#if things hadn’t gone to shit they probably would have had more kids too | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

solarmorrigan · 9 months

Text

“That’s it?” Steve asks. “You’re not going to go to prom because you don’t know how to dance?”

“I’m uncoordinated enough! I don’t need to be out there making even more of an idiot of myself in some floofy dress,” Robin insists.

“Rob, no one at prom knows how to dance. Everyone kind of looks like an idiot, that’s half the point,” Steve says.

“Oh yeah, Steve, you’re really selling me on the experience,” Robin drawls.

“No, listen, I’m not done,” Steve says, giving her a nudge. “The other half of the point is just… going and having the memories, y’know? You get to dress up and take the dumb picture with your date, and avoid the punch because someone probably spiked it, and you get to dance and be close to someone and just, like, be carefree for a night.”

Robin says nothing. She doesn’t agree that prom night is paramount to the teen experience, she doesn’t tease the shit out of him for having such stereotypical expectations of a dumb high school dance, she’s just… watching him. She’s turned sideways on the sofa, one leg drawn up to her chest, and she’s looking at him like he’s something between a fascinating puzzle and the saddest thing she’s seen all day, and he knows what she’s thinking.

Steve hadn’t gone to senior prom. He’d been planning to, of course, at the beginning of the year – he’d had Nancy then, and even as early as October, he’d been fantasizing about the flowers he’d bring her and the dinner they’d go to and the way they would sway slowly to whatever shitty songs the DJ put on. But by the time spring had rolled around, he not only hadn’t had Nancy, he hadn’t really had any friends in school at all—not real ones—and so he hadn’t seen the point in attending.

He'd gone to a movie with Dustin that night, instead (he’s at least eighty percent certain the little shit had set it up as some kind of pity outing, since he’d known Steve wasn’t going to prom, but it had been kind of nice that someone had cared enough to even try). It hadn’t been bad, but it hadn’t been exactly what he’d wanted.

Stiffly, Steve glances away from Robin and shrugs. “Or whatever. That’s what it’s like in the movies, right?”

Robin opens her mouth, but her eyes are still soft, and suddenly Steve doesn’t want to hear what she has to say. Instead, he levers himself up off the couch and turns to her, holding out a hand.

“C’mon, I’ll teach you,” he says, cracking a grin. “Then you won’t have an excuse not to go.”

“You… want to teach me how to dance,” Robin asks flatly.

Steve shrugs. “You got anything better to do tonight?”

Raising a sharp brow at Steve, Robin starts to smile, too. “You sure you wanna subject your feet to that?”

“I think I can handle it,” Steve shoots back, and then Robin is up off the couch and helping him push the coffee table out of the way.

They rifle through Steve’s collection of tapes until they find something he deems just the right tempo, pop the cassette in, and stand in the middle of the living room.

“Okay, give me your hand,” Steve says, taking her right hand in his left, “and your other goes on my shoulder.”

Robin does as he says, glancing dubiously down at her feet as Steve places his hand on her waist. “I’m not actually sure this is a good idea,” she says with a grimace. “I might be unteachable.”

“We haven’t even started yet,” Steve reminds her. “Seriously, relax, this is super easy. It’s just a box step waltz.”

Despite her uncertainty, Robin can’t help but smirk at him. “A waltz, huh?” she teases. “Did your parents make you take fancy-pants, rich kid dance lessons when you were younger, or something?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “No. My mom taught me,” he says, and then rushes on before Robin has anything to say about that. “So you’re gonna start by stepping back with your right foot when I step forward, alright?”

Brows furrowed, Robin nods and looks down at her feet again, and Steve squeezes her waist gently to get her attention.

“Look up at me, not at your feet. It’ll be easier, I promise.”

“How am I going to know what my feet are doing if I’m not looking at them?”

“You’re attached to them, Robin.”

“That’s debatable.”

Steve tries not to laugh. He really does. “Okay, you’re in marching band, right? This cannot be harder than following whatever steps that involves while also playing an instrument.”

“This is different!” Robin insists. “I can’t step on the French horn’s feet! The French horn isn’t gonna judge me if I fuck up! Like, the worst that’ll happen in marching band is that the drum major will yell at you, and the drum major is always yelling, so it doesn’t even make a difference anymore, and–”

“Hey,” Steve cuts in, squeezing Robin’s hand this time. “I’m not going to judge you if you fuck up, okay? I am literally the last person qualified to do that.”

Robin huffs out a little laugh. “Right. Two of a kind,” she says.

“Exactly.” Steve grins. “Now c’mon, Buckley, I know you’ve got this. On one, back with your right foot.”

Nodding, Robin glances down at her feet, but looks right back up at Steve. “Okay.”

“Okay. One–”

Steve steps forward with his left foot, and Robin immediately steps forward with her right and kicks him in the shin.

“Ow,” Steve says, dry and flat because it hadn’t really hurt.

“Sorry!” Robin ducks her head, laughing nervously.

Steve shakes his head. “Let’s try that again. Back with your right foot.”

“At least I had the right side?”

“Yep, now aim for the right direction, yeah?”

This time, when Steve counts off, Robin’s right foot goes back, and his left follows her.

“Okay, now what?” Robin asks, looking down again.

“Now, you’re gonna bring your left foot–” gently, Steve judges the top of her left foot with his right, “back,” as she begins to slide back, he moves and taps the inside of her ankle, “and to the left. Just like that.”

“No injuries this time,” Robin quips, and Steve smiles.

“Now move your right foot over next to your left.” He nods as Robin gets her feet back together. “Forward with your left foot – good,” he encourages as he steps back to mirror her. “And now forward and to the side with your right. Like you did with your left before, but opposite.”

“Uh.” Robin makes the move slowly, still staring down, but she looks back up at him when she gets her right foot planted. “Like that?”

“Yep. Now left foot over, and–” Steve follows her, bringing them back to the same position they started in, “that’s it!”

Robin blinks at him. “That’s it?”

“Easy, right?” Steve says.

“Yeah.” Robin nods hesitantly. “I think I can handle that.”

“Of course you can,” Steve insists. “Now let’s try it again. Back with your right foot. One–”

Robin steps forward with her right and kicks Steve in the shin.

“Sorry!”

Steve quickly becomes glad they’re both in their socks, or he’d be sporting much more serious bruises by the time they reach the end of the tape. Robin doesn’t have any trouble keeping the order of the steps in mind, but keeps moving in the opposite direction of where she’s supposed to be going, and Steve has been kicked and stepped on more times in the last half hour than he thinks he has been in his entire life.

“This is ridiculous,” Robin groans. “This is the literal definition of women having to do everything backwards and in heels!”

“You’re not wearing heels,” Steve points out.

“I would be at prom,” Robin says. “Why do I have to go backwards?”

“Because you’re following.”

“Well why can’t I lead?”

“Because you don’t even know how to follow!”

“Exactly! I’m starting from scratch either way!” Robin aims pleading eyes up at Steve. “Can’t we just try it in reverse? How much worse at it could I be?”

The thing is, Steve’s only ever led when dancing – he’s never had reason to learn how to do the follow part. But then, he’s already been reversing the steps in his head all night in order to instruct Robin; following couldn’t be that hard, could it?

“Fine,” Steve groans, letting his head hang back for a moment. “Fine. Trade me.”

“Yes! Trade!” Robin pumps her fist once in triumph, and Steve can’t help but laugh.

He lets go of her right hand and instead takes her left before putting his other hand on her shoulder.

“Hand on my waist.” Steve nods to his to his left side, and Robin moves into position. “Right, so you’re gonna step forward with your left this time, okay?”

Robin nods. “Forward with my left. Okay.”

“Okay. One–”

Steve steps back with his right foot. Robin steps back with her left.

They stand there, each half balanced on their back foot, staring at each other, before Robin bursts into laughter. Steve follows suit.

“I– I told you I was unteachable,” Robin giggles once they’ve caught their breath, her forehead resting on Steve’s shoulder.

“Nope, this is a personal challenge now,” Steve insists, still grinning. “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a quitter. You’re going to learn to waltz if it kills me.”

“Shouldn’t it be ‘if it kills me’?” Robin draws back to ask.

“My death is looking a lot more likely at this point,” Steve says, and Robin snorts.

“God, you’re so dramatic.”

“Yeah, okay, Miss Unteachable. Ready to try again?”

Robin takes in a breath, wiggles her shoulders, and puts her hands back in position. “Ready.”

“Great. Just remember–”

“Forward with my left foot,” Robin echoes, overlapping Steve’s instruction perfectly.

Steve grins. “Okay, then. One–”

Somehow, Robin makes a better leader than a follower. Once she gets over the initial nerves, she manages the reverse order of steps just fine, even getting confident enough to stop looking at her feet after several sets.

(The fact that Steve has no trouble immediately reversing the steps himself and still instructing Robin receives no comment, though it does receive a brief glare, which gets a smug grin in return.)

They rewind the tape again and keep going. Steve lifts their joined hands to spin Robin around when they hit the second song and she follows with a laugh before insisting that, since she’s leading, she should be the one spinning Steve. He has to duck a little to get under her arm, but they feel the maneuver is quite successful.

Robin offers to try to dip him, but Steve declines, insisting he doesn’t feel like getting dropped on the floor today, earning a pinch at his waist even as Robin laughs.

As the evening wears on, they give up their carefully-held waltz positions and lean in close, until Robin’s head is resting on Steve’s shoulder again, her arms wrapped around his waist, while Steve drapes his arms over her shoulders and leans his head on top of hers.

“This is the kind of slow dancing I would’ve expected from Steve Harrington at prom,” Robin says as they sway in gentle circles to the beat of the music.

Steve hiccups out a little laugh. “Yeah, well, I had to make sure you knew how to do the real thing, first.”

“And?” Robin asks. “Do I pass?”

“I think you’ve got the hang of it,” Steve says. “Now you have no excuse not to go.”

“Steve,” Robin draws back a little, enough to look up at him without pulling away, “who the hell do you think I’m going to be dancing with at prom? It’s not like I can ask– anyone I’d be interested in.”

Steve’s heart sinks a little, the same way it always does when he’s reminded of how fucking unfair the world is to Robin and to other people like her. He shrugs a bit lamely. “You could go with friends?”

“I guess,” Robin says, staring at the front of Steve’s shirt, suddenly lost in thought.

Steve frowns. He doesn’t even remember what had gotten them onto the subject of prom—it’s January, the dance is months away—but what had started out as something fun is starting to make Robin feel bad, and he can’t have that.

“Hey, I didn’t mean–”

“You should go with me,” Robin cuts in, looking back up at him.

“What?”

“To prom,” Robin says. “You should be my big ol’ platonic date.”

“Right,” Steve drawls. “Because going to prom the year after you’ve graduated doesn’t scream that you haven’t moved on from high school at all. Definitely not sad, or anything.”

“Sure,” Robin agrees wryly. “About as un-sad as not going to your senior dance at all.”

Steve cuts a sharp look at Robin, who just smiles at him.

“I mean, I’m just saying: who better to give me the whole prom experience?” Robin shrugs, tone entirely too innocent to be trusted. “If you go with me, we can dress up and get the dumb picture together, and we can avoid the punch, and you can tell me all the gossip I know for a fact you still know about at least half the people there, we can dance… The whole shebang.”

When Steve had been imagining prom night with Nancy the year before, he’d imagined romance. He’d imagined meeting her eyes across the dinner table and sneaking kisses on the dance floor. He’d imagined going back to his place afterwards and making love, spending the rest of the night worshipping Nancy and making sure she knew how beautiful she’d looked and what a wonderful time he’d had with her.

But when he thinks about it now, he thinks about making jokes at dinner with Robin, about standing around in the tinsel-strewn gym and making catty remarks about who’s dressed terribly and whose dancing is even worse. He thinks about them dancing together, still, and maybe they’ll still go back to his place afterwards, where they can watch terrible movies for the rest of the night.

It doesn’t sound at all like what he’d wanted a year ago.

It sounds perfect, now.

“You’ll have to buy the tickets,” Steve finally says, and Robin’s face lights up. “And I expect my corsage to be very fancy.”

Robin laughs. “Should’ve known you wouldn’t be a cheap date, Harrington.”

“We can go Dutch on dinner, if you want,” Steve says.

“How generous,” Robin deadpans, and Steve doesn’t bother to hold back his own grin.

They both know he’s probably going to pay for dinner. He doesn’t mind.

“You’re serious, though?” Robin asks, looking up at him. “You really want to go to prom just to waltz with me?”

“Well, I went to all the trouble of teaching you.” Steve shrugs.

Robin bites her lip around a smile. “Do I get to lead?”

“For the sake of my shins, you’d better,” Steve says, and Robin laughs, leaning back in to cinch her arms around his waist again.

“You are my favorite person, you know that?” she says softly, just audible over music still crooning from the stereo.

“Yeah,” Steve says, pressing his cheek to the top of her head and closing his eyes. “You’re mine, too.”

[Prompt: Slow dancing]

#this is one of my favorites so far and I have been excited to get around to posting it!#stobin #platonic stobin #robin buckley #steve harrington #stranger things #solar wrote #it's a little bit longer though be warned

1K notes · View notes

runninriot · 5 months

Text

written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles

Day 10

prompt: first kiss | rated: T | cw: underage drinking | tags: Robin, Steve & Eddie are friends, confessions, coming out

“What d’you mean you never had your first kiss?”

Oops. Did he say that out loud? Shit. Eddie knew he should’ve gone easy on the rum. But they’ve been running around town all afternoon to buy Christmas presents for the kids and when they finally made their way back to Steve’s, the idea of having some rum-spiked hot cocoa to warm them up from the inside sounded great. And it was - up until now.

Now, he’s being reminded of the fact that alcohol loosens his tongue, makes him say things he usually would keep to himself.

“Uh, yeah? It’s no big deal.” Eddie tries to play it down, tries to ignore the heat spreading uncomfortably in his cheeks.

“No. Hold up. Eddie, are you really telling me you’ve never kissed anyone? Not once?” Steve’s eyes are huge and Eddie searches for mockery in them, finds only honest confusion.

“Well, Steve. Not everyone starts their slutty era as young as you did,” Robin defends him. Maybe because she can sense how embarrassed Eddie feels. Maybe because she knows something about him that Steve doesn’t.

“Yeah yeah, I know. Keep making fun of me but- I can’t believe it, Eddie. You’re 19 and no one has ever been worthy enough for you to kiss them?”

The way he phrases it makes Eddie’s insides twist into a knot, makes his heart flutter at the notion of Steve actually thinking anyone had ever wanted to kiss him.

Because the truth is that no one has.

“What can I say? Maybe I’m just waiting for the right one.” Eddie laughs, makes it sound like a silly joke to hide the fact that in another universe, the right one would be sitting right next to him. Not in this life, though. He’ll never know what Steve’s lips taste like.

“I’d rather not had my first kiss at all than the one I got. Middle school, Jackson Hughes. Planted one right on me, wet and sloppy. Ugh, guess that’s when I knew I don’t like boys.”

Steve shoots her an alarmed look.

“It’s okay, Steve. He knows,” Robin answers his silent question, obviously referring to Eddie knowing about her being a lesbian.

“Oh. G-good. That’s good.”

“Takes one to know one.” Eddie chokes on a laugh.

FUCK!

Did he really just out himself in front of Steve?

As if his earlier confession hadn’t been enough to throw him off, the look on Steve’s face now is even worse. Not like- he doesn’t look disgusted or anything. More like, surprised. His facial expressions going from confused to… soft? So soft in fact, that Eddie suddenly has a hard time breathing.

“Oookay. That was awkward. Moving on. Who wants another?” Eddie quickly jumps up from the sofa, waving his empty cup at the others, not even waiting for their response before he makes his way to the kitchen.

He needs to do something, needs to get away. Splash some cold water into his face to cool down, sober up. Maybe getting another drink isn’t a good idea, after all.

Eddie braces his hands on the edge of the counter, drops his head down and sighs.

Shitshitshit!

Yeah, nope. He should not get another drink. Not if he doesn’t cut out his own tongue first. He already said too much, already confessed too many things for one evening. What comes next? Telling Steve that he’s hopelessly in love with him?

Over my dead body.

No one needs to know that. Especially not Steve. So, yeah. Definitely no more rum for him. He should probably go home and hide under his blanket until the end of days or at least-

“Eddie?”

He turns around quickly, trying his best to steady himself.

“Are you okay?”

Steve’s eyes are warm and his voice is gentle and Eddie just wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

“Yeah. Just needed a minute. That was not exactly how I planned on telling you.” Eddie laughs but it sounds strange even to his own ears.

God, you’re pathetic.

The other boy steps closer and Eddie feels like he’s frozen in place. His heart beats like crazy when Steve stops only inches away from him, so close now that Eddie can feel warmth radiating off Steve’s body.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you, too. A-about me.”

Eddie thinks he can feel, hear, and smell the wires in his brain short-circuiting. His mouth drops open, eyes blown wide in disbelief.

What?

“I’m… bi. Apparently.” He shrugs his shoulders and smiles shyly at him.

“Th- that’s. Cool.” Eddie stutters, doesn’t really know what to say when his mind offers nothing he can share.

Steve likes boys? Maybe I have a chance. Maybe he likes me too? Shut up, Munson! He’s so pretty. I want to kiss him so badly...

“And I-“ Steve bites down on his bottom lip as if he’s trying to prevent himself from talking.

“I wanted to tell you for a while that I-“

Eddie knows he’s being delusional but he can’t take it anymore. He needs to know.

“I like you, Steve. A lot. I-“

Steve's whole face lights up and Eddie's head is spinning.

“Can I kiss you?”

He doesn’t know how exactly it happens or who starts it but somehow he finds himself glued to Steve’s lips not even a second later - his hands in Steve’s hair, Steve’s hands wrapped around his middle, their bodies pressed against one another so close that he thinks he can feel Steve’s heartbeat in his own chest.

Eddie must’ve died and gone to heaven because he is kissing Steve and Steve is kissing him back and it’s nothing like anything he’s ever felt or tasted before. A tender brush of lips, a hesitant tongue asking silently for permission, Steve’s hot breath on his face, the sweet little noises they both make… it’s like a dream come true.

And yeah. If waiting 19 years got him this - he'd do it all over again.

#steddieholidaydrabbles #day 10 #eddie munson #steve harrington #first kiss

148 notes · View notes

icarlyspanishsubtitles · 2 months

Text

oh my good lookin boy 🧿

masterlist

warnings: this is probably my most fluffiest and saddest writes, insecurity, mentions of ed kind of, cursing, angst.

i had been slogging through work the entire day on my computer. emails, and phone calls, and emails. it wasn’t horribly miserable, cause my boyfriend was over on the bed streaming.

as much as i sound like a shitty girlfriend, i really don’t pay attention much to him while he streams. i was in the middle of responding to an email, when a sudden dono caught my attention in one of the worst ways.

“why bro built like that?”

not just myself, but i’m pretty sure almost anyone watching the stream was taken back by the sudden shit message. i could hear my boyfriends tone immediately change, even when he tried to mask it as he hated getting emotional anywhere, but especially on the internet live.

“like what? like uh what’s the uhm, what’s the problem?”

at that moment, my heart honestly was hurting so badly. if we hadn’t been so huge in privacy, i would’ve gone up to him in a heartbeat. i knew i couldn’t but hearing him, one of the most genuinely sweet people in all of existence, asking what was the issue that this asshole had with him, made me feel horrible.

the stream ended about an hour or maybe two later, i almost in a millisecond went up to alex slowly creeping to the side of his chair. i put my hand behind his head, playing with the hair his beanie hadn’t covered up. his eyes closed a little leaning into my hand, taking it and kissing it lightly before putting it back into his healthy head of hair.. which i’m honestly jealous of.

“need something?”

he murmured quietly still trying to edit, but was too in love with my touch.

“nah, just wanted to uh, spend a little time with you.”

he definitely wasn’t going to refuse the offer. i was too scared to bring up the comment, hoping he forgot about it. he smiled softly as i sat in his chair almost on his lap, putting my head on his shoulder as i was observing him.

“did i ever tell you how handsome you are?”

i see him laugh a little, his face flushing the tiniest amount as he runs his hand up and down my arm gently. he kisses the side of my head, whispering

“your sweet.”

two days pass as alex is getting changed, he is going to stream with his qsmp friends, which they have been planning for a while. he puts on his shirt, tilting his head in the mirror as he tries to pull the sleeves down and cover more of himself.

i immediately knew this behavior, feeling myself get sad seeing him so insecure. he sighs, putting on his sweater, coming out the bathroom. he walks around the room in an attempt to find his phone, when i speak up.

“absolutely not.”

he looks at me confused, breaking a little smile as his eyebrows furrow, a laugh coming out from him as he speaks.

“absolutely not, what?”

i raise my eyebrows, almost pointing to his sweater with my eyes. is this kid dumb? he picks up the message still confused. i then speak to him a little bit gentler.

“babe, my love, honey, the love of my life. it’s fucking 89 degrees outside, and your wearing a sweater? absolutely not.”

he rolls his eyes with a little smirk on his face. he goes onto the bed sitting next to me.

“mi amor, we’re going to be inside literally the whole time, i mean we might go out for food, but that’s it.”

i then turn over facing him completely with my body, accidentally frowning a little bit. he immediately notices the little sad expression on my face.

“did the sweater thing upset you that much? cause didn’t kno-“

i stop him before he can finish his sentence, shushing him. he gets the memo, a little laugh escaping his mouth before he conceals it. i then ask him, as nicely as i could.

“you okay?”

he’s a little surprised by the sudden ask if he was alright. he nods, his expression still completely curious.

“yeahhh?.. why?”

i didn’t want to tell him yet, i was scared he would get defensive or something, even though i know he wouldn’t but the thought lingers in my mind.

“just checking.”

he smiles softly, kissing me gently but sweetly as his hand goes to the side of my neck, his thumb caressing the side. i then pull away,

“your gonna be late.”

his eyes widen and he looks at the time on his phone.

“SHIT SHIT SHIT!”

he goes to grab his shoes, almost falling on his face. he picks them up, including his beanie before rushing out. two seconds later he comes back in, still running but slows down as he comes to my bed. he leans down kissing my lips in a peck.

“love you.”

he then rushes out, once again as i snicker a little bit to myself. but behind that laugh, was anxiety for what really was going on with him.

the next day tina and me were on the phone as i was standing in the kitchen, she’s literally my best friend i swear. alex was currently in the shower, as i laughed to her words about everything going on with her.

“oh by the way, how was the stream? i was busy with work and shit so i didn’t have time to watch it.”

i ask her, while leaning my arms down on the counter.

“oh it was gooodd. usual stream, we all went out to lunch after, we’ll us except for your boyfriend. he got bored of us i guess.”

tina mumbles jokingly. i then thought to myself a little bit and realized, quackity said he ate there… why would he lie about that?

he comes out of the shower later, where he sneaks up behind me putting his arm around my waist, while his his face rests near my neck. i sigh to myself, him siting up his head a little.

“everything good baby?”

i then lead him to the couch, looking at him directly as i take his hand. i try to calm myself before i say anything.

“when is the last time you ate?”

he turns to me, he knows he’s been caught but he just covers it with a slight laugh, a fake laugh.

“baby, i ate with the group remember? and uh todayyy.. i don’t really eat in the mornings, you know that.”

i believed the second part, but i knew he didn’t eat with our friends. i sigh looking at him, us now having intense eye contact.

“alexis. don’t lie to me.”

he bites his lip a little looking at his phone, his voice starts cracking a little bit, as he tries his absolute best to talk.

“i… fuck- i just.. i don’t know why, but lately don’t like the way my body looks.. i’m around guys like fucking foolish, who are tall and masculine and just..are better than me.. i mean i’ve been insecure in like high-school, and it just came back.”

i look at him with a look of pure absolute sadness and love for him. i can’t believe that an amazing guy like him, would ever think such stupid things about himself.

i grasp him into my arms, while his arms go around me. i kiss his head, and i hear him sniffling a little bit, i wasn’t going to say anything because i knew then he would hide his emotions again.

my hands go to the sides of his face as i lean him up, i talk to him the sweetest i can trying to be soft spoken.

“baby..you are truly the most handsome guy in the world..i don’t want a 6’3 guy who has a fucking 8 pack or whatever… i made a commitment to you, because i love you for who you are..not what you think you should be..”

he closed his eyes a little bit, his shaky breaths going into my neck. i feel little tears but i of course just keep quiet.

“i love you, i’m so fucking..i’m so sorry..”

he whispers very sheepishly, his voice a little raspy and gentle.

“you have no reason to be sorry, and i love so much, honestly too much alex..”

i say as a laugh stays in my throat, he breathes out a little bit of relief, as he traces my arm. after we were calmed, he holds my face.

“maybe we could do a cooking stream..like old times..”

i smile brightly at the idea kissing him gently. i lean away slighting, mumbling as my eyes look up to his.

“that sounds like a great plan”

hiiii! this took a lot longer than i thought it would so my dearest apologizes. also sorry for two angry writes in a row, i have one planned and i swear it’s pure fluff. love you guys! also remember you are amazing for who you are, and all bodies are beautiful.

#quackity x reader #alex quackity #alex quackity x reader #quackity #quackity fanfic #domestic fluff #qsmp x reader #x reader #fluff #fanfic

92 notes · View notes

tbcanary · 5 months

Text

for arrowfam week day one: "ghost" and "grow"

(set sometime around ga vol 7, but not exactly accurate based on current timelines within the run. suspend your disbelief with me for a sec.)

There’s a girl sitting at Mia’s desk.

Not that that’s unusual, or anything. Mia might come from a family of famous caped crusaders, but the vigilante business doesn’t exactly pay well enough for Ollie to foot all of her bills in the heart of Star City. She has roommates – two of them, actually, girls who have known each other since college but needed a third while so-and-so is studying abroad for a year, blah blah blah – and they’ve been known to sneak in to use her desk so that they both aren’t stuck studying at the kitchen table like they’re in the opening scenes of a Dickinson novel or whatever.

The point is, people sit at Mia’s desk sometimes. It happens, and normally it wouldn’t bother her, even coming home from work this late. Even after she spent all evening cleaning up the cafeteria in the community center after some kind of Bean Incident none of the kids would blab about, no matter how much she tried to wheedle it out of them.

Anyway. That’s not what bothers her. The thing that bothers her, actually, doesn’t hit until the girl looks up at her. The hood of her sweatshirt falls back from her head, revealing a shock of bright pastel hair, and Mia doesn’t know anyone with that hair color but –

But she knows those soft brown eyes. She knows that dimple in the left cheek, accompanying the uncertain smile.

“Lian,” she says. “What. The fuck.”

And then she slaps a hand over her mouth, and the laughter spills between her fingers despite her best efforts. “I mean, shit, I shouldn’t — goddammit, Roy is going to be so mad at me for cussing, but I —what?”

“Um.” Lian shrugs. It is her, after all; her voice sounds exactly like Cheshire, somehow, but the way her eyes crinkle at the corners is all Roy. “Hi.”

Mia stumbles into the room, sets her duffle bag to the ground with a thump that feels more like an earthquake. She drops down onto her unmade bed and stares – not bothering to hide her astonishment, her disbelief – at Lian, somehow so much older, somehow exactly the same.

“If I’m being haunted, you legally have to tell me,” Mia insists.

Lian shrugs. The toes of her sneakers drag against the floor as she kicks her feet, hands gripping the sides of her seat. “Nope. Not a ghost.”

Well. It’s not as weird as it sounds, probably. Roy had come back, and Ollie had, too, hadn’t he? But Mia… Mia had been there when Lian died. Sort of. Or at least, it was her not being there that had done it, and she’d done everything she could to find a loophole, but there had never been one. Nothing. She’d been gone; it had sat in Mia’s stomach like a weight, like a rock she’d swallowed and couldn’t spit back out.

“Clone?” she tried.

Lian shook her head. “Mm-nn.”

“Hallucination.”

“Nope.”

“Prank?”

“Only from the universe.”

“Alternate dimension.”

“Maybe.”

“Well,” Mia said.

And then she swallowed.

And then her breath came out in a flurry of hysterical giggles again, a fountain she just couldn’t stop, and she dropped her face into her hands and let the flood come, let it pour out of her chest like an open wound.

“Fuck,” Mia hissed. “I—Fuck me. God. Lian, does Roy, does your dad know?”

Lian hums her confirmation. “He’s on the roof. He and Uncle Connor brought me to see you.”

“They’re…?” Mia pushes off the bed and stomps over to the window. She throws open the glass and leans out, looking upward.

Sure enough, a grappling hook arrow is hooked into the brick of her building with a rope dangling down. That must be how Lian got in. Mia should really start locking her windows, but it’s just so much easier to make a quick escape that way instead of going out the front door.

She doesn’t give a fuck about the neighbors, so she shouts as loud as she can. “Hey! Assholes!”

Two heads peek over the edge at her, one with shaggy red hair and one with a series of blonde braids. Connor, at least, has the decency to wave. Roy just raises an eyebrow at her, like she’s the one inconveniencing him.

Ugh. Brothers.

“What the fuck?” she shouts. “How did she get so tall?”

Roy snorts, and it echoes off the building next door. “Blame the multiverse, or something!”

“I can hear you,” Lian offers.

Mia waves a hand. “Shut up, I’ll deal with you in a minute. The adults are speaking.”

Lian huffs, and Mia can practically hear the eyeroll. As if she doesn’t get enough crap from the kids she works with all damn day, now she’s got a bratty teenager who’s going to be expecting a cool aunt she can come play hooky with, or whatever kids do. Mia wouldn’t know; she didn’t exactly have aunts and uncles to set an example.

“Can you at least come down here and walk me through it, instead of sitting around like two old farts at a chess tournament?” Mia demands.

On the streets below, someone must take offense to their big family reunion. Mia hears the distant – but distinct – sounds of someone telling her to shut the fuck up, lady! from the sidewalk.

Star City. Gotta love it.

“Fine, fine,” Connor says. He’s still smiling, though, and she watches as he pulls a rope arrow from his quiver. “Give us a second. Arsenal’s not as young as he once was.”

Roy lets out some kind of offended comment at that, Mia’s sure, but she doesn’t pay him any attention. Instead, she turns to face Lian again and all but tackles her, trapping her head in the bend of an elbow and ruffling her hair as she squeals.

“And you, you little brat,” Mia says, holding on tight as Lian laughs and tries to wriggle free, “are going to tell me everything.”

#arrowfamweek2023 #arrowfam week #mia dearden #lian harper #arrowfam #EHHHH WHO NEEDS CONTINUITY.#this is only a stretch because roy is here. bc based on [REDACTED] he may not be when mia shows up #ASSUMING mia shows up #but i'm going to IGNORE all of that #in favor of mia and lian #roy harper #connor hawke #fic.tb

84 notes · View notes

fruitcoops · 1 year

Note

a prompt:

sirius and regulus argument. probably something which has been manifesting for a while, like it starts with short sly comments and then builds up to create tension within the family (cuz i consider them part of the dumais family) so dumo tries to comfort one or both of them in the end? kinda long prompt, it’s just something that i’ve not seen and would like to see how it would work?

Gnaw at the Bone, because I just can't leave these two alone. Character credit goes to @lumosinlove <3

TW** (please be gentle with yourselves!): canon shit childhoods (no graphic abuse), Walburga and Orion's A+ parenting, sibling parentification, panic attack, bad coping mechanisms (skating), and past minor injuries from said coping mechanisms

“Sirius.”

“Reg.”

His stomach twisted. His head throbbed. His mouth tacked over, lips sticky, chapped, too much, not enough. Years of it. Stars in orbit, on a collision course with anything that came too close—their gravity was inescapable and destructive to the nth degree. They ruined everything but each other. That gravity would rub and chafe and grind at their rough surfaces and it made him sick to think about it.

Oh, it made him sick to think about it.

“Sirius.”

“Reg.”

And that was it—a clipped acknowledgment from scowling lips, then resignation. Regulus disappeared down the hall with his pasta. Sirius watched him go, shook his head, and headed in the opposite direction with a white-knuckled grip on his cup.

Alright then.

“Everything okay?” Pascal ventured.

Sirius jumped, his glower lifting for a moment in surprise, as if Pascal hadn’t been sitting there for over an hour. “What?”

Pascal tilted his head toward the empty doorway and set aside the broken toaster. “Everything okay?”

His mouth dipped in a grimace; his brow wrinkled like he was trying to find the weak link in a failing play, but something simmered beneath. “We’ll figure it out,” Sirius finally answered. “We’ll—it’s Reg, you know?”

Pascal didn’t know, actually, but Sirius was gone before he could ask for an elaboration. In fact, the only thing he knew for sure was that Regulus had gone through a period of rapid character development over the past nine months and that Sirius didn’t stop loving him for a single second of it, even through the snappish attitude, even through those horrible interviews that Regulus clearly regretted. They were two sides of the same coin with the unfortunate ability to be as evasive as greased weasels.

Celeste would say he was being nosy. Pascal preferred to think of it as a natural desire to engage with his kids as a loving, supportive parent.

He looked down at the toaster, then back up at the opposing doorways and sighed. It seemed some detective work was in order.

“Remus! How are you, mon ami?”

“I’m…good?” To his credit, Remus recovered quickly and offered a light fist bump in greeting. “What’s up?”

Pascal waved a vague hand. “The usual. House is good? Dog is healthy? Boyfriend is happy?”

Bingo. A shadow flickered over Remus’ face before it smoothed out into his usual neutral friendliness. “Yeah, we’re doing great. We were thinking of repainting the living room soon, so if there’s a day you want to borrow the dog, I’m all ears.”

“Parfait, I’ll let you know. And Regulus?”

There it was again—the tension, the twitch, the passive smile. “I think Sirius is just glad to have him home. It’s really been great getting to know him. He’s a sweet kid.”

He might be, but he’s been getting on your nerves, too. If Pascal knew anything, that would piss Sirius off more than any insult Regulus hurled his way. “I’m so glad to hear it. It’s good for them to be near each other right now.”

He clapped Remus on the shoulder and stood before the younger man could respond. It wasn’t just a one-time problem, then; whatever the seething, festering thing between Sirius and Regulus was, it had seeped into their everyday function. Enough that it had even begun annoying Remus ‘Patient’ Lupin. Pascal might not be able to fix their issue, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give them a nudge in the right direction.

Sirius was right where he left him, hunched on the bench with a whiteboard in hand, though his pen served more as a drumstick than a writing instrument as Pascal approached. The tip-tapping stopped when he ruffled Sirius’ hair and took the seat next to him. “Defense,” Sirius muttered by way of explanation. “There’s a gap. Tremzy’s a killer when he goes in for a shot, but we need to close his spot when he moves.”

Pascal hummed in agreement and propped his skates up on the boards, letting the battered wood take his weight and ease the ache. “Good eyes.”

“ ‘s what I get paid for.”

“You seem tense, mon fils.”

“Hmm?” Sirius blinked. His eye contact was pristine, but his attention was lightyears away. “Sorry, just thinking. Did you need something?”

Pascal offered a wry smile. “What, you’re too old to let me sit with you?”

The deep crease between Sirius’ brows smoothed out; he smiled softly. He blinked again; this time, a bit of him returned. Not beyond all hope of intervention, then. “Non. Desolé. I’m…I’m in my head today.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

A few seconds passed before Sirius nodded. Pascal watched his gaze go distant again and his cheek dimpled as he bit the flesh inside. Guilt. Perhaps frustration. A twisted mystery to solve, if Pascal had not been watching him so closely since he first blessed their threshold. It was Regulus, it was Remus and Regulus—

It was something from a time Sirius had been trying to lock down. Ghosts were hard to trap behind hasty boards, nailed haphazard and half-panicked. Sirius was better, not healed. He was safe, not exorcised. He was so goddamn brave it hurt to watch, but Pascal wasn’t foolish enough to miss the way he spooked. And Regulus was a good kid, but a fucking mess all the same.

(Privately, he questioned the decision to go headlong into university right after escaping 18 years of living hell. That was not his place to challenge and not his problem to solve.)

(But still. University? Really?)

Sirius made another note on his board. A canine tooth poked out as he worried at his lower lip. Pascal watched him fidget, hands up and over and under and between, and steadied himself with a slow exhale when Sirius began twirling his pen over his knuckles with a dull, rippling noise.

“Regulus is angry with me.”

Pascal made an impassive noise. It was Regulus.

“I think. Probably.” Sirius’ knee bounced for a five-count before going still. “He’s working through a lot. Finals were hard. It took him off-guard. He got snappy at Remus.”

Remus and Regulus. “Oh?”

“Something about changing his sheets. He didn’t like that we went in his room to clean while he was away.”

Something from a time you’ve been trying to lock down. Not mutually exclusive events, but a progression. Sirius was fixed on a far point, no longer tracking the movement of players. His hands had gone quiet.

“I think I—I think they—” Space hung between them like a bear trap. It was horrible to be right. Sirius exhaled hard and shook his head. “C’est pas grave.”

Pascal bit back his disappointment. He knew better than to think it would spill out so easily. He scooted closer on the bench, and when Sirius didn’t flinch, leaned over to bump him with a gentle shoulder. “Don’t let it eat you up, ouais? Regulus is grown. So are you. It will come in time.”

A halfhearted nod was the best he would get, it seemed. Pascal risked a soft squeeze to the back of Sirius’ neck and—there he was. The loosening of his tense shoulders, the careful lean into the contact. “We’ll talk,” Sirius said.

“Take it slow,” Pascal advised, and prayed to any god that Sirius would at least listen to that. Those who shoved their hands in the cage of a feral animal only came away bitten and rabid. For all his growth, Sirius was plenty feral without the influence of Regulus Black ripping him open again.

They watched the drills together in silence for forty-five minutes. When they were done, Sirius’ clipboard held only blank paper.

“Tuney and I were really close. As kids, I mean.”

A light, fluffy cloud passed overhead on the rushing breeze.

“We did everything together. Like, literally everything. Mom used to joke that we should’ve been twins.”

The pain in her voice was one he knew well.

“We started drifting when I hit junior high, I think.” A controlled, even breath followed the gentle sound of a dandelion being picked. A few bits of fluff floated in and out of view. “And then high school came around, and she hated my fucking guts. Shredded all my tights with a fork. Refused to look at me in the lunchroom. Mom and Dad didn’t tell her it was okay, but they didn’t stop her, either. They just kind of sat there and looked sympathetic.”

Quiet fell over them again. A strand of hair billowed over his vision for a half-second. Time for a haircut.

“I still don’t know what I did,” Lily confessed to the afternoon sun. “I still don’t think she’s forgiven me.”

Looking at Regulus now, Sirius thought he might finally understand what she meant.

The corner of Regulus’ mouth was turned down; not more than usual, but enough to be a scowl to anyone who knew where to look. Quietly, he hoped Regulus’ school friends could tell the difference. He deserved to have people like that. Sirius wasn’t sure he had explained that very well before sending him off. Or ever.

“It’s a good book,” he said.

Regulus made a noncommittal noise. He hadn’t turned a page since Sirius paused in the doorway.

Another try. Pull back to the midline, find an open corridor. “One of my favorites.”

“Je sais.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

Once upon a time, he would not have been so bold as to ask. Once upon a time, Regulus would have sunk further into his cocoon. One pale finger traced the edge of the worn paperback. “I’m not angry with you.”

You’re always a little angry with me. “You won’t look at me.”

“God forbid I’m busy.”

“You’re reading.”

“And I’m busy,” Regulus said waspishly. “Go get Remus to take you for a walk, or something.”

Maybe this was where Lily had failed. In one way or another, she and Petunia had missed each other in the middle. He could recall those six terrible, lonely years with too much clarity to let Regulus push him away. Losing him would never be worth an argument won. “I want to spend time with you.”

“Then get your own book.” Regulus muttered something else under his breath that Sirius didn’t care to look into.

He swallowed down a sigh and picked one at random off the shelf, then settled down on the couch opposite Regulus’ armchair. The words could have been in Portuguese, for all they registered in his mind. The edges were soft from many hands. It might have been Remus’, or from the secondhand bookstore in town. God, it could have been one of Sirius’ own favorites for all he knew. He was working on knowing more of those.

The color blue, but a specific shade.

Tater-tot casserole, preferably with meat, acceptable with just cheese.

Books with adventures, books he could run away in.

Poutine with extra gravy.

Henley shirts that stopped at his elbow.

Hoodies—not the zip-fronts—made of heavier fabric. The ones where Remus had fussed with the cuffs.

“What’s your book—”

The sudden snap of cover on page made him wince; an irritated grumble-sigh hung on its coattails as Regulus swept out of the room without a backward glance. Sirius’ stomach turned, and turned, and turned. He always fucked it up. He always tried too hard. He shut his book in silence and set it on the floor, and went to get his skates.

I’m not an infant. Bared teeth and clenched fists. A charge in the air, a snake ready to strike. And you are not my fucking mother.

Remus wrinkled his nose and scrubbed harder at the grout.

Nightmarish, is what it was. The summer had been sun-soaked and semi-charmed with only the awkwardness of getting-to-know-you’s to taint it. But that was Remus’ perfect wheelhouse—polite conversation, buttering up, small talk to ease Regulus into a world that wasn’t actively trying to shred him. It had all worked so well.

He didn’t know what went wrong. Worse, he didn’t know how to fix any of it. Regulus was constantly boiling with silent fury like a kettle about to blow and it was terrible. Every second Sirius and Regulus existed within each others’ eyeline was hell. And they were living together. For twelve more days.

If they all survived this, Remus was going to take himself out for a little treat. One that did not involve scrubbing the kitchen grout just to avoid running into either of the ticking time bombs.

Regulus’ hissing colliding with the low, furious timbre of Sirius’ voice was not something Remus wanted to experience again, in this life or the next. Nobody won. Everybody lost in one way or another. Sirius got angry and Regulus got angry and Sirius got defensive and Regulus got mean, flat-out and full-send. Sirius snapped back, Regulus stormed off, and Remus spent the better part of his night assuring Sirius he was not turning into his parents. Rinse, repeat, wish for death.

Commotion kicked up in the living room and went quiet in the same breath—Remus paused to watch Regulus stomp off with a book in one white-knuckled hand and listened carefully for the aftershocks.

The house inhaled with him. The office door closed hard. Sirius’ footsteps were rhythmic as a metronome all the way up the stairs and back down again—Remus bit his tongue when he saw the skates clenched in one hand—and remained that way until the basement door shut him out.

Then, and only then, did Remus let a quiet, “shit” slip through his teeth.

Pull back to the midline. Pull back to the midline. Watch, pull back, find your corridor, strike.

The puck skated past the goal without so much as a whisper of net. Sirius hardly heard it hit the boards.

Remus looked faintly ill when they arrived at practice; Pascal was grateful for the early warning to prepare himself for Sirius’ perma-scowl and overall vibe of ultimate distress. The change in the atmosphere nearly made his ears pop. Leo made a hasty retreat from the locker room after Kasey, looking as if he had taken psychic damage, and several others watched him leave with unbridled longing.

“On-ice in five,” Sirius said. Ordered. Everything about him looked incorrectly articulated. “We’re running drills, then doing dry lands.”

Not a soul dared to try the usual bitching and moaning. All cheerful conversation had met its abrupt end.

Cole lowered his head and slunk out the door like a stray bit of shadow. The rest of them followed suit within a minute or two, save for James, who steered Sirius into the ice room with a firm hand on his back.

Plastic buckles clinked softly in the empty space left. “They’re worse?”

Remus slumped forward and muffled a groan in both hands. “They’re going to fucking kill each other.”

“Any idea what happened?”

Remus spread his hands with a lost expression.

“Did this start when Regulus came home?”

“It’s just been the past three days.” Remus shook his head, leaning his elbows heavily on his knees with his pads half-done. “I can’t—Reg was fine when he got here. He was fine through Christmas. Sirius mentions we changed his sheets before he came home, and now he wants my head on a pike and my boyfriend to explode.”

Pascal picked at the peeling logo of his shorts. Sheets. What was so special about the sheets? “Were they new sheets?”

“Same ones he used all summer. I literally just washed them and put them back.”

“So…he didn’t like that you were in his space?” Remus half-shrugged, clearly frazzled by the mere memory. “You know, Adele hates it when we go into her room. Even to drop laundry off, or help her clean.”

“No, yeah, Jules is the same. That’s what started it.”

“Started…?” Understanding crept up his throat like battery acid. “He didn’t.”

“It was bad,” Remus said weakly.

“How bad?”

The laces of Remus’ skates dragged on the ground while he shuffled in his stall. The lines of his arms were rigid and upset; he scratched at the back of his wrist, curled over like he was trying to shield his middle. “His feet bled again.”

Pascal closed his eyes. He should have pushed harder against the basement rink eight years ago. He shouldn’t have let Sirius leave so soon.

He forgot, sometimes, how very alone Sirius had been.

“I fixed it,” Remus said after a minute. Of course you did. He sniffed, shaking his head like he could hear Pascal’s thoughts. “It wasn’t too bad. Blisters, mostly, some hotspots. Made him keep the bandaids on for practice. I hate—Dumo, I hate this. I hate living in it, I hate seeing them tear each other apart. It’s so quiet.”

“They need to stop,” Pascal agreed. Remus kept looking at him for—a solution, he realized. Terrible hope. Something desperate and fragile, a young man coming to a mentor for help he just…couldn’t give.

He looked away first. Remus’ exhale felt like a knife.

“It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, it’s me—”

“No, no, no,” Remus soothed somewhere in the catastrophe of the world.

Sirius spit, again, and pressed his hands over his eyes, again, and willed the bathroom floor to stop digging into his knees and just swallow him up already. His skin crawled and he wanted to scratch but he couldn’t take his hands away or the room would spin and tip him into nothingness.

Maybe he belonged there. But he had managed to hurt Regulus when he was a country away, so perhaps he wouldn’t even be safe in the ether.

Remus’ hand was cool on the small of his back as he frantically tried to keep his dinner down. He didn’t rub. He didn’t tap. He didn’t so much as twitch. Sirius listed to the side and flashed a hand out to steady himself. The pain of his wrist hitting the cabinet didn’t even register until Remus hissed in sympathy and took his weight in the bend of his arm.

“I am treating him just like they did,” Sirius rasped through the smoke pouring from inside him.

“No.” Remus was begging now. He sounded so tired. He was begging. The room swam in the kaleidoscope of suffering that he really should be used to by now, and Sirius pressed his elbows harder into the toilet seat as his ears began to ring.

You are not my mother.

Sirius gasped in a too-hot breath. It had been directed at Remus, not him. But.

But he was.

It was so sick and twisted and his stomach made sure to tell him that with a real-world example of both those words.

You are not my mother.

She wasn’t, either. Their nannies had come close. Sirius missed them sometimes (often) (aching) (with the hurt of a child).

Remus was not Regulus’ mother but he had been, in the same scream-worthy way he had been his father, too, and his brother. He couldn’t think too hard about how he had been the only one to cuddle Regulus without crying and fuck, there he went, Sirius the drama queen making the whole damn world about him.

“Okay, okay.” Arms came around him, easing the slicing pain of the sobs that caught him in fishhooks. The back of his hand hit the floor. His knees hurt like a bruise. His face was smushed against Remus’ chest and it really should have been uncomfortable. Remus made a noise of sympathy and gathered all the gross, slimy, bits of a Sirius-puddle into his arms because he was a saint. The patron saint of fucking messes, and Sirius was the messiest sinner of them all.

“I’m so horrible to him,” he sobbed, hitching and sticky. Probably incoherent. He mumbled. She hated it when he mumbled. “I’m so horrible.”

You are not my mother.

“It was me.” He gulped for air. Remus’ dizzying words fell quiet at the interruption. He added another note to his list of penance. “It was me, it was, I tried.”

“What did you try?” Remus’ fingertips brushed away a loose, sweaty lock and the sobs came harder after that, wracking him down to his organs, past the precious cradle of his ribs. A warm palm cupped the back of his head and Sirius heard a strangled noise interrupt his own endless babbling. He didn’t know he could make that sound. With the way his throat and body were angled against the unmovable pillar of Remus, though, it shouldn’t have surprised him.

“I was—I was his mother.” It was so hard to breathe through the gasping. “I didn’t know what I was doing but I was his mother but I won’t be her.”

“Oh, god.” Remus sounded weak for a saint. There went another beautiful thing, ruined in Sirius’ messy clumsy hands. And somehow, in the darkness, in the Blackness, a kiss nestled just near his temple.

He couldn’t help but go still, then limp, as all the fight and fear siphoned from his flooded lungs.

Remus breathed like he was going to speak several times before he did. “There are other ways.” His voice was heartbreak. Sirius closed his burning eyes. “Sirius—baby, you know my mom. You know Effie, and Celeste, and you know Lily.”

Lily. He knew Lily. Her green eyes, so much pain and regret. Don’t be like me, Pads. Her green eyes, the way she looked at Harry, the way they matched. Sirius had his mother’s eyes. Had she ever looked at him like that?

“There are other ways to be someone’s mother. And…” His hands stuttered, then began to move again, scritching the back of Sirius’ head. That feeling usually made him go comatose in their bed. “Regulus was trying to hurt me when he said that. You know that, right?”

I am not an infant. And you are not my fucking mother.

Remus kissed him again. The shell of his ear, this time. “It wasn’t about you. I promise.”

But it was. There on the bathroom floor, it was.

The woman was watching him with infuriating patience. Sometimes—more often than he cared to count—she would even look away to her clipboard or her phone, and that was even worse. Regulus knew how to be ignored. He fucking hated her nonchalant attention.

Either look at me and pay attention or ignore me properly, he thought with enough force that it should have beamed into her brain directly.

Heather chewed at the corner of her lip and checked her texts again.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask questions?” he finally muttered.

She looked up, milk-mild. “Are you ready to answer them?”

You can’t trick me that easily. “Are they worth my time?”

“I certainly think so.” She tilted her head back and forth for a moment. “But it’s not up to me to decide. That’s your choice.”

“So I can just walk out right now?”

“Sure.”

Regulus only let himself pause for a second before regaining his composure. “I’m pretty sure my brother would murder me if I did that.”

“Your brother didn’t set up this appointment.” A smile made her face even kinder, like a storybook bear. “And I’m not allowed to discuss my other patients’ homicidal tendencies. But yes, Mr. Black—”

“Don’t call me that or I’ll puke, I promise.”

“—yes, Regulus, you are welcome to leave whenever you feel like it. I can’t legally force you into therapy and I don’t particularly want to. If you would prefer to sit here quietly, we’ve still got twenty minutes left.”

He bit the inside of his cheek.

“I have a spare crossword,” she offered.

Gifts. Of course. What an awful woman. He plucked absently at the threads of the armrest and slouched into the too-squishy cushions.

Silence reigned supreme for another five minutes and twenty-four seconds before Heather stretched her wrists and smiled at him again. “It’s good to see you, Regulus.”

“You don’t have to say that,” he snorted.

“I know.”

“So don’t.”

“Alright.” She tapped the side of her thumb on her clipboard. “I’m glad you came back. Is that better?”

“Will you stop with the mind games, please?”

Heather’s eyes softened. His skin crawled. “Regulus, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable in my office. I would vastly prefer it if you did something you enjoy with this time, rather than forcing yourself to come and sit there and be miserable. I’ll sit with you if you’d like, but it seems like that’s not helping.”

His lip curled against his will. “So Sirius told you I’m miserable?”

“I haven’t spoken to Sirius lately.”

“You should. He’s a disaster.” Ignore that I’m a screaming teenage trainwreck.

“If he gets in touch with me, I’ll happily make time.”

“He won’t,” Regulus informed her. He wondered if she would stop him. Was there a point where he was no longer allowed to talk about her other patients? He already felt pathetic enough for refusing to use any therapist except the one Sirius had vouched for.

Heather hummed. “Guess that’s for him to know, and for me to find out.”

Push push push push push— “He’s been a mess. He’s doing that implosion thing he does when I’m mean to him. It’s like he thinks everyone in the whole world depends on him to be happy, and the second they’re not, it’s his fault.”

“And have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Been mean to him?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been terrible.” Regulus frowned slightly and sat up. “You know I’m not a nice person, don’t you? You should know that before we start anything.”

Heather seemed interested, but not confused. Infuriating. “Okay.”

“Sirius is the nice one.”

“Okay.” She nodded for a moment. “Why is Sirius nice, but you’re not?”

“You’re not—” He bit his tongue. Being mean to Heather was not what he came here to do. Wasting his time with someone who didn’t understand was not the point of this. “Sirius would have been much happier as a suburban family’s well-loved dog. He’s good like that.”

“Okay.”

“I was ignored for three-quarters of my childhood and have half a dozen complexes and attachment issues because of it. I am not a nice person at all, and so I take it out on Sirius because—I don’t know, I think it’s supposed to feel good, since he had everything and then he left me.” She was still looking at him. Mild and kind. Was everyone in Gryffindor obtuse enough to think he was kidding? “Heather, I am telling you that I’m petty and mean and use my older brother as an emotional punching bag because our parents fucked us up. There is nothing you can say to help me.”

“Supposed to feel good?”

Regulus blinked. “Pardon?”

“You said it was ‘supposed to feel good’ when you’re mean to your brother.” Heather rested her head on her hand. He wasn’t sure when she had put her clipboard aside. “Does it feel good?”

“Oh my god, no,” Regulus laughed hoarsely. “No, it feels like I’m the worst person alive. Why does that change anything?”

I just wanted them to like me.

It hadn’t even been about love, in the end. He had given up on that. Forget about pride—that was a lost cause. But he had yearned to be liked, to have a smile turned on him like the ones he only remembered in blurry dreams between sleep and wakefulness. Their father had light crow’s feet by his eyes. They were probably deeper by now. Their love was never going to happen but it really would have been enough to simply be liked. Regulus had been bright enough to stop hanging on to them far sooner; oh, yes, he had always been the smart one.

Heather had seemed sad when he said that. Sirius hated making her sad.

Pascal thought he knew where the precipice was. He thought they had more time to reel that celestial disaster back from the brink before they tipped over it, clawing at each other for grip and for hurt. Looking back, he felt like an utter fool for thinking he could have stopped them.

“You fucking liar!”

“I wouldn’t lie to you!”

“Yes you would, you always do that!”

“I—” Sirius’ mouth snapped closed; his jaw ticked with tension. “I wouldn’t—”

“You do,” Regulus insisted angrily. “Our whole childhood, and now this. I won’t fall for it anymore.”

“I told you, I didn’t go through your things—”

“Stop it.”

“It was just changing the goddamn sheets—”

“Stop it.”

“God forbid I want you to sleep on something clean!” Sirius shouted back.

Regulus flushed red, bright against his dark hair. “Don’t yell at me!”

“Are you—you started yelling first, you pain in the ass!”

“Oh, I’m just a pain in the ass now?”

Sirius threw his hands in the air with a furious noise and folded them at his nape, shaking his head. His stomach hurt and trembled. His throat was tight, and every swallow had to fight its way around an iron fist. The inside of his cheek was raw and tender from his teeth. “You’re fucking delusional.”

Remus straightened fast. “Woah—”

“I’m delusional?” Regulus laughed humorlessly, hysterically, all dry bonfire wit. “I’m delusional? I’m not the one that tried to start a brand-new family when the old one failed!”

The insides of his ribs were scorched black. “Don’t bring Remus into this—”

“I’m talking about him!” Regulus’ arm shot out. One pale, skeletal finger hovered in midair, an executioner’s axe. A hairline tremor shivered over his skin; his eyes gleamed.

Dumo had both hands on Sirius’ broken toaster, and both eyes locked on Regulus’ hand in shock.

“You had it all planned out, didn’t you?” Regulus’ face contorted. “From the second they called your name on the television. You were going to billet and you were going to go to him and fuck the rest of us, is that it?”

Sirius couldn’t feel his hands. I still don’t know what I did. I still don’t think she’s forgiven me. “Regulus, no.”

But Regulus just nodded, tears welling up despite the guillotine edge of his voice. “You did. And thank fuck for that, because then Logan came along and a brand-new brother just dropped himself in your lap without any effort at all. Your perfect parents, your perfect brother, your perfect, perfect life. How convenient.”

He shook his head. “No. No, it’s not like that.”

But.

But it was. A little bit, it was. Dumo wasn’t his choice but he was Sirius’ escape. And Logan…Logan had been so alone, so afraid, so young, hiding under his baseball caps like Regulus used to hide under his toques. Sirius had caught too many sidelong glances of dark curls and bitten back the wrong name those first few months.

Regulus could smell it on him. Could read Sirius’ guilt like a child’s book. His eye twitched. “I told you not to lie.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Sirius said hoarsely.

“I don’t care.”

“It was not my intent—”

“Fuck your intent.”

Lightning spit up inside him and he choked it down, tasting iron as it went. “Will you let me speak? Or are you going to stand there and yell until you feel better?”

Regulus’ face turned blotchy with rage. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Then stop acting like a child,” he snapped back.

“You sound like—”

“Do not.”

Something burnt coated his tongue as the lightning licked off it in a whipcrack and sparked between them. Regulus looked away, fists balled tight against his sides.

Sirius let the burning out on a controlled breath. “Do not bring them into this,” he continued carefully, even as a scream built under his lungs, kicking its feet and howling. “Do not bring her into this. I am telling you right now that you will not like how it goes for you.”

Regulus’ mouth twisted, petulant and bitter. “You’re really going to threaten me? Now?”

“I don’t threaten, Regulus. I win.”

“Because everything is a competition,” he sneered.

“Because you know better than to start that fight.” Sirius caught his gaze and held it with clenched, snarling teeth. Regulus knew better. Always the smart one, always levelheaded. Regulus, the wordsmith, and Sirius, blowing up the ground he stood on as long as he didn’t come out on the bottom. Locked jaw or locked antlers, dragging them both over the canyon edge before any thought of retreat. He had shouted himself voiceless before bending to their father. A simple locked door couldn’t block the endless screaming matches from Regulus’ memory.

“This isn’t a tantrum,” Regulus said at last.

The slavering dog in Sirius’ head sat back and eased its hold. He jerked his chin. “Then get to the point.”

“You left.”

“I was always going to leave.”

Regulus flinched, but to his credit, kept going. “You replaced us. Me.”

“Logan was never you.” Logan, young and scared, but not Regulus. Never Regulus. It had only ever taken a moment for Sirius to right himself, and less than that to be buried alive in guilt.

Regulus stared at the kitchen table. His nailbeds were white where he clutched the back of a chair. They’d have to get more iron into him while he was home; Sirius didn’t trust the university food. “You never came back.”

“For holidays—”

“You never came back,” Regulus repeated, louder. He blinked fast a few times, inhaling sharply. “You were never there for more than a day or two. You’d go dead the second we sat down together. You never—you never came back.”

“Regulus, that house was going to kill me.”

It came out too soft for the weight of it in the room. Regulus closed his eyes and leaned forward, stretching his arms with an unsteady exhale. Sirius kept his focus despite the building sting in his eyes but he could feel Dumo’s gaze on his neck, could hear Remus’ short inhale. There was no coming back from this. Ever onward, clawing his way out of the depths.

“One way or another, it was,” he continued quietly. “So, no. I didn’t go back. I won’t.”

The blur of Regulus tilted his face toward the ceiling with another shaky breath, still blinking fruitlessly as drops of mirrored light slipped down his cheeks. “Then how—?” He broke off and cleared his throat hard enough to make Sirius wince. “How could you leave me there?”

“I didn’t want to.”

It meant nothing; they both knew that. It still felt right to get it out there.

“I thought you’d come back,” Regulus said. “I thought you’d try. Once—once you had your first paycheck, or something.”

It hurt so much more to hear old, broken hope than anger. “They knew where I lived.”

“Then we’d move.” We. A child’s daydream. They made me hate you, but I never did. A phone number memorized for six and a half years. “We’d go somewhere else.” Regulus ran his sleeve under his nose and shook his head. “I was so alone. I don’t—” He looked up and immediately, his lip curled in disgust. “Oh, god, don’t look at me like that.”

“Reg—”

“Like a fucking puppy, merde.” He yanked his sleeves down over his hands and scrubbed viciously at his face, lingering over his eyes a second longer before letting them dangle at his sides again. He sniffled, then did a double-take when he saw Remus and Dumo on the other side of the room. “Why are you still here?”

“Um.” Remus glanced over at Sirius, but he had nothing to offer. “It…felt wrong to leave.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, though the effect was dampened by his red cheeks and slight pout. “You are all so codependent.”

“Don’t be mean,” Sirius chided instinctively.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Regulus gave him a quick up-and-down look. “We’re both ugly criers. Shit. Yell at me again.”

“…no?”

“Just do it, it’ll make me feel better.”

“I’m not going to yell at you.”

“Don’t make me insult you more. My throat hurts.”

“Do you want a hug?”

“No.” They stood in silence for another fifteen seconds. Wool socks scuffed on the floor. Regulus gnawed at the inside of his lip, then stepped around the side of the table an inch. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

He was over six feet tall, now. His hockey muscle had yet to fade. He felt—

Small. He felt safe. A shudder ran down his aching back. It had been so long since he felt safe.

“Desolé.” Sirius’ voice vibrated in the burrow of his chest and Regulus pressed his face to it as hard as he could. “Desolé, mon etoile.”

Tears snuck up on him in bursts; he pushed closer, closer, tucking his arms between them and shuffling forward until he could stand on the front of Sirius’ stupid slippers and let the cold floor fall away. He was tired of drowning, but it was hard to remember how to let the water out.

Sirius sniffed above him. The kiss to the top of his head was more of a hard bump than anything else. His arms were tight and warm around Regulus’ back, one palm cupping the back of his head. “I never forgot you.”

“Je sais,” Regulus croaked back.

“I never forgot you.”

Don’t, don’t, don’t. He coughed to clear the brackish muck from his lungs. He wasn’t pretty like this, and he knew it. But neither was Sirius, so maybe that was okay. Just this once. He could be held like a child, just this once. It was a long time before they spoke again.

“I don’t want to see Heather anymore.” He breathed in Sirius’ laundry soap and the same deodorant they had both been wearing for years. The rushing flood in his head had become a stream, had become a trickle. His heartbeat pulsed behind his eye. “I want—I want to see someone else.”

Sirius’ shoulders relaxed enough that he could feel each muscle release. “Good.”

“I still haven’t told my friends about—the everything.” He felt Sirius nod and gathered two fistfuls of his hoodie. “I want to stay at school.”

“D’accord.”

“What if they find out?” He held on tighter, pressed his face to Sirius’ calm heart. “What happens when they find out how horrible I am?”

Sirius huffed. “You’re not horrible.”

“I am.” That was the deal. He was the villain so Sirius could be the hero. He was the junkyard. Spare parts to be hosed off and trotted out when they needed him.

“Regulus, you’re nineteen.”

He frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everyone’s horrible at nineteen.”

“What if I’m…” He wracked his brain for something smart. It blew a raspberry at him and fucked off back to sleep. “…extra horrible?”

Sirius sighed, scratching lightly behind his ears. Regulus felt his eyelids droop against his will. “If you turn out to be extra horrible by—I don’t know, 21, we’ll talk.”

“What if they fucked us both up too bad?”

He winced—Sirius’ steady motions stuttered briefly. He hadn’t meant to let that one slither out from its careful cage. That was a thought for sleepless nights in a cold hotel bed and watching the sun rise in a strange city through dry, tired eyes. When his hands were blistered and bleeding, he’d wonder whether that Black blood could ever really be gone from him.

Sirius’ head was a gentle pressure on his own. “Then it’s us against the world, isn’t it?”

Gryffindor airport was quiet at 7 in the morning. Dumo stifled a yawn in the back of his hand as he passed the rolling suitcase to a boy that was far too awake for the early hour, in his opinion. Youths.

“You have everything?” Sirius checked. “You’ll be safe?”

“I’m literally fine.” Regulus arched a brow. “And less than four hours away, if you speed.”

“You’ll call when you land.”

“I’ll text.”

Sirius wrinkled his nose. “If you don’t, I’m filing a missing person report.”

Regulus turned to Remus. “Can you keep him on a leash? Or just sedate him?”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Remus laughed.

Sirius fixed them both with a weak scowl. “Will you just get on the plane?”

“I thought you wanted me to stay.”

“I want you—” Sirius took Regulus by the shoulders and turned him around with a firm grip. “—to have fun and live life and not die. The bar is on the ground. Do not dig under it.”

“Killjoy.”

“Pest.” Sirius kissed the top of his head. “Fly safe. Text.”

“Wait until I’m on the place before you start crying. I don’t want your gross emotions all over me.”

“Well, we can’t disturb your delicate sensibilities.”

“Sirius?”

“Reg.”

Regulus paused, laden with his duffel and rolling bag, and kicked the toe of Sirius’ sneaker lightly. “Love you.”

Sirius’ smile was close-lipped and small and brighter than the rising sun outside the massive bay windows. He kicked him back, even more gently. “Get on your plane.”

#sirius black #regulus black #pascal dumais #remus lupin #sweater weather #vaincre #lumosinlove #my fic #fanfic #coops #hurt/ comfort #angst with a happy ending #black brothers #parentification #panic attack #sibling problems #therapy #look they're working on it okay

183 notes · View notes

hbyrde36 · 3 months

Text

The Crawl (Complete)

Part 5 of 5 (Final)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 AO3

Author's note: This chapter had a mind of it's own and has gone through several re-starts. Basically, if you saw prev wip snippets of this, no you didn't 🤣

WC: 4152

-Eddie-

It did keep happening.

By the time Eddie was released from the hospital, about a week later and with loads of antibiotics, pain meds, and a packet inches thick of instructions on how to care for his still healing wounds, they knew for sure that they were right.

Anytime he closed his eyes, even for a brief cat-nap, Eddie would get another flash from the alternate week from hell, or so he called it. Although, occasionally he’d get a glimpse of something more mundane but still decidedly different from the months leading up to it.

As far as he could tell, his other timeline split off on the night Steve first tried to get his attention after Hellfire.

It was funny to think about how unwilling he was to accept that a well-known, if supposedly reformed, asshole like Steve Harrington would want anything to do with Hellfire, or him, regardless of the kids he seemed to love so much.

It was strange too– to look back now, through the lens of everything he had come to know, on the months that had followed. How he and Steve had gone from relative strangers, to acquaintances, to friends, and now so much more.

It wasn’t lost on Eddie that without all the bad shit and the extreme circumstances of his other self dying and being resurrected, only to change everything by sheer chance and a well placed time disturbance, he and Steve might never have gotten to where they were now.

He didn’t want to say he was grateful for it… they would all undoubtedly be better off if the Upside Down had just never existed at all, but if there was a silver lining to be found in all of this, that would be it for him.

In the alternate version of things, the other Eddie’s memories– though, now that they belonged to him he should probably stop thinking of it that way, the first time he’d seen Steve since graduating had been the moment he threatened him with a broken beer bottle to his neck.

They recovered from that dramatic re-introduction rather quickly, and went on to share more than a few intriguing little moments between that day and the day that Eddie died. He could see a hint of it there, the potential, in curious glances and countless casual touches made without thought. If only they’d had more time.

He tried not to dwell on that part though.

However it had happened, they were here now– was the point. Alive, together, and with a future in front of them full of possibilities and hopefully free of monsters and trauma.

Eddie had been wondering all week what would happen once he was released.

Their old trailer was still a no-go. The gate inside of it was closed for good, the world it led to gone, as far as they knew, but there was still a sizable crack in the ceiling. Not to mention the fact that the entire park was now off-limits, cordoned off by temporary fencing– closed to the public by whatever shadowy sector of the government had finally decided to step in to help clean up the mess made by Brenner and his lab.

Steve said he would have offered his place but his parents had made a surprise return to town in the middle of all the chaos and he wasn’t sure how long they would be staying this time.

Eddie knew Wayne had been living in a nearby motel and just sort of assumed that would be home for now. He was more than a little surprised to find out, as they waited for his discharge to be finalized, that Hopper had offered them his cabin to stay in for as long as they needed. The chief was living with the Byers full time anyway so he hadn’t hesitated to make the offer when he realized they were stuck.

He asked Steve to come with them, would have begged outright if he wasn’t already afraid he was being too clingy, but Steve said he couldn’t. Though, he didn’t look any happier about the idea of being separated than Eddie was.

It was tough to think about being apart for any amount of time after they’d been sleeping in his hospital bed together for almost the entirety of his stay, with Steve only ever leaving his side to go home for a shower in the mornings or to pick up food, but Steve seemed to think he would be imposing.

A ridiculous idea.

Eddie tried to convince him otherwise, but Steve was sure that Wayne would mind, and didn’t want to make a bad first impression on his new boyfriend’s only family by being a nuisance so soon. He felt the need to point out that Steve had been hanging around their house for months. He and Wayne saw each other literally all the time– meaning they were well past first impressions at this point, but he insisted it was different now that they were a couple.

A couple.

Boyfriends.

The idea itself, let alone hearing Steve say the actual words, was enough to keep Eddie warm for at least one night, so he let it go.

They parted reluctantly in the hospital parking lot, after everyone else who’d come to see Eddie off had left, with Steve promising to come up and visit the next day.

Maybe then, after they sat Wayne down and told him about their relationship, as if he hadn’t figured it out already, maybe then he could talk Steve into it. It was probably too soon to discuss actual living together, considering they’d only been together for a week, but maybe he could just stay with them temporarily, at least until it was all a little less raw.

Eddie was exhausted from the day. He hadn’t actually done much, the kids had all helped Wayne move what few belongings of theirs had been salvageable into the cabin while he was languishing away in the hospital, but it was still the most he’d been up and moving around since the final battle.

Regardless of how tired he was, he tossed and turned for hours, unable to ignore the way his skin itched where it was healing, or find a comfortable position to rest in alone, having grown so used to having another body pressed closely to his.

And he couldn’t stop thinking about Steve.

Wondering if he was alright, wishing he was there, and… okay, maybe he was also possibly avoiding sleep on purpose so he wouldn’t have to see anything, since he wouldn't have cuddles from Steve to wake up to and make him feel better.

Pathetic? Maybe, but it was the truth.

Which was why he was still awake at 3am when a series of hesitant knocks sounded on the front door of the cabin.

It had to be someone in the party, no one else knew they were there. Eddie’s name had been cleared officially, sure, but it would take time for the news to spread and be accepted by a town full of people who had hunted one boy down like an animal based only on circumstantial evidence and the word of another boy who was blind with grief and his own prejudices.

Wayne got to the door first, of course. Eddie was doing better by the day, but his injuries still had him moving painfully slow. When he did finally make it out of his room, what he saw made his heart drop through the floor. Wayne was grasping on tightly to a weeping Steve, holding him up as the boy fell apart in his arms.

Eddie shuffled closer as fast as he could, finally catching their attention.

“There, see? Look at him, son.” Wayne said gently, coaxing Steve into lifting his head. “Eddie’s just fine– he’s right there.”

His eyes were so red and swollen that Eddie wasn’t sure Steve could see him, but he nodded anyway, sniffling as Wayne released him, transferring him over into Eddie’s arms instead.

Eddie braced himself, worried that he didn't have the strength to support them both, but Wayne was right there with a hand on his back for support, just in case.

Steve buried his face in Eddie’s neck as they embraced, babbling, “I'm s-s- so sorry. I woke up and you weren’t there. I forgot, I forgot I was alone and… I- I knew we made it out, that you were okay but I needed to see. I just needed to see you.”

Eddie ran his hands in soothing circles along Steve’s back, shushing him, and telling him it was okay.

“Come on,” he said, when Steve had calmed some. “Let’s go lay down on my bed so I can hold you properly.”

Steve pulled back, biting his lip and cutting a sharp nervous glance at Wayne

Eddie huffed a gentle laugh, taking Steve’s hand and squeezing it. “Baby, we were sharing my hospital bed, I think he knows.”

“You don't need to worry about me, Steve. I’m just glad the two of you finally figured yourselves out. It was getting painful to watch, frankly.” Wayne said, letting out his own small amused chuckle. He gave Steve one last little pat on the shoulder and finally retired back to his own room.

They laid quietly on the bed facing each other, arms and legs entwined as much as they could manage without putting pressure on Eddie’s bites. Steve refused to take his eyes off of him for even a second while wearing the most tortured expression.

He didn’t seem to want to talk about what happened, but that was okay. Eddie knew Steve was still struggling with the loss of the other Eddie, and having to leave him behind to fade with the Upside Down. Though, with Eddie gaining the other’s memories he had to wonder if that still meant he was lost.

“Feeling any better?” Eddie asked after a while.

Steve nodded, running his fingers through Eddie’s hair. “Always better when you’re with me.” He said sleepily.

Eddie gave a soft, breathy laugh. “What a line.” He whispered, leaning in to capture Steve's lips with his own.

It was meant to be a chaste kiss, a sweet moment before they both inevitably passed out from exhaustion, but it quickly turned heated.

It was nearly sunrise before they finally fell asleep.

After all, they had been apart for over 12 hours, surely that kind of reunion was worthy of an hours-long make out session, right?

They slept all day until Wayne knocked on the door to make them come eat something.

They sat as close together as the kitchen chairs would allow, their thighs pressed together under the table, compelled to have some form of physical contact no matter what, even while they were eating.

Dinner was quiet, unusually so. Eddie would normally have been talking away, filling the silence with whatever popped into his head, but he was tired. He also knew his uncle must be wondering what had happened the night before, but he wasn’t really sure what to do about that.

Wayne kept giving them sideways glances, clearly trying to ignore the silence, pretending like it wasn’t completely abnormal for Eddie who typically never shut up. But eventually, having apparently had enough, he gently set his fork down on the table and looked squarely at the two of them.

“Now, look boys, I know I ain’t supposed to ask any questions about what happened to you two, and honestly-” he paused, blowing out a long breath. “I'm not sure I want to know. But if you want to talk, if you think it’ll help, I’m here for you. Both of you– for whatever you need, and nothing you’d say to me would ever leave the three of us.”

It was actually something they’d discussed however briefly before falling asleep. It didn’t seem fair to leave Wayne in the dark when he’d been nothing but supportive so far, even after Steve showed up at his doorstep in the middle of the night crying that he needed to make sure Eddie wasn't dead again.

“I’m not sure you’d believe us if we told you.”

“I’ve seen some shit, Steve. You’d be surprised what I'm willing to believe.”

Wayne took it well enough.

Not a single look of doubt crossed his face as he listened to the whole saga of Hawkins lab and the Upside Down. Worry? Certainly, but never once did he question if what he was being told was the truth. Not even when they told him about the other Eddie, though he did look a little haunted by the thought of it.

Steve took the lead for the most part, since he’d been there for so much more of things, and at several points in the storytelling Wayne did ask him to stop, to give him a moment to process things and also to ask, where were his parents? Why didn’t they ever seem to show up when he needed them? How could their son have been dealing with all this shit, for all this time, and they still have no idea it was going on?

Eddie was glad for it. He’d had some of the same questions on his mind since he learned the full truth of things, but they’d been dealing with so much. He knew Steve’s parents weren’t around a lot but it always felt like there was more to it, he just hadn’t really known how to ask.

Steve tried to brush it off, but as patient as Wayne was, he was also persistent, and eventually Steve had to admit that his parents were hardly ever home. When they were, it seemed all they would do was judge him for not doing better in school, or in sports, or in life in general. Far from being concerned when the mall mysteriously caught fire, they had called to say how disappointed they were that he hadn’t gone out and gotten another job already. Never once asking if he had been there that day, if he was okay.

When it was all over, and Wayne finally knew everything they had to tell, all he did was nod and start clearing the table.

“You know, Steve, we got plenty of room here if you’d like to come stay with us.” He said casually, as he put all their dishes in the sink.

Eddie grinned.

“Oh.” Steve said, blinking in surprise. He looked from Eddie’s smiling face to Wayne’s back, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.

“Um, thank you. I… do you– do you mean just for now, or…” Steve trailed off.

Wayne turned, drying his hands on a kitchen towel and shrugged. “For now, or for good. It’s up to you and Ed really. I’m happy to have you, son, and I'd sleep better at night if I knew you were right here– safe under my borrowed roof.”

Steve bit his lip, still looking at them both hesitantly like was truly unsure of his welcome.

Wayne sighed, plopping back down in his chair.

Eddie was familiar with this particular expression, having been the receiving end of it more than a few before. Wayne was uncomfortable about whatever it was he was about to say, but damned it he wasn’t going to say it anyway.

“I know you two probably feel like it’s too soon for all this, and ignore an old man if you like because God knows I only know what i’m talking about roughly half the time, but–”

A lie, Wayne was always right, but Eddie decided it wasn’t the time to argue.

“Your relationship might be new, but the way you feel about each other ain’t. You’ve been through Hell together, in this life and another, it seems. That kinda thing either brings people together or breaks them apart, and from where I'm sittin’ it looks like it’s only made you closer, stronger.”

Eddie took Steve’s hand that was resting on the table and laced their fingers together.

Wayne tilted his head. “Maybe a little codependent but it’s not the worst thing in the world.” He murmured.

“Move in, Stevie?” Eddie asked, looking Steve firmly in the eye. “Please, I want you to stay for good. And it’s not just about me wanting you here after my nightmare memories, or wanting to get you away from your shitty parents. Wayne’s right, and who cares if it’s too soon. We both know better than most how short life can be.”

“My parents kicked me out.” Steve blurted out suddenly. “There was a message on the machine from Keith, saying I was fired for too many no call no shows. They heard it and flipped out on me when I came home yesterday. I have till the end of the week to get out.”

“Baby, why didn’t you say something sooner?”

Steve shrugged, “I didn’t want you to feel obligated or–.”

“What were you gonna do, sleep in your car?”

“If I had to.” Steve admitted. “Or sneak into Robin’s house.”

“Well, that settles it then.” Wayne said with finality. “When do you wanna go get your stuff? I can go with you if you want.”

Steve looked down, cheeks going a little pink. “It’s all in my car already. The stuff I wanted to keep anyway. I packed it up before I went to bed last night.”

3 Months later

Steve held up another god-awful polo shirt and waved it in his direction. “You sure you don’t want to borrow something of mine? Look, it's even black!”

Eddie was tearing through their small closet, no closer to finding what he was looking for than he had been ten minutes ago.

“No way, Harrington. That look is all you. Besides–” He grunted as he finally pulled the plain black dress shirt from between a sea of red, black, and gray flannels, holding it up triumphantly. “I have this, and a brand new pair of non-ripped jeans that I was saving just for the occasion.”

It was graduation day and they were getting ready to go and cheer on Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan as they walked across the stage to get their diplomas.

Eddie wouldn’t be joining them.

He’d been given a choice when the doctor’s cleared him to return to school. He could go back, knowing he was likely to fail, all the while being subjected to hate and vitriol from the rest of the student body, or, if he agreed to never set foot on school property again, they would pass him, and send his diploma in the mail.

It was an easy decision. He took the diploma. It was no skin off his back. The only thing he missed about that place was Hellfire, and it was simple enough to move their weekly game to the cabin, and a hell of a lot more pleasant than the old musty drama room provided by the school.

Technically he’d be breaking his word today by showing up to the ceremony, since it was being held in the school’s auditorium, but he figured, fuck Higgins. Eddie already had the diploma. What were they gonna do, make him give it back? Nothing was going to stop him from showing up for three of the people who’d had his back before they ever really knew each other.

“Boys! I hope you’re getting dressed in there, we gotta leave in fifteen minutes!” Wayne shouted from the other room.

Eddie grinned, buttoning his shirt up as he caught Steve’s eye through the mirror, while the other boy fixed his hair.

They giggled in unison, both of them knowing full well that they should have been dressed a while ago, but that was the thing sometimes about sharing a room with your significant other, someone starts to get undressed and suddenly it becomes really easy to get distracted.

Things had been going great for a while now. Steve eventually stopped looking at him like he was going to disappear, and Eddie’s dreams had slowed to a crawl before finally stopping altogether, leaving him with a full set of alternate memories. He didn’t think about it all that much anymore. As quickly as they had come, the memories started to fade into the background. There, if he wanted to poke at them, but easy enough to leave in the past if he so chose, which he did most of the time.

Still, as good as things were, as happy as they were, Eddie was nervous. He had a big question to ask Steve and he wasn’t sure how the other boy was going to take it.

Eddie cleared his throat and walked over to where Steve stood, wrapping his arms around him from behind.

“Hey, Stevie, what would you think about getting out of here?”

“Like, the cabin?”

“I was thinking more like… Hawkins.”

Steve stilled, hesitating before he responded. “And go where?”

Eddie took a deep breath, letting it all out in a rush. “What if we got a place in New York with a certain friend of ours who’ll be going to school there in the fall?”

At first Steve broke out into the widest smile imaginable, his eyes sparkling with it and Eddie thought maybe this wouldn't be such a hard sell, but a split second later Steve’s face fell.

“What about the kids, we can't just leave them here on their own.”

Eddie rested his chin on Steve’s shoulder, still watching him carefully through the mirror as he swayed them back and forth, subtly trying to soothe the other boy’s nerves.

“They won’t be on their own, baby, they have parents, families, each other. And it’s not like we wouldn’t come visit. It’s a 10 hour drive– hour and a half by plane if we’re in a hurry.”

“You’ve really put some thought into this, haven't you?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Since Robin got her letter.”

Steve chewed on his bottom lip, turning in Eddie’s arms to face him.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t be stupid, of course you should go.” Dustin said, suddenly appearing in the doorway.

They both jumped, completely forgetting that the kid was getting dropped off here to ride to the ceremony with them since his mom had to work.

“Jesus Christ, kid, put a fucking bell on or something.” Eddie said.

“Dustin, what? You want me to leave?” Steve asked, leaving the circle of Eddie’s arms to take a step towards the kid.

“It’s over. For real this time, Steve. I know you think you need to stay here to protect us, but you deserve to get out of here– start your life. We’ll be fine, I promise. You’ll call and you’ll visit, and you better get a comfortable couch for me to sleep on when I come to stay with you.”

Forget the bell, if it made him happy this kid could sneak up on Eddie all he wanted, because he’d just said the one thing that might convince Steve to finally leave this place and it’s awful history behind.

“Are you sure?” Steve asked.

Dustin nodded emphatically. “Robin needs you, and it’ll be… easier for the two of you in the city, won’t it?”

Their relationship was no secret to the party, least of all Dustin since he and Will had witnessed their coming together in the Upside Down. They’d told everyone else not long after Steve had officially moved into the cabin.

Eddie took Steve’s hand and squeezed. Steve squeezed back.

It would be easier. There would be places– shops, gay bars, whole neighborhoods where they could walk down the street hand-in-hand, in relative safety compared to their small Indiana town.

“And you’ll come visit? The others too?”

Dustin grinned, making a waffling motion with his hand. “Might take some convincing to get Mike to come along, but yeah. For Eddie, he’ll do it.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head. “He’s never gonna forgive me for dating his sister is he?”

“Nope,” Dustin said, chuckling as well.

“So, what d’ya say, sunshine?” Eddie asked.

Infuriatingly, Steve still hesitated. “And Wayne, he’s okay with this?”

As if summoned, although more likely he was just getting tired of waiting around for them all, Wayne popped his head around the corner with perfect comedic timing. “Stop worrying about what other people want, boy, what do you want?”

Steve sighed, smiling sheepishly.

“Can I be the one to tell Robin? It’ll be a much better graduation gift than the watch I planned on giving her.”

“Of course, baby.” Eddie quickly agreed.

“Okay, then.”

“Is that a yes? Are we really doing this? Are we moving to New York?!”

Steve nodded and leaned over, pressing a kiss to Eddie’s cheek.

“It’s a yes.”

Thanks forever to @penny00dreadful for being the best friend, cheerleader, and beta in the whole fucking world 💜 truly could not do it without you. Also special thanks to @hitlikehammers for all the discussion and encouragement on this!

@hissunflowers @sadisticaltarts @gutterflower77 @epiclazershark @yeahhhh-suga @soapyscoobert @thetrueghostqueen @guppynuggets @reh-hateshumans @katdeerly @kolorzapster @useless-nb-bisexual @sammyammi @ellietheasexylibrarian @thesecondfate @eleganttidalwavecloud @localcrustrat @letsmo6 @justaquietnerd @marvelobessed @femmeratale @carriethesaint @novelnovella

#steddie fanfic #time fuckery #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #steddie fic #the crawl #ao3 link

36 notes · View notes

laundrybiscuits · 2 years

Text

“Who’s Eddie?”

Darren doesn’t sound jealous or anything. It’d be a little hypocritical of him, considering he’s got a boyfriend and all. But Darren’s stayed the night a few times, more than anyone else Steve’s been sleeping with lately, and Steve thinks they’re getting to be pretty good friends at this point, and Steve’s been trying this thing lately where he’s more honest with his friends.

“Why do you ask?” Steve’s stalling, and he knows he’s stalling.

“You say Eddie sometimes in your sleep. Just wondering. He an ex or something?”

“No. Not an ex. Just a guy I—just a guy I liked, when I was a teenager.” It’s not completely true, he doesn’t think. But it’s close enough.

“Never got up the courage for a sweet little farmboy fumble?” Darren’s a city boy, and he likes to tease Steve about his supposedly agrarian roots even though Steve keeps telling him he’s never even been on a farm. (Aside from harvest festivals, and apple picking, and 4-H fairs, and his grandpa’s—okay, Darren has a little bit of a point. Not much.)

“He’s dead. He died,” Steve says. They’re just words. They can’t hurt anymore.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” says Darren, because Darren is not actually an asshole. He’s looking carefully at whatever Steve’s face is doing. Steve doesn’t know. Tentatively, he asks, “Was it because…?”

“No,” says Steve. Then he backtracks. “Maybe. Partly.”

Hunt the freak, right?

It wasn’t Jason Carver’s teeth in Eddie’s guts, but if things had broken a little differently, if they hadn’t had to worry about the human monsters in Hawkins…Steve thinks a lot about how it might have gone. Sometimes he hates Eddie for not being just a little bit more normal, and then he hates himself for thinking like that.

Steve has never said yes to a guy named Jason. It’s so fucking stupid and pointless. Maybe he’s missed out on the love of his life by turning down Jason Jones or whoever, and it's not even like Jason was the only one responsible. But he just can’t. He can’t.

He thinks it’s probably not even about Eddie himself, like as a real person. Eddie was just some guy, some kid, who was funny and handsome and sweet and wild, who loved the things he loved as if nobody had ever told him not to.

A lot of people had told him not to.

Eddie died because of ravening nightmare beasts and one superpowered evil dude with a god complex.

Eddie died because he liked playing a game about stories and magic.

Eddie died because some people, the people who raised Steve, the people who Steve used to love and look up to—those people couldn’t understand him, and thought that gave them the right to take away his life.

Growing up, Steve had always thought of himself as a lifelong Hawkinsite, the kind of guy who sticks around and puts down roots. But when Robin had asked him to go with her to New York, near the tail end of '86, it had been so easy to say yes. Leaving Hawkins behind had felt like escaping the jaws of a trap, even if it meant leaving a limb behind. They’ve been to Paris and London and LA, staying in filthy student hostels and drinking cheap wine, living the kind of life that had once seemed as make-believe and impossible to Steve as the kids’ wizard games.

Steve dates men, now. He thinks that would have seemed even more impossible than Paris to his sixteen-year-old self.

He still dates women sometimes. He’s had a couple girlfriends. Mostly, though, he’s not looking for anything too slow or serious, and that’s easier to get with men once you know where to look. He’s got Robin, he’s got the kids to see on Thanksgivings and Christmases, what else does he need?

They’d moved out of New York around '91. Rent got to be too much, and Dustin had just bought a place in Oak Park with his then-girlfriend because the kid U-Hauls faster than a lesbian.

So now, they share an apartment on the north side of Chicago, close to the lake. It’s pretty nice. Steve’s pushing 30, bartending six nights a week, and Robin answers phones at a fancy dentist’s office in the Loop. It’s been a lifetime since they’ve run from anything with too many teeth under the wrong sky.

“Tell me about Eddie,” Darren says into the silence that's been stretching out too long.

Steve closes his eyes.

“He was brave,” says Steve. “Every single day of his life, he was brave.”

(Now with follow-up!)

#steddie #steve/omc (in a nonromantic fwb way)#hurt no comfort #sorry!!#I've just been thinking a lot about Steve processing Eddie's loss in the future #anyway I hate sad endings so pls be aware that Eddie is in fact undead and skulking around somewhere #Steve just doesn't know it yet #fic: wait for the season to come back to me

448 notes · View notes

hb-writes · 26 days

Text

Family

Characters: Frank Castle & Teen Reader/OC (she/ her pronouns)

Prompt: heyyy so I was wondering if u could do a platonic lil Drabble for The punisher/frank castle with a teen reader with #60 for the one hundred compliments maybe like where he sees her as a daughter and she sees him as a father figure-sorry if that don’t make sense

Summary: Even after all these years and all the bad things that have come to happen in Frank Castle's life, he still maintains a connection with his army buddy's orphaned daughter, a relationship that has kept both of them a little more sane while wading through the grief of loss because they're family and that's what family does.

Content Warnings: Mention of death/ loss/ grief

The Punisher Masterlist

Frank’s eyes slid to the clock on the wall as she slumped into the booth across from him at the diner. She was seventeen minutes late, but that was nothing new. Frank had come to expect that she would arrive anywhere between 3 to 20 minutes late no matter what.

The kid was never on time. Her parents had been the same way—to the point that it was a running joke between the two families—and Frank sometimes wondered if she held onto that trait only because she knew it was something that tied her to them, to her mother and father.

He’d offered to hold their regular meet up later in the day—a late breakfast or lunch, even—but she insisted on keeping the Sunday early morning time slot despite never arriving on time. Frank didn’t really mind. There was a certain bit of nostalgia to it, painful as that could be sometimes. Sad as that could be...

Once upon a time, their group had occupied one of the corner booths, her and Frank and their families, but with Maria and the kids gone and her parents gone, too, Frank and the girl were all that was left.

Frank had already ordered her breakfast, knowing her preferences well-enough to ask the waitress for an order of french toast with bacon and—

“Mmmm Coffee,” she nearly moaned, reaching out for the steaming mug before she even finished getting settled in the booth. Frank figured it was his bad influence that had the girl craving it with that sort of vigor—enjoying it black, only—unlike most of the kids her age who seemed to prefer the near-religious consumption of Starbucks-branded sugar and cream with a splash of coffee rather than the other way around.

Her mother would probably have killed Frank for encouraging the habit. He didn’t imagine she’d be drinking it if her parents were still alive, but there were plenty of things that fit that category. Coffee was probably the least concerning of them, but the only role models she had in her life these days—Frank and her Aunt—were both caffeine fiends, so he didn't fault the girl one bit in that regard.

“You look like shit,” she said, an eyebrow quirked as she eyed Frank over the top of her cup.

It was the truth—Frank was sporting a nasty bruise on his face that looked like it hurt, but he didn’t take the bait, scrutinizing her from across the table instead.

Frank reached out for his own coffee cup. “And you look like you never made it home last night.”

She glanced down at her outfit—a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and slides that all very clearly didn’t belong to her. Her options had been limited when she’d reluctantly pulled herself from her short slumber. Her choices had been to either force herself back into last night’s homecoming dress and heels or to raid her date’s drawers, and she hadn’t been too interested in getting back into the dress to ride the train before 6 am.

She stayed quiet as Frank sipped from his coffee.

“So uh…Vic knows about your little sleepover?” Frank asked into the quiet between them.

She shrugged, reaching for the maple syrup and drowning her french toast. Her Aunt Victoria was an ER nurse and she was working a double this weekend so she wouldn’t be home until mid-afternoon. She had texted with her throughout the dance the night before and after, sending a text that said ‘Night. I’m going to sleep xoxo.’ It technically hadn’t been a lie. She just hadn’t been going to sleep in her own bed.

She focused on cutting her food into bite sized pieces, well-aware that Frank was watching her every move, trying to figure something out about her without having to ask. He leaned back against the booth suddenly and cleared his throat.

“So are you dating this kid?”

She had a feeling Frank already knew the answer and just wanted to hear it from her mouth.

“So, uh…” she started, with no intention of confirming or denying anything. “What happened to your face, Frank?” She pointed at him with a forkful of french toast. “Looks like it hurts.”

Frank snorted as she chewed on a bite. It did hurt, but that was beside the point.

“What’s the kid’s name?”

“Who?” she asked, spearing another bite with her fork. “The guy that hit you?" She took a bite, shrugging. "I don’t know, Frank. You tell me.”

“Don’t try to be cute, kid.”

“I don’t need to try to be cute,” she answered. “It comes quite naturally.”

“Alright, enough. Just tell me your…” Frank paused for a moment, thinking. Boyfriend? Girlfriend? She’d never really expressed any sort of preference one way or another. Or at least, she hadn’t expressed it to him, and Frank knew better than to assume. “Tell me your... special friend’s name,” he said.

She resisted the urge to laugh at the term, closing her eyes to fight the smile tugging at her lips. “No,” she said before shoveling another bite in her mouth.

“So you are dating, then? There is someone special?”

“No…” she started, holding out the word, her cheeks heating as she realized he’d caught her. “I—It’s not—Why does it even matter?”

“Because you’re not supposed to be dating.”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “According to who?”

Her aunt didn’t have rules about that type of thing. The woman barely had any rules at all. She kept her grades up and she stayed out of trouble, and there was very little guidance given to her outside of that. Frank tried to guide her from afar, to put in his two cents when he could, but his sphere of influence was a bit limited these days, considering most of the world thought he was dead. Their connection was somewhat confined to occasional phone calls and these semi-regular breakfasts. It wasn’t like he could enforce much from that standpoint.

“I thought your stance was no dating until sixteen?” She raised her eyebrows in question.

She didn’t just think that was his stance. She knew it because Frank and Maria had said it often enough about Lisa and Frank Jr., and her parents had been what she considered way more strict than the two of them.

Her dad had always said she could date after she had her high school diploma in hand and not a moment sooner. She’d always thought Maria and Frank seemed like cooler parents because of it…much more reasonable, not that the matter of her dating was anything more than theoretical back then. The idea of dating hadn’t even really been on her mind at the time. She had been just a kid when her parents passed away.

“I’m seventeen now, in case you’ve forgotten,” she added, though Frank couldn’t forget. He remembered her birth because she’d been born shortly before him and her dad returned from a tour. The guys had all been nearly as excited to meet the new kid as they had been to see their own families.

“Yeah, well, I owe it to your dad to at least try and honor his wishes,” Frank answered.

How many of their conversations over the last five years had been because of that, an attempt to honor her parents and their wishes? Because they weren't here to ask the questions, or enforce their rules? Because they weren't here to encourage her to be patient, to make sure she was being smart and safe and all of the things Frank imagined a parent of a teenager was meant to do?

And over the last three years, how much of what he said and did where she was involved was because Lisa and Frank Jr. weren’t here, too? For years, she’d called him Uncle Frank, thought of him just the same way she did all of her dad’s army buddies. She wasn’t technically his kid, but at the same time, she was...

“And it’s my…duty…to make sure you’re being safe.”

She choked on her coffee, struggling to keep it in her mouth as she sensed where the conversation was going.

“To make sure—”

“No,” she shook her head, heat blazing in her cheeks at the mere thought of discussing the birds and the bees with Frank. It was too early in the morning for this. “No, no, no, no, no. We are not having this conversation. Aunt Vic is a nurse and I’m not an idiot, okay? End of discussion.”

Frank snorted, his body shaking with a bit of laughter. “Glad to hear it, though that wasn’t what I meant.”

She grabbed for her coffee, just to have something to do, pulling it towards her lips though she waited to take a sip, not knowing where the conversation was going and not wanting to risk spitting coffee across the table.

“I just meant you have to be careful with who you trust,” he said. “I wouldn’t want something to happen to you, is all. For you to get hurt…"

Frank fiddled with his untouched silverware, straightening it on the placemat before meeting her eye. “They’re a good person?”

She sighed, leaning back into the cushions as she finally took the sip she’d been delaying. The waitress came to offer a refill and they both accepted, silent as she poured their coffees.

“Yes,” she allowed once the woman stepped away, her voice softening. “He’s a good person, Frank.”

Frank nodded. “Good. That’s good.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Your aunt has met this kid?”

She nodded. “We’ve already done all the awkward ‘meet the family’ stuff. Aunt Vic was a menace as I’m sure you can imagine. Dad would’ve been pleased.”

"Good." Frank smiled. “Someone’s gotta be.”

They both sipped at their coffees in silence and she watched as Frank became occupied looking out the window, tracking the movements of passersby in their surroundings.

“I wish I could introduce him to you.”

Frank turned his gaze to her, a bit surprised by the words. It wouldn’t ever happen—it couldn’t because of everything that had gone down. Technically, Frank Castle didn’t exist. Not even Vic knew that he was alive and having breakfast with her niece. "Really?"

“Of course I wish you could meet him. You’re family, Frank.” The way she said it made it sound like an obligation and seeing that fact settle on Frank’s face, she added, “I’m happy to have you as my family. Lucky.”

Frank nodded, the hint of a smile there on his face. “I'm lucky to have you too, kid.”

The Punisher Masterlist

#the punisher #frank castle #frank castle fanfic #frank castle & reader #frank castle & teen!reader #frank castle & oc #lovefest2024

20 notes · View notes

pizzaqueen · 1 year

Text

To the anon who sent me the love spell prompt aaaaages ago: I hope you’re still around! Because I finally started writing it. Here’s a little teaser for you (and anyone else interested):

Always the goddamn babysitter. Steve slumps back against the wall, folding his arms over his chest. He should be out there, with everyone else, doing something. Not stuck in the Wheelers’ basement. This time it’s Eddie Steve’s been tasked with keeping an eye on, though, not one of the kids. He’s honestly not sure if that’s better or worse.

At least Eddie’s alive. That’s better. So much better. Steve casts a sidelong glance at Eddie. He’s oddly calm for a guy who’s been presumed dead for the better part of a month and was then discovered to be under some kind of freaky mind warp spell, servant to Vecna. Steve hadn’t really understood Dustin’s explanation, but, then, most of Dustin’s explanations are just made up shit from D&D, so it’s not like they’re any more real than the way Steve tries to figure things out. But Eddie’s calm, now, seems content even.

It’s weird because, when they’d dragged him here, it had been literally kicking and screaming and the only person he won’t freak out around is Steve. Steve doesn’t get it. They barely knew—know—each other. Why him? No one had an answer to that, not one Steve liked, anyway, but it didn’t change anything. Eddie is only calm around Steve, so here Steve is, keeping Eddie as far away from Vecna as he can until the rest of the gang do their thing, take Vecna out, save the day, while Steve’s playing babysitter.

Eddie would probably be good company any other time—though the way he’s sitting there, chin in his hand, just looking at Steve is unnerving—but Steve should be out there. What if someone gets hurt and he could have stopped it? Fuck.

Steve scrubs a hand over his face, looks at the walkie talkie that’s been silent too long. Something’s gone wrong, it must have. Why didn’t those idiots listen to him?

“So,” Eddie says, “did you miss me?”

The suddenness of his voice in the quiet startles Steve. He blinks over at Eddie where he’s sitting cross-legged on the couch. “Hm?”

“When I was…gone. Did you miss me?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, “sure,” partly because he doesn’t want to upset Eddie. And partly because it’s true. He hadn’t known Eddie well, but there had been a place forming for him in Steve’s life in the short time they had. An Eddie shaped place, almost fully formed, suddenly void. He’s not sure if what he felt was grief—there hadn’t been time, after, to feel much of anything except panic—but it was still strange. Wrong. And seeing Dustin torn up the way he was is something Steve never wants to see again. “Of course I did,” he adds.

This look Steve can only describe as dreamy passes over Eddie’s face and he smiles up at Steve. It’s unsettling. Makes something tangle in Steve’s chest, maybe not entirely unpleasant, he can’t tell. He’s all mixed up and tired and, fuck, why hasn’t anyone checked in?

“I missed you, too,” Eddie says.

“Uh, cool. Thanks, man.”

Eddie’s smile grows wider. And then, one moment, he’s sitting there, staring up at Steve, all doe eyes, and the next there’s this ripple that runs through the room and Eddie falls back. Like a puppet with its strings cut.

#steddie #Steve x eddie #Steddie fic #Steddie fanfic #pizzaqueenfic #I’ve never written anything like a love spell fic before so I hope it turns out okay!!!#i probably shouldn’t post this until I have more of it but I’m impatient 🙈

297 notes · View notes

roseandgold137 · 17 days

Text

wip preview:

The day started like any other day. Bernard woke up, squinted against the bright sunlight – great, he’d forgotten to close his curtains – and stretched. He basked in the coziness for a few more moments. It wasn’t like he had anything to do today, right? …Right?

Bernard shot up – shit, school, his stupid alarm hadn’t gone off – and tugged his pyjama shirt off. Pants – where were his stupid pants gone – he snatched the nearest pair of cargo pants and stumbled into them. Socks – under the dresser – his shoes were downstairs, he’d grab them in a second. Bernard pulled the first t-shirt he found over his head and swung a jacket over his shoulders.

His phone was ringing, music blaring – Do You Believe in Magic? on full blast. Bernard answered the call, balancing the phone between his ear and shoulder while he shoved copybooks into his bag. “Darla, this better be quick, because I’m running so unbelievably late right now – ”

“Well, you’d better still be on your way, because Tim just bailed on us.” Darla’s voice practically assaulted his ear – shit, he’d pressed speaker, ow – Bernard dropped his phone back onto his bed while he wrangled his chemistry worksheet into his folder. “He said it was, like, an appointment? But then he didn’t say he was coming back later, so I think I’m just stuck with you now.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Bernard said. Okay – the bag zip wasn’t too happy with the sheer amount of things that were haphazardly packed in, but Bernard managed to close it without breaking the zipper. “Hang on, I gotta run downstairs.”

Darla clearly hadn’t heard him, or she just wanted someone to complain to regardless of whether or not they were listening, because Bernard could still hear her talking while he swung around the banister. He practically burst into the kitchen – no worries about being loud, his parents left for work early anyways – and grabbed a handful of fruit – apple, apple, banana – fuck, they were out of oranges. He found a pack of crisps in the cupboard – not the healthiest option, but beggars can’t be choosers. It wasn’t enough for a full lunch – he could get something else from the cafeteria, that was fine.

Bernard snatched his earbuds from the counter and slid them in, and Darla’s voice came in through after a second’s delay. “ – and, frankly, I’m not really in the mood to take advice from someone who almost named their dog after fertility bank – ”

“What?” Bernard asked – okay, clothes, books, lunch – he had to have breakfast, what was he doing? “Who are we talking about right now?”

“Chris? From – fuck, what class was it - don’t you have bio with him? The tall guy, with the bad frosted tips.”

“Oh, that guy. He got a dog?”

“He has three, Bernard. He’s had two of them since before you even met him.”

Bernard settled on the granola in the fridge – hey, it was healthy, and it came in a tub, so he could take it with him on the bus –

“Oh, are you kidding me.”

“About the dogs? Why would I possibly do that?”

“My bus is like, definitely gone by now.” If he made it to the other end of the street, he might make the other bus – but that was if it was running today, and he’d probably still be about five minutes late. Great, great, grand. “What class do we have first?”

“I have music. You have… home ec?”

“Okay. Okay, that’s okay. Ms Howell won’t mind if I’m a couple of minutes late. I’ve gotta bounce, I’ll call you back – wait, no, I won’t, I’ll see you in English.” Darla hung up on him before he got the chance, and Bernard ran out, granola and spoon in hand.

#bernard dowd #darla aquista #Tim’s only mentioned in this but he’ll play a bigger part later #Does anyone want to guess the plot 👁️👁️

16 notes · View notes

evewritingsteve · 1 year

Text

wrong place, wrong time

jesse pinkman x reader warnings: kidnapping, normal breaking bad stuff

summary: You are Lydia's daughter, and just so happen to be kidnapped by Mike. Takes place in the episode before they do the train heist

note: not my best but i needed to get this concept out of my head, enjoy xx

send a request

“Well Lydia, we’ve got the kid so I suggest you come out of hiding and talk this out like the adults we are. You got 4 hours to get over here or little miss y/n gets to meet an unpleasant end. Your choice.” You hear the man hang up the phone, sighing a little. “Well y/n, let’s hope your mother has a little empathy for her secret daughter.”

You’d reply, and say you weren’t really a secret, just the result of a teen pregnancy, but the gag in your mouth unfortunately stifled any smart remarks. Maybe it was for the best, you didn’t have the best danger meter. Opening your mouth would probably get you hurt.

But you weren’t hurt, surprisingly, despite the circumstances. Being kidnapped automatically brought your brain to violence, but so far, they hadn’t been overly rough. Certainly not nice, but no harm had been done. You thanked whoever was listening for that. You were hoping this was all for ransom, that your mom would pay, you’d walk out of this fine, and this whole thing would be a terrific story to take back to graduate school.

Hopefully.

You were bound to a chair, rope chafing your arms and legs. You wiggled again, hoping for some give. From what you gathered about the kidnappers, they were old as shit. One sounded too anxious and the other just sounded annoyed. At first you had been terrified, but as the adrenaline wore off you felt yourself growing more annoyed than anything.

You’d been in the chair for hours, and the phone call the first man made was one of the first times you had heard them speak in hours. You were bored. You’d think being kidnapped would be more action and less anxious waiting. Not that you were complaining.

You hear a door open and steps making their way closer.

“Yo who the fuck is this?” A younger male voice cuts through the silence.

Another one? Jesus.

“Change of plans,” the annoyed older man speaks and you desperately try to see through the cloth covering your eyes. “Can’t find Lydia but her daughter was there so now here we are.”

“Her daughter? What yo we’re fucking kidnapping random people now?”

“Jessie!” The anxious one yells and the room goes silent.

“Both of you, outside, now.”

So the younger one was Jessie. You definitely weren’t supposed to know that. You hear them leave and somehow the silence is scarier now than when they were in the room. You close your eyes. God mom, you better have a ransom money stash.

“What the hell was that? Saying Jessie’s name? You’re going to get us caught Walter!” Mike jabs his finger into Walt’s chest, fuming.

“I didn’t ask to kidnap an innocent college student Mike! This- this is insane! What are we doing?”

“Yeah what are we doing?” Jessie throws his hands up, still clueless.

“Lydia planted that tracker on the methylamine. When I went to her house to have a little talk Lydia was gone. She knew I was onto her and decided to run, but her daughter just so happened to be there. I’ve dealt with Lydia before. She’s skittish. So we take her daughter to get her to come talk to us so we can put an end to this ordeal.”

“So what, this chick is our hostage now or what?”

“Yes Jesse. As soon as Lydia gets here we’ll cut her loose and deal with the real problem. The kid is just collateral that we have to deal with now. As long as she doesn’t see our faces this doesn’t have to end with anybody’s death but Lydia’s. Capisce?”

“Fuck. Alright I guess.” Jessie puts his hands on his head, following Mike when he gestures for them to go back in.

When they open the door, they all stop. Lydia was already there, undoing the last rope holding you to the chair. You both stop and look up when you hear the door, slightly panicked.

So much for the blind.

“Mike what the hell? My daughter?” Lydia stands, helping you do the same. Your eyes are wide as you scan the 3 men’s faces, growing more confused by the minute. Your mom knew these people? What the fuck is she involved with?

The one that you’re going to assume is Mike, makes his way over to your mom, grabbing her arm and throwing her on to the chair you were previously occupying, dragging her and the chair to a nearby table. You jump out of the way, Mike ignoring your mom’s protests, pulling out handcuffs and locking her to the table.

“You,” He points at you, grabbing the gun on his waistband, “Stand next to her and don’t move or I swear it’ll be your last.”

You make your way over, giving your mom a questioning and slightly terrified look.

“Jesus Lydia you just had to make this harder on me.”

“Mike we can talk this out but let my daughter go. I didn’t plant that tracker, I swear to God, she knows nothing of this just please, let her leave.”

“Mom-”

“She’s seen our faces, Mike, we can’t just let her go with that information!” The other older man speaks up. The younger one puts his head in his hands. It seemed clear to you that he was dragged into this, and for some reason that put you at ease a bit. They all begin to argue with each other, and you glance at your mom again.

“She’ll get on a plane right now.”

They all pause.

“She’s doing graduate school abroad, she can get on a plane right now and be out of the country in a few hours. Please Mike, she barely knows anything right now, definitely not enough to put you guys away. Just, please Mike.”

“Mom I can’t leave yo-”

“Shut up Lydia.” Mike thinks for a while. He didn’t want to kill you. He saw his granddaughter in you and knows he would never forgive himself if he had to kill you to save himself. It was risky, but something told him you really wouldn’t say anything.

“Alright Lydia. We’ll take her to the airport. But you need to understand one thing,” he turns to you, “I have people everywhere y/n. The second you open your mouth, I’ll know. And then it’s game over for you and everyone you love.”

You think of your little sister and suddenly realize you’re going to have to take this to the grave. Not that you even knew the entire story, it felt like you walked into the middle of a show and missed all the important parts. But still. Silence was the only answer.

You simply nod your head in response.

“Jessie, I would like you to take this young lady to the airport, buy yourself a ticket so you can wait at the gate with her and make sure she gets on the plane. Come back here after. Lydia, you’re gonna make a little call for us.” Mike tosses Jessie the keys, along with a pair of handcuffs.

“Are these for her?” He gestures to the handcuffs and then to me. If it weren’t for the situation at hand, you might have blushed.

Mike gives him a look and Jessie almost rolls his eyes. “Alright man shit.”

He makes his way over to you, mumbling an apology that confuses you even more. It seemed like Mike was the only serious one here, the other two almost acted like they were hostages too. You feel the handcuffs tighten, and you give your mom a final glance.

“Mom?”

“It’ll be okay I’ll call okay?” A pit sits in your stomach at the expression on her face, so you try to give her a small smile, not trusting your voice. You really hope she didn’t get herself into something she can’t control. Jessie gives you a small nudge and you can’t fight the tears that fill your eyes.

Once you’re in the car, Jesse says something about the handcuffs looking suspicious and takes them off. You grab at your wrists and flinch as the car is locked from the inside. At this point reality was setting in hard. Now that your safety seemed more or less intact, you were nauseous over the thought of your mom still down there for God knows what.

The car starts moving and your breathing becomes shallow. Jesse takes notice and steals a glance at you.

“Hey, it’s gonna be alright okay?” It didn’t even sound like he believed his own words.

“What the fuck.” Is all you can reply. “What the actual fuck?” You laugh a little, about to go into hysterics over the entire thing.

Jessie looks at you, even more concerned. He had been through some shit and the only time he laughed was when he was really about to lose it. You're trying to control your breathing, and he feels bad, but he can’t help but notice how pretty you are. He can’t believe that you somehow got wrapped into this. It didn’t seem right. He feels horrible.

At this point you're no longer laughing, just sniffling and trying to stop yourself from sobbing.

“What are they going to do to my mom?” You look at Jessie. You were never close with your mom, she was distant and cold but always provided for you. She was your mom at the end of the day. Despite being in boarding schools most of your childhood, she was always there when you came home to visit. She couldn’t just be taken from you like that. “What about my sister? What will she do?”

“You have a sister?” He sounds surprised. You faintly wonder if you should just shut your mouth, and not volunteer anymore information, but some part of you feels like Jessie isn’t going to use this information maliciously. Still, you don’t respond.

“Listen, I promise nothing will happen to your mom.”

“How can you possibly promise that?”

He goes silent and you realize that he probably can’t make that promise.

The rest of the car ride is silent and you spend some of it observing him. He seems almost shy, despite the rough exterior and style he possesses. For a split second, you wonder if, in different circumstances, you two would have crossed paths and been friends. Maybe flirted. The reasonable part of your brain stomps that out, and politely reminds you that he was somehow involved in your kidnapping.

The car rolls to a stop at the drop off spot. Once again, you’re confused.

“Don’t you have to come in with me? You can’t park here.”

He looks at you, slightly startled. He half expected you to jump out of the car and run to the nearest security guard. He spent half the ride preparing for his life to be over because of the pretty daughter of a criminal. “Oh, uh, I guess I didn’t think of that.”

You stare at him for a beat.

“I won’t run to tell anyone. Honestly getting out of America as soon as I can sounds nice right now for what it’s worth.”

He turns in the driver's seat, fully looking at you for the first time.

“I know.”

“You believe me?”

“I’m a shit kidnapper huh?”

Despite the situation, you find yourself laughing a little.

“Sort of.”

You both sit for a minute until he raises a hand to scratch his head sheepishly. “Look uh, you can just go. I think it’ll be weird if I buy a ticket and don’t get on the plane.”

You looked at him, shocked that he was actually agreeing to let you go.

“Oh, okay,” you go to open the door, pausing to look at him one last time. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a real bad guy. It just seems like you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.” You give him a small smile, leaving without waiting for a response.

You run across the street, nearly missing an impatient car. You feel like you’re on autopilot as you step through the automatic doors, trying to find the nearest help desk to book a flight. Your brain was in override, trying to make sense of everything that happened. You only hoped that once you landed, your mom would answer the phone and everything would be okay.

You almost gave in when you saw a security personnel walking by, but thought of Jessie. You couldn’t explain it, but you knew going to the authorities would somehow cause more harm than good. You only hoped that Jessie’s sincerity was real.

Jessie watched as you ran to the doors, seeming more dazed than scared like he imagined you should be. He didn’t understand your final words to him, he was implicated in your fucking kidnapping for fucks sake. But there you were, saying that he wasn’t a bad guy. A car honked behind him, pulling him from his thoughts. He put the car in gear, making his way back to the shitshow he really didn’t want a part of.

He picks his phone up when he hears the familiar ringtone.

“Yo.”

“Jessie, is she gone?”

“Yeah, we’re good. What’s going on?”

“We have to rob a train.”

Oh fuck.

reblog, like, tell your momma (aka me)

#breaking bad x reader #jesse pinkman x reader #jesse pinkman #x reader #breaking bad #mike erhmantraut #walter white #kidnapping tw #jesse pinkman imagine #jesse x reader #breaking bad fanfiction #evewritingsteve

130 notes · View notes

threewaywithdelusion · 1 year

Text

I Would've Liked To Know You: Max

(Warning for major character death (Steve) that occurs before the fic starts, implied/referenced child abuse (Max, nothing on page). This is set in 2002).

Max got the stranger who had given her a ride to drop her at the edge of the cemetery. Her cell phone rang — probably Lucas again, wondering where she was — and she switched it off. She couldn’t handle talking to him. Not yet.

She made the walk across the fields of the cemetery from memory, pulling her coat closed around her. It was early October and it was chilly in Hawkins. She’d forgotten, since moving to California, how cold it could get here.

Max passed the part of the cemetery where she knew Billy was buried, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t.

She kept going until she reached the far corner of the cemetery. It had been described to her before — the headstone was under a huge tree, which bloomed with flowers in the spring. She ran her fingers over the letters carved into the rock, confirming she was in the right place.

Steven James Harrington

November 13, 1966 - September 17, 1986

Son, friend, hero

She had long since memorized the words on the headstone.

Maybe she should’ve felt guilty, visiting Steve and not Billy, but she didn’t. Because Steve was more her brother than Billy ever had been.

She folded her cane and took a seat on the grass, a foot away from the headstone.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Max said. That was a lie. “I mean, I know a little. I didn’t, like, run away and board a flight from California and then take a bus down here from Indianapolis for no reason.”

Max fiddled a bit with her cane, folding and unfolding it. She hadn’t said it out loud yet. Had barely admitted it to herself.

But she’d come all this way to talk to Steve, dammit, so she was going to get her shit together and do it.

“I’m pregnant,” she said. She gave a little laugh. “You’re the first one to know. I haven’t even told Lucas yet.”

Her phone felt heavy in her pocket. She hadn’t told Lucas where she was going. She’d taken the pregnancy test in a pharmacy bathroom and then had to ask the teenage girl behind the checkout counter to tell her if there were two lines. The girl had said yes, sounding judgmental. Which was maybe fair given that all she knew was that Max was in the kind of situation where she was taking pregnancy tests in a public bathroom when she couldn’t even read the stupid results.

Max had gone home, not slept for a week straight, then picked a fight with Lucas and run away, all the way from Los Angeles to Hawkins.

“I’m, uh. I don’t know if you can feel time passing, but I’m thirty-one. This isn’t a teen pregnancy or anything, and Lucas has a job and we haven’t broken up in years. It’s not… it’s- I should be ready for this.”

Max cleared her throat. The wind was blowing, cutting through her jacket and making the trees rustle. Max hated trees. She hated forests. They all made her think of the Upside Down. She loved the never-ending concrete of Los Angeles, the only nature the beaches and the ocean that she still loved.

When she was in California, it was easier to pretend that everything that had happened in Hawkins had been a bad dream. That she and Lucas were fine and normal and had never killed or fought or watched loved ones die.

“I’m scared,” Max admitted. “My dad left and my mom tried, but she was never good enough. Neil yelled and Billy hurt me and how the fuck am I supposed to take that kind of upbringing and believe I’m someone who can care for a kid?”

The funny thing was that even without the monsters, Max would have been fucked up. She’d had to explain it to Lucas — how when he was silently angry it was worse, because she kept waiting for the moment he’d snap. How he could put down a plate too hard and she’d flinch, scared he was about to grab her or shove her around. How an empty fridge made her heart clench, even after years of always being able to afford food.

She wasn’t fit to raise a baby. Especially not Lucas’s kid, who should have everything good in the world. Lucas would be an amazing dad, would play games with the kid and teach them basketball and tell stories while doing funny voices, like he did for his DnD characters.

Max knew he wanted a kid. She also knew he hadn’t said anything because he knew she wasn’t ready. That she might never be ready.

And then fate or a broken condom had gone and put her in this situation anyway.

“I thought about getting an abortion,” she told Steve. Maybe it was fucked up, but it was easier to talk to Steve’s grave. Steve had been so patient with her when she’d been a teenager, always offering to listen to her problems, and she’d turned him down time and time again, staying silent and refusing to let him help her.

“But I couldn’t do it. I don’t want to be a shitty mom, so maybe it’s the right thing to do. But I keep trying to picture my kid for some reason. And I see this little girl with warm brown eyes and my round cheeks and Lucas’s huge smile and some part of me wants that. I want to have a baby that’s half me and half Lucas and I want to do right by her.

I was lying awake, trying to figure out what I wanted to. Thinking about my shitty childhood. And then I thought of you.”

Max set her cane down in the grass, smiling faintly at Steve’s headstone.

“I thought of the way you drove me around and patched up my skateboarding injuries and bought me milkshakes when I was said or angry but didn’t want to talk. I thought of the groceries you bought me when Mom was too drunk to remember or when there wasn’t enough money, even though I never asked and always said I didn’t need your charity. And you fucking saved my life, over and over again, like that’s a normal thing to do. You jumped in front of a demodog for me when you hadn’t even known me for a day. You didn’t even know my name.”

There was a lump building in Max’s throat, tightening so much that it hurt to talk. But she had to. It had been so hard to start and now the words were just spilling out.

“We always used to call you Mom, and we were teasing. Making fun of you cause you were some popular basketball guy but you also heckled us about our manners and picked us up from school and shit. And you acted all offended, but I saw you smiling a few times. You liked it,” she told the headstone accusingly. “You liked being our mom.”

The headstone didn’t say anything, but Max knew that if Steve were here he would be denying it, committed to the bit that he wasn’t their parent, just a reluctant babysitter.

Max cleared her throat. “And I was thinking… God, you were just a fucking kid. Like, I’m thirty-one and I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. And you were nineteen, with seven kids and a monster dimension under your feet and you were still a good mom. So like, I guess I didn’t just have shitty parental figures in my life.”

Max glared at the headstone, as if daring it to judge her for being emotionally vulnerable. Not that Steve would have done that, even if he hadn’t been a bunch of bones in a coffin buried under the grass she was sitting on.

Steve would have probably been proud.

“So I’m gonna do all that shit,” Max said. “Drive the kid around and kiss her boo-boos and buy her milkshakes when she’s feeling bad. All the things that you did. And I guess maybe that means I can be a mom.”

She blinked and a tear rolled down her cheek. She wanted to swipe it away, but she didn’t. Steve deserved to be cried over.

They’d all moved away from Hawkins. Max only saw the town these days in her nightmares. But Steve’s grave was still here and sometimes it felt like they’d abandoned him. Even if there wasn’t a him left to abandon. Even if he would’ve wanted them to go, to escape this helltown and chase better lives elsewhere.

He’d been gone sixteen years. More than half her life.

It hurt to miss him still.

“I wish you were here,” Max whispered. “I wish I could talk to you for real. I wish you could tell me I’m not crazy for thinking Lucas and I can do this.”

Max let herself fall apart a little bit, crying over the future that would never happen. Steve would never come watch the baby so she and Lucas could go on a date night or finally get some sleep. He would never get to be the fun uncle, or the one her kid ran to when they were pissed at her and Lucas for some teenage drama. To her, he would never be anything more than a memory. To her child, he would never be anything more than a story about a long-dead stranger.

Max leaned forwards so she could touch the headstone, running her fingers over the letters that spelled out Steve’s name.

“You would’ve made a great Uncle Steve,” she whispered.

She bowed her head against the gravestone for a moment, resting her forehead against the cool rock.

Then she stood, wiping the tears off her cheeks and the grass stains off her jeans. She extended her cane and made her way out of the cemetery, pausing by the gates to turn her cell phone back on.

It kept dinging with missed calls, but Max ignored that, dialing a number by heart.

“Max?” Lucas’s voice was warm and concerned and so full of love that she almost started crying again.

“Lucas,” Max said. “I’m in Hawkins. I, uh, I had to talk to Steve.”

Lucas was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Are you okay?”

Max nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay. I’m coming home.”

#stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #Mia writes fanfic #max mayfield #steve harrington #lucas sinclair #tw: major character death #tw: child abuse #pregnancy

115 notes · View notes

luci-in-trenchcoats · 1 year

Text

In Plain Sight (Part 2)

Summary: The reader has a talk with Jensen about what actually happened with her ex-fiance that led her to come back home...

Masterlist

Pairing: Jensen x daughter!reader (with lots of daughter!reader x OMC)

Word Count: 4,800ish

Warnings: language, mention of cheating/family angst/minor character death

A/N: More of a peek of Jensen and the reader’s relationship in this part along with some insight into Crew’s past!

______

It was late afternoon when you found yourself out back with your dad, his computer in his lap as he laid back in one of the lounge chairs under the porch. You were by the edge of the yard, camera focused on a lady bug hanging out on the edge of leaf. A few clicks of it went off before the little thing decided to fly away.

You spun around, taking a candid one of him working away, probably responding to several thousand emails if you had to guess.

“Y/N,” he chided without looking. “What’d I tell you about taking pictures without people’s approval?”

“Hey. This would go great on your insta,” you said, snapping another picture when he gave you a bitch face.

“I just had to buy you that camera when you were a kid, didn’t I.” He patted the end of the lounger and tucked his feet up, typing out another message as you walked over.

“Blame yourself. I would have been an accountant if you hadn’t pushed me to try photography as a job.” He closed his computer, setting it down on the small side table.

“That’s what I get for being a good parent,” he chuckled as you sat down cross legged to face him. “Two things. One, I would really appreciate it if you gave Crew the friends and family discount for his pictures.”

You rolled your eyes. “He’s your friend. Of course I will. I was just messing with him.”

“Good. He normally doesn’t warm up to people so fast but he’s pretty relaxed around you.”

“Are you trying to set me up on a play date with him?” you scoffed. He shook his head. “Is he some weirdo loner or something? Both you and mom have said-”

“Crew went through a bad breakup last year. He lost a lot of his friends over it. He’s kind of on his own. He reminds me of a certain someone else in that way,” he said, nudging your knee with his foot. You glanced at the taupe cushioned space between you, not wanting to have this conversation. “I know you didn’t go out with friends last night, Y/N. Why did you lie?”

“This falls under the privacy thing we talked about.”

“This falls under I’m your father and I can damn well know what happened to you to make all your friends disappear.” You lifted your chin and faced him. He wouldn’t drop this. Not when he was like this. He’d wrestle you to the damn grass and get it out of you if he had to.

Stubbornness unfortunately ran in the family.

“What happened with Anthony, kiddo?” he asked.

“You know he cheated,” you mumbled. He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“Yes, but something else happened. You don’t lose all your friends if-”

“They weren’t my friends! They were his. All my high school friends are gone from Austin or I haven’t spoken to them since graduation. My college friends were all Anthony’s friends. I was just too stupid at the time to realize, to realize he’d been cheating on me our entire seven fucking year relationship. That he only wanted to marry me so he could divorce me once I got my trust and get a whole bunch of money. I came home because I was alone. The only reason I went out last night is because I see you and mom looking at each other like something’s wrong with me cause I spend my nights at home and-”

“Sh,” he said, pulling you straight into his lap, wrapping his arms around you. Sniffles filled the air as you realized you were crying, staining the shoulder of his t-shirt. He stroked his hand over your head, shushing you for a few moments. “God I wish you didn’t bottle shit up like me.”

“I was embarrassed,” you whispered, closing your eyes, hiding away in him. “I thought you thought I was weird or anti-social when I came home. I just…I got so used to Anthony doing things with his friends without me all the time in Atlanta and I buried myself in my work and-”

“One good friend is worth more than a thousand bad ones. You are not weird. I mean, you are, but in healthy ways, and you have nothing to be embarrassed about. Nothing.”

“I know but…” you trailed off. “I miss when we used to talk.”

“We were so close when you were in high school. I thought you grew up and got sick of me was all.” You shook your head, his hand rubbing up and down your back. “Well, it’s not true that you have no friends, you know. You got mom and your sisters and brother. Your whole family and I’d really like if we could be best friends again too.”

“Okay,” you said, nodding your head, hugging him tightly.

“And you got Crew and that boy doesn’t make friends easily. I know you don’t have as big a social battery as most but there is not a damn thing wrong with that or with you. You need to cut yourself a break because Anthony and his friends are scumbags that are not worth a second of your time.”

“Thanks dad,” you murmured, a heaviness in your body floating away. “And thank you for letting me come back home.”

“This place will always be your home. No matter where that is, you always have a place with us.”

“Especially since rent in Austin is obnoxious and you won’t let me live in anything in my budget,” you laughed.

“True,” he chuckled. “But, and you can tell me to shove it, I’d like it if you stuck around home for a bit. I don’t want you going off on your own until I know you can be okay by yourself again.”

“I’m actually kind of scared to live alone. I know that’s such a girl thing but I don’t…want to live by myself. I can pay rent or-”

“You clean up after yourself, you help around the house and you help trudge the other three around when it doesn’t inconvenience your work and you can stay here until you’re a hundred and thirty seven. I draw the line at a hundred and thirty eight, though.” You rolled your eyes, his large hand ruffling your head. “So. No more moping over the dickhead?”

“No more moping,” you said, giving him another hug before his arms loosened and you stood up. “What you said about Crew…”

“He’ll tell you in his own time if he wants. Just know he could use a friend right now.” You hummed, picking up your camera. “Send me that picture. I’ll tell all my followers you forced me to post it.”

“Knowing you, you will.”

“Y/N…” he chided as you turned to head inside. “Don’t get in the habit of working on the weekends. Trust me on that.”

“I know,” you said, taking a step and getting tsked. “Dad, please don’t ask me how the business is doing.”

“I know starting over in Austin set you back. You doing okay?” he asked.

“Well if you really want to know, it’s none of your business,” you said with a smile, patting his head. “Later pops.”

“If I find out you’re not doing okay-”

“Dad,” you said, looking over your shoulder, halfway to the back door. “I’m doing fine. I promise. I need to build up a client list again but I got this.”

“Alright, alright,” he said, waving you off. “Let me or mom know if-”

“I need help. Now get back to your emails, movie star,” you said. He groaned and threw the pillow behind his back at you, barely grazing your leg. “Your aim’s gotten worse, old man.”

“I’m forty five you little shit,” he said, suddenly hopping up. “You need a good old fashioned toss in the pool is-”

You bolted inside, finding your mom in the kitchen and hiding behind her with your camera strapped firmly around your neck. He wouldn’t dare let that get ruined.

“You watch yourself, honey bun,” he said, circling you around your mom when his phone started to ring. He wandered off to the kitchen table, speaking in hushed tones before he was staring at you. “One sec. Hey Y/N? What’s your schedule look like this week?”

“I have an engagement shoot tomorrow morning and some family pics on Thursday afternoon for an hour and a wedding Friday evening,” you said. “Is that Crew?”

He was talking in his phone again though, nodding his head quickly. “Sounds perfect.”

“Did you just book me? I need to offer packages to my clients before-” you said before he put a finger against your lips and shushed you.

“Our on set photographer started her maternity leave this week and they screwed up getting her backfill in. The DP knows you do photography and if you can swing it, he wants you for the week, possibly longer. He can work with your schedule you already have,” he said.

“Oh how exciting!” said your mom as you held up a hand.

“Dad, I’ve never done that kind of photography. Not since college and even then, it was only a few weeks on a real film set. I only shadowed. I wouldn’t even know what to do.”

“You take pictures of scenes and behind the scenes. The job is everything you’ve ever done of me on a film set since I got you a camera when you were eight years old. Plus they’re in a bind and it doesn’t hurt to make some contacts in the business,” he said.

You pursed your lips, narrowing your eyes. “One week is all I promise. And I’m charging double my usual rate.”

“Let me handle your salary and all that. You just bring your A-game to set tomorrow. Deal?”

“Fine. But only this week, dad. Got it?”

“Crystal clear.”

Two Weeks Later

“This should be illegal,” you mumbled, snapping a picture of your dad between scenes.

“I heard that and hey, I’m not a fan either,” he said, laying in the bed, forcing a smile out. “Think of this as a gift for your mother.”

“I’d rather gouge my own eyes out than think of what she’ll be doing with this ‘gift’ of yours,” you said, adjusting your focus. “Now act like I’m not here and give me your best blue steel or else I tell mom about the whole taking me skydiving thing.”

Several heads turned at you as he suddenly looked a whole lot more relaxed. Some would call it sexy. He was lying shirtless in bed, nothing but sheets wrapped around his slim waist. Well, he was wearing nude colored underwear but still.

If you saw him looking like that at home you’d laugh and tell him he’d have an easier time seducing mom if he brought home an extra large burrito for her and cleaned the bathroom.

“Thank you. You look slightly less horrifying in these,” you said, putting your camera down.

“We really didn’t think about all the shirtless scenes when we hired you, did we,” your boss said, arms crossed as he stood by your side. “This doesn’t make you uncomfortable, does it? If there was ever going to be any full nudity-”

“Y/N’s out sick those days,” said your dad, closing his eyes and laying back against the pillows. “When are we rolling again? I need the bathroom.”

“Can you hold it for fifteen?” asked the director from nearby. Your dad gave a thumbs up and soon they were filming. You quietly lurked underneath one of the steady cameras, switched to a much quieter shutter. Crew suddenly appeared in the scene, the two of them sharing an awkward exchange. They repeated the scene one more time before they claimed it was set, your dad jumping out of bed, grabbing the robe that was thrust at him and rushing off to the nearest bathroom.

“Y/N.” You looked up, finding your boss, the director and the lead producer standing in front of you. You shot to your feet, immediately hitting your head on the camera rigging above and stumbling back down. “Are you-”

“Y/N!” Crew said, at your side in a second. You patted the top of your head, annoyed to find something sticky.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry. Is the camera okay?” you asked, standing with Crew’s help, keeping one hand on top of your head.

“She’s bleeding,” said Crew, voice rough.

“I’m really fine,” you said, spinning around, trying to inspect the camera. “Please tell me I didn’t break it.”

A trickle fell on to your forehead, your boss immediately taking your hand, shoving the camera in your hands at the producer. “It’s not that-”

You stopped when you felt more trickles, multiple pairs of hands on you sitting you down. “Medic now!” shouted the director.

“It’s fine,” you said quietly, grateful Crew had his arm wrapped around your back. They were all important people on set. They didn’t have time to deal with this. “I just need to…rinse it off or something.”

“What the hell happened?” said Crew, his hand pulling away only so he could rip his shirt off one handed, balling it up and pressing it against the top of your head. “There’s supposed to be padding under the cameras for this exact reason.”

“We must have-”

“Jesus christ. She has a head injury because you forgot?” said Crew, raising his voice. You turned your gaze to him, his eyes softer when they found yours. “You’re gonna be fine. It’s just a lot of blood.”

“I-”

If it wasn’t apparent when your dad walked back on set, the person either had to be deaf, blind, or all of the above.

The shout he let out made your whole body shake. He was at your side in an instant, his face in horror for only a split second before he was forcing it to be soft and relaxed.

“You’re okay,” he murmured, to the both of you in equal parts you were sure. “You’re okay, honey bun. What happened here?”

“She hit her head because they forgot to put up the fucking padding,” growled Crew, an edge to his voice that made everyone stare at him. Before anyone could respond, the medic arrived, forcing the group away. You winced when they pulled Crew’s shirt from your head, dropping it to the ground and instead handing you a towel from their bag to use. They gave you a quick concussion test that you passed but their face was still neutral.

“It looks like a bad laceration. Head injuries are fairly bloody. She should go to a hospital to be checked out and get her head stitched. I don’t want to do that in the field.”

“I am not going on a stretcher,” you said, standing, both Crew and your dad’s arms around you.

“Let’s get going,” said your dad, already moving when the producer cleared his throat nervously. “What?”

“You have a very packed day and this sounds like a minor…” he trailed off when your dad gave him a death glare. “Injury. Of course we can stop and reschedule.”

“Mandy flies out tonight. She’s got that shoot thing tomorrow,” said Crew, nearly tucking you against his side. “I’m done for the day, Jensen. I’ll stay with Y/N the whole time and bring her home later if that’s okay with you.”

You looked up at Crew but his focus was on your father. “Are you okay with Crew staying with you? You tell me you want me there and I’m there.”

“Dad, I’m fine. I don’t need Crew to babysit me,” you said. Your dad crossed his arms and you groaned. “Fine. Crew can stay. Please don’t worry, dad. It’s just a cut.”

“Call me if anything changes,” said your dad.

“I’m literally right here,” you said.

“And you’re stubborn as fuck. Crew,” he said, turning back to his director. “Get me through these scenes as quick as possible.”

“Come on, Y/N,” said Crew, guiding you away, an arm over your shoulders. “Let’s get you feeling better.”

“Hey,” said Crew when you exited the hospital room, heading to the nurses station to get discharged. He stood up from his chair by the wall, a nervous smile on his face. “How’d it go?”

“Just a cut. Only three stitches. It was like the medic said, head injuries can look worse than they are,” you said, signing a few sheets of paper the nurse slid to you.

“You’re all set,” he said.

“Thank you.” You turned, Crew standing beside you. “You really didn’t have to stay.”

“I made Jensen a promise. Not to mention you looked like Carrie for a second,” he said, stroking a piece of stray hair behind your ear. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

You walked in silence, sliding into Crew’s passenger seat without a word spoken between the two of you. He seemed different. No flirt about him. Maybe he really was more shy than you gave him credit for.

“My dad said the funniest thing about you, you know, that you’re a pretty shy, quiet guy. Funny cause that’s not my experience,” you said. Crew chuckled, pulling to a stop at a red light. “So which is it?”

“Oh, I’m definitely an introvert. Absolutely hate attention and fanfare and all that. But you, kid? You make me the good kind of nervous which gives me all the confidence in the fucking world to lay it all on the line.” Your lips parted, Crew smirking out of the corner of his eye at you. “That’s your new nickname by the way. See, honey bun, that seems special to you so I’ll give you that one. But kid? Now that I can tease you with and I know it doesn’t have any sentimental feeling while being classically being one of the most romantic nicknames in all film history ala Casablanca.”

You shook your head, Crew shushing you. “Just go with it, kid.”

“Crew.”

“Kid,” he grinned. You crossed your arms, smiling as you stared out the window. “Don’t be asking me to explain a damn thing about this newfound confidence either. I’ve heard Jensen talking about you enough to know you do not talk to people you’ve just met the way you talk to me. See, that tells me I’m already well on my way to catching you.”

“Pft. You wish.”

“Damn right I do,” he said, the car moving forward again. You shook your head, leaning it against the cool glass window. “You know, I dig chicks with brain injuries.”

“Oh my god. You’re such a guy,” you said. His deep chuckle filled the air, your stomach flipping over and over. “And don’t be thinking just because you gave me a ride and stayed with me or anything this is getting you any closer to anything.”

“Oh, of course not. Women hate when you’re kind to them.” You smacked his bicep, keeping the surprise off your face of how hard that muscle felt under your skin. “I’m going to tell Jensen you beat me up.”

“Wimp,” you teased. He tsked you, shaking his head.

“You don’t know your own strength. I’m just telling you now that you’re going to be opening all the pickle jars in this relationship.” You groaned, Crew laughing to himself as he ran a hand through his gorgeous head of lush brown hair. “You ain’t sick of me yet, kid.”

He pulled onto the highway, tapping his finger lightly against the wheel as he headed towards your house. “Tell me something real about you Crew Foxe and maybe things will start going in your favor.”

“Well, since my attempt at showing kindness and concern so clearly failed,” he laughed, ruffling his hair into a messy floof that you so desperately wanted to touch, “I’ll try a different tactic. Sixteen.”

“Sixteen what?” you said before he was putting a hand over your mouth, shushing you.

“You’ll find out another day,” he said with a big ass grin. “Maybe.”

“Tease,” you said, his hand shooting in front of your chest as he slammed on the brakes. Your seatbelt caught as his forearm pinned you back into your seat, the two of you breathing hard as he’d narrowly avoided a car stopped dead in the middle of the road. “Crew.”

“Yeah?” he said, voice husky.

“You can let go now.” He pulled his hand away quickly, not saying another word the whole way home.

“I am fine,” you said for the hundredth time that night when your dad and Crew got back from a ride in Baby.

“I know. Hard headed like your mother,” he said, gently kissing the top of your head. You finished up going through your shots from earlier in the day, surprised to find Crew still around after dinner.

“Y/N,” he murmured, nodding toward the front door. He was still off, an uneasiness to him. You bypassed your dad who’d settled in with the twins on the couch.

You were expecting Crew to head to his car but instead he walked around the side of the house and down to the back porch. “Jensen said it was okay to sit out here. I…I need to tell you something.”

You settled into your usual spot, Crew taking one close by but out of arm’s reach. He sighed, closing his eyes as it dawned on you.

“You’ve been in a car accident before and you got shook up today. Didn’t you?” you asked.

“No,” he said with a smile. “No, I’ve never been in an accident. Your parents have really never told you about…?” he trailed off.

“Honestly Crew, my parents take secrets to their grave. You can trust them.” He nodded. “Is that why you took a ride with my dad after dinner?”

“You’re right, I am shook up. And he noticed so we talked and I think I owe it to you to tell the truth. Because you’re right. I’m not the cocky, flirty guy. People think I am because of how I look but honestly, I miss every social cue on earth. I hate parties and press and I’d rather stay at home where I can be myself. You’re just the only girl I’ve flirted with like that cause it feels like a game and you’re in on it so it’s just fun, not so scary.”

“Don’t tell the cocky guy but getting the nickname from Casablanca does give him some brownie points,” you said. Crew’s face was soft, his eyes showing only a hint of sadness in them.

“That’s good because what I tell you, so few people know. They will someday I’m sure but right now, honestly, your parents are my only industry…” he trailed off, closing his eyes. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay?”

You slid closer to him, taking his hand in yours, Crew seemingly grateful for the movement. “Not a soul.” He took a few moments before he inhaled deeply.

“When I was sixteen, in middle of nowhere Kansas, I’d just gotten my license. It was Wednesday night, pizza night in our house cause I had basketball practice and my little brother and sister had soccer and dance so it was very chaotic in the Foxe household. So we always got pizza on the way home. And my dad said I should drive myself to practice and after I’d drive myself to Wally’s pizza for dinner like we did every single Wednesday in the winter to meet up with everyone else.” He started to bounce his knee rapidly, looking out to the dark yard. “They were on the highway and a tractor trailer hit black ice on the other side and it was fine one second and then it wasn’t.”

You put a hand on his knee, Crew exhaling. “Crew.”

“They left early that night because they didn’t pick me up. They were only on the highway right then and there because I wasn’t in the car. I didn’t even know what happened until I was sitting in Wally’s waiting and waiting and I drove home because I knew something was wrong. When a cop showed up and no one else, I knew it was my worst nightmare. So that is why I haven’t said a word to you all night. Because if you got hurt in an accident? One I caused? No, no. I’d be done for. I can’t. I fucking can’t.”

“Crew, Crew,” you said, wrapping your arms around him when he shivered. “Honey, it wasn’t your fault. It was shitty fucking luck. I’m so sorry.”

“I know it wasn’t. Sometimes I have a bad day and it gets to me again. Seeing you get hurt at work and then the car made an otherwise good day really crappy.” He rested his chin on your shoulder, slowly embracing you. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all that on you. You had a bad day too and-”

“Relax,” you murmured, tentatively sliding a hand up to his head, stroking your fingers through his hair. He turned into the touch, an involuntarily happy little sound slipping past his lips. “You’re allowed to have bad days and get scared. You have no idea how nice it is to meet a guy that doesn’t act tough because he thinks he has to.”

“It’s all part of my master plan. Drop all my emotional baggage right up front. Makes the girls go crazy,” he chuckled, tilting his head so he was leaning it against yours. The air was quiet, Crew’s body calming down as you ran your fingers over his scalp. “You don’t have to do that, Y/N.”

“I know.” There was a small laugh, his chest rumbling lightly against yours.

And just as suddenly, he was pulling away, standing and taking a step back. “What the hell am I doing? I have to go.”

“Hey!” you said, jogging after him as he tried to walk around the side of the house as fast as humanly possible. You grabbed his arm, spinning him to a stop when he was nearly to the driveway. Hidden in the dark shadows, you could only just make out his face.

Your cocky bastard looked so embarrassed it made your heart break. “Kid, don’t cry.”

“Then don’t run away from me. You’re supposed to chase me, remember?” He glanced down, eyes fixated on where your hand rested on his wrist.

“That was until I remembered I’m not a normal guy. I-”

“Look at who my parents are. I was raised by a single dad most of the first decade of my life because my mother wanted nothing to do with either one of us. Do you know the guilt he carries? How he still to this day thinks if he’d done something different she wouldn’t have…” Crew was staring at you, eyes attentive, concerned. “Crew, you’re not the only person around here with a secret. So no, you’re not a normal guy. You’re more attractive than most human beings on the planet. You’re famous and only going to get more famous. Do you have any idea that I might be the one person that can understand that? Growing up in this world? Watching my dad be your age and go through the same exact things? If this doesn’t work, it’s not going to be because you’re not a normal guy. I don’t give a shit about that. I just…fuck Crew, you’re breaking my heart over here. You don’t have to be scared of me.”

He jerked his arm, tugging you right into his chest. When you tilted your head, he was there, pressing his lips to yours, cupping your cheeks, fast and hard, pulling away much too soon. You swallowed and blinked up at him, Crew nodding once.

“You had your chance to get rid of me. Remember that.”

“Who said I’ve let you in?” you said, smiling as he cracked one himself.

“Lying doesn’t suit you, kid.” He grazed his knuckles over your cheekbone, smiling when it made you visibly gasp. “Just my opinion but you were better off with just your dad. You wound up with two good parents that obviously raised a kind young woman.”

“Your parents would be proud of you too Crew. You’re alright.” He chuckled, nodding his head.

“I appreciate that,” he said, still stroking your cheek. “I guess I should go home now before Jensen catches us staring longingly in the dark.”

“Don’t you want to know my secrets?” you asked as he turned to leave. He looked over his shoulder, stepping next to your side.

“Kid, I want to know everything about you.” You’re breath caught, Crew kissing your forehead. “I’ll still gonna catch you. Whatever your secrets are, they don’t scare me, because Y/N Ackles, you are going to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He kissed your forehead again, a smile on his lips.

“Goodnight, Y/N. I’ll see you at work.”

With that he was gone, leaving you standing in the standing in the shadows while your insides were lit up in a way Anthony never had.

_____

A/N: Read Part 3 here!

#jensen x daughter!reader #Jensen Ackles #Jensen Ackles x daughter!reader series #daughter!reader #reader x omc

166 notes · View notes

kitkatscabinet · 2 years

Text

A choose your own adventure quarry fic

Based on this post by @tangirlisfangirl all credit for the idea goes to them!

This is a work in progress, links will be provided in as I go and I ask for your patience as I have never done something like this before. That being said I hope you all enjoy!

Pairing: Nick x reader x Jacob

Over the Summer both Nick and Jacob find themselves falling for you, the only issue being the end of camp is here and you still haven't chosen one of them. As the night plays out you find yourself having to make multiple choices that could affect all three of you forever.

Prologue: you are here!

Nick watched from afar as you interacted with the kids, you were the most stunning person he had ever seen. Sighing, he forced himself to tear his gaze away from you as he cursed himself for even fantasising about having a chance with you. You would never go for someone like him, he could barely even talk to you most days. Nick was ultimately startled out of his self-deprecating thoughts by a hand firmly clapping his shoulder. Looking up he was surprised to see Jacob grinning down at him.

“See something you like?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. Averting his gaze Nick hoped to avoid embarrassment before he heard Jacob’s next words “Can’t say I blame you bro. They are absolutely gorgeous.” Before Nick could feel any jealousy Jacob barrelled on “Say, how about I help you with your confidence, get you to the point that you can actually talk to them” he winked.

“You would do that?” Nick blinked owlishly at the confident counsellor.

“Yeah man, that’s what bros are for” Jacob affirmed. Thus began a long month of Jacob comforting Nick after various botched conversations and although he had promised his help a small part of him was hoping Nick would keep fucking things up. He hadn’t been kidding when he said you were gorgeous and if Nick couldn’t pull it together, he definitely would.

A week later Nick stalked up to Jacob with a somewhat accusing tone “why didn’t you tell me you liked them too!” He demanded and before Jacob could explain Nick cut him off “what, have you been secretly setting me up to fail this entire time.” The hurt in his friend’s voice was genuine and Jacob found himself rushing to explain. He had genuinely wanted to help Nick and still would, but after spending more time with you Jacob had to admit he had fallen for you as well.

The game changed from there, each aware of the others feelings for you they surprisingly managed to remain civil. Hell, they were probably better friends then before but that didn’t mean they weren’t prone to bouts of jealousy whenever you paid a little too much attention to the other.

You on the other hand were still a little oblivious, you had definitely noticed the sudden influx of attention but at just over a month as a counsellor you couldn’t be completely sure they weren’t just being friendly.

Scratch that, the last day of camp had come and while neither of the boys had confessed you were at least 80% sure they both has feelings for you. The problem was you liked both of them and hadn’t wanted to hurt either one. The last few days of camp had left you stewing in your own guilt, you felt as if you’d been leading them both on in your hesitance to either choose one or reject them both. However, as much as it sickened you to admit, at your core a part of you liked the attention, liked being fought over. Both men were incredibly attractive and they both had their own traits that made them uniquely desirable, Nick had opened up a lot to you over the Summer and Jacob had proved that despite initial observations he was incredibly sweet. So, you had kept your mouth shut, figuring that if you rode it out you wouldn’t have to choose, all three of you would go your separate ways and while it would hurt, no one would hurt more than anyone else. However, this plan had gone to shit at the revelation that the van was not working and you would indeed have to stay one more night. The group had ended up deciding to have on last hurrah and that was how you found everyone staring at you as they waited for you to choose who to go with for supplies

Go with Jacob

Go with Nick

#choose your own adventure #the quarry series #the quarry jacob #the quarry nick #jacob custos x reader #nick furcillo x reader #nick furcillo x you #jacob custos x you

263 notes · View notes

aurumacadicus · 1 year

Text

More serial killer Bucky I guess. 😒 Tw: blood and gore and self harm and depression and suicidal thoughts and beloveds this man is a serial killer. This is past revenge he gets too much pleasure out of it. He chooses not to hurt Tony much but that’s an exception not the rule. He once tried to strangle Steve for getting in his way and Steve almost broke his neck in response these men went to sleep and woke up WRONG. They are not nice people.

Also I’m saying this so no one gets on my ass: The illnesses Bucky mentions are in quotations because until he actually researches them, Bucky thinks they’re fake. They didn’t have that shit back before he fell from the train and he is ASTOUNDED to know that he and Steve probably have some form of PTSD. But that’s future Bucky’s problem. He’s got Hydra to kill.

Watch out for under the cut.

—

“You need to go check on Tony,” Steve says. “I’ve got too many enemies on my tail. I can’t go. He’s not answering his phone.”

Bucky takes a deep breath and lets it back out. “I’m on my own job.”

“He’s not answering his phone and I can’t get to him,” Steve says flatly. “If he’s dead when I get back, that’s your fucking problem.” He hangs up before Bucky can say anything in response. The dial tone sounds judgmental.

Bucky looks at his phone for a moment, sighing, then crushes the Hydra goon’s throat in his metal fist, not caring about the blood splattering over him. He would have preferred to draw it out, but he hadn’t started his homicidal bender just to watch the kid who got him out of it die. His phone rings again. He answers it.

“I told him you killed his parents, by the way,” Steve says, voice clipped. “So he might try to shoot you. I don’t know,” he adds, sounding frustrated. “He might hand the gun to you to finish the job, too. He’s taking this medicine. I think sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn’t.” He sighs angrily. “I kinda thought they’d be able to fix this by now. The human body is a mistake. Have you heard of AIM?”

"No," Bucky says simply. He’s been hyper-focused on Hydra.

“Fucking piece of shit future things were supposed to be better without me--” Steve says, and then there’s the sound of shooting, and then he hangs up again.

Bucky considers looking into AIM, then decides he can deal with them if and when he runs out of Nazis to kill.

Tony’s front door is unlocked. It irritates him. Most people are scared off by locked doors, go looking for easier targets then. A locked door would at least buy someone time to protect themselves if the invader was intent on getting in.

“Are you here to kill me?” Tony asks where he’s sprawled out on the couch. “Finish the Stark family off forever?” His head lolls forward, and he blinks at him slowly, bruises under his eyes, greasy hair sticking to his damp forehead.

Bucky walks over to grab him by the front of the shirt with his metal hand. Tony doesn’t stand up when he tugs on it, so he shrugs, dragging him over to where he assumes the bedroom is. That seems to warrant a reaction, apparently, because he scrabbles uselessly with his grip. He makes his way through the bedroom to the bathroom.

“What is this?” Tony finally asks. “Is this a prosthetic? Why is it made out of metal?”

“To torture me,” Bucky answers. It could be a joke. It mostly isn’t. He opens the shower door and thrusts Tony inside. He means to draw his hand back, but Tony had a grip on him, so he slides a few inches before Bucky stops. “You’re gross.”

“It’s not gonna kill me to stay gross a little longer,” Tony huffs, twisting his arm this way and that. “This is sloppy. They really were trying to torture you, huh?”

“Chronic pain makes you tired. When you’re tired, you’re easy to control,” Bucky says. He sounds like he’s repeating it. He doesn’t know where he’s heard it before. One of the Hydra scientists, probably. It makes sense.

Tony’s face twitches, but whatever was there, it’s gone before Bucky can parse it. “I could do better,” he says, wrinkling his nose in disdain.

“You can’t even bathe yourself regularly,” Bucky says flatly. “Melding metal with a nervous system? Please.”

Tony jerks his head up to glare at him, and it’s the most emotion he’s seen on his face. “Oh yeah? Fucking watch me.”

He pulls his shirt over his head and throws it at him, and Bucky ducks on instinct. He stoops to pick it up and wonders why, remembers someone yelling at a bunch of little girls to pick their clothes up after they bathe. It sounds like his voice, maybe. He decides not to think about it. It wouldn’t help. He takes a moment to examine Tony’s arms. All he sees is the faded pink lines, he notices with approval. The scars will probably always be visible, but at least it doesn’t look like he’s got any new marks.

Tony throws his pants at him. He catches them and can’t help but think he aimed them at his head on purpose. His aim isn’t very good. But then, his everything isn’t very good right now. His ribs are too visible. He could use a few good meals.

Tony shoves his boxers down, and Bucky can’t help the noise he makes when he sees the wounds inside of his thighs. Razor marks in two rows from mid thigh up to the crease almost up to where thigh met pelvis.

Bucky has his flesh hand around Tony’s throat before he even realizes, shoving him up against the tiles with a snarl. He feels Tony’s throat work beneath his hand, but there’s no pleasure in it--there’s no fear in Tony’s wide eyes, no anxiety. He doesn’t even struggle. Bucky drops him, disgusted, and Tony drops to the floor with a gasp as he spits, “You’d be happy if I killed you, wouldn’t you?”

Tony clutches at his throat, as he continues sucking in air, but he doesn’t answer, staring up at him from under his lashes with what might be disappointment, if Bucky was generous, except that he mostly looks like he feels nothing at all.

It’s wrong. People shouldn’t want to... What had Steve said? Medicine. Tony was sick. Something was making him feel like this.

“Shower,” Bucky tells him sharply, catches sight of the razor on the shower shelf, and reaches in to snatch it.

Tony looks like he wants to complain, but thinks better of it in response to Bucky’s sharp glare.

Bucky waits for the shower to start before he goes through the bathroom cupboards and drawers, then out into the bedroom. He finds a couple more razors. Takes those too. Finds a couple orange bottles and examines them. Googles the names to figure out what they are. Doesn’t understand any of the words, really.

“What’s serotonin?” Bucky asks when Tony comes out of the bathroom, and Tony lets out a startled bark of laughter. “They didn’t have that when I was in the army,” he continues defensively, and Tony laughs harder.

Tony gets dressed, and Bucky googles what the fuck a dopamine is. Doesn’t care that Tony’s getting close until his hands are on his metal wrist. “This really is garbage,” he huffs, unimpressed. “I know I could do better.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” Bucky says flatly. “You’re still trying to die. You don’t even lock your door.” He slants Tony a sharp look. “Is that because you’re hoping someone will come in and hurt you?”

“Maybe, but so far it’s just been your contrarian ass,” Tony grumbles. “Saved my life twice even though you regularly kill people. Even my own parents. So unfair.”

Bucky turns his judgmental slant to a full-on glare, outraged. Tony doesn’t even notice, making him turn his arm so he can examine the elbow joints in motion. “Do you have any self-preservation in that emaciated body of yours?”

“Celebrities are supposed to be thin,” Tony scoffs.

“I don’t know what that means,” Bucky tells him, unimpressed, and then jerks his arm free and stands. “Answer your fucking phone.”

“I was mugged,” Tony says with a blase shrug, and then snaps, “Don’t fucking choke me if you’re not gonna finish the job,” when Bucky reaches out for him again.

Bucky pauses to consider this. Maybe a good slap would help?

Tony tips his head back to look up at him, purring, “Or unless you’re gonna finish the job, if you know what I mean. I like when my daddy chokes me while I’m riding him.”

“Gross. I knew your dad,” Bucky says. Remembers the way Howard looked up at him, blood dripping down his face, and asked, “Sergeant Barnes?” before he beat him to death. “Don’t call me that. You’re twelve.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Tony exclaims, offended.

It's the most emotion Bucky has seen on him, even more than in the bathroom. “Answer your fucking phone,” he says, instead of ‘sounds fake’ or ‘no way.’ “I had to leave in the middle of a job. If I have to do that again, I’ll be very angry.”

“I don’t fucking care,” Tony says, and Bucky has to credit him for being honest.

“Maybe you can fix my arm,” Bucky says, instead of telling him he’s annoying. “If you live long enough.”

Tony’s eyes immediately go to his arm again. Speculative. Interested.

Bucky leaves. Takes a few days to do a deep dive on “depression” and “bipolar” and “anxiety” and wonders when they started existing outside of shell shock, except apparently that isn’t a thing anymore. Takes another few days to research the medication he’d found and texts Steve that he doesn’t think what Tony’s taking is helpful. Suggests different options.

The only response he gets is “why is Tony taking my blood????” and “WHY IS TONY DRAWING ARMS??????? ARE YOU GETTING A NEW ARM????? I’m gonna tell him to put a smiley face on where the star is now.”

#ideas #winteriron #tw: everything

62 notes · View notes