#I am a fake geek girl | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hwanchaesong · 2 years

Text

"Cliché? Cut!"

Badboy!Seonghwa X RichKid,Nerd!Reader

Synopsis: A promise of not ending up like those couples in sappy dramas in a fake relationship is the best idea for facing reality.

genre & warnings: fluff, smut, angst, cursing, university au, mentions of weddings and cheating, appearances of other idols, alcohol, break ups

word count: 7.3k

requested by: my lovely friend @hwadump (ps i am so sorry for this late af request 😭)

Park Seonghwa believes that he is the king of ATEEZ University.

All boys want to be him and all girls want to be with him.

People respect him, worship the floor he walks on, look up at him like he just walked on top of the sea.

Those came crashing down right at this moment, in front of you, L/N Y/N.

Truth to be told, all of these are for the sake of winning a bet.

Okay, let's get this straightened up.

A popular guy like him means that he is also in a prominent group, a circle that contains the other known men in their school.

It's only natural for them to get on their high horses and play with other people's feelings for fun, and that includes banging innocent girls just to break their heart afterwards.

And it happens that you, the school's infamous nerd and teacher's pet, was his group's next target.

"It couldn't be that hard." Hongjoong mused, showing Seonghwa a photo of you in his phone. (something that he got from your social media of course)

Wooyoung nodded his head in agreement before adding, "True. Besides, girls like that are easy to read and manipulate."

Yeah right, easy to read and manipulate. He will never, ever believe his friends again, especially Wooyoung, after this because what the fuck.

Who would even believe it when he says that the school's geek is currently trapping him in his seat, trying to seal a deal with him in the middle of an isolated library.

"So, whaddya say?" you smiled at the gaping man, your voice effectively snapping him out of his minute daydream.

"Uh? Pardon?"

'Damn it, Seonghwa. You could've done better than that!'

Seonghwa cursed himself internally for his stupid reply.

"I said," you leaned closer to him, close enough for him to smell your strawberry perfume, "I heard your little bet with your friends a while ago."

He gulped, at loss for words because even if he's handsome as hell and is good in bed, covering up a discovered dirty secret is not his forte.

"So, like I was saying before.." you continued, taking a long pause before spilling out the beans in one go.

"I'd participate in your bet willingly, but do me a favor and pretend to be my boyfriend as well so my family will stop pairing me with random guys."

Seonghwa blinked, once... twice.. his eyes widened when your words sank in his brain.

How will he handle this uncanny situation?

"Why? I- Can you. No, b-but are you-"

"C'mon, it couldn't be that hard." you parroted his friend's statement from before, bringing him back to reality as he straightened his self up.

"Okay, let's talk about this one by one." Seonghwa replied, able to form coherent sentences this time.

You shifted in your position, creating some space between you two, "Sure thing."

You sat down on the table, crossing your legs and casually raising an eyebrow, signalling for Seonghwa to continue.

He cleared his throat, adjusting his position as well as he tried to keep his cool, "First, you'll go along with the bet and let me win all those money."

You nodded your head. Upon your confirmation, Seonghwa carried on.

"Second, in return, you want me to act as your boyfriend."

"Exactly!" you happily exclaimed, standing from your seat with a cheery bounce, elated that he finally got the idea.

Seonghwa opened his mouth to speak, but you beat him to it.

"Here's the catch though." you removed your glasses, perching it atop of your head. Your eyes glinted as the corner of your lips curled, "let's make this a bet ourselves."

This is a new look that no one had ever witnessed before, an appearance that only Seonghwa had been able to see.

It's astonishing to say the least, you keep on surprising him and he couldn't help but be interested in your offering.

"I'm listening, Ms. L/N."

You scoffed, "Don't go and be formal like you didn't try and flirt with me a few minutes ago." you stood up from your seat and walked towards the window, gazing outside for a bit before facing an amused Seonghwa.

"I don't want this to end up like those sappy romantic movies." you looked down at your shoes for a bit, pondering your next words.

"That is why let's make some rules." you voiced out, approaching him and raising your hand for a handshake, "The one who falls in love first will have to pay the consequences."

Seonghwa smiled, standing at his full height and accepting your handshake, "That's a deal, my girlfriend."

It's safe to say that you guys laid down all the rules for the both of you to follow during the 'dating era.'

Which consists of:

1. No one is allowed to speak of the details of the agreement, family and friends are not exempted.

2. Act like a real couple in public so everyone will believe the lie.

3. Falling in love is strictly prohibited.

4. The first one to fall in love will be considered the loser and shall be punished by paying a fee of $10,000.

5. This 'relationship' shall go on within the duration of 3 months.

"Oh my fucking god, I said fuck her but really? You're dating her?!" Wooyoung shrieked when he saw his hyung's wallpaper which consists of a photo of you and him in a photo booth.

It has been a full two months since the pact and everything is going smoothly.

Seonghwa made up a story of how you hooked up with him in his car and voila! He won the bet and got the money without any problems.

On the other hand, you have already introduced him to your family. No more blind dates on your side and bonus points - your parents highly approved of him.

Seonghwa looked at his phone, staring at the sweet picture where he has his arms around your waist, his chin resting on your shoulder while you have this surprised pikachu face going on.

"Well duh," his eyes moved up to the younger boy, "is it really that surprising?"

"Surprising?" his other friend, Yunho, piped up from behind him, "It's ground breaking!"

"True that. It's not like you to settle down with someone. Especially if they are just supposed to be a one night stand." San concurred, making Seonghwa sigh.

"Is that really how you see me?" he tried to make them sympathize with him to no avail. Everyone in the room collectively agreeing that yes, they all thought that he'd die alone because of his playboy behavior.

"You motherf-" before he could curse at his friends, his phone rang, your name flashing on the screen.

A series of 'oohs' and 'aahs' resonated in the entirety of the living room.

"Shut up." he glared at them, "I'm leaving now, and I swear to God, if y'all make a mess out of our dorm, you'll regret it."

His eyes landed on Jongho and pointed at him, "You're in-charge since Hongjoong isn't here." he declared before walking out the door, not minding the fuss that followed.

"What? But I'm the third oldest! Why is our youngest in-charge?!"

"Suck it loser, now obey me."

1:24 PM

You stood there at the entrance of the mall, waiting for Seonghwa to arrive patiently.

"Good grief, I told you to wait inside because it's too hot in here." a voice from beside you startled you, turning around and meeting face to face with yours truly.

"And I did say I'll pass on that. I want to walk together with you." you insisted, entering the mall with him trailing behind you.

Seonghwa smiled a bit, endeared at this attitude of yours.

Truth to be told, everything about you is unexpected. Your whole demeanor is not what he thought really is.

You may be the school's nerd, but you are so much more than that.

Within the span of 30 days, he had already learned a lot about you.

You came from a rich family but still remain humble, your dreams and aspirations in life, your favorites, likes and dislikes. It is kind of alarming with how much he pays attention to you, or the fact that he's enjoying his time with you.

It's a red flag, he knows it, but paid no attention to it because c'mon. He is THE Park Seonghwa. This feelings of his? Pft, it's nothing but a simple admiration of how free and bubbly you are outside of school.

"Are you listening? What looks better on me? Blue or red?"

Seonghwa blinked, snapping out of his thoughts, "Pardon?"

You rolled your eyes, "It has been two damn months and you still say that word to me." you feigned an offended look, "When will you even listen to me properly for once?"

His eyes widened, thinking of the possibility that he might have done something wrong, "I am listening, I'm sorry. Okay, sorry. Please tell me what you just said again, I swear m-"

Your laugh interrupted his rambling.

What a dork, really.

Until now, you still can't believe that this man is treated like a deity in your university.

Seriously?

His image is far too different from who and what he really is. You have learned that much, of course you would, you spent almost every day hanging out with him since your bet begun.

"Oh goodness gracious, Seonghwa." you tried catching your breath, stopping yourself from laughing out again when you saw his confused face.

"It was a joke, you dummy." You lightly tapped his shoulder before showing him the dresses again.

"Blue." he immediately answered, getting the context of what you're asking him a while ago.

You raised an eyebrow, "That's fast." you placed the red dress back on the rack, turning on your heels to face the mirror with the blue dress on your arms. "You really think that this looks good on me?"

"It's my favorite color, so yeah." he mumbled, to which you almost didn't hear it... almost.

You giggled, finding his shy nature adorable, "Alright, I guess I'll buy this one then."

4:36 PM

Seonghwa offered to drive you home, saying that he won't let you commute because that is his purpose as a 'boyfriend.'

"So when's the wedding again?" he asked, staring straight ahead on the road but still paying attention to what you'll say.

"Next week, on Thursday. And that reminds me, we have to go to their place a day before the event." you shifted from the passenger seat, unlocking your phone and scrolling through the messages.

"Because Uncle Eden said, and I quote, 'Let's have a family reunion first before I finally tie the knot with the love of my life.' end quote." you read the message that your uncle sent you, perfectly mimicking his voice that made Seonghwa snicker.

"I'll get ready for that."

After his sentence, you realized that you're finally home as he parked his car and... what the fuck? Why is your mother waiting at the gate like she's expecting you any minute?

"Don't tell me.." you whispered, terror coating your features.

"I'll tell you." Seonghwa smirked, getting out of the car and going over to your side, acting like a real gentleman for opening the car door for you. "I did tell your mom that I'm coming over, and guess what, I'll even stay for dinner."

You groaned, not happy at this at all. As much as you love having his presence around, you hate it when he's visiting at your home.

Your mother gushes about him all the time. With how handsome, respectful, charming, intelligent and the fucking list goes on. You're getting tired of it, especially when she lets the "Have you ever thought of the aspect of building a family?" question.

You don't like it, but now you're beginning to think that Seonghwa finds enjoyment in this horrible, terrible scene.

"Welcome home!" your mother greeted you with a hug, doing the same with Seonghwa. "I am so glad to see you again, son! Come in, I have something to tell both of you."

You made eye contact with Seonghwa, shrugging it off and thinking nothing of it. Upon arriving at the living room, your mom dropped the bomb.

"What?" you screeched, was that right?

"It's not a big deal. It's fine." Seonghwa interjected, holding your hand as an attempt to calm you down.

Your heart is beating wildly at the idea of sharing one room with him.

"What are you overreacting for?" your mom crossed her arms, "You're dating, it's not a crime for you to share a bed."

Yeah, fuck she's right. You still have to carry this damned act on even if it kills you. One more month, and everything will end soon.

"Yes." you took a deep breath, "You're absolutely correct."

Everything will be fine. It's not like difficult things will come your way when you spent a few nights with him in a single room.

Right?

"Boo." a sultry voice startled you from behind, making you almost yell and curse at the perpetrator.

You closed your eyes and held a deep breath, calming your annoyance down. You are so not gonna embarrass yourself.

You had arrived at the site of the wedding, a resort, today and you were given a luxurious, spacious room to hibernate in while waiting for the d-day.

It could have been treated like a vacation if it wasn't for this dumbo with you. No choice though, he is still technically your 'boyfriend' so it is mandatory for him to be with you on occasions like this.

Currently, you two are getting ready for the reunion party tonight. And frankly, you want to look like a total princess, partly because you don't want to be criticized by your relatives and mainly... you want to look pretty for Seonghwa.

Okay, in your defense, he looks like a charming prince with his white suit and neatly arranged hair. You certainly don't want to look like a pauper beside him.

"Seonghwa." you called his name out menacingly, "I swear to heaven and hell if you did that again I w-"

You were cut off when he yawned and plopped down on the bed, "You what?" he challenged, unfazed and he's sporting this snarky smile that irritated you further.

You went closer to him and sat down on the edge of the bed, "Shut up and braid my hair."

He gasped, complaining that you had degraded his status as a boyfriend into a hairstylist. You then felt him stand up, his fingers threading through your looks gently. Despite the complaint, he still complied with your request.

It was silent for a few minutes until he decided to break it, "Do you still remember when I first braided your hair?"

You giggled a bit, recalling that hideous incident. How could you forget that when it was so memorable that you think that was the turning point of your fake relationship.

It was a big mistake for you to go and fetch Seonghwa from his last class, I mean, it really is especially when you see him kissing this snotty girl.

"Park Seonghwa." you mumbled his name lowly, and your voice seemed to wake him up and he immediately pushed the girl away.

"Y/N, this isn't what it looks like. I'll explain."

You just stood there, contemplating whether to hear him out or leave. You did neither when the bitch decided to clung unto Seonghwa and commented some rude remarks about you.

"Oppa, who is this? Why is this ugly nerd here? Will you go away? I am having some alone time with my oppa here."

Oh it's on.

Fire burning in your eyes, you stomped towards her and forcefully pulled her away from Seonghwa. A loud thud followed when she fell right on her butt, to which you didn't give a shit because she deserves it.

"Let's go, Seonghwa." you ordered, but one step and someone has their hands on your hair.

The pain was unbearable and everything was a blur, you couldn't discern what was happening. Not until a teacher broke the fight and hearing the faint voice of Seonghwa stating that the other girl was at fault.

You just got your hair pulled like a k-drama scene, huh.

Fortunately, the teachers believed that a good student like you wouldn't even harm a fly, thus, you were out of the principal's office without any problem.

You speed walked outside the school, keen on getting away as soon as possible. After a few minutes, you sat down on a bench in a nearby park. Only then did you realized that Seonghwa didn't follow nor check up on you.

You looked down at your trembling hands, no no no. You ain't gonna cry because of a pathetic excuse of a man like him.

Suddenly, tender hands are massaging your scalp and his familiar soothing voice began talking about how he didn't mean for that to happen.

"Y/N, please believe me that I am not cheating on you. That piece of shit suddenly lurched at me and I didn't have the time to react."

You continued looking ahead of you, focusing on the scenery of bright orange skies caused by the sun setting. You won't look at him now, because if you did, then you'll cry.

"I really am sorry, Y/N. Please."

You stood up, walking back home and you know that he's following you all the way, making sure that you're all right.

It somehow made your heart all mushy, knowing that he cares, but that is still not enough for you to accept his apology.

You made a bee line towards the bathroom when you arrived at home, wanting to take a warm bath and sleep the bad day away.

You halted in front of the mirror when you saw your reflection, it was your hair... beautifully braided.

The next day, the whole university was shocked when Seonghwa announced that the two of you are dating.

He is officially yours and you are officially his.

That was the day when you two got the title of "The Nerd and The Bad Boy Couple."

That was also the day when you learned that Seonghwa carries some girl stuff in his bag for you to use whenever you need it.

The gesture is sweet and wholesome, it made you forgive him in no time. Surely, that was a weakness of yours.

Back in present time~

"Yeah, I do remember that you were an asshole back then." you cheekily replied, an affronted expression crossing Seonghwa's face in return.

"You have the guts to tell me that when here I am, braiding your hair almost everyday." he sassed back.

"Well, I love the way you braid my hair." you admitted openly, inflating Seonghwa's pride knowing that you found something to love about him.

His hands cupped your cheeks, mushing it together and craning your head backwards so you'll be able to make direct eye contact with him, "You mean you love me?"

You scoffed and lightly pushed him away, "You wish. Now let's go and make a grand entrance there."

Grand entrance means you, linking arms with Seonghwa as you greeted every relative that you encounter.

"This is tiring." you groaned, slumping in your seat and your mood further slacked when you heard your female cousin's voices.

"Ooh, Y/N, is this your boyfriend right here?" one of them asked, to which Seonghwa answered for himself.

"Yes, pleased to meet you. The name's Park Seonghwa." he bowed exactly 90 degrees, impressing the older women.

"What a handsome young man!" a man's voice interjected this time, another uncle of yours that seemed to take interest in Seonghwa.

He's like a star tonight, everyone has taken a liking to him and truth to be told, you can't blame them. You understand why they naturally gravitate towards him.

"Is it okay if I borrow him for a bit? Ya know, man chitchat." your uncle asked, to which you agreed in a flash.

You watched as Seonghwa got dragged around, and before he could leave your sight, you saw him mouth an 'I'll be back.'

"Man, your boyfriend is like an actor. People are all around him."

You looked at your side to see who talked and see Jungwoo, a close friend slash cousin of yours.

"Yeah he does. I mean, I can see why." you smiled and picked up a glass of water, chugging it down.

"And I can see how much he loves you."

You choked.

"Easy there!" Jungwoo tapped your back, "What the hell Y/N, what was that for?"

You tried to calm your coughing fit down, "I'm sorry I was surprised. But, what was that about how he loves me?"

Jungwoo grimaced, kind of like he was so ready to beat you up for not noticing.

He held his fingers up, counting the things that he observed, "The way he looked at you. The way he talks about you. His actions towards you. H-"

"Okay enough." you interrupted him before the list could go on, you couldn't believe what you are hearing.

You stood up from your seat, getting all panicky about the recent discovery.

"Where are you going?" Jungwoo asked, puzzled that you're suddenly acting weird.

"I am gonna serve us some drinks."

And maybe you had too much wine because you now find yourself in Seonghwa's arms as he carried you back in your shared bedroom.

"Damn girl, did something happened while I was gone?" he asked, softly laying you in bed and was about to go and get you some water but his footsteps halted.

"Do you think I'm ugly?" you queried out of nowhere.

The ambience of the room turned into something indiscernible. It was suffocating.

How could a one question do this?

Seonghwa slowly faced you, and fuck, the view is enough to make him crazy.

There you are, vulnerable and your hazy, innocent eyes are begging him to do something that he might regret in the future.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to look away, "No, I think of the opposite." he answered truthfully.

He had always thought of that, from the bottom of his heart, he genuinely viewed you as someone who has a gorgeous face and personality.

It was unreal at first, that is why he did say that his feelings are nothing but a jolt of admiration for you.

And now that he's in this position, his mind begs to differ.

Is the attraction an actual one and not imaginary?

He doesn't know, but he does know that his friends had pointed out multiple times with how he turns into a completely different person when you're around.

"So you think I'm pretty?" you asked again, and this time you groggily sat up, holding onto Seonghwa's hand.

The man before you hasn't moved an inch, and you took that as a cue to continue.

"Seonghwa, I-I... My cousin told me that you love me and I don't know what to do with that information."

His eyes widened, was he really that transparent?

"But what made me more anxious is that, I didn't hate the idea of you loving me." you stared at him, silently imploring him for any refutal.

This is a dangerous territory that you both are trespassing, and when the bullet have been fired, there is no going back.

"What about you? If I told you that I love you, what will you do?"

And he snapped.

Without any hesitance, Seonghwa bent down, kissing you fully on the lips. You reciprocated it within a second, no more pretending and rationality out of the window.

The lip lock was full of vigor, an overflow of hidden emotions had begun to spill out, and nobody could stop whatever would transpire for the night.

Seonghwa bit your lower lip as he guided you down back to the mattress, lightly nipping on it before slipping his wet appendage inside your mouth.

You didn't have the energy to fight back, allowing him to completely dominate you.

A whimper escaped from you when his mouth snaked down just below your ears, "If you told me that you love me, then I'll probably do the same." he whispered, causing goosebumps to raise over your skin.

You gasped when he bit a sensitive part of your neck, and you did it again when he sucked on your skin.

He is leaving his marks all over you, it would be a herculean task to hide all of those but you couldn't care less, basking in the feeling of his hot mouth in your blazing skin.

"S-Seonghwa." you moaned his name out, a small hum coming from him as a reply, "I have never done this before."

He pulled away for a bit, examining your features and caressing your flushed cheeks, "Don't worry baby, I'll take care of you."

And he meant that, he will make you enjoy this night to the point that you'll never be able to feel anything like this if it didn't come from him.

He started removing your articles of clothing one by one, and the more skin you showed, the more excited he becomes.

You look like an angel, so pure and sinless and he couldn't wait to wreak havoc in you.

"Nu uh, baby, don't cover that up." he stopped you from hiding your breasts when he got rid of your bra, pinning your arms on your side.

You are beginning to feel shy, feeling his gaze on your body, "You look so perfect and..." Seonghwa licked his lips, "delicious."

He released your arms, his hands going around and in between your chest. He proceeded with a small massage, his palms squeezing your busts, lightly tickling your areola until your nipples are hardened enough to his liking.

All Seonghwa could feel is the cloud-like softness of your boobs and he just wants to bury himself in it.

His eyes peered over yours, looking for any hints of resistance, and when he saw none of it, he dived right into you. Putting a nub in his mouth and experimentally doing all tricks for you to feel good.

You squirmed in his hold, the growing pleasure is now running in your veins.

He started with small flicks, then he had gotten more bold and circled around it. A buzzing sensation came through when he sucked on it.

The anticipation was worth the wait, considering how skilled he is.

He suckles hard, then slows down into kitten licks. Your other boob never forgotten, his fingers tweaking and playing with your nipple.

When he's certain that he has gotten his saliva all over your breast, he had gotten another mission in mind.

His hand slides down to your belly, prying your legs open in a gentle manner.

"You good?"

You nodded your head, not able to form a word as you tried to comprehend all the things that are currently happening in your body.

Your confirmation was enough for Seonghwa to continue devouring you.

And oh boy, did he went wild on you.

No mercy as his middle finger began to rub on your clit. You had never felt like this before and it's too much.

"If you want to cum, then let it all out."

You were about to ask what does he mean by that, but there is no need to when he demonstrated it to you.

He plunged two fingers into your sopping core, easily taking him without any problem.

"Ah! S-Seonghwa!" you cried out when he positioned himself in between your legs to prevent you from closing them.

"If you can't take this now," he came face to face with your heat, "then how will you handle me later, hm?"

Another loud moan was elicited out from you, his tongue prodding and teasing your bundle of nerves.

You knew he was good with his tongue, you had observed it a lot of times, especially when he darts it out like a chameleon.

You knew that, yet this is a domain that you never knew will feel so heavenly unless you tried it for yourself.

The loud noise of you moaning, him slurping all of your juices, and the lewd wet sounds coming from below you every time he curls his fingers inside are insane.

Seonghwa felt your muscles tensing, a sign that you are close to release. Thus, he switched his style into something more of a challenge for you.

His digits went to your clit, rubbing it in a circular manner and his tongue slid inside your pussy.

The electrifying feeling of having your sensitive nub get played with, along with the constant darting of his tongue inside you were enough to send you over the edge.

Seonghwa continued his actions for you to ride your high, only stopping when you tried to move away from him.

You were breathing heavily, eyes closed and ready to go into dreamland. Until something hard poked in your entrance, "You think this is over?"

His voice snapped you awake and you were crying out in both pleasure and pain after he entered you in one go.

You are still vulnerable from the previous orgasm, but that also allowed you to feel how big and thick he is.

He momentarily ceased his movements for you to adjust to his size. On your side, he was stretching you out so good and fuck, you want him to move.

See, you are not the type to do shit when you get desperate, but you are already out of your mind and your hips begin to move on their own in search of friction.

"I can't Seonghwa, please move." you pleaded, which sounded so sexy for him.

He bit his lower lip, bending downward and putting a chaste kiss on your nose before whispering, "Your wish is my command, princess."

Yes, you did say for him to move, turns out that he really planned to go all out on you right from the start.

He snaps his hips so hard, his pace is also fast that the bed started shaking.

Seonghwa loves the way you react to him, not only that but the sensation that you're giving him.

You are so tight and warm. Just exactly how he wants it.

Your pussy effortlessly pushes him out, yet the moment he starts pushing in again feels like he was getting hugged by wet, mellow vacuum.

You can also feel how he slides in and out of you, mind blowing even when he shifted the positions.

Lifting your legs and putting it over his shoulders let him pound into you on a deeper level.

So deep that his tip grazed over your g-spot, making you arch your back and that gave away the fact that he had hit the prize.

"Finally, I have been looking for that for a while now." he muttered victoriously, smiling darkly as he held onto your waist.

"Get ready, baby."

With the last warning, he thrusted into you relentlessly. His speed is faster than before and he rams harder than before.

Your hands went over to his toned arms, clinging to it like your life depends on it.

"Don't stop." you whimpered, and you really don't want this paradise to end.

You could say that he is a monster in bed, literally.

He is destroying you, tearing you into pieces yet you are all down for this.

You are willing to be demolished, as long as its him.

"Shit, you feel so fucking good baby." Seonghwa praised, his eyes roaming all over your appearance.

And he was stoked.

Strands of your hair are sticking to your face due to the sweat, reddish skin, boobs jiggling because of the amount of force he's using to fuck you silly and mouth open in a silent moan.

Even in your disheveled state, you still managed to look like a goddess and... oh my god he loves you.

He doesn't know what to do with this information, but he'll ignore this now and focus on giving you more pleasure.

"S-Seonghwa, I'm close." you said, looking at him tantalizingly. You couldn't hold it back, the euphoria began washing all over you like a wave and it felt so marvelous.

The overstimulation is getting too much for you to handle after a few minutes of your orgasm yet Seonghwa's still railing into you like there is no tomorrow.

You unintentionally clamped on his length, with a grunt and a few more thrusts, Seonghwa pulled himself out and came all over your stomach.

Sticky and dirty, two things that you'll normally hate but under these circumstances, it is weirdly comforting.

You weren't aware of your surroundings anymore, too tired and sleepy to care.

Still, you vaguely notice Seonghwa clean you up, cuddling you close to him and whispering a sweet goodnight on the crown of your head.

The glaring light of the sun woke Seonghwa up, he was in a good mood, but that turned sour when he saw that you weren't beside him anymore.

"Seonghwa! Are you awake?! C'mon you have to prepare too." The door opens, revealing you in a robe, clearly getting ready for something.

"What?" he dumbly asked.

"What do you mean by 'what'? you playfully rolled your eyes, setting foot in the room and coaxing him out of the bed, reminding him that today is the wedding.

He had no choice but to comply for now, and he'll talk to you later. But there is a bad feeling inside his stomach, he couldn't put his finger on it but... why are you acting normally? Like nothing happened last night.

Are you seriously gonna do this?

You went on with your day like you usually would. Excitedly clapping throughout the wedding and being giddy until the end.

It was suffocating, and he couldn't wait to confront you during the party.

The reception hall was like a palace, with the gigantic chandelier in the middle of the ceiling, marbled floors and touches of red and gold. The wedding planner did so well as he managed to make the place look magical with the set of decors.

But Seonghwa doesn't have any time to dawdle, waiting for the dance part to come so he can zone in on you.

"For all the couples out there, this is your time to shine." the emcee announced, much to his ease.

A slow song was played, and now is his chance. He went and approached the table where you are sitting with your female cousins, doing this gentlemanly thing of asking you for a dance.

In the middle of the heavily populated room, the background is blurred and all he can see is you.

The blue dress that you bought together is perfect on you, hugging your curves just right and it elevated your charms.

His heart is pounding so fast and he doesn't know what to do.

"Y/N, I-"

"Let's forget what happened last night."

And his world shattered into pieces.

You took a deep breath, gathering every bit of your strength and gazing straight into his orbs, "We only have a week, and what happened last night was a mistake, right?"

Reality struck Seonghwa in the face, reminding him of the actual setting he's in.

He's not supposed to fall in love with you. He's not allowed to fall in love with you and vice versa.

Curse this.

"Yes, that is what I was about to say." he agreed despite the bitterness that was pooling in the pit of his stomach.

You smiled a bit, albeit a tiny hint of sadness is hidden behind it, "I'm glad we're on the same page. I don't really want to ruin our friendship."

Suddenly, your arms that are dangling on Seonghwa's neck are heavy and his palms on your waist feel like fire.

So that is what you are, friends.

Either way, life goes on. After the wedding, going home in your own places, you two felt like you did the biggest mistake of your lives.

It was the regret after all, knowing that the cards had been laid out yet the decision you made is to turn a blind eye on it.

Funny thing is that the both of you continued hanging out every day. Spending time with each other day and night, like you are making the most of the remaining time.

It's worse though, because the more you make memories with Seonghwa, the more it makes it difficult for him to accept that the finish line is near.

"Hyung, are you okay?" Yunho asked the drained older man, slumped on the sofa.

"Yeah, I am." he answered blankly.

Before Yunho could badger for more information, Seonghwa stood up and exited the dorm, saying that he has to attend his next class.

On the negative note, he can't concentrate. His brain is doing him a favor by thinking about you, and as if on cue, his phone dinged.

Flashed in the notification of his screen is your name. Upon, opening it, he read a text message from you.

3:17 PM

From: Y/N

Hey Seonghwa, are you busy right now? Can we meet in the school garden, I have something important to say.

He was always good at making excuses, but this might be the best one where his brain cells worked so fast to make reasons for him to be able to get out of class, bolting towards you like the flash.

Upon arriving in the garden, he saw you in a crouching position, petting a stray cat.

As much as he loves to watch you, he's still curious about the urgent matter that you need to address. Thus, he calls your name to catch your attention.

"There you are!" you beamed at him, and before he could react, you grabbed his hand and tugged him along with you.

"Wait! Y/N, what are you doing?!" in his panicked state, which is rare, he doesn't understand what your motives are.

"Isn't it obvious, we're skipping classes!"

He can't believe what he's hearing. You, the top student is skipping classes with him. Isn't it supposed to be the other way round?

Seonghwa was too busy in his own world that he didn't notice you stop in a familiar place. It's the park where he first braided your hair.

"Come sit." you happily tapped the empty space next to you, to which he obeyed.

You examined his side profile.

Ethereal.

That was the only word that you could think of if someone asked you to describe him. Well, that was the adjective that popped in your head whenever you remember how he looked above you that night.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer." he teased, making you smack his shoulders.

"Very funny."

"I know."

The ambience before was tense, a complete 180 of today's atmosphere.

Everything is chill, but the bomb is about to be dropped.

"All good things must come to an end." you quoted, and Seonghwa took a sharp intake of breath at your insinuation.

"This is it, huh?" he stalled, just a few more seconds, please.

"Yeah." you looked down at your feet, closing your eyes and getting ready for the final moment.

"You are one of the best things that happened to me, surprisingly." you took off first, lifting yourself off of the seat and raising your hand for him to take.

"It was a wholesome three months with you, Mister Park." you were waiting for his reply, but got flustered when he enveloped you in his arms.

"And you made me the happiest man on earth during these three months, Ms. L/N."

At the time of your separation, Seonghwa thought he'll be fine.

The 'break-up' was mutual, he was actually stunned that he was able to go through that without shedding a tear. So he really was convinced that he's okay and that he will be able to move on from you.

He has never been wrong.

"Seonghwa, get up and eat." Hongjoong, his friend, turned on the light in his bedroom, making him grumble a small "I don't wanna eat and go away."

Hongjoong sighed and sat at the edge of the bed, revealing a secret that he had been keeping for days.

He's tired of seeing his friend like this.

Dark circles under his eyes, tangled hair, pale complexion, and frankly, he needs to take a bath asap.

"She cried."

Seonghwa immediately removed his covers, eyes wide and ears ready to listen, "Come again?"

"I said, she cried, dumb ass."

"And you made me the happiest man on earth during these three months, Ms. L/N."

Seonghwa let go of you, and you couldn't bear to look at him anymore or else you'll cry on the spot.

"Alright then... bye!" you bowed, turning around and running away from him.

When you're sure that you're out of his sight, you collapsed in a nearby tree and clutched your chest, the area exactly where your heart is.

You expected this, you gave yourself a long peptalk about this last night. But the agony is still unbearable.

Withdrawing him, breaking things off with Seonghwa, is fucking painful than getting punched in the face.

"Excuse me miss, are you okay?"

You looked up at the source of the sound, acknowledging the presence of yout student council president, Kim Hongjoong.

"Oh, yes. Yes, I'm sorry I was just.. doing some things." you felt awkward, knowing that he's one of Seonghwa's friends.

He raised an eyebrow at you, aren't you Seonghwa's girlfriend? Why the hell do you look like a kicked puppy on the side of the road?

You quickly stood up and dusted your skirt, fixing yourself in a hurry, "I gotta go."

"Wait!-"

When Hongjoong got home that day, he saw his brooding friend's broken hearted expression. He looks so down, and that was enough evidence for him to piece two and two together.

"And that's what happened." Hongjoong concluded the story, relieved that he's been able to get that off his mind.

"Really?" Seonghwa rhetorically asked, and something inside him sparked.

"I should go to her. No! I must go to her!"

He left in a hurry, leaving Hongjoong alone in the room and muttering to himself, "He should've at least taken a short shower."

Seonghwa ran around like a mad man, looking for your whereabouts.

The mall, market, park, convenience stores. He's sweating like crazy and the sun is about to go down, where the fuck are you?

Then like a meteor hit him.

The library!

"Y/N!" he opened the door, shouting your name that scared you to death.

"Oh my fu-! Seonghwa?!" you were astounded when you saw him, that increased further when he marched closer to you.

You backed yourself up on the table accidentally, no room to escape when he held you in his arms and kissed you like there's no tomorrow.

You returned the kiss, enjoying the moment that you've missed dearly.

You two are now back in the same place where it all started. Determined to turn a bet into something more realistic.

Pulling away for air, Seonghwa took in every detail of you.

He yearned for you, and he was miserable without you.

"Seonghwa." you murmured, this feels like a dream, because you have come to terms that you'll never be able to see or hold him again like he was truly yours.

"Y/N, fuck the rules." he mumbled, getting straight to the point. "I don't fucking care if I'll turn into loser, as long as I become your lover."

Your eyes turned glassy, tears forming the corner of your lids. Some had already fallen down as Seonghwa kissed all of them away.

"Seonghwa.. I-I need you in my life." you confessed, not at all ashamed, "I know I said that falling in love is forbidden but I love you so much."

Your sobs were muffled when Seonghwa closed the distance between you two once more, sealing the deal.

"Then that's it." he said against your lips, "You are finally, officially, and eternally mine."

The corner of your lips curled up, burying your face on his sculpted chest, "I accept."

There is nothing more than you could ever wish for more than an agreement like this.

---------------------------------------------------

@hyuckilstan @ateezbabysitters @minkiflwr @kpopcrossworlds @hwadump

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bifuriouswaterbender · 9 months

Text

He's All That

Rated T - 4,768 words - 1/? chapters published - No Archive Warnings Apply - Written by me, image by @maikaartwork

It started when Nancy broke up with him. In hindsight, Steve maybe should have known better than to listen to Tommy at a time like this.

“Come on, man, you’re better off this way,” Tommy insisted as he leaned against Steve's locker. “I mean Wheeler’s cute and all, but she almost destroyed your popularity. Where’s the old king of the keg stand? Where’s Mr. Funny Guy who has a joke at every teacher’s expense? I’ve missed you, dude. You straightened up too much for her. It’s time to let loose, prove you’re still you.”

“Shut up.” Steve rolled his eyes. “I haven’t lost my popularity. I can absolutely still rule these halls.”

“Oh yeah?” The gleam in Tommy’s eyes should have been a warning sign. Instead it was a point of interest. “What if I made you a bet? I can prove you’re slipping.”

“You can’t,” Steve shot back. “I’m not. I’m popular enough to make anyone else popular too. Nancy’s social cred shot up when I started dating her.”

“Is that the angle you want to take?” Tommy asked. “Sure, we can do that. You can make anyone popular? How popular?”

“Top of the food chain,” Steve shot back, running a hand through his hair. He paused to grin at a couple of girls walking past, and they both giggled. He totally still had it. King Steve hadn’t gone anywhere.

“Prom court?”

Steve’s eyes snapped back to Tommy. “With a crown.”

“Perfect!” Tommy spun around, looking around them. “But I pick the target.”

“You don’t have to refer to her like that,” Steve said with a sigh. “She’ll be Carol’s new best friend in a matter of weeks.”

“Not her,” Tommy said, and Steve froze at the giant smile spreading over his face. “Him.”

“Him?” he repeated, whirling around to see who Tommy was looking at. “No way. Not possible. Dealing with a weird personality would be one thing, but scary and inaccessible? No can do. Besides, I thought you’d pick a chick. Dating someone is how I can make them popular. At very least, I figured you’d pick someone like Robin. What the hell am I supposed to do with Eddie Munson?”

“Like I was about to pick your band geek weirdo,” Tommy scoffed. “She’s weird, but she’s hot. That would be too easy. No, I want you to have a challenge. You don’t get to use dating you as the social cred they’re building.” He took a step forward into Steve’s space. “You said you’re up for it. You’re not giving up already, are you?”

Steve huffed, staring at Munson. As though he felt their eyes, Eddie looked up. He took taken aback for a moment, then glared before stomping away.

“I’m not giving up,” Steve said, “but it might be a little more difficult than anticipated.”

“Hey, you have months,” Tommy said with fake optimism. “I’m sure he’ll be the kind your band geek can take home to Mom in no time.”

Later that day, Steve realized he’d need help.

As much as Steve was loath to rely on someone else so quickly into the bet, he did need backup. He needed someone with a less biased opinion of Munson to help him figure out how to even approach the guy. If he went right now, Steve figured he’d get punched or at least laughed at. He needed a way in.

“Why are you asking me about Eddie?” Robin pressed her lips together and surveyed him carefully.

Steve shrugged and tried to look casual. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve never stopped to really consider him before. He seems like an interesting guy.”

“Not really your type of interesting,” Robin pointed out.

Steve rolled his eyes. “What? I’m not allowed to ask questions about people who don’t play sports?”

“Or wear short skirts,” she shot back. “Something you’re trying to tell me here, Harrington?”

“What?” Steve sputtered. He didn’t want to sound offended by the question, not when Robin had trusted him enough to tell him about herself. “I’m not… Even if I was, Eddie wouldn’t be my type.”

“What would your type be? Tommy Boy? I bet he’d say yes if you asked real nicely.”

Steve sighed, resting his hands on his hips. “Look, if this is a ploy to change the subject, it’s not going to work. Seriously, Robin, what’s his deal? I mean obviously he’s been around, but he’s never really been on my radar before. Plus, I figured you’d have a better understanding of him than anyone else I hang out with. I don’t think Tommy’s ever interacted with him outside buying pot for my parties.”

“You make your friends sound like such winning people,” she said dryly, but his argument must have worked from the way Robin sighed and stood up straight. “Fine, you want to know about Eddie? I’ll tell you what I can, but I don’t know how helpful I can actually be. We’re not friends or anything. He’s in band. Plays percussion—and guitar when we have a jazzier piece that needs it. That’s the only reason I know him really, but we have some friends in common. He runs Hellfire, so like, your little dweebs would probably love him.”

At the blank look on Steve’s face, Robin added, “It’s a Dungeons and Dragons club. You know, the game they play?”

“I know they play it,” Steve said, maybe a tad too defensively. “I guess I didn’t realize the school had a club for it.” At least that explained the shirt the dude wore all the time. “What’s with his look? I have never seen anyone wear a leather jacket year round the way he does.”

Robin shrugged. “I think it’s a music thing. Punk or whatever. You done with the twenty questions yet?”

Steve rubbed the back of his head as he said, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Good,” she said. “What’d you get on the test for Click? I swear if you got below an 80% with the way we studied…”

It was easy to let Robin pull him to other subjects. He really did enjoy hanging out with her—way more than he liked spending time with Tommy and Carol these days if Steve was completely honest with himself. Besides, she’d given him more than enough to work with hopefully. Dungeons and Dragons seemed like the best way in. He could use the excuse of asking for the sake of the kids next year, get Eddie talking about that, and take things from there. He could steer the conversation once it was started.

And he did have to start. Steve absolutely had his work cut out for him, so the sooner they got started, the more dramatic a transformation Eddie could make.

[Read the rest of Chapter 1 here] Written in part as the free space square for both the @eddiemunsonbingo and @steveharringtonbingo

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steddie fanfiction #steddie art #st fanfic #st art #stranger things #my writing #my fic #commissioned art

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farfromstrange · 5 months

Text

I made it back from my little comic con getaway! I’m semi-alive.

I come bearing pics (though not as many as I would’ve liked). So, I’ll put them under the cut for those of you who want to see them. Anyone else, feel free to keep scrolling. This is just me rambling. And showing off my cosplay and Daredevil merch I bought. With a lot of text. Sorry.

I didn’t have the time to take a pic of my Day One Matt Cosplay, but I do have pics from the test run I did a couple of days back.

(I didn’t have the time to put on the fake blood on Saturday, but that was kind of how I wanted it to look when I first tried it on, minus the added blood on the nose, that was just a stupid attempt at making it look more… gore-y? I think. I don’t know. My brain is tired and I’m just typing this on my phone and I don’t have the brain cells to form a coherent thought.)

Anyway, the first two is a (kind of) look at how I looked at the con on Saturday. It was a very slutty version of lawyer!Matt and the Season 1 promo poster. I tried. Also, I have no idea how to take proper pictures of myself. I apologize 😭

NOW moving on to my look on Day Two (today). That was a lot easier because I already had the sweater, and there was no way I wouldn’t pull up in the iconic “I’m Not Daredevil” Comic!Matt look. It was the obvious choice.

(Excuse the crusty-ass hotel selfie quality.)

I really enjoyed dressing up, and I think I might invest even more time and money for next year and go all out. As much as I can, anyway.

It was fun, but it was definitely different than last year. A lot less crowded, too. I still think it was amazing and I’ve loved seeing everyone dress up as their favorite characters and just feel welcome because everyone was there for the same reason. That’s why I love these conventions so much. It really is a judgement free zone.

And there is always a lot of shopping, which I did. I secured a lot of goods, and of course, I am going to share them with you now.

I got this amazing Elektra Funko.

AND THIS?!?! I FUCKING LOVE IT!!

And the girl selling this was so excited someone finally bought one of her Matt prints, we both geeked out. I still can’t believe I found this.

And then I got these pins…

AND THIS AMAZING GINORMOUS SWEATER/HOODIE/BLANKET

And a Barbie poster (It says “Hi Barbie” but I was too lazy to unroll it completely)

Overall, I think I found some amazing stuff! I just had to share it with you.

Can’t wait for spring next year, honestly.

#lizzi talks #matt murdock #daredevil #comic con #charlie cox #matt murdock cosplay #barbie #a little merch haul for you guys #i’m broke now but it was worth it

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cinamun · 4 months

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Hey Cin, Isn't it appropo for the OG Drakes to walk in to a restaurant with that name. I know you mentioned before that you do not watch much streaming/TV, but it seems like you are possibly a music aficionado to your core. So it probably tickled you to to have the Drakes celebrate in a brown girl owned restaurant that slips in a music / song reference. The Whispers one Or The Aretha Franklin one but the lyrics by The Whispers is probably Mr. & Mrs. Drake-ish. :)

Just observing Miss Dira, who seems to be afraid to 'let go and let the possibility of love' cuz who knows Charlie may be her Urkel/Stephan? He might just wear her down.... And maybe the dress was just dressin' or it was a Beyonce fake baby bump moment, but why did Hope look preggars in that picture of them welcoming the OG Drakes to the restaurant? *Please pass the Sweet Potato Soul fried cauliflower nuggets* This I think will be an interesting Indya side eye night.

COME ON NONNY!!!! This ask read like straight poetry!!

When I say the Reading Room™ stays lit? Hmph! Listen friend I am the biggest music afficianado/nerd/basket case/geek you have ever met in your life. I go bonkers. Music heals and it moves and it cleanses and it cuts and it soothes. So imagine how quick I downloaded that lot for these here anniversary purposes??

The whispers said:

I looked at you You stole my heart You were all that I anticipated I wanted you Every part But I knew that love would be complicated

And Darren said:

and it was indeed complicated my dear friend WHEW!!

I'm with you on this CharDira situation, too. Because lil sis who you fooling taking your smash-bro to your parents anniversary party AND cooking him one hell of a breakfast just a few days before? *files nails*

I'll let the baby bump speculation keep speculating while I pass you these nuggets and advise you to stay tuned.

#story stuff #y'all are the best istg

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queen-of-writing-bad-things · 4 months

Text

Henry Danger Reader Insert | Captain Man x Reader: SEASON 1

Episode 3: Mo' Danger, Mo' Problems

Reporting to his job, Henry walked into the elevator and hit the down button. Even though he braced himself, the sensation of falling down the shaft in the broken machine still made him scream all the way to the bottom. The elevator door opened, letting the pyjama-clad boy step out.

"He's got to fix that elevator." He groaned and huffed to (y/n), as he walked into the Man Cave.

"Where's Ray? He triple-beeped me." Henry asked the sleepy-looking woman, who like him was wearing pyjamas.

"Honestly? I don't know. Jerk woke me up and just said to give you this and to tell you to put it on your wrist." (y/n) held out a watch for him and rubbing her tired eyes.

"Sure, what else would I put it on?"He joked, fastening the strap, as (y/n) chuckled at him.

"Flip the cover." She said as she sat down with her arms on the back of the couch. She let her head flop down as she looked at Henry.

"Hiya Henry!" Ray said excitedly in hologram form. 'So that was his plan.' (y/n) grumbled in her mind.

"Oh!" Henry looked at the little Ray in shock at the sudden appearance of his boss.

"Ray?" He said to make sure it was him.

"Yep. I'm hovering over your wrist in hologram form!" He said waving his hands in a silly manner. Henry wanted to see how his new gadget worked, so he poked Ray in his eye, causing him to clutch it in fake pain.

"You poked my eye out!" He screamed, making (y/n) roll her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Henry thought he had injured his boss and put a hand over his racing heart.

"I'm just kidding. You can't hurt a hologram or a Captain Man!" Ray reassured him, doing a little dance.

"This is so cool." Henry geeked out at the thought of having hologram tech.

"It would be even cooler if I hadn't been woken up." (y/n) mumbled, her words slurred from her face being smushed into her arms.

"It's like we're in the same room." Henry carried on complimenting the watch.

"We are." The holo-Ray turned around and walked off, causing the image to fizzle out. Henry looked confused and waved his hand over his wrist to see where the man had gone.

"Where'd you..." Henry started, but Ray had crept past (y/n) and patted him on the shoulder, scaring the wits out of the boy.

"Peek-a-boo," Ray said, as Henry screamed. The young woman at the couch wasn't happy from the noise and looked up at the males who were keeping her awake.

"Couldn't this have waited until morning, doofus?" She glared.

"Aww, she's always grumpy when she's tired." Ray fawned over her despite the killer look she was giving him, before turning back to his sidekick.

"Now, take off your old wristband." He instructed.

"Okay, why am I--" Henry started, but Ray was too impatient for questions.

"From now on I'm going to contact you on your new whiz watch."

"So what do I do with the old one?" Henry questioned, holding the old gadget in his hand.

"Toss it up in the air," Ray replied nonchalantly.

"Why?"

"It's about to self-destruct." He told the teen, who promptly threw it to the ground with wide eyes. The bracelet started beeping, but there was a delay between the beeps and the explosion.

"Hmm- that's weird. It was supposed to--" They were caught off guard by the wristband imploding, making them jump into each other's arms and (y/n) to awake from her dozing with a start.

She looked up and saw the two hugging each other in fear, but they soon found it awkward, so they parted, clearing their throats and avoiding eye contact.

"I see you're wearing pyjama pants," Ray mentioned, trying to diffuse the awkwardness.

"Yeah, it's almost midnight. I was studying for this huge test I have tomorrow." Henry explained.

"And I was asleep, but you came into my room and jumped on my bed." The girl had walked over to Ray and was pointing an accusing finger in his face. He just smiled at her and pulled her into a warm hug.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." He said, his body heat making her sleepy again, so she stayed silent and just let herself doze off against his chest.

"What subject?" Ray asked over her head, trying to ignore the sweet smell of her shampoo. The vibrations from his chest made her face feel funny.

"Puerto Rican history." Henry overlooked their cuteness and didn't mention the embrace, because he knew Ray would kill him.

"Ahh, Puerto Rico, Land of..." The superhero began, but he trailed off when he realised he didn't know a lot about the country.

"Puerto Ricans?" Kid Danger filled in for him.

"Right." He admitted defeat, but the emergency alarm went off, which made (y/n) jump in his arms. With a whiny moan, she stepped out of his warmth and trudged over to the supercomputer with them, opening the camera link to the store above.

"What's up, Gooch?" She slurred with her elbows on the control panel and her face in her hands.

"There's a robbery in progress." He instantly reported.

"Where?" Ray interrogated.

"At the 24-hour antique bottle shop."

"Glass from The Past?" Henry asked, knowing where the store was in downtown Swellview.

"Affirmative," Gooch said.

"On it." Ray said, as his best friend slowly pressed the off button, cutting the video call.

"Right here to Glass from The Past, ETA is like, 15 minutes I think." She said quietly, rubbing her face so she could wake up and notify the owner about Captain Man's arrival.

"Shall we?" Ray showed his gum tube to Henry, who shared his look of determination.

"Let's blow some bubbles and fight some crime," Henry said, putting the gumball in his mouth. They chewed and stepped away from the computer, so they could transform properly into their Captain Man and Kid Danger costumes.

"Let's hit it, Kid Danger." Captain Man said to the boy on his right.

"Fist." Henry and Ray fist-bumped each other, both running on adrenaline.

"Get some sleep." Ray said to (y/n), who was wearily looking on from the computer chair. She waved at the two, as they ran to the tubes and slapped their belt buckles.

"So whipped." Henry chuckled, once his tube was down and only Ray could hear him.

"Up the tube," Ray said in a slightly stern voice, looking at Henry with his serious face, but the boy cheekily grinned back, as they were sucked up.

"Aw, my boot!" Henry couldn't believe his shoe had fallen off, all the way down at the other end of the tube.

"Ha! Serves you right! Just yell, 'Up the boot!'" Ray bit his tongue, amused that karma had paid Henry back for all his teasing. With Henry gaining his boot back, the two made their way to the store, ready to kick some criminal butt.

~(y/n)'s PoV~

I hadn't felt that tired in a while, but working for Captain Man meant that every couple of weeks brought a few sleepless nights. The last robbery at Swellview Bank had only been a few days before, and Ray didn't come back 'til 3AM. Like me, he was exhausted from fighting The Toddler and the rookie criminals at the bank. Still, he was lucky that he now had Henry to help him. I made him some hot cocoa and we both fell asleep for 14 hours, waking up the next day to another emergency call.

I blushed when I remembered how Ray's arms were around my waist from him spooning me in our sleep. He groaned as he got up, and I quickly had to answer Gooch's call before he saw my red face.

'No, no no, focus on the task at hand.' I scolded myself.

'Just call the store owner and tell him Captain Man is on his way. No distractions.' I took in a deep breath and dialled the number on the supercomputer.

"H--Hello?" The man on the other end of the line shakily said.

"Hello sir, Captain Man will be with you in a few minutes, please remain calm," I said softly, not wanting the man to freak out and do something that meant the robber would hurt him.

"Please! I need him here now! I'm being robbed!" I sighed, feeling too tired to deal with this, but I carried on, knowing my colleagues would be there soon.

"Sir, please stay calm. Captain Man and Kid Danger will be with you shortly." I tried to keep the man quiet, knowing the criminal was close by, possibly even in the same room as him.

"Put that phone down, come on bro, open up that cash register." I heard the thug shouting and slamming on the counter. 'Sweet cheese, come on Ray.' I prayed that things wouldn't get ugly.

"I'm going as fast as I can, boss!" I made out the owner trying to tell him, but it seemed the robber wasn't a patient man.

"Give me that pretty lavender bottle, 'cause it matches my motorcycle helmet." My eyebrows furrowed when I heard the strange request, deducing that this was another nutjob, bad guy.

I continued the listen to the poor owner follow the demands of the robber, hearing the rustle of paper and his compliant answers.

"Excuse me." I let out a sigh of relief when I heard Ray's familiar Captain Man voice through the speaker. The owner's delighted words reassured me that he now had the proper help and that the criminal was about to face justice.

I pressed the end button on the panel, glad that my job was done. I slowly got up from my chair and stretched my tired muscles. Feeling the sleepiness creep up on me, I decided to take Ray's advice and slowly lumbered up to the sprocket and off to bed.

~Glass From The Past, 3rd Person PoV~

"What the--" The robber looked over to see Captain Man had just entered the store, much to the happiness and delight of the owner he was threatening.

"I hope you're planning to pay for that lavender bottle," Ray told the criminal, but he knew the real answer.

"And I hope that, too!" Henry added in, as he shot through the door and stood next to the older man. The store owner was so relieved to have the duo in his store to protect him and his property.

Ray walked forward, in time with the goon, and stood in front of him in a standoff. The two glared at each other.

"I ain't afraid of you." The thug said in a tough voice, raising the metal bar in his hand and whacking it on Ray's head. Keeping cool, Ray swallowed down the yelp that threatened to escape and coolly looked back to the criminal.

"Try again. Keep your left arm straight." He said, his eyes squinting in a challenge to the large man. Not backing down, the man hit him again with more force, the pain making him grunt this time.

"Strike three." He growled huskily, having had enough with the criminal, but Henry butted into his imposing façade.

"That was only two." He pointed out.

"Okay, don't correct me in front of the criminals." Ray chastised him, not wanting to look dumb. Henry backed off, so Ray could stop the man on his next swing. Grabbing the arm with the metal pipe in, Ray knocked it back into the man's face, making him scream in pain. Stepping back, Ray then kicked him into a display of antique bottles, which horrified the cashier.

"You really wanna fight us? Ray asked, not caring about the broken vases. The man looked between the large, muscly superhero and his smaller, scrawny sidekick.

"Can I just fight the kid?" He asked looking at Captain Man, which offended Henry, who thought he could take on any bad guy, even if they were three times his size.

"No, you can't just fight--" Ray started.

"Sure he can. Come on, tough guy." Henry challenged, getting into a fighting stance and rocking back and forth on his toes.

"Okay." That was all the criminal said, as he just put his purple helmet over Kid Danger's face and grabbed his pipe.

"Oh, this smells so bad!" Henry complained, trying to get the helmet off so he could see. Ray stood there, unimpressed and agitated, but he didn't want Henry to be hit by the metal pipe, so he grabbed two antique golf clubs from the shop wall. The man at the cash register protested at him, not wanting any more damage done to his shop.

"Kid Danger, catch this golf club!" He shouted, throwing one at Henry, but due to his inability to see, it just hit him in the face. The criminal charged forward, the metal pipe in the air, trying to hit Captain Man, who was narrowly dodging his blows.

"You're not helping me!" The owner shouted at them, as more and more antiques were destroyed. The battle resulted in nearly all the bottles on display being smashed, either from Ray and the thug missing each other with their weapons, or Henry blindly swinging his golf club around.

"Captain Man, where are you?" Henry yelled, not know what was happening.

"Follow the sound of my voice!" he told the teen, and they started to play Marco Polo in an attempt to find each other.

"Marco!"

"Polo!" They continued to smash up everything in the shop.

"Could you superheroes please just leave?!" The cashier pleaded, his whole livelihood turning to nothing on the floor, as Ray roundhouse kicked the criminal into a shelving unit. Finally being near Henry, he avoided the boy's wild swings and brought him under control, removing the helmet.

"Where is he?" said Henry, ready to keep fighting, but the bad guy was on the ground, writhing in pain.

"Did I get him?" He looked up at his boss.

"Yeah, you got him," Ray said, mostly to keep him happy.

"My whole store is destroyed!" The owner sounded distraught as he looked over the damage.

"No need to thank us." Ray smiled at him.

"Thank you?" The man replied rhetorically.

"You're welcome." Ray didn't understand that the man was upset.

"Let's go, Kid Danger." He said to Henry, ready to go back to the Man Cave and relax.

"NO! Nobody leaves until you boys clean up all of this broken glass." The owner insisted, making the superheroes turn around with surprised eyes.

"Alright." Captain Man conceded.

"But I've got to get up at 7AM tomorrow for my test at school." Henry reminded him, not liking the idea of staying up all night to clean up. His test was too important.

"This will only take us like, five hours. I'll get you a broom." Ray tried to sound positive, but it was futile. He walked to the back of the store, as Henry staggered back to the wall, already exhausted from the notion of hours more work. He slumped to the floor in defeat.

~Five hours later, Ray's PoV~

I let out a long groan as the tube dropped me back down into the Man Cave. Cleaning up at the robbed store had left me feeling drained, and I was glad to be back home. Removing my mask and rubbing my eyes, I decided it was best to forget grabbing something to eat and to just go to bed since I didn't know when the next emergency would come in.

Going through the sprocket, I walked down the corridor towards my bedroom. I slowed down as I passed by (y/n)'s room and remembered how tired she was. Without a second thought, my hand pressed the button to open the door and I poked my head in to check on her. I saw her tucked up in bed, sleeping soundly, making me release a breathy smile.

'Too cute.' I thought to myself, noticing how her chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm. My face flushed when I realised I was staring, and I quickly retreated from her room, closing the door behind me. I walked quickly down the hall to my room and I could feel my ears burning.

'Just friends, nothing more. She's outta your league.' I said the mantra in my mind, thinking that she could never be mine. Finally, I got to my room and started to remove the super suit. I dumped it into my laundry basket, knowing that (y/n) would clean it as soon as she woke up like she always did.

Pulling on some pyjama bottoms, I made my way over to my bed and flopped down onto it, pulling the blankets over me. Sleep rapidly brought me under, and I gently drifted off to dreams of a girl with (y/c/h) hair and (y/c/e) eyes.

~Swellview High, 3rd Person PoV~

"Henry?"

"Henry." Called Miss Shapen, Henry's history teacher. She looked down at the boy, who had fallen asleep in class from fighting crime all night. Deciding that no student was going to sleep in her class, the teacher put her finger into her mouth and then into Henry's ear, giving him a wet willy. He jerked awake from the feeling and looked up to see the woman sneering down at him.

"HENRY!"

"Whoa, whoa, what happened?" He blinked through the sleep and looked around the class.

"Did you just give me a wet willy?" Henry asked in disgust.

"Mm-hmm. It was real wet." Charlotte mentioned from behind him.

"You slept through your entire test." Miss Shapen scolded him.

"I did?" Henry couldn't believe he had missed his test, as he'd not written a single thing down.

"You all see this boy? This is what happens when you stay up all night on Twitflash and Twiddlegram." The teacher said to the class, pointing at Henry.

"Excuse me, Miss Shapen?" Jasper requested from his seat near the back of the classroom.

"What?"

"Can I have a wet willy?" His question thoroughly confused her, and everyone else listening, but it was Jasper, so they all ignored how weird it was.

~Henry's house, later that night~

Henry had run upstairs to his bedroom, after getting a triple beep from Ray on his watch. He'd had to make an excuse to his family about being too tired to eat his 'chilli balls'. Locking the door, he flicked the watch open.

"Henry, why aren't you on your way here?" Holo-Ray said, confused as to why his young sidekick was still at his house.

"Because I got in trouble for sleeping in class today and I had to make chilli balls," Henry explained.

"Did he say 'chilli balls'?" He could hear (y/n) wondering in the background.

"It was my night." he replied, trying to convince them that he had been forced to make dinner for his family.

"Kid, there's been an escape from Swellview Prison. I need you." Captain Man urged him, knowing that there were dangerous criminals on the loose.

"Alright, I'll be there in 10 minutes." Henry sighed, he was way too tired to fight some bad guys, and he still needed to study for his big make-up test on Friday.

"Good, run like a bunny," Ray said, which made his best friend.

"When have you ever said that before?" She giggled, but the hologram shut off before Henry could see them argue. Closing his whiz watch, he walked to his bed and tried to clamber over it, so he could reach his gum tub on the nightstand.

"Okay, just gotta get my special gum." He said to himself, leaning across the pillows. However, the feeling of the soft mattress and fluffy pillows caused his tiredness to creep upon him. His gum tube was in hand, but the lull of the sleep he so desperately craved made him drift off, mumbling something about bunnies.

~90 minutes later~

Henry's watch was beeping like crazy, but the teen couldn't hear it from his deep sleep. He also didn't hear Captain Man climbing up to his window, even though he was banging on the glass and angrily calling his name.

"Henry, open up!" Seeing that his attempts were useless, Ray was too impatient to wait for Henry to wake up and decided to use his laser remote to shoot open the lock on the window. Sliding it open with a grunt, he rolled in and saw Henry still asleep. Feeling extremely irritated that his sidekick hadn't noticed his presence, he shut off the beeping watch from his remote control and wafted his scent over to the boy. The foul smell made the boy wake up with a scowl on his face.

"Ugh, what is that smell?" Henry asked, still not noticing Ray.

"I'm that smell!" Ray yelled at him indignantly.

"Wh-- Captain Man, what are you doing here?" He asked, shocked to see the superhero in his room.

"What are you doing here?" Ray shot back rhetorically.

"Huh?"

"I called you 90 minutes ago and I told you we had an emergency!" Ray squeaked out, the anger making his voice go high-pitched.

"R--right, I guess I fell asleep," Henry replied in a small voice.

"I guess I fell asleep" Ray mocked him in a whiny voice. Henry stepped forward and sniffed his super suit more closely, his nose wrinkling at how bad the stench was.

"Ugh, why do you stink?" His grimaced.

"I stink because I just spent the last hour chasing three criminals through the Swellview Sewer. You know what's down in the Swellview Sewer?" Ray shot back, emphasising how he had to do it alone.

"Poop?" Henry guessed in a tentative voice.

"POOP!" Ray confirmed with a shout. Suddenly, there was a bang on the door and Henry realised that Piper was trying to get in.

"Oh, my sister." He said, trying to shove Ray to the window. Piper would implode if she saw Captain Man in his room.

"We have a lot to talk about." Ray tried to say, but for a small kid, Henry was surprisingly strong and kept pushing him backwards. Not wanting to be pushed around by a child, Ray let up the ledge in Henry's room and dived out of the window onto the ground below.

"I'm okay." He shouted back up. Henry knew he wasn't hurt and went to unlock the door so he could let his sister in.

"Who were you talking to in here?" She quizzed him as soon as the door was open.

"Nobody." Henry scoffed.

"MOM!" Piper yelled in her shrill voice, wanting to get Henry in trouble.

"What is it, sweetie?" Mrs Hart appeared.

"Henry was talking to someone in his room and now he says nobody's in here." The 9-year-old snitched.

"Well, I'm sure if Henry said nobody was in here, then-- Ugh! What is that smell?" Mrs Hart's rational thinking was cut off when Ray's poop smell hit her nose.

"Uh, it's Piper. She hasn't had a bath in a week!" Henry lied, knowing it would kill two birds with one stone; it would explain the smell and get rid of his annoying sister.

"That's a lie!" Piper protested, but Mrs Hart pulled her away anyway. Hearing Piper's shrieks down the hall, Henry slammed the door shut and locked it again, glad to finally be alone. But the hand tapping on his shoulder said otherwise.

"Don't sneak up on me like that." He said to his boss.

"You disappointed me tonight," Ray said in a voice that all grownups have.

"I'm disappointing everybody. People should just call me 'Kid Disappointment." Henry whined, feeling depressed because nothing was going right for him.

"All right, well, just tell me what the problem is," Ray stated, looking up at Henry, who was now sitting on his couch by the window.

"Time, school, working for you, my family. It's just--it's a lot to handle." He admitted, which made Ray think for a moment.

"Well, giving advice is (y/n)'s strong point, but I do know a guy that could get rid of your family." He said, semi-joking.

"What?" Henry looked at him with a shocked expression.

"Kidding! I joke... I do know a guy." Ray smiled and pointed at the boy.

"Oh! I think I can fix your problem." He said suddenly, clapping his hands together.

"Really?" Henry was sceptical, but he kept listening.

"Meet me at headquarters tomorrow." Captain man said excitedly.

"I'm there." Henry agreed, but Ray got distracted by a photo on his table.

"Hey! Who's this?" He said flirtatiously.

"My mom," Henry said in disgust.

"Niiiiice. She, uh, she still married to your dad?" He said smirking, but Henry wasn't having any of it.

"Yes. Dude, don't you like (y/n)?" He said in exasperation.

"Just friends. Does she ever seem bored or lonely to y--?" Ray tried to say, but Henry felt too tired to deal with him.

"Go home, Ray." The superhero moved towards the window, the photo still in his hand.

"The picture, Ray." He took the photo back, as the superhero climbed out of his window, down the tree and subsequently, went home.

~The Man Cave, 1 hour later~

Ray shot down the tube and as he stepped out, still covered in poop, he noticed that (y/n) was sat at the computer. She was eating popcorn and laughing along to a cheesy romcom.

"Hey." She greeted him in a happy voice, but then the smell wafted to her side of the Man Cave.

"Oh my God, what is that?" She looked at him in repulsion and walked over to him so she could identify the smell. Stepping closer, she took a sniff of his suit but immediately stepped back, as Henry did earlier. Her hands snapped over her nose, trying to block out the offending odour.

"God, you smell like sh---" Her voice was muffled by her hands.

"Yes, I know. I had to climb through Swellview sewer. Alone." He said, yanking his mask off in irritation.

"Alone? Where was Henry?" Normally, (y/n) would've given him a hug, or put a comforting hand on his arm, but there was no way she was going to be near the superhero in his current state.

"Asleep! The kid fell asleep in his room and never turned up!" Ray recalled, his voice going high again.

"He did spend all of last night cleaning up with you, and he has to go to school." The young woman reasoned, knowing the superhero life was tough, especially for a young boy.

"He really let me down tonight," Ray muttered, walking to the couch to sit down, but (y/n) hastily shooed him away.

"Don't touch anything! Get that suit off and go get cleaned up!" She scolded him, pointing to where the showers were.

"Oh, and don't give Henry a hard time. All teenagers have a lot going on, and he's now a superhero. You should understand how hard that is." Her voice was soft, but the look in her eyes left no room for an argument, so Ray just whined and went up to the sprocket.

"He's coming over tomorrow, I've got a plan." Ray said, walking down the corridor, leaving the girl alone.

'Not another plan.' (y/n) rolled her eyes, wondering what tomorrow would bring.

~The next day~

(y/n) stood with a brain scanner in her hand, and she was busy using it on Henry's head, who was looking uncomfortable with the situation.

"Um, what's that thing doing?" He asked her, not knowing what was going on.

"Scanning your brain," she said, smiling so it sounded like a good thing.

"Oh, cool." The boy replied, seemingly impressed.

"Take a deep breath for me." The young woman instructed, switching sides so she could scan the other part of his head.

"Now go, oodle, oodle, oodle." She said, just wanting to see if Henry would do it.

"Oodle, oodle, oodle." Henry mimicked the noises she made, which resulted in (y/n) giggling.

"You're off-key. It's oodle, oodle, oodle, oodle." They started to do it at the same time, laughing alone with each other.

"Why are we doing this?" Henry asked.

"Relax, kid," Ray said, coming out of the door near the auto-snacker.

"I can't. I got a huge makeup test tomorrow and I gotta study, and (y/n)'s making me go oodle, oodle, oodle." Henry explained, feeling agitated from the weird stuff he had to do and from the stress of his upcoming test.

"You're still not doing it right." She said in a flat tone.

"I don't care! I don't have time to relax!" Henry shouted back.

"Exactly! Your only problem is a lack of time." Ray said mysteriously, making Henry look to the left in thought.

"Imagine if you could do all you studying for school in only 30 seconds." (y/n) proposed.

"How can I learn anything in 30 seconds?" Henry wondered, not understanding the correlation.

"With this. The cerebral data transducer, or as we call it, the H.R.Z" Ray lifted up a technical-looking helmet that was connected to a long wire.

"This device can transfer knowledge from a data source directly into your brain, at 90 million digibles per second." The young woman explained the science, briefly looking up from the controls.

"Why am I locked in a chair?" Henry queried.

"Do you wanna get a good grade on your Puerto Rican math test?" Ray asked him.

"History." His sidekick corrected.

"Same thing." Ray's short answer made his best friend laugh.

"Right, let's do this thing." (y/n) said, and Ray placed the helmet on Henry's head, making it flash and beep.

"Now, I'll just set the computer to acquire all the world's historical knowledge on Puerto Rico," Ray said, reaching past (y/n) who was fixing the cable

"Woah, intense. But, uh, will this hurt?" Henry asked, his heart thumping loudly in his ears.

"Yeah, a lot." There's no point in lying to him.' The girl thought, as she turned up the power with Ray. They each ran over to the controls, and both pulled down a lever, starting the extremely painful process.

"Wait, so, how will I know--?" Henry started, but the rush of information flooding into his mind made him cry out in agony. The two grown-ups with him could only look on and hope it would work.

"Just enjoy it!" The superhero tried to encourage, but Henry couldn't hear him over his screaming.

"Does that look enjoyable to you?" (y/n) looked at him with lifted eyebrows. Henry was kicking his legs out and his knuckles were clenched white on the armrests, making Ray and (y/n) grimace at the sight of him. However, Ray being childish, made a begrudging (y/n) take a picture of him smiling and giving a thumbs-up next to Henry and the machine.

They brought the power back down as the process was complete, and the 13-year-old slumped back down into the chair, the pain slowly releasing from his body. Each taking a side of the H.R.Z, (y/n) and Ray unscrewed the locks and took it off him, noticing how traumatised he looked.

"Well?" Ray looked down at him.

"That hurt badddd." Henry clarified, the fear still evident in his eyes.

"Sorry about that, but now, tell me everything you know about Puerto Rico." (y/n) smiled at him from the other side of the chair.

"I don't know anything about-- Puerto Rico is a series of islands with a landmass of 3,500 square miles and a population of 3.6 million people. Its glorious beaches and lush rainforests make it the perfect setting for a wedding, bar mitzvah, or growing bananas." Henry recited the information, making the two friends behind him nod at each other, pleased with their success.

"Whoaaaa. I know Puerto Rico." Henry looked at both of them in awe.

"Yeah, you do." (y/n) nodded with him.

"You see? You can learn anything you need to know for school in a matter of seconds." Ray said, putting the H.R.Z back.

"Yeah. Wait, do you think that's cheating?" Henry asked them in an unsure voice.

"Eh... no, not really."

"It's a grey area. No one will ever know." They reassured him.

"I guess. Anyway, I really doing this appreciate you for me." Henry tried to speak, but all his words came out in the wrong order.

"Oh sweet cheese, the side effects." (y/n) facepalmed.

"What side effects?" Henry looked petrified.

"Y'see, after you use the H.R.Z, when you talk, you might mix up your words for a few days," Ray said, looking sheepish.

"Well, you could have before that you told me." Henry jumbled out, not really making much sense.

"Look at it this way, now, you're gonna do well on your test." (y/n) said to cheer him up. Henry perked up a bit, but then let out a loud, girly shriek. He looked a Ray in fright, as (y/n) grinned at the outburst.

"Why did I just--" he began.

"Another side effect." The woman said tentatively.

"Sometimes you'll scream like--" Henry cut him off with another screech.

"--a girl." Ray finished.

"Just for a few days, no biggie." (y/n) was also trying to convince herself that everything would be okay.

"Oh, so I'm a girl like a days for a few screams. Wait." The word mixing was back. And then, Henry released another ear-shattering shout.

"You guys wanna get lunch?" Ray said to distract them all from Henry's problem.

"Yeah." (y/n) quickly agreed, walking over to the snack machine with Ray, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"What?" Henry just looked at them, as they walked away from his issues.

~Henry's school~

Henry was concentrating on the history lecture Miss Shapen was giving, ensuring he wrote down everything she said. He had just finished his sentence, when the bell rang, symbolising the end of the lesson.

"Okay, everyone, get out." Miss Shapen didn't have much love for her students.

"Henry, may I see you?" She called out to the boy, who was hoping he hadn't done something wrong.

"Yeah sure. What's up?" He slung his backpack over his shoulder and went over to her desk. Charlotte decided to wait for him at the door. His teacher looked at him with a proud smile.

"Your grade." She said, passing him his test.

"100, I makeup test on my got?" Henry said, all in the wrong order.

"I mean, I got 100 on my makeup test?" Henry quickly corrected himself, before Miss Shapen was too weirded out.

"You answered every question perfectly." She complimented him.

"Awesome." Henry smiled before he let out one of his girl screams.

"That was inappropriate." Miss Shapen and Charlotte stared at him with a concerned face.

"I just got excited." Henry tried to explain.

"I'm proud of you Henry, I'd give you a hug if it wouldn't get me fired." His teacher gave him a rare compliment.

"Thanks."

"Have a good weekend." That was all Miss Shapen said.

"Too you." Henry shook his head at his incorrect words but resumed walking to Charlotte by the door, who congratulated him on his result.

"Where were you yesterday? You weren't in class." Dang, Charlotte was too smart for her own good.

"I go to had somewhere." He lied, confusing his friend.

"One more time?" She requested,

"I had... to go somewhere. Nailed it!" Henry spoke slowly, so he could speak correctly. He was glad he managed to say something right until he shrieked. Again. Charlotte jumped back from him.

"You later see." He quickly left the classroom, not wanting to do anything else odd, leaving Charlotte utterly confused as he let out more screams in the hall.

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seeingivy · 4 months

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so like...inspo by my sweet daisy. been feeling down in the dumps about writing in general lately, but it's always fun to self-reflect and remember all the things i've done over the past year. here are my fav fics that I wrote in 2023!

method acting - but of course. this was the first fic that I really put lots of time and effort into thinking + building and getting to see people geek with me over the fake little universe i've made is so fun and rewarding and special to me. it's one of my fics that i've poured a lot of my love and feelings into and in lots of ways, this fic has been a light on a bad day. it includes so many of my real, personal feelings (which is why it's so emo and sweet and sentimental when i write it and even more when people really connect with it for me)

blessing - aka, megumi fushiguro being a sweetheart. I find it really hard to write things that are shorter, since I feel like it won't hit as hard if I don't build it up (which i am very jealous of other writers for being able to do), but this was one of the few times I feel like I was able to do it!

king of my heart - this was one of my first fics that was really popular, and one of my best written taylor as gojo's me thinks. I also just love a good old arranged marriage trope and the lyrics meshed really easily for this one (which is one of the hardest things about writing taylor as gojos)

labyrinth - this was one of my best written ones I think!!! I am so endlessly proud of this one, just bc I feel like it's one of the few times I was able to actually articulate everything I wanted to say EXACTLY how I wanted to say it. I usually give up on a fic and post roughly whatever I had when I write something, but this was the first time I was like YES. YES THIS IS IT.

hair stylist - this was a request! and it's usually very hard for me to write requests and like them, but I really love how this one turned out. also I love goofy gojo im just a girl sue me.

#anyways #it's been a special year #I love that I get to do this #and that people read and enjoy my work!#ronnie talking to herself

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irishcoyote · 20 days

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Inflamed Sense of Rejection: Chapter One

~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: This is that Angel Face backstory I was talking about. His name is Caleb Handover because I'm not going to call him Angel Face the whole time. There will be no "spice" because I type this on a school computer and honestly I want to expand my writing abilities. ~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a horrible way to start a journal, probably the most over-done and unintriguing sentence used to start a story, but my name is Caleb Handover. I’m 16 years old, and I live in Wilmington, Delaware. I go to Mt. Pleasant High School, class of 2001. That makes me a Junior.

It’s boring. Every single day is the same. The ducks pass over the sky when I’m walking to school, and it looked cool when I was nine, but nowadays it just feels like I’m watching someone drive to work.

Delaware duck schedule: 6 AM, wake up to the same alarm as everyone in the neighborhood. 7 AM, fly to the pond for breakfast and a bath. Pass by that blond kid again.

My hair was born white. People on the street asked my mom while she was pushing the stroller, why do you bleach your baby’s hair?

She never did.

First period is Advanced Placement Calculus. I’m thinking about ducks. Derivatives, ducks, hyperbolas, ducks, factorials, ducks, integrals…

My mom called my hair duck-fuzz.

I like math, but I only say that because high schoolers have to like something. If you say you don’t like any subjects in school, you sound like a wannabe-dropout loser. I’m 16 years old and taking AP Calculus. I don’t think I’m a wannabe anything, but I don’t think I’m genuine, either. I’ve already done the warmup question on the board. Find 34! It’s just a factorial. Does anyone see me?

“Caleb Handover?”

Only during attendance.

I raise my hand until my elbow is about six inches off of my table, parallel to the smooth, fake-wood surface. Not high enough to seem like a geek, but still giving effort.

Invisibility is a science.

“Here.”

There’s a pause. My hand stays in the air.

“Caleb Handover?” my teacher tilts his chin up and surveys the room, his pencil hovering over my name, ready to write truant.

“I said I’m here,” I said louder as I raised my hand higher. My pen balances between my peace-sign fingers. My teacher flicks his eyes to me, and his eyebrows soften. He adjusts his glasses. The sad taste of desperation lingered in my mouth after essentially begging to be accounted for.

“Oh, hello Caleb. Sorry I didn’t see you.” My teacher laughs dryly and clears his throat. “Serena Hofstadter?”

She has mono.

“Gordon Jacobs?”

That’s how Serena got mono.

For a moment I picture Serena and Gordon as Romeo and Juliet during the final act. Gordon drinks from a tall, crystal vial of mononucleosis extract and collapses. Serena, covered head-to-toe in orange spray tan and blonde highlights underneath her Shakespearean garb, discovers him on the floor and gives a tearful soliloquy before kissing him feverishly in an attempt to drink the mono from his lips. In the end, they’re both bedridden, and everyone knows.

In fair Delaware we lay our scene.

I don’t know why, but I’m angry at them. Serena and Gordon. My knuckles turn white as I grip my pen harder, gritting my teeth and thinking about my peers who go to parties to drink and kiss and do drugs. I didn’t even think parties were a real thing until I started listening to rich kids’ conversations.

“I got home so late last night…” quote from the boy wearing the same clothes as yesterday.

“I’m, like, so hungover.” quote from the girl wearing sunglasses indoors at 8:30 AM.

“Her house was so tacky.” quote from the girl whose locker is head-to-toe in sequins and leopard print, who uses perfume to cover the smell of anxiety pheromones.

I’m not jealous, and I’d rather have lifelong diarrhea than be in the same boat as these kids, but it would be nice to have a life.

It would be nice to be a part of something bigger than myself.

~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: Please let me know what you think, and if I should keep writing this. It would be appreciated :)

#fight club #fight club 1999 #angel face #angel face fight club #tyler durden #marla singer #the narrator #fight club fanfic #ricky fight club #narrator fight club #inflamed sense of rejection

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threewaywithdelusion · 1 year

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Excerpt from a Time Travel Fic I Probably Won't Finish

(This is completely unrelated to my time travel fic You Me Her. In this version, Steve and Robin go back to summer 1983 together from 1986 after the death of most of the other characters. Robin ends up fake-dating Steve to hide her sexuality and give her a reason to be around him.)

Robin was sitting out at the picnic bench in the woods, waiting for Steve’s afternoon practice to finish. She probably should have been sitting in the bleachers, watching them practice and playing the role of the good girlfriend. But she hated spending time around the other jocks. Tommy H never said anything disparaging in front of Steve – not after Steve had made it clear who he would pick if forced to choose between Tommy and Robin – but he said anything he could get away with when Steve’s back was turned. Jason Carver looked disgusted with her presence. And several of the other boys were nice enough, decided that they found Robin funny when she wasn’t rambling. But now that she was the girl on King Steve’s arm, she was noticeable and a lot of the boys looked at her in ways they hadn’t when she’d been an invisible band geek.

Most of them didn’t say anything lecherous to her face. They didn’t dare touch her or flirt with her, not when they saw her as belonging to Steve.

But the attention made Robin uncomfortable anyway.

Part of her wondered if she should stage a breakup with Steve so she could go back to getting bullied the way she was used to instead of this new, confusing way. But now that she’d “dated” Steve, she didn’t think she’d go back to being invisible, even if they broke up. And the only thing worse than putting up with a bunch of horny, cruel jocks was still having their attention but without Steve’s protection.

Robin hated that she needed Steve’s protection. She’d faced off against monsters from another dimension. She’d spat in a Russian soldier’s face. She’d done things that would make those jocks piss their pants in fear, and none of it mattered here. To them, she was just a girl, powerless and vulnerable except for the protection of her future prom king boyfriend.

It sucked.

The sound of metal jangling made Robin look up.

“Eddie Munson,” she said, surprised.

He looked younger than when she’d known him. His hair was shorter, just above his shoulders, and the battle jacket he’d thrown at Steve had a lot fewer patches. The chains on his jeans were probably what had gotten her attention. He looked shocked to see her.

“Robin Buckley.”

She frowned. “You know who I am?”

In 1983 Eddie must be a senior, the first time around. Robin was a sophomore and they didn’t exactly run in the same circles. They both ran with music crowds, but Robin liked the band kids and Eddie ran with the crowd who thought they were too cool and alternative for the band kids. He had no reason to know who she was.

Eddie laughed. “Do I know the girl dating King Steve? You’re hard to miss, Buckley. You sent the whole school into a tizzy, wondering how you distracted The Hair from pursuing cheerleaders. Word on the street was he had his eye on Nancy Wheeler, who’s at least vaguely on the popularity radar, and then BAM! King Steve shows up with a band kid girlfriend and settles down for the first time ever. How did you do it?”

Robin fluttered, unsure of what to do with her hands. “Oh God. Everyone is gossiping about me, aren’t they?”

“Should’ve thought of that before dating King Steve,” Eddie said. “So how did you do it? Did you seduce him?”

Robin snorted. “No.”

“Trick him?”

“No.”

“Is this some kind of Prom King rebellion on his part? Is dating a band geek the jock equivalent of a teenage girl dating a bad boy?”

Robin scowled. “Maybe we just like each other.”

Yeah, she and Steve ran in radically different circles on different rungs of the social ladder. But Steve was her best fucking friend. She liked his unfailing love for shitty music and shitty mainstream movies. The snappy, annoyed persona that she and the kids were good at drawing out of him. The way he cared, always, about everyone, and showed it by giving them food, or his jacket when it was cold, or his ear if they needed someone to listen.

She’d laughed with Steve until her abs hurt. She’d cried on his shoulder for more hours than she could count. She’d come out to him in a shitty mall bathroom and his support for her hadn’t wavered, not once, not even for a second.

He’d let her make the unilateral decision to be his fake girlfriend and never complained, even though it was keeping him away from Nancy Wheeler. He’d trusted her with his fears about his brain and told her it wasn’t scary to be honest with her because she was Robin.

Robin knew it was 1983 and Steve was only a few weeks separated from the height of his King Steve persona. But she hated that she was the only person who saw him as more than that.

“Right,” Eddie said, sounding tentative. “Well, listen, as fun as it’s been to talk to the Queen Consort, could you take your homework somewhere else?”

Robin stared at him. “I was here first.”

“And usually, I’m all for finders-keepers and solemnly respect the rule of dibs,” Eddie said. “But I need this table to do business, and you’re going to scare off the customers.”

Robin’s eyes dropped to the little metal lunchbox Eddie was holding. “Oh. Right. Sure.”

She slid her books — and Steve’s books, because she working on his math homework tonight — into her backpack.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Eddie said, dropping his things onto the table.

Robin made a face at the nickname. “I’m just Robin.”

Eddie looked up at her with big, distrustful eyes. Like just her association with King Steve made her someone dangerous, someone who he couldn’t trust. “Not to the people at this school, you aren’t. Not anymore.”

Robin didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted to say that nothing about dating Steve (or pretending to date Steve) had changed her as a person and that she hated all the popular kids as much as Eddie did. That she was still a girl who talked too much, who missed too many social cues, who played trumpet in a polyester costume, and who liked to kiss other girls. That she understood what it was like to be an outsider in a small-minded town like Hawkins, Indiana.

But she couldn’t say any of that.

Instead Robin spun on her heels and walked away, anger and frustration and a strange sadness in her chest, like she was mourning the girl she’d been in the other timeline. The girl who had never met Steve until her first day working at Scoops Ahoy.

Maybe she was beginning to understand how Steve felt when, for years after his downfall, everyone had still referred to him as King.

#stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #platonic stobin #robin buckey #eddie munson #robin and eddie #fake dating stobin #mia writes fanfic #time travel fanfiction

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dadsbongos · 2 years

Text

like batman!

14.8 K words

warnings - stupid teenage boys trying to ruin your life, not super beta read

summary - You and Robin get Kill Bill teenager-style revenge on Jason Carver and his friends after they spread a nasty rumor about you. Sapphic ways ensue (Do Revenge but a little gay).

Pressed and pleated bubblegum skirt that hangs below a baby pink sweater - you opposite the woman of sunshine and fake freckles, your best friend since the first day of sophomore year, Claire Green. She is doused in spring green hues and smells of fresh daisies. Her plush lips glossed and kiss-inspiring, cookie brown natural coils that make all the girls with perms leprechaun in jealousy. She may not be the queen, per se, of high school, but she seems to effortlessly hold down that number two spot.

People usually stare when you two pass, either lust or hatred or admiration, but now it feels different. You’re getting pointed at and giggled over. You as in you - specifically.

“Hey, Claire,” she hums, half listening and half asleep, “Am I crazy? I think everyone’s laughing… at me.”

She yawns and glares when two of your fellow debate team members jab fingers your way, “You’re totally sane. So far.”

The air feels thin when you and Claire wind up at your locker, like your throat is split seconds from completely muscling shut. Cheerleaders and mathletes alike let their eyes stray and suddenly you feel silly.

“Am I overdressed?” you open your locker door and go to work clearing out what remains of your lip glosses and polaroids and trinkets. You can hear the blood pumping in your ears, face boiling hot and hands brushing over the Barbie plains of your outfit, “‘Cuz I totally don’t have anything else to change into - my gym uniform isn’t even clean right now!”

“We were supposed to take those home last week,” Clair raises a brow at you, boredly twisting a dark curl around her finger.

“I forgot,” you pout, throwing your bag into your locker and slamming the door shut, “Seriously, though, this is not how I need junior year ending.”

“You look fine,” Claire shrugs, eyes scrawling over you quickly, “Really, I doubt anything is actually different. Maybe you’re just sobering up from all that princess worship.”

“I am not worshiped,” you lean against the cold metal and fold your arms across your chest, “Why are they staring at me? I hate this.”

Claire tilts her head and frowns, you hate how you can’t tell if she’s being genuine or not, “Alright. Fine,” she grabs you by the elbow with her cherry red polished nails, “Let’s go find Chrissy and hide in the bathroom. Will that make you feel better?”

“Much,” you truly detest the stares.

Freshmen to seniors, men to women, band geeks to varsity jocks, you feel deathbed ill. Like you’re raw meat on the side of the road and they’re maggots.

Before Claire gets so much as an opportunity to run with you, the honey-haired queen bee herself finds you. She is easily the only girl in school who could get away with denim overalls over a white shirt.

Chrissy’s brows are tightly knit, she bats her caked lashes and asks, “Is it true?”

Your expression morphs to match hers, “Is what true?”

She laughs like you’re stupid, “Did you blow Andy in the Enzo’s bathroom last night?”

Claire rears back, hand dropping, like you’re roadkill. Your head etch-a-sketches its way into blank simplicity - for a second there’s ringing silence. Bile climbs up your throat and nestles there in a lump you can’t swallow down. The shine of Chrissy’s pearl earrings catch your stare and it’s so tempting to stay there.

Pretend you didn’t hear her.

Pretend you don’t know her.

Pretend you didn’t go out with Andy last night.

“No way, why would I do that?” your lip wobbles with telltales of nausea and Claire lays a hand to your back, a tender squeeze to your shoulder, “That bathroom is, like, ruled by feces.”

“Well,” Chrissy throws her hands up, “that’s what Andy’s saying happened.”

Shock subsides long enough for brutal rage to crack your prim shell, “Where is he?”

You and Andy weren’t steadies - you thought that could’ve been in the cards eventually, foolishly - last night was your first date and you assumed he was a nice guy. Because he was your friend and he never gave you a reason to think otherwise.

God, what an idiot you’ve proven to be.

“Andy!” he jumps from the shriek of your voice, smugness overtakes him as Chrissy and Claire rush to catch up with your thunderous steps, “What the fuck?”

“Aw, c’mon,” Jason steps forward as he usually does when one of his friends gets cornered, “Mad he spilled your little secret?”

“Excuse you?”

“We all knew,” Jason nudges your arm, “you don’t exactly keep your legs shut, honey bunny.”

You wrench back and Chrissy moves from your side of the courtyard to Andy’s, “But it’s not fucking true! You should all know that!”

“Hey, that’s not how we should speak,” Andy goes to cup your cheek but you shove him back, “Not very ladylike, baby.”

“Do not call me ‘baby’, just set the record straight,” from the corner of your eye, you see Claire shift from behind you to beside Chrissy, “Nothing happened after dinner last night!”

“Nothing?” Andy leans closer, other students pause and circle. It sickens you more than when you had the actual flu over winter break.

You can’t bear the way people look at you, like you’re wicked. A temptress in Molly Ringwald’s clothing. Slamming a palm into Andy’s chest so hard he stumbles, you feel blood broiling in your face as you shout, “Nothing!”

“Not even dessert?”

You saw the musical Chicago with Claire and Chrissy over summer - then again with your mother, and again with Lucas (who sang its criticism and insisted it would be terrible before he even saw it). From that very first viewing, your favorite character was Velma Kelly, who claimed to not even know her husband and sister were dead until she was washing the blood off her hands.

And, similarly, you honestly don’t remember kicking Andy Johnson in the balls so hard he red-faced, neck-veined bawled on the pavement. You happen to wind up in counselor Kelley’s pink-bricked office by chance.

“That story is not going to pass, young lady,” Kelley folds her hands across the laminate surface of her desk, a pointed stare poisoning you from beneath her bangs.

“Well, what am I supposed to say, Ms. Kelley?” your eyes burn with tears and mascara waterfalls have freshly dried against your cheeks, “Obviously, I kicked his kid cauldrons but he totally deserved it! He spread an awful rumor about me, he doesn’t deserve the other cheek!”

Kelley pushes off her desk and settles deep into her wheeled office chair, one hand clutching either armrest, “I really thought you were it. Honestly. Captain of the debate team, excellent GPA, loved by the entire school,” she presses her apple tinted lips thinly, “I’m very disappointed in you.”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

“Ignore it,” you huff and she drives the knife deeper, “It’s the last day of school, nobody would have remembered it past summer.”

“So what? This is all my fault?”

Kelley shrugs and you want to puke all over her black flats and sea phthalo rug, “I’m sorry, but what do you want me to say?”

Your lips pull impossibly down and a tightness curls in your lungs. Darkness looms, and there’s a terrible sense of evil that drips like tar off the rungs of your ribs. In a broad picture, this is far from the overbearing death sentence you feel brewing, but you can’t look at it from that lens. It’s too fresh, like if someone wedged their thumb into a gunshot wound.

At least Velma got to kill the people that screwed her over.

“You’re being put on a probation period for next year,” she tilts her head, “if you return,” another round of mascara leakage follows her words, “If you return next year, you will not only be stripped of your title as captain of the debate team - you won’t even be on the team. And you’re going to be serving five weeks of Saturday detention,” Kelley stands and moves to stand in front of her desk, both hands supporting her against the surface, “I know you’re a good kid, but I think you should try conducting yourself with a little more… respect.”

Your jaw hangs loose, “Ms. Kelley- “

She puts up a finger and walks around you to the door, shouldering it open and jerking her head towards the hall, “You’ll also be sent home early. Clear out your locker and say goodbye.”

You jelly-leg your way out of Ms. Kelley’s office, desperately clinging to the walls and lockers as you make your way through the winding corridors. Dry heaving, you barely manage to muscle out of the building without puking.

“Hey, Pretty in Pink! You okay?”

It’s no surprise that super senior Munson is still lingering around the grounds, he’s smoking against the hood of his tin can van. Eddie is a perfectly fine person when you’re not intimidated by the Satanic mask and robes he parades himself in. Sure, he reeks of weed and doesn’t brush his hair, but he isn’t a bad person.

“That’s a movie title, not a person, asshole!”

But you’re in no particular mood.

He sits up and off the van hood, meandering over as you hobble past the student parking lot, “You look like you died.”

“Maybe I did, what’s it matter to you?”

He quiets, slowly walking beside you, “You, uh, wouldn’t happen to need a ride home, would you?”

Walking home from Hawkins High would be a stab in the gut while you’re down. And it isn’t like your social standing could possibly fall further on its ass.

That jabs the thumb in your gunshot wound.

You sniffle and feel the tears blot your waterline, Eddie stutters back - his hands fly up in defense as you hiccup a sob. Throat squeezing shut and shoulders scrunching to your chest like the most agonized accordion. You feel childish - highlighted in pink and runny makeup - wailing in front of Eddie Munson.

How could he?

A scream is bubbling beneath the surface and Eddie so kindly guides you to his van, a hand hovering over your shoulder, “Okay, I’ll just assume you’re having a shit day and not full of Munsonphobia.”

A face wash and steaming shower later, you’re sitting in front of the boob tube with America’s darling Jeopardy. Your mother sleeps fitfully upstairs while your father is still bored in his cubicle prison. That terrible something brewing inside you surfaces from your stomach acid when the phone chimes and rattles. You fling a hand out to the side table and raise it, “Hello?”

“Hey!” Claire. You can imagine her twirling the cord around her finger and that brings a sliver of hope. The hope is swallowed by that previous brew, “So.”

“Uh oh,” you curl into the corner of the couch, legs tugging up to your chest and a pillow brought to press your side, “‘So’ isn’t good, what’s ‘so’ mean?”

You hear her suck in a sharp breath, “So, me and Chrissy have been thinking, and we’ve decided that maybe we all, you know, take this summer to maybe process what happened today.”

A bizarre thing for your best friend to say, no?

“What is there to process?” your legs swing down, you lean forward, almost falling nose-first into the carpeted floor, “Claire, you know he’s lying!”

“Yeah, but you assaulted him in the middle of the quad! Girl, you have to know how insane that was,” you’ve been called that a lot.

By the people who know you beneath the sugar and snap peas, at least. But Claire Green is just as bad, if not worse. She once didn’t talk to you for three months because you accidentally spilled beer on her favorite dress - it was miserable.

“You’re kidding!”

She wasn’t.

“Good luck,” you’ve heard her speak sincerely before, and this was not one of those times, “Honestly. I’ll call, okay?”

You squeeze the pillow at your side, so tight that you’re almost worried the stitching will pop between your fingers. Your jaw screws tight, clenching, “Okay.”

The scream crawls up from your throat and splatters against the throw pillow you’re clutching.

Honestly, you’ll take being fired from the Hawkins AMC to save them money if it just meant that you’d stop seeing all the Edvard Munch scream faces of the peers that forsake you. Though, maybe the Starcourt mall isn’t the perfect place to apply if you’re seeking refuge from seeing those peers every day.

“So, uh, what experience do you have?” Robin never once claimed to have the best social skills, but when the fallen princess of your high school stumbles in asking for a job - it just might make you feel a little worse, “Like, with… this?”

You drum your rose pink nails against your knee, “With ice cream parlors specifically? None, but I’ve been doing customer service since I was sixteen.”

Not super long ago, but Robin isn’t going to drill you on when exactly that was.

Robin has always found you charming, since those early days on the playground in Hawkins Elementary to, well, now. With nectarine smiles and cozy aura, you always entranced her whenever you two spoke. Which was never often after elementary school, but still it counts.

“Okay, well,” Robin slides your resume over the backroom table, carefully dodging a mysterious stain that she’s certain is from Steve, “shockingly, we don’t have a ton of people applying so I’ll just,” she gestures wildly, “You’re hired.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she cards her fingers together awkwardly, “It’s also the last weeks of summer, so not a lot of people are looking for work anyway,” she tilts her head suddenly, “Technically I’m not supposed to just tell you you’re hired, so please don’t mention anything to,” she points at the cherry door to the floor room, “him.”

“Of course,” you stand as she does, smoothing out your skirt with a shaky exhale, “I’m honestly just glad you considered me when you saw that it was, well, me that applied.”

“Oh,” Robin blanks, brows raising sharply, “Oh my God, I - you know - never believed that rumor.”

“Sure,” you fold your arms and she feels sick at the thought of making you uncomfortable, “It’s okay, Robin,” she’s shocked you remember her name, “Everybody believed that shit.”

One bonus to come from this entire nightmare is that you now don’t live in fear of swearing when Jason can’t barrage you with what ladylike behavior should be.

“No, really,” Robin gnaws her bottom lip, eyes threading to the clock above your head, “I, too, have a vendetta against those assholes. So, I sort of figured they were lying.”

“What’d they do to you?” you take precious care in not sounding as though whatever they did to her isn’t as bad as what they did to you.

Robin likes that. She’s always liked that about you. Your transparency.

“They bullied me,” she sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, eyes widening, “Like, a lot.”

“Are you serious?” you step forward, arms dropping boneless at your sides, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well I doubt it’s something they went bragging about to their local- “ she stops herself.

“Local what?”

Robin cringes, picking at her nail beds and looking down, “Airhead. Sorry.”

“It’s better than slut,” you lean against the cold marble counter, “Chrissy, too?”

“Technically no, but she never did anything to stop it either,” Robin joins your side, almost brushing arms.

“I wish we could just…” you hold up your hands in a choking motion, fingers flexing tight, “fuck up their lives, you know?”

“Why can’t we?” she turns, but you stare straight ahead.

“What if we get caught?”

Robin moves a little closer, leaning forward and tilting so you two are forced to lock eyes. She grins, “Just don’t be obvious. If we work together, people won’t see it coming. Nobody from school comes here ‘cuz Steve’s shattered ego scares ‘em off, they don’t know we know each other.”

“I dunno…”

Shrugging, Robin stumbles forward and grabs an ‘AHOY’ sailor hat, tossing it your way with all the plastic candor of someone experienced in thankless customer service.

“Then welcome to Scoops Ahoy! you are now a private in our navy,” she grabs a spare uniform and presses it into your chest, “And captain of scrubbing the poop deck. Newbie policy.”

“How long does that last?” you shudder at the thought.

“Two months,” she holds up a finger before you can groan and huff in cheap protest, “Or until Steve forgets - which is usually three weeks.”

“Awesome.”

Robin nods and grabs the silver handle to the door at your side, “Awesome.”

White, rose-patterned dress with lacing at the hems - you walk up to school alone for the first time since ever. Taking the bus to school was a new experience, too - usually, you would ride with Claire, but she failed miserably in her plan of calling over summer. Now, you find yourself searching for her.

There were years wasted that you felt needed repentance for. That or you needed her at your side again, and you refuse to accept that reality.

People’s heads twitch your way as you pass and it sends you right back to that May, what was months ago now feels like minutes prior. Your chest squeezes all over again - how cliche. You will it to stop but then you spot something even worse than a couple of underclassmen leering.

Claire linking hands with Andy, looking at him with bambi eyes as though he’s an angel among the clouds. She wears a blue sundress under a navy sweater. Chrissy stands beside her with Jason, swamped in a candy red dress with her own crimson sweater. You earnestly try not to stare, but coming back to school means business as usual. And business as usual means Jason Carver can't keep his fucking mouth shut.

“Hey!” he sings your name and dread curdles inside the bowl of your gut, “C’mere!”

You tense, both hands strangling one of your bag straps.

“Come on, you,” he waves a hand towards the group, laughing.

Chrissy and Claire glare at him before giving you wide-eyed stares. Patrick shuffles and glances on occasion. Andy doesn’t even look at you.

You don’t know which is the worst.

But Jason won’t shut up, so you make your way into the group that chumbaited you for the sharks, desperately trying not to let your knees buckle.

“Hey there, pretty girl,” Jason tilts his head, “Meant to call.”

“Of course,” you keep your head angled to the side, and for a moment you see Eddie Munson making his third trip into Hawkins High. He sees you, too.

And you’re brought back to that toddler tantrum of junior year’s last day.

“You understand, right?” he loops an arm around Chrissy and Andy matches, even pressing a kiss to the side of Claire’s head, “You’re not mad at my Chris or anything, right?”

Students gather and cling in a tight circle around you and your former friends. You feel hot-faced and watery-eyed all over again, “Jason, please- “

“Well, we just wanna be sure there’s no, you know, bad blood.”

Nobody runs to defend you. God, were these really the people you thought you’d be with forever?

“You did have a whole summer to cool off, after all,” Jason leans forward, smiling as if he’s untouchable. And as far as he and his leeches are concerned, they are untouchable. If you’re caught trying to poke the bear, its guidance counselor mother will rip your head off, “You wouldn’t hold a grudge like that for so long, would you?”

The oozy hellfire of people’s stares schlucks you into a corner. The only corner safe of Jason’s lava dump.

You grit your teeth and puppeteer your lips into something acceptable as a smile, “Of course, not.”

“Of course, not,” he fakes a punch to your shoulder, your breathing heavies and you know that as soon as he finally releases you, you’re going to find a broom closet to scream and cry in. His voice drops into a whisper and Andy’s impish lips curl, “Good girl. Was that so hard?”

How could they?

No.

How dare they?

You’re dabbing black tears away before they can drift or smear, you march straight to the band’s practice room - straight to the sound of wind instruments blaring their off-key tune. Your hand slams against the chipped blue paint of the practice door.

Brass handle crashes through the doorstop and you watch Robin jump five feet from her chair, big ocean eyes blown wide at your frame in the doorway.

“Alright,” you sniffle and Robin stands, careful yet shaky hands coming to your arms. You give up the fight of saving your makeup and wipe away the budding tears, “Let’s do it,” she quirks a brow at you, “Let’s do revenge.”

Robin twists, looking around the still, cautious faces of her bandmates before dragging you into the costume closet they share with the theater department.

“What happened?” her mouth opens and closes, not unlike a fish, as she drums up some idea of how to comfort your tattered ego.

“Fucking Jason,” you choke on the lump that never quite faded since May, “He humiliated me,” you roll your eyes and Robin carefully brushes a thumb under your leaky eyes, “What else is new?”

“Do you wanna hug?” she steps back, arms flinging wide at her sides, “I know we aren’t, like, best friends or anything and we just sort of work together, but- “

“No, no, I need this,” you shake out your hands - deep breath in, deep breath out, “I want to be mad right now,” you grab Robin by the arms and pull her close, practically nose to nose, “We are gonna fuck those Madonna mule-fuckers up, Buckley.”

“Woah,” she laughs, a raspy, deep sound, “Chills.”

“Thank you,” releasing Robin, you nod curtly, “Now, with my intel and your unassuming status, we can really pull this off.”

“Who do we go after first?”

You fold your arms, eyes falling to the brown splotched carpet, “You ever play Kung Fu Master?” she shakes her head, bobbed hair shifting with her movements, “Well, as you fight - the opponents get harder.”

“Oh, like Destroyer?”

“Sure,” you swing your backpack around to hang off your chest, pulling out a notebook and flipping to a blank page. Robin watches you scribble, pressing her back to the wall and eyeing the names you plant, “The easiest to take down is Patrick McKinney. He doesn’t really stand out, and he isn’t the strongest guy in Jason’s circus. Generally smart.”

“Is there a but coming?”

“But,” you jab a finger at the notebook.

McKinney - ailurophobia. only showers when everyone else leaves. trusts Lucas

“I’ve babysat Lucas Sinclair since I was thirteen,” you move onto the next boss in your makeshift, live-action game, “he’s our man on the inside on this one.”

Robin almost gasps at the next name down your list, “Cunningham? As in- “

“Chrissy - yeah. She also isn’t very asshole-ish, or vengeful. Also not super strong, her bones are like a baby bird’s, so she honestly won’t be too hard. But we have to make sure there’s something we can hang over her head or else she’ll say something. If she says something,” you point your eraser’s end in Robin’s face, “it’s game over.”

Cunningham - deathly afraid of spiders, baby bird bones

“Who's next?”

You can’t help but to laugh at the twisted fates that led you here, “Claire Green. My former best friend. The biggest backstabber in school with the ability to hold a grudge longer than a life sentence. Not nearly as influential as Chrissy, but she’s incredibly smart. At that point, we need dirt on both Chrissy and Patrick because no matter how hard we try to cover our asses, she’ll know anything weird in her life is my fault.”

Green - hates going out in the rain, Goddamn does she hate getting dirty

“Then Jason?”

“Nope!” you chirp, looking at Robin with a grin that sparkles, “He’s last. Next, we have Andy. A pure monster. Nothing but a stupid, popular monster.”

“Like Dracula?”

You giggle and Robin leans closer into your side, “Like Dracula.”

Johnson - dad is the pastor, hated by Eddie with the fury of 1,000 suns

“Now Jason?”

“Now Jason,” you finish your hurried jots and press the notebook into Robin’s chest, “No known weaknesses other than the fact he’s an arrogant stain on the state of Indiana.”

“Great, so,” Robin tosses up a hand, “how exactly do we get the dirt on Patrick and Chrissy to keep their mouths shut?”

Your gaze drifts from the rosy freckles of her cheeks to a miniskirt and shoulder-padded overcoat. It reminds you of the women you see on the local Hawkins news channel.

Robin’s head turns, “Is it stained? What’s wrong?”

“Do you have a microcassette recorder?”

“No,” she wets her cherried bottom lip, “but I know someone who does.”

Steve Harrington - a casual enjoyer of all sorts of piracy.

Robin never suspected his consistency in low-level crime would pay off.

You look at her through your lashes and something in her chest stutters, “You wanna get some cats with me after school?”

“Clever way of begging for pussy.”

“Ew,” you put up a finger, “never again, Buckley. Never again.”

Under the promise - a solemn swear - of getting the delightfully purring bundles of fur in your arms a good home, Mrs. Burman allowed you and Robin to take five cats off her hands at the shelter. Mrs. Burman was kind when other adults slammed their doors in your face - she heard the rumors, by now everybody had. That didn’t cloud her judgment, though.

Patrick hates nothing more than showering in front of his fellow men - it feels exposing, like stage spotlights directly in the face kind of exposing. And what he hates next to that, is being wrong.

A locker door clinks shut and he clenches the eggshell towel tighter around his waist.

“Hello?”

Silence stills him.

A moment wades by. Another follows.

Patrick clears his way to the bench and hurries through his dressing routine, at least until he notices that his shirt has vanished.

He feels the thrumming of his skin and places an open palm on the cracked metal door to his locker. Something pushes back. Sharp and quick into his hand. Patrick’s knees hit the varnish bench and he stumbles, sliding down the lockers behind him until his ass hits the cruel linoleum. The metal door is batted open and between the slot peeks a furry, muddy white face. Terrifyingly sparkling blue eyes that linger.

A mew cracks and paws pitter out of his locker, gracefully bouncing onto the bench, and right to the edge of the wood. The kitten pops onto his chest and Patrick tilts his face, neck craning as far from his nemesis as possible.

You and Robin lock eyes behind the wall of metal cages. Two cats huddled under either of your arms. Crouching carefully to the scratched linoleum, you both set one of the kittens loose from your holds. They scamper along the checkered lines before nuzzling into the divots of Patrick’s ribs.

Getting Lucas to sneak you both into the boys' locker room after everyone else had left was easy - ice cream bribes for a week easy - but getting him to squeeze catnip into the body wash Patrick used was harder.

“Why’d you lie, Patrick?” Robin murmurs, he doesn’t recognize her voice because of course, he wouldn’t, “Why do you hurt, Patrick?”

You slough another cat onto the patched shine and grin when the man behind the bench whimpers.

Robin holds one cat between her arms, she eyes you wearily and you nod her along. Creeping around the corner of the lockers, Robin cards her fingers through the ginger hair of the cat in her embrace. You imagine she looks powerful.

Like the sun. Or the ocean.

He doesn’t even recognize her face.

Maybe you underexaggerated how much of an asshole Patrick McKinney could be.

But Robin decides that it takes too long to explain their history, so she pins this chance encounter elsewhere.

“Why would you lie?” she tilts her head and the ginger in her arms claws to be let down.

“I didn’t say anything!” Patrick’s eyes are screwed shut, face blighted away from the purring balls of fur on his chest, “I never said a word!”

Robin, as if she can sense your thoughts in her throat, says exactly what you think, “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” she kneels to his side and digs into the pockets of her sunshine yellow shorts, “You want help, Pat?”

He nods helplessly. Breath thick and brows glistening with sweat.

She laughs, honest to God, and presses the cold end of Steve’s microcassette recorder into his throat.

“Alright, sweetpea,” Robin pulls the recorder back and rubs her thumb into the bowl of the red record button, “I’ll get the cats outta here if you can look me in the eyes and admit that you knew that blow job was all a lie.”

“Why do you even care?” he snaps.

“I just hate to see a promising young woman’s life ruined. Now,” Robin holds the cat closer to his glaring face, clicking the recorder alive as he sucks in a breath.

“Andy Johnson was lying through his fucking teeth about the blow job and I knew it! All our friends knew it! Now, get these fucking cats off me, freak!”

Coming to a stand, Robin lays the ginger ripping at her sleeve onto Patrick’s chest as she ends the recording.

“Thanks for cooperating, McKinney!”

You two share a high-five that echoes in the hallway as you storm off.

Following the hitched success, you and Robin collect and split the kittens between Dustin and Eddie. For the low, low price of free - an unbelievable deal. And it’s from the Forest Hills trailer park that you drive Robin home in a candy red 1985 Audi 5000S. Suddenly, there’s a gasp and Robin’s hand slams into the dashboard - you glare and she mouths a spoonful of apologies.

“Just - oh my God - how’re we gonna get the literal queen of Hawkins High?”

You would roll your eyes if you weren’t focused on navigating towards the pink house with red shutters that homes Robin Buckley, “That is so easy.”

One excuse note and one hall pass - both doctored - later, you and Robin are skipping third period to sit, sweaty and deranged, on the metal skeleton of the stagelight crane. Freshmen quarter club rush in Hawkins takes the form of many club and extracurricular leaders selling themselves to the incoming students. Chrissy is next.

Your legs dangle from the open spots in the cage’s hollow, Robin warily eyes the rusted bucket sat between you both - tied to one of the crane’s rungs by thick rope.

“They’re trying to climb up, I’m not kidding - look,” your eyes stick like paste to where the new debate club president advertises himself to the crowd. Robin huffs and leans, continuing to peer inside your bucket, “I honestly can’t even believe I’m doing this. This is crazy. You’re crazy. I don’t- “

“Shut up, Buckley,” you snap a hand over your mouth as soon as the words leave. She looks like you just stabbed her - Brutus to Caesar cruelty, “I’m so sorry. Oh, Robin,” you lay a hand to her shoulder across the bucket, “I didn’t mean that. I’m just- “

“Agitated and irritated?” Robin suggests, rose petal lips tilting up, “Me too. It’s fine, just try to not do that again.”

“Of course,” you realize you’ve held her for too long and pull your hands into your lap, legs swinging, “You know, I was president of debate before… everything.”

“Yeah,” Robin leans her chin onto the rod that reeks of iron, “I think everyone knew,” she sighs through her nose, head quartering to look at you through her lashes, “You know what you didn’t know about me?”

“Of course, I don’t know if I don’t know.”

“Shush,” she bites her bottom lip just to hold her grin from growing too wide, “I was in theater. Freshman year. And first semester sophomore year.”

“No shit?” you chuckle, quiet and restrained, “Well. Something not a lot of people know is that I was in chess.”

“Are you serious?” her jaw drops, neck hanging over the banister, “No fucking way.”

“Yes fucking way,” you look down, tempted to drop a boot straight onto the new debate president’s head, “I hate him.”

“You two know each other?”

“Not really.”

She giggles, and that makes the wait for Chrissy a little bit better.

Robin’s previous upset returns when Chrissy stands a little more to the left than what was planned. She curses, “dammit”, and digs into her navy shirt’s collar down into her bra. You watch with knitted brows as she pulls out a dime and hangs it above the queen bee’s skull.

Like a pin it dollops right into her scalp. You gasp and she shrugs.

“Ouch!” Chrissy cups the tender spore, stumbling over her shoes into the correct spot.

Before you get to laugh, Higgins begins to search upwards. Hurriedly, you yank your legs through the holes and Robin attempts to duck from his line of sight. Her knee knocks the bucket and nearly sends the tin of eight-legged spindles right onto you. Fumbling hands attempt to catch it, but it only slips. You roll onto your hip, dodging the spiders and latching onto the pail to fling it over the edge of the crane.

Since you’ve known Chrissy Cunningham, she has always made you take care of the little arachnids - big or small, deadly or friendly - they all petrified her to her very bones.

And now that she’s a big bad teenager, she takes initiative to sling a scream and run rather than freezing up.

Robin ducks low as she waddles down the side of the crane, you following after. Higgins studies the metalwork as it rattles and you barely manage to unhook your skirt from a stray spoke before he comes around to the ladder. Your peachy skirt tore near the thigh and Robin hates how she stares, but she can’t bring herself to look away.

Robin takes you by the hand, shaky and sweaty, but you don’t say a word because your palms are just the same. You two slam to a squeaky stop in front of the home ec. room - giggling, you share a look. A look turns into a stare.

“We almost got caught because of your ass!” Robin snickers, fingers trailing to the soft material of your skirt.

“You got down fast enough, racer,” you nudge her arm with yours, “Good job, by the way, it’s as impressive as it is concerning that you can hop ladders.”

“And good job on gathering those spiders,” she leans against the pale popcorn wall and tilts her head to meet her shoulder, “How’d you get them anyway?”

“Munson said he owed me a favor for the cats,” you join her side at the wall. Arm to arm. She feels warm.

Footsteps call your name.

Robin pauses. You’ve been frozen since you caught the first glance of who had walked in.

Chrissy Cunningham stands in the middle of the abandoned hallway, fists balled beneath the hanging material of her varsity jacket. Her chest rises and falls like she’s ran the width of Indiana. She ignores Robin entirely.

“Did you have anything to do with it?”

You should’ve known better than to stop here - there was a bathroom at the end of the hall.

Now she looks at Robin. She recognizes her, unlike Patrick.

“Did you?”

You step up, Robin pushed behind you. You set your face stern and hold Chrissy’s attention, “I poured them.”

You’ve never seen Chrissy so mad. Not once.

But now, she’s earnestly pissed, “Why?!”

“You ruined my fucking life, Christine.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Robin watches you two trade blows like you’re the best of tennis players.

Chrissy continues, her fist flying to her chest, “It isn’t my fault that you got fucked over!”

You feel like you’ve been shot straight through the heart, “It’s all your fault, Chris. You could’ve said something! You have more power here than anybody, you should’ve said something - we were friends!” tears cool the heated skin of your face as they drip, “Maybe if you could get out from under your douchenozzle boyfriend’s thumb, you’d see what a colossal bitch you’ve been.”

With a shriek, Chrissy darts forward and wraps her bird-boned arms around your waist. Your back hits the floor with a thud and you’re winded - Robin tries prying the queen off of you but Chrissy flings an elbow back and it crunches Robin’s nose. Your nose copies when she curls a fist and punches you - blood crawls down your throat and leaks onto your tongue.

Non-vengeful may have been the wrong label then.

You wring her neck in your hands and push against the fill of her throat, stiff-arming until she heaves and pulls away. Before she can gather herself, you get on top and push an arm into her chest to hold her down. Robin kneels at your side reflexively and presses the recorder to Chrissy’s lips.

“Admit it!” you crush harder into her chest when she’s silent, “Admit it, Christine!”

“It doesn’t matter,” she spits, kicking her legs under you, “Nothing will change - you’ll still be fucked because nobody cared that much anyway!”

Robin looks to you, face pinched in concern.

You pick Chrissy up by the collar of her jacket and slam her back into the ground. She thuds, echoing through the halls, “Say it!”

Chrissy gives in because, of course, she does. As peculiar as it is to have her fight you, her rage doesn’t last long because it’s still her. When the Jason Carver influence disappears, it’s just her. And she tearfully submits to your prolonged hatred.

“Andy lied about the blowjob and we all knew it.”

You stand with Robin’s help, spitting a glob of mucus and blood onto the floor, “Clean that. And if you say anything about this, just remember who tackled who.”

Robin deletes the message counselor Kelley leaves detailing her absence as you kick off your shoes at the front door. Following that, you end up on her bathroom counter - Robin standing between your spread legs. She holds a pack of frozen carrot slices to your bruising (but thankfully not broken) nose.

“You were kind of terrifying back there,” she admits, pressing the frostbitten plastic closer to your skin.

“Sorry.”

“No,” Robin chuckles, thick and raspy through soft lips, “It was kinda hot.”

Your lips drop flat. Brows raising hairline high.

“What?”

Robin stands back, arm still extended to hold the carrots in place, “No- not like. You know. Not like- “

“Robin, are you? Are you into girls?”

The carrots pop against the ground, splintering apart from the impact. She steps further back, but you grab her wrist before she can yank it to her side. Robin swallows rough.

“It’s okay, Robin- Robin,” you lean in, “I like girls, too.”

Something difficult to come to terms with when you were younger, but watching Grease is admittedly more fun when you don’t have to lie to yourself and say you’re only watching for John Travolta.

Robin finally releases her tense shoulders and grins, both parts skeptical and good-natured, “No fuckin’ way.”

Slowly, you nod, pulling her back between your legs, “Yes fuckin’ way. Now you’ve got a storm to bandage,” you point straight at the bridge of your nose, “Right here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Robin rolls her eyes and picks up the carrots by her foot. Reaching into the medicine cabinet, she pulls loose a cotton pad and medical tape, “What was your life like? Before… everything.”

You assume she asks to keep your mind off the pain to come, but it feels nice to be asked about yourself. Or, at least, how you’ve changed.

“It was kinda weird,” you close your eyes as Robin closes in, her soft breath caresses your cheeks and something like affection blooms there, “Super weird. It always felt like I had to act like this good girl from some fucked up movie.”

“Mmm, you’re still pretty prissy and pristine.”

“Yeah, but now I can say ‘fuck’ without getting lectured about my lack of ladylike behavior.”

She laughs and you grin at the sound.

“What’re you hoping for?” you imagine she sticks her tongue out when she focuses. You’re scared to make eye contact though, scared of what it might insinuate. What it might lead to.

“I don’t even know,” you admit, “I just want them to know they made a mistake crossing me. I want them to feel like if I could, I’d run them down with my car.”

“Would you?”

You remain silent. Three seconds pass before you teasingly shrug. The two of you giggle and it's something from a romcom, only now there is no John Travolta or Judd Nelson. And maybe you two prefer it this way (you definitely do).

“What’d they do to you?”

Robin’s finger shakes and knocks the tender cartilage of your nose, a million little apologies following soon after.

“Just, you know, the basics,” she forces a laugh, hollow and thin, “making fun because I ramble and say things I shouldn’t and can’t pick up on social cues. I also don’t have a lot of friends - I mean they’re all either acquaintances from band or my coworkers… clearly.”

“What was ‘making fun’?”

“Oh, just - gum in my hair, stealing my homework, dead animals in the locker, dog shit on the lawn.”

“Jesus, how did I not hear about that?”

“Don’t know. They were pure evil.”

Robin pats your knee when she’s finished patching you up. Your eyes flutter to life and she holds out a hand to help you off the bathroom counter’s water-and-soap-scummed surface. Electric shocks tingle from her hand to yours.

She thinks over the time. Your peers aren’t even at lunch yet, “You wanna get ice cream?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

You two don’t hold hands as you get ice cream, but something sugary strings you together. You can feel it. Bubblegum and banana split delights are just the cherry on top.

It’s a nice break before you potentially get your ass kicked again by another former best friend.

The hoods and bonnet and beanies may have been a touch too far, but you’ve always had a taste for the finest flair (and protecting your hair from the bullying of mother nature). And flair kindly distracts you from the way that Claire and Andy are kissing in the frame of her bedroom window. She did always hate going out in the rain.

Robin holds you by the shoulder, stray hairs clinging out from under her beanie to the sides of her face. You find the burn of your eyes there, when you look away from Claire’s familiar bedroom lights. Years spent under those lights - daytime, nighttime, fun, fear, tears, the lights have seen it all. When her parents were home and when they were away, like they are now.

Before Robin can grant you pity and sorrows, you shove the plastic package of toilet paper into her arms, “Let’s fuck this bitch up.”

You rip open seemingly endless flat packets of instant mashed potatoes of varying flavors - cheddar, garlic, garlic cheddar, and Vermont sour cream and chives. With speed and intent, you dump flavored white powders along the paved walkway. Some of it splits into the gassy lawn as Robin throws toilet paper clumps at vacant windows and the surrounding plant life.

Your one-woman mashed potato brigade is stopped on the first lines with one glance into the bedroom window.

Andy is rolling the mint green shirt from Claire's body, exposing a midnight black bra. It takes you back.

How Andy would flirt like you were a delicate princess and he a mere peasant boy. How Claire helped you dress and prep for the date. How Claire picked you up after dinner. How excited Andy seemed when you agreed to go out. How excited you were when your parents finally agreed that you can go out.

How mad he was when you said you didn't want to go any further than hand-holding.

What aches most is Claire's betrayal. You actually, foolishly, thought that maybe the two of you would still be friends after the disaster of May. At least until that call. Her call.

With all the might in your body, the last meaningful hand of instant mash powder is launched right at Claire's bedroom window. Clarity hits you when it splats thickly and they jump.

Hurriedly, you grab Robin by her black long-sleeve and drag her into the rose bushes that separate the Green and Schumer houses. She goes down first, back into mulch - you follow, elbows holding you up. Noses separated by a hair's width.

"Hi," you're quiet. Whispering against her apple lips.

"Hi."

"Shh."

"You- “ you cover her mouth before she can respond.

Claire pops the front door open, holding a silk, plum robe together at the chest. Andy lingers in the background.

You roll off of Robin as she wails at the mess from her doorstep. Robin hates when you move, but she'll accept the lackluster dance party to the tunes of Claire Green's misery. Small wiggles and finger disco, but it makes you both giggle quietly.

As far as either of you can hear, Andy makes no move to step forward and comfort your former best friend.

From within the bushes, Robin claws up mudded dirt and flings it at Claire's expensive robe. You gape and clamp a hand over your mouth to keep from giggling too severely. The both of you crawl away, coming to a stand in the Schumer's vegetable garden backyard.

Lovingly, you swipe mud and dirt from her frayed, peeking hairs and face and she watches you clean your palms on black leggings.

"Sorry we didn't get a confession from her."

"Whatever. I already have two. One straight from the Cunningham herself.”

Robin follows as you begin over the garden fence and back down the sidewalk to your home. Her fingers twist over one another and she feels her mouth run dry.

"Really," she starts, "I'm sorry. About everything."

"It's fine," you slow your pace to be at her side, "I kinda just don't want to think about it."

"You probably should, it isn't healthy to bottle things up."

It isn't healthy to enact revenge either.

"It sucks, what else can I say?"

"Really, I think you should talk about it. It helps, like a lot."

"Why do you care?" you laugh but it's nothing except tense. Accusing.

Robin removes the beanie from her head and wrings it between her lithe hands, "'Cuz I know what it’s like. To get betrayed like that.”

“How would you?”

She pauses and you turn, her brows are furrowed and she looks prepared to yarf up her dinner, "You don’t remember at all?”

You blink once. Twice. Stupidly.

Robin breathes heavy, folding her arms, "We used to be friends, you know? In fifth grade. I told you I liked girls at a sleepover and you just… stopped hanging out with me," her eyes widen in show of her disappointment, "And then got super popular."

"Oh my God," you feel shame and dread tighten at your nerves, "I'm so sorry, Robin, I- I don't know why I did that. And I'm so, so sorry I didn't remember. That's so awful."

"I mean," she's shockingly understanding for someone so wronged, "I forgive you. I forgot what I had for dinner just a few hours ago. But if you're so inclined, you can make it up to me by actually opening up."

"What can I say?" you hug yourself, eyes drifting down, "It's terrible. Every day. People I thought were my best friends just lied and abandoned me for dead."

The tears finally cradle your face and Robin steps forward, taking you carefully in her arms. You latch to her, hands winding tight in her black shirt.

"They all got off free and I lost everything. And I have Saturday detention tomorrow with a teacher that just sleeps the whole time," you sputter a laugh, face warm against Robin’s, "I really, really hate that senior year is looking so shit right now."

"I hope revenge is sweet, at least."

You're silent for a moment. Pondering. You nod, beaming, "It is."

Something rattles in a nearby trash can and Robin pulls from the embrace, though her hand continues to hold yours.

"We should probably go get warm before we catch something. And before whatever is in the garbage bites us- " she's walking, dragging you by the hand, before you even get to reply, "I have a fear of rabies, actually."

"Seriously?"

"Hey, you ever seen Cujo? That shit is real, it takes over your mind."

"Yeah, I'm sure," you squeeze her hand playfully, "Totally not insane."

"It isn't," she stresses, though even that front cracks into sprinkles of laughter, "I'm totally justified, everyone else is just insane."

"Of course."

"For real!"

"Never said I didn't believe you."

The trek home is tedious and rainy, but Robin makes it easier to swallow. Like sugar to cough syrup. Or whatever Mary Poppins said.

Your final Saturday detention and Ms. Click is already head back, open-mouthed, freight train snoring asleep. You almost wish there was a princess, basket case, nerd, criminal, and jock there to save you from such unending boredom. And despite being schlucked into such an unforgivingly plain and exhausting field, you feel better than you did the first time. Maybe it's because this is your last one. Maybe it's because Robin promised to pick you up afterwards.

Either way, you feel better now.

Eased and content, at the very least. Willing to let things go as they are, even if the only two left on your revenge roster are the main villains. It most certainly helps that Robin seems to enjoy being around you as much as you do her.

A knock clouds the glass of Ms. Click’s classroom. Your attention snaps and you see Robin Buckley, the woman of your hour, waving you over excitedly. She points over her shoulder at the bike she’d obviously ridden over. It’s castleton green with purple tassels on either handle - very loved, very mud splattered from years of use. You look at her like she’s insane - as far as you know, she genuinely might be - and she just continues to wave and point to her bike with the basket on it.

You rise from your seat, a glance from Ms. Clink’s stone cold knocked out position to the clock, then take great care in mouthing “theater”.

Robin meets you by the double doors at the side of the school - foolishly left open and unlocked.

“I have to be back at three, you know?”

She hooks a flanneled arm through the crook of your elbow and lugs you forward, toward her bike, “You’ll be safe and in your seat by 2:50, at the latest. And that’s a coveted Buckley Swear,” she puts up three fingers, as though a proudly honored boy scout.

The ride from school to the local replacement diner for Benny’s - Johanna’s (a cheap imitation, though the fries are truly award-worthy) - isn’t more than five minutes. Robin is such a slow biker, taking every handful of seconds to chat at a stop, that it soaks up seven minutes of your brief freedom.

Leather sticks to your skin from the booth, but your company is simply to die for.

“You know, I should’ve known something was off with Andy when all he could say about me was that I was pretty.”

Robin icks, sticking out her tongue at the man’s name, “There’s no way he and his friends are part of the men Dolly Parton’s begging Jolene to spare.”

“I know, I once got told that he cheated on a girl at a party when she was literally in the other room,” rethinking it, your entire time with Andy was a sign that he was everything but a decent guy, not that your rose-colored glasses could see red flags. They always just looked like plain old flags, “But I think I’m better now. I used to be nice, but it wasn’t really me. I changed everything about myself and those assholes were never satisfied.”

Robin grabs your hand, hidden behind the red plastic baskets that your meals were carried out in, “You’re still pretty nice now.”

You don’t know if you believe her, but the way she bats her lashes and simpers from fruity ripe and flower-pink lips just might convince you.

Robin rubs a tender thumb over your knuckles and speaks again, “Wanna know something?” you hum, popping one of Johanna’s to-die-for fries in your mouth, “Beethoven wrote Für Elise for a lady, and he wanted her to be able to play something easy, but impressive,” she snags a bite from her burger, holding up a finger as she chews, “But when he found out she was engaged, he made the other parts so complicated that she’d never be able to play it.”

Taking a sip of cola, you shake your head, “I don’t think that’s true.”

“I don’t either,” she snickers, “but I wanted you to feel better about our revenge agenda.”

“Well, I feel fine, thank you.”

“Here, I’ll tell you three truths about me - as an apology.”

Unnecessary, but you don’t plan on fighting her - not when you like the sound of her thin rasp as she talks.

“I was told to never say food tastes bad, so I would say ‘unlucky’. I once cracked my neck and then my nose started bleeding. Once when I was checking out a couple customers at Family Video, their toddler kept saying ‘fuck’ until they left.”

“Thank you,” you tilt your head, “It sounds like you lead a very interesting life.”

“Hm, yes, I went from outcast dork to protecting the world from a gloop monster and Russians with two of the most popular kids from school and then helping the fallen Hawkins princess get revenge on the new most popular kids in school,” she ponders, stark silent for just a second, “I actually have the most boring life imaginable.”

Nodding, you stand and smooth out your skirt, “Yeah, actually, sounds like it. I’ll be in the bathroom, don’t have too much fun without me.”

“Impossible.”

When you return from the eventful fun of the Johanna’s bathroom run, you spot two towheaded nerds dazzled in varsity jackets. They taint the marron-stained edge of your table, hands in their pockets as they talk down to Robin.

It makes you ill, the way they so easily spit up on the only person at Hawkins High to make you forget about that stupid May of ‘85.

“Why’re you obsessed with her all of the sudden?”

Jason should mind his business, you think.

Robin doesn’t speak. It’d be bizarre if the two were more welcoming.

“We both know what you’re doing,” Jason leans down, hands flat on the table and his gaze piercing through her freckled cheeks, “and I hope you know that the only reason we haven’t done anything is because of Chrissy and Patrick.”

“If you’re trying to scrape the remains of her popularity, you’re pathetic,” Andy tilts his head, she liked it more when you did it, “A reject.”

Robin takes it quiet, eyes straight ahead and hands folded across her lap, because she wants them gone as soon as possible so that you don’t have to deal with either of them. You do see them, though, and you decide to deal with them.

“Get the hell out of here,” you’ve grown since the beginning of the year - something more confrontational, “What do you two think you’re doing? There’s no glory holes here, so you’re both out of luck.”

Andy shucks your shoulder with his as he passes, Jason steps on your shoe, and both glare. Deadly and thin and built with all the spite that one could handle.

You thought you could change your mind, really you did. But you watch the evil wrapped in loose, folding jackets leave through sliding automatic doors, and you feel a wickedness crawl the length of your spine.

They just chose the worst way to get you off their back. Now you’re coming back. Like fucking lice - you’ll come right back with immunity to all their potions and charms.

You grab Robin by the elbow, continuing to glare out the windows. You imagine that they’d be set ablaze if it were possible. Robin shudders under the hatred you radiate.

“We have to come up with something totally fucked up for the ringleaders of Hawkins High,” your faze turns down to Robin, blazing, “We have to ruin their lives.”

She grins lopsided, brows raising, “I’m kinda scared but really interested, is that bad?”

“Not particularly.”

Hawkins Highs opens approximately thirty minutes before seven o'clock, depending on who's working that morning. You and Robin meet at the unlocked double doors five minutes before seven - when the football team arrives for their daily congregation. You're digging into your (dated) bell-bottom pants' pockets while Robin is elbow-deep in her backpack.

She nudges her head towards your hip, "How much did he charge you?”

"Not a cent,” you beam, braggy and bright, “Mr. Munson was more than glad to donate to a worthy cause.”

"Lucky," Robin grumbles, faux glare as she pulls out the neck of a communion wine bottle, "I almost shit myself fifteen times trying to get this stupid wine.”

"Sorry, sorry," you crack open the combination of Andy's locker and slip in the weed and one bottle of communion wine.

Next to that, you plant a bright pink paper slip. A bland secret admirer's note asking him to meet in the AV room as soon as he reads it. He'd be a fool to fall for it, but thankfully - a jester is exactly who you're dealing with.

Robin hands you the second wine bottle, shaky and splashy in her unnerved hands, "Are you sure about this?”

"Nope," you tuck the bottle under your shirt, as if it isn't still entirely obvious, "but it isn’t like I can find another way to ensure this asshole never comes back.”

Robin bites down her protests, fiddling with the edge of her frayed sleeve. And she holds those protests down as Andy finds his way into the AV room at 7:08 AM. She slides the lock shut behind him and hurries down the echoing hall towards the office.

The projector is flickering, but most certainly on. Andy can't sense it nor see it, but you're ducking behind the control panel. A single bottle of red clutched tight between your fingers.

Bumbling, you play the film reel loaded into the projector and hold your breath as your voice comes down from the speakers.

"Are you seriously recording this?"

"It's something to commemorate, baby."

A shaky, grainy image of you and Andy, side by side on one of his father’s pews, lights the projector. The camera flips and Claire’s beaming face comes alive. That night was the night that you three promised to stay together forever, seeing each other every break during college.

“I’ll be too busy being a star football player,” Andy insisted.

Claire joked that you two will have to frame him for steroid possession. You called her intense. She called you a sourpuss.

“Oh,” Andy laughs in real time with his video counterpart, “you’re pathetic.”

You feel it.

“Okay, you know what?” he creeps past the control panel you hide under, a hand thunking to the door handle and he pulls, “I’m going.”

His body leans fully, but the door doesn’t budge - he laughs, twisted and sick.

“Let me out,” when you fail to respond, he bangs on the door and you think the walls reverberate, “Let me out! You can’t keep me in here!”

You lay the bottle of communion wine and roll it down the gentle slope to the doorway. The glass smooths loudly along the floor and Andy sweats at the sound, he jumps shamefully when it bumps his sneaker.

Nervously, you peek up and flounder for the volume knob, turning it higher.

“You’re a bitch, and a fuckin’ coward!”

You crank the volume even higher.

“I could never actually ditch you. Either of you.”

His own words scathe him. Betray his wickedness for the both of you to pick apart like vultures to decay. He inspects the back rows for a body, closer and louder, heavier and thicker.

Before Andy gets the satisfaction of finding you, you pop out from beneath the panel - twisting the volume knob even higher. He turns on his planted feat and you watch his nostrils flare, face red and full of hate, “You fucking bitch!”

He charges forward and you refuse to run. Not when his rage was so accounted for.

Robin, meanwhile, puts on her best acting face from amateur freshman and (half of) sophomore year theater in countering to Ms. Kelley’s promise that if she was lying about the contraband in Andy’s locker - she’d be suspended. She twiddles her fingers and shakes her head, “No, I’m not exactly nervous about that…”

Higgins props open Andy’s locker and Robin mocks a gasp as a bottle of wine and a baggie of Eddie’s cream of the illegal crop are visibly at the forefront.

Kelley side eyes Robin, “Why are you nervous then?”

“Well, he was meeting someone in the AV room. That… girl that kicked him in the balls last year? She wanted to meet him, to apologize I think.”

Higgins and Kelley share a glance. Long enough for the social fear of teenagers and weed to lead their conclusions somewhere dark. Not that Robin exactly thinks Andy needed help with being seen as a dickhead.

You barely manage to dodge the wine bottle he throws, it smashes against the control panel and grape nectar rolls down the plastic lining until it stains the carpet. Glass rains near your feet and while you’re focused on not stepping on any, Andy grabs you by the shoulders.

His grip is tight, you think he might leave a bruise, “Why can’t you let this go, you fucking psycho? You gonna terrorize for the rest of high school? College? That’s pathetic.”

It’s hard to believe you were ever into him, “You people ruined my fucking life! Would you leave it alone if someone did that to you?!”

He tuts and grabs you by the collar, lifting you just slightly, “Guess I don’t have to find out, do I, whore?”

You were called that a lot. Men. Women. Young. Old. Familiar. Stranger. All because of a lie. All because of him.

Distant footsteps hang from the hallway and the door’s lock slicks back just as your video ends. Then more steps echo from behind the door, hot in their approach and Robin’s faint voice pipes up.

You tilt your head in faux innocence, “Don’t you?”

“What?”

You scream, something horrified and wretched, and the door swings open with a fury. Your throat burns when you’re done.

Kelley and Higgins smell the wine first. Then see the sparkling remains of a bottle splattered across the floor. Then the way his fingers are coiled into the collar of your shirt.

“Mr. Johnson,” Kelly snaps and he drops you, you fall helplessly, cutting your palm on the glass, “My office. Now!”

Higgins rushes to you, his smooth hands assisting you up as Robin carefully steps up from the background.

“I can take her to nurse, principal Higgins,” you find yourself more comfortable leaning on her tall frame, “While you deal with, you know- “ she eyes the doorway, where Andy is screaming about a setup and lies.

You two begin towards the nurse’s office and Robin doesn’t mention that you got blood on the side of her white shirt. She also doesn’t mention that you don’t technically have to be using her as support to walk, but that’s also for her own self-interest.

“That was equal parts psycho and stupid,” Robin looks at you, a brow raised, “You know that, right?”

“Of course,” you grin back, “It was worth it though. He’s gone and his dad is in hot water, at least for a bit.”

“You’re so dumb sometimes,” you two pause in the hall.

An electricity runs there. Right between you. It makes you screw your arms under hers, and she squeezes you just as tight. And it's as you hug Robin in that barren hallway, you remember, “Oh, shit, I left the video in there.”

“What’re you gonna do with it?” she pulls back, arms loose and limply thrown over your shoulders.

Her lips are tantalizing. That same apple - that same tree - that same snake.

“I dunno…” you shrug, hands roaming down to settle on her hips, “Wanna burn it with me?”

She ponders and you like how she likes your hands on her body, “Yeah. Actually. I’ve never burned film before.”

“It’s nothing big.”

“Sounds exciting, though.”

“Someone could really get hurt,” Jason gestures down to your bandaged hand and you cup it defensively to your chest.

You glare and you feel like hell itself clutches you by the cheeks as he talks, “Jason, you turned me into a social pariah just because you could, if I let you go before actually beating the shit out of you - consider it lucky.”

“You’re a psycho,” he looks around the band practice room that he dragged you into, “And this place smells like cat piss.”

“‘84 accident,” you deadpan, pushing him back by the chest when he attempts to strike past you to the door, “Wait.”

And now you’re pacing nervously across the fuzzy pink rug in front of Robin’s twin-sized mattress, freshly finished with your retelling of such a tale.

“I know what I want done, but I don’t know how we do it,” you pause before her.

“Well, what do you want done?” Robin moves to the edge of her bed, she looks at you like you’ve hung the moon - like you’re worthy of something, “I’ll do it. Trust me.”

“My hero,” you sit on her bed, the way you land making you straddle one of her thighs. You wrap your arms around her neck, “What would I ever do without you?”

“Be without your totally awesome revenge, probably.”

“Definitely,” you giggle and she returns the gesture in kind, “I want to record Jason admitting to everything. He’s meeting me at the Hawkins Elementary playground at 10 PM.”

“Let’s start simple,” Robin’s hands fall to your hips now, and maybe if you were brave you’d admit to yourselves what that meant, “We need a camera.”

You get a camera from Jonathan Byers.

“My mom’s old boyfriend left that, so…” he waves a hand about, looking more exhausted than pleased at the conversation, “Why do you guys need it anyway?”

You and Robin share a pointed look, her frosty blue fingertips tip-tap along the side of the camera patiently. You take a deep breath and fold your arms, “We need it to film Jason Carver admitting that he knew Andy was lying about the whole Enzo’s bathroom blowjob thing and that he turned my old friends against me. Then we’re gonna play it at homecoming tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan nods sluggishly, hands burrowing into his pockets, “Just, uh, don’t break it.”

And the filming location is scoped by the both of you later - a very bizarre and peculiar experience, being two teenagers perusing the local elementary school playground for a good filming angle.

Robin finishes her rig from behind the tire swing tree beside the real swing set, peering through the viewfinder to ensure that she has a full scene of you and, theoretically, where Jason would be.

“What now?” she steps out from behind the tree, all limb and lank and affection.

“Now,” you grab the camera and delicately hold it, “we buy Hawkins home pride for homecoming tomorrow.”

“Ugh, gross.”

“Whatever,” you roll your eyes good-naturedly and grab her by the hand, entwining your fingers, “think of it as a costume change before the big villain exposition.”

Undershirts hung over either arm, you wade through the skirts’ section with Robin. Two Hawkins High jerseys with Jason Carver’s number over the chest in bold white that you’d forgotten to toss out.

Robin ‘ooh’s and plucks a hanger from the section excitedly, shoving it right before your face. It’s pleated, green with white lining at the bottom - she then holds it beside the shorts she’d picked up for herself, split down the middle, half orange and half green.

“I think this is the final piece,” she nods assuredly, “This is perfect.”

“We still need to try everything on,” you grin as she groans and tucks the skirt into your grasp, “But yes, this is perfect.”

You step out of your respective dressing rooms in tandem, you clutch the strawberry fabrics between both hands and Robin feels her heart jump to her throat. You’ve got a green scrunchie around your wrist and cheesy orange sunglasses on your head - mirroring her own green headband.

Robin looks both ways down the hall and steps into the gray carpet wonderland that separates your rooms. She sighs ragged, pulling the straps of her white tank top closer to her neck, “I feel silly.”

“Me too,” you nod and drop the curtains as you come toe-to-toe with Robin, “but it’s dramatic as hell,” you reach up and remove the emerald headband, shaking it free from clinging, sun-bleached hairs. Pulling out her bangs, you settle the band behind her hanging strands, “You also look hot, so bonus.”

“Yeah, bonus,” she watches your lips, mostly.

It feels safe with you. Not in the way it usually feels safe with people she knows, but it feels like if she were to jump off a cliff then you would put a mega marshmallow bed for her to land on. Maybe it’s because she knows you like girls, too. Maybe it’s because you two are friends now, like officially. Maybe you’ve bewitched her.

“You look hot, too,” she swallows, dry and uneasy.

“Yeah?” you tease, stepping back and pulling loosely on the scrunchie snug around your wrist.

“God,” she plays off any desperation as a laugh, “yes.”

Dear God, yes. And it seems to be all she can think about when you’re driving her home in your candied Audi. Robin has had crushes before - Tammy Thompson and Vickie McNulty, to name a few tangible ones (Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, and Lisa Bonet, to name a few intangible ones). But they’ve never consumed her so thoroughly before.

She’s never smelt their perfume on her clothes after school and almost screamed (lovingly). She’s also never had cheesy inner monologues about how beautiful and fun they were.

But you’re just that incredible, she supposes.

She understands, now, your thought process in fifth grade. Or at least, she can get an idea. You must’ve been scared - for God’s sake it was only 1978 and David Bowie hadn’t exactly turned tides against bigotry. And now you’ve apologized. She feels better.

She circles back.

She’s had crushes that didn’t swallow her how you do. Does she…?

Honestly, it would be the least surprising thing to happen in her life so far.

Though, that realization makes her startle at the way you glance over, “What’re you staring at, huh, Buckley?”

“Nothing,” her head snaps forward, tossing back into the passenger side rest.

“Anything you wanna tell me? You look sick.”

“No,” she drags the vowels and you don’t believe her for a second.

But as soon as you’ve dropped her off at her house, you realize you can’t wait to see her again. In the way you used to impatiently wait to meet with Andy, but Robin would never do what he did. Robin is kind and trustworthy and you might just like her.

You most definitely do. And that’s a pill you have to swallow dry so that you can hurry home to prepare for ten o’clock that night.

At ten o’clock that night, you rock gently on the Hawkins Elementary swingset in the pink and white pinstriped dress you wore to Enzo’s on that spring date with the man to ruin your high school reputation.

“Could you be any more dramatic?” Jason has his hands buried in the pockets of his varsity jacket. A powerplay of his own, not that he’d ever admit it.

Looking up in an act of thinking, you hum before sneering, “This is way more fun.”

He rolls his eyes at you, “Anybody follow you here?”

“Not a soul.”

“You’re losing your mind with all this crazy revenge shit you’ve been doing,” he moves closer and you have to stand from the swingset to maintain a semblance of power balance.

“This isn’t even half of it,” you wring your fingers tighter around the iron-scented chains, “You people wanted an outcast, but I don’t think you realized what little an outcast has to lose. Unless, you know, you can go ahead and admit it now.”

“Fine,” he swings his hands out at his sides, “Everyone in the group knew Andy was lying through his teeth. Are you happy?”

“No,” you release the swingset chains and step closer to him, your shoes scuffing his white soles, “How did you convince my friends to turn against me?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he shrugs, “You kicked Andy in the balls and I made them matter,” he laughs and you want nothing more than to throttle him where he stands, “When you’ve got the entire pigsty, parasite, Podunk population of Hawkins High eating out of your palm - people don’t tend to turn their backs on you,” he reaches up and ghosts his fingertips along your cheek, “Unlike the whore that publicly assaulted Hawkins’ golden boy’s best friend.”

You feel the back of your throat burn.

Jason bends down and you want to jump away as his jacket brushes your legs, he picks up the bag at your feet.

“If I play these, and they’re fakes, you’re dead,” he points down the barrel of your face. You feel sick, like he’s stabbing you straight through the throat, “If you tell anybody about this, you’re dead,” he laughs and finally steps back, “Or, hey, maybe I’ll just tell everyone you tried humping my leg like a dog in heat.”

Jason looks into the bag and grins when he spots two cassette tapes. You roll your eyes at his jovial behavior.

He snaps, “Don’t roll your eyes at me, whore.”

Hawkins’ golden boy finally retreats back to his 1984 Jeep Cherokee and you wait until the thing is off property before beaming and turning to the tree with the tire swing.

“Did you get it?”

Robin pops out from behind and gives you a thumbs-up as she wrangles the camera down from its spot in the branches.

Honestly, it’s like the meathead never heard of making tape copies.

The next day, you stroll into Hawkins High for the pep rally with your film reel and confession tapes - decked in the tacky costumes you bought and tried on together. You feel pride and excitement bloom as Robin brushes through the tiled hallways with you at her side. You part at the AV room, with Robin going to jingle the projector to the gym while you sneak into the front office.

“Hey,” she catches you by the wrist, her lips gently tipping up at the sight of you.

“Hey,” you slide your hand up to entwine your fingers with hers, “Everything okay?”

Robin takes a deep breath, “I just…” she looks down and you tilt her head up by the chin, “Even if none of this goes well, I want you to know that I’ve had a lot of fun,” she thinks your lips would taste like the fruity lip balm you’re always wearing, “And I still wanna… be friends, when this is all over.”

Something about the way she hesitates in the title of friends elates you. But then again, being limited to that title burns. And you’ve turned into someone who isn’t satisfied keeping her thoughts to herself.

“Friends?”

Robin shrugs, “Yeah.”

“No more?” you realize the question as Robin gasps, you slap a hand over your mouth, “Sorry!”

“No, more,” she grabs the hand over your mouth and holds that one, too, “Yeah. More,” that nervous little raspy giggle you love peeks through and another wave of excitement gleans below your ribs, “More is good.”

You two share school girlish giggle and squeeze hands and you check both ends of the hallway for any sign of life. When you find none, you lean forward and give her a taste of the fruity lip balm she can always smell from the passenger seat of your car.

The apple is sweet and slightly chapped, and you think you love it.

There’s a twisted hesitance as you pull apart, you grin at her heavy blush and brush her hair back behind her gem-studded ear.

Kissing her cheek, you pull away slowly and it aches to leave her behind.

“Good luck, Buck,” she cringes, nose wrinkling and openly gagging, and you only laugh at her disgust, “Don’t get caught!”

You kneel at the announcement office door, your decade-old library card slithering between the crack in the door. It pops open and you sneak inside, hooking your cassette into the player for the PA system just as the walkie-talkie stuffing into the waistband of your skirt buzzes.

Muffled whispers attempt to blurt through your jersey.

You slip the walkie-talkie up to your ear, catching the tail end of Lucas’ whispering.

A click of the button and you’re speaking into the walkie, “Hey, sweet Sinclair, I’m gonna need you to repeat that.”

This time you catch the end of a thick sigh before he whispers, “Everyone’s in the auditorium and Jason is about to make his speech - so whatever you’ve got planned, you better hurry up.”

“Got it, captain, hang tight,” you flip to the channel you and Robin settled upon before school, “Did you get the scoop from Lucas?”

“Sure did. Projector’s all set up, too, and I’m under the bleachers.”

“Great,” you slip the walkie-talkie back into your skirt waistband and giggly press down on the siren engine red play button on the PA system.

And Patrick McKinney’s voice echoes through the hallways.

Robin pokes her face into the bleachers’ gap, she sees Patrick shy from the attention. Shrugging off his varsity jacket and bringing it up and over his head as he ducks down. Higgins runs off the stage and Kelley attempts calling to the masses through a microphone - it fails. And fails harder when the voice of Chrissy Cunningham autoplays next.

Chrissy leans down, whispering - hissing, rather - for her friends to hide her.

Meanwhile, at the office, you can hear heavy footsteps from the hall and manage to creep under the desk just as Higgins kicks in the door. He swiftly cuts around the desk and you squeeze under the desk’s high gap as the tape cuts off on its own. He rips out the cassette and turns it for a label or name while you crawl away and out the door.

Robin clicks on the film projector from between the bleacher slats and she watches Jason look back from beside Kelley when his own voice rings in the auditorium.

He sees himself, and you, by the Hawkins Elementary swingset.

“What the fuck?”

Kelley jaw drops at his language and smacks him on the arm.

There’s a collective shock as Jason bites himself in the ass.

“When you’ve got the entire pigsty, parasite, Podunk population of Hawkins High eating out of your palm - people don’t tend to turn their backs on you. Unlike the whore that publicly assaulted Hawkins’ golden boy’s best friend.”

Kelley stumbles away, her brown heels clicking on the stage as she tries to distance herself from the king being beheaded.

You shove the double doors to the auditorium open and heads swivel to where you stand as Jason Carver from the projection gets close to your face, clutching a bag in hand, and spits a, “Don’t roll your eyes at me, whore,” after threatening your life.

Eyes turn back to Jason. Judgment. Curiosity. Confliction. It can’t be real, but they’ve seen it before their eyes. Like rubbernecking a car accident. Your downfall, meticulously crafted and carried out and now you finally get to witness it being repaid in full. Chrissy and Patrick huddle into their own covers as people slowly turn against them. Claire shrinks into herself and ignores the sweat that begins along the back of her neck as cheerleaders and peers stare.

Jason is frozen, eyes piercing where his own damnation featured for the entire present population of Hawkins High. Including counselor Kelley.

She grabs him by the arm with the vice grip of an anaconda, dragging him back and behind the velvet curtains - all the way down the stage stairs that you and Robin sprawled down after pouring spiders on his girlfriend. You go to climb the bleachers, stunned when a hand grabs you by the arm.

A girl you don’t quite recognize with chili red glasses grins and holds you up as you climb the middle stairs. A boy with braces helps on your other side.

Freshmen to seniors, men to women, band geeks to varsity jocks, you are assisted up the bleachers until you’re finally plopped onto the cold, smooth, cornstarch-scented seat beside Lucas Sinclair. He claps you on the back, beaming with all the relief of a boy who’s watched G.I Joe escape yet another perilous situation.

“Congratulations on a good show.”

You shrug off the praise, “Oh, you know me. A natural.”

Higgins wanders in, then, and beckons you down. Cheerleaders and mathletes assist you down and ensure you don’t stumble between the bleacher gaps. You feel a flick to your ankle and glance back in time to see Robin peeking there, she smiles lopsidedly and waves. You wave back as Higgins’ turns away to lead you to his office.

Higgins sits stern across from you, hands folded as Kelley’s were on that last day of junior year.

“There’s no evidence I violated school policy because why would I?” you laugh humorlessly, “I mean, why would I go out of my way to surround myself with the people that tried ruining my life?”

He looks away from you. You both know you’re lying through your teeth. Why the hell would you be in that video if you had nothing to do with the scheme? And where would you have been during the pep rally? And who else would be so invested in your Luciferian style fall from grace to act entirely on their own?

But can he bring himself to truly do anything now? When you’ve proven the space between the horse’s teeth is full of lies?

Higgins’ chocolate drop eyes abandon you in favor of the records file at his side.

“Alright,” he sighs, tightens his tie, and leans back until his office chair creaks, “you’re free to go, but we’re going to keep a close eye on you, young lady.”

You bright and clasp both hands in your lap, spine shooting straight, “I’d expect nothing less from Hawkins’ finest, Mr. Higgins.”

Once again, both of you know that you’re lying through your teeth.

But so is he.

“Off the record,” he leans forward and the chair groans again, “did you do it?”

Higgins believes himself to be the kindly, understanding principal, but you feel jaded. Wiser and older, even if you’ve only matured by a fraction.

“Nope!”

“So, who did?” whether this interaction is truly as off the books as he claims, he’s definitely trying to goad you into an answer.

“Who knows?” you sigh, histrionic, as your back hits the chair’s cushion, “Maybe some… super vigilante that thought some justice was needed.”

“What? Like Batman?”

You think for a moment. You aren’t quite as comically rich, nor are you so brooding, and perhaps you’re stroking your own ego now - but there is a sense of just performance. Like you’ve done something right.

“Yeah. Like Batman.”

Robin waits outside for you. She’s leaned against the wall and it brightens the dim space. You don’t even notice the others until she nudges her head to the side and says, “You got a couple visitors.”

Chrissy, Claire, and Patrick are standing ashamed and knobby-kneed.

Claire steps forward, one hand nervously twirling a dark curl around her finger, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Onyx eyes that jade like honey pots in sunshine water and wilt, her cheeks wet with tears and Patrick nods, laying a hand on her shoulder. He wets his lips and sighs like he was somehow hurt.

Truly hurt.

“We just got caught up in Jason and his need for us to play specific parts. You… you know how it is.”

You most assuredly do.

You wish Robin wasn’t shying away from you. You hate that it's their fault.

Chrissy clinks her fingernails together, “You should come back. We miss you.”

“We all miss you,” and you know Claire isn’t lying as she says that.

You know none of them are, but you look at Robin as she nervously gnaws her bottom lip. They wronged her deeply as they did you - even if you could forgive them for yourself, you can’t find it within you to ignore how they hurt her. And again, you can’t actually feel yourself ready - or prepared - to forgive and forget for your own sake.

“Nah,” you smile as you grab Robin by the hand and turn towards the side doors of the school.

Chrissy and Claire go to protest. You can hear Patrick’s sneakers squeak against the dirt-smeared corridor floor. And you pay them no mind as you commit to skipping the rest of the school day with (you hope) your new girlfriend.

“Higgins inadvertently called us Batman,” you unlock your car and open the door for Robin as she ducks in.

She hums, nodding, as you climb into the driver’s seat, “If you’re Batman can I be Catwoman?”

“Don’t they fight each other?”

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna be that Robin. He’s like twelve.”

“Then let’s just both be Batman,” you wait until you’ve both clipped in your seatbelts before pulling out of the student parking lot.

Robin settles her head back against the passenger seat rest, rolling until her ear hits the cushion and she stares as you steer - utterly helpless and enamored, “Do you think we’ll ever have to do this again?”

“Hm,” you make it out of the Hawkins High gate and roll down the street, entirely calmer than when you had to get driven home by Eddie Munson, “maybe a first date is in order first. Then maybe we can do more revenge. Be women of the people and all that shit.”

“I’d love to,” Robin laces her hands together and you notice, holding a hand out over the center console for her to hold, “I’m not happy you got outcasted and lied about, but I am glad that we met.”

“Me too, Rob,” you pause completely at a stop sign and lean across the gap between you two to lay another precious kiss to her lips - she eagerly returns the affection, “Now, I don’t believe we ever got to properly finish our meal at Johanna’s. And I’m simply starving.”

Her nose crinkles as she laughs and you don’t know if you could ever get enough of the sight or sound or feeling of her. She nods and pecks your lips again, “I could eat.”

#robin buckley x reader #robin buckley x you #robin buckley oneshot #robin buckley #robin x reader #robin stranger things #stranger things x reader #stranger things x you #stranger things fic #robin buckley fluff #robin buckley fic #robin.🍍

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kcuf-ad · 4 months

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Hey I’m bored and stuck in class so let’s do something stupid, you don’t have too answer this if you don’t want to bestie👍

Assign one of your favorite characters with your friends (as well as yourself if you want but we probably already know the answer XD) as a partner, not your friends favs your faves

Bestie... You should not have given me this power.

ALRIGHT! HERE WE GO WITH MY FAVOURITES! BWAHAHA!

You are getting Joseph Joestar. Why? Because this man is practically a Florida man that is English. He punched a cop, drag dressed and faked his own Death, twice. Not to mention he pulled a gun on a vampire.

@thundermarisol I will give her Molly McGee cause she would love to be besties with Molly as she is upbeat, positive, understanding and I am fully convinced she plays Kirby games.

@angel-of-sweet-revenge I am giving you Yuno purely because I think it would be funny that you keep on bullying him as hr is done with your shit.

@starlightshadowsworld You are getting Jaden Yuki because you and I both love this boy to death.

@stardust-maiden I know she won't see this, but still. I am giving her Ichigo Kurosaki because this man would see her and instantly think of her as his little sister. He pretty much adopts girls as his Younger sisters and hr would kill people to Save them.

@sabellabella I am giving you Soulburner because if you love Jaden, then I know you will love this himbo.

@kingboohoo37 I feel like you would vibe with Shigeo Kagayama from Mob Psycho, don't know why tho.

@the-geek-librarian You would vibe with Gojo, I can just tell. You two would cause chaos everywhere.

@blue-rose-penguin-prince You are getting... Hmm... Mirio from My Hero. You are vibing with him

And I think everyone knows who I am assinging myself. Sasuke

#thanks for the ask!#cheered up my day honestly #shigeo kageyama #sasuke #yuno #yuno grinberryall #ichigo kurosaki #mirio togata #gojo satoru #jaden yuki #soulburner #joseph joestar #molly mcgee

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alexanderpearce · 8 months

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ooh i would absolutely love a media rec list from you (im a different anon but 👀)

omg u flatter me.. here are some pieces of media that i really love that i consider to be somewhat lesser known outside of my circles.. i do have lots of favourites not mentioned here that are far more mainstream (my favourite book ever is, embarrassingly, still The Secret History) but it's nice to shine a light on the more niche. i'll add content warnings but they're not comprehensive because i am just going by memory. im also not tagging gore because To be honest with me that's a given.

books and plays

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) by Anonymous/Francesco Colonna; very strange book where the author (who is actually revealed in an acrostic poem in Latin made by the first letter of each chapter) clearly has a sexual fetish for buildings and architecture. cw misogyny.

Seneca's Phaedra (1st century AD); i live here. Seneca's tragedy about doomed fatal diseased love. sorry i don't have a translation to recommend but you will be able to read mine one day i promise. cw pseudo-incest, misogyny.

The Pepsi-Cola Addict (1982) by June Alison Gibbons; vanity-published in the 1980s and only existing in five libraries around the world (until i suppose its republishing this or last year), this is a fascinating and very weird little book, and the story behind it too is very sad and interesting. i have a pdf if anyone wants it. cw predatory relationships, incest references, suicide.

The Doloriad (2022) by Missouri Williams; strange and swirling little debut set in a post-apocalyptic future, some really incredible prose. cw incest.

Geek Love (1989) by Katherine Dunne; What if the mother of sideshow freaks was purposefully consuming poisons and alcohols and cetera while pregnant to engineer her kids to be attractions Would that be fucked up for what. cw incest and the ableism inherent in the sideshow "freaks" scene.

Equus (1973) by Peter Shaffer; just read this fucking play man (or watch the 1977 movie!). cw animal death

movies

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) dir. Darren Lynn Bousman; sorry not sorry but this is my favourite movie ever. i've seen it 17 times. complete garbage trashy 2000s comedy-horror-gore-musical. insane cast. literal genius.

Caligula (1979) dir. Tinto Brass; Do you want to watch a two and a half hour long porno filled with torture and gorgeous costumes and conversations on power. well do i have the movie for you. cw rape, incest, i know i said i wouldnt tag gore but this one does have explicit penis mutilation so.

Van Diemen's Land (2009) dir. Jonathan auf der Heide; a pretty good movie adaptation of alexander pearce's first descent into cannibalism!! my main real criticism is that they desaturated the gorgeous green and vibrant west coast to grey doomy fakeness. cw beautiful gay love

Żywot Mateusza (1968) dir. Witold Leszczyński; incredible little Polish movie set in a rural village, on youtube with english subtitles.

May (2002) dir. Lucky Mckee; literally the most relatable movie of all time to me. socially awkward (super autistic) girl has trouble with love, you won't Believe what happens next

The Lair of the White Worm (1988) dir. Ken Russell; peter capaldi and hugh grant's earth shattering gay love story... super campy phallic lesbic homoerotic vampiric wyrmesque weirdo horror. peter capaldi wears a kilt and plays the bagpipes. you MUST watch this movie.

Ravenous (1999) dir. Antonia Bird; can cannibalism represent manifest destiny AND homosexuality? find out now!

And Then There Were None (2015) dir. Craig Viveiros; Agatha Christie could only dream of writing Burn Gorman's gay homophobic character in this. transcends the book hundredfold and if you disagree you genuinely have shit taste.

albums

At Least For Now by Benjamin Clementine; just listen to this right now i mean it this shit is fucking phenomenal. incredible voice and lyrics and piano and strings.

Stygian Bough Volume I by Aerial Ruin and Bell Witch; gorgeous atmospheric doomy metal

Ludevo by Ifi Ude; Polish folk with a modern twist as well as influences from Ude's Nigerian background, songs about death and drunkenness and love and ancient pinewoods

Songs About Teeth and To The Dark Tower by Cake Bake Betty; the vibe you have created is so freaky and awesome

Juniverbrecher by The Indelicates; something something brexit punch and judy isn't englishness awful etc etc. seriously underrated.

Bath Time by Maija Sofia; super atmospheric devastating album with lots of songs focusing on specific female figures throughout history. her recent album is also great.

honourable mention to The Thick of It (2005-2012) which if you follow my sideblog you will know ive been spiralling into depravity over for months now. you may ask, if you compare my posts to what the show is actually like, What on earth is she talking about and to that i have nothing to say

#hope this isnt too long. i love Media #asks #anon #recs #recommendations

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crochetotterblog · 1 year

Text

🩸🔪Who’s a good boy?🔪🩸

WORD COUNT: 2,649💕

Summary: Breaking news: A serial killer has just been spotted in Hawkins as of last week, do not walk alone, stay indoors unless absolutely necessary, stay where you are, stay with family or friends, go in pairs, if you see anything or know anything call the local authorities, pray to whatever God you believe in. This guy has already killed two people, in broad daylight, keep your eye out for anyone suspicious in anyway. May God have mercy on our souls. . .

A/N: finally got some of my drafts out, give these stories some sugar will ya?

Warning(s): 18+, blood, gore, stalking, cursing, fighting, choking, (let me know if I missed any)

I shut off the TV, rolling my eyes. Seriously? They think a man is doing the killings? I'll give you something a man would do, stupid fuckers. The media gets on my nerves all the time, they never assume a woman could be doing what the assume is a mans' job, related to killing. But, whatever, fuck me right? I sighed tying my shoes. Another day in another town, another journal entry. No lover, no one to hold. The last person I fell in love with, found out what I had done to his "girlfriend" she didn't deserve him, he was mine and only mine, no matter how much I tried to bring him to me. He never came, he walked in on me tying a rope around her neck and trying to set an apparent suicide. I dropped her lifeless body and held my arms out, for a hug, I was so sure he would understand and come running into my arms. Then we could have made love right next to her stiff body...That didn't happen, he pushed passed me screaming her name, shaking her and crying. 'Baby?! Wake up—Baby!' He screamed. No response. 'I'm right here' I said in a hush tone, I wanted him to fucking notice me. He did notice me, moving his glossy eyes to look up at me, only to scream and call me a monster. I am not a fucking monster, I am a good person trying to get the one they love. That hurt, him calling me a monster hurt the most..I love hi— no, I loved him. Once that left his lips, something inside me flipped; like someone flipping the light switch in a dark room to bring in light. All I saw was red. Once I came to my sense and looked at what I had done, tears building up in my eyes, staring at my shaking hands only to be covered with blood. Tears began to stream down my face as I look at his lifeless body, a hammer covered in his blood. I silently sobbed as I cleaned up my stupid fucking mess. If only he hadn't of seen me, if only..I might as well keep a low profile as best as I can, otherwise I will have to move again.

No one suspects an innocent girl—Right?

I slipped into my alt themed clothes:

I had transferred myself to the Hawkins High School. I don't talk to my parents anymore, not since the incident. I never cared for them, I mean they never noticed me, I hardly felt loved by them. If I had felt love from them, would I be the person I am today? I sighed as I stepped outside my trailor and began to walk the 3 miles to school. Being a murderer, has it's perks I guess, the speed that I walk at always gets me there faster than my victim; basically like the movies. It's funny to know that small dumb things like walking will be to my advantage. I didn't have a bag, all I had was my purse, not like I really cared for school. Only subject I cared about was, english and science; I will always love science; always new ways to hide the bodies and to kill. Though English, I can always write a fake suicide note, which was what I was planning to do before he ruined it and tried to play the hero. I hate those kind of people. 10 minutes pass, I had arrived at the school. Looking around I found some woods near by, 'good start' I said to myself, looking around the parking lot I can see the jocks, cheerleaders, geeks, nerds, band kids, everyone. My eyes fell on a white van, something I haven't seen in awhile, at least since my last killing spree much far in the south of Indiana; I smiled, 'who is the idiot with a white van with no fucking windows' I asked myself. The driver side door flung open, smoke poured out of the van like water was rushing out to fill the parking lot, I took a deep breath, 'weed', I let a sigh that turned into a soft moan. I haven't smoked in awhile, but I did like the smell. A leg slammed on the concrete, then another, followed by a deep raspy grunt. This tall boy, long brown curly hair, somewhat saggy black skinny jeans, wearing a baseball shirt with the words 'Hellfire Club' written on it; with dice, a demon and what looks like a dagger. I stared at him, looking him up and down, 'omg—' I gulped, from my head to my toes I felt this tingling feeling that found its place at my core, my heartbeat wasn't beating in its normal speed. I bit the inside of my cheek as I squeezed my thighs together. Smiling I watched him stomp out his blunt, heat rose to my cheeks, I couldn't help how much I was smiling, my cheeks began to hurt. I walked up to his van slowly, right before I had reached his van he ran off into the school; I bent down and picked up his butt of a blunt. I pull out a wooden box, and carefully placed the end inside. I closed it with a kiss and out it back in my purse.

I giggled to myself, my cheeks still hot, 'I will make you mine, my love' I smiled. 'You will be mine always and forever'. I started my day off by getting my schedule, as much as I hated not seeing the love of my life, 24/7, I had to blend in. My first few classes were as boring as ever. I didn't talk to anyone, never said a word, I only nodded and shook my head in response. A straight resting bitch face all morning until lunch came around. I walked into the room and headed towards the line to grab anything. Everyone and their cliques found their respected tables and sat down, I walked to the corner of the room, to sit down at this small round table. It wasn't like the rest of the tables, looking at my sorry excuse of a lunch, I picked off the things that I could eat and that wouldn't mess up my stomach. Most of the sorry excuse wasn't all appealing to the eye, whoever made the food will die sometime this week or today. I pulled out a small notebook from my purse and a pencil, might as well start working on new methods. Still poking at my food, and doodling methods I could feel someone's eyes on me, I stopped my pencil in its tracks and looked up to see a blonde boy staring at me, only he wasn't at his table, he was standing infront of me, and my table. I looked him up and down, raising an eyebrow; he smirked and sat in front of me. "You're new right?" He asked, I nodded. He smiled again, "You're cute, want to come sit with me and my friends?" He asked nicely, I thought nothing of it but I had a bad feeling, I shrugged. He stood up holding his hand out to me, I took his hand and he lead me to his table full of guys in letterman jackets. I couldn't help but feel weak, like they were undressing me with their stares, I gulped a hunk of spit down as I sat, I didn't smile, I didn't say a word, I looked down at my notebook and continued to doodle. I looked around the room one more time, to see that almost everyone was staring at me at the jock table, I lowered my head slightly in shame, scanned the room one more time to find him, my love staring at me, with wide eyes. Heat rushed to my cheeks, I smiled at him, he didn't smile back but gave me a nod, acknowledging me. My heart sank to the floor, 'Is this true love?' I asked myself. I kept imagining everything with him, I have been saving my first time for the right guy, and he noticed me! On my first day of school. I drew and drew, throughout lunch, pictures of him and me; with as many kids as he wanted. A white picket fence, big lovely house, 4 dogs, anything and everything. I will be the perfect housewife for him, whatever he wants to do for work I support fully; I only ask for him to be mine and only mine.

I pulled my hand up to my face, holding my cheek softly as I smiled looking at my work. The bell rang and I quickly shoved my notebook into my purse and got up. I walked towards the door, but someone grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, I look up and it was the blonde boy, "I'm Jason Carter by the way, and I was wondering if you would like to hang out sometime" he smiled rubbing the back of his neck, I looked at him with big doe eyes then at my love. I shook my head, and walked away. I swear I heard him growl like a dog, he then pushed passed me with the words "Fucking tease", he huffed as he walked out of the room. I rubbed my shoulder, where he had pushed through me, pouting, frowning, 'Jason Carter, huh? Big mistake to tell me your name pal. I snickered to myself, god another beautiful episode was about to go down, I couldn't stop smiling, I was so happy and excited that another victim of mine decided to spill the beans on their name! I might take him up on his 'hangout' offer, the closer I am to my victim the less suspicious it is. I continued the rest of my day watching him from a far, the love of my life, he wasn't doing any school work. He just sat there drawing, tapping his pencil on his desk or was writing. I tilted my head slightly in confusion, I started making my way to my locker when I bumped into two people, I looked down in shame, not saying a word. "Hey you okay?" one asked, I nodded, still looking at my shoes. "You're new right? My name's Dustin" he said, I looked up at him to see a boy with curly light brown hair, in what looks like a Hawaiian shirt and 'thinking cap', "This is Mike" he pointed to his friend with long curly black hair, he waved slightly, he didn't seem too happy in meeting me. I nodded and pulled out some paper to write my name, 'I'm Y/N', I handed the note to Dustin, "Nice to meet you Y/N, um do you play DnD?" Dustin asked, I nodded and held up two fingers signifying I have played a little bit. "We are looking for a new recruit, to fill in for out friend Lucas" I smiled and nodded excitedly. Dustin gave a big toothy grin, "Awesome! We meet after school today, though Gareths' mom doesn't want us over again after the mess we made, would it be okay with your folks for us to play there?" I thought for a second, then nodded and wrote my address on the paper that had my name on it, handing it over to Dustin. I smiled clutching my books to my chest. "Amazing, we didn't think that someone of your class would play DnD, so glad you do!" I tilted my head confused, only for Mike to open his mouth, "Dustin, this is some kind of joke dude, I'm sure this is a prank so she can be on the cheer squad" he rolled his eyes looking at me, my bubbly demeanor faded as I stared at him, my arms fell slack still clutching my books. I took deep breaths, as many as I could, "See, what did I tell you, it is all an act" my eyes shot up at Mike, looking him into his big brown eyes. I stared into his fucking soul, I huffed at his comment. I shoved him into the lockers pinning him at the throat, pointing my finger at him. "Ooh so scary" he said sarcastically, I furrowed my eyebrows, 'Are you fucking kidding me?' I asked myself, I shoved my forearm up on his neck, pushing him up. He began to hit me trying to get me too stop. Dustin started to panic as he tried to pull me off of him. "Jesus, you're strong, come on man" he said. The bell rang and I dropped Mike to his knees, I slammed my foot on the lockers next to his head, and whispered, "I will fucking kill you, you say something like that again; they'll never find your body." Before he could ask anything I took my foot away from his head, smiling, and bowed to say 'sorry' and continued to my next class.

"D-dude, she's fucking c-crazy!" Mike choked. Dustin nodded his head, "Where's Edd-"

"Looking for me?" Eddie said walking up to the two boys. The rest of the group came a long when they saw Mike struggling to stand, "We found s-someone to fill in b-but she's f-fuck—" Mike cut himself off, he and Dustin looked over Eddie's shoulder to see me giving Mike a death stare, pointing two fingers at him and back to my eyes. He lowered his head, "Nevermind...". Eddie raised his eyebrow confused, "Okay then..?" he sighed. The day ended very quickly, I rushed home to clean, tossing all of my bloody weapons into my closet, picked up dirty clothes, I did everything I could to hide that I had a 'gross hobby', and I did a pretty damn good job of him. After the stunt I had pulled, I assumed they would come over in fear that I would kill them. To be honest I hope they come, I want to make friends, I smiled to myself, I don't talk much for a reason though, not speaking much means no one will suspect you know anything about anyone or thing for that matter. I'm glad I can hold myself back from going through the whole killing process, saves my skin and my neck. No one will ever know it's me, the only person who would or might is my love, my darling, puppy, my baby, my everything. But until then I must keep a low profile, keep it low like an ankle..because an ankle is 3 feet lower than a cunt, so might as well play dumb. I giggled to myself as I continued to clean. I heard a knock at the door, I checked my watch, 4:20 (aha blazzin') I walked over to the door a margarita in hand. I opened the door to see, 6 boy standing on my front porch, all of them looked somewhat the same, minus the hair styles and stuff. I smiled softly, already shy to finally see him, my lover. I moved out the way to let them in, I took a gulp on my drink to calm my nerves. Once they walked into my house they saw my dining room table, cleared off, the birch wood reflecting the artificial light into their eyes. I had a few of my old DnD binders at my spot, I had also set out a cooler full of drinks, for the children at least while I had a small red cooler next to my chair, it held mixes and all the hard stuff. I hummed to myself as I grabbed 6 glasses. They walked around the house, admiring the aesthetics. I set the drinks down and shoved some chips on the side table.

Tags🏷️

@harringtonfan4

#eddie my beloved #cute #eddie x fem!reader #smut #eddie munson #eddie #missbat #🦇miss bat🦇#🦇missbat🦇#🦇#yandere reader #stalking

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chipmunkweirdo · 11 days

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Time to let you see a sneak peek of some dialogue that may or may not make it into the Geeks In Love story.

SIMON: How do you rack up 80 dollars worth of library fines!?

ALVIN 2.0: I read a lot of books…and forget to return them.

SIMON: 80 dollars!? 80 DOLLARS!?

ALVIN 2.0: Uhhh….that’s the downside of having a library card.

JEANETTE: We’ll pay you back. We promise.

SIMON: (groans)

ALVIN 2.0: But the thing is, I’ve never felt anything like this….this intensity for someone before. It doesn’t feel like my other crushes.

THEODORE: How does it feel?

ALVIN 2.0: Well, it’s…..oh god.

THEODORE: What?

ALVIN 2.0: I feel about Jeanette the way I feel about…physics. OH CRAP! I REALLY DO LOVE HER, THEO! What am I gonna DOOOO!?

JEANETTE: Do you think Alvin…LIKES me?

ELEANOR: Well, when he was acting all weird around you at Space Camp, I thought he did. He chose Brittany though, so maybe he didn’t actually like you and Theo and I were reading too much into it.

JEANETTE: He didn’t choose Brittany. He told me the publicity dates were just for show. They don’t mean anything. It’s just to humor the marketing team.

ELEANOR: Oh this is BAD. You get why this is bad, right?

JEANETTE: Does Brittany think….

ELEANOR: YES! 100% OFFICIAL!

JEANETTE: Gee willikers. This is a dilly of a pickle.

SIMON: If you aren’t in love with Brittany, why do you keep agreeing to kiss her? Surely that can’t ALL be for the fans.

ALVIN 2.0: She’s a pretty girl who actually wants to kiss me. You do the math.

SIMON: You really are despicable.

ALVIN 2.0: I’m giving her the fantasy she wants. What’s the harm in that? She knows it’s not real. We’re actors. (Sprays his breath) Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to practice my smoochy face.

SIMON: ….and now I’m disgusted.

BRITTANY: Your feelings for Jeanette aren’t real. Like Simon said, you only fell in love with her helping you. You don’t love her romantically. You love her as someone to share your emotions with. I could share emotions with you too. We could share them together. Please, don’t throw this all away and date my sister! She belongs with Simon!

ALVIN 2.0: But….but I love her! It’s not fake! It’s not transference or misplaced affection…it’s genuine love! I want Jeanette Miller to be my Mystic Mate!

BRITTANY: Well, unfortunately, you don’t get to choose.

ALVIN 2.0: Who says?

BRITTANY: Uh, Karma’s daughter named Destiny.

ALVIN 2.0: Screw Destiny. I want Jeanette!!!!

BRITTANY: You can’t date my sister. She doesn’t even like you back!

ALVIN 2.0: She might, but she’s hiding it from you. We have great chemistry! I just have to talk to her.

ELEANOR: Alvin, buddy, give it up. You can’t make a love triangle. This isn’t that kind of TV show.

ALVIN 2.0: Too late. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve spent a lot of time trusting my brain. Now, I gotta trust my heart.

ALVIN: I hate her. (Talking about Brittany)

JEANETTE: (sadly) Really?

ALVIN: No. I just hate how much I love bein’ her friend….you know….when she acts like THAT!

JEANETTE: You are a very confusing individual.

ALVIN: That’s what you like about me, right?

JEANETTE: Among other things.

ALVIN: What else do ya like about me?

JEANETTE: (giggles) Watch that ego, Alvin.

ALVIN: Sorry sorry. I’m just curious!

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olsenmyolsen · 11 months

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The Chicken Pt. 1

Part 33 of On The Inside With Elizabeth Olsen

Word Count: ~5K

masterlist

Also, I'm not a doctor or anything and this is Tumblr so when we get to it. Just go along with it. (For next chapter as well)

TW: Hospitals and everything to do with them :)

Robbie POV

2015

"Who's the interview with again?" I squint up at the daunting orange sun that shines before throwing on my sunglasses. One as a way to block the bright light and two to hide the bags under my eyes.

Hangovers suck.

"No one in particular; it's just a press junket." I nod my head to what Marlana is telling me.

As the band and I keep walking, I notice, much to my unhappiness, that the press setup is outside. I look through my sunglasses, a little unimpressed. I mean, the temperature is just right, and it feels excellent outside, but it looks like a golf course behind a hotel.

Plus, I feel like shit.

After what's felt like hours, I can tell our interview time is coming to a close as one last woman comes to us with mics in hand. She passes them out to each of us before looking off at the cameraman, giving him a thumbs up.

"...okay and one final question for you all. Nerdiest obsession! What's something you guys love? Something you guys just geek out over?"

I peer my head to my bandmates, but they all give me a knowing look forcing me to hike my shoulders up in defeat. So with a sigh, I answer. "Umm, I geek out filmmakers a lot! Movies I love."

The interviewer looks at me and smiles. "Favorite movie?"

"There's a movie that came out a few years ago called Martha Marcy May Marlene." "...Marlene!"

The interviewer finishes the movie title along with me, causing me to smile and bump shoulders. "Yeah! Look at that! Yeah, that was incredible."

"You know.." I say as we're sitting in a cab on the way to a late lunch. "That interview wasn't so bad." I hear a groan from behind me, followed up by, "Yeah, only because you got to talk about that damn movie you love."

I turn my head around and smile.

2016

"What's the plan for dinner?" I set down my beer as I ask the few remaining members of the group who aren't taking an afternoon nap or a swim in the ocean.

"Well, by the looks of it, Marlana will be too sunburnt to go anywhere tonight." I take a look out to where my friend Jack is pointing. Marlana is laughing with a group of people who were in the middle of a volleyball game before she interrupted them by the looks of it.

One person, a woman in that group, has her arms across her chest with a pout written on her face. The sides of my mouth lift up at the sight.

"Plus, I think Graham wanted to check out that local bar, so who knows? We might all be doing our own thing." Jack leans back into his beach chair while I nod and shrug at the possibility of being alone for tonight, which doesn't sound awful, to be honest.

I love my friends, but being in a band with them and traveling with a bigger group to Mexico doesn't leave a lot of time to be by myself.

"Hey, Robbie!" I look back up to see Marlana calling me over. I wave before rising to jog my way over and wrap an arm around Marlana. "What's up!?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the pouty girl with her sunglasses look away, causing her to miss Maralana, grimacing and shooing my arm away.

"Just wanted to introduce you to some of my new friends. Robbie. Friends. Friends. Robbie."

Very informative.

I give a nod and a hello to the people. The pouty one turns back and gives me a polite and fake smile. Why does she look familiar? Before I can dwell on her anymore, one of the guys from the group speaks up.

"Alright, are we going to get back to the game with cutie here?" Cutie? Oh, he's looking at me. Am I Cutie? Marlana nudges my arm, causing me to break from my inner monologue. "Oh no, thank you. I'd prefer to sit on the sides. I've been told I can get super competitive." Even behind her sunglasses, I see the pouty girls eyebrows go up. "maybe next time." I add to please everyone here. And it seems to work because the guy speaking to me grows a smile on his face. "You hear that, Lizzie? There's going to be a next time." He turns to the Pouty, or I guess Lizzie, and bounces his eyebrows up and down, forcing her to shake her head.

"In your dreams, Clay." She drops her arms and walks up to me, grabbing me by the arm. "Come on." Before I can even protest or ask, I'm being pulled away, much to the chagrin over her friends and Marlana, but it doesn't take long for me to realize that being pulled away was going to be one of the best things to happen.

2019

"What?" I take a sip and quizzically look across the dimly light dining room table at the green eyes looking at me. She smiles before blinking it away and shakes her head. "Nothing."

I shrug my shoulders and smile back before placing my beer down. "Tell me." Her tight-lipped smile lifts a bit before she makes a face of stone. "Next week..." She starts. "We have to film a few days in Palm Springs, and I was wondering if you'd wanna join. It's been a while since we've gotten a trip away." She sucks her lip into her teeth as she finishes her thought.

But before I can disappoint her, she cuts me off as her mouth transforms to show her pearly whites. "I was also thinking... we got one of the scripts for Sorry For Your Loss, and in it, Leigh can't remember her husbands shitty joke." Lizzie laughs and sets her fork down. "Of course, she remembers it eventually, but it just got me thinking about that night in-"

"Mexico." I nod along with her, but unfortunately, whatever I said before is lost to me now. It had something to do with a chicken... So instead of admitting it, I smile sheepishly and say, "I still can't believe I said that to you. God, I was such an idiot."

"You were or still are?" Lizzie raises her eyebrows and takes a sip of her wine before coming back to the topic. "So I was wondering if you could say the joke just one more time?!" Lizzie scrunches up her nose and makes her eyes go big as the earth.

A slight pout is forming on her lips too.

"Alright, alright, alright." I give in as Lizzie shoves her plate of food away to put her hands in the air and do a little circle of a dance. "Now, let's pretend we're on a beach in Mexico. Exactly.." A squint to remember. "Exactly three hours after admitting to you that I loved your Oscar-worthy performance in Martha Marcy May Marlene."

"Oh God, you do realize how embarrassing that was, right?" Lizzie giggles to me.

Yes, I do.

"I'm pretty sure I was drunk when I said that. ANYWAYS. I remember looking to my right to see you casted in the almost blue glow from the moon, and for some reason, when I looked over at your face..." Lizzie tilts her head to look at me. "I said." I stall and stall, but the words don't come to me. I squint my eyes and look at Lizzie to see the thing I hate the most. Her smile disappearing.

"You don't remember?"

My eyes return to normal. "Lizzi-" But it's too late. She goes to her plate. Picking it up no longer in the mood to eat. She composes the remaining food before placing her dish with a loud clang in the sink.

She returns to the table only to pick up her phone and shoot me a tight-lipped smile before going out to her garden.

2020

I don't think either of us can recall who started it first, but as it got later and later into the year, texts and calls became less frequent even when countries apart.

Whether they were missed or ignored was another question.

But you always had a saying or excuse to cover the real reason.

Even when the i love you started disappearing, being replaced with "see you later" or "talk to you soon."

Present (2021)

"I'll see you around." I joke into Y/N's ear and pull back out of our hug.

It's weird how life is. Here I am, hugging my ex's future girlfriend after we finished performing together.

Like what?

I take one last look to the crowd and smile as my eyes catch hers. But they aren't looking to me. And no, it doesn't hurt. I've made peace, and tonight brought me that inevitable closure I wanted, but I can't stop this feeling in my stomach. It feels like guilt and regret, and I don't know why.

Maybe it's because I'm watching a part of my life stop. The part that stopped when Lizzie left London that weekend. That part that's led up to tonight. I shake my head and position myself off-stage with Marlana and Grham to watch Y/N.

"So, as I'm sure you all could guess, I'm Robbie Arnett's newest writing partner and friend Y/N Y/L/N. Thank you all for the love and support tonight. It truly means so much to me." Y/N smiles out into the crowd, and I know what song she's about to sing.

Goodbye.

I haven't heard it yet. Any time she's been working on it, I've always been pushed out of the room. She wanted me to hear it tonight. But as I watch Y/N adjust herself at the white piano, something inside of me happens.

"Hey, Robbie, where you going?"

I raise my head and look back to Marlana and Grham. How'd I get down the hall so quickly? "We're about to go on."

I shake my head. "YOU guys are going on." My words seem to convince only one of the two because the other speaks out and says, "Hey, you okay?"

Did they notice was my first thought?

I went to open my mouth, ready to lie. But instead, I nodded my head and gave a little "mmh."

Which was still a lie.

I shouldn't have left.

I should've stayed.

Y/N POV

Well, well, look who's inside again Went out to look for a reason to hide again Well, well, buddy, you found it Now come out with your hands up We've got you surrounded

As the last note drags on, the spotlight around the three of us disappears before the curtain drops, closing the show.

Immediately I stand up in a daze and begin wiping the tears that decided to leave trails on my cheeks. I knew tonight and this song we're going to hit, but this was a whole other wave. The longer the piece went on, the more lost I became until I found her eyes again.

That's when I knew-

"Oh my God, that was wonderful!" I feel my body being slammed, squished, and suffocated by Marlana as she traps me between her and Graham in a group hug. "Wait, are those real tears?! Bitch I thought you were putting those acting skills to work!" I send a sarcastic smile her way as my friends arms detach from me before we continue our way to the green room.

Wait...

"Hey, where's Robbie?!" I look around me. Wasn't he on stage with us? He was supposed to be behind me.

I look between Marlana and Graham. The latter goes to open their mouth but gets stopped by the former. "Uh, we actually don't know where Robbie went, but we'll look for him." I nod to her words feeling a little uneasy. He wouldn't just leave. Right? "Now go start cleaning yourself up. Your eyes are going red, and you're a little sweaty." I roll my said eyes as they walk away and enter the green room collapsing on the couch.

Tonight went just about exactly how I imagined it would.

Well almost.

I smile to myself and close my eyes. "I hope I made you proud." I whisper into the air hoping Davey (Y/N's "Dad" for people who might not remember) heard me.

I don't have another second to myself, though, before a body is thrown onto my own.

The skin from her body sends shocks all over mine.

I would recognize the softness from this green-eyed brunette anywhere.

It's my Liz.

The woman I love.

"Baby!" I yell out to her as she wraps her arms around me, peppering my face in kisses. I can't help but allow my face to change from one of worry from the event of tonight to letting that wash away as I let out a fit of laughs, from the kisses warming my heart.

"You're not mad?" I ask, making Liz pull her head away from me. "Mad?! Y/N, what you did tonight was beautiful! Amazing! I loved it! I-"

She's not mad!?! My mind starts racing as I let this moment sink in.

She's here. She's kissing me. She's here. I can't think of enough words to say, but that all stops when I look at her face.

"I love you, Y/N! I will never stop. I promised you, and this is me doing it aga-"

I shut her up by smashing her lips into mine. What starts as gentle quickly evolves into something more. Something I've wanted but have been too wrapped in myself to allow. I almost silently curse myself because of the lack of air forcing us to separate. It's not until I pull back and take a look at Liz's red cheeks and rising and falling chest that it hits me. We both missed this. "Liz!" I moan out as we take a second to get air into our bodies. "I want you." The words spill out, forcing my stomach to erupt into a storm of butterflies. My eyes smile to her as I scan down her face to her neck.

Onto the necklace I gave her. Lifting my fingers up to it.

I'm ready. Once again.

"I want you to be mine. Be my girlfriend."

I smile, mirroring hers. She nods her head happily. "Of course. I'm yours." Liz laughs in an effort to stop tears from spilling before she leans down onto me again, planting a loving kiss on my lips that ends too soon to my liking but is followed up by words escaping from me once more.

"I was worried you weren't going to show."

"Why?" Liz raises an eyebrow to her. "Because I left." Liz laughs into my chest. Confusing me a little. "True, but I now see it wasn't like last time." "It will never happen again." "Good. Now kiss me." My girlfriend dramatically requests that I, for one, am happy to oblige.

My girlfriend!

"Y/N about the song-" I unwraps my hands from around her and places them into her own, seemingly knowing where she is going with this line of thought. "That was from before we started being what we have been for the last month. Before tonight. Okay?" Liz nods. "Okay." "Good."

I raise her hands up to my lips and kisses them. "I missed you the last two days like crazy."

"I did-"

"LIZZIE!"

Liz jumps at the sound of her name being yelled at from down the hall. We both look at each worried, before she shuffles herself off of me. I stand up with her and hook our hands together.

"LIZZIE!"

"In here!" Liz yells out as I keep a hold of her. At the sound of her voice, we hear a rush of footsteps march themselves this way before the green room door swings open, revealing the twins along with Max!

They actually came tonight!

However, before either of us can get a word in, Mary-Kate storms up to Liz holding a phone in her hand.

"What's going on?" Liz asks as I look up to see MK's frantic look. "Take it." She places the phone in my girlfriend's hand before turning to me.

I look at the three women who are taking turns glancing at me.

"Can someone speak up?" I ask, hating how they are looking at me. Almost as if they're afraid to talk. "What's going on?" I look to Ash, who has an arm around Liz. She shakes her head. I then turn my attention to Max, who is looking at me with a sad expression. "Maxine.. wha-"

"It's Robbie." My head snaps to Mary-Kate. "On the phone?" She shakes her no. "Where is he?" "We got a call-" "From who?" Mary-Kate stops and looks over my face. Her sad blue eyes piercing mine.

I shake my spinning head as the room I'm in is becoming increasingly smaller and smaller while the cracks in everyone's words are getting louder.

Usually, people hate the ex of the person you're dating.

I don't. Isn't that weird?

My girlfriends ex is someone who I've grown to care for and become friends with over the last couple of months. Hell, there were times when I spent more time with him than with Liz.

But all of that time and effort lead to tonight. My idea. My songs. My friends and family all here. And now he's-

"We'll be right there."

I turn my head to Liz, who ends the phone call rushing towards me and pulling my body into a hug. I feel her squeeze her arms around me, and I can't help but bury my head into hers. But just as I'm about to find comfort in this tiny moment, I feel my stomach turn again.

I quickly move my body out of Liz's grasp and take long but quick strides to the nearest wastebasket before dumping what must have been a mix of water and snack food from earlier. With my throat and eyes burning, I don't even feel Max's hand gliding up and down my back until she places a napkin into my hand with her other one.

I wipe my mouth and toss the white paper into the wastebasket as well.

"Y/N.."

I turn my head around to see a red-eyed Lizzie in the doorway with Graham and Marlana behind her. I shoot my eyes at the two, and sadly it appears that they've been told.

"We need to go."

I weakly nod my head and begin walking towards Liz, barely stopping to scoop up a mini water bottle to chug. Subconsciously knowing that having post throw up mouth right now isn't exactly the best. I do my best to put on a brave face because one look at Liz and I see her doing the same.

As we exit the room, we're met by other friends that came out to support me. Max's brother and his girlfriend, Andrea. My man Cyrus. Wyatt Russell. Wa- huh? I do a double-check as we walk by him. Yep, that was him in the crowd tonight.

We even passed by a chick that clearly looks like she has some good Olsen genes. I don't think anything more of it until she wraps an arm around MK.

It appears everyone's already heard the news. I shake my head and turn to the twins. "Who's driving?" Ash goes to speak, but I turn away from them when I feel a squeeze from my girlfriend's hand that's intertwined with mine. "Aubrey's pulling the car around. We'll ride with her." She softly speaks. I nod my head, completely forgetting that Aubrey Plaza was here. "The twins and Courtney are going to meet Louis and will come see us later."

I look back to the three. I give a slight nod to the one called Courtney, who smiles at me with pity.

"Okay." I turn to my red-headed best friend. "You're riding with us." Max looks from me to Lizzie before meeting my eyes again. "Okay."

As our ever-growing group exits from backstage where we already have a line of security guards leading and helping us to the front door. After the set, it appears I already have fans. Walking hand in hand with Elizabeth Olsen certainly doesn't help the high pitch screaming and camera flashing.

Or maybe they were never here at the show.

Why we didn't go out the back, I have no idea.

There's a lot I don't know right now.

I don't remember Aubrey pulling up; I remember being on the street and then in a car.

I couldn't tell you what the car color was. Or when Max had the two of us put on these hats and sunglasses.

All I know is that my mind went from being exhausted to overworking itself. At the same time, my stomach starts turning again and again.

I couldn't pinpoint why? Maybe it's because the last time I visited a hospital, my father died. Perhaps it's because I'm now going there for someone who should hate me. But they don't. Maybe... I don't know, maybe it's because of the hundreds of what-ifs... "Y/n..."

I pull my head up and look right into where those green eyes should be shining. "You're hurting me.." I frown in confusion until I feel what she is talking about. My eyes go wide as Liz slips her out of mine. In her palm, I see the blood rush back into her hand and some markings from where my fingernails were starting to dig into her.

I quickly scan to my left knee, where my left hand was rested upon. It's the same deal. A vice grip that I have to force myself to let go.

When I look back to my girl, I immediately get ready to apologize, but she stops me with her soft lips on mine—a surprising but welcome thing to happen. And when we pull back, six words fall from her.

"It's okay. Just stay with me."

And then three more.

"I love you."

Once again, the words I want to say back are right there, but before I can, Max curses from the front seat. "What?" I say after wiping at Liz's cheeks and pulling my focus to the front of the car.

Max, with her phone, pulled up to her chest, turns around to face us in the back. She darts her eyes from Liz to me and back to Liz. "People already know what's happened." Silence. "What do you mean?" I say. Max looks down at her phone and back to me. "TMZ." A groan escapes from Aubrey's lips upfront at the same time Liz does it. It's an almost a comical moment. But no one's laughing. Instead, Liz leans up and asks to see the article.

Both out of fear and respect, Max gives up her phone.

I quietly read to myself what Liz is reading aloud to the car—the headline.

ELIZABETH OLSEN'S EX-FIANCÉ INVOLVED IN CAR ACCIDENT

I watch as Liz's fingers start to move down the phone but only stop when she reads the headline again. And with a click, she closes the phone and hands it back to Maxine.

"He has a name."

No one says anything, but we all think that. I would've settled for them calling him knock-off Jesus or something.

"I'll come find you guys," Aubrey says to Max, Liz, and me through her rolled-down window. We all nod and thank her before turning away to walk through the hospital's sliding doors. But as the three of us start taking our steps, the actress behind us calls my name.

Max and I stop, but Liz keeps going. I'm not sure she heard Aubrey. "I got her," Max whispers before moving past me to my actress of a girlfriend. I pull the corners of my mouth up slightly to show thanks before walking back to the car.

"Take care of her. I know this is weird and fucked, but... please..." I nod my head. "Of course!" "I am happy for the two of you. I really am." Aubrey stops herself from saying more, and it looks like the conversation is going to die there, but then she says, "Don't forget to look after yourself as well. I don't know everything, but I know this isn't easy for you either." Once again, I nod my head. However, this time no words follow my action, so with a roll of the eyes at the car honking behind Aubrey, pulls off to go park.

I take on a final look around to prolong myself from entering the building behind me, and that's when I spot them. Men with cameras. For a millisecond, I want to flip them off and tell them to go fuck themselves, but a second after that, I know that this will be life if I want to be with Liz. So instead, I shoot them a glare and walk toward the automatic doors.

Waiting a step inside is Max and Liz. "Oh hey," I say after also bumping into them. "We wanted to wait." I nod to Liz's words and grab her hand. "Okay, good. Let's go."

"Hi, we're here for a Mr. Robbie Arnett. He was brought in less than an hour ago." Liz, to my right, does the talking for the two of us. I'm thankful for that.

The lady behind the reception area briefly looks at us as they take Liz's information. I see her do a double-take at my girlfriend, but I can't tell if she recognizes her or not.

"Okay, it looks like he's in the middle of surgery right now. I can have you wait in a private area till he's done." Liz intertwines her hand underneath the counter and shakes her head yes. "Okay, great. Since it's already past visiting hours, the best I can do tonight is stretch the visitation to family only. However else can be in the waiting room with you. But only family can visit Mr. Arnett. So.." The woman looks from Liz to me and back to Liz. "Relation to Mr. Arnett?"

Liz tightens her grip with her left hand around mine. "Uhh..." The nurse looks up from the computer, almost figuring out that, technically, Liz has none. And she doesn't. Until...

"I'm his sister, and she's his wife."

Those words taste as horrible as they sound.

Liz snaps her head to me, and lucky for her. The receptionist appears to accept the answer giving me enough time to slip my promise ring off my hand and onto the third finger on Liz's left.

What the hell?

Liz's jaw tightens as she pulls her gaze from me as the lady gets up to show us to a private room. I wave Max over to follow us.

With an apologetic smile laced with pity, the lady closes the private door behind her leaving the three of us in since.

But not for long.

"What the hell were you thinking?" "I was thinking that you maybe wanted to see him as soon as possible, so I said the first thing that came to my mind." I lean back into one of the uncomfortable chairs lining the room. We've been in this building for less than twenty minutes, and I'm already sick of it.

I hear Liz take a deep breath before coming to sit down next to me. I feel her gently place her head on my shoulder. "Thank you babe but why did I have to be the wife?" I see Max's confused look across the room which makes me laugh for the first time since hearing the news. "Because I didn't want to be. Gross. Ew. And you have more experience at it."

A little laugh breaks out from Liz. "Don't make it sound like I've been running wild with marriages. I've only been engaged twice."

"Exactly more experienced."

"Just wait till it's your third."

Liz and I lift our heads up in Max's direction. This bitch Maxine... "Just saying." And that's all she says before the door opens up again however instead of someone in a white coat it's a set of twins we all know and love followed by Max's brother and Aubrey.

Aubrey and the twins run to Liz first while James runs to me before everyone switches and hugs have been fulfilled all around.

"Wheres Court and Louis?" Liz asks Ashley. "They didn't want to crowd so they're at Mom's." Liz goes to ask something else but Mary-Kate cuts her off. "Have you guys heard anything?" We shake our head no. "Just he's in surgery." Mary-Kate skips her eyes over to me before turning away when I feel James walk up.

"Did you see the bullshit article?" James whispers to me. I nod before asking where his girlfriend was. With Max's parents was the answer.

Pleasantries and conversations about tonight's show (and how unbelievable it was) have started to slow to a crawl by the time a woman in a white coat opens the door.

"Friends and family of Mr. Robbie Arnett?"

We all nod as a few pairs of eyes dart to Liz and myself.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting." Wait how much time has passed? "Hi, I'm Dr. Connor Cameron..."

As the doctor started to rattle off every injury Robbie had sustained and what they needed to do as soon as he arrived here, all I could think about was why. Why did this have to happen? Why did he leave? Will he be okay after everything is said and done?

But honestly, I just wanted to see my friend.

Unbeknownst to me, in less than 24 hours, I would come to hate Robbie Arentt.

Twitter

Lizzie Olsen Daily @DailyLizzieOlsen

Hey Everyone! Elizabeth Olsen has been pictured at a local hospital in Los Angeles along with Aubrey Plaza and Y/N Y/L/N. We don't know anything yet. If you want to believe the unconfirmed TMZ reports, that's your choice. Please remember to be respectful at a time like this. Don't share the paparazzi pics of Lizzie or friends and family. It adds fuel to a fire she wouldn't want us spreading.

Sending love her way ❤️!

Part 34

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