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mxtantrights · 4 years

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˚ · · . · ✵ ✷ ✹ PART TWENTY

HAWKINS, INDIANA

OCTOBER 31, 1984

Jonathan Byers going to a party? Filled with other kids from this school? Unheard of! Unimaginable! Well, unless Nancy was there. I still don't get how this thing works between him and Nancy and Steve but then again

here we are.

With my notebook for math in my hands I shut my locker.

He's standing by my side, his bag over his shoulder. And he's got this look on his face. Like he wants me to talk him out of it. Or come with him. And I'm about to do neither so he better suck it up.

"Jon, I'm actually really proud of you for going to the party."

He starts stuttering as I take off down the hall. He's hot on my trail, a hand on my shoulder to slow me down. "I never said I was going."

"Oh but I think you are." I looked over to him with a knowing smile.

"What about you?"

Million dollar question.

We keep walking until we reach the end of the hall and stop near a wall. His class was down one way while mine was down the other. Ever since the second half of junior year started we've been meeting here whenever we can in between classes.

"I think I'm gonna stay home, pass out some candy, maybe even throw a sheet over myself and call it a costume."

He laughs at that.

"I'm not even gonna stay the whole time. I'll even show up late." He explains to me over the busy hallway. I mean I haven't been to a party since Odessa and even then it wasn't much. Not like how I'm picturing it to be for a Hawkins Party.

The bell rings and he rolls his eyes.

"I'll let you know at lunch- or, wait don't you have to drop off Will tonight?" I ask.

"Yeah he and the other boys are going out trick-or-treating." Once he says that it reminds me that Mickey is not gonna be home with me. And I know my mom is gonna be home. But also my dad will be home. So it shouldn't be too bad.

Maybe keeping my options open wouldn't hurt.

"Alright so either at lunch or at the drop off for the boys, the latest I promise." I begin to walk backwards down the hallway as he does the same.

"Alright Jessie."

"This is becoming a habit for the two of us."

Billy's voice knocks me out of my trance. No I wasn't reading another kids book. This time I was just scribbling down little lyrics in my head in my english notebook. So far everything I've put down hasn't made sense or just doesn't sound right.

I shut my notebook and look up at him.

And of course he's smoking.

"One, it's not. Two, I was serious about the smoking thing. I'll leave." I explain to him.

As I begin to stuff my notebook in my bag I can see him drop the cigarette on the floor and stomp it out. I stop fixing up my bag to leave and lean back against the railing.

"You see?" His voice is laced with a bit of annoyance.

But then again he could just leave me alone and smoke all the cigarettes he wants. He chooses not to do that so it's not my fault.

"What do you want now Billy?"

It was always something with him. I didn't know it when we first encountered but ever since then it's been very evident that he's trying to get into my pants. The way he'd call for me in the hallways, or send a wink my way in the lunchroom, etc. I know other girls are dying to take a ride on the Billy train but I am not.

He sits next to me, knees to his chest and looks my way.

"I was wondering if you were gonna be at Tina's Halloween party?" He asks and lets the question float and linger a little too long. I guess he can read my face and tell that he's not gonna like the answer I have for him.

I shake my head and fake a sigh. "Sadly I wasn't invited. And even if I was I wouldn't go anyways. Not my crowd."

"You come with me and I'll be crowd enough for you honey." That must be his voice that he uses to get all the girls. Any other girl would be eating this up right now. Any other girl probably would have jumped his bones right here on these steps.

I stifle a chuckle as I shake my head once again.

"You know that it's not gonna work right? I cannot be charmed by your womanizer ways?" I question him as I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder. I was getting bored with this conversation and I'd rather be in detention or in class.

I stand up as he chuckles to himself.

I still didn't give Jonathan his answer. At lunch I told him I was still thinking. Even though I was like eighty percent sure I was not going. And most of the reason why was because Billy would be there. I did not need to be hounded by him all night.

Steve sits down in his desk to my left side, handing me his essay as he does. This had to be our third time switching papers. I was tried of it. We've both seen each others papers enough to know that it's either going to drastically change or not at all.

There was nothing left to do.

I place my paper on his desk for him to read as I do the same with his. I think my brain has learned to block out the word basketball at this point.

All of a sudden I hear and see him scooch his chair over close to my side. My face changes with confusion, what the hell was he doing now? If he wasn't watching me like some creeper, he was trying to be my friend. And it was really weird.

"Hey so what are you doing tonight?" He asks.

Why does everyone wanna know what I'm doing tonight?! At this point I'm locking myself in my room with a bowl of candy and my guitar and trying to let this Halloween pass by. I didn't feel like passing by the gory decorations, or being scared by some lame kids.

I shrug my shoulders. "Nothing much. Passing out candy."

He scoffs.

"Ah man, you should come to Tina's Party."

What is going on?!

"You know I keep hearing about it and I don't know if it's really my scene to be partying with a bunch of kids who still view me as an outsider." I explain with a little bit too much detail because I can see the look on his face when I say that last part.

"I don't think you're an outsider." He says and I pass him a look. "Alright so you're not really with the cool kids but so what? It's our last year, who cares?"

"I do Harrington. I don't wanna go to some party and drink out of some stupid keg trying to impress others. I don't wanna dress up in some costume to play who wore it best either." The way that I said it, it came off as mean. I know it did. Because I wasn't thinking about anybody else feelings but my own.

Truth is, I think Steve is not an asshole but a fair guy. He's probably got more going for him than just being the basketball king, and 'the hair' Harrington.

And to lump him in with everyone else who's small minded and probably not going anywhere is mean. To judge him and make assumptions like that is mean. My parents and Dayton taught me better than that.

I see him sit back in his seat with a bit of a frown.

"Sorry. That was mean of me. I just- parties aren't really my thing." I kind of whisper because honestly I can't believe I'm apologizing to him I mean look how far we've come. He doesn't say much but nods his head. "Thanks for considering me not an outsider."

He picks up my paper and holds it in front of his face. "Yeah don't sweat it."

Alright this has to be some sort of elaborate joke or the world is just messing with me. It has to be one of the two I won't except anything else as an answer. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd that more than three people have asked me if I'm going to Tina's stupid Halloween party.

I turn to my little brother with a hand on my hip.

"Why do you think I'd go to a party? Let alone some popular kids party," I put the wagon in park and shift in the drivers seat to face him "and let me remind you that I was 'milk girl'."

Mickey laughs- just has to laugh at me bringing that up. He opens the door without giving me and answer and joins his friends at the cul de sac.

What was the reason?!

Did I have Tina's party tattooed on my forehead?!

I put the keys in the dish bowl and shut the door behind me.

"Honey is that you?" My dad's voice asks from further in the house.

"Yeah it's me dad." I yell back.

I walk pass the dinning room and into the kitchen and see him with a cooking apron on. Not to say he doesn't cook but, usually his shift ends too late. Either my mother cooks dinner or we pick up food from someplace.

He's mixing something in a bowl as he greets me with a kiss to the cheek. "Hey how was school today? Any rad costumes?"

I scrunch my face in disgust. "Rad? Dad your vocabulary is starting to scare me."

He stops mixing and fakes a laugh.

"Oh I heard there's a party going on at some kids house- are you going to that? If you are you know you can't drink. And you can't be home after eleven. And no sex,-"

"First of all," I cut him off "I am not going to that party. I don't really associate with any of the kids there. And secondly, please never- ever- ever in my lifetime talk to me about sex."

He puts the bowl of whatever he's mixing down and turns to me. With both hands on his hips he gives me a stern look. "Look I know it's weird but it's a thing that happens. I mean look how many kids I've got-"

My face scrunches up again. "Dad-"

"Look, okay you're not going to the party. But I need to know that when the time comes that you will be safe, and not just with intercourse I mean with everything." There's a tone in his voice at the end there. He's talking about last year.

I walk up to him and place my arms around him. "I promise dad. I'll be safe."

"Good. You're my little girl you know, I gotta look out for you." He hugs me back.

I lean away from him with my eyebrows shot up high. "How un-feminist of you. I can't look out for myself? I'm just some damsel?"

"Nah, you could never be a damsel. Odessa raised you right, kid."

The pizza got here a few minutes after Mickey came home. It was like the night worked itself out. I didn't have to go to some party. I didn't have to be hounded by Billy. I didn't have to see any gory blood or costumes.

All in all, I think after everything I've been though this has been a good Halloween.

We're all munching down our slices when it hits me.

Where's my mother?

"Dad, when was mom supposed to come home?" I ask him and his face lights up.

He finishes chewing first, thank god. "I forgot to tell you. Your mother had to leave for some work thing. She'll be back in a few days."

I nod my head.

I have a few days worth of time without my mother.

Think of the possibilities!

"So what candy did you score tonight ghost buster?" My dad asks my brother.

He points over to a big sack that sits by the stairs. My dad gushes at him and tells him he did an amazing job. Me? I'm thinking about how I'm gonna get into that stash tonight. My dentist is going to hate me after this.

All in all, good Halloween.

#steve harrington x oc #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #stranger things fic #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #stranger things #Here's part 20!!!#the star designs changed!!!! (I hope someone noticed that lmao)#what do you think?#new schedule??#DAMSEL #also side note I'm writing her dad to be such a dork

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modestmuses-a · 5 years

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5, 6, 11, 18, 21, 23, 26, 30, 34, 35, 43, 50 - ekko

//CAS I ALREADY DON’T SHUT UP ABOUT THIS BOY AS IT IS. WHY WOULD YOU ENCOURAGE ME AND SUBJECT MY FOLLOWERS TO THIS?? i’m gonna have to fuckin readmore this for length because Christ…

Unusual Headcanons | accepting

5. How many blankets / pillows do they like to have on their bed?

One of each. When it’s exceptionally warm out, you can nix the blanket. Although, “blanket” is kind of a strong word for it. It’s really more of a threadbare rag at this point. When it gets cold out, he does think, “Hm, I better replace this,” but then he immediately forgets about it upon waking up and getting on with his day.

6. What do they normally dream about? Nightmares or nonsense?

Thanks to time travel fucking with his circadian rhythm, it’s very rare for Ekko to get any more than three or four hours of sleep at a time. More on that here.

But his terrible non-existent sleeping patterns, coupled with a whole host of repressed negative emotions that he hasn’t properly worked through because he doesn’t want to burden anyone with his problems, mean his nightmares are frequent and severe. Usually of the ridiculously gory variety. His nightmares typically end with him dying in some over-the-top, Final-Destination-esque way.

(Speaking of, my favorite death from those movies is from the third one, where the girl stumbles backwards into a nail gun and takes several nails through the back of her skull right out the front of her face.)

If you were to watch them, like, as a horror movie, some of them might be laughable. (If you’re into that sort of thing.) And indeed, he does try to laugh some of them off, although whether it’s genuine laughter or him trying to put on a brave face and again refusing to acknowledge that he’s got Issues is up for debate.

11. Bar soap or liquid? Do they like loofahs?

Bar soap. No loofahs.

18. Do they prefer cats or dogs? Or neither?

Ekko doesn’t really have a preference! He’ll drop scraps down to stray animals when he has the scraps to spare, and he’s made a number of furry friends of both species this way. Sometimes, you’ll just see random animals tailing him as he walks through the city, ‘cause they’re hoping to get more food out of him. He feels guilty when he doesn’t have anything to give them.

21. Did they have any fears growing up that they’ve since conquered?

Ekko used to be afraid of trees when he was younger and would always hold his breath when he walked by the cultivair. This is because he heard a story about a man who accidentally inhaled a tree seed and ended up growing a tree in his lung. He now knows that it’s ridiculous to be afraid of trees for that reason since the odds of it happening to him are infinitesimally small, but he’ll still tell people the story of Ol’ Tree Lung whenever they pass the cultivair, regardless of how many times his present company has heard it before. Most of his friends are sick to death of Ol’ Tree Lung by now.

23. How do they show fear? Sweating, shaking, blankness, anger, etc?

Ekko shakes something fierce when he gets scared. He also starts stammering and messing up sentences on account of his brain working much faster than his mouth. He’ll start a sentence and not finish it. Tries to restart the sentence slightly different this time and doesn’t finish that one either. Starts a sentence, cuts it off, starts a different sentence about a completely different thought, loses track of that one, too.

desperately tries not to cry

26. What are they most passionate about? What could they debate about for hours?

Ekko is passionate about… eating the rich. When are we bringing back the guillotine again?? kfhdgkdf

No, but seriously, Ekko is pretty adamant about “Capitalism sucks” and believes that the best use of wealth is providing for those less fortunate than you. He doesn’t have a lot, but he’s always using what he does have to help the Lost Children and his parents first and himself second. He sees people living these lives of luxury, and it makes him sick ‘cause he’s just like… *gestures @ starving orphans* “Y’all wanna like… maybe do something about this sometime?”

He believes that no one should have that much money for any reason because they should be putting it towards making society a better place instead of just… sitting on it. There is a reason I associate Billy Talent with him (and why “Man Alive!” is his main verse tag) and it’s because they have a lot of songs that just absolutely shit all over capitalism. I made a playlist for Ekko, and the first four songs on it are Billy Talent criticizing capitalism for the flawed, soul-sucking system that it is. (Three of the four are from the Dead Silence album.)

Anyway, Billy Talent tangent aside since I can’t control myself…

On April Fool’s, there were a couple IC posts of rich characters saying, “Rich people don’t have rights!” but then claiming to be exceptions to the rule. Like, one of them said, “I have rights ‘cause I didn’t choose to be rich. I was just born into a rich family.”

And let me tell you, I had to physically restrain Ekko ‘cause he was p i s s e d. He was in time-out that day, haha! “Oh, I’m so sorry, it must be so hard for you to have been born into a life of privilege,” he fumes to himself in the little corner I’ve trapped him in. “NONE OF YOU ARE EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE! NONE OF YOU HAVE RIGHTS! AND WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES, YOU’RE GOING TO THE GUILLOTINE WITH THE REST OF ‘EM!”

Me, desperately trying to calm him down like, “No, no, shh, look at the date! It’s probably just a joke!”

He’s like, “IT FUCKING BETTER BE.”

Tl;dr: Nothing gets Ekko riled quite like rich people being shitty and annoying.

I was also going to mention that Ekko’s passionate about maintaining hope and will argue the importance of not giving up and not letting bad situations turn you into a bad person, but this answer is already hella long, so here’s a brief passing mention of it lmao

30. Is there something about their personality they want to change?

Ekko is… angry deep down. Or maybe not even so deep down. Maybe right there, just under his skin. And he wishes he wasn’t.

He often questions his own goodness, wondering if he’s not just Fake Nice to conceal the wretched thing he actually is. If you skim the top layer of sweetness off of him, you’re left with this horrid, bitter, hateful little beast. Or that’s what he thinks sometimes, anyway.

Whether it’s justified or it isn’t, anger is such an ugly emotion, and he’s worried it’s going to cause him to hurt someone he cares about someday.

I often worry about my portrayal of Ekko and how damn inconsistent it is sometimes ‘cause in one thread, he’s this sweet helpful angel who wants to do his best, and in another thread, he’s more bitter than the blackest coffee, but like. This be why. He’s a good person. Just deep down, he’s angry about A Lot, but even deeper down, he’s an even better person. He feels like his anger is the thing standing between him and being the best person he can be, and he wishes he could get rid of it, but alas, it seems to be stuck to him.

I mean, maybe it wouldn’t be if he ever bothered to resolve any of his Issues, but y’know. Helping others comes first, so :’) He’ll worry about helping himself when he’s dead.

34. Are they the jealous type? What are they most likely to be jealous of?

Hmm, I wouldn’t say Ekko is much of the jealous type, no. Like, his anger towards rich folks isn’t because he’s jealous of their lifestyle or wants what they have. It’s because he wants them to be decent fucking people for once. It doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, but he’s content stomping around in the gutters. He does wish things were easier on his parents, but he can’t complain about the life of freedom he’s been allowed to lead up to this point.

He doesn’t really get jealous of other people’s relationships either. Like, I mentioned in a reply to Draven that in the Academy verse, Ekko has a crush on Ahri. (But only in the Academy verse.) But like, he doesn’t really get jealous when she dates other guys. In fact, he expects it. He hasn’t said anything about his crush on Ahri (although it’s probably a bit obvious), and he’s never going to because he doesn’t expect anything to come of it. He lowkey doesn’t want anything to come of it because he feels like it’ll just make the dynamics in their friend group weird. So, really, he’s got no problem with her dating whoever she wants.

35. Are they possessive over their things? Or over other people? Both?

The only thing Ekko is especially possessive of is the Zero Drive, for obvious reasons. It’d be just… the worst to have that fall into the wrong hands. Time travel is a huge responsibility, Ekko says as he abuses the shit out of it to skip class and get infinite Halloween candy. Can you imagine what would happen if any of the shadier characters in LoL had the ability to time travel??

He isn’t particularly possessive over the rest of his things, though, and he’ll frequently give stuff up to people he feels could use it more.

As for people… I wouldn’t call him possessive, so much as protective. He might seem a bit possessive of his friends at times, but it’s only because he’s trying to keep them out of trouble. Whenever he tells people, “I don’t want you hanging out with so-and-so,” it’s not because he’s being possessive, it’s because so-and-so has Bad Vibes written all over them.

In the modern/K/DA verse, he’s friends with Akali before she gets famous. She ran away from the dojo and lived on the streets for a while, and it was there that she met Ekko, and honestly, he probably did a lot more than he realizes to keep her out of trouble. Who knows what kind of bullshit her dumb ass would have gotten into if she hadn’t been trying to set as good of an example for Ekko as she could?

Anyway, modern verse Ekko despises modern verse Shen. Akali gets back in touch with Shen, and Ekko is extremely vocal about how terrible he finds this whole idea.

And it’s not that he’s possessive of Akali. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. When she needed to leave him to join K/DA, he let her go ‘cause he understood that was her big dream and it wouldn’t have been fair to keep her there. She was destined for better things, and he wanted to see her get off the streets.

But it’s just that… he’s heard stories about the way she was treated at the dojo, so when she tells him she got back in touch with Shen, he gets pissed and tells her that she can’t expect him to support her ripping open old wounds. He’s just scared that Shen’s going to hurt her again, so when she tries to introduce the two of them to each other, Ekko’s cold towards Shen at best and openly hostile towards him at worst. He might be inclined to strangle the guy if Akali didn’t have herself situated between them in a somewhat fruitless effort to ease the tension.

43. Do they like living alone or with another person / other people?

Ahaha, Ekko is a huge people-person, actually! I think he’d just die if he had to live alone. A big reason he spends so much time away from home and out on the streets is because his parents are never home, and the house feels too empty without them. He’ll roll back home in the evening, when his parents are getting off work, to enjoy their company for a bit before they both pass out, but unless somebody else is there, he doesn’t want to be either.

If he had to live alone, there wouldn’t be any point in him having a house or anything ‘cause he’d literally never stay there. He’d always be out chasing adventure and other people’s company.

50. Where do they see themselves in 2 / 5 / 10 years?

God, this is hard because the thing is that Ekko is terrible at making plans for the future, especially long-term plans. Thinking about the future causes him major stress, especially when he thinks of possibilities that might involve him relinquishing some of his freedom, which is a lot. Like, he has no desire to go to school or join the workforce - at least not in any sort of traditional way - or any of that, and the fact that he’s not going to be 16 forever is just something that he prefers not to think about!

Anyway, let’s take a crack at it, nonetheless…

In two years, Ekko hopes to have worked up the courage to tell his parents he doesn’t want to go to the academy in Piltover. Listen… he’s working on it. But like, he thinks at least part of the reason they work so hard is because they’re trying to put money back to send him to school, and… he’s really torn about it. He’d feel guilty if they kept working to send him to school without knowing he doesn’t want to go, but he’d also feel guilty if he told them he doesn’t want to go and crushed all their hopes and dreams. So, really, it is a lose-lose.

But hey, two years is plenty of time to work up the courage, right?

In five years, Ekko’s unsure of whether he’ll still be living with his parents or not. He knows that he wants to get them into a nicer house, and as such, he’ll likely have to find some way to make money other than thievery. So, he might consider commercializing an invention or two.

He knows his parents are fond of Piltover for whatever reason, and he would reluctantly let them go there, if they wanted. That’s why he isn’t sure if he’ll still be living with them or not because if they do choose to go to Piltover, he’s absolutely staying behind in Zaun. He wants them to be happy, but he’s not going to abandon Zaun like that. Plus, he can still come visit sometimes, so it’s like… whatever.

He would also like to make a little more progress on the Z-Drive by this point, maybe getting it to the point where he can go back days instead of only minutes. Just in case. You never know when that thing you did three days ago is gonna come back around to bite you in the ass.

In ten years, he’ll be 26 and probably (sadly) a bit old to be running around doing dumb teenager things. Still, he can’t see himself abandoning the Lost Children. They’ll still need someone, you know? A large part of his mission with the Lost Children has become keeping them out of trouble, more or less. The bad kind of trouble, anyway. Keeping them away from chem-punks and out of the factories and away from drugs and potentially dangerous augmentations, so on and so forth.

He’d like to keep doing that, keep helping kids stay out of bad situations. Maybe start some sort of home for them, where they can come get a bed and a warm meal. Or something like a school, but where they’re allowed to study what they want and hone the skills they think will be most useful to them, instead of some arbitrary curriculum they’re not even interested in. Maybe a bit ambitious for only ten years, but… he hopes to at least be on his way to that sort of thing by then.

He wants to see Zaun be a better place, and children are the future, and he doesn’t want to see any of them fall through the cracks. If there’s any hope for Zaun to get better - and he believes there is - it starts with its children being happy and safe.

So, his plans are currently:

Tell his parents he doesn’t want to go to the academy.

Get his parents somewhere nicer ‘cause they deserve it.

Improve time travel maybe.

Find a way to get as many children out of harm’s way as humanly possible.

And that’s basically it.

#hc: ekko #hc: akali #shensheng aoman #building nothing out of something [answered]#//i'd apologize for this taking so long but like #//you asked for it #//also i have to tag this as an akali headcanon too #//it's difficult for me to talk about modern verse ekko WITHOUT mentioning his friendship with akali #//bc it's very important to me!!#//anyway enjoy your essay #//*casually writes an 8-page thesis about ekko*#//seriously if you format this like a school essay #//with 1-inch margins 12-point times new roman double-spaced #//it's 8 pages long #gore tw #//i guess i should also include that tag #//for my inability to resist mentioning the nail gun scene from final destination 3

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