Tumgik
#every time I’m in class the teacher could be talking radio static and I would probably understand it better than wtf is going on rn
so-you-melted-22 · 3 years
Text
Maybe I should talk to a psychiatrist or something, maybe they can tell me what is weird with my brain…
11 notes · View notes
carnationcreation · 4 years
Text
Safe haven (Will Byers x reader)
Masterlist
Prompt/summary: Reader is new in town and gets trapped in the upside down with Will
Word Count: 1,988
Warnings: Kidnapping (if you can call it that), mentions of PTSD, trauma bonding, etc.
Tumblr media
Hawkins, Indiana was definitely a… strange town. I could never really pinpoint what made me think that but somewhere in the back of my mind that is just how I would describe it. Adjusting to a new life in a town that made me vaguely uncomfortable was not how I pictured my middle school years to finish up.
The move came as a surprise. With my dad getting a job at Hawkins lab my mom and I didn’t really have a choice but to move with him. After about a week of unpacking my mom finally got a job at the local newspaper as a secretary.
My science class was definitely interesting. Mr. Clarke was an enthusiastic teacher who really only taught to the four boys sitting up front, the rest just seemed like background characters. Everyone realized that they could get away with raising their hand only once a day and sometimes even less than that. Regardless of if the answer was correct or not Mr. Clarke would take that as participation and wouldn’t really force anyone to talk after that. Being the new kid that was amazing.
When I wasn’t at school I was either one of two places. One being at the office with my mom, or two blowing my allowance money at the arcade. Tonight was arcade night. Mom stayed late to finish up some last minute papers while I spent 2 hours playing Dig Doug and stuffing my face with chilli dogs from the concession stand. I even made the top score tonight. Before I knew it the clock finally hit 8:30 signalling closing time. I grabbed my bike off the rack and began my ride home.
The ride home was dark. My bike lamp was out so I tried to use the flashlight I kept in my bag. Riding one handed was not fun. I could feel clouds forming leaving the moisture smell in the air.
I heard something behind me and soon enough Will Byers pulled up next to me, “Hey!” he shouted, “you ride through Mirkwood?”
“What?” I shouted back.
“This road is called Mirkwood by the locals, where’s your house?”
“Just beyond the ridge, my dad works at the lab” I said, his bike lamp was now illuminating the way so I put my flashlight into my front basket.
“I didn’t even know you lived that close to me,” he smiled.
“Me neither.”
Just then Will’s lamp started flickering. We both jolted on our bikes trying to adjust to the darkness. Right as we started up the hill a tall lanky figure appeared in front of us. We both swerved to the right. We sped down a hill and into a ditch. My bike crashed into a try sending my flying onto my back. For a second I laid there trying to regain the wind that was knocked out of me.
“(Y/n)! Come on we gotta get out of here!” Will said. He pulled me to my feet and we began to run through the woods. Tripping over tree limbs and stumbling over rocks.
“My house is right over here,” he yelled.
We ran inside. Turning the lock and the deadbolt before he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the back. “Johnathan? Mom?”
His dog continued to bark. Will grabbed the phone and tried to dial 911, but a loud static sound was heard even from where I stood. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the sharpest knife out of the block. A loud bang was heard at the front door and Will dropped the phone.
“There’s a gun out back,” Will said.
We barricaded the shed door as much as we could, Will fumbled with the rifle but soon had one in the chamber and pointing at the door. I gripped the knife so tight my knuckles went white.
A strange gurgling was heard behind us.
As we turned around, there it was.
We were gone before we could react.
________________________________________________
We woke up in the woods.
Not in the same woods we ran through, but I swear it was the same one just… dark. The same feeling I got in the back of my head walking through town. Random particles flew through the air. Spores? Dust?
Will groaned from beside me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I think so.”
From ahead was the same gurgling we heard last night.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Run.”
________________________________________________
We ran.
For 2 days we ran. Breaking into gas stations and the grocery store to hide and steal food when we could. Everything tasted bland or stale. We stashed water bottles in our backpacks along with chips and granola bars. Taking turns sleeping and staying on the move.
It was terrifying.
Every single noise felt like it was my last moment alive. Every movement out of the corner of my eyes made me jump. When I could sleep it felt like I hadn’t at all. We never got a good look at that, well, thing, that took us. All we knew is that it was huge and dangerous. The tentacles tried to grab us but we dodged as much as we could.
It was so cold we would sleep in the same sleeping bag we found. Any embarrassment went out the door due to me almost getting frostbite on my toes. We took shifts sleeping when we could. I think Will let me sleep longer than our agreed time but I never said anything. It made me feel selfish.
Sometimes when we thought it was safe we would talk. Anything that came to mind we would discuss, trying to make it feel like we weren’t being hunted by a creature in a strange world we didn’t know. We talked about music, books, science, video games. Anything.
“Do you think they’re looking for us?” I asked. Will shifted so he could look down at me. My head was on his shoulder and his arm was around me. The ground was hard under us but I felt the most comfortable I could be at that moment.
“Well, I think so. My mom always tells us how she loves us more than anything, and Johnathan is the only brother I have. What about you?”
“My dad isn’t around much, my mom tries her best to make my life seem normal but it doesn’t always work out. I know she’s probably tearing up the town trying to find out where I am. Oh gosh I hope she doesn’t think I ran away.”
“Our bikes were left in the woods, I think they would’ve found them by now. How long has it been?” Will said, he stretched his right arm out to place behind his head as a pillow.
“A few days at least,” I said before I yawned loudly.
Will smiled, “Get some rest, I’ll take first watch.”
I pressed my nose towards his shoulder to hide my smile. Just as I began to drift off the words popped into my head. He’s my safe haven.
We were exhausted.
I think that was part of the creature's game. It wanted us to run and wear ourselves out so it could kill us easier. I tried to fight that theory with everything I could. I stocked energy drinks when we could find them, we made coffee one night to drink the next morning, anything we could to give us enough energy to run the next day.
But it wasn't enough.
________________________________________________
It finally got us.
All that running just made us fall into its trap.
Watching Will get picked up by the tentacles and dragged away from me played over in my mind. The last thing I remembered was the thing shoving some sort of gross tube down my throat. And now it just feels like I’m lucid dreaming. I saw my house, not the one in Hawkins but the one I lived in before we moved. My family was inside. I thought I was safe yet I still felt that feeling in the back of my brain. That’s when they attacked me.
The nightmares only got worse from there.
I felt myself slowly slipping away. Like a battery in my brain was slowly being drained. I fought to keep dreaming but I was getting flooded with the exhaustion and the want to give up.
Where was Will? I just wanted to be back in the sleeping bag with him. I wanted to feel his arms around me and his slow breathing in my ear.
I felt something being ripped out of me. My lungs felt like I was underwater. I felt someone pressing on my chest and I woke up coughing. I sputtered, gasped, and cried as I was lifted into someone's arms.
“(Y/n)? This is police chief Hopper. You’re safe now.”
He looked familiar. I racked my brain trying to think of where I saw him but I only had one thought on my mind. Hopper placed an oxygen mask over my face.
“Will?” I gasped out. My chest still hurt.
“He’s right here,” a woman said, she had him cradled in his arms.
I reached out to him. I needed to make sure he was still there. That this wasn’t a nightmare.
He grabbed on to my hand.
“Please don’t let go,” I sobbed.
“I promise,” he said.
And he didn’t.
Not when we were put into the car, not when we got to the hospital, not even when we were being treated. The adults just left us alone. We were put in two beds as close together as possible. At one point a doctor came in to take my vidals and tried to pull me away from him, I don’t know exactly why but I broke down. Another doctor came in and explained something about trauma bonding and PTSD.
My parents came to see me. Dad didn’t look too happy about me holding hands with a boy, but he still didn’t say anything. Apparently he quit his job at the lab.
Weeks passed by in an instant. The nightmares never stopped but they did get better. Will showed me castle Byers and we often went there after I asked him over the radio. His friends accepted the fact that I would hang around since I never wanted to be far from the Byers boy.
At one point Mike pulled me to the side, “Thank you for keeping him alive.”
“We kept each other alive.”
I never got to meet El. Which was a shame because I’d always wanted to meet a real life Jedi. But as time went on she became an afterthought. My mind stayed focussed on school and the next time I’d get to see Will again. I slowly managed to deal with my separation anxiety (as my therapist called it) and began doing my own thing most days, but I was still over at the Byers house as often as possible.
“Do you think they’ll stop?”
“Stop what?” I asked.
“The nightmares,” Will said, “Do you think they’ll stop?”
I sat the comic book I was reading down on my lap and sighed, “Maybe one day, for now I’m just so thankful that we’re alive they don’t bother me as much.”
“Can I say something?”
I looked in confusion, “You can tell me anything Will.”
“I think-” he coughed into his hand, “I think… I’m in love with you.”
I wasn’t surprised but was still left speechless. I scooted closer to him on the bed.
And we kissed.
After that, I knew there was gonna be no one else but him. No one else who will ever know what I went through, no one else who will know how I need to be held after I had a nightmare, no one else that can calm the racing thoughts I’ve had since November 6th, and no one else I would want to face the fear of something as new as relationships.
He was my safe haven.
569 notes · View notes
timextoxhajima · 3 years
Text
GEN Z SERIES, HYUNJAE: The Third Eye
Tumblr media
"Will you choose to believe what you see or what you feel?”
Member: Hyunjae
Genre: Fantasy / Slice of Life / Supernatural / Angst / TW
Trigger Warnings: Rape, Self-Harm
Word Count: 5.8k
Taglist: @yn-am-pm​ @fleurseoul​ @sunwoowuvbot​
Tumblr media
The first time I knew I saw something that wasn't there, I was scared. How was an eight-year-old supposed to treat an elderly man who looked closer to a skeleton than a human being standing in the corner of the room... of an elderly's home?
I remember my mother combing my grandmother's hair while my father was helping me pick up my crayons off the floor when I saw him. Nurses were walking down the corridors in a hurry. I remember nobody noticed -- or at least, unlike the conventional way of death that has been portrayed in movies and books by the very cliché usage of the flatlining on the monitor. He had a good amount of hair for an old man in his nineties.
Then again, it might've been his deteriorating health that made him look older than he actually was when he died. Time seemed to pass a lot slower when they let me see them. Unlike the way his skin seemed to sink in between his ribs and wrap around the bones of his arms, his eyes were full of light. The kind that I recognised when I was at school. I didn't know then, because I was just a child he realised could see his soul. But I will never forget the blessing he placed on the top of my head. Every single word etched into my mind like carved into stone.
I told my grandmother about the man I saw earlier that day when my parents went to talk to the nurses of the elderly home. She was scared at first, when she realised her grandchild had abilities that not many had. Yet, she never told my parents, because she knew they would convince themselves that they could do something about it -- as if one could really remove the powers of a third eye all so easily.
Angels are not beings with wings or halos but instead, a bright orb of gold and white. The old man waved so dearly to me, after giving his children and grandchildren a kiss atop their heads though they couldn't feel it. He was 88, auspicious numbers in many cultures. Then when the orb of light drifted in through the window, I remember I could almost hear the sounds of kittens and puppies. But just as it neared him, I heard the familiar sounds of laughter from his children and grandchildren, then static sounds of radio and music I didn't recognise. I will later find out that the music belonged in the 40s.
The orb presents you with everything you've loved and enjoyed and held close to your heart in your life, and should you be content with what the orb has to offer you, then it must be time for you to go.
But where there is light, there is darkness. Where there are orbs of smiles and flowers, there are daggers of blood and evil lurking in the shadows. I was 13 when I saw evil in one of its many forms. I had a headache the entire day, a sign to tell me that my third eye is in close proximity with something that did not align with my believes and morals.
I had expected something to jump out at me through the reflection off the mirror, or a hand to burst through the ground and grab me by the ankle. But no, evil in one of its many forms does not need it to be horrifying and scary.
Her hair was long, and her face was covered in what looked like burn marks. 
Does Hell burn through you so quickly? 
She looks human, but her fingers were split down the middle, thorns sticking out every finger, in which on each hand she has ten.
As she graced the corridors of school, she sheds these thorns that drop like nails to the floor, waiting for someone to step on those facing upwards. Have you ever gotten a sharp ache or pinch in the soles of your feet when you're walking sometimes?
If you have, then you would've probably stepped on a Hell's Thorn, or at least, that's what I called it. I never found out if she could see me, but when I realised I could touch the thorns and kick them out of sight, they'd roll off into some corner before dissolving into red ash.
Over a decade of being stuck between two worlds. I've done enough reading to understand the dangers of prancing along this line, not being able to shut one side off completely. So, when the ghosts, demons and spirits hide in the shadows of my room, or stare at me point-blank in the middle of the day like a normal human being would, it becomes normal.
They are everywhere, even when you cannot feel them. It gets confusing, when they look more human than some human beings. 
Just how much longer... or how much more can I stay like this?
"I don't know where your diary is. If you're telling me it's here, then I'm telling you it's gone."
You are standing right smack in the middle of the school field, afternoon sun beaming down onto your hair. Squinting your eyes, you look around the large space of artificial grass and beyond that, the tracks, where students were finding some fun in running laps in the summer heat.
"But..."
"Lee Eun," Your heart breaks, more than necessary, because this is not the first time you've done it. "What you're looking for isn't here. The building your locker was in was torn down 20 years ago and if it was there, it's gone now. Or at least..." She watches you turn around and stare at the ground beneath your feet. "It's not here anymore."
Lee Eun was a student from your school that graduated in 2000. But she lost her life the day she graduated, only because she hadn't seen the brick falling from the nearby construction site where the school building you attended now was being built.
The silence becomes unbearable so you look up, but you only see the two male students jogging along the track and nobody else in sight. The orb did not come to collect Lee Eun's soul; this is not over.
The sweat has stuck your uniform to your back when you return to class, and it becomes apparent to you that a particular shadow has not shifted an inch since you've stepped into the classroom. You weren't in pain, so this entity is not a demon. Yet, you cannot identify its gender. It had no face, no hair, just... a volume of shadow and darkness and if the girls sitting before it knew it was there, they'd probably scream their head off. 
You know its staring at you with every intention in its spirit, though you cannot see its eyes. And it stays when the teacher enters the classroom with a new student trailing behind him. For a moment, your attention is diverted to Jang Jun Hyuk, hair brown and skin fair. The girls in the class were already ogling over him, it's not a surprise anymore. But the shadow turns to look at him, then at you, and the darkness dissolves into the beige wall behind it, vanishing as Jang Jun Hyuk bows and introduces himself.
Then the king of the class speaks at a volume you know you weren't supposed to hear, but consider it a special talent now that you've honed the skills of your third eye.
"Strange vibes," Lee Hyunjae was probably talking to Younghoon. "Don't you think there's something off about him?"
"Are you sure you're not just threatened that there's someone who rivals our popularity?"
Jang Jun Hyuk bows to the class, then is instructed by the teacher to take a seat diagonally behind you, right in front of Lee Hyunjae.
"Hey, new kid."
A frown gently presses itself into your forehead when you can hear Younghoon give Hyunjae a gentle whack on his shoulder.
"Where did you move from?"
"Ah, I moved from another city. My father was transferred."
The shadow was now standing by the door of the classroom, watching the teacher scribble on the whiteboard.
"Cool," Hyunjae offers a friendly laugh. That's more like him. "Join us at lunch, provided you don't have a crowd to hang out with yet."
“Uh, sure.”
The shadow turns to look at you -- even without eyes, you know it’s watching you. 
By the time you have been dragged to the cafeteria by your friends (though most people tend to think you’re weird for talking to yourself sometimes), Hyunjae has doubled over on some bench cracking up at a joke Jun Hyuk made. 
Your friends can’t help but to draw your attention to the new addition to the group of popular males. 
“Man fits right in, doesn’t he?” 
“At least he looks like one of them.”
“y/n,” One of the two call out to you. “What happened to... what was her name?”
“Lee Eun.”
“Right, the ghost from twenty years ago. How is she?” 
The two look at you with wide, glistening eyes. Most people aren’t as accommodating to your abilities, so it’s a blessing to have them by your side. 
“I haven’t seen her since earlier today. She said she had a diary in school but she never found it.”
“Well, maybe it is still in school somewhere, locked up in some lost and found box or lost in some locker. Why else would she still be here and can’t... you know, move on?”
You shrug. I wish I knew.
The library was always comforting. The silence, the sound of pages being flipped and the occasional clicking of someone’s keyboard. And strangely enough, the library’s never really a hotspot for other beings except humans.
The peace was, unfortunately, disrupted though, when Jun Hyuk shows up with his backpack and tie neat around his collar. You greet him subtly before returning to your notes, but he sits down opposite you and renders your desire to be alone useless.
“Hyunjae and Younghoon told me you would be here.”
The pen in your grip gets lowered into the ivory sheets, gaze travelling up to look at him through your lashes. “Lee Hyunjae and Kim Younghoon? Why would they tell you where I am?”
Jun Hyuk offers a shy smile, diverting his brown irises away from you for a second. “Because I asked.”
The cold air stings your nose when you suck in a deep breath. “Why, do you need help with work? Because I’m literally the worst person to ask--”
“No, I just needed to know where I could find you so I could spend time with you.”
Your heart begins to thump madly, because it’s not everyday that a guy is so straightforward with his intentions to someone he just met. 
“Uh--” You purse your lips in a bid to form a coherent sentence. “That’s really... honest of you.”
Jun Hyuk grins sweetly, eyes halving into crescents and creasing his skin around his lids. He has a dimple in his left cheek, a detail that you wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t sitting directly opposite you. 
“So, can I?”
Confusion strikes you, only because assumption is a dangerous thing we like to do. 
“Can you... what?”
“Hang out with you.”
The whir of the air-conditioner in the library becomes a little louder alongside the thumping that was now difficult to ignore in your head. 
The blood rushes up to your cheeks and you can feel your face catching fire, so Jun Hyuk eases it by restarting a conversation.
“Anyway, have you done the work from today?”
“I--” You look down at the worksheet he was taking out from his bag. It’s barely filled. “I’ve been staring at it for awhile now--”
“Not good at Math?”
“I’m better at...” Jun Hyuk takes the worksheet and gets up, scooting over to the seat next to you. A gulp finds a way down your throat. “...English and Literature...”
“Well, it’s your lucky day because I’m great at Math.”
Up close, Jin Hyuk smells like fresh linen. 
Not a great sign. He knows what makes a girl tick. 
Jun Hyuk spends the rest of the afternoon helping you with the worksheet, and the glimmer in his eyes...
“Are you listening?”
Your jaw slacks in surprise, blinking your attention away from staring at him. A chuckle sounds from Jun Hyuk, who looks away with the slightest hint of pride.
Jun Hyuk makes you feel like you are prancing on clouds for the next few weeks. The little notes he passed in class that earned the attention of his new friends, Younghoon and Hyunjae. The sweets and treats that he’d leave on your desk before school and the after-school study sessions were your favourite part of the day. 
He’d expected you to be calm and collected when he took the initiative to hold your hand under the table, but he could read how nervous and anxious you got, so he thinks it’s a good idea to ease that anxiety with a kiss on your cheek. 
Lee Eun was no longer around to ask you for her diary, but the faceless shadow was still tailing you when you were in the classroom. It’s never interfered with your daily routine though, thus you choose to leave it be and enjoy being a normal teenager for once. 
Three months after you met Jun Hyuk though, you could tell Hyunjae was deliberately steering away from him, dragging Younghoon along with him. You can’t help but wonder if it was because you and Jun Hyuk were now romantically involved and that Hyunjae had probably caught wind of the fact that you could see things that weren’t there, leading him to ostracise Jun Hyuk. 
Not that it had that much effect anyway, Jun Hyuk was a charming boy on his own; he didn’t need Hyunjae’s help to ‘make it’ in school.
The day carries on as per usual with Jun Hyuk staying in school to study with you. Hands busy scribbling away and eyes darting across worksheets, you’ve always admired how focussed he gets when he does his work. 
In attempt to pull him out of his stress-bubble, you cap on your pen and lean into him, resting your head on his shoulder after making sure there was nobody else left in the library. 
“Do you want to take a break? You’ve been going at it for quite some time now.”
“I’m just about there, just hold on a minute, would you?”
A pout surfaces on your lips. “I know. I just... do you ever feel bad that Hyunjae and Younghoon aren’t as close to you as before?”
Jun Hyuk finishes the line he’s writing and looks up at you. “Why would I?”
“I don’t know, I just... you must’ve heard the rumor that I can see ghosts. Aren’t you upset that they might be leaving you out because of that?”
“You can see ghosts?” He scoffs. His attitude feels strange today, though he hasn’t said anything wrong. “That’s just stupid. And no, I don’t really care.”
“Oh,” A pause halts you, so you can think of an appropriate response. “You don’t... believe in ghosts or spirits?”
“No, that stuff is for kids.”
The thought of Jun Hyuk not believing in something you were known to be able to see was strangely more discomforting than not.
“Why’d you ask about Hyunjae and Younghoon? I thought you weren’t close with those guys?” He’s placing his pens into his pencil case and keeping his worksheets in his file. You start doing the same. 
“I-- I’m not, I’m just asking for your sake.”
“My sake?” He clears the table of his items and leans back in his seat. “Why would it bother me? Is it because you don’t get to talk to them anymore?”
“What? Why would that matter to me?”
“I don’t know, you were pretty smitten with Hyunjae just a few weeks ago.”
“Since when?”
“You think I didn’t notice when you were smiling at him when he was making those jokes-- they weren’t even that funny?”
A frown has finally cemented itself between your brows. “I’m sorry, where is this jealousy even coming from? Why didn’t you just tell me when you saw it?”
Jun Hyuk goes silent, and you can tell he’s upset just by thinking about it. Sighing, you rest your head on his shoulder again in a bid to appease his anger. 
“Alright, I’m sorry, okay? I was just concerned that you might feel left out or anything. And rest assured, I wasn’t flirting with Hyunjae.”
Jun Hyuk hums in response, reaching your chin to pull you closer. Your heart starts to pound in your ear when he doesn’t hesitate to press his lips against yours, the sudden intimacy catching you off-guard and sending chills down your spine. 
Something doesn’t feel right.
“Jun--” You manage to cough out, just as he starts to bury his nose and lips into your neck. “Jun Hyuk, not here.”
“Come on, there’s nobody here. Isn’t it exciting?” He smirks into your skin but it makes you feel dirty. 
“Jun, we really shouldn’t. I’m tired today so...” Gently pushing him off, his eyes are now filled with the ache of rejection. Somewhere inside you, you hope that he understands. But you also hope he knows he’s being an asshole.
“I... I think I’m going to go,” Backing away, you can hear your heart in your ears as you reverse, returning to the table to clear your stationery. His footsteps come dangerously close behind you before you are yanked around violently, each of your elbows coming into tight restraint in his palms. 
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going home,” When your eyes meet his, they are dark under the lighting. And even then, it seems like the man you trusted had turned to dust and blown away in the wind. “Please, let me go.”
“But don’t you trust me? Didn’t you say that you didn’t know what you’d do without me?” It’s horrifying when his nose comes dangerously closely to yours, his lips that were once part of a daydream now slowly being torn to shreds, forming an idea of a nightmare in your mind. 
If you could feel darkness, you were sure you could hurl out nothing but black masses, when he aggressively pastes his lips to yours. There’s a stark difference being in love and being trustworthy... and being this person who was cutting off the blood supply from your face to your mouth now. 
“Let me go, please!” Your strength is rendered useless in his tight grip around your wrists, and now he decides to shift his tongue to your neck, harshly sucking on the skin and flesh and making you want to hurl and sob instead. The struggle you offered was of no use to Jun Hyuk, not when he is able to shove you backwards and plaster your back to the study desk with all your pens and pencils under your back. 
“Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?!” 
“You should’ve thought about that before you kissed me first in the garden the other day, no?”
The tears finally stream when the betrayal sets in. Not even prayers would work anymore, would they?
Using his upper body weight to hold you to the table, the metal clinking of his belt comes like a warning when you can feel the tears wetting the strands of your hair. 
“Jun Hyuk, please...”
“Shut up,” Ice cold fingers run up the length of your thighs and around your hips under your skirt, scratching your skin as he removes your underwear. “Isn’t this how much you trust me?”
Sobs run through gritted teeth as your chin tilts to the ceiling, his body absorbing every ounce of struggle and force you were exerting on him. But, it was so easily drained into him that you were gradually turning limp and lifeless. Hearing him undo his zipper while he wets and marks your skin with his tongue and teeth shuts off all your senses. Your eyes flutter shut with resignation, the shivering and trembling seeping away with your need to escape. 
Help me. 
Something fuses loudly. The lights go off. 
“Who’s there?! Motherfucker!” 
The zip goes back up, and the weight on you shifts away. 
“I’m going to kill you!”
His voice wears away, getting softer with his footsteps. 
Still crying, you pull up your underwear that was dangling at your ankles and push yourself off the surface of the table. Everything on the desk gets swept into your back before you stumble out of the secluded study area, the light of the late sunset greeting your tear stained face. 
Reaching home feels like reaching the end point in a marathon, just that instead of feeling pride and glory, you were feeling nothing but worthlessness. 
The lukewarm water feels like a gentle hug around your body when you sink into the cold marble, knees propped up and surfaced with your feet flat against the base of the bathtub. 
Swollen eyes from crying but too tired to cry somemore, and you find difficulty in even remembering why you even fell for Jun Hyuk in the first place.
It was my fault for bringing it up. I shouldn’t have brought it up. 
Maybe if I didn’t have this gift then I didn’t need to ask or worry about Jun Hyuk being ostracised. Maybe it shouldn’t be called a gift after all.
This pain is temporary, right? This small blade can do more than ease the pain. This blood that colors the water can do more than dry the tears from my eyes.
I wish I wasn’t born with this gift. 
You close your eyes and let yourself sink into the tub, under the surface of the water. The water starts to feel thicker, and before you can count to five, it starts going up your nose. 
But then it feels like you’ve been sucked into another dimension and thrown back onto your bed when you gasp, sitting up and choking out what feels like water in your throat. 
Your hands fumble around yourself, and you wince when you look down at your wrists. The vertical cut looked more like a scar that’s already healed, rather than an injury you had chosen to inflict on yourself just hours before.
The clock strikes 3.33am, and while you would usually be kind of freaked out because 3 is not an auspicious number, you can’t help but to feel some kind of relief when you realised you were still alive. 
The next few days you spend in the shadows. Jun Hyuk tries to apologise to you on more than one occasion, but when you glitch and nearly break down when he gets anywhere near you, your friends start to understand that something had happened.
Why would you want to take your life all of a sudden?
Mr. Shadowman doesn’t leave you alone though. Instead, it starts following you more aggressively, showing up in the strangest of places and in the most horrendous positions. You had seen it standing with its feet planted to the ceiling of the cafeteria, then again standing perfectly still behind the classroom door when the teacher closed it. 
Then it finally follows you into the bathroom after school. You’ve changed your studying location to your classroom, so you wouldn’t need to worry about being alone.
But no matter how many times you see this shadow, seeing it curled up under the sink in the female’s toilet makes you yelp and jump backwards, not even enticing a reaction from it. 
“You...” Gripping the edge of the sink, you squat and stare at it. “What do you need from me?”
“I wouldn’t go anywhere nearer to it if I were you.” Your eyes dart up into the broken glass above the sink. Seeing Hyunjae staring at you through the reflection, with the pillar hiding the rest of his body was surprising. 
It dawns on you that whatever you were seeing, Hyunjae could see it too.
The shadow remained still under the sink, crouched into a mass like someone holding its knees to its chest. The water dripping from under the sink slips through the mass like it wasn’t there. Hyunjae spares you a few seconds to stare at it some more until he grabs your arm and pulls you out of the toilet.
“What the-- don’t touch me--” Yanking your wrist out of his hands, you jerk away from him. The impact pulls your sleeves upwards, revealing the bruises that Jun Hyuk had left on you just a few days ago -- and the scar of the cut down your forearm. 
His attention is stolen by the marks, cuing you to nervously pull your sleeves back down as you steal a glance at Hyunjae’s face. 
“Don’t interact with that thing,” He advises after a few moments of silence. “It’s been following you.”
Looking up with a harsh frown on your face, confusion and anger starts to seep through your bones. 
“You mean to tell me you could see these things all this while?”
Hyunjae’s eyes fill with a tiny pinch of guilt, but he doesn’t look away. 
“That thing is harmless,” Your thumb brushes across the area where the bruise was hidden under the material of your sleeve. “It saved me.”
“If it’s harmless or any bit human then why doesn’t it have a face? Or eyes or hair or a mouth?”
“So, you can’t see what it is either. Have you seen others? Ghosts, the angel orbs, demons--”
“Get this clear in your head, I am not here to discuss what you can see,” Hyunjae takes a step closer and looks at you with an expression you can’t read. Was he angry? Frustrated? Worried? Concerned?
“But do not engage with whatever that is. They only stick around if you entertain it, and right now, you are just short of becoming friends with it.”
“You make it sound like you know everything about that other world.”
“And you make it sound like you haven’t seen a demon and that there are no dangers of it.”
The proximity starts to make you anxious; his build is similar to Jun Hyuk’s and the physical confrontation starts to knock on your skull is all the ways possible. Hyunjae retreats when he notices your eyes are unable to meet his now, and he walks away with his fists clenched. 
That night, you are unable to fall asleep. Not with the new revelation that Hyunjae can see the same things you do. Or was it just the shadow that he can see?
Has he seen the orbs or angels or demons?
You sit up in your bed, eyes adjusting to the darkness when a thud wakes you up. The crickets outside are loud in the silent night, but it takes you just a split second to recognise the shadow standing in the corner where the door meets the corner of the room. 
Keeping your eyes peeled, you fumble around at your nightstand, searching for the button of the lamp. It doesn’t disappear though, when the amber light illuminates the cream-pink room. 
“What do you need?” The query comes out more like a whisper, because most spirits you meet are ghosts who need your help or are willing to talk to you -- most of them have faces and eyes and have some resemblance to being human at some point of time in their life. 
The shadow pulls itself off the wall, and turns from a flat, regular shadow into a mass of darkness; the same way it was in the classroom when you first saw it, then later under the sink in the bathroom. 
This is the first time this has happened -- a shadow that was very obviously a being and yet you cannot decide if it was something harmful or something that once walked the Earth. 
By now, the shadow is just about two metres away from your bed, yet you find yourself inching backwards because you cannot predict what it would (or could) do to you. 
Then it lifts an arm that reaches out to you, darkness flowing like steam off its limbs as it gets closer to you. But just before it can touch you, a flash of brightness interrupts your interaction.
“Stop.”
Your room is brightly lit up for a split second, blinding you from seeing the shadow. So when your eyes come back into focus, your eyes are about to fall out of your skull when you recognise the back of someone you know. 
Hyunjae was standing right next to your bed, between you and the shadow, now visibly a physical  blob of darkness. 
“You have no business here with her. You don’t even need to be here.”
Silence. 
Hyunjae looks at the shadow intently. He is listening to it talk to him, but you hear nothing but the crickets chirping outside. 
“Jang Jun Hyuk will be mine to deal with, not yours. You do not need to be here.”
Lee Hyunjae... just what are you?
“Seer but is she a...”
“What did you just say?” You blurt out when the strange croak gets to your head. Hyunjae flinches and turns around to look at you, eyes flickering with worry before turning back to the shadow.
Now, you can see blue orbs for eyes and skin pulled and stretched like it had been worn out through hundreds of years. It was neither a ghost nor human. 
It didn’t look like Lee Eun or the elderly man you saw when you were 8, nor did it look like the female demon you saw at 13. 
“Leave, you do not belong here.”
“To deserves she know.”
“Know what?” Impatience and fear was getting the better of you, and if Hyunjae was more than human, he would know. “...That I can see you?”
“No, she cannot know!” Hyunjae tries to block you from the ghoul. “That is not your place to tell her!”
The ghoul proves more powerful than Hyunjae and reaches right through him, creating a bright outline of his limb through Hyunjae’s chest. 
“No!” 
That was the last thing you hear just as the shadow touches your forehead, snapping your neck backwards and sending your memory into a dimension you cannot recognise. 
“You will be blessed with eternal protection.”
That was the blessing the elderly man offered you when you were eight. Little did you know that he was merely reading a blessing pinned to your existence on its own. 
"The son of Saint Michael had fallen in love with the fairy of the mortals. Saint Michael hadn’t offered the tiniest bit of worry or concern over his son becoming star-crossed lovers. Angels were meant to be with angels and fairies with fairies... Granted that even if you did know about his son’s feelings, you would eventually realise that it was against the laws of the world, for you were a gateway for the Good to seep into the mortal world. But what Saint Michael did not know was that the fairy his son had fallen in love with had stored the same amount of love he had for her in his heart.” 
“The Heavens forbid star-crossed lovers between the two breeds of beings. Saint Michael himself couldn’t believe it when his son caved into his feelings right after you did. Fairies were fickle-minded; the only beings of the world of immortals that once walked the Earth as human beings. It was expected that you would provide the same love to the Archangel’s son -- but when he decided to embrace you in his all-gold halo of light... Saint Michael knew he could not afford losing the bearings of his son. He had decided that mortalising you would be a smart decision; keeping you close by letting you protect your ability to connect with this world but restraining you from ever returning to Hyunjae’s side.”
“Yet, like mortals, even immortal beings are unable to fight the strength of love. Hyunjae had decided descend to the world of the Humans and Mortals... to protect you by your side in your second life, allowing you to see him, touch him.”
The day you were reborn was the day Hyunjae had decided to humanise himself, albeit the process was draining and set him on a ticking clock from returning to the other world.
The ghoul looks at you, his blue eyes now revealing himself as a fairy who had disguised himself, in a bid to warn you before you had sold your heart to Hyunjae, something you cannot be with.
“You are paying the price for a fault that was his, do you not bear any resentment?”
The memories return. Flashes of Hyunjae smiling at you because he knew you could see him. The kisses that stained his skin because you were a mere mortal with abilities, and he was a being that was meant for more. 
“How is this his fault?”
The fairy is silent, thinking of the words to say. 
“Had he lived up to the responsibilities of being the son of Saint Michael, he wouldn’t have caved in.”
Your hair feels light around your shoulders, watching the fairy slowly morph into something less ambiguous. 
“What would have happened if we didn’t fall in love in my first life?”
The fairy had grown wings that looks like glass, reflecting light into seven colors into the abyss beyond you. He looks at you, blue eyes never faltering. 
“You would’ve become an Undine Fairy, and Hyunjae would’ve had to return to the world of the Skies--”
“And I would never see him again.”
He can see that you’ve had a glimpse into your past life; the forbidden love you had for Hyunjae now buried deep inside you. It feels like someone had just stuck a shovel 6 feet into your heart and dug out every remnant he could find. 
“Would you have let him go, had he been true to his existence and you had become an Undine?”
“There’s no way I can answer that, can I?”
The fairy blinks and starts walking backwards. “The rules between the two Worlds are forged in stone, but everybody knows that the matters of the spirit and soul cannot be bound by tangible logic. Your choice depends on what you believe: will you choose to believe what you see or what you feel?”
The question echoes inside your head, and the world around you flashes brightly like you had just died and walked into heaven.
Your consciousness returns to current time, eyes fluttering open as your alarm clock rings you awake. Sitting opposite you, eyes closed as you watch him snoozing lightly despite sitting in a chair, you feel a pinch in your chest. 
It’s not his fault, and never will be. 
77 notes · View notes
Text
Villainous Heroics - Chapter 7
Apparently daily updates are a thing - who knew! Just a quick headcanon to throw at you all, but I briefly mention that Aizawa teachers Hero Ethics as a class besides just his homeroom, which is something I picked up from @deafmic’s stories over on AO3 and Tumblr. They're really good and they're usually about EraserMic and Aizawa and Shinsou father son stuff, so give them a read if you can!
Remember to check me out on ibelieveinahappilyeverafter on tumblr for a bunch more of my stuff!
Enjoy!
               Click here to read the work on Archive Of Our Own.
                 Click here to read the work on Fan Fiction Net.
If you found yourself enjoying this, then check out my writing commissions.
                                       ⍣ I have a Patreon! ⍣                                         ☪ I have a tip jar! ☪
Summary: Eraserhead is an underground hero who is constantly busy and doesn’t have time to be dealing with new villains - even if they aren’t all that villainous and make the night interesting.
Present Mic is the latest up-and-coming villain in the world and he has a point to prove to everyone out there - as long as he doesn’t keep getting distracted by Eraserhead.
Aizawa Shota is someone who soon learns that there is more to someone than the mask they show to the world - especially when it comes to playing heroes and villains.
Yamada Hizashi learns that there is more to heroics and villainy than he could have ever thought - especially in a world where some heroes still care about those lost in the shadows.
(Inspired and dedicated to corndog-patrol’s Villain!Mic AU on Tumblr.)
           <<First/Chapter>> <<Last Chapter>> <<Next Chapter>>
                                            Chapter Seven
“Seriously? He actually went and made his own radio station?” Nemuri’s shocked tone faded and was quickly followed by wild laughter that had Shota wincing as he dragged the phone away from his ear. Her laugh was often worse than the sound of feedback. “And he’s still calling himself a villain! Does he even know what a villain is?”
“Probably not,” Shota sighed quietly, settling back on his couch under a heap of blankets and a purring Jelly. It was one of his rare nights off work and he was grateful for the chance to rest. His last fight as Eraserhead had been more taxing than he would have thought - even Mic had taken it easy on him in their fight a few days ago. “At least he’s not taking over radio stations anymore.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about that - I think I managed to get reception to one of them, once!” There was a moment of thoughtful silence that Shota quickly realized wasn’t thoughtful at all. “He sounds really smitten with you, you know.”
“Please, his ‘love’ for me is just another game to play,” Shota said quickly, rolling his eyes as Jelly yowled loudly and Nemuri started lecturing him. “As I was saying when I started this call, I don’t know what to do about him.”
“Fuck him.” It wasn’t said as an insult, Shota realized after a moment, and Shota remembered his kidnapping and the song and dance Mic had done for him. He then hid himself under his blankets. “Or let him fuck you. You could do to have something up your ass that’s not a stick-”
“Nemuri,” Shota finally snapped, grateful that he was alone in his apartment and no one could see the blush that was no doubt staining his cheeks. Jelly could, of course, but Shota had faith that she wouldn’t tell on him. “I’m being serious.”
“You think I’m not?” Shota needed new friends because Kayama Nemuri was going to lead to his downfall, one day. She would at least have the decency to kill him herself, he supposed. “Okay, okay. You said he’s helping you on the Trigger case, right? Use that to get him more into hero work, maybe?”
“Possibly, but I doubt he’d be willing to work with any other heroes or even the police,” Shota said, shaking his head. “He hates the entire system of pro heroes - and for good reason, it seems like.”
“Ooh, a villain with a tragic past. Now you have me curious. Any idea behind all the details?” Nemuri finally sounded like she was taking this seriously, but Shota hesitated in telling her about the hearing aids Present Mic wore. That part seemed… personal.
“It seems he grew up in an area similar to mine and had problems with how people viewed his quirk like I did.” Really, their stories were near mirrors of each other. They had started the same, but Shota had gone on to become a bitter underground hero while Present Mic had gone on to be a cheerful villain. “The more I learn, the more it seems we had the same start.”
“Shota…” Nemuri was one of the few who knew about his past and his childhood, and if Shota had his way, then it would remain as just a few. “So, he’s trying to change the system to make sure kids don’t go through that. Jeez, he sounds like a hero, but he’s going about it with a villain’s strategy.”
“Villainous heroics,” Shota mumbled to himself, scratching Jelly behind the ear when she wiggled her way up his chest. “I’ve been listening in on his radio show, but I haven’t learned much else besides what songs are popular.”
“Shota, are you sure you’re listening to this radio station just to gather information? Because it sounds like you just want to hear his voice after having a horrible week.” That couldn’t be necessarily ruled out as a contributing factor, he conceded. “Holy shit, is that really why-”
“Of course not, Nemuri, stop seeing things that aren’t there. There is useful information scattered in there sometimes about active criminals in the area he lives in.” It was subtle, but Mic seemed to be slipping tip offs into his show every chance he had in just a way that only someone who knew what to look for could pick up on it. He really was wasted as a villain.
“Aw, Shota, you have an undercover boyfriend, that’s so cute!” At the cheerful tone, Shota reminded himself that Nemuri could never find out about when he had been kidnapped. “What’s the name of his new radio station, anyways?”
“It’s on 80.5,” Shota sighed, looking to where his radio was playing music with a slight static tinge. “He’s been calling it ‘Put Your Hands Up Radio.’”
“I’d almost be willing to call that adorable. Well, at least he’s well suited to being with you if he can stay up so late and still be coherent enough to host a radio show. How long does he host?”
“One to five on Fridays,” Shota frowned, reaching out to fiddle with the radio to try and get a clearer sound. “He plays music nonstop for forty-five minutes and then talks for fifteen before repeating the pattern.”
“Oh, Shota… You really do have it bad, don’t you?” The tone was soft and bordered on sympathetic, Shota feeling his heart speed up. Before he could defend himself, he heard Nemuri’s victorious shout. “Aha! Found it!”
“And that was Utada’s ‘Unbreakable’ which has climbed once again to reach number eight in the charts - as I told you dear listeners it would!” Mic’s voice, loud and delighted, filtered through Shota’s apartment and seemed to fill up every inch of empty space. Shota hated himself for how he relaxed back into his blankets and pillows.
“Shota,” Nemuri scolded loudly, Shota forced to move the phone a few inches back, again. “You didn’t tell me he had a voice like that! Does he look as good as he sounds?”
“Please return to hell,” Shota mumbled, trying to focus back in on Mic’s jabbering. It seemed he was taking in questions from his ‘loyal listeners.’ At least the man had the sense to use a burner phone to take in the calls.
“You’re on Put Your Hands Up Radio, listener! What can Present Mic do for you?” It made sense as to why the man was a villain after Shota had learned more of his past, but he really could have been so successful doing almost anything else.
“Yeah, hi, listen, I need your help to settle a bet.” Shota shot up, staring at the radio with narrowed eyes because he knew that voice. That was one of twenty voices he had to deal with every day.
“Shota.” Shota could hear Nemuri’s own suspicions. “Is that…?”
“Fire away, little listener! And then please get some rest - it’s almost three in the morning, you know!”
“Yes, but this is important.” Jiro Kyoka, one of his students, was calling into a radio show that was hosted by a villain. “What’s your opinion on Kaya’s new song ‘Later Lover?’ I need to prove that even villains can tell what music is actually good.”
“She’s getting detention,” Shota decided, ignoring Nemuri’s startled laugh. “What is she even doing up listening to this? There’s no way she finished her essay for Hero Ethics already.”
“You’re so mean to your students,” Nemuri gasped out, still laughing. Shota lowered his phone so he could focus on Mic’s laughter, instead.
“Well, little listener, I have to say that ‘Later Lover’ is quickly becoming a favorite of mine! It’s a lot different than what Kaya has done with her music up until this point, but I think the risk is really paying off! You can bet I’ll be one of the first in line to get her new album, which comes out next month!”
“Thank you! See, I told you-” Jiro’s voice cut out as the call ended, Mic still laughing, and it was so easy to picture his wide smile and scrunched up eyes that not even his sunglasses could hide.
“Alright, we still have a few minutes until the top of the hour, so let’s take another caller! What can I do for you, dear listener?”
“Oh, um, hi- Hi! So, uh, I was actually a bit curious about your quirk.” The new voice was almost drowned out by another burst of Nemuri’s laughter, Shota burying his face in his hands. He was going to have to expel that problem child. What were all his kids doing up at three in the morning listening to a villain’s radio show?
There was the quiet buzz of Midoriya’s rambling thoughts on the nature of Present Mic’s quirk, Mic himself sounding a little overwhelmed, “Oi, oi, just how many kids are listening to my show right now?”
                                                              ::
Present Mic’s radio show appeared to have become a weekly event - to the point he would find a way to do it even when he was out doing one of his attention-grabbing schemes to prove the failed system of heroes and villains. Lately he had taken to dealing with threats and criminals before Shota could get there, and when Shota did arrive, Mic seemed to delight in fighting him, as well.
“Here I thought you had actually taken to being useful.” Enjoying how Mic jumped and scrambled off the bar counter he had been sitting on, Shota watched as he turned around and gave a wide grin.
“Aw, hello there, baby. Don’t get jealous, now, you know this is the best place to get word out - and I have a radio show to publicize now, you know!”
“And that involves tying up bartenders and terrorizing patrons, does it?” Shota looked to where the bartender and possible owner was indeed tied up and gagged, looking annoyed rather than scared.
“Only if they get in my way.” Mic quickly dodged Shota’s next lunge, grabbing an old, dented microphone and holding it out towards him. “Anything to say to my loyal listeners, hero?”
“Only that they should find a station that’s actually decent,” Shota snorted, watching as Mic clutched his heart and put on an exaggerated pout. “And that the kids who are listening to this trash need to turn it off and go to sleep.”
“Aw, you do listen, then!” Mic’s smile was the physical embodiment of sunshine and Shota almost wanted to squint his eyes at the sight of it. “Come on, baby, surely you want to give a few words of wisdom to my loyal listeners, here.”
“If they’re stupid enough to listen to this every week, then there’s no wisdom in them at all.” Snapping his scarf out, Shota smirked as it latched around Mic’s arm, the man giving him a grin in return as he adjusted his headphones - the same ones that Shota had returned by throwing them in his face the next time they met after their fight at the radio station.
“Sorry, listeners, I have to send you all on a music break a little early. I have a hero to teach a lesson to.” Mic twisted enough to loosen the scarf before kicking a loose bar stool towards Shota, the sudden action making him curse as he leapt out of the way. “See you next week, listeners!”
Shota wasn’t sure how long they fought until he was kneeling down next to a wrapped-up Mic, the man pouting with crooked glasses and a few strands of hair falling out of that ridiculous style of his.
“You didn’t say my name.” Shota let Mic look confused until the man figured out his words - as Shota knew he would. Present Mic seemed to have the ridiculous talent of always knowing what Shota meant.
“Of course not,” Mic tsked, shaking his head. “C’mon, Eraser.” The tone switched to something teasing, Mic giving him a smirk. “It wouldn’t be very nice of me to give out the name of an underground hero on a radio show, now would it?”
“Such a bad villain,” Shota muttered back, propping his chin up on his palm as he balanced on the balls of his feet, trying to hide his small smile. Shota had never been wrong, at least, when he had first realized that Present Mic broke up his usual night time routine for something far more interesting.
“There’s no need to go insulting me, hero,” Mic said softly, voice quiet and warm as he gave Shota a smile that didn’t seem faked or hidden behind too many secrets. “At least if I have to fight someone, it turned out to be you.”
Staring down at the sweetly smiling villain known as Present Mic, Shota was realizing just how screwed he was.
                                                           ::
“My, my, Present Mic, you have been difficult to get a hold of.” At the average, friendly voice that wouldn’t have ever stood out on its own, Shota suddenly knew that something was wrong. Looking up from where he had been filling out paperwork for the police station, Shota stared at the radio where it was tuned in to Mic’s show.
“Oi, oi, of course I’m going to change numbers when some random person gets a hold of it!” Mic’s voice was bright and cheerful and lightly scolding, but Shota could tell it was a front. Mic was worried or, at the very least, on edge.
“I take it our product hasn’t been to your liking?” Product… Trigger. This had to be the man who had offered Mic the Trigger in the club - the polite one he had been talking about. “We do have others who detest the help themselves, I suppose.”
“Hey, now, Present Mic works alone, you know! I’m not up for joining some little club when I’ve been doing just fine on my own!” As Mic talked, Shota dug around his papers and work until he found an old tape recorder, quickly turning it on and starting to record. This could be useful for the case, if nothing else.
“The way I hear it, Present Mic, you haven’t been reaching your full potential. You’ve been in jail how many times this month alone? If you wish, I have associates who would be willing to help you finish dealing with your hero problem.”
This wasn’t just a Trigger dealer, then, but an entire operation of something that sounded far bigger. There had been an increase in villain activity over the last year or so… could this be a part of that?
“Jeez, you guys are really serious,” Mic muttered, sounding curious, but slightly unsure - just how they would expect him to sound. “Oi, you said something about an offer to help me and all that. ‘Shake the system of heroes and villains,’ yeah?”
“Indeed. My associates and I are in your type of business, Present Mic. I, and others in my line of work, represent a group of people who are intent are dismantling the current system of pro heroes. It’s really all quite messy, don’t you think? To leave the safety up to people who only care about their rankings?”
“Well, now you’re making sense!” Mic laughed, loud and dim and completely faked. “What kind of associates have you got? I might actually have to give that ‘product’ of yours a chance, now.”
“Let’s just say that we’re a league onto our own.” A league, huh… There was something dangerous rising up in the streets. “You still have my card. As I said before, this offer seems to appeal to you, doesn’t it?” There was a click that let Shota know the man had ended the call on his end, the radio buzzing with quiet static before he heard a low chuckle from Mic.
“Interesting… Well, then?” Mic’s voice was like a croon, low and deep and making Shota look to his radio out of instinct. “Did you get all that, hero?”
Fuck… Present Mic would have been a great hero. 
17 notes · View notes
yyounggoth · 6 years
Note
Could you maybe do a Jalex? However you want to do it
Sure sure! I had the time of my life creating this hc! Thankyou for requesting❤️
{this is set really early on in season one and I changed Alex’s brothers age to be around 26/27}
• Alex was only two steps away from his schools entrance when he heard a familiar voice call his name, his eyes automatically roll in annoyance
• “Hey Alex! Alex! I need you to do me a favour please?” Peter says desperately
• Alex turns around to see his brother running up to him holding his 3 year old daughter Maya
• “I know this is really sudden but I need you to look after Maya for me”
• Alex looks at his brother like he’s grown a second head.
• “I have school, how do you expect me to look after her?” He asks incredulously
• “I’m sure skipping one day of school won’t hurt right? No one else can have her. Mom and dad are at work, Kate is in labour as we speak and I need to drive her to the hospital Alex please please please?”
• Alex makes the mistake of looking up at his brothers face, his puppy dog eyes on full display with the intention to manipulate his younger brother. It always worked
• “Fine, but you owe me big time” he sighs heavily and takes hold of his niece
• Alex gets a wide grin in response, peter gives one last kiss to his daughter and a thumbs up to Alex before he’s running back down the path and into the car that holds his pregnant girlfriend, taking off at high speeds to reach the hospital in time.
• “Well, looks like it’s just you and me kid” his niece lets out a sweet giggle at his words and clings tighter to him.
• Alex makes his way back down the steps that lead to the high school, about to take his usual route home before he realises he doesn’t have a ride back.
• Fucking Peter left him stranded at school with his kid, no offers of a ride in sight. He can’t take the school bus seeing as it’s 7:45am, he doesn’t have any money for an uber and as far as he knew Tony wasn’t in today so he couldn’t ask the older for a lift either.
• Just as he was about to give up and walk the 30 minutes it takes to get home, his eyes land on none other than Justin Foley, the insufferable jock that made his days at liberty high miserable. It wasn’t like the boy was mean or anything, he was quite sweet when he was on his own, but when he was with his dumb jock friends he’d say or do anything to fit in.
• For some reason Alex seemed to be the target for the group, they claim he’s weird and gay, “he must be with a nose ring like that.” Alex just chooses to ignore the boys but it’s hard to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Whenever he would get taunted by the group of athletes Justin would always laugh along with them, but once everything died down Alex could feel the boy’s heavy stare linger on him for too long, making him squirm at the attention.
• Something wriggling on his hip brought his attention back to the present, his niece thrashing her body slightly, seemingly becoming restless. She pouts heavily and tugs on her uncles hoodie, mumbles of “Uncle Lexy” falling deaf on his ears.
• Just as he’s about to start walking home, he makes eye contact with Justin. Although Alex would never admit it he could feel himself getting lost in his green eyes. They stare at each other for a while, seemingly trapped in the moment, hypnotised by one another.
• Alex breaks his focus out of the weird moment both boys share as he notices Justin making his way over to them.
• “Hey are you okay..” Justin trails off as if he wants Alex to fill in the blanks.
• “… Alex” he says annoyed
• “Yeah I know your name dummy, we share history and English classes together” Justin shoots back
• Bullshit, the only reason you know who I am is because of your stupid meathead friends, is what Alex wants to say. Instead choosing to keep his mouth shut in favour of his niece.
• “Hmm” he agrees instead
• “So are you? Okay I mean..” Justin rubs the back of his neck as a nervous habit, chewing on his lower lip as he waits for the younger to respond.
• “Not really, my brother dumped his kid on me and I have no way of getting home” dumped isn’t really the word he wants to use, he loves Maya to pieces and would do anything for the little girl. His brothers timing was just inconvenient, catching Alex when he was at his busiest, often causing him to become moody.
• At the mention of the little girl, Justin turns towards her and gives her the biggest smile, lifting his hand to play with her little fingers. Maya smiles back at the boy and giggles shyly.
• “So adorable” Justin mumbles before turning his attention back on Alex.
• Alex noticed that Maya had become calmed by the presence of the jock, no longer wriggling in his hold. Instead her face holds great happiness, her smile wide as the whole world seems to shine in her curious dark brown eyes. She reaches out for Justin’s hand, which he happily takes. It was almost cute to Alex, seeing the older boys hand completely envelope hers, tiny and petite hands resting against his large and calloused ones. This time Justin giggles along with the girl.
• “I can give you a lift” Alex snaps his eyes towards Justin in disbelief.
• “You want to give me a ride? Alex asks confused.
• "But why, don’t you like hate me?”
• Justin clicks his tongue in response.
• “Look I know I can be an ass sometimes but I don’t hate you. Take the offer it’s the least I can do.” Well it’s somewhat comforting (?) to know that the boy in front of him doesn’t completely hate him.
• Before Alex has chance to respond, Justin is already making his way to the parking lot, car keys swinging on his index finger.
• “Hurry up Standall we don’t have all day” he shouts to the boy behind him
• Alex picks up the pace, jogging to the other boy and getting in the car.• The two boys sit quietly in the car, the only noise filling the stifling silence was the static of the radio. Every now and then it would pick up parts of a song only to fall back onto the static, the noise making Justin physically cringe. He decides he’s had about as much as he can take and reaches over to turn it off, preferring to sit in the quiet rather than letting static swirl around in his head and let his mind haze over. He rubs his temples as he feels a headache coming on. Luckily for him the child and, not so surprisingly, her uncle had remained silent for most of the drive.
• Although he was thankful for it, the eeriness of the soundproof car was starting to irritate him. He needed verbal stimulation, needed to hear something even if it was the tapping of a foot, otherwise his mind would wander into the dark places he keeps locked away. He needed a distraction and if he wasn’t going to get it then he’d make one himself.
• “What’s the cuties name?” He glances at Alex in the passenger seat, the small child placed on his lap with the seatbelt secured around her waist. Although it wasn’t the safest option for the girl it was the only one they had. Peter hadn’t provided Alex with any type of car seat and he didn’t trust placing her in the backseat without one. So Alex’s lap it was.
• “Alex Standall” Alex joked lightly, revelling in the tiny chuckle it gained from the boy beside him
• “Very funny. I meant what’s this little cutie’s name” he reaches over to pinch her cheek to emphasise he was talking about the little girl.
• “Maya” he says fondly, Justin catches a smile on the younger boy’s face. Seeing a smile grace Alex’s features was pretty rare these days, making Justin smile in response to the beautiful sight in front of him.
• “She’ll be 4 this September. My brother’s girlfriend is actually in labour right now so it won’t be long before she’s a big sister.” He doesn’t know why he shares this information with the jock, maybe it’s because of the way Justin glances at him every now and then, softness painting his features and fondness swimming in his eyes.
• “I’ve always wanted to have siblings, I like the idea of having a big family.” Justin says out loud, not really speaking to anyone in particular.
• “I don’t want momma to have a baby” Maya chimes in.
• “What if it’s a boy? Boys are smelly!” She says, dramatically pinching her nose.
• “No they’re not! Daddy’s a boy and he’s not smelly is he?” Alex asks
• “.. sometimes” she says bluntly.
• Both boys cackle the rest of the way home.
• When they arrive at the Standall home Alex quickly makes his way to get out the car muttering a small “thanks” when a hand on his shoulder halts his movements.
• “Want me to stay with you? Help take care of Maya maybe?” Alex swears he hears a bit of desperation in the boy’s tone
• “It’s cool, you should probably get back to school or your teachers will get mad. Thanks though”
• “I don’t mind skipping. I have maths first period and I hate it so much. Plus it wouldn’t totally suck to spend time with a cutie… and Maya too” he winks at him before getting out of the car and walking to the front door of the house
• Alex sat frozen in the passenger seat. Did he just call Alex cute?
• When Alex finally gets out of the car he sees Justin leaning against the door smirking at him. Alex let’s out a scoff and rolls his eyes. That fucker.
• Justin had been at his house for an hour and a half now and he didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. Not that Alex minded, strangely enough he was enjoying the company of the jock more than he thought he would. He thought that it would be really awkward for the two of them to talk without the toddler as a distraction, but as it turns out the boys have a lot more in common than they thought. They both shared a love for music, they both watched the same trashy tv shows, both hated the same characters and they liked the same snacks. For Alex this made the elder a little bit more enjoyable to be around.
• They slipped into easy conversation as it was just the two of them, the television playing in the background, some tv show they’d never seen before plays at a low volume. Alex had put Maya down for a nap not long after they arrived. She started to become cranky during snack time and Alex could only take that as a sign of her tiredness so he whisked the younger away to nap on his bed.
• No matter how tired the girl was it seemed that she wouldn’t be able to sleep any time soon. She awoke from a nightmare and ran throughout the house looking for her uncle. Once she spotted the boys in the den she ran over to them as fast as her legs would carry her. She stopped short in front of them and her eyes filled up with tears.
• Alex caught sight of his niece and leaned forward to pull her onto his lap.
• “What’s wrong bubba?” Alex asks, concerned for his niece
• “Had a nightmare” Maya’s voice wobbles as she tries to contain the sob that threatened to escape her throat.
• Alex rubs a soothing hand over her back as if to protect her from the fear of her nightmares.
• “It was just a dream love, it’s not real. You’re safe okay, you’re safe and you’re alright.” Alex’s words seemed to calm the young child. Her breathing steadied and her eyes eventually dried from the tears that were shed.
• Once she was back to her normal state the girl escaped from Alex’s lap and crawled over to where Justin was sitting, curling into his side and tugging on his shirt
• “Jusy could you and uncle Lexy please read me a story?” And there was no way that Justin could refuse, not with the cute use of the nicknames and the pout that adorned the girls face.
• He looked over at Alex to see if it was okay with him and sighed a breath of relief when Alex nodded his head in approval, a small smile on his face.
• That was all the incentive Justin needed before he lifted the girl up and swung her around in the air causing giggles to escape her lips and flow through the air. Her squeaks became louder as Justin made his way up the stairs, Alex following suit with the biggest smile Justin had ever seen.
• Both Alex and Justin placed themselves on the bed beside Maya. Justin was reading her the story that she picked out whilst Alex tickled her forehead and nose, something that helped to comfort the girl and make her sleepy. Maya kept chastising Justin for getting distracted but he couldn’t help it, not with the heart warming scene playing out before him. Alex really was amazing with kids.
• Justin did end up finally finishing the story, no matter how distracting the boy in front of him was. Just as he was reading the last few words Maya’s eyes slipped shut and her breath left her mouth in little huffs, signalling she was asleep. The boys tucked the toddler in, Justin pulled the blanket around her, tucking it into the corner of the bed whilst Alex kissed her forehead. Justin slipped the book back to its original place before sneaking off down the stairs behind Alex
• When they were at the bottom of the staircase Alex turned to look at Justin with a small smile on his face, Justin reciprocated the gesture. No matter how much Justin teased the boy he never meant it, in fact he found Alex to be a pretty great guy. He would never tell him this of course.
• “Thanks for today” Alex spoke softly.
• “To be honest I don’t think I would of been able to do it without you. She’s really taken a liking to you” he smiles wider
• Justin rubs the nape of his neck nervously, chuckling at the fondness of Alex’s words
• “It was fun, I’ve taking a liking to her as well. I’m not usually that fond of kids but she’s pretty cute” he says
• Alex just beams his beautiful smile at Justin, not saying anything in return but communicating his thoughts through his facial expressions. Justin concludes that Alex is pretty damn happy right now.
• All of a sudden Justin’s phone breaks the moment, beeping constantly as new messages roll through, all from his fellow jock friends. He takes a peek at the lockscreen to read the incoming messages
• “Shit” he curses softly
• “What’s the matter?”
• “Bryce and the guys texted me, apparently my teacher is in a super pissy mood and noticed I wasn’t in class. I’m definitely in trouble”
• “Go then” Alex spoke softly
• Justin was about to protest before Alex spoke up again
• “You’ve helped me out enough Justin, you should get to class whilst you still can. We’ll be fine.”
• “Are you sure?” He asked timidly
• “I’m positive. Now go and have a great day.”
• Justin makes his way over to the door and is about to step through the threshold but stops to turn back to Alex
• “I’ll see you tomorrow?” He asks
• “Yeah, see you tomorrow Justin” Alex smiles at him
• Justin returns a smile of his own and gives him one last wink before he’s out the door.
• Alex shuts the door and leans his head against the cool wood. He replays the scenes of the entire day over in his head, Justin spending time with him was unusual but certainly not unwelcome. It was nice to see how Justin behaved in the presence of young kids, it made his heart beat faster at the thought of how maternal Justin had been. He’d be a great father someday.
• Alex lifted his head and giggles to himself, feeling light.
• The boys had built up an unlikely friendship between the two, and Alex couldn’t be happier.
~ extra~
• Alex could feel the buzz of his phone against his leg. He fished it out of his pocket and looked at the lock screen to see a text from his brother
Peter: It’s a girl x
Send requests| request guidelines| my other work
43 notes · View notes
londone-fog · 6 years
Text
Friday, Never Hesitate- Reddie Soulmate AU
AO3 Link
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
The next day, his mother told him to swallow a new pill. Oblong, slightly pink in color. It was bitter on his tongue, and he didn’t like it. The back pain went away after a couple of days.
But his Mama told him to keep taking them.
He didn’t want to upset her.
Chapter Four- Tuesday
Eddie hated chemistry. He hated it with every fibre of his being. Richie didn’t exactly make it easy on him either. He sat next to him in class, tapping his fingers against the edge of his desk, the repetitive noises drilling into his skull. He simply couldn’t focus. The teacher kept on droning and droning, and Eddie felt like his brain was going to explode. He ran his finger around the outline of his inhaler in his pocket, trying in vain yet again to focus on this class. Eventually, he leaned over to Richie, teeth gritted.
“If you don’t stop tapping your desk, I’m gonna shove my foot up your ass.”
“That a promise?” Eddie groaned in frustration, drawing the attention of the teacher.
“Mr. Kasprak, may I help you with something?” he asked, tone condescending in every sense of the word.
“No Sir,” Eddie murmured, looking down into his lap. Embarrassment burned hot under his cheeks, anger at Richie swelling in his chest.
“Now, starting with tomorrow, be will be talking about soulmates and how chemistry can be applied to them. How it plays a part in soulmarks and everything.” The bell rang just as he finished his statement, and dread couldn’t help but build up in Eddie’s gut. He hated it anytime anyone in his class would bring up the subject of soulmates. But that seemed to be the only thing people wanted to talk about, the only thing songs on the radio sang about, the only thing that showed up on movies and TV.
It was just a reminder that, even at 17, Eddie still had no soulmark, and by extension, no soulmate.
Richie jogged up next to Eddie as he exited the classroom, grin in place and hands fiddling with the straps of his backpack.
“What’s got you in such a tizz, Eds? That was pretty damn funny, if I do say so myself.”
Eddie mumbled a response, thoroughly agitated. Richie’s demeanor changed a little, his bravado halting and assessing the situation. He leaned a bit closer to Eddie so only he can hear.
“Is your back bothering you?”
Of course it was. It always was these days. The dull itch from his childhood had begun to morph into a low burn as he grew older, aching and raw at all hours of the night and day.
“I guess. I just feel like shit.” Richie nodded, deep in thought.
“Let’s go to lunch, yeah? I know I could use a pick me up.” Eddie nodded, allowing himself to be led outside to Richie’s car.
Richie’s car was truly something to behold. Bright orange, paint peeling from being exposed to the sun for too long. The pair climbed into the rickety vehicle, Eddie trying to ignore the flaps of seat upholstery that had peeled up and now poked at his legs. He didn’t want to imagine the amount of people who’d owned this car before Riche, or even the type of people they had been. Richie started the car, engine coughing to life and radio blaring whichever cassette they’d been listening to this morning.
Richie loved cassettes, and records, and just music in general. Eddie had boxes upon boxes of tapes his friends had made him over the years. Bev sent them from Portland, and she came up to visit them on holidays and for some time during the summer, always bringing tapes for the members of the loser’s club. Mike had only ever made one, Ben had made a few offhandedly, Bill a few more. But most were from Richie. Slipped into lockers, mailboxes, thrown through open windows, tossed into laps.
Thought you might like this.
And Eddie listened to them diligently, drowning out his mother’s cries and day-time TV with the loud drum crashes and guitar solos that Richie loved so much. It was all a little too harsh, but it stopped Eddie from thinking too hard while his headphones slipped over his ears.
Richie carefully maneuvered out of the parking lot, obviously being more safety conscious for Eddie’s sake.
“So what’s got your goat? You seem like something’s bothering you.”
Eddie brings his knees to his chest, scuffed shoes resting on the dashboard. He balls his hands in the hem of his sweatshirt, running his thumb along the seam.
“I just hate it when they bring up soulmates in class. It doesn’t even have to do with anything. You don’t need another person to make you happy.”
Richie gave a concerned sort of smile.
“I know that, Eds. Trust me, if anyone even has a little understanding of what you mean, it’s me.”
Eddie nodded. Richie’s mark was still just barely a whisper of a thing. There had been a few nights that he’d crawled through Eddie’s window in tears, fearing for whoever his soulmate was.
“I just wish there was something I could do. I’m the outlier. The .1% left on a hand sanitizer bottle. I’m tired of it.”
“I know Spaghetti Head, but think of it this way. At least you won’t be one of those ninnies who thinks their soulmate is the one and only person they need. You have friends who care about you, and that lovely mother of yours.” Eddie refrained from commenting on that last part. “What more could a guy want?”
“To not be ostracized in front of my peers.” Eddie murmured tersely. Richie gave another anxious sort of smile, patting Eddie on the kneecap. For once, he seemed to be at a loss of what to say.
-
Eddie once again sat in class, trying his best not to drift off into a deep sleep. Sure enough, his teacher kept true to his word. The board was filled with the chemical application of soulmates, from how the marks showed up to how the attraction of soulmates was unlike normal attraction. Eddie’s notebook remained empty. He was either uninterested, or already knew what the teacher would say.
He looked over at Richie, who for once took diligent record of the teacher’s lecture. He glanced back at Eddie, giving him the OK symbol with his fingers and raising an eyebrow. Eddie gave a sideways thumbs up. Richie grinned at him, attempting to elicit a smile.
It didn’t quite work.
Eddie thought back to the day he told his mother he didn’t have a soulmark. He’d been about nine years old then, sitting at the dining room table across from her, silent.
“Mama,” he said, oh so quietly. “Why don’t I have a soulmark yet? Everyone else in my class has theirs. They have for a long time.”
She paused, a thousand emotions running over her face.
“Well, sweetheart, you might not have a soulmate.”
“Oh.” The bottom of Eddie’s stomach dropped out of his feet.
“It’ll be alright. You don’t need a soulmate. You have me. A mother is better than any soulmate you could ever find. Eat your brussels sprouts.”
“Yes Mama.”
That night, he’d slunk up to his room, trying hard to ignore the irritated skin between his shoulders. He didn’t cry, too wracked with sorrow to let even an iota escape him. In that moment, he wished desperately that Richie was his soulmate. He was rowdy and sometimes annoying, but he was always at Eddie’s side when he needed help. He stopped people bullying him. He would be soft and understanding when the situation called for just that. They were best friends.
Eddie looked at Richie now. He still sometimes wished for just that.
“Mr. Kaspbrak.” Eddie jolted in his seat, facing the front again. The teacher stood, arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed.
“Since you seem to know everything about this unit, would you mind telling us what exactly animoprophen is and what it does?”
Eddie burned hot, anger bubbling under his skin. But, the word was familiar. It was a drug, one sitting in his medicine cabinet at home. One he took every single day since he was seven.
“Animoprophen is a drug, sir. It helps ease back pain.”
“Only half right, Mr. Kaspbrak. It is a drug, but it isn’t for back pain. Not even close.”
Eddie’s fists balled themselves up, his frustration finally spilling over the edge.
“Excuse me, Mr. Green, I don’t think that’s right. I’ve taken that drug everyday since I was seven. I was prescribed it for back pain.”
“Will someone please tell Mr. Kaspbrak what exactly animoprophen is for?”
A girl in the back raised her hand.
“Animoprophen is a drug given to people with dead soulmates. It makes the mark go away so they are at less risk of depression.”
“Thank you, Cynthia. You must be confusing it with another drug, Edward.”
Eddie knew he wasn’t. People around the classroom did not make their chuckles and whispers a secret, talking behind hands and glancing his way. He could feel his airways closing, breathing growing rapid, fingers becoming numb with static.
The bell finally rang, releasing him from this absolute nightmare. He sprang from his seat, racing into the hallway. He needed to go home, he was going to be sick, he was going to die.
He took mighty puffs from his inhaler, one after another.
One.
Two.
Three.
He didn’t stop. Not even when he heard Richie calling to him from the hallway.
-
Eddie lay in bed that night, examining the pill bottle he’d palmed from the cabinet an hour ago. The light from his lamp shine through the yellowish plastic, turning the pink pills within a sort of orange color. His mom’s name was printed on the bottle. How had he never noticed before? All his other medicine had his name printed on the label. But not this one. Not this fucking one.
He’d run to the pharmacy immediately after chemistry, not waiting up for Richie to give him a ride. Panting, he slammed his palm flat against the counter, drawing the attention of the pharmacist.
“I need you to tell me something,” he said through gritted teeth.
“What’s wrong Eddie. Out of your inhaler?”
“No. I have a question about animoprophen.”
The color quickly drained out of the older man’s face.
“Yes, of course. What is it?”
“My mother told me that it was for back pain. Back pain I’ve had since I was seven. But I was just told in my class just now that it’s to get rid of soulmarks? Explain.”
The pharmacist swallowed, obviously nervous.
“Yes, they are for soulmarks. They’re prescribed to your mother.”
“What about the other medication? is it even real? Am I taking things I don’t need?”
A pregnant pause swelled before them.
“They’re all placebos. Sugar pills. They don’t affect you at all. Except the animoprophen.” The pharmacist then looked above Eddie’s head at someone entering the store. Eddie turned to see Richie standing there, breathing a little heavily.
“Thanks. For everything,” Eddie said, turning back to the man before him. His words were sharper than an obsidian scalpel. He waited a beat before pushing a small display of brochures to the floor and turning to meet Richie.
“Let’s go.”
Eddie hadn’t confronted his mother yet. Every time he thought he might be able to, he couldn’t. It was his mother. How could she?
A loud thud sounded against his window, followed by muffled cursing. Eddie looked out to see none other than Richie. He also noticed a small crack in his window from the rock Richie has thrown. He lifted the pane, looking at his best friend.
“You’re going to break my window one of these days, Trashmouth.”
“Only if you break my heart first,” he crooned in a sing-song voice. Eddie smirked before racing downstairs to let Richie in, not caring that his mother lay sleeping in her chair.
Once they are safe in Eddie’s room, Richie released a barrage of questions.
“Okay, what happened at the pharmacy? You ran out of class, and so I followed you, and I find you going all bad cop in the drug store. And the amino-whatever? What’s that all about?”
Eddie let the confusion wash over him, again picking up the plastic bottle and running his thumb over the label.
“Animoprophen. It’s a drug used to get rid of soulmarks after your soulmate dies.” He holds up the bottle. “This is prescribed to my mom. She’s been giving it to me since I was seven.” He pulls his inhaler out of his pocket, throwing it across his room in anger. “All my medication is bullshit, Richie. It was never real. She’s been lying to me for nearly ten years. Ten years! That’s more than half of my life!”
Richie didn’t say anything, just rubbed small circles between his shoulders. Eddie leaned into the touch, grateful for the comforting touch.
“What are you gonna do, Eddie?”
“I dunno. Being in the same house as her makes me feel sick. Thinking about everything makes me sick.” He pauses. “I think she’s the fault I never got my mark. I think that medicine stopped it from coming in. It’s her fault. I have a soul mate out there who I might never find, because of her.”
Eddie was a gutted fish, a shattered window, a knife cut, a tornado, a raindrop. Open. Changed. Irreparably broken.
He did not cry.
Richie reached over and wrapped him in a rare embrace, resting his chin on Eddie’s shoulder.
“I’m so sorry. I feel like I should do something, but I can’t. I haven’t felt this powerless since we fought It.”
He pulled away, placing Eddie’s hands in his. He traced the scar on his palm, running his thumb over the raised skin.
“Do you want to stay at my house tonight? My parents won’t be there,” Richie asked quietly, and Eddie though he could sense just a little shyness in his tone.
“I dunno. My ma…”
“She shouldn’t control you anymore. Not after what she did. If you want to go, let's go.”
Eddie nodded.
As they walked down the stairs, Eddie felt his life moving in slow motion. He didn’t avoid the third step. His mother stirred, demanding to know what Richie was doing there, where they were going. She tried to stop them, opening her mouth to yell.
“Mom, I know that you did,” he says plainly, placing the animoprophen in her hand. “I’m going to stay at Richie’s house tonight.”
And just like that, calm as the eye of a hurricane, he walked out the door towards Richie’s car.
ANNOUNCEMENT: So, my amazing friend, who’s read this fic from the start, is turning it into a comic! Please go check her out at @sekiims 
Taglist: @anniewdoodles
10 notes · View notes
Text
A.C. Pines - Chapter 1: Family Man
Here we go, more Alex, and more Stan being a Dad (my weakness!)
Enjoy!
Warning for tooth-rotting fluff.
(P.S., the movie mentioned is “All Dogs Go to Heaven.”)
Stan trudged out of the basement, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he closed the vending machine door.  It was close to five thirty in the morning, and the walkie-talkie in his hand was giving off random bursts of static.  Again.  He stumbled over the baby-gate at the bottom of the stairs, biting back a loud swear.  At the top of the stairs, behind another baby-gate, a tiny toddler, almost four, sat with her back to him, poking another walkie-talkie repeatedly.  
As Stan came to the top of the stairs, the little girl turned to look at him with big brown eyes.  Her hair stuck out in every direction, thick brown curls that made her head look like a birds nest.
“Hi Daddy.”  The toddler, Alex, said, pulling herself upright on pudgy little legs.  
Stan easily scooped her up, snatching the walkie-talkie from her.  “What do you think you’re doin’ little lady?”  Stan carried his daughter down the stairs and over the baby gate.  Alex wrapped her tiny arms around Stan’s neck.  “Yer supposed ta wait for me in your room when ya wake up.”  Stan chided gently.  He had no idea how Alex was getting around the baby-lock he had on the door in her room, but the little stinker was getting to that age where she was getting into everything.  Stan yawned “And yer not supposed to be awake before seven at least.”
“Want food Daddy.”  Alex said simply.  She started to pull on the tassel on the back of Stan’s fez, making the hat sit crookedly on Stan’s head. 
“Hmm, is that why ya decided to wake yer old man up at the crack of dawn?  Food?”  Stan set Alex down in her highchair, and she frowned at him as he buckled her in.
“Yes.”  She pouted.  “Want ‘cakes.“
“Ya want some Stancakes?”  Stan started pulling out all of things he needed to make Alex’s favorite breakfast.  “I think I can manage that.”
“With chips!”  Alex squeaked.
Stan chuckled.  “Chocolate chip Stancakes.  Yer a demanding little thing, aren’tcha sweetie?”
“Chips an’ ‘cakes!”  Alex said, before giving a large yawn.
“Hey, if I’m not allowed ta sleep, you ain’t either small fry.”  Stan walked over to where Alex sat, and blew a raspberry on her cheek.  His little girl giggled and pushed against his face with a tiny six-fingered hand.
“Scratchy face Daddy!”  She shrieked.  When Stan pulled back, Alex was scowling up at him.  “Scratchy face.”
Stan laughed, “Okay, okay, I need a shave.  No need to look so grumpy.”  Alex pouted, saying nothing, so Stan went back to making breakfast.  A few minutes later, he was sawing a Stancake into tiny little pieces on a plastic plate, and sliding it over to Alex before tucking into his own plate.  “Hey  Little Sixer, d’ya remember what day it is today?”
Alex, who had quickly abandoned her small fork in favor of using her hands to feed herself, looked at Stan with chocolate all over her face and fingers and said “No.”
“It’s yer first day of preschool!  Doesn’t that sound fun?”  Stan tried to sound excited.  He knew that it was time for Alex to start going to school; she was old enough to go, and she was already a really smart kid, could count to twelve and everything.  But Stan didn’t want to let her go.  He remembered his own childhood, the one he had shared with another smart six-fingered kid, and more specifically, he remembered the bullying and the taunting.  It went so far back that Stan couldn’t even remember when it had started, when it had become the two of them against the world.  He didn’t want that for Alex.
The little girl shrugged, putting more of her Stancake in her mouth.  The family of two finished their breakfast, and Stan tried to wipe the chocolate off of Alex, but she squirmed so much that Stan decided to take her and give her a bath instead.  Stan ended up half soaked and with bubbles in his hair, but the two of them were both clean by the end.
After Stan had dressed both his young daughter and himself,  he sat in his armchair, Alex curled up in his lap, and Stan put on a TV show for Alex to watch while Stan checked the time repeatedly, waiting for it to be time for them to head to the preschool.  In his lap, Alex giggled at the colorful cartoon on the TV.  Not one of those so-called ‘educational’ kids shows that the government made to brainwash kids, no sir, not for his daughter.  Some weird show with colorful talking animals and no plot that Stan could discern, but Alex liked it, so Stan suffered through it.
After a few episodes that had Stan grinding his teeth in annoyance at the sugary-sweet show, it was time to go.  Stan bundled Alex into the car, buckling her into her car seat, and giving her a quick peck on the forehead.  He adjusted the headband that was slipping off of her head; it was the only thing keeping her wild hair in place.  As Stan drove, Alex sang along with the music on the radio, loud and off-key and without any idea what the actual words to the song were.  Stan chuckled at her antics, but a small pit of sadness grew in his gut.  He was gonna miss having Alex around every hour of the day.  Sure, she could be a bit of an unholy terror at times, but she was his unholy terror.  But school would be good for her, and it was required by law for her to go.  Besides, maybe she’ll make some friends!  Stan thought, trying to be optimistic for once.
Far too soon, Stan pulled into the elementary school parking lot.  He scooped Alex out of her seat and carried her through the school, following the other parents with preschoolers.  The classroom was chaotic, colorful, and loud, more of a glorified day-care than actual school.  It was giving Stan a headache just looking at it.  Most of the people in the room were Alex’s age, but there were a few parents saying goodbye to their kids.  A young teacher came over to Stan, with a genuine smile on her face.  “Hi sir!  Is this little cutie in my class?”
Alex looked past the teacher to where a few kids were playing with blocks.  She twisted, squirming in Stan’s arms.  “Okay, okay.  Down ya go sweetie.”  He knelt, setting Alex on the ground.
“Thanks!”  Alex gave him a kiss on the cheek before toddling over to the blocks.  Stan felt a dopey grin grow on his face in spite of himself as he stood up.
“Aww, it is so sweet how much your granddaughter adores you!”  The teacher cooed.
Stan felt a twinge of familiar annoyance swell up. He was only forty-six!  Sure, he may look a little old to have a four year old daughter, but it wasn’t that far fetched!  “Yeah, my daughter really is a sweetheart, isn’t she?”
The teacher looked slightly shocked and a little embarrassed, her mouth forming a little ‘o’.  Stan brushed past her and headed over to where Alex was building with plastic blocks.  He knelt by her and wrapped an arm around her.  “Hey Sixer, I’ll be back in a couple of hours, okay?”
Alex, focused intently on her blocks, gave Stan a nod and a distracted grunt.  Stan blew another raspberry on her cheek to get her attention, and she squealed in his ear.  “Scratchy Daddy!  Scratchy!”
“Have fun little lady, I’ll be back soon.”  Stan said, giving his daughter a quick kiss on the forehead.
“Okay Daddy.  Love you!”  Alex said before turning back to the blocks.
Stan fixed her headband again before standing.  “Heh. Love ya too kiddo.”  He quickly made his way back to the car, struggling with the urge to dart back inside and have Alex start school next year, during kindergarten, instead of right then. Quit bein’ such a worry-wart Stan.  She’ll be fine.  He thought to himself as he drove home to the Shack.
It was too quiet when he got home, but that didn’t last long as Stan opened up shop for the day.  It felt weird not to have Alex riding on his shoulders or in a baby sling or just sitting in his arms as Stan gave the tours.  The knowledge that Stan knew exactly when Alex would be back home was a bitter comfort as Stan though about another six-fingered family member.  For the first time in years, Stan couldn’t wait until it was closing time and all of the tourists were gone.
Alex was quiet when Stan picked her up.  She was quiet the entire drive home, and all during dinner.  It worried Stan.  Alex was never quiet unless she was dead asleep.  Stan tried asking her about her day, about the preschool, about dinner (more Stancakes), but she barely said a word.
‘What the heck happened?’  Stan thought as he cleaned the dishes.  He scrubbed the plates hard, and slammed them into the dishwasher even harder.  One plate chipped, and Stan gouged his thumb on the sharp point.  He bit back a curse, and fished a Band-Aid out of the kitchens first-aid kit.  After he had started raising Alex, Stan had bought on for every room in the Shack.  Just in case.
“Are you okay Daddy?”  Alex finally spoke, startling Stan.  He whirled to face her and saw Alex looking at him with a concerned frown.
Sore thumb forgotten, Stan rushed over and scooped his daughter up into his arms.  “Am I okay?  What about you?”  Stan carried Alex into the TV room and sat down in his armchair.  Alex snuggled into Stan, curling up in his lap.  “What happened at school today Little Sixer?  Did someone say somethin’?”  
Alex looked down at her lap, and her little hands were held in tight fists.  She was silent for a moment, before she looked up at Stan with big watery eyes.  “Dad?  Why am I diff-er-ent?”  She sounded out the last word carefully.
Stan’s stomach dropped and his heart leapt into his throat.  Why?!  She’s just a baby!  Just a sweet little girl, she doesn’t deserve this!  He took a shuddering breath, steeling himself.  Stan gently cupped Alex’s chin in his hand.  “Who said you were different sweetie?”  His voice was calm, but rage was bubbling just underneath the surface.  He doubted that Alex would have a name, but that wouldn’t stop Stan from trying to track down whoever it was that told his daughter that she was different and giving whoever it was a piece of his mind.
“A lady.”  Alex muttered.  Stan’s mind briefly flashed to the perky young teacher.  “A kid was tryin’ ta break my castle.  The lady came an told us ta stop,  an she took the blocks away, an then she told the kid ta not fight with me, cause I’m diff-er-ent, an then she took him away, an then you picked me up.”  Alex wrapped her hands around Stan’s fingers.  “Why am I diff-er-ent?” 
Stan saw the tears welling up in his daughters eyes, and his heart broke.  He wrapped his arms around her, tucking Alex against his chest.  “Yer not different sweetie, not at all.”  Stan spoke into her hair, rubbing gentle circles into he back.  “Yer perfect, alright?  And anyone who say’s different is a chump, got it?”
Alex reached up and wrapped her arms around Stan’s neck.  “Thanks Daddy.”  She kissed him on the nose, and Stan chuckled.  She looked happier now, and Stan felt jealous of her innocence and the way she was able to just bounce back to being his happy little girl.
“I love ya baby girl.”  Stan said, smiling at Alex.  “Hey, how about ya don’t go ta preschool tomorrow?  Ya can wait until next year ta start school, okay?  Are ya good with that?”  The last thing Stan wanted was for some other idiot parent to make Alex feel like something was wrong with her, or worse, for another kid to point something out.  Kids could be cruel, as Stan knew all too well.
“Okay Daddy. Can we watch the angel doggy movie?”  Alex asked eagerly, bouncing in Stan’s lap.
He laughed, cheered by her sudden energy.  “Okay, we can watch yer weird movie again.”  Stan set Alex in the chair and put in her favorite VCR tape.  As she settled back into Stan’s lap and dozed off less than halfway through the movie, Stan felt a wave of sadness rise up in him.  Alex wasn’t even four years old for another month, and already the world was turning against her.  She was a sweet little baby, his baby, and she didn’t deserve to have the same childhood that he had gotten.
Stan placed a soft kiss to the top of Alex’s head, before carrying her over to the stairs.  He hesitated for a moment, debating whether or not he should put Alex in her own room, or take her into his room for the night.  She had just started getting better at staying in her bed all night.  But Stan couldn’t let her go, not just then.  Stan gently slipped into his room, and tried to set Alex down.  
Alex squirmed and groaned, grabbing onto Stan’s hand.  Stan gently shushed her.  “Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay Little Sixer.  Go back to sleep.”
“You stay.”  Alex said sleepily, clinging to Stan’s hand.  “Wan’ you ta stay.”
Stan felt torn between the Portal in the basement and the baby pulling on his arm.  He had to keep working on the Portal, he had to bring his brother home!
But he also had a daughter to take care of now.  A daughter who had had a bad day, and needed him.  So Stan lay down next to Alex, and she curled up next to him.  “Love ya Daddy.”  She yawned in Stan’s ear, and started snoring softly.
“I love ya too Sixer.”  Stan whispered.
25 notes · View notes