower. 

When he comes back out he finds you waiting on the bed, a smile smile tugging st your lips. “Hey stud.” 

“Hi baby,” he whispers, moving to lay down. He gives you one kiss before laying down and shoving his face into the pillow quickly, desperate to sleep. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” You ask, rubbing a hand on his back. 

“Nothing to talk about. I’m fine. Just wanted to give her space is all.” He sighs. 

“She loves you Eddie.” 

“I know.” He lies, closing his eyes to sleep 

-

Motley spent the next day at the Harrington household while Eddie and you went to shop for some last minute gifts you hadn’t gotten at the beginning of the month. 

With Christmas being only a week away now you were beginning to panic and Eddie was doing his best to ease your anxieties as you tried to think of what the girls would want. 

“I think we got everything.” You sigh out when you make it to the car, Eddie pushing the cart filled to the brim with bags as he rubs your back. There was something off about you today and he felt guilty that he hadn’t come home until late last night. 

“I think we did.” He moves away only to open the back of the van, beginning to pile all the bags in before he hears you gag and dash to the chunk of grass he parked near. 

“Shit- “ he snaps, tripping over himself as he tries to get to you to hold your hair. “You okay? Nervous about Christmas?” 

“Y-yeah…” you whine, rubbing the back of your hand under your nose to wipe the snot after you finish puking. “Over stressed myself is all.” 

He sighs, helping you up and getting you set up in the van before moving to finish his original task. 

He spends the rest of the day making sure you’re okay and wrapping the gifts. He tries to change his handwriting on the tags so Motley would think other people were signing them. Make her think she got a gift from Santa and the elves and one from Mrs. Claus before he took his coffee grounds and make a hoof print on the gift he had made from Rudolph. 

He hides them all in the basements laundry room, moving to wake you up when he’s done. 

-

Two days before Christmas Eve Motley and Ziggy go with Billy again, and Eddie makes himself scarce when they are dropped back off the next day, wanting to give Motley room to breathe in case she needs it. 

He hides in the basement, keeping his headphones in as he practices guitar, hearing the echo of stomping around upstairs. She had come home in another mood, that much he had figured out by the sounds of her yelling when she came in. 

The phone rings in the distance and Eddie ignores everything as he practices more riffs until your in front of him with a small smile. “That was Gareth. They wanted to rehearse? Asked if you could head over.” 

“Oh?” He asks, standing up. The perfect excuse to give Motley some space without hurting anyone’s feelings had just arrived and he was gonna take it. “I’ll head over now.” 

“Are you gonna be home for dinner?” You ask softly, face tense with worry and exhaustion. 

“We’ll probably practice too late.” He sighs, kissing you before moving to walk away. 

“Eds?” You call, making him look back at you as you stress. “Y-you’re okay…… right?” 

“I’m okay.” He lies. Really he feels pathetic, useless, a lame ass excuse for a stepdad. ……he feels like his father. 

She just needs space.  He thinks to himself, smiling at you. But deep down he already knows it’s not working. He loves his girls but if they don’t love him back then he is just dragging them down. 

And his heart breaks at the thought of the inevitable. 

I don’t wanna say bye.

As he passes the hallway to pack clothes for the night he sees that the Tiffany poster on Motleys door had been ripped down the middle, and he risks a peek in to find it the missing piece wadded in the trash along with her fleetwood poster she got around thanksgiving. 

Sighing in defeat he shuffles to grab his bag and head out. 

-

 The morning of Christmas Eve he wakes up to find that sometime in the night Motley had crawled into bed with you and Eddie, curled up between you two with tear streaks down her face. 

Nightmares, nasty little things. 

He kisses her cheek lightly before getting up to get ready for work. By the time he is putting on his boots he finds her yawning and sitting up. 

“Are you leaving?” 

“Only for a bit.” He tries to sound positive. “I’ll be back soon.” 

“Swear it?” She asks, eyes wide. 

“Triple swear it.” He smiles back, and something eases in him when a smile breaks out across her face, going from ear to ear. 

So he leans to kiss her cheek, taking the good mood while he can before heading to work and coming back home by 5. Only to find Billy’s Camaro in the driveway when he does come home. 

Walking into the house, tense and tired from the day, to find Billy sitting on the couch as you work in the kitchen. You send him a quick look and Eddie follows, rushing into the kitchen with you. 

“He invited himself for dinner.” You whisper. 

“Why?” 

“Because Motley told me I couldn’t come for Christmas morning.” Billy snaps from the doorway, leaning on it like he owned the place. “Which is really fucking weird considering that I’m her dad. I should be able to see her on Christmas. And I can only assume that you’re the one saying no Munson.” 

“Hadn’t even known that we had that discussion but sure. I’ll take the hit.” Eddie smiles. “Cause you are 1000% banned from this house on Christmas Day.” 

“You can’t separate me from my kids.” Billy snaps. 

“We’re not. You can have dinner with us tonight, but you can’t be here tomorrow.” There were far too many people coming tomorrow that Eddie did not want having to deal with Billy, and he didn’t want your day being ruined by this asshat. 

“I’d prefer the dinner to be a family occasion” Billy snipes. “And last I checked you weren’t.” 

“Eddie is family.” You snipe back, backing up when Billy glared at you. “This is our home. His home. He stays.” 

And before he knew it everyone was seated at the table, in the most uncomfortable dinner of his life. You were just pushing food around your plate, while Eddie was doing his best to stay cool. 

“How are your grades Motley?” Billy asks, turning a heavy look to her. 

“I’m one of the top in my class-“ 

“One of?” Billy interrupts. 

“They have top three. They all tie in that spot so the kids don’t lose self esteem in the competition.” Eddie explains, tapping a ring on the table in annoyance. 

“That’s bullshit. If her grades are the best then that needs to be said-“ 

“She’s doing fine. Her grades will help win a pizza party at the end of the year.” You snap, rubbing her cheek. 

“I just want to make sure I’m not raising a retard that turns into a super senior.” 

“What’s that mean?” Motley asks, wide eyed as Ziggy shoves some spaghetti in her mouth. 

“Oh baby, it’s noth-“ you begin but Eddie cuts you off, looking her gently. 

“It means I wasn’t good in school. I got held back from graduating for three years. That’s right. I was held back another year after you…. Well you know.” 

“You got something to say to me, jackass?” 

“Not really.” Eddie snipes, picking up his plate and heading to the kitchen before he loses his temper. Lucky him that Billy was set to follow. 

“So this is where Motley gets all that attitude huh?! Some shit for brain pathetic piece of shit starts raising my daughter, showing her shit music and telling her the world is all rainbows and sunshine. Right?!” 

“We’ll she’s 7. The world is supposed to be a little brighter-“ Eddie starts, watching as Billy grabs the front of his jacket and shoves him into the cabinets behind him. 

“You think you’re something, huh?! Well you’re nothing more than a trailer trash piece of shit!” Billy yells in his face, and Eddie remains bland. Not letting any motion on his face as he shrugs. 

Motley was going to hate him. 

This would never work because your kids needed to come first, and Eddie knew that. He would always put them first. If he stayed with you Motley would soon begin to resent you. 

He couldn’t let that happen. 

“No. I don’t think I’m anything more than a piece of shit. I’m quite good in that life.” He shrugs. “And it’s not shit music that she was listening to, it was her choice of music. Music she liked, and if she likes it then it’s not shit.” 

Billy laughs bitterly, then Eddie can do nothing but watch his hand pull back into a fist, getting him right in the face. 

Pain shoots through his face as his head hits the cupboard behind him hearing the wood crack at the impact. Motley screams out loud “DADDY!” And Eddie assumes she’s screaming for Billy to stop. 

He didn’t want to hit her dad in front of her, so he took it. Punch after punch from Billy before you jump on the man’s back, hitting him to get him off Eddie. 

Billy pushes you off quickly, making you tumble to the floor as Motley runs for you before you try and ease her back. Eddie can’t feel his face but he knows it’s swollen and bloody, spitting out the taste of iron as he swipes a hand under his nose, pain shooting through him when he does so. 

Motley is still screaming, over and over “DADDY DADDY!” And when Billy takes one aggressive step over to where she is in your arms Eddie finally loses it. 

He shoves at Billy’s back, drawing his attention back and taking one quick swing across Billy’s cheek. One of his rings slices his cheek as Billy’s head whips to the side. But Eddie doesn’t stop, too built up on protective rage. 

Ziggy is screaming in the background, Motley crying for her dad while you hold her back. Eddie takes a couple more hits, pushing Billy to the door so they wouldn’t have an audience. Only problem is the second Eddie pushes Billy out he finds a cop car already waiting, the cop hopping out and rushing to the scene. 

-

Christmas morning was spent inside a jail cell with a broken nose, Eddie laying on one of the benches staring up at the ceiling and trying not to think about how much his face hurt right now. 

One of the neighbors had heard yelling and called the cops, who had taken 15 minutes to respond. And since Eddie didn’t start hitting back until the end he could only assume that meant he had taken nearly 15 minutes of that beating. 

What a fucking coward. 

He had hit Billy in front of Motley. Oh my god her entire Christmas would be ruined right now. He was an absolute piece of shit. 

“Hey kid?” Someone calls, making Eddie try to open his unswollen eye and see. Hopper stood there in mundane clothes, sighing in disappointment. “Thought we agreed last time I arrested you that it would be the last time.” 

“What can I say?” He croaks out, dropping his head again. “I’m trailer trash. Always have been and always will be.” 

“Come on pity party.” Hopper sighs, unlocking the door. “You’ve been cleared. Witness statements.” 

So they had questioned you. Fuck. 

When he grabs his rings and jacket from the clerk he doesn’t bother putting them on, keeping everything in the bag including his chain and wallet. He puts the shoes on, groaning in pain when he bends over, before moving to see that Wayne had come to pick him up. 

“Uncle Wayne,” Eddie grunts, not bothering to smile due to the cut on his lip and cheek. 

Wayne doesn’t say anything, merely leads Eddie out, keeping a hand on his arm to help lead him to the car since he can only open one eye. 

When they are both jn Wayne lights a cigarette, handing it to his nephew. “Have some before we get there. Relax you a bit.” 

“Get where?”  

“Your house? It’s Christmas? We agreed I’d bring gifts for the girls and get a nice meal?” Wayne asks. 

“No. I’m not going there. Not like this and not after that.” Eddie snaps, tears falling from his eye as he thinks about it. That would just ruin Motleys Christmas even more. He couldn’t do that. 

“I just wanna sleep.” 

“Edward Wayne Munson.” 

“Wayne John Munson.” 

The sigh that falls from his uncles lips tells Eddie that he won. 

-

(A POV from you? Gasp!) 

After watching Eddie and Billy both get arrested you had to give a statement to the police, not like you could actually get a word out considering you were sobbing. 

Eddie was bleeding profusely and could barely open his eye when they dragged him to the car, Motley sobbing at your hip as they did so. The officer talking to you tried to calm you down, rubbing your back in a soothing motion that didn’t work and only stressed you out more. You begged them to let Eddie go but the officer said it was protocol and that you should call in the morning to give your statement. 

But you didn’t. You sat there with that cop until you calmed down and gave a proper statement, he said he would write a report and get it all sorted so you took Motley in. Getting both girls showered and ready for bed. After tucking them in, still crying, you found yourself moving to the kitchen to clean up the mess. Starting with the the broken glass that had fallen, then the dishes before you moved to scrub the floor, crying harder when you had to scrub Eddie’s blood. 

At some point Motley came out, rushing into your arms to keep sobbing so you took her back to yours and Eddie’s room to try and get her to sleep there. You put her in one of Eddie’s sweatshirts before laying with her and trying to calm her down. 

“He hurt daddy.” She sobs. 

“Honey, Eddie was just trying to-“ 

“No. Billy hurt Daddy.” She explains. “It’s my fault. I told him he couldn’t come over on Christmas!” 

There it was. You had wondered since Billy brought it up, you hadn’t said anything and Eddie hadn’t. So why had Motley? 

“Why would you do that Motley? That was an adult decision that you should have let me tell him. I don’t want you getting in trouble because-“ 

“He’s mean to daddy, I didn’t want him bullying daddy! Okay?!” She cries, swiping her cheeks. “But now Daddy hates me! He hates me mama!” 

“No. He doesn’t. He doesn’t hate you, okay?” 

“He does!” 

It took all but 30 minutes to lure Motley out of room after Eddie left for Wayne’s, promising her some chicken nuggets for dinner and that was it. 

She ate silently with you before bath time, then when you sat with her on the couch before her bedtime while Ziggy slept in her crib, you noticed her watching the door every 2 minutes. 

“What’s wrong?” You whisper, smoothing out her still damp hair. 

“Is daddy Eddie coming back for bedtime?” She asks, scratching her arm. “He always lays with me.” 

“He’s gonna be at Grandpa Wayne’s tonight. Helping him out with something. We will see him tomorrow, okay metalhead?” 

“Okay.” 

Only when you called the next morning there was no answer, Motley getting dressed beside you with a look of excitement on her face as it rang. 

“Is he there? Ask him when he’ll be home!” 

“He didn’t pick up ,baby, I’m sure they are busy. We will see him later okay? Maybe we can have dinner at the diner.” 

And that’s what she talked about for the rest of the day, you tried asking about her time at Billy’s but she simply shut the conversation down. By the time dinner time came about she was upset that Eddie hadn’t come back so you offered to go to Grandpa Wayne’s and pick them up. 

You had been there for about 5 minutes when the van pulled up and you could hear the gasps of excitement from Motley when Eddie hops out. 

Inviting him to dinner, only for Eddie to be nervous and say no. He looked upset, and you were beginning to panic deep down. 

Please don’t leave us. I love you. You wanted to say but you were pretty sure that would scare him off more. 

Who wanted the mother of two with the racist abusive ex? Right?

When you drove off without him Motley was just as upset. “Why didn’t he come mama?” 

“He had some more stuff to help with.” You answer, smiling at her through the mirror. 

“Why didn’t he say hi?” 

“He’s just not feeling good.” Lie lie lie. 

The next day you were doing laundry while Motley was dashing around upstairs and Ziggy was waddling around you. 

The sound of the phone ringing didn’t draw your attention since you were too busy trying to kick the washing machine into working. But when your daughter dashed down the stairs you looked at her. 

“PHONE!” 

“Who is it?”  You ask, laughing at her excitement as you snatch Ziggy up and follow her up the stairs. 

“Daddy Eddie. He just wants to talk to you though.” And you found yourself rushing to the phone, only when you got there it was just the dial tone. 

“Is he coming home? Can I do his hair when he gets back?” She asks hopefully. 

“Maybe later.” 

By the time you realized he was back Motley was on her own bed and the shower to your shared bathroom was running so you laid on the bed waiting for him to come out. 

When he did your heart beat out of your chest, nervous and in love. 

He laid down, face in the pillow as you let him know Motley loved him. 

All he could say was “I know” before falling asleep and you were heartbroken. 

He’s gonna leave. 

Two days before Christmas Eve when Motley is dropped off from Billys  he doesn’t say a word, merely tosses her bag at you as he slams his car door and drives off. 

Motley storms past you, pushing into the door as you carry Ziggy in, watching her in shock. “I HATE HIM AND I HATE YOU!” 

Eddie, who had been waiting in the kitchen, sulks downstairs to give her space and you feel a twist in your gut. “That’s not fair to Eddie, Mot.” 

“I’m not talking about Eddie. I’m talking about HIM!” She screams, stomping to her room and ripping the poster from her door. 

“Hey!” You snap, following her and trying to get her to stop as she tears down the Elvis and Fleetwood Mac poster. 

“I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I HATE HIM! It’s bullshit!” She screams, slamming the door. Only she slams it so hard it creaks open a little. Before you could make it worse the phone rings and you find yourself heading downstairs to tell Eddie about the call. 

The excitement on his face breaks your heart as you realize he is so desperate to get away from you. Jesus you trapped him didn’t you? 

By the time Motley comes out of her room she looks around for a minute, sitting at the table. “Where’s daddy?” 

“Band practice.” You smile. 

“When will he be back?” 

“Don’t worry about that. Just eat.” You felt bad about the short answer. But you were upset about the way she was acting and you were upset that she said she hated you. Not to mention the way she ripped the posters and the way Eddie seemed to run from you. 

You already dragged her away from Billy once, now she was going to lose another father because of your mess. You were a terrible mother. 

She hates me , and so does Eddie. 

“He will be here, okay? Daddy would never miss Christmas.” You smile, crying softly yourself. “Just wait and see. Daddy will be home.” 

She calmed down a bit at your promise, laying beside you. 

“I asked santa for dad back last year….” She mumbles. “And he gave me an even better one.” 

“Yeah, he did.” 

You don’t get a lick of sleep, waiting all night for the sound of the door to open. They had to have released Eddie, right? 

You overthink it all as you sneak all the gifts out to the tree, ones that Eddie wrapped while you were sick and see all the dedication he put into them which just makes your heart melt more. 

When the sun starts coming up you realize that maybe no officers were there to release him and they would in the morning during normal processing hours so you focus on starting the meal and getting the girls ready. 

Motley refuses to go near her presents, choosing to wait for Eddie. You’re okay with it, letting Ziggy open a gift since you know it will take her forever. 

You focus on cooking while Motley waits on the couch watching out the window. 

But then people start showing up for the early dinner and you begin to let that panic sink in. Steve shows up, his two sons dashing for Motley as Nancy waddles in behind them. They thought three dishes that they add to the table. Steve asks about the broken cabinet but before you explain Lucas and Mike show up with their own dishes. 

One after one they all show up and sook enough you break from the crowd to go in your room and call the station. 

“I’m looking for Edward Munson? He should have been released by now but-“ 

“He was released two hours ago.” The kid on the phone sighs. “Anything else.” 

You don’t respond, choosing to hang out and close your door so your guests don’t see you cry. 

He wasn’t coming, you had messed everything up like usual. God you were pathetic. 

Just as Billy would say, useless as hell. 

Shuffling to the bathroom to try and catch your breath, turning on the water and sitting under it as you try to ease the panic attack. 

The pink pregnancy test box stares back at you from the trash bin, the actual test on the counter where you had planned to surprise Eddie. 

God I can’t do anything right. 

Part lll HERE

(OHHHH I really hope this chapter didn't disappoint. Please please please no hate on it! If you want to see something specific such as a blurb or scene with Eddie and the girls feel free to request. -Ultralight)

Taglist::: (Let me know if you want removed)

@localemofreak @paradise-summertime @jenniquinn @eddiesxangel @mariamayhemrsmunson @venuslayla23-blog @cherrycolas-things @scout141 @thehuntresswolf @natie335 @alyisdead @animechick555 @r-a-d-i-0-n-0-w-h-e-r-e @mysticpeachobject @jackiosstuff @slytherinroyalty16

[cherryrikis]

BETTER LUCK TOMORROW - introduction ! senior project

pairing : nishimura riki x reader

synopsis : after being in the wrong place at the wrong time, you (as well as your friends), were framed for the death of your brother and disappearance of your boyfriend. you all had no hope. no job, no money, none of you were even allowed to graduate. at least, until a stubborn kid on a dance scholarship suddenly acts as your savior, riki helps clear your name all for the sake of a school project.

this episode contains the following : 1.3k wc, brief swearing, mentions of death & mentions of murder/killing, lots of dialogue

previous | masterlist | next

“as you all know, you have a major senior project due by the end of the year for part of your college interviews. this will be worth 90% of your grade and is not optional. any questions to far?” riki’s english teacher read off the whiteboard, before turning to face the class.

she cleared her throat loudly before continuing.

“late work will not be accepted, because you have until may 25 to get this project submitted. everyone should know which college they plan on attending, or applying to by now. a google slides format must be be at least 25 slides, and a word doc should be at least 10 pages.”

jungwon quoted the teacher, explaining to riki what’s expected of them after he realized riki hadn’t been paying attention.

“how the hell did you remember all she said? and- why are you even here.. you’re like, a freshman in college.” riki noticed, with a visible look of confusion on his face.

“sophomore, actually. and i’m here for volunteer work! we have finals too you know. i was telling you and sunoo about this last week, but it’s for my social thought class!-” jungwon explained with a smile, only for it to drop as he was cut off .“yeah yeah okay. so what kind of topic am i supposed to pick?” riki asked before crumpling up a random paper into a ball, tossing it in jungwons direction.

jungwon let out a sigh. “riki, you really need to do better. if you can’t improve how you act, that impact will show on my grade as well. and that won’t be good for either of us.” he said as he took the paper ball, unfolding it to reveal riki’s report card from last quarter. it wasn’t too bad really, mainly straight a and b minuses. but the biggest issue, was behavior and participation.

“how would your grade tanking be bad on me? i still have until fall before i start going to ucla.”

“i really don’t know how you got in.” jungwon shook his head.

“dance scholarship. duh.” “nishimura riki! you have 7 more minutes to determine your main topic. i recommend that you use your time more wisely.” the teacher called out from her desk.

“okay seriously, now we have to focus. what topics are you interested in?” jungwon asked, as he pulled his notebook out.

“well, i like dancing. i can research the history on different dance styles.” riki shrugged, loosely putting an idea out there.

“that’s actually not that bad, especially as a dance major. let’s sit on that idea for a bit in case anything else comes up. what else do you like?” jungwon hummed while briefly scribbling a few notes in.

“i don’t even get why i still have to do this stupid assignment when i already heard back from ucla. if anything it’s a waste of my time, because this only benefits the kids who haven’t heard back yet.” riki complained.

“well,” jungwon chuckled. “the start of the fall semester is still a while from now, anything can change by then. they’re still gonna be looking at your final report card and all that. this is just to determine that your slot in that school is ensured. i think the you from freshman year would be proud to see you improve.”

but of course, he wasn’t listening. riki was hyper focused on his computer. at least until the last sentence stuck out to him.

“say that again?” riki questioned, making sure he heard jungwon right.

“the you from three years ago would be proud if you improved?” he repeated an improvised version, with a raised brow.

riki chewed on the bottom of his pen, before hastily writing something down on jungwon’s notebook.

“you.. you want to solve heeseung and jay’s case..?” jungwon stuttered as he read the notes. “how is this even related to what i said? is it because you were a freshman when it happened?”

“do you really believe yn was capable of killing them? i mean honestly, won. we grew up with her. she was heeseung’s little sister.” riki insisted, ignoring jungwon’s previous questions.

“i couldn’t believe it either, because there was no way it could’ve been her. but there was a lot of evidence that said otherwise.” jungwon informed, moving the notebook back onto his desk.

“also, don’t get mad when i say this. but, do you think the reason why you’ve been so fixated on yn being innocent is because you never got over your crush on her from middle school?”

“hey! shut the fuck up dude.” riki hissed, slapping the older boy on the back of his head. “and she was someone we were close to, a 17 year old at the time. it just isn’t likely.”

“age doesn’t mean anything. 35% of murders in america were committed by people ranging between 17 and 21. and, 28% of murders are committed by a relative or acquaintance. chances are low but not zero.” a girl butt in from behind the them. riki whipped his head back to see who it was, only to wish he never turned around.

minji kim. a pain in the original friend groups ass since elementary school.

the two stared at her with two completely different expressions. riki looked minji up and down with a frown, while jungwon just blinked slowly with wide eyes.

“what? do you seriously not remember me?” she scoffed.

“no trust me, we do, minji.” riki huffed before turning back around.

“we’re just wondering how you know that, is all.” jungwon hummed.

“my brother is a police officer now. i’m sure if you didn’t know who he was, one of your other friends might.” she snickered.

minjae kim. he is minji’s brother and one of the officers who handled the heeseung-jay case, aka one of the officers responsible for the arrests of yn and a few others. riki would know, because he attended the court hearing.

“minji, what topic have you selected?” the teacher asked as she briefly looked up from the computer screen.

“i will be making a slideshow on the history of ballet.” she answered with a proud smile. oh how riki just wanted to wipe that look off her face.

“and.. finally. riki and jungwon?”

"me and jungwon will investigate the lee siblings case, from 3 years ago." and the teachers face fell.

"riki, i don't know if this is a good topic write on. you still have time to change your mind-"

"no. this is what i want to do. i want to solve the murder of heeseung lee, and the disappearance of jay park." riki cut off the teacher with determination.

and the class went silent.

"there's nothing to solve! yn lee killed her own brother, and her own boyfriend. case closed." minji said. but remember, her brother was one of the officers who testified against yn. of course, her opinion on the topic was just as biased as riki’s or jungwon’s could be.

"shut up minji, your brother got demoted for a reason. and, you didn't know yn." jungwon waved off.

"you may have known heeseung but that doesn't mean you know her. and i know enough about yn lee to see that shes a cold hearted killer." "enough!" the teacher interrupted.

"fine. riki and jungwon, you may pursue this case. but we have to set some boundaries. first off, you may use any public sources or personal connections. secondly, when contacting any sources like publishers or officers, do not push the limit. if they say certain answers to questions are confidential, then respect that. third and foremost, absolutely do NOT contact the lees or the parks. leave any involved families out of this, especially now that miss yn lee is out of juvie."

she teacher sighed in slight relief as she saw jungwon and riki nodding in agreement.

but what she didn’t see, was how their fingers were crossed behind their backs.

taglist ! @jiiyen @prettiestgirlontheplanet @hannicorpse @wonsboo @murazbae @stilesks @soobinbunnie5 @blvengene @r1kification @gyuvision @goldenmellow @ariluvssssss100 @who-tf-soddhi @mmurazz @jaemified @strawberrieswithchocolateo3o @heartheejake @hoonsdrnkdzd

not proofread

[bellarkeselection]

Hello ! I love your work sm and was wondering if you could maybe possible do a Charles Xavier x reader where the reader is British like him but had lived in France most her life so when she gets angry like in class when teaching the students or just in general with other people and or things she start yelling and insulting in French (reader has ANGER ISSUES) ? If that is to much to ask I understand completely, thank you and I hope you have a great week my lovely xx

The British and French Professor

Hi there, anonymous asker - I’m sorry it took me a while before I got this posted but I hope you enjoy what I have wrote

Some people simply find enjoyment in staying in the state or country they were born in.

Others have this desire to travel the world and see more than what we have been around most of their lives.

And I used to be one of those people that stayed at home until I met Charles Xavier and his beautiful dream that he had for mutants and the rest of the world at Oxford University when I had gotten my dream job to teach as a professor here.

The first time I had left my childhood home in France I had to adjust to many different things, especially switching from my French accent to a British one that my mother had. She taught me all she could but I haven’t been able to not curse in French when I let my anger get the better of me.

Walking into my college classroom I sat my bag down seeing most of my students were already in their seats and ready for our exam that day. Taking out my exam papers I heard one of my students coming up to my desk with a nervous look on her face. “Excuse me, Professor L/n. I was hoping I could be excused from today’s exam cause I didn’t get enough sleep last night.” The girl's name was Penny and she had her blonde hair up in a ponytail.

Holding the exam papers up against my chest so she couldn’t see the questions I sent her a half smile. “You’ve known this exam has been coming up for two weeks now.”

“Professor L/n, I can’t take the exam today because I broke up with my girlfriend and that was really draining for me.” One of the boys that sits next to her came up coming up with a half assed excuse.

Rolling my eyes I glared at him. “That’s not a valid reason to not take this exam, Bryan.”

“But Professor L/n-“

The classroom door got thrown open and I saw one of the cheerleaders running inside the classroom completely dressed in her pajamas. “I totally thought she was joking about us having an exam the day before fall break.”

“Alright that’s enough.” Laying the exams faced down beside my laptop that was sitting on the desk.

Easton, who was a senior who had failed this class two more times rose from his seat, beginning to put on his backpack and leave the room. “I’m out of here. I don’t need to learn about English if I’m going to play in the NFL one day.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.” Another boy began to pack his things, making the blood inside of me start to boil.

Slamming my palms down on the wooden desk I raised my voice at the students who were trying to leave the classroom. “Nobody leaves this room unless I say that class is over!”

“But half of them aren’t prepared for class, Professor L/n. Why should we make it where they pass because we came prepared for the exam?” Amy, who was one of my best students, raised her hand getting frustrated with the fact that their good test scores would help out the ones who could care less about trying to take or pass the exam for today.

Running a hand down my face I huffed doing my best to not let my anger take over. Even if this wasn’t the first time we have had this conversation in my class this year. “Amy, you shouldn’t worry about the curve. I will not improve the others' grades considering we have already discussed this.”

“So since we’re having this conversation I’m assuming we aren’t having the exam today. I’ll see you on Monday.” Penny slowly started walking backwards towards the door.

“Vous tous gèlez cet instant ! Je refuse d'avoir cette discussion cette année. Vous devez suivre ce cours, je suis votre professeur, ce qui signifie que vous ferez ce que je dis, ce qui signifie que nous aurons l'examen aujourd'hui et que toute personne qui échouera à l'examen devra écrire un essai pendant la pause qui explique comment vous serez préparé pour notre prochain examen. Est-ce clair pour tout le monde ?” - - - - - ( All of you freeze this instant! I refuse to have this discussion anymore this year. You are required to take this course, I am your professor meaning you will do what I say, so that means we will be having the exam today and anyone who fails the exam will be required to write an essay over break that explains how you will be prepared for our next exam. Is that clear to everyone? )

All my students' eyes were locked onto me after I had stopped shouting in French and a familiar British accent could be heard throughout the classroom. “On that note I’d say Professor L/n isn’t feeling well and needs to step out. My colleague Hank will be protruding your exam and will make sure everyone finishes before they leave.” Charles slowly enters the room with his friend Hank coming in behind him moments later.

Slumping my shoulders, the anger that I was feeling almost went away instantly when I saw his face and those piercing blue eyes. “Charles.”

“Let’s both be done for the day. I think you and your students have been stressed out enough for some time.” The telepathic professor extended his hand out to me waiting for me to give him my hand. Slowly intertwining my hand with his own he led me out of the classroom and grabbed my bag.

Once we were outside I felt my entire body relax with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face simply taking a walk with the man that I loved. Charles found a park bench and we sat down where I laid my head against his shoulder sighing heavily. “I didn’t mean to snap at them. My anger - my anger issues just got the better of me.”

“I know you didn’t mean for that to happen, Y/n. You are one of the greatest people I have ever met. So don’t beat yourself up over what happened in your class a few minutes ago.” Charles tucked some hair behind my ear.

Lifting my head up I gently kissed him, threading my fingers through his long brown hair. “Thank you, Charles. I appreciate you being here for me.”

“I’ll always have my girls back. You are my love, Y/n.” He smiled gently cupping my face in his hands deeply kissing me back where we just enjoyed the peaceful moment together.

[spatialwave]

just read your pre calc fic please write another omg it was soooooo good

eek, i'm so happy you liked it! i thought i'd use this ask as a way to continue the story. 🤍

𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫. 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐. notes: fem!reader <- prev.

—

being tutored by angus tully had become far less tutoring and more learning about each other, and not through conversation. you knew it was becoming an issue when your grades hardly budged, moving up to a c-minus, which wasn’t horrible, but far from ivy league worthy. there was only one month left in your junior year, meaning one month left to make a good impact on your grades and head into senior year with a head start on calculus.

it wasn’t looking good for you.

even if you couldn’t muster an a-minus, you hoped that your extra curriculars would stand out on your applications. you could only put so much time in theatre, community volunteering and chess club—was pre-calculus really all that important?

especially when there were better things to worry about than math, such as the way angus’ hand on your thigh sent shivers up your spine. his brown eyes glued to the pages of the textbook, looking through his lashes as his thumb grazed over your bare skin absently. this closeness became your comfort, the library at your school often quiet enough in the evenings that you two could relish in each other.

it’s not like your peers would rat you out anyway, you had started to notice how many secretive relationships were had between the two schools. you became truly aware of the fact when you’d been looking for a history textbook one night and heard the sounds of soft breathing and moaning coming from an aisle over… though, you couldn’t be certain that it was a girl and a boy.

as you looked down at your homework, able to comprehend it better than the month prior, you found yourself wanting to focus on anything but the coursework due the following day.

“i think my teacher is getting curious of why my grades aren’t improving fast enough,” you murmured, dropping your pencil onto the textbook as you aired a concern that had been eating you away, “why can’t i get the hang of it?”

“maybe if you paid attention,” angus was quick to react, those eyes flickering to you as he straightened up slightly with his hand still glued to your thigh.

“wow, that is totally not my fault,” you breathed, annoyed at his lack of empathy over your situation.

“it’s my fault?” he asked, lips curving into a grin that exposed his teeth.

you blinked a few times, gazing into his eyes before you looked down at his hand and hoping he’d followed your gaze. when you looked back up, you saw the way he chewed on his lip, biting back a cheeky smile as he kept his hand there.

“fine,” he said, removing his hand, “i’ll be good.”

“thank you,” you said, straightening up and adjusting your skirt. you already missed his touch, but you knew this was for the better—you two had plenty of other opportunities to use your free time to get handsy. right now, you needed to focus on what was important.

the air was tense between you two as angus moved on with the content, keeping his distance as he explained equations that managed to stick. you knew it wasn’t like magic, you wouldn’t wake up tomorrow a pre-calculus genius, but it was quite magical to see the wonders that concentration could bring.

when the clock struck nine o’clock in the evening, it was curfew for all students. with a soft sigh you started packing your things into a pile so you could take them back to your room.

“sorry for being bossy,” your voice was soft, “i’m just getting worried about college.”

you looked over at angus, surprised to see the boy sitting there with a smile. admiring you.

“what?” you asked, feeling self conscious under his eyes.

“nothing,” he chuckled, “am i not allowed to look at you either? you are bossy.”

“i’m not in the mood for being teased,” you huffed, though your worries were immediately gone when angus leaned over and pressed his lips against yours. something you’d gotten used to.

the kiss was quick, but he didn’t pull back too far from you, his arm now extended over the back of your chair to keep you close.

“i’ll be careful at our next tutoring session, alright? i guess it’s hard to keep my hands from you. don’t realize i’m doing it,” angus admitted, his cheeks just the tiniest bit rosy.

“it’s okay,” you murmured in return, smiling at the awkwardness radiating from the boy you’d been crushing on—hard, “if it’s any consolation, if i had the willpower to concentrate i’d rather you kept doing it.”

a smile spread on angus’ lips as he laughed softly, leaning forward and pressing a kiss on your cheek. a domestic action that made your stomach swirl, mostly because you two still hadn’t talked about what was happening between you. though, you didn’t really mind, the uncertainty made you giddy, rather than nervous, like you were each other’s secret.

“well, i should go,” angus sighed as he pulled away from you, but you were quick to reach for him.

“wait,” you squeaked, grabbing his wrist, “maybe you can stay for a bit. i mean, i feel like i deserve a reward.” you spotted the way the boy’s eyes lit in excitement, eager to see where you were going with this, “what do you think?”

a confident smile spread on his lips as you dropped your hand from him, those brown eyes of his flickering around the library to make sure that it was empty enough. you were filled with that excited uncertainty again, thankful that instead of putting his things away he whisked you far in the depths of the library shelves. a place the two of you had grown familiar with, a place where your hands had found spots up in the shelves to keep you upright while angus explored every inch of you that he could.

while you wondered what it would be like to decide on a title of what you two ‘were’, those thoughts were easily dismissed when his lips were on your neck. angus was good at making a mess out of you, hair wild and skirt pushed up to your waist as his lips and hands made quick work of leaving you breathless.

but you had enough breath to utter a few words that made you wish you could dig a grave for yourself.

“what are we?” you asked through a satisfied sigh as you focused on the feeling of his lips against your skin. it was cut short when angus’ face quickly pulled away from your collarbones where he’d popped open most of the buttons of your school-issued shirt.

“what?” he asked, curls wild and out of place, cheeks red.

“i—“ you stuttered, “i don’t know. i didn’t mean to ask. ignore that.”

angus swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing as he cleared his throat and pulled himself back enough to give you two some room.

“i don’t—“

“please, let’s not talk about it,” you whined, the silence between the two of you eating you alive.

nearly out of breath, angus laughed, lifting a hand to brush his curls out of his face, “let me talk.”

you didn’t answer, instead deciding to button up your shirt and fix your hair; you knew you’d be saying your goodbyes quickly. then, the boy’s hand grabbed at your chin and tilted your head so you were forced to look at him, your hands gripping at your half-buttoned shirt.

you saw how angus was trying desperately to be confident, but his twitching lips and pink cheeks spoke volumes on how nervous his was. you still wished you could turn back time and keep your mouth shut.

“do you want to know how i really feel about you?” he asked, and you prepared for the worst. you always did.

nodding slowly, you shuddered as his hand moved to cup your cheek.

“i… i really like you,” he murmured, “a lot… and i’m scared to mess it up. that’s why i keep my mouth shut about anything between us, i feel like if i decide to make this real then i’ll find a way to screw it up like everything else.”

the honesty was palpable, angus was wearing his heart on his sleeve as he aired everything out to you. you empathized fully, a smile breaking on your lips as you felt seen, and most of all—loved.

“i really like you too. like a lot… if you can’t tell.” you blushed, finding it hard to keep your eyes locked on his.

“i can tell,” he teased, rubbing his thumb along your cheek as the two of you allowed yourself the space to take pleasure in your admissions of romantic interest. he took in a deep breath and exhaled out, obviously doing his best to keep himself calm, “would you, uh… say yes if i asked you to be my girlfriend?”

elated. you were so elated to hear that question fall from his lips and you wanted to jump into his arms and laugh loudly with joy. though, you kept quiet lest you wanted your library rendezvous to end in detention.

a big, toothy grin spread on your lips and you spoke coyly, “sure. i’ll be your girlfriend.”

[anyarose011]

The Most "Wonderful" Time of the Year {Angus Tully x Reader}

Summary: Despite a nice trip to the art gallery and ice skating rink, sometimes, Andy Williams just gets it wrong.

Part 8 of ?? (Masterlist)

Warning(s): Swearing, description of nudity (on art), suggestive conversations, minor sexual harassment, a father has issues, fighting, Reader has a knife, and ANGST.

Heyyy guys (senior year, once again, has been kicking my ass and I also started a new mini-series that should be done soon). Again, I'm so sorry for how long it took me to upload and write this, and I know this chapter is short, but I swear it's got good shit in it. It's also fitting to have more chapters around Christmas time since, you know, this be a Christmas movie (yes, Alexander Payne, this can be a standalone movie, but you set it during Christmas so....) Anywho, I hope you like it (and that it breaks your heart :)

Word Count: 5.5k

You hated to admit it, but you actually like history museums. Even though your father always dragged you to them from childhood to adulthood, you didn’t really mind them. Your father’s additional commentary only added to the experience as you walked through the Greek section. It didn’t really for Angus.

“Are we almost done?” He asked.

“Quit whining.” You reprimanded him.

“I’m not.”

Your father chuckled. “What’s your hurry? I thought you liked Antiquity?”

He sighed. “In class, maybe. But I never think about it unless I need to.”

Humming, your father pointed to a casing of ceramics behind you. “Here, what do you see?”

You and Angus turned. Of course, he said. “A bunch of pottery.”

“Look at that one.” He pointed.

You certainly weren’t expecting to see a man diving his dick into a woman as she bent over to pick something up on an ancient Grecian artifact, but there you were in the Boston Fine Arts Museum, jaw on the floor.

“Amy look, a Candy Cane!” Angus teased.

“I hate you.” Was all that managed to leave your lips.

Your father chuckled, shaking his head. “Children, there’s nothing new in human experience. Each generation thinks it invented debauchery or suffering or rebellion, but man’s every appetite and impulse, from the disgusting to the sublime, is on display right here, all around you.” He gestured around the room filled with art. “So, before you dismiss something as boring or irrelevant, remember that if you truly want to understand the present, or yourself, you must begin in the past. History is not merely the past; it’s an explanation of the present.”

Angus nodded. “See, when you say it that way, and throw in some pornography, it’s a lot easier to understand.”

Mr. Hunham glanced over at you, surprised at your lack of outburst. “You’re not going to comment on that?”

“No,” you shrugged. “porn helping men understanding things checks out.”

Angus snorted, turning back to the teacher. “You should try talking more and yelling less in class. You know, most of the kids pretty much hate you. Teachers, too. You know that, right?”

“Hey.” You glared at him as if to say, ‘Lay off’.

Your father nodded, obviously trying not to show the hurt that was apparent on his face. “Well, I appreciate your frequent candidness, Mr. Tully.”

“Sure…” He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down.

It was then you realized another thing about Angus Tully that reminded you about yourself: You only noticed how horrible your words were as soon as you were done saying them.

The rest of your time at the art museum wasn’t as awkward as that entire scene, thankfully. The sun had completely set by the time you had exited, and the three of you made your way to the park. It almost made you laugh how quick Angus was to the booth to rent ice skates.

“Have you been ice skating before?” He asked as you both sat on the bench, tying up your skates.

“Once when I was eight, I think. You?”

“I played hockey until high school.” He finished tying his and stood. “And I go every chance I get when I’m in the city.”

“So, you should only fall if I push you, right?”

“Right.”

You smiled after double knotting your ice skates and approached the entrance to the rink. “My feet feel weird.”

“Yeah, you haven’t been skating for almost ten years.” He teased, walking past you and standing on the ice with ease.

Sighing, you took a step out and immediately started flailing. Still, the two of you laughed when you retreated back to solid ground. “Nope.”

Angus begged. “Come on.”

“Nuh uh, not going to do it.”

“Your dad paid a good two dollars for us to skate, and you’re going to waste it?” He joked.

“Two dollars doesn’t mean anything to my father if I’m dead!”

“You’re not going to die.”

“But-.”

He said your name with the right amount of sincerity and playfulness. “You can hold onto me. I’ll cushion you if you do fall.”

Grinning from ear to ear, you still held onto the side railing, but stepped out onto the ice. Taking a deep breath, you began walking.

“You don’t want to do that.” Angus skated by your side at your pace.

“I’m alright.” You struggled to say.

He scoffed, holding out his hand. “Yeah, I can tell. Come on.”

You stared down at it as if he had never touched you before. Still, you took it. You expected him to pull you out into the center and leave you there for dead (or try to figure out how to skate on your own), but instead, you stayed by the wall.

“Okay, you’re gonna want to lean forward, and just glide; don’t walk.” He explained, showing you.

“I’ll fall.”

“No, you won’t. Just trust me.”

Against what your nervous system was saying, you decided to. Leaning forward, you tried to copy him; and it worked for like a few seconds before you started tripping over your own feet. He caught you, of course.

“Hey, not bad!” He held you up so you could stand.

“I almost died.”

“You’re standing on your own though!” He backed away, and you still were. “That’s a good start.”

You wanted to fire a nasty retort at him, but you could only girlishly giggle. You don’t know how long you spent on that ice skating rink with him. Yes, there would be times when your feet would ache, or you’d be a mix of sweaty from the physical labor of skating and freezing from the cold, Massachusetts air. Yet, as you finally gathered your footing, you felt as if you could compete in the next Olympics.

You couldn’t, of course, but you sure had the confidence to do so.

And it was fun to laugh and talk with Angus. It always was, but it felt as if you were both on an actual date as you skated together. To everyone else on that ice rink, you were. When Angus had completely fallen onto the ice (you didn’t actually push him down, he fell on his own), pulling you down with him, you’d nearly forgotten that your father was chaperoning you two as you laughed.

After leaving the rink and taking your skates back, you walked up a set of stairs with your father and Angus, discussing where to go for dinner when-.

“Paul Hunham, is that you?!” A man and a woman approached the three of you with a gleeful look. “It’s Hugh. Hugh Cavanaugh.”

Your father’s face fell for just a moment before laughing. “Yes! Yes, of course. Wow, Hugh Cavanaugh. Oh, how are you, Hugh?”

“Oh God, what’s it been? Thirty years?” He turned to the woman beside him. “Oh, uh this is my wife, Karen. Honey, this is Paul Hunham; we went to Harvard together.”

She smiled, shaking his hand, then yours, then Angus’. “Hello.”

“Yes,” your dad nodded at Hugh’s comment. “yes we did. Uh, wow; what have you been up to, Hugh? Still in the area?”

“Oh, uh, yes-yes I’m still in Boston. Cambridge.”

“Harvard.” Karen said proudly. “He just got tenure, statistics. He won’t blow his own horn, I have to blow it for him.”

“Okay,” Hugh said to change the subject. “what about you, Paul?”

“Oh, still teaching, we have that in common.” He nodded. “History, ancient history.”

“That’s great, that’s great. Where?”

“Abroad mostly.” Your father lied through his teeth on each word. “On fellowships. Privately funded fellowships. Universities and private academies. Mostly fellowships, you know. I’m currently posted in Antwerp. Just back here for the holidays.”

“So, are these your kids?” He pointed to you and Angus.

“Well-.”

“-I’m his nephew, Laurie.” Angus cut in, then looked at you. “This is my cousin, Amy.”

Karen smiled. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

Hugh squinted his eyes as if to see you more clearly. Then, he chuckled. “Paul, do you know who she looks like?”

Your father hummed. “I would hope me.”

It was weird to hear your mother’s full name come out of a stranger’s mouth. He went on. “Do you see it? Same nose, same hair; you are the spitting image of beauty, young lady.”

Snickering, you didn’t even think of thanking him. “I’ve been told I have more of her temper than her looks. Although, our mouths are the same.”

“I have no doubt.” He laughed. “Paul, do you remember that one time freshman year?”

“Oh yes!” Your father pretended to. “When she-it was that one time during Roman history when Nolan-.”

“-Wouldn’t call on her when she was the only one to raise her hand,” Hugh looked back at you as if you didn’t know the story from the set up. “so she fed all the boys in the room the wrong answers for the rest of the class!”

“Yep,” Mr. Hunham nodded. “even I fell victim to it.”

Hugh was the only one who had relatively been amused by the fable. “Never put you and her together.”

“A lot of people didn’t.”

The group fell into a strange silence after that. Thank God for Angus Tully.

“He’s writing a book now.” He titled his head toward your father. “Tell them about your book, Uncle Paul.”

“My book.” Your father snickered, then immediately played it off. “It’s not a book, really. Just a monograph. Nothing special.”

You decided to jump in. “Don’t be so modest, dad. It’s about, uh, cameras, right? Ancient cameras?”

Hugh hummed, a quizzical look on his face.

“What she means, of course, is the camera obscura.” Your father explained. “You know, the optical and astronomical tool that dates back to, um, the time of Anaxagoras.

“Tell him the title, Uncle Paul.” Angus went back, and you masked your smile for one of curiosity and not at the misfortune of your father.

“He’s not interested, Laurie.”

Hugh smiled. “Sure, I am.”

Sighing, Paul Hunham said with the perfect amount of enthusiasm and disinterest. “Lights and Magic in the Ancient World.”

Hugh nodded before turning back to his wife, and then to your father, clasping his hand on his shoulder. “Well, Paul, I’m so glad you landed on your feet. You look swell.”

“You too. So, swell.”

“I’m sorry about your mother, Amy.” He said to you.

Thinning your lips in a tight smile, you said. “Thanks.”

Him and Karen walked away hand in hand, but he turned over his shoulder. “And we’ll keep an eye out for your book, Paul. Won’t we, honey?”

 She nodded. Of course. Merry Christmas, Paul. Bye, Leonard and Amy.”

You all wished them ‘Merry Christmas’ as you three also left. Angus wasted no time turning to you.

“What the fuck just happened?!”

“You’re asking me?!” You matched him. “You sprung into ‘Tell them about your book, Uncle Paul!’, ‘What’s the title, Uncle Paul?’.”

“I had to think of something!”

Your father sighed. “I appreciated your efforts, but I would’ve been fine on my own.”

Rolling your eyes, you asked. “Can we get dinner now?”

“I need to pick something up from the liquor store first.”

Sighing overdramatically, you and Angus stumbled behind your father. That was when you looked at the boy beside you. “Also, Laurie and Amy? Really?”

“What? They’re like brother and sister. If I said you were Jo, then that would’ve been weird.”

Oh my god, he wasn’t even halfway through the book.

You wish you had a camera solely to capture the look on your father’s face as he turned over and stared at both of you. You wonder if that was when he found out about you and Angus.

Shaking your head, you didn’t know whether to laugh or scoff as you said. “Unbelievable.”

“What do you mean ‘unbelievable’?” Angus questioned. “Jo and Laurie get married in the end, right?”

“Unbelievable.” You repeated but smiled this time.

“Right?!”

Your father sighed as you finally made it to the store. “Look, the fact of the matter is, what happened, happened, and we should just pretend it didn’t.”

Angus furrowed his brow as you all walked in. “I thought Barton men don’t lie. Don’t get me wrong, that was fun, but you just lied through your teeth.”

He held up his hand, not having it. “What I say during a private conversation is none of your goddamn business. You’re not to judge me.”

“It wasn’t a private conversation; your daughter and I were there. Besides, he brought her into it.”

“I’m right here.” You announced yourself.

“Why’d he ask if you landed on your feet?”

Your father glanced up from searching through the shelves. “What is this, Nuremberg?”

“You’re the hardass constantly telling everybody not to lie and going on about the honor code!”

Looking up at both of you, Paul Hunham sighed. “There was an incident at Harvard with my roommate.”

You gave him a look. “I’ve never heard this story before.”

“He accused me of copying from his senior thesis. Plagiarizing.”

“Well, did you?” Angus asked.

“No! He stole from me.” Your father relented. “But that blue-blooded prick’s family had allies on the faculty. I mean, their last name is on a library, so he accused me in order to sanitize his treachery. And they threw me out.”

“Holy shit,” you breathed. “you got kicked out for cheating?”

“No, I got kicked out of Harvard for hitting him.”

Angus asked. “You hit him? Like punched him out?”

“No, I hit him with a car.”

“You got kicked out of Harvard for hitting a guy with a car?!”

“By accident,” he approached the counter, talking to the cashier. “Pint of Jim Beam, please.”

You piped up, still in astonishment. “Mom said you left because your grandma was dying.”

“She was, it was just perfect timing to go and help take care of her.” He shrugged. “But my roommate broke three ribs. Which was technically his fault, because he shouldn’t have been in the road.

“Two dollars, please.” The cashier said.

Your father took his wallet out, continuing his story. “Also, he shat himself; which was the greatest indignity.”

The cashier handed him the wrapped-up bottle. “Here you go, killer.”

You couldn’t help your laughter at the sudden statement. As the three of you left and walked down the darkened, cold roads, Angus said.

“So, Mr. Hunham never even graduated college? Holy shit, you didn’t even finish up somewhere else? Who else knows?”

“Did mom even know about you hitting the guy?” You asked.

Your father nodded. “Of course she knew! She gave me an earful on the phone the first time she called me after I left. It was only Dr. Greene who knew it after that. He’d always believed in me, so he gave me a job. Adjunct faculty: zero respect and even less pay, so nobody batted an eye, and I’ve been at the school ever since.”

“Are you ashamed at how things turned out?” Angus questioned.

“Not at all. I’m proud of my work, I love history, I married the smartest and kindest woman on the planet, I helped raise a spitfire of a girl, I love Barton. Barton is my life now. I don’t know what I’d do without it.”

“Then why did you lie to that guy?”

“Because I knew he’d relish the fact that I’m a washout and never left my own high school. And he’d probably repeat that story to everybody we used to know. So, I figured he’s not entitled to my story. I am. “

Angus nodded. “Yeah. Fuck that guy.”

“Exactly. Fuck that guy!”

“Fuck him, I hope his car slides on black ice and crashes into a lamp post.” You chimed in.

“Woah,” Angus gasped.

Your father said your name scoldingly.

“What?” You scoffed. “It was weird as hell when he talked to me about my mom like he knew me.”

“I’ll admit it was strange and unnecessary.” Your father tossed his arm around your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

He looked at both you and Angus. “But you’ll keep this quiet, right? No one is to know.”

“Entre nous, sir.” Angus nodded. “Entre nous.”

Your father nodded then chuckled, poking you. “‘Ancient cameras’. Where’d the hell you come up with that?”

“I tried my best!” You whined. After the men ceased in their laughter, you then said. “Can we please get dinner now?”

“Alright, alright.” Your father snorted. “Where would you like to go for your absolutely atrocious food concoction?”

“South Street.”

“I figured.”

And that is where the three of you went. It shouldn’t have surprised you it was packed the day after Christmas, which was also a Saturday. It had to have been a miracle you managed to get in line only when it was starting to go out the door; a few minutes after you arrived, the line had started to curve around to the nearest streetlight.

The diner was filled with life once you got in; families pushing tables together, friends absolutely drunk off their asses laughing, even half of the staff seemed to be enjoying the sheer joy from others. Of course, a few were understandably stressed and annoyed from the number of customers and their behavior.

The three of you were soon sitting at a booth. When Angus sat close to the window, instead of sliding into the seat across from him, you took the one beside him. Leaving your father alone on the other side. To ordinary people, it perhaps didn’t mean anything; but you still felt as if it was a signal.

“I can’t believe they’re still playing Christmas music.” Your father grumbled as The Ronettes sang about a sleigh ride and he slipped off his jacket.

You giggled, copying him. “It was just yesterday.”

“I know, but still.”

“I like this song, thank you very much.”

He held up his menu as if to hide his disgust. You and the boy beside you chucked as Angus said. “I feel like I’ve been here before.”

“You don’t know if you have?” You asked.

“It feels familiar. Maybe when I was a kid?”

“We’d always come here when we’d visit Boston.” You looked at your father. “The owner gave me a free banana split when I turned twelve, he knew us so well, right?”

That managed to pull a laugh out of him. “That he did. If he’s here tonight maybe you could get a free dinner for us.”

You and Angus looked down at the menu before you, and soon enough, an exhausted waitress came by to take your drink orders and lay down silverware. Immediately, you asked for French fries and your favorite milkshake.

“There’s no way that’s going to be good.” Angus pointed out.

“Oh, ye of little faith.” You scoffed.

“That’s not faith, that’s fact.”

“What you’re speaking of is an opinion, not even a theory. If you ever want to make it in this world, I suggest you learn the different between those two before you can even begin to comprehend what an actual fact is.”

“And what is an actual fact?”

“You’re an idiot.”

He smirked despite the fact you insulted him. You also couldn’t hide your own smile. It was apparent from anyone in that room, it was not a smile of victory; it was one synonymous with the feeling inside of your chest as it felt like your own heart would burst forth like light.

Your father had felt this feeling before, so it was not lost on him.

“You seem awfully happy to have your entire statement dismantled, Mr. Tully.” He said to Angus.

The boy looked up, still with a smile but one not as euphoric. “I mean, I wasn’t that serious about it.”

“Oh, and I didn’t think you were. It just astounds me how close you two became in a matter of a few days.” He said. “Wasn’t it only yesterday you both were at each other’s throats?”

You stepped in. “No, that was the first few days, actually. I mean, we were the only kids at Barton after that, so it’s probably best we figured how to deal with each other. I guess we both liked some of the same things too, so that made it easier.”

“Yeah.” Angus nodded.

Your father straightened his gaze between the two of you, but then smiled, getting up from the booth. “I have to use the facilities; don’t go anywhere.”

“No papa,” you teased. “we’re going to go do a line of cocaine with the homeless man a few blocks away.”

“You know, I’m beginning to believe that you’re the bad influence on Mr. Tully and not the other way around.”

With that, he left the two of you by yourselves as he walked to the back of the diner. Once he was gone, you and Angus cackled to yourselves.

“Do you think he knows?” You asked, a hint of concern mixed in with delight.

“I don’t know, probably.” He shrugged, still chuckling. “Is that so bad?”

“I mean…I’ve never had a boyfriend before.” You admitted, smiling shyly.

Even though the rest of the diner was booming with Christmas music and leftover excitement from the holidays, it all fell silent between you two. The boy who was once radiated in the happiness you shared with him, now covered in a shroud of terror.

Well…in reality, he was alarmed, not terrified; yet, that is all you saw.

“Shit I-!” You realized what you had just said. “I didn’t mean-I mean, we don’t have to be together, I just meant that I’ve never had someone like me back when I’ve liked them, and even then, it didn’t happen very often-.”

“-Hey, hey.” He stopped you. “No, I’ve never had that happen either. I mean, I’ve been to all boys’ schools since I was fourteen. I think…yeah, I think I’d like to give it a try.”

“Really?” You felt the weight from your shoulders loosen as your face brightened.

He nodded, glowing with you. “Really.”

You glanced up at the bathroom door, and when there was no sight of your father, you took his face into your hands, pulling him into a kiss. It wasn’t as intense as your previous ones, but not as quick as the one you gave him outside the bookstore.

He pulled away first, and before you could say anything about it, you saw the waitress leave from the corner of your eye. She had brought the drinks, including your milkshake and fries. Turning back towards the table, you immediately picked up a fry and dipped it into the milkshake.

“Oh my god, you weren’t joking.” Angus said with no emotion behind it.

“I know I’m funny, but this I would not joke about.” You talked as you ate. “Try it.”

“No.”

“I’ll kiss you if you do.” You took another fry.

“You’ll kiss me anyway.”

“I’ll kiss you like how the French do.”

“You already do that.”

 “I’ll do something different.”

His eyes grew, and he huffed out a surprised laugh. “‘Something different’?”

“Yeah.” You dipped a third fry. “I don’t know what, but I’ll do it.”

 “Not that you have to, but fine I’ll try it.” Angus reached for a fry, then dipped it into your milkshake and ate it.

Angus’ face went through more arrays of emotions in a short time since you met him. You grinned from ear to ear. “Well?”

“Fuck off.” He tried to hide his smile as he took another fry.

“I’m sorry, what?” You taunted.

“It’s not the best-.”

“-I’m sorry, what?!” You repeated louder, and you both were talking over each other. “It sounds like-!”

“You don’t have to be so-!”

“It sounds like you actually like it!”

“You’re so loud.”

You finished with laughter, and then kissed his cheek. You returned to your milkshake and fries as Angus talked about something funny that happened back in the fall. You can’t remember what he said to this day, because a familiar voice entered your ears as it entered the diner.

Angus kept talking to you, but it was in one ear and out the other as you tried your best not to show your discomfort at the man who laughed a little louder than the rest of the people in the diner. When you thought Angus wasn’t paying attention, you glanced over your shoulder at the entrance.

There he stood; a man around the same age as your father with a woman perhaps ten or fifteen years younger than him, holding a baby on her hip, and clutching her seven-year-old daughter’s hand.

Despite what Andy Williams was singing from the jukebox, this was not the most wonderful time of the year.

Angus tapped your shoulder, and you drew your eyes away to look at him.

“Hey, I hate this song, I’m gonna go change it.” He said. You got out of the booth for him to stand, and once he did you sat back down. Only for him to then say. “Okay, scoot over.”

You frowned. “What?”

“Scoot over.”

“You didn’t even change the song.”

“I changed my mind, it’s not that bad.”

He was bullshitting you, but you scooted over anyway, and he sat beside you. “What’s going on?”

You scoffed. “You’re the one that got up and sat down again.”

“Is that guy Daniel?”

“Angus-.”

“-Tell me.”

“Is he bothering you?”

Both you and Angus looked and saw the man from the entrance stand before you with his hands in his pockets. You dropped your gaze.

“No, he’s not.”

You had no idea what you hated more that night: hearing a man you never met say your mother’s name, or hearing a man you knew too well say yours.

“If he is, just say the word and-.”

“-He’s not bothering me.” You hissed.

Angus slipped his hand into yours as you kept your eyes down, but he kept his trained on the man standing in front of him.

He sighed, shaking his head. “Look, I just didn’t expect you to actually show up.”

You didn’t say anything, so Angus did.

“Could you go? She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He ignored him, still angling on you. “Look, sweetie, you don’t have to, and I get it if you don’t want to, but I’d really like it if you came and meet them. They’re all right here now; Carol, Maria, and Frankie. He just turned one last week-.”

“-Can you just fuck off?” You finally looked at him.

He tilted his head and raised his brows before looking at Angus. “Young man, could you give her and I some privacy-?”

“-No.”

The man looked at you, scoffing. “Jesus Christ, what’d you do to make him so fucking head over heels for you? Was that the issue just now between you two? Under the counter action?”

Angus stood. “Fuck you, what’s your problem?”

You pulled on his sleeve, hissing his name and kneeling on top of your seat to try and get him to sit back down. The man continued to taunt him.

“My problem is that you don’t know what’s going on boy, and you’re being a little prick about all of this.”

“Get the fuck out of here or I’ll…”

“‘You’ll-you’ll what?’” He looked over at you. “I can’t tell if you picked the bravest or the stupidest kid to fool around with, Eurydice.”

You were always a strange child growing up. Perhaps it was that there are times in your life you picture music whenever a certain emotion arose within you.

As you heard him say that name, a name that you heard last when your mother was dying in her bed, a name that was only for her to use and her alone…You heard Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns.

You don’t even remember grabbing the stupid butter knife from your silverware, just raising it up above you and believing it would cause any harm. As Angus held you back, the man reached over you to grab your hair.

Chaos ensued for a moment in the diner as you cried out when he pulled the ribbon out of your hair, and both him and Angus engaged in a battle of expletives. Most of the diners held back and watched in shock, while only two of them came up. A man stood between him and Angus, and the wife of the yelling man pulled him away.

“Daniel, what the hell is going on?!” She hissed.

“Yes, Daniel,” all eyes fell onto Paul Hunham, who was behind Daniel. “what is the meaning of this?”

You shrunk back in the booth, Angus hugging you tightly against him as if to hide you from Daniel. Both of you stared at the scene before you.

“Paul…” Daniel nodded, standing taller and holding his wife’s hand.

Mr. Hunham nodded back. “Your Christmas went well I take it?”

“It was fine; yours?”

“Just peachy.” He gave a tight smile, looking around at everyone else. “Family matters everyone, I sincerely apologize.”

Hesitantly, the crowd went back to their own business; or they were at least good at pretending to as they eavesdropped. Mr. Hunham continued.

“Why’re you here exactly?”

“The same as you.” Daniel explained. “Dinner with my family.”

He hummed. “And you thought it wise to inform the child in the scenario but not me?”

“Now wait a minute-.”

“-I assume your wife also didn’t know about this or the letters and money you sent?”

At the mention of her, Daniel’s wife scowled. “Danny, what’s he talking about?”

He shook his head. “Hunham, you should just mind your own-.”

“-Well now you see, I can’t do that, because her mother trusted me to provide and care for her.”

It was only then did Angus Tully understand what exactly had been going on. As the adults fought, he looked down at you in his arms. It was as if it were the first time he had seen you, and it was the first time he noticed that he could not find a trace of Mr. Hunham.

The eyes he thought you had gotten from your mother stared up at him with dread, and when Angus looked back at the man seething with unspoken rage, he saw them there too.

“Look,” Paul sighed. “I don’t want to cause another scene, so let us handle this like men. You will not make contact with her again, and we can walk away.”

He took a heaving breath before responding. “Fine by me. Come on, Carrie.”

Daniel began to lead her away from your booth, but Paul stopped them. “I believe you have something of my daughter’s.”

His eyes trailed down to the ribbon in his hand. He let go of his wife to walk back to Paul who held his hand out. Instead of giving it to him, he turned to Angus, smiling. He handed it to him.

“Keep her on a short leash, boy. She’s got her mother’s mouth.”

With that, he and his wife and children left the South Street Diner. You only pulled away from Angus when he did from you. No tears had fallen onto your cheeks, but that didn’t mean they weren’t stinging your eyes as you tried to keep them at bay.

You took the ribbon from Angus only for it to hang loosely at your side. Paul softened his gaze as he began to put on his jacket.

“I think we should just settle on room service tonight.” He said gently. “I can get them to bag up the fries and let you take the milkshake glass?”

You could only nod, not wanting to look at either of the men with you. You all put on your coats in silence, and Angus, though not hugging you, hovered as Mr. Hunham spoke with the staff; both about not wanting to report the incident, and also on paying extra for you to take the glass.

It was so cold out, and everyone was so tired from not just the events of the night, but the entire day, that Paul splurged on a cab for the three of you back to the hotel.

Angus also didn’t feel shame in trying to hold you hand in front of your father; or…stepfather. You limply held his hand back, but you leaned against him as you sat in the cab, staring at the Boston Christmas lights as the city passed by you.

When the cab made it to the hotel, you led the way in a tired haze to the elevators. It wasn’t just the three of you in the elevator; there was a somewhat large family that piled in, all merry and jolly and reeking of chlorine from the pool they had just swum in.

It was as if God himself was rubbing salt into the wounds, tempting you to lick them.

When you made it onto your floor, you also led the way back to your connecting rooms. There was no ‘Goodnight’ or ‘Can we stay up just a little longer?’ to your companions; you simply opened your door and shut it in their faces.

Setting the milkshake down, you tossed off your jacket and pulled your shoes off. Collapsing on the bed, you looked down at the ribbon still in your hand…and you cried.