#so that's what this doodle is based on el oh el

[caluette]

the truth

[cathalbravecog]

the twins being twins

(and cassie debut..? her design may change but I've been stuck on her for a year and I finally have a result im fairly happy with ^^)

[astralnymphh]

๋࣭ ⭑⚝ thinking about the first night at ellie's place ever since you two began dating. girl will bust her ass off preparing to host you there— in the entertainment department of things. fluff!!

. MASTERLIST . DAILY CLICK . IMPORTANT TLOU POST . PALESTINE INFO . BIG TEXT VERSION

she heaps up a myriad of her favorite pastimes in a kaleidoscopic pile on her bed, assuming the waken hours preluding the "main event" (sleeping) will integrate every little thing pre-planned. legit jots a loose schedule of everything she wants to do in a sequestered corner of her journal, and it's surrounded by detailed doodles (that we dare not discuss how long she spent perfecting them) of shooting stars and other cartoony likenesses of paraphernalia or things that you're interested in/remind her of you. spends a fat wad of the initial hours urging you into every activity based on, quote for quote: "ellie's epic design for her first night-over with her girlfriend in hopes that she doesn't mess things up" proof is in the notebook, trust. word for word. anyways, ellie legit believes she can usher you into each thing planned, like, come rain or come shine— everything will be mentioned. bit erratically if anything, poor girl has her nerves amped up since it's her first time having you over, the unfolding of opportunities is unpredictable. shit like, "hey babe i got us a two-player video game." and then it gradually gets more jumpy, "oh, oh yeah, i wanted to sketch you, wait— c'mere, sit on the bed." and thereon it transforms out of the blue, "ughhhh i'm so tired." and she flops back onto the bed exaggeratedly like starfish position, eaglespread limbs and everything. then you clamber on afterwards and pronto you have to confront her, softly for her enervated brain to pick up, "el, did you have some bucket list of things to do in one night?" and her head creaks over like snail-speed, cartoonesque metal grating noise, and her expression is all bug-eyed and flatlined at the lip, sighing kinda guilty but in a silly way, "yeah, uh. shit, was that obvious?" god she's so CUTE. and then it ends up in a really romantic cuddle session where you two just let the conversation take its natural course without any locus of "this is what we're going to do" rather it becomes, "let's listen to what our bodies want to do" and i think that's just very sentimental!!! listening to her instincts to carress and hold you!!! "y'know, like, the first time i kissed you— i kinda wanted to do something like this right after. lay in the grass n' like.. hug eachother.. and stare up." maybe i'll expand on the nature of the cuddle session if people want it. ౨ৎ

love this girl (my photos)

[grif-hawaiian-rolls]

The Reds and the Feds: Little Trusts

The short version: i got carried away thinking about helmet hair and wanted to doodle something w Neko and Donut

The long version: under the cut

“Oh!” Donut gasped. He was standing in the locker room just outside the showers at the latest base on their ‘tour’ of the Federal Army of Chorus. Outpost eleven….something?? Donut didn’t know the specifics. What he did know was Private Micce was standing across the locker room from him right now and had the prettiest hair Donut had ever seen, himself included. Thick black curls, unleashed from the winding braid Micce usually wore his hair in under his helmet, fell in loose waves down to his hips. His hips! Sarge called Micce’s usual style ‘princess hair’, and frankly (hah) Donut couldn’t help but agree. A tiara would look so good among the curve of the braid. But this? This was some elegant, mermaid, front cover of a novel kind of hair.

“Your hair!” Donut flapped his hand, finally catching Micce’s attention. The federal soldier turned, half towards Donut, and reached an ungloved hand up to his hair.

“What? Is something caught in it?” Micce’s brow furrowed and Donut shook his head.

“No, no, sorry! It’s just- it’s so pretty!” He laughed. Now, normally Franklin Delano Donut was much better at picking his words and saying the right things. But his lack of decent vocabulary could be blamed on spending the majority of the last 12 or so hours in a warthog with Wash— even for the Red team with their undeniable skill with the big guns and engines, twelve hours was a long drive. And Wash had insisted they spend as much of it as possible playing the quiet game. Now that might have worked on Caboose, but Donut knew that it was really just Wash trying to gently tell him to shut up, so he had cheated the ‘game’ by switching off his external speaker and instead having a chat with Lopez on a private channel! So his brain was still coming out of El-Spanisho mode.

Micce just blinked at him. The thick curly bangs that never quite seemed to make it back into the main braid looked almost comical now, seeing the length of the rest of Micce’s hair. Donut didn’t want to say that though, so instead he opted for a cheerful,

“You should wear it down more! It looks so soft too! Is it hard to get it into that braid you wear all the time? I’ve heard that curls can be sooo unruly, especially with helmet hair,” Donut crossed the narrow room now, armor half forgotten by his temporary locker to engage Micce in conversation.

“How do you keep it from getting kinky from the braid? Mine always has this like dip in it from where I tie it up, you have to share the secret with me!”

“Oh,” Micce narrowed his eyes, and held up a hand to pause Donut for a moment. “I don’t wear it down because, ya know, helmet, I think it is pretty soft but I’m biased. It isn’t super hard to braid especially if I’m doing it myself because I’m pretty quick, but it can be a hassle if someone else tries because they get lost in the curls which I think counts as unruly?”

Micce folded down one finger at a time as he answered Donut’s questions. He was so sweet like that, making sure he didn’t miss anything! Donut appreciated it.

“Anddd I switch the direction and angle I braid it at, mostly because if I’m undoing it I hate to put it right back where it was. Also I think it’s because it’s a loose braid? It settles better under my helmet but I think it also doesn't get as squished into the braid kinks because of that?”

Micce lowered his hand now that he had answered the questions and tilted his head curiously at Donut.

“You have long hair?”

“Oh! Right, duh—“ Donut tugged off his helmet, tossing it towards the bench that had his gloves on them already. Then he reached up, taking a moment to find the little hair tie desperately fighting to keep his own hair up in the bun at the back of his head.

“I’ve tried the looser hair style thing! But it just won’t stay up for me when I try, I don’t know why,” Donut lamented, even as he coaxed his own hair free. He knew Micce had seen him without his helmet but, like Micce, it was hard to judge how long Donut’s hair actually was when it was tied up.

“Ta-da!” Donut beamed once his hair was loose. It brushed against his scars, which still felt weird even after all these years. Micce blinked again, and not just the quick kind of blink that everyone does, but his weird slow blink. It always made Donut think of a cat, which, when he told Washington that little fact, Wash had scrunched up his nose in a funny expression that also reminded Donut of a cat. He wondered how Wash would look if he wore cat ears, actually, because Donut was certain Micce could pull them off. Micce had a very cat-like face, especially with his cleft lip and the little fang poking out over his bottom lip because of it.

“Actually, wait, is that why Pavoz calls you Neko all the time? Oh, that’s so sweet! What a fun way to get a nickname,”

“He calls me Neko because my first name is Necoda,” Micce answered, seemingly unphased by Donut’s tirade about cat ears that had not been entirely intended to be said out loud. Oh well. “And because no one pronounces Micce right. Neko is just easier,”

“Wait, I'm not saying it right?” Donut crossed his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner! Oh gosh, I’m sorry- how do I say it right?”

“You- you can’t. It’s hard, it’s like—“ Micce frowned, tilting his head side to side. “It’s a throat thing? I don’t really know how to explain it, but you have to make two sounds at once. I don’t mind whichever sound is easier for people to make to be the version they use, it’s just… not correct? If you want to call me Neko like Pavoz does instead, that’s fine, but how you’ve been saying it is fine too. I don’t care,”

Donut hesitated because usually when someone says they don’t care, they didn’t look so sad about it. And Micce— Neko— did look sad. Why, Donut couldn’t begin to guess but—

“If it’s a Chorusan name, why can’t anyone else say it right? That just seems rude of them,”

“Oh, it’s not Chorusan,” Neko laughed. “I’m not from Chorus,” He snapped like something occured to him and pointed a finger pistol at Donut with the same hand and a grin. “Hey! Something I have in common with you guys! Neat, huh?”

“You’re not? Wait- are you lying again?” Donut squinted.

“I’m not, but if you think I’m lying then asking me doesn’t matter, does it?” Neko winked. “I could be lying about lying, or I’m being completely honest! ‘The next statement is true, the previous statement is false’ kind of shit. You’ll never know the answer,” Micce shook his head. “But we were talking about hair, not tragic backstories,”

“Oh! Right!” Donut could see the obvious topic change but you know what? Fair enough! It was clearly something Neko didn’t want to talk about, and Donut did have one more question about his hair anyways.

“Can I play with your hair? Like, while you’ve got it down?” Donut grinned. “No gloves! Wouldn’t want to catch on anything,”

Neko blinked his weird cat blink, then shrugged.

“Yeah, sure. Just don’t tug,”

“I would never tug on someone unless they wanted me too!”

[chromatasia]

Thank you so much for acknowledging that Martlet deserves to be the Ink character of the UTY verse. Could you share your ideas you had for her? I'd love to hear them!

HEHE OF COURSE!! i am not immune to silly characters with scarfs shrugs

pluto and i were bouncing ideas back in forth for a while so i’ll summarize our overall thoughts and some extra stuff ive thought of (probably while writing this)

so the initial idea came up based on my post about martlet Remembering Resets like sans does and the idea of oh what if she got to explore the multiverse too (maybe the determination injection made her see that oh goodness there is a Lot Of AUs just. there.) then pluto mentioned possible ink and error martlet and i got Ideas… but my first attempt to draw ink martlet ended with fully realized spiral avatar martlet oops! but i finished the design yesterday lol

as for character! ink martlet has taken it upon herself to be the guard of the multiverse, flying through the space between the aus and making sure everything is going well. she’s pretty similar to base uty martlet, save for probably some backstory stuff (that i haven’t thought of yet. el oh el)

there’s no actual plot line… yet >:) we threw around some ideas (vigilante-sheriff starlo and multiverse exploring feisty five and a ceroba searching for a universe where her family doesn’t end up. gestures to uty) but there’s no designs (maybe once i learn how to draw star…)

btw for character design she’s based on eastern bluebirds (though i initially just looked up “blue and brown bird”) with ink’s general style! now that i think about it since i was just kinda doing colors for the actual paint she’d probably have ink the same color as the human souls. maybe throw in a determination serum one just for fun hehe. also adding from my Brain blast during math today she’d wear her hair half up to look like a paintbrush (doodle of it down below)

[em-exceeds-change-zearu]

golden dad au ash in hisui shenanigans!!!

i've been talking about potential shenanigans a ho-oh hybrid ash could get up to in the distant past on and off in the group discord for a few months. and then i finally got around to doodling outfit designs. the top is based off the kimono top outfit in the game, and other aspects of his outfit are pulled from travelling priest garb. details of how things go listed below. this got longer than i thought.

This happens to Ash at some point during Journeys, before the Team Galactic Arceus shenanigans netflix only special happened.

Unlike in Legends: Arceus, here Ash isn't just randomly nabbed and dropped without warning into Hisui. This is because 1) Ash is basically Arceus' favorite (great-great-great) grandchild at this point and the old duff would never, 2) even if he did try, Bert would kill him and 3) Delia.

Instead, Ash comes home one day to visit his parents and finds Arceus sitting at their kitchen table drinking tea and basically explaining what the hell is happening, that someone in the distant past is messing with Dialga and Palkia and Giratina in an attempt to get Arceus to show up himself, and while the old goat COULD nab some rando to help out, they figured Ash would want to get involved as soon as he heard someone was messing with them - and they weren't wrong, either. Plus, Arceus trusts him.

Because of the prep session, Ash actually comes in with a cover story to make him more palatable to the locals - a birdsong priest acolyte from Ecruteak Village in Johto (the united land of Tohjoh?). So while he is still seen falling from the rift, he isn't as blatantly strange as the Hisuian protagonist comes off as, nor Ingo - he simply gives off the air of a displaced foreigner who was unfortunately swept up in the strange rifts.

It helps that Kamado and several of the villagers are from Johto - they're already aware of the fledgling birdsong priest faith that came about after the burning of the tower, so Ash's presence actually ends up being a small bit of familiarity in the harsh new environment of Hisui they've immigrated to. As such, while people are still wary of what his presence means, they're not as distrustful of Ash himself.

This doesn't completely extend to Kamado himself - Ash and the village leader actually have a bit of a fraught relationship. It seems like Kamado resents the Birdsong priest faith somewhat - they encourage companionship between people and Pokemon, after all, and Kamado has a hard time of not seeing Pokemon as dangerous creatures after the destruction of his old village by rampaging Pokemon, and he still resents the faith for their contrasting views in the aftermath. It takes a long, long time for Kamado to trust Ash, even though Ash spends a fair amount of time helping both the local villagers and the Galaxy Exploration Team.

Speaking of what Ash does in Hisui - he actually isn't the main person helping un-frenzy the Noble Pokemon or completing the Hisuian Pokedex - at least not the main person. Half of the time he sticks close to Jubilife Village, helping the villagers out with small problems and consulting with them, helping them forge connections with the local Pokemon wildlife, and the other half of the time is spent either going out with the Galaxy Team's expeditions or just wandering the Hisuian wilds with apparently no supervision whatsoever.

The main person sent out to un-frenzy the nobles is actually the local Akarei (haven't decided which one it is), Laventon's assistant. Ash supports them by lending his own battling expertise alongside Pikachu, as well as adding purification blessings to the balms that they create to un-frenzy them. While he takes over the majority of the process during earlier battles, as Akarei becomes more and more confident in their skills, they're the ones reaching out to the Diamond and Pearl Clans, and the ones who are approached by the clans to help un-frenzy their nobles.

The one exception is during Noble Electrode's unfrenzying - Ash is furious at Melli for ignoring the suffering of a Pokemon under his care, no matter that Melli genuinely seems to feel that the frenzying is a necessary evil. He purifies Noble Electrode's entire being of the frenzying in one go out of pure rage, and when another bolt of frenzying lightning comes down to strike Electrode, Ash takes the blow instead in order to demonstrate to Melli how much pain the frenzying lightning is putting the Noble Pokemon in. (He unfortunately didn't think about the repercussions of letting a half-legend hybrid like himself be exposed to the frenzying lighting would be, and it's only his being half-human that keeps him from rampaging about. The waves of pressure he gives off does scare the shit out of Melli though, so Ash considers the overall result to be a plus.)

It's Akarei who builds their own team as they travel across Hisui - Ash doesn't catch any Pokemon and only has Pikachu with him, but he befriends several Hisuian species, and their descendants are able to be found in small pockets in Sinnoh in the present day - Ash reunites with said descendants as he continues visiting Sinnoh during the present day Journeys season.

Unfortunately, Ash's sort-of friendship with Kamado does not stop the older man's paranoia from getting the better of him and demanding that Akarei be exiled when the rift gets worse. It does stop him from banishing Ash - unfortunately, this just makes Ash all the more disappointed in Kamado for giving into his paranoia and making the easy decision. When pointing out that Ash himself was a key part in the unfrenzying of the nobles, and is the one who ACTUALLY fell from the rift does nothing to change Kamado's decision, Ash opts to simply walk out of Jubilife Village with Akarei, and doesn't return even when Akarei themselves are welcomed back into the village later. It puts a damper on the village's unity as they realize that Kamado's decision may not have been made in earnest, and it means there's less of them willing to go with him up to Mount Coronet, or to uphold Akarei's banishment.

While Akarei is the one who uses the Red Chain to release the first dragon from frenzying, Ash is the one who uses his purification and battling skill to hold off the second dragon until Akarei can forge the Origin Ball to catch the second one.

Out of everyone in Hisui, it's only Akarei and Volo who are made aware of Ash's true identity as a time-travelling half-legendary pokemon human hybrid - it's Ash who collects the Plates while Akarei was subduing the frenzied Nobles, and Ash who battles Volo and Giratina singlehandedly with both himself and Pikachu. Ash makes use of his full transformation in order to be able to match Giratina - and meeting Ash in the past is partially why its so friendly to Ash in the Sinnoh movie trilogy, not that Ash knows that.

anyways there's probably more details but y'know, i'm sorta remembering them off the top of my head, feel free to ask or whatever

[writersblockedx]

Protector of the Party: Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: Gone

PAIRING - Steve Harrington x Reader BASED OFF - 1x08 WARNINGS - Mentions of violence and mental illness WORDS - 3.6K

A/n - Again very sorry that this has had to be posted a day later.

Series Masterlist Masterlist

Hopper hadn't allowed Y/n to go with him in the rescue of the kids. Herself, Nancy, Joyce and Johnathan were all told to stay and to just sit until he returned. Y/n, unsurprisingly, hated every moment of it.

While Johnathan sat between his mother and Nancy, Y/n was pacing around what was left of the Wheeler house. She avoided the Christmas lights, and the bits of wall as the girl thought. She trusted Hopper, but for him to go up against the lab, who had millions of spies dotted around and even a helicopter in the sky? It was a risk. A risk big enough for Y/n to panic. A lot.

The headlights which flashed across the front room curtains acted as water thrown onto the fire which was Y/n's worry. The three behind her pulled themselves from the couch as Y/n led the way to the porch. They lurked in the doorway for a moment before the truck stopped. The headlights turned off and each of the kids, and Hopper, jumped out of the car. "Mike!" Exclaimed Nancy from behind Y/n, pushing passing the girl gently to grasp her brother. "Oh my God Mike."

Y/n followed a similar action as Dustin got out from the car. Though, unlike Mike, Dustin actually met her in the middle. "You are so fucking stupid, you know that?" She said as she daren't even loosen her grip around the curly haired boy, scared that if she did, she'd loose him forever.

But, as Dustin wiggled, Y/n pulled and stood from the ground she had been kneeling against to reach Dustin's height. Her eyes soon landed on a small, shaven-hair, girl. The same one Dustin had once named was Mike's cousin and then, after admitting to his lie, came out about the girl being called El. "Is that my dress?" Nancy asked from next to Mike.

Y/n glanced between the younger girl and her friend, no words following. So Y/n put her hand out as an offering, "You're El, right?" She presumed.

The girl looked between the hand and Y/n's expression, hesitant in making any movement at all. So she looked to Mike. "She's the one I told you about." He spoke with a smile that seemed to bring comfort to El. "The protector of the party."

And with that, El stared back at the hand and she shook it.

Everyone returned back inside the house. They wasted no time as they found their seats back on the couch, the kids crouched on the floor as they started explaining...everything. How they knew all of it completely had Y/n puzzled. They called it the upside down. That was where Will and Barb were trapped, that was where this creature, or what the kids were calling the Demogorgon, had come from.

Mike had started to draw a picture to help depict his explanation of this upside side. He lined the paper first, before doodling a small person and then a dot of some kind. "Okay, so in this example, we're the acrobat. Will and Barbara, and that monster, they're this flea." Mike guided his words with the tip of his pen as he pointed between the stick figure and the dot. "And this is the Upside Down, where Will is hiding." Her heart stung at the thought of Will in this place, whatever it was, stuck there with this creature. Mike dropped the paper and pen before continuing, "Mr Clarke said the only way we get there is through a rip in time and space." Sounded easy enough.

Y/n's brows raised as she listen to Mike like a fish on a hook. "The same Mr Clarke who teaches middle school science." She thought was right to point out.

Dustin sat up from the side of Mike, "We think he was talking about a gate." He added with his toothless grin.

"That we tracked to Hawkins lab-" Informed Lucas.

"-With our compasses." Dustin continued as if the two were fighting over who was to say which part.

But as they realised the expressions that stared back at them, they realised there was more explanation needed. Y/n, however, despite her stereotype, still a nerd, was following completely. Enough, in fact, she finished Dustin's words for him. "The gate would have such a strong electromagnetic field that it changed the compasses direction." She realised, checking with Dustin for confirmation. Who, luckily for her, nodded.

Johnathan leaned into Y/n's side, "How do you know that?" He asked.

"Physics. Last year." She told him before watching the boy lean back and question whether he had actually ever paid much attention.

From the chair across from everyone, Hopper finally voiced his thoughts. "Is this gate underground?" His expression was stern as he glared right at El.

Y/n felt her brows narrow as she clocked onto what Hopper was questioning. While she didn't remember it well, she could recall the slit in the wall that had been glowing, littered in sludge that made the girl shiver just at the thought of it. "Yes." Said El.

Y/n glanced between Hopper and the younger girl. "Next to the large water tank?" She pressed.

She nodded, "Yes." That was the gate. The gate to the upside down. Her and Hopper had been face to face with it.

Dustin, suddenly concerned for the safety of his cousin, sat upright as he attempted to gage what had just happened. "How- how do you know that?"

Y/n looked to Hopper, pleading for him to answer. Instead, Mike's voice came, "Because they've seen it."

Now, Dustin only looked to the girl. His shook his head as his mouth fell agape, utterly flabbergasted. "You- You've seen it." He reiterated in disbelief. "How the hell have you seen it!"

Y/n gestured her hand for Dustin to calm - not that it did much. "I will tell you later. What matters now, is finding Will and Barb."

"Is there any way that you could talk to Will? That you could reach him in this..." Joyce questioned as her stuttering tone trailed off, pupils on El.

"Upside down." She finished for her.

"Yeah. Upside down."

El did nothing but nod, causing Nancy to lean forward, as her hands cupped one another. "And my friend Barbra? Can you find her too?" Another nod.

A thought rose in Y/n's mind that she debated on speaking aloud. Her eyes glanced to Hopper who was still looking at Eleven in curiosity. And, so, the girl gave into her thoughts. "My mum, she was at the lab too." As she started, El's expression faded, as if just the mention of the lab was so daunting to her. "I don't think she's there anymore. Maybe she's in the upside down too." She glanced over to Nancy before back to El. "Here, I have a photo of her-" Y/n rushed, rummaging through her jacket pockets, dragging out the wrinkled picture of her mother and passing it to El. "Here. Do you know where she is?"

El stared at the picture. She stared for a while. Long enough to make Y/n nervous. As the girl looked up, shook her head, Y/n felt this overwhelming distortedness that she couldn't quite place. "No." El said and the other girl felt like her whole body urged her to run from this situation. El passed the photo back over, barely able to make eye contact with Y/n. "Sorry." She paused. "Gone. Bad men."

Gone.

Y/n didn't have to question much further. The word rung around her mind. The image, the memory of her mother flooding through her mind, knowing that was all she had. There was no more, now. She was gone - as El had put it, because of the bad men.

The girl wobbled as she stood from the couch, tears falling from her pupils as she attempted to leave the situation. She couldn't be in front of Nancy Wheeler, or the whole party, or even Joyce, crying like she knew she going to do. So she fled. "Excuse me." She had muttered, rushing down the hallway as her body shook and the girl fought to catch her breath.

Y/n got into Johnathan's room just in time. She shut the door behind her and let her back fall against the wood, sliding down as her knees became weak. Her cheeks were stained in tears as her voice whimpered through it. Her mind tried to fight off the idea of death, the concept of knowing that her mother wasn't coming back, that Y/n would never hear her voice again, or feel her touch, that she was gone, it felt like something she'd never be able to accept.

A gentle knock came from the wood of the door. "Y/n," Hopper's voice was soft compared to how they usually spoke to one another.

The girl felt as if her back were like bricks, that maybe they would never move. But as Hopper knocked once more, she shuffled along, her back now leaning against the end of Johnathan's bed. It didn't take long before the door swung open and Hopper walked in. He closed the door behind him, taking the space next to Y/n on the floor.

Silence followed.

Hopper wasn't sure what to say. He'd been here before: the day he took Y/n's mother away from her and to the hospital where she was trapped. Then, he hadn't said anything to the younger girl, and he regretted it. "I'm sorry." That's what came out first. "We- I should have realised what this lab was doing well before now, okay? I never should have lost sight of your mum's case and I'm sorry I did." He paused, looking at the girl who couldn't break her gaze from the carpet. "But we have a chance now, to tear this lab to the ground."

She finally glanced back at him. "I just want to tell her-" Her voice was shaky as she thought to speak her piece. "I want to tell her everything I didn't." And with that, the tears flooded though. While Y/n knew her mum wasn't at the mental capacity to understand much now, she still wished she had sat at her bedside, and told her things. Told her about how school went, the boy she was crushing on and the stupid joke her little cousin Dustin had made on the drive home.

"I know." Said Jim as they glance to one another before Hopper took her into his arms, letting her tears stain his jacket as she cried. "I promise you, I will get everything the lab has on your mothers case, okay?" Y/n nodded as a response. "We just need to get through this first."

Y/n retracted from the man as she wiped her tears. "How are we doing this?" Was probably a good question to be asking.

Hopper gestured to what was waiting behind the closed door. "That's what they're planning." He informed. And so Y/n stood finally, balancing on her heels as she faced the door. "You don't have to do this, you know, kid." He told her. But still, she walked out, and joined the rest of the group who were huddled around the kitchen table.

She wasn't sure what she had missed. But all eyes fell to her. She took a sharp inhale as she made sure to hold the tears that sat in her waterline. "Tell me you have a plan." Y/n said and it seemed they all relaxed, knowing that she was okay.

And so the kids started to explain. Everything. From El attempting to gain contact, to now, their plan of creating a sensory deprivation tank for the girl. That way, she would be able to successfully contact Will. Which was why they had the paddling pool and were about to leave for the middle school. It seemed like a stupid, stupid plan when it was over simplified, but it was the only plan they had. So Y/n agreed to it.

She joined Hopper in the truck as he drove the way towards the school that was abandoned at this time of night. She sat in the passengers seat as she had done millions of times before. But, what was new to her, was the hoard of bickering kids that squabbled behind them. Y/n could tell in a glance, Hopper was biting down his tongue.

Y/n hadn't let go of the photo of her mother since El passed it her back. And she even felt guilty when she looked away from it, facing Hopper as his eyes starred at the empty road in front of them. "You know what I've realised this past week?" The girl started, shoving the photo gently back into her jacket pocket.

Hopper hummed in response, giving a glare to this kids through the rear view mirror that they were too distracted to catch. "That I'm good at it."

The man peeked over at her, "Good at what?"

She shrugged, "Finding things out, I guess." She paused as she thought on her next words. "Maybe made me think of doing something like an apprenticeship at the station in the Summer." She slyly slipped in with a smirk gliding across her lips.

Hopper had never laughed so loudly - especially considering current context. "You? At- At the station?"

"What is so funny about that?" Y/n groaned like the angsty teenager she was.

"Oh, I don't know, your criminal record might be a good reason why this is so funny." He spoke thought a chuckle.

"I'm sure you could pull a few strings!"

Hopper calmed a little as he finally looked to her with a genuine expression. "Since when did you want to become a cop?" He questioned.

She shook her head lightly, "Not a cop. More like, detective stuff." She admitted, thoughts that had been floating around her head since she leant over Hopper's shoulder that day in the library, leading her to where she was now. The way that once over-dramatic conspiracy theory had unravelled, had Y/n completely mesmerised when she thought back on it. It was incredible just thinking how they had gotten here. To be able to do that as a job, it had certainly peaked her interest.

The man sighed as he realised the seriousness of this request. "I'll see what I can do." He finalized, watching as a grin tugged at her lips.

"Thank you."

Hopper stopped for a moment. He couldn't recall a time she had ever actually thanked him. Even when he had rescued her from what could have been an arrest, or probably worse and could have gained herself a court case, no thank you. But, for some reason, she thanked him for a job offer he may or may not even be able to provide.

Hopper was soon pulling into the Middle school, swerving between two spaces before stopping the engine. And everyone returned to their allocated people. Johnathan went with Hopper to acquire the ice, Nancy with Mike to gather the hose, Dustin and Lucas (while Y/n pointed out against such) were requested to set up the kiddie pool. And Y/n was paired with Joyce to prepare young El for what she had done many times before.

Y/n located an empty classroom, switched on the lights and collected a few chairs to sit around. Joyce had brought duck tape to create the darkness required for El to enter this 'state'. Whatever that meant. The women wrapped it around a pair of large goggles to effectively get that pitch black sight. How El did this, as young as she was, was a concern for another time.

"This will keep it dark for you, just like your bathtub." Joyce assured, though she seemed uncertain in calling it a bathtub. This was all a very new concept for everyone to grasp. "You're a very brave girl, you know that, don't you?" She added when El hadn't given a reply.

She glanced to Joyce and then to Y/n. The other girl nodded as a way to reinstate Joyce's words before gently placing her palm over El's hand, a small smile glistening over her lips. "You are incredible for doing this. Putting yourself in danger to save people you've never known before." She said.

Joyce then placed her own hand on top of the one Y/n had let fall to El's. She smiled too. "Thank you." She paused for a moment. "Listen, we are going to be there with you the whole time, right?" Joyce glanced to Y/n who nodded, assuring her words once again. "And if it every gets too scary...in that place, just let me know okay?"

El listened to the words deeply before responding, "Yes."

"Ready?" Y/n questioned as she straighten her back, puffing out her chest with a glint in her eye which bred hopefulness.

El reciprocated her movements. "Ready."

And so Y/n led the way towards the gym that she hadn't step foot in since she left for High School. At that moment in time, the kids and Nancy were filling up the pool. Lucas yelling, "Warmer!" and, "Colder!" Every few seconds before it reached the perfect temperature. Then Johnathan and Jim began slicing open the bags of salt and letting it pour into the pool. They didn't stop until Dustin's egg floated above the water. Then it was perfect. And then El could climb into the pool.

Joyce held her hand from the right side and Y/n held the other, guiding the young girl into the pool until she gained her balance. She slowly crouched down before floating onto her back. As if in a instinct, the flights flickered. And they didn't stop. Each of them searched their surroundings before the flights burst and darkness covered the gym.

Y/n couldn't make out what El was feeling as she floated in the make-shift pool. All she knew was that, somehow, this would lead them to Will.

It took a few moments before the lights began to flicker once again. "What's going on?" Asked Nancy who was looking around the room as if it were going to answer her.

"I don't know." Mike responded as his eye stayed glued to El.

A sense of nerves kicked in to Nancy. She leant forward over the pool, "Is Barb okay?" She questioned as if El were in any kind of state to tell her right now. "Is she okay?" The girl repeated, her voice raising, a glint of pain weaved through her tone.

A long second passed before there came an answer, in a whisper. "Gone." Said El. One word that, while it came for a young girl, echoed through the whole gym and sent shivers down all spines. "Gone. Gone. Gone." She kept going and even she was frightened by it.

Joyce reached out her hands as to soothe the younger girl. "It's okay, it's okay." She calmed as El's words faded. "It's okay, we're right here, honey." She assured. And soon, El's movements slowed and she panting nearly as much as she had been prior.

And not long after, the girl spoke once again. "Castle Byers."

Everyone looked to one another.

"Will?" El called.

She had found him.

Joyce almost leaped forwards into the pool just at the mention of her son. "You tell him-" She paused as to conjure up the right words. "You tell him I'm coming."

Y/n could only watch the young girl. The girl who had been in the same lab as her mother. Who could find places that seemed nothing more than fiction. It made her question if what Y/n's mother had been saying, about being able to enter minds and to mould thoughts, maybe that wasn't the bullshit everyone had called it out to be. I mean, if that lab had really taken her from the hospital, they must have wanted something from her.

The static crackling behind Y/n dragged her from her thoughts. And, for a second, she thought she had been dreaming when a, "Hurry." Was sounded through the static of the walkie. But as she looked to everyone; they had all too heard it.

Will was alive. He was safe.

Joyce leaned over once again, "Listen, you tell Will, you tell him to stay where he is." She instructed. "We're coming, okay? We're coming."

Eleven jolted out from the water, throwing off the duck taped goggles. Joyce held the girl tightly as to calm her as her breath became uneven. No one dared to move. Not yet. Everyone needed to let what had just happened sink in.

But, there was a sense of haste that followed. If Barb was gone, then maybe Will was next and maybe they didn't have long. Truly, they knew nothing, but it was best to move now than not at all. So, not long after, they started to disband.

Y/n took El into a towel as to get her body temp back up again. Then, she guided her to the bleaches where the girl sat, comforted by Y/n's arms and the rest of the party sat around her. Y/n watched from afar as Johnathan, Nancy, Hopper and Joyce discussed their next moves. She couldn't quite tell the tone of the conversation. Only that they all seemed to follow Hopper when he stormed off. The girl thought about following them, but the tight grip El held on her, stopped that from happening.

But, when it had been ten minutes and there was still no sign of them, Y/n's concerns raised. "Look after her." She ordered the boys before wondering out of the gym.

And just outside, Nancy and Johnathan were gathering their things as they stood from the floor. No sign of Hopper or Joyce. "Where's your mum? And Hopper?" She questioned.

Nancy and Johnathan shared an expression which made Y/n nervous. "They went to find Will." Johnathan finally dropped.

Her brows narrowed and she glanced between the pair, "And what are you two doing?"

There was a longer paused. This time, Johnathan looked to Nancy to answer.

"We're going to kill it."

--

Taglist - @fanficfanatic204 @neverylee @myheartonthemove @satsuri3su @gobringmemyfood @yourpalheapass @andraimeide @notanordinaryprincess95 (Let me know whether you would like to be added or removed)

Chapter Nine (Monster Hunting) to be published Wednesday 8pm BST

[we-are-inevitable]

Hey bestie have some Jack Kelly wall painting questions xx Does Medda have a section? When he moves out, does he keep up the wall painting habit? What kind of things do Race and Charlie paint? What do the Sophomore and Junior walls look like? Does this happen gradually, or does he dedicate time to doing it all at once? Does he ever paint over things, or is it done once he's done? Ok ily have fun pls tell us more I LOVE this hc

EL I WOULD DIE FOR YOU

read the first post here!!

medda doesn't have a section, BUT that's because they do their bonding time elsewhere! i love the hc that Jack is a really good cook, so they cook together a lot. medda is usually a bit too busy to paint, but she sits and talks him sometimes when he's upset. it's easier for Jack to talk about his problems when he's doing something else, so the mother/son therapy sessions happen that way.

when jack moves out, he doesn't paint the walls anymore bc renting places sucks ass for creatives. he sticks to canvases! his big thing for a while is small canvases painted to be cohesive parts of One Big Thing when you group them up a certain way; that sort of mosaic takes place of painting the actual wall

charlie doesn't really paint "things." he likes patterns; circles and squiggles and geometric shapes. by the end of it, his section of wall looks something like:

now race...... oh poor race ...... he has a lot of fun but his paintings just don't turn out. jack thinks they're extremely good abstract paintings.

they are not supposed to be abstract paintings.

sophomore year wall is ,, kind of a half and half? the bottom half of the wall starts fairly bright, but it bleeds into a very dark section; sophomore year was hell for everyone i knew. there are some scribbled hands in white paint markers, a lot of abstract eyes and representations of worry and doubt and depression, but it eventually gets brighter and ends with pure white paint.

also when i say this i mean the gradient is like this; it's just blended a lot more with more designs and swirls, not straight edges

junior year is kind of has the same fluctuation, but it stays a lot brighter even in the darker parts !!

the walls are done gradually. usually he only paints them when it's not a great mental health day/week, so some walla get finished before others, but he has stages:

1) the base 2) the sharpie 3) the white paint marker

this just means that once he's finished with the base swirls of a wall, he doesn't stop, he just doesn't paint. this is where he goes hog wild with sharpies and doodles and fun quotes his friends say and the white marker adds highlight and emphasis!!

occasionally he'll repaint over things, but that doesn't happen often; he doesn't think it's fair to his personal growth to change things after he's finished!!

thank you so much for this el i love you

[teacupfulofstarshine]

when you look at me with those eyes (i’m speechless)

summary: virgil finally manages to ask out the pretty enby in his class, just in time for his father's epic gala event. sadly, neither of them would know fashion if it bit them in the ass. luckily, they both have friends to help them out. 

(OR: almost 3k words of analogical being useless fluffy gays)

wordcount: 2934

ships: romantic analogical, background romantic roceit, background queerplatonic intruality, background romantic remile

cw: cursing 

read it on ao3!! 

“So, uh, wh - what do you say?” 

Logan looks up from their desk, homework long forgotten. Their left hand is stretched out to cover the little doodle they’d been doing of the back of Virgil’s head, and now Virgil himself is standing in front of them, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly and looking anywhere except at Logan. He’s still wearing that patchwork purple plaid hoodie, and for some reason the only thing Logan can think of is that it’s definitely a violation of their school uniform. 

Virgil’s eyes skitter back to their face, skipping from their shoulder to their chest to their neck to their cheek. Their eyes meet for a moment, Virgil’s illuminated by the afternoon sunshine pouring in, and Logan forgets how to breathe. Virgil’s pink face gets even pinker, and his eyes settle on a point fixed above Logan’s shoulder. 

“Are you just gonna stare at me?” he snaps. “If you’re gonna reject me, just -”

“No!” Logan blurts. Virgil’s shoulders jump up to his ears, and Logan stands so fast their chair falls over behind them. “I - I mean - I’m not rejecting you, I - um - yes! Yes, I - I’d love to! That is to say - I - uh -” 

Virgil laughs a little, reaching out and tucking a stray curl of Logan’s hair behind their ear. They hadn’t even noticed that wisps had started escaping their high ponytail, but Virgil just smiles at them. “Cool,” he says. 

“Yes,” Logan breathes. “It - it is, objectively, quite ‘cool’.” 

“The event’s on Saturday night.” Virgil’s fingers tuck their hair behind their ear, gently tracing down the curve of their neck and sliding up to touch their jaw. “Pick you up around six PM or so?” 

Logan swallows, and they’re sure Virgil can hear it but he gives no indication if he did. “That - that sounds optimal.” They cringe inwardly - optimal? What the hell? - but Virgil just laughs and slides his hand up to cup their cheek. 

“You keep busting out all those smart-person words and I’m gonna have to kiss you before I buy you dinner, and that’s not very nice of me.” His hand drops from Logan’s face, and it takes all their willpower not to scream for him to put it back. He gently picks up their hand, lifting it to his bitten-raw lips and gently pressing a kiss to the back. “That’ll have to hold you over until then.” 

He turns and saunters away, and Logan grips the edge of their desk. They almost sit down on the chair they’d knocked over, catching themselves at the last second. Looking around the empty classroom, they catch sight of themselves reflected in the windows. They’d opted for a mixture of the uniforms today, wearing the boys’ shirt, vest, and tie over the girls’ skirt, knee-high stockings, and shoes. Their hair is tightly tied back with a plain hair tie, no ribbon, only one curl out of place where Virgil had tucked it behind their ear. 

They don’t typically dress themselves for much other than school (uniform), work (uniform), or home (casual clothing). They have no idea what they should wear for a date. Their phone buzzes on the desk, and they snatch it up quickly, flipping it open to see a message from Virgil. 

(They’d forgotten he had their number, from that project they did together last month.) 

You have: One! New message! 

FROM: Virgil 

hey, forgot to tell u - this gala is like, a bfd for my dads’ company, so dress up! like its prom or smthn, or a wedding 

Logan exhales, gathering up their school things and shoving them into their bag with an uncharacteristic haphazardness. This is going to require . . . outside intervention.

(Meanwhile, a few doors down, Virgil slams the door to his own classroom, shoves his face into his hands, and lets out the quietest feral screech he can manage. Derek, seated on the teacher’s desk with Roman pulled up between his legs, raises a single eyebrow.

“Is that a screech of success or a screech of failure, Virgil?”)

*~*~*~*~*

“What does one wear on a ‘fancy date’? I have never been to a wedding or a prom, let alone a gala! I do not own anything fancy!” Logan paces around their bedroom, hair hanging loose around their shoulders. Patton is on his back, hanging upside-down off of their bed and flipping through some sort of guitar catalog. Remus is curled up in Logan’s desk chair with some sort of slime in his hand. “Remus, if you get slime on my belongings I will end you.” 

Remus grins, looking deranged, and Logan resists the childish urge to throw something at him. 

“Don’t sweat it, Lo-Lo!” Patton says. “I’ve got a ton of pretty clothes in my room, you can borrow something from me! We’re still the same size, right?” 

“I assume so,” Logan says, “but what if I do not look right in your clothing? Our styles are vastly different, I would not wish to present a false impression of myself to him, I -”

“You worry too much!” Remus says. “Virge asked you out even though you’re a workaholic disaster who wouldn’t know the meaning of ‘relax’ if it bit him in the -”

“Remus!” Patton scolds, throwing one of Logan’s decorative constellation pillows at him. Remus bats it away with his foot. 

“Please do not throw things around,” Logan says tiredly. “Particularly my things.” 

“Sorry, Lo!” Remus does not apologize, but he does put the slime he’s been playing with back into its little plastic container. 

“Well, actually,” Patton says, flipping over onto his tummy, “it just so happens that I’ve been waiting for exactly this moment.” Logan looks at their twin in confusion. “I knew that eventually, there was gonna come a day where you would look at somebody and want to go on a date with them, whether it be a simple movie or a fancy date like this one, and you were gonna call me in here - didn’t know Remus would be here too, but he’s not unwelcome -”

“Thank you?” 

“- and you’d pace around and panic and go, ‘Patton! I don’t have anything optimal for this date, and our personal styles are so vastly different! What ever is there to be done?’” Patton flings one hand dramatically across his forehead like a Victorian woman fainting onto a couch. Logan raises one eyebrow. 

“So! I came up with the perfect solution! I’ve been secretly acquiring outfits for you! Stuff that you could wear for a variety of situations that you wouldn’t ever think of! We can mix and match to find something you like! Oh, and I also have a ton of unopened hypoallergenic makeup in a box in my closet!” 

Logan stares at him, blinking and trying to process everything Patton’s just told them. “You . .. you really did all that, for . . . for me?” 

“Yeah, of course I did! You’re my twin, Lo. I love you.” Patton smiles, bright and open and honest, and Logan blinks again, and suddenly their cheeks are wet. 

“Are you fucking crying because Patton is a considerate brother?!” Remus cackles. Logan whirls around, hiding their face and wiping at it frantically. “Oh my god, you are, I fucking called it, Roman owes me twenty bucks!” 

“You bet on this?” Patton asks, disapproving. Logan laughs a little, turning around to hug their twin. They can’t quite bring themselves to care about Remus’s gambling right now. 

*~*~*~*~*

“Why are you bitching?” Roman asks, pulling Derek’s hand up to his face. He’d forgotten his saline solution at his own house, so he’s wearing his old red glasses, bangs pulled up in a shitty unicorn-horn ponytail as he squints at Derek’s nails. Derek holds a book up with his free hand. “You managed to get them to go out with you, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah, but I was awkward as fuck about it, Roman!” Virgil complains. He considers throwing something at Roman, or shoving a pillow over his face and screaming (again), but the deep indigo-purple polish on their fingernails is still drying. “I touched their hair, they probably think I’m a fucking creep!” 

“As someone with that exact reputation,” Derek says, “I highly doubt they would have agreed to accompany you on a date if they shared your sentiments about yourself.” 

“Yeah, but -”

“Lighten up a little, man,” Roman says, carefully stroking the yellow brush over Derek’s index nail. “You’re totally fucking with the vibe of the chill session.”

“What do you want me to do?! I told them to dress fancy cause we’re going somewhere nice, like I have any idea how to dress other than ‘crawled out of a dumpster and sewed together some punk band’s leftovers’!” 

“Why did you think you invited me?” Roman says haughtily. He’s imitating some YouTube video they’d watched earlier. “I’m the king of style!” 

“You’re the king of something,” Virgil mutters. 

“No, seriously, I’m gonna help you!” Roman says. “I’m sure you have something that looks half-decent buried in your closet, and I am nothing if not an expert in bringing things out of the closet.” Derek’s cheeks blush faintly pink, but he doesn’t say anything. “And Der here is amazing with makeup -”

“I wouldn’t say experience with stage makeup and covering my port wine stain makes me amazing or anything,” Derek begins. 

“Well I would, so shut the fuck up,” Roman says smoothly. Derek rolls his eyes and huffs fondly. “Seriously, Vee, did you really think we were gonna egg you on to ask the pretty nerd out for this long and then leave you high and dry when the time came to deliver the goods?” 

Virgil exhales, bringing his hands up to his face to examine his nails. “I think they’re dry . . .”

“Nice! Get over here, once I’m done with Derek’s base color I’m putting sparkles on you.”

“What? Why?” 

“Because it’s my house and I get to choose the bonding activity, god damn it.” 

*~*~*~*~*

“No.” 

“What do you mean, no?” Logan says, pulling their hair up into their traditional high ponytail. “What else am I supposed to do with it? I hate leaving it down, it feels bad on my neck -”

“I know,” Patton says, “but you can’t just put it in the same old ponytail you always do! This is a fancy gala event, you have to be fancy! ” 

“What else am I supposed to do with my hair?” 

“You will not do anything. I will do your hair,” Patton says firmly. “And by I, I mean Remus, because I’m not good at hair.” 

“Remus is not putting his hands, which have been god only knows where, in my clean hair.” 

“Rude!” Remus says. “I washed them three times today! You can inspect them if you want, I promise they’re clean!” Logan squints at his hands critically before sighing and settling into the chair in front of Patton’s vanity. 

“Very well.” 

Remus brushes through their hair and then combs it, carefully working through the knots while doing his best to preserve their natural curl. He separates two small wings and pins them out of the way before pulling the rest of Logan’s long curls into a mid-height ponytail and braiding it with surprisingly delicate fingers. He carefully twists the long braid up into a bun at the nape of Logan’s neck and pins it there with a gleaming silver hairpin tipped with a shining eight-point star with a dark blue jewel set in its center. 

Carefully, Remus unpins the locks of hair he’d set aside and braids them as well, weaving them into a crown of braids on Logan’s head and cleverly hiding the ends by pinning them into the braided bun. Finally, he pins back a few stray wispy curls with silver bobby pins that have star-shaped cubic zirconium on the ends. “Take a look!” 

Logan has had their eyes closed the entire time, quietly stimming with their hands. They open them slowly, looking in the mirror and tilting their head back and forth to see all of the work Remus has done. “Oh,” they say softly. “I love it, Remus. I look beautiful.” 

“You always look beautiful,” Remus says. “I’d ruffle your hair if I hadn’t spent so much time making it look decent.” Logan leans back, gently pressing their cheek against his shoulder. Remus huffs and mutters something about “gross affectionate shit,” but he still lets them do it. 

Patton breaks out the makeup after that, spinning the stool around so that Logan can’t see their own face in the mirror. “Alright, Lo! Time to accentuate your pretty face!” 

“That was a surprisingly accurate use of the word accentuate.” 

Patton just shrugs and grins at them. “I know big words!” 

*~*~*~*~*

“You look fine,” Roman says, pulling a strip of fabric around Virgil’s throat and beginning to knot it into a bowtie. Virgil can’t stop himself from looking over himself in the mirror one more time - dark black dress pants, a silver dress shirt, a deep purple vest that matches the polish on his nails, black and purple eyeshadow accompanied by dark red lipstick and sharp cheekbone contour courtesy of Derek. Roman pulls the purple-and-silver striped fabric of his bowtie into the final bow, and he smiles. 

“Don’t worry, Virge. I know you’re worried, but you look fine.” 

“You don’t look like a vampire at all,” Derek adds. Virgil hisses at him. “That is certainly going to help that image.” 

“Seriously,” Roman says, “don’t worry about my stupid boyfriend. Logan agreed to go out with you, and I’m sure they’re going to find you absolutely stunning.” 

Virgil rubs the back of his neck, blushing, because he knows that if he touches the hair Derek and Roman had combed and gelled and styled and wrestled with for the past thirty minutes they will collectively murder him without a second thought. Derek smiles, reaching over to pat his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Vee. Seriously. I know I mock you a lot, but you really do look good. It’s gonna be okay.” 

Virgil still feels nervous when he steps out of his car in front of the address Logan had given him. The lights are bright and cheerful, and when he knocks on the front door with his free hand, the door swings open eagerly. “Hello!” the man says cheerily. He’s wearing a pink tie and a brown cardigan, and he looks like Virgil expects Patton to in a few decades. “You must be Virgil!” 

“Uh, um, y-yes sir!” Virgil yelps. 

“Oh, you look precious! Remy, dearest, Logan’s date is here!” 

“Cool, babes,” a voice floats in from the kitchen. “I’ll take over the soup.” 

“Come on in! You can call me Emile, Lo is upstairs with Patton and Remus getting ready! Just wait here in the foyer, I’ll go up there and get them!” Emile hurries off up the stairs, and Virgil fidgets nervously with the flowers in his hand.

Patton all but slides down the bannister, grinning. “Are those for Lo?” 

“Y - yeah?”

“I’ll go get a vase out of the kitchen so they can put them in water before you two go!” Virgil pulls a single star-shaped lily bloom from the bouquet and spins it between his thumb and middle fingers. Emile comes hurrying down the stairs with a camera, sets himself up at the foot of the stairs, and shouts for Remus. 

“Finally,” Logan huffs, and then a door creaks open and shuffled footsteps approach the top of the stairs and then Virgil promptly forgets how to breathe. 

They look gorgeous. 

They have a crown of braids leading to a braided bun, studded with jewels that gleam like stars and a larger star pinning the bun back. They’re wearing the most beautiful dress Virgil has ever seen; the top is black, high-necked, and form-fitting, with short sleeves that are see-through ruffles of black gauzy material. The sleeves and the bodice are covered in sparkling silver rhinestones that look like stars in the night sky. There’s a silver band wrapped around their waist, and the skirt is made of layers of loose folds of fabric. The front comes down to their knees and the back comes down to their mid-calves, and the pattern is a soft blue-pink-purple galaxy color scheme. They have simple dark blue ballet flats on their feet, and as they get closer, what little breath Virgil had in his lungs is gone. 

Someone with experience has clearly done Logan’s makeup. Their eyes are coated in shimmery dark-blue-and-silver eyeshadow, eyes lined with soft smudged pencil and popping out of their face, freckles somehow still visible under the makeup. Their lips are glossy and pink and look so deliciously kissable that Virgil can barely restrain himself. 

“You look wonderful,” the vision in front of him says. 

“You - I - um - good!” Virgil stammers. Logan blushes, and Virgil thrusts the bouquet at them. “These - for you!” 

“Oh!” Logan takes the bouquet and smiles, and Virgil nearly passes out. “They’re beautiful! I -”

“I have a vase for you!” Patton chirps, hurrying in to take the bouquet and plop it into a vase. “I’ll leave it in your room!” Logan smiles, and Virgil reaches up to carefully tuck the lily behind their ear, into the carefully woven braids.

“You look beautiful,” he says honestly. “You’re the most beautiful person I have ever seen in my life.” Logan flushes, smiling. 

“It makes sense that you would think that, since you cannot see yourself.” 

(Years later, at their wedding, Patton will tearfully and proudly recall how Logan and Virgil had been fifteen minutes late to the gala because Logan’s compliment had caused Virgil to faint from sheer gay joy.) 

[silentglassbreak]

For the prompts #5? with Harringrove :)

Hello and thank you for the prompt!

We’re going post S3 here. All the angst. All the sad. And I damn near cried while writing it. 💔

5. “He was all I had. He was everything. And he’s gone.”

Letter

All he could feel was other people’s hands. He wasn’t sure whose they were, but he knew they were pulling on him as hard as they could. His sleeve, his shoulders, the back of his uniform shirt. He was fighting against them, not hearing any of the shouting going on, begging him to stop. He couldn’t see anything but Billy. Laying there, bleeding, choking, looking at Max. His face was illuminated in what was left of the neon lights inside of Starcourt, a thick black ooze dripping from his lips.

“Billy!” He shoved at whoever was trying to hold him. “Let me fucking go!”

The hands were gone, his body now plunging forward down the stopped escalator, straight to the golden boy, so tarnished, dying. His legs were working overtime, trudging through some kind of bloody, fleshy sludge that had formed on the floor. He didn’t know where the pool of swampy blood had come from, or where everyone else had gone. Everything had dissolved to black, the neon lights gone, the body of the Mindflayer vanished, and it was just Billy standing there, the sludge threatening to swallow him up. It was lapping at his knees, rising up toward his waist.

Steve threw his arms out. “Billy! Come here!” Billy just stood, tears streaming down his cheeks. Blackened blood staining his white muscle shirt but his face was clean now. As clean as it always was when he was with Steve. Fresh shave, mustache trimmed, hair perfectly coiffed.

“I’m so sorry, Steve.” The liquid was rising still, now reaching both their chests. Steve was stroking through it, trying to swim, but he was stuck, like a piece of sliced fruit in cherry Jell-O.

“Billy! Please!” He was screaming, reaching for the boy only a few feet in front of him, just out of reach.

“I’ve got to go.” Steve’s eyes widened in horror as blood began spilling from Billy’s mouth, his eyes, ears. He was being swallowed, just like Steve. He was dying. They were both going to die right here, just like this…

“Steve!” His eyes shot open, chest heaving and body trembling. “Steve, wake up!”

Robin’s voice was shrill, swiping him from his dream, his nightmare. His body sat up, sweat pooling at the base of his skull. He snapped his head over to look at her. Robin’s hair was askew, eyes tired, but alert. Her hand was still gripping his shoulder. He surveyed the room in haste, attempting to ground himself to his surroundings.

Steve was in their apartment, in his bedroom, in his own bed. Robin was with him. The bedside lamp was on. His body shrugged heavily, head falling in his hands.

“What the fuck.” His words were only breaths. “I’m sorry, Robs.” Her fingers loosened on his skin, becoming something more comforting. He cracked an eye open at her.

“Hey,” Her lips quirked up in the smallest, most tired smile she had. “it’s okay. That’s why I’m here.” He groaned and flopped himself back down onto the pillows. She stared down at him.

“It’s not. You should be able to sleep in your own room once in a while.” She leaned down on her arm, resting the side of her head in the palm of her right hand.

“I will. Once the nightmares stop.” He rolled away from her, feeling his eyes stinging.

“I don’t think they’re going to.” She let her left arm fall over his side, pulling at him to roll back over.

“Look at me, Dingus.” He reluctantly obeyed, not even fighting the tears. “They will.” She insisted. “You just need time.”

Steve let out a choked snort, trying to laugh, but sobbing instead. “Time?” He buried his face in the pillow. “It’s been eight months. And they haven’t let up, not even a little.” He was curling in on himself as he began to tremble.

“It’s going to take longer. A lot longer.” It was quiet for a beat, his pillow dampening with each passing second. She let him cry a while, before laying her head back down on the dry pillow.

“I miss him so much, Robin.” She bit her lip, and he almost saw a glint of moisture in her eyes.

“I know you do, Harrington.” His eyes scanned the wall behind her head, his mind going somewhere else entirely. His memories slipping in.

“You know, he used to smack his lips when he was chewing popcorn.” He didn’t look at her, the thought filling him with a feeling that was equal parts fondness and loneliness. He chuckled lightly. “It used to drive me absolutely crazy.”

She smirked a moment before carding her hand through his hair. She let him stay lost, knowing this was some of the only reprieve he had. It was only a short time before he was looking back at her, eyes so big and brown, so innocent and so hurt.

“He was all I had.” His words were wet, coming out as a string of slurs. “He was everything.” His body shook violently, and Robin wrapped her arms around him, tucking his head in close to her. She smoothed circles on the skin of his back.

“And he’s gone…” Steve laid there with Robin for hours, never saying another word. He didn’t make it back to sleep that night. Robin got up at six for her opening shift at Family Video, leaving Steve in a ball on the bed. He would get up soon after, like he always did. He would smile like he always did. And he would hurt, more than he ever had, like he always would.

*

Steve’s elbows were sitting on the countertop, his face buried in a magazine that truly had nothing interesting in it. He heard the bell above the door jingle, and his eyes lifted. He saw the flash of red hair come in the glass door, and a smile played at his lips.

“Hey, Max.” Skateboard under arm, she made her way to the counter with a smile.

“Hey Steve!” She lifted the stack of tapes in her other hand onto the counter. “Just returning these.” He lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Did you rewind them?” She rolled her blue eyes, smile falling to an annoyed shrug.

“Yes.” The demeanor reminded him so much of her brother. Something in Steve’s chest pulled.

He began marking them off in the binder kept under the desk, making idle conversation.

“How’s the Party?” She set her skateboard down and folded her arms over the top of the counter, resting her chin on her hands.

“They’re okay. Planning a trip to go see El and Will next weekend.” Steve snuck a glance at her.

“You’re not going?” She just shrugged her shoulders in response. He took the answer for what it was, and mimicked her stance, slumped over in front of her.

“We can hang out when they go if you want.” Her eyes sparked a little.

“Yeah?” He stood up, grinning wide.

“Oh yeah. Pizza, movies, me and you. What’s better?” She thought for a second.

“Beer?” He pointed a finger down at her.

“Don’t push it, shitbird.” They both laughed for a second, giggles dissolving rather quickly. Her eyes looked up at him, a sadness he knew all too well brewing behind them. Her expression washed out, a spaced out stare replaced it. The nickname trudged up both good and painful memories.

“Neil made me clean out the last boxes in his room last night.” Steve’s eyes snapped to the countertop, a lump forming in his throat. “Asshole didn’t even cry.”

He reached his hand out to place over hers, Max’s face turning away from him. She was tough as nails, just like Billy. She didn’t cry in public. Before Starcourt, he wasn’t sure she cried at all.

“That actually reminds me…” She pulled her hand away from Steve’s, reaching into her hoodie pocket and pulling out a small stack of folded up papers. “I found these in his stuff. Thought maybe you’d want them.”

Most of the papers were crumpled, as if they were once balled up and discarded. Max began backing away from him, skateboard now back under arm, and gave a small wave.

“I’ll call you later to plan for the weekend. Bye, Steve!” He returned a wave, a little dumbfounded and feet frozen to the ground. His hands shook, the papers rustling.

“Robin!” His voice shouted out; sharp and anxious. When he didn’t get a response, his head started whipping around frantically. “Robs!”

He could hear her feet stomping in the back room before the door opened. “What, Steven? I am rewinding in here.” His expression must have said enough that he didn’t need to speak, because she paced over to him, concern padding her face. “What is it?”

Steve’s eyes were wide. She looked down at the paper in his hands. His words were shaky. “Can you cover for me?” She just nodded, exasperated.

“Of course, yeah.” He didn’t wait for her to ask what was going on before sprinting to the office, pushing the door open that read Employees Only.

Back pressed against the wall, he began unfolding the paper, seeing that some of them looked like they had been spilled on, crinkled and slightly torn at the edges. The first page had words scrawled in random places, some on lines, some written in corners. Steve read them all carefully.

‘Dear Harrington, I wrote this for a reason. I need to tell you something.’ The last word was crossed out heavily and the word ‘stupid’ was written beside it. ‘Bitch’ was scratched into the upper right corner. A little doodle of a baseball bat on it; a baseball bat with nails. Steve stared at the letters a long time, before flipping to the next page.

The paper had definitely been wet at some point, the ink where the blue lines used to be blotted out. ‘Dear Pretty Boy, I think you’re pretty. Obviously. That is why I call you that. Obviously. And I’m writing this because...I don’t fucking know why and I’m an idiot.’ That was all that was written there.

The next page had an even shorter message. ‘Dear Princess, I think you’re hot. And I like banging you. A lot. And I’d like to continue doing that for a long ass time’ and that was it.

When Steve flipped to the last page, he noticed the difference. It was smooth, unlike the others. No blemishes on the page, no words scratched out. From the very top line to nearly the bottom, words were written in clean, crisp cursive. The top right corner was dated. June 15th.

‘Dear Steve, I’ve been trying to write this for hours. Turns out, I’m not as good with words as I thought. Guess you’ll just have to deal with that. I wanted to let you know something, and I don’t really know how to say it out loud, so I’m probably going to slip this in your shoe or something when you’re not looking. We’ll see. Anyway, look, you know I like you. And we’ve been fucking around for like 3 ½ weeks now I think, and that’s not a long time. I know. But I’ve liked you for longer. So don’t think I’m crazy for saying what I’m about to say. And don’t you fucking tease me for this cause I’ll still beat your ass, you know that. I’m trying to be honest here. And I’m kind of scared. Because you’re kind of really fucking important, okay? You’re kind of, everything. Everything I’ve got. And I don’t fucking know man. I guess I just really fucking care and I guess I really fucking love you. I really hope this doesn’t freak you out. Just punch me if it does, it’s cool. -B.H.’

Steve’s back slid down the wall, salty tears free-flowing down his face. He figured that something like this would have broken him, but he was actually smiling. His grin spread ear to ear, because it was Billy. He could feel Billy, hear the words being spoken in his voice, see him sitting on his bed trying his damndest to write this letter. He felt him there, with him as he read it. And something inside Steve, ever so lightly, stitched together.

He was still shattered, still teetering on the knife’s edge of normalcy and devastation, but in that moment, he was with Billy.

The door cracked open slowly, the hinges squeaking awfully. He lifted his eyes to see Robin poke her head in cautiously.

“Steve?” When she saw his face, she opened the door more. “You okay?” Steve smiled genuinely for the first time in eight whole months, a soft chuckle coming out.

“No, not at all.” He shook his head and wiped at his face. “But I think I will be.”

[ingayderzim]

not to be that person who asks a googleable question but wtf is hazbin hotel bc i googled it and the only “critical” thing i could find was a typo-ridden article of someone saying it has good animation and its haters are stupid. i was able to glean what it is/what it’s about but idk about the discourse lmao

Im actually so glad u asked this. Here's the lowdown, this is my definitive answer to hazbin shit from here on out, unless new info comes about of course.

Hazbin hotel is an independent cartoon by vivziepop. Most people (that ive seen) have agreed that the pilot of the show really isnt that great but the reason it has so many fans is bc of the entertaining livestreams, massive amounts of canon content produced (she has had these characters for years), unique art style, and the characters. (Ass ugly but unique.)

Its haters are totally justified bc of some of the "controversial" (read: bad) things vivziepop has done. Here's the conclusion that my friends and classmates (several of whom are Black, one Hispanic woman, and one trans woman...nellie if ur reading this i 💜 u) and i came to after discussing this stuff. I am NOT saying "well my black/trans friend said it's ok so i dont have to think about it!" this is based on a few different conversations that my friends and i have had about this topic so what im saying is that my opinion was formed by talking about this situation with multiple people affected by the controversy.

One controversial thing is a drawing u can easily find on google (called beastiality.jpg i believe?) It's a cropped (chest and up, but hes obv naked) drawing of vivziepops character, drawn by vivziepop, moaning, with a snake around him. The character is 17. Many people have interpreted this as child porn. I dont think this image is pornographic, i think it's a stupid joke (it was even tagged as a joke iirc) and completely inappropriate but since it's 8 years old on top of not being porn, i think it's just an example of a dumb drawing. That being said, i would NEVER argue that someone who is uncomfortable w the drawing (im uncomfortable with it! It's gross just not porn) or considers it porn is wrong. They are entitled to that opinion and i would never expose them to vivziepops work or talk about her stuff around them if they expressed to me that they disliked the image.

Another thing is that she drew a doodle of two racist TERFs. This is the one where my friends of color, my friends who are black, and my friends who are trans women took the lead. I sat back for this part and here's their and my opinion on this after talking about it and verbally going through this whole situation.

She was following these women (who had done blackface and stuff) and drew art of them. The art was a "quick doodle" that she did apologize for and she said she didn't realize the extent of their beliefs. She knew they werent great but hadnt consumed much of their content in depth. I believe her bc while ive never followed anyone as bad, ive certainly followed some pieces of shit and didnt notice for months simply bc im not online all the time and bc of the volume of people i follow, combined with the non chronological algorithms lately.

At the risk of screwing myself, im going to admit that there was about a year or so of my life where i enjoyed The Amazing Atheist. I was even subbed to him. I was a nonbinary lesbian (2 things he cant stand lmaoo) in catholic school and therefore i strictly watched his videos about theological stuff since thats what was frustrating me at the time. I had no clue the type of evil racist, transphobic, homophobic (yes ik hes bi), misogynistic things he thought, said, and did, bc i didnt watch those videos. I literally only watched select theological ones that could be of use to me while edgily debating my teachers (sorry mrs macdougal but u had it coming). I was about 15 at the time and im 19 now. Im sorry to everyone i hurt by ever having supported him. I had one of his quotes written in the inside of my religion notebook in high school. I regretted it and ripped the page out the moment i discovered the truth about him. I cant stress enough how much I HATE HIM. Thats an example of what i think happened here tho.

One of my friends who is a trans woman said (paraphrasing) "i think the worst thing shes done is that terf art but i believe the apology especially bc it was a quick drawing."

That being said, i would NEVER argue with someone who wanted nothing to do w vivziepop bc of this. That's their right. 100%. I would never expose them to her work after that.

The last thing i remember is something about a pedophilic couple in a comic but i heard it was a 17 year old and a 19 year old. Im 19 and if one of my peers did that i wouldnt say pedophile but id say ur a fucking weirdo, BUT, the kids were fake and being written by an adult so i can totally see her thinking that age gap is much less of a big deal than it really is. Like she forgot what it's like at this age. Idk how true any of that part is tho, i heard that info entirely secondhand.

Another thing to do with racism is that there's a joke within the show where one character says to the other

"don't get your taco in a twist"

"Was that supposed to be racist or sexist?"

"Whichever one pisses you off more"

I thought that was gross but one of my friends pointed out that vivziepop is of el salvadorian descent so that's her business. Like if i made a lesbian joke of equal or greater offensiveness than that and someone tried to call me lesbophobic over it id be like "that's literally my territory."

Oh speaking of which that character's name is vaggie and shes a lesbian but it's not pronounced w the same G you'd hear in "vagina." Vivziepop seems to name characters weirdly (like how in helluva boss theres a guy named blitzo and the o is silent) so maybe it's a pussy joke but i have no idea.

The animation was.................better than i could do, i wanna say the faces and gestures were good but god i remember there was a part with a car and my gf had to pause so i could laugh my ass off at it. I wouldn't describe the animation as a highlight but i liked the style in motion i thought it was a fun change. Vivziepops style is not appealing imo but i appreciate it as an art student and as someone whose friends all like she ra and steven universe where every character looks the goddamn motherfucking same, and while its chaotic and i dont care for it, the style actually works way better in motion than you'd think.

A good rule that i def use is to assume hazbin fans are guilty until proven innocent. If someone says they dont care about the discourse surrounding it and like it no matter what, RUN! They would support the show even if the creator was in fact a pedophile, or had done the blackface/was a terf herself! They probably support some horrible ppl and are probably "anti antis." A lot of them are minors tho so i'd say block and move on.

So, do i like it or not? Im an art student and all my friends like it so while i didnt think it was funny, i do fuck with it. At the convention this weekend my friends and i had a convo that led to me drawing an ahego hoodie where the faces were angel dust (a character's) face. It was a joke that i could make a killing by selling that in a booth at a con.

Theres really nothing compelling about the show but my friends like it so i join in on their conversations, and i do have a soft spot for angel dust bc he's like a worse, less amazing and gorgeous version of one of my characters, Candy, the love of my life.

A lot of people say the show was edgy/offensive and maybe im just desensitized but besides the taco thing i didnt pick up on that whatsoever??? The Archer episode "Swiss Miss" is worse than helluva boss and hazbin combined and even archer isn't offensive.

Im probably not aware of all the "discourse" (aka people being reasonably uncomfortable by weird and bad shit this random woman has done, and other ppl saying their opinions are wrong when it's literally just an opinion about a show) so if anything she's done isnt included in here it's not to defend vivziepop, this is genuinely all i know. I wouldnt describe myself as a fan of hers.

[lovemesomerafael]

El Amor Todo Lo Puede           Chapter 42:  Teamwork

Source: @rawresparza

Chapters 1-40  Chapter 41

The guy had been weaving his contorted way through every questioning technique they’d tried on him.  None of them had been able to build rapport with him. Threats, promises, and intimidation didn’t work.  Role-playing had failed entirely because he’d seen through it instantly.  He was intuitive in the extreme; he could spot a weakness or sore spot instantly from the slightest clue.  Once he did, he would use it to slash at the person so that, rather than continuing to press the questioning, they would recoil to defend themselves.  It was classic manipulative narcissist behavior, and the squad had been watching him do it successfully for over six hours.  Nothing was working with him.  They were all tired, seriously pissed off at him, and frustrated.  

The worst part was that they knew he was enjoying the game.  He hadn’t asked for a lawyer because any lawyer would have ended the interrogation, and he wasn’t done sporting with them yet.  But they could not stop.  If they let him go, it was entirely likely that they’d never get a hold of him again, and a dead certainty that he would go back to victimizing pretty much every woman who had the misfortune of meeting him.  They couldn’t arrest him without more evidence, so they had to keep him talking in the interrogation room.

Olivia and Carisi shuffled out of the interrogation room, drained and stymied.  

“That asswipe is not gonna give it up,” Carisi griped.  “I say we just toss him out the window, tell the brass he escaped.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Olivia sighed.  “I couldn’t take one more minute in there with that slime.”

“What’s left to try?” Fin asked.  

“I don’t know.  Maybe we need to just give up trying to get him to say anything we can use.  Get him the old-fashioned way, with physical evidence.”

“Abrams doesn’t leave physical evidence.  That’s the problem,” Rafael noted.

“Let’s not give up just yet,” Laura said.  “We’ve been watching this creep for six hours now, and his moves are starting to get predictable.  Plus, you’ve been taking turns with him.  He’s been in there the whole time.  He’s gotta be more tired than we are.”

“I just don’t think we’re gonna get anything out of him,” Olivia said.  “We’ve tried everything.”

Rafael looked at Benson, his head tilted slightly, a nasty smirk suddenly appearing on his face. There was a definite wicked gleam in his eye.  “Not everything.”

He turned to Laura.  “Wanna have some fun?”  

Simply based upon sly, sexy look on his face, Laura would have agreed to absolutely anything.  “What are you thinking?”

“Just follow me.”

He opened the interrogation room door and waved her in.

“Mr. Abrams, I’m Detective Parker, this is Assistant District Attorney Barba.”  They sat down on the other side of the table facing the handsome, well-groomed blond.

“Oh.  Conceding defeat, huh?  The game is lost, so they’re sending in the benchwarmers to get a little practice since they can’t do any harm?”

Rafael raised an eyebrow and directed his words to Laura.  “Clearly doesn’t know baseball or business.  Not familiar with the concept of a closer.”

Abrams sneered. “Parker.  Laura Parker.  Formerly of the Chicago PD.  Been with the NYPD just two years.”

Rafael shrugged.  “On the plus side, he knows how to use Google.”

“You see a computer in here?   Have I had time to look you up since you walked in here?”

Laura, quickly picking up on Rafael’s game, shrugged and leaned insolently back in her chair. “You didn’t have to, you transparent twat.  You’ve been committing sex crimes in New York for, what, ten years?  Any moron who makes a habit of that would have looked to see who might be coming after him.”

Rafael made a note on his legal pad.  “Not as smart as they said he was.”

“You guys fucking?” Abrams asked.

“Also not that creative,” Laura said to Rafael.

“Stupid cunt,” Abrams sighed.

“As I said…”  Laura gestured to Rafael at the predictability of the insult before turning to Abrams.  “You people. You all think you’re so special.”

“’You people’?”

Rafael shrugged. “Manipulators.  You think because you could bamboozle some housewife in Queens, you’re Rasputin.  You’re like the fourth one this week for us, so don’t take it personally if we’re not impressed.”

The slightest ripple of irritation crossed Abrams’s features.  “You’re the A.D.A., huh?  Are you here to offer me a deal?”

Rafael sat immobile. “No,” he said, his face and voice entirely neutral.

Abrams skipped a beat. Not much to grab onto with someone who didn’t speak.  “Hey, man, that’s a hell of a suit.  Etro?”

Again, Rafael simply said in a flat voice, “No.”

“So you watch the obituaries and find yourself a young widow.  You Google her, follow her around for a while, figure out your approach, and go after her,” Laura tried.

Rafael stepped in before Abrams could respond.  “Yawn. Teenagers do that every day to get prom dates.”

Laura continued.  “You bleed her dry, then dump her.”

“Been done by every bleached blonde with fake tits ever,” Rafael sighed, leaning back in his chair.

“She threatens to go to the cops, you stage a break-in, rape and kill her.”

“The plot of every bargain bin mystery novel since Adam.  Exact same story with Michelle Trujillo, Myra Simpkins, and three other women.  What, exactly, is supposed to be so special about you?”  

Abrams didn’t like the way there were two conversations going on, one of which was about him but didn’t involve him.  And he definitely didn’t like the attitude of these new assholes.  “Well, obviously they thought I was special, they couldn’t get enough of me.  They wanted to show their appreciation so they gave me gifts.  Want me to show you what’s special about me?”  He leered at Laura.

“To quote my friend here, no.”  She answered.

“So what exactly makes a snotty little bitch like you want to work sex crimes?  You a prude?  Can’t stand the idea of anyone having a good time while you’re home with your cats?” He squinted at her and leaned across the table, getting closer to Laura as he spoke.  “Actually, no.  That’s not it.  I think it’s the opposite.  You get a front row seat to the sickest shit people can do to each other, and you get off on it.  Tell me something, did you see those disgusting pictures your friends were waving around earlier?  Do you email yourself copies of those kinds of pictures so you can enjoy them later, when you’re all alone?”

“Bored now,” Laura said flatly.  

Abrams made a disturbingly lewd gesture.

Rafael asked the next question without either of them reacting to what Abrams had done. “Where’s the money?”

“What money?”

“Ah.”  She looked at Rafael, as though Abrams’ question had spoken unintended volumes.  “It’s gone. Spent it all.”

“Not all,” Rafael disagreed, as though contemplating the ways a fool like this could squander money.  “Maybe spent half on clothes, and lost the rest gambling.”

“I’m thinking he spent a fair amount on hair products,” she replied, the angle of her gaze making it clear that she was talking to Rafael.

Abrams fumed, the superiority and amusement in their faces and voices having exactly the intended effect. He was really starting not to like the snarky conversation about him taking place as though he wasn’t there.

Rafael turned to Abrams. “You better have another housewife lined up, then.”

“Poughkeepsie this time?” Laura suggested.  “You could probably find someone naïve and desperate enough to buy – “ she raised her hand up and down to indicate him.  “What you’re selling.”  

Rafael and Laura could both see Abrams’ anger.  He turned to Rafael to give himself a moment to regroup.  “She’s a piece of work.  Got a mouth on her.  You have to work with her all the time?  You better keep that mouth busy, brother.  If I had to listen to that every day, I’d…”

“Stage a break-in, rape and kill her.  We know,” Rafael finished for him, rolling his eyes in disdain as only Rafael could.

“You know, I was right about you,”  Abrams put an arrogant smirk on his face as he crossed his arms.  Only the tightness of his posture belied the crumbling control behind his fake contempt.  “You really are the practice team, aren’t you?  Your friends at least tried to get me to talk.  You’re not even doing that.  Lemme guess, you just here to make it look like the NYPD hasn’t given up. You’re pathetic.  This isn’t even fun anymore, I think I’m losing IQ points just from being in the room with you.”

Laura and Rafael both knew they had him at that point.  His insults had been much subtler and more pointedly specific earlier in the day. Laura put her elbow on the table and rested her head on it listlessly.  Rafael began to doodle on his legal pad.

“You really are a hopeless dyke.  Why don’t you get on your knees and at least make yourself useful?  Even you oughtta be able to follow some simple directions. C’mon, get over here and suck me, then this day won’t be a total loss.  Maybe I’ll even bend you over this table and treat you to an ass-fucking you won’t –“

Laura rolled her eyes, sat back in her chair, and began to pantomime male masturbation with a disinterested expression.  Fortunately, that pushed Abrams over the edge because Rafael couldn’t hide his shocked amusement at seeing her make such an unexpected and vulgar gesture.

Abrams lunged across the table at her.  “You fucking cunt!  I’ll gut you, bitch!  I’ll show you what a man can do – “  

As he reached for her throat, as she’d expected him to, she took one of his wrists in both her hands and came around the table as she twisted his arm up behind him.   She kept his arm in one hand and used the other to push his head down on the table.  Rafael had expected him to snap, as well, so he simply stood up to make sure he could react if necessary.  

“Yeah?”  Laura sneered in Abrams’ ear.  “What man?  All I see is you.  No wonder you have to go after lonely widows in the ‘burbs.”

He reared back, throwing her off-balance and backward, which gave him the opportunity to whip around and grab her by the throat.  He didn’t see her motion behind him for Rafael not to interfere.  “You’ll be begging me to kill you when I’m done with you!”

Laura clasped her hands together and, with the strength of both arms, drove her elbow under his chin, surprising and momentarily stunning him.  As she expected, he was so enraged that he let go of her throat so she could gulp some air, and drew an arm back to punch her.  He was big and very strong, but that only meant she was much faster than he was.  She simply moved aside so that he drove his fist full-force into the grating over the window.  He roared with pain and fury, and began blindly swinging.  He did catch her on the side of the head, but due to the angle of the blow, it had nowhere near the power he was capable of.  

“This is it?  How the hell did you kill those women when you’re this weak and slow?”  

She let him grab her around the waist and wrestle her to the floor.  “I’ll tell you how, bitch, those broads had no idea who they were dealing with. They were all, ‘oh, Neil, what are you doing, don’t hurt me!’  I didn’t even have to tie them up – just fucked the brainless cows while they whined about how they loved me.  I had my knife in them before they even realized it was really happening!  You, now, you’re gonna be more fun, you got a little fight in –“

At that moment, having baited him into confessing, Laura relaxed her arms and legs.  She had been holding them spread just enough that he would think he had her in a firm grip.  When she relaxed them, she had a split second to twist violently to one side, putting her in the perfect position to knee him solidly in the groin. It was over at that point, although Fin and Olivia burst into the room.  

Laura crab-walked out off the way until her back rested against the wall, catching her breath and watching Fin cuff and arrest Abrams.  He was still spewing vile threats, but no one was paying much attention.  Fin escorted him from the room to be booked, a tired but amused grin on his face.

Olivia crouched down to check on Laura.  Rafael stood behind him, concerned but fairly confident she was not badly hurt.

“You OK?”

“Of course.”

“Nice job,” Olivia said.

“Not really.  You knew he had to be tired.  All we did was poke him until he went off.”

Rafael smirked. “Anytime you need to piss someone off, Parker’s your girl.”

Laura laughed out loud as Olivia helped her to her feet.    

“I wouldn’t take bets on the outcome of a contest between you and me in that area, if I were you.”

For the first time in four months, Rafael and Laura stood simply smiling at one another.

[michael-hearteyes-wheeler]

Movie Night

Hey Everyone! So this is the first oneshot of my new series. Its all based on an au where The Losers Club and The Party are childhood friends. Its going to be sweet and sappy, and explore the hilarity that would come from having all thirteen of these teens living in one town (and more or less all living at the Byers house).

Hope you Enjoy! And Check out @losers-party​ for headcanons based on this verse. (Read on AO3)

“Are you sure we can trust you with this?” Stan crosses his arms, looking down his nose at Richie.

When the prospect of a movie night was suggested, the entire Byers home excitedly debated potential films and genres. After much bickering, Richie ‘graciously’ offered to walk to the blockbuster himself. It seemed like a good idea, but Stan was unconvinced of his motives being pure.

“Aw come now Stanley! I'll make sure to pick something brilliant.” Richie, chuckling through his famous british guy and winking.

“Ugh I'll go with him.” Max groaned, rolling off of the couch.

“So that you can get some cheesy gore fest? No thanks. I'll go.” Mike W sighed, rising from the floor next to El and Will.

“Why don't you all just go.” Joyce offered, emerging from the kitchen with a smile that said ‘its not an option’. Mike and Max shrugged, and joined Richie on the lawn.

It was the perfect day for a walk, so no one bothered to grab their wheels. Even Max left her board at home. The blockbuster hadn't been open long, but the kids frequented it enough to know the best shortcut, and for the bored store clerk to know them by name. Mike debated between The Goonies, and The Breakfast Club for awhile before getting both. Max slipped in line behind him and cleverly hid the title of the undoubtedly horrifying movie she picked. The two of them waited outside, taking in the afternoon sun, waiting for a suspiciously long time for Richie to finish finding his movie. It probably was for the best that he didn't go alone, because when asked, he only smirked in reply and clutched the black plastic bag tighter to his chest.

Back at the house, Dustin and Ben were back from their own trip to the supermarket for snacks. Dozens of boxes of candy, bottles of soda, and cookies from the bakery lined almost the entirety of the Byers kitchen counters. The smell of burnt popcorn seeped out from the open windows and filled the yard at they walked up the dirt driveway.

After some bickering over who got which box of candy, who got to take the couch, and who got to sit where, it was almost sunset. Max and Richie whispered and giggled with one another as they hid there vhs tapes, and squeezed into the weathered armchair.

Mike W ignored them and decided to play The Goonies first. It was one they had rented before, but the magic of the film, and the inspiring group of kid characters was all too familiar. It felt like a life each of them had lived.

Mike W, El, and Will crowded the couch next to Joyce. Dustin emerged from the kitchen with the last of the bowls of popcorn and found an open place on the floor next to Lucas and Ben. The coffee table had been pushed against the far wall long ago, leaving room for the tangle of blankets and pillows that seemed to permanently litter the living room floor. Thirteen teenagers crammed together, eyes transfixed by the movie on screen, laughing at jokes they had heard dozens of times before.

Stan and Mike H held hands under a warm blanket. Bill doodled absentmindedly in a sketchbook while Bev leaned her head on his shoulder. Dustin and Lucas tossed popcorn back and forth before Hoppers booming voice filled the room.

“Hey, if you are going to have a food fight then you need to actually clean it up.” The police chief got home just as the credits began to role for the first movie, and an inky blue night sky settled outside.

“Oh like you didn't start the last one.” Bev teased, turning to look up at him.

“And I won too.” Jim winked, leaning over the back of the couch to kiss Joyce's head and ruffle El’s. All he had to do was snap at the giggling kids in his chair to send them to the floor. “What’s playing next?”

“I grabbed The Breakfast Club.” Mike stood to change the tape, stepping in between the unoccupied spots on the floor.

“Actually, now that it's dark, I thought we could watch something a bit more... thrilling.” Max smirked, unearthing her secret movie pick. Dr. Terrors House of Horrors. A horribly dated looking and well loved box cover depicting the classic style of 1960’s horror.

“God Max! I knew you would pick something messed up!” Mike sighed, but reluctantly let her play the movie. He could see where this was going, so he pulled Will’s hand and dragged the smaller boy into the dining room. Neither being a big fan of horror, whenever Max got her way they would settle for finding something else to occupy their time.

As the sounds of sweeping orchestral music played from the tv set, Mike grabbed the scrabble set from the shelf. Everytime a shriek from on screen made the smaller boy flinch, Mike would grab his hand or make him laugh by placing down a ridiculous word. Mike was no scrabble champ, at least not compared to Stan or Max, but he was good enough to keep Will’s attention away from the gore on screen.

After the first act, Stan and Mike H joined them at the table. Stan looked practically woozy from scenes that were making Max and Richie cackle with delight. It didn't take long for him to get in the zone however. Playing words like ‘Foliage’, ‘Oxazepam’, and ‘Philanthropist’. They had an unspoken rule to not even bother keeping score if Stan was playing (although he kept his own score in his head). One round turned to three, and then five, and then they lost count. Giggling and sipping sodas and ignoring whatever was happening in the living room.

Eventually the numbers in the living room dwindled. Ben and Bev decided to leave to one of the back rooms when they had been aggressively shushed for the last time. Bev thumbed through a magazine while Ben put his New Kids on the Block tape in Jonathan’s old boombox.

Eventually Lucas joined them too. Not even lying shoulder to shoulder in between Max and Dustin could save him from the headache all the screaming was causing. Lucas really enjoyed spending time with this quiet couple. Lucas curls up at the foot of the bed and flips through a stack of comic books, making sure to share his favorite panels with the other two. Ben has his nose buried in a journal. He keeps sneaking glances up at the other two on the bed, and Bev takes notice. Part of her wonders if he is writing another poem, and the way he curls the edge of the journal up to block her view, she thinks he might be. She blushes at the thought.

Some point later they can hear the stomping of a sleepy Hopper make his way to bed. As well as the giddy laughter of the board game turning into more of a ‘lets see how ridiculous of a sentence i can make’ game when Bill and Dustin join the table.

That leaves only Richie, Eddie, El, Max, and Joyce in the living room. Eddie fell asleep some time during the beginning of the movie. Richie runs a lazy hand through his hair while his eyes stay glued on the screen. Joyce smiles out at the group of kids in the dining room, and silently wishes Jonathan could be here too, as well as those two terrific partners of his.

Stan and Mike H get up to get ready for bed after Stan realizes his nightly routines have run a few minutes behind. Not long after, a sleepy Will shuffles back to his room as well, followed slowly by the others one by one. Mike W collects El from the couch and walks with her to Will’s room that has more or less become a community slumber party room.

Mike H comes back out and scoops up Eddie, carrying him to his sleeping bag with a smile. The chatter in the house quiets to only a few hushed whispers as one by one the kids drift off to sleep.

Once the movie ends, Max drags herself to curl up in between Bev and Lucas on the small bed, certainly only meant for one person.

“Are you tired?” Joyce smiles down at Richie, the only person left on the mass of blankets in the darkened room.

“Not really. You up for one more movie?” He swaps out Max’s tape for his own and Joyce nods.

“What do you have in store?” Joyce smirks. It has become a secret tradition between the two near-insomniacs. Richie makes a game out of finding the strangest movies in the ‘foreign’ section. Whatever has the most interesting box art, or the most obscure description.

“It's called ‘The Holy Mountain’. Its spanish, from 72, but the back said that it isn't for the faint of heart. I figured we could handle it.” Richie took his seat next to Joyce on the couch and let the film play.

Usually Richie feels the need to make jokes during movie night (much to everyone's chagrin), but that need is never present with Joyce. Her unceasing understanding and patience. It's like she just gets him, no strings attached.

Inevitably, the droll of spanish lulls him to sleep. Slumping against the arm of the couch with his glasses falling crooked. He never remembers it, but he always wakes up in his sleeping bag next to Eddie.

Movie nights don't get to happen as often as they all might like. Given their various schedules and after school activities, but it's always a reminder of what they are. A family. Strange and often chaotic, but full of love and acceptance.

[blah-blah-stranger-things]

The Monk (Chapter 2/2)

Chapter 1

ao3 (featuring slightly better formatting)

“A Monk. One of those quiet-types with robes and fancy handwriting?” Hopper looks at Wheeler skeptically.

“It’s not like - no, not a medieval monk. They’re like...”

“Monks believe in perfecting themselves, physically and spiritually, in pursuit of enlightenment,” Dustin advises sagely, balancing potato chips on four of his fingertips.

“And that sounds like me to you, huh?”

“Um - yeah, of course it does,” Wheeler responds cheerily. Hopper’s going to pretend he doesn’t notice the glance at his stomach, because otherwise one thing will lead to another, and at the end of the day he understands that it’s never ok to beat up a child.

“They also believe in punching people real hard in the face,” Lucas adds dryly.

Hopper tilts his head. Alright, he’ll give them that one. “And this role, or whatever - that determines what I can do?”

“Your class. And yeah, kind of,” Wheeler replies, turning one of those massive rulebooks toward him. “They determine your hit dice, and your ability set, and how much experience you need for certain effects, and what - ”

“Whoa, whoa, ok. Slow down. You promised me I wouldn’t have to look at any charts.”

Wheeler looks disappointed for a moment, but then shrugs as if to say ‘your loss.’

“So. Monk,” Hopper resumes. “That’s the closest thing this game has to a cop?”

Nobody responds for a couple of seconds. Dustin becomes very interested in his hat, Lucas starts idly tapping Max’s jeans with his pencil’s eraser (she grimaces affectionately; Hopper hadn’t known that was something a person could do), and Will concentrates intently on a doodle he’s been sketching in the corner of his character sheet. “Sure,” Mike says eventually.

Hopper glances at El, who shrugs shyly without making eye contact. “Do me a favor, kids,” he says after a moment. “Don’t ever commit a crime that requires you to lie to the police. It’s not your strong suit.”

El has the decency to look embarrassed, but Wheeler just scratches the back of his head. “Well - ok, maybe technically there’s another class that’s more like a police officer. But it’s taken.”

“You can’t have more than one of each?”

“Well you could, I guess, but... we don’t.”

Of course they don’t. “Ok. So which one is it. I assume it’s not maestro over there - ” Dustin waggles his eyebrows helpfully. “ - or red’s made-up speed demon, or El’s witch.”

“Mage,” El corrects gravely.

“Right. So that leaves the clerk, or - ”

“Cleric,” Will says, crossing his arms. Jesus, kid can glare as good as his mother when he wants to.

“ - or bandana over there.”

“Lucas is a Ranger. And no, it’s not any of those.”

“Well,” Hopper concludes patiently, “I may not be a math whiz, but I’m pretty sure that’s all five of you. There some invisible player here I don’t know about? Bad manners not to introduce a guest to the host, kid.”

“Um, hello?” Wheeler says. “There’s six of us here.”

Hopper frowns. “I thought you were the, uh. The Dungeon Master.”

“Right now, sure. We trade off sometimes, though.”

“Yeah but Mike’s the best at it,” Will notes matter-of-factly. In response Wheeler does his best not to look cocky, which isn’t saying much.  

Dustin gives a half-shrug. “Eh, for stories. Lucas still kills it when it comes to running tactical scenarios.”

“And yet he couldn’t stalk for shit,” Max laments teasingly, flicking Lucas’s temple, who flinches and grins. (Hopper decides he doesn’t want to know.)

“Anyway - I’m a Paladin, which is probably the closest thing to law enforcement. But I mean that’s just based on specs and general outline. Really backstory is more important, and Monks have to be Lawful, which fits the police, right?”

Hopper smells bullshit - exhibit A, there’s no goddamn Paladin in the group at the moment, and since he doesn’t expect he’ll be investing in a set of mutated dice anytime soon why the hell does it matter if he plays one - but whatever. He’s doing this for El. Stop arguing and get it over with, Jim. “Fine. But let me state for the record, you’re missing out on a real bonding opportunity, Wheeler. Don’t you think El’d love it if her two favorite men had matching classes?”

El smiles widely and Wheeler looks embarrassed, so as far as Hopper’s concerned he’s 2 for 0.

“Alright, so I’m physically disciplined, I punch people, I’m law-abiding. That enough to get started here or what?”

“Lawful. Different from law-abiding,” Dustin amends in what Hopper supposes is meant to be a professorial tone.

“How you figure.”

“It’s part of your alignment. I mean yeah, Lawful people usually are law-abiding, but it’s more than that.”

Hopper rubs his temples preemptively. “Alignment.”

“Mhm. Everyone has an alignment. It’s a system on two axes; on the one side you’ve got your Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic, on the other it’s Good, Neutral, and - ”

“I know you’re not showing me a chart but now I’m picturing one in my head, which I’ve decided counts. Why don’t you just... tell me what you all are and I can be that too.”

Will’s gone back to doodling - the kid’s intimidatingly good, even if he puts the timid in intimidating; Hopper feels mildly unsettled when draws dries, sometimes, half-convinced that one day he’ll look over Will’s shoulder and see more of those damn vines spilling out onto the page. Anyway he’s doodling, and doesn’t look up when he replies. “We’re different. Mike and I are Lawful Good, Dustin and Max are Chaotic Good, and El and Lucas are Neutral - ”

“ - Good, yeah, I get it, you’re the good guys. Fine. So I’m Lawful Good?”

“If you want to be. You could try Lawful Neutral if you’re feeling edgy. The law applies to good and evil alike! That kind of thing. Like Judge Dredd, or... man, is there anyone in Star Wars who’d be Lawful Neutral?” Wheeler asks, looking mildly distressed.

“It’d be lost on me anyway, kid,” Hopper reassures.

“Inspector Javert’s Lawful Neutral,” Dustin provides.

Hopper grunts; he took Sara to see that show, once, when she was too little to understand much of what was happening. “You never struck me as one for musicals.”

“What? I have a soft spot for Les Mis. My mom likes it. Besides, I am a Bard. I dreaaaamed a dreaaaaam in time gone byyyyyyy - ”

“Just - god - please. Don’t,” Hopper pleads quietly.

God spurns him. Will joins in without looking up from his doodling, forehead creasing with due melodrama. “When hoooope was hiiiiiigh and liiiiiife worth liviiiiing. I dreaaaaamed that loooove would never dii - ow!” the boys say simultaneously as Max and Lucas, perfectly choreographed, smack them upside the head. At least El’s laughing.

“So can we get started or - ” Hopper and Mike both say, overtop each other.

El laughs harder.

Yes, though, it turns out, they can.

“Unbeknownst to the party - unbeknownst even to Ariybar himself - there’s another witness to the dark proceedings underway in the ritual chamber. A tall man with a hard gaze lurks just outside the secret doorway, having followed the brave adventurers here at the behest of the Order of the Golden Shield. The Order, a band of warriors dedicated to seeking justice across the land, sent their top operative - known only as Chief - to ensure the safe return of the princess, given - um - some... creative solutions, that this particular group has been known to employ on occasion.”

“Look,” Dustin interjects, “if that goat hadn’t looked at me funny I never would have had to - ”

“Would you shut it about the goat already,” Lucas hisses. “Besides, he’s probably talking about the time El first discovered her powers and almost burnt down the entire Enchanted Forest.”

El makes a face at him. “Better than Doomstoll.”

“Yeah, Lucas. I don’t remember El spending half an hour flirting with a young maiden who turned out to be a kobold in disguise,” Will teases.

Max raises an eyebrow.

“In my defense,” Lucas says, holding up his hands, “Mike said she was hot.”

“Yeah? What’d she look like?”

“Oh you know. Dark hair, petite. Dainty. Just how I like ‘em,” he says with a grin. Max shoves him.

“Yeah except actually she looked like if a wet rat had sex with a lizard,” Dustin notes. “Not sure what that says about you Max.”

“Doesn’t say anything about me. Just shows how pitifully desperate this nerd used to be.”

“Guys can we focus here? - So, Chief, you’re listening in and have just heard Ariybar explain his plan. It’s clear from the way the runes along the wall are reacting that his ritual is about to begin. What do you do?”

Hopper finds himself feeling surprisingly nervous all the sudden, and it doesn’t help that they’re all staring at him expectantly. “Do I get choices, or something?”

Wheeler shakes his head. “You can do anything you want. As long as it doesn’t go against the rules.”

He grunts. “So the Dungeon Master is Lawful, is what you’re saying.”

Wheeler smiles. “What do you do?” he repeats.

Hopper glances at El, who nods encouragingly. “I, uh... do I have a gun?”

“What do you think,” Wheeler responds, looking unimpressed.

“Ok, fine. A weapon?”

The Dungeon Master taps his fingertips against the cover of a rulebook, mouth twisted in thought, before he picks up a die and rolls it. “Yeah, ok. Traditionally Monks don’t rely on weapons and armor, but we’ll say you’ve got a knife with you. You’ll do more damage with your fists, though, if you decide to attack.”

“Does he have Quivering Palm?” Dustin asks excitedly.

“What? No. That’s level 13 and above.”

“Yeah, but he’s older. More experienced.”

“Age doesn’t matter when it comes to level.”

“Yeah, I know, but...”

“No. Overruled. He’s the same level as the rest of you.” Kid takes to authority a little too well, Hopper thinks with a frown. And judging by the impish smile his daughter’s sending Wheeler’s way, she likes it.

“So where’s everyone standing, relative to me,” he interrupts, before his mind can start going all sorts of bad places.

“Ok - the party is about 15 feet into the room. Ariybar is hovering a foot or so off the ground about 10 feet in front of them. Here,” he says, pulling a board of sorts out into the center of the floor space, “we probably should’ve set this up earlier. Each square is 5 feet by 5 feet. With your speed you can move 30 feet per combat round - but we’re not in combat yet, so, ignore that for now. Uhh so this one’s Ariybar,” he says, picking up a statuette of a gnarled little creature and placing it on the board. “And here’s Will, El, Max, Lucas, Dustin... and this one’s you.”

The figurine he chooses is a ripped old bald guy with a big stick. Kind of like if Gandhi had decided to skip the hunger strikes and spent all his afternoons at the gym instead. “And he doesn’t know I’m here yet.”

“Right.”

Hopper scratches his neck, realizes he missed a spot shaving. Eh, it’s the weekend. “How long until this ritual thing is complete?”

“You don’t know. You’re not a caster.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You don’t need to be a caster to know about spells,” Dustin contests.

“Yeah, but this is a unique ritual.”

Lucas makes a face. “That’s weak. He didn’t get to pick his backstory or skills, how do we know he doesn’t have a knowledge concentration or something?”

“Because he doesn’t!”

“Weak.”

“Well - Ariybar’s an illusionist. So an arcane caster,” Will notes. “A Monk might know about divine magic, but probably not arcane.”

“Thank you,” Wheeler says, as Dustin and Lucas both appear to reluctantly concede, leaning back.

“Wise,” Will reminds with a shy smile, tapping his forehead.

“So are you going to do something, or...” Max prods.

“Yeah,” Hopper grunts, clearing his throat. “Just a couple more questions first.”

Mike toys with something behind his little Dungeon Master wall/board/whatever. “The runes flair dramatically; you get the sense you don’t have much time left. I’ll give you one more question.”

“Just one?”

“Yeah.”

Hopper grunts again, and finds he isn’t above waiting a few extra breaths as the group stares at him expectantly. Dramatic tension, or some shit. He slouches in his chair to get closer to eye level with the group seated on the floor. Also because it’s a Saturday and he’s lazy. “What’s he wearing.”

Wheeler frowns, and Dustin and Lucas glance at each other. Max looks ready to be offended and/or disgusted; El just looks confused.

“ - sorry?” Wheeler replies eventually.

“I said, what’s he wearing.”

“You mean like what equipment he has, or - ”

“Is that how you take it when someone asks you what you’re wearing to the school dance? They want to know if you’re bringing a sword? I mean exactly what I said.”

After a few more skeptical seconds, Wheeler shrugs. “Ok - um, he’s got a somewhat dirty white tunic covered by lightweight leather armor. Brown pants. A cloth belt and muddy boots, and a red robe, undecorated but definitely the best-maintained part of his outfit. There’s a pendant around his neck, a blue stone on a gold chain.”

“And that’s it?”

Wheeler looks uncomfortable for what might be the first time since Hopper got dragged into this mess, and it takes a little effort to keep from smirking. “I mean... that you can see. Yeah.”

Hopper nods. “Alright. Here goes nothing,” he mutters. “I step out into the room.”

“Do you sneak?”

He shakes his head. “Looks to me like someone needs to interrupt him. So I interrupt him.”

Wheeler nods. “Ok. What do you say?”

Hopper rubs at the patch of stubble on his neck. “Uh - so I just say it to you?”

“Yeah. Pretend I’m Ariybar.”

Hopper’s not going to do that, because a teenage supervillain in an argyle sweater isn’t something he’s sure he can take seriously. So he focuses on preparing his response instead. “Stop right there,” he says with as much authority as he’s willing to muster.

“Ariybar’s sinister smirk is interrupted by a confused frown as he looks toward you, and the runes dim slightly. ‘What’s this? Another hapless soul for my master to consume?’”

Hopper’s eyebrow twitches. The kid has a flair for the theatrical, no doubt, but his voices could use some work. “I’m here to stop you,” he says with something like heroism, reevaluating all the choices in his life that have led him to this moment.

“Who the hell are you?” Dustin asks emphatically.

“...what do you mean, who the hell am I.”

“No - my character says that.”

“Wheeler just told you who I was. A Monk from the League of the Gold Medalists or whatever.”

“Order of the Golden Shield,” Mike says impatiently. “Like a police badge?”

“I know he said that,” Dustin resumes, his professor voice on display again. “But you’re not supposed to metagame. ‘What is metagaming,’ you’re no doubt asking yourself. Well, that’s an excellent question, Chief Hopper’s hypothetical internal monologue. Metagaming means acting on knowledge you have as a player but that your character wouldn’t know. It’s like cheating.”

“So in addition to knowing all the stuff in those books you also have to not know things to play this game.”

“Pretty much. So like I said - ‘Who the hell are you?’”

Hopper closes his eyes, rubs the corner of one with his thumb. “I’m from the Order of the, uh...”

“Golden Shield.”

“ - Golden Shield, I was about to say that. I followed you twerps here to make sure you actually got the job done.”

“Are you kidding me? The king doesn’t trust us? After everything we’ve done for him?” Dustin exclaims, affronted.

“I mean, to be fair...” Max says, waving her hand in a circle.

“...ok, so I admit this isn’t our finest moment. But still. I thought we had a bond.”

“‘Fool. All you’ve accomplished is ensuring you’ll share your friends’ fate!’ Ariybar turns his attention to you and begins to cast a spell.”

“Not my friends,” Hopper mutters.

“Everyone’s piling it on today,” Dustin grumbles.

It takes Hopper a moment before he realizes that Will’s holding out a die pinched between two fingers in front of him. “You’ll need this,” the boy says, nodding at Wheeler, who’s flipping rapidly through pages in his rulebook.

Hopper holds out a hand for it, and Will drops it in. Well, he thinks, staring down at the lump of plastic resting on his palm, there’s no going back now. He’s about to lose his nerdginity.

“Roll a Reflex save. - Uh, just, roll that,” Mike corrects when he looks up, before Hopper can ask for clarification.

Here goes nothing.

The die cracks its knuckles against the floor and comes to rest next to an abandoned pretzel stick. “17.”

“Nice. A bright, crackling beam of energy aimed at your chest slices through the air, but as though on instinct you angle your body out of the way in the fraction of a second it takes for the spell to leave his fingertips. The wall behind you sparks and sizzles, burnt at the point of impact.”

“Holy shit, did he just dodge a bolt of lightning?” Max remarks.

“Monks get Evasion as a class ability.”

“Badass,” El says. Oh good. She’s picked up another one.

Granted, it was kind of badass.

“Punch him in the face,” Lucas suggests enthusiastically, but Hopper raises a hand to shush him.

“Wheeler said I wouldn’t know anything about the ritual. What about the rest of you? You can still talk, right?”

Will nods. “El should be able to roll a Knowledge check for it.”

“Good luck,” Lucas mutters.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hopper says, defensively on El’s behalf.

“It just means her character’s, uh... you know, more of an emotionally-driven Mage. Not really the... bookish type.”

El sticks her tongue out at him as she picks a die to roll.

“Ariybar grimaces. ‘Dodge all you want. There’s nothing you do to stop me! In a few moments, it’ll all be over! My master will - ’”

“Yeah, listen, I heard the whole villain rant from the doorway there, so we can skip it, thanks. El?”

“One-two. Plus two. So, one-four. Fourteen,” she corrects when he gives her a look, rolling her eyes. They’ve had several disagreements where she’s made the case that her numbering system makes more sense in the end, an argument he’s found frustratingly difficult to refute - but if she’s going to be out in the world soon, she needs to learn to blend in, and that’s not how one-four-year-olds speak.

“Ok,” Wheeler says, “so you don’t know anything about this specific ritual, but you know an invocation spell like this one usually requires a focus component, and takes about a minute of concentration to cast.”

“So... the focus component is the pendant. Duh,” Max supplies.

Hopper craves a smoke, but the pack is back over on the table, which means not only would he have to unslouch to reach it, he’d have to stand. Meh. “Before your little plot twist back there I’d have made a comment about how stupid this guy is to wear an important part of his plan around his neck, out in the open like that. But I figure it must be rigged or something. That’s a thing, right? Magic booby traps or whatever?”

“It’s possible,” Dustin agrees.

“Ok. Then I pull out that knife you said I have.”

“Ariybar smirks. ‘You expect to take me down with that?’”

Hopper rubs his nose. “No. But I think it’s going to get me that little bauble around your neck.”

“‘Ha! Do your worst, hireling! This chain can’t be cut by any blade, let alone a common - ’”

“I circle round to Red and put the knife against her neck.”

“Whoa, what the hell,” Max exclaims, wide-eyed, and the rest of the group’s comments blend into the kind of cacophony Hopper usually associates with interruptions to bingo night down at the church on Thursday nights, whenever he’s called into to stop two octogenarians from tearing each other’s hair out.

“‘What are you - what are you doing?’ Ariybar demands.”

“Well,” he says, crossing his arms, “as I understand it your plan hinges on taking control of the, uh, Zoomer here. Seems like all our problems go away once she’s out of the picture.”

“Dad!” El hisses; there’s no affection in the word this time. He ignores her.

“‘You... you wouldn’t dare take an innocent life!’”

“Hey,” he shrugs, “they’re the Good guys. I’m the Neutral guy.”

“Ariybar stops levitating, feet touching the ground as he approaches you, hands raised. ‘Let’s - let’s be reasonable. Surely we can come to some arrangement. One where you don’t need to kill an innocent girl.’”

“Uh, my character’s a woman, thank you very much.”

“God Mayfield that’s not the point,” Wheeler says, either as himself or as Ariybar, Hopper can’t decide.

“Like I said,” Hopper interrupts, “this knife’s gonna get me that stone. Hand it over, and I’ll let her live.”

“Ariybar hesitates. After a moment, he reaches behind his neck and unfastens the chain, and then slips the pendant off. He plays with it a moment before slowly approaching and extending a hand to give it to you.”

“I keep my knife to her throat as I reach out to take it. Uh, I say, ‘Any funny business and she’s a goner.’” Jesus, he sounds like a 40s movie gangster. “‘You saw how fast I moved back there; don’t think my hand is any slower.’ - That’s, uh, true, right?” he asks as an aside. Dustin gives him a thumbs-up.

“Ariybar scowls and drops the stone into your hand.”

“Good. Now back off.”

“He does.”

“Woo-hoo!” Lucas cheers. “Nice thinking, Chief.”

Hopper twists his mouth and studies Wheeler, who’s managing a decent poker face. “Gave it up too easily,” he mutters in reply, and then, experiencing a sudden burst of energy, sits up nearly an entire half an inch. “Is there a way to be sure this thing isn’t another illusion?”

“You can roll to disbelieve it.”

He does, using the same bulky die as before when directed. “19.”

Lucas makes a noise. “Damn, man. Talk about beginner’s luck.”

“You can’t be 100% positive your attempt worked, but you feel confident that the stone you’re holding is real. It pulses with an otherworldly heat; magic is definitely flowing through it.”

“If I have quick hands, does that mean I have quick fingers? You know, uh, like...”

“Sleight-of-hand skills?” Wheeler asks. Hopper nods. “Sure. I think that’s reasonable.”

“Alright. Then I’m going to lower my knife and walk around behind the rest of the group. Will, do you still have that sack you were carrying around earlier?”

Will is wide-eyed and more animated than Hopper’s ever seen him; he’s been that way all day, not included play breaks, every time Hopper’s looked up to check in on the story. Uh - on the players, he means. Anyway, it’s kind of adorable. “My satchel? Yeah. It’s pretty full, though.”

“That’s fine. I’m gonna sneak the stone into the top of the bag as I pass by.”

“Ok. Give me another d20 roll.”

“11.”

Half the party groans, and for a second Hopper assumes he’s failed the roll or something. He reevaluates when El, smiling widely, leans forward to give the slightly pinkening Wheeler a peck on the lips.

“Every. Single. Eleven,” Dustin complains.

Hopper grimaces. “Maybe cut the PDA while I’m playing,” he suggests firmly. He tries his best not to get too overbearing-father-figure with El these days, especially when it comes to Wheeler - part of him does feel guilty for keeping them separated for a year, and an even deeper part of him has internalized the sting of El’s recitation of numbered days, the terrible realization that, at least on some occasions, she saw him as a warden more than a protector - but that doesn’t mean he won’t enforce boundaries where appropriate.

El shakes her head at him, though, still looking giddy. “Tradition,” she states plainly, and directs her smile at him.

It’s not fair that she can melt his heart with a look like that. His heart is supposed to be a big, hairy, manly heart, a heart like weathered concrete, and, you know, a whole bunch of other clumsily mixed metaphors. (His physician has other adjectives for it, but that’s neither here nor there.) He mutters something unintelligible and turns his attention back to the game. “So...”

Mike unflusters himself. “Yeah. The stone goes in without incident.” He makes a roll behind his wall/shield/screen.

“Good,” Hopper says. “Now all that’s left is for you to release these... adventurers, and point me in the direction of the princess.”

“You said you crossed the room?” Wheeler confirms.

“Uh... yeah, I guess I’d have to, right? If I went behind Will?” He moves Buff Gandhi to a new position on the board.

“Then Ariybar mutters an incantation and the runes flash white. Give me another d20 roll.”

“...4.” Beginner’s luck, huh.

“The light fades and you find yourself in the same state as the others, frozen in place.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dustin sighs.

“ - I mean, is anyone surprised?” Lucas asks with frustration. “What exactly was your plan, here? You basically gave up your hostage, which was the only thing stopping him from...” He trails off as Hopper fixes him with a death glare.

Ariybar picks up for him, though. “‘You arrogant fool!’ Ariybar exclaims, approaching you.” Wheeler has a cocksure smile on his face, and Hopper has another urge to exercise his Monkly proclivities for introducing smug looks to closed fists. “‘Assuming I’d just let you leave, even after you abandoned your advantage? After I’d given you my pendant?’ He cackles and crosses to Will.”

“I bare my teeth at him,” Will says, demonstrating with feeling.

“He reaches into your pack. ‘And this - this was supposed to fool me? This stone is bound to me; I would know its precise whereabouts even had you carried it halfway around the world!’ He pulls out the stone and backs away.”

Max shakes her head. “Damnit. I really thought we had him there, for a minute.” She kicks the side of the couch. “Well. Nice knowing you, everybody.”

“Still think you made it too damn hard,” Dustin mutters at Wheeler.

“Well the last three sessions you said everything was too easy! What was I supposed to - ”

“Come on, guys,” Will says, with the weary determination of a boy who has seen things. The thought occurs to Hopper as something humorous, at first, until he remembers that of course Will has seen things, felt things, lived through things, beyond anything he can really understand. “The Chief did a great job giving us a second chance. There must be something...” he says, though it’s more of a plea than anything else.

“No one’s saying he didn’t,” Lucas assures. “But we’re all paralyzed, now. Unless another one of our parents has been secretly listening in outside and decides to join in, I’m pretty sure we’re well and truly screwed.”

“The runes turn green again as Ariybar lifts off the ground; judging by the intensity of the light, he’s picking up where he left off.”

El looks at Wheeler pleadingly, who looks pained for a moment before he bites his lip and shifts his divider to block her gaze. By the time she turns that gaze to Hopper, it’s only gotten more intense. “We have to do something!”

He keeps his focus on Wheeler, stone-faced.

The kid glances around the faces of the others - apologetically? To check for last-minute strokes of genius, maybe - before he takes a deep breath and announces, “The green of the runes becomes absolutely toxic and pulses once, twice, three times, then fades to lifeless black. ‘IT IS DONE!’ Ariybar announces, cackling wildly as he settles to the floor. Max, that sinister energy you felt earlier consumes you entirely - hundreds of souls enslaved to your will, and beyond them a looming darkness in the back of your mind: your father, the Tyrant, ready to receive them, to be - ”

Hopper clears his throat. “I can talk, right?”

Mike frowns. There’s silence for a second or two as everyone pulls themselves out of the moment. “...I mean... yeah. I guess. Everybody else could, so...”

“Good. Zoomer, do me a favor, would you, tell this guy to shut the hell up?”

Max frowns. Everybody frowns. “...I don’t...” She glances uncertainly at Lucas, then at Wheeler, then at Hopper. “What do you...”

Hopper sits up so that he can lean forward, resting his elbows on his knees and interlacing his fingers. “Will, remind us what the last item you put in your bag was?”

Will creases his brow, looks decidedly confused. “Um...”

“I’ll help jog your memory. Unless I’m mistaken, it was right after you all found that scrap from the princess’s dress.”

Will blinks. “In the back of the amulet shop. Yeah, that’s right. I picked up one of the amulets so that we could test...” His eyes widen.

“That’s right. You did. To test its effects, or something. And I seem to recall that this - what was it he called me? Arrogant fool? - that this arrogant fool said anyone who’s touched one of these amulets would be under the Zoomer’s control as soon as his ritual finished. Your pack was pretty full, and that amulet you picked up would’ve been on top. Poor guy should’ve worn gloves. But we know he didn’t. Wheeler said he’d described everything Ariybar was wearing.” Hopper lets the smirk he’s been sitting on creep out onto his face.

Max blinks. “Stop talking!” she shouts suddenly.

Hopper blinks back, until he realizes she’s addressing Ariybar, following Hopper’s advice. Wheeler realizes it too, after a minute, and then it’s his turn to blink. “Uhh - um...” He lets out a single, breathy, kind of dumbstruck laugh. “Yeah. - Yeah, ok.

“I guess Ariybar shuts the hell up.”

~

Afterwards there’s laughter and high-fives and a surplus of dessert waffles, in-jokes and anecdotes and way too many sci-fi references. At one point (and, admittedly, with the help of a couple of beers) Hopper finds himself getting a little too involved watching what’s gradually turned into a dramatic reenactment of the group’s last adventure, to the extent that when they slay the big bad he actually lets out the kind of whoop he usually reserves for hometown football games.

Wheeler’s the last to leave, as usual. And, as usual, Hopper can’t help eavesdropping on the extended goodbye.

“That was fun.”

“Yeah - yeah, it was. Sorry if it was weird, bringing Hopper in like that.”

“Mm-mm. It was good. He had fun.”

“I guess so. - You know he was actually pretty good.”

“He’s the best. Like you.”

A break in the dialogue. No mystery as to the cause.

“I’ll radio you tomorrow?”

“Tonight.”

“Deal.” Hopper can hear the smile in Wheeler’s voice.

“Not promise?” He can hear the teasing in hers.

“Can’t hurt to shake things up now and then.”

“Fine.” Another pause. “Deal.”

And then he’s off.

~

End of day the following Monday Flo stops him in the hall as he’s pulling on his jacket. “Chief,” she says, frowning down through her glasses at a piece of paper in her hand.

“What can I do for you, Florence?” he says pleasantly.

She glances up at him skeptically. “You’re chipper.”

“That’s because I’m leaving.”

She makes an unamused noise, which he likes to think means she’s amused. “I was just going over the office supplies requests. Tell me, what do we need - ” she adjusts her bifocals -  “‘polyhedral dice’ for, exactly?”

Hopper glances around the office - no one else around to overhear, thank god - and scratches his chin. “Training exercises,” he answers after a moment, as he pushes past her and out the door, a small smile playing at his lips.

[strangertheory]

Part 2: Breakfast

*Content warning: food/diet and body image insecurities are mentioned in this chapter.

A box sat at the base of the stairs of their front porch between the two dragon statues guarding their house. Will had sculpted the dragons in clay while at art school and Mike had them cast in metal for a birthday many years ago. Some houses have lions or dogs as lawn ornaments: theirs has dragons.

Mike checked the sender's address and hummed happily as he dragged the heavy box into the house.

"Who is it?" Will shouted from upstairs.

"Nobody! Just a package. You'll find out soon enough!" Mike yelled back, opening the box on the kitchen island with a box cutter and fumbling through it, nodding in satisfaction as he confirmed its contents: a spiral notebook decorated with sharpie doodles and labeled "Luncheons & Dragons," a messily wrapped gift box with curling ribbons and extra layers of masking tape wound around it, a rectangular metal tin with a Post-It note on top that read "from Mom," and a gold envelope. Mike gathered everything into a corner of the counter next to the gift that El had wrapped for Will last week, and then went over to the stove to start making breakfast.

Will shuffled into the kitchen, yawning, and opened the coffee cabinet.

"Oh no you don't! I got this. You should sit and relax." Mike scolded, taking the bag of ground coffee from Will's hands and gently elbowing him out of the way.

Will laughed. "I'm not allowed to make coffee?"

"It's your birthday which means I get to do nice things for you like making you coffee. Do you want to open presents while I make breakfast?"

"What's for breakfast?"

Mike grinned. "Coffee, scrambled eggs and cheese, waffles, and I'm making an extra special oatmeal granola and yogurt recipe that I invented. It's got a secret ingredient!"

Will scooted his bar stool closer to the counter so he could reach the presents in the corner. "So I should open these now, you think?"

"If you'd like. Or you can wait until later during the video call with everyone." Mike poured their coffees and then passed Will his mug before adding some creamer to his own. Will glanced at the untouched sugar bowl. "Are we out of sugar? I can add it to the list for our next grocery run..."

"Eh, I was thinking I should cut back." Mike muttered, turning back to the stove top and cracking an egg into the sizzling frying pan.

"Oh. Okay. That's cool."

Mike sighed. "I'm getting an old-man belly. I hate it."

"I like your old-man belly. It's really cute. But whatever makes you happy."

"I don't like it. It's like I'm becoming Jabba the Hutt." Mike jabbed at the eggs, scraping the pan aggressively with the spatula.

Will smirked. "Well don't expect me to dress up as —"

"Ahahaha, no. You think you're so funny."

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Why do you have such a thing against Star Wars?"

"I don't have a thing against it."

Mike started placing breakfast plates next to Will's coffee.

"Dune is better, though." Will winked.

"Hmm. Is that Jonathan's opinion, or yours?"

Mike set a bowl in front of Will proudly. "Reeses crumbles on top of oatmeal and granola and vanilla yogurt. I also added chocolate chips."

Will gathered each ingredient onto his spoon as he swept it along the edge of the bowl.

Mike watched apprehensively. "So? What do you think? How is it? I might have added too much oatmeal, maybe?"

"Mmm! It's great. It's really great." Will shook his head and smiled. "Thanks, Mike. This is a really nice birthday breakfast. Five stars."

"Are you sure there's not too much oatmeal?"

"Mike."

"All I'm saying is I want you to give me any constructive feedback that you have!"

"It's better than Star Wars."

"You flatter me. So are you opening your presents, or what?" Mike glanced eagerly at the pile.

"Yeah! Let's do this." Will smiled and reached for the gold envelope.

Happy 50th, Will! 🎂

For Will's 50th birthday this year I decided to write a Byler-centric Stranger Things fanfiction set on March 22nd 2021. This story will be published here on my blog in five parts.

As I continue to write the story I will keep adding each new part to this thread.

*This fanfiction is intended to be appropriate for Teen+ audiences. There will be references to alcoholic beverages and themed cocktails later on in the story. There are references to covid-19 and the current pandemic and "social distancing," but other than that I made sure that there are only happy things for Will's birthday. I hope you all enjoy!

Part I: Goodbye, Will the Wise

“Mmm...”

Mike Byers threw his arm over an abandoned pillow affectionately and pulled it closer to his chest, mumbling incoherently and smiling.

He was fast asleep.

The alarm clock on the night stand remained silent. Sunlight streamed into the bedroom through the blinds, casting glowing stripes along the art-covered walls and glinting off of the small, metallic figurines along the shelves.

A faint buzzing sound crept through the closed bedroom door.

Mike’s eyes snapped open.

“Shit!”

Mike jumped out of bed and glared at his clock. Panic became confusion as he fiddled with the buttons. Puzzled, Mike ran his hands nervously through his hair and shook his head before dashing out into the hallway.

“Will! Hey! Hey, wait!”

Mike reached the door at the end of the hall and narrowed his eyes at his husband Will Wheeler who was busy standing over the bathroom sink with an electric razor.

“Don’t I get to say goodbye to Will the Wise?”

Will bit his lip and tried (but failed) to suppress a smile. “I shave every single year on my birthday, this isn’t anything new… it’s around the start of Spring, and...”

Mike leaned in and kissed him.

Will’s beard and mustache were prickly against Mike’s nose but his lips were soft. Mike sighed and lingered for a moment, appreciating the scent of shampoo and soap that floated around Will's damp beard and hair after his morning shower. Will kissed him back eagerly. With a playful ‘boop’ of his nose against Will’s, Mike broke the kiss and pulled away with a quiet chuckle. Mike brought his hand up to Will’s chin, teasing the ends of Will’s “wizard beard” gently with his fingers, and grinned.

“Goodbye, Will the Wise. Until we meet again.”

“Gah. Mike, your breath smells terrible...”

“I love you.”

“I know.” Will smirked.

“You are never going to let that go, are you?” Mike shook his head.

"And I love you too! Because I think it should always be said."

Suddenly the doorbell rang, interrupting their banter.

...

Yes, took each other's last names because they're adorable dorks and this is what I want to do with my sweetheart someday. Extra legal paperwork? Who cares. We do what we want.

Part 2 will be published by the end of the day tomorrow! Thank you for reading and celebrating Will's birthday with me. I haven't written any fanfiction in years but I felt very inspired this week. Part 2 will be longer than Part 1, I promise. I just felt that this was an adequate little cliff hanger. 😉

I hope you all enjoy the story!

[toshootforthestars]

A damning, disturbing, infuriating read.

A few notable excerpts from the report by Alice Speri, posted 11 Feb 2018:

The path from school to immigration detention usually goes like this: A teenager, often recently resettled in the United States, gets into some sort of trouble at school. Sometimes, as in Dennis’s case, a fight triggers a criminal charge — making the teen a direct target for removal. Other times, the violation of some school code, official or unofficial, can prompt school administrators to label a teen as a gang member. It could be a shirt of the wrong color, a doodle scribbled on a notebook, lingering a moment too long in a certain hallway, or talking to someone the school has already determined belongs to a gang.

In the absence of a criminal record, it’s not always clear how that information ends up in the hands of police and immigration authorities — but it usually does.

Days, weeks, or sometimes months after the incident that earned them the “gangster” label, teens might find Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials knocking on their doors and detaining them, sometimes transferring them to a facility on the other side of the country — a distinct iteration of the criminalization of youth that some have dubbed the “school-to-deportation pipeline.”

(Dennis) had arrived on Long Island from El Salvador two years earlier, one of more than 8,000 minors who were resettled there after entering the U.S. without a parent or guardian. His mother, who is undocumented and works in a restaurant, had paid $6,000 for a coyote to take him across the Texas border so he could join her and her 2-year-old son, a U.S. citizen, in Hempstead. Laura has two more children in El Salvador, a 9-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. She’s especially worried about the 10-year-old because soon, she said, “the gang will want him to join, or kill him.”

That’s why Dennis fled. He had been living with his grandmother in La Union when a local gang tried to recruit him. After two kids in the neighborhood were killed, he told his mother, “I want to come with you, it’s getting hard here,” Laura recalled. “I wanted to get all my kids here,” she added. “I wanted them to study.”

On Long Island, Dennis kept a low profile. Unaccompanied minors who are released into the U.S. live in legal limbo, and until they receive legal residence, they remain undocumented and potentially at risk of deportation.

His mother cobbled together another $5,000 to pay an immigration attorney to file for his legal residence, which was still being processed at the time of the hallway fight. Dennis liked school, he said, but he mostly liked working with his stepfather, doing construction work on weekends. He didn’t learn much English, and he didn’t make many friends.  “Friends bring trouble,” his mother said.

In fact, as sensationalized accounts of an MS-13 invasion of Long Island started spreading amid a streak of murders, Laura started to worry about gangs there too, though she said things remained much worse in El Salvador. “Here, you don’t see them, you just hear there’s gangs,” she said. Then the school called her about Dennis’s fight, and an administrator told her, “You know how these kids in gangs are, always trying to start a fight.”

“I got scared,” Laura said. In El Salvador, “if you don’t join, they kill you, and here it’s just starting to be the same.” She began driving Dennis to school and picking him up to keep him safe. “My country is dangerous,” Dennis told me. “I didn’t know they’d be here too.”

“Their purpose is, get as many young people deported, regardless of whether any of these gang connections are true or not, whether they’re criminal or not,” said Walter Barrientos, Long Island coordinator with Make the Road New York, a group that works closely with families caught between the dual fears of gangs and ICE.

“In essence, what they’re doing is what they did post-9/11 with Muslim men,” he added. “We just don’t have a Guantánamo; what we have is all these immigration detention centers they’re sending young people to.”

An ICE official in New York defended the agency’s enforcement operations as “intelligence driven.” “HSI does not profile or make arrests with prejudice, but rather uses reliable information gathered through multiple sources which results in the arrest of an individual,” the official said. Operation Matador, the official added, allows the agency a “more proactive approach” — meaning officers can execute administrative arrests, based on alleged gang members’ immigration status, rather than “sit back and wait” for them to commit crimes.

So far, Operation Matador has led to more than 400 arrests of what ICE calls “transnational gang members” on Long Island. Of those, 228 were alleged MS-13 members, about half of whom were taken into custody via administrative arrests, according to the agency.

...Trump and Republican members of Congress weren’t the only ones to seize on the Long Island murders to push for harsher law enforcement and the criminalization of immigrant youth.

Last September, on the first anniversary of Kayla’s and Nisa’s deaths, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo showed up on Long Island pledging “zero tolerance” and statewide anti-gang legislation. He promised to station state troopers in 10 high schools across the island. “Students could come to the state police officer and say, ‘You know, confidentially, I’ve been bullied and I don’t know what to do,’” Cuomo said.

The proposal drew the immediate condemnation of youth advocacy groups, as well as some schools (which were reportedly blindsided by the governor’s move). “This is the exact opposite of what we all wish to see and need,” said Rahsmia Zatar, executive director of STRONG, the organization that runs the anti-gang program that Dennis attended.

Cuomo’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

“When youth of color are dealing with some serious issues, the suggestion is always corrections and incarceration and let’s arrest,” Sergio Argueta, STRONG’s founder, told me in an interview. “The schools are dealing with significant issues. They don’t have personnel that are culturally competent, that can even communicate with these individuals in the same language. They’re oftentimes the most underfunded, under-resourced districts. Clearly the easy release valve for all this pressure is, Oh, let’s get the precinct in.”

That’s problematic enough when the students are U.S. citizens, but for undocumented kids, it can mean a direct line to deportation. Schools don’t share information with ICE directly, but local police departments work closely with federal immigration officials, particularly in the absence of sanctuary policies, which means that information gathered by police officers stationed in schools, no matter how inaccurate, can quickly make its way to immigration officials with little interest in discerning between criminals and everyone else.

“You’re not only suffering criminal consequences, but immigration consequences,” Julie Mao, an attorney with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, told me. “It just becomes a cascading cause and effect, where you have perhaps a school administrator accusing someone of being ‘gang’ based on very thin evidence, and that becomes something that is written and put into that student’s file. Maybe there’s a suspension or some kind of school-related proceeding where there’s a paper trail — that often gets passed to the local police agency if local police is in that school, and then that gets passed on to immigration.”

“So you have these crazy situations where immigrant youth might one day get arrested by immigration, and they go to a hearing to obtain bond and suddenly they’re accused of being gang-affiliated,” Mao added. “And that might relate to something that maybe happened years ago, and they got suspended and some teacher maybe wrote one sentence accusing them of being gang-affiliated, and on that evidence, the immigration judge is now denying your release.”

“It’s not necessarily a top-down policy,” said Bryan Johnson, a Long Island attorney who has represented several youth accused of gang affiliation. “But the school officials are very reckless about the privacy of these students. They’ll share things with the SRO and not even think about what the consequences might be. It goes from the school to the SRO, then the police directly share it with ICE.”