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panicatthediaz · 3 years

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40 (almost kiss) + 54 (secret relationship)? 🥰

Being in bed at 12:00 am will not stop me, I guess. Bonus Getting Together, I guess. Spent 3 or so hours at this. Ops.

Post S4. This is a disgusting amount of fluff. Unbeta'd (but self proof-read) as I wrote this from 12 am to 3:30 am.

On AO3

Years In The Making

Not that he believed it, but he was sure most people around him would say it was meant to be; something fated somewhere to happen somehow. Eddie didn't really believe that.

What he did believe was that they may have been too afraid (or maybe too repressed, in his case) to see what was going on, what had been growing for a long while. Years, maybe?

But getting shot (again) had given him a good shake, and he could say he'd been almost disappointed to see Ana by his bedside. No fault of her own, of course not, but...

He was pretty sure of what he wanted at that moment.

Breaking things off with her hadn't been that difficult, or painful, a couple of weeks after his return home. Ana's disappointment was clear, but she seemed to know as well as he did that they weren't going anywhere as a couple. With a promise to stay in touch, she walked out of his home one last time.

Now all he had to do was talk to Buck.

Buck had been cagey for the first few days when Eddie had asked him about Taylor. It took about a week and a couple of beers for him to blurt out, "She kissed me then ran out." He fidgeted for a couple of minutes. "Then she came back and we talked through it."

Eddie's heart sank, but he still put on a smile for the sake of his friend (if that was all that he would be for Buck, he'd make do). "And?"

"And we are at very different stages when it comes to romance." Buck shrugged, but the tiny frown was right there between his brows. "She became a good friend, but damn, we wouldn't have lasted as a couple."

Buck finished his beer and turned to Eddie, though not looking beyond the water bottle he was holding in his one good hand.

"She, uh... She isn't quite who I want." Buck cleared his throat, abruptly standing up and walking away from the dining table to place his empty bottle in the recyclable bin. "How is Ana, by the way?"

Eddie accepted the deflection well enough, watching as Buck stood by the doorway with his arms crossed, a stance that tried to project calm. Eddie doubted he was anywhere near it; he never enjoyed talking about failed relationships (including those that never took off).

"We broke up last week," he replied easily, standing up to refill his bottle in the kitchen. "Don't worry," he added, seeing the wide-eyed surprise (and dare he say, hope?) in Buck's expression. "It was pretty amicable and even. We both saw we weren't going to get anywhere and decided to split."

"Okay," Buck whispered, following him into the kitchen. "You okay?"

Eddie nodded, smiling. "Yeah, I'm fine." Though he had to ask... "Who is it?" Buck's confused, scrunched-up expression was pretty damn cute, making him look a little bit more like the Golden Retriever pup Hen and Chimney often compared him to. "You said Taylor isn't who you want, so who is it?"

"Eddie," he said on a groan, though he simply leaned against the counter instead of answering.

"See," Eddie spoke with a new bout of confidence (maybe just as ill-placed as the excitement he was starting to feel), standing against the sink across from Buck. "I'm kind of hoping for a specific answer here."

Buck didn't reply. Eddie had barely even noticed a shift in Buck's expression before he moved into his space, pressing a hard kiss against his lips, a huge contrast to how softly his hands cradled his head and how careful he was to not press against the sling and his injured shoulder.

Eddie wasn't sure if the bottle ended up on the sink or on the floor by their feet. What mattered was that he managed to get his hand on Buck's neck, drawing him even closer.

(Not that Buck let either of them press too close, and god, he loved him.

And he was distantly aware that he should be at least a little freaked out over the thought after one kiss - their first kiss - but, well... Years in the making and all that.)

One kiss became two, became many, and Eddie could see the same feelings reflected in Buck's blue eyes. Belonging, a finally and a home.

There was no need to go beyond kissing and cuddling, both of them content to sit even closer together, hands intertwined whenever they could.

It was... Soft in a way Eddie hadn't had in so long, intimate in ways he thought he wouldn't experience.

And they weren't subtle, weren't actively trying to keep anything a secret. Eddie was still off work, doing his PT as he should and Buck had been staying at his house (their home, he couldn't help but think every time) since Eddie got out of the hospital anyway.

But two months passed and the only two people aware of the change in their relationship were Christopher and Carla because they found them cuddled up on the couch, Eddie knocked out by painkillers and then too out of it to deny anything when his son questioned him about it.

(Christopher had simply nodded with a mumbled "Good" and left it at that. They still had no idea what that was about.)

The sling had come off a few days ago, though he still couldn't do that much, and it was driving Eddie up a wall. Buck was at the station, and he didn't want to think about the conniption he'd have if he drove there.

He knocked on Christopher's bedroom door, opening it slowly to see his son smiling at him from where he sat with his book.

"Hey, buddy." It was impossible not to smile back, feeling the all-encompassing warmth at the fact that he was still here, could see his son growing up for a while longer. "What do you say we pay a visit to the station?"

The frown he got for that was so much like Shannon's that he didn't know what to do with the pang in his chest. There was no guilt, not then, over the fact he missed her. He just did, she should be able to see how much their kid was growing, how much like her he could be sometimes. And maybe she was, if the afterlife turned out to be a thing after all.

"You are not supposed to drive."

And that tone was way too much like Buck's, just this morning, for Eddie to hold back his laughter.

"I was thinking we could take an Uber." He shrugged with his left shoulder. He might have been desperate to get out of the house, but he wasn't stupid; he didn't want pain and he didn't want to end up lectured by the entire team once he got there. "What do you say?"

Christopher considered it for a moment, then placed his bookmark and got up. "Let's go!"

"You better not have come in your car, Eddie!"

He rolled his eyes at the very much expected exclamation as Christopher giggled beside him.

"Don't worry, Buck," the kid said, walking ahead as Buck came downstairs. "I didn't let him drive."

"Thank God for you, kid," Buck said, kneeling on one knee to give Chris a hug. "Your dad is stubborn, he probably would have driven here if it weren't for you."

"Hey!" There was no real annoyance in his protest, but Eddie still said, "I get enough sass from my kid, don't you start, too."

Buck, in such a show of maturity, stuck out his tongue at him before turning to Christopher once again.

"Come on, buddy, let's go see the fun people."

Chris' laughter echoed in the station, and Eddie let the light atmosphere carry him upstairs to the loft where he was greeted by the rest of the team with hugs, and some friendly pats on (thankfully) his uninjured shoulder.

Chimney and Hen immediately walked with Christopher to the pinball machine, and Bobby had given him a plate of leftover breakfast to carry wherever he ended up sitting.

He chose the couch, where Buck had already made himself comfortable again and was currently watching the trio at the machine. They could hear Hen encouraging Chris to beat Chim's high score.

"Hey you," Buck greeted softly, an arm going around his shoulders as Eddie adjusted himself.

"Hey yourself." Buck glanced at the other side of the loft, then pressed a quick peck to his lips. Apparently, everyone was sufficiently distracted. "How are you?"

"So far so good." He took one of the biscuits from Eddie's plate, quickly popping it into his mouth as if Eddie hadn't sat here to share them. "I'd ask how your day is going, but it's obvious you're bored out of your mind."

Eddie groaned, letting his head fall back against Buck's arm. He was beyond bored, at this point, and no amount of movies or video games had helped. Buck's chuckle beside him was another pretty good incentive to get out of the house.

He turned his head to face him, his own expression undoubtedly soft as he took in the man that had been by his side for so long and for so many things already.

Buck's expression softened even more, somehow, his smile bright as the sun and even warmer. He leaned closer and-

And what sounded like a very undignified squeak interrupted their almost-kiss, causing Eddie to huff in mild annoyance and turn around.

Chimney stood by the dining table, gaping at them. Bobby was still in the kitchen and turned to look at them at the sound of Chimney's squeak.

"What's wrong, Chim?" Hen asked, frowning all the way from the pinball machine (where Christopher continued to play).

"They..." He gestured between the two of them. "Since when are you two together?!" He ignored Hen's own surprised exclamation. "They were about to kiss!"

"Yeah," Eddie confirmed, nonchalantly making himself comfortable in Buck's arms in the new position so he could look at the rest of their team. "And you had to ruin the mood."

Buck hid his face in his hair, and Eddie could hear the quiet snickering. They really thought the others would have caught up after two months of visiting Eddie at least once every few days.

"What about Ana?"

"We broke up two months ago, man."

"And Taylor?"

"Dude, we never started dating in the first place." The exasperation was clear in Buck's voice. "She's really just a friend."

Chimney nodded, satisfied for the time being. They had no doubt that there would be more questions later.

"When did this even happen?" Hen asked this time, walking over with Christopher.

"Two months ago," Chris answered before either of them could, smiling a little too innocently. "A week or something after Dad broke up with Miss Flores."

Eddie had no idea Christopher knew that level of details, but he had definitely been out of it when he told him. Maybe he said more than he remembered.

"Well," Bobby finally spoke up, walking over to their little family unit on the couch, now that Christopher was tucked on Eddie's other side. "I'm happy for you two." Eddie could feel whatever tension had been on Buck's body (not that there was much in the first place) drain out of him at Bobby's words. "And we can deal with HR and paperwork once you're back at the station," he added, directed at Eddie. Bobby's smile was genuinely warm, putting him even further at ease.

Years in the making. Maybe it was obvious to everyone else, but Eddie wouldn't change a thing about the road they took to get here. It had been hard and full of hurt, but what they had was solid and them and it was definitely worth it all.

Including the cheering, clapping, and whistles of everyone else when Buck pressed a kiss to his lips right there and then simply because he could.

#9-1-1 #Evan Buckley #Eddie Diaz #9-1-1 on fox #buddie #my writing #911 #911 on fox #I have no idea how many words this is #it just happened #WeresWriting

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boykisserbuckley · 4 years

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let the wolves come crashing through

this was gonna be a joke but i wrote 2k by accident. oops. anyway this is the werepire fic based off of that anon i got a while ago

“Buck,” Eddie says, “Halloween isn’t until next month.”

“Eddie,” Buck parrots, “I’m aware of that fact, thanks.”

They're at the station, settling down after a call. The crew is spread over the couches, taking whatever rest they can before the alarm rings again; and, as usual, that means they devolve into ribbing and jokes at the other's expense. Buck had just finished laughing uproariously at Hen's last quip when Eddie had cut in, and honestly, he's not entirely sure whether or not this is the lead up to a joke.

"Right," Eddie says. He lifts an eyebrow. "So what's with the teeth?"

Buck blinks at him. "...the teeth?"

"Yeah," Eddie insists, narrowing his eyes. "It looks like you're wearing fake fangs, or something."

Buck just looks even more confused. He opens his mouth to respond, and Eddie catches another flash of those sharp canines—unnaturally sharp. Like he's wearing some knock-off party store vampire teeth.

Buck gapes for a second, and then intelligently says, "Huh?"

"The teeth, man," Eddie repeats. "Why are they so sharp? What the hell are you wearing them for?"

Eddie glances at Hen and Chim, and they're both just staring at him. Did they not see it? Why aren't they saying anything?

"Eddie," Buck says slowly. He still looks so openly, adorably baffled. "...these are just my teeth."

Eddie stares at him. He stares back. Neither of them blink.

"I'm so confused," Eddie says finally. "Is this a prank or something?"

Buck shares a look with Hen and Chim, tilts his head. Eddie looks back and forth between them. And then, suddenly, Buck sits up.

"Oh," he says, like he's just had a realization. "Oh my god, did I not tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Hen snorts, and Buck shoots her a glare. Eddie has no idea what's happening.

"I thought you knew," Buck groans. "This is going to take so much explaining—"

He cuts himself off and pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks up helplessly at Chim, then at Hen, but they both shrug.

"You're on your own for this one, Buckaroo," Chim says. Buck sighs.

"Okay, okay," Buck says, and hops to his feet. "Come on."

He grabs Eddie by the wrist and practically drags him from the room, heading for the stairs. Hen and Chimney's laughter follows them from the loft, all the way to the bay doors, and Eddie is still hopelessly lost.

~~~

"Let me get this straight," Eddie says twenty minutes later, leaning back against his seat. "You're...a what?"

They're holed up in the back of the firetruck, for privacy, which is really mostly for Eddie's benefit—Buck knows most people don't react well when informed that their best friend is a so-called "creature of the night" and they didn't notice. It had taken a little demonstration to get Eddie to believe him, believe he wasn't just pranking, and now the poor guy is looking a little shell-shocked.

"Werewolf-vampire hybrid," Buck explains again, smiling hesitantly. "Uh, the scientific classification is homo lycanthropus vampiris. Or something. Technically."

"And you've always been that," Eddie says.

"Yeah," Buck agrees.

"And you're not just fucking with me," Eddie says again. He still looks unsure of the whole thing.

"Definitely not just fucking with you," Buck agrees again.

"Show me again," Eddie demands. Buck does.

"Okay," Eddie says. He's still staring at Buck like it hasn't quite clicked, like he doesn't understand, but he's nodding. "Okay. I'm, uh—I'm gonna need a minute, I think."

"Right, yeah," Buck says. "You want me to just…?"

He gestures at the half-open door of the truck, already climbing out of his seat to head for it before Eddie can even agree. He hops out and shoots a look at Hen and Chimney, who are peeking over the railing of the loft to look down at him. Hen raises an eyebrow, and Buck just shrugs. He glanced back at Eddie, who's staring at his hands with a confused furrow to his brow, then backs away. The guy needs a minute. That's understandable. He needs to process.

And then the alarm rings.

Buck hoists himself back into the truck on instinct, sliding in next to Eddie like usual. He cringes at the look on Eddie's face and offers, "Sorry."

Then the others climb in across from them and they're off. They still have jobs to do—processing will have to wait.

~~~

A few tense calls later, the crew piles back into the station for the end of their shift. Eddie had been quiet since his talk with Buck, and the others had let him be for a time—but now, as they're stripping their gear in the locker room and packing up to head home, he's looking at Buck like he wants to start asking questions.

"So you're like, half vampire, half werewolf, right?" Eddie asks, as the locker room empties out. Buck straightens up with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

"I guess?" Buck shrugs. He's not usually comfortable with all the questions, so he's a little on edge. But this is Eddie, so he'll deal.

"Does that mean your dad was a werewolf, your mom was a vampire, or something?"

"Other way around, but yeah."

"So you were like...a werewolf vampire baby."

"Yeah?" Eddie zips up his own bag and slings it over his shoulder, heading for the door. Buck follows.

"I bet you had a crazy biting phase as a kid," Eddie says, flashing a grin. Buck lets out a startled laugh, because that's definitely not the direction he thought this was going to go.

"Wait, is Maddie—" Eddie starts, and his eyes go wide again.

"Yes," Buck says before he can finish, "We both are. Did you seriously just not notice?"

"I'm not exactly the most observant," Eddie grumbles. He unlocks his truck and grabs Buck's bag from him, slinging it into the back seat alongside his own.

Buck hops into the passenger seat, and it's quiet for another moment as they pull out of the parking lot and onto the road. He fiddles with the radio for a moment, trying to find a good station, but he can see Eddie fidgeting out of the corner of his eye, so he gives up and flips it off again.

"Alright, spit 'em out," Buck sighs, shooting Eddie an unimpressed look. "I know you've got more questions, and your fidgeting is annoying. What do you want to know?"

"Uh, well," Eddie pauses, then starts again, "They're probably stupid."

"They usually are," Buck deadpans. Eddie glares at him. "Ask them anyway."

"Fine, but if you laugh at me, you're walking the rest of the way."

"No I'm not," Buck says, grinning when Eddie lifts a disparaging eyebrow at him, "but continue."

"Okay, first of all, do you drink blood?" Eddie asks. Buck fights back a smile at the earnest and mildly concerned curiosity in his voice.

"Sometimes," he answers honestly. "Not always. Bobby's cooking tastes better anyway."

"Can you turn into a wolf?" Eddie asks, and it seems that now he's started, he can't stop—the questions keep coming. "If you can turn into a wolf, are you like, a vampire wolf? Do you drink wolf blood? Or do you still drink human blood as a wolf? Is it like a video game buff, where you stop being a vampire when you're a wolf? Or are they stackable, so you're both at once? Or—"

"Oh my god, Eddie," Buck cuts him off, unable to stifle his laugh this time. "Did you just compare my life to a video game?"

He was expecting shock, disbelief, maybe even anger, because those would be logical reactions to discovering the supernatural. But really, this response is just so Eddie.

"Hey! I told you not to laugh," Eddie gripes half-heartedly. "Don't make me stop this car."

"I'm sorry," Buck gasps out between bouts of laughter. "That's just—you're so ridiculous, I'm sorry—"

He dissolves into laughter again, and Eddie just makes a grumbled noise of indignation. They drive for another block before Buck gets a handle on himself again, enough to actually answer Eddie's questions.

"Okay, okay, I'm good, I'm done," Buck says, shifting in his seat and trying to compose himself. He sits up and holds his hand up, counting on his fingers as he answers.

"Yes, I can turn into a wolf. No, I don't drink wolf blood. I mean, I guess I could? But I don't have to. I don't even know how that would work," he pauses and considers for a second, before shaking his head and continuing, "anyway, no, I don't drink human blood as a wolf either, but I guess I could do that too. If I wanted. And no, it's not like a video game buff, that's so—"

He snorts again, quickly covering his mouth to stifle another chuckle. "Sorry, sorry, I'm not gonna laugh again, I swear."

"You can turn into a wolf," Eddie repeats. He's still looking at the road, but his voice is awestruck.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," Buck admits, "I'll show you sometime, maybe."

Eddie goes quiet for a moment, and they're just pulling into his driveway when Buck speaks again.

"And I'm not 'both at once' or whatever," he explains, "I'm a hybrid. It's like, a third option. An entirely seperate thing."

"So you're..." Eddie thinks for a moment, "...a vampwolf."

Buck stares at him, face twisted into a mildly offended grimace. "Absolutely not."

"A vampirewolf," Eddie says, turning to climb out of the truck.

"No," Buck says. He follows him out, grabbing their bags from the back on his way.

"Werevampire?" Eddie tries. He pays his pockets for his house key. Buck raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

"No," Buck says, pulling the key out of Eddie's back pocket and handing it to him. Eddie smiles gratefully at him and moves to unlock the door.

"Wampire," Eddie says, and Buck just looks vaguely disgusted.

"What are you doing?"

"Well I can't just call you a hybrid," Eddie tells him, "that sounds too clinical. It's weird. What am I supposed to call you?"

"Just call me Buck, man."

"Terrible idea. How about a...vaere-volf," Eddie puts on an over-the-top fake accent, sounding like a character out of an old Dracula movie.

"I hate you," Buck says, and steps inside. "Can we order a pizza?"

"Yeah, I was thinking of trying that new sauce," Eddie agrees, "with the garlic and chicken? It looked good."

"Sounds alright," Buck says. "You know I'll eat pretty much anything."

He flops onto the couch and grabs Eddie's laptop, pulling it towards him and flipping it open to make the order. He's just clicking onto the pizza place's website when Eddie suddenly looks up and says, "Hold on."

"What?" Buck looks up at him.

"Can you even eat garlic?" Eddie asks. He looks worried, suddenly. "I thought vampires couldn't have garlic? Dogs can't have garlic. Does that apply to werewolves too? Was I about to feed you something you're allergic to?"

"Slow down, dude," Buck says, trying not to laugh again. "The garlic thing, about vampires, is a myth. I love garlic. I want so much garlic on this pizza. It's fine."

The honest concern on Eddie's face is a little endearing, if Buck is being honest. He knows Eddie is just asking all the questions so that he can understand, and that's fine. It's nice, even.

"Okay, okay. As long as we're not ordering anything potentially dangerous for…" Eddie pauses, thinking, and then grins cheekily at Buck. "...a were-pire."

Buck just groans. "No."

~~~

Later, as they're finishing up the last slices of pizza and watching the end credits of a Marvel movie scroll across the screen, Eddie turns to look at Buck again.

"Just one more time," he says, "remind me this is really happening."

"Definitely happening," Buck says.

"Remind me you're not just fucking with me," Eddie says.

"Definitely not just fucking with you," Buck assures him again.

"Okay," Eddie says, and seems to finally settle into the idea. "Can I see the teeth again?"

AO3 | Ko-Fi

#yeah this is unedited #do i care? no #enjoy this #werepire buck #evan buckley #eddie diaz #fluff and crack i guess #it's literally a joke #b!writes #911 fox #userbeff #usermaddiee #userster #tusera #maysgrant #who else would want to read this madness #i dont know #dailyreblogs

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bamon4bamily · 4 years

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TVD 9x11 - Jukebox Feels (part 1) Enjoy! =)

Cut to - 2018 prison world, the Salvatore mansion. Katherine walks through the front door, dazed and confused. She must be having a nightmare, she thinks to herself; this can’t be happening, she can’t possibly be where she thinks she is. Although her intuition tells her the contrary, she gives it a shot, on the slim chance it might not be true…

KATHERINE: Hello? Anyone there? (She searches the house; as expected, it’s empty. She tries different techniques to escape the situation. Pinches herself to wake up, nothing. Taps her feet together, and with her eyes closed whispers: There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home… doesn’t work either). Maybe if I go to sleep, I’ll wake up and everything will be back to normal… Yes, I need to sleep (she goes into Stefan’s room, puts on one of his pajamas and lies in his bed. Not even a minute in, and she’s off dreaming of sheep.

Cut to – Akumal, Mexico. After a beautiful moonlight dinner, Damon and Bonnie sit on the beach, admiring the full moon’s glow, and some real good tequila.

DAMON: (Randomly) Truth or dare…

BONNIE: (Laughs) Are you serious?

DAMON: I’m dead serious, come on, scaredy-cat!

BONNIE: Please! I just don’t want to humiliate you, cry-baby!

DAMON: Oh, it’s on! Brace yourself for defeat!

BONNIE: Bring it!

DAMON: One rule, no magic or psychy stuff!

BONNIE: Fine, no vamp tricks.

DAMON: Deal. Truth or dare?

BONNIE: Dare.

DAMON: I’ll start easy, (smirks) don’t want you loosing so fast. I dare you to take a shot of tequila while doing a handstand.

BONNIE: Piece of cake! (Delivers to perfection) My turn, truth or dare?

DAMON: Truth.

BONNIE: Okay, let’s settle this once and for all; do you steal from the bank when we play monopoly?

DAMON: (Grins) Not every time…

BONNIE: (Whacks him with her elbow) I knew it!

DAMON: What can I say, Bon, too much temptation. Okay, truth or dare?

BONNIE: Dare.

DAMON: I’m sensing a pattern here, but suit yourself. I dare you to go up to one of the people at the bar and tell them, in a very low and creepy voice, I see dead people…

BONNIE: I’m gonna get you back for this one! (Although hesitant, she delivers; freaking the hell out of the poor soul unfortunate to be approached by her. They go back to their spot) Okay, Mr. smarty pants. My turn, truth or dare… and you better choose dare!

DAMON: Dare… I say truth!

BONNIE: I’ll break you, eventually. What is the most embarrassing thing in your room?

DAMON: Oh, you’re going there! You already know the answer…

BONNIE: I do, but I want to hear you say it.

DAMON: Fine, my unicorn onesies.

BONNIE: With a butt crack… can’t forget the butt crack (she laughs)!

DAMON: They’re cozy! Okay, missy, shit just got real! Truth or dare…

BONNIE: I’m going with truth; just cause I know you’ll make me do some crazy shit after that one.

DAMON: (With a wicked grin, rubbing his hands) Excellent… What is your guilty pleasure?

BONNIE: Oh, come on! You know that…

DAMON: I do, but I also want to hear you say it, so, go on…

BONNIE: Fine… occasionally I like to dress up like Whitney Houston in the Queen of the Night video from the Bodyguard, and perform in front of the mirror…

DAMON: Occasionally? More like every other Sunday... and it’s HOT AF!

BONNIE: Can’t believe you caught me doing that!

DAMON: One of my fondest prison world memories! I have to hand it to you, Bon, you really got creative with the costume.

BONNIE: I’ve perfected it since then… Well, there, I said it! Happy now?

DAMON: Never been happier… (leans in to kiss her) and you are, beyond a doubt, the queen of the night…

BONNIE: Don’t think for a second that’s gonna get you out of what’s coming…Truth or dare?

DAMON: I’m a mix it up and go with dare.

BONNIE: (With a wicked grin, rubbing her hands) Been waiting for that since we started.

DAMON: I’m instantly regretting my decision.

BONNIE: (Laughs) Oh, and you should! You’re in trouble now… Mr. Damon Salvatore, your mission, which you have no choice but to accept, is to (she opens a portal to their room, goes and comes back).

DAMON: Hey, we said no tricks!

BONNIE: You said no magic, no psychic stuff, but you never mentioned teleporting, so suck it! Here (hands him one of her outfits and her make-up kit) Put this on, make-up and all. Once you are ready, and looking gorge, you are going to perform Queen of the Night to the guests at the beach bar. Good luck, doll! (Laughs hysterically).

DAMON: Oh, Bon-Bon… when you least expected, I’ll get you back.

BONNIE: (Mocking) I’m sure you will; but for now, come on, dancing queen, your audience awaits. (Damon performs, surprisingly well, or at least good enough to receive and applause from his audience, who, although very confused, found the show quite entertaining. They go back to their spot). You did great, almost nailed the choreography.

DAMON: Well, I learned from the best.

BONNIE: I think it’s safe to say I won this little game.

DAMON: This time around…

BONNIE: How bout you get out of those clothes, I get out of mine, and we go for a night swim?

DAMON: Don’t have to ask me twice! (As he is taking the high heels off) How do you guys walk in these things??

BONNIE: You get used to it, (teasing) just don’t get too used to it... Ready, my night queen?

DAMON: (Carries her) Let’s go, witchy! (They swim under the moonlight; then make love till sunrise).

Cut to - The secret facility, Edward’s cell. He has been sleeping for quite some time. He slowly begins to wake; as he opens his eyes, he sees someone lying on the floor under a pool of blood, right next to his bed. He jumps up in a scare.

AUGUSTUS: Oh, don’t be alarmed, son, it’s not me, I’m doing just fine. Meet your uncle Pete; granted it might not be the best introduction, but hey, you wanted to meet your family… well, there you go.

EDWARD: (Disgusted and in shock) What is this!!??

AUGUSTUS: It’s a dead body, son. And, from what I hear they start to smell pretty bad once they decompose; so, I suggest you move fast and bring your cousin Matty back. Feel free to use our tech if it helps, Eddie here (points to the strange man that has been standing outside his cell everyday) is more than happy to help.

EDWARD: (Crying in despair, looking at the corpse) Oh god, oh, god!!! (To his father) You are fucking insane!!!

AUGUSTUS: Language, boy! I taught you better manners than that… guess I should have never left you in Tamara’s care; what a waste of an ivy-league education. My fault for bringing in the trash. Oh, well… time is ticking, and that body is stinking… Ha, that rhymed, maybe I should pick up poetry? I always did love Literature… Anyway, (belittling) Mayor Powell, let’s see just how smart and powerful you really are. Rest assured, if you get the job done, I promise I will make it worth your while (he leaves; Edward can’t stop crying, imagining Matt’s pain).

Cut to - Munich, Germany. Sam, Elena, Sage, and Alex, are having some drinks, after their first days of the program.

SAGE: I knew this program was going to be out of the ordinary, but it’s totally blowing my mind!

ELENA: I agree, it’s amazing! The equipment we have access to is unbelievable! Never knew those types of tools and tech even existed.

SAM: (Putting his drink up for a cheer) Here’s to an unorthodox quality education, and to new awakenings!

ALL: Cheers! (They drink, share some laughs and anecdotes; at some point, the boys get into their own conversation in another area of the bar. Elena and Sage have no option but to interact more closely).

ELENA: Listen, I’m sorry for calling you a bitch.

SAGE: I’m sorry for being one. (Holds her hand out for a handshake) Do-over?

ELENA: Do-over (shakes her hand). So, tell me, why are you so obsessed with Pietro? Not judging, just curious.

SAGE: I know a lot of people think he is just an entitled jerk, but he is so far from that. I mean, yes, he is arrogant and pretentious, but when you’ve accomplished what he has, you kind of earn the right to be.

ELENA: Still don’t get it, what has he accomplished? He’s not even a Doctor…

SAGE: He owns the world’s most groundbreaking technology companies. Ai, IoT, nanotech, you name it, he is behind it. He might not be the science side of the operation, but he is the business side that makes it possible. Just between us, I’m pretty sure he is a vampire. Get this, while I was doing research on his background, I stumbled upon some pretty crazy documentation that dates his birth back to 1865. It’s either that, or he stole some real old dead guy’s identity.

ELENA: That is definitely not a coincidence… Do the names Stefan and Damon Salvatore ring a bell?

SAGE: Never heard of them, who are they?

ELENA: Besides my ex-boyfriends, I think they might be Pietro’s half-brothers.

SAGE: (Laughs) That’s impossible…

ELENA: Put two and two together…

SAGE: Oh, they’re also…? OMG! So, you slept with two vampires, and they were brothers??!! I totally miss read you, you’re a badass!! I love it!! (Holds her drink up) Cheers for that!

ELENA: Well, the brothers thing is something I’m really not proud of. I was young and gave in to my darkest desires; but I guess karma got me served, because they both fell in love with my best friends; so…

SAGE: Hey, nothing to be ashamed of; more power to you! I mean, it’s okay when men do it, but as woman we get shamed for it… Fuck that shit!

ELENA: Good point... (holds her glass up for a cheer) Here’s to woman equality!

SAGE: Fuck yeah! So, tell me, how did you end up getting involved with vampires?

ELENA: It’s a long and complicated story… Let’s just say I look exactly like someone they were once very obsessed with, and it grew from there.

SAGE: Who did you go out with first?

ELENA: Stefan… my first true love; but then I fell for the bad boy, who just happened to be his brother. Like I said, not proud, but that’s how it went down.

SAGE: Was it serious?

ELENA: Very. With Stefan I could see my entire future; it was like a fairytale love. With Damon, I lived for the moment and was consumed with passion.

SAGE: Sounds like you were quite in a predicament.

ELENA: I was, for a while; but I ended up choosing Damon.

SAGE: So, what happened? Why did you two split?

ELENA: There were many reasons, but every time I go back to it, I think it’s because we got off to a wrong start. When I became a vampire, I was sired to him… not the best way to start a relationship.

SAGE: Wait, you are a vampire!!? Are you kidding me?!! This story keeps getting better and better!

ELENA: No, no! I’m not one anymore, but I was.

SAGE: Oh, okay, you freaked me out there for a sec! Anyway, then, what happened? Spill!!

ELENA: Well, a whole bunch of crazy stuff... then I took a cure, became human again, only to be put into a three-year sleeping spell, then I woke up. At first it was bliss, but then, once we moved in together our deeper problems began to surface…

SAGE: Did those problems have to do with him falling for one of your best friends?

ELENA: Not expressively… but in part, yes. I knew he was in love with her, and that there was nothing I could do to change that.

SAGE: Ouch, that’s gotta hurt.

ELENA: I mean, he never cheated or anything like that, they didn’t even get together until recently, but just knowing he would never love me like her, hurt for a while… then I met Sam…

SAGE: Wow, that’s quite a story!

ELENA: Straight out of a supernatural YA book, am I right?

SAGE: I’m a big fan of YA drama, and supernatural lure, so, right up my alley! Okay, let me ask you one last question. If you could go back, would you make the same choice?

ELENA: What do you mean?

SAGE: Stefan or Damon? Who would you choose?

ELENA: (Laughs) Uhm, okay, that’s a weird question…

SAGE: Oh, come on, just for fun, and keeping with the YA context.

ELENA: I’d say as a human, I would choose Stefan; as a vampire, Damon. But I guess it wouldn’t matter who I would choose, since they wouldn’t choose me a second time around, that’s for sure.

SAGE: (Teasing) Well, good news for Sam.

ELENA: Okay, I shared my stories; now it’s your turn.

SAGE: Well my stories are quite boring compared to that!

ELENA: Still, spill! It’s only fair, you have leverage on me, I should have some on you.

SAGE: Fair enough. What do you want to know?

ELENA: You and Alex, what’s the story there?

SAGE: Oh god, no! Nothing like that, he’s like a brother to me.

ELENA: Aw, that’s too bad, you two are cute together. How about you and Sam, anything ever happen between you two?

SAGE: This conversation is getting dangerous...

ELENA: Oh, come on, what’s in the past is in the past; there’s nothing dangerous about that.

SAGE: Fine, you asked for it. Long time ago, one crazy drunken night; that’s all.

ELENA: I know, he told me; just wanted to check if you would be honest with me.

SAGE: (Teasing) Now who’s the bitch!

ELENA: Sorry, trust issues. Now, for real, any past epic loves?

SAGE: Uhm, not really… I mean, I’ve had many relationships but nothing serious. I’m not the deep connection type; I just like to have fun, and I don’t like to put in the time, so short and sweet works out perfectly for me.

ELENA: Crazy hookups?

SAGE: Now that is my area of expertise! Wow, where do I start… I’ve done all the clichés, mile high club being my favorite one. But I have to say, the craziest has been with someone you actually know, (mocking) the renowned city Mayor of Mystic Falls.

ELENA: (Spits out her drink) Are you serious? You had a thing with Edward Powell? How do you even know him?!

SAGE: From NYC, our hometown. We were both part of the upper east side elite; a real Gossip Girl type thing. And let me tell you, he might seem like a Nate on the outside, but inside, he is a full-on Chuck Bass. Anyway, we went to this masquerade ball at an exclusive mansion outside the city. Long story short, we ended up covering for a murder which turned out to be anything but that; it was just a really drunk-ass Wall-Street magnate, that passed out in a tub filled with red wine. Good thing he woke up before we finished filling the whole… and that he didn’t see us having sex next to what we thought was his corpse. In our defense, we were also really drunk, and high as fuck.

ELENA: Holy shit! And you call your stories boring? Wonder what the exciting ones are like!

SAGE: (Laughs; then sees that Alex and Sam are heading back to their table) Well, that’s a conversation for another night… this has been fun, but I think our girl time is over; I’m glad we had a chance to talk like this.

ELENA: Me too, and I’m sorry I was so quick to judge you.

SAGE: Dido. Friends?

ELENA: Friends.

Cut to – Akumal, Mexico. Bonnie, Damon, Stefan and Caroline are having a nice beachfront brunch.

CAROLINE: I can’t believe this is our last day! Time went by way too fast!

BONNIE: I know, seems like we just got here.

STEFAN: How about we make a deal, right here, the four of us.

DAMON: (Teasing) Bro, we are not even done with brunch; plus, it would be way too weird…

STEFAN: Of course your mind would go there… Anyway, no, Damon, that’s not what I want to propose. How do you guys feel about spending some money and investing on a property down here? That way we can come back whenever we want.

CAROLINE: I love it, yes!!!!

BONNIE: I’m in!

STEFAN: Damon?

DAMON: Just tell me where to sign!

BONNIE: La Bruja is coming over for dinner tonight, maybe she can give us some tips on property here.

STEFAN: That be great. I’m thinking nothing too fancy, but definitely beachfront.

BONNIE: And secluded.

CAROLINE: 2 master bedrooms, 1 kids room, and two or three guestrooms for when Ty, Lexi, Matt and Alaric come visit.

DAMON: So much for “not too fancy” …

CAROLINE: I’m not saying it needs to be fancy, just spacious, there are way too many of us.

BONNIE: We’ll also need a garden, good footprint area so we can grow our own food.

CAROLINE: And a pool of course, for the girls.

STEFAN: And I think we can all agree, we need a big bar.

DAMON: And a wine cellar.

STEFAN: Maybe we’re gonna have to build it from scratch, I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to find a place that checks all of our boxes.

BONNIE: If we have someone design it for us, I’m pretty sure La Bruja and I can pull it off.

DAMON: It’s settled then, we’ll brief La Bruja over dinner and start to plan our perfect Belvafore hide-away!

STEFAN: Belvafore?

DAMON: Yes; Bennett, Salvatore, and Forbes… Belvafore!

BONNIE: (To Stefan, mocking Damon) I’m telling you, not even with his vamp back on…

CAROLINE: I like it! It’s like Steroline and Bamon!

BONNIE: Steroline and Bamon?

CAROLINE: Yes, Bamon, aka, Bonnie and Damon; isn’t it perfect?! Stefan came up with it.

STEFAN: Sorry, Bon, just a fan.

BONNIE: (Laughing) Oh, Stefan, didn’t see that one coming... And Steroline, is Stefan and Caroline...

CAROLINE: You got it! (With pride) I came up with that one!

BONNIE: (With a y’all crazy look) Okay...

DAMON: Oh, come on, Bon-Bon; Bamon, gotta love it!

BONNIE: Fine, I’ll admit it... y’all crazy but I love it!

CAROLINE: (Holds her mimosa glass up for a cheer) To Belvafore and building new traditions!

ALL: Cheers!

Cut to – The Salvatore school, Alaric’s study. Alaric, and Radka, are trying to figure out their next steps.

ALARIC: How could I have been so reckless and stupid…

RADKA: It was an honest mistake, Ric. How were you supposed to know what would happen?

ALARIC: I know how dangerous that little gadget is, it was my responsibility to keep it under lock and key. Now, thanks to me, Katherine is probably being hunted down by a psychopath.

RADKA: Katherine is strong and witty, if anyone, Kai is the one that needs to worry. I’m sure she’ll be fine; we just need to figure out how to bring her back.

ALARIC: The only one that can help with that is Bonnie, and I’m not letting her go near Kai. We need to figure out a way to do this without the need for Bennett blood.

RADKA: How about 2 werewolves, 2 vampires and a hunter… think we could pull it off?

ALARIC: The problem is not getting in, but out… there’s no way out without the right ingredients.

RADKA: Okay, I might be thinking crazy here, but we need to think outside the box. What if we ask Margo to summon a Bennett witch, she can open a temporary spirit realm and do an incarnation spell so she can be materialized; then, we go to this prison world, get Katherine and use the blood of that Bennett witch to come back…

ALARIC: That sounds insane… but it might actually work. Isn’t Margo still on sick leave?

RADKA: She’s better now, called me up this morning to let me know she’d be back tomorrow.

ALARIC: Do you think she would be up for it?

RADKA: Not sure, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Cut to – 2018 prison world, Stefan’s room. Katherine wakes up to find herself tied up with her mouth covered. Kai is sitting on a chair, reading. He looks quite different than expected; very clean cut and intellectual, glasses and all.

KAI: I’m sorry I had to tie you up, but I do not appreciate intruders. God, these new generations have completely lost their manners. Sneaking into other people’s homes, putting on their nightclothes, sleeping in their beds… The audacity!

(Kai gets up, walks towards one of the many jukeboxes he has installed around the house, and plays a song...)

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TVD 9x11 (part 2), coming soon! Hope you stop by, read and enjoy! =)

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all-the-lovely-newsies · 5 years

Text

What A Moment Can Do (Chapter Three)

Chapter One / On Ao3

Chapter Two / On Ao3

Thank you guys for all the support!!

Summary: The morning after.

Triggers: Child Abuse, Pain, Blood, Verbal abuse, Fainting, Swearing (please tell me if I forgot anything)

It starts to get bad starting here friends, please be safe.

(OR READ ON Ao3)

Crutchie was hastily broken from his daze by a shaky bed and a voice screaming in his ear. There was no comfort in waking up, did he even ever fall asleep? His leg was twisted at an awkward angle, which was normal, but the pain, God the pain, wasn’t. He wasn’t sure exactly where it originated, but it spread across his entire body.

“Get up, get up ya bums! I ain’t gettin’ in trouble cause you decided ya needed some more beauty sleep!” the voice yelled, echoing throughout the room. Crutchie shot up and immediately regretted it as his head pounded in protes. The room spun around him making his stomach churn. The familiar noise of the boys scampering out of their bunks made Crutchie think for a moment he was back at the lodging house. However, that thought was quickly refuted when he looked down to his side to see the frail, pale figure curled into his side. Crutchie’s chest clenched and his heart skipped a beat as he saw Eddy lying there not moving. He waited a moment, two moments, three and the child remained still. There was no movement in his chest, nor the familiar sound of his hacking cough to signal breathing. Panicked, Crutchie shook the boy’s shoulder, only to be distracted by the yelling once more.

(OR READ AND COMMENT ON Ao3)

“New kid!” Crutchie looked over the edge of the bunk to see Fives staring daggers back at him. “New kid, let’s go, let’s go we ain’t got all day.” Crutchie’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he felt shifting next to him.

“Crutchie. ’is name’s Crutchie,” Eddy squeaked.

“Yeah, sure kid,” Fives rolled his eyes and moved onto the next bunk. A wave of relief washed through Crutchie as the smaller boy who was followed Stretch down the side of the bunk. Eddy took a deep breath and let out a long and painful cough into his arm. From the light of the morning, Crutchie could clearly see the bright red mark the cough left behind. His heart sank further as he took in just how dark the rest of his sleeves were.

“Ya better get down ‘ere,” Stretch commented as he jumped down the last rung of the latter, “The guards ain’t the only one’s you should be scared’a.” Crutchie glanced back over towards Fives, whose hand was currently around another boy’s collar, forcing him to stand. Crutchie nodded and slid down the latter, allowing for his bad leg to dangle while he hopped rung to rung with the other.

Just as he reached the ground the sound of jangling keys and the door being swung open caused any discussion to cease. Crutchie gripped one of the legs of the bunk to keep himself upright as the rest of the boys filed into two straight lines going down the largest aisle. He heavily leaned against the bunk, as any weight on his bad leg would surely send him to the ground. The guard slowly walked up the aisle, the baton tightly gripped in his hand, lightly smacking it against his other palm. Crutchie vaguely recognized the man as one of the goons that stormed the distribution center the day before. Anger welled within him as he watched the guard grab another boy by the chin, forcing their eyes to meet. Crutchie glared as he released the boy and let out a chuckle as the boy’s eyes fell immediately to the ground.

The guard continued to do his rounds but suddenly stopped and scowled at…something. Crutchie didn’t notice anyone getting out of line, or any kind of ruckus being caused. Confused, he traced the man’s glare to Eddy, who was sitting crossed legged on the floor, a few boys down from him.

“Get up, boy,” the guard growled and walked over until he was standing right in front of Eddy. The air thickened in the room and all the boys leaned forward to get a better view.

“No!” Eddy stated bluntly, crossing his arms. An audible gasp sounded throughout the room and Crutchie could feel his heart start racing, what was this kid doing?

“No? What do you mean no?” the guard tried to keep a steady tone but Crutchie could see his jaw visibly clench at the disobedience.

“I mean no! I’se on strike!” Eddy turned his chin upward, a smirk plastered across his face. Crutchie’s heart sunk into his stomach. Before he could even blink, the guard swung his baton across Eddy’s shoulder gaining a yelp from the boy. A few of the onlookers winced, but no one made a move to help him.

“I’m gonna give you one chance to try again boy, cause I’m feelin’ friendly today.” Eddy sniffled and clutched his shoulder but sat back up and looked at the guard straight in the eye.

“No! I’se on strike. You’se doin’ sumthin’ wrong, and I don’t like it, so I’se not gonna stand for it anymore,” with the last statement Eddy turned to Crutchie and gave him a confident smile. Crutchie returned the look with a…much less confident one. Confidence turned to horror when the guard grabbed Eddy by the neck, hoisted him up, and pinned him to the nearest bunk. The young boy clawed at the guards arm in any attempt to free himself, to no avail.

“You think you’re a tough guy, huh?” the guard clenched his hand into a fist and raised it up, sending it straight at Eddy’s face. “How tough are you now?” The room was silent besides the hitched gasps of Eddy trying to breath. Eddy’s nose was clearly broken, blood spilling down his face and onto the floor. He somehow managed to let out a huge cough, sending blood flying into the face of the officer. Caught off guard, the officer chucked Eddy to the ground in a huff and aggressively wiped his face with the back of his hand.

“You little shit! It’s ‘bout time you learned some manners.” The guard stomps over to Eddy, his face a dark shade of red- a mixture of the leftover blood and the anger that washed over his cheeks. Any boys that stood in a large radius of Eddy now backed off completely, hopeing to avoid any residual anger.. Crutchie could see Eddy laying motionless on the ground until the guard is about a step away from him.

“Eddy!” he cried, “Stop!” He let go of the bunk to try and run over to his friend. He couldn’t just going to abandon the boy like his friends did to him. He only made it a step or two into his endeavor, partly because of his bad leg dragging behind him, but mostly because of the two pairs of arms that held him in place.

“Are ya stupid or sumthin’?” Crutchie recognized the voice as Fives. He tried to throw one of his arms back in an attempt to elbow one of his captors in the side, but even as he does so he doesn’t get free. Crutchie looked over to see Eddy lift his head up off the ground to acknowledge the figure and opened his mouth to say something but is swiftly silenced by a kick to the ribs. Eddy hunched over, with every kick and stomp his body flinched and he cried out in pain. Crutchie continued to struggle on his own.

“We gotta, we gotta help ‘im. We can’t just let ‘im-“

“Do you wanna be next?” Fives snapped sharply, but Crutchie could sense the inkling of fear behind the words. So all he could do was watch. Tears sprung from his eyes and he tried to yank his arms free once again, but his restrictors held their grip firm. Crutchie shut his eyes tight, not being able to watch as the boy he just met got pounded into a pulp, but he could still hear everything. The loud cries and coughs from Eddy, every thump and crack signally another blow, the occasional swear or grunt from the officer, each was heard clear as day, and made Crutchie feel useless. How was he better than anyone else if he just stood there? After what felt like a century, the cries stopped, Crutchie allowed his eyes to open to see the guard still kicking and punching the frail boy, but Eddy stopped resisting.

“Stop!” Crutchie screamed. Fortunately he caught the guard’s attention and he lost focus on the small boy. Unfortunately, his new focus was Crutchie. “He’s had enough.” The guard stomped over and Crutchie could feel the arms that held him still release their grip.

“You’se got somethin’ ta say about it now? Huh, paper boy?” the guard sneered, rearing his fist back. Crutchie shut his eyes in anticipation of the oncoming blow that never came.

“Nuh-no sir!” Crutchie opened on eye to see Ten-Pin standing to the side of him. “He ain’t sayin’ nothin’” Ten-Pin gave Crutchie a pointed look, and Crutchie opened his mouth to say something but Fives quickly slapped a hand over his mouth. The guard glared and the trio but simply let out a huff in response. He turned to leave the room, taking time to spit on Eddy’s motionless body, and slammed the door closed behind him.

“What the hell was that?” Crutchie yelled as he leaned back up against the bunk. “You let him do that to Eddy and then stop him before he hits me? Why?”

“Knew ‘e was tired. He wasn’t lookin’ for another fight,” Ten-Pin shrugged. Anger filled Crutchie’s chest.

“I dunno about you, but where I come from we look out for each other. We don’t let one of our own get soaked when we can stop it! ‘Specially Eddy, he’s just a kid!”

“We all is!” Fives bellowed, loud enough to make the rest of the room stop and stare. Crutchie met Fives’ glare with his own. “We’se all just kids in this hellhole. No one survives long lookin’ out for othas. So you gotta just look out for yourself! If it wasn’t him, it woulda been someone else. In case it hasn’t gotten in ya thick skull, stuff like that ain’t exactly uncommon.” His voice faltered slightly at the end. Crutchie glanced around the room, none of the other boys even coming close to making eye contact with him, they were all around the ages of the boys he left behind. Some even much younger.

“Well that’s a terrible way to live! We gotta stick together! Like-like the strike! What we’se doin’ to the papah.”

“The strike, huh?” Fives snarled, “And how well is this strike workin’ out for ya so far?” Crutchie sunk back and stared back at Eddy. “That’s what I thought.” Without waiting for a response Fives turned away and flopped down onto one of the empty bunks.

Ten-Pin placed his hand on Crutchie’s shoulder but he shrugged it off with a huff and made his way to Eddy. He grabbed onto bed frame to bedframe, using them as leverage in place of his crutch as he slowly reached the younger boy. Once he was close enough, Crutchie let himself fall to the ground and scooted so that his back was against the wall, delicately lifting Eddy’s head and placing it on his lap. His face was grotesque. Already his eyes were swollen over and bloody spit drooled from his pale lips. The pale bruise that once adorned his cheek was now covered with new bruises of every color, his arms and legs mimicked the design. Crutchie hovered his hand over Eddy’s mouth and waited a couple moments, sighing in relief when he felt a weak, hot breath come past his lips. His breathing was weak, but he was alive and that was the important thing. Crutchie had patched up his fair share of newsies, so seeing one of his friends in this state wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, but that didn’t mean that he still didn’t feel queasy every time.

He thought back to the times Jack had fought off the Delancey brothers or when Race bit off more than he could chew at Sheepshead. Or even the less serious times when Elmer slipped trying to grab a runaway paper or when Jojo tried to show off his balancing skills by walking along a railing, only to be startled by a pigeon and fall over. Thinking of his brothers made Crutchie smile, through thick and thin, at least they had each other. If he ever got out of this place-no, when he got out of this place- he vowed to himself that he would never take his friends for granted. He’d enjoy every moment he had with those boys- even if it killed him. But a glance back down at Eddy made his smile fall, if this place didn’t kill him first.

“Eddy, Eddy, Eds, com’on you’se gotta get up. Please wake up,” Crutchie shook Eddy’s shoulder.

He couldn’t tell how long he’d been sitting with the unconscious boy, but it was much longer than he was comfortable with. At some point after the encounter he heard the circulation bell ring, so it was still sometime in the morning, but probably nearing afternoon. Eddy’s breathing hadn’t gotten any better, but the bleeding on his lip and head finally stopped. Normally, the fact that he was breathing would have been enough to comfort Crutchie, but in the state that the younger boy was in, he couldn’t be sure of anything. He’d once heard of a newsie from Queens who got soaked similarly bad and was laid up for days, just sleeping they said, but soon the days turned into weeks and the boy just never woke up. Crutchie tried to push the thought away, but the fact that the other boys in the room were already treating him as if he was gone wasn’t helping any.

“Can I have his shoes?” he heard one boy whisper.

“ Do ya know if he hadda blanket? Maybe I could swipe it,” remarked another. Each whisper was met with a sad glare from Crutchie, he tried to be intimidating, but the sadness in his eyes betrayed him. He studied Eddy’s face as he cradled it against his lap, combing his hand softly through his hair- the way Jack used to when they’d sleep up in the penthouse. He was so focused that he didn’t notice Fives walk up to him.

“’es not gonna make it, ya’know,” he bluntly stated, looking down at the duo. Crutchie didn’t respond, he just kept playing with Eddy’s hair. “I’s seen it happen too many a times. Plus he was sick. Always coughin’ up blood. Wasn’t gonna last much longa anyways.” Silence. “Why you even care anywho?”

Crutchie looked up at Fives, “Cause I take care of my friends. That’s why.”

“What friends? The strikin’ ones?”

“Yeah, all the otha newsies. Jack ‘n Albert ‘n Elmer ‘n Finch ‘n Mike ‘n Henry ‘n Race ‘n Jack ‘n”

“ Ya said ‘im already,” a weak voice interrupted him. Crutchie looked down to see Eddy’s eyes start to flutter open- or at least as open as they could be. Crutchie let out a laugh and hugged the younger boy- but quickly let go when it resulted in a pained squeak. He looked up at Fives, a stunned expression plaster across his face.

“How ya feelin’ Eddy?” Crutchie knew it was a stupid question, but one that needed to be asked anyway.

“I’se hurtin’ Crutchie. Ev’rything hurts.” Eddy let out a few sniffles before tears steadily streamed down his cheeks like waterfalls. He sobbed into Crutchie’s chest unceasingly, hands clutching at his shirt. Crutchie held him in silence, rocking him slowly as his tears soaked his chest. A tiny lapse let him pull away, blinking lashes heavy with tears, before he collapsed again, his howls of misery worsening. The pain must have come in waves, minutes of sobbing broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurling him back into his outstretched arms.

“Sshh, ssh, I know, I know you’re hurtin’. But you’re so strong Eddy. You’re gonna be okay,” Crutchie attempted to soothe the boy. He knew just as well as anyone just how much pain the young boy must be in, he’s had his fair share of soakings. Crutchie just tried to keep Eddy calm for any time he got too worked up he hacked up some more blood. After a while the tears slowed down and Eddy untucked himself out of Crutchie’s shirt.

“Crutchie?” he asked softly.

“Yeah?”

“What’s it like bein’ a newsie? With all ya friends?” Crutchie’s eyes lit up and immediately fell into stories about waking up early and selling the newest edition of the paper. He talked about embellishing the headlines when they stunk and all the different selling techniques the boys tried out.

“Romeo has a real way with the ladies,” he explained, “’n Boots’ gotta face no one can say no to. Not even Jack. He even makes Spot Conlon go soft sometimes…but…uh…don’t let him know I’se told ya.”

Stories about the job quickly transformed into stories about day to day life. Which then turned into just about any story he could remember or made him smile. Like the one time that Buttons and Henry tried to convince Jack to let them keep a baby bird they found in Central Park. “The younger kids loved it but Finch wouldn’t get anywhere near it!” Or when Race had won big at Sheepshead and treated a bunch of them to some ice cream. “We had to share a’course, but ev’ryone was so excited!”

After every story Crutchie seemed to gain another listener. It started off with a just a few of the littles, drawn by the lightened demeanor and soft laughs that have evaded their own lips for so long. Eventually, over half of the boys in the room were hanging onto every word Crutchie said, even Fives would occasionally linger by the group. Crutchie hardly noticed his crowd, he was too focused on his happy memories. For the first time since arriving at the Refuge, Crutchie regained his positive attitude. An outsider wouldn’t have known the pain that had covered these kids day in and day out. They would only see a smiling blonde boy, telling story after story, lightening up the room with his smile, and sparking hope in all who heard him.

“And it went everywhere! I was picking flour out of my hair for weeks! Klopp-“ Crutchie’s story was interrupted by the door slamming open, making all of the boys jump to their feet, all but Crutchie and Eddy who had fallen back asleep at some point. The same guard from earlier that day stepped inside the room and slammed his baton against the doorframe. As soon as he saw the two sitting boys he stormed over and proceeded to shove Eddy off of Crutchie’s lap with his foot. Eddy moaned into the ground, caught a glimpse of the guard, and dug his face back into Crutchie’s legs.

“You still on strike, kid?” the guard smirked and slammed the back of his heel into the boy’s back. Eddy whimpered and clenched his fingers around Crutchie’s pants. Crutchie glared at the guard but before he could say anything he was hoisted up by the cuff of his shirt to his feet. “The Warden needs to see you,” the guard explained before pushing him towards the door. Crutchie hopped on his good leg as he was nearly dragged into the hallway. What could Snyder possibly want now?

TAGLIST:: (Let me know if you want to me added or removed)

@romeo-in-a-trenchcoat @klaineharmony @americasfavoritefightingthot @jd-sammy @wingedprunepsychiclawyer @nerdgirl453 (I think this didn’t work??? So I’m trying again!!!)

#DustyWrites #Newsies #Newsies Live #Moments Fic #Newsies Fanfiction #Tw: Pain #Tw: blood #tw: swearing #tw: child abuse #tw: physical abuse #tw: verbal abuse #Crutchie Morris #Crutchie Newsies #What A Moment can do

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t4tozier · 5 years

Note

2 & 16 for your pair of choice orrrr Kasplon!

its 12:30 am but i knew what i wanted to do as soon as i saw this so here you go!!

2: Next-door neighbors

16: Cuddle for warmth

Mike was stockpiling all of his blankets from around the house before beginning to build a fire in the fireplace. His heat was on full blast, but it was still no match for the way stormy weather outside creeped its way under the cracks in his rickety doors. It was a record snow in Bangor that night, growing up to five feet and dropping the temperature down to well below 0. Nobody in their right minds would ever leave their house, which is why Mike was shocked to hear a muffled knock on his front door. He blew out the match and rushed to see who the hell was outside right now.

Opening the door didn’t do much to solve the confusion, seeing as the figure was covered in snow, face hidden by a bundle of scarves and a large hat jammed over their head. “Can I come in?” the figure asked breathlessly, muffled slightly. Mike was so stunned that he stepped aside instantly.

“I—I guess?” he stammered, quickly shutting the door behind him. The stranger pulled off the hat and began unwrapping the rest of the clothes from around their body. As soon as they uncovered their face, Mike gasped, completely involuntarily. It was his neighbor, who he’d decided the first moment he saw him move in three months ago he was utterly smitten for, and consequently hadn’t spoken to outside of Heys and Have a good days. And now he was here, right in front of him, all pink cheeks and freckles that had faded with the lack of sun.

“Eddie, right?” Mike asked awkwardly, recalling their brief introduction when he’d first moved in. He was wearing a backwards baseball cap that covered his light brown hair and a baggy shirt under baggier overalls. So basically, the cutest thing Mike had ever seen. He’d gone over with the intention of helping him with all of the moving boxes, but he’d snapped at him, saying he didn’t need any help, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day struggling to bring in all of the boxes. Mike has wanted to help so badly, if only for the sake of being a friendly neighbor, but the guy had set boundaries and he respected them. That was the other reason he was entirely unattainable.

The shorter man’s face turned pinker with embarrassment, obviously remembering their first meeting as well. “Yeah, Eddie Kaspbrak. And you’re…Mike!” He snapped his fingers when he got the name. His eyes widened suddenly. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I just realized I totally barged in on your house, do you have other people living here…girlfriend…boyfriend…?” He looked so nervous and embarrassed Mike’s heart broke a little bit. This side of his neighbor was much different from the first time they’d met.

“No, no, you’re not being any trouble,” he reassured with a little laugh. “And no, no boyfriend.” He made sure to stress the last word, raising an eyebrow slightly. “Hey, listen, you must be freezing, let’s get you out of those clothes, yeah?” He realized how that must’ve sounded and flushed. “I didn’t mean—I just meant—you’re probably wet—from the snow!” God, he was making this difficult for himself.

Eddie blamed the cold for the brightness of his face. “Oh, yeah, that’s actually why I came over—I mean, not that! I meant—‘cause my heat’s broken and my fireplace, I never got it to work ‘cause it’s gas and—” he rambled nervously, only stopping to take a wheezing breath as he got himself worked up.

“Hey, hey, hey, no problem, breathe, dude,” Mike attempted to calm, easy smile on his face. He was at least glad he wasn’t the only flustered one here. “I’ll show you my room, you can grab whatever you wanna wear of mine and then we’ll get you warmed up by the fire, how ‘bout that?”

Eddie looked down then, biting his lip. “Yeah, sounds good,” he mumbled. Mike raised an eyebrow but didn’t bring it up, instead beginning to climb the creaky stairs to his bedroom.

“Don’t mind the sounds, she’s an old house,” he explained behind him, making sure Eddie was following him as he turned the corner. “Here you are, feel free to poke around u til you find something you like. If you wanna bring all your wet stuff down, we can hang it in front of the fire so it’s not soaking whenever you get back to your house. Doesn’t look like it’ll be any time soon, though.” Eddie nodded shyly, smiling down at the ground but not saying anything. “I’ll be downstairs, holler if you need anything.”

He quickly made his way downstairs, falling onto the couch and silently celebrating. His cute neighbor was here, in his house, wearing his clothes. He couldn’t believe his luck.

Mike made quick work of getting the fire started, wanting it to be roaring by the time Eddie got downstairs. And it was, crackling nicely as his neighbor entered the living room in a pair of plaid pajama pants and a Duke sweatshirt, both dramatically too large for him. Mike had to laugh a little when he saw him. “Comfortable?” he teased, not missing the way the tips of Eddie’s ears turned pink.

“Mhm,” he mumbled, sitting on the opposite edge of the couch from Mike. He noticed how Eddie was still shivering, and handed over one of the blankets from the pile. He room it gratefully, wrapping it tight around himself.

“My TVs blown, but my laptop’s fully charged, you wanna watch something while we wait for this to blow over?” Mike suggested.

Eddie nodded. “Sh-sure.” His teeth chattered, making Mike frown. He put something on Netflix, not paying attention to what; his focus was decidedly elsewhere.

“You know what?” he said suddenly, causing Eddie to look up quickly in concern. “You’re never gonna get warm like that, c’mere.”

Eddie blinked a few times. “Come…where?” he asked slowly, wincing at the implications.

Mike was suddenly feeling very bold. He patted his lap. “Right here,” he said confidently. Eddie was silent for a long time, and Mike’s grin faltered. “I’m sorry, I went too far, didn’t I? I’m so sorry, we can just watch the movie—”

“No.” Eddie’s voice was quiet but steady, and all of a sudden he was climbing over onto Mike’s lap in his oversized pajamas, grinning down at him. “Yeah, this is much better,” he agreed cheekily, moving down slightly to rest his face on Mike’s pec. Mike wasn’t sure what to do with his arms, so he just settled with leaving them limply by his sides. Eddie wasn’t having that, though, and picked up his arms to bring them around himself. “Much better,” he repeated, humming contently.

Mike didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he did know that he woke up with Eddie still in his arms. “G’mornin’, sunshine,” he whispered teasingly, stroking his hair softly. Eddie woke up with a soft groan and a stretch that hit Mike right in the face. He yawned as he opened his eyes, then did a double take when he realized where he was. He bolted upright and got up, pulling on his boots and running as best he could in the freshly plowed snow back to his house.

Mike’s stomach dropped. He thought that it was okay, what they did, but he probably just freaked him out. He got up with a sigh, gathering up the blankets that had been strewn across the floor during the night. Before he knew it, there was a quick knock on the door, and Mike went to open it. “Eddie?”

He was breathless, a wide smile growing across his face. “Hadta check if my heat was still broken,” he explained, walking over the threshold.

“Oh, yeah?” Mike grinned. “What’s the verdict?”

“Still broken,” Eddie affirmed, pulling off his boots and jumping up towards Mike, who immediately caught him with a laugh.

“Want me to put on some coffee?” he asked as Eddie sighed contently into his neck.

“Yeah, but first?” Eddie pulled back to better look at Mike, a playful glint in his eye. “I’m still cold.”

Mike grinned. This was gonna be fun.

#bella writes #kasplon #eddie kaspbrak #mike hanlon #ask game #trope asks #monstersscream #sorry it’s a little rushed!!

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hungergames-fanfic · 5 years

Text

41st Annual Hunger Games

Word Count: 2802

I raise my hand and wave it knowing for a fact Ms Weston, my fifth grade teacher sees me. With a loud sigh, she rolls her eyes and puts her hands on her hips. “What is it now, Isadora?”, she snaps.

“The other teachers never made us watch the games.. and I ain’t allowed to watch at home”, I inform. Ms Weston gives me a fake smile. “Well, I ain’t the other teachers and I ain’t gettin’ in trouble ‘cause the Wyetka’s think if they ignore some, it’ll go away. Now shut up or i’ll kick you out of my class”, she says and raises the volume. Just as she does, the classroom doorknob jiggles for a second until it opens and in walks a peacekeeper, only unlike most, this one seems to have more authority.

His uniform is just the same as every other except his armour is thicker over his chest, and has more coverage on his arms and thighs. His helmet looks different too. Usually if I look hard enough, I can see a peacekeeper’s eyes through the tinted section over the face, but not his, it’s shiny and pitch black with a couple of dings on it, like he’s been shot at before. This makes him look intimidating and even though I can’t see him, I feel his eyes on me.

His head faces my direction for a moment. Making a fist he looks up at the television screen, where Caesar Flickerman, Capitol citizen and Hunger Games host excitedly exclaims about the games starting in an hour. His body language.. he’s mad? He turns to look at Ms Watson. She sits at the edge of her table looking at him the way Jenae looks at daddy. Menacingly, he leaves the room. This makes Ms Watson suck her teeth, I’d laugh if I weren’t so sad.

This past week has been hard for me and I can’t imagine how Efrain and his family gotta feel. When we got to say our goodbyes everyone was crying, even Eddy. I hugged him so tight, begging him to not let go. “They can’t take you if i don’t let’em”, I cried. This made him chuckle through his tears, “don’t stop bein’ you, Dora”, he said right before our time was up.

Yesterday, momma Bilmin made a big meal to take to Efrain’s, when we got there, everyone was either crying or their eyes were red and puffy. Mrs Oxoro’s health has gotten real bad too. So much so she ain’t join us in the living room while we watched the interviews. No one really had much to say but when we all saw Eddy come out we were cheering and clapping. He looked so handsome with his new haircut, wearing a shiny tanned suit embroidered with cacti shaped patterns. There was this glow about him too. He was confident and ready to be part of the games. “I’m nervous ‘bout tomorrow, but don’t confuse my jitters for weakness”, he said to Caesar Flickerman, “don’t you worry momma, i’m comin’ home”, were his last works before he stepped offstage.

The Capitol sigil is shown along with a fading black screen. Flickerman excitedly presents this year’s arena. “This year Pompreek Gustav has created an arena specially made for his last year as Gamemaker, and I do say, he has outdone himself. You see, folks, unlike most arena’s this one is our very own Gamemaker’s project home in the middle of Gesler street. Yes, that big mansion you drove past this morning on your way to work is exactly where this years Hunger Games will take place. Isn’t that exciting!”

Flickerman wears his signature navy blue suit with flickering light bulbs. He sits behind a desk while a montage of this year’s tributes play behind him. A glimpse of Eddy standing on the stage, here in District 10, is shown. My heart skips a beat. The thought of having to watch him die makes my eyes watery, my nose ticklish and my throat tight. Last time he talked to me was when he told me it’s okay to like girls. That meant a lot cause momma had me believing I was different in a bad way.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the games will begin in one minute! Ha ha!”, Flickerman yelps showing off his unnaturally white teeth.

The sixty second countdown begins and everyone is elevated into the seventh floor. Boys wear tuxedos. Girls wear elegant red gowns, caked in makeup, their hair up and pretty. All tributes appear separated in small rooms big enough to just stand in. Most are motionless, some are wide eyed and hyperventilate. Ms Weston says they’re standing in the dark cause there’s a green tinge to the imagery and their pupils are big with a white glare in them. The whole class is quiet and when the countdown reaches zero, it feels like time has slowed down.

A door opens in front of them and they stand in separate rooms of their own. For the female career from District 2, she’s been placed in a small library. For the male career from District 1, he’s been placed in a bathroom. For the female tribute from District 12, she’s been placed in a large closet. Eddy has been placed in a study. A clock on the wall is shown giving them the time. It’s 10:01 A.M.

There’s a silence in the school, we all watch curiously, wondering what it is that they’re supposed to do but it’s not long until it turns obvious.

The walls of the small library close in causing books to fall off their shelves. Abruptly, they stop. Startled, the girl from 2 looks around, her eyes wide, her arms extended. I bet none of the careers expected to be treated so equally.

In a bathroom, the shower head, bath, sink, and toilet water start to flow. In a study, a fireplace turns on along with the panels on the walls which turn bright red. In a closet, from vents hidden within the clothes, gray gas leaks. The first to realize what’s going on is a girl from District 3. Water rises to her ankles, she looks all over the room until she notices something on the ceiling. It’s a hatch. Climbing on the sink counter, she grabs the handle only to realize its locked. By now, some of the other tributes are noticing the hatch as well. It seems that every room has one.

The first death happens at 10:08 A.M when the boy from District 5 is electrocuted touching a pipe connected to the wall. He twitches, his hand catches fire and within seconds he’s flung across the bedroom, landing motionless near a wardrobe. The camera zooms on top of a tall dresser near the pipe, there lies a small golden key.

Realizing the hatch needs to be unlocked, the girl from District 8 opens every drawer in the bedroom she’s in. Suddenly, she’s swept off her feet. The floor shifts violently, back and forth, once it stops, it slowly moves upwards and comes to a halt.

The time is 10:22 A.M when the second death occurs. The little boy from District 12 coughs blood, his eyes cry and no matter how hard he tries to cover his face, the gas still gets to him. One last cough and he drops, twitching and foaming at the mouth.

Sweating profusely, Eddy wipes the sweat off his forehead and watches his step on top of a desk. Having tied his bowtie to the latch, he sticks in the golden key being the first to escape. A cheer erupts in class and what sounds like the entire school as well. “Ladies and gentlemen, our first escapee!”, Caesar announces. “But not so fast, he’s been placed in yet another room, this one seems to be some sort of botanist heaven, ha ha!” he fake laughs. Confused and on high alert, Eddy breathes heavily looking all over his surroundings. There’s a smile on my face, but deep down I’m terrified for him.

Second to escape is the girl from District 3, she’s found the key and with her gown heavy from having gotten wet, she rips it up. Flickerman whistles. Ms Weston makes a sound of disgust, “she’s fourteen”, she says.

By 10:48 A.M, bathrooms have been filled almost entirely with water, tributes desperately swimming around. In studies, objects catch fire. In bedrooms, depending on each, emit lightning like surges of electricity creating fires, others have their furniture crushed by walls or floors. Gas fogs up closets. Seven tributes are now dead, the rest, if they haven’t escaped yet then their fate has already been sealed.

A body floats in the water filled bathroom. One is shown as their skin melts from the enferning heat, and another twitches their finger as they are squished between furniture. Eddy is shown again, he’s spitting a chewed up leaf on his burnt finger tips. The female career from District 1, bleeding from her nose, coughing profusely, stumbles out of the room she’s emerged from, into a hallway and is struck in the head by a swift, lethal blow with a pipe. The first to kill is the male tribute from District 7. He searches her, peeks into the room she came from and moves on to try and open other unopened doors.

The lunch bell startles me into a jump. It’s 11:00 A.M. Ms Weston tells us to make a single file line by the door, no one says anything and we silently do as we’re told.

“Now, word is, there are eight floors and no elevators”, Caesar makes a disgruntled sound. “I don’t know about you folks, but I just hate taking the stairs. Ha ha!”, his fake laugh is the last thing I hear when I leave the classroom.

Alone at a table, rubbing the tears out of my eyes, all I can see is the boy from 12 dropping dead and twitching. Any second, it can be Eddy dying like that or in an even more horrible way. The tears keep coming. I don’t like to cry in front of people, I refuse to be a wuss but it’s so hard to swallow. Somebody hugs me from behind. When I look up, my eyesight is too blurry to tell who it is, but the wild shade of red sitting next to me gives herself away. Ari rubs my shoulder.

“I know you ain’t wanna be friends no more”, I don’t let her finish that sentence. “Ari, I missed you so much,'' I say through tears a little too loud for my liking. I’m sure there’s a lot of looks on me right now. She giggles in my ear and hugs me back. Clearly she missed me too.

Lunch with her ain’t the same, but that’s cause of my predicament. According to Ari, Mr Bale actually has them doing school work, he put his sweater over the television. “That ain’t fair, everyone with eyes knows you knew Eddy”, she says with a frown on her face. “I told you Ms Weston don’t like me”, I mumble under my breath handing her an extra piece of honey walnut bread. Even though momma Bilmin heard momma tell me to never talk to Ari again, she still adds one extra. Ari smiles when she takes it, somehow this is enough to cheer me up. I smile back.

For some reason lunch feels like it’s been cut short. I’ve had so much fun talking to her about random things I learned from books. Unlike Efrain, Ari always looks interested and don’t cut me off unless she making a joke or asking questions. It’s like this whole week without her never happened. Back to class, we even hug goodbye.

I was away for thirty minutes, within that time, two more tributes died. Another was heavily injured by a career and Eddy is nowhere to be seen. “It seems that each floor has its own.. Sort of theme, wouldn’t you say?” Flickerman sits behind a desk talking to another man who looks like a founding father. “After his tumble earlier, the tribute from seven, Clarke Hale, has slowed down drastically! But so far, he’s the only one who’s made it to the sixth floor and this one seems to just be one big empty room?”, Flickerman questions. “It’s a tennis court”, the other man adds. Note to self, learn what tennis is.

Clarke is the center of attention. He’s everything the Capitol loves. Tall and visibly strong with pretty green eyes and dirty blonde hair. I think it’s silly how they shaped his mustache, the tips curl. Using the shower pipe, he limps his way into the vast room. A replay shows him running down the stairs. Just as he reaches the seventh floor the dimmed, flickering lights give in and he misses a step. Just as he stumbles down the steps turn smooth and he glides until he hits a wall coming to a full stop. The lights turn back on and he’s only a few feet away from the female tribute from District 4. Not backing down, she jumps on top of him and tries to strangle him with an extension cord. Being bigger than her, Clarke gets the upper hand by punching her square in the face. When she falls back, he pins her down and chokes her with his own hands. A warm sensation covers my whole body. It feels like I just woke up from a nightmare and don’t wanna look anymore but the sound of crackling fire calls my attention.

In the tennis court, he’s found a new weapon, it looks like a big fly swatter made of shiny metal. Without skipping a beat he swings it, hitting the ball of fire headed his way. It lands across the room. Knowing he has to get out of there, with the pole in one hand, fly swatter in other, he limps as fast as he can towards the exit. On his way he manages to swat two more before he makes it out.

My heart skips a beat, the cameras switch to Eddy hiding inside a big wardrobe. He’s sweating and rocking back and forth from exhaustion. His eyes are closed tight and he has a hand over his mouth while the other shakes holding the doors shut. Just outside roams a white figure with no real shape. It hovers from one corner of the room to the other. It’s shape looks like a person walking around with a white sheet over themselves but it’s see through. I’ve never seen a ghost before. Goosebumps form on the back of my neck and shoulders, my heart beats fast. The figure, although not really touching anything manages to open drawers and even hovers back and forth in front of the wardrobe until it disappears completely.

The setting changes and now we follow up on the male tribute from District 2, he’s found the female career from 2 and male from 1, they walk around the halls of the eighth floor looking for who knows what. Probably following up on their bloodlust. Not interesting enough, the camera switches to the female tribute from District 3. Wouldn’t know who any of these people are if it weren’t for the informational panel on the bottom right corner. Here the words that appear are the age, district and names of those shown. Her name is Ada and she’s fourteen years old. Slowly, holding herself back by her back, arms and knees, she crawls downwards inside a vent. This makes me nervous and I'm not the only one. Wendy shakes her hand nervously and whispers to Destiny. Something horrible is bound to happen to Ada here. She’s visibly vulnerable and if something were to happen she’d be forced to let herself fall. The true horror is the underlying question, how far down would she go?

Replays of all the deaths make my stomach churn. Curiosity had me watching the games attentively but now, I don’t wanna open my eyes. I cover my ears and put my head on the desk. I shut my eyes just like Eddy but that look on the choked girl’s face keeps forcing itself in my mind. By the time the school day ends I feel the urge to leave everything behind and run out of class, but I don’t. Calmy, I put on my backpack noticing how shaky I am and silently walk out of the classroom. I’ve forgotten all about Ari until she catches up at the end of the hall. I don’t say much but I do hug her goodbye again before we walk out the building. I ain’t tryna get in trouble for talking to her. It feels like if anyone were to raise their voice at me, I’d drop where I stood, dig a hole to the center of the earth and never resurface. At least Eddy is still alive. For now.

#isadora wyetka #age 10 #arielle #the hunger games imagine #the hunger games #hunger games imagine #hunger games

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michaelmyersmalewife · 5 years

Note

Hi again! I couldn't stop reading the Teen Werewolf insert requested a while back, and was wondering if maybe we could get a sequel? Maybe one where Eddie/Venom actually get to mentor Y/N? And the wolf form is just this huge fluffy thing- but like Y/N has floppy ears because they're still young and their wolf form is technically like a big puppy? Thanks!

A/N: sorry if this took a while ! i’ve been working on other projects atm + just life getting in the way so sorry if this is too short as well ;v;

“Hit me.”

The teen sputtered, eyes growing wide with confusion. “W-What?! Are you - Are you sure?”

“’S alright, seriously! Can’t help you if you don’t show me what you got, right?” Eddie said, arms spread wide.

They gulped. Whenever they would…turn..it was hard - nearly impossible - for them to regain any semblance of control. It was like they became an entirely different person. They didn’t want to hurt this man, not when they had only just met him.

“I..I don’t -” Eddie cut them off with a wave of his hand.

“I’ll be fine, trust me.” he held up a single finger before they could speak again. “I know what you’re going through, kid,” More than you know, he wanted to say. “But if you wanna get better you gotta know your limits - and by extension - how to control them. Get me?”

Fiddling with their fingers, they nodded.

“Okay.” they exhaled.

Eddie chuckled, placing his hands in his jacket’s pockets. “Besides, pretty sure I can handle it.”

This brought a shy smile to the kid’s face, and within an instant they were brought to their knees. A moment of concern flashed across Eddie’s mind before realizing that this was probably normal. He stood for less than a minute, observing the transformation taking place before him. If Eddie was any closer he would’ve been able to hear the sound of bone reshaping itself to fit the structure of something more lupine. It was hard to watch, but he didn’t want to look away. In seconds the transformation was complete, and Eddie had to restrain himself from following Venom’s bout of giggles that currently filled the back of his mind. Only a smile managed to escape from his subdued reaction.

They had indeed surpassed Eddie in height, and in any other situation he should have felt intimidated. But what stood before them was something more akin to an overgrown puppy rather than the stereotypical werewolf that Eddie anticipated. Floppy ears, large round eyes, and the fluffiest fur he had ever seen. He knew that the teen was young, but he didn’t expect their other form would reflect it as well. Venom was still giggling.

EDDIE. They..are very cute.

Eddie rubbed the back of neck, laughing incredulously. He couldn’t see this kid attacking, let alone killing and eating, another person. And yet they did. He sighed, he definitely had his work cut out for him.

#thank u again for the request !!#eddie brock x reader #venom x reader #takenbytheweeds fics

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hysterialevi · 5 years

Text

When the Devil Cries pt. 23

Fanfic summary: (NO SPOILERS IN THIS STORY) After arriving in Saint Denis, Arthur ends up falling in love with a seemingly innocent pianist, only to find himself in a battle with one of the most notorious outlaws to ever emerge from America. Now, between working for Dutch and robbing money for the gang, Arthur has to also protect the man he loves as the two of them try to find their freedom.

Pairing: Arthur Morgan/Male OC

Previous chapter

This story is also on AO3

From Arthur’s POV

SHADY BELLE

DAWN

Rushing into my room with Eddie in tow, I hurried over to the bed as he limped along beside me before gently setting him down, allowin’ the boy to finally find some comfort after these past few days of torment.

Eddie looked exhausted, despite the fact that Rodrick seemed to have gone easy on him. His usual, energetic expression was nowhere to be seen, and instead of the joyful twinkle I normally spotted in his eyes, the pianist’s face sagged with not only fatigue, but also a layer of anxiety.

I let out a worried sigh and slid a soft hand down his cheek, tryin’ to calm the boy down as I took a seat next to him.

...Was I doing the right thing? I wondered. With every attempt I made to protect Eddie, I only seemed to end up dragging him deeper into this mess.

I mean, Jesus-- I never intended for our relationship to turn out like this. From the first day I met Eddie, everything I did was to keep him away from the gang’s activities. I never wanted him to get involved with our world of outlaws and Pinkertons, and I certainly never planned to bring him into the heart of all our problems.

And yet...here he was. Fightin’ for his life in the ass-end of some swamp that had been shot to hell by Atticus’ gang...all because I tried to protect him.

I could lie to myself about it all I wanted, but the truth was: I was puttin’ this boy in danger with every move I made. And sooner or later...I was gonna have to let him go.

But for now, I simply threw those thoughts away and focused on Eddie, keepin’ him company as he slowly fell asleep.

I bent down slightly, bringin’ my face closer to his.

“Try to get some rest, Eddie,” I whispered to him. “You need it.”

Eddie sluggishly forced his eyes open and looked at me with refusal, attempting to bring himself into a sitting position.

“...What, here?” He asked. “But...this is your bed, Arthur. It’s not big enough for the both of us. Where will you sleep--?”

“--Hush,” I cut him off. “It’s yours for now. Just get some shut-eye, alright?”

He fell silent at that and halted his movements for a second, finally relaxing into the bed once he realized he weren’t gonna change my mind...but somethin’ was still off about him.

There was a certain...mood to him that made me suspect he wasn’t quite as alright as he claimed. Every time I glanced at Eddie, he looked like he was about to break into tears, and he kept his eyes in a downcast angle. He looked devoid of all life.

I tilted my head at the pianist and peered at him in a curious manner, checkin’ to see if he was okay as he settled into the thin mattress.

“...Eddie?” I said. “R’you doing alright?”

He frowned out of despondence and brought his forlorn gaze to me, his eyelids low with weariness as a quiet sigh escaped him.

“I...I don’t know,” Eddie lied at first, eventually opening up to me. “...No. No, I’m not.”

I was quiet in response, causin’ the other man to prop himself up on his elbows before he continued to vent.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I don’t mean to act like this. I’m trying my best to stay strong -- just like you said I should -- but...” Eddie let out a breath of defeat, hanging his head low, “...I’m just not built like you, Arthur. I’m not built for the life of an outlaw, no matter how hard I try to be...and I think it’s finally starting to take its toll on me.”

I nodded in understanding, patting a hand on top of his own.

“I figured that was part of it,” I admitted. “You’ve been actin’ differently ever since that bank robbery, after all. Not to mention all the shit that’s happened these past couple o’ days. I think everyone in the gang’s startin’ to grow a bit tired.”

“I suppose I just feel guilty,” Eddie confessed. “I thought robbing those people would be easier. That we’d just...barge in, wave our guns around, and take the money like any gentleman. But the way that bank manager looked at me...it made me feel like a monster. Made me realize it wasn’t right, what we did...”

Eddie sat all the way up, draggin’ a hand down his face as it drooped in sorrow.

“And Hosea...” he carried on, “I’m so sorry about Hosea, Arthur. I know how much you loved him, and I know how much he loved you.”

I glanced away from the boy for a moment, tryin’ to hide how I truly felt.

“Yeah...” I simply said. “I miss that old man. It’s gonna be strange livin’ in a world without him, considering he was in mine for over twenty years. Thankfully, Dutch managed to get him buried somewhere. Somewhere he can rest.”

“That’s good,” Eddie replied. “It’s what he deserves. I mean, I didn’t know him for nearly as long as you did, but Hosea treated me almost like a son in the short time we knew each other. I imagine he did the same to you.”

I agreed. “He sure did.”

“Well...if it’s any consolation, I also know what it feels like to lose a father.”

A thought popped up in my mind at that, causing me to change the subject.

“What was your daddy like, anyway?” I questioned. “I know you said he was involved in crime, but you haven’t really said much else about your family. Not that I blame you. I’ve just been curious.”

The pianist sifted through his memories for a second, thinking about what to say.

“My father...he was--” Eddie hesitated, unsure of how to describe him. I guessed his daddy must’ve been quite the complicated man.

“...His name was Jonathan,” the boy finally settled with. “He had his flaws, but I still loved him. And I know he loved me. Some people described him as cold, or emotionless, but he showed compassion in his own, distant kind of way. The man rarely ever smiled, but others always seemed to be smiling around him. ...He kind of reminds me of you.”

I chuckled. “You think I’m cold and emotionless, d’you?”

Eddie cracked a smile. “Most of the time. But it only makes your caring side stand out all the more.”

The pianist went back to the topic of his family, tellin’ me about the other members as his voice softened with a reminiscent tone.

“As for my mother, her name was Ethel. She had...quite the spirit in her. She wasn’t exactly as gentle and delicate as the other women in our neighborhood, but I liked her that way. She was boisterous, yet composed. Comical, yet serious. Harsh, yet loving. She’d often spend her time knitting in the living room, and the rest chasing me and my sister around with the needles when we were being disobedient. Though, it was usually me.”

I chortled at the image. “Sounds like Miss Grimshaw in a way. And, ah...what ‘bout your sister?”

“Her name was Alice,” Eddie answered, his tone slightly morose now. “She was...very quiet. Almost alarmingly so. She always kept to herself, and didn’t really have any friends, but not because she couldn’t make any. Just because she seemed content with being alone. Both my parents often protested her self-induced isolation and tried to get her out of the house, but Alice would simply spend her days reading book after book. She’d also listen to me play the piano as she did so.”

Eddie’s voice faltered at the painful memory and his expression steadily began to sink, makin’ me blurt out a hasty apology once I noticed what my big mouth had done this time.

“Aw, shit...” I murmured. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I...I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s alright,” he reassured. “I just...I miss them so much. And I regret not being able to save them from Atticus. None of them deserved to die the way they did, and there’s also the fact that seeing the man again has brought back some...horrible memories. But I’ll be fine.”

A question suddenly posed itself in my thoughts, leadin’ me to grow even more curious about Eddie’s past.

“Why does Atticus even wanna kill you so bad, anyway?” I asked. “I mean, I know he didn’t really get along with your father, but...all this effort just to kill one man? And for so long? It seems like a waste of time to me. Why is he so obsessed with huntin’ you down?”

Eddie quirked a brow. “Didn’t I tell you? About Nathaniel?”

I shook my head, findin’ myself in an even deeper state of confusion. “No. Who’s Nathaniel?”

A blanket of realization covered the boy’s face at the answer and he turned away from me, thinkin’ about how to explain the whole story as I waited for a response.

...Just what the hell was going on?

“...I’m sorry, Arthur,” he started off. “I thought I already told you, but...I guess it just slipped my mind.” Eddie let out a short sigh. “Nathaniel was the name of Atticus’ son.”

I perked my head up in interest. “Atticus has a son?”

“Had,” Eddie corrected. “Nathaniel was killed a long time ago. He was a few years younger than you when he died, and an outlaw just like his father.” The boy switched to a more sullen temperament. “...He was also my first lover.”

My eyes widened with shock. “You were in love with...Atticus’ son?”

The other man nodded, evidently not proud to admit it.

“This was before Atticus betrayed my family,” Eddie clarified. “We never knew things would turn out like this. In fact, Nathaniel always did everything he could to keep me away from his father’s world of crime. He never introduced me to the other members in the gang unless they approached us first, he never talked about the jobs they did -- he pretty much pretended they didn’t even exist. Nathaniel just wanted to keep things normal...and for a time, they almost were.”

I urged him to go on. “...But?”

The pianist got to the point. “But...then Atticus decided to wipe out my entire family. He sent Thatcher as the assassin to finish us off -- and for the most part, he did -- but when the man reached me, Nathaniel stood in his way. He disagreed with his father’s actions and tried to protect me, but in doing so, had to go against his own gang.”

A pang of realization hit me.

“...So that’s what Thatcher meant...”

Eddie cocked his head to the side. “What?”

“Before I killed Thatcher,” I recalled, “he told me I wasn’t the first one to ‘throw my life away for you.’ It just never really clicked until now. I guess he was referring to Nathaniel.”

The boy thought back on the incident. “Well, unlike you...Nathaniel didn’t survive. Middleton was forced to kill him in the end, and by the time he dropped dead, I was already long gone. ...That’s why Atticus hates me so much. He blames me for the death of his son, and will do anything he can to take revenge.”

I rested my elbows on my knees. “Surely, a man like Atticus would know revenge is pointless?”

Eddie shrugged. “Perhaps, but I don’t think he cares anymore. Whatever concern he had for his gang’s safety died with Nathaniel. He fears nothing because he has nothing.”

Breaking out of his thoughts, the pianist suddenly put his hand on top of mine and used the other to caress my face as he scooted closer to me, lookin’ me in the eye.

“Listen, Arthur,” he said, “whatever happens, I promise I’ll never run out on you like I did with Nathaniel. I know you’re always telling me that there might come a time when I’ll have to save myself, but...I don’t think I could. I don’t think I could just leave you behind like that. Not after all this time.”

I leaned closer to him and removed his hand from my cheek, holdin’ it in my own.

“Now, don’t you worry about that,” I comforted. “Dutch has a plan. We’re gonna pack up this camp, and we are gonna get the hell outta Shady Belle. You’re gonna be safe.”

Eddie disregarded that, sighing in disapproval. “I don’t care about being safe anymore. We’re outlaws, for God’s sake. We’re never going to be safe. The only thing I care about right now is you, Arthur.” He glanced away for a moment, bashfully averting his eyes. “...I love you.”

My entire body froze at that and I simply gazed back at the boy in bewilderment, feelin’ more touched than I would’ve liked to admit.

It had been ages since someone last said that to me, and part of me couldn’t believe it was real. All these years of fightin’ people and being betrayed by them, making new enemies with each passing day...it was hard to see myself finally having someone who was not only a friend, but also a lover.

I snapped outta my trance-like state and brought my attention back to Eddie, tightenin’ my grip around his hand in an affectionate manner as a gentle chuckle escaped me.

“Boy, you really are a fool, ain’t you?” I teased. “Well, if it makes you feel any better...I love you, too.”

Eddie beamed brightly at that and the joy returned to his face as he happily planted a kiss on my lips before embracing me, practically meltin’ against my chest once the fatigue finally started to catch up to him.

Holding the pianist close, I let him lay his head on my shoulder and tried to make him forget his worries, calming him down as he slowly fell asleep.

It felt like it had been an eternity since I last spent any time with the boy, and now that he was finally back with the gang, I intended on keepin’ it that way. I didn’t give a damn if Atticus blamed him for Nathaniel’s death, or blamed him for any of the other problems he had in life -- I was gonna keep Eddie safe no matter how much it cost me. And Atticus was dead wrong if he thought otherwise.

I mean, with everything else fallin’ apart around me, Eddie was the only thing I had left that I could truly protect. Dutch rarely ever listened to me anymore, Micah was already beginning to replace Hosea, and the rest of the gang was fightin’ itself with fears and doubts. It was like witnessing a train-wreck before it even happened, and I’d be damned if I let Eddie get caught in the middle of it.

Interruptin’ my train of thought, a knock emitted from the bedroom door as Dutch’s guttural voice came through, grabbing my attention.

“Arthur, you in there? I need to speak with you.”

“I’ll be out in a minute, Dutch.” I replied.

“Alright,” he said, his footsteps slightly faltering as he wandered away from the door. “Meet me on the balcony. It’s important.”

Softly pushing Eddie off my chest, I placed the exhausted boy down on the mattress and slipped my coat off, layin’ it over him like a blanket as the cool breeze drifted in through the broken windows.

“Go on and get some sleep.” I whispered, earning a series of incoherent mumblings from him in return.

I let out a quiet laugh, switchin’ off the lantern on my desk as I headed out the room.

“G’night, Eddie. It’s good to have you back.”

A FEW MINUTES LATER

Strollin’ through the doors leading to the balcony, I found Dutch casually leaning against the railing with his back turned to me as he silently enjoyed a cigar, taking in the gloomy view.

There was something different about the old man. He seemed content in an odd way and didn’t appear as agitated as I expected, but the air about him still felt...wrong, despite the solace.

I mean, the O’Driscolls was finished. We had just gotten back from killin’ their leader, and now, Dutch’s lifelong nemesis was suddenly absent. I supposed his focus had probably moved onto Atticus by now, but considering how he handled Colm, part of me didn’t even wanna know his plans for the future.

They might’ve been a success individually, but with every plan I carried out for Dutch, the deeper I found myself stuck in this shit. It was like adding even more weight to an anchor strapped around the gang’s feet, and Dutch wasn’t doin’ anything to keep us from drowning.

I calmly walked up to the man, leaning my body against a nearby pillar as his eyes flicked in my direction, leadin’ him to greet me.

“So...” Dutch said, shaking some ash off his cigar, “Colm O’Driscoll is finally dead.”

I adjusted myself, resting a hand on the buckle of my belt. “Yep. He sure is. You feel any better?”

“Oh, yes,” he admitted darkly. “Much...better. I know you don’t think much of payback, Arthur, but I assure you, this was well-deserved. Colm is finally where he belongs. In the ground.”

“And what ‘bout you?” I pointed out. “You on the top now?”

Dutch picked up on my irritated tone and turned to face me, his brow furrowed in frustration as he let out a breath of smoke.

“I am gettin’ tired of all these doubts, son,” he confessed. “What happened to your faith? Ever since Blackwater, it’s been shaken. You’ve turned into a different man. Before, you was more than willing to gun down any O’Driscolls in our path, and now you’re disappointed in me for killing their leader? I did our gang a favor, Arthur. I saved lives. I saved Eddie.”

I was unconvinced. “Atticus saw us, Dutch. He was at the fort. He knows we’re the ones who killed Colm, and if I’ve learned anything about how that man’s mind works, he’s gonna retaliate. People are gonna suffer ‘cause of what we did.”

“Yes,” Dutch acknowledged, albeit sarcastically, “that tends to happen when you’re an outlaw. But like I said before, I have a plan. We’re gonna move the gang up north to Roanoke Ridge before Atticus even has a chance to do anything, and disappear.”

“North?” I questioned. “What we gonna find up there? As far as I know, only towns in the north are Annesburg and Van Horn. Ain’t nothin’ to rob in those places, Dutch.”

He nodded. “Which is why we are gonna take one last score in Saint Denis before we leave.”

I paused. “Wait, what? What else is there to take?”

Dutch reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded letter, swiftly handin’ it to me as he explained its contents.

“I received a letter from Trelawny. He said he’s stayin’ in Saint Denis right now. Might’ve overheard a tip that could help us out.”

Scanning the message, I quietly muttered the words out to myself as my eyes scrolled down the page.

“...a high-stakes Poker game on a riverboat...” I jolted my head up. “You sure about this, Dutch? I don’t doubt that there’ll be lots of money, but do we even have the time to plan for something like this? We’re already livin’ on borrowed time as is. We need to move.”

“You said it yourself,” he countered. “Ain’t nothing valuable in Annesburg or Van Horn. If we don’t wanna show up there empty-handed, we’ve got to take this opportunity while we have the chance. We got no choice. Trust me on this, Arthur. It’s worth it. And besides, if there’s anyone in the gang who can play Poker and blend in with high society at the same time, it’s Eddie. This is perfect for him.”

I sighed in defeat, finally giving in to Dutch’s plan.

“...Alright. What d’you need me to do?”

Dutch took a step towards me, gesturing inside the manor with his cigar.

“Take Eddie, go to Saint Denis tomorrow, and meet with Trelawny. Talk with him. Stay the night if you have to. Just get as much info as you can about this riverboat party. We’ll hit it the moment we’re ready, and then leave this place as soon as we have the money.”

Folding the letter, I shoved it into my satchel and complied, reluctantly goin’ along with this idea.

“If you think that’s what’s best.”

The other man seemed satisfied. “I do, son. I do. And so will you. You just need to have faith. After all...” Dutch took one last drag on his cigar and put it out, sauntering back inside as the sun climbed the sky, “...what else have we got?”

#red dead redemption #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan #eddie ryan #arthur morgan x male oc #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 story

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honkhonkrichard · 5 years

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Eldritch (or, the monster Au)

Summary: Derry was not a haunted town. It was quiet and sweet and no one every suspected anything. Bill, Eddie and Ben discover, though, that there’s much more in this town then anyone could have guessed. WC: 3142 Pairings: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris/Bill Denbrough Rating: T (for slight body horror and general creepiness) Read On AO3 A/N: Happy Halloween!! this au is my baby!! thank you so much to @aestheticdenbrough for making the moodboard for me!!

Bill pushed open the door to the old church. It was silent as it moved forward. Bill poked his head in to find the church wasn’t dusty or run down at all, it was rather clean.

He couldn’t see the baseball from the front door so he slipped his body into the threshold of the church.

It was bigger than he had expected, that’s for sure. It was quiet, with light from the sunset filtering in through the stained glass windows, which depicted stories Bill didn’t recognize. They didn’t even look remotely common or familiar. No, they almost looked like… monsters.

The pews were entirely empty, as Bill gazed around the room, but he shivered, he felt like the church was filled with people and they all turned and were staring at him, interested. Almost anxious. Like he had busted in to save them.

Bill shook his head. Nothing in this creepy chapel could hurt him.

He looked up, up around the room, doing a slow 360°, looking at all the high ceilings and engraved columns until his eyes fell upon the altar, and the man who stood there.

Bill leaped out of his skin. That man was not there before.

Bill suddenly felt like there were hands grabbing onto him for comfort; much like how Eddie did. His shirt, his wrists, his shoulders. Dozens of cold spots all over his body as he looked at the man by the altar.

The man stood to be very tall, built up like a swimmer with a thin waist and broad, broad shoulders. Something about him seemed off; almost like he wasn’t shaped quite right. He was facing away from Bill, with his hands somewhere in front of his chest, faced directly towards the altar.

Maybe he hasn’t noticed me. Bill thought. I should go.

The invisible hands seemed to tug harder. A plea. Were they afraid of the man?

The man had thick, dark, ringlet curls that were trimmed neatly, and scrapped over to one side of his face. His shirt was white, with the sleeves rolled up at the elbows, and tucked into dark dress pants. The pants didn’t fit. His legs were too long. His arms were placed so his hands would be at his bellybutton, and the little skin Bill saw was deeply tanned. If Bill guessed, the man might’ve been Indian or Arabic.

But Bill didn’t want to find out. He wanted to leave. He needed to leave.

However the invisible hands had grabbed at Bill’s feet, keeping him in place. He felt like he could faintly hear people asking for help. For freedom, for comfort or safety.

Bill was frozen in place, and trying to stop his heavy breathing before the man saw or heard him.

When the man’s head tilted up, Bill knew it was too late.

The man slowly turned his head to the right, his profile becoming more and more apparent to Bill.

As soon as Bill could see the man’s eyes, he wanted to scream.

The man had an eye on his forehead. It was unlike the other Bill saw, which was green, this one was purple and Bill knew it could see him in ways that no one, no living creature, no mortal being could possible see him.

The hands let go.

Bill ran.

Bill ran all the way outside the church and didn’t even register where he was going until he ran into something and collapsed to the ground.

No, not something, some one .

Bill, who was half out of breath over what he had just seen and half out of breath over running, hovered up over top of Eddie.

Eddie, who looked awfully confused and kind of concerned. “Bill? Bill are you okay? What happened? Was there a rat? Or A snake? Did you get the ball?” The ball. Right. The baseball. The baseball that crashed through an already broken window into the church after Eddie made what was one worst/best shots ever. The ball that Bill had lost a bet to go get. The very thing that made Bill have to go into that church in the first place and made him see that… man.

Fuck the ball.

Bill leaped to his feet, dragging Eddie up with him. Eddie was still asking about the ball. Bill clutched Eddie’s shoulders.

“We have to get out of here.” Bill said, and he must’ve said it with a lot of intensity because Eddie stopped cold.

“Why? Why what happened? Bill?”

“We j-j-just- There wa-was-” Bill couldn’t explain. “We have to leave, we have to- h-h-have to get out of here. Away from that-” That thing. “Awa-away from that building. Go get your b-b-bag.”

Bill didn’t explain anything until they got back to his house. He lived in a small, cramped apartment near the university he and Eddie went to. He lived with a tall, handsome roommate named Ben, who was nowhere to be seen when they got there.

Eddie didn’t stop moving until Bill was seated on his bed, in some comfy PJs and slippers, wrapped in a warm blanket and nursing a nice cup of hot chocolate.

“Ben went out to camp in his van, or something.” Eddie breathed, finally letting himself slow down for the first time since Bill had run out of the church.

“Sounds ab-b-bout right.” Bill murmured, staring at his mug, which said just write on it.

“So.” Eddie said, pulling the rolling chair from Bill’s cluttered desk and sitting backwards on it, leaning on the backing. “Tell me what you think you saw.”

“I did s-s-see something, Eddie. I know I di-did.” Bill snapped, then immediately curled in on himself. “I’m s-sorry I ju-just-”

Eddie leaned forward and put his hand on Bill’s shoulder. “It’s okay.”

Bill took a deep, shaking breath. “I saw a m-man with an eye on his forehead. I think he h-had three eyes to-total.”

“Maybe it was makeup?”

“No, it b-b-blinked. It.. It g-glowed, Eddie. I know it was real. And then there was the f-f-feeling of like..”

Bill shuddered thinking about it.

Eddie waited patiently, moving over to sit beside Bill on the bed, hands on Bill’s back.

“Like there were people.. G-ghosts. Watching m-me. Wanting me t-to..”

“To…?”

“To save them.”

Bill shook his head. “I know that so-sounds stupid b-b-but I know what I felt. It was like back wh-wh-when we were kids, and you would grab my sh-sh-sh-” fuck. “-my jacket. It felt like that.”

Eddie didn’t quite look like he believed the story, but he nodded. “Maybe they… wanted protection from the man? With the third eye.”

Bill nodded too, frowning down at his mug and swirling the drink a bit. “I think so.” He looked back up to Eddie. “I don’t know what to do. Those p-people. The g-ghosts…”

Eddie pulled his phone out. “You know who would know?”

Bill sipped his hot chocolate. “Who?”

“Ben.”

Ben groaned out into the night. He was sitting in his truck, the back seats were pushed down flat so he could lay out in the trunk when he went to sleep. He hung a few long lasting fairy lights along the sides and pulled out a little portable grill. He was in the middle of making a late night snack (okay, “late night” meant at 9pm and “snack” meant second dinner) when his phone rang.

“Ben Hanscom speaking.”

“Benny!! Benny my man ! It’s Eddie! Do you have a minute? ”

Ben relaxed a little. Eddie. “Yeah.” he said, poking at his sausage, which was grilling up nicely. Damn, I’m good. “What’s up?”

“Bill thinks he saw- ” Ben heard Bill growling in the background. “I did! I know I did!” “Bill saw something in an old church. It was a guy with a third eye and he felt ghosts wanting him to protect them from the guy. What should we do?”

Ben stared out into nothing for about ten seconds before finally answering. “Are you on acid right now?”

Eddie groaned. “Ben!! Please, man, please just help us out! You’re the logician!”

The three of them had been given named to express personalities. Ben was the logician, Eddie was the cleric, and Bill was the leader.

“Right.” Ben said, sounding a bit more condescending than he meant to. “And as your logician I’m here to tell you than you need to go the fuck to sleep. Bill hasn’t been sleeping well anyway, right? That combined with how stressed he’s been and how Halloween is just around the corner? Not to mention he’s a horror writer! The church probably spooked him and his poor exhausted senses freaked the fuck out. I recommend getting some damn sleep and forgetting about it.”

Very quietly, on the other line, Eddie muttered. “Damn. Okay.”

“I’m sorry. It’s late. I’m tired and my grill isn’t working right. I’m sorry.” Ben said quickly, mumbling a bit. “But still. I think Bill should seriously consider the idea that what he saw might have been his poor selfcare catching up to him. Get some sleep, it’ll help.”

There was a pause. Ben imagined his roommate sighing and nodding.

“Okay, thanks Ben.” Eddie said sincerely.

“Happy to help. I’ll be back in the morning sometime. Take care of our Billy, okay?” Ben replied.

“Of course. Be safe out there, Benny Boy.”

Ben said his goodbyes and hung up the phone before finally digging into his sausage. Damn . He thought. Shoulda brought ketchup.

Something cried out in the woods.

Ben froze, then pulled his sausage a bit closer to his chest. “Hey now.” he whispered.

He put his plate down and stood to his feet, pulling out his phone and turning on the flashlight. “He~y now.” He repeated, louder this time.

Someone appeared out of the darkness of the woods, slumping against a tree and wheezing lightly.

Ben ran over as they toppled over into his arms. It was a girl, she must’ve been Ben’s age, maybe a bit older. She had a baggy linen button up and black dress pants, both of which were horribly torn. She also didn't have any shoes or socks on. She made a small attempt to grab hold of his neck and shoulders as she collapsed onto him. She groaned weakly as Ben lifted her over to the truck and set her gently among the pillows and blankets.

“Hey, Hey are you okay? Can you speak?” Ben asked as gently as possible. “Does something hurt?”

The girl opened her eyes a little, pain showing across her features. Despite how shitty she looked like she felt, Ben thought she was beautiful. Her hair was a mess, with thick ginger curls wrapping her face perfectly. Her eyes were red rimmed with tears but they were deep green. Her skin was pale, covered in freckles, and bruises.

“Brok..en.” she croaked, and her finger pointed faintly at her foot, which was bruising badly enough to make Ben cringe.

Ben peeled off his jacket and shuffled over to his bag, pulling out thick bandages. “Did someone hurt you? Are you being followed?” he asked, forgoing the idea of being intrusive.

“No.” she whispered. Ben waited for her to elaborate, but nothing came.

“I’m Ben. What’s your name?” He asked, piling some ice from his cooler into a small bag for later.

The girl shifted uncomfortably. She seemed to be getting better with every passing minute.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.” Ben smiled, trying to ease tension, but faltered because holy fuck this really pretty girl broke her foot and might be drugged and I have no idea what I’m doing . “I’m gonna wrap your foot in a bandage and put some ice on it, okay?”

The girl nodded faintly. Ben, in one last attempt to cheer her up, put on some music.

He bounced his head lightly as New Kids On the Block played quietly. He was as light as he could be, eyes flickering between his hands and her face, looking for any discomfort.

She somehow smiled through the pain, and her gaze fell on the little speaker Ben had. She looked like she wanted to say something about it.

Ben blushed deeply. Gosh, she was very pretty. He felt like such a nerd.

He carefully set her foot on top of the bag of ice, which he covered in a towel. It was like when Bill sprained his ankle 3 months ago, after trying to skateboard on a hike.

“Better.” The girl mumbled. Ben grinned a bit, climbing up into the trunk next to her, being sure to keep a bit of distance between them. He grabbed the forgotten sausage plate and passed it to her. “Hungry?”

She stared at the plate, not moving.

Ben put the plate down.

He leaned over and draped some blankets over her and put down all the pillows he had. “Nice and comfy… I hope.”

“Bev.”

Ben looked up at her. She had a small smile on her face, which, if possible made her more beautiful. “Pardon?”

“My name.” She said, voice soft and hoarse, like she had been screaming. “Beverly. Bev.”

Ben smiled a bit. “It's nice to meet you Beverly. I-I think you should probably get some sleep. It'll help.”

Beverly exhaled and readjusted, closing her eyes. “Thank you.” She muttered.

Eddie woke up in the middle of the night with the munchies. He stretched a bit in bed before remembering Bill was curled up next to him (but he only remembered because he knocked Bill in the side of the head, making him groan in his sleep.) and crawled out of bed.

He threw on his track outfit (shorts and a hoodie), slipped his wallet and phone into his pocket and carefully left the apartment.

The air was humid and something in Eddie felt like it was going to snap. He felt tense from the soles of his shoes to the tips of his bottle blond curls. He brushed it off by shaking his head and reminding himself that it’s because Bill thought he had seen something.

The convenience store was empty, except for one tired looking girl with blonde hair and a jean jacket. Eddie knew her as the bitch named Greta who thought it was funny how Eddie liked to play croquet.

At least Eddie thought the store was empty, but when Eddie walked into the slushie isle there was someone he was sure wasn’t there when he had walked in.

He was probably Eddie’s age, maybe a little older, very tall with thin, lanky limbs and bad posture. His entire body seemed to be at a slant, with his neck sticking out from his broad shoulders while he looked at some snacks. He had pale, almost sickly skin with a few dotted freckles and scratches. Grey sweatpants stopped just below his knees, and a horrendous Hawaiian shirt thrown over top, buttoned up to his long neck.

He also had large, circular, thin rimmed glasses that covered half his face. They had a blood red tint to them.

Eddie tried his best as to not pay any attention to the weird stoner, but something about him made Eddie uneasy. He was covered in scars and scratches, small marks and bruises dotting his skin. There was something about the way he stood, his body seemed stretched, bent almost. And Eddie couldn’t see his eyes. It was weird.

Then Eddie realized he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He was completely barefoot.

Eddie wrinkled his nose. He was no saint. He wasn’t some do-gooder who demanded everyone follow the rules. But he was someone who thought it outta do this stoner some good to follow a goddamn law .

“Hey.” Eddie said, sounding a bit weaker than he had meant to. “You need shoes.” he said.

The response was a low, smooth hum that somehow managed to find its way through Eddie’s core, making him shiver and his ears ring.

“It’s illegal.” Eddie told him, taking a step forward, trying to put some emphasis on his words, maybe Greta would hear him and take over. The stoner turned his full body towards Eddie. “It’s also illegal to steal. But what you gotta ask, Doll,” He said in a deep, gravelly voice that again made Eddie shiver, but more so, he felt like he was going to barf. Something about the way this man.. Was just threw him off to the point of vertigo. “Is who is going to stop me?”

With each word the stoner said, Eddie felt like something was grabbing at his neck, and slowly squeezing. The same sensation was felt around his heart.

He turned to look for Greta, who surely would’ve noticed by now, but she wasn’t there. The cash register was empty.

Eddie looked back at the stoner. His head was cocked a bit. “C’mon Sweets. She won’t catch ya’. What’cha want?” he nodded to the snacks.

Eddie glanced back to the cash- except the cash wasn’t there. It was just another corner of the store. Filled with snacks and magazines. It blended seamlessly. Eddie stumbled back from where he had been standing, reaching into his pocket and grabbing his inhaler as the hands around his neck and heart gripped a little bit tighter.

He took a puff from his inhaler like he had done a thousand times over, as the stoner gently grabbed some of the snacks, some gummy bears, a few chocolate bars, a pack of gum, and stuffed them into his pant pockets. The snacks seems to disappear as they slipped into the fabric.

Then the stoner threw a pack of chips at Eddie, which made him shriek. “Relax.” the other said. “It’s just candy.”

Eddie looked up to the stoner, who, if he decided to stop slouching, would stand about 6 inches taller than Eddie, and tried to lock eyes.

Except behind the large blood red glasses, his eyes were empty sockets. They were black and hollow. Then, the stoner smiled, and his teeth were revealed to be large, and sharp like a shark.

Eddie dropped what he had in his hand and ran.

He ran as fast and as far as he could. He only stopped because he couldn’t breath but he could see the apartment. He settled for quickly walking.

In a fit of gasps and wheezes, he patted himself down to grab his inhaler.

The store. That… thing. It had Eddie’s inhaler.

Thing.

Suddenly some of the pieces from the day fit together nicely.

Eddie tried to not think about as he curled back up beside Bill, who was still snoring away. He tried not to think about how the Stoner’s eyes were human one second and dead the next. He tried not to think about how Greta could very well be dead. Or worse.

Bill rolled over in the small bed and wrapped himself around Eddie. He almost felt better.

Almost.

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starboystan · 6 years

Text

Smeddie / Medley hcs….. hmmmmmm

Basically I love love love Stanlon, Steddie and Kasplon so this made my entire world shake I have no idea why I’ve not heard bout it before!!

Oh yes I also made a little ship playlist for them too, listen to it here!

(( just tagging my loves bc they asked me to for some reason @bumblebeehanlon @wlwrichie ))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

>Right, three great soft boys!!!! Wowee here we go!

> So Stan and Eddie are close, like super super close! They always have sleepovers and are very touchy with eachother and it doesn’t mean anything to them bc that’s just how they’ve always been

> They will always hold hands and sit beside eachother and cuddle when they watch movies, all very innocent and tame, they’ve never kissed or anything like that

> All the Losers are convinced they’re secretly dating and they always get real defensive when it’s brought up

> Richie will say something like “Awwww, Eds and Staniel are off to bang again!” which will get a death stare in response from Stan and usually a slap to the arm from Eddie “Shut up! We don’t do that!”

> It’s around spring time when it all really starts up, Mike’s real busy with the sheeps as they’re all ready to have their little lambs

> Stans had this big crush on Mike for what seems like forever and nobody knows except Eddie

> The thing is is that Eddie also has a crush on that handsome farmboy but he doesn’t want to tell Stan incase he feels like they have to compete for Mike (very silly I know)

> Eddie always encourages Stan to hang out with Mike alone as much as possible despite how jealous he gets about it

> But Stan prefers when he gets to hang out with Mike and Eddie so he always gives Eddie funny looks when he tries to leave them two alone

> Mike starts to slowly notice how Eddie always seems to leave and it makes him pretty upset because low and behold he has feelings for both of these boys

> He doesn’t quite understand how he can feel things for the both of them at the same time but spending more and more time with Stan alone makes him think that he maybe likes Stan more

> Derry is a small town so Mike doesn’t really know things about being in a relationship with more than one person. He’s….. confusion

> Eddie starts getting a bit quieter, not hanging out with Stan as much, hardly ever being all touchy like he used to be

> Stan notices almost straight away and starts i wonder why, so eventually asks Eddie about it

> Turns out Eddie thinks that if he’s always touchy with Stan that Mike will be put off or will think he’s not got a chance with Stan

> Stanny thinks that’s ridiculous because he likes Eddie lots, and he likes all the time they spend together. Not being like he usually is makes him realise that maybe he likes him in ways more than how friends do…??

> He doesn’t tell Eddie that though, he’s a confused little gay bless him. This sucks because Eddie might just feel the same way about Stan, maybe he has felt that for a while

> Big old pile of confused feelings and mixed messages!! Oh lordy

> As the end of May comes around Mike has more free time and starts to hang around with Eddie and Stan a lot more, sometimes all three, other times only him and Eddie or him and Stan

> He gets to a point where he realises it really is both of them that he likes, not just one or the other

> Mike’s a pretty straight forward type of guy, he doesn’t mess about with all that guessing stuff so h decided that the best thing to do it to just tell them both

> He organises a picnic with Eddie and Stan, they have a lovely afternoon of snacks and soda and lots of laughing and happiness

> The way the three of them get on makes Mike real hopeful, maybe this could work afterall!

> As the sun sets over the farm, the three boys get the best view from the top of the big hilly fields of the Hanlon land

> Mike sighs happily and tells them, saying something along the lines of “I think I like you both, and I’m not quite sure why or how but I thought I’d let you know

> Both Stan and Eddie watch him closely and at the exact same time after a short pause say “Me too” in perfect unison

> The two of them look from Mike to eachother and have a look of surprise and excitement in their eyes. Eddie speaks up first and says “Wait really? Me and Mike!?” which is met by an nod from Stan

> All three of them are overjoyed!! It feels amazing that all their feelings are mutual

> They figure it all out sitting on that hill as the twisted red and auburn sky fades slowly into a deep purpley-blue and the stars begin to appear in clumps across the night

> They laugh and smile and talk about what to tell the others

> Nothing else seems to matter right now but the three of them and the Anciet Greek stories attached to the stars that Mike is telling them all about

> After that night, Stan and Eddie got very close again, only now it wasn’t just the two of them… Mike was always there, snuggling up or holding the hand of one or both of them

#smeddie #medley #i tried okay #sorry if it suckssss #mike hanlon #stanley uris #stan uris #eddie kaspbrak #the losers club #it (2017)#stanlon #steddie #kaspbrough #yikes

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danny-2-x-4 · 5 years

Text

Winter's Regression Chapter 1

"Your late" Devin said as he quickly jotted Winter's name down on the ledger,he looked up and let out a exasperated sigh,he used to hate Winter,her dark punk rock goth look really irritated customers,and if that wasn't bad enough she made no attempts to control her distain for her job

"And a good morning to you Dev" she said smiling at her manager

"Table 7 needs a waiter" he said handing her a menu

"Right" she rolled her eyes, 'only 2 more months" she apporched the back of the restaurant and nearly scowled at the man sitting there

She had once went to high school with Edward Meyers,he was a loser them and from looking at him in his beige suit,hair slicked back and faux smooth persona he was a loser now

"Hi welcome,I'm Winter can I take your order" she said pulling out her pad

"Oh my god Win...."

"Yes Eddie it's been a while,now your order?"

"Sure lets see hmm" he quickly flipped through the menu "well what would you recommend?"

Winter rolled her eyes "everyone likes the burger" she said

He laughed a bit "ill have the burger then,with fries and a coke" he closed the menu and handed to her

"Coming right up"

"Oh Winter"

"Yes Eddie?"

"You Should Smile More" Winter burned with anger at this,how dare he!

"Heh heh your right" she heard herself say as she smiled and turned toward the kitchen

"We got a order fries and a burger" Ramon the chef stared at Winter confused

"What?" She asked

"You never smile it's....creepy" he said turning away to start cooking,Winter turned to a mirror and tried to stop smiling but only succeeded in making a new wide eye smile

She gulped as she noticed Eddie finishing his drink, "refill?" She asked and be nodded,she tried again to stop smiling but failed

"Thanks" he said taking his drink, "say how bout I take you out tonight,maybe we can..."

"As if" she spat

"Your right" he laughed for a moment "Let's Get Out Of Here" she felt her body move on its own, following him out of the diner and toward his car,he opened the door for him and even buckled her in,all the while she fought to get control of her body,none of this made any sense,why couldn't she control herself

"Now where should we go first?" He asked

"Screw you,you dickhead I don't know how your doing this but I..."

"Suck Your Thumb" he said as they drove off

***

The entire drive she tried pulling her thumb out,but it felt stuck,Eddie laughed at her effort

Before long they made it to his house,"we're going to have a blast this weekend"

"Hmm" she said through her thumb,he placed his hand on her's and pulled her thumb out of her mouth, "now follow me" he said this time she didn't feel force to,she figured it was better not to refuse

She was surpised how normal the house was

"Nice place" she said,he shrugged and removed his jacket

"I guess" he looked her over "god I use to think you were hot" he said making Winter angry

"Screw you!" He laughed

"Maybe later,anyway here" he said handing her a large paper shopping bag, "now listen carefully Take A Shower,Then Use Everything in The Bag,and place your clothes in this bag and return it to me" Winter started moving upstairs,wierd since she didn't know where his bathroom was located

The bathroom was odd,as far as she knew be lived alone,but there were childish towels,bath toys and children's shampoo scattered through the room

She dropped the bag and slowly startes to strip,she blushed as she was a mere prisoner in her own body

The shower was actually nice,even though she had to use My Little Pony shampoo

The shower unfortunely was very brief as her hands turned off the water 5 minutes in

She then grabbed the bag,not even bothering with a towel

She didn't know how Eddie was doing any of this,but her body seemed to know what he wanted without him saying it

To her shock she was holding golden brown quick dye

"No!" She yelled,she liked her hair black,but her body didnt obey and soon enough it started applying the dye in

Soon enough her hair began to dry and the smell faded

Her body then dumped the remaining contents onto the floor and began putting her clothes into the bag

Her hand reached for a pink t-shirt,she looked and there was no bra,honestly she really didn't need one but still

She stares at the cartoon pony on the shirt,next she grabbed two hair ties,she tried fighting as she realized what Eddie and by extension her body wanted to do with her hair

But it was no use,she tied her hair into pigtails,making her look less Goth and more like a Bimbo

There were only two remaining items,one was a pink skirt the other she didn't recognize

Her body grabbed the skirt and pulled it up,it ended right past her was,finally she grabbed the item,it felt foreign to her,she inspected it till she realized it was a pull up diaper

"No...no I'm not doing this I'm not!" Her body betrayed her and began unfolding it then pulling it on her

She didn't want to look at herself,she grabbed the bag and allowed her body to take her downstairs

She found Eddie now sitting at the kitchen table,he had a smirk on his face

"You look adorable"

"Fuck you!"

"No More Swearing" a fog swirled in her mind

"Fudge you,stop doing whatever your doing you doo doo head!" Eddie smiled as Winter tried to figure out why what she was saying felt wrong

"No Winter we have an entire weekend to have some fun and then I'll let you go"

"Really you'll just let me go?"

"Yes,but you'll come back" he smiled which sent shivers down Winter's spine

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stonedstozier · 6 years

Text

hold your breath

chapter two

chapter one here

pairing: stenbrough

warnings: self harm, homophobia, abuse

modern day au

“Where is e- everyone?” Bill asks, walking up to Richie who’s standing by his locker.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Richie laughs lightly. Bill nods his head and stays silent. “Hey, you okay?” Richie asks, concern filling his eyes. Bill nods his head once again, but Richie doesn’t buy it. “Did you and your dad get in a fight again?” he asks yet another question.

The thing is, Richie doesn’t know all that goes on in the Denbrough household. Bill only tells him as much as he’s comfortable with. When Richie asks about fighting, he thinks it’s just his father yelling at him. He doesn’t know about the physical aspect of it.

“Y- yes,” Bill answers quietly.

“Was it bad?”

“Not t- too b- bah- bad,” Bill lies.

Throughout all of the losers, Bill and Richie are the closest. Bill tells Richie about some of his problems. He trusts Richie in that way and he knows Richie won’t ever tell his secrets.

Richie knows a lot about Bill, but he also knows next to nothing about him at the same time. Stan and Bill are also pretty close, but Bill wouldn’t dare tell him as much as he tells Richie because he fears he’ll scare Stan away in some way.

“Just a b- bit of yelling, th- that’s all,” Bill adds.

“Well, are you okay?” Richie rests his hand gently on his arm. Bill nods. He didn’t dare lie out loud; he’s afraid he’ll break.

“Hey guys!” Beverly calls from across the hall as her and the rest of the losers catch up to them.

“Wow, it’s about time,” Richie says sarcastically.

“Sorry.” Beverly smiles. “We just got caught up talking.” Richie rolls his eyes playfully. “Oh Bill,” she says, catching the boy's attention. “Stan’s asking for you. He’s over by his locker.”

“Ooohh drama!” Eddie teases.

“I- it’s not d- drama,” Bill half-laughs.

“Oh, well, never mind then.” Eddie says disappointedly. Bill shakes his head and walks over to where the curly-headed boy is located.

“Knock knock,” Bill says, knocking on Stan’s locker.

“Oh, hey.” Stan smiles warmly, closing his locker.

“Bev s- said you’re asking f- for m- m- me?”

“Did she really say that?” Stan’s voice is filled with annoyance. Bill smiles back and nods his head. “Of course she did.”

“W- were you not?” worry starts to flood Bill’s veins.

“No, no I was! I just don’t get why she had to say it like that.” Stan laughs nervously.

“Okay,” Bill says quietly, not knowing what else to say.

“Umm, anyway, I was just wondering why you never texted me back last night. I mean, it’s not like you to not reply and I wanted to see if you’re okay.” Bill goes wide-eyed at Stan’s words.

“Uh, I- I’m okay. I j- just had a lot of home- homework and th- then ended up p- passing out.” Bill hopes Stan can’t see through his lie. “I d- didn’t even finish it a- all anyway- way so I know m- my teachers will be p- pissed.”

“Oh, it’s okay.” Stan shrugs his shoulders. “I just thought something was wrong or if I did something that made you upset.”

“I- I’m okay,” Bill tries his hardest to smile.

The bell rings, signaling that first period had started (talk about being saved by the bell).

“Okay, well I’ll see you after class?” Stan asks rather than states. Bill nods his head. “Well catch ya later, Big Bill.” Stan says, his brown eyes gleaming.

“S- see ya, Stan the Ma- Man.” Bill says, his tone light and love-filled.

Bill walks to class, trying to hide the smile that’s plastered on his face. He makes his way to class and takes a seat in the very back, like always. The teacher had begun the class, but the boy just stares out into space, getting lost in his head.

“Bill?” the teacher asks, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Y- yes?”

“Your homework please,” Bill sighs at that.

“I- I didn’t d- do it,” he says, looking away.

“I’d like to see you after class,” is all she says and finishes up the lesson before the bell rings. Bill grabs his things and tries to sneak out the door with the rest of this kids, but fails.

“Bill,” the teacher says. The boy rolls his eyes and walks up to her desk.

“Y- yes?”

“I’m going to have to make a phone call home,” the teacher says in a disappointed tone.

“W- wuh- why?” Bill asks, panicking.

“You have twelve missing homework assignments in this past month and you know the rules, more than ten missing assignments gets you a phone call home.”

“N- no! I can f- f- f- finish them by tonight. I- I’ll get them to you t- tomorrow. P- please don’t call home!” the boy begs. He knows that if she calls home, his dad will answer and he will get a beating.

“I’m sorry Bill, but rules are rules.” the teacher picks up the phone to dial the number and Bill runs out of the classroom in a panic. His heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of his chest.

As Bill’s running to the bathroom, he’s suddenly face first on the floor.

“Watch where you’re going, B- B- B- Bill.” some kids tease and laugh at him.

“Hey! Fuck off, will ya?” Eddie yells at them and helps Bill up. “Are you okay?” Bill nods. “Fucking assholes,” Eddie mutters.

“This school is full of them,” Stan says, walking his way up to the two. Bill just stares at Stan. “Are you okay?” Bill nods again.

Quite frankly, Bill’s getting sick and tired of people asking if he’s okay all the time. He understands that they’re his friends and he’s grateful that they care about him, but it can get annoying at times.

Bill quickly snaps out of his thoughts when he feels warm, sticky liquid trickling down his arm.

“I- I’ve, um, I have t- to go.” he rushes out, running towards the bathroom.

“What’s up with him?” Eddie asks Stan.

“I’m not sure, but he’s acting really off.”

“I agree,” Richie says, coming out of nowhere.

“Do you have any idea what it could be?” Stan asks Richie. Richie shakes his head, even though he has a slight idea.

Meanwhile, Bill locks himself in a stall in the boys bathroom. He rolls up his sleeve to see that blood has filled up the whole entire bandage that’s wrapped around his arm. He rips it off to see that his cuts have reopened. He frantically starts wrapping toilet paper around his arm in an attempt to stop the bleeding. He reaches into his bag to grab tape - he learned that it comes in handy - and tapes the toilet paper to his arm and it seems to do the trick for now. He rolls his sleeve back down and waits a few more moments before exiting the bathroom to where he finds himself colliding with Stan.

“Oh, hey.” Stan says once he realizes that it’s his friend.

“H- hi,” Bill smiles slightly.

“Are you o-” Bill gives Stan a cold look, making him cut himself off. “I was wondering if you wanted to hang out after school today?” Stan asks instead, avoiding his previous question.

“Y- yes,” Bill says confidently, even though he has a stutter. He knows that if he goes home, bad things were bound to happen, especially since his teacher more than likely already called his father.

“Okay, cool.” Stan looks the other in the eyes and smiles a heartwarming grin.

“C- cool.” Bill looks away so Stan can’t see the obvious blush on his face.

“Meet in our usual after school spot?”

Bill nods his head.

“Okay,” is all Stan says and heads off to class. Bill staring after the boy lovingly.

“I don’t get why you just don’t tell him,” Beverly says from behind Bill, causing him to yelp in surprise.

“I- I don’t know w- what you’re talking ab- bout,” Bill denies.

“Oh whatever, Bill. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” she says, nudging his side. “I’m not blind and he isn’t either. Just tell him that you like him.”

“L- like him?!” Bill asks with wide eyes and mouth agape.

“Yes, Bill. I know you like him.” Beverly says, smiling like an idiot.

“S- stop smiling like that. It’s s- scaring me.” Bill frowns.

“Oh, don’t be a baby. Your secret is safe with me.” Bill just looks at the girl, not knowing what to say. He doesn’t even know himself if he likes Stan like that. He knows that with Stan it is different, but not that different. Or is it?

“Who’s a baby and who’s keeping secrets?” Eddie asks, jumping in the middle of Beverly and Bill.

“I’m p- pretty sure the baby is you,” Bill jokes, eyeing the small boy up and down.

“Nice one, Big Bill!” Richie says, patting the boy on the back.

“Where d- did you come from?” he asks Richie.

“His mother's womb, duh.” Eddie replies, as if the answer’s written in the sky.

“You are literally so stupid!” Richie snaps at the smallest boy. Eddie rolls his eyes and mocks Richie.

Once again, the bell rings and they’re headed on their way - meeting up after every class until it’s eventually lunch time. Bill doesn’t really feel like sitting with the losers today; he’d rather be alone. But he knows that if he doesn’t sit with them, they’d all be on his case as to why and if he’s okay, especially Richie.

Bill sits in his usual spot, right between Stan and Beverly. In front of him are Richie and Mike. Ben sits between Beverly and Mike while Eddie sits between Richie and Stan. This is how they sit every day. Nothing different, no one else added to the losers club, just them. And they’re happy with their little group of seven. Happy until someone isn’t.

“Bill?” Stan asks, placing his hand on his knee, snapping Bill back to reality.

“Y- yes?”

“Well, who do you think would win?” Mike asks. Bill shoots him a confused look.

“Who do you think would win a fight? The Hulk or Thor?” Ben cuts in. Bill sits there pondering for a bit.

“I would s- say the Hu- Hulk, b- but Thor is r- really good too.”

“Wow, I can’t believe I’m friends with a bunch of losers.” Beverly shakes her head.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur for Bill. All he keeps thinking about is the end of school so he can hang out with Stan and what will happen when he goes back home.

The final bell rings and Bill waits outside of the school by the big tree, where the losers meet up at the end of the day before they part ways.

“You ready?” Stan asks, popping out from behind Bill, grabbing his shoulders.

“Y- yes,” Bill smiles adoringly. They both hop on their bikes and ride in comfortable silence to Stan’s house.

“So, what do you want to do? Video games?” Stan asks, closing the door behind Bill. Bill gives Stan an ‘are you seriously asking me that?’ look. “Right. That was a stupid question.” Stan shakes his head and turns on the Xbox. “Pick your poison,” he motions to his shelf of games.

“R- really?” Bill asks, sarcasm dripping behind his words.

“Sorry, that was another stupid question.” The curly-haired boy sighs and pulls Call of Duty off the shelf and sticks the game in.

Hours and multiple shouts later, Stan decides to give up. “I quit!” Stan yells and throws his controller down.

“Aw, w- why? Someone’s a s- s- sore loser.” Bill smirks. Stan narrows his eyes playfully.

“Am not!”

“Is that why you’re q- quitting?” Stan doesn’t have a response. He just sits there staring at the boy in awe. This is the most ‘normal’ Bill has acted all day and it makes Stan’s heart flutter for unknown reasons. At least unknown for now. “W- what?” Bill starts to panic.

Stan is just staring at him, not saying anything, and it starts to worry the boy. Did he accidentally hurt his feelings? Did he offend him? ‘Impossible,’ Bill thinks to himself. Stan hardly, if ever, gets offended.

“Oh, nothing.” Stan says and breaks eye contact.

“A- are you o- okay?” Bill lowers his head to try to be at Stan’s level again.

“Am I?” Stan asks, snapping his head up in shock. He’s confused as to why Bill would ask him that. “I’m okay. Are you?” His eyes meet Bill’s again. Bill slightly nods his head. “Billy?” Stan asks rather seriously.

“Yes?”

“You would never lie to me, right?” Stan asks. A part of him knows that his friend isn’t okay, but the other part feels that maybe he’s overreacting. Maybe Bill is having an off day. He seemed to act happier as soon as he stepped foot into Stan’s house.

“Y- yes.” Bill is the one who looks away this time. Stan’s heart immediately sinks into his stomach; he knows Bill is lying.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Stan scoots a little closer to the other. “Anything at all. I promise I won’t tell anyone or judge you.” Bill nods his head. “So, what’s going on in that little mind of yours?” he asks, tapping Bill lightly on top of his head. Bill giggles and blushes slightly.

“N- nothing,” he sighs. Stan frowns. He knows no matter how hard he tries, he will get nothing out of Bill. At least not today. “I- it was fun h- hanging out with you, but I h- have to go b- before my dad starts to w- worry about where I am.” Stan nods and walks him to the front door where they say their goodbyes and ‘see you tomorrow’s’.

On the way home, tears start to well up in Bill’s eyes. He knows exactly what’s coming once he steps foot through the door.

“H- here we go,” Bill whispers to himself as he parks his bike and enters the front door.

“Oh, there’s our shining star! Our family disappointment.” His mother’s words are slurred as she stands up from the couch. Bill instantly knows she’s high.

“M- mom?” his lower lip quivers at the sight of his mother.

“Your father has told me aaaaaaall about you today,” she says, walking up to him. Bill gives her a puzzled look. “About your grades and your failures. How you’re gay.” She emphasizes that one word.

“I- I’m not-”

“Oh, save the bullshit. We all know it. And you know we don’t tolerate gays in this family.” She shakes her finger at her son, shunning him.

“Where have you been?” Bill’s father’s voice booms, causing the fragile boy to jump.

“N- nowhere,” he lies and turns slowly to face his father.

“Don’t fucking lie to me! Now, where were you?” Bill stays quiet. “Your teacher called me today. Seems you’re failing her class along with the rest.” his father lets out a malicious laugh. Bill bites his tongue, trying to hold back his tears. “Now where were you?” Once again, Bill stays quiet, which results in him getting slapped across the face and his back shoved into the wall. “You better fucking answer me you worthless piece of shit!”

“I, I w- was, I was a- at a f- f- fuh- friend’s.” Bill can’t hold back his tears anymore and lets them fall down his face.

“Is this friend named Stan?” his father’s words are hot on his face. “I bet that’s where you were, weren’t you?” he pauses. “Weren’t you?!” his grip tightens on Bill’s shirt.

“Y- yes,” Bill sobs.

“Who’s Stan?” his mother asks playfully.

“His no-good pathetic little boyfriend,”

“H- he’s n- not my b- b- boyfriend,” Bill’s voice shakes as he tries to make out words through his sobs.

“Right,” his father laughs in his face. “But you like him, don’t you?” Bill doesn’t get a chance to respond before he’s on the ground. He lays there as his father continues to punch and kick at him.

Bill eventually finds a way to escape and runs up to his room. He slams the door shut and immediately runs toward his closet. He shuts the lights off and closes the closet door, backing up as far as he can. Bill puts his head between his knees and begins to cry even harder, if that were even possible.

“Please make i- it stop. P- please m- make it go a- away,” he repeats over and over until he cries himself into darkness.

#stenbrough #stenbrough imagine #stenbrough fic #stanley uris #bill denbrough #it 2017 #trigger warning #hold your breath #the losers club

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skeletonscribbles · 6 years

Note

are u doing those prompts? if so how bout "so… did you miss me?" and “why do i love you?" ship of your choice but u know what im gunnin for :)

I am doing prompts, and I can totally deliver you some Reddie :) This one got away from me a little bit (2340 words…not bad, but not gr8 either), but I think it turned out pretty cute all in all, so – here’s this! I call it Mating Season, pure fluff, rated G :)“So…did you miss me?” & “Why do I love you?”

—-“Eds!” Richie Tozier cried out, loud even though he was sitting right next to Eddie on the cramped bus seat. “Eds, Eds, Eds!”

“What?” Eddie snapped, wound up from hours of being jostled. School buses were full of germs, and Eddie was sure he’d contracted at least twenty diseases just from spending fifteen minutes on this yellow death trap. Three hours was unthinkable.

And then, of course, there was the unfortunate matter of his seat partner.

When they’d boarded the buses, Eddie had tried his best to jockey himself into position behind clean, quiet Stan, but Richie had pushed his way in between them at the last second, insisting upon spending the next three hours “as close to [my] Eddie Spaghetti as possible”. Eddie had almost thrown up then and there.

He wasn’t upset about it because he didn’t like Richie. He liked Richie very much - in fact, most of the time he liked Richie enough to ignore his annoying habits, like speaking three decibels louder than was strictly necessary or making crude jokes about sex at inappropriate times.

Lately, though. Lately, sitting next to Richie had thrown him into a weird sort of anxiety spiral, and he wasn’t really sure what was causing it. Ever since last summer, when they’d all done whatever crazy amazing thing they did together (Eddie was fuzzy on the details of it, for some reason), every time Richie’s arm brushed Eddie’s side, or Richie’s thigh pressed against Eddie’s on the bench of the lunch table, Eddie had felt a little bit like he was on fire. He had no idea why, and he wasn’t sure he cared to think long enough on it to find out.

Obviously, then, three hours squished against Richie in a bus seat was nothing short of excruciating.

“It’s mating season,” Richie said gleefully, much to Eddie’s confusion, annoyance, and great embarrassment.

“What are you talking about, dumbass?” Eddie asked. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to know his ears were bright red; he was well aware of all the little ways that his body betrayed him when Richie started in on something like this.

“At the Wildlife Park,” Richie explained, bouncing a little in his seat. “It’s spring. Maybe we’ll get to see some of the animals doin’ it.”

“Gross!” Eddie exclaimed, shoving Richie against the window and wondering why his stomach suddenly felt like it was in his throat. “You’re so gross, Richie, oh my God.”

Richie cackled, grabbing Eddie’s hand and licking it. Eddie shrieked and withdrew, wiping his hand anxiously on Richie’s shirt before drawing it back in.

“I know exactly what moose mating calls sound like, too,” Richie continued, a terrible smile on his face. “I hear them every night when your mom–”

“Shut the fuck up!” Eddie slouched down in the bus seat, livid.

“Aw, Eds,” Richie began, but he was cut off by their science teacher, Mr. Williams.

“All right, we’re just about to the Maine Wildlife Park, so I want to announce the groups for today’s field trip. When you get off the bus, we’ll walk to the water fountain by the Visitor’s Center, you’ll find your chaperone, and you’ll stay with them until we get back on here in the evening. Understood?”

“Understood,” the entire eighth grade mumbled back disjointedly.

“All right.” Mr. Williams looked at his clipboard. “Four groups. First group, you’ll be with me, and that’s Angstrom, Arrowsmith, Bowers, Bowie, Conklin, Corcoran, Denbrough, Dunton, Earl, and Fadden.”

Eddie looked sadly across the aisle at Bill. No friends, and stuck with Henry Bowers? Yikes, alphabetical order had really screwed Bill over.

“Next, with Ms. Marsden: Gordon, Hagarty, Halloran, Hanscom, Hocksetter, Huggins, Jagermeyer, Johnson, Kaspbrak, and Kersh.”

This time, Bill was looking at Eddie sadly. Eddie didn’t have Bowers, but Hocksetter and Huggins together were just as bad. At least he’d have Ben with him…and he would have had their friend Mike, too, but unfortunately Mike’s grandpa had yet to be persuaded to take Mike out of homeschool and put him in the public system. Alas.

Well, at least Ms. Marsden was nice…as language arts teachers went, anyway.

“Third group, with Mr. Doyle: Laurie, Marsh, McCall, Mellon, Mueller, Phillips, Ripsom, Rogan, Rogers, Sadler”

Beverly groaned really loudly from her seat. Mr. Williams shot her an exasperated look, and then continued.

“And finally, with Mrs. Emerson, we have Starrett, Taylor, Tozier, Unwin, Uris, Webb, Winterberger, Wolcott, Wormwood, and Zachariah. Again, find your chaperone when we park and get off the bus. It shouldn’t be more than three minutes, now.” Mr. Williams sat back down, and there was an immediate roar of discontent. No one wanted to be separated from their friends, the Losers least of all.

“I can’t be with Richie,” Stan complained, “he’ll just make jokes about animal genitals all day! I wanted to record the ring-necked pheasants in my bird journal, and I swear, if he ruins it or vandalizes my stuff before we get there–”

“Nerd,” Richie stuck out his tongue at Stan. “Where do birds keep their dicks, anyway? Do birds even have dicks?”

“Cool it, Mr. Tozier,” Mr. Williams warned without turning around.

“Won’t happen again,” Richie called back. This was a very rehearsed line of his, and it was starting to come off as insincere…and it was insincere, but Eddie thought it would benefit Richie to be less obvious about it.

“It’ll happen again within five minutes,” Mr. Williams responded, resigned.

“Yeah, probably.” Richie sank down into the seat, unusually quiet as a sea of angry 13 year old voices rang out around him. Eddie peered at him curiously - usually he’d be more than thrilled to have hours upon hours to grate on Stan’s nerves, but apparently not this time.

“You alright, Rich?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Richie shrugged. “I wanted to be in your group, is all.”

Oh. Eddie was surprised, and a little flattered - he’d honestly not considered that option.

“Thanks, I think?” Eddie tentatively put a hand on Richie’s forearm, shivering a little at the more intimate contact. “Next time.”

Richie still looked put-out. “I guess.”

Before Eddie knew it, they were being shepherded off of the bus, walking to the fountain meeting place where tour groups departed from, and dragged into their field trip groups. Eddie hadn’t particularly enjoyed sitting next to Richie on the bus, but he found that he missed him in a pretty immediate way once he was gone - especially with the looks that Patrick Hocksetter and Belch Huggins were giving him.

He moved closer to Ben, and hoped for the best.

It didn’t come.

The groups began to move off in separate directions pretty immediately (the Losers had all shared a fair amount of despondent looks amongst each other, and Richie had gone so far as to blow kisses to each of them). Eddie and Ben’s group shuffled off to the left after a young-ish looking red-headed tour guide that looked a little bit like an older version of Bill. Eddie grabbed Ben and tried to push towards the front, both to be able to hear the guide and to be nearer to Ms. Marsden in case anything went awry, but he was stopped by a hand on the back of his collar.

“Going somewhere, fairy boy?” Belch Huggins’ gross breath was unmistakable. Eddie gulped.

“Leave us alone, Belch,” Ben tried, valiant as ever, but he was grabbed in turn by Patrick Hocksetter.

“In the woods, no one can hear you scream,” Patrick said, emotionless in a way that gave Eddie an extreme case of the heebie-jeebies.

“They can see you eat shit, though, so…there’s THAT.” For whatever ungodly reason, Richie was back. He punctuated the last word of his sentence by shoving Patrick off of Ben and into a nearby tree.

Belch turned on Richie as Patrick struggled to right himself, and Eddie stared at the situation, frozen and aghast.

“Trash boy,” Belch growled. “You’re not in this group.”

“I am now,” Richie said, sounding way more confident than he looked, “and if you touch me or Haystack or especially Eds, I’m gonna let the whole eighth grade know the good news about what I caught you and Henry Bowers doing by the field house when I skipped social studies to go smoke, Hocksetter.”

Patrick, who was making his way back over, immediately paled and backed up. “Belch. No-go on this.”

Belch eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

“No-go,” Patrick insisted, grabbing Belch’s arm. “Let’s go look at some fucking animals or whatever. Shit.”

Belch looked livid, but he moved towards Patrick anyway. “You got off easy this time, Tozier, but next time….look out.”

“Was that a glasses joke?” Richie called out after them, but they were too far away to feel like they had to respond.

Ben, Richie, and Eddie were left staring at each other in silence.

“Well,” said Ben after a long moment, looking between Richie and Eddie knowingly, “I wanna go catch up to Ms. Marsden to see what I missed. I’ll see you guys in a minute.”

“But–” Eddie began to protest, but Ben waved and moved curtly up the path ahead of them, not interested in hearing what Eddie had to say.

That left Eddie alone with Richie. Again.

“So…did you miss me?” Richie asked, grinning sheepishly.

“You weren’t even gone for five minutes,” Eddie said, crossing his arms. “What’s the matter with you?”

Richie shrugged, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his too-baggy cargo shorts. “It’s like I said. I wanted to be in your group.”

Eddie shook his head, absolutely baffled. “Why?”

“The moose enclosure is first for you guys, I think.” Richie changed the subject deftly. “That’s what the guides were muttering to themselves about before we left, anyway. Let’s go check it out.”

“Richie–” Eddie tried again, but Richie had grabbed ahold of his hand and was guiding him firmly towards the moose exhibit, or whatever.

When they finally caught up with the class, they were treated to the sight of exactly….one moose, with a disappointing lack of antlers.

“Moose are usually solitary animals,” the tour guide was explaining, “but during mating season, females swarm around males as a sort of harem.”

Richie squeezed his hand, and Eddie jumped - he’d forgotten that their fingers were still laced together.

“Richie, let go of me.”

“Are you even listening at all?” Richie’s face was alight. “Mating season? Moose harem?”

“When two males are interested in the same female, they’ll usually fight it out, which is pretty intense. Alice here is pretty big, right? Well, male moose are even bigger…and their horns are pretty deadly if used right.” The tour guide gestured to the moose behind him when he said Alice, and Richie bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet.

“Moose fight!”

Eddie tried to tug his hand away, but Richie wasn’t interested in letting go. “Richie, what the fuck?”

The group was moving towards the next exhibit, but Eddie wasn’t interested in moving until he’d gotten an explanation from Richie. This clingy behavior was out of character in a really concerning way. Usually he’d just insult Eddie’s mother, pinch at Eddie’s cheeks and move on, but today…

Well, no, not just today. Now that Eddie was thinking about it, Richie had been touchier than usual for a couple of weeks now - slinging his arm around him at lunch, or pulling him over to sit next to him during movie nights. It was probably just more obvious today, because they weren’t split up by different classes and assigned seats.

What the hell was going on?

“Whaddya mean, Eds?” Richie smiled, but his fingers started to tap against Eddie’s hand in a way that Eddie knew meant that Richie was nervous. (Richie fancied himself a good actor, but Eddie knew him better than anyone, and as such had catalogued all of his little tells.)

“Don’t call me that.” Eddie forcibly yanked his hand out of Richie’s and glared up at him, frowning. “Why have you been acting so weird?”

A little color drained from Richie’s face. “Weird?”

“Yeah, like…touchy and stuff.” Eddie didn’t understand any of what Richie was doing, least of all how nervous he was right now. He looked like Eddie felt around him, nowadays. “What’s up?”

“They’re going to see the swans without us–” Richie tried, but Eddie wasn’t having it.

“Richie.”

“Swans mate for life you know,” Richie said, quiet and unexpectedly sweet. Eddie felt his heart skip in his chest, stared at Richie’s slight frown, disheveled curls, and furrowed eyebrows that were causing his glasses to slip down his nose, and came to a realization that almost made him pass out.

Oh, FUCK.

“Just like me and your mom!” Richie finished, crowing, and Eddie almost screamed.

“Why do I love you?” he blurted, mouth miles ahead of his mind. Immediately, he clapped his hands over his mouth, mortified. Richie stared back at him, mouth hanging open stupidly.

Well, there was that friendship down the tubes.

“Sorry, what now?” Richie asked after a moment of terrible silence.

“Nothing,” Eddie hissed, storming off. “We have to see the swans.”

“Eds, come on!”

“Swans, Richie!”

Richie laughed, surprised and joyful, and followed after Eddie with a gigantic dorky smile on his face.

“We could be swans, you know, Eds,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows exaggeratedly and grabbing Eddie’s hand again. Eddie made no move to pull away this time, though he did make a point of digging his fingernails extra hard into Richie’s hand. (Richie flinched, but did not complain.)“Um, no we couldn’t?” Eddie was so lost in the swirl of feelings and thoughts in his brain that he couldn’t for the life of him understand the meaning of what Richie had said. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s mating season,” Richie said simply, and Eddie shoved him into a bush.

It was going to be a long, strange day, followed by a long, strange bus ride home.

Eddie found himself looking forward to it.

#reddie #reddie fanfic #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #bill denbrough #beverly marsh #ben hanscom #stanley uris #no mike in this one sorry :( homeschool bby #loser's club #it 2017 #it movie #stephen king's it #canon compliant #boys are 13 but there's nothin' rlly goin on it's just sweet #ask

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shootingstarcipher-blog · 6 years

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Cardboard Castle (Reddie Fic - Part 1: Somniloquy)

He had friends and he didn’t need anyone telling him otherwise – not his mother, who never stopped claiming that she was the only one who’d ever be a friend to him, and certainly not some new kid who went around charging about like a deranged bull, commenting on anything and everything as loudly and as irritatingly as he possibly could just to assert his presence. He must have been remarkably insecure, Eddie silently pondered, watching him from his seat across the room. The way he yelled out increasingly unfunny jokes every time the teacher’s back was turned and seemed to think making inappropriate comments about the least relevant topics was the best way to ensure all eyes were on him at all time was testament to that suspicion. At the beginning of the class, Eddie hadn’t been sure about this new boy at all. But by the end, he was absolutely certain he would be avoiding him at all costs.

Richie Tozier dove for the door the second the bell rang. Unfortunately, so did Eddie (he was nowhere near as fast as the new kid but as his seat was much closer to the door, they reached it simultaneously and smacked into one another with far greater force than Eddie had anticipated). He was knocked into the wall face-first and much to his frustration and disappointment, Richie got off without a scratch. He turned around just in time to see him slide his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with a single finger and walk away muttering an apology, the sincerity of which was ambiguous to say the least.

With a scowl on his face and a deep scarlet creeping across his cheeks with embarrassment, Eddie Kaspbrak narrowed his eyes and followed after him down the corridor with no intention of ever confronting him, but a relentless desire to hunt him down with vengeance. That was until Bill Denborough stopped him in the hallway and his anger faded, setting it aside for the next time Richie Tozier crossed him.

The only other person he knew who didn’t either treat him as though he were invisible like most did or crush his body and spirit to the point of self-loathing like Henry Bowers did was Stan Uris, who the two of them were waiting for in the almost empty hallway in silence. Though somewhat disappointed, Bill was not at all shocked or offended at Eddie’s lack of response after he had suggested the waited for Stan, but he had been the first time it had happened the year before. He hadn’t spoken a word since – not even to his mother. Bill and Stan were used to it by now, showing him more sympathy and understanding that he had ever imagined and even comprehending most of his non-verbal replies with minimal confusion. He considered himself lucky to have them, even if together they had been branded “The Losers’ Club” and even if no-one else saw how lucky he really was.

He wondered for a moment if Richie Tozier had any friends; he assumed not, because who could stand such desperation for attention and sheer unrelenting volume? He certainly couldn’t, and he doubted anyone else could either, especially on the basis of the annoyed looks he’d frequently been given during the hour they’d spent together in the classroom.

His contemplations were snatched away when Bill spoke up again and he secretly wished, once he’d heard what his friend had to say, that he hadn’t heard it at all. Their plans to head off to the barrens that afternoon had been diminished by this new development, at least for Eddie. Because is apparently was no longer going to be just the three of them, but a fourth had been invited to what had promised to be a relaxing trip to a common daydreaming spot for the them. And this new development was a red-headed girl who went by the name of Beverly Marsh.

They’d all heard of her. Everyone had. Eddie just hadn’t realised Bill knew her personally as opposed to the way he did, from the offensive scribbles on the bathroom wall. He said nothing, as he had done for the past year, but nodded in understanding – though the fear in his eyes could have been seen from miles away.

What if she was exactly like they said? What if that was why Bill had invited her to come with them? The rational side of him knew that Bill would never do that and that the fact that he had invited her probably meant none of those rumours had any merit, but all reason was dissolved into anxiety and distress at the sight of her as she headed towards them from the other end of the corridor. He did his best to cover up his fear but failed almost instantly and wound up having to rely on his inhaler until the classroom door nearest to them opened and Stan appeared beside him with a smile.

Eddie smiled back, relieved at his presence, but he never had had much luck when it came to holding on to feelings of peace – which in this case was illustrated when Stan announced that he, too, had invited someone who was merely a stranger to Eddie to meet up with them at the barrens that afternoon. Some might have said he was overreacting, but to Eddie Kaspbrak, news like this was earth-shattering. He hadn’t met anybody new since the last time he’d spoken and that was nearly a year ago, his main source of anxiety being that no-one would be as understanding as his friends.

As always, he stayed silent for the entire journey to the barrens while his friends (and Beverly, who he still had barely glanced at) chatted between themselves. He listened intently to everything that was said, particularly Stan’s description of Ben Hanscom – the new boy who was going to meet up with them – and their discussion of another new student, Richie Tozier. He was glad to hear that Bill, who also had a class with him, had found him just as annoying as Eddie did.

He'd spent barely five minutes in the barrens cloud gazing with his friends before crawling off to his castle in the woods, oblivious to whether anyone had actually seen him leave. He hadn’t even met Ben yet and had previously had the intention of at least sticking around to see him, but this determination had dwindled when he saw how well the three of them got on together… without him. After a seven-minute walk from where he’d left his friends, he crawled under the waterproof sheet that hung between the tree either side of his castle – he’d learned the hard way that cardboard didn’t cope well in the rain – and crept inside what he considered to be his second home (it was a close second, because home hadn’t felt as much like home as it used to for a long time).

Inside his castle, the harshness of the cold air was lost on him entirely, immediately becoming replaced by the sweet warmth his mind managed to dream up, as it always did when he came to his home in the barrens. Legs pulled up to his chest, the warmth flowing from his heart to the rest of his body, he closed his eyes for a long, blissful moment, simply listening to the silence no-one else ever seemed to appreciate. Then, when it was eventually broken by the agitated cawing of a raven, his eyes focused on the scarlet words in front of him.

In fact, they were not only in front of him, but surrounded him completely. It hadn’t always been that way, the first castle having no words scrawled across it at all because at that point he’d kept all of his observations and feelings in a leather-bound journal that had soon been the focus of many insults, physical attacks and mortifying moments the perpetrators found to be the most entertaining thing they could come up with. Eventually it had gotten stolen – an idea which, though he had no proof of its accuracy, he was wholly invested in.

Now, his grievances were mainly written onto post-it notes or any other scraps of paper he had to hand and then stuck to the inner-walls of his cardboard castle, ready to welcome him home the next time he returned to it. Normally he stayed there for hours, keeping a close eye on his watch to make sure he never stayed out there so late his overbearing mother would panic and get the police looking for him (which, he pondered, probably wasn’t an especially good idea since they seemed to be rather poorly equipped when it came to finding missing children, if the bout of cases occurring within the past year was anything to go by).

The alarm on his watch beeped, prompting him to reach into the bag around his waist and swallow the pills he’d been made to take countless times every day for years to combat an illness the precise nature of which was unclear to him, but which clearly made him vulnerable physically and susceptible to other conditions. It was all he could do to not wind up in an early grave – listen to his mother and do exactly what she said, because even if he wasn’t attacked by a disease for not doing what she ordered, he had a sneaking suspicion that she’d still be a threat.

By the time he crept out of his castle later that afternoon, carefully ensuring that the plastic sheet was covering it entirely so as to avoid another disaster like the first one, the sky was already beginning to darken and so he ran the whole way home, resorting to a slow jog whenever he had to get his breath back. His friends had gone by then and as usual, not one of them had gone looking for him. It was no surprise but still stung, knowing that they were realising they were better off cutting him out of the group altogether. Besides, who wanted to be friends with someone who never even spoke?

His shoelace had been undone for most of the journey but he only noticed a short way from his house. Stopping to re-tie it may have been either a crucial mistake or an absolute blessing as without that short, twenty-second pause, he wouldn’t have noticed the shadow dart around the corner behind him or hear the scuffling of worn-out shoes against the pavement. His heartrate sped up slightly, eyes widening in fear, and it was that fear that got him home faster than he’d anticipated.

He forgot about it quickly, bowing his head apologetically to his mother when he walked through the front door before she hugged him lovingly as a way of accepting his silent apology. She talked to him throughout their evening meal, with Eddie of course nodding, shaking his head and shrugging in reply but never once speaking a word. He wondered if the disappointment he saw in her eyes when she looked at him had dwindled even once since he’d last spoken. No, he quickly decided – and without a shadow of a doubt. It hadn’t.

He emptied half of his food into the bin when she wasn’t looking. Food was no longer interesting.

Sleep was another thing he barely cared for anymore, except that in a conflicting way he craved it, but could often not bring himself to close his eyes. He climbed into bed without getting changed, jotted down the words “sleeping in clothes again” on a nearby scrap of paper and lay there for hours, staring up at the blank, lifeless ceiling until he began to see patterns it that didn’t really exist, but that his mind was creating just for the sake of having something new to look at.

Eddie took a moment to wonder if that was why Bill had become friends with Beverly Marsh – to have something new to look at.

Sleep was cruel to him that night, coming only in short bursts of serenity, juxtaposed with fitful awakenings that lasted for hours at a time. He sometimes paced around his room, bare feet padding quietly against the carpeted floor, but each time grew anxious that he would trigger the awakening of his mother and face the unfortunate consequences. And so each time he slipped back into bed after a few minutes of pacing, realising with a great sense of dread that he would not be getting back to sleep for at least another hour.

His delicate mind, riddled with unnerving thoughts, pulsated with fear at every sound that invaded his senses that night, unexplained or otherwise. It was then, as he lay awake in bed, shivering and dripping with cold sweat, that he remembered the ghostly silhouette he had seen duck down around a corner, as if it had been watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly went rigid, his muscles becoming tense and stiff. And from that moment on, he couldn’t help but focus on every danger – no matter how slight or insignificant – that could possibly occur or exist around him. His eyes and ears were instinctively straining, anticipating the familiar sight of that ghoulish figure or the sound of approaching footsteps.

But throughout the night, none of the potential threats he was looking for occurred and at some point he lapsed into a tranquil sleep without his knowledge, every dream he experienced during that time fading into nothingness when his mother’s fists pounding on his bedroom door brought his moment of peace crashing down around him.

Leaping out of bed, he greeted his mother at the door with a smile and she ushered him into the kitchen for breakfast, of which he had taken one bite before she interrupted, sliding an envelope across the table to him. “Some boy came to the door a minute ago. He asked me to give you this.” On the paper white envelope were the words “Eddie Spaghetti.” His nose crinkled at the sight of it as he struggled to comprehend who would have come up with such a name. None of his friends had ever called him that before – so why start now? – and no-one else, as far he was aware, knew where he lived… unless, of course, they’d followed him home.

With only a brief moment’s hesitation, he temporarily deserted the rest of breakfast in favour of opening the letter, partly out of curiosity but mainly in response to the watchful gaze of his mother, who was clearly desperate to find out what it was all about.

“Hey, Eddie Spaghetti from English,

Sorry about bumping into you. I really didn’t mean to do it. How can I make it up to you?

Richie Tozier (the new kid in your English class)”

“By leaving me the hell alone,” was the immediate reply Eddie’s mind came up with –only shown on his face by the icy glare he was sending directly at the letter in front of him. And he had already taken a strong dislike to this sudden nickname he’d been given. That was another thing the new kid could do to make it up to him – never calling him “Eddie Spaghetti” again. Although, Eddie did believe in giving credit where credit was due, so he acknowledged and accepted the apology – but still thought no better of its bearer.

He balled up the letter and threw it over his shoulder after reading it only the once. It missed the bin completely (and unsurprisingly) so he pushed back his chair to pick it up, realising then that there was something written on the back.

“P.S. I think you’re kind of cute.”

Eddie balled it up again – faster than before, in case his mother saw – and made sure it landed in the bin this time. When he returned to the table, she asked what it was about and who it was from and all he did was shrug – a wordless way for him to simply say “nothing” – before finishing his breakfast and racing off to his room to get dressed, desperate to get back to his castle in the barrens for some comfort and privacy.

To let her know where he was going, he slipped his mother a note that read “Going to the barrens, back before lunch” and waited for her approval before heading out the door, collecting his bike from the front yard and setting off for his castle. His tablets and inhaler were safely secured to his body and his back pocket was full of post-it notes he’d written scraps of information on, ready to attach them to the cardboard walls of his second home.

Just as he reached the halfway mark, he began to consider going back home and taking the note from Richie Tozier with him to the barrens so he could keep it there with the rest of his notes – to stop his mother from reading it and because, while he still wanted nothing to do with him, the fact that someone had gone to the trouble of writing to him, personally delivering said letter to his doorstep and going so far as to call him “kind of cute” warmed his heart ever so slightly. It would be the only note in his castle written by someone else.

But he could never bring himself to rummage around in such a disgusting place like the kitchen bin so he barely entertained the idea for a second, continuing on his way with a slightly heavier heart than before.

When he neared the location of his cardboard castle, he dismounted his bike, kicked down the bike stand and hid it behind the most abundant shrubbery he could find, choosing to walk the rest of the way in case someone found his bike. As it was the only place he was truly comfortable and ever truly alone with his thoughts, he intended to keep his castle a secret for as long as possible – one which he would happily, and in fact aimed to, take with him to his grave.

Once safely inside his castle, he allowed himself to relax, humming a song he didn’t know the name of as he stuck his newest observations and notes to the inner walls of his fortress until there were no more left and all he had to do to was read them, an activity which he always appreciated the serenity of and greatly enjoyed.

Less than half an hour after he’d begun reading, last night’s bouts of interrupted sleep caught up with him and he curled up on the ground, eyes closing automatically as he whisked off to a peaceful, pleasant world of dreams and silent thoughts – a world far better than the one he was forced to live in.

Because the world within his dreams was void of all human life. Because there were no rowdy classmates, certainly no Richie Tozier, no friends to cast him aside and not even he existed in the world his mind dreamed up for him. Because there were no notes, no noise, no footprints outside his house and no monsters waiting in the shadows. It was black – simple, pure blackness. Sometimes he saw stones float down from above, creating waves and ripples in the water. And sometimes – only occasionally – there was a spot of scarlet right in the middle of it all, behind all the blackness.

Waking up inside his castle was never very comfortable, at least for the first few seconds; such a cramped space would have driven a slightly claustrophobic person insane if they weren’t expecting to find themselves there, but this time the discomfort continued for far longer than it had ever done before. Because the castle was no longer there. Instead of waking up to a carboard ceiling a few inches away from his face, he was surrounded by tree trunks and falling leaves and found himself staring at the plastic sheet he used to protect his fragile carboard fortress from the bullet-like rain that shot out from cloudy Derry skies.

The sudden disappearance of his castle wasn’t the worst of it and in fact, it reappeared in a moment, but not over his head like he’d hoped it would, but in the hands of the worst part of the situation instead.

Richie Tozier, with an irritatingly toothy grin that was nothing less than what Eddie would have expected from him plastered onto his face, stood looming over him as he lay there on the ground in stunned silence, clutching the castle Eddie had carefully constructed himself and was holding it over him like he, in that moment, held all the power in the world. And what was even worse was the fact that, to Eddie, he really did hold all the power in the world. His castle meant absolutely everything to him – comfort, solitude, and it was the only thing he could ever truly trust.

So if idiotic Richie Tozier knew what was good for him, he would place it back down around him with the utmost care and precision and immediately forget everything he’d seen.

But, being an idiot, Richie didn’t know what was good for him and held onto the castle instead, his smile fading, however, when he saw Eddie’s face fall. “It’s just a stupid box, Eds. What’s the big deal?” Biting back a growl, Eddie gritted his teeth – his body almost momentarily forgetting he hadn’t spoken in almost a year – and scrambled to his feet, reaching up to snatch the alleged “stupid box” back but ultimately failing on account of the dramatic height difference between himself and the annoying brat holding it.

“It’s really that important to you?” Richie sighed after a moment, the enthusiastic nod Eddie gave him in response bringing him to hand the cardboard box over to him in surrender. Without a word, though he did give him a barely noticeable smile (if it could even be called that) as a thank you, Eddie took his castle back and set it down on the ground where it belonged with a feeling of triumph. Then he looked back at Richie coldly, his pulse rate elevating at the recollection of the letter and of his instinctual fear of humanity, which resulted in him taking a small, shaky step backwards as he prepared to dart into his castle at the first sign of a threat.

“Sorry,” Richie muttered, lighting up Eddie’s dark eyes with a spark of surprise. “Did you get my letter? I gave it to your mom earlier – she said you were still in bed.” Eddie listened quietly and gave a small nod in reply; even if he had been in the habit of speaking, he still wouldn’t have mentioned how he’d thrown it into the bin almost immediately, or how he’d felt a slight blush enveloping his cheeks when he’d read the message on the back. “Oh, so how can I make it up to you? I could fix your box for you,” he suggested, giving his tattered castle a gentle kick.

Eddie had never moved so quickly in his life than when he feverishly shook his head over and over at Richie’s horrifying suggestion, a burst of anger erupting from him through this motion in response to his insistence in calling it “a box” (though at least he’d stopped calling it “stupid”) instead of what it was to Eddie: a castle. It was a castle made of cardboard, but a castle nonetheless.

Scowling, he answered Richie’s question with a simple motion, pointing past him sternly. Richie went on like he hadn’t seen him move.

“I heard someone at school say you never talk… is that true?” Eddie nodded in reply, his scowl still firmly in place (when was Richie going to stop talking?). “Except it isn’t,” Richie quickly added, his surprising words making the younger boy’s eyes widen in shock, because he hadn’t spoken a word since last October and he certainly hadn’t said anything since Richie Tozier had started at his school the day before. “I just heard you talking, Eds, in your sleep.”

Curious, but simultaneously sceptical (and irritated by the change in nickname, though it was somewhat better than “Eddie Spaghetti”), Eddie cocked his head onto one side questioningly, wanting to know what he’d supposedly said while he’d been asleep.

Either he had suddenly developed the ability to comprehend his methods of non-verbal communication or he was simply making a coincidentally accurate guess, but whichever it was, Richie told him exactly what he wanted to hear. “You just kept saying the word “clown” over and over. It was actually kind of creepy.” Well, that wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to hear, but at least he knew what he’d allegedly been saying.

It didn’t make sense though. He never dreamed about a clown, at least not as far as he could remember, but if this Tozier boy was making it all up, why would he choose that to be what he’d apparently been saying?

And yet, he couldn’t get the image of that spot of red behind the blackness of his mind for the rest of the day, no matter how hard he tried, and for hours after he and Richie went their separate ways (with the latter promising not to reveal his secret castle in the barrens to anyone) the back of his mind was ultimately focused on one thing: the answer behind his supposed somniloquy, if Richie Tozier was to be believed.

#reddie #fanfiction #angst #romance #it 2017 #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak

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flauntpage · 7 years

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What Life Is Like at 'Disneyland for Athletes'

Over the next two months VICE Sports will be profiling 16 athletes as they evolve into national superstars. Keep checking back here to find them all.

In the western Florida summer, you have two, three hours max after sunrise before the heat and humidity makes outdoor activity a dangerous proposition. 9 AM in mid-July is pushing it. In that sense, Nico Mejia is running late. On the courts of the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, Mejia takes his warm-ups with his doubles partner, Sebastian Korda. The pair try their best to rally with ease, keeping their competitive spirits at bay for as long as possible. But that never lasts long with tennis players, especially teenage boys. Soon enough, their shots increase in intensity and sweat soaks their backs.

Korda and Mejia both have tennis in their blood. Korda's father and coach, Petr Korda, won the 1998 Australian Open and 1996 Australian Open doubles with Stefan Edberg. Mejia's father, Gustavo, was an avid amateur player in Colombia, and his sister Gabriela was an All-American at the University of Miami and competed professionally. His uncle Juan Mateus—another Miami alum—is also his coach at IMG. In a sense, the question was never whether Nico Mejia would play tennis at some level but rather for how long. Still, he never felt any pressure to take up the family sport. Instead, his family stressed that whatever he chose to do in life, he needed to commit to it.

Edward Linsmier

So at the age of 12, he moved from his home in Cali, Colombia, to the tennis hotbed that is the Miami area to seriously pursue a career. "I mean, yeah it was hard," Mejia says of moving away from his family, "because I'm a person who likes to be with family. But since I moved when I was 12 years old, I kind of got used to not being with my family as much as I would like."

Mejia spent a couple years training in South Florida, beginning in 2012, but he soon outgrew the competition. There were only a few other kids his age, and they treated tennis more as a hobby than a future. Mejia, from a young age, regarded the tennis court as an arena. "On the court, he's a gladiator," Mateus said. "If he can chew you alive, he's going to do it."

At the end of 2014, Mejia reached the Junior Eddie Herr, a prestigious youth competition. He got knocked out in the Round of 32, but he had caught the attention of IMG Academy coaches, who recruited him for their tennis program. When Mejia toured the campus for the first time, he realized it was everything he had ever dreamed of. He enrolled the next year.

Edward Linsmier

For teenagers ready and able to commit completely to the rigorous lifestyle of a high-level junior athlete, there is perhaps no better place in the world than the IMG Academy. Founded in 1978 by the legendary coach Nick Bollettieri, the then eponymously named Academy was the first major tennis boarding school and fundamentally changed how elite young players trained and prepared for professional tennis careers. In 1987, the year Bollettieri sold the Academy to IMG, 27 of his former and current students played in the U.S. Open, while 32 made it to Wimbledon's main draw. As of now, the tennis program has trained ten worldwide No. 1-ranked players, including Andre Agassi, Maria Sharapova, Serena and Venus Williams, Monica Seles, and Jim Courier. In many ways, the Academy left a permanent mark on the tennis world.

Recently, the focus of the academy has shifted slightly, in line with the Academy's overall expansion, to accommodate teenagers seeking college scholarships in addition to aspiring pros. Over the past 15 years, the IMG Academy has spread its roots far beyond tennis to include football, baseball, golf, basketball, soccer, as well as track and field. Now it's fundamentally a boarding school where each of its 1,100 students is on a sports team. The Academy's physical footprint has grown accordingly, from Bollettieri's original 40 acres to a 450-acre campus lined with gleaming, glass-enclosed structures, modern dorms for the 70 percent of students who live on-campus, a nature reserve complete with a fishing pond, and countless pristine sport fields. The entire setup conjures a European soccer academy mixed with a Division I athletic program, and in fact, the Academy's amenities outclass those found at many D-I programs: fitness facilities and uniforms sponsored by Gatorade and Under Armour respectively, hydrotherapy for injury recovery, hyperbaric chambers for increasing lung capacity, nutrition coaches, leadership training, and vision and visual cognitive training. Golf carts, the preferred mode of transportation for IMG staff, constantly hum around the campus, which has grown so much that it's now dotted with oversized maps telling you that "YOU ARE HERE."

All in all, tuition and expenses cost upwards of $70,000 per year (the Academy offers limited need-based financial aid; a spokesperson for the Academy declined to offer specifics such as how many students receive financial aid or how much the average aid package is). While IMG also runs a massive sports management agency that looms large over professional tennis, it seems that more than anything else, the Academy functions as a standalone enterprise to create a sporting oasis for whomever is willing to pay for it. In addition to the school, the Academy hosts professional athletes for off-season training programs, pro teams passing through, and some international youth tournaments.

Of course, there are academic facilities on campus, too, tailored to fit the athletes' needs and future career goals. For elite high-school-age athletes, this offers a huge advantage over traditional schooling. In addition to aiding its students in qualifying for NCAA scholarships, the Academy equips students with the skills necessary to balance the unique social and academic pressures facing college athletes, while also teaching them to deal with issues that often trip up the pros. To that end, students receive media training in addition to a heavy core emphasis on the visual and creative arts.

Edward Linsmier

A few weeks shy of 40 years old and sporting a blue IMG Academy baseball cap, Mateus describes himself as a specific kind of coach. His job is to usher teenagers through what he alternately calls "the last mile" or "the point of break." In other words, it's his job to find out if they have what it takes to become professionals, both from a talent and maturity perspective.

Mateus believes the traveling tennis lifestyle is its own form of education, albeit a very different one from a traditional high school. Young players experience a wide variety of cultures, and have to learn to be responsible in many different foreign countries. They learn a lot about their own bodies, the human anatomy, about nutrition and chemistry to ensure they adhere to the strict and confusing anti-doping guidelines of high-level tennis. Mateus also teaches his athletes to manage their finances, file expense reports, enact time-management techniques, and other practical lessons most kids are lucky to master by the time they graduate college, to say nothing of high school.

Even with all of these resources, the transition to IMG can be a tough one. For the first six months, Mejia lived in the dorms on campus while his uncle still lived in Miami. Although it was the environment he always wanted—consistently facing high-level competition and access to professional-caliber training facilities—when he wasn't playing, practicing, or training, he was bored. To kill time, he'd play FIFA with his friends. But soon after he arrived at IMG, Mejia moved in with Mateus and he rediscovered the family life he had been missing.

Edward Linsmier

"Usually, 16 is very difficult for these boys and girls," Mateus says as Mejia jokes with Korda on the court. When kids upend their lives, and by extension, their families' lives, to accomplish such a lofty goal, they can get impatient. If a kid is used to winning every tournament without much difficulty and suddenly starts losing at the Academy, he or she might think something is wrong. They start making changes to their game, to their lifestyle, to themselves. They focus on the results on the court rather than, as Mateus puts it, "the process."

According to Mateus, only one to 1.5 percent of junior tennis players go straight to the pros. The rest go to college, which Mateus emphasizes is a good thing for most kids, who need a few years of stability. Maybe their bodies or minds need to fully mature. Perhaps they can't, or don't want to, cope with the nomadic life of a pro—or, understandably enough, they might not be ready to act like an adult all of the time.

But not Mejia. Mateus lauds his nephew for having a natural instinct on the court while maintaining a healthy attitude off it. "We were able to prolong the great times until he was almost 16," Mateus tells me. In the autumn of 2016, he adds, Mejia went through an attitudinal funk, an obstacle for developing tennis players that is something of an inevitability, according to Mateus. "He had a period of two, three months," says Mateus. Last December, his nephew crossed over to what Mateus terms "the real side," the point where a young player redoubles their dedication to focus on the sport. "Now, he sees what we see as an adult. We're very happy about it. Happy for him," he adds. As Mateus describes all of this in vague terms to respect his nephew's privacy, it almost sounds like like Mejia dealt with nothing more than a rough bout of almost becoming a teenager.

Edward Linsmier

Shortly after Mejia cleared this critical hurdle, however, tragedy struck. His parents had been working towards relocating from Colombia to Florida, where they could watch their son play, develop as a player, and emerge from IMG as both a professional and a fully formed adult. But, in April of this year, Mejia's father had a heart attack and died while playing tennis at his home in Colombia.

After his father's death, Mateus noticed a further change in Mejia. While it's been a tough time for both of them, he says, the hardship "actually fueled him to actually be a little bit more [focused on] what he's doing. He's filling a gap of whatever was left of his maturity. This helped him to realize that he has a lot more to live." For his part, Mejia discusses the impact of his father's death with a steely gaze. The last few months have been hard for him, he says, but he's doing his best to remember what his father taught him, to always be fighting, always be improving, always be competing, and, of course, to never give up. Sticking to platitudes while discussing a turbulent time in his life, Mejia already sounds like a seasoned professional.

Though the other top players at the Academy are expected to grow up quickly, they're still kids who need the companionship and support that only friends and family can offer. In this sense, Mejia's family is trying to adapt: in addition to having his uncle on campus, his mother is still planning to move up to Florida to join him. And he's made friends, too. That weekend, he had plans to go mini-golfing with Emiliana Arango, another Academy tennis player also from Colombia. I spoke to her mother, Juliana Restrepo, shortly before Mejia and Mateus as Arango practiced on an adjacent court. For Restrepo, who rents a house five minutes away from IMG, sending her daughter to IMG was "one of the best moves I've made because here she has everything that she needs." In her eyes, the place is like "Disneyland for athletes."

Unlike Mejia, Arango doesn't come from a tennis family. Instead, she grew up on a ranch in Medellin, where her family kept horses and cows. Her first love was horseback riding, but all that changed the first time she picked up a tennis racket, at five and a half years old. Arango loved playing on the clay courts. Restrepo recalls that her daughter would be "orange from head to toe" by the time they got home. At first, she played tennis once a week. Then twice a week. Soon, she was taking tennis lessons every day. By the time she was six, Arango was playing in organized competitions.

Edward Linsmier

As Restrepo tells it, it wasn't long after her first tournament that her daughter, while watching the French Open on television, made a prediction: "Mom, I'm going to play there, I'm going to win that, and I'm going to win it many times, and I'm going to be there, and I want to be sponsored by Nike." She stopped horseback riding and hanging out with friends as much. Instead of going to birthday parties, she preferred to play tennis.

By the time she was 12 years old, Arango was winning nearly every junior competition in Colombia that she entered. The family had already moved to Bogota to train at Colombia's best tennis academy, but it was clear Arango needed another step up. At that point, her mother faced a decision: Should she stop working as an architect for a multinational company, move to Florida with Arango to pursue her dream, and break up the family? Or should she keep the family and their lives intact, even if it meant ending any serious prospects for her daughter's tennis career?

"I decided it was a chance I had to take with her," Restrepo says as we watch Arango practice on the IMG courts. She viewed not moving to Florida as taking something away from her daughter, something she could never give back. She couldn't bring herself to do that. Not with the way Arango treated tennis. But, before they moved, she made a deal with her daughter: "Whenever I want this more than you do, that's the moment when I'm going to stop supporting you."

Edward Linsmier

This conundrum is not unique to Arango and her mother. For every teenage tennis player trying to make the jump from the youth circuit to the professional level, there is a family that must give up any semblance of a typical life. That athlete, in turn, must give up any semblance of being a normal kid.

A decade later, Arango's dream hasn't wavered, and some of it has even come true––she's sponsored by Nike these days. Now entering what would be her junior year, she spends her mornings at the Academy on the court and with the physical therapist doing recovery work before heading home to eat lunch. In the afternoon, she rests for a few hours, maybe takes a nap, before going to fitness training for two and a half hours. After dinner around 7 PM, she does schoolwork with her tutor—who she used before IMG and decided to stick with—via Skype until 9:30 or 10:30.

In tennis, even youth players spend a tremendous amount of time on the road. Arango travels for approximately half the year, with her mother accompanying her and handling all the arrangements. After practice, Arango tells me that when heading from tournament to tournament, "sometimes my mom makes me go sightseeing. You just want to, like, stay in bed a little bit more and mom's like, 'Come on!' We're like in, say, Barcelona, [and my mom says,] 'You're seriously going to stay in bed?'" To maximize her sleeping time, Arango has developed a very specific packing routine, organizing her clothes by outfit rather than by article of clothing. "So I just get there and just have to get it out and put it on."

To fend off boredom during the long flights or nights in the hotel when she's too exhausted to go explore, she likes to watch Grey's Anatomy on Netflix. While she often comes off as an old soul, Arango communicates from the road in the same ways that everyone else her age does. "I'll text and Snapchat or whatever" when she wants to keep up with friends, she says. "I'm not, like, 'Hey, let's call and talk to each other,'" she adds, citing generational differences between her and Restrepo. "Like, my mom doesn't Snapchat and doesn't understand. 'Why would you take selfies and send them to someone else?'," she says, good-naturedly mimicking her mother. "She'll text her sister and say, 'Hey I've got something to tell you,' and her sister answers 'OK' and then they'll call. But it's, like, why would you call me?"

Edward Linsmier

Before meeting Arango and Mejia, I suspected they––or their relatives––might feel as if by pursuing a tennis career, they've missed out on the critical stage in every person's life where they're given the freedom to experiment, make mistakes, and come away from it all with a sense of identity. Instead, the two teenagers showed me that perhaps that stage is only critical for the many of us who have no idea what we want to be when we grow up. Those years of rebelliousness and experimentation are useless to someone who already has it all figured out. For better or worse, their identity is already set. They're tennis players.

"If you ask her, she feels awkward seeing all the other kids doing stuff she thinks is meaningless," Restrepo tells me. When I bring this up to Arango, it becomes clear how ensconced in the athletic life she has become. One of the things she gets most excited about is not seeing Notre Dame in Paris or going to the Floridian beach with friends, most of whom she knows through IMG or the tennis world. Instead, her face brightens the most when discussing getting her rackets strung. "I mean, other than coming here and going to the gym, the only other place I go during the day is to…string my rackets. Which I love! I love the guy that works there because he's like a neighbor. He'll drop off my rackets so I don't actually have to pick them up."

"I tell her all the time: this is the world you decided," Restrepo says as we watch her daughter, wearing her signature backwards hat, hit groundstrokes on the court. "There's no time for tantrums or [other] teenager things." Arango expresses some mild frustration as her return volley isn't quite how she wanted it. Her coach, with whom she's rallying, waves it off, and they continue. Reflecting on the path her daughter has chosen, Restrepo says, "Sometimes, this is a lonely, very lonely career."

Earlier in day, I asked Arango to imagine her life without tennis. She had a quick answer to all my other questions, but not this one. "I don't know," she said, cracking a smile and looking up into the distance. She has apparently never thought about it. Of course she hasn't, I realized immediately afterward: I asked her to reimagine her life starting from age six. To answer, she would have to go back to Colombia, back on the horses. And that's why her mom took the tremendous step to bring her to Florida and to the Academy. "She's passionate about it," her mother will tell me later. "I think she was born for this."

With all of the emphasis on the final word, Arango finally answered: "I mean, I wouldn't know. I mean, what I would do."

What Life Is Like at 'Disneyland for Athletes' published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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