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foreveralwaysanauthor · 8 months

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Camp Wanamaker (Ch 8/10)

September 7, 2023

Notes - I know this chapter is exceptionally overdue and I'm so sorry that it is, but my job raised my hours pretty significantly, and, with everything else going on in my already crazy life, I found it very hard to sit down and write. However, I'm hoping to get the next few chapters out as soon as possible so we can move on to bigger and better things!

Chapter 8 - Rumor Has It

The sun slowly rose over the hills of trees that surrounded Camp Wanamaker. Morning light crept across the gentle waves of the lake and the tops of the cabins, dancing across the dewy grass and making it shimmer like a million minuscule diamonds. The yellow-orange glow snaked its way closer and closer to the windows of each building, finding the cheap cotton curtains with ease. The light eventually seeped through the curtains and spilled onto the bed of a certain brunet boy, his chocolate coils woven into little knots as he struggled to get himself out of his twisted sheets while he slept.

It had been a rough night for Royce. He had just barely fallen asleep when an emergency notification about a missing child in the area rang loudly on his phone, jolting him awake as he tore out his earbuds. By the time he had finally worked himself back to the edge of sleep, it was nearing two in the morning. He wasn’t the only one who had issues with chasing sleep that night, which was made apparent as Bentley entered the room and silently joined his brother, relishing in the quiet and calm his brother’s room provided. Thankfully, they had the day to recover and relax while everyone else did as they pleased on their last day of freedom before the next group of campers arrived.

As Royce stirred, the soft rays of light filtering through his eyelashes as he slowly blinked them open, a light grumble from his side caught his attention. Glancing down, he found Bentley curled up to his side, his face buried in Royce’s shirt to avoid the sunlight coming in from the window. A notion of a chuckle left Royce’s mouth as he peered over at the clock on his nightstand. All he needed to see was the glowing, red six at the start of the number to know that his little brother wouldn’t be moving any time soon. At least, not willingly. Taking in a slow breath and sighing, Royce reached for the cell phone he had ditched on the nightstand and relaxed back onto his pillow, ready to enjoy a lazy morning.

If you asked any of the Murphy brothers, lazy mornings were reserved for Sundays anyway. Back in their home, they would usually be found lounging on the couch with bowls of soggy cereal or packets of Pop-Tarts, their eyes semi-glued to the typical weekend cartoons playing on the TV as they ate breakfast. Well, in more recent months, they had. Their old television was a crappy box model with a single dial that had only one good station while the other four were filled with either news or politics. However, after Vivien’s “stay-cation” to their world, they had grown accustomed to the hundreds of stations they could receive with the television the girl had gotten Mick’s help with making.

It didn’t take them long to realize that living at Camp Wanamaker was something else entirely. Most of the televisions available were outfitted with every app known to mankind and possessed a slew of shows nobody in the cabin had seen before - not even those who lived in the modern world. Not every cabin had a television, of course, but the ones that were home to just counselors or staff members had at least one for the cabin to share. Royce and Bentley had spent their free mornings during staff weeks in front of the TV, watching shows that Vivien and Mick had added to their watchlists. It was a good way to spend their mornings, all in all.

Just as Royce had begun searching his phone for something to keep himself occupied, Bentley shifted, slowly lifting his head from Royce’s shirt and grumbling a complaint about the sun. A yawn caught the youngest of the Murphy brothers, forcing him to stretch against the mattress as he made a noise of frustration. Flopping back down against the sheets, Bentley slowly turned toward Royce and muttered, “G’mornin’.”

“Morning,” Royce spoke softly. “Have a good sleep?”

Bentley shrugged, “Kinda.”

Royce hummed, “Do you wanna go watch the next episode of that zombie show? We can make some cereal and just chill on the couch while everyone goes to the mess hall.”

After a moment of contemplation, Bentley shook his head, “I don’t think I’m up for watching someone get their insides eaten like a bowl of zombie spaghetti jsut yet. Can I watch you play the cat game instead? You know, the one where you help the robots?”

Bentley watching Royce play games was nothing new, but it had become far more common in recent times. While Bentley loved playing games with adventure or mindless fun as the main focus, story-driven games like What Remains of Edith Finch and their newfound favorite, Stray, made it easier for Bentley to relinquish all control of the game to Royce in favor of watching him play and piecing together the storyline at his own pace. In a way, it was easier and both brothers enjoyed the time they got to spend together.

With a smile, Royce nodded as he sat up, “Sure, Benny. Why don’t you go get that started up and I’ll make breakfast.”

As Bentley sluggishly shoved the blankets away from his legs, he grinned, “Can I have Cocoa Puffs with chocolate milk?”

“Yeah,” Royce nodded. “You want your Hufflepuff mug or just a normal cup?”

Bentley snickered, “No, RJ, I mean, can I have chocolate milk in my cereal?”

Royce paused, feeling as though he had a circle swirling above his head as he processed his brother’s request. “But-” he took in a breath, “Benny, there’ll be chocolate milk at the bottom anyway if you’re having Cocoa Puffs.”

“I know,” Bentley shrugged, “but I want it more chocolatey so when I drink it after the cereal’s gone, it’s not like two little bits of chocolate and a bowl of straight milk.”

With a chuckle and a shake of his head, Royce relented, “Alright, fine. That makes sense.”

As he followed Royce to the door, Bentley smirked and asked, “Can I have a glass of orange juice to go with it? Maybe some pickles afterward?” The look of disgusted horror Royce sent in return as he whirled around made Bentley cackle, patting his brother on the shoulder as he ducked around him. Bentley had just reached the bottom step when Royce began thumping down them, rattling off about disgusting food combinations first thing in the morning and musing how someone they knew must have been pregnant if he was craving something so nasty. Bentley beamed with pride as he grabbed the game controller from the coffee table; it was mornings like these that he didn’t mind being up so early.

Vivien moved sluggishly as the rain battered against the air conditioner that stuck out of one of the music hall’s windows. Rain always made her tired and, with nothing better to do, she and Miles were stuck in the music hall, practicing guitar and fooling around with the instruments that would, typically, go unused on a day like that. To make matters worse, it was Monday. Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue; however, that meant the carnival in Laconia was now officially open, and, due to the rain, they wouldn’t be able to go.

The trips to the carnival had been planned quite thoroughly. Every day, one group would be taken to the carnival for the day and return for dinner. Although most everyone at the camp wanted nothing more than to go to the carnival, the rain had come over the area overnight and the carnival grounds on the early-morning news had looked more like muddy grass soup, making it an easy decision for those at the camp to stay at the camp.

As Miles strummed a song on the guitar and hummed softly along, Vivien dropped onto the bench beside him, a yawn leaving her as she tipped her head back to look at the ceiling, “I’m so fucking bored.”

“Join the club, kiddo,” Miles chuckled, allowing his strumming to fade off as he pushed his focus onto the girl beside him.

“Does the club offer cookies?”

“Only on weekends and at club meetings.”

“Then I don’t wanna join,” she sighed.

“Too bad,” Miles teased, nudging the girl with his elbow as he set the guitar down beside his leg. “Once you’re invited, there’s no turning it down.” Vivien glanced in Miles’ direction with an amused smirk before another yawn tugged itself from her. “Tired?” he asked.

Instead of firing off a quick quip, Vivien lazily nodded, leaning closer to Miles until her head came into contact with his shoulder. “I slept fine last night, but I woke up later than normal and it’s throwing me off.”

Miles chuckled, tugging his arm from between them and bringing it around Vivien’s shoulders, “For some reason, I don’t have that problem.”

“You suck.”

“You love me.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you still suck,” Vivien muttered as she brought an arm around Miles’ back.

Allowing himself to smile, Miles gave Vivien’s arm a squeeze, “You’re such a little shit.”

“Takes one to know one.”

As rain battered against the windows, the wind rattling the glass ominously as it passed, Miles grinned. Even though they spent almost every day in the music hall, it wasn’t too often that he got to spend time with just Vivien. Normally, the music hall was filled with kids wanting to bash the drums or learn guitar, the split of interests keeping him and Vivien on opposite sides of the large room. It was times like these - the rare moments when the hall was empty and they would be able to talk or play guitar - that Miles felt an actual connection with the girl.

They had spent a few months under the same roof during Vivien’s prolonged stay in their world over winter break and he enjoyed watching her grow more comfortable around everyone he knew and loved. Once she had gotten out of the “Royce’s girlfriend” title everyone had given her and made a name for herself, Miles got to see the different sides of Vivien that he hadn’t yet found. After everything they had been through over her break, she now felt like the younger sister he never got the chance to have.

As Miles glanced up at the ceiling, wondering how long it would be before they would need to break out the buckets in the storage room to catch dripping water that penetrated through the older roof, Vivien sighed. Despite her exhaustion, her mind raced with thoughts of what they were going to do to keep themselves busy until Saturday. As one of the last groups to go to the carnival, they had to keep themselves entertained for most of the week. After a moment, Vivien glanced out the window toward where the pool would, by now, be empty. Maybe she could convince Mick to let her swim in the rain; it would beat sitting around, doing nothing while they waited for a potentially musically inclined camper to stumble through the door.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen much of Mick lately. Faintly, she wondered if the older girl was okay. She knew that Mick was suffering from a few health issues lately as they had talked a bit about her recent bouts of exhaustion, some pretty strong nausea, and how she had woken up with swollen ankles with no reason as to why. Maybe she had been taking things easy in the hope that everything would fix itself before the time came for the appointment she had called to schedule the day before. Though she wondered what could be happening with Mick, she had a few ideas.

Pregnancy was, of course, one of the top suspects as the nausea and swelling were common in pregnancy. However, she couldn’t be sure. After all, Mick didn’t look pregnant. She was still just as toothpick thin as always - that damned metabolism Vivien wished she possessed keeping Mick looking more lean than muscular. It could still be possible, but she couldn’t recall Mick and Butchy having the chance to sneak away to - Vivien tried not to vomit at the thought - do the deed.

Deciding she would have to bite the bullet to find out, Vivien lifted her head from Miles’ shoulder and asked, “Do you think Mick is pregnant?”

Miles’ head lilted to the side as he shot the girl a bewildered, raised eyebrow, “Where did that come from?”

“I was just thinking. You know how Mick’s been feeling off the last few days?” When Miles slowly nodded, Vivien continued, “Well, her symptoms are similar to pregnancy symptoms.”

“They are?”

With a nod, Vivien said, “Morning sickness, exhaustion, swelling, lack of period-”

“How do you know she doesn’t have her period?” Miles questioned.

Sending Miles the most bland face she could muster, Vivien deadpanned, “We’re girls, we talk about these things. But that’s not the point.”

“Right,” Miles said with a shake of his head, “so you think she could be pregnant?”

“Maybe,” Vivien shrugged. “I mean, they delayed their honeymoon so they could help here, but they’ve had the time to go out together and stuff. There’s no telling when it could have happened.”

Though Miles seemed to consider the idea, he mused, “But she doesn’t look pregnant.”

“Not everyone does,” Vivien claimed. “When Aunt Hayley had me, she didn’t show at all.”

Miles was silent for a while as he thought about all Vivien had said. It could be true. He had seen Mick behaving differently lately - constantly feeling chilly, falling asleep on the couch while watching movies, and having to step out of the mess hall sometimes because the scent was overpowering - but he hadn’t thought of pregnancy. He simply thought she was coming down with the stomach bug that was starting to pulse throughout the town.

Taking in a breath, Miles sighed, “It sounds like Mick is pregnant.”

“Well, we don’t know for sure,” Vivien said. “I can always ask her when I’ve got the chance.”

“Better you than me, kiddo.” Miles chuckled, “She’d probably rip my head from my shoulders.”

“Yeah, somehow I doubt she’d take it too kindly,” Vivien snickered.

As Miles let out a snort of agreement, the door of the music hall slammed against the frame, the wood rattling as the wind beat against it. The laughter died on Miles’ lips as he and Vivien turned toward the door, eyeing it with wide stares. “Was that the wind?” Miles breathed.

Vivien pushed herself to stand, maneuvering around the bench and walking to the door, twisting the handle before tugging it open. Rain bucketed from above and the only sign of life was a group of kids who were busy screeching as they ran up the path toward the safety of the dance studio. Leaning against it to make it click into place, Vivien turned to Miles and shrugged, “It was either the wind or a ghost.”

With a shrug, Vivien grabbed a guitar and made her way back to her seat, silently asking Miles to help her with a song she wanted to play as she sat back down. As they began working on figuring out the chords of the song Vivien had chosen, neither of them was prepared for the onslaught of chaos that the week would bring. Just down the path from the music hall, the door to the dance studio slammed open as a group of dripping campers piled in.

“What happened to you?” one of the girls asked from the far side of the large room. On one side of the room, dancers in sweatpants and leotards stretched on the floor while others practiced before the mirror. However, as the door closed once more, the group of five by the door had everyone’s attention.

“We all decided to hop in the pool after practice,” Chloe, one of the soaked campers, answered sarcastically.

“We came from the tennis courts,” one of the drenched campers - a blonde named Maxine - said as she wrung her hair out over the doormat. “We had to cut around the music hall to get here quicker.”

“And,” the only brunette from the group - Rachel - piped up, “you’ll never guess what we heard on our way here!”

If they didn’t already have the attention of those around them, they certainly did now as questions popped up throughout the room like a game of Whack-A-Mole. Stepping to the front of the group, the youngest of the campers - Alex - beamed as she declared, “Mick, the lifeguard girl who always gives us extra time to relax after swimming laps, is pregnant!”

Squeals of excitement bubbled up throughout the dance studio, a few commented on how they “just knew” she had to be, and others questioned how the girls knew, to which Chloe said, “We overheard her friends talking. You know, the girl with the long-ass hair and the boy who’s dating Carrie? They were talking about Mick being pregnant and we heard them on our way by.”

As excited exclamations passed through the room, the door to the back hallway opened and a small girl entered the room, followed soon after by Charlie, who led the dance studio every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Looking around the room, Charlie placed her hands on her hips and sighed, “Alright, everyone, calm down. If you keep this up, I’ll be having you go across the floor right off the bat.”

“But, Charlie,” one of the stretching dancers argued, “we’re talking about Mick.”

“Yeah,” another agreed. “What do you think of her being pregnant?”

“Pregnant?” Charlie repeated with a raised brow. “Where did you hear that?”

Murmured answers flitted around the room before settling as Alex spoke up, “We overheard Miles and Vivien talking about it.”

“Eavesdropping, were you?” Charlie admonished as she made her way further into the room.

“Not intentionally!” Rachel exclaimed. “We were walking by the music hall and overheard it.”

Making a mental note to talk with the pair about the situation at their next meal, Charlie sighed, “Well, that may be, but I haven’t heard anything about this, so I would advise you all to keep this to yourselves. Nobody likes having rumors spread about themselves.”

A chorus of reluctant “yes, ma’am”s filed the room and, as Charlie let out a sigh, she hoped she had squashed the rumors quickly enough that it wouldn’t spread around the dinner tables. With any luck, she’d be able to talk with Miles and Vivien before word spread too far. Usually, rumors at camp spread quietly and quickly, festering overnight into nonsense and plaguing everyone on the grounds within a day or two. If Charlie noticed it spreading much at all, she would try to find a way to sit Mick down and talk with her. She would need to prepare the girl for the onslaught of gossiping campers and concerned questions from her friends if the kids let it spread any further than it already had.

Clapping her hands together, Charlie brought herself back to the task at hand and declared, “Alright, everyone, find your place at the barre and get comfortable. We’re all going to feel the burn today.”

Despite Charlie’s best efforts, it had been impossible to find the chance to get Miles or Vivien away from everyone else before they headed to bed Monday night. She didn’t want it spreading more than she presumed it had, but Vivien was constantly with Royce and Bentley while Miles was practically attached to Carrie’s hip. They had spent the evening playing games and watching movies, giving Charlie little chance to speak her mind. When they were getting ready for bed, Charlie told Hayley about the situation. Hayley wouldn’t be able to do much to help as she was supposed to be helping in the office on Tuesday, but she promised that, if she heard anything, she would say something.

Charlie felt particularly tense at breakfast, overly focused on the noisy voices around the room as she tried to silently shield her niece’s friends from being the topic of conversation. It wasn’t until her wife nudged her, telling her the meal was over, that she finally moved, jerkily rising from her seat and disposing of the few pieces of egg that she had left on her plate. Stationed in the playhouse to help with makeup and choreography for the upcoming play, Charlie followed Carrie and Riven down the winding path to the old wooden building in relative silence.

While Riven got to work on helping set things up on stage, Charlie and Carrie headed to the storage room to dig out the makeup they would need for the day. Eyeing the blonde from her side of the little room, Charlie asked, “Carrie, you’re close with Mick, right?”

Turning toward the woman with the pink-tipped braids, Carrie shrugged with a smile, “I’d say we’re friends, but she’s closer with Miles than she is with me. Why, what’s up?”

Instead of directly answering, Charlie asked, “If Mick was pregnant, would she tell you?”

Carrie’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish as she processed the sudden question, but eventually, she said, “I definitely wouldn’t be the first person on the list - maybe not even in the top five - but she might. Why, do you think she’s pregnant?”

Glancing out the door to make sure nobody was close enough to hear, Charlie lowered her voice to a whisper and asked, “Some girls came into the studio yesterday and were telling everyone that they overhead Miles and Vivien talking about Mick being pregnant. I wanted to see if they had said anything to you about it.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Carrie said, “Like I said, I wouldn’t be in the top five, but they would be.” Carrie began counting on her fingers, “Butchy, her parents, Miles, and Vivien - I would assume those would be her top five. I can ask them, if you want?”

“No, no,” Charlie said with a shake of her head, “that’s fine. I just… I want to be careful with it regardless of whether it’s true or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Charlie began as she hefted a metal case of makeup onto her hip, “if she’s not pregnant, we can help squash the rumors now before they get out of control. But, if Mick is pregnant, we need to keep an eye on her. She’s not showing and, depending on how far along she is, that can be detrimental.”

“How so?” Carrie asked, following Charlie through the backstage storage and into the dressing rooms.

Setting the metal case on a nearby stand, Charlie sighed, “Back when Hayley was pregnant for Vivien, she never once showed. I was with her for most of the pregnancy - as a friend, at the time - and she went through hell. If Mick’s pregnant and is further along in her pregnancy, it could be dangerous for not only her, but for the baby as well.”

Carrie took in a slow breath as she soaked in the information, “Should I talk with Miles about it? See if he can tell me anything?”

“Not right now,” Charlie said. “Let him focus on music lessons. Besides, I haven’t heard anyone talking about it around camp, so I think we should be all set for now. We can talk with him and Vivien later, when they’re not busy banging around on the drums and we don’t have a bunch of makeup to sort through.”

As Charlie pulled a chair out from in front of one of the lightbulb-lined mirrors, Carrie followed suit with a hum. With the metal makeup case between them, Charlie unlatched the clasps and opened the lid before pulling out the extra trays so they could see all that was inside. Looking inside the case at all of the makeup, Carrie asked, “What are we going to do with all of this?”

Smiling at the blonde, Charlie took a lipgloss from the top shelf of the case and said, “We’re going to go through all of this and make sure it’s all still good. If something is good, we’ll try it out and make sure it still looks good. If it passes both tests, we’ll keep it. If it doesn’t, we toss it.”

Examining a tube of mascara, Carrie asked, “How are we going to check if they’re still good before we test if on ourselves?”

Charlie chuckled, “Do you see the little jar on there with a number and a letter on it?”

Carrie searched the tube before nodding, “Yeah, it says ‘6M’ on it.”

“That means it’s good for six months after it was opened.” Charlie looked for the little engraving mark on her lipgloss before setting it aside. “If it still has a wrapper or the receipt is in the little makeup bag at the bottom of the case, we’ll keep it. If not, its trash.”

“Got it,” Carrie said as she reached into the bottom section of the case and pulled out a black box. Carrie’s eyebrow raised as she read the box, “Conspiracy?”

Peering over at the younger girl, Charlie chuckled, “Oh, I remember that! Don’t throw that no matter what it says.”

Glancing up, Carrie asked, “How come?”

“It’s Vivien’s pride and joy,” Charlie claimed.

“But she doesn’t even wear makeup?” Carrie said curiously as she opened the palette.

“No, but she loves that thing,” Charlie smiled. “You see, she had watched this series online of this Youtuber guy and his friend - a makeup guru - making a palette together and that was the end product. She spent two hours waiting for it with me and Hayley, but it sold out within a half an hour. We were lucky enough to get the full set when it relaunched, but she keeps it here to keep Abby out of it.”

With a chuckle, Carrie looked over the shades and commented, “I can’t imagine she got into it at all.”

“She tried,” Charlie said, a ghost of a smile appearing as she reminisced. “She looked like a raccoon and cried before asking me for help.”

“Are you a self-proclaimed ‘makeup freak’ too, then?” Carrie asked.

“Hell yeah,” Charlie laughed. “Kind of have to be when you’re a dancer.”

“How long have you danced?”

Charlie thought for a moment before admitting, “Since I was two. My parents put me into ballet, aka the perfect breeding ground for eating disorders, anxiety, and the fear of imperfection.”

“Ah,” Carrie sighed as she set Vivien’s makeup aside and reached for something new, “been there, done that.”

Charlie set a container of powder aside and said, “You know, when I was younger it was more fun than anything, but once I was put into pointe, it was like I had stepped onto the world’s biggest slip-and-slide. One wrong move and I’d be ditched for the next best dancer.”

A sense of understanding washed over Carrie like a wave. She hadn’t felt overly close with Charlie before, but knowing they both had intense dancing backgrounds and still had lingering side effects from it, gave their budding friendship more depth. “The fear of failure is strong with every former dancer, I guess.”

Charlie hummed, “It must have been a fairly easy transition for you - going from dance to acting. The expressiveness and emotions you need to have on stage could translate well on screen, right?”

“I’d like to say so, yeah,” Carrie agreed. “Though, sometimes, I wish I could just turn my emotions off. It doesn’t take much for me to get all worked up over something small.”

“I can’t say I don’t feel the same way,” Charlie mused. “Although I find it easy to work my emotions into my books. Channeling them into something new helps force you to sort through them slower.”

Carrie thought about it for a moment before grinning, “I don’t think I could do something like that. Writing isn’t exactly my forte.”

With a shrug, Charlie said, “It’s the author in me, I suppose. However, if writing isn’t your thing, you could always try channeling it into music.” At Carrie’s skeptical gaze, Charlie smirked, “Don’t give me that face. I’ve heard you sing. You could really make something if you took the time to sit and work on it.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“And you think I did?” Charlie scoffed, “My first novel looked like a kindergartener wrote it compared to my work now. Nobody starts off great. Anyway, you could always ask Viv or Riven or even Erica for help; they all write music.”

Carrie nodded but then stalled as she reached into the makeup case. Curiously tipping her head to the side as she looked toward Charlie once more, she asked,l “I knew Riven and Erica wrote music, but since when has Vivien written music?”

“For years now,” Charlie claimed as she met the blonde’s blue eyes. “She doesn’t play them with the band muchas she can’t write the sheet music for them, but those journals of hers aren’t just filled with novel ideas. You should talk to her about it sometime. Maybe she’d show you some of her work.”

As Charlie got back to work sorting the makeup into two piles, Carrie hummed thoughtfully, “Maybe.”

“Maybe we can make a new one, but make it a bit bigger,” Carrie offered.

Bentley sighed, “And maybe I should stick with painting instead of pottery.”

As a majority of the playhouse crew had been taken to the carnival that Wednesday, Bentley had dragged Carrie to the art barn to show her his latest works while everyone else kept busy in their normal areas. His paintings, as always, were like something Bob Ross would come out with. Bentley felt at ease with painting; he could sit at an easel with a palette of colors and a set of brushes for hours without getting the least bit distracted. It was also something his brothers declared he shared with their mom - a love and natural talent for telling a story through paintings and sketches. His pottery work, on the other hand… Let’s just say that Bentley could have told everyone a seven-year-old made it and nobody would be able to tell it was his work.

The first few times Bentley had tried to make something with a mound of clay on the spinning wheel, they turned out to be understandably awful - a lopsided vase, a cracked bowl, and a statue of a dog that lost two legs and its tail in the kiln being among his efforts. However, his recent attempts appeared to turn out just the same. His first attempt at making a tea set for Mick had cracked and separated, and the potion bottle he wanted to make for Vivien’s birthday ended up getting damaged when another camper’s sculpture exploded and shattered everything inside the kiln. The mug he had tried to make for Miles was his most recent attempt and, while it still looked like a mug, it was now so small that it looked more like something Vivien would turn into a pair of earrings than it did an actual mug for drinking purposes.

Setting the miniature mug on the table, Bentley slouched into a chair with a huff as he glared at the shrunken pottery. Not willing to let the boy wallow in his thoughts, Carrie offered him a smile and said, “I think it looks great and Miles will too.”

A raised eyebrow answered Carrie as Bentley glanced up at her, “I can’t give that to him - it’s tiny.”

“And you and I both know that he would love it all the same.” As Carrie moved to sit at another pottery wheel, Bentley sighed, but remained quiet as she continued, “He loves everything you make for him and you know that.”

“I know,” Bentley muttered, “but I wanted this to be special.”

“And it still is.”

“How? He can’t drink out of it.”

“Yeah,” Carrie agreed, “but he can use it as a Christmas ornament in a few months.”

Bentley snorted despite himself, the thought of the little mug dangling from their living room tree dancing through his mind. Finally shifting his gaze from the cup to the blonde across from him, Bentley grinned, “He would.”

“I know.” Carrie smiled at the boy before flicking her hair over her shoulder and chuckling, “I wouldn’t put it past him to use that as the star on top with how much he loves caffeine.”

Feeling a bit better about how his failed pottery had turned out, Bentley breathed, “I guess it won’t be a total loss if I give it to him looking like this.”

“Exactly,” Carrie said with a nod. “He’ll love it regardless. And, if you decide to make another, you’ll know to make it a bit bigger.”

“I guess so, yeah,” Bentley agreed. Taking in a deep breath as he stood, Bentley asked, “So, what do you wanna do? We can paint or draw or make awful sculptures of each other, if you want. I’d offer you a photoshoot, but that’s more Royce’s expertise than mine.”

“That’s fine,” Carrie chuckled. “I don’t think I have the artistic abilities to do much of anything here.”

Bentley moved over to the wall of blank canvases and pulled a pair of small ones down as he turned to Carrie once more, “Come on, it’ll be fun. We can hang out and talk while we paint.”

As Bentley set up a pair of easels, Carrie let out a hesitant laugh, “I doubt mine will look anything like yours.”

“It doesn’t have to be good,” Bentley stated. “So long as you’re having fun, that’s all that matters.”

“Are you sure?” Carrie asked as she stood. “I mean, I’d be more than willing to just watch if you want to make something. You know, that way I don’t waste paint on something terrible.”

“As long as the paint goes on the canvas, it’s not a waste,” Bentley insisted. “Besides, we can make anything; nature scenes, a fictional world, or, I don’t know, maybe we could paint ourselves as superheroes or something.”

While Bentley got to work collecting paints to place on a tray between the two easels, Carrie’s train of thought screeched to a halt at the boy’s words. Looking over at the teenager with a smile, Carrie slowly sat down on one of the stools Bentley had pulled over and said, “That reminds me, I actually have something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh yeah?” Bentley asked, glancing at Carrie before returning to the tub of assorted paint tubes before him. “What about?”

“Before we left home, I got a call from my manager.”

Hefting the container of paints onto a rolling table between the easels, Bentley looked at Carrie with an almost nervous chuckle, “You’re not getting fired or something, are you?”

Letting out a shocked bark of laughter, Carrie reached over and shoved Bentley’s shoulder, “No!”

Giggling, Bentley said, “Well, you never know!”

With a good-natured roll of her eyes, Carrie shook her head and said, “That’s not it at all. Actually, it’s pretty much the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“A film company I hadn’t heard of before reached out and offered me a role in their new show,” Carrie explained.

“That’s great,” Bentley said with a brilliant smile. “What’s it about?”

“All I know about it is that it’s an assassin show,” Carrie claimed. “However, the only down side is that it’s going to be filming almost exclusively in Europe.”

“Europe?” Bentley repeated. When Carrie nodded, he asked, “What, like England or Scotland?”

“I know part of filming will be in the UK,” Carrie mused, “but for the character they want me to portray, filming would primarily be in Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine.”

Bentley allowed Carrie’s words to sink in, processing them slowly as he uttered, “That’s a long way from home.”

Carrie sighed, “I know. That’s sort of why I haven’t told Miles that they want me signed on.”

“Miles doesn’t know?”

“Not yet, no.” Carrie took in a deep breath before admitting, “I sort of wanted to get your reaction before telling him.”

“Well, I think it’s a great opportunity for you, but I think we both know how Miles will react,” Bentley said. “He’ll be happy for you no matter what. Just remember that he’ll probably end up going to the library to do as much research on your filming locations as possible. Remember what he was like when he had to decide which school to put me and Royce into?”

Of course, Carrie knew all too well. Miles had spent hours upon hours looking into the local schools, trying to figure out which one would be best for his brothers. After work, he would go to the library and research the local schools and their programs, searching for any hint of safety issues or cases of bullying. Royce and Bentley had to ride their bicycles to the library more than once to pry him away when it was almost closing time. After basically interrogating Lela about her old school and trying to see which schools had the best art and literature classes, he finally settled on one and signed all of the application papers overnight, falling asleep at the kitchen table with some of the papers stuck to his face and his pen still in hand. When Carrie showed up to pick Miles up for work the next morning, it took Bentley grabbing the spray bottle from the bathroom and filling it with frigid water to wake him from his slumber.

“Yeah,” Carrie said slowly as she nodded.

“That was just him figuring out a local school for us,” Bentley reminded her. “We weren’t going anywhere out of the state. So, when the time comes and you finally tell him, just know that he’ll be so much worse than that.”

Wondering just how bad it would be, Carrie sat silently, her gaze drifting as she allowed images of Miles scouring shelves of old books and frantically asking Mick and Vivien for help researching things on their phones to fill her mind. Eventually, her gaze drifted back toward Bentley and the two shared a nervous smile before dissolving into laughter. For a while, joy filled the room, filling the silent gaps in conversation that had once lingered between the pair. Eventually, the laughter began to fade and, as Carrie looked to Bentley once more, she sighed, “What have I gotten myself into?”

Bentley snickered, “A few months of pestering questions and nonstop research.”

“At least,” Carrie chuckled with a shake of her head. Taking in a breath, Carrie thought of Miles’ tendency to look into every possibility with a fine-toothed comb and wondered aloud, “I wonder if he’ll do the same for Mick when the time comes.”

“What do you mean?”

Snapping her gaze from the canvas before her to the blond boy beside her, Carrie cleared her throat and said, “It’s nothing, really. It’s just…” she sighed, “Charlie told me that some girls in the dance studio were talking about Mick being pregnant. It’s probably just a rumor, but I was just thinking how Miles would react if he she told him.”

“People really think she’s going to have a baby?” Bentley asked incredulously. “That’s crazy!”

“I thought so too, but there’s no telling,” Carrie claimed with a shrug. “Charlie thinks it could go either way.”

“Really?”

“Mhm.”

“I wonder if anyone else has heard about it,” Bentley said thoughtfully.

Carrie shrugged, “If the campers know, it’s probably spreading through camp as we speak.”

“Probably,” Bentley breathed. He would have to talk to Royce about it later on as he sometimes left the library door open for fresh air. If anyone walked by and was talking about it, he would hear it from the desk. With a shake of his head, Bentley grabbed a palette from the table between himself and Carrie and held it out for her to take. “You ready to get your paint on?”

Carrie eyed the colorfully stained palette before reaching up to take it with a smile, “Absolutely.”

Royce sighed as he ran his towel over his dripping curls. He was going to take a shower that night anyway, but after being unceremoniously shoved into the lake by Riven, he had gone inside to take a shower before they started playing games. Riven had caught him staring at Vivien - a normal occurrence, he thought - and his girlfriend’s skating partner chose to tease him about it when his girlfriend left the pier to help her aunts bring coolers of drinks down from the parking lot. After a while of back-and-forth, Riven gave Royce a nudge, and, needless to say, he was unprepared for it.

Tripping over the uneven planks, Royce had plunged into the cool lake, scaring off a nearby school of fish as the water enveloped him. Glancing out of the window near his bed as he sat down, Royce huffed; the trail of water he left from the edge of the pier to the front door of their cabin was still faintly visible in the fading sunlight. While it would be gone in the morning, Royce doubted his embarrassment would be. By the time he had resurfaced, Riven was folded over on the dock, laughing like a hyena. Bentley and Erica were no better as they took one look at each other and burst into laughter, only resorting to poorly disguised snickers when Jade elbowed them both in the ribs. Miles and Butchy hauled him up on the pier with matching smirks that told him they wouldn’t be letting it go for at least a day or two.

As Vivien and her aunts made their way down the beach toward them, Royce ducked past Carrie and Mick and gave a halfhearted response to his girlfriend’s question as to where he was going before ducking into the log cabin they were staying in and allowing the door to slam shut behind himself. Now that he’d had the chance to simmer and wallow in his mortification, Royce wondered if the red tinting his skin was due to the hot water or the embarrassment he still felt pulsing through his veins. Despite the mint-scented body wash he’d practically caked himself in, he could still smell the strong odor of seaweed and fish in the air. Royce sighed; maybe he had gotten water up his nose.

A knock on Royce’s door drew his attention away from his misery and he cleared his throat before asking, “Who is it?”

“Just me.”

Bentley. Royce took in a deep breath and said, “Come in.”

The handle twisted and Bentley pushed his way into the room with a grin before closing the heavy door behind him. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” Royce offered. “Did you guys start without me?”

“Of course not,” Bentley chuckled as he moved to sit beside his brother, “but Mickie wants us to watch a video before we play Mafia, so I said I’d come see if you were ready to join.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Royce said as he set his towel aside. “I just hope they’re alright with me still smelling like fish.”

“Ah,” Bentley breathed with a smirk, “so that’s what that smell is.”

Shoving Bentley, Royce chuckled, “Shut up.”

Bentley let out a short laugh, “Seriously, though, you smell fine.”

“Well, good, ‘cause I’m sitting next to you.”

“Oh no!” Bentley gasped dramatically. “Whatever shall I do? I’ll have to deal with you smelling like three-day-old sushi all night.”

“You are such a dick.”

“I can’t be a dick, my name’s not Richard.”

Royce shook his head with a laugh, “Whoever decided Dick was a good name for Richard, clearly hated people named Richard.”

“I know, right,” Bentley chuckled. Pushing himself to his feet, Bentley nudged Royce with the back of his hand and asked, “Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” Royce nodded, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“You’d better hurry or I’ll eat your peanut butter M&Ms.”

With a roll of his eyes, Royce grabbed his towel and stood, “Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

As Bentley reached the door, his hand wrapped around the handle, he turned back to Royce and asked, “Hey, um, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Royce said as he tossed his towel into the hamper beside his dresser.

Taking in a contemplative breath, Bentley asked, “Have you noticed anything different with Mick lately?”

Glancing over as he took a pair of shorts and a shirt from his dresser, Royce shrugged, “Not that I know of, why?”

“People are saying she’s pregnant.”

“Really?” When Bentley nodded, Royce asked, “Who did you hear that from?”

Knowing how quickly Royce would dismiss the thought if he said where he truly heard it from, Benltey said, “Some campers. I guess it’s been passing around camp.”

Royce thought for a moment before sighing, “We live with her; I think we would know if she was pregnant.”

“Maybe, but maybe she and Butchy wanted to keep it a secret and someone overheard them talking about it,” Bentley suggested.

The more Royce thought about it, the more things made sense. He knew how fast rumors spread - Vivien’s friendship with Noah being one that was spun into a mess. If Mick and Butchy truly were going to have a baby and someone overheard them talking, it wouldn’t be long before the whole camp knew. Even if they weren’t and someone had made it up, it wouldn’t take long for the camp-wide game of Telephone to make its rounds. Besides, if anyone else had noticed her exhaustion as of late, her few-and-far-between coffee refills at breakfast, or the way she no longer stole pickles from Butchy’s plate during meals, that would only contribute to the way things were spiraling.

“Maybe we should ask and see if anyone has seen a difference in her,” Royce suggested as he set his clothes for the next day on his desk chair.

“I asked Erica and Jade if they noticed anything,” Bentley said, “and Erica said she hadn’t noticed anything, but Jade noticed she’s been having stomach pains lately.”

Royce nodded thoughtfully as he joined Bentley by the door, “I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye on her. Maybe I’ll talk to Miles tomorrow and see if he knows anything.”

“He’s her best friend,” Bentley mused as he pulled the door open. “He and Butchy would be at the top of the list of people Mick would tell.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Royce agreed as he followed Bentley to the stairs.

Royce’s day had gotten off to a pretty good start. Despite sleeping in far later than he usually did, almost everything had gone well. The mess hall had his favorite omelets for breakfast, the library was practically empty up to lunch, and some of the other staff had helped put together a makeshift carnival on the soccer field for everyone to have fun that afternoon. A trampoline Vivien claimed they had borrowed from her grandparents’ house was on one side of the field, a rented slip-and-slide was on the other end, and a myriad of games littered the area. The only other activity that had been set up was a water balloon fight; buckets filled with peltable balloons were arranged in a row stretching across the grass at the bottom of the fence that surrounded the playground off to the side of the field.

As Royce wandered aimlessly through the field, he spotted his older brother crouching behind a piece of the wooden play structure, water balloon in hand. Making his way over to the wooden fence that separated the playground from the soccer field, Royce watched as a small girl Royce knew usually stayed in the back corner of the library, poked her head around the rock climbing wall and chucked a green balloon in Miles’ general direction before ducking back behind the wall. Just as Royce was about to call out to Miles, he heard another child laugh and watched a balloon sail just over Miles’ head. Miles peered over the wooden planks that sheltered him and quickly threw his balloon, watching it nail a kid who was no older than ten as he crossed an exposed bridge.

“Ah!” the kid shrieked as water burst across his shirt.

Another kid climbed up on the monkey bars to get a better view, but before they could make their shot at Miles, Royce called, “Hey, Miles!” As the kids stalled and Miles turned to see who wanted him, Royce asked, “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Miles nodded, turning and raising his arms in surrender before calling out to the kids, “Hey, guys? I’m tapping out!”

“Come on!” the kid on the monkey bars moaned as Miles stood.

“For how long?” another whined.

“Dunno,” Miles replied as he shrugged. Despite the children’s grumbling complaints, Miles walked over to the fence Royce leaned against with a smile and lowered his voice as he asked, “Hey, what’s up?”

“I, uh, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Alright,” Miles nodded, “go ahead.”

Royce glanced over to where Mick was standing with Butchy, utterly annihilating him at the ring toss station, before looking back to Miles. “I don’t know how else to say this, so I’m just going to ask.” Royce took in a deep breath and sighed, “Do you think there’s any way Mick could be pregnant?”

Although he appeared taken aback, Miles glanced over at Mick and Butchy and thought for a moment before meeting Royce’s eyes and asking, “Where did this come from?”

“Bentley,” Royce replied. “He said he heard a few campers talking about it yesterday and that it could be just a rumor, but from what I’ve seen, it could be true.”

Letting out a slow breath, Miles asked, “What have you seen?”

Royce took in a breath to organize his thoughts before he began, “She’s not drinking energy drinks anymore and she’s having a lot less coffee at breakfast, she hasn’t been eating much of anything and can’t look at certain foods without gagging, and even Jade says that Mick’s been having a lot of stomach pains lately.”

“And both you and Ben think that means she could be pregnant?”

“I looked it up on my phone while I was at my post earlier and the symptoms are very similar.”

Miles spared another glance at Mick as she dragged Butchy to yet another booth with a gleaming smile on her face. Taking a good look at his friend, he wanted nothing more than to dispute Royce’s claim. She looked fine! Not that pregnancy would make her look bad, by any means, but she looked the same as she always did. Shaking his head, he asked, “And Bentley was sure he heard them correctly?”

Royce nodded, humming in confirmation, “He seemed worried about her, so I’d say so, yeah.”

“I’ll try asking him about it later, maybe he’ll remember who it was that said it and we can go from there.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yeah.”

Just as Royce was about to head back to the makeshift carnival, a pain flared against his shoulder as he felt water splash across his face and down his arm. “Ow!” he yelled, sending a glare at the cockily-smirking girl who threw and caught another water balloon.

“What the fuck?” Miles called to the kids as they laughed from their places on the play structure.

“I’m not even playing!” Royce called.

“‘Cause you’re a chicken?” a boy called back.

“Chicken!” the girl with the devilish smile taunted.

“You’re a chicken, Royce!” another kid called.

As the children continued their teasing in the hopes of goading Royce into playing, Royce sighed, “Sometimes, I really hate those kids.”

Miles turned to Royce with a smirk and nodded toward the kids, lowering his voice as he asked, “You want to fuck them up?”

Royce took a look around and, noting that everyone was a pretty good distance from them, nodded as he turned back to Miles, “Yeah, I do.”

With a proud grin, Miles turned back toward the kids and began walking back to his previous spot as he called out, “You asked for it!”

“Better run, you little rugrats!” Royce called as he climbed over the fence.

Filing into the mess hall with damp shirts and laughter on their lips, Miles and Royce made their way to the end of the line to grab trays and fill them with food. After grabbing a tray, Royce took off, telling Miles he was going to talk to Vivien before disappearing down the line. Miles shook his head with a fond smile, glad his brother found happiness in little moments with his girlfriend. After grabbing some mac and cheese from its tin, Miles rounded a few campers and found himself next to Bentley as his youngest brother shoveled steak tips onto his plate.

“Let me guess,” Miles began, making Bentley jump, “you’re planning on drowning that in ketchup.”

“Absolutely,” Bentley beamed. “And you’ll pour that nasty steak sauce on yours like you always do.”

“Okay, first of all, it’s not nasty, you just have no taste buds,” Miles said. “And, second of all, yes, yes, I will.”

As Bentley’s face contorted into one of disgust, he handed the tongs to Miles and muttered, “Gross.”

Rolling his eyes with a smile, Miles grabbed some steak from the tin it sat in. Glancing at his youngest brother, Miles lowered his voice and said, “You know, I was actually hoping to talk to you.”

Bentley turned to Miles before quickly sighing, his eyes closing in defeat as he said, “If this is about the salamander, I swear, I had nothing to do with it.”

Miles turned toward Bentley again and asked, “What salamander?”

Searching his brother’s eyes for any sign of deception, Bentley slowly said, “I take it Carrie didn’t tell you.”

“No,” Miles said. “Why? What happened?”

Letting out a snort, Bentley recalled, “She and I were walking to the cabin so we could make sure we had stuff for the movie tonight and, on the way back, Carrie went to take a drink of her water and found that a little lizard had climbed onto her bottle.”

“And you had nothing to do with it?” Miles asked skeptically.

“Of course not,” Bentley replied. “Carrie and I have actually been getting along. If Royce had been there, I would have blamed him, but he was with you, so…”

“So the lizard just wanted a drink, huh?”

“Guess so.”

Heaving a sigh as he joined Bentley at the juice bowl, Miles said, “Anyway, that wasn’t what I was hoping to talk with you about.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Bentley chuckled. “So, what do you wanna talk about?”

“I was talking with Royce earlier and he said you told him there’s a rumor that Mick might be pregnant,” Miles stated. “I was just wondering if you knew which campers were spreading it around?”

“Well,” Bentley began, heaving a thoughtful sigh as he looked up at his brother, “the thing is, I didn’t overhear it from some campers.”

“You didn’t?” When Bentley shook his head, Miles asked, “Why did you tell Royce you had?”

Bentley sighed, “I didn’t want to say anything to Royce because I knew he would deny it if he knew who really told me. He’d probably say she was just spreading crap around or something, but I knew it was true and I didn’t want him to just brush it off.”

It didn’t take Miles long to figure out who his youngest brother was talking about. “You heard it from Carrie?”

“Yeah, she and I talked about it yesterday,” Bentley said with a nod. “She said that Charlie told her some girls in the dance studio were talking about it.”

Glancing at the table they normally sat at, Miles was glad to see the table had yet to be filled with their cabin’s inhabitants, but both of Vivien’s aunts had already claimed their normal seats. Then, just as Miles was preparing to make his way over and question Charlie himself, Mick and Butchy made their way to their seats and began conversing with the older women. Turning back to his brother, Miles asked, “Tonight, when Charlie and Hayley are making snacks for movie night, can you keep the others away so I can talk to them?”

Raising his hand to his forehead in a mock salute, Bentley smiled, “Aye aye, captain.”

Chuckling, Miles reached up and ran a hand through Bentley’s hair, ruffling it as he turned and headed for the table they typically dined at. Sitting down at his usual spot, he briefly wondered if Mick knew about the circulating rumors or if it had been a rumor at all. If her beaming smile and boundless laughter at Hayley’s terrible jokes were anything to go by, he doubted the brunette knew anything of the rumors. However, he couldn’t be sure. Mick’s tendency to laugh during awkward situations made it hard to tell what she did or didn’t know. Even if she was pregnant and had chosen to keep it a secret, he wondered if the rumors floating around would have any effect on her. She took almost everything to heart.

Miles inwardly sighed; he would just have to wait and find out for himself.

The smell of popcorn and the sound of laughter filled the cabin as Miles stepped inside. While everyone else was outside, playing ninja on the end of the pier and pushing the losers into the lake, Miles had slipped away in the hopes of finding Charlie and Hayley alone in the house. Just as he had presumed, they were in the kitchen, sitting on the countertops with cups of green juice that looked almost radioactive.

“Hey, Miles,” Hayley greeted, raising her cup slightly as Charlie waved.

“Hey,” he said in return.

“Did Viv send you in to ask about the snacks?” she asked with a knowing smirk. Before he could answer, Hayley chuckled, “She knows I won’t give her a straight answer, so she sends her friend instead - the little shit.”

Before Miles could say anything to the contrary, Charlie smiled and said, “The popcorn isn’t in yet, but the pretzels are almost done.”

“That’s good,” Miles said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Viv didn’t send me in, though.”

“Oh,” Hayley said, “that’s surprising.”

“What did you come in for?” Charlie asked. “A drink, some chips, maybe to save me from my wife’s terrible puns.”

Hayley scoffed, placing a hand over her heart as though she’d been stabbed, “My jokes aren’t terrible!”

“Yeah, they are.”

“You laughed, asshole.”

“It was a pity laugh.”

“Bullshit,” Hayley laughed.

With a roll of her eyes and an exaggerated sigh, Charlie turned her focus back to Miles and smiled as she asked, “Anyway, what do you need, sweetheart?”

“I was actually hoping to ask you something,” Miles admitted.

“Me?” Charlie asked, pointing to herself. Miles hummed in confirmation. “Well, in that case, I’m all ears.”

Taking in a deep breath, Miles sighed as he slowly recounted, “Royce told me that Bentley said that Carrie told him that you said you heard people talking about Mick being pregnant. I was wondering if you knew who was talking about it?”

As Charlie thought it over, her eyebrow raised and she lowered her cup of juice to the counter beside her as she said, “Some girls in the studio were talking about it, yeah, but they said that they heard it from you and Vivien.”

“What?” Miles wondered. “But I just found out about it today.”

Charlie glanced down, allowing herself to think over what had happened in the last week. Slowly, she claimed, “On Monday, I was instructing ballet and jazz. Dina Woodward injured her wrist and I stepped out with her to wrap it. When I came back, everyone in the studio was giggling and talking. A group of girls said they went by the music hall on their way in and overheard you and Vivien talking about Mick being pregnant.”

Miles allowed the woman’s words to sink in as he tried to recall what happened on Monday. He and Vivien had been in the music hall, playing guitar, talking, and relaxing as rain pelted the area. Vivien had been particularly tired that day, nearly falling asleep on Miles' shoulder as they sat in silence. Then, as the timer for the pretzels dinged, it hit him. While Miles was worrying about the possibility of rain coming through the ceiling, Vivien had asked him a question about the chance of Mick being pregnant, listing off her reasoning for thinking about it. While they were talking, the wind had slammed the door. However, Vivien had checked it and they moved on like nothing happened. Maybe it hadn’t been the wind. Maybe it had been the campers listening in.

“We started all of this,” he admitted softly. With a heavy sigh, Miles said, “I have to go tell Vivien so we can stop the rumors.”

As Hayley pulled the tray of pretzels from the oven, she requested, “Maybe you should wait until tomorrow.”

“What?” Miles asked. “Why?”

Charlie hopped down from the counter and crossed over to Miles, resting a hand on his arm as she replied for her wife, “Tonight, we’re supposed to be relaxing with some good movies and good snacks. Let everyone take some time to breathe - yourself included - and you can worry about it tomorrow.”

“But-”

Charlie was quick to cut him off, reaching up and cupping Miles’ cheek in her free hand to draw his attention to her words, “But it will still be an issue tomorrow and everyone will still be understanding tomorrow. Take the night to enjoy time with the family. Rumors at camp don’t last, but memories with your family do. You can work things out with everyone tomorrow, but give yourself time to process it for now.”

“Yeah,” Hayley agreed as she moved to stand beside her wife as Charlie patted Miles’ shoulder comfortingly. “Besides, Vivien will go into a full-tilt frenzy trying to make things right and, if you start that tonight, that poor child won’t sleep. If you tell her in the morning, she’ll have enough energy to fuss about it all day.”

“Hails,” Charlie gently reprimanded, elbowing the woman beside her.

“What?” Hayley asked rhetorically, a laugh falling from her lips as she returned to the counter to salt the pretzels. “It’s the truth. She’s just like me and we both know it.”

With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, Charlie turned back to Miles and smiled, “As much as I hate to admit it, she’s right. I know you want to fix this here and now, but you and I both know you want Vivien’s help since you both are, somehow, at the start of it.”

“Yeah,” Miles admitted in a breath.

“So, like Hayley said, I think you should wait,” Charlie claimed. “It will still be there tomorrow and you can work on it together without having to deal with a sleep-deprived, caffeine-riddled Vivien stumbling through the grounds like Jack Sparrow on dry land.”

Letting out a snicker at the mental image of Vivien fumbling her way through the camp with a bullhorn, shouting incoherent claims in the hopes of clearing Mick’s reputation, Miles chuckled, “Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be the greatest way to handle things.”

“Mhm,” Charlie hummed, patting Miles' hand as she turned and grabbed a stack of cups from the counter. “Now, take these out and hand them to everyone. We’ll be out in a few with snacks and drinks and then we can start the movie.”

“Are you sure you guys don’t need help?” Miles offered.

“Are you a psychiatrist?” Hayley asked as she set a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

Miles’ head tipped curiously to the side as his eyebrow raised and he slowly replied, “No?”

“Then, no, I think we’re all set,” Hayley chirped as the microwave whirred to life.

Rolling her eyes once more, Charlie pushed the cups into Miles’ hands and said, “Take these and run before you’re subjected to any of her horrendous jokes.”

Miles chuckled, taking the cups and heading toward the hallway, “Alright, alright, I’m going.”

As the popcorn began sizzling in the microwave, Hayley turned to Charlie, leaned against the counter, and asked, “If my jokes are so bad, why do you always laugh?”

“Because I love you,” Charlie answered with ease as she sidled her way up to her wife.

“And here I thought you found me funny.”

“Funny looking, maybe,” Charlie teased, “but those puns of yours are just plain terrible, my dear.”

Placing the back of her hand to her forehead and letting out a gasp of air, Hayley whined, “Oh, how you wound me!”

“Drama queen.”

“Fun hater.”

“Oh yeah?” Charlie said. When Hayley nodded, Charlie asked, “Do you know what the leading cause of divorce is?”

Curious, Hayley offered, “A lack of humor in a relationship?”

“Nope,” Charlie said with a shake of her head before leaning up and kissing Hayley on the cheek. “A stalemate.”

As Charlie took the bag of popcorn from the microwave and opened it to pour it into a bowl, Hayley processed the joke, her jaw slowly opening in shock, “Holy shit; was that a fucking pun?!”

“You know,” Vivien mused, “when Carrie told me to break a leg, this wasn’t what I thought she meant.”

In place of their usual day of recreation and rehearsals, that Friday was spent challenging the campers and staff alike. Unlike many of their previous days filled with activities, The Gauntlet - as the campers had begun calling it - had taken place at the amphitheatre and, as many expected, many workers had signed on to participate. Between the ropes course, the speed challenge, the scavenger hunt, and the climbing wall, everyone had their work cut out for themselves in one way or another. While the campers competed in teams, the staff were left to fend for themselves.

It was to no one’s surprise that Vivien had signed up to compete; her boundless energy and competitive nature boiled over when she found both Riven’s and Noah’s names on the sign-up sheet. What was surprising, however, was the fact that she ended up getting injured. Despite making it through the race in the top three and finding everything on her scavenger hunt list with relative ease, it was the ropes course that had been Vivien’s downfall. Near the end of the course, her foot had slipped on the wooden planks, sending her flying into the podium, and she narrowly avoided slamming face-first into the trunk of a tree.

Riven had managed to get her down after she quickly discovered how painful standing was, but as the auburn-haired skater was next in line for the next segment of the challenge, Miles had offered to take Vivien to the health center to see how bad her injury truly was. That was where they could be found, Miles hitching Vivien further up in his piggyback hold as he made his way to the front entrance of the health center.

Miles chuckled, “I highly doubt you’ve broken anything.”

“I know, but still,” Vivien shrugged. “It’s a good thing I got to know her before Royce’s impression of Carrie infected my brain.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm,” the brunette hummed. “Otherwise, I would’ve said she put some ancient curse on me or something.”

Miles let out a snort as he paused to glance over his shoulder at the younger girl, “An ancient curse? Really?”

“I’m from New England, the home of literal witches,” Vivien deadpanned. “At this point, anything’s possible.”

With an amused shake of his head, Miles chuckled, “Yeah, I can’t see Carrie as a witch.”

“I could,” Vivien said with a smirk as Miles pushed the health center door open with his shoe. At Miles’ curious look, she said, “Tell me she wouldn’t be an incredible Sarah Sanderson.”

“That’s the one from Hocus Pocus, right?” Miles asked as he nudged his way further into the building. “The one who they push into the street to see if it kills them?”

“Yeah!” Vivien chirped as Miles set her on one of the beds. “You know, the blonde who sings to draw everyone in with her magic. Carrie would be incredible as her.”

As Miles pulled a stool over to sit on, he nodded, smiling at Vivien as he sat before her, “I could see that working out.”

“Just wait until I have her watch those with me after my birthday,” Vivien chuckled. “I give her an hour before she starts planning to have you two dress up as Sarah and Billy for halloween.”

“An hour?” Miles chuckled with a shake of his head. “Half an hour, maybe, but I doubt she’d wait an entire hour.”

Vivien smiled as she worked on untying her shoes, “Yeah, true. Maybe she, Mick, and I could go as the Sanderson sisters this year.”

“I thought you, Royce, and Bentley were going as Stranger Things characters.”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Vivien shrugged. “I wanted to go as Max or Robin and Royce was going as Steve or Dustin. Bentley wanted to go as Will, but then he saw the demogorgon costume and now that’s up in the air. But, if they can’t decide before we go to Spirit Halloween, I’m going to just go with the girls and they can fend for themselves.”

Miles let out a snort as Vivien dropped her shoe to the floor, “Then I’ll have to listen to them whining for the foreseeable future.”

“Sounds like a you problem.”

Miles chuckled and shook his head, “Speaking of problems, we need to talk about something, but first, can you move your foot at all?”

Vivien sucked in a breath and winced as she moved her foot around in a slow circle, “Yeah, but it hurts.”

“Alright, so it’s definitely not broken,” he mused, “but it could be a sprain or a twist.”

“My bet’s on a sprain,” Vivien commented. “Even with a twist, I can stand and put weight on it.”

Miles looked around, “Do you know where they keep the crutches?”

Raising a hand, Vivien pointed to a closet on the far wall, “In there. The code for the lock is nineteen-seventy-three - the year Nonna and Grandpa George got married.”

Miles stood and made his way to the closet, setting the lock aside and opening the door before grabbing a set of crutches and making his way back to Vivien. “How tall are you?” he asked as he examined the slider at the bottom of the metal crutches.

“Five-eight,” she replied. As Miles got to work on adjusting her crutches, Vivien used a sigh to blow her hair from her face and asked, “So, what problems do we need to talk about?”

Glancing up at the girl before him, Miles took in a breath and asked, “Do you remember the other day when you and I were talking about Mick being pregnant?”

The brunette thought for a moment before slowly nodding, “Uh, yeah, why? Is she?”

“No,” Miles said before pausing. “Actually, I don’t know. What I do know is that a group of campers overheard us and has been spreading a rumor around camp that Mick’s pregnant.”

Vivien let out a humorless chuckle, “You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish I was.”

“How did you find out about it?” she asked.

“Royce told me and Bentley had told him,” Miles stated. “I guess Bentley heard it from Carrie who heard it from Charlie who heard it when the campers went to the dance studio after overhearing us talk about it.”

Vivien thought about the chain of events before recalling, “When the door slammed and I went to check it, there were campers running to the dance studio, but they were far enough away that I thought it couldn’t have been them.”

“Well, I guess it actually was.” Miles set the crutches aside for Vivien and looked up at her before saying, “Now, we have to fix it.”

Vivien nodded slowly, “We should talk to Mick first and get things straight. If the rumor is about her, she should know about it.”

“Yeah, and even if she’s actually pregnant, it would be best to get the story straight,” Miles agreed.

Vivien nodded, but before she could say anything more, the door to the health center opened and Butchy stepped inside, sending the pair a smile as he asked, “How’s everything going?”

Miles was the first to answer, “It’s probably a sprain.”

“I’ll be fine after a day or two,” Vivien shrugged. “I’ve sprained my foot before and it never lasts long if I take a day off of it.”

“Alright,” Butchy said with a small grin, “in that case, consider yourself crutch-bound for the next few days.”

“It’s going to suck at the carnival tomorrow,” Vivien sighed, “but that’s what I get for doing stupid shit.”

Fighting the instinct to tell the teenager off for swearing when a child could walk in at any minute, Butchy chuckled and leaned against the bed next to her, “We’ll work something out for you tomorrow, piccola. One of those air casts or a brace, maybe.”

“Maybe.” Vivien shrugged, “As long as I get to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl, I’ll be fine with whatever.”

Butchy reached up, bringing an arm around Vivien’s shoulders with a smile, “Atta girl. You feel up to going back to the amphitheatre and watching the rest of the competition?”

“It might take me a while to get there,” Vivien snickered as she took her new metallic friends and settled them under her arms, “but yeah. Are Noah and Riven still in it?”

“Noah lost the ropes course to Riven, but that’s all I know,” Butchy claimed as he stood.

As Vivien stood and began hobbling her way to the door she turned to Miles and asked, “Are you coming?”

Miles smiled, “Yeah, I just have to lock up the closet again. I’ll meet you along the way.”

“Okay,” she said, allowing Butchy to take the lead as she made her way outside.

Once the closet was locked up once again, Miles pulled his phone from his pocket and opened his messages. Finding his last conversation with Mick, he typed, 'Can we talk later? In private?'

It wasn’t long before he got a reply, 'Of course, why, what’s up?'

'Too much to type. Meet in the playhouse after dinner?'

'Sure, see you there.'

It wasn’t often that Butchy found himself walking back to the cabin without Mick by his side, however, as he had kitchen duty that week, he had told her to just head out while he got to work cleaning up. Though the air outside the mess hall was still thick with humidity, the sky had begun to darken and cool the heat of the day. The amount of plates covered in chili and melted cheese had made his fingertips turn to raisins in the soapy sink water and the steam from the hot water made him feel as though he’d been working in a sauna, but the cooler outside air was a welcoming contrast to the heat of the wooden building. Taking in a deep breath, Butchy sighed as a breeze blew by, urging him to make his way back to the lodge he resided in.

He wondered what everyone was up to. They wouldn’t have a game night or movie night without him there as they only ever spent those nights as a whole group. Maybe they were sitting around the living room, doing their own thing. Mick would probably be reading in her corner of the couch while Miles and Riven talked music on the opposite end. Charlie, Jade, and Carrie would most likely be found painting each others’ faces in jelly masks while Bentley and Royce would be on the floor with Vivien, talking about things they only ever talked about together. If he had to guess, Erica and Hayley would be talking off to the side. For some reason, the unlikely pair had grown close after Erica discovered Hayley was the wild child in her family and Butchy had seen the two talking a lot as of late.

Letting out a long breath, Butchy pushed his hair back and began the walk home. Normally the walk went by quickly as everyone chattered about their days and the camper drama they had heard. However, as cicadas chirped in the bushes and the faint buzz of the sparse overhead lights, the journey felt as though it would take a lifetime. A few cabins still had campers and counselors lingering outside, chatting as they dreaded the call of lights out, but many kept their doors closed as they prepared for the evening.

Pushing his way through a line of bushes, Butchy took a shortcut between the health center and the playhouse, glancing toward the health center to make sure the lights were off before continuing toward the playhouse. Spotting a light on through one of the side windows, Butchy made his way to the back of the building, opened the screen door, and pushed his way inside before pulling out his cell phone for a flashlight. Just as he flicked it on, he heard a voice from the main hall where a performance would be rehearsed for the next week.

Choosing to not call out in case it was just people cleaning, Butchy made his way through the back rooms before stepping through the doorway that led to the back of the stage. As he got closer, the voices got louder and, before long, he could make out a set of distinct voices. A heavy sigh came from the main room before he heard a familiar voice say, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Mick? What was she doing in the playhouse at this hour? Was she helping someone run lines? Then another voice cut through Butchy’s thoughts, “I wish I was.”

Miles. Since when did he have anything to do with the play? He hated being on stage. Before Butchy could peer around the curtains of the stage to see what was going on, his hand stilled in the air and another voice filled the air, “I mean, at least you found out from us first and not from some random campers, right?”

Vivien’s question gave Butchy pause. As far as he could recall, Hairspray didn’t have a summer camp. Whatever they were discussing, had nothing to do with the play. Lowering his hand, Butchy listened as his wife scoffed, “Still! Half the camp thinks I’m pregnant and I had no clue! Is that why everyone’s been asking me if I’m okay and checking on me all the time?”

“Probably,” Vivien said. “It could just be that they were worried about you.”

“Why would they be?” Mick pressed. “I’m fine.”

“You weren’t eating well and you got nauseous at breakfast almost every day,” Miles stated.

Mick let out a sigh and Butchy could imagine her pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration as she huffed, “I started my period and my sense of smell went haywire. It usually goes away after the first few days.”

“You were tired all the time too,” Vivien chimed in.

Butchy had noticed Mick’s exhaustion as of late, but he knew Mick had a good explanation for that as well. “I have two reasons for that,” she began. “First off, I was trying to finish my book before my interest in it died during the week. And, second, Butchy and I have been going on late-night excursions for the camp.”

“You have?” Vivien asked. “Why?”

Mick sighed, “I can’t say just yet, but you’ll see sooner or later. For now, just know that, no, I’m not pregnant. We’ll just have to work on clearing it all up over the weekend with all the kids gone.”

“How are we going to do that?” Miles asked.

Again, Mick sighed, her voice low as she said, “I don’t know, but we can start by spreading things to the counselors. Once they know the truth, they can talk with the campers and clear the air in the privacy of their cabins.”

“We can also tell everyone in our cabin so they can relax,” Vivien added.

“Who else knows about this and didn’t say anything?” Mick asked.

“Royce told me,” Miles began, “and he found out from Bentley, who was told by Carrie, who heard it from Charlie, who was told by the dancers.”

“And I talked to Riven and Aunt Hayley about it

“So practically everyone?” Mick asked.

Vivien chuckled nervously, “To be fair, not everyone believed it, so they didn’t say anything to anybody outside of the cabin.”

“Actually,” Miles started, “Bentley said he talked to Erica and Jade, but I think they’re the only ones outside of the cabin who knew.”

“The only person I think hasn’t heard about it, is Butchy,” Vivien claimed.

“Yeah,” Miles agreed, “I think he would’ve said something if he did.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Mick huffed. After a moment of silence, she took in a breath and said, “We’ll start tonight. We can talk to everyone and make sure everything is smoothed out. As long as we can get through to most of the people in our cabin tonight, I’ll feel better about it, but I want to talk to Butchy about it one-on-one.”

“That’s understandable,” Miles stated.

“I’ll work on everyone else at breakfast,” Vivien said. “I know a few people who would spread it around fastest. Once I get to them, things will clear up pretty quickly.”

As the call for everyone to return to their cabins echoed through the camp, Butchy heard Mick let out a relieved sigh, “With any luck, this will be over before the campers come back.”

“Yeah,” Vivien said optimistically.

“Now, lets get back before the others send out a search party,” Miles chuckled.

“And get to clearing the air with everyone before Butchy gets back from cleaning the mess hall,” Vivien added.

“Yeah,” Mick muttered.

As Butchy listened to their footsteps echo throughout the playhouse, he inched the curtain to the side, watching as his wife left with Miles and Vivien’s arms wrapped around her. None of them looked back to see him standing there, watching them, and as Miles flicked the house lights off, turning the playhouse into a dark abyss of shadows, Butchy wondered how long they had been there, talking. Had he found them early in the conversation or had they been there since they left the mess hall?

Another thing that came to the front of Butchy’s mind was how everyone seemed to know apart from him. Was he truly the last person in their cabin to hear the rumor about Mick’s pregnancy? Who could have started something like that and how had the rumor begun spreading? If it was truly just a rumor as it sounded like Mick said it was, how had it spread throughout the camp? And, again, how would he have been the last to know? As the father of Mick’s rumored child, why would he be the last person in line to know?

Taking in a breath, Butchy shook his head and sighed. He was overthinking it. Mick already said it was nothing more than a rumor; he had nothing to be stressed over. It wasn’t like she was actually pregnant and simply chose not to tell him. If that had been the case, he would have had every right in the world to be at least a little bit upset. That would have been an entirely new can of worms to crack open.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket once more, Butchy turned on the flashlight and made his way back to the back door, ensuring that the lights were off and everything was put away before leaving the playhouse and making his way to the path that connected to the beach. He took his time getting back to the cabin and, by the time he reached the sand of the beach, the sun had set behind the treeline and everyone was congregating on the end of the pier. Despite their smiling faces and jokes about how many dishes he must have had to scrub, he could see in their eyes how serious their previous conversations must have been.

As Butchy took his seat on the pier beside his wife and felt her head rest cozily on his shoulder, he wondered just how long it would take her to tell him. After spending so much time with her, he knew she would need time to sort through her thoughts and feelings on the matter. He had no issue allowing her the space to do so. If he had found out some rumor about himself was spreading amongst his closest friends as well as a myriad of gossiping campers, he would be pretty worked up about it too. As they watched the sunset illuminate the sky, Butchy allowed himself to relax. After all, he had nothing to worry about… right?

Ah, the carnival. The only place where the overwhelming smell of popcorn and fried dough, the sky-high prices of tickets, and the crowds packed tighter than a tin of sardines didn't have any effect on people’s happiness. Workers standing in the summer heat called for people of all ages to try the rigged games they were stationed at, begging them to pay five dollars for a toy they could easily buy at the dollar store. While parents were dragged to ticket counters and various rides their children claimed they just had to ride, groups of teenagers and adults alike gathering on the weekend for a day away from jobs and other responsibilities, roamed free.

After Vivien’s grandparents reassured the group that they had bought day-pass bracelets for everyone, they were practically ushered to the parking lot and encouraged to have a good day away from everything. Upon their arrival at the fairgrounds, the group filed out of the van and found their way through the crowds of people to the line that extended from a row of brightly-colored ticket booths. After making their way to the front of the line and being handed a stack of bracelets with rubber bands wrapped around it, the group found their way to a fairly unoccupied table and worked on figuring out what to do for the day.

After deciding to meet at the Ferris Wheel to figure out what to have for lunch, almost everyone went their separate ways. Vivien and Riven were quick to race to a ride called Pharaoh's Fury, eager to prove that they could handle the pendulum-style ride. Royce and Bentley followed the skating duo but quickly branched off to the nearby Scrambler when Bentley saw just what the Pharaoh’s Fury entailed. As Miles and Carrie wandered off to find something to do, Butchy allowed Mick to guide him around the fairgrounds.

They walked in relative silence, the screams of people on rides and the calls from game operators the only sounds nearby. Butchy wondered what could be going on in Mick’s head. She hadn’t said much of anything since the night before and, while Butchy didn’t want to press her to talk, he missed the sound of her voice. Taking in a breath, Butchy looked around and offered, “Would you like some cotton candy?”

Mick looked up at him and thought for a moment before shaking her head, “Not right now. I think I’ll wait until after we go on some rides to eat anything.”

“Where would you like to go first?” he asked.

With a sigh, Mick looked around and shrugged, “I have no idea.”

Butchy allowed her to look around, taking in the different rides and attractions before asking, “Mickie, are you alright?”

Peering curiously up at her husband, Mick slowly replied, “I was until you asked. Why?”

“You’ve been pretty quiet today,” Butchy stated, “and, usually, you have days like this planned down to the tiniest detail. I was just worried.”

Heaving a sigh, Mick shook her head, “I just have a lot on my mind today. I wanted to talk with you about it when we’re alone, but it doesn’t seem like that will be any time soon.”

Deciding it would be best to inadvertently hit the nail on the head, Butchy lowered his voice and asked, “Is it about that rumor that was going around camp?” When Mick’s wide eyes met his, Butchy sighed, “I don’t know what you heard, but I swear, I didn’t take kitchen duty this week in order to poison Carrie. Not only would it risk poisoning everyone at camp, but it would also make me the number one suspect in her murder, according to Vivien.”

Mick stopped in her tracks and, once Butchy turned back to face her, she asked, “Wait, so you’ve had rumors going around about you this week too?”

“Yeah,” Butchy claimed. “I’m assuming you have too?”

“Yeah,” Mick breathed. “Everyone was saying I was pregnant.”

Butchy froze as though he was hearing this for the first time. Looking his wife over, he took a step closer to her, taking her by the arms as he softly asked, “You’re not?”

“No,” Mick giggled, “I just said it was a rumor.”

Butchy glanced around before quietly saying, “We can change that, if you’d like.”

Mick’s eyes widened as she muttered, “What?”

“It doesn’t have to be a rumor.” With a teasing smirk, Butchy continued, “We could sneak off to the car and nobody would know.”

A shocked noise left Mick and her face burned as she squawked, “Butchy!”

“What?” Butchy asked in mock-astonishment. “I just thought we could go get one of those fake pregnancy tests from that joke shop near Walmart. I don’t know what you were thinking we’d be doing.”

Mick smacked Butchy’s chest as she huffed, “Remind me why I married you.”

“I wish I knew,” Butchy chuckled as he brought an arm around Mick’s shoulders. “I think you were just in it for the motorcycle and I was like the cruddy little prize at the bottom of the cereal box - unnecessary, but you still took it anyway.”

“Sounds about right,” Mick said with a smile, nudging Butchy with her elbow before bringing her arm around his middle. “So, you never heard about the pregnancy rumor?”

“Not until you said something,” Butchy stated. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. He had heard her say it the night before, but she didn’t need to know that. “What about you? Had you heard about me poisoning Carrie?”

Mick snorted, “No, but to be honest, I wouldn’t put that past you.”

Acting as though he’d been shot in the heart, Butchy brought a hand to his chest and gasped, “And here I thought you’d be my alibi for the crime.”

“Yeah, no,” Mick said with a shake of her head as she led her husband toward a swinging chair ride. “You and I both know I’m a terrible liar, so the chances of that happening are slim to none.”

“Guess that means I should put the antifreeze back in the truck, then, huh?”

“Butchy!”

#Camp Wanamaker

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astragreenwoode · 1 year

Text

The Spitfire Curse - Chapter One

Next: Chapter Two • Masterlist • AO3 Version

Rating: Explicit(18+ ONLY)

Pairings: Eddie Munson x Fem!OC(Endgame), Billy Hargrove x Fem!OC, Steve Harrington x Fem!OC, Robin Buckley x Fem!OC, Chrissy Cunningham x Fem!OC,

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-Con, Canon-Typical Violence, Graphic Descriptions of Violence, Non-specified Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Drug Use, Hypersexuality, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

Genre: Adventure, Thriller, Horror, Slow-Burn Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort. Smut, Fluff, Slight Canon-Divergence, Fix-it fic

And a special thanks to my beta-reader @take-everything-you-can! Thank you so much for all your feedback and ideas, love!

Chapter One: Someone Who Loves You Wouldn't Do This.

Word Count: 7681

Chapter Warnings: Recreational Drug Use, Divorce, Implied Trauma, Language, Slight Smut, Domestic Arguments, Implied Mental Illness(not specified what kind)

Chapter Summary: Maeven looks back on the day her life took a turn, leading to her and her family down a painful path, and her life being relocated to the middle of nowhere, Indiana.

I used to make a joke that I was cursed. I was blissfully unaware as the clock stroke midnight and I welcomed 1983 with my friends and family the hard turn things would take. My life would go through a painful metamorphosis that wouldn’t stop for a while. Eventually, I learned that life was chaos and the best way to cope with existing was to be the calming breeze in the middle of the storm. Unfortunately, the best lessons are taught the hard way; through pain and suffering. It took becoming too acquainted with facing death and pushing through a secret dimension that is the closest thing to hell ever seen by human eyes.

For the longest time, it seemed that my life went in a loop. Too often, my livelihood would be torn apart, leaving me to struggle as I licked my wounds and tried to move on. And just when it seemed safe enough to get comfortable and happy, another knot in the chain of rot, ruin, and pain would be added. The cycle would start anew, leaving me to spiral down like blood in water circling the drain of the shower.

But despite all the bullshit I was put through, I wouldn’t trade my life in Hawkins, Indiana for the world.

. . .

February 1983

The year started off like any other. We spent those first few months in quiet anticipation of the new goals we had set for ourselves. My Dad made a vow to not work overtime at the University of San Diego as much so he could be home for dinner and kiss us goodnight. My Mom made a vow to work hard and earn a promotion in her job at the bank. Max made a vow to compete in a local skate contest and wanted me to join her. I made a vow with my friends that we’d collaborate for the Newport High Arts Festival.

None of those resolutions ended up being met. Max and I were too occupied by whatever pulled our parents apart to accomplish them.

That February, a week after I won a prize in the science fair and two weeks after Max’s twelfth birthday, we left the house for school with a deafening silence between us. My little sister and I fast walked toward the bus stop gripping each other’s sweaty hands like a vice. I clenched my knuckles tightly around the shoelaces of my skates slung over my shoulder as Max nervously tapped her nails on her skateboard clutched in her other hand. Normally, we’d have skate-offs to see who could reach the bus stop first. It wasn’t one of those days; Max needed her sister, and I needed mine.

Dad was supposed to drive us that morning. He even promised he’d get up early so he could make breakfast and watch the morning news with us and Mom. These things used to make up our regular morning routine, but Dad hadn’t been able to join us and be present the way he did before for at least the past six months. I couldn’t tell anymore, and I couldn’t remember exactly the last time I saw him awake before school. He would either be too tired after getting home from work or passed out from drinking too much.

I was looking forward to it so much that the excitement caused me to wake up before my alarm clock went off. But when Max and I came downstairs all packed for school and eager for breakfast, we found him passed out on the couch with the T.V. still on and a cluster of beer bottles on the table.

That morning, our Mom and Dad had their earliest and most intense argument that we’d yet seen. The last thing we heard as I pulled Max along with me out the door was my mother yelling “Sometimes, I wonder if you even care about us at all!”

Up until now, they had usually been in the next room or so over trying to muffle their yelling between the walls. This was the first time they knowingly fought in front of us. I was in such a hurry to get us out of there that I didn’t turn the doorknob three times before locking it like I always do.

We started walking slower as soon as we couldn’t hear the screams anymore and loosened our grip on our things and each other.

“Sooooo. . .what classes do you have today?”

I laughed at her timing and felt relief at the break in the tension that hung heavy in the air like a storm cloud. But as soon as I noticed Max’s lack of sarcasm in her tone and that she wasn’t laughing with me, the weight on my shoulders returned.

I didn't blame her for not wanting to talk about it. But we had to do it eventually. The elephant in the room was growing unruly and anxious. It threatened to tear the house apart.

“Are we seriously not gonna talk about what just happened?”

“You tell me," Max grumbled, staring at the ground as we continued walking. "You haven’t said shit this last month or so.”

I wasn't blameless in ignoring the situation. But up until this morning, I didn't think the tension between our parents would lead to this.

“It’s not like I don’t want to, Max. I’m still trying to process what Mom yelled back there.”

“Yeah. . ." she scoffed. "She’s sure one to talk, huh? It’s not like she’s never been passed out drunk on the couch instead of paying attention to her family, right?”

“You’re not wrong," I wheezed out at her.

Before getting her job as a bank teller, Mom had been working as a nurse at the busiest hospital in San Diego since before she married my Dad and had me. But the E.R. got busier and busier. The HIV crisis turned it grim. Mom and Dad ended up losing a few of their close friends from back in the 60s. It hit both of them hard, but Mom was the one who had to witness the disease rotting people from the inside out first-hand.

At first, her drinking wasn't anything serious; just one bottle every night at dinner to help take the edge off. But then, my uncle tested positive, and it was all suddenly so personal. He went so quickly before we even really got a grasp that it was happening. It tore Mom apart, losing her baby brother so brutally.

“Dad was there for her through her crap. Why can’t she do the same?” Max let go of my hand and wiped the sweat off her palms before gripping her skateboard in her arms. I wiped my palm, too.

“Hey. Be nice. She’s trying. It definitely wasn’t always easy for Dad to keep his shit together for her," I pointed out, lifting her chin gently to meet her ocean-blue eyes, a shade or two lighter than my own.

Mom was able to get sober with our and Dad's help, but she couldn't be a nurse anymore. The whole situation made the mention of the word "hospital" leave her sick with melancholy.

“Okay, fine. I guess you’re right. But it’s not just her, y’know? Ever since Dad came back, he’s been. . .different.”

As things were just getting back to normal, Dad was called back by the Army to help fight in the cold war. He was an engineer who helped fight in the Vietnam War and was absent for the first year and a half of Max’s life. After he played his part and came back home, he was different in the best way. Throughout our childhoods, he no longer took like for granted and spent his days making up for the time he wasn’t here with us.

He didn’t go back to fight in the Cold War for too long, but that short time made a big difference in his personality. I didn't know much about what happened to him during his time fighting overseas. All I knew was that he was awarded a lot of medals for his service. Too often, Max and I would look at them and ask him what they were for. Max didn’t understand what all of them exactly meant, which Dad was grateful for. He wanted us to stay kids for as long as we could. But he couldn’t stop me from theorizing what orders he had to follow for him to earn those medals. My favorite was his Purple Heart.

He was even able to bring back his partner home to us; a retired military dog named Bullet. He got along nicely with Lucy, our other dog, and Nutmeg, our cat. They were immediately the best of friends. I could tell Bullet's presence kept Dad calmer.

“Yeah. He’s quieter," I said. But Max wasn't satisfied with me boiling it all down to that word.

“Quiet? Try distant," she snapped, the vibes in the February air turning sour. "I’m pretty sure he forgot it was my birthday this month."

My stomach sank. I remember when Mom was once too drunk to remember my birthday. It broke my heart. But Dad wasn't like that. He was different, right?

“He did not. He got your new board, didn’t he?”

“I heard them talking a week before my party. Mom had to remind him.”

If it was possible, my broken heart then shattered for my baby sister. I was angry. I couldn't believe Dad would get so bad that he forgot the day he had to coach my mom through childbirth in his parent's house. But that didn't necessarily change anything. He still kisses the picture of our family in his wallet three times a day for good luck. That had to count for something.

“You don’t believe it right?”

“Believe what?”

“What Mom said before we left the house," I reminded her. I was still trying to process the fact that those words came out of my Mother's mouth. They were laced with hatred, and I was angry at her for letting us leave the house knowing they echoed in our heads.

“I don’t know what I believe anymore.” As soon as Max's broken voice said that, my shattered heart burned up and the ashes blew in the wind.

“Hey. Don’t talk like that." I pulled her arm and stopped us a block before her bus stop. I crouched down slightly to be at her level, taking a deep breath before continuing. "Dad didn’t stop loving us, okay? And he never will.”

“You don’t know that.” Max started choking up a little, fighting to hold back the tears.

“Yes I do,” I told her, reaching my hand up to cup her cheek. But before our skin could touch, she smacked my hand away.

“Why are you defending him?”

“I’m not defending him, Max. I just think there's something else going on," I said, pulling her along to reach her block. I felt her pull me back before I had the chance to look both ways before crossing the street.

“What, Maevey? What else could possibly be going on that he’d rather drink than come home on time to eat dinner with us?”

“We didn’t see him for months before he came back to us. I don’t know exactly all that happened when he was overseas, but I can’t imagine all of it was pleasant for him."

I was starting to lose my patience as I debated picking her up before crossing the street. But her friends were gathered at the bus stop. They didn't need to hear this.

“How are we supposed to know what happened if he won’t talk about it?”

“There's probably a reason he isn’t talking about it, Max. I don't think who he was forced to kill and the brutal war crimes he may have witnessed are ideal conversation topics."

Her face went from mad to concerned, and I could breathe easier knowing she understood a little more than before.

". . .I didn't think about that."

"It's okay, Squirt. C'mere." I pulled Max into a hug. Her embrace squeezed my ribs, but I didn't care. I wasn't too tall, but I was tall enough that her head was tucked comfortably under my chin.

"If they get divorced, do you think they'll split us up, too?" She mumbled into my coat. My heart was now completely gone from my chest. I looked both ways before eagerly pulling her along to cross the street and turned to face her again as soon as we were safe on the other side. She pulled me to the side behind the bushes, so the other kids at the bus stop couldn’t see or interrupt our conversation.

"They're not gonna get divorced, Max. Okay? And they sure as hell aren’t splitting us up. They've gone through rough patches before. This one isn't any different from the last ones," I explained, reaching out to hug her again. She pushed back a little too aggressively, but I couldn't bring myself to care. She needed to feel her feelings and I didn’t blame her for not wanting to be touched.

"Don't do that! Don't act like you know everything's gonna be fine!” Max yelled. “You don't know that, Maevey! You can't know that!"

Her breathing started to quicken as she began to hyperventilate. Like I had done a thousand times before, I put my hand on her shoulder and coached her

"Hey, don't yell. Just calm down, Max. Look at me, okay? Breathe. In. Out. Thats it.” As soon as her breathing was stable again, she pulled me back into the hug she denied herself before.

She was right. I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I couldn’t tell the future. I may read tarot cards all the time, but it wasn’t an exact science. I couldn’t guarantee what would happen to Mom and Dad. But I could guarantee that no matter where this whole fiasco would go, I’d have her back; we’d have each other.

"Everything's gonna be fine, okay? We'll get through this. We always do,” I murmured into the top of her head as her bus came into view.

"Promise?"

"Promise,” I said, pressing one last kiss on her head. I momentarily locked our pinkies together like we had done a million times before. She pulled back as we heard the high-pitched sound of the bus hitting its brakes.

“I'll see you this afternoon, okay? I have Farming Club today after classes,” I explained as I guided her toward the line of children. “. . .so I'll be home at 5 instead of 3. We'll do something fun after dinner."

I could tell she was still worked up over Mom and Dad and annoyed once again by my packed schedule. But she agreed anyway. She needed the distraction. We both did.

". . .okay."

I tussled her hair and gave her one last quick hug. "Alright, Squirt. Gotta go. Love you."

". . .I love you, too. . ."

As I moved on my way to where I usually catch my bus, I heard my sister call back to me one more time.

"And I'm not a squirt, Maevey!" I turned toward Max to see her head poking out of the school-bus window. I let out a laugh. Ever since she could talk, we’d hold our own little competitions to see who could have the last word. We had lost count by now, but we didn’t care about that anymore. We liked the rush in our blood we got from the heat of the race.

"Compared to me you are, Squirt!"

“You’re not even that tall!”

“Bye, Max!”

I wouldn’t know it until later in the day, but when I told my sister everything would be alright, that would be the very first time I ever lied to her.

. . .

Every time I left Farming Club, I left with a little more dirt under my nails and a few more animal scratches. I had many passions; from music to skating to books to art. But I knew I wanted to work with wildlife and the outdoors since I was five years old. That was the day I made friends with a gentle raccoon and brought it inside the house. I named him ‘Oscar,’ because he loved trash. Later that night, my Dad gifted me with a field journal and helped me make my first entry on raccoons.

Mom is the reason Max and I loved the beach so much. She was the reason we loved bright things like the sun and rainbows. I took on her love of arts and crafts. But neither Max nor I was as girly as she would’ve liked us to be. Dad passed his love of science and research onto me. Max adopted his love of comic books and handy skills. We both inherited his stubbornness and rebellious spirit.

But I never thought his rebellion from my Mom’s nagging would end up like this.

That afternoon, I tied my rainbow laces tightly on my light-teal skates on the bus taking me home from club. As the door opened, I held onto the handrails on the steps and jumped from the top step and outside the bus, sliding my hands down on the way to support my weight on my wheels. All the bus drivers I had nagged me to stop that lest I hurt myself. They all eventually gave up. When a Mayfield is determined, good luck trying to dissuade them.

Like I had done in my life routines a million times before, I skated down the road back home. I nailed turning on the hard curves of the neighborhood that Max and I had conquered growing up. Ever since I was little, I loved repeating myself. I thrived on routine and found comfort in everyday repetitions. It took me a while before I became comfortable with accepting changes big and small. I still counted in groups of two or three. The sequences brought me a sense of control and comfort.

No matter how far I had come in going with the flow and controlling only what I am able to, I never wanted my little sister sitting on the curb of our driveway to escape my parents’ screaming match to become a part of my routine. We had spent the last couple of nights eating dinner outside on the back porch, skating until the sun went down, and watching the sunset before the sky filled up with stars. This was the first time during our parents' fighting that I saw Max cry.

She was sitting on the curb next to our mailbox with her board in one hand and the other stroking the top of Lucy’s head as she lay down with her head in her lap. Bullet was standing guard with Nutmeg between his front legs, cleaning her face with her paws. As soon as our pets saw me, they perked up to welcome me back home.

“Hey, guys. Hey.” I gave them each a friendly pat on the head before I skidded my skates to a halt and stood on my toe stops before kneeling down to cup her face in my hands. Max didn’t even seem to notice for a moment until I wiped her tears off her cheek. Before I could say anything, she desperately wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my shoulder.

“Max, what’s going on? What’re you doing out here?”

“They’re fighting again.”

I could hear the muffled yelling coming from our childhood home. Whatever went down in there while I was at club, it wasn’t anything good.

Enough was enough. I wasn’t going to allow my sister or myself to be spectators in the middle of their shitstorm any longer. After I aggressively unlaced my skates and let my backpack carelessly drop on the lawn, I stood up.

“Stay here,” I told Max. Only Nutmeg followed after me. I marched toward the house with anger lit in my veins the same way gas would light when met with a match. The freshly watered grass soaked through my socks and chilled my feet. It helped me keep calm and grounded.

As I reached the front door, I focused my hearing on my parents’ conversation. Nutmeg rubbed on my legs and meowed at me to pick her up.

“You can’t keep doing this, Norman! You can’t keep making promises and breaking them when it’s convenient for you! You can’t keep fucking up and then come crawling back to me like that’s somehow going to fix everything! You need to do better! Be better! You need help!”

My breathing quickened and shallowed as I hugged Nutmeg closer to my chest. She nuzzled her face into my shoulder as she sensed my growing anxiety, but her actions did nothing to stop it from spreading in my lungs and head. I heard my Mom scream before; sometimes she would get frustrated parenting me and Max. But I’d never heard her like this before.

“Do you honestly think that's what I’m doing, Susan?! Do you think I’d rather drink until I black out instead of coming home to you and the girls?! I’m sorry that I’m hurting you, but I’m not going back! I’m not gonna be interrogated by a shrink just so they can punch my crazy card again and throw me in a padded cell!”

I knew very little about my Dad’s mental history. I figured it had something to do with what he saw during his time in the military.

“Maybe you should! Maybe you are crazy, Norm! I feel fucking crazy watching you rot for over a month! I’m not gonna watch you do this to yourself! I don’t deserve to see that, and neither do our girls!”

Maybe Mom was right. Maybe my Dad was crazy, but that didn’t mean it was okay to talk to him like his state of mind made him a bad person. I never saw either of them as bad people, but that was starting to change. Slowly, but surely, my sweaty palms wrapped around the doorknob and I turned it one, two, three times before I opened it.

“Do not bring them into this! Do you realize how hard it is keeping my shit together in front of them?! You should! You did the exact same thing to us! Don’t act like you haven’t! I am trying my best to be better for them! For both of them!”

“Well, your best isn’t enough, Norm!”

“STOP IT!”

They were so caught up in the heat of the moment that they didn’t even notice me open the door until my outburst. Nutmeg jumped out of my arms and pranced up the stairs. I had never seen either of my parents look so broken before, Not even after Mom lost her brother or when Dad had to bury his father. It was scary, to see this side of them.

“Mae-Mae. . .I. . .I didn’t know you were back, yet.”

Mom wiped the tears from her cheeks and stifled her breaking voice.

“Yeah, clearly,” I said, slamming the door and shaking the house around us. Somehow, it felt louder and more intense than when they were yelling.

Mom sat in the chair by the fireplace and turned away to pull herself together. Dad let out a heavy sigh, running his hands through his hair before adjusting his glasses.

“Maevey, I know how this looks. I know I haven’t been. . .present for a while-”

“Yeah, no shit, Dad! Neither of you have!”

“Excuse me?” Mom practically leaped from her chair. “I have been making you dinner, doing your laundry, and driving you to and from all your little clubs! You will not talk to me that way!”

Here we go again; right to the Martyr role.

“Yeah, but when was the last time you’ve actually been here, Mom? Huh? Do you even remember what clubs I’m in? Do you even remember what I won the science fair for last week?”

Both of their eyes widened like this was the first time they were hearing about this.

“Honey, you were in the science fair?”

“Seriously, guys?!”

They were there; both of them. But I was so caught up with everything else happening that night. I didn’t realize in the midst of everything that Dad was so antisocial that he just stayed on the sidelines and occasionally come to my booth. Mom only came up to my booth once, going around to congratulate the other kids on all of their hard work instead of my own.

They both took off after I won the blue ribbon, leaving me with a hollow ‘good job, Maeven’ before going back to fighting in the school parking lot. Why couldn’t they put their fighting on hold? Just for one night? They were so preoccupied with their sudden hatred for each other that caring for Max and I had become a chore, rather than a necessity. My parents might’ve been there, but they weren’t there . They weren’t present.

Mom rubbed her hands together, fiddling with her jewelry as she looked for the right words.

“Mae-Mae, we-”

“Don’t you ‘Mae-Mae’ me, Mom!” I pleaded with her, looking up at the ceiling and wondering what it would feel like to spontaneously combust just to escape this conversation.

“Max and I have been putting up with your shit, both of yours, for all our lives! But, this? This takes the cake.”

“Maeven, I know it's been hard seeing us fight, but I promise you, we’re working through it, okay? You and Max don’t have anything to worry about.”

It always came back to this point. We had this conversation many times in the last few months. I was tired of going around in circles. I was tired of them acting like we didn’t need to know what was happening to their marriage. I wasn’t a kid anymore, and neither was Max.

Before I knew it, I combusted. The brutal words mixed with the finger-pointing and dramatic gestures came out without warning. I probably looked like I was having a classic teenage girl tantrum; I didn’t recognize myself. It was as if I was floating outside my body, no longer in control and puppeteered by the past month of built-up frustration.

“Oh, bullshit! This is not ‘working through it, guys! This is chaos! Now will you just fucking fix your marriage or get a divorce all ready so Max and I don’t have to suffer anymore?! Jesus H. Fucking Christ!”

By the time I was given control of myself again, it took me a moment to realize what happened. It was the first time I had blacked out, and it would be far from the last time. I didn’t remember going back outside to sit next to Max. It was a scary sensation, but my body, heart and mind were hyper-focused on other things.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

At the sound of my sister's voice and the feeling of my hands absentmindedly running through Bullet’s fur, my thoughts suddenly weren’t so loud.

“You kinda spaced out there for a moment,” Max said, her hand joining mine to double Bullet’s reassuring pats. I wasn’t sure whether it was more soothing for us or for him.

“I’m fine,” I murmured, tilting my head back to look at the night sky and letting the soft breeze cool down my heated cheeks. I almost wished Dad would come out and sit with us to look at the stars as if it was just a normal night.

“How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough.”

I mentally slapped myself. Earlier that day, we had preached to each other about how sickened we were to be in the middle of Mom and Dad’s fights. It felt so hypocritical of me; to blow up like that while knowing Max could most likely hear my yelling, too. Until I felt the sudden urge to start breathing again and sniff, I didn’t even feel like I was crying.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have exploded like that, God, . .I’m just like them. . .No, I’m worse.” My voice was broken up. I sounded so pathetic. Max scooched over and leaned her head on my shoulder. I moved my arm around her as she slipped hers along my hip.

“No, you’re not,” she said, still recovering from her own crying fit from before I came home. “They had it coming.”

I breathlessly let out a laugh as ‘Call Block Tango’ crawled its way into my head. Never before had I felt so relieved and yet so angry. It was as if I just finished a long hike in the mountains and finally let my shoulders rest and stretch without a backpack on. But as I packed up my camp the next morning, I was painfully reminded that I still had a long way to go.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that. I just. . .I didn’t know what else to do. . .”

“Do you really want them to get a divorce?”

At this point, I didn’t care what happened to them. I couldn’t picture what I wanted for us in the future. I just wanted all this bullshit to end.

“Yes? No? I don’t know, Max. I just. . .I just want the fighting to stop.”

“Yeah. . .me, too,” she sighed, letting her shoulders fall as she tilted her head up and her eyes met mine.

“Do you still believe her?” I asked.

“What?”

“Do you still believe Mom when she said Dad doesn’t love us?”

Max pondered for a moment, her eyes focusing on the way my evil-eye necklace sparkled in the sunset barely shining over the neighborhood. She had the same look in her eye she got when planning her next move in a family game of Monopoly.

“No. I don’t think I even did before.”

“Good. Mom still loves us, too. Y’know that right?”

“Yeah, I know. . .I mean, God knows she tells us all the damn time.”

As much of a hard-ass our Mom could be, a day never went by where she didn’t tell us how much she loved us. Dad made sure to remind us, too, but had fallen out of practice the more time he spent away from us. He didn’t see us enough to tell us.

“Why don’t they love each other anymore?”

I knew that wasn’t true to a degree. Mom and Dad were no longer fit to be partners, but that didn’t erase the life they built together. Max and I were living proof of that.

“I wish I knew, Squirt.”

People fell out of love all the time. It happened every day. It just wasn’t as preached as much as the ‘happily ever after’ narrative. The divorce rate was currently skyrocketing ever since ‘no-fault divorce’ was legalized in the mid-70s. Until then, domestic violence wasn’t considered a valid reason for divorce. It wasn’t a bad thing that it was finally able to those who really needed it and then some. I just never thought my family would need it, too.

“You know this isn’t your fault, right?”

“Whose fault is it, then?”

Max’s question wasn’t one that could be answered simply. She was just starting puberty, just starting to learn that the world wouldn’t be simple from here on out. People shouldn’t be so romanticized. People were. . .complicated, to say the least. I guess that was why I preferred to find comfort in the study of flora and fauna. Everything else in nature made sense but humans.

“No ones, Max. They didn’t want to hurt each other, it just. . .happened.”

I barely believed my own words. I knew their fighting had nothing to do with us. But I also knew how easy it was to feel like it was your fault when you were stuck in the middle of it all.

“They seem to want to hurt each other right now.”

“Because they’re scared. I don’t blame them. I’m scared, too.”

“Yeah. . .what’s gonna happen to us?”

I was so naive to think everything would always stay the same, to think that my family was untouchable to tragedy. The only thing I was certain of was that I wasn’t going to let the impending divorce break what my sister and I had with each other. All I could do was give her a hug and be as truthful with her as she could handle.

“I. . .I don’t know. I’m sorry. I wish I did.”

The divorce didn’t break us. Everything that followed afterward did.

. . .

19 Months Later

No matter how difficult it was hauling her entire life across the country, Maeven was probably the only one who saw the move to Indiana as a good thing. Of course, Susan and Neil were the ones who wanted it the most from the beginning. They had a chance to start a whole new life together, far away from the painful troubles and annoying inconveniences in California; far away from Norman Mayfield and the threat he posed to the newly blended family. Neil didn’t like the idea of being challenged that way. And he absolutely loathed the thought of his bride’s ex-husband still having a big influence on his new family

Susan wanted this for her daughters, too. The Mayfield sisters have always had trouble fitting in, of course. They both shared a tendency to not be properly labeled by others. Maeven had so many interests to keep up with, and Max practically danced on the spectrum of being a tomboy on one side and a ‘proper girl’ on the opposite. Susan hoped the move from the big city to small-town America would possibly. . .straighten them out, as she and Neil liked to put it. They all needed a fresh start. Maeven, especially.

The nineteen months that followed her parents’ divorce were a blur of unhealthy coping mechanisms, illegal activities, soul-crushing trauma, and a lot of therapy and pills. Her good clean reputation as an eccentric honors student had mutated into one carved with violence and pain. Repeating her Junior Year at Newport High after everyone witnessed her at her most vulnerable and angry felt like a death sentence. Maeven saw the move to Indiana as a clean slate, a blank canvas; a chance to find peace and start over where nobody had to know of her past sins.

Besides, she no longer felt like she belonged in California. There just wasn’t a place for her there, anymore. It was her home for such a long time, but it no longer felt that way. It now felt tainted and ruined, just like she had become. Maeven no longer felt like herself, and was convinced that she had to find herself again no matter where the road took her. All she knew was she wouldn’t find what she was looking for in California. Plus, the increase in population made her want to crawl into a hole like a wild animal and wait or all the chaos to die down.

Of course, Billy and Max objected to the move. Both of them had their own lives to live in California. It wasn’t fair to just uproot them without asking how they’d hypothetically feel first. It wasn’t fair to force them to uproot their lives so their parents could live a fantasy they never wanted a part in. The whole charade gave them another reason to hate each other; something they didn’t want but couldn’t help once Susan and Neil made up their minds. But Maeven? She had nothing that tied her there, apart from her friends, Dad, and pets; all the things Susan and Neil convinced her that she didn’t need in order to be happy.

The newly blended Hargrove/Mayfield family spent the second to last week of September moving east across eight states and directing a team of movers to move furniture and boxes into their new home. The house on Cherry Street was a few miles away from downtown Hawkins; a nice, upper-middle-class neighborhood tucked amidst the trees. Maeven was excited to explore the woods that lay across the street from them and discover the creatures who inhabited it. She could already picture herself finding a particularly interesting tree, plant, or creature to fill her sketchbook with. The cicadas were still chirping, so they’d probably be the easiest to sketch. If she was quiet and lucky enough, maybe she’d cross paths with an owl or fox.

In between helping with moving boxes and furniture, Maeven and Max skated on their new driveway and around the neighborhood despite their mother’s protests. Billy dropped the sisters off closer to town in his Camaro after Neil practically forced him to. As they explored downtown Hawkins, they managed to find an arcade connected to a video rental place. Seriously. How bad could this place really be if it had an arcade?

Max spent the next two hours working her magic, adding her name to the top of the scoreboards on each game she had already beaten back in California. Maeven snuck around to the alley behind the building to smoke a couple of hits of a joint before going back inside to lose herself amongst the 8-bit shooting noises. She shoved her face with strawberry Fanta and cool-ranch Doritos, buzzed on sugar, carbs, and weed as she hyper-focused on topping the Galaga scoreboard with IRNMVN.

The first week exploring their new home felt like heaven to Maeven. It was really the first time she truly felt at peace in over a year. Despite the abrupt adjustment from city living to small-town America, and the strange vibe she felt from Hawkins, she found her new home comforting and charming.

The last nineteen months of Maeven’s life had been a hazy blur of school scandals, bullying drugs, fighting, and police mixed with pills, mental institutions, isolation, and trauma, just to name a few. It all blended together to make up a cocktail of ups and downs, misery and pleasure. She was once on the honor roll at Newport High School, well on her way to becoming the Valedictorian of her class. Now, Maeven would have to repeat her Junior Year at Hawkins High. Indiana was a chance for her to start over; a place where no one knew of her or her past sins.

She was tired in every sense of the word; physically, mentally, emotionally. All she really wanted was not to be the center of attention like she was before. Maeven just wanted to be normal for a while, even if she wasn’t. At the very least, she wanted to be as normal as she could be. All she had to do was follow a very specific set of rules; put in place to build herself back up.

(1). Don’t be a slut

(2). Act like the smart, athletic girl she was inside

(3). Be herself, but also blend into the crowd. Don’t stand out too much,

(4). Don’t be Weird.

(5). Don’t let them find out what happened to you in California.

The last rule was easier said than done. But Billy would help her just like he always did. He was always there for her.

Maeven and Billy knew each other long before their parents started dating each other. They were classmates since sixth grade but didn’t really talk to each other until High School when Maeven started going through her rebellious phase after her parents got divorced. After all the fighting and verbally humiliating the bullies and jocks, and the snarky attitude she had with both teachers and students during class, Maeven caught Billy’s attention.

He approached her at a party, one of the last weekend ones before the end of sophomore year. She was relaxed in a lounge chair by the pool, smoking a joint and staring up at the stars. Billy unintentionally startled her before asking if he could share with her. She accepted. In between passing the joint to each other, they talked about anything and everything they could until the cops came to shut the party down. They didn’t really have any other choice but to scatter off together.

Amidst all the panic, Maeven climbed inside Billy’s Camaro and they sped off together. They probably should’ve gone home, but somehow ended up going on a long drive to a point on the mountains that looked out over the vastness of San Diego. Although they never told each other, both of them secretly wished the night would never end. The longer they talked, the tighter the tension grew before it turned into a warm tenderness they found in each other’s bodies, hearts, and minds. Billy and Maeven stayed awake together until the sun started peaking over the horizon that early Sunday morning. He made sure to savor the moment, brushing the sweat and weed from her lips to taste her one more time before she walked into her friend’s house.

Up until that night, Maeven had never seen Billy as anything more than an asshole; he was a showoff and a bully, and proud of it, too. But he could also be charming and soft when he wanted to. And for some reason, he felt safe enough to be so around her. The fact that he complimented her sudden new ability to ‘kick ass and take no shit and look super hot at the same time.’ And apparently, her ass looked really good when she skated. Maeven thought she had all the jocks properly pegged, but she noticed how Billy’s baby blue eyes had a dark sadness behind them. He was carrying a pain in his heart and soul all too similar to the one she had just taken on; his parents were divorced, too. Although, the circumstances of his situation were much worse than hers.

His mother abandoned him when he was eleven, not able to deal with her husband’s abuse toward her anymore. Before his dad started raising his fist at her, Billy’s mother was a gorgeous, loving mother to her son. In some odd way, Maeven reminded him of her. Despite the freckles and the wild red hair, she was bright, warm, and full of unconditional love, according to his fond, yet fading memory of her. He ended up being a pleasant surprise.

Of course, Billy wasn’t someone Maeven would’ve normally hung out with. She felt like he got her. They felt like they got each other. He looked at her like she was the only other person in the world. She loved his sun-yellow mullet that reminded her of a lion’s mane and could rarely ever stop herself from weaving her fingers through it. He didn’t mind in the least. Billy didn’t care about Maeven’s quirks and fidgets or cringed at the gap between her teeth as he kissed her. He made her feel safe; a special feeling of safe that she hadn’t felt since her dad moved to San Fransisco.

The fact that he knew the exact right way to make her scream his name as he fucked her hard into the cushions didn’t hurt, either. He was fast and hard-edged like his Camaro; he meant business. Maeven was Billy’s dirty little secret, and he was hers. And they liked it to stay that way. But once they officially became family, things got a whole lot harder.

Max was suspicious from the start of how close they were. Billy didn’t seem like the kind of person Maeven would be friends with. He could be a dick, and she was definitely frightened of him and what he could do. She was already forced to witness him burning a dead cat and berating her on a daily basis, among other things. Maeven had yet to find out that he was the one who broke the arm of one of Max’s best friends in San Diego. Then again, Max wasn’t really certain she wanted her big sister to know. And despite everything, Billy was really growing on her. She liked the idea of having a big brother, even if it might take longer for him to properly fill the role and all it entailed.

Maeven took every precaution to make sure Max didn’t know about her relationship with Billy. Her little sister was already dealing with her life being uprooted and relocated away from everything she knew and loved. Finding out her big sister, her idol was fucking their new step-brother would be heartbreaking. She didn’t need more chaos in her life. Once Maeven found out last November the Neil dating her mom was indeed Neil Hargrove, she immediately broke things off with Billy. Obviously, they didn’t stay that way. And after what happened to her last New Year’s Eve, she needed him more than ever.

By the time the movers finished unpacking, the sun had set far west enough so that the sky was both warm and cool at the same time. As Maeven sat next to the woods across the house to smoke, the cicadas’ chirps rang throughout the late summer hair. Susan and Neil were fast asleep by now after an exhausting day of the finishing steps of their moving process. They were way too braindead to throw a tantrum over Maeven smoking to help with her anxiety and sleep disorders. She knew neither Billy nor Max would tattle on her. Neither of them cared. In fact, Maeven made sure to put her blunt out whenever her sister came within six feet of her. They wouldn’t narc on her for a drug ten times less harmless than what she used to use.

Despite all the painful detoxing that she went through while in recovery, smoking pot had always remained Maeven’s best vice. The very act of it made her feel like she was drifting in a warm ocean, safely guarded by a pod of orcas and whale sharks. Weed was a hell of a lot better than snorting cocaine or popping pills like candy. How bad could it really be for her if it grew from the fucking ground? Besides, she knew better now than to even think about doing drugs that hardcore.

Before she left for Indiana, Maeven’s best friend and former dealer, Madison, gifted her an altoid tin filled with her legendary hand-rolled joints. They were famous around Newport High for how fat they were and how big of a buzz they gave the smoker. The matriarch of her family owned an off-the-grid farm in the heart of the Emerald Triangle. Norman Mayfield was a good friend of theirs and didn’t care if his daughter wanted to self-medicate at his house in California. After ashing her joint with the toe of her boot one, two, three times for good luck, Maeven went back inside. The voices finally managed to quiet down in her head enough for her to feel like she could get to sleep easily. Her stash wouldn’t last forever, though. Even if no one could replace Madison, she would have to investigate and find Hawkins’ resident dealer soon.

Maeven secretly envied everyone else in the house and their bodies' ability to rest without needing any extra help. She couldn’t remember the last time she slept without the assistance of 40mg of melatonin, some tea with honey, and a joint or two before bed. Thoughts of wanting nothing more than eternal sleep always lingered in her mind.

Her new room was barren of any personality save for the muted blueberry floral rug and her quilted bedspread with warm technicolored squares covering her full-sized bed. How soft the mattress was as she threw herself down face-first was all that Maeven had the energy for. She didn’t even bother trying to get under the covers properly. It was too warm that evening to curl up like that, but the breeze blowing softly through the open windows felt so nice on her bare skin.

Not feeling Nutmeg curl up on the bed by her feet or on her side was still strange. Maeven didn’t know if she’d ever get used to that, Nutmeg was with her Dad, along with Bullet and Lucy, back in San Francisco. Of course, Maeven and Max wanted to bring their beloved kitty with them when they moved. But Neil would never allow it. And after the incident with Billy setting fire to a dead cat’s corpse without hesitation, Max convinced her sister that she was safer in California. Maeven could understand the anxiety that moment must’ve given her, but Billy would never kill an animal in cold blood like that. Would he?

She didn’t even realize until the mattress dipped to her right and felt him curl his body to fill against hers that Billy managed to sneak in her room unnoticed. His sudden presence made Maeven flinch, but she melted back into his almost immediately as he ghosted his stubble-kissed lips against the nape of her neck to coax a giggle out of her.

“Hey, Dollface. . .” he whispered into her hair, sending a shiver down her back.

“Hey, yourself, Big Guy. . .” she mumbled, shifting in place to face him through her sleepy, probably bloodshot eyes. Billy pulled her tighter against him, gently gripping her knee to hook her leg around his hip.

“You feeling alright? Can smell the pot on you,” he asked, stroking Maeven’s bare thigh.

“I’m good, Billy, just needed to chill.”

“And you didn’t invite me?” he playfully accused, pressing his lips to hers as if to get a secondhand high off the taste of pot lingering on her mouth. Or maybe just because he trembled at the comforting taste of her body

“I thought you were sleeping. The house was so quiet,” she laughed, burying her hands in his golden-yellow locks. Billy’s hand traveled to her shoulders, tenderly kneading against the knots. Maeven let out a slight hiss.

“You’re so tense, Doll,” Billy whispered, nuzzling his face in the junction between her neck and shoulder, tickling her with his beard.

Maeven already knew where he was hoping this would lead. She knew him too long to not notice his telltale signs of arousal. She could already feel his erection growing as he rutted against the front of her underwear. He knew that smoking weed could make her libido rise quickly, always making sure to try and seize the open opportunity to relieve each others’ stress.

“Yeah, heavy lifting for a week will do that to you,” Maeven innocently answered, but Billy wasn’t one to easily pick up on hints.

“Think you can stay quiet for me, baby?” His hand on her thigh crept upward to squeeze one of her ass-cheeks

“Nuh-uh. Keep those hands to yourself. It’s too hot.”

“Mmm-hmm. . .and we can make things even hotter.”

As delicious as his offer was, she couldn’t. Maeven wanted nothing more than to lean into his sinful touches and let the overwhelming intrusive compulsions win. But she was tired. And even if an orgasm could help her with her insomnia, she had been doing so well compartmentalizing her dark thoughts and compulsions.

“Sorry, Big Guy. I’m too tired. . .too sore.”

His hands stopped just above the waistband of Maeven’s sleep shorts before profoundly sighing. Billy was the one out of both of them who actually liked to give in to their impulses, but he always stopped when she wanted him to.

Whenever Maeven blacked out, she had the tendency to obey every intrusive thought that poisoned her mind. She often entered a fight-or-flight state of mind, like a wild animal being hunted. In those moments, she wasn’t a person any longer. She was a monster; the one they always told her she was.

Billy sat up on Maeven’s bed and leaned over to the wooden side table, grabbing something she didn’t see him bring in before.

“Brought ya some water, thought you might be thirsty.”

He offered her now full water bottle that she didn’t even notice was missing from her room. Maeven sat up and took it, not realizing until just now how parched she was. She ended up drinking down half her bottle, just in case Cottonmouth got the better of her later in the night. Ever since she was hospitalized for dehydration, Maeven didn’t mess around when it came to water.

“Ever the gentleman,” she thanked him, closing her bottle before leaning over Billy to put it back on the table. She suddenly felt extraordinarily drowsy and dizzy, closing her eyes to escape it as she leaned on Billy’s torso for support.

“You sure you don’t need a massage, baby?” he asked, tenderly rubbing the small of her back.

She rolled her closed eyes at him, not wanting him to be right and also not fully trusting him to curb his lustful appetite. But Maeven would be able to sleep better without her body being so pent up.

“. . .okay, fine,” she murmured, rolling off of Billy and onto her stomach on the bed next to him so he could get better access to her back. Almost as soon as his hands started loosening the knots in her shoulders, Maeven moaned into her pillow as she felt her mind drifting away.

“That’s it, Dollface. Just let me take care of you,” were the last words she heard from Billy as his hands traveled down her body, sneaking their way across her hips.

When you look at someone you think the world of through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags are practically invisible. But Maeven wasn’t able to see them until it was almost too late for her.

A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who showed love on the preview for this chapter! It's uplifting and refreshing knowing that people are actually interested in my work. Let me know what you think about the first chapter, what you like, and what you might wanna see.

Thumbs up to those who can name the songs where all my chapter titles come from. If you wanna be added to the tag list for this fic, let me know down below!

The Spitfire Curse Taglist:

@yaidothat

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ethereal-engene · 2 years

Text

the road unknown | wooyoung

pairing: bf!wooyoung x self-insert/OC

genre: angst, slice-of-life, and fluff // warnings: mentions of breakdown, talks of self-doubt, overthinking, general feelings of being & feeling lost, and cursing

summary: One night, Wooyoung is greeted by your crying form and he takes it upon himself to figure out why & how he can help you feel better.

word count: ~2.3k

note: a comfort fic for me and for when the feelings of not knowing where you’re going in life gets the best of you. // inspired by ATEEZ’s song Turbulence + the emotional attachment I have to it.

this fic is unedited so uhm it might be considered “bad writing”

⊹ ੈ♡ — — — — — — — — — — — — — — ₊˚ ‧₊ ๑ ˎˊ˗

Most days, you’re simply existing and living life as is. It’s not as horrible as it sounds when you’re pre-occupied with studying, being a university student, and working your part-time job. Usually thinking about what you’re doing and what to do next (not in the long run type of way).

Somehow through the busy schedule you have and clear goals that you’d like to achieve, you find yourself some nights thinking a little too hardly. Questioning if what you’re doing at the moment will bring you to the place where you want to be & if you’re doing enough. Comparison is just so easy to do. Other people who are walking the same path as you career-wise are doing so much more than you.

If they’re not in the same career path as you, they’re out there having fun with new friends. These were friends that you thought were a lasting friendship as you’ve known some of them for a good majority of your life. However, it’s hard to say that you two weren’t friends and if we’re being honest here. None of us were making the extra effort to catch up with each other. At the same time, you knew that if you ever needed help or advice or someone to talk to, they’d be there.

You’ve accepted that fate. Settling with fact and looking on the bright side - at least you still had friends of some sorts. Besides you knew that you didn’t have to talk everyday with someone to be friends. Nonetheless it still hurts as you watch them post on social media showing off how much fun they’re having with others. Yes, social media is essentially to show off the highlights of one’s life not all the bad. But you can’t help but think about why you weren’t invited.

Maybe it brings you pain ten-fold when the person you called your best-friend ghosted you. Never knowing where it went wrong or if it simply never went wrong. It was a just a test of the time to see how long it would last until it inevitably led to nothingness. For the longest time, it didn’t bother you and seemingly grew to accept that people can grow apart. Along with the fact that they were a social butterfly and you weren’t.

That facade must have lasted a few good months until one night where you were alone, your true feelings and thoughts erupted. The truth was you missed them a lot and they were doing well without you. This friend was there for you when things got tough and supportive throughout the small victories. The last time you texted them served as a confirmation that things weren’t really the same between you two anymore. Longing for their love and sense of comfort, even if it was sometimes bad, was something you had to let go.

Great, you think to yourself. Just another area in my life that is going so well for me.

Nonetheless, you learned to move on from those thoughts and were brought back to what started it all - where the fuck were you at in life? With the long days blending into a blur, it’s hard to take notice of if your supposed progress is going anywhere. Was the effort you were putting in actually to get to the future that you’re working hard for? It sure didn’t feel like it. It didn’t help that you weren’t doing as well as you wanted on this class’s previous exams.

So this final was your last chance to not fail this class. Even though, you know the structure of this exam and how the questions are formatted, the content was a lot to say the least. In other words, the exam itself isn’t ever hard. It’s more of material since it’s much memorization & understanding it.

To add onto that, this class & the material isn’t just one that you can dispose off after the class. No. This information is shit you have to carry around if or when you become certified in your career. One could even say it’s critical that you know this. No one wants a hospital worker or healthcare worker who doesn’t know information about the body.

Sometimes you think the path that you’re walking on is not right for you. But you’ve already set your heart and mind to it. Can’t back out of now or else you’ll feel like an even bigger failure and a lost cause. Dealing with this is just enough.

Sighing to yourself and slowly but surely succumbing to the dark parts of your thoughts. Asking yourself the questions you’ve been pondering since the start of this.

Is what you’re doing now going to provide you the future that you’re aiming for? Can you truly achieve the dreams and goals you’ve set up for yourself thus far attainable? If you fail this exam, what good can you do if you want to succeed in this career? What am I truly doing in my life? And why does everything I work for seem like it’s bringing me back to square one? I don’t even fucking know what I do for work sometimes.

This road I’m walking just seems so lonely and dark. When will this road unknown feel known?

Before you know it, tears start rolling your face. How did it get this bad? You know that trying to stop them will be futile so you don’t try.

As the time passes by, you’re now full on sobbing and not being able to think straight. Stopping every once in a while to take a breather or to the best of your ability. Your face is buried into your arms and wetting wooyoung’s sweater that you’re wearing. Just when you think that the water works have turned off, it doesn’t take long for them to turn back on.

The worst of your thoughts have claimed you for the night. The overwhelming feelings & thoughts clashing leave you so gone that you don’t even hear Wooyoung when he shouts that he’s home.

Normally you’d kiss him home welcome or at the very least acknowledge it. But today, it’s neither. Feeling not too worried about it though, he walks in further to grab a quick snack for you & him to eat. As he’s sure that you need one anyway because of your study habits.

Before stepping into your room, he hears you bawling and it makes him stop in his tracks. He should have known something was wrong if you didn’t greet him at the door like always. You know how he wasn’t too worried seconds ago? That all vanished when his ears picked up on the sounds of your cries.

Pushing that aside, he tells himself that the longer that beats himself up for it, he’s simply losing time that could be spent helping you. Wooyoung has told you countless times that if you ever need someone, he’ll that someone always. Now was just another time that his words remained true.

Wooyoung knocked on the side of the doorway to see if that could grab your attention. To no avail, he silently walked over to you & embraced you into a hug. Only then did you realize that Woo was home. He held and hugged you tight. Whispering soft and sweet nothings.

Was it odd that it made you even more sad? The combatting of the no so good thoughts with love. The balance between the two brings a shift. It was hard to find and give yourself love when all you were doing was helping feed into hating yourself & the progress you’ve made so far.

You wondered how long you’ve been in this state (of mind). Sooner of later, his embrace brought you back to a less chaotic & destructive emotional state. It gave you the chance to finally catch your breath & for heart rate to return to its resting rate.

Wooyoung was glad to see the teardrops from your pretty little eyes come to a full stop. Using his hands to wipe away the ones still on your face, he’d give you a small forehead kiss. Only for him to rest his forehead against yours for a while.

Because it was already night time, the silence was filled with the sound of your’s & his breathing. A comforting silence until he asks you what was wrong. Hesitant to respond as you’re unsure if you can even string together words to describe what is wrong without your emotions taking over.

You try your best to anyway. “I feel like the life I’m living is amounting to nothing. My worries have caught up to me and chased in me into a corner. I can’t escape it.” Stating it as it’s a matter of fact. You take another breath before continuing.

“What if my hard work is all for nothing? If I don’t even know what I’m doing right now, how can I possibly know what to do in the future? I’m afraid of failing before I even get to do anything. This path of my life that I’m walking down is unfamiliar and I’m alone as I walk through it.”

A drawn out mhmm comes from Wooyoung. To show that he was listening and understands where you’re coming from. If he’s being honest, he wouldn’t have thought you felt this way, even though he knows most people go through this sort of feeling every once in a while. The way that you carried yourself was so full of certainty.

Even when you did show signs of weakness, you powered through it. He knew you’d get through this one too, it’d just take longer than the others. It sucked that your bad thoughts and feelings of despair got the best of you.

“My love, do you want my advice, words of encouragement, or just for me to continue holding you?” Asking you with a gentle tone.

“Is it okay if I get all 3? I have no idea what the fuck I need to hear right now but maybe it’ll help me.” He nodded and placed your head to rest on his shoulder. Wooyoung took a deep breath in and let it out.

“I got to hand it to you, my love. You are one hell of a strong person and understand where you’re coming from.” Chuckling a bit before he started again.

“Not to make this about me or anything but that was how I felt during my trainee days and even bits of the idol life that I live today. I was so unsure if all the practice I was putting in for this dream of mine was going to let me debut and be a successful idol. It hit me even harder when I decided to leave BigHit to be with Yeosang. It was fucking scary and it fed into that fear of the future amongst every trainee’s worries.”

Thinking about it, brought back some buried experiences from the dead and the next thing you knew, Wooyoung was sniffling. His eyes watered and some tears were shed as he remembered all of the uneasiness and challenges. All of the trouble it took him to grab a hold of his dreams and not letting go until it became a reality.

He has walked the road unknown too but just as he told Yeo, “The road you walk to the unknown is no longer alone! You have me by your side, for now and for as long as we live.” Tugging Yeo closer to him with a cheery tone and cheeky smile plastered on his face. Yes, he admits it a bit cheesy but he meant it. Wooyoung also admits that it was a way for him to mask the uncertainty that they would go through together.

Fake it till you make they say. Besides giving into that doubt would do no good. Of course, it’s okay to revel and live in it for a while but eventually you’ll have to get out of it before you fall so deeply.

A sense of deja vu washes over Wooyoung as he repeats the sentence to yet another person he deeply loved. And as the saying goes, he tells you just as he did to Yeo.

“The road you walk to the unknown is no longer alone. The road may be unknown but there are people like me that will walk with you until it becomes known. Don’t worry too much about the future, princess. You still have to time to see it through. Worst case scenario, you fail and have to restart. At least you can say that you tried your hardest and I think it counts for something even if it gave you an undesired outcome. I’m very proud of you for how come you’ve come, and even more so of how much further you can continue to go.”

Listening to Wooyoung when he’s being sweet and sentimental, it causes you to silently cry again. It wasn’t his intent at all. Now he’s rubbing your back. It’s the hearing someone is proud of you that gets the waterworks up and streaming.

Moments after, when you think you’re done crying, Wooyoung takes you the kitchen. Making sure that you hydrate since you’ve been at it for god knows how long. You take this time to hug him as a thanks for being there for you. Hearing that you’re not alone on this journey of life and your career, puts your heart and mind at ease.

You know that Wooyoung wasn’t planning on being welcomed home by finding you vulnerable. Out of all the things that he could have done like leave or ignore you, he chose to do his best to comfort you. This choice that he made would be something you’re forever grateful for.

The feeling of being lost will come and go. It isn’t fun to go through but they can serve as a reminder that finding your life’s purpose isn’t limited to one answer. The answer comes in many forms. As you change as a person throughout your life so will your values and that’s okay.

extra note: thank you for reading whatever this is <3 please do take care of yourself. and for anyone maybe wondering about me(??), I’m okay ahaha. sometimes all I or we need is a good cry and letting it out.

#k-radio!#kflixnet #klibrary #ficscafe #underworldnet #wooyoung x reader #wooyoung x OC #ateez wooyoung #jung wooyoung #ateez x reader #atz wooyoung #wooyoung imagine #wooyoung fic #wooyoung fluff #wooyoung angst

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vinbee631 · 8 months

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What Our Parents Didn't Teach Us

heyy so it's trans sides week, so I decided to write a lil something fun for that! still not used to posting fics on tumblr but the ao3 post is also available if you are interested!

without further ado, here's chapter 1! the prompt was pink / blue / white, and my interpretation was a little silly to fit the vision but it's ok

summary: Patton didn't think adopting his nephew was supposed to come with this many surprises.

But his nephew is Remus, and he's going to bring along just as many surprises as he can fit in the twenty pockets of his cargo pants, bringing a sort of enjoyable chaos that exasperates Roman and Patton to no end.

(Don't let anyone convince you that exasperation isn't fond, though. Remus' uncles are far too sappy to stay mad at him.)

The sunset shifted before Patton’s eyes, slipping from shades of bright orange to soft, pale pinks.

He didn’t normally find himself outside for the sunsets, but not for lack of trying. There was a public park just a five-minute walk from his house, with a big, open field typically occupied by at least three picnics and five or more dogs on any given day.

Unfortunately, Patton was not the average dog owner, nor a part of a young, spry couple that had ample time to plan picnic dates or walks in the park. He was well past middle age now, and with his full-time job, husband, two dogs, and permanent teenage houseguest keeping him occupied, there was not a ton of room for special activities.

That last one was the most recent addition to their slowly growing family. His husband’s nephew, Remus, had moved in just a few months earlier. The boy still attempted to insist that the arrangement was temporary, expressing a desire to support himself when he had the means to, not burdening his uncle and husband for any longer than was strictly necessary, or something along those lines.

And yet, every time Patton overheard said desire, his heart clenched a little. Remus was only fifteen, with a set of parents that didn’t even bother to call Roman after months of their child being gone for months.

He was fifteen, and emotionally prepared to take care of himself and get his own job and pay for his gender-affirming care by himself, and Patton couldn’t stand the feeling of him doing all that, by himself when he wasn’t even done with high school yet.

So, of course, he and Roman had spent the next few months making sure he was comfortable, safe, and reassured that he was absolutely not going anywhere until he was at least eighteen and truly prepared to support himself.

Remus had cried, one time Patton had enthusiastically repeated his feelings on the matter, and Patton cried along with him as they hugged each other. After that, he definitely wasn’t going anywhere.

It hadn’t been easy, not with Remus’ somewhat chaotic tendencies and his uncles’ lack of experience on the parenting front. But, the first few weeks turned into the first month, and before they knew it, winter break was over, Patton’s job was back in full swing, and they settled into a new routine.

And then, the arguments started.

Remus had his bad days, even with his uncles, and they understood that. When he snapped at them, they didn’t fall for the bait like his parents apparently used to. They talked it out instead, and typically, their nephew was able to calm down and apologize, simple enough.

For instance, when Remus had picked a fight about wanting to start back in school. After Roman pointed out they would need his parents to confirm the paperwork that would allow him to switch, he admitted the anger had been misplaced loneliness and accepted the hugs Patton offered him.

That kind of thing was easy enough to manage, and Remus was a very reasonable kid. He was usually willing to talk about whatever was bothering him with his uncles, and even occasionally offered the same to them.

It would have been far too easy if all the fights were that way.

Remus was… very enthusiastic. Passionate, that was a good word, passionate about his interests and beliefs. For the most part, that was a good thing, and it was an attribute, Patton found, that made him quite smart for his age.

It was also what led him to start sneaking out to spend time with some... less-than-stellar influences.

Don’t get them wrong, Remus was allowed to leave the house on his own. In fact, his uncles encouraged him to, considering he wasn’t getting the normal socializing time he would be in school, and the two of them could only make up for so much of that social need.

More often than not, they would offer to drive him to meet his new friends, whenever he asked to go out. Sometimes he would accept easily, sometimes he had someone picking him up, depending on the day.

His uncles were actually quite pleased about his new friends, and how he had fit in with them so easily despite just moving into the area and not attending the local school.

They were not as pleased about the graffiti, but that was something they could handle if it made Remus happy.

The destruction of public property was even less ideal, but it was technically a largely immoral corporate-based organization, so they supposed it wasn’t... the worst thing he could be doing. A little more begrudgingly, they let that slide, too.

…And then two weeks after that initial destruction- incident, Remus got arrested.

So, that was a pretty big problem.

Roman had given him most of the lecture on the way home from bailing him out, and Patton was a bit grateful he didn’t have to attempt to gather his thoughts on the matter. Mostly because he was so angry he could barely speak, but he didn’t want Remus to worry about that.

Except, maybe he should have been worrying about that because he got freaking arrested.

But, when the two of them got home, Remus had stormed up to his room, not quite slamming the door behind him, but closing it decisively enough that he knew now was not the time for another discussion.

“Did he tell you what happened?” Patton asked casually, settling on the couch next to his husband, who was currently slumped with his head in his hands.

“He didn’t, but the cops did,” Roman sighed. “The guy I talked to was involved with the backup call. I guess the group of them got caught up with a homophobe and it got heated. The one cop that patrols the area wasn’t enough to ‘get them to settle,’ so they called in more.”

“According to Remus and the others, the first cop was on the side of the guy getting his ass handed to him, which I’m not sure if I believe or not, but regardless, they all got arrested, only because one of Remus’ group punched that cop.”

“Was that-” Patton’s eyes widened in near horror before Roman was able to elaborate. “No, no, it was one of his- friends. Apparently, Remus didn’t actually throw any punches, but I know what scuffed-up knuckles look like, so the lying didn’t quite work out for him,” Roman scoffed.

Patton sighed quietly, settling his head against Roman’s shoulder. “Well, he’s alright. Obviously, we’ll have to figure out a- consequence of some kind, even if I suppose the anger was well-placed.”

Roman snorted. “I know, right? I would be having a genuinely hard time being mad at him if baling him out hadn’t cost actual money.”

The two of them had sat with that for a while, and even after Patton had inevitably stood on complaining knees to start dinner, it took quite a while for Remus to be ready to start talking.

And when he was it was… messy.

He was angry, rightfully so, and his uncles were angry, also for rightful reasons. There was an unfortunate amount of yelling, even more so when his uncles explained that he was still going to face consequences for what happened.

“But I didn’t fucking do anything wrong!” Remus snarled, pushing himself out of his chair to stand as he yelled.

“We understand that,” Patton began gently, “but if you and your friends got in enough trouble that you were arrested, something that will be on your record forever, even if it was just for the afternoon, Roman and I certainly aren’t going to congratulate you.”

Remus scoffed, folding his arms defensively. “Well, maybe the fucking pigs that did it were the ones in the wrong.”

“So, you’re saying you shouldn’t be arrested for punching an officer?”

“Not if the ‘officer’s’ a fucking bigot, no. And I didn’t even punch the cop! I punched the other guy, and he fucking deserved it.”

“Okay,” Patton continued, attempting to stop any useless bickering between Roman and Remus. The two of them had done enough of that in the car ride. “Explain to me then, since I wasn’t there: why did the other guy deserve it?”

“He was being a transphobic piece of shit, and just generally a piece of shit, actually,” Remus explained grumpily. “He was… he started flirting with Virgil. Cuz… I guess with the long hair and the tits, people still mistake him for a female.”

Patton winced at that. “I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t know that violence was the best option there, but… well, that’s not the worst thing you could punch someone about, I guess.”

Roman stared at him incredulously, but before he could voice his disagreement, Remus shook his head. “We didn’t hit first though! That’s a dumbass move. No, he hit Vee first.”

His uncles bristled in unison. “You… you didn’t tell me that in the car,” Roman stuttered.

“Would you have believed me in the car?”

Roman was forced to, honestly, shake his head. “I… I guess not.”

“Alrighty, then.” Patton stood, ushering Remus over, who accepted the hug he was offered soon after. “I suppose… as long as this isn’t a repeat incident, we can- hold off on the grounding business. I just… we would really like it if you were more careful, hun. I know bigotry is kind of impossible to avoid, but lately, it seems like you boys have just been looking for trouble.”

“I… yeah, okay. Thanks.” Despite the fact that Remus was now an inch taller than him, he felt so much smaller, curled up tightly in Patton’s arms.

He wasn’t sure when he’d become so soft for this boy, but he knew it wasn’t going away anytime soon. Not when he’d just daydreamed that entire conversation as he watched the sunset, Remus sleeping soundly in his lap.

It was much closer to dusk now. The sun was fading beyond the trees, where it would eventually taper out beyond the unseeable horizon. Stars were starting to peek out among the dark blue-ish sky, white pinpricks that managed to prick their light through the atmosphere from millions of miles away. A beautiful miracle, and all of a sudden Patton was thinking of his family again.

But, that was far too poetic to be sapping about so late at night, he decided.

“Enjoying yourself?” Patton blinked as he refocused on the park, and his husband, smiling at his question. From the way Roman smiled softly back, eyebrows furrowed just slightly, he could sense his curiosity, the lingering question of what he had been so focused on moments ago.

Instead of bothering with the long answer, Patton reached over with his free hand to squeeze Roman’s, the other busy combing through Remus' hair. He met Roman’s nervous smile with a reassuring one of his own.

“It’s absolutely perfect.”

#transsidesweek2023 #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #patton sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders mention #tw cops #remus being a public nuisance #and getting arrested for it #but his uncles love the chaos so it's fine <3 #tw transfobia #transphobia

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cha1cedony · 7 months

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Okay fine I’ll do one of these (because I like to talk about myself hehehe). Thanks @roboobin for tagging me B)

A very long ‘get to know me’ post below…

Last song: Apparently it was ‘Two Time’ - Jack Stauber, according to Spotify? I’ve also been relistening to a few tracks from Falsettos all day, for some reason. ‘I’m Breaking Down’ got stuck in my head somehow. I’m not super big on musical theater, but I LOOOOVE Falsettos and especially Trina :) You can probably tell I have a certain type of favorite characters/media lol.

Favorite color: Light greyish blue (or white, grey, silver, orrrr light greyish green?)

Last movie: I actually have no idea. Maybe Nimona with my IRLs a few months ago? I almost NEVER watch movies in full because I get bored of them easily. Sorry I know that’s so lame lololol

Currently watching: A commentary YouTube video to use as background noise while I do my writing assignments lol. Like I said, I don’t really watch a lot of movies or TV :/

Currently reading: Nothing, unfortunately! I haven’t read any books/stories in an embarrassingly long time :( I am so ridiculously busy and haven’t had the time/motivation to read and get invested in new characters. I have a bunch of series I want to reread for nostalgia purposes, though. I’m also strangely tempted to read the Animorphs series? LOL. I looked it up on AO3 for the first time a few months ago while in the kids’ section of the library with my IRLS and we were assessing the popularity of kids’ books based on the amount of AO3/Wattpad fics (btw, there are a shockingly low amount of Geronimo Stilton fics in the world). I wasn’t expecting there to be an Animorphs fandom, but there IS? And the fics are really GOOD even though I don’t know the source material? Anyway. Tempted to read it because I like putting teens in situations /lh. Also I want to read more short stories! Send me recommendations, if you have any.

Last thing I googled: This is so embarrassing. ‘Bathroom cruising’ LMAOOOO. I was just writing a funny bit, but I wanted to make sure it was accurate, okay? T_T Other recent searches include my voice lesson Lieder, various areas I’ve felt pain recently (because I’m a hypochondriac /lh), and a vlog I had to watch for my job… I was writing an article about it.

Sweet/spicy/savory: Savory. Every time. I love savory foods, and they’re basically the only types of food I ever crave. Then I would go with spicy, but only if it’s spicy in a flavorful way (and not just a painful way). I don’t like sweet foods except for chocolate—and, even then, I am infamous among my friends and acquaintances for only liking SUPER dark chocolate… like 70% cocoa or more. I would say my favorite flavor profile is bitter! :)

Current obsession: I think y’all already know :^) I am incapable of having more than one strong interest at once, soooo DnDads has quite literally been occupying my brain since liiiike October 2022… almost a year ago now! o_o Holy shit. I’ve been really busy with work and school in the past month or so, so I haven’t done basically anything else in my free time. I’d like to start cross stitching again because I have some projects to finish, and I got some of my late grandmother’s jewelry-making supplies recently, so I’ll toy around with that, too.

Currently working on: Like, right this second? Discussion post replies for my Writing in Digital Environments course :p In general? As far as hobbies go, the beginnings of my next longfic chapter! As far as work goes, I’m working on article about a mural. I have to drive like 30 mins to get a features image for it tomorrow ugh. At least I get to kill time on the clock :’)

I don’t want to tag anyone in particular, but, obviously, if you want to do this, you can just say I tagged you. Shhh I won’t tell ;) hehehe

#chalcy stuff #if you read all this you get.. uhh idk #a high five #🖐️#tag game

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celestiiialz · 9 months

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( lizeth selene, they/them, genderfluid ) i’m pretty sure i just ran into celestina ramirez! you know them, they’re the 25year old bottle girl that’s been here for 22 years. they can be pretty witty, but on the d.l., they’re also distant. i have their ringtone set as lento by julieta venegas in my cell. next time you’re around the bronx, tell them to give me a call! ( penelope, 24, she/her, est )

BASIC INFO.

full name: celestina marie ramirez.

birthdate & age: october 25th.

birthplace: el paso, texas.

pronouns & gender: they/them, genderfluid.

sexuality: pansexual. she likes what she likes.

relationship status: single.

occupation: bottle server at a club.

LIFE STORY.

celestina, or celeste, as they likes to go by, was born in el paso, texas. their parents were two undocumented immigrants who were searching for a better life, but they were young also, just shy of 20 and 19 years old... but things seemed promising.

they were barely scraping by when their father's friend had offered him a job opportunity in the bustling city of manhattan with housing in the bronx, which he was glad to accept. they were excited about the possibilities at hand even though they knew that there were challenges up ahead.

when they finally arrived to new york, their father got to work and their mother also picked up a job to help out with expenses. the apartment was tight and so was money, but the landlord was more than happy to help the struggling family.

things were okay, at first, at least to celeste. they were young and couldn't really comprehend or process the things happening around. eventually, they got enrolled into a public school and they all had a routine. their dad wasn't as present since his job was more demanding of hs time, but he was there. he was there.

at one point their father began to have later nights, usually chalking it up to work, but it became apparent that it wasn't reason his time had been occupied when he continuously arrived to the apartment visibly drunk and not well. there started the arguments, the resentment, the change in dynamic and it became even worse when their mother was pregnant again which was discovered only a few days after their 12th birthday.

it seemed like those next nine months were a blur, celeste had to drop out of school to help their parents with all the bills once their little sister was born. they would usually lie about their age and do small jobs here and there. the arguments became louder and more relentless, usually leaving them to calm down the baby he was screaming at the top of her lungs because of the chaos that was constantly plaguing their home.

the turning point was their mom disappearing, yes, their mother had left one without a single remark. leaving the 17 year old to care for the infant since their father was now jobless due to his alcoholism. they had multiple jobs and usually searched for the help of their friends to take care of their sister while they worked.

fast-forward to the present, and they are essentially taking care of her father (who has also been kicked out multiple times) and their thirteen year old sister. they scored a gig as a 'bottle girl' for a club which brings in a good amount of money, but only just enough as they are the only breadwinner now. there's nothing more that they wants than to be able to escape their current situation with their sister but unfortunately there's not much that can be done beyond work through it and hope for the best.

* thank you for reading all of this! if you'd like to plot or fabricate a thread just give this post a like and i'll reach out. <3

#aughtsintro #it's been a while since i posted an intro #AHHHH #tw alcoholism #tw child abandonment

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xxruinaxxmcu · 2 years

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What lies Beneath, Chapter 18

Jack Thompson x Reader (Finale)

Masterlist

Their relationship had never been picture-perfect – starting with their friendship. There had always been hiccups along the way, from unsaid things and suppressed emotions. In a way, Y/N and Jack were too similar to avoid these incidences – and yet, it was the similarity that had helped to bridge the differences again and again. They never blindly agreed on anything, nor did they ever insisted on being labelled as friends, despite having stuck together through high school and university. It would have been very unlike both of them to now jump right into a relationship that was openly shared with the world. Additionally, neither of them particularly looked forward to the moment where it would become clear that the SSR turned into a pretty successful dating agency – so if, as Vernon Master’s had predicted, the organisation would become obsolete, they had at least this alternative open. Secret Spies Relationships or something, instead of Strategic Scientific Reserve. They started cautiously, with staying behind when the other one had the misfortune of the nightshift, and go to dinner whenever it could be arranged for no awkward comments arising from colleagues. It was a type of chess with the other agents. And of course, keeping a secret from agents trained to uncover secrets was bound to be difficult.

However, with them having been assigned files from East Berlin, Y/N actually had a fantastic alibi as to why, on this day, she had a reason to stay. She had the best possible skillset for it. It felt strange reading the documents, not because they felt in a strange way both immensely familiar and absolutely foreign, but because it made her wonder how they had ever managed to work side by side with the Soviets. It described the setting-up of a new secret police, which had the very original name – Ministry for State Security. Short, Stasi.

She had just finished up the report on it when Jack emerged from his office. His eyes landed on the documents, which, despite being unable to read them, he could correctly identify as German.

“It’s strange how quick the former underground fighter can become the next enemy”, he commented, and Y/N only raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not even been three years and it already looks like this situation is more than fragile.”

He dragged a chair over to her desk and sat down.

“Tell me, what was the worst event for you in your time in Europe?”

The question didn’t startle her, after all, he had given her a pretty good look at his worst moments at war. Still, it came a bit sudden.

She thought about it. “Depends on the definition. Worst thing I’ve seen? 1942, Poland. German soldiers probably didn’t understand, or didn’t care, about their own laws around racial purity. Went after a girl, must have been around fourteen, fifteen. And I could do nothing because I had to make sure that my cover would remain absolutely intact until my target there was neutralised. I fed intel to the resistance. That was my first job over there. It would end in success. They managed to kill Heydrich in Prague just a few months later. But that girl. She still haunts me.” Y/N looked at her hands: “The worst thing I have done? Actively? That’s harder. Maybe the one train we blew up. Turns out, aside from the officials, their families had been on there too. I suppose that’s collateral. The hardest was to decide who gets to live and who gets to die. We managed a few rescue missions in the occupied territories, but we couldn’t take them all. We had to leave many behind, knowing pretty well what their destination would be.”

“Did they talk openly about the camps?”

That was right – in the public, there was still a debate around that. They didn’t know just how open they had talked. “The Nazis had a way of speaking that functioned like a stupid form of code. You’d say something, which in theory has a harmless meaning, but everyone in your group knows what it means to them. Like Sonderbehandlung. It means special treatment. But it meant execution. And the execution of Jews, well, that wasn’t called execution, but final solution. And that, yes, that was widely spoken about. And the longer the war went on, actually, ever since the invasion of the Soviet Union, the killings were just too obvious to be overlooked by anyone. Only a section of all victims even made it into a camp. Many were simply shot in a pit… then again, as it turned out when I was there, that wasn’t a uniquely Nazi thing.” She reached for a map, pointing to a place in Poland: “They discovered a mass grave of Polish men here, near Katyn. And another one right there. The corpses were too far in their decay to have been Nazi victims. The Soviets had gotten them first.”

He remained quite for a while, drumming his fingers onto the top of her desk. “You know, all things considered… thank God we were born on the right side of the divide.”

Y/N laughed. She wasn’t delusional – America was far from what it made itself out to be in the movies. But it sure was a hell of better than most places at the moment. It hadn’t been ravaged by war. It didn’t incentivise its men to join a war against humanity. Though those were low bars to pass, in times like theirs, those bars were cleared only by a lucky few. She had a job. She had friends. She could even settle. Eventually. So many had been robbed of that. She often wondered how it happened that in so many different countries, even different continents, ideologies had arisen that disrespected humanity. She was no devout Christian, did not grow up in a household that often went to church. Jack’s family did that much more – and even got concerned about her, so they’d take her with them.

And sitting in a church next to Jack, who wanted to be anywhere but there, was as awkward as it sounded. But Christianity – like many religions – taught that there was strength in weakness. That there was a purpose in being good. These secular religions, which is the way she thought about Fascism and Communism, didn’t really have that. There were the good people, the strong ones, those who had seized power by force, and that gave them the right to dominate the others. She did not find God in the mud of Poland, but she found solace.

“Share it.”

“What?” She frowned, not knowing what she had to share.

“You’re bruting. And I want to know what you’re bruting about.”

“I’m not bruting”, she retorted, “no, I just… long story. I thought about Church. How much you hated sitting still.”

“You know what I hated more about it? Listening for over an hour without saying anything but Amen.”

“Did you pray on Iwo Jima? On Okinawa?”, she asked. He tilted his head, his fingers slowly stopping the drumming.

“We had a mass before we left for the shore of Iwo. So in a sense, I did. When we made it off the island, and I could walk when almost all my friends were dead, I said to an older Marine that this could only mean that there was no God”, he paused, “He disagreed. Said that those who didn’t would be rewarded up above in ways that go further than anything we could imagine. Not sure if that convinced me. But something kept me going.”

“Well, if it was God”, she gave him a smile – this time, it was a sincere smile, “then I am grateful to Him.”

“If you let my ma hear that, she’ll drag you right back in that church”, he replied with a grin.

“How are your parents, anyways?”, she asked, thinking back to the times when Mrs. Thompson would beg her to let her braid her hair, and Mr. Thompson, who’d always try to get them to care about the stock market. Lucas Thompson was a well-off banker for JP Morgan and perhaps one of the few in the industry who loved the trade.

“They’re good”, he pulled a face, “I mean, they got a son back from the war, he’s still able to work if he isn’t busy getting shot.” He grew quiet for a while, contemplating whether or not to say something. Y/N only raised her eyebrows as an indication for him to spit it out.

“Angeline has asked what happened to you. If you moved to another state with a man, or if we had a falling out.”

“What did you say?”, Y/N asked back.

“I told her the truth”, he shrugged, “At the time. That when I returned from war, we just couldn’t reconnect. She doesn’t know about your service.”

“That’s in the interest of everyone involved”, Y/N remarked dryly, but wiped the cynicism away, “But you’re an idiot for never mentioning that we work together now! Just how awkward will that be if we ever have to do a public speaking event again like the one for Stark? We just ‘accidentally’ realised that we worked together? In an office of like 10 people?”

“I must admit, I did not think it through in the long run”, he rolled his eyes at her obvious criticism of his strategy, “false backstories are not my forte.”

“Well, tell her that I’m alive and well, and did not move without first saying goodbye. She must think I’m an ass for falling off the face of the earth!”, she complained.

“First”, he raised a finger, “I doubt my ma even knows how to call someone an ass, and second, she adores you. If you walk in that door again, she’ll probably send pops after me for not reconnecting sooner.”

Y/N was incredibly glad that the topic of her own parents didn’t need to come up – it didn’t have to. Her parents had enabled her the education that gave her the life she had lived and that she still lived, but it never had been a picture-perfect household. Her mother died shortly after Y/N had left for Europe – car accident. Her dad remarried, which was for the better. He was a great many things, but capable of a household was not one of them. And she did not have the time to assist. Besides – unlike her, he actually did move halfway across the country.

“You hardly see them”, she commented, “Why? I mean, I get that you’re no kid anymore, but they’re your parents. They literally live under an hour away.”

“I visited at Christmas.”

“Wow”, she laughed, “Well, yeah. Otherwise you would have sat here, bruting, I assume.”

“What the hell did you do on Christmas, then?”, he shot back with irony.

She shrugged: “Actually, I was with Peggy. Neither of us had family in New York, so we founded the community of the spinsters.”

“Sounds like loads of fun.”

“You can’t imagine. Maybe, if you’re very lucky, you’ll get a first-row seat to it one day.” If sarcasm wasn’t allowed in a conversation, probably neither of them would be able to say a word.

“I doubt that spinsterhood of yours has a future, though. I give the two of them not even half a year. Actually, that is generous. Let’s say, three months till engagement. I fear you’ll have to search for a new arrangement.”

Y/N could practically see his lopsided grin without even looking at him. Hint taken. Though, well, it really wasn’t that much of a hint, was it? Regardless, Y/N fiddled for a letter in her handbag and placed it on the desk: “Are you going?”

He tilted his head to read the insignia, as she had almost entirely covered the seal that would have given the purpose away with her hand.

“Alumni gathering”, she said innocently, “It’s next weekend.”

Jack scoffed: “Yeah, like hell I’m going there.”

Y/N remained silent for long enough for him to catch on. “You’re not going, are you?”

“Well”, she said ominously, “I was personally invited, so it is incredibly tempting.”

Jack wasn’t dense. He remembered the group from Cornell well enough that he had a pretty good hunch as to who it was who had invited her. “Son of a bitch.” He grabbed the letter and got it out of the envelope. He would have recognised his way-too-neat handwriting from three miles away.

“I’ll tell Luke you said hi.”

“Like hell you’re going there alone.”

There were many things Jack Thompson hated – or couldn’t handle. Like crying women. However, if there was one thing Jack Thompson truly hated, it was small talk. What was there to talk about? ‘Hey, did you have a good war?’, didn’t seem like the accurate way to do it, and neither did talking about his career. Though he wasn’t really an undercover agent, and at this point one of the few faces the public knew from the SSR, he hated talking to strangers about it because he would never, not as long as he is alive, disclose something of merit.

And still, here he sat, in his car, in front of Y/N’s house, wondering how he’d survive the next hours of awkward conversations. In his dread, he had almost missed her leaving the building. But truly, he couldn’t have missed her. Not on an ordinary day, and definitely not now.

If he had to describe the women on the cover of these painted war-time posters, wives waving goodbye to their soldier husbands, he would have described her exactly like this. Her y/h/c curls were smoother than usual, more brushed out, and whilst her face retained the natural beauty it held, her lips were as red as blood. In the best way possible. Her dress was deep blue – all that was missing was something white, and she would literally have been a human version of the American flag. Then again, blue and red just go well together. The dress had stones placed at its neckline, which dipped low enough for everyone to see her collarbone. (Just imagine a nice cleavage. Whatever you’d be comfortable wearing. Personally, I love a deep neckline, but that’s the beauty of imagining – you can choose!). The sleeves went just up to her elbow, and the skirt ended right on the knee. She looked stunning – then again, she almost always looked fantastic. She had even looked fantastic when she had woken him up in her chemise – scrap that. There, she looked amazing.

“You look like you’d pay good money to turn this car around”, Y/N joked when getting in.

“I can think of about a million things more fun than an Alumni event.”

“There’s always a tomorrow”, Y/N replied with a grin as he started the engine.

“You sure about that? I’d say I’m about to enter a room where about every other person could or will hold a grudge towards me.”

She rolled her eyes at his overdramatization: “You were… polarising, not the big bad wolf. And I’m sure the last years have put such petty feuds into perspective.”

“Yes, as long as you wore the same uniform. The second that is off, you’d be surprised.”

He halted the car on the half-filled parking lot. They were a bit late, which was typical for Jack with regards to things he didn’t really care about. Only then did he allow himself to be late – it was a conscious decision. Out of spite.

A few people were gathered outside the entrance smoking, a habit Y/N was thankful Jack either never picked up, or ditched in the foxholes, and were eyeing the latecomers. Most, however, were already inside the hall of the event, a bar with a huge dancefloor, just a few footsteps away from campus. For fancy events, the university would rent it. So everyone knew their way around.

After Jack had stopped the car, Y/N leaned over to open the door, only to realise that she couldn’t open it. “Security?”, she asked offended. Jack’s grin gave away that this was by no means an accident, but carefully pre-planned.

“Remember, I did not want to come”, he said before he got out of the car, shut the door, walked around the vehicle to open her door and present her mockingly gallantly his arm, “So you’ll have to tolerate me having my fun.”

“I did not force you to come”, she replied, shaking her head, “I just said that I would go.”

“Same thing.”

“Is it, now?”, she asked back, but went along with whatever he had in mind. She had the feeling it would end with someone being humiliated, and that someone would not be called Jack Thompson. The scene had been visible to the group of smokers, who now followed the odd pair with their eyes from the car to the entrance. Y/N vaguely remembered some of their faces. The tall fellow was from Maine, Hugh, if she remembered correctly, and had a booming voice that you could hear from afar. He nodded at the two, and Y/N responded with a quiet smile of acknowledgement.

“Are we not saying hello to them?”, she whispered amusedly.

“If I want to be smoked, I’d stand next to a campfire.”

“There he is, the famous devil dog!”, someone’s voice rang through the hall, and the heads turned to the person who had exclaimed it. Michael Simmons, one of the guys Jack had actually considered to be his friend at the time of their university courses. His voice had easily managed to overpower the band.

“They didn’t take me”, the brunet said with a grin, lifting his chin, “too short.” He shook Jack’s hand before turning to Y/N. She could practically see him going through names.

“Y/N”, she jumped in, “most times we met, only one of us three was sober.” He grinned, took her hand and brought it to his lips. She always found it strange when she was greeted so… formally. In her job, even the most misogynistic men had graduated to give her a normal handshake.

“I’d bet good money you wouldn’t show”, Michael said to Jack, looking back at his companion, “But I didn’t know what you’d be able to enjoy.”

The mixture of crudeness and strange elegance was so widespread amongst those who had just left the Armed Forces a few months ago. On the one hand, they were drilled to adhere to very strict and traditional forms of exchange, on the other hand they had just spent months amongst each other – amongst fellow young men – which obviously did not help their smoothness in tone.

Michael didn’t look like a member of the Air Force, and given the comment, he surely was no Marine. She decided to make a guess, given her chances of being right by saying Army were pretty decent. “So, you’re drafted into the Army?”

He nodded: “Earned my money in Monte Cassino. 34th Infantry Division.”

“The Red Bulls”, she said with a tilt, “I always found your motto to be so incredibly unimaginative. Attack, attack, attack.” She saw, to her immense delight, that he was very taken aback by her knowing his division so exactly. She only gave him a smile.

“Y/N”, Jack pulled her hand, “honour me with a dance?” His voice had a joking tone to it, but Y/N didn’t mind the idea. She hadn’t danced in ages, and was neither good nor bad at it, that always came down to the one who led.

“If you’re a good lead.”

“I’m the best of leads. Got dance classes as a kid, remember?”

She had to give him that – he was actually good at leading. She was grateful that, contrary to what was most commonly played, the band settled for waltz – probably more fitting for the gathered ensemble of people, all members of the well-educated, who preferred the more aristocratic waltz over the common-place swing.

“You dumbass”, she whispered when her head moved past Thompson’s, “let me guess, is the reason for this dance on 3 o’clock?”

“I’ve got many reasons.”

“Liar.”

On 3 o’clock was – surprise! – Luke. He was standing with another former student, but it was more than obvious that he wasn’t really paying attention to his friend.

“You’re a child, you know that?”, Y/N whispered with a supressed smile, to which Jack only raised his eyebrows before skilfully, albeit overdramatically, dipped her.

“Thompson!”, she hissed through her teeth, but there was no point in trying to persuade him to play nice. He disliked Luke. He really disliked him. And he enjoyed this very much. Immensely.

The performance carried on for a good few minutes – until the band ended their song and the opportune moment for a break arose. “You dance very skilful, chief”, Y/N remarked as they made their way to the side of the room.

He only snorted at the title. Right now, it felt like lightyears away.

“Y/N!”, came from the side and with an octave lower followed a bit more chilly, “And Jack. No surprise to see you two together. Although I doubted you’d show.” Luke’s eyes rested on the man next to Y/N who was a good bit taller than the man who had just joined them.

“If I remember correctly, I was at most parties back then”, Jack shrugged, “Wouldn’t know why my record would indicate I’d let her into this cesspool alone.” And it started off so well – only to end in a subtle-not-subtle insult nonetheless. Y/N clenched her jaw. Oh dear.

It felt like two roosters fighting. Not even many words were needed.

“I remember her being more than capable to manage her own”, Luke retorted, not even looking in Y/N’s direction.

“Capable, without a doubt, but just because you’re able, doesn’t mean you should. That’s the gentleman I am.”

Now, Jack Thompson was a great many things. He could even be a gentleman if he wanted to. But he was not here because of gentlemanliness. He was here for a mix of ego, pettiness and arrogance. And, in a way, he was here because of her.

“Did she have to follow you to war, too, so that you wouldn’t run head-first into fire?”

Oh no. Y/N felt her lungs deflate – war territory was dangerous territory. She glanced over to Jack, praying that he’d understand her telepathy through which she was urging him to just let it go.

“I doubt MacArthur would have let a woman even near Iwo Jima”, Jack’s voice was as sharp as a razor, “But then, you wouldn’t know, would you? After all, you didn’t have to leave your ship.” Y/N hadn’t known that Luke had been in the Navy, but apparently, Jack did.

“Well, at least our efforts captured an inhabitable island, rather than a few rocks.” That’s when Y/N knew that she could only pray that no one would lose a tooth today. She would have bet a good sum on Jack dislocating Luke’s chin. Subconsciously, she reached out to hold back his dominant arm. But he didn’t. Though tense, he didn’t lash out.

“Yeah”, he said, dry as sandpaper, “Say that to the thousands who never got to leave that island. Tell that to their mothers and sisters. Luke, there was a time where I might have envied you for your wits, but by God, that must’ve been your casualty of war.”

“You d-“

“Boys”, Y/N interjected, aware of the curious stares around them. This would not end in a bar fight. “Play nice.”

There was a tense pause, Jack’s stare attempting to murder the man in front of him, but thankfully, it remained only an attempt.

“So”, Luke cleared his throat, “I see you’re not married, Y/N. Are you still in the workforce, then?”

“Yes. Just like I said back then”, she tilted her head, “I’d like to continue that for a good while.”

“Where are you working? If I remember correctly, you worked part-time as a librarian.”

“That was handy because of university”, she shook her head, “No, I now work in law enforcement.”

“Law enforcement?”, he raised his eyebrows, “Where exactly?”

Y/N had a prepared response to evade his question, but Jack intervened curtly: “The best there is, the SSR.”

Luke seemed to think about his response for a few seconds, contemplating whether he’d choose the escalatory or de-escalatory route. “I sure hope he’s giving you less grief than back at Cornell, Y/N. I remember your… annoyed temper.” He gave her a slim smile, nodding at her for goodbye: “You’d deserve better than that.”

It took all of her strength to keep her companion in place, and to make good on her promise that this would indeed not end in a bar fight. “Not necessary”, she whispered through her teeth, “he’s talking nonsense.”

Luke left them standing there, and for a while, Y/N was silent in disbelief that this did not end the way it had historically always ended, and Jack was silently staring after the man who he, in all fairness, still wanted to kick in the face.

“This went… better than I imagined it would”, Y/N stated cynically, her eyes moving over to see Jack’s face.

“You should not have given him that money for the coat”, Jack simply stated dryly, causing Y/N to roll her eyes.

“Please”, she moved to the side so that Jack, rather than staring after Luke, now faced her, “We pay people all the time to keep their mouths shut. I’d say he was my first case of hush-money.”

“Well, I was right”, he stated, “he was a creep, and is a dumbass.” Y/N let it stand, deciding that it was best to let this case rest.

“Let it go”, she said with a smile, “and try not to continue looking like you’d want to blow this bar up.”

He took her arm: “Then you’ll have to dance for a while.”

She huffed amusedly – to be fair, there were other women he could have danced with. After all, he had been popular for dance nights all throughout university. So she really had no real choice, now, did she? After all, as much as he did not want Luke in a ten miles radius of Y/N did Y/N not want any of his former admirers in his vicinity. “Like I said. As long as you lead.”

When the two of them left the gathering, it was shortly after ten. It wasn’t feasible to stay longer – the next day was the Sunday that Thompson had to man the office. And even if they could have stayed longer, Jack really had no interest in doing so. He had come here to achieve one thing, and that, he had done more than thoroughly. Made it clear to Luke to never ever try his luck again.

“One a scale of one to ten, how bad did you find it?”, Y/N asked, getting in the car.

“Bad enough to not want a repeat, bearable enough that I could get through it sober.”

“To be fair, then it wasn’t that bad, surely”, she replied with a grin.

When he stopped the car in front of her building, Y/N again tried the door whilst he was preoccupied with putting the first gear in.

“Jack, the door is still locked.”

He looked over and rather than simply unlocking it, he got out of the car to open the door again. Y/N rolled her eyes.

“Ever so charming.”

“You bet.”

He accompanied her to the entrance and when she got her key, she said: “Thanks for coming. I know how much you hate these events.”

“Oh, I do hate them with a passion, but I hate to be there less than knowing that I’m not there when you are.” He said it with a joking tone, but both of them knew what he meant by it. She smiled.

“Ditto.”

For a second, they simply stood there. Saying goodbye had been a moment of slight awkwardness for the last weeks. They were too close for handshakes or any of the sort.

Hell, they had done it all together – go to school, university, mass, she had waved him off to war, they worked together, she had saved his live, hell, they had even slept next to each other. What difference would a kiss make in that equation?

It made all the difference. It was a point where rejection would be blatantly obvious. A moment that you can’t ever take back. And both of them were incredibly guarded when it came to their hearts. So making that step was, for them, the emotional equivalent of crossing the English Channel with a rowing boat.

In the end, Jack plucked up courage. After all, it was only a stupid kiss, right? It wasn’t like falling on one knee. It was a hesitant kiss, soft, expressing all the uncertainty, the fear, the pent-up emotions both of them knew so well. It was a kiss that displayed the fear of feeling love, but even more, the fear of being loved. They had their baggage, their scars. Giving love was hard, but accepting it, feeling worthy of it might just be harder.

Y/N exhaled, smiling brightly. Of course, when going to war, one does it for one’s country. But that’s so vague, every individual breaks it down into something tangible they could fight for. Something that lay beneath the image of country. What lay beneath for them had been this.

“It’s funny”, he said silently, “rationally speaking I’ve done a million things more terrifying than this, and yet, it doesn’t feel that way.”

“I know exactly what you mean”, she affirmed, “But we’ll learn. I’m sure we’ll learn.”

A/N: First of all. Wow, I found a spark in the last days that produced this in a matter of hours. Thanks so much for the great feedback on the last part, and as you might have seen, I updated my Masterlist. Took goddamn hours because, as it turns out, I made a mistake initially with the chapter numbers. It is now all in order on the masterlist, thank god. And yes, this chapter marks the end of ‘What lies benath’. Now, I do have a sequel in mind, to which I can tag those who want to be tagged (e.g. I’ll probably just copy those who have been tagged on this series). However, I wanted to bring this to a (hopefully) satisfying close, as it does mark the end of the re-building of their friendship, as well as the establishment of something more. Yeah. It took me 18 chapters to do that, I am very slow. The sequel would include the development of their relationship, as well as some SSR-action, of course. Do let me know if you’re up for that!!

@abysshaven

@deathofmissjackson

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@ultrarebelheart

#jack thompson #jack thompson imagine #agent jack thompson #jack thompson x reader #agent jack thompson x reader #agent thompson #agent carter #marvel's agent carter #mcu #marvel cinematic universe

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